Announcement Mega Sableye (Sablenite) is now banned from National Dex UU

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The council held a vote, and as a result, Mega Sableye has been quickbanned.

Mega Sableye is extremely restricting when it comes to options for laying hazards, largely due to the majority of our viable hazard setters being passive and incapable of harming Mega Sableye in any way, thanks to Magic Bounce. We also completely lack any viable fairy type hazard setters, which doesn't help. This makes wearing down teams with a Mega Sableye considerably more difficult without comparatively niche rockers such as Skill Swap Mew, Terrakion, Nihilego, Nidoking, and even the occasional Druddigon - while the former four are definitely good Pokemon in their own right, rocks sets (outside of HO in Mew's case) are comparatively rare, as they prefer other sets.

Several of these struggle with Mega Sableye anyways, often being reliant on specific scenarios to beat Mega Sableye - while it can semi reliably beat it, Terrakion must Swords Dance on the switchin to beat Mega Sableye unwisped and thus still somewhat useful vs the rest of the team, Nidoking is heavily discouraged by the threat of Knock Off from Utillity Mega Sableye (especially considering losing Life Orb means it can no longer 2HKO Mega Sableye) and thus needs to Earth Power Mega Sableye as it switches in to beat it. Nihilego is probably the most reliable of the viable ones mentioned, but once it uses up the Power Herb, it has the potential to become a bit predictable as it struggles to touch Mega Sableye with anything other than Meteor Beam, which is a charge move, and thus allows the Mega Sableye user to pivot into a Meteor Beam sponge and go back the turn after relatively freely to stop rocks. Druddigon, of course, is not a viable Pokemon. Finally, even if they do succeed in getting rocks up, the Mega Sableye user can just Defog with something else and you're back to square one. This is made much more annoying by the fact the rockers listed do not have much longevity and can struggle to do it in the first place sometimes, so in the long run it's not likely to stay up even with these rockers.

Additionally, Mega Sableye is a threatening win condition with Calm Mind sets, utilising its singular weakness to fairy, rarity of strong physical attackers capable of breaking it, and extreme difficulty in inflicting status to limit it thanks to Magic Bounce, while still being a rather effective anti hazard mon. While Calm Mind is certainly not invincible (it's arguably not even the most effective Calm Minder right now), and has some quite viable checks, it was also a factor in it's constrictive nature on teambuilding, as we do not have many viable fairies and few, if any, physical wallbreakers get away without a burn.

It's not like Mega Sableye is a stall only Pokemon, either. Balance can more than adequately fit it as balance always loves good hazard control, and can either use it as a win condition with Calm Mind or stick with Utillity sets to ensure they can lead with it and block most hazard leads worry free, wall certain balance annoyances such as SubTox Aegislash, block Spores from Amoonguss without resorting to their own Amoonguss, and all manner of useful things for balance.

Ironically, despite being considered by many a stall mega, it is rather limiting for stall too. While blocking hazards is already a big advantage in most games, it becomes an insane advantage in stall vs stall games, where hazards are one of the main methods of chipping away at the other team, and as Mega Sableye is unrivalled at blocking hazards, a stall user with a Mega Sableye will always have the advantage over a stall user without one. Additionally, Calm Mind Mega Sableye is also dangerous for stall to deal with as well, as without a Sylveon, Umbreon or max spdef Mandibuzz (which has a 41% chance to be 2HKOd by status boosted +6 Hex after burn damage so make of that what you will), there is not much else other than secondary Poison effects from Muk-Alola or Poison Jabs stopping Mega Sableye reaching +6 and winning available to stall.

Overall, Mega Sableye's overwhelmingly restrictive presence and tendency to skew games in its favour, largely thanks to its incredible stranglehold over the hazard game, has merited a unanimous vote for a quickban from the council. If the recent survey is anything to go by then suspecting it would be a waste of everyone's time, as the largest slice of responses in favour of action being taken against it were in favour of a quickban.

252 SpA Sheer Force Nidoking Earth Power vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Sableye-Mega: 127-151 (41.9 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO - Nidoking can no longer 2HKO if Mega Sableye manages to Knock Nidoking
+6 0 SpA Sableye-Mega Hex (130 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Mandibuzz: 181-213 (42.7 - 50.3%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after burn damage

252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega on a critical hit: 174-207 (57.4 - 68.3%) -- approx. 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 195-231 (64.3 - 76.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO - two of our strongest physical wallbreakers are unable to OHKO and are thus Will-o-Wisped into uselessness.

Additionally, assuming nothing major shifts to make it more manageable (unlikely considering we're nowhere near a usage based tier shift), we will also initiate a Weavile suspect test soon (in about a week's time, give or take).

Here are the votes. We additionally voted on Melmetal, Aegislash and Slowking-Galar.

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Tagging Kris to implement Mega Sableye's ban on the ladder when they can. Thanks!
 
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