This might just be me and a relatively small sample size but I haven’t actually been that impressed by Sableye stall so far yet, yes it’s ability+bulk in tandem with secondary removal options means that it’s very difficult to get hazards up freely but let’s not pretend that there haven’t been other stalls that have accomplished this in the past. We’ve seen all manner of combinations featuring pokemon such as Gligar, Moltres and Articuno that aim at covering all combinations of hazard options to prevent them going up. Obviously the difference with Sableye is that it prevents you from clicking the hazard at all without the risk of punishment in getting them bounced back, whereas with the Pokemon I listed before you could rock up and have a relatively free switch into something else as they either remove the hazards, or they try to punish a switch etc and have to live with hazards up. With Sableye there’s an element of prediction and aggressive play required, based around whether you think a Sableye will come in and how you’re going to punish that if it does. I can understand why people wouldn’t want that in the tier but I’m not 100% convinced yet that this alone is enough to make Sableye an optimal choice over the other Megas available on stall or over using the hazard removal cores I mentioned earlier.
Using Sableye means you lose access to a whole host of other good megas on stall, chiefly Aerodactyl, Altaria and Slowbro, honourable mention to Aggron too. These mons are huge boons to stall teams, stopping otherwise challenging stallbreakers in their tracks and bringing other utilities to the table aswell. A similar thing could be said about some of the hazard removal options I mentioned earlier, albeit to a lesser degree. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the only threat to stall that I can see that Sableye holds off is Reuniclus with psy/fight coverage, and of course hazards themselves. As I’ve said a couple of times now, I’m not sure this is enough to justify selecting it as your mega compared to the other options. I don’t really like the argument that because it prevents you from getting hazards, stall suddenly becomes that much more unbreakable. Yes hazards are great vs stall, but stall teams have dedicated to keeping hazards off for a while now with the different combinations I’ve alluded to earlier and we haven’t really had a problem to the point where there’s been a serious discussion on banning things to nerf it so why does Sableye make this a problem? If anything the fact that Sableye doesn’t really beat a lot that stall struggles with in terms of actual breakers should make this easier no?
I just wanted to come from a different angle because naturally there’s going to be a lot of hate for Sableye, it can be very obnoxious to play against because it punishes the hell out of passive SR options which are popular, and introduces more prediction into the game. It’s very likely that all I need to see is someone like pif or pearl or one of the other great stall builders we have in the community make a team with it that completely changes my perception of it, but until then the above reflects my opinion on it.
Also THANK GOD Kommo is gone fkin hated playing vs that thing.
and clangy
