Announcement NP - Get'cha Head In The Game: SV ND DOU Suspect Process 2 - Coaching

[big pichu]

Suspect Reasoning​

It is time for the second suspect test of National Dex Doubles. Based on the opinions of both the council and the community we have decided to suspect the move Coaching. Coaching has emerged as the target for this suspect following the Zygarde suspect test in September that saw Zygarde escape a ban. Since then blame for the state of the metagame fell upon Zamazenta-H, who was one of Zygarde’s major partners due to its exceptional stats and access to Coaching, among other support moves. The second community survey saw Zygarde again receive the most votes for a suspect and so the council decided against a Zamazenta-H suspect. In the meantime players have experimented further with the move Coaching. The number of Pokemon that commonly receive Coaching support from Zamazenta-H has expanded, including Kyurem-Black, Mega Salamence, Kingambit, Mega Metagross and Marshadow. Additionally some players have decided against using Zamazenta-H and instead opt for Zeraora as their Coaching user of choice for its higher speed and access to support moves such as Fake Out and Taunt as well as a powerful Gigavolt Havoc. The council has thus decided that due to there being multiple users and abusers of Coaching that the move itself should be suspected.

Currently, teams built around Coaching are dominating the metagame, making up the majority of teams in the later rounds of the ongoing swiss tournament. Coaching enables the myriad of bulky physical attackers in the metagame to boost their stats without using their own turn. They can then either use their turn to boost their stats further or use their newfound boost to go on the offence immediately. Coaching also has a number of favourable attributes, such as being able to boost through Protect and ignore redirection, that enable powerful sweepers to gain boosts with little opposition. The addition of the item Clear Amulet in Generation 9 also allows all attackers to be unbothered by Intimidate or Parting Shot, allowing them to maintain their boosts for longer. Counterplay to Coaching typically involves defeating the boosted Pokemon with strong special attacks or using Pokemon who can ignore their boosts, such as Marshadow and Urshifu. Flutter Mane is the primary special attacker in the format and threatens a majority of the top Coaching targets, forcing them to Terastallize or forfeit their boosts if they aren’t able to maintain speed control. Even so, Flutter Mane must be wary of Zamazenta-H’s Heavy Slam and Zeraora’s Gigavolt Havoc. Marshadow is able to turn the tables on Zamazenta-H and its boosted allies by stealing their stat boosts with Spectral Thief. Zygarde can attempt to thwart Marshadow with Tera Normal but risks taking a super effective Close Combat. Urshifu-R threatens many Coaching targets and is able to ignore Protect and defense boosts thanks to Surging Strikes and Unseen Fist. As usual, a 60% ban vote must be achieved in order to ban Coaching.

Suspect Test Information​

• Reading this is mandatory to participate in the suspect test. The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 80% GXE will suffice.

​

Requisites

GXE	minimum games
84	30
83.8	31
83.6	32
83.4	33
83.2	34
83	35
82.8	36
82.6	37
82.4	38
82.2	39
82	40
81.8	41
81.6	42
81.4	43
81.2	44
81	45
80.8	46
80.6	47
80.4	48
80.2	49
80	50

• You must use a fresh account that begins with the given prefix for this suspect test. That prefix is NDDZE. For example, I could signup and qualify with the name NDDZE big pichu.​
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here. If there is any doubt or hesitance when making the alt, just pick another name. There are infinite possibilities and we have had trouble for this repeatedly. If you wish to participate in the suspect, you should be able to exhibit decent enough judgement here. We will not be lenient.​
• We will be using the regular National Dex Doubles ladder for this suspect test. We will not be creating a new Suspect Ladder. At the beginning of every battle, there will be an announcement denoting the ongoing suspect with a link to this thread.​
• The element being tested, Coaching, will be allowed on the ladder.​
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.​
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.​
• We will be posting the voting identification thread immediately after this thread. Your voting requisites will be confirmed by a Council member or National Dex Doubles moderator, to which we will edit in confirmation. Please avoid playing more games before getting confirmed. You will be notified when you are confirmed by moderator edit.​
• The suspect test will begin at Tuesday, December 26th at 2PM PST (GMT -8) and go on for roughly 13 days, lasting until Sunday, January 7th at 6PM PST (GMT -8), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.​

 

[Smudge]

Speaking for myself, not as the leader or a council member.

I will be voting to ban Coaching, to alleviate the pressure in the teambuilder and in-game.

I currently do not enjoy the state of the metagame, and with new additions to movepools such as Metagross's Heavy Slam and Psychic Fangs, or new ways to use coaching such as defensive Drain Punch Urshifu as seen in the recent week of NDFL, a drastic change is needed to keep the metagame healthy. Zygarde is no longer the main target for this type of setup anymore.

I was on the Gholdengos during NDPL and found the meta basically unplayable then, and it had not yet devolved to what it is currently. bage1 (who built all my teams - and also wrote an excellent post on the state of the metagame) and I tried to break out of the coaching/setup spam structures multiple times without any success, leading to an abysmal record for the slot.

I expect that coaching being banned will open up the teambuilder for more interesting and creative team compositions, or at least clear a path forward to continue tiering the resulting metagame. We are very much at a standstill right now, and these setups are by definition broken. Interestingly enough, if you compare Coaching to Swagger, which we banned at the beginning of our format, Coaching may even be superior due to protection bypassing, no requirement for Fini or terrain conttol, and the increased bulk.

 

[squidheadss]

If coaching can get a doubles noob like me to top 10 on ladder it's probably a bit much...

 

[zee]

Coaching is by far one of the most effective and centralizing strategies in the tier. I used one of my old NDPL teams for the suspect test, which mind you was made before either DLC came out, and found myself getting easy wins just by leading Zeraora + AV Kingambit and spamming Coaching + late game priority. The ability to build up an offensive and defensive behemoth and support it throughout the game is made easy thanks to the plentiful amount of Fake Out, redirection, speed control, and damage reduction options present. I think it is one of the best, if not the single best strategy you can build around in this tier and I will be voting to ban it. Zeraora and Zamazenta are both effective coaching users for different reasons, with Zeraora's Z Move set being my favorite instance of offensive utility in the tier, while Zamazenta is pretty impossible to remove without a strong super effective hit. Zygarde, Mega Metagross, Marshadow, Kingambit, Urshifu, Salamence, and Kyurem-B were all pokemon I either abused myself or saw paired with Coaching on the ladder during my run. With two prominent coaching users and the myriad coaching recipients all being so strong, I think banning the move itself is a common sense decision.

 

[Kin+ak (✧∇✧)]

Ill be voting to ban coaching because it's a way of nerfing zygarde (I wouldve voted ban If i had time to do the zygarde sus) and to an extent kyublack. Not that they are a problem for me, i play tr and it's fine to kill em with tera norm facade Ursaluna But it's dam restricting and I know i Cant play any Other archetype because of tha wolf that got a whistle from masuda's logic and rlly the tier is recent and it's Normal and logic that bans are being needed

 

[YoBuddy]

Based on what I've seen in this thread and in Discord Coaching is extremely likely to be banned and I agree with this stance. I've generally been more anti-ban than the community throughout the history of this tier and while I do enjoy the Coaching metagame the move is too powerful and versatile to be reasonably allowed in the tier any further.

Coaching is dominating the metagame, particularly at tournament level where games are more likely than not to include at least one Coaching user. While I do think there is counterplay to Coaching and not every team needs to run Coaching the fact remains that Coaching's power and versatility eclipses the other options in the format which has led to the current metagame.

Coaching has a number of potent attributes that alongside the numerous highly viable Pokemon that benefit from it. Being able to boost through Protect allows many threats to develop in complete safety and the newly introduced item, Clear Amulet, makes it very difficult for opponents to remove these boosts. At least in other metagames players are able to use spread moves to bypass redirection or Intimidate most physical threats. Additionally players can forgo Protect and immediately attack because the top two Coaching users are the fastest viable Pokemon in the metagame, allowing you to use Coaching + a strong attacking move to threaten KOs with boosted moves from turn 1. The defense boost from Coaching additionally allows physical attackers to circumvent their counterplay by surviving attacks that would otherwise KO them. Rillaboom is one of the most common Zygarde checks in the format, however after a Coaching defense boost Rillaboom is unable to threaten Zygarde enough to keep its partner safe from it.

 

[Frixel]

Coaching: Ban

Coaching is an extremely funny button to press as long as you're the one pressing it and not your opponent. I won't go very in depth as I think most points are already in this thread and bagel's post smudge mentions.

I'm also eye to eye with YoBuddy on this:

while I do enjoy the Coaching metagame the move is too powerful and versatile to be reasonably allowed in the tier any further.

(among others)
Any of these pokemon reaches absurd damages output at +1 ( might need +2, but more onto him later) and, as already stated in this thread, coaching is also useful by raising these pokemons defenses and making them harder to kill. Generally, these teams will either run clear amulet on the setup/abuser or pair it with . From my little experience playing this tier, will 1HKO a large portion of the metagame at simply +1, not to mention it has one of the most absurd stat distributions.

(among others)
Coaching teams generally have 1/2 of these, granting longevity/redirection/guaranteed speed control to the pokemon that will probably be at +1 or +2 by this point already.


One of the main points for me is that both coaching users will probably still be useful after Coaching is banned and have an incredible speed tier, allowing them to boost the attacker before it uses its move, even if that is or after using 1 Dragon Dance. I haven't been a fan of z-move at all because moves like Electroweb or Volt Switch enable its partner to outspeed things it shouldn't while breaking Focus Sash in the process (looking at you )