Announcement SV National Dex Suspect 5: Gambling

[Lameflame]

Hey everyone, the National Dex OU council has decided to suspect Kingambit as our fifth suspect of this generation.

From the outset of the metagame’s early beginnings, Kingambit quickly established itself as one of the metagame’s most lethal and versatile offensive threats. Bolstered by its access to Knock Off, Pursuit and other transfer moves, Kingambit possesses a combination of qualities that allow it to make full use of its versatility and succeed in a variety of roles as a powerful wallbreaker, revenge killer and as a late-game cleaner. At first glance, Kingambit boasts respectable offensive base stats and spammable STAB options in Knock Off, Iron Head the less-common Kowtow Cleave, alongside powerful Sucker Punch priority and coverage options such as Low Kick and the rare Tera Blast to further circumvent its defensive counterplay.

However, Kingambit sets itself apart from other comparably strong wallbreakers and late-game cleaners by way of its signature ability, Supreme Overlord. Fueled by the strength of its fallen comrades, its access to Swords Dance and the additional power boost provided by Terastallizing into a pure Dark type, very few pokemon can withstand the sheer power of a five-fallen, offensively boosted Kingambit in the lategame, allowing Kingambit to cleave through common dark resists like Mega Lopunny and Zamazenta with very minimal chip at the end of games. Alternatively, Kingambit has proven to be one of the most versatile abusers of defensive Terastallization, often flipping the script on would-be checks such as Great Tusk, Skarmory and opposing Kingambit to neutralize efforts to cut its sweeps short at the expense of additional firepower. On the basis of these qualities, Kingambit is often able to serve as a standalone win condition on a variety of teams, with late-game Kingambit sequences typically requiring a combination of advanced foresight in the teambuilder, careful positioning during games, and likely navigating Sucker Punch mind games to avoid a reverse sweep.

Apart from Kingambit’s standout offensive qualities, Kingambit also serves as a noteworthy defensive glue on a variety of team structures. Kingambit provides useful defensive utility by way of its respectable bulk, its immunity to Psychic type attacks and its resistance to common offensive types such as Ghost, Steel and Flying. Assault Vest variants improve Kingambit’s ability to repeatedly switch into powerful attacks from common threats such as Specs Dragapult, Gholdengo and Tapu Lele, while Leftovers promotes additional longevity throughout games at the expense of additional immediate bulk.

Despite the myriad of impressive qualities Kingambit possesses, it is not without several glaring flaws. While Kingambit’s pre-Tera typing provides it with useful resistances to a variety of common offensive types, it is notably weak to Fighting, Fire and Ground type attacks, which are by no means uncommon in the current metagame. Although defensive type-shifting can mitigate these flaws, doing so requires the Kingambit user to burn their Tera opportunity, potentially removing useful immunities and resistances in the process. Additionally, while Kingambit serves as a defensive check to many offensive pokemons' standard sets, many of these pokemon possess common coverage options to heavily dent and/or outright remove Kingambit on telegraphed switch-ins to their normal sets. Kingambit also lacks any form of reliable recovery, which can become problematic given its necessity to take repeated powerful attacks such as Tapu Lele’s Moonblasts or Specs Dragapult’s Draco Meteors throughout the course of a game. Furthermore, Kingambit’s poor speed and reliance on Sucker Punch may serve as a double-edged sword, requiring the Kingambit user to successfully navigate one or multiple 50/50 turns in a row to achieve a late-game sweep, which cannot be consistently or reliably expected.

All in all, Kingambit is viewed by many as one of the metagame’s premier offensive kingpins and defensive lynchpins, with a unique combination of qualities unlike any other pokemon in the tier. Anyone who rightfully achieves requisites to vote will be permitted and encouraged to do so. As always, the outcome is up to the community to decide.

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

Minimum Games Needed

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

• You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be ND9KB. For example, I could sign up as ND9KB Lameflame.
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here. If there is any doubt or hesitance when making the alt, just pick another name. There are infinite possibilities and we have had trouble for this repeatedly. If you wish to participate in the suspect, you should be able to exhibit decent enough judgement here. We will not be lenient.
• We will be using the regular National Dex ladder for this suspect test, and Kingambit will be legal throughout the entire suspect test.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• The suspect test will run for approximately two weeks, lasting until Friday, August 11th at 11:59 pm (GMT-4), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Here's a list of rules that we expect all posters to follow:

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the National Dex Council and the National Dex Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated.
  • Do not argue because it's your favorite Pokemon. This should be common sense, but please don't do this, because we will delete posts like this.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result of this suspect, then so be it.
  • This is not the place to complain about the suspect process. Please PM Kyo, Jho, or Kaede if you have any questions regarding this, and any broader questions about this test.

Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you.

 

[Kyo]

This thread will remain locked for 24 hours for everyone to gather their thoughts. Best of luck with your ladder runs.

 

[Steorra]

open sesame

also please bare in mind the rules in the OP while posting

 

[Zobirisking]

I am gonna vote DNB on Kingambit for the following reasons:

1) It's one of those Pokemon that aren't surprising at all, it will always do pretty much the same. Besides that, while it has an amazing 135 Attack stat + Supreme Overlord and 100 120 85 bulk, its speed tier with only 50 is quite underwhelming and it often relies on Sucker Punch, which can easily be outplayed depending on the matchup.

2) No matter what moves Kingambit runs, there are always more than enough checks against it. Here is a list of some of them:

Heatran: Magma Storm and Earth Power do a ton of damage against it and most of the time, Heatran will be faster with 78 base speed.

Iron Valiant: One of the best Kingambit checks in the whole game. Not only its physical bulk with 74 hp and 90 def isn't bad, it also has a 4 time resist to Sucker Punch and deals a lot of damage with its very high attack stats.

Landorus-Therian: That guy is painful for Gambit with Intimidate + Earthquake.

Great Tusk: Another amazing check with ridiculous physical bulk of 115 hp and 131 def. It easily tanks Sucker Punches and defeats Gambit with its very powerful STAB moves.

Zamazenta: Against Kingambit, it does pretty much the same as Tusk.

Tapu Lele: Its ability Psychic Surge enables Gambit using Sucker Punch against all non flying mons and deals a lot of damage with Moonblast + Focus Blast, even tho it needs to be very careful.

Garchomp: Earthquake and Rough Skin are very annoying and it tanks a lot with 108 hp + 95 def.

Urshifu Rapid Strike: Resists both Steel and Dark and endangers Kingambit with both of its STAB type moves.

Zapdos: Static + Heat Wave is painful but it doesn't appreciate to switch in like most other non Fighting types.

Buzzwole: Has even crazier physical bulk than Great Tusk, can be faster than Gambit if it wants to and easily set ups Bulk Up on his face.

Iron Hands: Another one that resists both STABs.

Dondozo: Takes no damage after one Curse, unless it gets critted.

Moltres: Flame Body + Flamethrower is very annoying and is also usually faster.

3) Generally said, it's an amazing Pokemon that makes the metagame a lot better. While it's very usefull against stall and checks some crazy Pokemon like Dragapult and Gholdengo, there are more than enough answers against it.
Banning THIS one because of a stupid gimmick would be a shame.
Lets do at least this one right and let it stay legal!

 

[about15gals]

Well well well, looks like it finally happened. To call kingambit controversial would be an understatement, it's one of the best pokemon in the tier, able to check a large variety of powerful offensive threats as well as possessing some immensely powerful defensive utility. I feel like kingambit can pretty easily be argued for, considering its amazing utility for teams and general utility in checking normally extremely hard-to-check pokemon like dragapult, but despite all these reasons I will still be voting BAN on kingambit

Now in order to elaborate on why I think kingambit should get banned, I just think that its far too metagame warping to be allowed in the tier. The metagame for the past month or so has slowly been devolving into pokemon that can check kingambit, and pokemon that kingambit can beat but are so broken when its removed that it's worth using. The prime example of which in my opinion is pult. Pult's an insanely strong pokemon, able to hit on both sides of the spectrum with specs or dd, or spread status and pivot constantly with wisphex. Last generation, it was considered so strong that it was banned into ubers, but here it's considered borderline because of kingambit. Now this is just my opinion, but I feel like having one of the strongest pokemon in the tier being kept in check by one single pokemon is a little insane, especially vs a pokemon as offensively pressuring as dragapult.

In essence, kingambit is the duct tape currently holding the metagame together. While that may be argued as a good reason to keep kingambit in the tier, I think otherwise. I feel like if there's one pokemon every team needs to account for in the builder, that's capable of hard countering most pokemon in the metagame, along with having good matchups into most of the other ones, that pokemon is most likely banworthy. With tera kingambit becomes a whole other beast, as it's able to pick and choose what pokemon are able to beat it, but that's a discussion for the tera sus thread. People say "if we ban kingambit then we'll have to ban pult and gholdengo" as if it was a reason that we should keep kingambit, I feel like if there are pokemon that are so insanely strong that the removal of a single pokemon from the metagame is enough to instantly make them problematic, those pokemon should be banned.

National Dex as a whole has devolved lately into a mess of constantly cteaming everything, and I feel that while banning kingambit may result in a domino effect causing a bunch of other pokemon, once the dust settles I believe the tier will be much better for it

 

[omarsgarciav]

First, a quick reply to the only dnb post so far:

Heatran: Magma Storm and Earth Power do a ton of damage against it and most of the time, Heatran will be faster with 78 base speed.

Heatran is just not a good answer. It fears koff like little else and also cannot withstand boosted dark attacks, including sucker which invalidates the speed difference. Also can click the funny button and 1v1 it from full.

Iron Valiant: One of the best Kingambit checks in the whole game. Not only its physical bulk with 74 hp and 90 def isn't bad, it also has a 4 time resist to Sucker Punch and deals a lot of damage with its very high attack stats.

This is a decent answer but can't really switch in safely at all, also given its nature as an offensive mon it's prone to getting worn down. Also can click the funny button and ohko it from full.

Landorus-Therian: That guy is painful for Gambit with Intimidate + Earthquake.

Landorus is an extremely easy mon to wear down given the sheer amount of pokemon it has to check. Against Kingambit, it can't even rely on the leftovers it sometimes uses to stay healthy throughout a match or the passive damage from helmet because of how freely the mon spams knock. Also, like Heatran, the lack of a dark resistance leaves it vulnerable to boosted attacks/priority after chip. Also also looses 1v1 if funny button, albeit you need significant chip/an sd to beat it

Great Tusk: Another amazing check with ridiculous physical bulk of 115 hp and 131 def. It easily tanks Sucker Punches and defeats Gambit with its very powerful STAB moves.

Tusk really doesn't like loosing it's leftovers, as it leaves it even more vulnerable to passive damage than it already inherently is. Additionally suffers from the same issues as always, mainly being a ground type that can't check many of the electrics. Also it looses 1v1 if funny button, though like lando you need some chip/a boost.

Zamazenta: Against Kingambit, it does pretty much the same as Tusk.

Same issues w/ longevity as tusk, except band sets w/o band hit like a wet noodle and zama is just not in a great spot in general. Also if you funny button into fairy this mon is just free setup.

Tapu Lele: Its ability Psychic Surge enables Gambit using Sucker Punch against all non flying mons and deals a lot of damage with Moonblast + Focus Blast, even tho it needs to be very careful.

This mon can't switch in at all but, as you mentioned can protetct the party from sucker, making revenge killing it a lot lot lot easier. Worth pointing out that gambit can click the funny button, live every hit and ko it from full.

Garchomp: Earthquake and Rough Skin are very annoying and it tanks a lot with 108 hp + 95 def.

Same issue as all the other non dark resists bar lele, dies to boosted attacks and looses 1v1 if funny button.

Urshifu Rapid Strike: Resists both Steel and Dark and endangers Kingambit with both of its STAB type moves.

This mon takes 80 from +2 black glasses tera dark knock with no dead homies, needless to say not a great answer.

Zapdos: Static + Heat Wave is painful but it doesn't appreciate to switch in like most other non Fighting types.

Same issue as all the other non dark resists bar lele, except this time it also hates being knocked bc rocks weak.

Buzzwole: Has even crazier physical bulk than Great Tusk, can be faster than Gambit if it wants to and easily set ups Bulk Up on his face.

Iron Hands: Another one that resists both STABs.

I'll give you these two, but it's also worth pointing out that both these mons are below average.

Dondozo: Takes no damage after one Curse, unless it gets critted.

Dozo gets 2hko'd by tera dark black glasses knock, also hates losing its lefties also a really bad mon in general, saying that from experience.

Moltres: Flame Body + Flamethrower is very annoying and is also usually faster.

30% of the time sure, the other 70% you just loose your boots for no reason and instantly become dead weight. Also isn't a dark resist so even disregarding how heavily this mon relies on boots, it really doesn't wanna take koffs and suckers.

Now, a few serious questions for the dnb voters:
What is your argument?
The metagame is not in a good spot, and anyone with more than 30 seconds in the teambuilder can tell you how much of a nightmare it is to build in this tier. Sure there will be a domino of bans, but that just proves the fact that the current meta is broken checks broken. In what way does this ban and the subsequent bans that will inevitably arise from it result in a worse metagame?

If not this ban, then what is the next step?
There was always some idea of a "contingency plan" in case tera wasn't banned, and it always resulted in a huge ban wave starting with Kingambit, since most people can recognize that it is extremely overpowered. I would like to see in what way you think the tier can progress from the state it is in other than with this ban.

 

[Oculars]

Kingambit needs to be banned not because its broken, but because its overcentralizing. Like others have mentioned building often comes down to being forced to run gambit to check certain mons and being forced to run mons to beat gambit, its a huge strain on the builder and extremely limiting to what teamstyles can be used and the creativity thats supposed to be offered by a tier with an expanded dex, gambit merely existing forces other mons into warping their sets to try and lure it since its often the crucial part of most of the teams its on and the game completely falls apart after its removed. Keeping it around because it checks certain mons we all know are broken without gambit being spammed on every team is a terrible idea because this seriously over centralizes the meta around those few interactions and forces you into using it. IF we ban gambit and yes we will also have to ban pult and gholdengo after but everybody knows those guys are absurdly broken like wtf ghol is immune to every status move ok then and pult outspeeds the entire unboosted metagame and has ghost stab along with being able to run either special or physical and uturn and wisp sets. Gambit being the glue that holds the entire metagame together is exactly why it needs to go because its too much of a strain on the builder and if we get rid of it we'll open up a much wider variety of team building options rather than being restricted into using 2/6 slots just handling the interactions around one mon.

 

[Vainness]

Our subjective opinions don't matter the statistics from the survey speak for themselves.

Never a mon have been rated this high for tiering action demand in the history of gen9ndou.

Many mons that got quickbanned by the council scored lesser by the community.

Annihilape:

Walking Wake:

Kingambit:

And countless mons who took the hammer like ursaluna and roaring moon would have received significantly lower rating from the community if they were included in the surveys. Yet all those got hammered without even a suspect.

Based solely on that it's only logical for it to go and anything else would just be idiotic.

On another note, the survey ratings about fun and balance also reached unprecedented low ratings. And now that Tera has been decided to stay, then I'm just asking what is the next step if we don't ban gambit.

Let's suppose the final verdict is that gambit stays albeit all the arguments from the community (because some didn't reach the requirements or some abused the system by farming reqs for their friends like it has been proven to been done before or whatever the reason it doesnt matter), then from there, what do we do?

If gambit stays nothing will change and the meta will stay the way it is with no hope of it improving, and based on the democratic surveys ratings the playerbase is unhappy with the current state of things.

Gambit ban might and will probably trigger other bans but at least there will be change. At least there will be hope for a better tomorrow within the chaos of Tera existence.

Now that Tera is here to stay if Gambit stays as well there is literally nothing else we can attempt to do to better the tier balance and experience, which are objectively and statistically rotten. Which is why this suspect shouldn't have been a thing in the first place and a quickban should have been applied instead, because there is simply no alternative option to make changes and to save the tier if this particular abberation stays unleashed.

 

[uppa]

Needless to say, I will be voting do not ban for this suspect test, for kingambit.

First of all, if you know me, you know that I like one thing, that's right, hyper offense (ho). Let me just say that Kingambit is the KING of hyper offense. You can even see in Blunder's video where he can sweep a team with Kingambit. You can just hit hard and sweep a team in a flash.

I drew this.

You can say yeah yeah kingambit more like brokingambit. To that I say lol, ever heard of Great Tusk. Yeah. It resists both STAB moves and can hit back with a fighting type attack. Oh wait. I can use terastallize to change kingambit into BIRD TYPE (missingno anyone?)

I can GOOB stall with kingambit, but it also has weaknesses like fighting, and ground, and also when your a flying type your weak to the ever-present bolt beam coverage.

Needless to say, kingambit is my favorite pokemon and I like to use arora vail on my OBAMASNOW!!! This makes kingambit so bulky it can even live close combat from great tusk

Anyways, you can see that whatever you do you cant beat kingambit except for if you use dodonzo which at that point why don t you just call yourself the stall lord.


I will vote to not ban and i suggest you also vote that so that we can SAVE THE TIER!!!

 

[adem]

Kingambit Is Not Broken In National Dex OU; Here's Why

Okay :fire: finally coherent enough to read up and respond to these posts on here!
To clarify before I start, I am on team Do Not Ban currently, at least until I see something that can change my mind, for two reasons, one beong I dont think its broken at all, and that I think a ban on it will be significantly harmful to the meta. I know this Pokemon is extremely controversial in the tier with Tera staying, and I understand that changing someones mind instantly with one post is not easy to do, but I hope this post helps people look at other options and try to understand where I am coming from, and possibly be open to leaning to DNB after this. Just to preface, really sorry if i do get a bit heated up while writing, please lmk and I will edit it after if theres anything too dire in there / if theres any mistakes I have made, and please do respond to me! No offense to anyone I respond to here, and I mean no ill will.

Now in order to elaborate on why I think kingambit should get banned, I just think that its far too metagame warping to be allowed in the tier. The metagame for the past month or so has slowly been devolving into pokemon that can check kingambit, and pokemon that kingambit can beat but are so broken when its removed that it's worth using. The prime example of which in my opinion is pult. Pult's an insanely strong pokemon, able to hit on both sides of the spectrum with specs or dd, or spread status and pivot constantly with wisphex. Last generation, it was considered so strong that it was banned into ubers, but here it's considered borderline because of kingambit. Now this is just my opinion, but I feel like having one of the strongest pokemon in the tier being kept in check by one single pokemon is a little insane, especially vs a pokemon as offensively pressuring as dragapult.

I think this paragraph is very Untrue tm, on pretty much every point, and that its a vast overexagerration. Yes Kingambit is metagame warping, so is every other s/a tier mon in the past 8 generations. Has the metagame really devolved so much into “pokemon that can check kingambit, and pokemon that kingambit can beat but are so broken when its removed that it's worth using” ? I feel like this is an extremely harsh generalisation of a very small part of the metagame, I can definitely list loads of mons who dont fall under this category, and honestly barely any that do? I am pretty sure in a post Kingambit world the pokemon that check it currently (Skarm, tusk, zama etc) will all still be used just as they were pre ban, i dont see why they wouldnt, or are you telling me that they will fall of the face of the earth with it? Your next line is genuinely just common sense, Mon that was broken last gen gets more counterplay introduced and becomes more balanced??? that is just logic, are we going to ban blaziken last gen because it was broken in sm, or are we banning torn this gen since it was broken last gen? this is honestly an illogical argument that doesnt have much merit. again, exagerration, last line, there are numerous other things helping keep pult in check like pex, av torn, weavile, mlop mtar etc etc, making it out to be some dracovish seismitoad shit is just wrong. This para does not make sense and isnt true in the slightest, just blowing everything out of proportion, and genuinely if you believe this its a building problem, not a gambit problem.

In essence, kingambit is the duct tape currently holding the metagame together. While that may be argued as a good reason to keep kingambit in the tier, I think otherwise. I feel like if there's one pokemon every team needs to account for in the builder, that's capable of hard countering most pokemon in the metagame, along with having good matchups into most of the other ones, that pokemon is most likely banworthy. With tera kingambit becomes a whole other beast, as it's able to pick and choose what pokemon are able to beat it, but that's a discussion for the tera sus thread. People say "if we ban kingambit then we'll have to ban pult and gholdengo" as if it was a reason that we should keep kingambit, I feel like if there are pokemon that are so insanely strong that the removal of a single pokemon from the metagame is enough to instantly make them problematic, those pokemon should be banned.

I addressed most of this on discord but I want to put it here as well just so it spreads more. The first one and a half sentences genuinely are just general statements that you can apply to every single s / top tier pokemon in existence, it is a reason why its s tier, not s reason you need to ban it. you needed to account for mlop weavile last gen on every team, stuff like lando has held the entire tier even more than gambit i feel. the hard countering most of the meta part is most definitely 100% not true, it checks like 2 mons well (pult and ghold) but even those can easily bypass it, and happens a lot of the time, courtesy of tera, coverage, etc. other than that, what else does it even check that well? forget hard counter lol thats just a blown out of proportion statement. Your last lime again feeds into this, you remove pex from last gen and then mlop agren who knows what else becomes broken, does that mean mlop and agren last gen were broken as well? removing one key piece from the meta completely disrupts the flow of it, yes, that doesnt prove that a mon is broken though, it does show that its a key piece of the meta, nothing more.

regardless overall this entire post i feel misses the mark completely on a ban argument, and it just describes what ever s tier mon in every has done for the past 20 years this game has existed, and the ones that arent are just wildly nonsensical exagerrations of the current state of the tier.

now onto omars post, im not going to go into his dissecting of zobs post since thats a waste of time really but a short tldr is that its a really exaggerated account of how these mons deal with it, the only reason these mons are going to ever get “worn down” for the ones where he mentioned did are vs pursuit sets on non ho teams, and in that case is that really a threat? how poorly did you position your mons to whereyou put yourself in a position where your check(s) gets worn down completely and you have nothing to neuter it back? and if its sd the worn down argument really does not work, at most sd gambit is coming in maybe twice, otherwise it is a now or never mon. there is also imo more to be explored in terms of ”adapting” with these checks and counters (lol ironic coming from me but its true!) like chris helped me make a flame body tran set since i was slightly weak to gambit and wanted to deal with mzor as well, and had more than enough cplay for volc and yard. some calcs also never exist in real games, like this “This mon takes 80 from +2 black glasses tera dark knock with no dead homies, needless to say not a great answer.”

when is this ever going to happen, shifu rs is never taking +2 glasses tera dark knock, its taking 0% because it cced and killed the gambit as it clicked knock lol.

the tera argument can be made for every mon in existence btw, including all of the checks you adressed prior, so again a bit of a more reaching argument.

anyways, onto the bit that was brought up on cord

Now, a few serious questions for the dnb voters:
What is your argument?
The metagame is not in a good spot, and anyone with more than 30 seconds in the teambuilder can tell you how much of a nightmare it is to build in this tier. Sure there will be a domino of bans, but that just proves the fact that the current meta is broken checks broken. In what way does this ban and the subsequent bans that will inevitably arise from it result in a worse metagame?

My argument for one, is that not even close to any levels of “restricting teambuilding” we have seen prior, and i think that was shown in the large variety of teams shown in ndwc, and it is not broken in practice as well. Turning this back on you, ban voters (not just you omar specifically but anyone really, since no one has properly answered this) if kingambit is so broken, and sd tera whatever is a complete utter team wipe and it obviously does this commonly enough that this is the main focal point of the arguments, then where are these replays of it doing that? in ndwc i dont recall any kingambits doing this funny stuff, teraing and cleaning up the team with sucker, or wearing stuff down over the course of the game then sding and suckering everything at the end? it was by far the most used mon in ndwc, with, lets see…
| 1 | Kingambit | 102 | 39.23% | 46.08% |

40% usage rates, and 102 uses overall? as well with nearly half of these being wins, im sure theres at least one or two games where this kingambit situation happens, and it isnt just because their opponent loaded a horrible team or their opponent was desperately trying to lose (this goes both ways btw, i have seen this happen on the gambit user, but again cant really use that lol)

And no, again, it doesnt prove that broken checks broken, it proves that kingambit was a staple defensive piece in the tier, and the tier falls apart, same thing if you remove lando in ssou, toxapex last gen nd, etc etc lol. And yes, i think what will come is a much worse metagame where our variability in things like breakers and speed control etc, and losing a whole lot of power in general which i think is fun about the tier and will make the tier boring as a whole. however again this is only a secondary argument to the fact that gambit isnt broken in practice and is really just a boogeyman tera is sending out that people are biting onto

onto the next post!

Now that Tera is here to stay if Gambit stays as well there is literally nothing else we can attempt to do to better the tier balance and experience, which are objectively and statistically rotten. Which is why this suspect shouldn't have been a thing in the first place and a quickban should have been applied instead, because there is simply no alternative option to make changes and to save the tier if this particular abberation stays unleashed.

im not going to specifically reply to every part of your post before this, but irt the other bans, moon was too rushed, luna was just a horribke decision by the council and i think everyone agrees with that, and both should be reverted, andfor the other 2 i dont think they are close to comparable to gambit, and can be much more rushed in taking actions onto as unlike gambit, they dont make an entire tier fall apart if they get banned, so quickbanning it is a stupid decision that would ruin the integrity of the tier. surveys are one thing, but again i bring up, when has this mon actually been such an issue in high level play? ape, wake both have been incredible in the tours they were in, and was clear they were too much. although i would have appreciated tests for both i think that both the level of “proof” to say gambit has that its concerning compared to wake and ape, as well as the fact that the tier is miles more dependant on gambit than wake and ape so comparing them is nonsense.

onto the part i quoted, there is actually a lot more we can attempt to do actually, there a ton of other problematic mons we can try to suspect, as well with stuff like home and possibly dlcs coming as well, that is gonna shake things up, and freeing both moon and luna again. ill admit i was as blinded as you and thought that the only options were keeping the meta as is or banning 5+ mons, but now i am realising there are much more options we can still do if we keep gambit. again, just in case you were wondering / did not read before, i think gambit is fully *not broken* and have explained why in the paragraphs above, and dont just want a dnb since i dont want to ban other stuff. Tera part 3 i also think is a possibility, not anytime this year, and probably late last year, and i do have an idea of how something of that level would be handled, but im also lazy to include it in a post here + feel like itll drag this too long, but tag me in the nd cord and ill happily explain.


i think thats all the posts replied to! just gna tag those i replied to + some other people who wanted to see the post incase smogon does not want to cooperate so about15guys Vainness omarsgarciav Oculars (i didnt reply to you specifically but you basically rehashed about’s points, which i did reply to, so just tagging in case you wanted to respond asw) hidin R8

feel free to reply here or on discord, idm either ^^

have a nice day

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/for-all-the-dogs.3725341/

love react the rmt as well aha….. no gambits used and never loses to gambit !! (likewhoring in smogon suspect threads :fire: )

 

[Oculars]

First of all, if you know me, you know that I like one thing, that's right, hyper offense (ho). Let me just say that Kingambit is the KING of hyper offense. You can even see in Blunder's video where he can sweep a team with Kingambit. You can just hit hard and sweep a team in a flash.

Anyways, you can see that whatever you do you cant beat kingambit except for if you use dodonzo which at that point why don t you just call yourself the stall lord.


I will vote to not ban and i suggest you also vote that so that we can SAVE THE TIER!!!

this is like the most backwards logic ever, not being able to beat a mon is the exact reason we ban things and do tiering in the first place, You basically wrote a paragraph stating exactly why gambit is broken and we should ban it and then said do not ban because you like using a broken mon.

Also to your point about being a hyper offence player ill tell you as someone who runs more HO than just about anyone in this tier that gambit is terrible for HO given it can sweep HO teams super easy with sucker punch and tera dark gambit is definitely more of a BO mon and it makes HO builds boring and too overcentralized where youre forced to run a lot of the same mons to have a good team.

Speaking of blunder (shoutout my boi blunder for using my meganium heat team in his last video btw) he made a video on gambit fully explaining why people want it banned and how broken it can be.

Posts like this make me believe that we should have just quick banned gambit given its tiering survey results being way higher than ape and walking wake I have zero faith in the voters coming to a logical conclusion on gambit when I see stuff like this where you fully understand that gambit is broken and can explain exactly what makes it broken and beats just about everything but then say you'll vote dnb just because you like the mon.

 

[omarsgarciav]

I won't bother replying to the first part of your post bc I will admit I was kinda exaggerating a lot and i have no counter arguments.

My argument for one, is that not even close to any levels of “restricting teambuilding” we have seen prior, and i think that was shown in the large variety of teams shown in ndwc, and it is not broken in practice as well. Turning this back on you, ban voters (not just you omar specifically but anyone really, since no one has properly answered this) if kingambit is so broken, and sd tera whatever is a complete utter team wipe and it obviously does this commonly enough that this is the main focal point of the arguments, then where are these replays of it doing that? in ndwc i dont recall any kingambits doing this funny stuff, teraing and cleaning up the team with sucker, or wearing stuff down over the course of the game then sding and suckering everything at the end? it was by far the most used mon in ndwc, with, lets see…
| 1 | Kingambit | 102 | 39.23% | 46.08% |

40% usage rates, and 102 uses overall? as well with nearly half of these being wins, im sure theres at least one or two games where this kingambit situation happens, and it isnt just because their opponent loaded a horrible team or their opponent was desperately trying to lose (this goes both ways btw, i have seen this happen on the gambit user, but again cant really use that lol)

And no, again, it doesnt prove that broken checks broken, it proves that kingambit was a staple defensive piece in the tier, and the tier falls apart, same thing if you remove lando in ssou, toxapex last gen nd, etc etc lol. And yes, i think what will come is a much worse metagame where our variability in things like breakers and speed control etc, and losing a whole lot of power in general which i think is fun about the tier and will make the tier boring as a whole. however again this is only a secondary argument to the fact that gambit isnt broken in practice and is really just a boogeyman tera is sending out that people are biting onto

When I pointed out how horrible building is I meant it as a whole. I don't believe gambit to be the biggest contributor to this problem but it definitely is one of the bigger ones. I moreso brought that up because since teambuilding is such a significant part of a tier the fact that it is in the state it is reflects the unhealthiness of the metagame. Currently teams often have to forego certain very very important matchups way too often. And this isn't like "oh i loose to curse dondozo/other unmons" it's more like "oh every time pult/ival/shifu comes in i loose a mon". The way this relates to Kingambit is that as is often discussed its ban would cause a chain reaction of bans which will obviously bring massive changes to the tier that are desperately needed.

Kingambit being overtuned is mostly secondary in my opinion, as if the meta were anywhere near a good spot and this was one of the mons helping it stay together I would support keeping it. This is not to say that I don't believe it is overpowered, however my primary reason to want it banned is separate from that fact.

You later brought up pex and lando as comparisons, which I believe are innacurate. Starting with pex, it's "offensive" presence is limited to toxic, scald burns and sometime koff or tspikes, all of which are relatively straightfoward to deal with. Landorus obviously has a more significant immediate offensive presence via powerful earthquakes, but it still has to make a choice in the builder between whether to run defensive, sacrificing most, if not all, offensive investment and opting for a support moveset and spread, or offensive, in which case it provides significantly less value as a defensive piece. On the other hand, Kingambit can comfortably act as a defensive pokemon without sacrificing any of its offense. Being so slow means that you can invest significantly into hp, as even if you do go with a fast variant most pokemon will still outspeed and will still need to rely on sucker, just like the slower spread would. You can even use stuff like sd+pursuit for some extra utility while keeping the threat of sd to clean. In addition, neither pex or lando can consistently beat their counters in the way tera enables Kingambit to do so, and their offensive presence doesn't demand significant attention in the builder like Kingambit's does.

Now I want to replant my second question, which I believe was always more important:
If not this ban, then what is the next step?
Your reply didn't address this question at all, and I believe this matter to be more important. Contrary to what I have posted so far, I am quite on the fence regarding this mon and I could be swayed to the other side if I see a good alternative
I encourage any dnb voter to present a solid answer to this question.

 

[GFGcreationz]

Now I want to replant my second question, which I believe was always more important:
If not this ban, then what is the next step?
Your reply didn't address this question at all, and I believe this matter to be more important. Contrary to what I have posted so far, I am quite on the fence regarding this mon and I could be swayed to the other side if I see a good alternative
I encourage any dnb voter to present a solid answer to this question.

I'm on the Ban side, but I don't think much else changes. Roaring Moon and Ursaluna should definitely be retested (though this doesn't really matter with Kingambit being in the tier or not), but that's about it. Sneasler and Stored Power suspect may happen, but I don't think it's very likely. If Kingambit remains, I believe we'll have to wait until Scarlet and Violet's DLC to see if they bring/change anything.

 

[Vladimir Capuchin]

To the guys that asked (Nobody) I will explain why I support the DO NOT BAN stance. I'm not horrible at laddering but I know from experience reqs will be too hard, but I want to get my message across.

Consistency amongst checks and counters for gambit is very poor, but to be honest, the same can be said with ALMOST any mon in a metagame where terastallization is legal. Instead of thinking of counters that work sub-optimally due to tera, I would like to focus on the more reliable answers.

1. Burning Kingambit. Despite the massive 135 attack stat that Kingambit boasts, due to it's mediocre speed and general low requirement to use that speed, we can either fish for or directly burn kingambit through many methods. Swords dance variants require high turn investment to sweep regardless of the burn, taking 1 turn to negate the burn with SD, and 2 turns to even get a boost.

2. Watershifu. This menace that acts similarly to gambit is also one of gambit's worst nightmares, resisting both STABS, and dealing massive damage with surging strikes even on a tera'd gambit.
252+ Atk Kingambit Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Urshifu-Rapid-Strike: 73-87 (21.4 - 25.5%) -- 0.2% chance to 4HKO
252+ Atk Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Urshifu-Rapid-Strike: 64-76 (18.7 - 22.2%) -- possible 5HKO
252+ Atk Kingambit Kowtow Cleave vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Urshifu-Rapid-Strike: 78-93 (22.8 - 27.2%) -- 53.3% chance to 4HKO

even with setup nothing can really touch the bear

252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 236 HP / 0 Def Kingambit on a critical hit: 261-309 (65.2 - 77.2%) -- approx. 2HKO after Leftovers recovery


Even with gambit tera'd, ss deals massive damage to gambit.

3. Lando-T

Intimidate Lando is a great way to prevent a gambit sweep, and either forces a tera or massive damage with EQ. It's not like it's walled by tera flying either, the usual tricks can be played around with toxic to provide pressure even after tera, which is guaranteed to get up on a tera flying gambit since sucker punch doesn't affect status, and since gambit is such a slow mon.


Kingambit's positive presence in the meta:


Although it can seem, and certainly is overcentralising for the meta, kingambit does positive things for the meta too. Pursuit trapping gholdengo and dragapult seems to keep the balance intact. I'm not going for the downright stupid argument of broken countering broken, but rather that this adds a bit more health to the metagame, without causing too much imbalance. Moreover, Kingambit can have other niches, such as a surprise stealth rocker or a swords-danceless wallbreaker.

Kingambit is certainly overcentralising, and to some extent, on a different level to some of the mons in the tier, but is not outright broken. If every overcentralising mon was banned, the tier would be in ruins with the death of Lando-T and the countless Yard-Tusk teams. No, overcentralising the metagame is not ENOUGH to get a mon banned, although it can be a side reason, and I don't believe there are enough valid reasons for the ban of Kingambit other than this.

It's a very difficult choice, since it gives so much to the meta, while warping the meta around it, and is difficult to counter, yet genuine counters exist. I do think the other views are valid, but I say DO NOT BAN.

 

[Nish the Great]

Gambit's checks, and why they dont work:

I'm voting ban, and I'm seeing a lot of players quote things that aren't even able to properly stop gambit as answers to gambit, so I'm just going to go through why most of them don't work

Gambit generally has 3 ways of dealing with its counterplay, those being knock off just winning in the long game, just being so powerful they can only come in once (sometimes with tera dark), and random defensive tera to take an attack or two. While tera does have a big opportunity cost, kingambit is often able to just win games on the spot once it bypasses a check, so there's often no better way to use your tera. If you don't go out of your way to pack multiple gambit answers, you often have to rely on soft checks, which do work once or twice but can't be counted on to do so reliably or stop a sweep. While offensive counterplay does exist, it's restricted by kingambit's great bulk mandating a fighting move or strong stab ground/fire.

Grouping by way they lose, going down to B+, including both defensive and offensive checks

Lose to defensive tera

(choice band)

Lose to sheer power + maybe tera dark

Lose to knock off

In general, kingambit has a really easy time dismantling or flat out ignoring most of its checks, and proper counters are often less viable or restricted to certain playstyles (such as skarmory). Also, while the gambit ban will definetely lead to at least one other ban, the tier honestly needs stuff to go anyways for it to become more competitive and enjoyable.

 

[adem]

When I pointed out how horrible building is I meant it as a whole. I don't believe gambit to be the biggest contributor to this problem but it definitely is one of the bigger ones. I moreso brought that up because since teambuilding is such a significant part of a tier the fact that it is in the state it is reflects the unhealthiness of the metagame. Currently teams often have to forego certain very very important matchups way too often. And this isn't like "oh i loose to curse dondozo/other unmons" it's more like "oh every time pult/ival/shifu comes in i loose a mon". The way this relates to Kingambit is that as is often discussed its ban would cause a chain reaction of bans which will obviously bring massive changes to the tier that are desperately needed.

Re: Forego certain very very important matchups
Is this really the case for a majority of people? Speaking from my own experience it has been largely fine for me (with variety in builds as well), with the only exceptions really being like niche / specific sets or some cheese mons sometimes, which I feel is fine to skip out on, which i think can be solved by individually banned these mons, instead of Gambit and the domino ban coming with it. But if this is a case for a majority of people, then fair ill concede, but personally I do not have this issue, and I dont think most do either.

You later brought up pex and lando as comparisons, which I believe are innacurate. Starting with pex, it's "offensive" presence is limited to toxic, scald burns and sometime koff or tspikes, all of which are relatively straightfoward to deal with. Landorus obviously has a more significant immediate offensive presence via powerful earthquakes, but it still has to make a choice in the builder between whether to run defensive, sacrificing most, if not all, offensive investment and opting for a support moveset and spread, or offensive, in which case it provides significantly less value as a defensive piece. On the other hand, Kingambit can comfortably act as a defensive pokemon without sacrificing any of its offense. Being so slow means that you can invest significantly into hp, as even if you do go with a fast variant most pokemon will still outspeed and will still need to rely on sucker, just like the slower spread would. You can even use stuff like sd+pursuit for some extra utility while keeping the threat of sd to clean. In addition, neither pex or lando can consistently beat their counters in the way tera enables Kingambit to do so, and their offensive presence doesn't demand significant attention in the builder like Kingambit's does.

I brought them up as comparisons solely on the basis that they are just very good glue, and that nuking them would be like pulling a rug from under the meta. There wasnt any perfect comparisons in terms of its specific utility (obviously) but I felt these Mons encapsulated my point well enough, in that just because a ban leads to a domino ban does not mean it was also broken (and facillitated a broken checks broken metagame), just that it was important for the metagame. Nothing in that part of my post had anything to do with how good it was, or its specific utility, just saying that your point (nuke gambit -> leads to domino ban = gambit facillitated broken v broken meta) was not true, and gave examples of mons in different metas which the same would apply. SD Pursuit set sucks btw…. that guy sure does not do anything vs his checks, just use glasses atp, hence why glasses is by far the most popular set, with sd pursuit barely seen nowadays.

Irt your last point, I didnt touch on it in that part of my post but i think i did mention it before lol, but regardless, that isnt a kingambit issue, its a tera issue, every mon does the same thing, some i feel even better than gambit (valiant and volc lol), and i think the gambit issue is still quite blown out of proportion, taking ndwc as an example, how many good games has gambit teraed to beat a check and did considerably better than other mons would have, because its gambit? how common does this actually happen that it isnt just more than gambit bamboozles for one turn then game goes on like normal? I asked this with normal sd sets and no one has yet to send a game or an example of this happening, i cant imagine its more dire with pursuit sets.

Now I want to replant my second question, which I believe was always more important:
If not this ban, then what is the next step?
Your reply didn't address this question at all, and I believe this matter to be more important. Contrary to what I have posted so far, I am quite on the fence regarding this mon and I could be swayed to the other side if I see a good alternative
I encourage any dnb voter to present a solid answer to this question

ok im ngl i forgot to answer this LOL, since i answered this a few times in the discord, but genuinely my bad for missing out, was early for me lol.

If not this ban, we have other alternatives both in and out of our control, especially considering we should not be rushing to have multiple major meta changes with ndpl around the corner so that it doesnt get delayed (no one wants) or get played in a mickey mouse meta (even less people want)

looking at / suspecting other mons is the main thing, sneasler, pult, valiant, ghold, zama or even garg cress/spower volc. unbanning moon and luna who were both wrongly banned is also notable, and both will have huge metagame impacts, more long term are things like dlcs coming with potential new moves or move additions as well as new mons. we do not need to rush tiering, we can take our time, we spent a lot of time on tera with a majority of us thinking it would be gone this time, theres still a long way for the tier to go.

worst case i think we can still look into potential restrictions for tera and test things out, see what the community likes / prefers, no need to be set on things.

hope that clears things up bro

GFGcreationz asw since you posted about it, incase you dont see my response

Gambit's checks, and why they dont work:

I'm voting ban, and I'm seeing a lot of players quote things that aren't even able to properly stop gambit as answers to gambit, so I'm just going to go through why most of them don't work

Gambit generally has 3 ways of dealing with its counterplay, those being knock off just winning in the long game, just being so powerful they can only come in once (sometimes with tera dark), and random defensive tera to take an attack or two. While tera does have a big opportunity cost, kingambit is often able to just win games on the spot once it bypasses a check, so there's often no better way to use your tera. If you don't go out of your way to pack multiple gambit answers, you often have to rely on soft checks, which do work once or twice but can't be counted on to do so reliably or stop a sweep. While offensive counterplay does exist, it's restricted by kingambit's great bulk mandating a fighting move or strong stab ground/fire.

Grouping by way they lose, going down to B+, including both defensive and offensive checks

Lose to defensive tera

(choice band)

Lose to sheer power + maybe tera dark

Lose to knock off

In general, kingambit has a really easy time dismantling or flat out ignoring most of its checks, and proper counters are often less viable or restricted to certain playstyles (such as skarmory). Also, while the gambit ban will definetely lead to at least one other ban, the tier honestly needs stuff to go anyways for it to become more competitive and enjoyable.

I think this entire post is far too rooted in the idea that kingambit will always be fully healthy, always have tera (and the right tera), and will always be in right position multiple times a game, which is definitely not true. A lot of, if not most, gambit wont be healthy, tera will want to be / was spent on other pokemon, or gambit is mispositioned, and even with all of this, your not considering the fact the opponent can still predict the tera. we saw this multiple times in ndwc, most notably this game in the semifinals of ndwc, lily vs hyssou https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-696286 . im sure you can find loads more games where it knocks off the tusk or whatever and its still fine, still checks it well throughout the course of the game.

gambit sure did tera flying (defensive tera, resists both stabs) and it sure did lose to tusk? idt im missing something here.

regardless my point again, how often does this happen in practice in a high level game (gambit beats x check then wins / makes huge impact) , doesnt have to be ndwc, or even lt playoffs, high level ladder tour games, or even just “for fun” games between 2 people who know what they are doing.

i am not asking for much from the pro banners, just some examples of it happening in practice, because it sure does not look like it does. the last line of your post also fits a term i coined earlier this week, hopeposting, in where someone hopes that the end result of something will surely be better than other options without much thought put into it. hence, im asking you, do try out playing and building with the big 3 + potentially 3~ more top offensive mons gone as well, even if you still have some reason to believe that it is broken, at least see if a meta where the domino ban takes place will be a more enjoyable one or not.

 

[Payasiko]

I would like to share my point of view on this test, because this decision is crucial for the development of the tier. What is being voted on here is not whether we ban Gambit or not; what is decided with this suspect test is whether we change the tier or leave it as it is. Surveys have shown that many players see Gambit as a real problem, and honestly, if he isn’t banworthy, then no mon deserves a ban (perhaps except for new DLC mons). If Gambit stays, there is no option to ban Sneasler, Volcarona, Zama, etc., because these mons help to deal with Gambit. The removal of Gambit will trigger a domino effect that will affect mons like Pult or Ghold, that's true, but it's absolutely necessary for the future of the tier.

We all know Gambit's strengths. Unlike OU, our Gambit has access to Knock Off and Pursuit, which makes it even more formidable. It's an incredibly bulky mon capable of turning a battle on its own. Some of its strengths are due to terastalization, but tera is here to stay, so Gambit's problems due to tera are now simply Gambit's problems, and they must be taken into account as such. The mind games of having Sucker Punch, Pursuit, and Knock Off allow it to come out victorious from an unfavorable situation and eliminate the enemy wincon thanks to an extremely OP ability, making it a completely unhealthy mon.

To be honest, the mere presence of Gambit makes certain archetypes unplayable. The pressure it exerts on teambuilding is enormous, completely centralizing the meta. It not only prevents other mons from being played, but also forces specific responses against it, greatly limiting the viable pool.

For these reasons, I believe Gambit should be banned. If not, we will remain stuck in the current meta, with no significant changes beyond the return of Ursaluna and Roaring Moon. If you believe that ND would be fun that way, vote DNB. Otherwise, the key to changing the tier is the ban of Gambit and the consequent domino effect. The future of the ND is in your hands.

 

[adem]

I would like to share my point of view on this test, because this decision is crucial for the development of the tier. What is being voted on here is not whether we ban Gambit or not; what is decided with this suspect test is whether we change the tier or leave it as it is. Surveys have shown that many players see Gambit as a real problem, and honestly, if he isn’t banworthy, then no mon deserves a ban (perhaps except for new DLC mons). If Gambit stays, there is no option to ban Sneasler, Volcarona, Zama, etc., because these mons help to deal with Gambit. The removal of Gambit will trigger a domino effect that will affect mons like Pult or Ghold, that's true, but it's absolutely necessary for the future of the tier.

We all know Gambit's strengths. Unlike OU, our Gambit has access to Knock Off and Pursuit, which makes it even more formidable. It's an incredibly bulky mon capable of turning a battle on its own. Some of its strengths are due to terastalization, but tera is here to stay, so Gambit's problems due to tera are now simply Gambit's problems, and they must be taken into account as such. The mind games of having Sucker Punch, Pursuit, and Knock Off allow it to come out victorious from an unfavorable situation and eliminate the enemy wincon thanks to an extremely OP ability, making it a completely unhealthy mon.

To be honest, the mere presence of Gambit makes certain archetypes unplayable. The pressure it exerts on teambuilding is enormous, completely centralizing the meta. It not only prevents other mons from being played, but also forces specific responses against it, greatly limiting the viable pool.

For these reasons, I believe Gambit should be banned. If not, we will remain stuck in the current meta, with no significant changes beyond the return of Ursaluna and Roaring Moon. If you believe that ND would be fun that way, vote DNB. Otherwise, the key to changing the tier is the ban of Gambit and the consequent domino effect. The future of the ND is in your hands.

short post here since its mostly just reiterating points, but if you have read literally the post above you, i mention multiple ways in which the tier wont stay the same, both by our own choice (bans and suspects and resuspect down stuff from ubers), as well as not by our own choice (dlc). your logic here also doesnt make sense, we should ban gambit because there wont be any changes (which isnt true), but we also cant ban other things because there… will be changes? if those other mons are broken and they deal with gambit, so what lol, if gambit becomes broken then then we ban it. your middle paragraph also just lists down the good qualities of the mon, not how it makes it broken, and you can do that with every mon, good or bad, like this


110 in ALL bulk stats (better than toxapex), 160 Attack. AND base 100 speed? as well as amazing coverage moves in elememtal punches, knock off, edgequake, status, hammer arm, etc as well as strong normal stab in return. this mon can also hold an item!

(this mon is regigigas)

anyways my point is, we can all just repeat good parts about a mon with 0 development and explanation, issue is that doesnt explain why a mon is broken or not either in practice or on paper, so i would implore you to read both of my prior posts above before you respond to avoid repetition of points. also idk what archetype is unplayable because of gambit lol, all archetypes are playable, only stall is kinda eh but definitely not unplayable, and that definitely isnt because of gambit (at least not solely) lol. also what mons are limited from the viable pool because of gambit? we have mons that are worse because of gambit, sure, but outright unviable is definitely pushing it lol.

anyways to end this off, i have seen a trend of overexagerration from the ban side of this argument, and it really sucks to see, even if its immediately corrected after, so would be great if that can be tuned down for future posts because its not helpful for either of us :fire:

 

[dewfew]

To be honest, the mere presence of Gambit makes certain archetypes unplayable. The pressure it exerts on teambuilding is enormous, completely centralizing the meta. It not only prevents other mons from being played, but also forces specific responses against it, greatly limiting the viable pool.

Can you specify which archetypes are unviable from the presence of Kingambit? Gambit thrives on and simultaneously is a strong weapon against every archetype as well, so I’m not really sure which ones are hurt so badly by its presence.

Also, this is just my opinion, but if Gambit gets banned than Moon and Ursaluna won’t return to OU (or at least ursaluna, without the two best ghosts in the tier it would be too hard to switch in imo). I’m still deciding what I would vote if I were to finish my reqs, so any and all points for and against would be helpful :)

 

[Payasiko]

short post here since its mostly just reiterating points, but if you have read literally the post above you, i mention multiple ways in which the tier wont stay the same, both by our own choice (bans and suspects and resuspect down stuff from ubers), as well as not by our own choice (dlc). your logic here also doesnt make sense, we should ban gambit because there wont be any changes (which isnt true), but we also cant ban other things because there… will be changes? if those other mons are broken and they deal with gambit, so what lol, if gambit becomes broken then then we ban it. your middle paragraph also just lists down the good qualities of the mon, not how it makes it broken, and you can do that with every mon, good or bad, like this


110 in ALL bulk stats (better than toxapex), 160 Attack. AND base 100 speed? as well as amazing coverage moves in elememtal punches, knock off, edgequake, status, hammer arm, etc as well as strong normal stab in return. this mon can also hold an item!

(this mon is regigigas)

anyways my point is, we can all just repeat good parts about a mon with 0 development and explanation, issue is that doesnt explain why a mon is broken or not either in practice or on paper, so i would implore you to read both of my prior posts above before you respond to avoid repetition of points. also idk what archetype is unplayable because of gambit lol, all archetypes are playable, only stall is kinda eh but definitely not unplayable, and that definitely isnt because of gambit (at least not solely) lol. also what mons are limited from the viable pool because of gambit? we have mons that are worse because of gambit, sure, but outright unviable is definitely pushing it lol.

anyways to end this off, i have seen a trend of overexagerration from the ban side of this argument, and it really sucks to see, even if its immediately corrected after, so would be great if that can be tuned down for future posts because its not helpful for either of us :fire:

( lol )

If you have read literally the post above you, I have explained why it is very likely that, even if other tests are conducted in the future, no other mon will be banned. As this logic seems to make no sense to you, I will detail it in depth. In the latest player survey, when asked to rate how problematic it was, Gambit achieved the highest score in the history of this tier, surpassing mons like Espathra, Annihilape, or Walking Wake. Lacking a better estimate, it seems that there is a significant percentage of players who consider Gambit the most problematic mon we have had to date. If it is established that Gambit does not meet the requirements to be banned, what possibility is there that the others will be banned? It's not impossible, true, but it would be very unlikely for something like that to happen. Are we going to ban Pult in a meta where Gambit exists? Many players would likely have no trouble dealing with it, so I wouldn't bet on it, honestly. The argument of "broken checks broken" has never been an appropriate tiering policy. Let's consider for a moment that Pult was banned in the previous gen, and not only does it maintain the same sets as before, but it also now has new tricks thanks to terastalization (like tera stab or tera blast fighting), and one of the reasons it remains free is the existence of Gambit.

With this point clarified, let's talk about Gambit's characteristics. When you mention Regigigas, you conveniently seem to ignore something I already mentioned in my previous post, which is that Supreme Overlord is a very OP ability. I think we can assume that if Regigigas had this ability, it would also be banworthy due to its stats. This ability, in practice, can have a similar effect to the move Last Respects, which was banned at the time. In addition to that, Gambit has an excellent utility move in Knock Off, the ability to trap mons with Pursuit, and the ability to set up with SD in different sets, making you lose a battle if you don't guess the move it will use correctly. Regigigas's weakness is clear: its ability. What weaknesses does Gambit have? The most obvious one is its type combination, which makes it 4x weak to the fighting type. In a meta where terastalization exists, this problem is much less important, but even without terastalization, many enemies have to resort to focus blast to defeat it (which is not very reliable). The other major disadvantage it can have is its speed stat, which it compensates for with a powerful priority attack with STAB. Many strengths for few weaknesses.

When I say that the presence of Gambit influences archetypes, I don't just mean him but also the interactions it has with other mons (the domino effect). Right now, offensive power is so high (Gambit, Pult, Valiant, Zama, ...) that it's difficult to contain with archetypes like regular Balance, and we're seeing more and more BO instead. To play more defensively, you have to resort directly to Fat, because Balance is practically overwhelmed. Other archetypes like TR (which has always been niche, that's a fact) are now practically nonexistent because Gambit punishes most setters and also hits very hard with Sucker Punch, and that's a problem when half of the teams have a Gambit.

In conclusion, I continue to insist on the same idea: banning Gambit is the trigger to modify this tier. If Gambit remains unbanned, it is most likely that NatDex will hardly change in the coming months, and we will have a format very similar to what we have now.

 

[omarsgarciav]

Is this really the case for a majority of people? Speaking from my own experience it has been largely fine for me (with variety in builds as well), with the only exceptions really being like niche / specific sets or some cheese mons sometimes, which I feel is fine to skip out on, which i think can be solved by individually banned these mons, instead of Gambit and the domino ban coming with it. But if this is a case for a majority of people, then fair ill concede, but personally I do not have this issue, and I dont think most do either.

The main offender I've noticed is Dragapult, both in my own experience and from watching tour games. Shifu is also a pretty big offender in my experience but that might just be me wanting to use a non-pex water resist and my partiality towards building more balance/bo.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-698895
between the 11 unique pokemon in this match there is exactly one pult answer, garg, that is one good draco predict away from being in sball 2hko range, and exactly one pokemon that outspeeds (urshifu never revealed item and could reasonably be scarf but pult still takes only 50 even w/ tera). Kyo's team also doesn't have a great ghold switchin and lele also clicks buttons if it gets one blast off on ferro.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-699228
both these teams get slaughtered by a well played pult, also neither player has a good urshfu switchin, except for scream tail ig but if shifu teras it dosent die to fairy move and it cant wish protect

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-699160
tlenit just has no ghost resist, lbn has only ttar which is super easy to wear down w/ rocks/turn, other than that val can rk if terrain is up, glisc takes a hit and does like 45 back and tran can switch in once assuming rocks are up. Also specs val is 1 tbolt on pex away from clicking buttons. Ground/buzz/flame volc also beats both teams if either pex drops below like 70.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-696406
no pult switchin on either side

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-696109
both teams struggle w/ valiant

there are definitely more examples of this but I also don't want to post 50 replays so I think this is enough to prove my point. Maybe this is a more on paper issue but still don't think this reflects well on the health of the meta. All of the mons mentioned are B+ or higher and these replays are from wc semis and finals so it's not some gimmick cteam set that they lose to.

I brought them up as comparisons solely on the basis that they are just very good glue, and that nuking them would be like pulling a rug from under the meta. There wasnt any perfect comparisons in terms of its specific utility (obviously) but I felt these Mons encapsulated my point well enough, in that just because a ban leads to a domino ban does not mean it was also broken (and facillitated a broken checks broken metagame), just that it was important for the metagame. Nothing in that part of my post had anything to do with how good it was, or its specific utility, just saying that your point (nuke gambit -> leads to domino ban = gambit facillitated broken v broken meta) was not true, and gave examples of mons in different metas which the same would apply. SD Pursuit set sucks btw…. that guy sure does not do anything vs his checks, just use glasses atp, hence why glasses is by far the most popular set, with sd pursuit barely seen nowadays.

Irt your last point, I didnt touch on it in that part of my post but i think i did mention it before lol, but regardless, that isnt a kingambit issue, its a tera issue, every mon does the same thing, some i feel even better than gambit (valiant and volc lol), and i think the gambit issue is still quite blown out of proportion, taking ndwc as an example, how many good games has gambit teraed to beat a check and did considerably better than other mons would have, because its gambit? how common does this actually happen that it isnt just more than gambit bamboozles for one turn then game goes on like normal? I asked this with normal sd sets and no one has yet to send a game or an example of this happening, i cant imagine its more dire with pursuit sets.

The pex/lando thing is def my bad I understand your point now. Also after seeing your points and doing some of my own research (watching replays), I'll concede that Kingambit isn't broken in practice rather mainly on paper. I brought up sd pursuit (goated set btw) just to show how it could be a support mon while keeping most of its offense, albeit at the cost of coverage.

ok im ngl i forgot to answer this LOL, since i answered this a few times in the discord, but genuinely my bad for missing out, was early for me lol.

ur good lmao

If not this ban, we have other alternatives both in and out of our control, especially considering we should not be rushing to have multiple major meta changes with ndpl around the corner so that it doesnt get delayed (no one wants) or get played in a mickey mouse meta (even less people want)

looking at / suspecting other mons is the main thing, sneasler, pult, valiant, ghold, zama or even garg cress/spower volc. unbanning moon and luna who were both wrongly banned is also notable, and both will have huge metagame impacts, more long term are things like dlcs coming with potential new moves or move additions as well as new mons. we do not need to rush tiering, we can take our time, we spent a lot of time on tera with a majority of us thinking it would be gone this time, theres still a long way for the tier to go.

worst case i think we can still look into potential restrictions for tera and test things out, see what the community likes / prefers, no need to be set on things.

Maybe ur right abt this too, in my mind the tier is just in such an awful state and nothing has been done for so long (obv bc most currently problematic mons are fine w/o tera and we were all so sure that it would get banned) that there is just not enough time to take things slow. Maybe a luna unban could do some good bc that mon was amazing defensively but we absolutely do not need moon back, there is already waaaaaaaaay too many threats to account for in the builder, and even if it most likely isn't like the number 1 offensive mon it just has no place in the current ou. Of the potential bans you mentioned I only see pult and volc doing good for the meta. Sneas is obviously unhealthy but it being banned wouldn't change much, many of its checks are already amazing mons (lando, pex, ghold, etc). Valiant is like the premiere kgb check for offense and I feel like banning it would just lead us right back to the exact same suspect. Zama is like baby valiant in the sense that it is also an offensive mon that checks gambit so same thing there but to a lesser degree. Ghold is often brought up but imo its perfectly fine. Garg ban would probably lead to pult ban as that mon is already borderline broken rn and garg is one of like 3 mons keeping it sorta in check. I would like to see stored power go but that's just my hatred of cheap ass cress speaking, realistically its probably fine. Volc is just a stupid mon that can beat all of its counters thanks to tera. Speaking of you also mentioned the potential for tera restrictions but that just is not realistic, we only got the second sus after the first one being 1 vote off, after this one also reached dnb consensus and that frankly depressing pr thread I feel like hoping for any action on tera is coping really really hard.

I definitely see and understand your points but Im just not fully convinced just yet, maybe a week is enough time to change my mind though.

 

[The Iceberg Hermit]

I generally don't have a problem defeating Kingambit. I would hardly call it the strongest Pokemon out there, and its predictable playstyle is easy to plan for. Nevermind the usual checks. Just sneak a Fighting move in where it's not expected and where the opponent has no reason to Terrastalize. (That is, using a Pokemon that Steel would ordinarily have an advantage against). I say, do not ban.

 

[Runo]

I generally don't have a problem defeating Kingambit. I would hardly call it the strongest Pokemon out there, and its predictable playstyle is easy to plan for. Nevermind the usual checks. Just sneak a Fighting move in where it's not expected and where the opponent has no reason to Terrastalize. (That is, using a Pokemon that Steel would ordinarily have an advantage against). I say, do not ban.

Just out of curiosity but what mons can afford to run Fighting-type coverage that weren't already running it before? Nothing really comes to mind except like Mega-Mawile and Gholdengo I guess, but Brick Break MMaw is garbage and its just a mediocre mon in general while Gholdengo still has to deal with the Sucker Punch 50/50s.

 

[dewfew]

I generally don't have a problem defeating Kingambit. I would hardly call it the strongest Pokemon out there, and its predictable playstyle is easy to plan for. Nevermind the usual checks. Just sneak a Fighting move in where it's not expected and where the opponent has no reason to Terrastalize. (That is, using a Pokemon that Steel would ordinarily have an advantage against). I say, do not ban.

This is a bad take, if we have to start putting fighting moves on random mons just to beat Kingambit then that’s basically the definition of overcentralizing. Slotting in coverage to beat a counter is one thing (ex Volcarona using HP Ground) but finding a mon that doesn’t fold to sucker punch and has a free move slot for a random fighting move is extremely difficult. What option do we have, that is able to take a +2 sucker, and can cleanly ohko with a fighting move as a good coverage choice? The only one I can think of protean gren with low kick, and protean gren kind of sucks. Also, gren is so frail that it still barely tanks sucker (0 overlord stacks):

+2 252+ Atk Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Greninja: 179-211 (62.8 - 74%)

if you can find another option please let us know but saying “just use fighting coverage” is a weak statement

 

[sactownzapdos]

I'M SO TILTED

I was ONE win away from getting reqs TWICE and got haxed... now people are running TERA FAIRY GAMBIT, it makes me sick!

Ban this already