Announcement Flutter Mane and Houndstone are banned from SV OU

Status
Not open for further replies.

Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
On Saturday, the SV OU council held its first vote on potential quickbans from the preliminary metagame.

This post will be used to announce and discuss any bans that happened while sharing the full results for the sake of transparency. In order for a Pokemon to get banned from SV OU at this stage, it required a supermajority of over 2/3 support from the tiering council, meaning at least 7 of 9 councilmen would have to favor the ban. This threshold is higher than that of a standard suspect or council vote due to it being very early in the metagame, but you will see both bans were unanimous and the next closest Pokemon failed to receive 50% regardless. The ultimate goal here is to ban the most egregiously banworthy presences in the metagame while not getting too carried away as it is incredibly early in the metagame. Please message Finchinator and Ruft if you have any further questions on this.

With that said, let's get to the results...Flutter Mane and Houndstone are banned from SV OU effective immediately! Tagging Kris and Marty to implement, thank you!

:Flutter Mane: Flutter Mane :Flutter Mane:

Flutter Mane will arguably go down as one of the most broken presences to ever grace an Overused metagame in competitive Pokemon's lengthy history; the Fairy/Ghost behemoth joins a pantheon of quickban recipients that made matters quite easy on decision makers. With unanimous council support through the aforementioned vote, Flutter Mane has, unsurprisingly, been dispatched of to Ubers via quickban.

While surface level attributes such as an elite combination of top-tier special attacking and speed stats go a long way alone, this truly is just what opens the door For Flutter Mane. A dynamic STAB duo of Fairy and Ghost compliments this offensive profile quite nicely, especially when you factor in the prospect of valuable coverage options such as Mystical Fire or Psyshock as well. Calm Mind can come in handy to function as a win condition while moves like Substitute are also seen for scouting purposes as well. With all of this going for it, Flutter Mane has very few reliable defensive checks and counters, oftentimes forcing teams to go well out of their way to be universally prepared for it.

Couple all of this with Protosynthesis, which can boost its highest stat by 50% at the expense of an item slot or Sun support without any further restriction, many believe that Flutter Mane's offensive profile is that of an Uber rather than an OU mainstay. This is not even mentioning the fact that Terastallizing with Flutter Mane can bolster its power even further, which you do encounter on occasion. This allows for the limitation of offensive counterplay as you can change typing to diminish the revenge killing capabilities of certain priority, too. While it is true there is counterplay that exists in the metagame, it can require going well out of the normal realm of Pokemon you would see and is still more limited than some may deem comfortable for varied teambuilding to be deemed a possibility.

Here are some posts on the topic of Flutter Mane:
:Houndstone: Houndstone :Houndstone:

When it comes to Houndstone, it looks like a fairly pedestrian Pokemon that would not even grace the OU viability rankings, let alone be a part of the initial wave of bans, which tend to be reserved for blatantly overpowered and misplaced Pokemon. Then, more information about its signature move, Last Respects, came out. This is a move that grows stronger for each fainted party member by 50bp while it also starts at 50bp, so if your Houndstone is the last Pokemon standing, it has an unprecedented 300 BP STAB move. Even if a few Pokemon are left, it can still have a 200 or 250 BP STAB move as well. This is unmanageable unless you run a Normal type as even normal resists can get decimated by the raw power. While Houndstone does lack many other great qualities, it has decent enough bulk and access to Sand Rush, which makes it an absolute monster on Sand teams later in games.

As time elapsed, we began seeing Sand teams dedicated to abusing Houndstone's offensive presence, even utilizing moves like Memento on occasion to dispatch of teammates after they did their part, which made Last Respects stronger. Be it through this or other means of natural game progression, late game Houndstone made counterplay very black-and-white. You either had a normal type or had to resort specifically to having a way to revenge killing it in Sand after it gets its initial kill. This dynamic warps gameplay and dwarfs the amount of possibilities in the teambuilder, which makes having a competitive and versatile metagame an impossibility. Given this, we have unanimously voted to ban Houndstone from SV OU.

Why Houndstone over Last Respects?

This is a great question that turned into a cause for a good amount of internal debate, so I just wanted to be fully transparent on this matter.

Right now, Houndstone is the only legal Pokemon with Last Respects. You cannot alienate a singular move as being banworthy if only a single Pokemon learns it; the necessary burden of proof for banning a move would be it directly causing multiple Pokemon to be banworthy. Upon the release of Pokemon Home, another Pokemon is speculated to gain access to Last Respects while also potentially being strong. If this is true, it is very plausible that we can look into an outcome where Last Respects is banned from OU as a move so that both Pokemon are allowed, thus minimizing collateral. For now, we have to keep the ban at just Houndstone after talking with tiering administration.

Here are some posts on the topic of Houndstone:
Full vote results below:

Flutter ManeHoundstoneChien-PaoPalafinRoaring MoonIron ValiantCyclizar
ausmaBanBanDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not ban
FinchinatorBanBanDo not banBanDo not banDo not banBan
FlamingVictiniBanBanDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not ban
imaBanBanDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not ban
Ox the FoxBanBanDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not ban
RuftBanBanDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not ban
StarBanBanDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not banBan
talahBanBanDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not banBan
TPPBanBanDo not banDo not banDo not banDo not banBan
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top