ive played a few games by now to where i think im qualified enough to give my opinions on some mons being discussed for bans.
i dont like
at all. not because its particularly powerful or centralising, but because its playstyle is just not competitive. it happens way too often where youre playing a game, its all going great, your sweeper is set up and youre cleaning your opponent's team, until... uh oh. you forgot about
. you forgot that you had to bait it out and double into your
answer in the middle of the game. because of your misplay, the silly chess man is now going to SD and sweep your team with sucker punch... unless you manage to win the guessing games, and correctly guess when it stops SDing and suckers, with no information pointing towards either possibility.
i hate sucker punch mind games; usually theyre tolerable, but with
specifically, they often become the deciding factor of a game. they are not skill or prediction-based, the only way to win them is from sheer luck. i feel like, if you failed to lure and deal with a threat such as
earlier in the game, that should make you immediately lose, or at the very least, if youre still meant to have a chance, make it prediction-reliant and not guessing-reliant. once
has an SD up, there is really nothing you can do - its hard to even out-priority it because most priority moves are physical and dont hit
supereffectively. and all of this is without taking tera into account.
that said, is it even healthy that the only way of dealing with a certain mon is to lure it then double into a check? i find it hard to fit an full-on response into a team. i mean, clodsire isnt even that viable, it has a niche but there are better mons out there to have in your team, especially if youre building towards offense.
with all of this, i do think i would like to see
banned.
is pretty much guaranteed to get something done whenever it leats or gets a free switch. ive been using it and nobody has been able to stop it from setting up hazards. i feel like setting up something important such as hazards, especially in a meta where its so difficult to get rid of them, should take at least a little bit of brain power instead of "lead deo-S, click taunt, click rocks, if more turns click spikes".
i feel like id need a second opinion before deciding, but i believe my verdict is leaning towards banning
.
is a great setup sweeper that still has immediate power, but is held back by its defensive typing. it definitely can make major progress quick in a game, but you gotta get rid of its answers first. i think this is balanced and i dont see a reason to ban it at all.
is a staple that answers many mons, such
and
,
,
,
, and can even catch
and opposing
off-guard with tera dark, which i believe to be its best tera. however, its speed tier makes it get bodied hard by opposing offensive threats. you could say it beats
with air balloon, but in my experience, my opponents often send in a threat that gets answered by
and pops its balloon before opposing
becomes relevant, which makes it rather situational.
as for its effect on the hazard meta, i think, if you give your opponent so many free turns to set hazards, its fair that it stays for the entire game, its a punishment for a misplay and hazard removal is just forgiveness factor. if you think the game has a hazards problem, maybe its not because removing hazards is too hard - its because setting hazards is too easy. and that is a problem caused by the likes of
.
therefore, i think
is perfectly fine and a healthy addition to the meta.