Monotype Suspect: Hoopa-Unbound (again)

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I've compiled some valid reasons coming from both sides, partly to help decide which way to vote if I ever get reqs, and since a lot of people seem unsure just how to vote yet.

Ban reasoning
- Although arguably not broken on Dark, Hoopa-U is arguably broken on Psychic, as it isn't needed to check Fighting-types with a Choice Scarf and its teammates provide it the flexibility to use more powerful sets, such as Life Orb, Choice Band, and Choice Specs, the last of which has basically zero switch-ins. The lack of switch-ins sets Hoopa-U apart from other wallbreakers like Landorus-I, Mega Medicham, Mega Gardevoir, etc, which have switch-ins, as few as they may be. Possibly one of the few Pokemon that have zero switch-ins, Hoopa-U presents an unhealthy metagame element, making certain matches "brainless", an example being Psychic vs. Psychic. This violates the 2nd rule in the Monotype tiering philosophy, which wishes to ban "elements of the metagame that are broken, uncompetitive, or unhealthy".
- Regardless of which type Hoopa-U is on, it needs to removed because it is broken by itself, not just because it has great team support on Psychic.
- Even if Hoopa-U's ban would poorly affect Dark, if it is broken on Psychic, it should be banned regardless. As we saw with Shaymin-S and Kyurem-W, "broken" Pokemon should not be allowed to stay in order to help out a certain type.
- Psychic provides it teammates that can patch up Hoopa-U's weaknesses. An example is Slowbro, who takes on several Pokemon that are typically used to revenge kill Hoopa-U, like Landorus-T.
- Even IF Hoopa-U is predictable or not, the Choice Specs set is still as dangerous as ever. Even if, say, every single Hoopa-U ran Choice Specs, it still would be dangerous as ever. That's because that set has zero switch-ins; no matter the set, most teams' answer to it will be a quick physical Pokemon. You can predict the set on Dark easily and on Psychic for the most part, but that doesn't detract from how dangerous Hoopa-U is.
- Hoopa-U is extremely difficult to counterplay against, possibly the most difficult in the whole current meta.

Do Not Ban reasoning
- Banning Hoopa-U will have an adverse effect on the metagame overall. Although it weakens Psychic, it makes Dark even more weak to Fighting Monotype and Fighting-types in general. Mega Sableye's ban was done primarily to help improve lower tiered types, which, for the most part, were forced to run suboptimal sets to check it. That ban was made while considering other types that would be affected, so shouldn't Hoopa-U's ban's effect on Dark be considered too?
- Most types do not specifically need to consider Hoopa-U when teambuilding unlike previous bans, like Mega Sableye. Although it is impossible to switch into, it is easy to revenge kill because of its poor physical bulk. Unless it's some sort of stall team, most teams would naturally have a way to revenge kill it, due to its base 80 Speed. Most Psychic, Flying, Water, Bug, Dragon, Normal, Ground, Dark, Fairy, Fire, Grass, and Rock teams can revenge kill it (while Poison can pursuit trap it or just pull out a Scolipede). Yes, Hoopa-U is one of the most powerful Pokemon out there, but after nabbing a KO, the opponent can scare it out and set up or land a good hit. If we ONLY look at Hoopa-U's power, of course it would be seen as broken.
- In Monotype, where disadvantages from team preview are even more evident, teams need to be able to utilize counterplay. Not having a reliable switch-in for something isn't an element that Hoopa-U alone brings.

~
I think a lot of people, like me, aren't too sure how to vote just yet since both sides have pretty solid points. If I had to vote now, I'd go for a ban. No matter how you spin it, the Choice Specs still has zero safe switch-ins out there, and being on Psychic makes it even more dangerous (not because Psychic is super popular rn, but because it supports it well). The point of counterplay being inevitable (Mega Camel v. Steel, Excadrill v. Rock, Kyu-B v. Flying, etc) and accentuated in Monotype was brought up. This is probably one of the more valid DNB points imo. Although I'd still vote for a ban because Hoopa-U forces you to work around it once it gets switched in on the right Pokemon in nearly every matchup. I don't think any single wallbreaker (other than maybe Landorus-I) does that except Hoopa-U. IMO The real weak points would be probably against the types that are prominently offensive, like Fire, Dragon, and Fighting, but Psychic has a good matchup with all three except Fire (unless you use [mega] Lati@s).
 

Wanka

is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
UUPL Champion
Hello everyone. After some grueling ladder adventures, I am here to give what smogonites call "my 2 cents."

After I finish I generally like to reflect on a few things about the meta without said mon in it and my thoughts generally dictate my vote.

Metagame Trends: As far as which types getting more usage than others, I didn't really notice that much of a difference as The big 3 still got its usual heavy dose of usage (Psy, water, flying). The only real type that I've noticed hit the shitter is dark. I don't even think its because its necessarily a bad type because it isn't. I just think people that don't generally use dark a lot are in a way scared to use it now because mega sab made it such a skilless type to use and I guess people don't want to put in the effort to have to actually think about what they want to use when building dark. It's foolish to think that lower tier types are going to get a usage buff without hoopa. They were still floating around just as much as they usually would and they still performed the same. they struggle with flying more than they do with psy anyways so psy has no effect on them besides electric I guess but that matchup isn't hard with zard Y and d nite. But yeah the same builds were getting spammed as well. Same lower and mid tier balance cores, same balance and SS water cores, same flying cores, same fucking everything. There has been no change in teambuilding outside of psy teams not being able to use hoopa, literally none.

Has Teambuilding become easier without said mon? As I said, the same common cores on types were still getting used even without hoopa. It's not like without hoopa there's been this magical spark of creativity in teambuilding. The same damn cores that got used with hoopa still got used without it. The whole "yay I get to be creative now" is a wad of shit because the same stuff that was good with hoopa is still getting used.

So yeah those are the two things that I like to think about when I'm done and while tht does play a part in my vote, I still like to take a look at the mon itself.

Is hoopa uncompetative?

Based on my comparisons between the meta with and without hoopa, no its not uncompetative / broken. I actually think It's good to have in the meta. The less balance breakers we have, the more types that thrive with backbones will just dominate the meta because they now have one less threat to worry about when playing. The meta as a whole becomes more and more skilless to play in because balance becomes so easy to use and a mindset of "lol why wouldn't I use skarmdos, balance water, the evio core, the grass core etc. because I'm putting myself at a disadvantage If im not." I don't think that is a healthy mindset to have and without hoopa it becomes stronger than it already is in this meta. It isn't hard to play around wall breakers if you take the time and actually focus on what you're doing. It's a matter of sheer laziness at this point from what I've been reading. All I've been reading is just constant bitching about how people still think it's difficult to figure out what hoopa is going to do to them and how hoopa is unwallable even though depending on it's set, it has similar amounts of checks as some of the tiers other premier wall breakers (lando I, mega medi, band lando T, band mamo, mega garde, zard Y, LO kyub, diggers) some less than others but it doesn't make it so hard enough to play around that we need to ban it. I don't even consider it to be the best all around wall breaker in the tier. I think mega medicham threatens the meta to a greater extent than hoopa does. Theres like 2 mons in the entire meta that can take on medi (doublade and sab). Besides those 2, there are no true counters to medi at all. It ohkos / 2hkos the entire fucking tier and it has priority to help it do better against offense. It isn't an insane help but it still really nice that it only needs 2 move slots to threaten the entire tier while the other 2 can help deal with offensive threats. That doesn't mean it's uncompetative. You need to play medichamp and hoopa well to get results out of them. When I think of an uncompetative mon I think of something like mega sab that is extremely easy to use and is hard to play recklessly with. Hoopa can be misplayed a lot easier than mega sab because it doesn't have a foolproof factor like sab does. Newer players would have a much easier time using and doing well with mega sab than they would with hoopa. Hoopa isn't a mon where solely having it at team preview puts you at an over the top advantage over an opponent. You actually have to have a brain to use hoopa unlike something like mega sab where I could teach a monkey to sit there and click set up moves to win. I just think we shouldn't be running away from things that have the ability to pick apart balance because it was already the most dominant archetype with hoopa and will become even more dominant in a meta without hoopa. If you think creativity is at an all time low with hoopa, just wait and see when you guys ban it. People are going to realize that the balance cores are going to be even better and thats all you're going to fucking see. At least people had to actually contemplate if they wanted to use balance builds in hoopa meta because thats how it fucking should be. It shouldn't be a brainless choice to use balance. The only damn "creativity" you guys will get is one mon changing on psy teams. Thats literally it. If it were something that is brainless and picks apart balance at the same time, then sure it would get the boot. But it is beyond silly to think that hoopa is a brainless mon to use.

Not going to do a tl dr because people actually need to analyze what im saying before they would just read a tl dr and throw pointless bullshit my way.

Setting myself up for it anyways by even trying to argue no ban but w/e. Lets see what you guys got. Soz for grammar if any I suck at mobile.
 
Hello everyone. After some grueling ladder adventures, I am here to give what smogonites call "my 2 cents."

After I finish I generally like to reflect on a few things about the meta without said mon in it and my thoughts generally dictate my vote.

Metagame Trends: As far as which types getting more usage than others, I didn't really notice that much of a difference as The big 3 still got its usual heavy dose of usage (Psy, water, flying). The only real type that I've noticed hit the shitter is dark. I don't even think its because its necessarily a bad type because it isn't. I just think people that don't generally use dark a lot are in a way scared to use it now because mega sab made it such a skilless type to use and I guess people don't want to put in the effort to have to actually think about what they want to use when building dark. It's foolish to think that lower tier types are going to get a usage buff without hoopa. They were still floating around just as much as they usually would and they still performed the same. they struggle with flying more than they do with psy anyways so psy has no effect on them besides electric I guess but that matchup isn't hard with zard Y and d nite. But yeah the same builds were getting spammed as well. Same lower and mid tier balance cores, same balance and SS water cores, same flying cores, same fucking everything. There has been no change in teambuilding outside of psy teams not being able to use hoopa, literally none.

Has Teambuilding become easier without said mon? As I said, the same common cores on types were still getting used even without hoopa. It's not like without hoopa there's been this magical spark of creativity in teambuilding. The same damn cores that got used with hoopa still got used without it. The whole "yay I get to be creative now" is a wad of shit because the same stuff that was good with hoopa is still getting used.

So yeah those are the two things that I like to think about when I'm done and while tht does play a part in my vote, I still like to take a look at the mon itself.

Is hoopa uncompetative?

Based on my comparisons between the meta with and without hoopa, no its not uncompetative / broken. I actually think It's good to have in the meta. The less balance breakers we have, the more types that thrive with backbones will just dominate the meta because they now have one less threat to worry about when playing. The meta as a whole becomes more and more skilless to play in because balance becomes so easy to use and a mindset of "lol why wouldn't I use skarmdos, balance water, the evio core, the grass core etc. because I'm putting myself at a disadvantage If im not." I don't think that is a healthy mindset to have and without hoopa it becomes stronger than it already is in this meta. It isn't hard to play around wall breakers if you take the time and actually focus on what you're doing. It's a matter of sheer laziness at this point from what I've been reading. All I've been reading is just constant bitching about how people still think it's difficult to figure out what hoopa is going to do to them and how hoopa is unwallable even though depending on it's set, it has similar amounts of checks as some of the tiers other premier wall breakers (lando I, mega medi, band lando T, band mamo, mega garde, zard Y, LO kyub, diggers) some less than others but it doesn't make it so hard enough to play around that we need to ban it. I don't even consider it to be the best all around wall breaker in the tier. I think mega medicham threatens the meta to a greater extent than hoopa does. Theres like 2 mons in the entire meta that can take on medi (doublade and sab). Besides those 2, there are no true counters to medi at all. It ohkos / 2hkos the entire fucking tier and it has priority to help it do better against offense. It isn't an insane help but it still really nice that it only needs 2 move slots to threaten the entire tier while the other 2 can help deal with offensive threats. That doesn't mean it's uncompetative. You need to play medichamp and hoopa well to get results out of them. When I think of an uncompetative mon I think of something like mega sab that is extremely easy to use and is hard to play recklessly with. Hoopa can be misplayed a lot easier than mega sab because it doesn't have a foolproof factor like sab does. Newer players would have a much easier time using and doing well with mega sab than they would with hoopa. Hoopa isn't a mon where solely having it at team preview puts you at an over the top advantage over an opponent. You actually have to have a brain to use hoopa unlike something like mega sab where I could teach a monkey to sit there and click set up moves to win. I just think we shouldn't be running away from things that have the ability to pick apart balance because it was already the most dominant archetype with hoopa and will become even more dominant in a meta without hoopa. If you think creativity is at an all time low with hoopa, just wait and see when you guys ban it. People are going to realize that the balance cores are going to be even better and thats all you're going to fucking see. At least people had to actually contemplate if they wanted to use balance builds in hoopa meta because thats how it fucking should be. It shouldn't be a brainless choice to use balance. The only damn "creativity" you guys will get is one mon changing on psy teams. Thats literally it. If it were something that is brainless and picks apart balance at the same time, then sure it would get the boot. But it is beyond silly to think that hoopa is a brainless mon to use.

Not going to do a tl dr because people actually need to analyze what im saying before they would just read a tl dr and throw pointless bullshit my way.

Setting myself up for it anyways by even trying to argue no ban but w/e. Lets see what you guys got. Soz for grammar if any I suck at mobile.
I'm pretty sick of discussing this to be honest, but I think you have something completely wrong when it comes to wallbreakers. I did the same for Lycan, but every other wallbreaker (barring banded Diggersby) has multiple checks. Here's a revisited list with additional counters (all can hard switch into them) for the other wallbreakers you mentioned.

Because I really don't want to argue anymore, here are the facts:

Mega Gardevoir has switch-ins. Chansey, Doublade, Jirachi, Mew, defensive Mega Scizor, etc. There are definitely switch-ins. All of these either have recovery or take such little damage that it's irrelevant.
Mega Heracross: Clefable, Gliscor, Doublade, defensive Landorus-T. All of these can technically switch into an attack and can cripple or damage Mega Heracross.
Mega Charizard Y: Politoed, Mega Latias, Latios, Dragonite, Chansey. All of these can easily switch into attacks and threaten Mega Charizard Y out.
Landorus: Mew, Mega Latias, Latios offensively can come in and attack / Roost later, Chansey, Depending on coverage: Zapdos is safe vs. no Rock Slide, Skarmory and Porygon2 are safe vs. no Focus Blast. Those that can switch into Landorus can immediately threaten it or use their various utility moves.

- (New additions) -

Mega Medicham: Doublade, physically defensive Sableye, and Slowbro are perfect counters. Gourgeist-Super almost always counters Jolly Mega Medicham. Defensive Landorus-T switches into Mega Medicham without Ice Punch, as does Mega Latias. Without Zen Headbutt or Psycho Cut, Mega Venusaur counters it, as does physically defensive Clefable.
Choice Band Landorus-T: Skarmory, Hippowdon, Porygon2 (Even if Eviolite is Knocked Off), Gliscor, Gourgeist-Super (Lets Landorus-T Knock Off one time, and then counters afterwards. Hardly a difficult feat when Mega Venusaur is a thing), physically defensive Rotom-W are all counters.
Choice Band Mamoswine: Skarmory, Mega Venusaur, Colbur Berry Slowbro (Which should be used for other reasons anyway. Don't need Colbur to beat non-Knock Off), Rotom-W can all beat it.
Life Orb Kyurem-B: Clefable, specially defensive Jirachi, Mew, Porygon2, Ferrothorn all counter it.

For all of these (I think?), some 4-6 types have a solid, viable counter to each of these wallbreakers. On the other hand, Hoopa-U lacks them entirely, as you can see no one in the past 77 posts has shown a proper wall that can always switch into it.

On a side note, this is exactly why people who try to compare Hoopa-U to Mega Sableye in terms of teambuilding don't think it's comparable. You cannot defensively defeat Hoopa-U through teambuilding. It's not that people don't try to use teambuilding to beat Hoopa-U, it's that they can't.

The definition of broken, as accepted, is relative and comparative. So if Hoopa-U is so much better than every other wallbreaker and has an impact no other wallbreaker can even come close to, what is the natural conclusion?

The point is not about improving diversity, nerfing Psychic, buffing balance, buffing stall, or easing teambuilding. The point is whether or not Hoopa-U is broken because, based on our tiering philosophy, if an element is broken, it should be banned no matter what.
 
I'm pretty sick of discussing this to be honest, but I think you have something completely wrong when it comes to wallbreakers. I did the same for Lycan, but every other wallbreaker (barring banded Diggersby) has multiple checks. Here's a revisited list with additional counters (all can hard switch into them) for the other wallbreakers you mentioned.

Because I really don't want to argue anymore, here are the facts:

Mega Gardevoir has switch-ins. Chansey, Doublade, Jirachi, Mew, defensive Mega Scizor, etc. There are definitely switch-ins. All of these either have recovery or take such little damage that it's irrelevant.
Mega Heracross: Clefable, Gliscor, Doublade, defensive Landorus-T. All of these can technically switch into an attack and can cripple or damage Mega Heracross.
Mega Charizard Y: Politoed, Mega Latias, Latios, Dragonite, Chansey. All of these can easily switch into attacks and threaten Mega Charizard Y out.
Landorus: Mew, Mega Latias, Latios offensively can come in and attack / Roost later, Chansey, Depending on coverage: Zapdos is safe vs. no Rock Slide, Skarmory and Porygon2 are safe vs. no Focus Blast. Those that can switch into Landorus can immediately threaten it or use their various utility moves.

- (New additions) -

Mega Medicham: Doublade, physically defensive Sableye, and Slowbro are perfect counters. Gourgeist-Super almost always counters Jolly Mega Medicham. Defensive Landorus-T switches into Mega Medicham without Ice Punch, as does Mega Latias. Without Zen Headbutt or Psycho Cut, Mega Venusaur counters it, as does physically defensive Clefable.
Choice Band Landorus-T: Skarmory, Hippowdon, Porygon2 (Even if Eviolite is Knocked Off), Gliscor, Gourgeist-Super (Lets Landorus-T Knock Off one time, and then counters afterwards. Hardly a difficult feat when Mega Venusaur is a thing), physically defensive Rotom-W are all counters.
Choice Band Mamoswine: Skarmory, Mega Venusaur, Colbur Berry Slowbro (Which should be used for other reasons anyway. Don't need Colbur to beat non-Knock Off), Rotom-W can all beat it.
Life Orb Kyurem-B: Clefable, specially defensive Jirachi, Mew, Porygon2, Ferrothorn all counter it.

For all of these (I think?), some 4-6 types have a solid, viable counter to each of these wallbreakers. On the other hand, Hoopa-U lacks them entirely, as you can see no one in the past 77 posts has shown a proper wall that can always switch into it.

On a side note, this is exactly why people who try to compare Hoopa-U to Mega Sableye in terms of teambuilding don't think it's comparable. You cannot defensively defeat Hoopa-U through teambuilding. It's not that people don't try to use teambuilding to beat Hoopa-U, it's that they can't.

The definition of broken, as accepted, is relative and comparative. So if Hoopa-U is so much better than every other wallbreaker and has an impact no other wallbreaker can even come close to, what is the natural conclusion?

The point is not about improving diversity, nerfing Psychic, buffing balance, buffing stall, or easing teambuilding. The point is whether or not Hoopa-U is broken because, based on our tiering philosophy, if an element is broken, it should be banned no matter what.
Mega Gardevoir: Chansey, Doublade, Jirachi, Mew, defensive Mega Scizor,
Chansey is beaten by taunt or calm mind, same with mew. Doublade, Jirachi and Scizor get will o wisped, not to mention hp fire can KO scizor as well. Lastly, these pokemon are only found on Normal, Psychic, Steel. Ghost and Bug, which means no other type has any switchins. How do they deal with Gardevoir then? Surely for those types, Gardevoir is an even better version of Hoopa since it has better speed and similar if not better bulk.

Mega Heracross: Clefable, Gliscor, Doublade, defensive Landorus-T. All of these can technically switch into an attack and can cripple or damage Mega Heracross.
All beaten by SD except Doublade. Only found on Fairy, Steel, Ghost, Flying and Ground (rarely). Has similar speed to Hoopa and far superior bulk.

Mega Charizard Y: Politoed, Mega Latias, Latios, Dragonite, Chansey. All of these can easily switch into attacks and threaten Mega Charizard Y out.
Politoed only beats this by virtue of rain, if Charizard comes in on Politoed then it doesnt count, also both fire and flying has easy switchins to Politoed. Counters found on Dragon, Psychic, and Normal. (Dragonite just switches in once if rocks aren't up, not really a good switchin).

Landorus: Mew, Mega Latias, Latios offensively can come in and attack / Roost later, Chansey, Depending on coverage: Zapdos is safe vs. no Rock Slide, Skarmory and Porygon2 are safe vs. no Focus Blast. Those that can switch into Landorus can immediately threaten it or use their various utility moves.

Calm Mind beats Mew etc. Others die to coverage as you already mentioned.

My point by doing this is that while a couple of types may have counters to these threats, they are coverage dependent and tbh it doesn't even matter if a couple types have counters. The vast majority do not have counters, so they deal with these threats through offensive pressure. The ONLY difference between Hoopa and the other wallbreakers is that Hoopa has no counters on any type, which means they must all deal with it through offensive pressure. However, its' poor bulk and speed means that this is very possible for every single type. For a type such as Water, it is easier to offensively check Hoopa than it is to check the likes of Mega Gardevoir, because it doesn't have switchins to either of them but Gardevoir is faster and therefore harder to revenge kill than Hoopa.

While there hasn't been a whole lot of time for the metagame to develop, the fact that teambuilding hasn't changed with Hoopa gone only serves to prove my point. Every team has to offensively check the likes of Gardevoir and Charizard anyway, so Hoopa just falls into the umbrella of revenge kill-able pokemon. The reason no one prepares specifically for Hoopa is because if you prepare for a faster wallbreaker such as Gardevoir, you automatically have prepared for Hoopa as well.
 

Wanka

is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
UUPL Champion
I mean yeah I even said that those mons obviously have more checks than hoopa does but If thats the lone calling card to ban it then it kinda upsets me because I think the actual effect on teambuilding and meta play outweigh that factor completely and there has been no positive change in the meta besides psy v psy. Balance becoming more dominant is a negative change and the enhanced mindset of "why wouldn't I use balance" is completely unhealthy. If there is no initiative to balance out archetypes then there is quite frankly a flaw in the philosophy because if we want to start becoming one with the other OT'S than we need to start making it a priority to balance them out because thats what everyone else fucking does and it is was more important than solely worrying about how many checks a mon has. The initiative to balance out archetypes would for sure outweigh any set fact of "this mon has less answers than everything else so its fucked." Well tbch, that mon holds this meta together and makes people actually have to use their brain when they play and build, which is a good thing not a bad thing.

Now I get it, mono is a meta where balance is probably going to be the best archetype no matter what. But this meta has been the closest its ever been to evening out the archetypes with hoopa in the tier and banning it would just unbalance that notion.

Again I'm actually pretty upset that you are willing to throw those aspects out the window because those aspects are extremely important to a meta.
 
I think what Wanka was saying was extremely well thought out, and straight to the point. He made a great argument about Balance, which caught my eye especially, and was something I truely didn't think about. What's so fun about seeing balanced cores everywhere you go? (Now granted I'm exaggerating a little, but you get the point). The Balance Playstyle should not dictate how we decide on whether to ban or keep Hoopa. In fact, it's almost refreshing in a way to know that balanced is not always what you have to use (for example: majority of my builds are actually offensive), which is so nice about the game. Where's the fun gonba be at when Balance is the optimal playstyle, and that's what you have to do for all of your builds, or else your team won't do good? Just because as a wallbreaker, Hoopa has almost no switchins (on paper not to mention, it depends on what set and what coverage attacks you want to run), but can very very easily be offensively checked (which Lycan mentioned) does not mean Hoopa is broken. I agree with Wanka that that's laziness. It's proven to be very checkable, so why are we complaining?
 

truedrew

Banned deucer.
Speaking from a normal players perspective dealing with hoopa - u is not that bad especially since scarf is the uncommon set (yay!!) and sub hoopa has a tough time coming in vs normal as all the mons can smack hoopa very hard. Raptor can almost 0hko 81% of the times with rocks on the field (no investment raptor) chansey can 3hko with good seismic toss playing (honestly not that hard learn to play a bit aggressive in the psychic matchup as your main issue is mega medi + mew anyways to begin with) p2 has foul play which merks any hoopa set because yeah it has a fucking large attack stat (0 Atk Porygon2 Foul Play vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hoopa Unbound: 128-151 (42.5 - 50.1%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock this is at 0 iv minus nature..) and lastly hoopa cannot really switch into your mega of choice and the other offensive mons that normal can use (diggersby and meloetta or ure doing it wrong) the only "switch" it gets is vs ditto but even then it depends on which mon ditto has transformed to or if your team does not run ditto but more offensive like porygon z or something then hoopa is further pressured. Hence it can be said no hoopa does not really annoy normal just get good at playing normal as an offensive bulky type it's not your fat stall if you want that PM Thimo.

Secondly, i really think that what Wanka said about the balance in ORAS and how monotype in general is focused on more defensive builds speaks leagues into the insight that most posts on this thread lack when saying ban hoopa u. What people are doing is literally jumping the bandwagon and just going with the brash mindset that OMG PLAYER X I KNOW SAID BAN IT SO SHALL I!!!!! after reading most of the pro ban arguments i must say i am again seeing something similar to the ou aegislash suspect thread which was a bunch of nincompoops spamming the same fucking argument again and again. Granted a second suspect means arguments will be stale, but that applies for the no ban as well and as of this post all i can say is that pro ban has to up their game. Look at the lovely stats viewer scpinion put time and effort into making so that the mono community can grow and have more in depth discussions. Look at meta shifts in types, give details for your main type and how you feel about Hoopa, don't go off spouting things for the heck of speaking it deters people with potentially brilliant ideas from posting in the fear that they might get bandwaggoned by hate due to stupid posters regurgitating things.

Lastly, Hoopa is not that bad honestly i have to say that it is Mew and Mega Medicham that make it such a nuisance as they by themselves are broken for several reasons as The-Vale can attest to as well. Mew single handedly can destroy normal, fighting, rock, steel (get rid of tran), grass (im not sure about this tagging juleocesar for a better view point) dragon (barring hydregion) ground (barring toxic orb and lando i again not sure anyone proficient in ground please do tell) ice (again no weavile) just to begin with (this is standard will o roost taunt knock off mew with that ev spread which i won't mention because not sure to reveal!) and pair this with the fact that you can run something stupid like life orb mew which can shit on pretty much any type it chooses due to its ridiculous coverage + amazing all round stat distribution makes it very stupid for so many types. Now mega medicham in my opinion only does badly in 3 match ups: Ghost, sableye dark, psychic. Apart from these 3 it can always put in massive amounts of work as most types have nothing to reliably switch into this thing especially if its adamant tpunch (bye bye slowbro) and thus the pressure that these mons in conjunction with hoopa u which can run any set that the team requires means that many types apart from the best of the best are left confounded to even have effective counterplay vs psychic. Ergo people need to stop bitching about one pokemon and maybe open their eyes to the fact that hoopa is only as good as its team support (psychic is excellent dark is match up dependant Dream Eater Gengar has an amazing post highlighting the issues with hoopa on the first or second page of the thread cba finding it) and that instead of reusing stale arguments maybe spend a few minutes actually reading posts if
you genuinely care otherwise uh let the voters decide and pray to #harambe
Edit: if you really are lazy read this post for a good overview of the thread so far s/o SirSkit for taking time to read through brainless posts AND compiling them.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...opa-unbound-again.3578701/page-4#post-6938149
 
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Speaking from a normal players perspective dealing with hoopa - u is not that bad especially since scarf is the uncommon set (yay!!) and sub hoopa has a tough time coming in vs normal as all the mons can smack hoopa very hard. Raptor can almost 0hko 81% of the times with rocks on the field (no investment raptor) chansey can 3hko with good seismic toss playing (honestly not that hard learn to play a bit aggressive in the psychic matchup as your main issue is mega medi + mew anyways to begin with) p2 has foul play which merks any hoopa set because yeah it has a fucking large attack stat (0 Atk Porygon2 Foul Play vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hoopa Unbound: 128-151 (42.5 - 50.1%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock this is at 0 iv minus nature..) and lastly hoopa cannot really switch into your mega of choice and the other offensive mons that normal can use (diggersby and meloetta or ure doing it wrong) the only "switch" it gets is vs ditto but even then it depends on which mon ditto has transformed to or if your team does not run ditto but more offensive like porygon z or something then hoopa is further pressured. Hence it can be said no hoopa does not really annoy normal just get good at playing normal as an offensive bulky type it's not your fat stall if you want that PM Thimo.

Secondly, i really think that what Wanka said about the balance in ORAS and how monotype in general is focused on more defensive builds speaks leagues into the insight that most posts on this thread lack when saying ban hoopa u. What people are doing is literally jumping the bandwagon and just going with the brash mindset that OMG PLAYER X I KNOW SAID BAN IT SO SHALL I!!!!! after reading most of the pro ban arguments i must say i am again seeing something similar to the ou aegislash suspect thread which was a bunch of nincompoops spamming the same fucking argument again and again. Granted a second suspect means arguments will be stale, but that applies for the no ban as well and as of this post all i can say is that pro ban has to up their game. Look at the lovely stats viewer scpinion put time and effort into making so that the mono community can grow and have more in depth discussions. Look at meta shifts in types, give details for your main type and how you feel about Hoopa, don't go off spouting things for the heck of speaking it deters people with potentially brilliant ideas from posting in the fear that they might get bandwaggoned by hate due to stupid posters regurgitating things.

Lastly, Hoopa is not that bad honestly i have to say that it is Mew and Mega Medicham that make it such a nuisance as they by themselves are broken for several reasons as The-Vale can attest to as well. Mew single handedly can destroy normal, fighting, rock, steel (get rid of tran), grass (im not sure about this tagging juleocesar for a better view point) dragon (barring hydregion) ground (barring toxic orb and lando i again not sure anyone proficient in ground please do tell) ice (again no weavile) just to begin with (this is standard will o roost taunt knock off mew with that ev spread which i won't mention because not sure to reveal!) and pair this with the fact that you can run something stupid like life orb mew which can shit on pretty much any type it chooses due to its ridiculous coverage + amazing all round stat distribution makes it very stupid for so many types. Now mega medicham in my opinion only does badly in 3 match ups: Ghost, sableye dark, psychic. Apart from these 3 it can always put in massive amounts of work as most types have nothing to reliably switch into this thing especially if its adamant tpunch (bye bye slowbro) and thus the pressure that these mons in conjunction with hoopa u which can run any set that the team requires means that many types apart from the best of the best are left confounded to even have effective counterplay vs psychic. Ergo people need to stop bitching about one pokemon and maybe open their eyes to the fact that hoopa is only as good as its team support (psychic is excellent dark is match up dependant Dream Eater Gengar has an amazing post highlighting the issues with hoopa on the first or second page of the thread cba finding it) and that instead of reusing stale arguments maybe spend a few minutes actually reading posts if
you genuinely care otherwise fuck it fam this is a simulator for a children's game that shouldn't be hurting your e-dicks/pussies so much so that you literally try and humiliate people by "calling them out" go outside and play pokemon GO! it will help you get fit and maybe just maybe won't result in you getting diabetes.
While I do agree with you I just want you to keep in mind that you should keep Type Bias out of the picture. When a huge suspect is going on, you need to make an intelligent and educated decision based on the metagame entirely, not because your type can or can't (you may as well rule out can't though because every type bar ghost can run something that naturally already checks it) do much to it.

Also don't stoop down to an immature level, that only makes the other side offended and have a reason to call you out (I'm mostly reffering to the last bolder portion of your post).
 

truedrew

Banned deucer.
While I do agree with you I just want you to keep in mind that you should keep Type Bias out of the picture. When a huge suspect is going on, you need to make an intelligent and educated decision based on the metagame entirely, not because your type can or can't (you may as well rule out can't though because every type bar ghost can run something that naturally already checks it) do much to it.

Also don't stoop down to an immature level, that only makes the other side offended and have a reason to call you out (I'm mostly reffering to you giving a couple names/the last bolder portion of your post).
edited the last part was kinda outta line and about type bias lets be real only like a few types have natural checks to mega medicham and yes i am obviously going to sound biased when pointing out threats to normal and other types but eh thats unavoidable since im only known for a mean normal team. and only name that might offend said name is thimo but he doesn't care so yeah.
 
As drew said yes hoopa isnt the main thing that damages normal however in my opinion its an added thing to deal with on top of Medi and Mew normals core, I have previously postedmy views on mew. Ground doesnt mind Mew much intellegent play with exca and Garchomp tends to overwhelm mew, there is also Megarupt who forces out mew. Though Hoopa-u generally lacks switch ins especially when combined with mega medi, i struggle to think of a single type that can actually stand up to that amount of pressure. While that isnt Hoopa alone, its a huge part of that core. Denting as it can before ultimately the offensive pressure gets the better of it but by that time it has gotten 2+ kills. And im sure some people will again say about how we should look at the mon alone and not its team support however my counter to that will be aegislash, if you look at aegi without how it fits onto steel you wouldnt view it as that much of an overwhelming presence but its mostly banned due to its immunity core within steel.
 
I think what Wanka was saying was extremely well thought out, and straight to the point. He made a great argument about Balance, which caught my eye especially, and was something I truely didn't think about. What's so fun about seeing balanced cores everywhere you go? (Now granted I'm exaggerating a little, but you get the point). The Balance Playstyle should not dictate how we decide on whether to ban or keep Hoopa. In fact, it's almost refreshing in a way to know that balanced is not always what you have to use (for example: majority of my builds are actually offensive), which is so nice about the game. Where's the fun gonba be at when Balance is the optimal playstyle, and that's what you have to do for all of your builds, or else your team won't do good? Just because as a wallbreaker, Hoopa has almost no switchins (on paper not to mention, it depends on what set and what coverage attacks you want to run), but can very very easily be offensively checked (which Lycan mentioned) does not mean Hoopa is broken. I agree with Wanka that that's laziness. It's proven to be very checkable, so why are we complaining?
Ok so this post troubled me a bit while reading. While I do agree with you that no archetype should rule over the metagame alone I think this is not what you should base your argument on when it comes to monotype. We all know that many types have no choice but to run a certain archetype such as fighting going HO or normal going balance/semistall. What do the types that cannot run offense do vs Hoopa? Sit there and enjoy getting destroyed? Like let's pretend that Hoopa did not have that part dark type, how would a type like ghost check it offensively when your only viable archetype is balance and your only offense is mainly special attackers? How can electric beat Hoopa when the only viable archetype is balance and it usually run 1 physical attacker? I think the archetype discussion is very weak when it comes to monotype. Some types just can't afford to check Hoopa offensively. (or any wallbreaker for that matter)

Edit: Those types were used purely as examples.
 
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Wanka

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Normal doesn't need to run balance or semi stall. Offensive norm builds are 100% viable. You are also making balance sound like stall. They don't just "sit there and get destroyed" if you are going to throw out blind claims than at least have something to back them up apart from a pointless scenario that will never happen in the meta. You cant use "pretend" scenarios to justify your thoughts. Back to these balance types "sitting there and getting destroyed." If that was actually how the meta worked than types like grass, poison, and electric wouldn't be good anti meta types. Oh wait, but they are good anti meta types. Yeah you need to be fairly experienced with the meta to do well with them but again, thats how it should be. So no, those types don't "sit there and get destroyed." They were still fine to use with hoopa and they will only get better and more brainless without it.
 

MZ

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So I've achieved reqs, and, while I don't think we can take week-old meta trends as an exact idea of what will happen if Hoopa is banned, I think there's a interesting lesson to be learned from the exclusion of Hoopa. I used Water balance that would've ostensibly really hated Hoopa. After all it can really hurt a Slowbro/Lanturn core. But, to my surprise, Hoopa's removal did absolutely nothing to buff this core. There were still plenty of mons I couldn't switch into and had to check offensively with my other mons, even on Psychic and Dark teams. Most every game I'd have something completely capable of destroying my balance core, just as I had something that could destroy my opponent's (except for that one troll using stall water and giving me winky faces). Even when I switched it up to use other types once or twice nothing was changed. It's a very common phrase in OU that "having no counters doesn't make you broken see: kyube, hydreigon, etc". While these may be different metagames, people could totally look at gen 5 OU as an example of uncounterable mons being acceptable.
Because I really don't want to argue anymore, here are the facts:

Mega Gardevoir has switch-ins. Chansey, Doublade, Jirachi, Mew, defensive Mega Scizor, etc. There are definitely switch-ins. All of these either have recovery or take such little damage that it's irrelevant.
Mega Heracross: Clefable, Gliscor, Doublade, defensive Landorus-T. All of these can technically switch into an attack and can cripple or damage Mega Heracross.
Mega Charizard Y: Politoed, Mega Latias, Latios, Dragonite, Chansey. All of these can easily switch into attacks and threaten Mega Charizard Y out.
Landorus: Mew, Mega Latias, Latios offensively can come in and attack / Roost later, Chansey, Depending on coverage: Zapdos is safe vs. no Rock Slide, Skarmory and Porygon2 are safe vs. no Focus Blast. Those that can switch into Landorus can immediately threaten it or use their various utility moves.

- (New additions) -

Mega Medicham: Doublade, physically defensive Sableye, and Slowbro are perfect counters. Gourgeist-Super almost always counters Jolly Mega Medicham. Defensive Landorus-T switches into Mega Medicham without Ice Punch, as does Mega Latias. Without Zen Headbutt or Psycho Cut, Mega Venusaur counters it, as does physically defensive Clefable.
Choice Band Landorus-T: Skarmory, Hippowdon, Porygon2 (Even if Eviolite is Knocked Off), Gliscor, Gourgeist-Super (Lets Landorus-T Knock Off one time, and then counters afterwards. Hardly a difficult feat when Mega Venusaur is a thing), physically defensive Rotom-W are all counters.
Choice Band Mamoswine: Skarmory, Mega Venusaur, Colbur Berry Slowbro (Which should be used for other reasons anyway. Don't need Colbur to beat non-Knock Off), Rotom-W can all beat it.
Life Orb Kyurem-B: Clefable, specially defensive Jirachi, Mew, Porygon2, Ferrothorn all counter it.
Sure, all of these types might have one check, and this might be relevant in proving that Hoopa is more dangerous than other breakers on paper, but I feel that isn't the point. In your average game it's really really easy to not be able to switch into an opposing wallbreaker, or to be able to barely check it with careful switching around one or two mons, perhaps winning a couple of 50/50s. Hoopa might have that quality versus more types than other mons but the clear downside is how much easier it is to check offensively. If I had used the same water balance team vs a specs Hoopa I'd have no problem being reliant on doubling into Keldeo, getting a psyshock/dark pulse 50/50 right, catching it with a twave, or anything else, because, in practice, that's not much different to needing to double around landorus incarnate or whatever else breaks my core. In practice you'll be facing something that can break your whole team that needs to be checked offensively so much that how many checks a mon has isn't really what we should be looking at. The question is more of does Hoopa force you to jump through too many hoops to check it, and do you have enough counterplay. In my opinion, yes. Absolutely.

Finally, I haven't even seen Hoopa be particularly overbearing in higher level play. In the recent OMPL there have been 15 "top level" monotype games pending the finals and Hoopa got 3 uses, twice never revealing a move or being useful in the match and once showing itself to be scarfed (I think, I sorta ran through them just to check for Hoopa). Counterteaming notwithstanding, you'd think that something that improves your matchup versus so many types and has absolutely no switchins might have a somewhat more dominating presence, although if anybody can prove me wrong with seasonal stats or the like then be my guest. I would be completely willing to vote ban on Hoopa, but if someone would have to convince me why it having no counters is actually a novel, different, or banworthy attribute, because I don't see a single type without what appears to be a reasonable amount of counterplay for a dangerous wallbreaker (although I accept that I have little knowledge of a few of the lower tier types and on paper ice seems to not have much but lol that's nothing new for it unless we're banning scizor).
 
Normal doesn't need to run balance or semi stall. Offensive norm builds are 100% viable. You are also making balance sound like stall. They don't just "sit there and get destroyed" if you are going to throw out blind claims than at least have something to back them up apart from a pointless scenario that will never happen in the meta. You cant use "pretend" scenarios to justify your thoughts. Back to these balance types "sitting there and getting destroyed." If that was actually how the meta worked than types like grass, poison, and electric wouldn't be good anti meta types. Oh wait, but they are good anti meta types. Yeah you need to be fairly experienced with the meta to do well with them but again, thats how it should be. So no, those types don't "sit there and get destroyed." They were still fine to use with hoopa and they will only get better and more brainless without it.
I didn't say offense normal isn't viable, but I think you can agree in most cases balance is the better archetype. And when I said getting destroyed I was clearly exaggerating, no need to take everything literal to express your opinion. My point was that Hoopa is superior to most of the other wallbreaker making it clearly a huge threat in the metagame because the metagame consists mainly of balanced teams, and don't tell me I am wrong at that.
 
scpinion said:
while a Choice Specs set, arguably the most threatening set, now accounts for ~15% of the usage.
Psyshock 7.541%
Source: http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-07/monotype/moveset/monotype-monopsychic-1760.txt

And only half of those (at most) are sets that can break physical walls too.

So we're having an argument over a choiced set that has <8% usage at high ladder on Psychic. Seems good. It is still absurdly powerful though.

Edit: After having some thought, I feel like the increase of choice specs came indirectly from the Sableye-Mega ban. (Sableye-Mega ban -> rise of Medicham-Mega -> Rise of Special Hoopa)
 
Whilst it is too late for me to influence the vote in any way, here are my opinions.
HoopaU is not necessary for Psychic to be a top tier type. If you want to replace it, there are 2 very good replacements: HoopaC for the Specs, LO and potentially Scarf sets, and for the Banded set, a mon I've been using recently and have had some fun with, Banded Metagross, who also improves the matchup against Psychic's worst matchup: Bug. If we only look at Hoopa's impact on Psychic, it should definitely be banned as Psychic doesn't lose much from it.

With Dark, I have less experience, but NVM, let's have a look. Dark has no shortage of Physical Wallbreakers with things like Bisharp, Mega Absol and Crawdaunt. On the Special Wallbreaker Side, there are significantly less, but still a few options for a special wallbreaker with Mega Houndoom and Hydreigon being the top choices. And finally looking at the Scarf set, there is one amazing replacement being Hydreigon, even being able to run mixed with options such as Head Smash and Superpower. However, you can only have 1 Hydreigon on your team meaning you have to choose between the best non-mega special Wallbreaker Dark has and the one of the best Scarfers Dark has. Another issue is that Dark doesn't have the best offensive checks to Fighting with Sableye and Mandibuzz being quite passive and Honchkrow, Spiritomb and Malamar, the only other Dark type mons which are neutral or better VS Fighting being very slow and relying on priority.

The two main reasons HoopaU should stay are that Dark doesn't have the best Fighting checks and that the best replacement for the Scarf set and the best non-Mega option for the Specs set are the same mon, but it can't run both.
If we ignored the arguments about Dark, it should undoubtedly be banned. However, the restrictions it puts on Dark teambuilding may bring people to the side of no-ban. It more or less comes down to whether you value the effect HoopaU has on Dark with it being hard to replace it as almost all Dark teams already have the best replacement to HoopaU already on the team and having a very limited and sub-par pool of offensive Fighting checks. However, the negative impact it has VS many types may swing it into the favour of the Ban side.

The main reason I chose not to attempt to ladder to get the Reqs was because I would've Abstained from the vote, as whilst I don't see a need for it on Psychic, I don't know how severe the negative impact the ban will have on Dark which could significantly reduce Dark's viability.
 
i feel like a lot of people are using the fact that specs isnt used a ton as a reason why it shouldnt be banned. just wanted to mention that usage doesnt have any effect on if a mon is broken. something can be rarely used and still be broken (see mega altaria on flying)
That is a good point, but that doesn't mean specs is broken. It's other 2 sets are just as viable, and they each have their respective downfalls, i.e. choice locked, LO recoil, loss of additional coverage attack, ect. Adding an additional set in the mix I don't think changes very much, I thinks it's very dependent on the coverage you run to fit the needs of your team.
 

Vid

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I made about an hour long video on Hoopa-U suspect and I address some points I couldn't in my post. Please watch the whole video since I talk about both side for at least 15 minutes in the video I hope you enjoy
(Also there are couple parts where audio isn't great but it only happens a couple times)
 
I made about an hour long video on Hoopa-U suspect and I address some points I couldn't in my post. Please watch the whole video since I talk about both side for at least 15 minutes in the video I hope you enjoy
(Also there are couple parts where audio isn't great but it only happens a couple times)
First off, I wanna give a huge thank you to you to putting the effort in to make this, he did not have to, but I got a lot out of it, its definitely worth a listen (at least until watching the first 30 minutes).

Anyways, there is something I did want to bring up regarding this, and why I personally would not change sides. First of all, he's very right in saying if its removed, the metagame barely changes, where apposed to Mega Sableye (even though I was against this ban as well), the effects were clear, and there was so much more variety (i.e. Mega Gardevoir is no longer the most used on psychic/Mega Medi/Latias get much more viability/usage, Dark teams now vary it isn't the same teams anymore with 3 very equally viable megas now lifted up, low tier types do not have to run very specific sets to check it, ect). With Hoopa, Psychic basically stays the same with Meloetta being arguably the best replacement, low tiered types as I mentioned (aside from Electric) were not very troubled by it as it was (so probably not a high rise in usage for any of them, Electric despite being threatened by it is still not the greatest type to use in the metagame, refer to the Ice vs. Mega Scizor comparison), there is nothing new besides the fact that a wallbreaker is lost, and Dark's viability drops big time (it would pretty much now lose indefinitely to fighting, fairy, water arguably, and electric), which I don't see the benefit in if there's barely any pluses and a huge minus.

There is one more thing I think should be brought up that hasn't really been mentioned, remember this is a game, games are supposed to be fun. As silly as that sounds, to me at least this applies to Hoopa. On Psychic the options are endless for what to run, it can often create some really cool team building ideas (which I believe in retrospect promotes diversity). I think in the metagame it is great to see different teams, not just the same ones all the time--it is very refreshing to see different teams for different types, that are all near equal viability. You're not forced to run one team, one set of sets, ect, its a lot more fun to have freedom to build as you please, and it is just as viable and works (granted, logic should be put in the mix here, which is what separates most new players from experienced ones). Isn't it also a lot more mind boggling to think on your toes, if everything ran the same sets, it would be pretty boring wouldn't it? If you didn't have to think while playing the game, honestly, what would be the point of playing then? Granted, I am exaggerating a little, as there are a good pool of mons that can run a variety of viable of sets, but I want to stress that especially with Hoopa, to me that should not be a reason to vote ban, plain and simple.

It has no defensive counters, that is true, but it has almost endless offensive counters, which I think in turn should override that argument (which Vid did bring up briefly). There are so many common pokemon in our metagame that easily revenge kill it (you can argue that its defensive cores and switch in to most of its checks, but that's where you have to actually play! You can only theory mon so much when its actually different when doing it, it depends on how you and/your opponent perform in a match).

Granted, this is my personal opinion, and you can either take it, or leave it. This is how I feel about Hoopa, and I don't believe it warrants a ban, I think in turn the metagame would actually be considerably boring without it (and seriously, please don't make an argument about no fun, this is a game it is supposed to be fun to play in the first place).

Edit: One last thing I thought about last minute. Just because the Psychic core is good, does not mean it is broken! Again, if Hoopa was removed, its gonna be relatively the same with Meloetta arguably being the only difference. If the Psychic core was something like how, for example, Mega Zard X, Mega Sableye, and Mega Altaria had overcentralizing effects on the metagame (which in our case I believe it does not even get close to the degree these things did, whether I liked them around or not), then I probably would think differently, and so would a lot of other people I'd imagine.
 
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I'm never going to get the COIL I need to vote, so I'll just give my opinion here.

When I first found out that Hoopa-U was being suspected (again), the first thing that came into my head was 'why?'. I've read the reasoning for the suspect and to me it doesn't seem like a valid reason. Yes, Hoopa-U is powerful, and you'll see it on most Dark and Psychic teams, but in the end it comes down to one thing:

Is it broken?

A broken mon has no place in Monotype, or any metagame. I personally found Mega Sableye broken and that was banned, which has made everything in the metagame better (apart from Ghost teams). A Pokemon so uncompetitive shouldn't be in a competitive metagame, a Pokemon so offensively or defensively pressuring you either have to carefully play around or sack half your team off: that is a broken Pokemon.

But the question is, is Hoopa-Unbound a broken Pokemon?
No.

I believe that Hoopa-Unbound is not broken, and so should not be banned. I may be scared when I see one on team preview, but I don't add one Pokemon on my team to specially beat Hoopa-U. The precautions we had to take to beat Mega Sableye (I am going to compare to Mega Sableye here, because although they are nothing alike, it was also suspected and banned. By using the example of a banned Pokemon, we know what a Pokemon needs to be to be banned) are not there with Hoopa. It has got some crazy offensive stats, and matches up well to any team that's not mono-Bug, but there are so many things people forget about it. Its speed, its defense and its HP are all pretty bad. So many viable Pokemon outspeed it, and it dies so easily to priority. It has a 'meh' ability and goes down to any and every U-Turn.

I'm not going to write much more, but I feel that Hoopa-U should not be banned, even though it is one of my least favourite Pokemon and also one of the ugliest. In my opinion, Hoopa-Unbound has no reason to be banned and I hope it stays.
 
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I'm never going to get the COIL I need to vote, so I'll just give my opinion here.
I believe that Hoopa-Unbound is not broken, and so should not be banned. I may be scared when I see one on team preview, but I don't add one Pokemon on my team to specially beat Hoopa-U. The precautions we had to take to beat Mega Sableye (I am going to compare to Mega Sableye here, because although they are nothing alike, it was also suspected and banned. By using the example of a banned Pokemon, we know what a Pokemon needs to be to be banned) are not there with Hoopa. It has got some crazy offensive stats, and matches up well to any team that's not mono-Bug, but there are so many things people forget about it. Its speed, its defense and its HP are all pretty bad. So many viable Pokemon outspeed it, and it dies so easily to priority. It has a 'meh' ability and goes down to any and every U-Turn.

I'm not going to write much more, but I feel that Hoopa-U should not be banned, even though it is one of my least favourite Pokemon and also one of the ugliest. In my opinion, Hoopa-Unbound has no reason to be banned and I hope it stays.
Hoopa-U definitely isn't anywhere as restrictive toward team building as Mega Sableye was, but that doesn't really mean that it isn't broken. Most teams (other than the uncommon Stall) can check it by revenge killing it with a quicker physical attacker, and typically these quicker physical attackers already naturally fit onto a team. However, the Choice Specs set is so dangerous because it has the ability to 2HKO ANY slower wall, forcing you to sack something to get your revenge killer in safely. This is evident especially in the Psychic v. Psychic matchup, where it forces players to repeatedly sack Pokemon to get their U-Turn Victini in, but this is also the case in many other Psychic v. [not a primarily offensive build/type] matchups.

Another reason why those precautions that Mega Sableye forced in teambuilding just aren't there with Hoopa-U is because there doesn't seem to be any. Mega Sableye could be countered, even by the lower ladder types, an example being Poison Fang Nidoqueen for Poison, or Guts Luxray on Electric. With Hoopa-U, I don't see how any type that uses a balanced build could counter it; the main method is just sack something + revenge kill. I don't mean to claim that it will get a kill every single time that it comes in on the right Pokemon, as you can counterplay against it (double switching, etc), but I will say that it just puts much more strain on many matchups, in favor for Psychic.
 
Hoopa-U definitely isn't anywhere as restrictive toward team building as Mega Sableye was, but that doesn't really mean that it isn't broken. Most teams (other than the uncommon Stall) can check it by revenge killing it with a quicker physical attacker, and typically these quicker physical attackers already naturally fit onto a team. However, the Choice Specs set is so dangerous because it has the ability to 2HKO ANY slower wall, forcing you to sack something to get your revenge killer in safely. This is evident especially in the Psychic v. Psychic matchup, where it forces players to repeatedly sack Pokemon to get their U-Turn Victini in, but this is also the case in many other Psychic v. [not a primarily offensive build/type] matchups.

Another reason why those precautions that Mega Sableye forced in teambuilding just aren't there with Hoopa-U is because there doesn't seem to be any. Mega Sableye could be countered, even by the lower ladder types, an example being Poison Fang Nidoqueen for Poison, or Guts Luxray on Electric. With Hoopa-U, I don't see how any type that uses a balanced build could counter it; the main method is just sack something + revenge kill. I don't mean to claim that it will get a kill every single time that it comes in on the right Pokemon, as you can counterplay against it (double switching, etc), but I will say that it just puts much more strain on many matchups, in favor for Psychic.
I wanted to see your theory on whether Psychic with Hoopa does indeed strain certain macthups compared to without it, so I went onto the old Monotype website, and pulled up the old matchup tables (or at least as far as I could get). The first set of stats is from when it was most recently updated before we moved to the stats viewer (which unfortunately does not display macthup table stats)--this is the most like our current metagame, however Specs Hoopa-U has not been realised yet (it is only at about 1% usage). The 2nd set is the month before Hoopa was released, which was June 2015. The old table on the old website unfortunately went as far back as November 2015, so I had to resort to the new stats viewer which did have the sprite gallery at least archived (please note: this was the time where Bug was the most dominant type in the metagame, when Genesect was still around, and Smooth Rock was not yet banned, keep in mind that those could skew Psychic's stats a bit). Here's the screenshots I have for both:


March 2016 - the vertical column = how the types on the left side fair vs Psychic, the Horizontal is the other way around (how Psychic fairs against x type). These are 1630 weighed. I'll also include the March 2016 sprite gallery for comparison reasons.

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June 2015 Sprite Gallery - Unfortunately I could not manage to pull up the Matchup Tables for this date (the month before Hoopa's release), this was the best I was able to find.


Despite the metagames being very different, there are a few things I noticed that I'll bring attention to. Ironically enough, Steel's usage is actually higher in the March 2016 stats, it is #6 in usage compared to #7, with a 1.2% difference between them. Now granted, part of that could be that Genesect was still very dominant, Mega Sableye was not yet banned, and Ground was prevalent, however, it was interesting to see even with Hoopa around, Steel's usage rose by a considerable amount. As expected as well, Dark's usage was nowhere near as much as it is now, standing at 4.3% before Hoopa was introduced. Other than that, Hoopa did not affect much else once so ever. Some things, like Poison, has constantly had fluctuating usage, especially around that time, that should be something to disregard as that has little to do with Hoopa. Other types aside from external factors (like the Smooth Rock ban, Genesect Ban, ect) were not affected nearly as much as I thought they would. It is still pretty consistent with now.

The next thing I want to look at is the Matchup Table I managed to pull up. Again, I could not unfortunately find the stats for it for as early as June 2015, so I'm gonna try my best to compare it with the Sprite Gallery I found. Here Psychic has consistent advantages against everything in the metagame aside from dark (which it is only at a 5% disadvantage on paper). There are 3 types it critically harms, Grass, Ice, Rock, and Poison (which I'd like to personally shut that one down, Poison funny enough actually has the advantage against Psychic with Scolipede, [Scarf] Gengar, and a Psychic Absorber, most experienced players are aware of that as it is, so consider that inaccurate). Electric, Dragon (arguably because of Mega Gardevoir), Fighting, Fire, Ghost (which I hate to say should probably not be factored in as it is no longer viable), and Normal according the the table also have difficulty against Psychic, but not to the degree the former 4 were. In total, it has advantages against 8 types (not including Poison), which is just about half of the metagame. However, if you haven't noticed by scrolling through even older Sprite Galleries (still considering Bug was the most dominant type for a period of time), Psychic was, and is, still just as good. Therefore, from that, you can conclude removing Hoopa will barely affect anything, Psychic is just a naturally a great type to use. That in turn confirms that if it is banned, there will be essentially no additions to the metagame, but a huge subtraction in that Dark loses a considerable amount of viability.

In general, according to the stats, Hoopa does not directly strain types--Psychic in general has fantastic matchups against nearly all of the metagame. This also completely shuts down the argument that Psychic will be nerfed once Hoopa is removed, which from what it seems like will not be the case once so ever. I urge people voting to please think about the decision you are going to make; consider what's been happening with Hoopa gone during the suspect period, and how the trends we are having during this period will continue and not change (until Sun and Moon are released). It's gonna do more bad than it'll do good.
 
However, if you haven't noticed by scrolling through even older Sprite Galleries (still considering Bug was the most dominant type for a period of time), Psychic was, and is, still just as good. Therefore, from that, you can conclude removing Hoopa will barely affect anything, Psychic is just a naturally a great type to use. That in turn confirms that if it is banned, there will be essentially no additions to the metagame, but a huge subtraction in that Dark loses a considerable amount of viability.
I was going to bring up how Hoopa-U would affect its own types if it left, but I didn't have time and thought that there was no point (in the end the ban will come to the Hoopa itself, not how Psychic and Dark will be affected), but Dece1t pointed out (see quote) what I was going to say about Psychic: It will lose nothing. I've been laddering badly with a Psychic team (one less Dark type to deal with), and I've realized Psychic has so many viable offensive options to replace Hoopa-U (I've heard Meloetta is doing quite well at replacing it, although I prefer Choice Scarf Gardevoir) that it won't lose anything from the ban, should it happen.

Dark however, will be hit harder. Dark already lost a big defensive threat in Mega Sableye, and should Hoopa-U be banned, it will lose a big offensive threat. However, I feel that Dark will recover. Dark, like Psychic, has a lot of good offensive threats, and while they may not do their job as well as Hoopa-U does and it may lose a bit of viability as a type, it will not be hit incredibly hard (like Ghost was).

As I said at the start though, the ban will not come down to these things, but it is good to bring them up, and although I feel both Psychic will not lose too much and Dark won't be completely unviable, I still stand by my opinion that Hoopa-Unbound shouldn't be banned, and at this point it will take a lot to change my opinion.

EDIT: While laddering with the Hoopa-free Psychic team, I couldn't help but notice something about Dark teams. Out of the 45 or so battles I did, I fought just one Dark team, which adds up to about 2.2% (last month's usage was 4.9%), which shows that Dark teams are in a lot of trouble. Either that or it's just my luck. XD
 
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I wanted to see your theory on whether Psychic with Hoopa does indeed strain certain macthups compared to without it, so I went onto the old Monotype website, and pulled up the old matchup tables (or at least as far as I could get). The first set of stats is from when it was most recently updated before we moved to the stats viewer (which unfortunately does not display macthup table stats)--this is the most like our current metagame, however Specs Hoopa-U has not been realised yet (it is only at about 1% usage). The 2nd set is the month before Hoopa was released, which was June 2015. The old table on the old website unfortunately went as far back as November 2015, so I had to resort to the new stats viewer which did have the sprite gallery at least archived (please note: this was the time where Bug was the most dominant type in the metagame, when Genesect was still around, and Smooth Rock was not yet banned, keep in mind that those could skew Psychic's stats a bit). Here's the screenshots I have for both:


March 2016 - the vertical column = how the types on the left side fair vs Psychic, the Horizontal is the other way around (how Psychic fairs against x type). These are 1630 weighed. I'll also include the March 2016 sprite gallery for comparison reasons.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June 2015 Sprite Gallery - Unfortunately I could not manage to pull up the Matchup Tables for this date (the month before Hoopa's release), this was the best I was able to find.


Despite the metagames being very different, there are a few things I noticed that I'll bring attention to. Ironically enough, Steel's usage is actually higher in the March 2016 stats, it is #6 in usage compared to #7, with a 1.2% difference between them. Now granted, part of that could be that Genesect was still very dominant, Mega Sableye was not yet banned, and Ground was prevalent, however, it was interesting to see even with Hoopa around, Steel's usage rose by a considerable amount. As expected as well, Dark's usage was nowhere near as much as it is now, standing at 4.3% before Hoopa was introduced. Other than that, Hoopa did not affect much else once so ever. Some things, like Poison, has constantly had fluctuating usage, especially around that time, that should be something to disregard as that has little to do with Hoopa. Other types aside from external factors (like the Smooth Rock ban, Genesect Ban, ect) were not affected nearly as much as I thought they would. It is still pretty consistent with now.

The next thing I want to look at is the Matchup Table I managed to pull up. Again, I could not unfortunately find the stats for it for as early as June 2015, so I'm gonna try my best to compare it with the Sprite Gallery I found. Here Psychic has consistent advantages against everything in the metagame aside from dark (which it is only at a 5% disadvantage on paper). There are 3 types it critically harms, Grass, Ice, Rock, and Poison (which I'd like to personally shut that one down, Poison funny enough actually has the advantage against Psychic with Scolipede, [Scarf] Gengar, and a Psychic Absorber, most experienced players are aware of that as it is, so consider that inaccurate). Electric, Dragon (arguably because of Mega Gardevoir), Fighting, Fire, Ghost (which I hate to say should probably not be factored in as it is no longer viable), and Normal according the the table also have difficulty against Psychic, but not to the degree the former 4 were. In total, it has advantages against 8 types (not including Poison), which is just about half of the metagame. However, if you haven't noticed by scrolling through even older Sprite Galleries (still considering Bug was the most dominant type for a period of time), Psychic was, and is, still just as good. Therefore, from that, you can conclude removing Hoopa will barely affect anything, Psychic is just a naturally a great type to use. That in turn confirms that if it is banned, there will be essentially no additions to the metagame, but a huge subtraction in that Dark loses a considerable amount of viability.

In general, according to the stats, Hoopa does not directly strain types--Psychic in general has fantastic matchups against nearly all of the metagame. This also completely shuts down the argument that Psychic will be nerfed once Hoopa is removed, which from what it seems like will not be the case once so ever. I urge people voting to please think about the decision you are going to make; consider what's been happening with Hoopa gone during the suspect period, and how the trends we are having during this period will continue and not change (until Sun and Moon are released). It's gonna do more bad than it'll do good.
Hoopa-U's ban would slightly nerf Psychic, but I agree that it would likely remain a higher tier type. This suspect is not about nerfing Psychic nor promoting diversity though, and it never was. It's about whether or not [primarily Choice Specs] Hoopa-U is broken. It sucks, but even if Hoopa-U is important to Dark, if it is determined to be "broken" on Psychic, that reason trumps keeping it on Dark, imo. With Shaymin-S and Kyu-W, we decided we wouldn't keep powerful Pokemon just to help out lower used types, I don't see why that wouldn't apply here.

IDK, it just seems like this suspect is just turning into a big question of "Does Hoopa-U bring an unhealthy element to the meta, and/or is it broken? If so, should it be banned, or should we keep it in order to salvage Dark's viability?" ofc I might be wrong, but the second part of that question is overshadowing what voters REALLY need to be asking themselves. "Does Hoopa-U bring an unhealthy element to the meta, and/or is it broken?" If the answer to that question is a yes, it should be banned.
 
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