Suspect SV AAA Suspect #15: Feral Amalgamation (Ceruledge)

[LordBox]

​

A unanimous council vote has decided that Ceruledge is getting a suspect test! Ceruledge has been a staple wallbreaker and controversial pokemon ever since it gained Poltergeist from DLC1. With its combination of an extraordinarily strong Poltergeist and potent Bitter Blade that grants extra sustainability, this leads to a deadly STAB combo resisted by very few in the meta. Ceruledge is then further enhanced through a Life Orb and Swords Dance or a Choice Band to become a devastating breaker more than capable of tearing apart many defensive cores and staples, such as Pecharunt, Corviknight, and Great Tusk. While Ceruledge has been a known quantity for a long time now, its use has seen a steady increase, particularly in recent months with no signs of slowing down. As the meta has stabilized more people have been catching onto the strength of Ceruledge, particularly its Swords Dance set with Shadow Sneak. This set enables Ceruledge to bypass previous defensive methods of checking it such as itemless Pecharunt and even allows Ceruledge to beat otherwise popular revenge killers such as Deoxys-Speed, Latios, and even the Thundurus formes at +2. Its constraining effect on the meta has been somewhat notable with the increasing popularity of more aggressive team-styles in part driven by and used to check Ceruledge as well the increasing relevance of mons such as Ting-Lu, Itemless Pecharunt and various WBB mons in order to check Ceruledge, all of whom still need to dance around Ceruledge carefully or can outright lose with options in the 4th slot such as Shadow Sneak or Close Combat.

That being said, Ceruledge is certainly far away from being a perfect mon. Its rather slow speed, mediocre physical bulk and weaknesses to common offensive moves such as Knock Off and Earthquake mean it requires a great deal of positioning to utilize its full strength. Swords Dance sets can be danced around with common resists for both its STABs, and staple mons such as Roaring Moon and offensive Great Tusk are able to play aggressively around Ceruledge meaning most offensive/BO teams in the meta have more leeway in practice. Secure defensive checks, while rare, still exist and have popping up more frequently within the meta to curb Ceruledge's strength such as the aforementioned Ting-Lu, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, and itemless WBB Corviknight/Skarmory. Coverage such as Shadow Sneak and Close Combat also comes at the opportunity cost of fitting priority or coverage, limiting what Ceruledge can beat.

Is this overwhelming pressure on defensive cores and teambuilding, particularly for more balanced/passive teams, too much? Or does the offensive leeway of most teams give room for Ceruledge to be a more balanced and dynamic breaker capable of rewarding good positioning and punished by good play and with enough leeway in its defensive checks for teambuilders? With the complex state of matters surrounding this mon we have opened up the future of Ceruledge within the tier tothe community!

How:

Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in Almost Any Ability before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played Almost Any Ability before the test, full stop.)
At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.

Double check that you're listed as a voter! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact KaenSoul, Giagantic, Isaiah or a member of staff. If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2850. The deadline for getting requirements will be Saturday, February 8th @ 11:59 GMT -5.

Voting:

Once the suspect period is over, everyone who has obtained reqs will be tagged. The post will then outline a process of blind voting, which will be clarified once the time arrives. For now, follow the above "Requirements" subheading to ensure that you have achieved requirements and linked your account

A super-majority of 60% ban votes is required to ban Ceruledge from Almost Any Ability

 

[Betticus IV]

Meta has been in a mid state for a while, and I think Ceruledge contributes to this. I think this mon locks out a lot more in team building than people give it credit for, and would change more than just a simple itemless wbb slot. This thing punishes fat builds incredibly well, to what I would say is an unhealthy degree. Its also started showing itself being able to dismantle faster, frailer builds as SD sneak has become a great way to clean/beat would be offensive checks. It in-tandem with other egregious threats in this meta, team building has become stale and incredibly centralized. The only thing really locking this mon out from being outright busted is its speedtier, but I've been less convinced by that as time goes on since priority is hard to come by and incredibly valuable in the current meta.

Outside of itemless wbb, which has started showing itself to be shaky on some mons and is already incredibly restricting in terms of team building, I don't really think any defensive checks are super good or splashable (this is key) outside of bulky rmoon, and even then with chip it becomes such a hassle. Itemless pech has shown itself to be incredibly fraudulent, I was able to get Ivar w some nice tech but that was just because surprise factor and literally no one is doing that, it is not a consistent option and loses the second ur opp even considers it. Ting-lu has always been underrated but the structures its on struggle with plenty of other issues, and it isn't nearly as consistent of a mon like rmoon to fit as easily. Anything else mentioned like WBB mandi, blursa, WBB gambit are all just cope answers that can easily get circumvented with teammates/minimal chip or are just mid options in general, so I don't consider them enough of a justification in terms of defensive cplay.

I don't even think I really took into account the offensive synergies that this mon creates with other incredibly strong threats such as zama, chien, and even rmoon (yes, don't sleep on having a knock mon paired with this guy) above, which further adds to its toxicity in-game. Even if it isn't autowinning mu's, it is more than capable of breaking for its teammates, or cleaning after they break for it. Sure check overloading is a very common concept, but the degree and ease in which ceruledge teams are able to do this just aren't healthy to me.

Think I'm going to vote ban as the defensive counterplay to this mon is incredibly restricting or mid, and offensive counterplay has been becoming even more shaky, creating a not fun time in builder and in-game. This doesn't even take into account the offensive synergies it creates, which imo are too much and further compound the issue of Ceruledge.

 

[Glory]

half-assed my way to reqs with this team (great team, awful for ladder)

AAA Post in thread 'Almost Any Ability'

Jan 23, 2025

Okay fine. I'll say something.


Put simply? I don't think it should be banned at the moment, though I am certainly open to changing my mind on this one.

Ceruledge is certainly one of the scariest breakers in the meta right now, I'd even go so far as to call it the scariest, but it's far from some plug-and-play button clicker. It's certainly a mon you have to keep in the back of your mind at every stage of the building process, but Ceruledge definitely isn't the only aspect of the meta like this; Zamazenta, Gholdengo, and Spikestack are all similar in this regard. Of those...

• Glory

• 

Everything I said here still holds true. I only encountered a few Ceruledge in my run but that had no impact on my view as it's definitely a mon that gets considerably better in the hands of a good player, a standard that ladder simply does not hold up to.

I rate Ceruledge very highly but it's incredibly specific in terms of teams and I personally have never struggled to answer it despite the way I build being especially fucked by it (I imagine it's a good bit easier to deal with when you use Roaring Moon more than the rare occasion.) The tools to deal with Ceruledge in the builder are certainly present—and good—while it's not too difficult to play around it in battle as long as you don't feed it by running multiple fodder mons.

I don't even think I really took into account the offensive synergies that this mon creates with other incredibly strong threats such as zama, chien, and even rmoon (yes, don't sleep on having a knock mon paired with this guy) above, which further adds to its toxicity in-game. Even if it isn't autowinning mu's, it is more than capable of breaking for its teammates, or cleaning after they break for it. Sure check overloading is a very common concept, but the degree and ease in which ceruledge teams are able to do this just aren't healthy to me.

I want to address this in particular because outside of Zamazenta and Latios, I don't think the mons that complement Ceruledge on paper are actually all that good partners in practice. In my opinion, using Ceruledge for 'overload' is misguided because the mon is self-sufficient in the sense that trying to overload with it is more likely to result in having two mons that struggle with one rather than two partners that complement each other.

I like the current meta but ultimately don't believe that a Ceruledge ban would shift the meta that much. Still voting DNB unless someone can convince me otherwise.

 

[Osake]

> slow mon
> weak to rocks
> double type ok but still weak to a lot of common things
> you know what the guy does at preview
> you still need to hit poltergeist (miss + itemless)
> you need good pivots to actually bring it in

ceruledge doesn't fit in many teams and need good partners, and even then you have good ways to deal with it. If you have a slow team that lets it in often, it's not criminal to go itemless on one of your mon ; otherwise, you can prevent it to come too often on the field, and it's a skill match-up, which is good.

I agree with what Glory said overall, I believe you can deal with Ceruledge most of the time (Roaring Moon still soft checks it quite well) and if you're going with a passive team yeah just go with an itemless mon it's pretty okay

also Atha give me a good team next time and ghostlike why did ur team lose to Terapagos Meteor Beam Rock Polish ?

 

[Hera]

there are many problems with the current meta, such as

• the near death of balance as a viable playstyle: it's not super bad but you're going to get mu fished and there's not much you can do about it, you can't realistically cover everything you're expected to cover with a balance team
• our offensive options being much much stronger than our defensive options, to the point where offense has become by and far the most dominant playstyle
• removal being garbage to use, corvid sucks and tusk can be prevented from spinning by most offensive teams because it lacks openings on anything that isn't moon
• mu fishing being stronger than ever, like 80% of the meta is played via a bo1 format with only the one seasonal and open we get a year being bo3, so regardless of if its circuit playoffs, aaapl, or ladder, you can get away with basically whatever and fish for the right mu
• scouting being less practical to do, when a meta's more offensive it's going to punish you for playing more safely and force you to take risks, which could be good...if our offensive mons had an actual risk-reward associated with them instead of just flowcharting and clicking your super strong stabs

however, i can't see a cerul ban solving any of these problems. it kills balance but so do 15 other mons, our offensive options being so great are an active detirement to it because it gets forced out by anything faster not in ss range, removal sucking means you're getting 2-3 opportunities a game to break due to rocks (boots sets aren't bad but you lose out on the power that makes cerul worth using to begin with), it's not going to stop people from mu fishing, and it doesn't punish scouting because it runs the same 4-5 moves and its ability is revealed on switchin.

yes, we shouldn't ban or not ban things like this, but also cerul is just not banworthy from a traditional perspective. it beats slower playstyles but there are way more broken mons with actual defensive utility and good speed tiers that do that, and any well built offensive team can just stuff it out. cerul also needs to scout stuff itself; even if you're using jolly, there are a lot of mons that can creep to beat it, or random itemless mons/fire immunities that can cause you to lose all momentum. your standard moon/zappy/ghold core already puts pressure on it; you can't click fire move cause zappy/moon, polt can be stuffed out by possible itemless ghold/moon, cc is blocked by zappy/ghold, and all threaten a kill on it from full (zappy after rocks + lo chip). if you're not using offense then yeah your best bet is itemless mons that suck vs everything else but that's just kinda the state of balance/defensive playstyles rn, cerul being banned won't change much in how they're built outside of slightly relieving pressure.

so yeah cerul isn't busted. if we really wanna improve the tier and bans are off the table, then i would consider just embracing the higher power level this meta has and unbanning stuff like lugia, giratina, or pheal to give defensive playstyles a shot at being good. if not tier's just gonna descend into ss territory where 90% of games are decided on tp, except it'll be more offensive.

also bloodmoon is fucking broken that mon has like 5 different viable abilities all with completely different counterplay to the point where it's picking and choosing its own checks (e.g you thought it was storm drain or unaware and brought in your zama on the cm? well actually it was fluffy, screw you) while still trading at worst with stuff like waterpon. it also punishes passive plays with cm so it's basically either hope you guessed what ability it was or start spamming ee pecha/ghold (until they start using scrappy that is).

 

[LordBox]

I've been quite busy and stressed about other IRL matters recently so I won't really be making a cohesive and structured post but I have managed to read some discussion here and also in the Discord and I might as well talk about why nothing has convinced me to change from voting BAN.

The first point I've seen often brought up is that Ceruledge is quite a limited breaker in terms of its fragility but I don't think that limits it so much as to make it bearable within the meta (if it had an actual speed-tier then it would've been banned years ago because offensive cplay is honestly the one thing people use to cope about this mon being okay) It still holds a good enough speed-tier to outpace the majority of defensive tools within the meta while still having Sneak to create further opportunities versus various popular mons in the meta like Deo-S, Latios, Crown and Gholdengo. It's a practically strong mon and has been used to strong success even before now where its popularity has continued to climb ever since the Dragonite ban (see OMWC, AAAPL) and I think the impact this has on the builders has been more significant than people really chalk it up to be. I'll admit banning Ceru (in my view) will not be like the fucking resurrection of Jesus Christ for this meta and it's not a Calyrex-Shadow that has a one cerullion win percentage and is forcing every team to use a ZU shitmon to check it (except that really has kind of popped up lmao) but it has I think really steered the meta (among other things) further into a rather centralised state around offense with other archetypes creativity suffering as a result and I think removing is better than just sitting on our asses.

Balance has certainly been the main victim here and a fat majority of the teams that weren't just straight up the same meta BO/Offense actively struggle or just downright become unviable because of their terrible matchups into Ceruledge. Yeah maybe if I build offense with the designated list of good mons™ (and oh I better have like 3/4 of them as well) I'll be fine off but I don't agree with that degree of centralisation being healthy and I think removing Ceruledge would give some degree of breathing room for balance and more novel concepts within it. To take some of the examples in this thread I've read, yeah if I bring (Roost MGLO) Roaring Moon, Gholdengo (Itemless) and a Primordial Sea Zapdos I have some more leeway against Ceruledge (still pressured into far more aggressive playstyles since all of these mons still are greatly threatened by Ceruledge) but isn't this the very thing you want to escape? The constant pressure to run these checks and far more aggressive playstyles that are suffocating out creativity in more balanced builds? Yeah it doesn't impact perhaps some of the current meta offense teams as they have been built around Ceruledge already but shouldn't we be encouraging novel concepts in these archetypes in a tier desperately already plagued by people tired of the same mons.

Or as Osake notes, just bring an itemless mon and yeah maybe an RMoon as well you'll be fine man? (given they could've "outplayed" (guessed) but even that was a flexible Prankster Pecha BO) The mon is strong and teams need to consider the mon greatly within their teams and it has pushed out a lot of potential structures because of it at least in my experience. Glorys examples aren't really convincing to me either, yeah just 4-5 mons that outspeed and pressure it or like O1s game where the team actually in reality struggled greatly against Ceruledge, forcing them to sack both Corviknight and Manaphy (which was Physdef) and O1 managed to scrape by due to being able to win faster due to DFM lacking a non-CB Zama check while also relying on awful IDBP Zama set themselves (no offense I guess we just didn't figure it out then). Yeah ok it's not outright broken because I can outplay it (have 4 resists and an itemless and have them all outspeed) or I can rely on very healthy sets like WBB Mandibuzz (Ting-Lu I think is the only one I think is close to a normal innovation of the meta rather than an unhealthy distortion of it entirely and even that gets pressured by Ceruledge a lot. But hey, don't take it from me, take it from Glory who said "the amount of times I beat mglo moon + ting-lu when laddering with ceru is honestly scary")

Another comment I somewhat take issue with is this "way more broken mons with actual defensive utility and good speed tiers that do that" but you don't mention any examples! Ok Roaring Moon has good defensive utility and a good speed tier... sure but its CB sets are limited with STAB Knock Off with a variety of checks in the measure far more plentiful like Tusk, Corv, Hands, Gambit, Zamazenta, Primarina, Ting-Lu, basically any Fluffy mon really while being open to other niche checks like the experimented Fairies (Tinkaton, GWeezing). Given some of these can be outplayed and outpositioned but I believe in a far healthier manner than Ceruledge. Zamazenta as well holds similar checks with a far less scary STAB combo than Ceruledge, its restriction to Choice Band also helps a lot (or if not that a significant power decrease). Specs Latios/Ghold are closer examples but even those are far better handled with stuff like the Vests managing to cling on and position around the Choice Lock quite well meaning not nearly the same pressure is applied and making stronger checks more reasonable to stomach if you wish to use them rather than kind of just being forced into them or offense simulator 3000 (though they have contributed to this to a degree). Deo-S might be the closest though has zero defensive utility (even Ceru can leverage CB Fighting moves and the other Fire types as great opportunities) and is already a suspect mon to me anyway.

Also extra thing that's not really related but "unbanning stuff like lugia, giratina, or pheal to give defensive playstyles a shot at being good"
is wild. Lugia just pressures defensive cores even further since literally all it does is become a fatass setup sweeper wincon instead of helping the meta while Gira does basically the same (but hey maybe Wisp/Defog sets are like ok but still would inevitably become a pain with its CM wincon sets) and PHeal I'm not sure really helps Balance except also add more asshole setup sweepers (but hey maybe you get a Tusk with recovery that's ok I guess lmao)

As for one really interesting point I found was by Glory themselves, they talked about how being pro-Dragonite and anti-Ceruledge doesn't make sense which is pretty funny given as mons they sit on nearly complete different spectrums. They said they held a very deep dislike for Dragonite since it forced team styles, particularly offense, into being fairly one note to deal with Dragonite. Now this is fair enough, it certainly had its restricting effects and warranted either a pretty fat check or a large degree of soft-checks on teams which was especially annoying for offense. They disliked the arguments around keeping Dragonite to keep offense/HO in check to help more balanced teams and called out biases regarding peoples preference around archetypes to be in the vogue. But hey, doesn't this sound familiar? Now of course there are a large degree of differences, Dragonite in a way had "less way to outplay" given its priority move (though you could certainly still juggle around it with resists with it not outright winning because of the meta warping around it and creating a ton of checks oh hey wow this sounds familiar too) and also its defensive utility could be leveraged and coverage (though the coverage became honestly really linear by the end of it).

You could even argue that Ceru doesn't change the direction of the meta heading towards offense that much in comparison to Dragonites effect on offense but again I question the logic of yeah an unhealthy asshole in the builder being free because it's not actually that broken and the meta has ""adapted""as it would to literally everything that isn't a 1125 BST Legendary. It has been probably like close to a year of this meta at this point of course we're not exactly banning Bax or Tusk but I think banning Ceru would create some leeway in this meta particularly for archetypes outside of offense and I definitely don't think we're murdering the archetype here or whatever. Just some extra space for other archetypes and some novel structures that have been significantly pressured by rising offense.

Ok this has gone on for a lot longer I intended to and isn't very cohesive but thanks if you read through the whole thing, if not a big TLDR is just HOLY SHIT WHY THE FUCK IS THIS COOL TEAM CONCEPT MAULED BY CERULEDGE AGAIN FOR THE 5TH TIME CAN I PLEASE JUST BE FREEEEEE OF OFFENSE/BO SPAM AAAAAAA nah im just exaggerating actually this mon isn't that bad but I would like some extra leeway from one of the more prominent and terrifyingly strong breakers when I don't think we should really be keeping around more and the only opposing thing I've seen is that sneak keeps in check HO (which I dont think is really significant compared to something like Dnite)

 

[Hera]

Another comment I somewhat take issue with is this "way more broken mons with actual defensive utility and good speed tiers that do that" but you don't mention any examples!

well i thought it was obvious what i was referring to but it seems like i wasn't so

• moon was mentioned already but it also has a solid defensive typing, effective status immunity with something like psalt/torb mg, instant recovery, taunt, and of course item removal. long-term checks are also non-existent barring regen fighters which kinda sucks because you're taking your regen slot away from your spdef mon + lose harder to deo-s now, or regenvest prima
• ghold can run a billion abilities and half of them are defensive so it's going to pull its weight in every match, also steel/ghost is just a great base typing
• zama is great speed control that has multiple good sets all with different counterplay, kinda lacking in the defensive utility department barring something like soundproof idbp though
• zappy doesn't even need to think most of the time, just click thunder until you para something then click cane and hax past your checks lol, nothing beats it long-term barring hoodra and va emp (which have their fair share of other issues), while proving a valuable ground and fire immunity (please stop using no guard it is bad)
• shoving pao and deo-s together cause while they don't have any defensive utility (i guess psysurge deo-s can block priority?), they are insanely good speed control options and part of the reason why scarf moon/meow are strong options to begin with
• moth is a fire resist and water immunity that spreads para, removes and sets tspikes, overrides weathers, and has instant recovery, while forcing a fire resist on every team that it can probably hax through anyway cause fire/electric coverage is broken

some of these mons i'd ban before cerul, some i wouldn't, but the point is that cerul is an inherently polarized breaker that offers a lot less to a team compared to other, more consistent options. that's not to say cerul is bad; the polarization clearly works in its favor to an extent, or else it wouldn't be suspected right now. but there are much stronger mons out there that provide much more to teams than just strong but ultimately prediction reliant button clicking with some priority (i guess it has a fighting and normal immunity too? but it dies to common coverage moves from our best fighting types and normal doesn't exist so if your cerul comes in on a non-scrappy choice band cc then you just outplayed your opponent). i think this is more of a sign that the meta is fucked up rather than a case of whether or not cerul should be banned but i think the polarized nature that cerul has works against it more than it works for it.

Also extra thing that's not really related but "unbanning stuff like lugia, giratina, or pheal to give defensive playstyles a shot at being good"
is wild. Lugia just pressures defensive cores even further since literally all it does is become a fatass setup sweeper wincon instead of helping the meta while Gira does basically the same (but hey maybe Wisp/Defog sets are like ok but still would inevitably become a pain with its CM wincon sets) and PHeal I'm not sure really helps Balance except also add more asshole setup sweepers (but hey maybe you get a Tusk with recovery that's ok I guess lmao)

this was only brought up because i assumed other bans were not on the table. if bans are possible then there are other solutions, such as 2ac, banning our top offensive mons, maybe even banning sor or other damage amp abilities. i just think something needs to be done about the power level of the tier; it's clearly very high, possibly too high, but imo modern aaa tiering isn't built or tiered around having such a high power level and we haven't really taken that power level into consideration when tiering. do we simply embrace the higher power level and try to tier around that, or attempt to lower it and tier around that? the former would naturally lead to unbans, while the latter would lead to bans. although i'm pretty confident lugia and giratina wouldn't be broken, maybe not pheal but it was the first thing i could think of.

also this is unrelated but if we ban cerul can we unban triage? let's be honest, the only reason it got banned was because i discovered bitter blade got the triage flag. triagedrum was annoying cheese at times but it wasn't going to be banned solely because of that; if that was the case the suspect would've gone up before dlc2 dropped, because nothing added in dlc2 had belly drum + healing move in the first place, and stuff like cm triage draining kiss was annoying at worst and actively healthy at best.

 

[LordBox]

well i thought it was obvious what i was referring to but it seems like i wasn't so

• moon was mentioned already but it also has a solid defensive typing, effective status immunity with something like psalt/torb mg, instant recovery, taunt, and of course item removal. long-term checks are also non-existent barring regen fighters which kinda sucks because you're taking your regen slot away from your spdef mon + lose harder to deo-s now, or regenvest prima
• ghold can run a billion abilities and half of them are defensive so it's going to pull its weight in every match, also steel/ghost is just a great base typing
• zama is great speed control that has multiple good sets all with different counterplay, kinda lacking in the defensive utility department barring something like soundproof idbp though
• zappy doesn't even need to think most of the time, just click thunder until you para something then click cane and hax past your checks lol, nothing beats it long-term barring hoodra and va emp (which have their fair share of other issues), while proving a valuable ground and fire immunity (please stop using no guard it is bad)
• shoving pao and deo-s together cause while they don't have any defensive utility (i guess psysurge deo-s can block priority?), they are insanely good speed control options and part of the reason why scarf moon/meow are strong options to begin with
• moth is a fire resist and water immunity that spreads para, removes and sets tspikes, overrides weathers, and has instant recovery, while forcing a fire resist on every team that it can probably hax through anyway cause fire/electric coverage is broken

some of these mons i'd ban before cerul, some i wouldn't, but the point is that cerul is an inherently polarized breaker that offers a lot less to a team compared to other, more consistent options. that's not to say cerul is bad; the polarization clearly works in its favor to an extent, or else it wouldn't be suspected right now. but there are much stronger mons out there that provide much more to teams than just strong but ultimately prediction reliant button clicking with some priority (i guess it has a fighting and normal immunity too? but it dies to common coverage moves from our best fighting types and normal doesn't exist so if your cerul comes in on a non-scrappy choice band cc then you just outplayed your opponent). i think this is more of a sign that the meta is fucked up rather than a case of whether or not cerul should be banned but i think the polarized nature that cerul has works against it more than it works for it.

This is not what I'm referring to when I'm talking about the "strength" of wallbreakers. Yes, there are obviously better mons in general or even more consistent wallbreakers in general but what I am talking about is the actual wallbreaking strength of Ceruledge manages to pull off constricts defensive options so much that we're either forced into limited or dire ass defensive checks or pushed far more into the offensive pressure of the meta. There are some mons that come somewhat close (like Specs Ghold/Latios) but even those are far better in terms of their checks given it doesn't just outright murder the RegenVests and start forcing you to run Bulletproof Treads on every team or run a fat ass resist of both their typings on every team that also outspeeds. Other stuff like RMoon has far more flexible counterplay even if in the long-term you can kind of struggle (and hell there are options if you want to really go all the way and stall it for 1000 turns) Other stuff like Moth/Zappy are to be frank noway close (even if they can run some potent sets, especially since Moth has been waning in its popularity for ages lmao) to the effects they have. Eg I don't why you're just ignoring Swampert as a fatass Zapdos check, even RegenVest Moon is like ok enough or hell Moth lmao. It is this very polarisation I believe that is unhealthy with the pressure it causes when teambuilding and becoming one of more prominent factors (even if it isnt going to solve the state of the meta) in pushing the meta towards a less fun and more centralised state of offense/BO spam. And no I don't think mons need to be traditionally broken (eg a Bax situation) to be unhealthy for the meta and there are many many other bans we've done to aid the health of the meta even if said mons aren't dominating the meta (eg Volcarona, the Ghosts, even Triage can be said as one)
(also another note are Zama checks really so different because I hardly notice having to change options for different Zama sets ever if at all)

this was only brought up because i assumed other bans were not on the table. if bans are possible then there are other solutions, such as 2ac, banning our top offensive mons, maybe even banning sor or other damage amp abilities. i just think something needs to be done about the power level of the tier; it's clearly very high, possibly too high, but imo modern aaa tiering isn't built or tiered around having such a high power level and we haven't really taken that power level into consideration when tiering. do we simply embrace the higher power level and try to tier around that, or attempt to lower it and tier around that? the former would naturally lead to unbans, while the latter would lead to bans. although i'm pretty confident lugia and giratina wouldn't be broken, maybe not pheal but it was the first thing i could think of.

also this is unrelated but if we ban cerul can we unban triage? let's be honest, the only reason it got banned was because i discovered bitter blade got the triage flag. triagedrum was annoying cheese at times but it wasn't going to be banned solely because of that; if that was the case the suspect would've gone up before dlc2 dropped, because nothing added in dlc2 had belly drum + healing move in the first place, and stuff like cm triage draining kiss was annoying at worst and actively healthy at best.

Why would other bans not be on the table at all? I mean we're literally suspecting a mon to ban it right now. Yes we are hesitant to pull off extremely large banwaves or meta-defining abilities with murky justifications (especially not a purge of the majority of our damage-amp abilities) because these large actions require large justifications and even then are not particularly advisable given the very unstable effects it can have on a meta. While the meta certainly is not in a perfect state I haven't seen any indication we need to ban like every A tier wallbreaker lmao and there are those who do enjoy the mostly offensive dynamic pace of the tier (and I'm not saying we need to completely kill it either, but I do think a bit more leeway in the builder particularly for more balanced archetypes would be ideal). I really don't like this murky reasoning that we can "raise" the power level of the meta by introducing Lugia and Giratina. It's not like we're freeing Furscales and freeing a ton of breakers to reset the meta in its entirety you're just adding two very potentially problematic mons into the meta, particularly Lugia, that might check a few extra things but also cause a whole ton of headaches for other teams as well.

Also no, we're not going to straight up unban Triage by council vote if Ceruledge does go. Ceruledge was not that major of a factor when it came to Triage being banned (if it was, Ceruledge itself would've gotten banned) and there were many disagreements about the unhealthy nature of +3 priority setup. If a Ceruledge ban was to go through it might be more in activate consideration for a resuspect but it's not major enough to justify a council vote unban of a element removed by suspect.

 

[Hera]

Why would other bans not be on the table at all?

because you heavily implied they weren't

I don't believe that banning Zama and proceeding to use it as a catalyst to nuke the "strongest, fastest guys" in the meta will truly address the core issues of the stagnant meta-game, key mons and the structures that surround them will continue to be spammed the hell out of (as they always have) and even the promise of at least lowering the offensive floor falls into the issue of just other offensive mons rising to interrupt those totally epic different structures you might be able to use. The issues are structural to the 1AC dex and the fact as people optimise the hell out of the few good mons we have for defensive structures people will naturally get bored.

I think that the best approach we have going forward in this 1AC future is to continue working and optimising with the mostly offensive pace of the meta and keep Zamazenta (and most of the others) with its important role in maintaining this balance.

I don't believe this push to "de-offense" the meta by banning all the "fast, strong guys" (Zama -> Pao -> RMoon) will even lower the offensive floor as it simply opens the door for many other slower threats.

I think we can still look at some comfort bans on some just plain annoying ass mons that won't really cause any downsides, Volcarona, Ceruledge, maybe Chien-Pao

all from this post btw

maybe your opinion has changed but you as tier leader have the most sway on where the tier goes. there were also no disclaimers so i assumed you spoke for the whole council as well.

anyway i didn't mean to make this a back and forth, tl;dr is i simply don't think cerul is traditionally broken nor would its ban substantially improve the meta. you could argue it's unhealthy but idt it's any more unhealthy than most of our top breakers. if we start banning those then i'd be down to ban cerul but until then this just looks like one of those comfort bans you mentioned where it's kinda annoying and constraining but not overly so. i think we also need big changes to the tier and our mindset of tiering, we're slowly running out of time until we become an old gen and none of these comfort bans will substantially change the state of the meta. we can't just assume that the status quo is what should be maintained and tier around that, we need to be willing to take bigger risks or else more and more people will become burnt out and dissatisfied. maybe that's freeing lugia, maybe that's not, who knows? what i do know is that the current state of things is unsustainable and we're going to be reaching a breaking point soon, but i would love to be proven wrong.

 

[mitdasein]

I'm tempted to selfishly vote no ban because I love counter-teaming in restrictive metagames, but at the moment I intend to vote ban for those who like to win via more traditional means, e.g., skill. Ultimately, I think Ceruledge is only unhealthy because slower teams rely so much on fluffy to deal with the absurd amount of versatile physical threats in the tier, like Roaring Moon and Zamazenta. Ceruledge takes advantage of the fact that slower teams are heavily incentivized to dedicate a slot to a catch-all physical check that hard loses to it.

I wanted to address some arguments against banning Ceru in the thread.

(1) It's probably true Ceruledge isn't the most problematic thing in the metagame, but I don't think that it follows that it isn't banworthy. Anything sufficiently unhealthy is banworthy, and we're running the suspect for this mon right now---not others.

(2) It's true that Ceruledge doesn't fit well on most teams. However, the existence of Ceru invalidates most team archetypes that Ceru doesn't fit well on. So I don't think it's actually the case that, in the current meta, Ceru doesn't work with most relevant teams. While getting reqs, I ran into an absurd amount of Ceruledge.

(3) I don't think a mon is only banworthy if it cannot be countered. Rather, a mon is banworthy when countering it requires dedicating a whole mon slot (that doesn't do much in other matchups) or otherwise going way out of your way (e.g., WBB Mandi, itemless mons, etc). A healthy mon can be checked by a reasonably solid mon without having to resort to such ad hoc measures.

I do think there are more problematic things in the tier, such as Zamazenta and Iron Crown. Zama is obviously monstrous and I would argue that Iron Crown is worse for slower/more passive teams than Ceru.

 

[April]

I've had a bit of a trigger finger in regards to bans this generation. I was a major proponent of action against Deoxys-S, which ended up being mostly fine, and Zamazenta, who settled into a more Gholdengo-like place in the metagame. I'm a pretty strong believer in the idea of, when a metagame feels less satisfying to play than usual, we can throw stuff like this at the wall to see what sticks, and if it ends up not working, we can run it back and go back to the drawing board. Hopefully that additional context helps explain why I'm as pro-ban as I am on Ceruledge. Now, let me justify that position.

I'd like to call back to my original post in the AAA thread, for a moment.

What in this tier can safely switch in on both Poltergeist and Bitter Blade without being absolutely shit against everything else and without immediately dying to Shadow Sneak? This isn't a rhetorical question. What options do we have that are all of:

A) Actual switch-ins to both Poltergeist and Bitter Blade
B) Good sets outside of that role that aren't immediately overpowered by everything else in the tier
C) Not immediately dead to either Shadow Sneak, Shadow Claw, or Close Combat

I'd like to take a moment to go through the VR as well as some of the alternative options we've explored and answer these questions one-by-one, to try and paint a picture of what answering this thing truly and meaningfully looks like.

A) Actual switch-ins to both Poltergeist and Bitter Blade

Now, unless there's some hip new itemless Sinistcha set sweeping balance teams across the nation, I've counted eight common, splashable enough checks to both of Ceruledge's two main STAB moves. Let's ignore that 2 of these lack recovery and thus are either taking up the Regen slot or can only handle it twice.

Itemless Checks:
Ability-dependent checks: (Well-Baked Body)
General Checks:

Long list of calcs i checked to make sure I didn't miss any

Real Poltergeist switch-ins

I'm not going to list every Pokemon without an item, but I will list ones I find most relevant. To be listed here, you have to either live 2 Poltergeists or take under 75%, outspeed, and threaten it back with either damage, disruption, or pivoting.

Bulky Roaring Moon 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Poltergeist vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Roaring Moon: 221-261 (53.5 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Itemless / Disposable Item Gholdengo
Itemless / Disposable Item Pecharunt
Physically Defensive Iron Hands 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Poltergeist vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Iron Hands: 227-269 (44.4 - 52.6%) -- 21.5% chance to 2HKO
Ting-Lu 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Poltergeist vs. 252 HP / 96+ Def Ting-Lu: 116-136 (22.5 - 26.4%) -- possible 5HKO
Kingambit 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Poltergeist vs. 60 HP / 0 Def Kingambit: 142-168 (39.8 - 47.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Mandibuzz 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Poltergeist vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mandibuzz: 160-188 (37.7 - 44.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Blissey
Ursaluna-Bloodmoon
Chansey
Meloetta
Smeargle
Hisuian Zoroark

Real Bitter Blade switch-ins

Same criteria as above.

Bulky Roaring Moon 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Roaring Moon: 181-213 (43.8 - 51.5%) -- 9.4% chance to 2HKO
Well-Baked Body Corviknight
Well-Baked Body Gholdengo
Pecharunt 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Pecharunt: 140-165 (36.8 - 43.4%) -- 99.5% chance to 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
Zamazenta 252+ Atk Life Orb Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zamazenta: 181-214 (55.6 - 65.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Primordial Sea Zapdos
Manaphy 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Manaphy: 135-160 (33.4 - 39.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Physically Defensive Iron Hands 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Iron Hands: 187-220 (36.5 - 43%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Well-Baked Body Iron Treads
Defensive Moltres 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Moltres in Harsh Sunshine: 159-187 (41.4 - 48.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Defensive Primarina 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Primarina: 118-140 (32.4 - 38.4%) -- 98.2% chance to 3HKO
Well-Baked Body Skarmory
Latios 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 164-192 (54.4 - 63.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Ting-Lu 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ting-Lu: 168-199 (32.6 - 38.7%) -- 2.6% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Well-Baked Body Offensive Steel-types
Well-Baked Body Mandibuzz
Garganacl 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Garganacl: 82-97 (20.2 - 24%) -- possible 6HKO
Ursaluna-Bloodmoon 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 173-204 (40.3 - 47.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Primordial Sea Archaludon
Primordial Sea Inteleon
Kommo-o 252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Kommo-o: 113-133 (38.8 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Well-Baked Body Sinistcha
Terrakion 252+ Atk Life Orb Ceruledge Bitter Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 112-133 (34.6 - 41.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Well-Baked Body Tinkaton

Eight isn't a bad number! I'd argue something like Zamazenta has a similar amount of viable, dedicated checks that can actually fit on teams! Oh, right, the actually fitting on teams part...

B) Good sets outside of that role that aren't immediately overpowered by everything else in the tier

Let's just go down the list of eight checks.

Well-Baked Body is one of the best abilities on Gholdengo, but running a disposable item or even no item on it is kind of a pain. You'd really much rather run Leftovers or Heavy-Duty Boots a lot of the time. Even with that, Gholdengo is a naturally great user of items like Eject Pack and especially Colbur Berry, so this gets a pass.

Pecharunt doesn't need Well-Baked Body to check Ceruledge, but it does need to drop an item, which is a total pain for this far more than it is with Gholdengo. Pecharunt really appreciates having Black Sludge or Heavy-Duty Boots, and dropping it makes it incredibly easy to wear down. If you want to check Ceruledge with Pecharunt, you're left with a questionable matchup into everything else.

Well-Baked Body Kingambit is a bad set. Full stop, this set really sucks. Not running Adaptability, Tinted Lens, SoR, etc. makes Kingambit thud hard into the teams Ceruledge thrives on. You basically only run WBB if you really want to counter team Fire-types, and you're left with a really bad set into everything else. Kingambit fails criteria B.

Mandibuzz is similar to Well-Baked Body Kingambit, surprisingly. You only run Mandibuzz to counter team Ceruledge. It's passive, weak to almost every other offensive threat, doesn't have good utility. It beats Ceruledge and loses to pretty much everything else. You can fit it on fat and hard stall, but it's questionable at best and I'd argue it also fails Criteria B.

Keeping in mind that only bulky Roaring Moon actually checks Ceruledge, I'd argue this is actually pretty questionable to fit on teams. Roaring Moon without Attack investment is weak and makes absolutely no progress aside from Knock Off, and without Speed investment is laughably unviable. RegenVest and other such sets are good, but you can't afford to run enough bulk to reliably check Ceruledge over the course of the game without sacrificing elsewhere. Similar to Pecharunt, if you want to comfortably check Ceruledge with Roaring Moon, you're worse into everything else.

These three all pass with flying colors. I don't feel much need to elaborate, they're solid Pokemon that are consistently useful against the offense teams Ceruledge thrives on without thudding too hard into other playstyles.

To summarize, after criteria B, we're left with 4 consistently useful checks, and 2 somewhat questionable ones.

Good Checks:
Shaky Checks:

Which leaves us with just one filter to sort through...

C) Not immediately dead to either Shadow Sneak, Shadow Claw, or Close Combat

I chose to narrow it down to just Shadow Sneak to give Ceruledge as fair a chance as possible. Close Combat is rare outside of Choice Band sets, which already have very few reliable switch-ins, and Shadow Claw is only viable if you really hate Gholdengo. Let us go down the remaining list.

252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Shadow Sneak vs. 252 HP / 228+ Def Gholdengo: 187-221 (49.4 - 58.4%) -- 98% chance to 2HKO Can not switch in to Ceruledge
252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Shadow Sneak vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Iron Hands: 83-99 (16.2 - 19.3%) -- possible 6HKO Can switch in to Ceruledge
Can switch in to Ceruledge

252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Shadow Sneak vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Roaring Moon: 81-95 (19.6 - 23%) -- possible 5HKO Poltergeist -> Shadow Sneak is around 80%, can only switch in if MGLO / hazards are cleared

252+ Atk Life Orb Sword of Ruin Ceruledge Shadow Sneak vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Pecharunt: 127-151 (33.4 - 39.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO Can switch in to Ceruledge.

Just going off the numbers, there are only three consistent Ceruledge checks in AAA, two of which are, while great sets, relatively uncommon.

What was the point of this exercise?

Time for the big disclaimer: Just going off of calc numbers never has and never will tell the whole story. If we just looked at the calculator instead of playing the game, the banlist would probably be twice as long. While the numbers tell us there are 3 consistent Ceruledge checks, a skilled player can potentially maneuver around Ceruledge with two or three softer checks if they play well. You can definitely play around and adapt to Ceruledge. However, I think many people see that Ceruledge isn't impossible to deal with and write it off as being healthy because of that. I think that's the wrong way to look at tiering. Being stereotypically broken isn't the only reason Pokemon get banned, nor should it be.

Is Ceruledge the most broken Pokemon in AAA history? No, not by a long shot. I'd argue it's even up in the air if it's the most broken Pokemon in the current metagame. That's not to say it's balanced, of course, I'd argue that SD sets are still stereotypically broken, with every answer just one move swap (Shadow Sneak for CC) or ability swap (Adapt/SoR for PrankBond or Mold Breaker) away from losing and everything else just dropping to Poltergeist and Bitter Blade. More often than not, with two similarly skilled players, a team with Ceruledge is strictly at an advantage versus any opposing team that doesn't stack one of the rare hard counters and several soft checks. Compare to something like Gholdengo, Iron Moth, or Zamazenta where, while they definitely have some overwhelming matchups and the potential to steal away games, have enough consistent answers that fit on a variety of teams to mean they will never completely dictate the way a player builds or be at a strict advantage versus the majority of teams.

What Ceruledge is even more than just a typical broken, though, is an unhealthy presence. Ceruledge's presence is awful for the tier. It forces building into a corner in a way something like Gholdengo, Latios, or Roaring Moon simply doesn't. It is one of the primary reasons for slower, fatter teams falling almost completely out of favor and the tier being as dominated by offense at it is. We are well within our rights to remove a Pokemon simply because it makes the metagame worse and less diverse by existing, let alone the fact it's broken on top of it!

Ban Ceruledge.

 

[pyu]

I'm very much on the side that ceruledge should be banned.

I mostly just want to give my thoughts on some of the reasoning people have given on why ceru shouldn't be banned:

1. Ceruledge is team specific.

I think this is only partly true. Ceruledge, and this is speaking specifically about sd polt bblade sneak and not cc or shadow claw which are even better against balance, can fit on a significant number of BO structures and completely shred any balance without a random wbb corv/skarm/whatever the fuck else (I even saw shit like wbb pex, which demonstrates just how down bad fat teams are against ceru), and almost any BO where most of the team members aren't specifically EV'd to creep or beat it 1v1. However, there are very few structures that utilize ceru to its fullest extent and give ceru the ability to break pretty much any team even without running anti-balance coverage. Ceru/Latios/BandZama breaks everything that isn't specifically built to counterteam this exact core; +2 shadow sneak + rocks does 44% minimum to max defense wbb corv, so you literally cannot switch it into a banded zama cc ever or your ceruledge answer ceases to exist, meaning you have to have 2 dedicated physdef walls (one of which just has an objectively worse ability and is forced to go itemless for all non-ceru MUs) as balance to play this matchup. I haven't even mentioned shit like SD rocks lando-t, which is incredible at wearing down or punishing physically defensive walls, and is great with this structure. Neither regenvest pert nor max defense regenvest manaphy can consistently beat latios after trick with rocks up, either, and if you want to use your corv aggressively to switch into a draco, there is a real chance you will lose on the spot if they predict well. This core is so consistent that I still won nearly all my games using this structure even when the ladder for the first day or two of the suspect was literally all either the Glory RMT with this core, a slightly different version of this core meant to HC it in mirror matchups (shoutout the dude who ran this exact team but with ee garg instead of zama), or teams that are built specifically from the ground up to win this matchup.

2. Ceruledge doesn't solve x issues with the metagame.

Just as an aside, I don't think the pro-ban side has to prove that banning ceruledge fixes the metagame, it just has to prove that ceruledge is an unhealthy metagame presence; if more tiering action is required afterwards, then more tiering action is required afterwards, and that shouldn't ever be a reason to vote DNB.

However, I do think banning ceruledge at least contributes towards solving at least two of this tier's issues.

a. Balance sucking: I don't think balance is actually bad in this metagame, but I do think ceruledge's existence makes balance VERY fishy. As balance, you basically have to run either regen ting lu or something like unaware blursa or you're going to have to give up more than one slot to consistently check ceruledge. This is extremely restricting in the builder, and if you have ever built with structures like this you'll know that they all end up unilaterally 6-0'd by mons like ogerpon-hearthflame, and often have really bad matchups into sd mglo chien pao, too. I don't know if banning ceruledge fixes all of the issues with balance in this metagame, and honestly I think it probably doesn't, but it does open up balance teambuilding options significantly in the builder.

b. Matchup fishing: I think I've already done enough in this post to explain why I think ceruledge is a contributor to matchup fishing, but just to give some more interactions that may or may not have been discussed in this thread: cb/scarf moon can only switch into poltergeist once from LO ceru because after that it dies to poltergeist + shadow sneak. Prankster pecha doesn't actually beat ceruledge with sd mindgames, but even if it did, it is almost always a terrible trade to give pecha for ceruledge, as after that mons like banded zama often clean up the entire game, and if it doesn't, it only needs to get one turn right with fire fang into the fluffy corv or heavy slam into the scream tail or stone edge into the zapdos and THEN it cleans up. Long story short, if you want to have a good matchup into ceruledge as balance at least, you pretty are fishing by default. And also you have to pray theyre not cc or shadow claw.



To give a positive example of why I think banning ceruledge is good that I think hasn't been mentioned in the thread yet, I think it opens up offense in the builder too, and not just balance! I think people often don't talk enough about how punishing ceruledge is into many offense mons. It's so easy to get chipped into ceruledge shadow sneak range and be forced into really shit shadow sneak/poltergeist 50-50s. While I am usually a proponent of priority moves as anti-offense measures, I think it's quite unhealthy for this priority user to ALSO be the best wallbreaker in the tier. AAA is very centralized imo currently, and I think banning ceruledge is a good way of opening up the tier to more viable structures and fewer matchup fishes.

 

[VulpineFox7]

Meta has been in a mid state for a while, and I think Ceruledge contributes to this. I think this mon locks out a lot more in team building than people give it credit for, and would change more than just a simple itemless wbb slot. This thing punishes fat builds incredibly well, to what I would say is an unhealthy degree. Its also started showing itself being able to dismantle faster, frailer builds as SD sneak has become a great way to clean/beat would be offensive checks. It in-tandem with other egregious threats in this meta, team building has become stale and incredibly centralized. The only thing really locking this mon out from being outright busted is its speedtier, but I've been less convinced by that as time goes on since priority is hard to come by and incredibly valuable in the current meta.

Outside of itemless wbb, which has started showing itself to be shaky on some mons and is already incredibly restricting in terms of team building, I don't really think any defensive checks are super good or splashable (this is key) outside of bulky rmoon, and even then with chip it becomes such a hassle. Itemless pech has shown itself to be incredibly fraudulent, I was able to get Ivar w some nice tech but that was just because surprise factor and literally no one is doing that, it is not a consistent option and loses the second ur opp even considers it. Ting-lu has always been underrated but the structures its on struggle with plenty of other issues, and it isn't nearly as consistent of a mon like rmoon to fit as easily. Anything else mentioned like WBB mandi, blursa, WBB gambit are all just cope answers that can easily get circumvented with teammates/minimal chip or are just mid options in general, so I don't consider them enough of a justification in terms of defensive cplay.

I don't even think I really took into account the offensive synergies that this mon creates with other incredibly strong threats such as zama, chien, and even rmoon (yes, don't sleep on having a knock mon paired with this guy) above, which further adds to its toxicity in-game. Even if it isn't autowinning mu's, it is more than capable of breaking for its teammates, or cleaning after they break for it. Sure check overloading is a very common concept, but the degree and ease in which ceruledge teams are able to do this just aren't healthy to me.

Think I'm going to vote ban as the defensive counterplay to this mon is incredibly restricting or mid, and offensive counterplay has been becoming even more shaky, creating a not fun time in builder and in-game. This doesn't even take into account the offensive synergies it creates, which imo are too much and further compound the issue of Ceruledge.

Agreed!

 

[Slither Wing]

Didn't get reqs on day one woohoo! Still didn't stop me from doing this all in one sitting, but who cares. Used a pretty sketchy team I threw together in like 2 mins but it worked pretty well (I got bailed by Static idk how many times, goated ability), and then finished it off with my goated AAAPL team:
Also s/o to oomfie cat for joining me in my suffering that was aaa ladder :3




Ceruledge is quite a controversial mon currently in AAA's ecosystem. I won't go into much detail because there are a lot of great posts here that already yap too much and we don't need yet another one that's just gonna repeat said points. As it stands for me, I'm a bit torn on what to vote. On one hand, Ceruledge is quite frail, weak to rocks, and not that fast, meaning offensive counterplay isn't unreasonable (yes I know Shadow Sneak exists but it doesn't kill anything not weak to Ghost without substantial chip) and I'm someone who likes building offense and relying on "outoffensing" most threats, so personally I don't find myself struggling with Ceruledge more than lets say Offensive Gholdengo, the Ogerpons, Chien-Pao and what more. There are also a fair bit of good soft checks, most notable being Roaring Moon (because people still think 4a is bad for some reason when it's not), Great tusk if you run some Speed, Landorus-T, Ursaluna-BM and random Eject Button mons like Pecharunt. Now, all of these aren't perfect, but most do a great job at staffing off Ceruledge for long enough that you can start applying pressure yourself, making Ceruledge no more annoying than any other niche wallbreaker.

On the other hand, if we look at AAA as a whole, ever since it got access to Poltergeist people have been limited to using what are essentially shitmons in order to reliably beat it. We've all seen the shitty Itemless WBB Corviknights & Gholdengos, the Mandibuzzes, and the Itemless Pecharunts. A mon being so influencial on the builder is quite frankly ridiculous, and that alone shows how unhealthy this mon is. But at the same time, Ceruledge isn't the only mon that does this, just look at Chien-Pao, The Ogerpons, Iron Boulder and even Zamazenta to an extent, and it's this that has been plaguing AAA balance for so long; too many powerful threats that require tailor-made checks in order to consistently handle them. In that sense, Ceruledge has been the biggest culprit of forcing you to dedicate what is deemed an unreasonable amount of resources in order to comfortably beat it long-term.

Currently leaning a bit more towards Ban though because I'd like for AAA to see a bit more variety, and with Ceruledge gone it opens up a lot more for balance as they no longer have to waste a slot in order to not instantly lose to it, giving them some breathing room, but at the same time I can recognize Ceruledges flaws and as it stands personally I don't have an issue nor do I struggle with it. I urge anyone else who is unsure to read all of the posts above because they go into way more detail as to what Ceruledge truly does & forces.

 

[aiko's band]

Changes to the team

A reiteration of my obsession with . Changed from Technician to Adaptability to ensure I don't automatically lose to PhysDef Regenvest . Unfortunately, had to change Trailblaze to Stealth Rock. Changed from Make It Rain to Dazzling Gleam to not lose to . is now Intimidate to not lose to and Ogerpon family (Excluding ). has Earthquake instead of Taunt, because when is the last time you've actually clicked Taunt on Moon? That's right literally never.

Unnecessary proof of laddering for too long

somehow I laddered for so long that I reached #3 on the ladder. I need to get off this game bro

Let's talk .

I hate this guy with all my might. It feels like I'm walking on several landmines whenever I see him in team preview. In my honest opinion, is the most boom or bust mon in AAA, post -ban. But fortunately for , its more often that it get's to blow things up rather than bust. Hazard removal is comically easy in this metagame, so rocks are barely problem, outside of maybe HO. 99% of the time, it's almost impossible to stop from getting a Swords Dance. To sum up all of 's alleged "counters"; they all get blown up by surprise coverage moves. The only half decent counter is , BUT it's also the biggest momentum sink since the Great Depression of 1929 and 99% of time uses up your regen slot. If HO is the only way to "check" , I frankly due believe it's unhealthy for the team structures that fall under the balance umbrella.

Voting BAN once again.

 

[Giagantic]

Voting is Open!

https://www.smogon.com/tools/suspects/view/78

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[The Hisui Region]

just ban this guy

 

[LordBox]

While not all the votes are in yet, the remaining votes will not change the result of the outcome. 31 Votes have been tallied and a threshold has been reached; 21 have chosen to vote BAN and 10 vote DNB (or so UT tells me), even if all remaining voters chose DNB the votes to ban would still be above the 60% threshold and so thus Ceruledge is banned from Almost Any Ability!

Thank you to all participants! If you have 10 tiering votes across multiple tiers and qualify for the Tiering Contributor badge as a result, you may PM a Tier Leader (Giagantic, dhelmise, KaenSoul) with the links to all of your votes.