Suspect SS AAA Suspect Test #8: Justice for Terrakion

[UT]

​

WHY:
Terrakion is one of the premier breakers in Almost Any Ability. Its main set, Adaptability Choice Band, is able to punch through many defensive cores with a little bit of prediction and not a lot of risk. Close Combat and Stone Edge have near-perfect coverage together, and its few reliable switch ins like Dauntless Shield Mew and Hippowdon loathe getting Toxiced on the switch. Additionally, it has the option to run Swords Dance or Laser Focus to beat its normal checks and blow a hole in the opposing team. Thanks to its resistance to Stealth Rock and relatively good speed tier, it is able to be pivoted in on a wide range of both defensive and offensive mons and threaten them with a KO.

Recently, the Download Choice Band set has also emerged, which takes advantage of Terrakion's ability to come in on specially defensive mons to secure an Attack boost. This allows it to pick up some key 2HKOs that Adaptability misses out on, most notably Intimidate Corviknight and Dauntless Shield Skarmory.

Terrakion's few hard walls, such as Dauntless Shield Mew and Hippowdown and Regenerator Doublade, are often difficult to fit on teams. More often, opponents are forced to rely on soft checks like Regenerator Tapu Fini or Kommo-o, which can be KOed if they predict incorrectly one too many times. This often forces the opponent into 50/50s that favor the Terrakion user--guess right and mostly hold serve, or guess wrong and lose a mon. These soft answers also only work against Choice Band Terrakion, and lose outright if they switch in on a Swords Dance or Laser Focus.

Terrakion does have some legitimate drawbacks. Due to its relative frailty and lack of meaningful resists, it provides no real defensive utility and can be difficult to bring on the field safely without a slow pivot from a teammate. It is also weak to most of the common priority moves and not difficult to revenge kill. It can also struggle with Regenerator Scarf users like Mew and Tapu Fini who are able to outspeed it and threaten a KO or burn back.

How (Suspect Details):
During a Suspect test, each player must climb the ladder until they've acquired the GXE necessary to participate in the voting. Primarily, everyone that participates needs to make an alt account following these guidelines:

• Every game must be played on the official Pokemon Showdown! site and on a new account (creation date no earlier than today, February 2nd) with "RAAAK [Nick]"--for example, I could create one called "RAAAK UT" to ladder with. Having the prefix at the beginning of your alt name is mandatory, AKA not in the middle (e.g. The RAAAK Man) and not at the end (e.g. The RAAAK).
• To qualify for voting, your alt must play a minimum of 25 games, and you must have a minimum GXE of 75.
• Terrakion will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect.
• The suspect test will go for two weeks and end on Wednesday, February 16th (11:59 pm GMT -6).
• When posting proof of meeting reqs, feel free to use this thread as a means to disseminate topical opinions regarding whether or not Terrakion should be banned. (Optional)
• It is mandatory to provide proof of ownership of the alt account as well. (Post a picture of your reqs with your smogon name featured)

With that all of that being said, it's suspect time! As usual, the actual voting will take place in the Blind Voting Forum, so posting anything other than proof of reqs and discussion isn't necessary.

Tagging Kris for implementation

 

[Isaiah]

Will be voting DNB for sure. Terrakion is really strong for sure, but it's laughably easy to finesse it without even having hard counters. I was able to shuffle between regenscarf mew and regen lefties fini for the 16/25 games where I had to play vs banded rak, and it was generally not super difficult to get away with.

e: Got people asking what team I used, here it is: https://pokepast.es/c1e71653c04abee5

 

[Wait2Seconds]

 

[longhiep341]

Missing out on 2HKOs 1/3 of the time because of missing makes Stone Edge really inconsistent. Scarf midgrounds (mostly Fini and Mew) also hurt it a lot because missing once means you almost can't make any progress due to low PP. Band relies on prediction and still struggles to make progress against hard checks/counters like Intimidate/Dauntless mons, and against offense even if it gets a kill it concedes a lot of momentum. Being weak to common priorities like Triage Drain Punch, Draining Kiss and Grassy Glide further reduces what it can threaten. Sniper Laser Focus still relies on predictions, otherwise you miss the Laser Focus turn and become unable to threaten much for the rest of the game due to the loss of surprise factor (And it still can't OHKO Hippowdon most of the time). All of these combined with my ladder experience with a team that's supposed to be threatened a lot by Terra but still beats all Terra teams means I will most likely vote DNB.
Here's the team I used for req: https://pokepast.es/4f76fd80587ebfe2
You can replace Bug Buzz on Vikavolt with Energy Ball, both have their uses

 

[Osake]

confirming as RAAAK Osake

not sure of what I'm gonna vote. Adapt Band Terrak is hard to switch on, and answers can either lose to Laser Focus or Band Download (man : +1 252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Close Combat vs. +1 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 166-196 (49.7 - 58.6%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO why is Terrak legal wtf). Counterplays with Fini + Rock Resist or stuff like that just straight lose to SD Variants (I think they are underestimated).
Moreover, a metagame full of Protect users to scout what Terrak is going to click doesn't look healthy to me (bring back PH meta), so for all those reasons I was pro-suspect.

However it's true that Stone Edge accuracy is shaky, it's def less threatening than Archeops' Head Smash, you have almost 0 defensive utility (you can take one hit but you don't switch on anything) and you are are weak to every Triage priority. You need to predict well and SD variants can be wear down just with LO recoil, you are still outspeed by a lot of things, and there is counter play (I started using Palossand personally and it's not bad), etc.

My vote rn is still ban, because I think a good Terrak team can really destroy the metagame if you find how to bring it on the field, and people are just underestimating that. When we'll have understand how to bring Terrak properly, it'll be even more strong than it is rn, and it'll become too much to handle for the metagame imo
My opinion can obviously change in the future, I'll see

Good luck laddering all !

 

[Dj Breloominati♬]

voting dnb, share the sentiment of its consistent set (band) being easy to check + healthy for the meta as a breaker, while its harder to check sets (laser focus, sd etc) are not easy to set up (and thus it has some sort of implicit counterplay on most teams)

 

[UT]

Confirming as RAAAK White Horse

I plan on voting Do Not Ban on Terrakion. While it is a fearsome breaker, perhaps our best one, it has sufficient counterplay to be healthy within the tier. I will be arguing that: Terrakion has sufficient checks-including a small number of hard counters and more substantial number of soft checks, Terrakion needs not-insignificant team support to do its job well, and Terrakion rewards skillful play. For completeness, these are what I consider to be the legitimate Terrakion sets to be prepared for: Adapt Band, Adapt Swords Dance, Sniper, and Download Band.

Terrakion's checks
Terrakion's main set is the Choice Band Adaptability set, which is what we will be discussing here. The following mons on the VR can safely switch into this set from full, and have access to reliable recovery to do is consistently through the match: Dauntless Shield Mew, Intimidate/Dauntless Shield Corviknight/Skarmory, Toxapex, Hippodown, Regenerator Nidoqueen, and Palossand. While some of these are admittedly niche, that is already a fairly robust list of VR-quality mons that can check Terrakion by themselves.

Additionally, since Terrakion is normally Choice-Locked, another form of counterplay is to use physically defensive Regenerators that resist either Rock or Fighting, are not weak to the other, and have a teammate that resists the other. The classic example is Tapu Fini; it can switch into Close Combat for days, is not weak to Stone Edge and survives if it predicts wrong. Pair it with a Rock resist like Kommo-o or Swampert, and Terrakion will have a hard time making progress. The list of physical defensive Regenerators is longer, but chiefly includes Mew, Tapu Fini, and Zapdos-Galar. Special shout out to the Scarf versions of these sets that also soundly defeat the set-up variants by hitting first. Given the list of hard and soft counters available, I think there is adequate defensive counterplay to limit the progress Terrakion can force.

Terrakion's team support needs
Terrakion is not a self sufficient breaker. In addition to needing help wearing down the above checks and counters, it needs substantial help getting on the field in advantageous positions. It's defensive typing is very poor, leaving it with few relevant resists and a weakness to the most common priority moves as well, and it's below-average bulk means it doesn't want to hard switch in on almost anything. Terrakion usually relies heavily on teammates to provide it slow pivots in. Additionally, Terrakion is extremely vulnerable to chip, having no form of recovery, taking damage from all hazards, and Rocky Helmet as well. Terrakion often needs multiple switch ins to break down defensive cores, and without significant team support in the form of hazard control and slow pivoting, it will be very hard pressed to get them.

Terrakion rewards skillful play
This last point is more subjective, but I think it is worth bringing up. Go back and look at the sets; what do all of them have in common? They are either Choiced, and need accurate predictions to make progress, or rely on finding free turns to set up Swords Dance or Laser Focus. Terrakion is not a one-button breaker that can slowly make progress safely. It requires constant reads of the opponents team, and there is a real cost to making wrong predictions. If the Banded sets guess wrong, the forfeit all momentum and have to hard switch out and find another way back in, and if the set-up sets guess wrong, they can get bopped hard as they try and set up. Ultimately, skillful play is something we should be rewarding. If your opponent needs to play perfectly to make progress, that gives you plenty of opportunities to respond.

In conclusion
It is no secret that I am the resident Terrakion main, and obviously I think it is a very, very good mon. But I also have a lot of experience with its shortcomings, and find it overall to be balanced within the tier. Terrakion is a great breaker, and if you forget to prepare for it, it will royally mess up your team. With reasonable prep, the type of prep you should allocate for any A-ranked mon, there is sufficient counterplay to keep it in check with a wide variety of teams.

TL;DR: Will be voting Do Not Ban on Terrakion. If you disagree, cool, would love to hear why, and that's why we're doing the suspect test in the first place!

 

[Frito]

shoutouts to the 2 different water absorb corviknights on ladder. I used terrak a lot in this run, it's obviously very strong but the combo of stone edge accuracy and having decent ways to pivot around it has me leaning DNB.

 

[Hera]

The table does it again.

I really don't feel like typing up something long as I did for Blace, but to sum up my points, Terrakion is an immensely unhealthy aspect when building. This tier has a high power level that makes building feel constrained at times, and Terrakion is a big reason why. In general, this tier has a Fighting-type problem because Broken-O can win games whenever it wants, and our Fighting switch-ins aren't actually Fighting switch-ins because they all take neutral damage from another of Terrakion's STABS (except Palossand and Doublade and Claydol, but who uses those?). This often means you need to dedicate a core to dealing with Terrakion, such as Scarf Regen Mew + Tapu Fini. Admittedly this isn't hard, but I feel that by trying to beat Terrakion, teams are losing to other viable threats. The only reason I spam ZyDog as much as I do is that whatever beats Terrakion almost always loses to ZyDog.

If Adaptability Band was the only set I'd be on the fence, but the addition of other sets push it over the edge for me. What's that, your counterplay to Terrakion is Intimidate Corv + a Regen Garchomp? Well, it just clicked Laser Focus and now something is going to die. The non-Band sets do rely on Terrakion getting a free turn and lack the immediate damage Banded sets have, but Terrakion's counterplay is so predictable that it can easily abuse these openings and force a KO. SD sets also work for this reason: they rely on the opponent trying to abuse Terrak's Choice-lock. This set diversity means you can build a team that can defensively deal with Choice Band Terrakion, but crumble versus non-Choice Band Terrakion. It's also hard to offensively check as well due to a great Speed tier, a resistance to Rocks (meaning it's harder to wear down with hazards), and what does force it out is walled by common Pokemon in the tier.

I'm a bit suprised by this suspect considering it was deemed of least concern by the community as a whole, but I am very glad it happened regardless. I hope to ban it and never look back.

Even more ladder sets

-Level 1 Phantump
-Regenerator Red Card Ninjask + Regieleki
-Dry Skin Flygon
-SubCM + No Guard Raikou
-Mixed Hone Claws Mew
-Choice Band Golispod
-Runerigus
-Chlorophyll Marowak-A
-Drought Latias
-Sunny Day Cresselia
-Jolteon
-Dragon Dance Mew
-Sneasel
-Mixed Volcanion
-Freeze Dry Galardarm
-Figy Berry + As One Hawlucha
-Cramorant
-Regenerator Goodra
-Electric Surge Zapdos
-Unburden Electric Seed Celebi
-Regenerator Stakataka
-Mixed Dragon Dance Hydreigon
-Swords Dance Ferrothorn
-Galvanize + Extreme Speed Genesect
-Future Sight Necrozma with Pangoro support
-Sand Stream Scizor
-Gravity Palossand
-Shed Skin Guzzlord
-Magic Bounce Celesteela

#BanGenesect

 

[tzaur]

confirming as RAAAK CDG. lost two matches to bad luck and the other two i just played like complete garbage

I've advocated for this thing's ban for MONTHS, but after having used teams with Terrakion, I think it's manageable albeit very annoying to deal with when well-played. Moreover, as UT mentioned, it requires good team support to perform well. There have been times where I tried including Terrak in my builds without coherently supporting with hazards or mons that threaten its checks, and Terrak by himself did not cut it, especially against people who properly prepared for it. Terrak's answers include things such as phys def Regen mons that resist at least one STAB, DS/Intim mons with a good def stat, Pex (both Prank and its vanilla Regen set), and Protect scouting against Adapt Band which both forces it to use up its highly limited PP on its STABs in longer matches and forces it out since the Protect user will likely just switch to whatever mon resists its selected move. I don't consider any of those off-meta.

My only two problems with it at the moment:
1. All mons that can sponge both STABs through natural resistance are kinda off-meta such as Doublade, Palossand, Nidos, Runerigus.
2. Stone Edge's high crit ratio. It's obviously not something that pushes it over the edge for me since it's more likely for Terrak to miss Edge than it is to land and get a crit, but I feel it kinda just wins on the spot if your CC resist drops to a bullshit Edge crit since it can just mindlessly click CC next time it comes in if nothing else resists it.

Opinion could change, but I'm probably voting DNB.

Team

used a my take on TR my entire run which is a highly-modified version of UT's TR team. obnoxiously good comp and the most consistent TR team i've used by far; arctozolt is actually so busted in TR lmao. everything not named VA corv, ferro, and mamo drops to bolt beak or either of its ice moves. magic of this thing is that it's slow enough to underspeed a huge majority of the main meta and thus outrun them under TR but fast enough to beat the shit out of opposing TR teams outside of TR

 

[Latias]

Confirming

S/outs to Dj Breloominati♬

 

[clerica]

the isaiah team worked well just was slow, s/o's Rellia

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Confirming.

Probably going to vote dnb, the only cb mon that seems remotely broke atm is Zarude and I like that one. Terrakion just doesn't rise to remotely the same level as previous brokens, even if that does mean I sometimes don't remember to actually bring a check.

 

[PandaDoux]

Terrakion's suspect was a big big surprise, and i think with no doubt that it did not deserve a suspect before pokemons like Kommo-o or Genesect, Terrakion is really restrictive in the builder, i also want to reply to UT 's post in this thread about Terrakion's checks.

Terrakion's checks

Terrakion's checks
Corviknight Dauntless Shield/Intimidate : is 2HKO after rocks even with leftovers
Skarmory Dauntless Shield/Intimidate : is 2HKO after rocks even with leftovers
Mew Dauntless Shield/Intimidate : is 2HKO by Megahorn + with the combination of Toxic + Stone Edge, Terrak need very little chip damage to 2HKO it
Palossand : if it's not the proof that Terrak is very restrictive defensively i don't know what is this
Nidoqueen : Same
Toxapex : Toxapex is easily overwhelmed by threats, taking at least 50% (without rocks with BSludge) just to check Terrakion is huge + doesn't come 2 times
Hippowdon : is bad

Calcs

252 Atk Choice Band Adaptability Terrakion Close Combat vs. +1 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 182-216 (45.6 - 54.1%) -- 95.7% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Adaptability Terrakion Close Combat vs. +1 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 148-176 (44.3 - 52.6%) -- 80.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery


252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Megahorn vs. +1 248 HP / 252+ Def Mew: 188-222 (46.6 - 55%) -- 64.8% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Adaptability Terrakion Stone Edge vs. +1 248 HP / 252+ Def Mew: 158-186 (39.2 - 46.1%) -- 21.5% chance to 2HKO after poison damage

252 Atk Choice Band Adaptability Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 174-206 (57.2 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Rock-resistance + Fight-resistance Regenerators to check Terrakion sux a lot, this replay shows this perfectly, it shows 2 things actually, 1st, this defensive core (i'm talking about Rock-resist + Fight-resist overall, not on the opponent's team) is completely destroy by SD, since both are OHKO by either Stone Edge or Close Combat, and 2nd, even Band can break through them, i just clicked Toxic on the first check that come, which was the Fight-Resist, and just spam Close Combat after because it takes 40% + Toxic damages without rocks, i don't think it's hard to make progress with it.
Same problem for Scarfers Regen that resist one of Fight or Rock, some are already OHKO with rocks anyway (zapdos-g) and others just take a 60% so they potentially can't come multiple times and they can't trick because otherwise the team is destroys by Terrak, which is very annoying with a mon like Mew that wants to get rid of the Scarf.

So actually, Palossand, Hippowdon, and Nidoqueen are the only safe switch-ins to Terrakion, and none of them are strong enough in the tier outside of being a terrak counter.

Also another thing, and the main thing that makes me vote Ban for Terrakion for sure, the building is a-w-f-u-l, less awful since Weavile and Blace bans hopefully, but it still have too much threats in the tier that restricts the builder a lot, half of the teams i see are easily 6-0 by something strong in the tier, so you're just fishing a matchup and pray that your opponent will not bring the thing that 6-0 you, but this is another discussion i think and i will maybe do a post in the AAA Thread if i'm not lazy, enjoy the suspect everyone !

 

[Don Vascus]

I am as raaak stacks

i have racked my fat stacks
using this amusing build
featuring palossand: https://pokepast.es/7309997c1041e94b
and my stacks would be up to the ceiling fan
if not for a bug steel who stealed my wins
with sets i could not have foreseen

me if gene didnt exist

i think i found a single terrak in my multiple tries to get a perfect score and it was in a bad team lol the real evil in this meta is gene but ig thats for later

nevertheless speaking from past experience with the mon having to play a fake 50/50 to keep pretending i can check it isnt fun, so its gonna be a ban for me

also palo is good b/b- mon with an immunity it can torment fightings + the immunity of choice and if you are willing to invest in spdef (you will lose to secondary stabs) you can torment electrics too!

 

[arn.av136]

s/o Dj Breloominati♬ and broke ass zygod

 

[Nick]

i cant ss on my shitty computer so heres a pic of it
smely socks please never let me play this tier again
also the Heracross2.0 team was busted i lost one game with it


While I didn't see it too often on ladder, when I was playing against it I found it really hard to switch into, I mostly got lucky against opponents not making predicts. I don't build for this tier and can't imagine having to build around the adaptability or download sets so im voting ban

 

[Reece]

Click Buttons!!
Generakion balance
These are the teams that i used to gain reqs, overall judgment is that we are missing the wrong mon here. Ill be voting no ban since there are quite a few good answers to it unlike Genesect

 

[DuGuo]

it is my first time to try aaa and suspect .Luckily I finally finished it
s/o QY_CS

 

[Ducky]

Definitely used a sub-optimal strategy to get reqs, but confirmed as raaak duck sucks
also please dont look at how many games I played

i mostly used the trick room team tzaur posted, but also used a couple of teams built (1, 2, 3)

 

[kDCA]

Not sure what higher power I pissed off to deserve such abysmal suspect runs, but it seems tilt playing an entire account worked.
I used the team Heracross2.0 posted for most games and it slayed only Ls were like hard hax and awful mu, also used an Inteleon team Osake posted in the AAA main thread and it was super fun to use.

Not really sure what I am going to vote. I went into this thinking DNB, but am leaning ban after thinking about it and reading the ban arguments. I wouldn't call myself an AAA expert to any extent, but I think terrak creates a lot of stress and lacks reliable defensive answers, being an absolute headache in the builder as it forces slower and more fat archetypes to really only have anti-terrak cores or have a borderline unmon in play specifically for it from my experience so far. I think the sets other then band really enable Terrakion to shine as such a potent threat, especially since they become capable of breaking the band checks (even if they aren't mindless setup). Offensively, this thing does get boomed by faster threats and triage users. Band sets also can tend to be quite predict heavy admittedly. Also yes, Stone Edge isn't an excessively reliable move, but I wouldn't consider dodging to be the most ideal counterplay.

Still on the fence, will revisit this before voting and see if my mind changed. also wtf is no guard gene lol

 

[hybone]

 

[HiZo]

Confirming as RAAAK Noelle

RICEMAN ur move

 

[Dr. Phd. BJ]

got reqs for tyga idrc if terrak goes rofl

 

[iapt]

Confirming as raaak unlucky, fr lived up to my name
will most likely be voting dnb
when talking about terrak here, i will lergely be speaking about the banded adaptability set.

Terrak is undoubtedly a very powerful force in the meta rn, but it can be played around and forced out by offensive pressure. Stuff like dshield mew and scarf fini can check it well, often over the course of the game, in the case of mew also being able to pivot into revenge killers like koko, triage lele, zarude, azelf, skewda, toge, zydog, the eon twins and can be caught sleeping by any scarfer like chomp, lando or even fini. even just that list of revenge killers is pretty solid evidence imo, but it also misses out on key 2hkos on stuff like corv and cant reliably beat dshield mew if u dont get the toxic right, and then stuff like scarf regen will beat u. terrak relies a lot on predictions, especially vs things like mew and fini and a skillful player will be able to take advantage of that, especially after a few turns of predictions by the terrak user. this may be a bit incoherent, ill be happy to try and explain myself a bit better if i wasnt clear.