While it would be fun/interesting to see what the meta would look like with ice scales in it, I think that for the health of the meta in the short and long term it would be better to test individual mons before adding an ability that halves all special attack damage. I also don't believe that ice scales setup will be limited to bulk up + recovery, and instead could be used by things with SD or NP to set up and just invest in bulk to live any hit. I believe damage amp abilities are being overvalued here since many mons can function without these abilities and still do huge damage with just regular set-up. Set-up + ice scales doesn't need to be immediately game winning, being able to punch a big enough hole in a team would be more than enough, and I think it would be easier to snowball than not with ice scales since it wouldn't be immediately obvious the mon is running the ability. There would also simply be no reason to not use it, and it would have an offensive presence that regen does not that would make it as if not more centralizing than regen. My final point will be that I simply don't think the meta needs it, g9 has always been full of heavy hitters/more offensive mons than previous gens, and I think atp it has to be accepted that the baseline power level is stronger. There are still ways to answer the meta, but it is more offensively oriented than ever before, which isn't bad compared to defensive answers, just different. I would be more open to suspecting individual mons that put this pressure like wake and deos before susing the ability.
I don't believe you should be able to answer all of these threats with just a regenvest, and if you use just one wall to answer a whole form of attacking it is always gonna be p rough. Even with this sentiment, less than a week ago people were complaining about how nothing beats mana and it just sits there, gets health back, and 'never dies' so I am not too sure about the shakiness of some of the regenvesters. The mons listed in this section all have meaningful counterplay outside of regenvest that needs to be considered when building in terms of resistances and immunities. Immunities especially are an integral part of AAA, and having ice scales freed lowers need for them and makes gameplay less dynamic as there isn't any inherent risk in running IS when compared to immunity abilites. Even the physical lowering abilities have risk/drawbacks: fluffy is weak to fires/only on contact and intim only lowers by one stage and is susceptible to set-up, but ice scales has no drawback, it is an effective doubling of one's spdef. The reason that regenvest sometimes doesn't feel like enough is because the best of the best special attackers have ways of getting rid of an AV, and to that I would say the problem lies more in those mons than needing ice scales to fix it. Even then there are more fundamental teambuilding issues at play if a team autoloses if a special mon gets a knock on the regenvest. This also applies to physical attackers as one shouldn't be using just intim or just fluffy to answer them. The best of the best physical attackers also have ways to muscle through these abilities, and using only these answers will always leave holes in a team defensively. 'Overloading' a team with checks and/or using more offensive mons to defensively check some of the biggest threats (mglo rmoon and scarf ghold are prime examples) is something I think one should be doing more often in this meta and not relying on fatter/slower cores to get by. Putting in a bunch of soft checks that are able to pivot in your offensive threats that scare these mons out/force a KO is huge. Finally, one has to put more faith in some special checks like moon, ghold, tran, and stail as these can easily switch in on many spdef mons; it just isn't nearly as free as regenvest.
I am not super against a test after individuals are looked at and it is still seen as an issue, but I think as of now ice scales would be a bandaid over some of the larger 'problem' mons and lock out many weaker spatkers like stail and lead to more centralization in what special mons you could viably use, which wouldn't be nearly as fun or competitive (I put a high enjoyment and comp on the most recent survey so this could be bias but whatev).
In summary: test the individual mons first, a team should already have more varied ways outside of regenvest to take on special mons, ice scales would get rid of this variation and centralize with regen as the blanket answers, and the meta is always gonna lean offensively so let's just go with it.
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Manaphy (2): Being such a pivotal defensive piece within the meta, with such little support dredged up so far it is quite unlikely for much action to occur. While true, it has almost monopolizing degree in terms of the Regen slot, it is not quite yet up to its DLC1 state with other Regens like Ting-Lu and Swampert still squeezing out their own place and more offensive teams popping up with all types of diverse uses. It's not overtly broken either, with plenty of play available to threaten or break it. Its ability to consistently make progress is annoying, but doesn't notably warp most teams who just accept it. Stall is a notable exception... but without much of a case argued, there's little chance for any form of action.
Zamazenta-Hero (2): Fairly unlikely. Zamazenta has put up ok results, but nothing to show much of it being broken. Popular checks to CB/ID are abound in the likes of Pecharunt, Scream Tail, Zapdos, Dragonite and Fluffy Corv with varying degrees of effectiveness while not being impossible to revenge yet with PsySurge Azelf maintaining popularity as well as other strong scarfers like Walking Wake. While its IDBP sets can be annoyingly fishy, without any better showings and more solid support it's unlikely for Zama-H to see any action for the forseeable future.
Good as Gold (2): Guys we have two (two) viable removers and you want to test GaG...
Sword of Ruin (2): Little chance. Sword of Ruin while a strong ability, is not without competition and would be easily replaceable in its absence by the likes of Tough Claws, Adaptability and even other boosting abilities. Furthermore there's not really widespread issue with the ability so, no chance.
Desolate Land and Primordial Sea (2): Unlikely. These abilities have defined the meta for generations and have been comfortably adapted to for all it. While there are arguments for their power being a bit warping, there's too little support to justify any kind of action here.
Iron Bundle (2): Fairly unlikely. With an incredible speed tier that can let it pressure and force out a lot of the meta and having strong coverage with STAB Water and Freeze-Dry, Iron Bundle can put a great amount of pressure on the special slot of a team. While specialised checks are somewhat popular, ie Wabs Heatran and Iron Moth, Iron Moth isn't particularly safe with Specs Adapt IBeam doing chunks, and it always retaining the ability to pivot freely to enable other teammates greatly and the special slots are pressured enough as is.
Poison Heal (2): While Poison Heal opens up an interesting avenue for more defensive cplay, its unhealthy ability in enabling potent setup sweepers proven both in the past and tested far back in the generation (though granted it was a very different meta) has shown its historically outweighted its positives and would need some firm support and argument to free again, which it lacks here so little chance.
Ceruledge (3): Ceruledge is an exceptionally powerful mon, but has for the most part proven somewhat balanced. While undoubtedly strong, it does not completely lack defensive checks with itemless checks and Regen Ting-Lu popping up more often as well as Fire immunities being pretty common to allow some degree of defensive cplay while struggling quite hard into the more offensively paced teams of the meta with its low speed and general frailty in bulk, typing and rocks weakness. Unlikely to see action.
Dragonite (3): As of now, there's not too much support for action on DNite, so it's unlikely for the forseeable future. While Dragonite is definitely an annoying mon with the plethora of coverage it can run to annoy checks like Fluffy Corv and ilk, for the most part there has been little evidence for it being properly too strong and most teams have been able to adapt mostly fine with the likes of Pecha and STail proving popular among other mainstays like PsySurge Azelf, all culminating in a lack of real support that leads to little chance of action.
Noivern (3): Very unlikely. Noivern has proven extremely strong wallbreaker with Choice Specs, and while it does not completely lacks checks and neutral cplay in a vacuum, its ease of use, speed and strength means in reality it simply is too overbearing for the majority of neutral checks and would exert pressure for more specialised checks (doing 40+ to Max SpD AV Mana). There already is considerable pressure from other special breakers in the current meta, so there's little chance we will free another one that's so strong.
Toxic Debris (3): Unlikely for now. Having been suspected into oblivion only a few months ago, more support and argumentation is required to push forward any action on Toxic Debris, Pecharunt is a decent case but at the same time removal is pretty awful at the same time with Pecharunt around...
Lugia (4): Not given much consideration for now. While it has its name pop up now and then for quite a while, the benefit it offers are little and Bulky CM sets are potentially quite detrimental in their strength and just general fishiness. Arguably, they wouldn't be much worse than other similar sets for mons like Cresselia, but without much more support or a case put forward, it isn't something at the top of our priority to push action forward for given other pressing matters.
Roaring Moon (4): Pretty unlikely to see action. Roaring Moon is certainly quite strong, with an insane amount of popularity in recent months however that does not necessarily entail it being outright broken or unhealthy with checks like Fluffy Corv and Regen Ting-Lu popping up to strong popularity along with mainstays like Tusk always popular. While consistent, and can certainly break through these checks with play and time, it can often be played around fairly well and there's not too much outright support calling for its ban.
Zacian (5): A maybe, but for the future and only if there's an increase in support. The notion of freeing Zacian-Crowned has floated around for quite a while now but has lacked solid strength to push through the suspect. There's certainly some argument to be made for it, but with its insane speed and strengths some more support will be needed.
2 Ability Clause/No Ability Clause (5): An interesting idea that has gone through its ups and downs in popularity for quite a while, popping up very recently again as perhaps a change to alleviate teambuilding pressure caused by the numerous strong special attackers in the meta. Still, it constitutes a rather large change affecting several mons and the entire meta, so it requires far more support before any real action can be taken.
Fur Coat + Scales (3), Ice Scales (2): As can be seen in the above posts Ice Scales have popped up as a new idea for fixing the skewed dynamic between special attackers and their defensive counterplay. We can see this in the survey as well, with 2 of the mentions specifically mentioning Scales alone. While Fur Coat has a general lack of support due to the amount of setup sweepers, Ice Scales alone is a more interesting proposition that could possibly be explored further...
Sneasler (6): Ehhh. While there was some decent support in the survey, there has been little support elsewhere stirred. Sneasler is undoubtedly quite a strong mon with a speed tier outpacing RMoons, 130 base ATK, strong STABs and coverage with SD, personally I'm gonna need some more convincing. On the other side of the coin, Pecharunt and Gholdengo serve as popular dual-resists while Fluffy Corv still remains popular, but it gets Throat Chop and Fire Punch just saying... Unlikely as of right now but a maybe in the future if it gets more support to be tested.
Enamorus (8): Being the most popular potential unban mentioned in the survey, Enamorus has also had some decent conversation stirred in the forums as well indicating some decent support. While a potential offensive nightmare, its speed isn't spectacular, can be juggled with resists and is quite frail and could possibly offer some interesting defensive benefits of the fabled Fairy type for more offensive team. Whether it'll be freed... we'll see...
Walking Wake (10): With more than a quarter of responses noting Walking Wake as a potential problematic element, Walking Wake has shown itself to be quite controversial. While lacking much direct support here in the forums, it has been brought up in discussion and shown itself quite notably in here, the prime suspect thing in the meta as of now with its strong effect on the meta shown with the likes of Manaphy, Empoleon and even stuff like Wabs Heatran/Gholdengo popping up.
usage (still can be circumvented pretty easily), Water Absorb 
(loses once knocked lefties), Water Absorb spdef 
, and other things (water absorb 
lol). A lot of these mons and sets are pretty flawed imo and struggle agains the larger metagame as well. Its also really pushing the usage of your regenerator mon resisting water such as 
, slightly pushing out some mons like 
. None of these options are completely safe though, and ive seen over and over again Wake win despite of it. These techs are very present in tournament play as well, with tons of water absorb 
/
giving it trouble. Even i am still mixed on it, but leaning on action. The mon still generally falls under the umbrella of whats acceptable, it may just be a little too efficient. 
or 
. I also recognize this wont change things too much, just nerf the style a little bit and open up more breathing room in defensive cores. Better than going for a huge paradigm shift with Ice Scales (not to mention the potential flaws with the idea)
Increasingly, Deoxys-Speed I've found is a pretty goofy mon to account for. While a bit frail with a poor defensive typing, its immense speed can give it great opportunities to force opponents out and act as a superb cleaner. It's one thing to be fast, but it's another to be fast and strong, like really strong. While its attacking stats may not seem the highest, they are acceptable enough, especially when combined with its expansive movepool. Psychic Surge Expanding Force is extremely strong, especially given Deoxys-Speed can run Modest with such a high speed stat and is complemented with an array of coverage in Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Energy Ball, Knock Off, Superpower and even Nasty Plot and Shadow Ball. Mandibuzz? IBeam/TBolt'd. Roaring Moon, Heatran and Empoleon? Superpower'd. Gholdengo and Manaphy? Knock'd, and can be TBolt'd down for good measure or just blown up by Specs PsySurge. Sometimes Psychic STAB is not even necessary and you can all-out on your coverage and can run abilities like Protean/Sheer Force to boost them even further. It simply gets everything and can annihilate a lot of cores, not sure what else I need to say. Maybe with Wake gone and if 2AC ever happens (which I doubt, but I can cope) it could be ok, but right now I'm really only coping because people haven't used it much... yet. I guess we'll see how people adapt.
Magnet pull: you have 3 choices, all of which would rather run something else or that lose to the metal birds outright
Contrary: The pokemon that run contrary arent that good to begin with, and rely heavily on contrary to remain viable outside of OMs.
Huge/Pure Power: (Why are these two different abilities) Medicham and azumarill are mid overall and an increased power level means they would actively be worse.
Illusion: Its literally 2 mons that are both not that great and want other abilities.
Imposter: Its just ditto and ditto isnt good.
Stakeout: All of these pokemon suck.
Magic Bounce: Hatterene and Espeon aren’t that good.
Comatose: Its just Komala.
Simple: Numel is a little cup pokemon.
Triage: Its just Comfey.
Water Bubble: Araquanid is perfectly reasonable and should be allowed within 1000 feet of a school.
Shadow tag/Arena Trap: Usable on multiple pokemon that have them and still broken.
Gorilla tactics: Physical attackers are still very good, and don’t need more multiplier fodder. No native user.
Speed Boost: Do I really need to explain it?
Moody: If it gets banned from ubers, it’s probably good.
Orichalcum pulse: Sun is good, and will be good, possibly forever. No legal native user.
Parental bond: Gen 6 players get it. No native user.
Wonder guard: It’d be funny tho. But no native user.
Innards out: Penalizes getting KOs. Also, no native user.
Neutralizing gas: Defeats the purpose of the tier.
