Metagame NP: NU Stage 13 - Toxic

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Finchinator

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After a lengthy council discussion about the metagame, we had a ranked choice council vote starting Thursday night with 4 options: Suspect Blastoise, Suspect Dragalge, Suspect Machamp, and Do Nothing. This vote produced the results are directly below:



With 7 out of 9 council members deciding that Dragalge was the first choice to suspect, as well as the 2nd choice winner Blastoise getting no first choice votes, we decided that a Dragalge suspect was the best course of action at this time. However, as the vote shows, council is still open to suspecting other Pokemon such as Blastoise, as more people voted that they would rather suspect Blastoise than do nothing, in the future.

Dragalge has become one of the most potent offensive presences in the NU metagame in recent months. Thanks to an already strong offensive profile with Adaptability and a great offensive movepool, a shift in how Dragalge was used to focus on breaking through opposing threats, and metagame personnel becoming more susceptible to Dragalge's offensive assault, the Poison-Dragon has went from being one of the better Pokemon to being among the absolute best in the tier. Given this shift, we have seen a large amount of support for tiering action across the NP thread and recent council discussions (see: the aforementioned vote). Although this development is not necessarily as longstanding as Silvally-Ground or as polarizing as Regidrago, we believe that conducting a full suspect on Dragalge allows for us to tackle an important metagame topic in a timely fashion one way or the other.

Dragalge largely centers around abusing its Adaptability boosted STABs, which are oftentimes complimented by Focus Blast to connect with Steel types such as the newly popular Stakataka. Ever since Goodra was banned, it was able to become one of the focal offensive presences in a metagame that lacked much direct competition. In addition, the removal of Bronzong and addition of Stakataka played into the hand of Dragalge a great deal. While it did make Dragalge Focus Blast reliant, it made it so that the main Steel type counterply to Dragalge was Escavalier. Escavalier is in a great position right now and oftentimes is seen as one of the premier Dragalge answers, but many teams are able to string together resistances or immunities and pair that with offensive pressure to try and check it as well. This method is not always the most consistent though as Dragalge is able to come in on common threats like Rotom-C and Vileplume comfortably, giving it ample opportunity to break thanks to convenient defensive typing and special bulk. Overall, Dragalge has counterplay, but some of it is prediction reliant and the means of consistently checking it are limited.

In regards to what sets Dragalge frequents, it occasionally runs Choice Specs, which allows it to strike the foe with unprecedented strength. The combination of Adaptability, STAB, and Choice Specs makes an already strong Draco Meteor or respectable Sludge Bomb hit quite hard. Even bulkier resists are taking close to half health from Choice Specs Draco Meteor, for instance. The major downside of this set is prediction reliance in a tier which finds itself riddled with immunities to Draco Meteor and Sludge Bomb. You also lose any semblance of recovery from Black Sludge, which makes repeated Volt Switches or Stealth Rock switch-ins costly as the game drags on. Alternatively it can run a more consistent, but less potent, Black Sludge set which allows for it to take full advantage of its STABs and coverage thanks to being able to switch moves. Escavalier really shuts this set down, but typically Substitute + 3 attacks or even 3 attacks paired with other moves such as Flip Turn, Toxic Spikes, or Protect can do very well into other defensive cores that lack hard counterplay.

Besides from the aforementioned Escavalier, which is a respectable check to Dragalge as it blanks Sludge Bomb and is able to withstand multiple Draco Meteors while threatening it offensively, Pokemon like Copperajah and Snorlax can serve as very soft and situational checks, but the former is susceptible to Focus Blast and needs Assault Vest to withstand Draco Meteor comfortable while the latter is on a shorter-leash in general and can likely only switch-in once. Focus Blasts's inaccuracy is a major downside of Dragalge, who relies on connection against otherwise threatening Steel types such as the aforementioned Copperajah and Stakataka. Besides from these Pokemon, cores with Protect on Sylveon or Vaporeon coupled with immunities or durable resistances to singular STABs work well against the choice specs set if they are positioned properly, but fall short against the non-choiced variants admittedly. Finally, more offensively oriented teams, especially ones that focus on the physical side of the spectrum, can at least minimize, if not outright blank, Dragalge due to offensive pressure, but it is hard to rely on this method throughout the entirety of a game and each free turn allows for Dragalge to potentially pick off a threat.

Overall, there absolutely is counterplay to Dragalge on both the offensive end and defensive end of the spectrum, as we alluded to above. It is true that this counterplay is a bit more sparse than it is for other offensive threats, oftentimes feeling particularly unreliable for defensive and balanced teams in this metagame. Dragalge is able to function as one of the most threatening offensive options in the metagame because of this. We risk entering a metagame state warped by the offensive impact of Dragalge if it happens to not get banned, but we also risk losing one of the most strong breakers and ways to abuse Pokemon like Rotom-C and cores with strong defensive options with the removal of it. It will be interesting to see if those who qualify for the suspect believe Dragalge is a bit too strong for the metagame or if there is enough keeping it in check for it to stick around!


  • Reading this is mandatory for participating in the suspect test. The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 79 with at least 50 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 30 games at a GXE of 83. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 79 GXE will suffice. **It is now 79 GXE**
GXEminimum games
7950
79.249
79.448
79.647
79.846
8045
80.244
80.443
80.642
80.841
8140
81.239
81.438
81.637
81.836
8235
82.234
82.433
82.632
82.831
8330

  • You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be NUER. For example, I might signup with the ladder account NUER Finch
  • We will be allowing those participating in the ongoing NU Ladder Tournament's to qualify for suspect requirements with their NU Ladder Tournament tagged alts!
  • 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 NU 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 aspects being tested, Dragalge, 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.
  • The suspect test will go on for two weeks, lasting until Sunday, June 26th @ 11:59pm (GMT-4), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.
Tagging Kris and Marty for being awesome helpful people, thanks!
 
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Finchinator

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  • You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be NUER. For example, I might signup with the ladder account NUER Finch
please note the correction -- it is NUER we are using. It turns out the letter I randomized was already used. Apologies for the inconvenience, but it has been 5 minutes, so going to change it before any issues arise.
 
Some proactive meta devlopment; here's some checks to some of the broken Pokemon I talked about on the last NP thread.

:articuno: Although not ranked on the VR, Articuno has multiple high level tournament uses and fulfills many great niches. With amazing special bulk and speed, recovery in Roost and Heal Bell, and Pressure to stall Dragalge's Draco Meteor and Focus Blast, Articuno not only takes on Dragalge incredibly well but other metagame threats such as Specs Sylveon, Alolan Exeggutor, and Indeedee-F.

252+ SpA Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno: 164-194 (42.8 - 50.6%) -- 2.3% chance to 2HKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno: 165-195 (43 - 50.9%) -- 3.1% chance to 2HKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Exeggutor-Alola Flamethrower vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno: 177-208 (46.2 - 54.3%) -- 50% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Exeggutor-Alola Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno: 188-224 (49 - 58.4%) -- 98.4% chance to 2HKO

252 SpA Indeedee-F Expanding Force (120 BP) vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno in Psychic Terrain: 132-156 (34.4 - 40.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

:escavalier: This thing is obviously holding the tier together rn, not much to say about it but I think its incredibly easy to overwhelm it because it has to do so much for the teams its on.

:drapion: Drapion always lowers on people's radars after a while then pops back up but its probably the best progress-maker in the tier while having incredible defensive attributes and a STAB Knock Off. Shuca Aqua Tail sets lure Silvally-Ground very effectively and Black Sludge sets can take on Indeedee relatively well while also threatening a weakened Dragalge with an Earthquake or Knock Off, which can be great if that or a Steel is the only Poison resistance in your way.

:copperajah: I forgot this thing was broken lul, been using an almost full SDef AV set that eats 2 Focus Blasts from Dragalge

Copperajah @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 124 Atk / 216 SpD / 168 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Power Whip
- Rock Slide
- Heat Crash

252+ SpA Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 216 SpD Assault Vest Copperajah: 162-192 (42 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

:stakataka: With a Chople Berry, Stakataka can take even a Choice Specs boosted Focus Blast, while still tanking hits from Indeedee just fine

252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Chople Berry Stakataka: 252-298 (77.3 - 91.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

As for Silvally-Ground.. nothing beats this that isn't a momentum sink for another breaker. I think its insane that it wasn't banned but let democracy reign free ig. Weezing and Quagsire are the most consistent checks for it and Eldegoss is a surprsingly great mon into it because Regen can undo some of U-Turn's damage.
 
dragalge reallty strong :0

In bronzong era dragalge couldn't hit both zong and copper super effectively with one solid coverage move. It had to opt for either focus blast, shadow ball (which was generally not a good option and only seen on specs sets), or scald to attempt to burn steel switchins. With zong gone, focus blast hits almost every steel type in the tier super effectively, and with goodra gone dragalge faces little speedy competition.
Dragalge has very strong stab moves, and coming off of specs escavalier is really the only switchin in the tier. Dragalge also comes in on common pokemon on balance teams with its solid defensive typing. It can switch in on things like sylveon, vaporeon, rotom, salazzle, etc. Its ability to come in on these wish passers and having only one real counter warps the structure of balance in an interesting way. Lots of teams rely on wish passers like sylveon and vaporeon as a solid backbone to their team. Dragalge can often come in on these guys and like half of the other offensive members/defensive members and set up a substitute or unleash a powerful move. Steel types are pretty necessary in this meta and theres really only one that prevents balance teams from getting destroyed by dragalge: escavalier. Running escavalier forces you to also run a rocker that is not a steel type. In theory this could be diancie when paired with vaporeon, but this is more often sandaconda or mudsdale. This means that balance teams are basically forced to either keep up momentum vs dragalge, or theyre forced to use this structure.
Players have started running chople berry stakataka and chople berry copperajah as a way to switchin to dragalge's focus blast, or just beat it 1v1. This isn't foolproof though. If the dragalge user predicts switches to these guys that steel can be deadified and the core can be owned. Also, when these guys have chople berry they kinda just suck at being steels. They do their job as a steel type a lot worse, and they can only hold these cores together a little better in this meta.

Theres other important things to note when talking about dragalge but i just wanted to talk a bit about his effect on balance. To sum up: cores of vaporeon/mudsdale/escavalier are the only ones that don't have to worry about losing whenever dragalge gets let in on like half the team. Other cores must fear dragalge's strong hits, and if chople is equipped on these steels they do their normal job as steels slightly worse.
 

pinorska

Banned deucer.
I spent most of the day today laddering— I felt Dragalge was extremely oppressive; it doesn’t need a choice set to break but it does handily with or without it; I saw it commonly paired with mudsdale and vaporeon who easily wear down pokemon that threaten dragalge at all. I’m finding my escavalier can switch in twice to it, but given the need to preserve escavalier, dragalges teammates get plenty of free turns. I found the typing of dragalge and sirfetchd to be extremely potent, especially with flip turn. Escavalier comes in to absorb draco gets flipped turned on, now I have to find somebody to eat banded sirfetchd. I will be voting ban if, by some miracle, I get reccs.
 

Pokeslice

Thanks for the Dance
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I've been playing around with Drag a bit recently, and I must say, Specs Dragalge isn't broken. I feel like any good team with a defensive core can basically scout around it and be perfectly ok with switch ins to everything it wants to do. Yeah it does a ton and can break pretty hard, especially if you misplay with a Mowtom, but I've found it pretty manageable.

The set I've noticed is a lot less manageable is Sub Drag. Sub covers up for two of the main weaknesses that Specs Drag has.

1) You can be scouted
2) You're slow af and can be revenged really easily by a lot of the Pokemon in the tier.

Besides just adding some protection, Sub allows you to actually abuse Vap/Sylveon cores that you're intending to break through, subbing on their Protect or Wish pass and going in. Does this make Dragalge bannable to me? To be honest, I'm not sure, but I do think that Sub is by far the most potent set offensively and the tier might benefit from one more extremely powerful breaker leaving, even if it's not necessarily over the top broken.
 

swinubfan44

formerly TeamCharm
Some proactive meta devlopment; here's some checks to some of the broken Pokemon I talked about on the last NP thread.

:articuno: Although not ranked on the VR, Articuno has multiple high level tournament uses and fulfills many great niches. With amazing special bulk and speed, recovery in Roost and Heal Bell, and Pressure to stall Dragalge's Draco Meteor and Focus Blast, Articuno not only takes on Dragalge incredibly well but other metagame threats such as Specs Sylveon, Alolan Exeggutor, and Indeedee-F.

252+ SpA Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno: 164-194 (42.8 - 50.6%) -- 2.3% chance to 2HKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Sylveon Hyper Voice vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno: 165-195 (43 - 50.9%) -- 3.1% chance to 2HKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Exeggutor-Alola Flamethrower vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno: 177-208 (46.2 - 54.3%) -- 50% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Exeggutor-Alola Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno: 188-224 (49 - 58.4%) -- 98.4% chance to 2HKO

252 SpA Indeedee-F Expanding Force (120 BP) vs. 248 HP / 204+ SpD Articuno in Psychic Terrain: 132-156 (34.4 - 40.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

:escavalier: This thing is obviously holding the tier together rn, not much to say about it but I think its incredibly easy to overwhelm it because it has to do so much for the teams its on.

:drapion: Drapion always lowers on people's radars after a while then pops back up but its probably the best progress-maker in the tier while having incredible defensive attributes and a STAB Knock Off. Shuca Aqua Tail sets lure Silvally-Ground very effectively and Black Sludge sets can take on Indeedee relatively well while also threatening a weakened Dragalge with an Earthquake or Knock Off, which can be great if that or a Steel is the only Poison resistance in your way.

:copperajah: I forgot this thing was broken lul, been using an almost full SDef AV set that eats 2 Focus Blasts from Dragalge

Copperajah @ Assault Vest
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 124 Atk / 216 SpD / 168 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Power Whip
- Rock Slide
- Heat Crash

252+ SpA Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 216 SpD Assault Vest Copperajah: 162-192 (42 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

:stakataka: With a Chople Berry, Stakataka can take even a Choice Specs boosted Focus Blast, while still tanking hits from Indeedee just fine

252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Chople Berry Stakataka: 252-298 (77.3 - 91.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

As for Silvally-Ground.. nothing beats this that isn't a momentum sink for another breaker. I think its insane that it wasn't banned but let democracy reign free ig. Weezing and Quagsire are the most consistent checks for it and Eldegoss is a surprsingly great mon into it because Regen can undo some of U-Turn's damage.
You forgot about the best algae check there is- bronzor- which hard walls Dragalge and can switch in forever with rest. Psychic or EQ to damage it

with that being said Dragalge is a bit stupid with daddy zong gone but Sir Far Fetch (with leek) & Silv G are much more suspect worthy Imo.
 

Corthius

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I've been playing around with Drag a bit recently, and I must say, Specs Dragalge isn't broken. I feel like any good team with a defensive core can basically scout around it and be perfectly ok with switch ins to everything it wants to do. Yeah it does a ton and can break pretty hard, especially if you misplay with a Mowtom, but I've found it pretty manageable.

The set I've noticed is a lot less manageable is Sub Drag. Sub covers up for two of the main weaknesses that Specs Drag has.

1) You can be scouted
2) You're slow af and can be revenged really easily by a lot of the Pokemon in the tier.

Besides just adding some protection, Sub allows you to actually abuse Vap/Sylveon cores that you're intending to break through, subbing on their Protect or Wish pass and going in. Does this make Dragalge bannable to me? To be honest, I'm not sure, but I do think that Sub is by far the most potent set offensively and the tier might benefit from one more extremely powerful breaker leaving, even if it's not necessarily over the top broken.
I have to completely disagree with you, Sub Dragalge can easily be revengekilled by Marowak so all you need is a slow pivot like Type: Null that can take a hit and U-turn out of the battle. After that you can easily proceed to click Bonemerang, easily OHKOing Dragalge even with only one hit.
252+ Atk Thick Club Marowak Bonemerang (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dragalge: 568-672 (209.5 - 247.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Meta: solved


Jokes aside, imo the discovery of Substitute is fascinating and really cool.
Dragalge really feels like a Goodra-light. It sets itself apart from other slow (broken) wallbreaker like Exploud, Machamp and Co with having actual defensive utility that it can abuse. While many other breaker need pivot support, Dragalge makes up for that with its incredible typing, abusing a lot of top tier pokemon to get opportunities to switch in. I personally don't like using Escavalier too much, so for me, espeically Sub Dragalge is really annoying to deal with. I'm still on the fence if I believe its broken tho.
 

Finchinator

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I feel Dragalge is banworthy.

It is hard to post unique thoughts after writing out the reasoning in the OP, but to sum it up: there is a very limited pool of counterplay and that pool is fractured between the actual hard counterplay (Escavalier and meme stuff like Bronzor) and circumstantial counterplay (Protect cores with immunities/durable resistances, consistent offensive pressure, AV Copp., etc.).

The fact that there is such a limited amount of universal counterplay is really worrisome to me. If I want to check Dragalge off the teambuilding checklist, I have to either use Escavalier with Leftovers or use half of my team to help in the minimization of it, which is still not foolproof. Yes, these slots are multipurposed -- i.e: WishTect Sylveon is great and pairing it with a Steel type is very intuitive, but this still leaves you susceptible to Substitute sets and gameflow losses due to forced passivity.

And given Dragalge's speed, I'd say a lot of this could be moot if it did not enter safely much at all, but it has great special bulk and practical resistances that make it able to enter on Rotom-C, Vileplume, some Salazzle, Weezing, etc. and it pairs nicely with many pivots.

Overall, I feel like Dragalge has too little defensive counterplay, which warps the tier a little bit. If it remains, we will be forced to subscribe to very limited teambuilding constraints with 'standard' or evolve to a more fast-paced playstyle as the status quo in order to limit it. This is not the type of presence I believe to be healthy in our tier.
 
To follow up on a great point Finch made, even if something is technically manageable through smart pivoting, as it may not have one spammable move but many powerful moves with different resistances and immunities, something broken or warping in the builder is equally as important as something broken in actual play. There are many Pokemon such as Machamp and Indeedee-F with almost 0 defensive counterplay when building a team but the difference is they have almost 0 defensive utility or are only "broken" under certain conditions (Machamp needs its Flame Orb and Indeedee-F needs its Terrain). Pokemon like Dragalge and Silvally-Ground on the other hand are both always broken. The have insane bulk for a breaker and a virtually unblockable pivoting move that can be used to whittle down would-be checks (most of which lack recovery) to put them in range of their attacks or in danger of another breaker. An example of this is Silvally-Ground forcing in a Weezing or Quagsire, only to U-Turn on it into an Exploud, which with proper prediction can OHKO or 2HKO the entire tier. Dragalge can also Flip Turn on pretty much the only consistent check in Escavalier, and with entry hazards and Flip Turn damage adding up, Escavalier can find itself overwhelmed incredibly easily. The risk/reward for these 2 Pokemon in particular is obscenely skewed in the user's favor and while I honestly have no clue how Silvally-G wasn't banned other than it has some defensive merit in the tier but I would like to not make the same mistake with Dragalge. I think there's a general consensus that the tier is plagued with silly wallbreakers currently and at this point towards the end of the generation I see no harm in a "ban everything" mentality. With Machamp, Rotom-Mow, Indeedee-F, Exploud, Tyrantrum, Dragalge, Silvally-Ground, Blastoise, Exeggutor-A, Sirfetch'd, and the Blizzard spammers, there is simply too much to deal with in the tier, forcing the repetitive Vaporeon balances we've seen spammed in NUPL because I truly believe any other defense archetype is simply too risky to be used in the tier. Balance being the unsafe choice in a tier is insane to me. Obviously there's a little bit of exaggeration here and this of course is all my opinion, but to me, NU ideally bans Dragalge, Silvally-Ground, Blastoise, and Rotom-Mow. From there I think Alolan-Exeggutor and Indeedee-F are potentially banworthy but with less restriction on building from the first 3 hypothetically being removed, I think they could become manageable. Just going off the council survey alone its very interesting to see the vastly different opinions on what's broken and I think targeting stuff that lacks any kind of defensive utility and therefore adds nothing to the game besides "haha pick one" is okay to thin the list of wallbreakers, it only makes sense that the Pokemon that are almost equally as strong (Dragalge, Silvally-Ground, Rotom-Mow) while also possessing some of the best defensive qualities in the game are the most broken because they cover both sides of the coin, as seen by their viability rankings (all S-worthy and for good reason). Obviously no tier wants to remove their S ranks, but at what point do we stop pointing fingers at the goofy wallbreakers and instead the almost equally goofy wallbreakers that have unwallable pivoting moves and amazing defensive utility that can allow free entry for all the goofy goobers on the limited pool of checks that exist for all of these.
 
Starting off I'd like to reiterate what others have said regarding dragalge being broken, and yes I will be voting ban should I get reqs.

I think the consensus is that rn the tier is in a very bad state. As multiple people I've talked to have stated, it's literally a game of 'guess the wallbreaker(s) you'll load into'. SilvG, NDD, Blastoise and Dragalge stand out as banworthy imo. Copperajah, Stakataka, offensive Sylveon, Machamp, Salazzle, some Tsareena, Aerodactyl, Grimmsnarl, Starmie, Toxicroak, Decidueye, Eggy, Golurk, Sirfetchd, Tauros, Tyrantrum are all B+ or above on the VR, with many more lower down the list. The tier is simply too overloaded, and has been for a very long time.

The tier is simply too overloaded right now, not banning stuff because they have some defensive merit is only going to make the tier worse. Unsure why people have their minds on this bit between last suspect and this one, but hey it's a step in the right direction so I won't complain.

Short post but everything I want to say has already been said by other people, hopefully we don't make the same mistake we did in the last suspect.
 

5Dots

Chairs
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I’ve gotten reqs recently and I wanted to echo how Dragalge isn’t the problem; it’s the massive amount of offensive threats in the tier. As a standalone Pokemon, sure Dragalge can be handled with Escavalier defensively or with sufficent offensive pressure but in practice this is easier said than done. Dragalge can Flip Turn or allow other Pokemon to pressure Escavalier, giving other Pokemon free reign to punch bigger holes later on.

I’ve tried building on my own and it’s taxing to cover everything at once. Vaporeon helps soft check a lot of setup sweepers but a lot of builds can adapt/play around it because of how a lot of the builds are similar. Despite not getting 2HKOed by any of its attacks Dragalge can repeatedly spam Sludge Bomb and eventually get a Poison; even just setting up Toxic Spikes just makes Vaporeon fodder.

Some offensive threats I need to take into account for aside from Dragalge:
:Blastoise: :Ground Memory: :Rotom-Mow: :Stakataka: :Copperajah: :Sylveon: (Specs) :Machamp: :Indeedee-F: :Snorlax: :Starmie: :Tyrantrum: :Exeggutor-Alola: :Golurk: :Sirfetch’d: :Guzzlord: :Tauros: :Scrafty: :Drapion:

The saying goes is that you can’t check everything at once. Which is true in a literal perspective, but in a practical perspective it’s more likely you’ll come across a matchup where any one of these Pokemon can just prod at the weak point and then cause chaos. I feel it’s better to have a quickban slate where a select number of Pokemon deemed to be troublesome (Machamp and Indeedee-F stand out for having zero sturdy defensive counterplay, Blastoise being reliable from a game-to-game basis) can get voted on to ease the building process.
 
I’ve gotten reqs recently and I wanted to echo how Dragalge isn’t the problem; it’s the massive amount of offensive threats in the tier. As a standalone Pokemon, sure Dragalge can be handled with Escavalier defensively or with sufficent offensive pressure but in practice this is easier said than done. Dragalge can Flip Turn or allow other Pokemon to pressure Escavalier, giving other Pokemon free reign to punch bigger holes later on.

I’ve tried building on my own and it’s taxing to cover everything at once. Vaporeon helps soft check a lot of setup sweepers but a lot of builds can adapt/play around it because of how a lot of the builds are similar. Despite not getting 2HKOed by any of its attacks Dragalge can repeatedly spam Sludge Bomb and eventually get a Poison; even just setting up Toxic Spikes just makes Vaporeon fodder.

Some offensive threats I need to take into account for aside from Dragalge:
:Blastoise: :Ground Memory: :Rotom-Mow: :Stakataka: :Copperajah: :Sylveon: (Specs) :Machamp: :Indeedee-F: :Snorlax: :Starmie: :Tyrantrum: :Exeggutor-Alola: :Golurk: :Sirfetch’d: :Guzzlord: :Tauros: :Scrafty: :Drapion:

The saying goes is that you can’t check everything at once. Which is true in a literal perspective, but in a practical perspective it’s more likely you’ll come across a matchup where any one of these Pokemon can just prod at the weak point and then cause chaos. I feel it’s better to have a quickban slate where a select number of Pokemon deemed to be troublesome (Machamp and Indeedee-F stand out for having zero sturdy defensive counterplay, Blastoise being reliable from a game-to-game basis) can get voted on to ease the building process.
While I do agree on the latter half of this post, I do think it's worth noting that the reason so many of these breakers are as potent as they are is because Dragalge, Rotom-Mow, and Silvally-Ground (among others but these are the main 3 imo) create such free pivoting with almost 0 risk for such a huge reward. Without such skewed pivoting, I think these breakers (for the most part) can be contained simply by keeping them off the field with offensive pressure. How can you offensively pressure them coming in when Mow has unblockable Volt Switch, Drag forces a Steel-type in immediately, Silvally forces in one of like 3 Pokemon or a Flying-type praying you don't click Rock Slide (seriously Silvally-Ground is very laughably broken) and then clicks U-Turn. I may be wrong here, some of the breakers like Indeedee and Machamp definitely stand out to me as phenomenal standalone Pokemon, but I think the free entry that all of these Pokemon get from the aformentioned "big 3" along with your Talonflame and Xatu and Scarf Passimian or whatever are the big reason why the tier feels so impossible to prep for currently. Realistically thinning the herd and banning even something wild like 5 Pokemon, which I don't think there even are 5 bannable breakers currently, would barely alleviate the stress of building; if you lose hard to Indeedee-F, its hard to imagine you also don't lose hard to Exploud or Drampa or Sylveon, etc. but you could very easily prevent them from hitting the field by using Pokemon that threaten both the breakers AND the "non-broken" pivots, for example bringing in a Tyrantrum in on a Talonflame that was hoping you would bring in a Mudsdale instead to let Exploud hit the field. Tyrantrum would pressure both Talonflame and Exploud, but in the case of Rotom-Mow, Silvally-Ground, and Dragalge, nothing can check them, let alone a potential incoming breaker.

Sorry for riding off your post but I think you made some great points I wanted to add on to, and I think as chaotic it would initially be for the tier, the best path for NU currently is to ban the "big 3" Rotom-Mow, Silvally-Ground, and Dragalge, all of which have been tested or highly considered for testing, lack proper checks besides maybe 2 or 3 for each Pokemon, and have fantastic defensive prowess and are capable of pivoting on their limited pool of checks into a more devastating, yet frailer, breaker with little to no risk. Obviously this is my opinion and I have no experience as a tier leader or council member, nor do I know the potential repercussions of such a proposed action.
 

Rabia

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Discussions about other matters aren't overly relevant to this suspect test, but I do appreciate people still being proactive with their overall metagame thoughts. I generally find myself agreeing that the root issue of NU's issues is Rotom-C because I think it enables the pivot spam bullshit to an obscene degree.

---

On Dragalge itself, I've stated in videos before that I think it's a straightforward ban situation for me. I believe the further exploration of set adjustments, i.e. more Choice Specs and Substitute usage, has been really helpful, as has Stakataka dropping and making Focus Blast so much better of a coverage option. Dragalge's only long-term answer is Escavalier; even with the poor Speed, I just feel that's too much for a wallbreaker as effective as it. The combination of power, bulk, and defensive presence gives you a lot of compensation for dealing with that contended Speed tier.
 

etern

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I wasn't gonna make a post originally but after playing a ton of games the past week or so I have things to say. First of all, the current iteration of SS NU is one of the most unfun metagames I've witnessed in a long time, and while a big part of that boils down to the terrible changes that came with this generation (e.g no pursuit, increased distribution of coverage like power whip / close combat / body press, etc), it also revolves around what I think is the key problem plaguing NU atm, the zero-counterplay volturn meta. I've wondered for a long time what specifically makes SS NU unappealing to me (at least in comparison to older gens which are a lot more universally enjoyed), and often times people will bring up a specific threat or core, yet it never seems to pinpoint the exact issue. That's because it's not one specific Pokemon that has caused this dilemma, instead, it's the volturn framework which the tier has been forced into by virtue of gen 8 mechanics + power creep leading to more individual threats than NU has ever had to handle at once, with less ways to punish them. With the way the metagame has formed around bulky offense cores of Rotom-Mow + U-Turn + Vaporeon + Breaker, there is far less opportunity for skill to be the determining factor in the outcome of matches, leading to a lot of stale games which include vaporeon mirror matches, or one person bringing an unwallable threat that the other person didn't account for. I could go on about how awful of a presence I think Rotom-Mow is on the meta but that isn't relevant to this thread right now, and it would be naive to think the burden falls on that one Pokemon alone. Simply put, while the myriad of breakers in this tier can be handled to an extent, it becomes much more difficult to respond when they are supported by pivots that have little to no counterplay in performing their role, and create a lose-lose situation in which you're forced to sacrifice something or get caught in the vortex.

Dragalge is a little unique because not only does it fall under that umbrella of a bulky pivot that can facilitate breakers, it also IS the breaker itself, making it far more problematic than say a Talonflame or Silvally-Steel (obviously not directly comparable but you get the idea). With Stakataka coming into the meta and becoming a primary Steel-type, Focus Blast Dragalge picked up steam very quickly and has the potential to quite comfortably dismantle the most common archetypes which the tier has been forced into to respond to other problematic elements of the tier. Even Silvally-Steel and Copperajah cannot comfortably switch in as Dragalge has enough bulk to stomach a hit and send them into the next dimension, or simply switch out into a pivot and come back in again later to repeat the cycle. Pivot Dragalge can tailor it's moveset to run anything it wants, from Tspikes to Focus Blast, to protect, which also gives it a deadly element of surprise on top of the fact that it can run many other viable sets. Choice Specs is another cool set with basically no switch-ins, but I feel it's arguably the most manageable one since once it locks into a stab it's easy to take advantage of (less so if you don't have a mon with protect on the field to scout safely, but that isn't something that exclusively applies to Dragalge, so it wouldn't be fair to get hung up on that point). The set that I quickly built around to get reqs was Sub Dragalge, and out of every set that I've seen and used, it is by far the most lethal and flat out broken. Dragalge can safely come in on a lot of balance staples without the need for support, but when you take into consideration that this is the volturn meta and Dragalge will undoubtebly be partnered up with other pivots to get it in even more often, it becomes flat out ridiculous to handle. Getting up a substitute versus a Vaporeon or a Vileplume can easily result in the drag user netting 2-3 kills which might as well be game over at that point. Don't have much else to say on Dragalge specifically that hasn't been said already, but it definitely is one of the major proponents of the issues in the meta right now and does not have a place in the tier which is why I voted ban.

Looking forward to the result of this suspect test as the NU Council has a lot of good plans which I'm confident will get SS NU into great shape before the end of the gen, and curious to hear what people feel about the influence of the volturn meta on the tier's playability.
 

roxie

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Dragalge's existence caused a high usage in Escavalier, Snorlax, and Silvally-Steel. Silvally-Steel isn't the best Dragalge check but it's more of a midground for a lot of stuff like Rotom-C, Indeedee-F, Alolan Exeggutor, and Choice Specs Sylveon. I noticed with teams pretty much slapping Escavalier everywhere, it allowed Indeedee and Alolan Exeggutor to benefit. I remember the tier starting off with high Stakataka usage and stuff like "this is a good Indeedee, Salazzle, and Talonflame check" but then it loses to Focus Blast Dragalge. For some of my teams, I felt like both Escavalier and Snorlax were required for both Dragalge and Alolan Exeggutor / Sylveon / Indeedee because you can't tell me a Bug / Steel is an amazing check to the latter three. With those fat builds like Escavalier and Snorlax, you might end up weak to Machamp as well. I'm interested in seeing how the tier develops with this ban as several Pokemon benefits such as Vaporeon, Vilepume, Copperajah, Togedemaru, Stakataka, and so on~
 

shooting star

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1656557233802.png

:indeedee-f::silvally-ground::tsareena::copperajah::sylveon::araquanid:
I got reqs again yay

Banning Dragalge is the right call imo, what sets it apart from the other wallbreakers is its access to a pivot move, excellent defensive typing and bulk, while still having immense power and coverage to plow through its so-called checks. I also know that hardly anyone share this thought, but I feel like NU currently is fine and honestly enjoyable to play (maybe coz I play only ladder idk). I think the next course of action is to suspect Rotom-Mow, and while I am indifferent to it leaving or not, banning it can help in nerfing VoltTurn since getting your breakers in becomes slightly harder.

Many people also lament that NU still has too many wallbreakers to account for, but unless you are playing stall is it really a bad thing not being able to cover every single threat? For instance my team above has shit EVs and loses to Talonflame lol but it still puts in some work. Maybe you can run your famous Muds/Vapo/Escav core and have them spamming Protect (which is even more disgusting to play against btw), or you can try to expand this list of wallbreakers by using more niche breakers that can exploit Vaporeon and other common defensive cores. I am really liking Araquanid now not because of Sticky Web but because with its above average bulk and immunity to burns, making progress against Araquanid becomes surprisingly hard especially when it is behind a Sub dishing out Water Bubble boosted Liquidations. Incidentally it is also great against Blastoise, an overrated mon and will continue to be so the moment Gastrodon drops tomorrow.

TLDR: tier is fine, suspect Rotom-C next, and use Araquanid more, it does not deserve dropping to PU but I can't play 1000 games in one sitting
 

roxie

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Many people also lament that NU still has too many wallbreakers to account for, but unless you are playing stall is it really a bad thing not being able to cover every single threat?
This is what people need to realize that bad matchups do exist. Dragalges departure is a huge positive to the tier but I hate when teams like Vaporeon + Mudsdale pretty much gets cteamed by like Araquanid / Glastrier and it’s categorized as “broken”. Every team isn’t going to have a 100% no thinking required matchup against every single thing.
 
Confused on why some think A-Exegg is suspect worthy. Was at the 1600s but I’m still not too familiar with NU aside from Dragalge/Mowtom/Indeedee being busted and Vaporeon/Escav/Mudsdale. It seems like a less extreme version of Dragalge. Plus its typing means alot of stuff can threaten OHKOs oIt also wasn’t considered banworthy during Gen 7 who’s power level is around a similar level to Gen 8. Would like to be enlightened on this. What has changed for it?
 
Confused on why some think A-Exegg is suspect worthy. Was at the 1600s but I’m still not too familiar with NU aside from Dragalge/Mowtom/Indeedee being busted and Vaporeon/Escav/Mudsdale. It seems like a less extreme version of Dragalge. Plus its typing means alot of stuff can threaten OHKOs oIt also wasn’t considered banworthy during Gen 7 who’s power level is around a similar level to Gen 8. Would like to be enlightened on this. What has changed for it?
Being able to beat 5 of the 6 Pokemon you mentioned in this post alone makes it a huge threat. Its typing has weaknesses but its also great defensively in some aspects and lets it hit the field to wreck havoc multiple times per game. Although nothing really checks Exeggutor-A defensively too well besides Sylveon and sometimes Stakataka, it is checked offensively pretty well due to its polarizing typing like you said. Basically just yet another instance of a Dragon-type with coverage for its resists and the bulk and/or typing to come in often.
 

Pokeslice

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Gastro being in the tier means Blastoise isn’t close to suspect worthy these days and more reason to suspect Mowtom
I’d argue that in this current meta with Stoise, G-Vally, and Lazzle, Quag is possibly better because of its access to Unaware to stop their boosting up and sweeping, something that has been in the meta long before Gastro dropped. In all honesty, this changes nothing for Stoise.
 
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