np: Doubles OU Stage 5 - Little Bunny Foo Foo | Gravity + Sleep Ban will Allow Spore!

DonVGC

formerly ArmoredGuns
as much as I actually wanted to see how i feel about this suspect it was nearly impossible. either it was a 100% gymicy teams/forfeit majority of the ladder. i saw maybe 5 azumarill's the whole ladder and they did not have any effect on the game in a broken way from those matches. honestly we need a better way of doing suspects. but back to the suspect, even when trying to counter azumarill and follow me i felt like it did not hinder team building at all. follow me is a staple on most teams because of its utility and if there is not a few checks/counters then you will lose to them. is there any other azumarill movesets besides belly drum that are worth considering? i remember at one point a band or lo set had some popularity.
This guy understands. And yeah, there's the Sap Sipper, Perish Song Azu which is one of my favorites. Good doubles teams need to be always prepared for redirection, because it's insanely useful.
 
Sap Sipper, Perish Song Azu was, is, and never will be a thing. That is a worse reason not to ban azu than lum side-swaggering was for not banning swagger. The other two sets mentioned, CB an LO, aren't very good, and whatever you're looking for in them can almost always be filled better through a different mon (i.e. CB gyarados).
 
Well, you need to be in a good position every time while playing Doubles. Azumarill also can't get the boost if it ain't in a good position. That's what playing Doubles is about. People who lose to Azumarill+Jirachi kinda need to review their own team and style of play.
That's some heavily flawed logic. "If you lose to Rachi + Azu, your team is bad. Oh and you are, too." That's not an argument contra banning (it's not an argument whatsoever), you could say that for every suspect there was and will be. If you want to actually discuss, please provide us with some actual arguments why you think of something as banworthy or not. Your post about Sap Sipper Perish Song Azu doesn't really help you to be taken serious btw.

PS: I've decided to watch some of your replays since I wanted to see how a good doubles team looks like. Still waiting to see one.
 

DonVGC

formerly ArmoredGuns
That's some heavily flawed logic. "If you lose to Rachi + Azu, your team is bad. Oh and you are, too." That's not an argument contra banning (it's not an argument whatsoever), you could say that for every suspect there was and will be. If you want to actually discuss, please provide us with some actual arguments why you think of something as banworthy or not. Your post about Sap Sipper Perish Song Azu doesn't really help you to be taken serious btw.

PS: I've decided to watch some of your replays since I wanted to see how a good doubles team looks like. Still waiting to see one.
It isn't ban worthy because it's not broken by any means. It doesn't give any trouble to teams that are prepared against redirection (which should be every doubles team). Hyper offensive just destroys Jirachi/Raichu + Azumarill.

And well, I'm a VGC player who just for the sake of boredom decided to try Doubles OU after topping the Battle Spot Doubles ladder. Got to the top of the ladder pretty quick, because even if I hadn't faced some very strong Pokemon like Volcanion before, I understand how to play doubles. And I used the same VGC team as always. Sure, I can play some battles and upload the replays if you want :)
 

emma

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as much as I actually wanted to see how i feel about this suspect it was nearly impossible. either it was a 100% gymicy teams/forfeit majority of the ladder. i saw maybe 5 azumarill's the whole ladder and they did not have any effect on the game in a broken way from those matches. honestly we need a better way of doing suspects. but back to the suspect, even when trying to counter azumarill and follow me i felt like it did not hinder team building at all. follow me is a staple on most teams because of its utility and if there is not a few checks/counters then you will lose to them. is there any other azumarill movesets besides belly drum that are worth considering? i remember at one point a band or lo set had some popularity.


edit: why is there a 60 game limit and a 77% gxe for this suspect?
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...rill-suspect-test.3580680/page-2#post-6965882 here ya go

It isn't ban worthy because it's not broken by any means. It doesn't give any trouble to teams that are prepared against redirection (which should be every doubles team). Hyper offensive just destroys Jirachi/Raichu + Azumarill.

And well, I'm a VGC player who just for the sake of boredom decided to try Doubles OU after topping the Battle Spot Doubles ladder. Got to the top of the ladder pretty quick, because even if I hadn't faced some very strong Pokemon like Volcanion before, I understand how to play doubles. And I used the same VGC team as always. Sure, I can play some battles and upload the replays if you want :)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/doublesoususpecttest-430766986 here ya go
 

DonVGC

formerly ArmoredGuns
Heh nice battle. I remember you were my first loss in the ladder. After that, for whatever reason, you kept watching all my games. It was fun, from that game I learned that Volcanion has surprisingly decent bulk and underestimated Steam Eruption. The Azumarill + Jirachi combo went in after I had Pokemon and position disadvantage, then a crucial flinch to Sylveon came in, ultimately deciding the game. In this battle, Volcanion was a far more important win condition.

For the people that say my teams are bad or I don't know how to play, well you're in the right to do so if you've done any better than Day 2 Worlds twice in a row in Masters.
 

Josh

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Nobody is calling you a bad pokemon player, I think most of us agree you're a good vgc player. But it's not really fair of you to come here, call everyone's team bad, say we are stupid for trying to deal with something many of us agree is a problem, and brag about pointless things. Vgc is very different from dou, and while you'd probably be able to be a high level dou player with little effort due to your knowledge of doubles formats you just don't have much tier knowledge right now. Your teams might be good in vgc, but they aren't necessarily here. Just keep in mind you're coming to another community/tier and calling everyone out with no basis; how do you think we as a community will react?
 

DonVGC

formerly ArmoredGuns
I don't want to say you're bad but keep in mind that VGC is a different metagame from Doubles OU :toast:
It's different but it has the same essence. Every year, VGC rules change and the Pokemon allowed change. Whether it's 4 vs 4 or 6 vs 6, Doubles are doubles, and you can play them all well if you have the right knowledge and experience. Ironically, in the top of the Doubles OU ladder, most of the teams I faced were VGC like (with a bit of Volcanion), with Azumarill being only around 1300-1400. I guess it's a meaningless statistic though.
 

DonVGC

formerly ArmoredGuns
Nobody is calling you a bad pokemon player, I think most of us agree you're a good vgc player. But it's not really fair of you to come here, call everyone's team bad, say we are stupid for trying to deal with something many of us agree is a problem, and brag about pointless things. Vgc is very different from dou, and while you'd probably be able to be a high level dou player with little effort due to your knowledge of doubles formats you just don't have much tier knowledge right now. Your teams might be good in vgc, but they aren't necessarily here. Just keep in mind you're coming to another community/tier and calling everyone out with no basis; how do you think we as a community will react?
You're putting words into my mouth. The only thing alike I've ever said here was this phrase:

"People who lose to Azumarill+Jirachi kinda need to review their own team and style of play."

Which is true. I don't see that as insulting. I'm saying that the combination isn't a real threat if you're not prepared for redirection, which will always pose a problem when playing any Doubles format. Good Doubles team need to be ready for things like Kangaskhan + Amoonguss.
 

Croven

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You're putting words into my mouth. The only thing alike I've ever said here was this phrase:

"People who lose to Azumarill+Jirachi kinda need to review their own team and style of play."

Which is true. I don't see that as insulting. I'm saying that the combination isn't a real threat if you're not prepared for redirection, which will always pose a problem when playing any Doubles format. Good Doubles team need to be ready for things like Kangaskhan + Amoonguss.
look man, the whole POINT of this thread is to have a debate on whether or not this is true (and if so, if banning azu is the solution). it's fine to have that as an opinion, but you coming in and simply saying this with no basis and no standing in the dou community is not helping us at all. if you really believe that this is true and that it would be useless to ban azu, then please come in with arguments and try to convince the rest of us here. stating your opinion is not helpful in the slightest if it doesn't have an argument behind it.

all i'm saying is that stop assuming that you're right and put some effort into proving it.
 

Paraplegic

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Got reqs so I figured may as well share my thoughts, even if its bound to be others thoguths regurgitated as my own...

I will come right out the gate by saying I have made up my mind to vote ban. Azumarill is just not healthy for the meta in my honest opinion. I'm not going to sit here and say it's flat out broken or anything, because it truthfully isn't. My problem with azumarill lies in the fact that it just puts far too much stress on the player both in the teambuilder and the battle to deal with it. Sure it has checks, and quite a few of them at that. But when you have to have like 3 checks minimum to azu, and ways to deal with it next to jirachi as well, you can tend to end up a bit weaker to other things. And then when you get into a battle vs. a good azu team, the fact of the matter is that even with all the checks in the world, you have to play in such a manner as to never allow azu to come out, especially with rachi, or you're kinda fucked if its midgame or later. The fact that you have to play so conservatively around a mon over the course of the entire game can cause you to make some otherwise sub-optimal plays just to try and have a chance to stop it, which can feel a bit ridiculous at times. I get that the same could kind of be said for just about any good offensive mon in the meta, but azu exacerbates this a lot. Having a mon that just takes advantage of slip-ups so hard is just not fun or enjoyable to play with. In the end, that last part is probably my main reason for wanting to vote ban, and be it good or ban reasoning thats what I've come up with.

Sorry if this post is all over the place or just sucks, as Im writing it at 1am and I'm tired af, so make of this post what you will I guess.
 

Matame

New Rules
Well it seems as though everyone is making half-assed posts that echo what somebody has already said as soon as they get reqs so lets join in on the party!!!!

If we're to solve this metagame's problems, if any, we need to first establish how broken Azumaril really is, or more specifically how broken the combination of Azumaril+Jirachi is, since it seems to be where peoples main quarrels with Azumaril come from. I personally define broken as 'Running checks that would otherwise be sub-optimal in other matchups that you have to run to have a fair fight vs said Pokemon'. Reading though this thread I think everyone has pretty much covered both the pros and cons of running sets like haze volcanion/Milotic/Politoed, which I don't think are that absurd as sets considering they help in quite a few other matchups vs other set up pokemon, but dropping Substitue or much needed coverage for Volcanion (or even protect) is a problem. It's not just sets that have to be adjusted to deal with AzuRachi effectively, but playstyle. From experience, while the AzuRachi player has to paly quite aggressively, counterplaying AzuRachi, in my opinion, requires you to make sub-optimal plays to prevent getting into a position where Azumaril can set up freely next to Jirachi. From team preview, AzuRachi adds immense pressure from the bat, and this only continues into the rest of the battle. I think the reason why AzuRachi is such an effective way to ladder is because a good AzuRachi player will almost always be able to manipulate field position into a circumstance where Azu can get +6 freely and begin to sweep the opponent while Rachi allows it to take little to no damage.

I see people refer to the previous suspect (Jirachi) a lot when talking in relation to Azu, which I don't think is fair nor productive if we are to make steps to improve our metagame. We tested Jirachi, and people decided they wanted it to stay. Move on. People seem to be discrediting that there were good, experienced players that voted no ban in the Jirachi suspect, and instead deluding themselves that most people who voted no ban either don't play the meta and were just going for TC (which isn't a problem with the suspect test considering there was an abstain option for those who wish to use it) or their argument for keeping rachi was something along the lines of 'i use rachi, no ban xd', which I don't think is a healthy attitude to have. Deciding which one of Azu and Rachi is the problem (if it is a problem which i believe it is) would help us tackle this issue a lot easier, and although a views towards this can be considered subjective in relation to their own experiences and playstyles and how much they are effected by a possible azu ban, I feel Azumaril would still be a threat with Jirachi gone. Although other redirectors are not as bulky nor offer the synergy AzuRachi has, they can still be effective and allow Azumaril to get its boosts and begin to sweep the opponents team (for example; Azu and Amoong or Azu and Togekiss).

For me its not the redirector thats broken but the pokemon that takes advantage of the redirection, and we can't just ban follow me because of one pokemon.
 

Checkmater

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Let's talk about Azu

Basically I'm going to put all my cards on the table and it's up to you to decide if it looks like a royal flush or a Jack high-card

Some points of clarification:

Haze is not at all a valid argument for banning Azu
Why do I say this? Because it's been used once. Trying to construe Haze as evidence of Azu being too strong is ridiculous, because no one has been using it. As I said before, if Haze had a legitimate amount of usage (say 5% or 10%) to be considered an actual thing, then yes, you could say "Look people are running Haze, this is evidence that Azu is too strong". It was used once. Quit talking about it, quite frankly.

Don't be penned into voting ban on Azu if you believe Jirachi is the issue
I find the idea that we can't re-suspect Jirachi ridiculous. Essentially what doubles leadership is telling you is "Yeah we're not giving you a suspect you want, if you want Azu+Rachi gone you have to settle for Azu being banned". I think this is insane, and yes I do directly invite Kamikaze to justify this mentality because I think we have plenty of time for a resuspect if it's necessary, and saying "your only options for getting rid of what you perceive as a broken combination is going with this suspect" is just begging the question of why the fuck are you biasing the entire vote by saying we won't have any future votes related to Jirachi+Azu and urging voters (from an official standpoint, I might add) to vote a particular way? S&M comes out November 18, in 2 months. We have the time for a re-suspect. Please don't bias the entire process of voting by cornering many voters into an option that is their second-choice.

As for why I don't think Azumarill is broken:

So most of this I've outlined already in the past, but I want to pay special attention to the flawed reasoning that is "setup, then you win". This is far from the practical application of Azumarill in real games. Even if you're setting up against something resisted, Azumarill is so incredibly frail and relies on Knock Off to beat every Water-resist that more often than not a mon is sacked to get Azu+Redirection/FakeOut (or offensive threat, but this faces issues with opp getting the switchin they want and then being able to use that to beat your Azu) and then Azu gets.. like 1 kill. More often than not Azu requires a winning position or a narrow window of opportunity to take advantage of, and then smart play from there.

I'm just going to grab a bunch of replays and hope that you, the reader, follow along on what I'm saying.

Level 51 vs Mint16 g2

Here on turn 2 it looks like a textbook "Lol Mint's fucked here". Even from team preview he's got landot, he's got terrakion, he's got hydreigon. Three things that don't really like dealing with Azu. Nothing "beats" Azu when it's setup. But, using smart play and by chipping away at Azu with Dark Pulse (and having Amoonguss Rocky Helmet) he's totally fine. Even if Kang hadn't flinched, Terrakion comes in, does the same story. Azu got exactly the type of situation it wants most for setting up (thanks to flames set Eject Button), ends up getting 1 KO, arguably all but sacing Kangaskhan in the process.

Braverius random ladder game

How can a "ayy lmao I get to setup here" situation get any better than Amoonguss+Azu vs LandoT+Washtom? And yet... Azu picks up 1 KO while Amoonguss dies. Didn't Braverius have the perfect lead? Pretty much why I find heavy faults with "if you don't lead for Azu and play around it the entire game you just lose" because I don't think this is true and there are plenty of instances that show it isn't true.

Sam vs Miish

Here Sam is about to win with Azu, but his opp whips out Quick Guard Talonflame. Good thing Sam's a god and sees it coming (or it just insane) and attacks with Hydreigon.

My point is this: it takes very skillful play and correct decision making to both play around and use Azumarill, and this is exactly what we want.

I also take issue with the whole idea that Azu has a huge psychological impact or whatever on your opponent's play, because

a) This is true of any mon. If you're not playing against that Zard you're going to be crying on the last 4 turns of the game when it wins against you with no fire resists. We have seen this happen time and time again where someone doesn't play around a threat like subtran or whatever and then that threat wins the game by just sitting on the field and committing multiple murders

b) Trying to say things like Azu adds immense pressure off the bat is an incredibly subjective standpoint. It tries to weigh some kind of abstract psychological effect which is no part of the suspecting policy and guidelines.

I'd also like to stress the point that Azumarill has no capability of switching into anything. Even resisted moves dump on you because you're frail as hell to begin with and that Hydreigon Dark Pulse is going to set you up to be KO'd by literally anything.

Some of the threats that Azu beats the best are top in viability ranking right now. I see no reason for it to be banned
 

kamikaze

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Let's talk about Azu

Don't be penned into voting ban on Azu if you believe Jirachi is the issue
I find the idea that we can't re-suspect Jirachi ridiculous. Essentially what doubles leadership is telling you is "Yeah we're not giving you a suspect you want, if you want Azu+Rachi gone you have to settle for Azu being banned". I think this is insane, and yes I do directly invite Kamikaze to justify this mentality because I think we have plenty of time for a resuspect if it's necessary, and saying "your only options for getting rid of what you perceive as a broken combination is going with this suspect" is just begging the question of why the fuck are you biasing the entire vote by saying we won't have any future votes related to Jirachi+Azu and urging voters (from an official standpoint, I might add) to vote a particular way? S&M comes out November 18, in 2 months. We have the time for a re-suspect. Please don't bias the entire process of voting by cornering many voters into an option that is their second-choice.
my intention is not to pen people. im just being realistic here from an administrative perspective. there are other potential suspects on the table that the council is looking into as well as potentially revising the suspect process. With only 2 months left to go until sun/moon resuspecting something which was majority voted no ban extremely recently as opposed to suspecting something new doesnt seem right in my opinion. I said what I did to clear up any foolish misconception of people that expected us to definitely resuspect Jirachi.

I am not telling people not to vote No Ban. You are free to do so if you can give good reasoning backing why. But voting No Ban just because you are waiting for a not guaranteed suspect is frankly really dumb

EDIT: For people complaining that popular opinion should be a factor in doing suspects. It always is a factor. Nothing is set in stone regarding what we suspect next but considering how recent the Jirachi suspect was, it doesnt have a high priority either.
 

MajorBowman

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As for the resuspect vs suspect a new pokemon point, wouldn't you want to prioritize your suspect tests based on importance and metagame relevance instead of making jirachi wait in line for his turn? I can't really think of anything new people would want to see suspected more than they would prefer a jirachi resuspect.
 

Haruno

Skadi :)
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Checkmater if you were really just pulling replays, just look through the alt I used to make reqs lol. I made sure to use azu almost every game. And according to most people I was using amoong which is a poor mans rachi (laughable because nothing stops spore on ladder)
 

MajorBowman

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Well it'd hardly make sense to resuspect something right after it was voted to not be banned by a decent margin

It makes a lot more sense to move on than to try again and see if anything changes immediately adter
The "see if anything changes immediately after" part has already been confirmed by the activity in this thread. Multiple people are naming Jirachi as the real culprit in the Azumarill test. I think that by forcing people to consider a metagame without Azumarill, the Azu test has forced people to think about the tier as a whole and the way different Pokemon in it interact with each other. From a very narrow and focused point of view, it would be easy to pinpoint Azumarill as the problem because "OMG BELLY DRUM + STAB PRIORITY + GOOD TYPING + DECENT BULK." However, if you zoom out and consider the way teams centered around Azumarill sweeps function, Jirachi greatly facilitating Azumarill's success is a very reasonable conclusion. Of course Amoonguss + Azumarill is still going to be a good combo and will win games, but not nearly as many as Jirachi + Azumarill would because a lot of the best checks to Azumarill are intrinsically good against Amoonguss (for example: all grass types) and bad against Jirachi (again for example: all grass types). Sorry to burst your bubble Haruno, but getting reqs with Amoonguss over Jirachi on your Azumarill team doesn't prove that Azumarill is broken, it proves that the ladder is bad lol. You even said "nothing stops spore on the ladder," what decent team isn't prepared for Spore? Safety Goggles is already a pretty common item and not a hard thing to fit onto a team, so that's one more way to keep Azumarill in check by proxy. If you're considering Azumarill without redirection (because let's face it every redirector that isn't Jirachi or Azumarill is pretty bad), then you have way less to worry about since it would be very hard, even for a good player, to prevent Azumarill from losing 75% of its health while also trying to sweep a team with it. If they can make that happen, it's likely because they positioned themselves in such a way that eliminated the opponent's checks to Azu and they probably deserve to win anyway.

I strongly reject the idea that because Jirachi was the previous suspect it shouldn't be eligible again. If your goal with suspect tests is to shape the metagame into its healthiest state, you should be considering all options.
 
Only 2 people besides you have actually mentioned that Jirachi should have been banned instead as their main point. I don't think that qualifies as a large enough movement for a retest. On related note, you voted no ban on jirachi during the suspect, what has changed since then that you think it needs banned now?
 

MajorBowman

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My 2 longer posts in this thread answer that question, including the one you just replied to
 

Bughouse

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wait guys I know I voted for George Bush in Florida in 2000 but now it's 2003 and we're invading Iraq. Can I change my vote to Al Gore?

Seriously, a Jirachi re-suspect isn't going to happen. I'm sorry that you regret your vote. Deal.
 

Checkmater

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The suspecting process is in no way analogous to the elections, as far as resuspecting things goes.

You can't go back on elections easily because public opinion is sometimes stupid and we give presidents a certain breath of room to make their own decisions without worrying about being impeached on the spot.
There already is a system in place for re-suspecting things. We do it all the time, and there's no reason it couldn't happen right after this vote. There's nothing that I can see that would come before a Jirachi vote should Azu be banned (except Skymin, but there was already a huge timeframe in which that could've happened and it didn't), and I think it's stupid that people who currently believe that Azumarill+Jirachi is broken/unhealthy but feel that the broken-ness lies with Jirachi basically have to hedge their bets and read into vague statements that we're given as to whether or not we get a Jirachi resuspect. I stand by my statement that the lack of clarity and the mention of literally 0 things that could possibly come before a Jirachi suspect only serve to force voters into potentially voting for what would be their second-choice option.

To be clear, it's okay to have these conversations behind closed doors. But given that we have a time-constraint of MAYBE 1 more suspect after this, and the fact that the next suspect will affect this vote heavily, we need clarity. Voters need to be informed as to whether or not they will get the chance to suspect Jirachi again, and if not, a legitimately good reason as to why.



Also I found your election reference funny because someone also made an election reference earlier today:

[5:29:53 PM] dan blackmore: it doesn't matter
[5:30:00 PM] dan blackmore: it really doesn't matter whether it was a good thing
[5:30:07 PM] dan blackmore: that doesn't have anything to do with my point
[5:30:13 PM] dan blackmore: it was illegitimate
[5:30:14 PM] Hunter: yea but heres the thing
[5:30:17 PM] Hunter: I'm ok with corruption
[5:30:20 PM] Hunter: if skymin is still banned
[5:30:20 PM] dan blackmore: you cant tell me it wasn't illegitimate
[5:31:16 PM] dan blackmore: "ok the votes are in and we decided that Donald trump can be president for only 40% of the votes"
 

talkingtree

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Now that I have reqs, I might as well finally post my thoughts on Azu. A lot of this has already been said, but it's easier for me to organize my own thoughts and figure out what I want to vote if I have to explain said thoughts so here goes!

In case it wasn't obvious by the previous sentence, this suspect has me feeling conflicted. When Jirachi was being suspected, my thoughts were that it did enough to keep major threats such as Mega Diancie and Mega Kangaskhan in check and encourage positional play that it wasn't really a problem. However, I still found Azu + Rachi a bit troublesome, so I convinced myself that Azumarill must be the problem. After playing many games across two separate alts in this suspect (I have since learned not to ladder while staying up all night to catch an early flight), I'm not so sure. There are many games and situations in which Azumarill can come in, set up, and either clean the whole opposition or knock out enough members that the rest of the game is already decided. However, with the emergence of Gastrodon, Quick Guard, and other previously niche choices, the meta has begun to adapt to a metagame with Azumarill in it and, in my opinion, has done so quite well.

Getting Azumarill in the right position to finish a game requires a huge amount of forethought, longterm plays, and positional management, all of which are positives that we should be promoting in the metagame. Although Azumarill is undoubtedly strong and, often, the most threatening Pokemon in the meta, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Looking at usage stats, only about 15% of teams have Azumarill on them (I checked Open, DPL, and Seasonal stats). Since it's far from a new threat, it's not like the other 85% just haven't realized that Azu is broken, rather, Azumarill performs spectacularly well in some matchups and only marginally well in others. There are situations in which Azu is able to set up and be threatening without Fake Out and/or Redirection support, but far and away the most reliable way to use Azumarill is as the centerpiece of a team, which is rather limiting as far as builds go and incredibly predictable. This combination of being predictable but typically requiring team support in the building phase just prevents Azumarill from crossing the line to being banworthy, at least in my opinion.

I'm aware that most of what I said is far from new, but those were the most relevant pieces of information to helping me make up my mind, so I hope they help someone else as well.

P.S. On the subject of other suspects, I'm just gonna echo what kamikaze said for those of you being particularly loud in the back. Making up your mind about Azumarill based on assumptions about the existence of other Pokemon in future versions of the ORAS DOU metagame is foolish and unhelpful. Unfortunately for many people, almost all tiering decisions are done by majority vote from the community, so you can't say "Oh well this goes one step away from my personal ideal version of the meta so I disagree." Try to consider what you feel about the Pokemon in particular that has been brought up for a suspect and how it relates to the metagame as it is currently. If you feel that Azumarill is banworthy in the current metagame - WITH JIRACHI - vote ban. If you think that it's banworthy right now but potentially wouldn't be in a Jirachi-less meta, you should still vote ban. You don't want to be sitting there with your pants down at the end of ORAS if a potential Jirachi resuspect happens and Jirachi still doesn't leave. I know that sucks, but that's the situation we're left with.
 
my final thoughts before we vote and going forward.

On Azumarill I'm not 100% sure where I stand like I can see why people think Azu/Rachi is broken but like half the shit in this tier is borderline broken: Kang, Deo-A, Diancie, Mega Gengar(this mon is secretly OP oml) among other things. I also really don't like playing against those stupid Azu/Rachi/Kang/Lando/Filler/Filler teams but the only time I recall losing to that was during Jirachi suspect ladder because I didn't anticipate Quick Guard Talonflame(pls post replays of me losing to Azu/Rachi lul). So I'm kinda with checkmater on this one, Azu/Rachi is just another thing you have to account for in team building and have to play around in games.

I don't really care if Azu gets banned or not but what I do care about and have a problem with is people wanting to suspect and ultimately ban Jirachi on the assumption that it will completely balance the meta and solve every problem we have. Jirachi is the glue holding the meta together and keeps a plethora of big threats in check(Gardevoir, Sylveon, Kang, Diancie, Chlorophyll Venusaur, Talonflame in a way, Kyurem-B, Deo-A, and Latios). It's also not this impenetrable wall that just doesn't go down there are so many viable pokemon that absolutely crush it and punish it for being out on the field. Without Jirachi I feel like all hell will break loose and could lead to suspects that otherwise wouldn't happen. Kami also said we probably aren't suspecting anything until the new games come out so do you people really think Jirachi is the biggest concern when S/M is bringing shit like Z-moves and whatever other cancer nintendo comes up with?

I also find it hilarious people are actually using Haze lul.
 

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