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[Bazaro]

So with Season 2 coming to a close here soon, it's a good time to look back on all that's been done and what we can learn from it. So let's talk mons.

 

Here, please feel free to talk relevant discussion on the current metagame of Redemption, particularly specific mons. Note this this will have no effect on the current Season, only afterwards.

 

Mega Metagross

 

If you want a novel, just keep scrolling. You've probably swept with, or been swept by Megagross at least once and we all know how fun that isn't. With too much power, and a moveset than can easily carry Metagross through the first 4-5 Brackets, it's just too much. It will be banned in hypothetical future Redemption events.

 

Greninja

 

If Smogon's ladder isn't proof enough, the unpredictability between Battle Bond and Protean Greninja is an issue we wanted to avoid this season, ignoring the fact that Greninja is strong enough with either one of these abilities. In Redemption, Greninja has proven to be more than a little oppressive to teams that its selected coverage moves can hit, not to mention anything and everything in its arsenal of moves can become STAB. Leaders and challengers alike suffer from the ninja frog's deadly sweeps who can't survive the onslaught of coverage-STABs. Leaders even have the advantage of being able to change their moves to whatever hits the most things on a players' team.

This isn't to say Greninja isn't unstoppable, its very frail, even without being hit super-effectively. Greninja's arsenal is also so big that it can't run every move it wants to, and between constant rematches against a leader, or looking at a Challengers' Trainer Card, the moveset can be scouted and played around. One wrong move is a very dead frog. Sometimes, knowing that coverage may not be enough to matter, but Greninja isn't the only case where this happens.

Gren was put on the Poll as a prime suspect, and I left another option for giving it "Blaziken Treatment" of removing its prime ability, Protean. I'll leave that up to you.

 

Aegislash

 

Unlike Greninja and Megagross's sweeping potentials, Aegislash is popular for an entirely different reason: support. With an amazing typing and stats, access to 2 amazing Shield moves, and being comfortable with almost any item or format, Aegislash has found itself as a very popular Wide Guarder. The problem with Aegislash isn't that Aegislash alone is "op" but rather that Aegislash can fit on virtually any team and instantly make it better with no real synergy required. It's unpredictable nature involving Stance Change makes 1v1'ing Aegislash almost impossible for several mons to work around, giving it a free shot at dropping powerful Shadow Balls and the such.

Aegis was put on the Poll as a suspect. Your choice.

 

 

Comment Section

 

Porygon2

 

Porygon2sports ridiculous bulk with Eviolite and Recover, and isn't passive like most walls. It gets shut down by Knock Off, Toxic, and Taunt, and it can't run every move it wants to at once. Generally, Porygon2 is more threatening when a Leader uses it, since they can fine-tune its movepool for each challenger.

[Mysterious Fox Assassin]

Tbch, I do think that Greninja has its...capabilities with Protean and even more so with Battle Bond. However, Protean, as many would agree, is sort of a jack-of-all-trades. It's unpredictable, but it also be annoying for many players. I, for one, wouldn't like to be receiving end of a Russian Roulette game with Greninja. It has too many possibilities to exactly pinpoint which weakness to crack down on. Thus, I think the best course of action is to make sure Protean isn't a viable ability for Greninja.

 

As for Aegislash, he's a great Pokemon that can easily crack down on both offense and defense. However, King's Shield does pose a problem for physical sweepers unless said Pokemon has an ability that offsets the penalty for directly hitting the shield. There are two sides to Aegislash and I'm not talking about its ability. The first is a mini powerhouse who can shift between hard offensive and hard defense. The other side is the guerilla warfare tactic. Shield, hit, shield, shield... Nonetheless, Aegislash isn't impossible to defeat, but predicting when it will put up King's Shield does get kind of annoying. I am still on the fence about Aegislash, but either way, I'll adapt to it.

[Daniel Blackworth]

I agree with the above post that Protean Greninja and Aegislash should be banned, both to support challengers and leaders alike. Protean Greninja, for one, is capable of destroying teams with its wide pool of coverage moves, and even if it is frail, it can still damage teams before going down. This pokemon is highly advantageous for leaders as they can exploit their knowledge of the trainer's team so as to cripple the challenger heavily whereas in the case of challengers, they can use Greninja to cover several leaders due to its coverage. Aegislash, on the other hand, is also hard to deal with due to its ability Stance Change, which when combined with the right moves and the right items could prove to be hard to deal with in all formats, such as in Triples with the presence or Wide Guard, while in Singles, it can punish physical mons with King's Shield, while also making it difficult for special mons to deal with it. Thus, I support banning those mons for the sake of a better challenge for leaders and challengers alike.

[Perish Song]

Ban Aegislash

 

In both singles and triples, it is too much problem to deal with. Access to kings shield nearly shuts down all physical attackers, access to wide guard blocks several types in the triples format , its typing grants him 3 immunities and 9 resistances. Given right item and the moveset, it can potentially beat several types on its own, just like mega metagross thus it should be banned.

 

Also leaving this here to show how aegislash can deal with physical attackers. Watch from turn 6. 

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/reborn-gen7redemptiontrip-85090

 

Ban Greninja

 

Problem here is protean, making greninja hard to deal with due to its mass coverage movepool. As much as I understand why battle bond is banned, protean was still a big problem.

( Check gen6 for reference, where greninja was ubers in existence of all megas.) Access to scald/darkpulse/icebeam/grassknot/gunk shot/extrasensory/uturn/lowkick/shadow sneak,any hidden power and moves like toxic spikes / spikes , it covers up way too many types, making it unpredictable. Along with this unpredictability, every move it uses becomes STAB, boosted with lifeorb/specs in order to hit like a truck. Both hitting like a truck and being unpredictable is a limiting factor in teambuilding that both leaders and player suffers from, it should be banned aswell

[sailboat]

Am not sure if relevant but

i heard that peeps also have problems with p2 which brings the question: what about the toy birb? Would it actually be suspected for ban or nay?

Well I rarely met this guy on them tours so i cant say much about it but prolly others have an opinion about it.

[Wolfox]

I voted a ban on both. Now before you come after e with a pitchfork, hear me out:

I'm a competitive Monotype player, monotype being 50% of the redemption league (the leaders) means that things that are broken in monotype are equally broken there, if not more broken.

Aegislash has been banned from Monotype for a long time, like since they stopped with type exclusive bans in oras. It was one of the things that kept ghost from going belly up. Greninja suffered the same fate but was already banned before that if I remember correctly. Now in gen 7 monotype it's allowed, and it's still the wild card that it always was. however since it's not only monotype that breaks greninja a bit more into being the frog of death. so I'd say ban the blade and the frog

[Perish Song]

1 hour ago, sailboat said:

Am not sure if relevant but

 

  Reveal hidden contents

i heard that peeps also have problems with p2 which brings the question: what about the toy birb? Would it actually be suspected for ban or nay?

 

Well I rarely met this guy on them tours so i cant say much about it but prolly others have an opinion about it.
 

 

 

 

Well, not quite revelant but its kind of an unfair argument. Porygon 2 has to run eviolite in order to be a viable tank, because in both cases 85/90 physical bulk or 85/95 special bulk wont be enough to keep it alive. Eviolite basically grants a free +1 in both defenses, that means these calculations below;

 

Base 90 at level 100 with 31 IVs, 0 EVs at +1: 324. ( No def invested)

Base 90 at level 100 with 31 IVs, 252+ EVs at +1: 459 ( Max def invested)

 

Base 95 at level 100 with 31 IVs, 0 EVs at +1: 339.( No spdef invested)

Base 95 at level 100 with 31 IVs, 252+ EVs at +1: 475. (Max spdef invested)

 

And it will have hp value of 374. Under these circumstances, p2 can be both physical and special wall, along with a reliable recovery, and couple of crippling moves along with a decent coverage. Problem being, nobody runs knock off in the league, because without eviolite, p2 is nowhere near tanky, will most likely die to any supereffective hit. Check the calculations below for the eviolite knocked off defense stats of p2.

 

Base 90 at level 100 with 31 IVs, 252+ EVs: 306. ( Max def invested )

Base 90 at level 100 with 31 IVs, 0 EVs: 216. ( No def invested )

 

Base 95 at level 100 with 31 IVs, 252+ EVs: 317. ( Max Spdef invested )

Base 95 at level 100 with 31 IVs, 0 EVs: 226. ( No spdef invested )

 

If you consider running mixed spread between def and spdef, it is even worse in a situation when eviolite gets knocked off, because u will be weak in both special and physical side.

 

In this case, we can say that porygon 2 is a perfectly fine mon to use, it is just people doesnt run knock off often in league and suffer its consequences. 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2017 by Shingo

[pyrromanis]

I won't vote yet cause I will wait for other people's opinions, but here is my point of view on each one of them.

 

Let's get 1st with the easy ones. Mega Metagross needs to be banned! This is coming from someone that has used it and I have said before that is not that broken. And I still beleive that! It's not broken but it just outclass everything else!!! Why would I need another steel type when gross can provide me bulk, damage and coverage that no other steel has? Why would I use another mega when gross gives a good matchup against half the monotypes? It's not that is unstoppable or ubeatable, it's just so good that if you want to go serious on the league you have to use it. On the other side, Jasper that has access to it, while he uses it often, he has a plethora of other similary strong megas and I don't think it would matter that much if he loses it. Festus on the other side does lose one of his fastest mons and mega slot and kinda restricts him to very slow mons forcing him to run TR imo, since he can't deal with fast eq users like Garchomp etc.

 

On the next pokemon we have Greninja. Greninja for challengers is bad! Like really bad! What makes it good is that it can be virtually unpredictable and have the perfect coverage for each occasion. This is not a thing in Redemption! Leaders know your moves and can react accordingly. While STAB on every move is strong don't forget that it has 103 Sp. Att which if you think about it is lower than other pokemon that are consider defensive (like Rotom forms and P2). I'm not saying they are better attackers than Greninja, I'm just saying that they can hit harder with their STABs if they wanted. Also there is the thing that Greninja really shines in singles with its strong single target moves but it does have its niche in Doubles/Triples with Mat Block, which unfortunately I didn't see any challenger to abuse it . Ofc leaders still have the upper hand in this occasion since they can challenge in singles where Greninja has less power thanks to only 3 attacking moves... BUT if we watch Greninja on the other side, the 2 leaders that have access to it can abuse the shit out of it! Leaders can run, if they want, the perfect coverage for any challenger's team and also abuse the Mat Block in multi battles if they want. So as much as I want to say not ban, I do think is unfair for the challengers like how Megagross is unfair for leaders. So ban Greninja both Protean and Torrent!

 

Last but not least is Aegislash. Tbh is a very one sided pokemon and while it does force a lot of 50/50 situations it doesn't really matter since there are a lot of matches to win and not just one! even if you get the 50/50 as a challenger in 1 game, you have to get it in all the other matches too, meaning it does force you to gamble in a lot of mathes. And even if you lose it, it still doesn't matter since you can rechallenge the leader as many times as you want and eventually you'll get the chance of winning the 50/50. Same thought process goes for Leaders since they also have to face many-many matches with and against Aegislash. Unfortunately I think that if Mega Metagross gets the banhammer treatment, Aegislash is going to be the superior steel type this time! The reason we didn't see many Aegislash this season I beleive is Megagross' existance and with gross gone aegi will probably be the best option against other steel types! Then again Festus still gets the shorter end of the stick losing once again a very good pokemon for his monotype, while Mira doesn't care that much tbh since ghost monotype is already very restricting with the few mons it has. I'll say not ban, although it should be in the top for being suspected in the start of the next season!

 

20 minutes ago, Shingo said:

In this case, we can say that porygon 2 is a perfectly fine mon to use, it is just people doesnt run knock off often in league and suffer its consequences. 

Thing is, even if challengers run Knock Off/Trick etc. leaders knows it and can just keep P2 away from a Knock Off users and switch to a Mega with ease. But on the other side, leaders can run Knock Off/Trick/Toxic etc. on virtually any mon that gets walled by P2 and criple it. P2 isn't only an annoying mon for challengers, it's for leaders too, but they do have the upper hand against it while challengers don't! I wouldn't say ban P2 but I would say to suspect the Eviolite!

[Cobalt996]

6 minutes ago, pyrromanis said:

I wouldn't say ban P2 but I would say to suspect the Eviolite!

Suspecting an item because it makes two pokemon good (P2 & Chansey, since that got brought up weeks ago) is not enough of a case for it to be added to discussion, especially since removing it discourages leader variety in the form of unevolved 'mons, since there are several that can be brought out as a niche versus a challenger, as opposed to the same mon's copied and pasted in a different order.

[Perish Song]

2 hours ago, pyrromanis said:

Thing is, even if challengers run Knock Off/Trick etc. leaders knows it and can just keep P2 away from a Knock Off users and switch to a Mega with ease. But on the other side, leaders can run Knock Off/Trick/Toxic etc. on virtually any mon that gets walled by P2 and criple it. P2 isn't only an annoying mon for challengers, it's for leaders too, but they do have the upper hand against it while challengers don't! I wouldn't say ban P2 but I would say to suspect the Eviolite!

 

While judging a specific mons performance, I'd rather check both leader and challenger cases.

 

As for leaders : We can go back and check all the teams registered in the league so far, most of them runs recover and trickroom , along with triattack and a coverage move, such as thunderbolt and recover. This set up was never hard for leaders to stop, in fact this was a free set up mon for some leaders. ( Check elliot's snorlax for reference. ) 

 

As for players : As you know, there are only 2 leaders that can use this, Elliot and Oliver. Elliot's porygon2 has the moveset of toxic recover triattack and foulplay , along with some coverage moves he swaps around. Oliver's pory2 is a trickroom setter in doubles when he used it, in singles it runs toxic recover and triattack. This movepool itself means that porygon 2 will never be able to deal damage to any ghost type mon, cripple moves fails vs substitute users, poison and steel types gets free switch , it is remarkably weak to knock off and that puts you in a 50/50 case where you can predict their switch and kill the incoming mega, or just remove the item of whatever mon is coming and it cant fulfill its work when it is taunted. When it has this many checks and counters, It is nowhere near broken.

[Bazaro]

You know, there's 10 people who've voted "Don't Ban" on both sides, and I think I've seen 1 maybe 2 arguments for them so far. I'd really like to hear more about this.

 

Some other mons that concern me personally are Porygon2 (read below) and Garchomp. Garchomp is really awkward because it isn't broken, it's just really really good. It can tank, it can sweep, it can revenge, it can support, all with the same moveset. There's almost no variation on its sets, with a total of 6 viable moves (about the same as Megagross): Earthquake, Dragon Claw, Rock Slide, Fire Blast, Swords Dance, and Stealth Rock. It also has one of the highest usage rates since Season 1, and has really centralized teambuilding as *the* Ground type, the next competition being Excadrill. I don't think it's banworthy, but it's something to keep in mind.

 

Some Pokemon are very hard on certain leaders, having absolutely 0 counters to them. Off the top of my head, Excadrill for Electric, Serperior for Ground, and Ninetales-A/Mamoswine for Dragon come to mind. It'd be ideal to give leaders a fighting chance to these kinds of threats... thoughts?

 

 

Diving into comment section...

 

6 hours ago, Shingo said:

Ban Aegislash

 

In both singles and triples, it is too much problem to deal with. Access to kings shield nearly shuts down all physical attackers, access to wide guard blocks several types in the triples format , its typing grants him 3 immunities and 9 resistances. Given right item and the moveset, it can potentially beat several types on its own, just like mega metagross thus it should be banned.

 

Also leaving this here to show how aegislash can deal with physical attackers. Watch from turn 6. 

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/reborn-gen7redemptiontrip-85090

 

Aegislash isn't really comparable to Megagross as the two fill very different roles in Redemption (sweeper/wallbreaker vs support/tank). I'd like to see more replays from everybody if possible, but this particular one seems to just be bad plays/teambuilding at fault.

 

5 hours ago, sailboat said:

Am not sure if relevant but

 

  Hide contents

i heard that peeps also have problems with p2 which brings the question: what about the toy birb? Would it actually be suspected for ban or nay?

 

Well I rarely met this guy on them tours so i cant say much about it but prolly others have an opinion about it.
 

 

 

 

Porygon2 has an interesting reputation. It's the best wall by far due to taking virtually any hit in the game, on top of getting Recover and optional utility in Trick Room/Toxic. It's not entirely passive either due to Download and Ice Beam/Thunderbolt's powerful coverage.

 

3 hours ago, Cobalt996 said:

Suspecting an item because it makes two pokemon good (P2 & Chansey, since that got brought up weeks ago) is not enough of a case for it to be added to discussion, especially since removing it discourages leader variety in the form of unevolved 'mons, since there are several that can be brought out as a niche versus a challenger, as opposed to the same mon's copied and pasted in a different order.

 

We thought about removing Eviolite too, and this was the main problem we ran into. On top of the possible Aegislash ban, Steel/Ghost would have to rely on Doublade for covering possible threats, or suffer losing an entire line of Pokemon from their already-limited tools.

 

3 hours ago, pyrromanis said:

Thing is, even if challengers run Knock Off/Trick etc. leaders knows it and can just keep P2 away from a Knock Off users and switch to a Mega with ease. But on the other side, leaders can run Knock Off/Trick/Toxic etc. on virtually any mon that gets walled by P2 and criple it. P2 isn't only an annoying mon for challengers, it's for leaders too, but they do have the upper hand against it while challengers don't! I wouldn't say ban P2 but I would say to suspect the Eviolite!

 

Some leaders get very sparce Knock Off distribution (Dragon, Electric, Fairy, etc...) and sometimes can't afford to Toxic stall the +1 Porygon2 who has perfect coverage for their type. Dragon in particular struggles against the duck, who avoids KOs from even titans like Choice Band Haxorus. It's really kind of ridiculous the amounts of hits it can survive.

 

4 hours ago, Wolfox Glace said:

I voted a ban on both. Now before you come after e with a pitchfork, hear me out:

I'm a competitive Monotype player, monotype being 50% of the redemption league (the leaders) means that things that are broken in monotype are equally broken there, if not more broken.

Aegislash has been banned from Monotype for a long time, like since they stopped with type exclusive bans in oras. It was one of the things that kept ghost from going belly up. Greninja suffered the same fate but was already banned before that if I remember correctly. Now in gen 7 monotype it's allowed, and it's still the wild card that it always was. however since it's not only monotype that breaks greninja a bit more into being the frog of death. so I'd say ban the blade and the frog

 

Smogon's Monotype tiering deals with Monotypes vs other Monotypes so I really don't think that reasoning works here. This is sort of like Monotype vs (usually) OU/UU based.

 

3 hours ago, pyrromanis said:

... Festus on the other side does lose one of his fastest mons and mega slot and kinda restricts him to very slow mons forcing him to run TR imo, since he can't deal with fast eq users like Garchomp etc.

 

Doesn't Mega Scizor and Skarmory stop Earthquake users...? Fire Blast Garchomp is a different story because Steel has no realistic walls to Fire+Ground coverage anyways. Megagross does outspeed these, but they can easily run Choice Scarf to beat it.

 

3 hours ago, pyrromanis said:

Last but not least is Aegislash. Tbh is a very one sided pokemon and while it does force a lot of 50/50 situations it doesn't really matter since there are a lot of matches to win and not just one! even if you get the 50/50 as a challenger in 1 game, you have to get it in all the other matches too, meaning it does force you to gamble in a lot of mathes. And even if you lose it, it still doesn't matter since you can rechallenge the leader as many times as you want and eventually you'll get the chance of winning the 50/50. Same thought process goes for Leaders since they also have to face many-many matches with and against Aegislash. Unfortunately I think that if Mega Metagross gets the banhammer treatment, Aegislash is going to be the superior steel type this time! The reason we didn't see many Aegislash this season I beleive is Megagross' existance and with gross gone aegi will probably be the best option against other steel types! Then again Festus still gets the shorter end of the stick losing once again a very good pokemon for his monotype, while Mira doesn't care that much tbh since ghost monotype is already very restricting with the few mons it has. I'll say not ban, although it should be in the top for being suspected in the start of the next season!

 

Without Megagross and Aegislash, Excadrill, Scizor, regular Metagross and maybe Lucario will rise in usage as "superior Steel types," so we're in no shortage here. Winning by 50/50 is winning by luck which is something we really try to avoid. A League is supposed to test skill and teambuilding, rather than sheer luck. With the current way League is run, there's lots of cases where battles can only be won with hax, especially in higher brackets. Unfortunately, the already-struggling lower brackets get haxed on just as much as higher brackets. Keep in mind that leaders need to win every match while Challengers only need to be lucky once.

 

53 minutes ago, Shingo said:

 

While judging a specific mons performance, I'd rather check both leader and challenger cases.

 

As for leaders : We can go back and check all the teams registered in the league so far, most of them runs recover and trickroom , along with triattack and a coverage move, such as thunderbolt and recover. This set up was never hard for leaders to stop, in fact this was a free set up mon for some leaders. ( Check elliot's snorlax for reference. ) 

 

As for players : As you know, there are only 2 leaders that can use this, Elliot and Oliver. Elliot's porygon2 has the moveset of toxic recover triattack and foulplay , along with some coverage moves he swaps around. Oliver's pory2 is a trickroom setter in doubles when he used it, in singles it runs toxic recover and triattack. This movepool itself means that porygon 2 will never be able to deal damage to any ghost type mon, cripple moves fails vs substitute users, poison and steel types gets free switch , it is remarkably weak to knock off and that puts you in a 50/50 case where you can predict their switch and kill the incoming mega, or just remove the item of whatever mon is coming and it cant fulfill its work when it is taunted. When it has this many checks and counters, It is nowhere near broken.

 

Leaders can run whatever sets they want, it's typically tuned to whatever is best vs the current Challenger. As for players, Substitute is virtually non-existent in Trainer Cards due to the way Redemption teambuilding works. Steel types were the typical answer, but most are vulnerable to Foul Play (Excadrill, Metagross, Aegislash, Scizor). Only one Poison type really saw use in Redemption: Venusaur. It doesn't stop Porygon2 from running Psychic to beat it either, and Normal is in no shortage of Normal/Flying types that can beat Venusaur. Taunt is uncommon but it's an option, it can shut down Toxic, Trick Room, and Recover on it. But Porygon2 isn't very passive either, and its BeamBolt coverage can hit the Taunters like Serperior, Gyarados and Mandibuzz. Ghosts are pretty rare on challenger teams too, with Dhelmise (Foul Play/Ice Beam) Chandelure (Foul Play/Toxic) and Aegislash (Foul Play on Blade + ban) being the most common. Trick is almost exclusively limited to Rotom here, but it does have some pretty high usage.

[Perish Song]

1 minute ago, Bazaro said:

Aegislash isn't really comparable to Megagross as the two fill very different roles in Redemption (sweeper/wallbreaker vs support/tank). I'd like to see more replays from everybody if possible, but this particular one seems to just be bad plays/teambuilding at fault.

 

I am aware of that, but the case I talk about aegislash's performance is where metagrossite is banned. Aegislash will replace mmeta's slot if we ban it in the future, thus it will be another unpredictable mon when used by leaders. Remember that the reason why aegislash was banned from Gen6 ou was its typing , the amount of roles it could handle and the impact it had on the teambuilding. Every player had at least 1 aegislash check in their teams ( Both physical and special tank, both special and physical attacker ) 

 

Despite that, aegislash has attack boosting move, STAB priority, both special and physical offense capability, self protecting move that cripples physical attackers, makes it a viable attacker along with megagross. Problem here being Megagross's offense capabilities are far above the aegislash,has alot more coverage, a far better physical bulk, and very nice speed tier, therefore nobody really consider running an offensive aegislash. But in a future event where metagrossite is banned, aegislash might be considered as an option, with the stat altering ability that grants 150/150 in both offense stats, and 150/150 bulk in both defenses in shield form, making it a strong pokemon.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Bazaro said:

Leaders can run whatever sets they want, it's typically tuned to whatever is best vs the current Challenger. As for players, Substitute is virtually non-existent in Trainer Cards due to the way Redemption teambuilding works. Steel types were the typical answer, but most are vulnerable to Foul Play (Excadrill, Metagross, Aegislash, Scizor). Only one Poison type really saw use in Redemption: Venusaur. It doesn't stop Porygon2 from running Psychic to beat it either, and Normal is in no shortage of Normal/Flying types that can beat Venusaur. Taunt is uncommon but it's an option, it can shut down Toxic, Trick Room, and Recover on it. But Porygon2 isn't very passive either, and its BeamBolt coverage can hit the Taunters like Serperior, Gyarados and Mandibuzz. Ghosts are pretty rare on challenger teams too, with Dhelmise (Foul Play/Ice Beam) Chandelure (Foul Play/Toxic) and Aegislash (Foul Play on Blade + ban) being the most common. Trick is almost exclusively limited to Rotom here, but it does have some pretty high usage.

 

So this means, porygon 2 is only dangerous when used by leaders, which kinda proves my point of p2 being broken on the leader aspect. Leaders can shape their team homewer they like as you said to counter it, for instance, Lucifer's Alola-Muk can completely shut any porygon2 set , item and ev spread. Personally I havent seen any leader had problems dealing with pory 2.

 

It is nowhere near broken when used by challengers. 

[Bazaro]

Dark has 2 of the best Porygon2 counters in the whole game; Sableye and Muk-A, you only mentioned that, not the types that suffer against it. Dragon suffers a lack of defensive mons that can take Ice Beams, deal with Toxics, AND actually manage to KO the thing. Ground is the same way if Porygon2 is carrying Toxic.

As for Aegislash taking over Metagross's role as a Steel powerhouse on teams, I mentioned above that Scizor/Excadrill would fill that role better. And it's not like regular Metagross is unviable, I think it will actually remain a high-tier threat.

[Odybld]

Two cents from a non-participant:

 

Metagames change, things become better or worse as a result. Last year in OU, ZardX was the prominent set up and you're done monster and Volcarona couldn't even crack the 3.14 usage threshold of the tier. This year, ZardX love is dead and gone and Volc reigns supreme in OU as one of the scariest setup sweepers. 

 

In short, there are two ways things are ban-worthy: things that become broken in a certain setting and things that are ridiculous regardless of setting. Aegis falls into the second category, no matter what this mon is gonna be a 50-50 machine with practically base 150 defenses and offenses. Metagross on the other side has seen his glory days, has seen his dog days and he came back into glory until its ban from OU. It's pretty pretty pretty great but it's not broken on itself, that largely depends of how good its defensive typing is in any setting and of how many moveslots it needs to do its job properly. So, banning it for the future is kind of a weird thing to do. But it propably deserved to be banned this season and if things remain similar (will they?) it could get banned. 

 

Aegis on the other hand, fuck that thing 

 

The Ninja is a weird one. And personally I consider Protean much more dangerous than Battle Bond. We'll see what the wiseguys in smogon think about it sooner or later. But I think that if ability bans is something that Redemption is cool with, I'd allow Ash-Ninja for next season. Yeah, it's good, fast, hits hard, but I feel it's more manageable that Mr STAB for everything Ninja

 

The rest of the pokemons discussed, well, is "Pokemon X is really good" proper reasoning?

 

 

[Perish Song]

The alolan muk was just an example how porygon2 can be shutted down, besides you are doing the very same thing how dragon suffers from ice beam. Any bulky mon with icebeam can be threat to dragon typing, it is unrelated from the porygon2 itself. Besides that the dragon leader can always prepare for it , considering a porygon 2 wont be able to wall / icebeam an entire team of dragons and kommo-o exists with a decent special bulk.  As for grounds case, the way porygon 2 is for the grounds, it is kinda same how ground types are for porygon, it can be toxicated, can be completely walled by excadrill, checked by part water ground types, and both nidoqueen and nidoking can bypass the download spatk boost by investing very slight EV's ( Just thinking that porygon 2 is not mixed defender, in this case porygon 2 either dies to physical or special attackers.)

 

What I mean here is we just consider the extreme cases and act like porygon2 was a big threat for leaders to deal with. If we do this exact thing to every mon, anything above A- in viability should have been banned with our logic here. ( Simply 1 mon doesnt deserve to be suspected just because it checks 1-2 types )

 

As for regular metagross, sadly it wont(shouldnt) be used as a physical attacker in the existence of the superior steel powerhouses excadrill scizor and aegislash. It is a decent stealth rock user with decent dual stab and priority move, but it is not going to become a big threat. It lacks momentum, it doesnt have its fantastic speed tier, it doesnt have the beast ability, every other physical offense mon will be a better option than him. (What makes scizor better than regular metagross is that scizor has both recovery move and momentum provider U turn) 

 

This is the pretty much the logic/reasoning why mega metagross was picked by many challengers, cuz it had no better alternative as a steel powerhouse. 

 

 

[Hycrox]

I'm only vouching for Megagross, P2 and Gren to be banned, since they're incredibly annoying on both sides. They're not invincible, but they make the game pretty boring, and I don't thin that's gonna change anytime soon. Especially due to their capacity of just breaing through entire teams I rarely used Megagross and was bored by my own P2. They just make the game boring. Mega Meta sweeps entire teams by switching on at the right time. Greninja can play around with immunities and even destroy everything a la Megagross in some cases. P2 either sweeps everything, stalls everything or just sits there and waits to die, while its opponent craves for that crit. Well, unless something has a hard-hitting Fighting-type move. Megagross can be tailored for each challenger and sweep at least a quarter of the leaders. While there are other god tier threats out there, Garchomp and Aegis, the former doesn't break the game, it's just a pretty complete and versatile pokemon to use, and the latter can be rendered nearly useless with certain moves (Taunt says hi), and still suffers from some pretty common weaknesses and shortcomings.

 

Even with these gone, there are a lot of great mons out there, such as GREGORY THE ALMIGHTY  , and stuff like Arcanine, Tsareena, Rotom, Araquanid, Excadrill, etc. Anyways, there are obviously some pretty daunting strats that don't involve any of these, such as most of Elliot's stall core, all of Lilly's, and even things like the infamous Roy, but those can be beaten by most good teams. Meta will probably go down in usage quite a bit, but imo it's still pretty great, as it can set rocs, explode, and has a mean green Weaness Policy + Agility set (among other things that set it apart from other mons). P-Z is a way healthier alternative for P2 as well (I'm using one next season actually). And it's funnier to try to come up with fresh strategies for your team, rather than just using the meta's prized mons. Anyways, it's all for fun, and these bans seem fair bar edgyslash. But anyways this was incredibly fun and I hope I can stick around for it next year. Also Gliscor is reaky good it can bulk things. Hard things.

[DemICE]

Aegislash is unhealthy because if relies on 50% games, which are even worse than deliberate tries to flinchhax.  

 

Greninja is a fast frail pokemon.  The real issue here is the 4 stabs cuz of protean.  Removing protean will sufice in turning greninja simply into a good choice for a fast attacker.  Doesnt have to be banned entirely...

[Perish Song]

Problem with greninja would be the very same problem with blaziken itself. Non speed boost blaziken was allowed yet not even a single person used it in league ( Maybe couple people used it but u get my point ). There will be better alternatives than torrent greninja in both dark and water attacker case, it will be just forgotten like the blaziken. In this case there is no big difference than banning greninja or banning the ability.

[SJMistery]

If anything, I would go for a ban on King's Shield. That move is the main reason Aegislash is so hard to contest. But i vote NO BAN. The prediction mindgames are fun, and you can always simply NOT USE A CONTACT MOVE or a move that otherwise bypasses KS. Earthquake, Thousand Arrows, HyperSpace Fury, Dark Pulse, Shadow Ball, Fire Blast, Sucker Punch, the Z moves, WoW, Taunt... And you can easily wall him once you learn his coverage move (Iron Head->go for normal/dark types, Sacred Sword->go for fairy types)

 

PLus, being monotype, it's easy to narrow down who will try to come in and cover Aegislash.

 

Greninja is overrated. Hard to send in, even harder to kill anything against a competent opponent unless you got mono-type disadvantage in which case you are generally completely screwed anyway...

 

PD: LOL. Greninja has EXACTLY the same number of votes for the three options with 12 each at this moment...

Edited May 30, 2017 by SJMistery
extra bit

[Anime]

p2 is bulky af ban it, also when used by leaders it gets annying

[Bazaro]

Added Porygon2 to the vote list. So let's discuss again.

 

It's bulk is out of this world with Eviolite and Recover, can run powerful utility in Toxic and Trick Room, and gets strong coverage options in Ice Beam and Thunderbolt, with Tri Attack and even Foul Play to hit threats. It get 3 very versatile abilities in Trace, to use opposing Abilities against them, and Download and Analytic to get extra damage out. With 105 Special Attack and possible boosts from an ability, on top of Beambolt or STAB Tri Attack, P2 can deal lots of damage without sacrificing any bulk. A respectable base 60 speed lets it function well in Trick Room, while also outspeeding other defensive mons.

 

Of course for challengers, choosing only 4 moves is a problem, with Recover and Ice Beam being on virtually every set run. Toxic, Trick Room and Tri Attack are extremely common as well. Due to being near impossible to one-shot on top of having an offensive presence, P2 is arguably the best Trick Room setter in all of Redemption. Many challengers will tell tales of how useful P2 was regardless. Similar to Greninja, Porygon2 when used by the Normal Leader and our Champion this Season can tune its movepool to wall entire teams.

 

Porygon2 always runs Eviolite, so Toxic and Knock Off are the apparent best options here. Not everyone runs these, and they're both fairly simple moves to play around (Poison/Steel types, Heal Bell, Mega Evolutions, countless bulky Pokemon who don't need an item) Paired with other walls, it forms a near unbreakable team. Almost any hyper offensive team has nearly an entire defensive core in one single mon.

 

Strong Fighting types like Heracross, Hariyama, and Conkeldurr can turn Toxic against it and hit with powerful Fighting moves, and certain setups are possible against it, depending on the moveset. It's not entirely passive, but it's damage isn't anything special either. Porygon2 will not be OHKO'ing things without a 4x weakness to its fairly obvious movesets. It can't hit absolutely everything, either, it always wants more moves than its set can hold.

 

I want thoughts.

 

EDIT: So polls are broken on the forums, so adding new questions won't work yet. Until this gets fixed, please just discuss.

[Cobalt996]

@Bazaro Polls do not work if- *reads Baz's post* never mind.  Used to be that you could retract your vote, then re-vote to do it, though.

Pory2 is considered fine in general competitive because KOff is common in the current metagame.  Here, well... running each STAB is more common, since vs. monotype, but iirc in Monotype, KOff is still fairly common.  Failing that, one can run moves like Trick or Switcheroo to disable it entirely, with transferring an item like Toxic Orb or Black Sludge on to undermine its now-reduced bulk, or just give it a Choice Scarf/Band, as it will typically not run speed, and Foul Play does not care about Band on the user.  Failing even that, Fighting STABs reliably dent it.  Failing EVEN THAT, there's a handy little item called the Red Card, which you can use to damage it, then force it out so it cannot heal until a later time, allowing you to more easily eliminate it, or at least put it on back burner for a tad.  Still got no clue?  Lum/Pecha berries, Assault Vest, Liechi/Petaya berries.  As long as you are able to deal with the team around the P2, you can adjust a little to be able to deal with the P2

Furthermore, its moveset is EXTREMELY predictable in this environment, since it will run Toxic + Recover, and typically two of Ice Beam/Thunderbolt/Tri-Attack/Tri Room/Foul Play/Protect.  This means that when challenging a leader, you can just glance at your team, and decide which four moves would prolly be best to run against you.

Leaders get no excuse, as they already know the moves on it, and know it's coming for them.

 

Vote (which does not exist, rip) goes to No Ban, as the only reason I can find for people want to ban it is "it has bulk and can heal," which extends to more than just P2.  If you want to ban it, then ban stall in general, as that is more what people are bellyaching over.  P2 is just what people are the most mad about because it's nigh omnipresent in tours, and both leaders with access to it run it frequently.  Seriously, though; go look at how many complaints about P2 are more toward stall in general, and the complainers' greatest weakness in-team.

(PS. I hate stall, but I do not advocate banning it.  Even if it's boring af)

[Rain Spectre]

Ban Gren and Angi.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Rain Spectre

[Cool Girl]

Man, I forgot to mention this and yeah redemption is over, but it's worth discussing the meta now, since well I really want to see the ban for s3 of redemption that way, I can plan my team. But, another 'mon I noticed that some people have trouble dealing with is Alola-Ninetales. Especially Penelope has trouble dealing with it. Choice Scarf, choice specs, this thing can sweep really hard. Aurora Veil + Light Clay halves damage which can be a pain in the butt for some people. Then, you got Blizzard. So yeah, might be worth looking into it. Just saying.