Announcement National Dex UU Suspect 11: Blackbird (Moltres-G Suspect)

[MudkipBeans]

Get it, cuz it's a black bird ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
​

Recently some council members and players brought up concerns of Moltres-G, leading up to the council voting on whether or not it should be suspected, alongside other potential suspects as well as future retests. The slate went as follows:

Faded was unavailable for the slate, but the outcome would not change with their vote on each topic. Drought was a debated topic for a while between the council, but came to the conclusion that the initial Drought ban reasoning still remains present in the current meta, as Venusuar and sun fueled Mega Houndoom are not practical to demand players to answer, and banning both of them is not as practical as keeping Drought banned. Expect a Thundurus-T test in the future tho.

We've also updated our samples for the test! You can check them out through this link.

Suspect Reasoning:

Moltres-G has been a terrifying sweeper the entire time it's in the tier. It's flagship set has always been it's Z Double Dance set, with Agility outspeeding the entire metagame after a boost, and +2 Z Hurricane with a potential Beserk boost is nearly unwallable. Recently, it's presence on screens teams highly contributed to a vote on Light Clay, thinking that with no screens, Moltres-G would become a lot less challenging for each team to handle. However, it's ability to diversify it's moveset has kept it relevant even versus it's best checks and keep them just a flinch away from breaking through them.

The most common check Moltres-G has is Nihilego, you resists Hurricane and is able to handle Fiery Wrath until your team is able to win game. However, Moltres-G has a plethora of ways around it. Power Gem does not OHKO from full against Moltres-G, and we've seen Charti Berry in the event Nihilego is Meteor Beam, which doesn't have the longevity it's Black Sludge set does. At +2, it only takes one flinch for Nihilego to crumple and Moltres-G potentially clean the entire team. It can even switch it's Z for Darkinium Z, since a +3 Dark Z will OHKO Nihilego, and Hurricane's accuracy turns it into a game of randomness to see if you can land all the Hurricanes required to sweep. Other common ways teams handle Moltres-G's sweeping sets are Zeraora and Mega Manectric, who come in on either attempted Nasty Plots or Agilitys and hit it back with their STAB. This is potentially exploitable for Moltres-G as well, as after an Agility, Fiery Wrath is still one flinch away from breaking through these answers, or they can die to Darkinium Z after a slight amount of chip. With all of these answers common on most teams however, Moltres-G has taken on some defensive Rest Talk sets to both handle Aegislash and sit on passive Toxic users such as Hippowdon or absorb sleep from Amoonguss. These sets excel at dismantling balance and other offensive sets either through Taunt, Nasty Plot or just it's sheer longevity being hard to break through. Sleep Talk's randomness contributes to it's uncompetitiveness as well, since it's ability to potentially call Foul Play on something like a Zeraora switch is very risky and impossible to predict.

Nonetheless, Moltres-G is not without fault, as it's sweeping sets sometimes fall short on damage if it finds the wrong matchup. Priority like Scizor's Bullet Punch, Mamoswine's Ice Shard and Aqua jets from Azumarill or Urshifu-R are able to cut a sweep short, but do not show up on all teams. Zeraora, Mega Manectric and Mega Altaria restrict defensive sets heavily as it doesn't want them switching in for free on either predicted Rests or a Bad Sleep Talk. Some have also cited it's Speed as slightly slow before an Agility, meaning a sweep can be cut short by calling it out while it attempts to boost. Lastly, the flinch not being guarenteed sometimes causes Moltres-G's damage to fall a bit short, with Hippowdon, Celesteela or Mega Steelix/Aggron being able to potentially land a Toxic or Leech Seed and try to stall it out. Mega Steelix/Aggron in particular can smack it hard with their Steel STAB as screens not being an option make Moltres-G take a signifcant amount of damage from it.

Suspect Test Information

• Reading this is mandatory to participate in the suspect test. The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 79 with at least 40 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 79 GXE, down to a minimum of 20 games at a GXE of 83. Also, needing more than 40 games to reach 79 GXE will suffice.

minimum games needed

• GXE	minimum games
  79	40
  79.2	39
  79.4	38
  79.6	37
  79.8	36
  80	35
  80.2	34
  80.4	33
  80.6	32
  80.8	31
  81	30
  81.2	29
  81.4	28
  81.6	27
  81.8	26
  82	25
  82.2	24
  82.4	23
  82.6	22
  82.8	21
  83	20

• You must use a fresh account that begins with the given prefix for this suspect test. That prefix is NDUUMG . For example, I could signup and qualify with the name NDUUMG MudkipBeans.
• You may not impersonate or mock another user with your account name. If there is any slight hesitation, you're probably better off picking a different name. We reserve the right to null your voting requisites if you are found impersonating or mocking another user with your account name. Moderator discretion will be applied.
• If you are found trying to manipulate voting requisites in any way, you will be met with a harsh infraction. Manipulating voting requisites ranges from faking your screenshot to asking another user to forfeit.
• The Pokemon that's being suspect tested, Moltres-G, will be allowed on the National Dex UU ladder for the next two weeks so that we can properly assess its position in the metagame.
• This suspect test will go on for two weeks. It will last until June 22nd at 11:59 PM GMT-4.

 

[MudkipBeans]

Locking this thread for 24 hours for everyone to gather their thoughts.

Happy laddering!

cope

 

[MudkipBeans]

Thread freed go ham.

 

[Runo]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, this is the first time I've participated in a suspect test. Do we need to use G-Molt on our teams or are we free to use our own?

 

[MagearnaTheBoss]

You can use any team you want that's allowed in NDUU, you just have to achieve the suspect requirements.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, this is the first time I've participated in a suspect test. Do we need to use G-Molt on our teams or are we free to use our own?

 

[Lupla]

The Flame of Despair

​

Goltres has been growing ever since the Glowking meta, slowly growing into its own thing and now becoming a ban worthy meta threat due to many aspects like absurd bulk, great offensive typing and many more trades. Im gonna go through how things really started and know why is Goltres here.

The Beginning
​

Moltres-Galar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Berserk
EVs: 252 HP / 156 SpD / 100 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Fiery Wrath
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

When everyone was looking for Glowking answers due to CM Sludge Bomb Scald crippling down the entire tier and making games luck based in terms of either you get burned/poisoned or not unless you ran specific answers, one of these was Resttalk Goltres, one of the hardest counters for Psychics in general and a great status absorber that threatened staples like Amoonguss, Zarude or Slowking. The Resttalk sets were great but had one major flaw which was solo Dark stab because in order to defeat Glowking, you had to use Nasty Plot and give up on Hurricane which made it pretty exploitable with common Dark resists like M-Altaria or Urshifu-RS and even mons it should beat like Krookodile or Buzzwole but even then it was a good wincon that was able to handle a lot of threats in one slot, you just needed to be careful with getting knocked or being forced to rest a lot.

The Hyper Offense Era ​

Variants of Double Dance

Moltres-Galar @ Flyinium Z / Weakness Policy / Sitrus Berry
Ability: Berserk
EVs: 80 HP / 252 SpA / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Agility
- Fiery Wrath
- Hurricane

Moltres-Galar @ Flyinium Z / Darkinium Z / Sitrus Berry
Ability: Berserk
EVs: 172 HP / 44 Def / 136 SpA / 156 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Fiery Wrath
- Hurricane
- Agility

When Hyper Offense started to raise with the easy screens and momentum granted by Regieleki, many mons became really busted and the main culprits of this raise were Celesteela and Goltres, these two were able to take the entire game by themselves much more easily than any other abuser (excluding the banned ones like Mew or Blaziken of course). Celesteela was believed to be the most opressive one as once the full setup was finished which wasn't hard at all because of the typing and bulk, it instantly won the game on that spot as Electrics like Zeraora or Rotom-Wash couldn't stop it because of the sheer bulk that Screens granted it, even when Light Clay got banned some people still believed Celes could be ban worthy because of the MBeam set but it didn't take off in the end. As for Goltres itself it was basically the same history but while Celes could potentially get the game stolen, Goltres couldn't be stopped at all unless you had a Diancie. The main downside was that it was harder for it to setup since it had to decide between speed for Scarf Mienshao or Zeraora and power for M-Altaria, SpDef Celesteela, etc. After Light Clay was gone this is where Goltres started to become a legitimate threat.

The Present Day
​

Moltres-Galar @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Berserk
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Hurricane
- Fiery Wrath
- Rest

Alongside all of the mentioned set variants, Goltres was still adapting to any change in the metagame and brought up the same terror as in SS UU but worse. Once the sets developed a raise on standard teams, even with stuff like Nihilego or Zeraora it all came down to guessing the correct variant and not being flinched by Fiery Wrath since some Goltres spreads were made to deal with these attempts while still keeping the pressure like being able to live Zeraora's Plasma Fists and win the game on the spot if there wasn't anything else to revenge it (which was mostly the case). If your Goltres check doesn't resist Hurricane then its gonna be murdered either late game or instantly, trying to handle Goltres defensively was not an option in most cases and even if you tried it with Nihilego or Rhyperior, you had to be healthy enough so that you won't rely on not getting flinched. At the end of the day not only the amount of checks to Goltres was limited but they also had to deal with a luck factor everytime in which the Goltres user benefits from to overwhelm the opposition. There's a lot that i could probably say but in my opinion, this mon deserves a BAN due to how people just have to take the bad matchup or come down to a game of luck in order to win agaisnt it.

 

[Arishem]

Following up on most of what was said above, I think it's time I post now on something that's been going around for a while

Galarian Moltres is broken

Lots of people have been catching onto it recently, and I think we've comfortably reached the point where this moment of tiering action has to be properly handled, this mon has since firmly established itself to be an overly restrictive presence with just about no consistent and reliable counterplay, and it's definitely not now that I won't be encouraging people to vote ban.

The problem isn't that we lack Galarian Moltres answers per say, they certainly exist to a plentiful degree, hence why we're only choosing to progress with this suspect 2.5 years into the metagame's development. Whether that would be offensive Pokemon such as Zeraora, Nihilego, and Primarina, or more defensive staples such as Rhyperior and Celesteela that can each take a hit and retaliate, multiple of which can be theoretically stacked on the same team. The problem of course lies in the fact that Galarian Moltres can easily wear down or outright flinch through most of them with minimal support required, Pokemon such as Zeraora and Mamoswine are good revenge killers on a free switch, but can struggle to play around Galarian Moltres's bulk at full HP, or worse, can easily fail as the Galarian Moltres user can just adapt simple things such as EV investment to play around these methods, while midground bulky Pokemon such as Nihilego and Celesteela are generally solid, but lose to a combination of flinches + being unable to sufficiently damage it depending on the circumstances.

Both sides are forced to play incredibly aggressive against it as a result, leading to these very uncomfortable 50/50's that most of the time, should be in favour of the Galarian Moltres user considering that it will realistically be able find its way to set up on something that it can beat or force out. We're already playing in a pretty hectic metagame with plenty of other controversial threats that also need to be accounted for in the exact same teambuilder, be it Scizor, Aegislash, Terrakion, or something else, which consequently brings me to this unfortunate dilemma in teambuilding where I feel that if I don't have one of these Pokemon AND manage to get it into position before it gauges setup, which it will, my team just insta-loses to Galarian Moltres or any of the threats afterwards. The fact that I even have to consider running a generally inferior Nihilego outside of this matchup in Diancie to avoid the risk of losing certainly attests to its unhealthiness.

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From here on out, I'll elaborate on this and go through the two sets that (for me) have personally pushed Galarian Moltres over the edge:

Moltres-Galar @ Custap Berry
Ability: Berserk
EVs: 240 HP / 76 Def / 16 SpA / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Fiery Wrath
- Taunt
- Hurricane / Agility

The first set is very slappable and potent on more offensive builds, and especially excels at removing the need for guessing games during late-game setup attempts that often plague most offensive variants with its attacking flexibility. The bulk investment in conjunction with Taunt allows it to easily setup on and overwhelm most slower Pokemon attempting to leave lasting marks with status, with Custap Berry being useful on this set for allowing Galarian Moltres to beat last-ditch priority users or faster threats depending on the circumstances after a Nasty Plot boost.

The set here proves how easily Galarian Moltres threatens to mess up most forms of counterplay without losing effectiveness against much else.

Moltres-Galar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Berserk
EVs: 248 HP / 216 Def / 16 SpD / 28 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Foul Play
- Taunt
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

The second set patches up a lot of the traditional downfalls with the RestTalk combo, keeping much of Galarian Moltres's annoyance factor as an absolutely immortal behemoth against defense, Foul Play prevents the likes of SD Scizor and DD Salamence from being able to setup, while Taunt prevents the likes of healing moves from bulkier Pokemon unable to hurt it otherwise, losing much of the set's passivity in essence.

This is an example of a set that gives Galarian Moltres the upper hand against most teams by improving its game-to-game consistency.

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Note that while Galarian Moltres does typically need a few turns to gain proper setup, I really don't find it hard to do currently. Its great bulk and Dark/Flying typing defensively means that it can easily force this against a plethora of common Pokemon in the tier, and often for free at that. The list of things that Galarian Moltres can set up on include metagame staples such as Aegislash, Amoonguss, Salamence, Rotom-Wash (If it's not Scarf Trick or TWave). Zarude, Tangrowth, Slowking, Hippowdon, Azelf, Skarmory, Galarian Slowbro, and many more depending on the user's gameplan. This, in combination with the few additional techs mentioned above that also need to be accounted for, lest they allow it to beat and subvert a majority of expected forms of counterplay used against it, makes for an absolute menace in both the teambuilder and in battle that would ultimately be better off banned rather than worried about. I don't intend on being overly critical with regards to how people should take certain opinions, but I genuinely hope for those willing to be cohesive enough to look past the simple arguments behind the "inconsistencies" of its extensive threat potential, focusing more on the volatile metagame impact that we should, for the better, come to terms with and elect to take proper responsibility and accountability behind.

As a whole, Galarian Moltres threatens to take games way too easily with too few options to reliably stop it, forces lots of unhealthy 50/50s as a result, and restricts the meta in a way that makes it unable to develop properly, it should be banned.

 

[Niadev]

Moltres-Galar has been banned!