Scrafty in SS PU

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Chloe

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:ss/scrafty:
Scrafty has been a divisive issue amongst PU players over the second half of Generation 8 PU. Its Dark- and Fighting-type STABs are incredibly difficult to switch into in tandem, and hence require very specific counterplay.

Most teams are required to run a specific Pokemon or set just to check Scrafty. Usually this means defaulting to Ribombee which is the best Fairy-type in the tier by far. It is nice role compression as it is also a great form of speed control, a cleric, and is generally a menace offensively. It's not a long term check though, due to its Stealth Rock weakness and how frequently its Heavy-Duty Boots are removed with Knock Off during the first few turns. The fact that you are required to run a Fairy-type (or a couple other mons) on every team just to deal with it however, is not ideal to say the least. Scrafty being gone from the tier would free up the teambuilder immensely in this regard.

Over the last year or so, Scrafty has also been seen running Choice Band sets, Dragon Dance sets, and even 3 Attacks + Substitute sets. These all have a tendency to run coverage for Fairy-types (Poison Jab / Iron Head), rendering Scrafty's usual checks invalid. Ribombee can no longer reliably switch into Scrafty as a result of this. Choice Band sets also are able to muscle through non-Fairy type Pokemon that are otherwise decent checks like Charm + Leech Seed Eldegoss or Quagsire. Scrafty has a lot of set versatility that enables it to get through all of its checks in one way or another.

On top of this, Scrafty is also paired with Spikes absurdly frequently due to how prominent hazard stacking is in the metagame in addition to how potent Knock Off is when used alongside this. Scrafty is great at breaking down defensive builds through its use of Knock Off, and considering its offensive capabilities, this is rarely easy to deal with from the opposite side. On a much lesser, however still relevant note, Scrafty also pairs incredibly well with Future Sight Articuno-Galar. These two in conjunction make counterplay even more difficult. Many times you'll see Gigalith or Aggron opt for Protect just so they can deal with this combination somewhat well; however, this can be abused. This replay of xavgb vs ProDigeZz from PUPL, even if slightly outdated, shows how Dragon Dance Scrafty can take advantage of this Protect turn and run away with the game.

Even with these obvious issues, Scrafty has never been the uber prominent threat that other banned Pokemon in our tier have been. Each of its sets have specific flaws that hold them back. Bulk Up sets obviously can't break through Fairy-types, Quagsire and Eldegoss. Choice Band sets struggle to get opportunities to break due to the prevalence of Protect on Pokemon it would like to switch into like Gigalith. Substitute sets lack any real firepower to break through Quagsire, Sandaconda and other defensive powerhouses; and Dragon Dance sets, even if they opt for Drain Punch, lack substantial longevity.

Scrafty also is just quite slow. Its speed tier of base 58 is middling, being naturally slower than the majority of our defensive Pokemon like Weezing, Eldegoss, and Sandaconda. Even after a max Speed Jolly Scrafty uses Dragon Dance it is still outsped by Ribombee and Whimsicott with ease. This means Scrafty requires prediction, or removing these Pokemon prior, in order to successfully deal with them. Its Attack stat of 90 is also somewhat low, but it mostly makes up for this due to its offensive movepool being outstanding.

Some replays of Scrafty in action.
SCL - gum vs soulgazer | DD Scrafty runs away with the game.
SCL - jonfilch vs sensei axew | Ribombee gets whittled down for DD Scrafty end game.
SCL - z0mog vs jonfilch | CB Scrafty's power allows it to 2HKO everything on the opposing team.

What is the purpose of this thread?
We would like to have meaningful discussion pertaining to whether Scrafty should remain in the SS PU metagame, or whether it should be banned. Hopefully through this discourse we can come to a suitable conclusion, and end SS PU on a high note. A vote will be held after some time has passed, to decide which outcome should be taken.

Why a Policy Review thread?
We planned to hold this as a regular suspect test, but since Generation 8 is technically an old generation, this is how we were told to address it. There is every intention to bring this to a vote afterwards. The requirements for this will be decided upon in due course. I hope to see many people voice their opinion on Scrafty in SS PU! Thank you for reading, and I look forward to reading your posts.
 

Hera

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Very strange how this is a policy review thread rather than a plain old suspect test. I get that Gen 8 is an old gen for OU, but it's not an old gen yet for lower tiers barring UU. I feel like in the future, instead of having to make a policy review thread whenever situations like this arise (new gen comes out for OU but tier shifts haven't gotten to lower tiers yet), tiers should be allowed to do normal tiering without having to make a PR thread.

Anyway, I've said before that Scrafty is pretty broken. I really don't mind the BU sets or the fact that Ribombee is on almost every team. The former I feel has been adapted to with Pokemon like Sacred Sword Doublade, Coil Sandaconda, bulkier Ribombee sets, Tangela, Charm Eldegoss (also beats Doublade reliably) and the rise of Pokemon like NGas Weezing + Sandslash that remove entry hazards, making BU Scrafty's Knock Off much less potent. The latter I believe is simply natural meta centralization; Ribombee fills a lot of roles on teams, being a cleric + Fairy + setup sweeper (if QD) + momentum gainer (if U-turn) with reliable recovery, a strong defensive typing, and a great Speed tier. In a theoretical Scrafty-less meta, I don't see Ribombee falling from the top of the heap. I also don't mind sets like Choice Band and DD. Choice Band is heavily prediction reliant and not all that powerful to begin with, because despite a great offensive STAB combination and good coverage options, base 90 Attack is pretty subpar. The replay shown in the OP is mildly persuasive but fails to mention that jonfilch misplayed at the very end of the game where spamming Recover would have maximized his chances of winning instead of clicking EQ twice. Roseli DD Scrafty is very troublesome but I feel this would best be handled by banning Doublade, simply because Roseli DD Scrafty only rose into prominence when Doublade was dropped into the tier and HO developed. The big 3 of Archeops + Scrafty + Doublade are all very effective on HO and banning Doublade would do much more good for the tier than banning Scrafty in this specific case. Bulky DD sets I haven't seen enough of to have an opinion on. This is not to say these sets aren't effective or good, but rather they do not make Scrafty banworthy in my eyes.

What pushes Scrafty over the edge for me in Substitute sets. Remember when I listed consistent Scrafty counterplay above? Well, Sub just throws all of it, barring Coil Sandaconda, out the window. Getting a Sub up with Scrafty forces the opponent into a horrible position where you have to have your Scrafty switch-in sit in front of and try to break Scrafty's Substitute, while it laughs at your pitiful attempts fishing for PJab poisons and Knocking items. It lacks the longevity compared to other Sctafty sets but makes up for it with its sheer versatility and breaking power, and is the perfect balance of Scrafty's power and ability to abuse its coverage imo. Sturdier answers like Tangela, Quagsire, and Aromatisse lose to PJab poisons + Knock, while frailer answers like Whimsicott and Ribombee straight up lose to PJab (although Whimsicott bypasses Sub with Infiltrator). This is a replay I often come back to whenever I think Sub Scrafty is broken. While Mawile is subpar at dealing with Scrafty long-term, a fast set is sufficient for the gameplan that xavgb/Stresh is going for, and Garbodor adds extra insurance for the occasional DD Scrafty. What ends up happening is that Stresh is forced into multiple 50/50s trying to deal with it (a Gunk Shot miss sucks but that's a misplay considering it most likely had Stomping Tantrum), and even though he wins those, it doesn't matter because Scrafty comes back in anyway with minimal support, removes Mawile with FS, and cleans up from there.

While Sub sets are broken in a vacuum, there are tons of breakers with great coverage and few switchins that are not broken (Abomasnow, Trevenant, Vikavolt, Gallade but not really because that mon is actually broken). What separates Scrafty from the rest (except Gallade) is that it's nearly impossible to properly scout without significantly crippling your team. Switching something like Gigalith into Vikavolt isn't the end of the world, but switching a Scrafty answer like Ribombee into Scrafty either gets you Knocked, severely limiting your longevity, or straight-up OHKOed by a coverage move. Even something like Quagsire, a solid answer, can get Knocked and lose long-term with TSpikes support (Scrafty + that Water/Poison LC mon with the name that's similar to Marnie is a dangerous core in particular). Really that's what makes it a dealbreaker for me: not only is Sub Scrafty broken, but it's extremely difficult to scout Scrafty in-game as well, and making what would be a safe play vs one set ends up being a terrible play vs another.

tl;dr ban Scrafty please
 
:ss/scrafty:

So we are finally here, when I first sat down to write my take on Scrafty I was very much on the fence, however as I looked through my builder, replays(mine and others), and some older posts, my opinion on it started to change, I now think Scrafty is constraining the tier. As chole mentioned it has a lot of set versatility one of my current favorites is 3atk taunt parried with tspikes or just toxic spam to stop heal/aroma vs most teams while still allowing Scrafty to get past mons like quag and conda, I think this flexibility in its sets and builder is simply too much for PU(SS).

[Gen 8] PU replay: Meru vs. pannuracotta - Pokémon Showdown (pokemonshowdown.com)
[Gen 8] PU replay: Garay oak vs. evil z0mog - Pokémon Showdown (pokemonshowdown.com)
These games show how annoying Scrafty is imo, sub and even cb with Intimidate offer pretty good longevity(vs non tspikes mus)
its like Heracross2.0 said scouting Scrafty is a tough task(sometimes its p obv tho)


This post became a lot shorter than it was at first, if I was at a 5 before my research id say I'm at a 7 now(10 being a quickban)
 
History
Scrafty has been a controversial Pokemon for as long as I've been involved in PU, and there have been people calling for its removal since well before PUPL, though back then the discourse was centered around the Bulk Up set. For a long time, I disagreed with this and felt that Scrafty was a healthy and almost necessary tool in PU as it provided a way of pressuring bulkier teams and served as a splashable Knock Off user, which prevented the meta from being dominated by Spikes. The lack of speed boosting on the Bulk Up set also made it less likely for Scrafty to get out of hand as its 4x Fairy weakness meant something like Ribombee would always be able to revenge-kill it, regardless of how many boosts it got. However, with meta shifts during PUPL, and especially with new builders challenging the tier during SCL, the way Scrafty came to be used changed significantly and its these changes that I want to focus on as I feel they're what make Scrafty broken and are why we're ultimately bringing this topic up now after choosing not to for so long.

The Problem
The set I want to focus on is bulky Dragon Dance Scrafty, which in my opinion is what makes it an unhealthy presence right now. As its name suggests, this set invests heavily in bulk to aid set-up and uses the combination of Dragon Dance + Drain Punch to boost its stats while remaining relatively healthy. There's no standard spread but here's an example of what it might look like, investing in just enough Speed to outpace Ribombee at +2 and spreading the rest of the EVs between Attack and HP. In my eyes, this set is the previous Bulk Up Scrafty set taken to its extreme. With Shed Skin, useful resistances and good bulk, it finds it easy to get in multiple times a game and apply huge pressure to teams.

:ribombee: Counterplay :ribombee:
Due to it being the most reliable check to Scrafty check we have, Ribombee is the Fairy-type of choice on most teams, and you're basically forced to go into immediately when Scrafty is sent in, as if you let Scrafty get two Dragon Dances off, the game usually ends. This makes it easy for Scrafty to punish the Ribombee switch, usually by Knocking Off the first time it comes in, and then using Poison Jab at later opportunities to remove it from the game. Other defensive answers to Scrafty all have their flaws as well. Quagsire is incredibly passive, vulnerable to hazards and needs to run Curse to prevent Scrafty from being able to spam Drain Punch against it, which adds to its passivity. Our other Fairies often get overwhelmed by Knock Off + Poison Jab due to them being slower than Scrafty. A recent innovation has been using Clear Smog Weezing to slow Scrafty down, but even this will only trade down with Scrafty in a best-case scenario and usually has to be paired with Ribombee anyway to be safe, as its job is usually just to remove its boosts so that Ribombee can revenge kill it after Weezing dies.

SCL Impact
The replay I want to focus on here is this Semi-Finals game between jonflinch and Sensei Axew, which Chloe also mentioned in the opening. Jon and Sensei dominated this SCL, finishing with 9-2 and 8-2 records respectively, so this was very much a highlight game. Both opted for a Gigalith balance team centered around Scrafty's sweeping power, and it was clear that the game was going to go to whoever swept with their Scrafty first. Sensei tried to do so early, and so Jon sacrificed his Weezing to get Scrafty down to 22% and was then forced to rely on what was potentially a roll by bringing in Doublade to revenge kill it. Sensei decides not to go for the roll (he may not have had the roll depending on investments), switching his Scrafty out, and the game essentially goes to Jon from there as he's able to set his own Scrafty up to +3/+3 by taking a Doublade Close Combat in the face, and then sweeping from there.

In the finals, Jon faced off against Leru, another brilliant player who finished 6-3. Again, both sides opt for a Gigalith balance team focused around DD Scrafty. Both teams packed significant counterplay to Scrafty, with Jon having a Clear Smog Weezing + Ribombee pairing and leru having a Weezing + Whimsicott pairing. Despite this, the Scrafties were able to power through their supposed checks and the game ended up being decided by the following position:
1670330412148.png

Both Scrafties alive and healthy with all their checks dead, and the game about to be decided by whoever has the faster Scrafty.

These are the two highest-profile PU matches we've had in recent memory and it's telling that out of 4 teams, we saw 4 builds made to optimise Scrafty's sweeping abilities, and that both games ended with a boosted Scrafty cleaning up.

Set Versatility
Other sets have been mentioned in previous posts, such as Choice Band, Sub 3 Attacks and Bulk Up. I actually think these sets are all balanced by themselves as they all have significant drawbacks and can't outright win games as bulky DD can. However, I do agree that not knowing what set Scrafty is adds to the challenge of handling it, especially when you're forced to respect bulky DD so much and can't afford to scout sets as a result. Going hard Ribombee just to be OHKOd by Choice Band can set you back hugely in a game and often can't be recovered from.

I will also mention that I agree with points made about Future Sight Articuno-Galar + Scrafty being an incredibly unhealthy pairing that adds to the uncompetitiveness of Scrafty, but I didn't feel like delving too deep into that one as I believe that Bulky DD is broken enough on its own to warrant a Scrafty ban.

Conclusion
It's a shame that we have to take tiering action after the release of S/V and I wish there was a way to keep Scrafty around, as I feel like its other sets provide a lot for the tier. However, its shown itself to be uncompetitive over and over again and if we don't remove it now we'll likely have to deal with it dominating the future of SS PU and ultimately getting banned at a later point down the road.
 
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will keep this as brief as possible but i'm gonna vote do not ban on scrafty.

the only set people should be talking about is bulky dd. sub 3 atks, cb, etc are not remotely broken and don't demand any sort of tiering action, even when having to consider multiple sets during a game

dd scrafty is a little bit broken, but it takes a while to set up and it's not completely unreasonable to account for in the tbuilder. future sight + dd comes with the cost of having to fit both on one team, which is not feasible without incurring some annoying weaknesses. it also doesn't get that many chances to abuse fs and good teams should be able to fend it off at least short term. i've found that since scl, dd scrafty is easier to account for with soft checks and good ingame execution. doublade itself was used to soft check +2 scrafty on both sides in the sensei jon game and that should be pretty evident that the pkmn is not completely busted (if sensei used sd instead of cc on scrafty in the semis game he won the 1v1). it's also worth mentioning that vs hyperoffense, a very strong & popular playstyle, dd scrafty has no time to get much done and ends up as a dead slot.

my vote comes down to the suspect timing being a bit kneejerk (although i can't fault the council for doing it) and the metagame not improving with scrafty gone. banning scrafty will make cheese like gterrain better (great thievul check and ghostvally check gone), uninteractive full stalls will become much stronger, status spreading will lose counterplay, and we lose a crucial psychic immune + doublade check + fighting type with overall defensive utility. i wish we had a bit more time to evaluate this since dd scrafty just recently got optimized on standard non-fs balance, so i ask that if scrafty gets banned we get a second vote in a few months similar to uu quagsire. current ss pu is a great metagame and i'm quite hesitant to make more changes to it, especially since scrafty's removal doesn't provide many positives (it's a complete myth that you must use a fairy to deal with it, and idt it really constrains the builder much, etc).
 

gum

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my biggest worry with banning scrafty is the impact a ban like that will have on the metagame. excal has already pointed it out, but by itself it already helps vs a lot and makes certain things (thievul, specs guno, heat wave swoobat, ghost-types, stall) harder to consistently run. in a way, it promotes meta diversity by keeping things in check. a scrafty ban would most likely change the meta in ways we can't possibly predict as of now; it's been a consistent threat since it dropped to the tier during the big dlc tier shifts and has adapted to every meta change, and has at times also wrapped the tier around itself. removing that important of a component to the metagame is a huge risk. if scrafty gets banned and the meta becomes awful, are people actually going to care enough to push for more change? and how much will need to change post scrafty for the metagame to reach a balanced state? i just don't know if getting into all of this now is worth it, for an oldgen that people most likely aren't going to play at all outside of like, pupl and pu classic

i still find scrafty in the current metagame to be a huge pain. the dragon dance set is often a 50/50 away from winning by itself, and it can be incredibly hard to punish. teams without it often also just feel worse, because there's so much you can do with it and even if it doesnt sweep, it still puts a lot of pressure in game. also, knock off is ridiculously free in this metagame

my vote will most likely come down to how much people care. similarly to the above post, if scrafty ends up getting banned, i think having a second vote after classic if deemed necessary would be ideal
 

Chloe

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As a result of this thread, we have decided to hold a vote as was discussed in the OP. Following this vote, if opinions of the metagame decline, we may hold a follow up vote in the coming months.

You must have achieved at least one of the following requirements in order to qualify for voting:
  • 3 PU Games Played, 1 PU Win in SCL II
  • 3 SS Games Played, 1 SS Win in PUWC III
  • Top 8 in PU Fall Seasonal 2022
  • Qualified for 2022 PU Circuit Playoffs
These were decided upon via internal discussion, while following an abbreviated version of the standard set here.

With those requirements, the following users have qualified:
The thread in blind voting will be posted very soon.

Edit: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-pu-scrafty-voting.3712916/
 
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