2xTheTap
YuGiOh main
Drampa's presence in the meta thus far has been pretty borderline, and as this post alluded to above ("even something like Drampa could honestly use a week to analyze at least now that we've got Clefairy and Audino and Carbink and whatever else..."), the PU council has decided to hold a quickban vote for Drampa this weekend now that we've had sufficient time (~6 days) to analyze its place in the meta. The vote is currently taking place and we expect to have the results in by this Sunday, just in time for the next week of PUWC (but, if the votes come in earlier, I'll post as soon as we know the results...). Additionally, we are bringing in rotating council for this vote, so ManOfMany and Bag of Trixx will be weighing in on the Drampa issue, too - thanks in advance for your input!
Voting on Drampa is not as cut and dry as it might first seem. I've read some pretty polarized opinions in either direction with pro-ban players claiming that counterplay for Drampa is insufficient and that the defensive walls people tend to cite as stops to Drampa, most notably specially defensive Clefairy and Carbink, can be 2HKOed via Choice Specs-boosted Hyper Voice and Water (Hydro Pump / Surf) and Grass coverage (Energy Ball) coverage, respectively. Simply put, Drampa is extremely strong and its mere presence on the field is enough to place the other player on the defensive, leading the opponent into a situation wherein they're forced to make a trade and attempt to RKO a weakened Drampa after it's made its pick.
On the other side, players who believe Drampa is incredibly strong but still manageable have talked about various ways of dealing with it: item disruption is an effective tactic in limiting either Drampa's survivability or offensive capabilities, depending on which set it's running (ex. Knock Off Tangela and Knock Off Ferroseed can lure Drampa into losing its Choice Specs as it attempts to sponge any Grass-type moves, Knock Off Clefairy can survive the 2HKO from Hyper Voice once Drampa has lost its Choice Specs, Trick Gourgeist and Trick Spiritomb can trade Choice items with Drampa if it attempts to switch into an attack its immune to, etc.); it is easy to pressure Drampa offensively with Pokemon that have a type advantage (ex. Jynx / Mr. Rime / Mr. Mime-G, Poliwrath (now with Close Combat!), Frosmoth, Cryogonal, Hitmonchan, etc.) due to Drampa's poor Speed stat; and, Drampa can be prediction reliant, while at the same time, there exist cold stops to its dual STABs that are quite potent in the current meta (ex. Carbink, Spiritomb, Clefairy, etc.), meaning tactics like Protect and pivoting to an immunity/resist afterward (tlenit talked about this above) are effective in combating Choice Specs Drampa especially. See this Carbink with enough Speed for Modest Drampa as a quick example:
Carbink @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 112 HP / 252 Def / 144 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Protect
- Moonblast
- Toxic
- Body Press
If you are curious to see this set in action, watch TJ's PUWC match this week vs Lockjaw with this team I built: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8pu-1227848341
Going into this, it's also important to note that Drampa's threat level shouldn't be gauged based on its Choice Specs set alone, and while Choice Specs has been its most popular set so far, there are a variety of other tools in Drampa's kit that can be run to circumvent tactics typically used to address a choice-locked set. As mentioned above, it can feasibly run Glare and Tailwind to ameliorate its Speed issues, resist berries (Chople and Yache mostly) to potentially lure an offensive check, a removal set with Heavy-Duty Boots / Defog / HP Investment / Berserk over Sap Sipper, Calm Mind to turn it into a late-game wincon, etc. In short, it can easily perform a smattering of roles in addition to 'wallbreaker,' which in turn compounds how effectively teams are able to combat Drampa.
If you couldn't tell already, I've been on the fence about this one myself... And, if there's a time to post about Drampa, it's pretty much now. In any case, you can expect to see the results of this vote on Sunday! I'm looking forward to reading other takes on Drampa in the meantime.
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