I respect Fluff but think he did a mediocre job in portraying Yanmega as the DPP Jirachi-esque gambling machine that it is, so I'm back from the dead to chat a bit about Yanmega's role in RU and elaborate on why it could (should) be banned to facilitate a healthier metagame. I think feen is actually kind of right with his statement about not promoting lazy builds, in particular the fatter do nothing teams, but I think it goes beyond that. Having legitimate anti-Yanmega options is certainly something to consider when building, but in-game it kind of comes down to positioning vs the other HO goons that makes it feel pretty oppressive. All it takes is a little bit of chip and your Fezandipiti/Hoodra/Vaporeon/etc. become setup fodder, especially given how easy it is to scout for Tera with Protect.
For instance:
this replay shows how Yanmega can overcome even a solid gameplan by simply outspeeding and getting the 30%. I felt pretty confident loading a fat team vs Chung here because he's a little cheeser and I managed to put myself in a pretty optimal position late just to lose regardless because it was faster than Scarf Hili and beat it despite having a defensive Tera. Clicking Air Slash knowing it wins 30% of the time is just bad for mons surely.
this replay shows how Protect can be used to scout for defensive Tera's to get the most milage out of Yanmega after it activates Throat Spray. I think llamas far outplayed the early game just to get absolutely crushed by Yanmega after having to concede Tera and all of his Empoleon and most of his Umbreon, two naturally sturdy answers to Yan.
this replay isn't the best at showing Yanmega's brokenness perhaps, because Crossbow played around the Armarouge poorly, but stacking multiple setup demons like Arma/Gatr/Yan is pretty deadly and you can see how easy it is for Yan to just outpace the best Scarfer in the meta to clean. Maus does its job by removing hazards and giving Yanmega an entry point, which is too easy vs most balance teams.
this replay has Feliburn loading one of the fattest cores possible and still losing to HO pretty handily - admittedly, he played the Mew lead poorly and lost a lot of leverage early, but Gatr/Maus/Yan was a lot for him to handle, even with a legitimate defensive core.
this replay is another version of the Crunchwraps HO just overwhelming the opponent. Yanmega didn't do much besides flinch a Thundurus to force a bunch of chip elsewhere and provide a free entry point to Gatr to SD, which critics may not recognize as being just as valuable as actually sweeping sometimes.
Anyhow, not to go too in-depth on replay analysis and such, but I think it should be apparent to anyone who has played SV RU this year to know that HO has been pretty easy to load and pretty successful, with Yanmega being a solid option in each meta it's been in. I think balance teams can similarly use Yanmega to clean, though it can be tricky to actually make work consistently. One of my favorite teams I've ever built was the Yanmega sample I had months ago and I still think that style of team is strong in this current metagame, if not potentially unexplored. Not really interested in getting reqs myself but hoping that the consensus votes to ban Yanmega, especially with RUBD around the corner - would be cool to see a meta with a bit less rng develop.
For instance:
this replay shows how Yanmega can overcome even a solid gameplan by simply outspeeding and getting the 30%. I felt pretty confident loading a fat team vs Chung here because he's a little cheeser and I managed to put myself in a pretty optimal position late just to lose regardless because it was faster than Scarf Hili and beat it despite having a defensive Tera. Clicking Air Slash knowing it wins 30% of the time is just bad for mons surely.
this replay shows how Protect can be used to scout for defensive Tera's to get the most milage out of Yanmega after it activates Throat Spray. I think llamas far outplayed the early game just to get absolutely crushed by Yanmega after having to concede Tera and all of his Empoleon and most of his Umbreon, two naturally sturdy answers to Yan.
this replay isn't the best at showing Yanmega's brokenness perhaps, because Crossbow played around the Armarouge poorly, but stacking multiple setup demons like Arma/Gatr/Yan is pretty deadly and you can see how easy it is for Yan to just outpace the best Scarfer in the meta to clean. Maus does its job by removing hazards and giving Yanmega an entry point, which is too easy vs most balance teams.
this replay has Feliburn loading one of the fattest cores possible and still losing to HO pretty handily - admittedly, he played the Mew lead poorly and lost a lot of leverage early, but Gatr/Maus/Yan was a lot for him to handle, even with a legitimate defensive core.
this replay is another version of the Crunchwraps HO just overwhelming the opponent. Yanmega didn't do much besides flinch a Thundurus to force a bunch of chip elsewhere and provide a free entry point to Gatr to SD, which critics may not recognize as being just as valuable as actually sweeping sometimes.
Anyhow, not to go too in-depth on replay analysis and such, but I think it should be apparent to anyone who has played SV RU this year to know that HO has been pretty easy to load and pretty successful, with Yanmega being a solid option in each meta it's been in. I think balance teams can similarly use Yanmega to clean, though it can be tricky to actually make work consistently. One of my favorite teams I've ever built was the Yanmega sample I had months ago and I still think that style of team is strong in this current metagame, if not potentially unexplored. Not really interested in getting reqs myself but hoping that the consensus votes to ban Yanmega, especially with RUBD around the corner - would be cool to see a meta with a bit less rng develop.
though problematic, has its checks in the tier, such as assault vest 
dtail 
and 
. Its also severely crippled by rocks since it doesnt run hdb, putting it in range of priority after a little bit of chip.
