Stall in SM UU (was: SM UU Blissey)

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Freeroamer

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I'm glad this thread seems to be moving away from banning Blissey, I think going in with the mentality of "we just gotta nerf stall and it doesn't matter where it is afterwards" (which is what a Blissey ban represents to me) is the wrong one and could actually be harmful in itself to the tier in the long run. I don't really know if this holds true everywhere, but in the majority of the tiers I've played in my time on Smogon stall is the style that gets picked vs inexperienced players in tours and that farms the ladder because it takes knowledge to prep for and accurate play to break down, and I actually think that's something worth preserving if possible because it shows there is an inherent skill in being able to beat it consistently. What pushes SM UU stall over the edge for me however is the crazy amount of variety that can be encountered which ranges from the two most frequently seen stall builds of Blissey/Alomomola/Quagsire/Gligar + Mega Aerodactyl/Articuno or Nihilego/Mega Altaria built by Pearl and pif respectively, the stall teams with different options (notably Pyukumuku) that pif showed in his first post itt as well as other options such as the Rotom-H stall w/out Unaware that Adaam has infrequently used to good success. It's very possible with all of these variations being viable and justifiable picks that even if you do attempt to make preparations to beat stall, you can easily run into one of the variations of stall that completely blank how you planned to make progress and the game is a foregone conclusion if played out accurately by the stall player. From my own experiences building and playing SM, there are very few countermeasures you can pack which go any decent length to avoiding this conundrum, especially in a tier that is so constrained in the builder due to the presence of the likes of Scizor and Latias.

Following on from that, I'd like to offer my support for a vote on Quagsire too. I find this to be the most appealing option presented for addressing stall because it significantly cuts down on the number of viable routes that stall can take in the builder as well as opening up some more options that can harass various stall builds, while definitely keeping it as a viable pick in the metagame. esche did a really nice job in covering the things that become more threatening and how they fit into builds commonly used within the metagame, and there are even more such as Rockium Z Terrakion which suddenly becomes an actual threat to stall again instead of being forced into Life Orb or Fight Z if it wants to break through Quagsire. This can already be seen in some of pif's teams and in Adaam’s team where the absence of Quagsire forces picks such as Doublade/Nidoqueen in order to handle SD bull satisfactorily, which in turn feeds into reducing the variety of stalls to prepare for within the tier. I think these kinds of small changes are what is required to bring stall in SM UU into a healthier spot where it's strong but more reasonable to be prepared for.
 
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vivalospride

been up all year my third eye aint even blinkin’
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The arguments in this thread can quite literally be translated to: stall is an incredibly good playstyle, but I didn't prepare for it in this tournament, so I lost to it. Like, how can you simultaneously think that the playstyle needs to be nerfed because of how good it is but then not acknowledge it when preparing for a tournament game? This is like making it to high ladder during SM UU, laddering with a team 6-0d by stall, and then running into the UU Discord/PS Room to complain about how broken stall is once you match up against pif and get farmed with the swiftness.
Delayed response on my end I haven't been super on disc/ps/smogon the past week or so but I disagree with this narrative. I understand why you feel this way, maybe the posts sound too personal or whatever because nobody enjoys being stalled... but ultimately I think you should think about the fact that sometimes you're right and people just say fuck the stall mu and pray they don't see it. If it was Scizor or Lati we were talking about, surely we wouldn't sit here and just forego steels or whatever other counterplay on our teams just bc it's too annoying to prep for or whatever. Building within the context of this tier can feel like you constantly have to weigh your shitty mus to a much harsher extent than any other tier I personally have experience with, and unless you're building around some massive stallbreaking core... stall is almost always one of those "shitty mus" you're weighing your options vs. With stall being a playstyle and not an individual mon or whatever the counterplay will naturally be a lot grayer and therefore more difficult to rationalize investing heavily in when your back is up against the wall in the builder and it seems unlikely your opp that you're prepping for will bring it. I remember I played in w1 of UUFPL vs stall with HO with Hwish + NP Ape + Shark and my mu was certainly less than ideal regardless and my opp floundered about the keyboard aimlessly as my outs were so small and I missed a move and the game was pretty much over from there unless I mega haxed with shark. I was salty and was like "damn i rlly got stalled and haxed in w1 of UUFPL..." in the UU disc out of pettiness and frustration and weeks later I see Estarossa hit me with a one liner that's very similar to the paragraph I quoted above: "I'm not like viv and complain about being stalled despite not building with stall breakers".

While my salt means I probably deserved this underhanded comment, the reason I am bringing this up is because I really feel like a statement like this is off the mark in terms of what building SM UU with stall in mind feels like, unless you just think smacking some stall breaker somewhere is enough to consider your stall mu manageable vs a good staller... spoiler alert it literally is not. The point Pak and I both tried to make was how difficult it really feels to actively prep for stall and actually feel genuine confidence in the matchup without over-reaching heavily or really hitting the sweet spot with your smaller outs, which is often extremely difficult. You can't cover everything in the builder but stall makes it feel next to impossible to have an even satisfactory mu spread when you actively think abt it at times.

tldr - I really don't think the argument of like "lol you guys don't prep enough for it ofc you lose when you see it" is super valid due to the harsh nature of weighing your stall mu in the builder, as I think
How do you prepare for stall then? I am stumped, and so are many other users. We have explained before how difficult it is, enumerated multiple "stallbreakers" and why they fail to do the job consistently, and nobody has still shown how to prepare for stall. Do we just use NP Celebi and call it a day?
this echos as well

Moving onto the topic more at hand, I do think Quagsire is a pretty good midground in terms of dealing with stall in SM UU. I do actively believe that Pyukumuku is very strong on stall and have seen pokemonisfun, Amane Misa, as well as others form strong stall archetypes with Pyukumuku > Quagsire. Pyukumuku checks a plethora of things that threaten stall as pif noted in an earlier post, but the reason I still would be happy with banning Quagsire as a stall nerf is because it'd take away Quagsire as an option, opening up the possibilities in the builder against stall at least a bit while certainly hitting stall's viability a satisfactory amount.

I support Quagsire vote w/o question and really really hope we get one.
 
Think I finally have my thoughts on this in order. I'll refrain from going on too long because most of the points I agree with have already been made. I personally think Blissey is the root of the problem as it's not only an irreplaceable stall cornerstone but also finds itself easily fitting itself onto all sorts of (albeit a bit cheesy) non-stall teams that developed and warped building in a similar manner throughout the later stages of SM when it was the current gen. However, I am also okay with the direction that this thread has been heading. I think everyone here is in agreement that minimal changes to the tier is for the best, since there is the big chance that banning big constricting mon X could drastically affect the health of the tier and wouldn't be a good idea unless we are willing to go through with a giant restructure of the tier (which we probably shouldn't). On top of that, banning Blissey would likely gut stall as a playstyle entirely, which is something that I believe should be avoided as well, especially in retrospective tiering such as this case. We could likely never get the universal support going for a large-scale rework of an old gen lower tier which is why I think a potential Scizor ban would also take the tier in a bad direction at this point without willingness to continue further.

While I'm sure there's certainly enough people who've had enough Blissey trauma through the years to completely nuke it, I support doing something with Quagsire. Unlike Blissey, it's pretty much only a staple on stall and has near zero usage anywhere else, so it will certainly not have a massive impact on the tier. I think it's a good value midground to give the style some semblance of risk in using as it makes the style either A) much more susceptible and unable to easily stop common VoltTurn builds that can keep the pressure up without Manectric or Rotom being hindered as much, and/or B) more susceptible to strong setup mons like Nasty Plot Infernape, Swords Dance Bisharp and Scizor, and more; unless you use the inferior but still viable Pyukumuku, which again, doesn't pack the crucial Volt Switch immunity, on top of a complete lack of measurable presence vs common setup mons that Quagsire had with Scald and Haze. I think everyone is (mostly) in agreement stall's busted in this tier and I'm glad we're finally doing something about it. As much as I personally would like to nuke Blissey from existence I don't think that plan will reach a feasible consensus without big reworks which simply just won't happen. So as for minimal changes to the tier that would affect it positively, I agree that getting rid of Quagsire specifically will give the playstyle a significant hit while not completely decimating its viability and it's the best we'll get without going for multiple big changes. As long as it becomes something less than the instant win button it is in the vast majority of matchups that it is right now, I think it'll be a net positive change.
 
Hello, I'm a bit late to the party here and I usually don't post on these types of threads, but I want to voice my support for banning quagsire.

In my opinion, stall definitely needs some sort of nerf. It is by and far the best playstyle in an overwhelming fashion that forces suboptimal options in the builder if you want a decent-good matchup. After reading the posts in this thread, I support a quag ban over other nerf options. A lot has been said about the subject and I'm not really that great at conveying my thoughts into words so I'll keep this really short.

Back when we first brought up suspecting stall in SM I voted for a blissey vote, but looking at it again, I believe that is pretty drastic, making stall basically unplayable without it. As much as I'd like for that to be the case that isn't very healthy for the meta. Blissey, along with mola, does have a place on certain balances too as well, whereas quag is basically only seen on stall (besides that ugly ass mismag team cora uses). With another unaware user in pyukamuku, stall still remains viable, but not as dominant due to the lack of options it would have. So as far as a stall focused nerf goes, quag is the best option I see at the moment.
 

Lily

wouldn't that be fine, dear
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Note: speaking from my own curiosity and not from a TL perspective, still not even remotely sure if this will go ahead, this is just me wondering about logistics.

How would the voter list be determined this time if this were to go ahead? With ORAS Conk we had a pretty large amount of tournament results where ORAS UU was an oldgen, but we haven't had many with SM UU. For reference, we've had two UUPLs, one UUWC, one UUSD and one SM UU Cup with another SM UU Cup on the way in the near future. This means the voter list would look as follows, with the criteria being >50% of regular season games played with at least one win for team tours or a semis placement for SM UU Cup:

Highways
Pak
Adaam
Amukamara
UUPL IX:
Xiri
Bushtush
HT
PinkDragonTamer
Gondra
shiloh
Finchinator
bugzinator
TDK
robjr
mncmt
Sacri'
CBU

UUPL VIII:
Christo
suapah
Empo
Shiba
Eternally
Santu
Corazan
Spl4sh
SPACE FORCE meeps
vivalospride

Totals to 27 voters, not even remotely close to the 48 Conk had. This isn't necessarily a problem per se but it makes me question whether or not this is an accurate enough representation of the SM UU playerbase - that said, if you guys feel this is enough then this is a moot point that just gives us the data we need for a potential future vote. If not, we could wait for future team tours / at least SM cup before finalising these votes or maybe consider taking in those who played in UUFPL? Dunno, any ideas are appreciated, it's very possible I miscounted a couple of people too since I'm running on very low sleep atm but yea.

really quick edit: I didn't want to include people voters from UUPLs where SM was the current gen because there are just way too many and it's very difficult to determine how to weed people out but if that's wanted I can try to figure it out
 

robjr

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RUPL Champion
Feel like I should post my thoughts as well, considering most people have seemingly come to a verdict. I think everyone that consistently plays SM UU knows that stall is very annoying to deal with in the builder. It really hamstrings teambuilding to a point where you need certain things in order to even have a chance of dealing with it. Like many people have already said, just slapping a stall breaker on your team and calling it a day is not a recipe for success, as if your playing someone who can actually use stall you need much more than that to actually just break through. It also doesn't help the case of the breakers that we have multiple very solidified stalls in our metagame. For example, band crawdaunt will usually have a decent matchup vs the pearl stall with articuno, but if you run into any sort of mega altaria stall, you will not be having the same success.

When this discussion was first brought up in council back when SM was still current gen, I voted to do nothing because I felt like the need to nerf wasn't as pressed at the time. Since then, I have played many SM UU games for tournaments and its very clear that the stranglehold stall has on building makes prep for one more difficult then it should be, and just not a fun experience.

When this thread was first brought up, I wanted to give myself some time to think about what would be the best decision to try and provide a nerf. I think we can all agree that blissey would provide the biggest nerf to stall, as it is extremely hard to run a successful stall without it(though im sure pif would manage). However, as people brought up, blissey has more of an impact on the metagame than just stall. I myself have used it countless times on balance builds to good success. So if that's not the route to take, then what is? With blissey off the table, the next mon that came to mind for me was alomomola, but similar to blissey it also has more of an impact to the meta than just stall, even if it's to a lesser degree.

And that leaves us with quagsire. After reading the thread and everyone's different points about it, I think banning quaqsire is the best course of action for SM UU. While banning quagsire won't have the same impact that banning blissey would have, as many people have brought up, what it should provide is more ways to handle stall in the builder, which is what I think we all want to gain from a stall nerf. Of course, pyukumuku is still a viable pokemon and can easily fit onto stalls, but going from 2 to 1 viable unaware user is a big deal to me, and should provide enough of a nerf to stall that its slightly less of a headache in the builder.

Hopefully we can come to some sort of decision, will see you all in SM next UUPL :]
 

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
Note: speaking from my own curiosity and not from a TL perspective, still not even remotely sure if this will go ahead, this is just me wondering about logistics.

How would the voter list be determined this time if this were to go ahead? With ORAS Conk we had a pretty large amount of tournament results where ORAS UU was an oldgen, but we haven't had many with SM UU. For reference, we've had two UUPLs, one UUWC, one UUSD and one SM UU Cup with another SM UU Cup on the way in the near future. This means the voter list would look as follows, with the criteria being >50% of regular season games played with at least one win for team tours or a semis placement for SM UU Cup:

Highways
Pak
Adaam
Amukamara
UUPL IX:
Xiri
Bushtush
HT
PinkDragonTamer
Gondra
shiloh
Finchinator
bugzinator
TDK
robjr
mncmt
Sacri'
CBU

UUPL VIII:
Christo
suapah
Empo
Shiba
Eternally
Santu
Corazan
Spl4sh
SPACE FORCE meeps
vivalospride

Totals to 27 voters, not even remotely close to the 48 Conk had. This isn't necessarily a problem per se but it makes me question whether or not this is an accurate enough representation of the SM UU playerbase - that said, if you guys feel this is enough then this is a moot point that just gives us the data we need for a potential future vote. If not, we could wait for future team tours / at least SM cup before finalising these votes or maybe consider taking in those who played in UUFPL? Dunno, any ideas are appreciated, it's very possible I miscounted a couple of people too since I'm running on very low sleep atm but yea.

really quick edit: I didn't want to include people voters from UUPLs where SM was the current gen because there are just way too many and it's very difficult to determine how to weed people out but if that's wanted I can try to figure it out
I don't think you need to include having a better than 50% criteria in the last UUPL. There's a lot of luck in Pokemon and it's weird that this requirement means you can "unqualify" for a suspect vote. I.e., you can win week 1 and technically qualify if you cancered the rest of the tournament, but if you keep playing and lose weeks 2 and 3 you "unqualify." I think having a provision that allows for unqualifying is bad not because I think anyone will cancer UUPL to guarantee a future vote, but because unqualifying is inherently undesirable. Purely imo, qualifying for a suspect means you have the knowledge and dedication to a format to participate in how the format is played. Losing a game doesn't mean your knowledge or dedication has decreased.

Another provision I suggest therefore is to allow the "main" SM/gen7uu player for any team to be allowed to vote. Even if they went 0-5 or any negative record, the person who played the most gen7uu games for their UUSD/UUPL team would be allowed to vote. The idea is that if they are the main player, they have to (or should) steep themselves in the metagame and get metagame knowledge. I mean just look at our discussion here; we're talking about how stall restricts building; building skills is a component that in my opinion is better measured by how well you prepare for a game, not if you win the game or not.

I'd be happy to provide the lists for you if you're interested that would be generated with this suggestion but tag me if so please.
 

Wigglytuff

mad @ redacted in redacted
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I don't think you need to include having a better than 50% criteria in the last UUPL. There's a lot of luck in Pokemon and it's weird that this requirement means you can "unqualify" for a suspect vote. I.e., you can win week 1 and technically qualify if you cancered the rest of the tournament, but if you keep playing and lose weeks 2 and 3 you "unqualify."
I don't think this is what's meant by the >50% in Lily's qualification requirements:
with the criteria being >50% of regular season games played with at least one win for team tours
so someone that won Week 1 and then didn't play any subsequent games wouldn't qualify because they only played that one game. This ties into a later part of your post:
Another provision I suggest therefore is to allow the "main" SM/gen7uu player for any team to be allowed to vote. Even if they went 0-5 or any negative record, the person who played the most gen7uu games for their UUSD/UUPL team would be allowed to vote.
With a 7 week regular season, someone that went 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, or 1-6 would qualify to vote. This strikes a fair balance between not placing too much importance on Ws while still establishing baseline qualification.
 

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
I don't think this is what's meant by the >50% in Lily's qualification requirements:

so someone that won Week 1 and then didn't play any subsequent games wouldn't qualify because they only played that one game. This ties into a later part of your post:

With a 7 week regular season, someone that went 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, or 1-6 would qualify to vote. This strikes a fair balance between not placing too much importance on Ws while still establishing baseline qualification.
Oh thanks. It was quite clear when rereading. My bad lol!
 

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
Note: speaking from my own curiosity and not from a TL perspective, still not even remotely sure if this will go ahead, this is just me wondering about logistics.

How would the voter list be determined this time if this were to go ahead? With ORAS Conk we had a pretty large amount of tournament results where ORAS UU was an oldgen, but we haven't had many with SM UU. For reference, we've had two UUPLs, one UUWC, one UUSD and one SM UU Cup with another SM UU Cup on the way in the near future. This means the voter list would look as follows, with the criteria being >50% of regular season games played with at least one win for team tours or a semis placement for SM UU Cup:

Highways
Pak
Adaam
Amukamara
UUPL IX:
Xiri
Bushtush
HT
PinkDragonTamer
Gondra
shiloh
Finchinator
bugzinator
TDK
robjr
mncmt
Sacri'
CBU

UUPL VIII:
Christo
suapah
Empo
Shiba
Eternally
Santu
Corazan
Spl4sh
SPACE FORCE meeps
vivalospride

Totals to 27 voters, not even remotely close to the 48 Conk had. This isn't necessarily a problem per se but it makes me question whether or not this is an accurate enough representation of the SM UU playerbase - that said, if you guys feel this is enough then this is a moot point that just gives us the data we need for a potential future vote. If not, we could wait for future team tours / at least SM cup before finalising these votes or maybe consider taking in those who played in UUFPL? Dunno, any ideas are appreciated, it's very possible I miscounted a couple of people too since I'm running on very low sleep atm but yea.

really quick edit: I didn't want to include people voters from UUPLs where SM was the current gen because there are just way too many and it's very difficult to determine how to weed people out but if that's wanted I can try to figure it out
I have another way to expand the voter base if that's still desired.

ORAS UU Cup in 2020, round 5 was semifinals
ORAS UU Cup in 2019, round 5 was semifinals
SM UU Cup in 2020, round 6 was semifinals

We let people vote for the ORAS UU Conkeldurr suspect if they reached semifinals of ORAS UU Cup.

Based on that I have three suggestions:
  1. Let anyone who made it to round 5 of gen7uu cup 2020 vote because that matches the reaching round 5/semifinals of ORAS UU Cup in 2020 letting people vote
  2. Let anyone who made it to round 4 of the gen7uu cup 2020 vote because that matches the number of games needed to qualify by >50% of UUPL/UUSD regular season games (there are 7 weeks of regular season and 4 games thus need to be played)
  3. Let anyone who made it to round 2 of the gen7uu cup 2020 vote because that matches the number of games needed to qualify by >50% of UUWC regular season games (there are groups of 4 so you only played 3 games in the regular season and thus 2 is >50%)

Here's who would be allowed to vote if you used each option:

Option 1: 30 voters
27 voters Lilburr generated + rylon (who qualified when having the username forsendi), Cam , and Jaajgko = 30 voters total

Option 2: 37 voters
30 voters in option 1 + agenS + Marshall.Law + Indigo Plateau + Dlanyer + Pyroshi (qualified under the username pyroshi02) + Lilburr + Finding True Love = 37 voters total

Option 3: 81 voters total
37 voters in option 2 + Ashkirax + odr + Enzo Gorlami + Raph369 + faded love + Souw + Wamr + Fakee + lucqq + Heysup + avarice + Serpi + martha + GunGunJ + Sensei Axew + Spl4sh + GotCookies + zben + esche + Decem + Hamhamhamhamham + Thiago Nunes + crucify + jeronipuff + Drew_ + devin (qualified under the username devinn) + Raichy + A Hero's Destiny + thomas888 + Expulso + Raahel (qualified under the username rahelgamer03) + Tomahawk + Minetube2013 + Ron...5 + EternalSnowman + r0ady + lighthouses + LpZ (qualified under the lpz) + Pohjis + egalvanc + ramolost + Adrift and Alone + naruto(sage) + Staxi = 81 voters total


Obviously option 3 has a lot of voters added, more than doubling the number of total voters from option 2 (some of these players are inactive though, but they should still be included in the voter list). The point of option 3 is to show exactly how low of a bar UUWC qualification is - you only have to play 2 games to qualify and win 1 game in UUWC, just like getting to round 2 of SM Cup. One difference is you have to be selected for UUWC by a community member (manager) but I don't think we should consider that factor because it introduces an element of very undefined subjectivity; i.e., there's no clear cut reason why managers choose someone over someone else. It's also influenced by region which shouldn't be a factor for determining who gets to vote.

I'd suggest using option 2 - anyone can vote based on Lilburr's generated list + if you reached round 4 of gen7uu cup 2020 for the reason I stated earlier - it's actually a higher bar than the UUPL requirement which requires 4 games played with at least 1 win; the option 2 requirement for gen7uu cup requires 4 games played with at least 3 wins (since you need 3 wins to reach round 4).

I'd also suggest revisiting using UUWC as a qualifying option because it's based on location and because you only need to play 2 games to qualify using that criteria but I don't think it would be fair to cut it out now since we already used it for Conkeldurr.

Lastly, I'd support using UUFPL to generate more voters, with the same criteria as UUPL/UUSD (win 1 game + play >50% of regular reason games which means at least 4 games).

If you're using my option 2 above plus the UUFPL votes, this is who we get:

Final option: 43 voters total
37 voters from option 2 + Adrift and Alone + Thiago Nunes + basaninho + itsjustdrew + GotCookies + avarice = 43 voters total


Edit: Because of errors in counting, the actual number of voters is 46 as Adaam listed here: https://pastebin.com/UDLJnvLn

Qualification is one or more of any of the following:
  • UUPL 2020 Playing at least 50% (4 games) of regular season in SMUU with 1 or more win
  • UUPL 2021 Playing at least 50% (4 games) of regular season in SMUU with 1 or more win
  • UUSD 2020 Playing at least 50% (4 games) of regular season in SMUU with 1 or more win
  • UUWC 2020 Playing at least 50% (2 games) of regular season in SMUU with 1 or more win
  • SMUU Cup 2020 Reaching round 4
  • UUFPL 2021 Playing at least 50% (4 games) of regular season in SMUU with 1 or more win


Disclaimer: none of these options let me vote anyways.
 
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banning quagsire is the dumbest thing ive ever seen. it's just the lazy option to me & it's reminiscent of when nobody wanted to ban scizor because they were too lazy to deal with the ramifications of having to fix a scizorless tier. how does banning quagsire fix any of the fundamental issues with the tier? it just allows people to be lazy and not have to care about stall - if people are happy with the lazy option to plaster over the tier then go ahead but that's all this quagsire ban is. there's countless ways to abuse and take advantage of quag, all people seem to want is the option to be able to not care about it in the builder.

and why do i never have permission to post in the actual discussion threads for these votes but u keep giving me a vote anyway? if people are being allowed to vote then surely their actual opinion should matter too?
 

esche

Frust kommt auf, denn der Bus kommt nicht
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
how does banning quagsire fix any of the fundamental issues with the tier?
It's apparent you deem Scizor a problematic component of SM UU. However, the focus of this thread is the overbearingness of stall in SM UU - not Scizor. Surely you would agree that Scizor is not the cause of stalls arguable overpoweredness. Feel free to point out other fundamental issues with the tier but calling people lazy for coming to a conclusion in a much deliberated argument of a topic that a majority of the playerbase feels is worthy of addressing is simply out of place.

there's countless ways to abuse and take advantage of quag
Let's hear them. Let's also hear how to prepare for stall consistently (in the builder, if not in play) and without sacrificing a substantial amount of preparation for other prominent metagame archetypes. You don't think Quagsire is the issue? Fine. Let's hear some approaches that can solve this issue instead then. Elaborate on your position and make a case for why people should be voting Do Not Ban on Quagsire that doesn't boil down to "it's lazy".

if people are being allowed to vote then surely their actual opinion should matter too
They do matter and you have a point. However, the final voter list was only established a couple of days ago. And while, personally, I agree with you that you and others should have been able to post in this thread right away, this is hardly a fault of how this thread was directed and more to blame on the badge requirement for posting in Policy Review. Still, don't act like you don't have outlets to make your voice heard. You've had ample opportunity to voice your opinion about Quagsire and the larger issue at hand in the SM UU metagame discussion thread, in the UU room on PS or in the #oldgens_uu channel on Discord. After all, the prospect of Quagsire receiving a suspect test is hardly news at this point.

You're frustrated because you feel left out from the process which is understandable. But frankly, all we hear from you now is you bitching about a process that you took no time whatsoever chiming in on via means that you did have. Only now, after months of discussion, that a course of action has been agreed upon do you come out of the woodworks to scream how dumb and lazy people are, complaining about a completely unrelated issue that you are dissatisfied with instead. You could have made your case for keeping Quagsire in UU. Unfortunately, your post has no actual substance regarding the topic at hand.
 

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
banning quagsire is the dumbest thing ive ever seen. it's just the lazy option to me & it's reminiscent of when nobody wanted to ban scizor because they were too lazy to deal with the ramifications of having to fix a scizorless tier. how does banning quagsire fix any of the fundamental issues with the tier? it just allows people to be lazy and not have to care about stall - if people are happy with the lazy option to plaster over the tier then go ahead but that's all this quagsire ban is. there's countless ways to abuse and take advantage of quag, all people seem to want is the option to be able to not care about it in the builder.

and why do i never have permission to post in the actual discussion threads for these votes but u keep giving me a vote anyway? if people are being allowed to vote then surely their actual opinion should matter too?
I spent hours trying to convince people, searching for replays, making arguments, directly asking every SM UUPL player for their opinion and offered to post for people who don't have badges.

I also directly offered this to you:

1624322500863.png


I also worked on making a voter list because I wanted to include people, knowing that I'd include people who would disagree with me or be inactive and thus as a Do Not Ban vote, because I value being inclusive and representative.

I respect you my friend...it's okay if you think Quagsire shouldn't be banned. Your argument is legitimate - Quagsire shouldn't be banned because it's easy to take advantage of and there's an argument to be made that nerfing leads to slippery slopes, Smogon shouldn't do nerfs, etc. But obviously I'm not going to make this argument for you when I disagree with it - you have to do that work.

Please don't make it sound like you had no opportunity when I directly offered to post on your behalf.
 

Adaam

إسمي جف
is a Community Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis the 8th Grand Slam Winner
banning quagsire is the dumbest thing ive ever seen. it's just the lazy option to me & it's reminiscent of when nobody wanted to ban scizor because they were too lazy to deal with the ramifications of having to fix a scizorless tier. how does banning quagsire fix any of the fundamental issues with the tier? it just allows people to be lazy and not have to care about stall - if people are happy with the lazy option to plaster over the tier then go ahead but that's all this quagsire ban is. there's countless ways to abuse and take advantage of quag, all people seem to want is the option to be able to not care about it in the builder.

and why do i never have permission to post in the actual discussion threads for these votes but u keep giving me a vote anyway? if people are being allowed to vote then surely their actual opinion should matter too?
I’ll keep this short because Esche and Pif already responded, but why is it the do not ban side consistently calling this proposal lazy yet literally never offering any counter-argument? Pif and I reached out, both in Smogon and Discord, begging the opposite side in DMs (yes, including you) to respond here yet nobody did. Somehow we are the lazy ones? Get a grip. If you think stall is fine, you’re entitled to that vote. Can you at least pretend to try to have a real discussion?
 
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this was the first chance i had to respond to the discussion because i didn't have the permissions to post in this thread before now. i didn't see pif's proposal to post on behalf of other people, and frankly i don't think it should come to that anyway. i complained in the other thread about not being able to post in here, then my post was subsequently moved and i was granted permission to reply, so what's the issue with that exactly? no one contacted me or begged me to reply as you're claiming.

They do matter and you have a point. However, the final voter list was only established a couple of days ago. And while, personally, I agree with you that you and others should have been able to post in this thread right away, this is hardly a fault of how this thread was directed and more to blame on the badge requirement for posting in Policy Review. Still, don't act like you don't have outlets to make your voice heard. You've had ample opportunity to voice your opinion about Quagsire and the larger issue at hand in the SM UU metagame discussion thread, in the UU room on PS or in the #oldgens_uu channel on Discord. After all, the prospect of Quagsire receiving a suspect test is hardly news at this point.

You're frustrated because you feel left out from the process which is understandable. But frankly, all we hear from you now is you bitching about a process that you took no time whatsoever chiming in on via means that you did have. Only now, after months of discussion, that a course of action has been agreed upon do you come out of the woodworks to scream how dumb and lazy people are, complaining about a completely unrelated issue that you are dissatisfied with instead. You could have made your case for keeping Quagsire in UU. Unfortunately, your post has no actual substance regarding the topic at hand.
i literally used one of the outlets i had to make my voice heard and you're bitching at me for it? i don't understand what your complaint with my approach is. the first i heard of this quagsire suspect was when i was tagged to cast my vote, which is why i complained in that thread & was granted permission to post in here. this thread is titled regarding blissey, so it's extremely easy to miss that there's even a quagsire discussion going on.

It's apparent you deem Scizor a problematic component of SM UU. However, the focus of this thread is the overbearingness of stall in SM UU - not Scizor. Surely you would agree that Scizor is not the cause of stalls arguable overpoweredness. Feel free to point out other fundamental issues with the tier but calling people lazy for coming to a conclusion in a much deliberated argument of a topic that a majority of the playerbase feels is worthy of addressing is simply out of place.


Let's hear them. Let's also hear how to prepare for stall consistently (in the builder, if not in play) and without sacrificing a substantial amount of preparation for other prominent metagame archetypes. You don't think Quagsire is the issue? Fine. Let's hear some approaches that can solve this issue instead then. Elaborate on your position and make a case for why people should be voting Do Not Ban on Quagsire that doesn't boil down to "it's lazy".
scizor & latias shape the entire metagame around them, so how can you argue that scizor isn't the cause of stall's effectiveness when the metagame is this way because of those pokemon? the quagsire ban doesn't make sense to me because it's not a problematic pokemon. in sm uu you never lose a game due to "quagsire just being too good". you lose matches against stall due to not having the tools on your team to be able to take care of it, but the options are always there when you open up your builder. banning quagsire is the lazy solution in trying to fix the arguable problem that those pokemon create. the metagame is predictable and easier for stall to abuse because those pokemon are overbearing in the tier. if anything had to be looked at those pokemon would be the first ones on my list.

nerfing stall feels like it's just papering over huge cracks and you can't even say for certain it'd solve anything. i dont even believe stall is too good or anything like that in it's current form. there's a reason players can't use stall anywhere near as frequently in tournament play as they can with other styles like offence & that's because people always find ways of taking advantage of it if you do. either way im against banning quag because it doesn't even feel like a real solution to the problem that people are facing.

in regards to stall itself; i could potentially see it becoming awful to use without quag due to how good voltturn can be in this tier. i personally wouldn't like to see a metagame where stall becomes very difficult or bad to use, but that's a debate for another day i suppose.
 

kumiko

formerly TDK
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Four-Time Past WCoP Champion
I never got around to posting again largely because I haven't been feeling well and couldn't get around to putting my thoughts together, but also there really wasn't much to say. However, there really was no need to expedite this; this metagame does not get played actively and it's an old metagame that clearly is not a unanimous decision, unlike Conkeldurr. I really don't see the big deal or the need for this to have been pushed ahead as fast as it was.

vivalospride your first post was saying I didn't prep for stall and got owned, please ban. You can say what you want, but you quite literally posted that. Even if it was not your whole post, it's really hard to take your argument seriously because it just reeks of being lazy and not acknowledging stall, while also wanting it banned for being too good. You are extremely contradictory and just pushing what you prefer with nothing to back it up. Your complaints that stall are too good are fair; I've ignored stall a few times vs a few opponents, but that is my own fault if I were to lose to it, not stalls for being broken. I was the one who willingly chose to neglect to prepare for a matchup that can be won in the builder. The same applies to you. Not preparing for stall and losing to it is what should be expected, not cited as a reason for it being broken.

Adaam What kind of counterargument are you looking for exactly? Are you expecting us to provide you with a fullproof anti stall strategy that you slap one Pokemon on a team and never lose to stall again? Well, that's not how things work. You can't slap one Pokemon on a team and expect it to take down six Pokemon on its own, you should be able to figure out that's how it works on all playstyles, not just stall.

Since CM Cobalion apparently is not one as it loses to the Cuno stall team.
The issue with CM Cobalion was the set itself, as it loses if the team has any of Latias or Gligar alive and well. It has an extreme reliance on taking these two out to do anything, which is easier said than done in most cases.

There's really not much to respond to your post other than you asking for a detailed explanation on how to beat stall. As someone who is one of the most active stall users in the tier, let me tell you it is not all it's shaped up to be. It excels at farming vs people who are bad or lazy and thrives in places like the ladder, but when it sees tournament usage in things like UUPL, its win rate plummets because people are actually competent and acknowledge that stall is good. This very last UUPL stall went 3-4, which drives home the point that it really just doesn't work the same vs competent opponents.

Like I've said many times already, stall is very strong for a reason. It is far from unbeatable though. There are plenty of ways to have a solid matchup vs stall. It is not really feasible to explain every single way to break stall because what matters is the overall team competition, not just slapping on one sweeper and hoping it beats stall. That's not how things work. If you want a full list of ways to break stall I can list a bunch of Pokemon that have good matchups vs stall I guess.

SR Mega Aerodactyl with Ice Fang
SR Mega Aggron with a way to get by Gligar (Taunt, Curse, Avalanche)
Facade Mega Altaria
TSpikes Beedrill
NP Z Grass Celebi
Sub CM Chandelure
Spikes Chesnaught with Taunt or an offensive Spikes set
CM Cobalion with HP Ice
CB Crawdaunt
SD Z Haxorus
NP Z Infernape
CB Infernape
LO Infernape
SR Taunt Krookodile
CM Flame Orb Latias
NP Lucario
Mamoswine
NP Mew
Taunt Mew
Wood Hammer Mimikyu
Focus Punch Nidoking
TSpikes Nihilego
SR Nihilego
Work Up RT Primarina
SD Z U-turn Scizor
SD Life Orb Scizor
CB Scizor
Mega Sharpedo
SR Taunt or Curse Mega Steelix
Suicune
SD Terrakion
NP Togekiss
Flame Orb Heracross
NP Houndoom
AV Mienshao
CM EBall Reuniclus
Z Bug / Life Orb Venomoth with Roost
Z Bewear
Block Slowbro


Obviously none of these things will break stall on their own, but that's just now how Pokemon works. You can't just slap a single Pokemon on and call it a day.

---

This is, clearly, a controversial metagame topic. And I really don't believe we should have went ahead with a vote on it, but the current UU Tier Leader and Old Gens Council leader was not discussed with prior to approval of a vote, so I'm left with no choice but to talk about it here.

First of all, how are we just going to continue to ignore the fact that Quagsire clearly isn't broken, yet is what is being tested? The fact this thread was posted and went from Blissey to Quagsire just goes to show up much of a strawman this whole situation is. There isn't a broken element, it's just people not wanting to have to prep for stall. Well, banning Quagsire most certainly will help with that.

I'm honestly just still baffled we elected Quagsire to be the issue to be exiled. Back in SM, it wasn't even discussed as an option when we voted to ban stall. Not even once. It was Blissey or Alomomola, both of which are far more viable and good in this metagame than Quagsire, and make way more sense to vote on than Quagsire. They, however, come with repercussions. Banning Blissey or Alomomola would make certain already questionably broken Pokemon much better and more free to be used, meanwhile Quagsire has no effect other than completely invalidating stall as a playstyle. Within my initial post in this thread, one of my primary points was that dealing with this issue would either lead to a large domino effect or just not make sense, to which no one gave this any attention and decided it meant let's just not make sense.

Here's what I think about SM UU, which is clearly off topic but I'm just gonna say it anyway;

We fucked up. The tier had the chance to get proper suspect tests that it could have had when it was still the current gen, and the only way to amend this is to do multiple suspect tests for a dead metagame, which I am extremely not fond of. We should have tested Scizor in 2018. We should have tested Blissey after. If either got banned, we should have tested Latias after. If Scizor got banned, we should have tested Mega Altaria. We did none of these things, and now we're sitting here trying to turn back time while also not make any changes to the tier.

Again, Scizor did not get a fair suspect test. It was tested a few months prior to the release of the generation. The response to it was countless people saying they didn't want to make such a huge change to the tier so late in it. It really didn't get a fair test.

Secondly, why is the threshold 50+1%? We just for the first time in years lifted the lock on old gen lower tiers, because we didn't want to actively tier them, and now we want just want a decision of 25 vs 24 to determine the whole thing? I understand this slipped through the cracks, in fact, I didn't even really think about it until after it was up, but this thing got rushed into fruition over the past few days and I didn't really get the opportunity to until it was too late. This is something we could have put on hold upon realization rather than rush through it in one swift action just so stall can finally be neutered.

Lastly,

Let's hear them. Let's also hear how to prepare for stall consistently (in the builder, if not in play) and without sacrificing a substantial amount of preparation for other prominent metagame archetypes. You don't think Quagsire is the issue? Fine. Let's hear some approaches that can solve this issue instead then. Elaborate on your position and make a case for why people should be voting Do Not Ban on Quagsire that doesn't boil down to "it's lazy".
I’ll keep this short because Esche and Pif already responded, but why is it the do not ban side consistently calling this proposal lazy yet literally never offering any counter-argument? Pif and I reached out, both in Smogon and Discord, begging the opposite side in DMs (yes, including you) to respond here yet nobody did. Somehow we are the lazy ones? Get a grip. If you think stall is fine, you’re entitled to that vote. Can you at least pretend to try to have a real discussion?
You prep for stall the same way you prepare for any playstyle; you have to put together a team of multiple Pokemon that are capable of beating the playstyle. You guys asking for how to prepare for stall act as if it's some foreign concept preparing for metagame threats in the teambuilder. Let me ask you this; how do you prepare for HO? Can you please tell me? Because I find Mega Sharpedo, Mimikyu, Z Latias, etc paired with Spikes to be quite troubling to prepare for at times.

The reason people have referred to the anti-stall campaign as lazy is because the arguments in this very thread have been, and I quote:
I was convinced CBU wouldn't stall in UUPL vs Sacri' bc it's fuckin CBU and he hit us with stall and I got burned for not having a stall MU of any sort.
Quagsire is not broken. Do you think it's broken? Can you seriously say you think it's broken? Or do you just want to ban stall because you don't want to prepare for it.

Tiering decisions are obviously largely subjective; I fully understand why people have grievances with stall and why people want to make changes to the tier. I don't really get into arguments more than explaining my stance generally because I don't believe you're going to change many, if any, opinions. However, these are clearly not the right ways to go about things and I cannot find myself just sitting content with it. I'm well aware I could've responded earlier, and I'm not going to get into why I didn't, you're welcome to think what you want about me for that. But, again, I didn't even know we were getting a vote until after it was already approved, despite leading the two sections most closely tied to this decision.
 

Adaam

إسمي جف
is a Community Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis the 8th Grand Slam Winner
Thank you for the response TDK .I want to respond one final time as the vote has been published, but I disagree with many of the points made.

Adaam What kind of counterargument are you looking for exactly? Are you expecting us to provide you with a fullproof anti stall strategy that you slap one Pokemon on a team and never lose to stall again? Well, that's not how things work. You can't slap one Pokemon on a team and expect it to take down six Pokemon on its own, you should be able to figure out that's how it works on all playstyles, not just stall.
Not a foolproof strategy, but viable outs in the builder. The claims made by the anti-ban side (which has been just you and bugzi) suggest there are plenty ways to prepare for stall, so enumerating them should be easy. Until your recent post, the anti-ban side failed to do so.

There's really not much to respond to your post other than you asking for a detailed explanation on how to beat stall. As someone who is one of the most active stall users in the tier, let me tell you it is not all it's shaped up to be. It excels at farming vs people who are bad or lazy and thrives in places like the ladder, but when it sees tournament usage in things like UUPL, its win rate plummets because people are actually competent and acknowledge that stall is good. This very last UUPL stall went 3-4, which drives home the point that it really just doesn't work the same vs competent opponents.
This is not true and a misleading claim. As seen in the OP, stall has a 62% winrate all past UU tours. The past UUPL should not be your sole determinate, unless you are claiming the players in the previous tournament are bad or lazy.


Like I've said many times already, stall is very strong for a reason. It is far from unbeatable though. There are plenty of ways to have a solid matchup vs stall. It is not really feasible to explain every single way to break stall because what matters is the overall team competition, not just slapping on one sweeper and hoping it beats stall. That's not how things work. If you want a full list of ways to break stall I can list a bunch of Pokemon that have good matchups vs stall I guess.

SR Mega Aerodactyl with Ice Fang
SR Mega Aggron with a way to get by Gligar (Taunt, Curse, Avalanche)
Facade Mega Altaria
TSpikes Beedrill
NP Z Grass Celebi
Sub CM Chandelure
Spikes Chesnaught with Taunt or an offensive Spikes set
CM Cobalion with HP Ice
CB Crawdaunt
SD Z Haxorus
NP Z Infernape
CB Infernape
LO Infernape
SR Taunt Krookodile
CM Flame Orb Latias
NP Lucario
Mamoswine
NP Mew
Taunt Mew
Wood Hammer Mimikyu
Focus Punch Nidoking
TSpikes Nihilego
SR Nihilego
Work Up RT Primarina
SD Z U-turn Scizor
SD Life Orb Scizor
CB Scizor
Mega Sharpedo
SR Taunt or Curse Mega Steelix
Suicune
SD Terrakion
NP Togekiss
Flame Orb Heracross
NP Houndoom
AV Mienshao
CM EBall Reuniclus
Z Bug / Life Orb Venomoth with Roost
Z Bewear
Block Slowbro
Thank you for providing the list, and it may or may not be exhaustive. I will attempt to refute why this list is not as effective as it may seem.

SR Mega Aerodactyl with Ice Fang - Good at maintaining rocks
SR Mega Aggron with a way to get by Gligar (Taunt, Curse, Avalanche) - Nobody uses Taunt or Curse + SR Aggron. Avalanche loses to Gligar as it comfortably Roosts off the damage.
Facade Mega Altaria - As mentioned before, useless unless burned. Quagsire can EQ/Haze it risk-free.
TSpikes Beedrill - Uncommon pokemon + defogged on by Scizor and Gligar. Trapped by Aero.
NP Z Grass Celebi - A good breaker
Sub CM Chandelure - Come on, the most common stall variants have either Aero or Nihilego. Not to mention hard walled by Pyuk.
Spikes Chesnaught with Taunt or an offensive Spikes set - I have literally never seen this
CM Cobalion with HP Ice - Also niche + walled by Pyuk. Otherwise a solid breaker.
CB Crawdaunt - Hard walled by Altaria stall.
SD Z Haxorus - A good breaker
NP Z Infernape - A good breaker, but struggles to break Altaria and Pyuk.
CB Infernape - Comfortably scouted by Alomomola + any Fight resist (usually Glig/Doub/Altaria).
LO Infernape - See above.
SR Taunt Krookodile - Not sure what this does besides keep rocks vs Gligar? Alomomola walls it easily
CM Flame Orb Latias - Niche and walled by any Haze user (Quagsire, Cuno).
NP Lucario - A good breaker, but walled by Pyuk. Needs Steel-Z to beat Gligar, which compromises Quag MU.
Mamoswine - To quote yourself, did you forget Alomomola exists?
NP Mew - Literally never seen
Taunt Mew - Also extremely uncommon and unsure of its effectiveness. Seems like it just sits there doing nothing but again, haven't seen it.
Wood Hammer Mimikyu - A good breaker, will struggle with Pyuk/Doub/Sciz though.
Focus Punch Nidoking - A good breaker
TSpikes Nihilego - I'm assuming with HP Ice. Maintains hazards vs Gligar well enough.
SR Nihilego - See above
Work Up RT Primarina - ?? This is no set
SD Z U-turn Scizor - This is okay, but requires extreme precision to consistently catch Quag with U-Turns while also preventing Alomomola form wishing it back up.
SD Life Orb Scizor - Needs crit to break Quag, will likely be Knocked and thus ineffective by Alo or Gligar or Scizor.
CB Scizor - Useful for Pursuit trapping a Rock-type/Blissey
Mega Sharpedo - Again, did you forget Alo exists? A well-timed defense drop can muscle through, and can also break with Spikes (which boils down to HO since Klefki is not keeping up spikes vs Gligar).
SR Taunt or Curse Mega Steelix - Can keep Rocks up in early game but will be chipped down easily
Suicune - I am assuming you are referring to PP stalling Stealth Rock? CM Suicune isn’t breaking anything if that’s what you meant
SD Terrakion - Quagsire, unless Fight Z, but that can’t KO Gligar or Altaria
NP Togekiss - Requires the Rock-type to be pursuit trapped first, and is unable to break Pyuk without extreme luck.
Flame Orb Heracross - When was the last time Heracross saw tournament usage?
NP Houndoom - Blissey food + Nihi food + Aero food.
AV Mienshao - Never dies but never makes progress either
CM EBall Reuniclus - Loses to Cuno/Pyuk/Sciz/Doub/Confide Blissey. Reuniclus is not touching any half-decent stall.
Z Bug / Life Orb Venomoth with Roost - Good breaker, loses to less used Pyuk stalls.
Z Bewear - Good breaker
Block Slowbro - Loses to Pyuk and Articuno.


You prep for stall the same way you prepare for any playstyle; you have to put together a team of multiple Pokemon that are capable of beating the playstyle. You guys asking for how to prepare for stall act as if it's some foreign concept preparing for metagame threats in the teambuilder. Let me ask you this; how do you prepare for HO? Can you please tell me? Because I find Mega Sharpedo, Mimikyu, Z Latias, etc paired with Spikes to be quite troubling to prepare for at times.
This is sort of true, but misses the distinction between stall and any other playstyle. To make progress vs stall, you need some way to break through the AloBliss + Unaware backbone. You say "put together a team of multiple Pokemon that are capable of beating the playstyle," but if I use Crawdaunt + a rocker like Nihilego to maintain them, and I run into Altaria stall, well, now my stall progress maker is outright nullified. Crawdaunt becomes a liability. This is unlike HO because, for example, I can slap a Mega Manectric on my team and I know I will always be able to force out or revenge a +2 Scizor, or a Mega Sharpedo, or a Mimikyu. Forcing such a reactive play against HO is infinitely more devastating than forcing out Blissey with your Terrakion, only to mash against the incoming Quagsire/Doublade for no damage.

How do I prepare for HO? Use a Defogger that punishes one of the playstyle's staples. Once Spikes are off, you get a massive advantage. Easier said than done though, as we don't have many removers. Otherwise fast Pokemon will always make progress against HO. Aero, Manectric, Scarf Krook, Scarf Hydreigon, and Scarf Togekiss all give HO fits since the only method of outspeeding these it has is +1/+2 Mega Sharpedo. Again, forcing HO to take a hit is almost always progress. Getting a free attack vs stall? Not so much.

Other ways include your own Sciz/Mmq, Amoonguss (HO never uses a Spore sponge), Mega Aggron (1v1s almost every Pokemon on HO), Defensive Primarina (hard stops Sharpedo, no switch ins on HO), and Cobalion (offensively checks and sets up on Scizor, Sharpedo, Mimikyu).

Quagsire is not broken. Do you think it's broken? Can you seriously say you think it's broken? Or do you just want to ban stall because you don't want to prepare for it.
I can seriously say stall is broken. I don't "want" to prepare for it because preparing for it is restrictive and impossible. Do you want to ban Scizor because you don't want to prepare for it and are lazy in the builder? Of course not. I want stall nerfed for the same reasons.


This is, clearly, a controversial metagame topic. And I really don't believe we should have went ahead with a vote on it, but the current UU Tier Leader and Old Gens Council leader was not discussed with prior to approval of a vote, so I'm left with no choice but to talk about it here.

I'm well aware I could've responded earlier, and I'm not going to get into why I didn't, you're welcome to think what you want about me for that. But, again, I didn't even know we were getting a vote until after it was already approved, despite leading the two sections most closely tied to this decision.
I am not sure what you are implying here. Do you think your opinion should be weighted more than others because you are UUTL? There is no Old Gens council for SM UU, so I don't know what you are referring to with "Old Gens Council Leader" (do you mean the OU old gens council?). You did have a choice because I reached out twice, on 5/31 and 6/9 to respond. To which you said:
1624491123939.png


From this, I thought you were okay with a vote proceeding based on the support it got. Are you now suggesting this vote blindsided you and that you were undercut? When you told me you didn't want to push your own agenda? Now we are "rushing things" by not waiting? Keep in mind that before the vote went up, there was exactly 1 (!) post against banning, and it was yours. We cannot make the anti-ban argument for the entire side, so if nobody elucidates it, what are we to think?
 
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kumiko

formerly TDK
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Four-Time Past WCoP Champion
I'm not getting into why each mon on the list is or isn't good vs stall but from my experience every mon there, and more, are most certainly effective against stall in some way.

I am aware of the "overall win rate" from a few tournament replays that you linked, but all of them bar UUPL are old. Multiple years old, in fact. The start of the want to do something about stall didn't get strong until 2019, while you have multiple replays from then or even older than that. The UUPL winrate from the past two years is .500. These are far more current teams and trends than all the replays you linked and hold a lot more weight.

I am not sure what you are implying here. Do you think your opinion should be weighted more than others because you are UUTL? There is no Old Gens council for SM UU, so I don't know what you are referring to with "Old Gens Council Leader" (do you mean the OU old gens council?). You did have a choice because I reached out twice, on 5/31 and 6/9 to respond. To which you said: View attachment 352127

Are you really acting as if this blindsided you and that you were undercut? When you told me you didn't want to push your own agenda? Now we are "rushing things" by not waiting? Keep in mind that before the vote went up, there was exactly 1 (!) post against banning, and it was yours.
Like I said in the screenshot you posted, I obviously am not trying to be the only one making a decision here. Not really sure why you're even trying to post a "gotcha" that considering what I said there, but that is not the issue I am bringing up here. My complaint is that I was not discussed with in the slightest prior to approval of a vote despite supposedly leading these two sections. Not even brought up to me. I heard about it from your post here. I would have replied here earlier.

Let's not act like I'm the only one who doesn't want this to happen; I've been told by many people over the course of the past month that I articulated the points they wanted to make and they didn't care to engage further beyond dropping a like.

If ultimately people want to nerf stall, like I've said in every discussion, post, and so on, I totally understand that, and it can happen. My PM to you on Discord was that stating that I don't want to be the one holding a vote back from happening if I'm the only one.
 
I agree with TDK, him and bugzinator arent the only two with a similar opinion.

Banning Quagsire just does not seem like the right thing to do. While stall is a strong playstyle, its not broken to the point of removing one of its key components and moving on. This suspect needs to be more carefully considered because there are many different options on how to properly nerf stall. Quagsire is objectively not broken. This only reduces the amount of viable stalls that can be made. It seems lazy to nerf a playstyle by limiting its options to a predictable 6~ pokemon.
Also the way reqs for the vote was chosen doesn't seem correct either. Apparently Pif did not get reqs for this vote when he is the main reason there is a suspect in the first place. I believe some sort of UU Old Gens Council should handle a vote this complex(or something similar idk).

I also believe TDK's point regarding HO being as good or better than stall is a great counterargument. Stall is the only playstyle preventing Mimikyu HO from being more or less unstopable. The two playstyles balance the tier out in this way. HO has great matchup vs balances that typically do well vs stall, and stall does well vs most HOs. This meta dynamic is actually pretty balanced in my opinion.
 
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vivalospride

been up all year my third eye aint even blinkin’
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vivalospride your first post was saying I didn't prep for stall and got owned, please ban. You can say what you want, but you quite literally posted that. Even if it was not your whole post, it's really hard to take your argument seriously because it just reeks of being lazy and not acknowledging stall, while also wanting it banned for being too good. You are extremely contradictory and just pushing what you prefer with nothing to back it up. Your complaints that stall are too good are fair; I've ignored stall a few times vs a few opponents, but that is my own fault if I were to lose to it, not stalls for being broken. I was the one who willingly chose to neglect to prepare for a matchup that can be won in the builder. The same applies to you. Not preparing for stall and losing to it is what should be expected, not cited as a reason for it being broken.
I believe the wording of my post had a personal feel to it and this is where your feelings are coming from but I don't think it's fair to sum my post up in this manner like I didn't explain myself thoroughly and like there's not more to it than just "I didn't actively prep for stall one time so I lost and now I'm complaining", in fact I think zeroing in on that like that's what my entire point was is confusing to the point where I'm questioning if you even read them at all.

like dd facade alt, celebi, np kiss, np luke or ape, drag z psyshock lati, etc. A good staller is not going to lose to one of these even though they could be considered full blown stall breakers if you wanted to, they need a fair amount of support to make stall a good matchup
literally the threat of stall dangling in front of you and you knowing there's only so much you can REASONABLY do about it in the effort to make a good team.
but ultimately I think you should think about the fact that sometimes you're right and people just say fuck the stall mu and pray they don't see it. If it was Scizor or Lati we were talking about, surely we wouldn't sit here and just forego steels or whatever other counterplay on our teams just bc it's too annoying to prep for or whatever. Building within the context of this tier can feel like you constantly have to weigh your shitty mus to a much harsher extent than any other tier I personally have experience with, and unless you're building around some massive stallbreaking core... stall is almost always one of those "shitty mus" you're weighing your options vs. With stall being a playstyle and not an individual mon or whatever the counterplay will naturally be a lot grayer and therefore more difficult to rationalize investing heavily in when your back is up against the wall in the builder and it seems unlikely your opp that you're prepping for will bring it. I remember I played in w1 of UUFPL vs stall with HO with Hwish + NP Ape + Shark and my mu was certainly less than ideal regardless and my opp floundered about the keyboard aimlessly as my outs were so small and I missed a move and the game was pretty much over from there unless I mega haxed with shark. I was salty and was like "damn i rlly got stalled and haxed in w1 of UUFPL..." in the UU disc out of pettiness and frustration and weeks later I see Estarossa hit me with a one liner that's very similar to the paragraph I quoted above: "I'm not like viv and complain about being stalled despite not building with stall breakers".

While my salt means I probably deserved this underhanded comment, the reason I am bringing this up is because I really feel like a statement like this is off the mark in terms of what building SM UU with stall in mind feels like, unless you just think smacking some stall breaker somewhere is enough to consider your stall mu manageable vs a good staller... spoiler alert it literally is not. The point Pak and I both tried to make was how difficult it really feels to actively prep for stall and actually feel genuine confidence in the matchup without over-reaching heavily or really hitting the sweet spot with your smaller outs, which is often extremely difficult. You can't cover everything in the builder but stall makes it feel next to impossible to have an even satisfactory mu spread when you actively think abt it at times.
This list you've provided is also some horse penis I'm ngl to you chieftain, for one it's geared specifically towards stall obviously and within the context of actually building the tier where things other than stall exist... you will have a difficult time actually using a fair amount of this shit and even feeling confident in your stall mu a lot of the time when you do.

Obviously, this list isn't implying that everything is gonna just run thru stall and I'm sure TDK knows each of the suggestions has their own issues by themselves so I will try to treat the list with that in mind

SR Mega Aerodactyl with Ice Fang - helps a bit, fair
SR Mega Aggron with a way to get by Gligar (Taunt, Curse, Avalanche) - fitting taunt/avalanche/curse is fucking annoying and unless you have to be running wish for this to be consistent
Facade Mega Altaria - fair enough, circumstances have to be perfect for this to be effective at all though
TSpikes Beedrill - have you built with beedrill and been happy with the six you come up with in recent memory? lmk. that's ignoring the fact that this is fogged on by glig in the first place whilst easily suit trapped/pivoted on by alo/glig, idk why you included this mon
NP Z Grass Celebi - sure
Sub CM Chandelure - niche, but fair, suit trappable though as well
Spikes Chesnaught with Taunt or an offensive Spikes set - niche, but fair enough although can have problems w malt
CM Cobalion with HP Ice - specific to stall mu and there's a lot of emphasis on getting the z turn right to actually do much, but sure ig
CB Crawdaunt - sure but not splashable to much of any degree, also malt stall does exist but it definitely runs thru ur and pearl's shit
SD Z Haxorus - see above but even moreso
NP Z Infernape - see above but less-so, although slightly less effective bc easier to rkill/relies more on z move timing
CB Infernape - perma pivoted on by alo and/or malt
LO Infernape - often pivoted on by alo/malt/etc, hard to fit the right move last between gknot and gunk or tpunch etc... brings me back to the "weighing ur stall mu vs other mus" thing my whole two posts were pretty much abt
SR Taunt Krookodile - sure it helps although malt stall isn't bad vs this
CM Flame Orb Latias - lol this is just fishing for stall specifically and loses to haze as well
NP Lucario - valid enough
Mamoswine - pivoted on by alo p consistently, if it's lo u just die before u do anything super noteworthy unless the staller is complete ass and cb is a lot more risk/reward
NP Mew - just use Celebi surely, have seen maybe once from TSR and never again
Taunt Mew - yes but I can tell you from a whole lot of experience building with this thing that it does not have much of a solid niche within this tier it is just strong in practice, in the builder it is difficult to rationalize when the tier is so cluttered in the first place, I can literally paste 40+ examples of 6 mon drafts with this thing if you please
Wood Hammer Mimikyu - lol, again blatant fishing for stall while ignoring every other matchup where sclaw/prough or whatever is infinitely better, ass set
Focus Punch Nidoking - sure, again not very splashable but that's fine
TSpikes Nihilego - you have to force hp ice on this for this to be effective, which is fine but nihilego can have bad 4mss, but definitely fair
SR Nihilego - above
Work Up RT Primarina - what
SD Z U-turn Scizor - I've constantly used this set and told myself "aha this helps w stall a bit" only to actually play it in practice and realized that this only really amounts to anything solid vs stall if the staller is ass cheese
SD Life Orb Scizor - fair with bug bite
CB Scizor - alo pivots, but helps a bit i suppose
Mega Sharpedo - fair but there's a fair amount of shark teams that have a difficult time vs stall even with other things as well, it's solid but definitely more of a breaker for other things on ur team vs stall most of the time, valid tho
SR Taunt or Curse Mega Steelix - sure ig?? similar to aggron
Suicune - perma pivoted on by alo bliss quag but sure it's annoying ig?
SD Terrakion - fight z is hard to rationalize at times outside of stall mu bc rock z is so much better in every other mu... but rock z is obviously stopped by quag aside from niche 4th slot options like taunt which I've experimented with
NP Togekiss - Every stall used today kinda shits on this thing honestly in the grand scheme of things, you need to get suit turns right with a krook or scizor which can be hard vs nihi stalls bc they use tect, ultimately leading to a mu that isn't even all that favorable for kiss if at all
Flame Orb Heracross - see haxorus note
NP Houndoom - fair to an extent although doesn't do a ton either, usually eaten by blissey + quag, murdered by pyuk
AV Mienshao - helps a lil bit but needs smth niche like fsight or tspikes to rly do anything at all aside from knock an alo
CM EBall Reuniclus - every other cm reuni set is better and reuni in general is not splashable within the context of the tier
Z Bug / Life Orb Venomoth with Roost - again not splashable to any degree within the context of the tier I doubt you have a six you'd actually be confident with bringing in a setting where you're not confidently expecting stall
Z Bewear - fair but niche
Block Slowbro - fair enough but every other cm bro set is infinitely more consistent in every non stall mu, this is a whole ass tier we play in so like I said it's a matter of weighing your stall mu, but still loses to cuno/pyuk


I'm honestly just still baffled we elected Quagsire to be the issue to be exiled. Back in SM, it wasn't even discussed as an option when we voted to ban stall. Not even once. It was Blissey or Alomomola, both of which are far more viable and good in this metagame than Quagsire, and make way more sense to vote on than Quagsire. They, however, come with repercussions. Banning Blissey or Alomomola would make certain already questionably broken Pokemon much better and more free to be used, meanwhile Quagsire has no effect other than completely invalidating stall as a playstyle. Within my initial post in this thread, one of my primary points was that dealing with this issue would either lead to a large domino effect or just not make sense, to which no one gave this any attention and decided it meant let's just not make sense.
in regards to stall itself; i could potentially see it becoming awful to use without quag due to how good voltturn can be in this tier. i personally wouldn't like to see a metagame where stall becomes very difficult or bad to use, but that's a debate for another day i suppose.
I certainly don't think Quagsire as a standalone mon is broken within the context of the metagame but I certainly think stall is. I think Quagsire is the closest we're gonna get to a midground between dealing with stall's strength and hold of the tier whilst not deleting it from existence as well. I don't think people give Pyukumuku stall enough credit as well, in all honesty, it is strong but obviously volt-turn will be much stronger vs stall. I think stall would absolutely still be a viable option with Quagsire gone.

I don't think anyone believes a playstyle as extreme as stall is unbeatable, and honestly I do think that it takes skill to use in practice, which puts a damper on the argument of "a good staller is gonna win the vast majority of the time". My whole thing is the fact that this tier feels helldick to build and prepare for in any real setting and while there's plenty of issues... the one that seems the most possible to put a bandaid on is stall. We cannot rationally do anything about Scizor without being prepared to reshape the whole metagame over time, it's too late for that now. So the comments about "stall not even really being the main problem" don't hit very close to home with me.

Quagsire is not broken. Do you think it's broken? Can you seriously say you think it's broken? Or do you just want to ban stall because you don't want to prepare for it.
I don't think you consistently cramming "just prep for stall more pussy" down my throat actually holds any weight to this discussion at this point, I've explained how I believe stall is unhealthy in this tier especially in the builder, unless how stall feels in the builder actually just doesn't mean anything to you? Maybe you're more comfortable sacrificing a large portion of your mu spread so you can have a venomoth on your team than I am but that's just us being different. Thank you though Carson, I feel this tier has a foundation that we accepted and decided to build upon no matter how flawed it is... I believe doing smth about stall is what we can do to make this foundation better, that is the way I look at it as someone that wants to continue playing and building this tier as it is what I grew with on this site.
 
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dont really have a stake in this but ive been reading pretty much every post and it's absurd to me that quagsire is on the slate. the first step is to actually consider if stall is broken which hasnt been conclusively determined or agreed upon considering there are proponents of both sides. if stall is broken, then you have to determine the broken aspect of it and suspect that

to arbitrarily pick quagsire and suspect it just because you want to nerf stall in general is beyond stupid and goes against smogon tiering philosophy. im genuinely surprised this is being allowed

if anything you take a look at blissey but to arbitrarily ban quagsire is pretty weird and definitely a knee jerk reaction.

rob's post straight up admits that banning quag wont have much of an effect but still gets that stall nerf everyone wants. this definitely isnt the right line of logic to pursue. if you think stall is a problem, fine. but quagsire definitely isnt. the complacency in this thread is appalling. i get many ppl want stall to be nerfed but shouldnt we be a little less lazy and actually think about what factors contribute to making stall this good? is it quagsire or blissey or is it a byproduct of other stronger pokemon warping the metagame around themselves which stall is able to abuse? once we determine that, we can tackle the issue

also pretty absurd that a lot of anti-stall posts can be summarized as "i dont want to prep for stall therefore we should nerf it". i know some ppl dont want to admit that but thats literally what it is lol. tdk posted extensively about how certain statistics are being used to misrepresent stall's effectiveness in tournaments as well as, frankly, a general misconception of how to actually beat stall.

regardless of the aforementioned points, maybe stall is broken i dont know but its ridiculous that quagsire is even up for a suspect. if anything, take a look at blissey or just wait so that there is more data on the sm uu metagame in general and stall's effectiveness in tournaments. rushing to arbitrarily ban something just for the sake of nerfing stall is absolutely not the move

e: jesus christ do yall REALLY WANNA BAN QUAGSIRE BEFORE SCIZOR??????

i cant make the point better than bugzinator but it has to be restated: scizor/latias are literally the 2 best pokemon in the tier and warp the metagame around themselves. stall being good is a byproduct of teams having to overprepare for those 2 mons. imagine if we banned quagsire in early sm ou instead of broken mmeta pheromosa and goons which literally warped the tier around themselves but stall caught some wins as a side effect??? this is pretty much what's happening here

cmon guys
 
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pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
dont really have a stake in this but ive been reading pretty much every post and it's absurd to me that quagsire is on the slate. the first step is to actually consider if stall is broken which hasnt been conclusively determined or agreed upon considering there are proponents of both sides. if stall is broken, then you have to determine the broken aspect of it and suspect that

to arbitrarily pick quagsire and suspect it just because you want to nerf stall in general is beyond stupid and goes against smogon tiering philosophy. im genuinely surprised this is being allowed

if anything you take a look at blissey but to arbitrarily ban quagsire is pretty weird and definitely a knee jerk reaction.

also pretty absurd that a lot of anti-stall posts can be summarized as "i dont want to prep for stall therefore we should nerf it". i know some ppl dont want to admit that but thats literally what it is lol. tdk posted extensively about how certain statistics are being used to misrepresent stall's effectiveness in tournaments as well as, frankly, a general misconception of how to actually beat stall.

regardless of the aforementioned points, maybe stall is broken i dont know but its ridiculous that quagsire is even up for a suspect. if anything, take a look at blissey or just wait so that there is more data on the sm uu metagame in general and stall's effectiveness in tournaments. rushing to arbitrarily ban something just for the sake of nerfing stall is absolutely not the move

e: jesus christ do yall REALLY WANNA BAN QUAGSIRE BEFORE SCIZOR??????

i cant make the point better than bugzinator but it has to be restated: scizor/latias are literally the 2 best pokemon in the tier and warp the metagame around themselves. stall being good is a byproduct of teams having to overprepare for those 2 mons. imagine if we banned quagsire in early sm ou instead of broken mmeta pheromosa and goons which literally warped the tier around themselves but stall caught some wins as a side effect??? this is pretty much what's happening here

cmon guys

We didn't arbitrarily pick Quagsire to suspect. We decided on it because banning Blissey and/or Alomomola would affect the overall metagame too much and banning Pyukumuku would affect lower tiers. We didn't want to do a complex ban so we stuck with the remaining large stall element, Quagsire.

This was all posted earlier in the thread. You are not arguing or posting in good faith if you do not engage with our previous discussion. The only thing arbitrary here is you erroneously posting in a thread you claim to have no stake in.

There are issues with picking Quagsire as a suspect. Again, I will not make the opposition's argument for them. If they didn't want to have the test, they had several weeks to post so. We reached out privately and publicly and in good faith and heard nothing in response. When confronted with logs of us reaching out, bugzinator dismissed it as he "didn't see it" and TDK dismissed it as he didn't get approval. TDK in particular could have vetoed in this thread (or at least implies he could have). It is not on us that he chose not to do so. I hope he is feeling better now.

Edit: To be clear, TDK did not want to mean he had a veto power, just that he was not consulted on this decision by Hogg even though it falls under his scope of leadership.
 
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We didn't arbitrarily pick Quagsire to suspect. We decided on it because banning Blissey and/or Alomomola would affect the overall metagame too much and banning Pyukumuku would affect lower tiers. We didn't want to do a complex ban so we stuck with the remaining large stall element, Quagsire.

This was all posted earlier in the thread. You are not arguing or posting in good faith if you do not engage with our previous discussion. The only thing arbitrary here is you erroneously posting in a thread you claim to have no stake in.

There are issues with picking Quagsire as a suspect. Again, I will not make the opposition's argument for them. If they didn't want to have the test, they had several weeks to post so. We reached out privately and publicly and in good faith and heard nothing in response. When confronted with logs of us reaching out, bugzinator dismissed it as he "didn't see it" and TDK dismissed it as he didn't get approval. TDK in particular could have vetoed in this thread (or at least implies he could have). It is not on us that he chose not to do so. I hope he is feeling better now.
your reasoning (and others in this thread) essentially boils down to this: banning other stall staples would have too large of an effect on the metagame but a stall nerf is still desired, therefore quagsire should be suspected since it would have the least effect on an old gen.

this literally goes against smogon tiering philosophy ESPECIALLY in the case of old gens where bans should only happen in extreme cases where changes are deemed necessary to properly balance a metagame. you yourself admit that quagsire was selected bc it "wouldnt have too much of an effect". im not sure if smogon has ever banned a mon that wasnt broken just because a stall in general was considered to be too difficult to play against lol

maybe arbitrary was the wrong word to use here but my point was that the reason for picking quagsire is weak and just comes down to "stall needs a nerf, lets do anything about it" instead of actually working to find the issue (which may not be stall at all!)

quick aside, i WAS engaging in the previous discussion but i suppose it wasnt clear enough. i dont have a stake in this since i dont main sm uu nor play it regularly in tournament but i do regularly watch the tier and have played it and prepped for it as a manager and teammate while sm uu was the main gen. it would be sad to see a tiering mistake on this level for tier with a decently large playerbase
 
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