np: Battle Spot Singles Suspect Process, Round 1 - Mama Said Knock You Out

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cant say

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Hi everyone, the Battle Spot staff have decided it's time to test Mega Kangaskhan in our very first round of suspect testing.

As we all know, Kangaskhan received a huge buff in X/Y with its Mega Stone. Its attack got pumped to a respectable base 125, its defenses were also improved, and its speed reached the above-average 100 base tier. The most valuable improvement it received though, was its new ability: Parental Bond. It allows the Pokémon to attack twice, with the second attack being half as powerful as the first one. Basically, Parental Bond acts like a free Choice Band boost, but without locking the user into one single attack. Also, Mega-Kangaskhan's new ability works wonderfully with attacks such as Power Up Punch (allowing Mega Kangaskhan to usually get 2 Attack boosts), Rock Tomb (dropping the foe's speed 2 stages), and Rock Slide (gives two chances to flinch). Not to mention the ability to hit the opponent through their Substitute. Couple the above mentioned points with a close to perfect physical movepool (with access to coverage moves such as Fire Punch, Crunch and Earthquake) and priority in the form of Sucker Punch, and you have a Pokémon that's nearly impossible to counter or even revenge kill.

Mega Kangaskhan also has very few true counters, and forces players to use niche options such as physically defensive Serperior, Sableye, and Hippowdon. Even Ferrothorn; arguably Mega Kangaskhan's best counter, is roasted by a Fire Blast on mixed sets. Usually most player's best strategy is to sacrifice something to the beast and hope to revenge kill it, however this allows the Kangaskhan user to simply switch out and save it for later. In fact, with a virtual base Attack of 213, factoring in Parental Bond, the only Pokémon that can afford to switch into this monster with relative ease are: Cofagrigus, Sableye and a very healthy Gourgeist, none of which are terribly viable in Battle Spot Singles.

Although it has its flaws, Mega Kangaskhan is quite capable of overcoming them. The aforementioned Ferrothorn is beaten easily by Fire Blast, and all the common Rocky Helmet users are useless against the rising in popularity Secret Power set (avoids physical contact). Mega Kangsakhan is a huge restriction in terms of teambuilding, thus making it worthy of a suspect test.

For this inaugral suspect test we are going to simply have one way to qualify for voting:
  • Laddering: you will need to achieve a COIL rating of 2700 (or more) in a /!\ game limit of 70 games /!\ on the Battle Spot Singles Suspect Test Ladder, that will be implemented very soon.

The suspect test will last for approximately 2 weeks and will end on Friday April 15th. The vote will take place in roughly one week after that.

Use this thread to discuss the suspect and your thoughts on the suspect metagame. If you have any questions, then feel free to contact cant say and/or Hulavuta through a PM. These threads tend to get derailed so please make extra effort to stay on topic. Future suspects need not be discussed in this thread.

Keep in mind that, as usual, it's going to be up to the playerbase to decide the outcome of this test. Good luck and have fun laddering!

/!\ Rules for posting in this thread /!\
  • No one liners nor uninformed posts;
  • No discussion on other potential suspects;
  • No discussion on the suspect process;
  • You are required to make respectful posts;
  • You are required to read this thread before posting.

Failing to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.

As with the previous suspect tests on Smogon, the B value for this test is 17.0. To figure out how many battles you will need to have in order to achieve reqs, first determine your GXE (shown on the ladder and when you type /rating) and plug that into the following formula:

N=17.0/log2(40*GXE/2700)

(Google calculator is awesome for this kind of thing).

Here are some sample values:
Code:
GXE N
100 30
90 41
85 52
80 70
75 112
70 324
Tagging The Immortal for the suspect ladder
 

ethan06

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is a Community Contributor Alumnus
Agreeing with DragonWhale, Kangaskhan is stupidly difficult to play around. I'll post more thorough reasoning for my decision when I have time but for now I'm definitely leaning towards a Ban.
 
Ban dat baby mamma. She's just too strongth.

Realistically, there is absolutely nothing you can do against Mega-Kangaskahn. It was banned in singles immediately so why not BS too? Rocky Helmet users can slow down physical sets, but after a PuP it can still destroy most of them anyway. Rocky Helmet Hippowdon? Ice Beam. Cresselia? Say hello to Dark Pulse. Anything else? HYPER BEAM. Kang is just too versatile and strong. Ban plz.
 
You don't have to be able to vote to post here , right? Probably.

Mega Kang is way over-centralizing, and IMO worse than even Mega Gengar. It takes a mega slot, sure, but even with that I have no idea why it's not more common than Garchomp, which is usually easier to get around. The only thing that might save it from a ban is the stuff that outspeeds and OHKOs like Mienshao, Mega Lopunny, and boosted Blaziken.
 

Demantoid

APMS Founder
is a Top Tiering Contributor
I will have to be voting ban.

It's time to free ourselves of Kangaskhan's tyranny. I hope BS Doubles, Triples, Rotations, and all Special formats follow this example.
 
Isnt the whole purpose of battlespot showdown that its the same metagame as gamefreak gives us? Why is there a suspect testing at all? This will only decrease the amount of western people who are into the on-cart game cause people will play on showdown and not on the cartridge! Sorry for my opinion cant say, I really don't want to bother you, or be disrespectful to our community at all, but I needed to say this.
 
Isnt the whole purpose of battlespot showdown that its the same metagame as gamefreak gives us? Why is there a suspect testing at all? This will only decrease the amount of western people who are into the on-cart game cause people will play on showdown and not on the cartridge! Sorry for my opinion cant say, I really don't want to bother you, or be disrespectful to our community at all, but I needed to say this.
I think it's time we realize that the on-cart rules just aren't working out. Mega Kanga is clearly broken and there's no reason we should have to play the same awful meta on Showdown. I hope that in time we can look to other suspects as well, changing some absurd bans like Celebi and Keldeo. But that's not for discussion here.

Mega Kanga has an insane movepool, being able to get around basically all of its checks depending on what set it's running. Rocky Helmet walls aren't even working anymore because Secret Power is rising so much in usage. There is no counter play to this mon. It needs to go imo.
 

DragonWhale

It's not a misplay, it's RNG manipulation
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Isnt the whole purpose of battlespot showdown that its the same metagame as gamefreak gives us? Why is there a suspect testing at all? This will only decrease the amount of western people who are into the on-cart game cause people will play on showdown and not on the cartridge! Sorry for my opinion cant say, I really don't want to bother you, or be disrespectful to our community at all, but I needed to say this.
Due to the constraints of the simulator, showdown was never able to have the same metagame as Game Freak's, mainly timer issues. This is the first step that will aim to clarify the difference between the two formats, while simultaneously making the one we have control over more enjoyable.
 
But NOVED what will be the difference from this showdown metagame and OU? It will just be two versions of the same thing in the end.
It's still 3v3 and as of right now, there's still many pokemon in BSS that aren't legal in OU. We don't know if we'll follow the same path as OU bans, but we more than likely won't because 3v3 is an entirely different metagame.
 
Than make another metagame with bans with 3v3 and keep the normal battlespot metagame. But im not deciding this of course, I also almost thought this was an april fools joke, but then it wasnt. Sorry guys i am just scared that this community will be split in people who play with the showdown and people who still play on cart. I just liked it so much that this community grew larger and i became part of it but now I dont think I can fit in.
 

Psynergy

Triumph and Glory
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Battle Stadium Head
Sigh suspecting this before something that's actually broken? Are we really going to suspect Kangaskhan when something as broken as Thunder Wave is allowed?

Everything has already adapted to running Rocky Helmet so Kangaskhan already has trouble beating the likes of Rocky Helmet Reflect Serperior, Rocky Helmet Garchomp, and Rocky Helmet Suicune. Nothing has changed to make Kangaskhan any better than it has been in the past years, Kang's Baton Pass buddy Blaziken is old news and we now have Mega Salamence to mess with Kangaskhan that lack Ice Punch so we've got answers to this thing. And with Garchomp consistently getting more usage than Kang, it's not like we're stuck resorting to niche checks just to beat Kangaskhan. I hate to be that guy but I can't agree with banning Kangaskhan, there are far more broken things that need a closer look at than Kangaskhan.
 

ethan06

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is a Community Contributor Alumnus
Alrighty, time to chip in my two cents on the issue. Mega Kangaskhan definitely stands out as a Pokémon that not only warps the tier around itself, but also defines how the tier functions and enables otherwise mediocre and frankly gross players such as DragonWhale to cruise to the top of the ladder with an ease that wouldn't be possible in a properly balanced metagame without the skill level to at least back it up. To back up this point, I decided to take to the Pokémon Showdown ladder to investigate the impact that Kangaskhan has on this otherwise stable and healthy format.



These are the top ten Battle Spot players in all of the world as indicated by their placement on the most relevant and representative Battle Spot Singles ladder, hosted by our very own Pokémon Showdown!. These are the teams used by the Top 4:



As you can see, three of these four top players use Kangaskhan on their teams. The one player that doesn't has a grand total of four "checks" to this Pokémon - Tyranitar, Salamence, Conkeldurr and Aegislash, none of which are 100% reliable. The fact that these players have resorted to either spending half their teamslots on dealing with a single threat, or have simply resigned themselves to becoming part of the problem, shows us the devastating gravity well that is Kangaskhan in action as it surrounds itself with a cloud of shaky "checks", and continues to cut a swathe through the format regardless. Also, you may have noticed that all of these player's avatars are female. As you may or may not know, Kangaskhan is always female, and I don't think I need to explain the correlation any further because, as in any game focussed around war strategy, you need to know your enemy. In order to find success, as demonstrated by these expert definitely female players, you sometimes need to become your enemy. Kangaskhan has definitely centralised the format around itself to the point where players believe that they need to be existentially familiar with a Pokémon in order to stand a chance against it and I feel we need to come to their rescue before their minds are tainted any further. Here are some calcs to show you just how unreliable Kangaskhan's "checks" are:

+2 252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 313-370 (147.6 - 174.5%)
252+ Atk Conkeldurr Drain Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 152-180 (83.9 - 99.4%)

252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Tyranitar: 224-268 (108.2 - 129.4%)
252 Atk Tyranitar Superpower vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 140-166 (77.3 - 91.7%)

252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 288-340 (172.4 - 203.5%)
+6 252+ SpA Choice Specs Aegislash-Blade Helping Hand Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Kangaskhan: 0-0 (0 - 0%)

252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 204-244 (119.2 - 142.6%)
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 144-169 (80 - 93.8%) "broken"


absolutely disgusting. Ban pls
 

Funbot28

Banned deucer.
Mega Kangaskhan's rule on BSS is absolutely insane and should not be tolerated for any longer. Definitely agree for a ban.

Finally we can get rid of this monster.
 

Voltage

OTTN5
is a Pre-Contributor
About freaking time. Mega-Kang and Aegislash are easily the best Pokemon ever made. I mean, Mega-Kangaskahn is on every team and used literally every round. and the only way to beat it is Aegislash, so obviously, if we beat it, then Aegislash becomes a problem all its own. I tried telling my uncle John Gamefreak about all these issues with these two Pokemon, but he's too bust making Sun and Moon into casual smart phone games to really care. It's up to us to take things into our own hands. Also, if you're a vote for no ban, then you're part of the problem, and deserve to be banned too. Ban.

And here's me reqs, just in advance
 
Do not ban.

I do not believe that one of the best things of Smogon's 6v6 (tiers & suspecting) needs to affect what always needs to be on-cart format first & foremost.

I easily KO'd Mega Khan with CC from a Scarfed Heracross. On cart. It's strong of course but it's not centralising. You just need to be prepped for it.

The comments about a mixed set are particularly interesting. I've never seen one online or even seen a theorised set here.

Running this test is against the spirit of the section & the meta that it's dedicated to.

Just have a ladder with Mega Mom. Or any of the top 12 if they are too strong.
 
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About freaking time. Mega-Kang and Aegislash are easily the best Pokemon ever made. I mean, Mega-Kangaskahn is on every team and used literally every round. and the only way to beat it is Aegislash, so obviously, if we beat it, then Aegislash becomes a problem all its own. I tried telling my uncle John Gamefreak about all these issues with these two Pokemon, but he's too bust making Sun and Moon into casual smart phone games to really care. It's up to us to take things into our own hands. Also, if you're a vote for no ban, then you're part of the problem, and deserve to be banned too. Ban.

And here's me reqs, just in advance
Hey maybe after this suspect test we can go after aegislash, its a pretty big problem too, and WHEN Kang gets the ban it will be an even larger threat.
 
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