Sand Rush Excadrill needs to go. Tyranitar has been holding the metagame together for centuries as the sole reason half our competent teams don’t get trampled by rain and/or Latios (won’t really explain this because it should be obvious, but I will if called upon). Excadrill makes Tyranitar a liability; pairing it with the aforementioned threats leads to matchups one cannot win through reasonable building/playing means.
I probably don’t need to explain that Excadrill is far too difficult to handle defensively, but I’ll do so for the sake of completeness. It’s here if you want it. Note: when I mention "Excadrill" in this post, I refer exclusively to the Sand Rush variant; for now, I won't discuss the optimal tiering solution.
Hard-switching to Excadrill is rare, especially when it has a balloon. However, it’s incredibly easy to bring in after a sac; given its speed and power, it threatens half the metagame out. A wrong guess in such a scenario can often mean the end of the game. Inevitable losses to +0 Excadrill solely due to hazards and miscellaneous chip are incredibly common, as are situations in which setup is unavoidable because you have to kill something with Lando-T / Garchomp / Jirachi / Latios DM or Pursuit something with Tyranitar, etc. to stay in the game (arguably the top 5 mons in the metagame…).
In summary, there’s often hardly anything you can do to avoid Excadrill auto-losses besides making overly safe plays and/or suboptimal teams.
I’ll now address a few counterarguments I’ve heard. Some like to say that the dominance of "sand balance” is unnatural and that Excadrill’s presence encourages some much-needed metagame diversity. This can probably be refuted, but I’m just going to go a step further and say that I don’t give a shit about diversity and I don’t think anyone should. I want a metagame in which skilled players have a high probability of victory. I want as few games as possible to be decided on preview. I want a metagame that exposes a player’s skill in as many games as possible. As a competitive community, this is what we should strive for. If you find competition boring, PS espouses plenty of formats and styles of play for you to have fun with. Valuing diversity over competitive legitimacy holds no place in tiering. As I’ve explained, Excadrill takes the game’s outcome out of the players’ hands in too many situations; avoiding automatic losses to it often means getting bowled over by other common strategies.
Some say that Latios is the real problem. While I do think that Latios is pretty ridiculous (not going to get into what’s “broken” and what isn’t because that’s vaguely defined and I’m focused on metagame quality), the fact of the matter is that the Tyranitar-dominated metagame it promotes is rather balanced in that there are plenty of usable teams for which unreasonable matchup disadvantages are extremely rare. As I said before, I’m focused on metagame quality; if a metagame disproportionately centered around Latios and Tyranitar promotes a high probability of victory for the more skilled player, it’s completely fine. Every GSC game revolves around Snorlax, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason to ban it. If we were to ban Latios for the sake of keeping Excadrill due to some tiering policy ethics (not going to get into these, I have no interest), the metagame would undergo such a drastic shift that it’s impossible to know what would happen; we can’t afford such a thing so late in the generation, as the metagame would take years to “settle” (if it did at all) given the low number of games played. We should seek to ban Latios only after unequivocally establishing this metagame’s (the current one without Excadrill) inadequacy. I obviously don’t think we can do this, but feel free to give it a shot if you’d like. We shouldn’t take such great pains to fix what isn’t broken.
In addition (though I want to clearly state that this does not factor into the above argument at all before people attack it as if it was the only thing I said on the topic), banning Latios would likely make rain too difficult to reasonably handle without giving up too much speed/offense, leading to another drastic shift we absolutely cannot afford. S: in addition to the fact that we can fix the metagame solely by banning Excadrill, overturning the tier with a Latios ban in 2017 isn’t a realistic option if we want the metagame to be balanced (within a reasonable time period) and taken seriously.
I normally stay away from tiering; I find tiering policy vague and subjective to a point at which it doesn’t make sense to debate it at all. I only assume a stance when I believe the ability of good players to defeat their less skilled counterparts is going to go down the drain due to a certain tiering decision, and these cases are extremely rare; the only ones that come to mind (with respect to tiers I follow during my periods of activity) are the first Aegislash test in XY and the issue at hand. Let’s get this shit sorted before SPL, dudes. Nobody wants to take an automatic loss on turn 5 for clicking EQ with Garchomp.
I probably don’t need to explain that Excadrill is far too difficult to handle defensively, but I’ll do so for the sake of completeness. It’s here if you want it. Note: when I mention "Excadrill" in this post, I refer exclusively to the Sand Rush variant; for now, I won't discuss the optimal tiering solution.
Viable dudes that can take hits from the mole include Skarmory, Landorus-T, Gliscor and the washing machine (calling the last one viable is a stretch, mb). Taunt Skarm is balloon drill’s son for obvious reasons; you can throw it in literally every time and either spin forever or get a hit off. BB Skarm still isn’t doing too much besides phazing it out or chipping it for 3. Excadrill can also easily forego Rapid Spin for Rock Slide; teams that utilize sand rush drill are rarely spin-reliant (though the inclusion of Rapid Spin can make wearing down these teams an impossible task). In such a case, BB Skarm switching into SD will lose to a flinch eventually (sure, you can outplay this, but it usually requires some headassery). Landorus is complete set-up fodder unless it runs Superpower, which is utter garbage otherwise (unless you’re using some fight gem flames or really need to kill Ferrothorn from 50 in one hit).
As for Rotom-W, I’d almost never consider using it in a metagame without Excadrill. It’s a sad excuse for a water resist with no bulk, power, speed, or recovery; its only “niche" is using Volt Switch to get other threats safe switch-ins. As such, Rotom-W teams are usually prone to getting rolled by Keldeo rain with or without Excadrill. In the unlikely event that you do consider Rotom-W legitimately good, it takes like 65 from +2 Rock Slide and can’t run a physically defensive spread for obvious reasons. Gliscor is also fodder for balloon drill; even with Ice Fang/Facade and fully physical investment, you take 52-61 from +2 Iron Head and 78-91 from +4, meaning slight chip or failure to finesse with protect can be the end of you. Slowbro is cool, but it’s not a great mon; it doesn’t have useful resists, gets pursuited, gets fucked by spikes, and actually needs a Scald burn to stop a healthy drill on its own. Regardless, the fact that Excadrill coerces people into using unreasonable mons like Superpower Lando-T, Rotom-W (debatable for some, maybe), and Slowbro is a red flag in itself.
As for Rotom-W, I’d almost never consider using it in a metagame without Excadrill. It’s a sad excuse for a water resist with no bulk, power, speed, or recovery; its only “niche" is using Volt Switch to get other threats safe switch-ins. As such, Rotom-W teams are usually prone to getting rolled by Keldeo rain with or without Excadrill. In the unlikely event that you do consider Rotom-W legitimately good, it takes like 65 from +2 Rock Slide and can’t run a physically defensive spread for obvious reasons. Gliscor is also fodder for balloon drill; even with Ice Fang/Facade and fully physical investment, you take 52-61 from +2 Iron Head and 78-91 from +4, meaning slight chip or failure to finesse with protect can be the end of you. Slowbro is cool, but it’s not a great mon; it doesn’t have useful resists, gets pursuited, gets fucked by spikes, and actually needs a Scald burn to stop a healthy drill on its own. Regardless, the fact that Excadrill coerces people into using unreasonable mons like Superpower Lando-T, Rotom-W (debatable for some, maybe), and Slowbro is a red flag in itself.
Hard-switching to Excadrill is rare, especially when it has a balloon. However, it’s incredibly easy to bring in after a sac; given its speed and power, it threatens half the metagame out. A wrong guess in such a scenario can often mean the end of the game. Inevitable losses to +0 Excadrill solely due to hazards and miscellaneous chip are incredibly common, as are situations in which setup is unavoidable because you have to kill something with Lando-T / Garchomp / Jirachi / Latios DM or Pursuit something with Tyranitar, etc. to stay in the game (arguably the top 5 mons in the metagame…).
In summary, there’s often hardly anything you can do to avoid Excadrill auto-losses besides making overly safe plays and/or suboptimal teams.
I’ll now address a few counterarguments I’ve heard. Some like to say that the dominance of "sand balance” is unnatural and that Excadrill’s presence encourages some much-needed metagame diversity. This can probably be refuted, but I’m just going to go a step further and say that I don’t give a shit about diversity and I don’t think anyone should. I want a metagame in which skilled players have a high probability of victory. I want as few games as possible to be decided on preview. I want a metagame that exposes a player’s skill in as many games as possible. As a competitive community, this is what we should strive for. If you find competition boring, PS espouses plenty of formats and styles of play for you to have fun with. Valuing diversity over competitive legitimacy holds no place in tiering. As I’ve explained, Excadrill takes the game’s outcome out of the players’ hands in too many situations; avoiding automatic losses to it often means getting bowled over by other common strategies.
Some say that Latios is the real problem. While I do think that Latios is pretty ridiculous (not going to get into what’s “broken” and what isn’t because that’s vaguely defined and I’m focused on metagame quality), the fact of the matter is that the Tyranitar-dominated metagame it promotes is rather balanced in that there are plenty of usable teams for which unreasonable matchup disadvantages are extremely rare. As I said before, I’m focused on metagame quality; if a metagame disproportionately centered around Latios and Tyranitar promotes a high probability of victory for the more skilled player, it’s completely fine. Every GSC game revolves around Snorlax, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason to ban it. If we were to ban Latios for the sake of keeping Excadrill due to some tiering policy ethics (not going to get into these, I have no interest), the metagame would undergo such a drastic shift that it’s impossible to know what would happen; we can’t afford such a thing so late in the generation, as the metagame would take years to “settle” (if it did at all) given the low number of games played. We should seek to ban Latios only after unequivocally establishing this metagame’s (the current one without Excadrill) inadequacy. I obviously don’t think we can do this, but feel free to give it a shot if you’d like. We shouldn’t take such great pains to fix what isn’t broken.
In addition (though I want to clearly state that this does not factor into the above argument at all before people attack it as if it was the only thing I said on the topic), banning Latios would likely make rain too difficult to reasonably handle without giving up too much speed/offense, leading to another drastic shift we absolutely cannot afford. S: in addition to the fact that we can fix the metagame solely by banning Excadrill, overturning the tier with a Latios ban in 2017 isn’t a realistic option if we want the metagame to be balanced (within a reasonable time period) and taken seriously.
I normally stay away from tiering; I find tiering policy vague and subjective to a point at which it doesn’t make sense to debate it at all. I only assume a stance when I believe the ability of good players to defeat their less skilled counterparts is going to go down the drain due to a certain tiering decision, and these cases are extremely rare; the only ones that come to mind (with respect to tiers I follow during my periods of activity) are the first Aegislash test in XY and the issue at hand. Let’s get this shit sorted before SPL, dudes. Nobody wants to take an automatic loss on turn 5 for clicking EQ with Garchomp.
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