i've been keeping p quiet during the test so far, frankly b/c im not sure where i stand. also cause a lot of the talk in the thread was about sawk making the meta more diverse (lol) and rain which was an aids discussion in itself: it's just another playstyle people.
one of the big things that i saw people posting about that i think everyone is taking out of proportion is the whole colbur berry thing, "psychics / ghosts need to run colbur berry cause of sawk" which i think is just objectively false. w/ the number of good fighting types that are in NU and the fact that most of them have access to knock off as a coverage move, people were going to run colbur / they'd want to run colbur on those types of mons anyways: sawk or no sawk, and i think the suspect ladder's shown that.
that being said, i think sawk's biggest impact on the meta is that to me, it just kinda invalidates a lot of mons (that technically resist fighting) as quote on quote "fighting resists". now what i mean by that is, everyone knows that you need fighting resists for a team to do well in NU, that's just tier team-building basics. because of how strong cc and knock are from sawk, and because of its /above average/ (imo average is base 80) speed tier, there are a lot of psychic / ghost / poison / and flying type mons that don't act as answers to sawk (grumpig / any mesprit other than defensive / any mismag other than defensive / offensive plume variants / haunter / etc.) even with colbur berry. proper sawk answers in the tier either need to have recovery (mush / geist / peli) or at least need to be able to chew a CC / Knock and be able to threaten it either offensively or w/ status from there (bulky zard / rotom/ def sprit), and i just dont think the tier has enough of those mons. that's p much why i don't buy the no-ban argument of "fighting types will still be good", cause i know that if sawk left the tier, the number of defensive / offensive mons that would be able to act as actual answers to fighting types would skyrocket.
another thing is, i think when people vote in suspects they try to compare the current suspect to any previous suspects in order to try and gauge "how broken" the suspect might be. i think the suspect that most people will be drawn towards making sawk comparisons to is typhlosion: for obvious reasons (both ridic wallbreakers, super strong STAB move, good coverage move etc.) i was very against the typh ban, but im still on the fence about sawk, even though they're really similar, for p much 1 reason only. as much as people wanted to say that typh only had non-choiced and scarf sets to play with, specs was really the only set worth running on it. in sawk's case, all 3 of its sets: cb / scarf / non-choice are all really good and all deserve slots on competitive teams. it's got that extra level of unpredictability that something like a typh didnt have (alongside some other factors like bulk / better typing / etc) which kinda separates it from the rest of the pack, and makes accounting for it that much harder.
tbh i think the best argument that the no-ban side has for sawk, and the argument that's keeping me tied up about the whole thing is that sawk's really a lot more threatening in theory than it is in practice. I completely resonate w/ this statement and i think it's true, especially because it hasn't seen the dominating usage of past suspects. in tournaments, i've definitely spent more time being worried about sawk in the teambuilder than on the actual playing field, because every game's different and sawk doesn't always break teams in half like it sounds like it should. even something like typh had a lot more splashability as a wallbreaker (even w/ its bad typing) i think mainly because it didn't face the utility competition that a sawk does w/ something like a hariyama or a hitmonchan. even though it's easily the best wallbreaker in the tier IMO, it just doesn't end up on a lot of teams because a lot of players prefer to use something w/ a little more defensive presence behind it, and i think this is something everyone should take into mind when thinking about their vote.
that being said, i think ultimately i'll be voting on giving it the boot. i'll reveal that i was one of the people who wanted to see sawk go up on the block most, but not because i had a strong opinion either way about banning it, but actually because i didn't. however i've noticed over the past couple days, i've found myself subconsciously defending the ban side when just talking w/ friends about it, and frankly after doing p much a whole season of building for spl, i'm tired of losing my hair in the teambuilder over this mon. i think it's set options just cover too much of the tier and we just don't have the defensive / offensive tools required to keep it in check like we once did (uxie / toge). its either that or i just wanna get rid of it so that every time i pm raseri he doesn't answer all my questions w/ san bawk, but i'll let you guys be the judge of that one.
one of the big things that i saw people posting about that i think everyone is taking out of proportion is the whole colbur berry thing, "psychics / ghosts need to run colbur berry cause of sawk" which i think is just objectively false. w/ the number of good fighting types that are in NU and the fact that most of them have access to knock off as a coverage move, people were going to run colbur / they'd want to run colbur on those types of mons anyways: sawk or no sawk, and i think the suspect ladder's shown that.
that being said, i think sawk's biggest impact on the meta is that to me, it just kinda invalidates a lot of mons (that technically resist fighting) as quote on quote "fighting resists". now what i mean by that is, everyone knows that you need fighting resists for a team to do well in NU, that's just tier team-building basics. because of how strong cc and knock are from sawk, and because of its /above average/ (imo average is base 80) speed tier, there are a lot of psychic / ghost / poison / and flying type mons that don't act as answers to sawk (grumpig / any mesprit other than defensive / any mismag other than defensive / offensive plume variants / haunter / etc.) even with colbur berry. proper sawk answers in the tier either need to have recovery (mush / geist / peli) or at least need to be able to chew a CC / Knock and be able to threaten it either offensively or w/ status from there (bulky zard / rotom/ def sprit), and i just dont think the tier has enough of those mons. that's p much why i don't buy the no-ban argument of "fighting types will still be good", cause i know that if sawk left the tier, the number of defensive / offensive mons that would be able to act as actual answers to fighting types would skyrocket.
another thing is, i think when people vote in suspects they try to compare the current suspect to any previous suspects in order to try and gauge "how broken" the suspect might be. i think the suspect that most people will be drawn towards making sawk comparisons to is typhlosion: for obvious reasons (both ridic wallbreakers, super strong STAB move, good coverage move etc.) i was very against the typh ban, but im still on the fence about sawk, even though they're really similar, for p much 1 reason only. as much as people wanted to say that typh only had non-choiced and scarf sets to play with, specs was really the only set worth running on it. in sawk's case, all 3 of its sets: cb / scarf / non-choice are all really good and all deserve slots on competitive teams. it's got that extra level of unpredictability that something like a typh didnt have (alongside some other factors like bulk / better typing / etc) which kinda separates it from the rest of the pack, and makes accounting for it that much harder.
tbh i think the best argument that the no-ban side has for sawk, and the argument that's keeping me tied up about the whole thing is that sawk's really a lot more threatening in theory than it is in practice. I completely resonate w/ this statement and i think it's true, especially because it hasn't seen the dominating usage of past suspects. in tournaments, i've definitely spent more time being worried about sawk in the teambuilder than on the actual playing field, because every game's different and sawk doesn't always break teams in half like it sounds like it should. even something like typh had a lot more splashability as a wallbreaker (even w/ its bad typing) i think mainly because it didn't face the utility competition that a sawk does w/ something like a hariyama or a hitmonchan. even though it's easily the best wallbreaker in the tier IMO, it just doesn't end up on a lot of teams because a lot of players prefer to use something w/ a little more defensive presence behind it, and i think this is something everyone should take into mind when thinking about their vote.
that being said, i think ultimately i'll be voting on giving it the boot. i'll reveal that i was one of the people who wanted to see sawk go up on the block most, but not because i had a strong opinion either way about banning it, but actually because i didn't. however i've noticed over the past couple days, i've found myself subconsciously defending the ban side when just talking w/ friends about it, and frankly after doing p much a whole season of building for spl, i'm tired of losing my hair in the teambuilder over this mon. i think it's set options just cover too much of the tier and we just don't have the defensive / offensive tools required to keep it in check like we once did (uxie / toge). its either that or i just wanna get rid of it so that every time i pm raseri he doesn't answer all my questions w/ san bawk, but i'll let you guys be the judge of that one.
