Metagame np: SV Ubers Stage 2 - Power

[Taka]

Following up on the thread, just leaving some of my thoughts on the tier and Miraidon:

I think its pretty clear that Miraidon is the most dominant force in the tier, and everyone has different standards for what it is acceptable for a ban. Ultimately, what I say only covers my own opinion so take it as you will. I personally will be voting for a ban on Miraidon, but I'm not as strongly opposed to it staying in the tier as the other pro-ban voters.

Miraidon is whatever by itself, and I think we all know how strong it is. You have boots pivot / specs / LO agility / solar beam etc, all of which have their own strengths and issues w different matchups, and most of which are relatively reasonable to play around (bar Solar Beam variants, this set is incredibly easy to position and doesn't have clear punishers outside of Clodsire and Tera). I know aim mentioned earlier that he did not have issues with it during his laddering / playing, so its hard for him and many voters to have the foresight into the builder. I'm going to try to clear this up a little with my own thoughts on building.

A lot of the building in this tier in offense revolves around half checks (which is kind of the style of the tier at the moment, as Manaphy stated in a good post above). You can pivot around the brokens trading key chunks of health on your top mons, like Koraidon health for Kyogre, pivoting Ho-Oh in on a Draco for Miraidon. In this way especially, Miraidon has a decent chunk of counterplay, where you can limit its long term effect based on the set and your own pivoting around stabs / Tera. I think its reasonable to say that Miraidon in a vacuum may not be the most broken mon and could stay.

I do think the big 5 outside of Miraidon are unreasonable for a builder to cover in six slots. Koraidon / Zacian-C / Kyogre / Necrozma-DM / Miraidon are all incredibly hard to deal with on their own, but when teams often stack multiple of them, it becomes a nightmare as a builder. Ground stacking structures that deal with Miraidon have to figure out ways to pivot around stuff like Kyogre either by running Clodsire (worsens your mu into Necrozma) or using Koraidon as a half check to Kyogre (risks one of the safer Zacian-C and Miraidon answers on most teams). Stuff like Tera Ho-Oh as the stacked Ground can be alright but are still overwhelmed by other Teras / Koraidon as a breaker. Essentially, a lot of this counterplay, although it is viable / can be feasibly used to cover everything, just feels like it stretches teams in the builder relatively thin. You can for sure outplay them, but these building structures are oftentimes one Tera / one hax moment away from entirely collapsing.

Obviously you aren't needed to pipeline into one team structure or one playstyle, but you definitely do have to struggle with the reality for now that while Miraidon is here, you will have to just accept a loss in the builder to some things and force outplay. Is this fine? I personally think its unreasonable for the health of the metagame, and I'll be voting ban, but I understand why people wouldn't, especially when it seems like you can outplay just in practice.

Unrelated to my previous post though, to people bringing up that top players are being consistent so it must be a reasonably consistent metagame, I think this is false and top players will be consistent regardless as long as the metagame isn't garbage.


Edit: Also agree w every basc ban voter, please remove this mon

 

[unabn caly]

why are people complaining about miraidons teammates as a reason to ban miraidon, acting like positioning into strong breakers is problematic. if youre upset that miraidon has strong teammates why are you playing ubers. apart from that miraidon is just a good uber on its own and imagining it in ag is underwhelming and just sad, with a bad movepool its problem lies in raw power with good speed in a gen with good (ground type/tera) walls and tr - theres literally nothing special about miraidon... groundceus and ground hooh (and many others) are great in their own right against other threats, each of them capable of checking - doesnt really seem restrictive. its not even like miraidon is a no brainer pick, there are literally so many other choices that are just as good if not better alternatives that beat miraidon (ek, zac, literally any good scarfer)
where was this same energy about restrictive teambuilding for ss caly who could, unlike miraidon, actually autowin

 

[Pigbeeef]

why are people complaining about miraidons teammates as a reason to ban miraidon, acting like positioning into strong breakers is problematic. if youre upset that miraidon has strong teammates why are you playing ubers. apart from that miraidon is just a good uber on its own and imagining it in ag is underwhelming and just sad, with a bad movepool its problem lies in raw power with good speed in a gen with good (ground type/tera) walls and tr - theres literally nothing special about miraidon... groundceus and ground hooh (and many others) are great in their own right against other threats, each of them capable of checking - doesnt really seem restrictive. its not even like miraidon is a no brainer pick, there are literally so many other choices that are just as good if not better alternatives that beat miraidon (ek, zac, literally any good scarfer)
where was this same energy about restrictive teambuilding for ss caly who could, unlike miraidon, actually autowin

Bro literally says unban caly on their username.
"Bad move pool" ??? miraidon gets many coverage options like solar beam, dazzling gleam, etc and the stabs hits most things anyways.
Wdym miraidon has strong teammates argument?
"there is literally nothing special about miraidon" I dont think I need to explain why that's objectively wrong, 491 special attack for 5 turns + electric terrain is not balanced.
groundy nowadays are usually dragon dance which cant take boosted draco meteors, especially after spikes chip, or spdef, which is shit other wise.
No idea what are you on, but lets just hope you are being sarcastic (this is not a place for sarcasm)

 

[Lacus Clyne]

As someone who got reqs by learning this gen yesterday I just wanna point out that the ladder is a really bad way to reflect the current meta. While playing I noticed that people only spam Sticky Web and weird attempts of TR making it really easy to counterplay. I do understand why people want it to be removed as it can become quite challenging to defend yourself while easily getting overwhelmed by the already numerous existing threats. Games usually come down to whoever preserves the HP on the correct Pokémon which I personally enjoyed quite a lot. Ultimately I do think that it needs to go. Reason being that the combination of the typical threats are just too much giving us little room for creativity building wise. Miraidon happens to be the most versatile basically forcing a slot for itself. One might argue that an other Pokémon might be the issue which is fair but for me personally I think it’s Miraidon. If I had to choose between ban or no ban my vote favors the ban. As the saying says goes “When one door closes, another one opens.” maybe we will see some other Pokémon get more recognition or start to thrive. I would also like to suggest that we should do something about Last Respects.

 

[OreoSpeedruns]

As someone who has played SV Ubers since day 1, built the majority of SV teams for my team during UWC, and made Round 9 for Ubers Winter Seasonal, remaining in winners bracket throughout, I want to give my two cents on how building and playing feels with Miraidon around, and hopefully shed light on why I and many others will be voting to ban Miraidon.


Obviously, Miraidon’s presence places a huge strain on the builder on its own, requiring the builder to dedicate several slots for it. However, you also have to account for Pokemon like Koraidon, NDM, Zacian-C, Kyogre, Ho-Oh, EKiller, Arceus-Ground, Basculegion, Calyrex-I, Flutter Mane, and Eternatus. It is simply not reasonable for balance to have to account for Miraidon AND all these other insane threats because no matter how you try to build it, you will always have insufficient resources for something. Miraidon is by far the biggest contributor to this, as the specially defensive Grounds used to check it are not good Pokemon in their own right (barring Gliscor but it’s not a good Mirai check and we seriously need to stop pretending it is). Having to run these otherwise bad Pokemon only exacerbates the issue of not having enough options to viably deal with threats like Kyogre and Zacian-C. This makes Miraidon a nightmare to account for when building balance. As Manaphy put it very well in his post:

A lack of teams that at least have options for all threats means the tier is more about fishing for the match-up than how people make plays in the actual game.

But, okay, that’s just the building side. How is playing? After all, you can still just play around threats even if you’re weak to them, right? Mmm, not really. As has been shown several times over this UWC, Miraidon’s incredible versatility with its sets and Tera Types leaves it with no consistent counterplay. Its so-called checks can just be blown past if they face the wrong set, and no matter what Miraidon chooses to do, it's still always a dominant force. Also, I bring you back to the point of also needing to account for the other insane threats in the tier, which, in large part because of Miraidon’s overwhelming presence, simply isn't consistently feasible because of the lack of options you’re able to fit to handle them in the first place.

Well, if balance is a matchup fish, why not just use offense then? Well, yeah. That’s basically what the meta is right now. And it’s not healthy. Firstly, needing to fish for a good matchup to even attempt to cover all threats is inherently bad for the health of the tier. Second, even offense is not good enough to keep Miraidon in check. That whole thing with Miraidon being able to circumvent counterplay with certain sets and/or Tera still holds true against offense. Trying to slow an Agility set down with a Groundceus? Too bad, because it can just pull out Solar Beam or Tera Dragon and you now lose the 1v1! Trying to revenge kill Miraidon with Ekiller? Tera Ghost on Boots sets can completely flip the matchup against Ekiller offense on its head. Is Miraidon’s speed lowered thanks to Sticky Web and now your Scale Shot Koraidon’s on the field, ready to win? Not anymore, because Miraidon absolutely could just Tera Fairy and Agility on you! In fact, this last case in particular was exactly what caused Skyiew to lose his game against Hoenn for UWC last week.


TL;DR Miraidon’s insane versatility with its sets and Tera allowing it to easily circumvent its counterplay makes it an extremely negative presence in the builder and not reasonable to consistently account for in battle, both offensively and defensively. Easy ban vote from me.

 

[Waruchuu]

What I feel like a lot of people are missing while concidering the ban option, is in what direction Miraidon forces this Tier.
A lot of the players with the suspect test tag have been using readymade hyper offence teams, that one Webs Basculegion team in particular. That is ofc fine and all but it doesn't let one see the full picture of what Miraidon really does.
Where Miraidon poses the real issue is in the teambuilder. Any non offensive Teams are a lot less viable because of it's existance alone. It doesn't have any checks, which can continually keep it from just plowing through the rest of the team but only take hits a few times. It isn't only able to beat most mons with its attacks, its fast taunt also prevents Pokemon from taking advantage of it's lowered Special Attack after a Draco Meteor reliably. So Stall, Balance and even Bulky Offence are playing at a disatvantage in the tier. In reality, the only way to counter it, is by out offencing it with other threats.
Baning it might not magicaly fix the tier, as there are other issues which contribute to the prevalence of Offence such as the lack of reliable hazard removal. But baning it will be a huge step in the right direction of allowing more variety in the Tier.
If you have only been using Hyper Offence on ladder and lean towards not baning Miraidon, I urge you to build a balance team, try it out and reconcider.
Thank you for reading

TLDR
Miraidon needs to be banned because of the way it constrains teambuilding and variety.

 

[ThePlumber7]

I feel like no one will care, but I will not be voting for a ban. I have only have 11 teams and rarely teambuild; I just adjust my mains. My main for sv has no Mirai counter, unless you count my grimmsnarl or zacian-c. I have been fine without a Mirai check. As of right now, I'm 30th on the leaderboard. If a meager worm like me can do that, I believe no ban is necessary.

 

[Celestiial]

And with my reqs run done, very much hoping that miraidon gets the ban. Im not gonna go too in depth with this so it will echo a lot of previous posts, but even as someone newer to the ladder i really felt the impact of miraidon on my builder for the past 2 months ish, and if i try and check it offensively it was still to unreliable into the sheer amount of random agility/scarf miraidons that I had no way of figuring out what they were until they hit the field. It's not caly level overbearing but I dont see why that should mean its not worthy of a ban.

also have a listen to the song i finished my run with because it slaps, but yeah confident ban vote coming from me

 

[duckycrater]

As a noob who's never played ubers more than 10 times before getting reqs, miraidon is such an overpowered mon if I didn't have miraidon I'd never get reqs, I love the lizard's design but I hate the fact it has no consistent defensive checks to both of its stabs, so I'll vote ban.

 

[Fc]

Miraidon remains unbanned in SV Ubers.

 

[ant4456]

If there is a Last Respects suspect because of this, I'm gonna get reqs and vote DNB just because Miraidon not being banned was lame

Now this tier should suffer

 

[Finchinator]

If there is a Last Respects suspect because of this, I'm gonna get reqs and vote DNB just because Miraidon not being banned was lame

Now this tier should suffer

I truly hope nobody with serious interest in getting voting requirements on a hypothetical future suspect follows this line of logic.

I am not sure how serious this post is, but stifling the progress of a whole metagame because one thing didn’t go your way is not it.

 

[awyp]

This is not related but can you guys increase the reqs for Uber? Like it was my first time playing Ubers and first run and I got it pretty easy..like maybe 81 GXE for 50 games?

 

[Avy]

I didn't expect to make a second post on this thread but here it is:

I think there's a lot of talk about metagame philosophy in this thread. Let's step aside from the conversation about teambuilder and actual play for a moment, since by its very nature Ubers is a tier where there are multiple powerful threats to account for in teambuilder (and I've covered teambuilder stuff in my last post anyway). Most ban voters argue that Miraidon is unhealthy because it (and the teammates/checks it brings with it) forces the tier unnecessarily strongly into offense/hyperoffense team styles. Conversely, most non-ban voters argue that it's not actually a bad thing that offense/hyperoffense is a leading team style.

Here's what we need to consider. When it comes to Ubers, we're playing a heavily overstatted metagame. Is it reasonable or healthy to seek balance or stall teams as viable options in the tier? Is it necessary to do so? Conversely, should we be okay with the fact that the metagame is primarily or almost completely leaning towards offense or hyperoffense? I don't have too clear of an answer for what exactly it should look like, which is why I'm talking about this as a metagame philosophy question. What do we want the tier to look like? What kind of pokemon is too much or too little for the tier?

I personally lean towards advocating for variety in the tier. To me, it doesn't matter what style of teams necessarily dominate the tier, what matters to me is the number of different ways the metagame can be played and interacted with. Having a pokemon that's too centralising defeats that purpose in my eyes. We've seen pokemon like this in Ubers before, to varying extents. Mewtwo in Gen1, Kyogre in Gen4, Xerneas in Gen6, Zacian-C in Gen8, Calyrex-S in Gen9. Out of these, only Zacian-C and Calryex-S were banned to AG. And of course in Gen1, Ubers was the original AG where Mewtwo and Mew were sent because they completely overpowered OU. I want to draw your attention to one thing though. In most of these gens of Ubers, these threats were head and shoulders above the rest. Every team needed something to counter/check them. However, the rest of the team was much more fluid. The exception is Zacian-C, where it could take 2KOs for 1 easily and have extremely limited counterplay. Calyrex-S functions similarly in Gen9. The originator of AG, Mega-Rayquaza, is also the same. These are easy conversations about Ubers bans.

Miraidon occupies a very different role, which is why the conversation about banning it or not is so difficult. Miraidon is one of the strongest threats in the tier, but not so far above the rest that it is an auto-include on teams. It's powerful, but not the same level of power compared to past Uber bans with respect to their generational strength relatively speaking. Miraidon warps the tier in a very different way from other Ubers bans in the past, which is why I think people are having trouble coming to a more unified conclusion. Miraidon messes with the tier in the sense that, having to prepare for it alongside other threats simply takes too way many resources. Miraidon's flexibility and power makes it unable to be ignored, yet its lack of overwhelming power makes it not an auto-include. This has parallels to Darkrai's use of Hypnosis in OU. If it hits Hypnosis, it can completely flip a battle. Similarly, if you prepared for Miraidon and your opponent doesn't bring it, it can completely flip your game plan. In the same way that Sleep was debated in OU, we're debating Miraidon in Ubers. It's not a perfect comparison by any means, but the parallels exist. You can't ignore it, but its presence or absence creates a huge difference in the game, and either way you're on the back foot when preparing.

Something else I want to remind everyone of is this: Zacian-C didn't get banned in Gen8 until after Calyrex-S was released. The presence of two or more very strong threats is such that the stronger ones become way too strong. This is also absolutely the case with Calyrex-S and Miraidon + Koraidon. In my opinion, this is one big reason why Calyrex-S got banned that quickly. Of course, the other big reasons are Terastalisation and the lack of Yveltal in the tier. I think the same is coming to be true of Miraidon. With this many powerful threats in the tier, Miraidon's power is becoming much more difficult to handle and prepare for, and even if people don't personally have an issue with it, it doesn't mean there isn't a larger issue with it in general.

I do think Miraidon limits variety in the tier to a significant enough extent that I would advocate for a ban, but I know that's just my own perception of the matter. However the rest of you think about it is of course up to you, but I would seriously suggest thinking about your own metagame philosophy and what you think a healthy/preferable/stable/enjoyable metagame looks like for you. At the end of the day, all of our different metagame philosophies added together determine the overall metagame philosophy of Ubers, and the reason I advocate for variety is I like seeing people play different teams that they find fun, rather than having to pigeonhole themselves into playing styles or teams that they feel forced into rather than actually want to play.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Why is the ban percentage 66% and not 60% like in OU? Seems like a dumb decision on the part of the Ubers council


Clearly having the ban percentage at 66.66% is too specific of a number when 60% would be enough for a clear majority, considering that in other tiers the ban percent requirement is 60%

If this was OU or lower and we were suspecting a mon with 62% of ban votes it would be gone.

The majority still wanted Miradon gone as shown, so why the hell is the ban reqs 66.66% in Ubers unlike the 60% everywhere else? Ubers isn't just a banlist anymore.

Just pointing out an inconsistency across Ubers with the other tiers.


I will say if Miradon continues to be a problem I have no issue with the council quickbanning it considering the majority wanted it gone, also please lower ban reqs to 60% for consistency across tiers, and keep Miradon on surveys.

 

[BigFatMantis]

Why is the ban percentage 66% and not 60% like in OU? Seems like a dumb decision on the part of the Ubers council


Clearly having the ban percentage at 66.66% is too specific of a number when 60% would be enough for a clear majority, considering that in other tiers the ban percent requirement is 60%

If this was OU or lower and we were suspecting a mon with 62% of ban votes it would be gone.

The majority still wanted Miradon gone as shown, so why the hell is the ban reqs 66.66% in Ubers unlike the 60% everywhere else? Ubers isn't just a banlist anymore.

Just pointing out an inconsistency across Ubers with the other tiers.


I will say if Miradon continues to be a problem I have no issue with the council quickbanning it considering the majority wanted it gone, also please lower ban reqs to 60% for consistency across tiers, and keep Miradon on surveys.

It’s always been that % for Ubers. Not saying it should or shouldn’t be, but the council likely can’t just decide to change it without at least a PR topic about it.

 

[Pokedom10]

Why is the ban percentage 66% and not 60% like in OU? Seems like a dumb decision on the part of the Ubers council

Remember that the standard for banning in Ubers has always been significantly higher than other tiers, because Ubers for the longest time had no bans. A 6/4 majority isn't enough on its own- for something to get banned here you really do want to have that 2/3rds majority so there can be no room for interpretation.

with that in mind this was the rare instance where we need interpretation. a 62-65% ban vote and no ban is dumb. please consider fixing this, council.

 

[Kate]

Speaking just on my own and not on behalf of council, 2/3rds supermajority is not even close to necessary and I've maintained this since before this suspect even happened. Ubers having a higher threshold to ban Pokemon is something I'm willing to accept, but the fact is we already account for this. There have been just 3 total suspects this generation in a year and a half. Two of those (Moody and Calyrex Shadow) were complete formalities and only done because Ubers is technically not supposed to quickban things. Compared to every other tiers total amount of suspect tests and quickbans, this is a number fathoms below everyone else. It's certainly not because Ubers just doesn't have suspect worthy pokemon; hell there's about 5 in the Metagame right now. The fact is, we already factor in the higher ceiling to ban a Pokemon from Ubers, and all a 2/3rds majority does is unfairly favor the status quo to a degree that shouldn't be happening. I'd like to see this change in gen 10 hopefully.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Remember that the standard for banning in Ubers has always been significantly higher than other tiers, because Ubers for the longest time had no bans. A 6/4 majority isn't enough on its own- for something to get banned here you really do want to have that 2/3rds majority so there can be no room for interpretation.

with that in mind this was the rare instance where we need interpretation. a 62-65% ban vote and no ban is dumb. please consider fixing this, council.

Yes, and while I understand why it's like that it's frustrating

Speaking just on my own and not on behalf of council, 2/3rds supermajority is not even close to necessary and I've maintained this since before this suspect even happened. Ubers having a higher threshold to ban Pokemon is something I'm willing to accept, but the fact is we already account for this. There have been just 3 total suspects this generation in a year and a half. Two of those (Moody and Calyrex Shadow) were complete formalities and only done because Ubers is technically not supposed to quickban things. Compared to every other tiers total amount of suspect tests and quickbans, this is a number fathoms below everyone else. It's certainly not because Ubers just doesn't have suspect worthy pokemon; hell there's about 5 in the Metagame right now. The fact is, we already factor in the higher ceiling to ban a Pokemon from Ubers, and all a 2/3rds majority does is unfairly favor the status quo to a degree that shouldn't be happening. I'd like to see this change in gen 10 hopefully.

I absolutely agree, it should be harder to get suspected in Ubers but requiring a supermajority for a ban feels unnecessary in the context of Ubers, and in the case of Miradon we will have to wait months to suspect it again if it ends up being more broken. There is already a very clear majority so in my eyes Miradon should have went. I think something should change with the ban vote reqs, as it's clear that the current ban vote percentage needed is too high for a tier that rarely suspects anything

 

[Anchor9]

welp looks like sv will remain an unplayable joke of a tier, see y'all in gen 10

To be honest, Miraidon doesn’t make the tier unplayable, just really constrained. Last Respects though legitimately makes the tier next to unplayable. You have to have counterplay for Sticky Web versions, Trick Room versions, even Scarf versions, or you’re losing to someone with Last Respects. You have to at least have a single Tera Normal for counterplay, all while preserving it till the endgame. Last Respects is miserable. Once it’s suspected, I’m going to really try to get reqs to get it out.

 

[bdt2002]

I haven't been paying as much attention this suspect test as I did for the Calyrex-Shadow quickban suspect when it dropped alongside Pokémon Home, but I mention Calyrex-Shadow now as a reminder of its Gen 8 Ubers iteration, which because of a lack of Tera and because Yveltal existed made that version of Calyrex-Shadow far more manageable. Gen 9 Ubers Miraidon feels like a very similar situation to me, where some people justifiably wanted it banned because of the warping effect it had on the metagame at large. Here's the thing about suspect tests, though- the order in which different Pokémon, moves, et cetera are tested and/or banned can have an impact on if something further down the line will also be broken. Case in point, an argument can be made for Zacian's Gen 8 iteration indirectly making Calyrex-Shadow more overwhelming than normal, since teams that already needed to prepare for the latter also needed to prepare for the former, which was next to impossible to do at times. In an alternate timeline where Zacian wasn't banned from Gen 8 Ubers, who knows? Maybe that would have been enough to push Calyrex-Shadow over the edge there, too. The world may never know.

The point I want to get across with this story is that I genuinely think Last Respects and Miraidon as a combination are unhealthy, but Miraidon itself isn't. Or at least, not as unhealthy as other AG names like Mega Rayquaza or pre-nerf Zacian were. Cut the Ubers council a bit of slack here- they were on a 50/50 split at one point as to whether Last Respects or Miraidon would be the first one to get suspect tested. I would imagine that the decision was a difficult one for them. They would have to try and account for both sides- would a Last Respects ban make Miraidon more manageable, or would a Miraidon ban make Last Respects more manageable? Either side of that coin would be met with complaints from the playerbase at large, but they can't just suspect both at the same time. My current opinion is that teams that have to over-prepare for Miraidon are unfortunately left extremely vulnerable to Last Respects strats as an unfortunate side effect, but that if Last Respects were to be tested now that this test has concluded, potentially hitting Last Respects with the banhammer means that teams that previously were designed with countering Last Respects teams in mind would now be much more open than they were before to dealing with Miraidon itself.

This idea of "one AG-worthy strategy making another AG strategy harder to deal with at the same time" appears to be the reason why it's (so far, anyway) so difficult, sometimes even impractical to have multiple different Pokémon get banned from Ubers within the same generation. Emphasis on different Pokémon- I'm not counting Zacian's two formes as separate Pokémon here. Another noticeable example of this can be found in the XY era of Gen 6, when complaints were going around about Xerneas as well as Mega Gengar. Gen 6 Xerneas never received the banhammer, and while I can't seem to find a consistent answer for Gen 6 Mega Gengar and if it got banned from Ubers, not only were both Pokémon eventually more manageable in ORAS, but you can make a legitimate argument that a Mega Gengar ban would have made Xerneas more manageable, too, since it's no longer around to try and trap Xerneas's best checks in that era, which is something it could try and do for Xerneas hyper offense teams against bulky Steels and other Ubers while Xerneas returns the favor against the Dark-Types that would threaten Mega Gengar.

(And before you say Pursuit, what happens when the Gengar is bluffing Gengarite, actually has a Colbur Berry, and all of a sudden Xerneas's teammate Mega Lucario or whatever just came in pretty much for free?)

 

[ant4456]

Speaking just on my own and not on behalf of council, 2/3rds supermajority is not even close to necessary and I've maintained this since before this suspect even happened. Ubers having a higher threshold to ban Pokemon is something I'm willing to accept, but the fact is we already account for this. There have been just 3 total suspects this generation in a year and a half. Two of those (Moody and Calyrex Shadow) were complete formalities and only done because Ubers is technically not supposed to quickban things. Compared to every other tiers total amount of suspect tests and quickbans, this is a number fathoms below everyone else. It's certainly not because Ubers just doesn't have suspect worthy pokemon; hell there's about 5 in the Metagame right now. The fact is, we already factor in the higher ceiling to ban a Pokemon from Ubers, and all a 2/3rds majority does is unfairly favor the status quo to a degree that shouldn't be happening. I'd like to see this change in gen 10 hopefully.

It's funny too because 66% vs 60% is literally so similar, and all it does is make situations like this with a few % difference favor it. The vote was still vastly in favor of ban it just was a few % off lol.

 

[Taka]

I haven't been paying as much attention this suspect test as I did for the Calyrex-Shadow quickban suspect when it dropped alongside Pokémon Home, but I mention Calyrex-Shadow now as a reminder of its Gen 8 Ubers iteration, which because of a lack of Tera and because Yveltal existed made that version of Calyrex-Shadow far more manageable. Gen 9 Ubers Miraidon feels like a very similar situation to me, where some people justifiably wanted it banned because of the warping effect it had on the metagame at large. Here's the thing about suspect tests, though- the order in which different Pokémon, moves, et cetera are tested and/or banned can have an impact on if something further down the line will also be broken. Case in point, an argument can be made for Zacian's Gen 8 iteration indirectly making Calyrex-Shadow more overwhelming than normal, since teams that already needed to prepare for the latter also needed to prepare for the former, which was next to impossible to do at times. In an alternate timeline where Zacian wasn't banned from Gen 8 Ubers, who knows? Maybe that would have been enough to push Calyrex-Shadow over the edge there, too. The world may never know.

The point I want to get across with this story is that I genuinely think Last Respects and Miraidon as a combination are unhealthy, but Miraidon itself isn't. Or at least, not as unhealthy as other AG names like Mega Rayquaza or pre-nerf Zacian were. Cut the Ubers council a bit of slack here- they were on a 50/50 split at one point as to whether Last Respects or Miraidon would be the first one to get suspect tested. I would imagine that the decision was a difficult one for them. They would have to try and account for both sides- would a Last Respects ban make Miraidon more manageable, or would a Miraidon ban make Last Respects more manageable? Either side of that coin would be met with complaints from the playerbase at large, but they can't just suspect both at the same time. My current opinion is that teams that have to over-prepare for Miraidon are unfortunately left extremely vulnerable to Last Respects strats as an unfortunate side effect, but that if Last Respects were to be tested now that this test has concluded, potentially hitting Last Respects with the banhammer means that teams that previously were designed with countering Last Respects teams in mind would now be much more open than they were before to dealing with Miraidon itself.

This idea of "one AG-worthy strategy making another AG strategy harder to deal with at the same time" appears to be the reason why it's (so far, anyway) so difficult, sometimes even impractical to have multiple different Pokémon get banned from Ubers within the same generation. Emphasis on different Pokémon- I'm not counting Zacian's two formes as separate Pokémon here. Another noticeable example of this can be found in the XY era of Gen 6, when complaints were going around about Xerneas as well as Mega Gengar. Gen 6 Xerneas never received the banhammer, and while I can't seem to find a consistent answer for Gen 6 Mega Gengar and if it got banned from Ubers, not only were both Pokémon eventually more manageable in ORAS, but you can make a legitimate argument that a Mega Gengar ban would have made Xerneas more manageable, too, since it's no longer around to try and trap Xerneas's best checks in that era, which is something it could try and do for Xerneas hyper offense teams against bulky Steels and other Ubers while Xerneas returns the favor against the Dark-Types that would threaten Mega Gengar.

(And before you say Pursuit, what happens when the Gengar is bluffing Gengarite, actually has a Colbur Berry, and all of a sudden Xerneas's teammate Mega Lucario or whatever just came in pretty much for free?)

I don’t have many big thoughts but I just want to say that miraidon and last respects barely overlap and that banning one does not really impact the other (not like ting was a real basc check ever). they synergize in that both are good on HO (most of this tier is good on HO) but realistically basc is broken as hell regardless of whatever happens with miraidon. Ban Basculegion

 

[unabn caly]

Let's enjoy 55% usage for the lizard duo till the end of this gen. So much diversity

and yet we survived ss yen and caly

Basc will get nerfed and a new slot opens up which will certainly change the game and loosen team building, it’s time to stop crying about miraidon

 

[Stallion]

If there is a Last Respects suspect because of this, I'm gonna get reqs and vote DNB just because Miraidon not being banned was lame

Now this tier should suffer

I'm annoyed at both the outcome of the vote and the fact that it needs such a ridiculously high threshold in Ubers, but this is not the way to voice your displeasure.