SiTuM
destined for greatness
Hello it's me, LE CHOUINAY :joy: Legion Leader Jeff Mewtwo Zidane, and I am probably the only person on the council voting Ban for Calyrex-S.
Having finished 6-1 in the most recent UPL, I feel more qualified to answer than almost everyone who has made comments on this thread thus far. There is no doubt, Fc, Aberforth, and especially Manaphy, have brought up fair points about why Calyrex-S should or should not be banned. However, I want to take the time to explain why I believe it should be banned, and this begins with the severe restriction it has on the builder.
Number of Tyranitar used in this tournament: 2. Number of wins: 0.
Number of Zarude used in this tournament: 3. Number of wins: 2.
So 40% winrate for using a Calyrex check that's not Yveltal. Not very good, huh? (Not even gonna count the fact that these two have only been used in 5 games out of 84.)
You can run whatever you want on a team, but the reality is, Yveltal is the best check to Calyrex-S—using anything else as your primary check makes your team sub-optimal in modern SS Ubers. Almost every team in SS Ubers is running the Yvel/Etern/NDM core, and trying to be fancy and deviating away from this core will ultimately make your team weaker to standard balance match-ups. Structures that elect to use Tyranitar or Zarude as their primary Calyrex-S check end up being weaker to common threats like DD Zekrom, Marshadow, and SD + 3 Attacks Don, which are common partners for Calyrex-S. You don't just lose to some niche sets/mons; you lose to frequently seen threats.
Pairing Calyrex with either Groudon or Zekrom means passive cores (Yveltal + Ho-Oh and Blissey) are easier to remove in practice. Marshadow can power through Ho-Oh, too, if it carries Rock Tomb. Whirlwind Ho-Oh is something interesting you brought up. More and more Ho-Oh are forgoing Whirlwind to fit in Brave Bird (for better dueling power against Eternatus), thus making Ho-Oh's most popular move combination Sacred Fire (or Flare Blitz), Brave Bird, Thunder Wave, and Defog. Having to run Whirlwind Ho-Oh to deal with Calyrex-S isn't optimal either, for the reasons BasedWhat? mentioned, as Calyrex-S can simply power through it or have one of its teammates use it as a setup opportunity. Zarude usage plummeted with an 1 increase in Fire Move Groudon, and interestingly, it can't even properly check Modest Specs Calyrex-S, as it risks getting 3HKO'd by it. Taunt Yveltal + Marshadow (or a fast scarfer) is a short-term solution against Calyrex-Shadow, but running Taunt Yveltal on Balance means it is only running one attacking move, which is liable to be exploited by Disable or Trick + Protect Calyrex-S.
When we look at bulky Yveltal sets, people fail to realize that their opposing Hyper Offensive match-up becomes significantly more difficult, if not impossible, to win. This is not an exaggeration; successful Balance teams must be able to overcome the Hyper Offense matchup, and running a bulky Yveltal makes it more difficult to do so.
Yveltal is currently the most popular Defogger in the tier, possessing an excellent speed tier. Unfortunately, slow Yveltal loses the ability to neutralize the Hazard War, as faster Yveltal can simply Taunt it. Even dual defog cores consisting of bulky Yveltal + Ho-Oh cannot eliminate hazards, as faster threats such as Zekrom and Groudon can use their switchins as setup opportunities and possibly end the game on the spot.
Perhaps what does is it for me is the fact that using Bulky Yveltal isn't even a surefire countermeasure to deal with Calyrex-S. Observe the following calculation against a +2 Modest Caly:
+2 252+ SpA Calyrex-Shadow Draining Kiss vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Yveltal: 210-248 (46.1 - 54.5%) -- 54.3% chance to 2HKO
This is a roll in the Calyrex-S user's favor. If the Yveltal is below 92% of health, which happens quite frequently in practice, it loses the ability to deal with +2 Calyrex-S. Indeed, the Yveltal has to be at nearly full health to have the ability to tank two +2 Draining Kisses. This is not a sign of a healthy mon in the slightest. I featured this calculation because running bulky Yveltal alone is insufficient to deal with Calyrex-S on Hyper Offense. Only bulky Yveltal that carry Snarl can deal with this variant of Calyrex-S, but Snarl has next to no utility, and you're losing coverage on what could be an otherwise important move like U-Turn for momentum generation or Taunt. Sucker Punch, unfortunately, gets beaten by Disable, which is something many NP Calyrex-S carry these days.
I've read many posts that disregarded the potency of Specs Trick + Protect + Disable/NP Calyrex-S, but there are at least three high-level UPL games where the Calyrex-S just wins on the spot against Yveltal and proceeds to end the game:
TJ vs Stresh SS Week 5: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-633664
LBN vs pdt SS Week 5: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-632384
Hoenn vs Jonfilch SS Semis: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-636613
Notice that neither Stresh nor Jonfilch abided by the combinations that Manaphy suggested (I won't talk about LBN's team choice because it's unviable). Does that mean that their teams are automatically bad? Absolutely not. Nevertheless, in an attempt to run more diverse and versatile builds, they sacrificed their Calyrex-S match-up and proceeded to lose to it. That is not the sign of a healthy mon. It is beyond overcentralizing at this point. Calyrex-S forces you to use one of the cores listed above, and those cores are subject to getting decimated by the combination of Calyrex-S and any of its frequent joint offense partners. Whether you agree with it or not, the restriction Calyrex-S currently imposes on the builder is frighteningly similar to that of Zacian-H (in the sense that only a few builds are actually viable at this point). This is further compounded by the fact that Calyrex-S can run multiple different sets, and as Manaphy put it best, "the right Calyrex-S set will always beat the wrong Yveltal set."
Byron vs. Sharow SS Bo3 Week 1: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-627254 (Sharow's Yveltal got para'd turn 1, and no longer could check Caly in the game. You'd think a team with Yveltal + Giratina-O would be able to deal with Calyrex-S, right?)
BluBird vs Tony SS Week 2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-628750 (Yveltal got chipped enough throughout the course of the game, where Tony's Specs Calyrex-S could just clean up.)
Suapah vs Sage SS Week 2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-628863 (This is an interesting game. It shows that even though Yveltal has Taunt, it could potentially get chipped enough to the point where +2 SubSeed Caly can power through it. Sage feared Sucker Punch on Yveltal, but if they had gotten the 50-50 right, the game would have ended right there. Unfortunately, Sage didn't risk it. More than likely, the Yveltal didn't have it either since Suapah probably ran U-Turn to pivot into Marshadow.)
LBN vs Skarph SS Week 2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-628416 (Did you ever think a Scarf Calyrex-S would power through and beat a team with both Yveltal and Blissey? Hint: look what happens)
Goat Heart vs. Gondra Bo3 SS Week 2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-629056 (As soon as Gondra's Yveltal got para'd and lost HDB - game over. To expect Yveltal to stay healthy at 100% throughout the game to check Calyrex-S is absurd, and Goat Heart capitalized on that).
Gondra vs Star Bo3 SS Week 6: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-634994 (Tricking with Calyrex-S just puts the Caly user in an immediate advantage, as the game effectively becomes a 5v6. There's not much else to say here; besides, Scarf Calyrex-S still has its niche.)
Welli0u vs Skarph Bo3 SS Week 7: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-636087 (This game doesn't actually feature a Caly sweep but shows what one of its most common partners - Groudon - can end up doing to Yveltal.)
As evidenced by these replays, Calyrex-S clearly dictates high-level play in prestigious tours, and yet, teams that prepare against it still lose at an alarming rate (looking at Calyrex-S win rates in the recent Ubers Open further corroborates this).
I think one of the biggest reasons why people (especially those leaning toward anti-ban) feel Calyrex-S isn't as broken as its predecessor Zacian is that it cannot end a game as quickly, nor is it as restrictive. With Zacian, any player was one Assurance or Choice Banded hit from losing the game. However, Calyrex-S can do similar things, and the only way it is kept in check is if Yveltal and other vital parts of your opponent's defensive backbone are fully healthy. Scenarios like this rarely occur in practice. To put it bluntly, Yveltal and Eternatus are the most likely mons to lose their item or get afflicted by status in a vacuum. A well-played Calyrex-S can take advantage of your opponent's defensive backbone at any point in the game. It has too many sets to account for, and no single team can viably cover them all (remember, stacking Caly checks makes you weak to its common offensive partners). Before saying that every threat in Ubers can potentially do this, remember that Calyrex-S has a combination of Base 150 speed, over a half-dozen viable sets, and the ability to snowball faster than anything else we have seen in this generation of Ubers. Its restrictiveness on the builder is comparable to that of Zacian-H. Do I believe Calyrex-S is necessarily broken? Not quite. Do I believe Calyrex-S should be banned for all the reasons I mentioned above? Yes.
On another note, we cannot meaningfully predict what the new metagame will look like, but I am almost certain every team will still run some permutation of Yvel/Etern/NDM (because that core is probably the most solid core in DLC2 SS Ubers). If a Caly-less tier ends up being extremely volatile and even worse than the one we have right now, it is certainly possible to re-suspect it before the middle of November since Ubers is a tier now. We'll just have to wait and find out, but I implore all of you to consider the points I brought up and make an informed decision. It is truly disheartening and unfortunate how many misguided and low-quality posts made by certain users detracted from the overall purpose of this thread.
As a high-level tour player and member of the SS Ubers Council, I genuinely feel the removal of Calyrex-S will introduce a breath of fresh air that this tier desperately needs. Otherwise, building teams will continue to remain a stale nightmare, since you're forced to use up four slots just to not lose to one ghost horse. I hope you enjoyed the read!
Having finished 6-1 in the most recent UPL, I feel more qualified to answer than almost everyone who has made comments on this thread thus far. There is no doubt, Fc, Aberforth, and especially Manaphy, have brought up fair points about why Calyrex-S should or should not be banned. However, I want to take the time to explain why I believe it should be banned, and this begins with the severe restriction it has on the builder.
That's utterly false.Another point I want to make is that you CAN get away with using a check that is not Yveltal, even if it does mean having a worse match-up into some other threat/some extremely niche set.
Number of Tyranitar used in this tournament: 2. Number of wins: 0.
Number of Zarude used in this tournament: 3. Number of wins: 2.
So 40% winrate for using a Calyrex check that's not Yveltal. Not very good, huh? (Not even gonna count the fact that these two have only been used in 5 games out of 84.)
You can run whatever you want on a team, but the reality is, Yveltal is the best check to Calyrex-S—using anything else as your primary check makes your team sub-optimal in modern SS Ubers. Almost every team in SS Ubers is running the Yvel/Etern/NDM core, and trying to be fancy and deviating away from this core will ultimately make your team weaker to standard balance match-ups. Structures that elect to use Tyranitar or Zarude as their primary Calyrex-S check end up being weaker to common threats like DD Zekrom, Marshadow, and SD + 3 Attacks Don, which are common partners for Calyrex-S. You don't just lose to some niche sets/mons; you lose to frequently seen threats.
Dedicating four team slots to account for common metagame threats is awfully reminiscent of the Zacian-H metagame (anyone remember Yvel/Etern/NDM + Regen Pivot?). Yes, Calyrex-S cannot end the game as quickly as Zacian-H did. But what people don't seem to realize is that this game is not a 1v6. Calyrex-S has devastating offensive partners such as Groudon, Zekrom, and Marshadow. Now, let's closely take a look at each of the common combinations of adequate ways to check Calyrex-S.Given all of the sets above, I think the most consistent combinations of mons to beat Caly while using Fast Yveltal would be Yve + Whirlwind Ho-Oh, Taunt Yve + Marshadow, Yveltal + Zarude, or Yveltal + Blissey. Bulky Yveltal sets will win against Sash NP sets and thus don't really require a revenge killer.
Pairing Calyrex with either Groudon or Zekrom means passive cores (Yveltal + Ho-Oh and Blissey) are easier to remove in practice. Marshadow can power through Ho-Oh, too, if it carries Rock Tomb. Whirlwind Ho-Oh is something interesting you brought up. More and more Ho-Oh are forgoing Whirlwind to fit in Brave Bird (for better dueling power against Eternatus), thus making Ho-Oh's most popular move combination Sacred Fire (or Flare Blitz), Brave Bird, Thunder Wave, and Defog. Having to run Whirlwind Ho-Oh to deal with Calyrex-S isn't optimal either, for the reasons BasedWhat? mentioned, as Calyrex-S can simply power through it or have one of its teammates use it as a setup opportunity. Zarude usage plummeted with an 1 increase in Fire Move Groudon, and interestingly, it can't even properly check Modest Specs Calyrex-S, as it risks getting 3HKO'd by it. Taunt Yveltal + Marshadow (or a fast scarfer) is a short-term solution against Calyrex-Shadow, but running Taunt Yveltal on Balance means it is only running one attacking move, which is liable to be exploited by Disable or Trick + Protect Calyrex-S.
When we look at bulky Yveltal sets, people fail to realize that their opposing Hyper Offensive match-up becomes significantly more difficult, if not impossible, to win. This is not an exaggeration; successful Balance teams must be able to overcome the Hyper Offense matchup, and running a bulky Yveltal makes it more difficult to do so.
Yveltal is currently the most popular Defogger in the tier, possessing an excellent speed tier. Unfortunately, slow Yveltal loses the ability to neutralize the Hazard War, as faster Yveltal can simply Taunt it. Even dual defog cores consisting of bulky Yveltal + Ho-Oh cannot eliminate hazards, as faster threats such as Zekrom and Groudon can use their switchins as setup opportunities and possibly end the game on the spot.
Perhaps what does is it for me is the fact that using Bulky Yveltal isn't even a surefire countermeasure to deal with Calyrex-S. Observe the following calculation against a +2 Modest Caly:
+2 252+ SpA Calyrex-Shadow Draining Kiss vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Yveltal: 210-248 (46.1 - 54.5%) -- 54.3% chance to 2HKO
This is a roll in the Calyrex-S user's favor. If the Yveltal is below 92% of health, which happens quite frequently in practice, it loses the ability to deal with +2 Calyrex-S. Indeed, the Yveltal has to be at nearly full health to have the ability to tank two +2 Draining Kisses. This is not a sign of a healthy mon in the slightest. I featured this calculation because running bulky Yveltal alone is insufficient to deal with Calyrex-S on Hyper Offense. Only bulky Yveltal that carry Snarl can deal with this variant of Calyrex-S, but Snarl has next to no utility, and you're losing coverage on what could be an otherwise important move like U-Turn for momentum generation or Taunt. Sucker Punch, unfortunately, gets beaten by Disable, which is something many NP Calyrex-S carry these days.
I've read many posts that disregarded the potency of Specs Trick + Protect + Disable/NP Calyrex-S, but there are at least three high-level UPL games where the Calyrex-S just wins on the spot against Yveltal and proceeds to end the game:
TJ vs Stresh SS Week 5: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-633664
LBN vs pdt SS Week 5: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-632384
Hoenn vs Jonfilch SS Semis: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-636613
Notice that neither Stresh nor Jonfilch abided by the combinations that Manaphy suggested (I won't talk about LBN's team choice because it's unviable). Does that mean that their teams are automatically bad? Absolutely not. Nevertheless, in an attempt to run more diverse and versatile builds, they sacrificed their Calyrex-S match-up and proceeded to lose to it. That is not the sign of a healthy mon. It is beyond overcentralizing at this point. Calyrex-S forces you to use one of the cores listed above, and those cores are subject to getting decimated by the combination of Calyrex-S and any of its frequent joint offense partners. Whether you agree with it or not, the restriction Calyrex-S currently imposes on the builder is frighteningly similar to that of Zacian-H (in the sense that only a few builds are actually viable at this point). This is further compounded by the fact that Calyrex-S can run multiple different sets, and as Manaphy put it best, "the right Calyrex-S set will always beat the wrong Yveltal set."
This is probably the most misleading take in the entire thread (and there are some genuinely awful takes). Anyone who plays SS Ubers at a high level knows that Calyrex-S dictates tournament play, as evidenced by its usage and sheer power. Let's look at some relevant replays in this year's UPL where Calyrex-S was used and dictated high-level tournament play:I will be voting do not ban and I implore anyone who is voting based on balance to truly tell me that high level tournament play is dictated by Calyrex-S (hint: it's not!).
Byron vs. Sharow SS Bo3 Week 1: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-627254 (Sharow's Yveltal got para'd turn 1, and no longer could check Caly in the game. You'd think a team with Yveltal + Giratina-O would be able to deal with Calyrex-S, right?)
BluBird vs Tony SS Week 2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-628750 (Yveltal got chipped enough throughout the course of the game, where Tony's Specs Calyrex-S could just clean up.)
Suapah vs Sage SS Week 2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-628863 (This is an interesting game. It shows that even though Yveltal has Taunt, it could potentially get chipped enough to the point where +2 SubSeed Caly can power through it. Sage feared Sucker Punch on Yveltal, but if they had gotten the 50-50 right, the game would have ended right there. Unfortunately, Sage didn't risk it. More than likely, the Yveltal didn't have it either since Suapah probably ran U-Turn to pivot into Marshadow.)
LBN vs Skarph SS Week 2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-628416 (Did you ever think a Scarf Calyrex-S would power through and beat a team with both Yveltal and Blissey? Hint: look what happens)
Goat Heart vs. Gondra Bo3 SS Week 2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-629056 (As soon as Gondra's Yveltal got para'd and lost HDB - game over. To expect Yveltal to stay healthy at 100% throughout the game to check Calyrex-S is absurd, and Goat Heart capitalized on that).
Gondra vs Star Bo3 SS Week 6: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-634994 (Tricking with Calyrex-S just puts the Caly user in an immediate advantage, as the game effectively becomes a 5v6. There's not much else to say here; besides, Scarf Calyrex-S still has its niche.)
Welli0u vs Skarph Bo3 SS Week 7: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ubers-636087 (This game doesn't actually feature a Caly sweep but shows what one of its most common partners - Groudon - can end up doing to Yveltal.)
As evidenced by these replays, Calyrex-S clearly dictates high-level play in prestigious tours, and yet, teams that prepare against it still lose at an alarming rate (looking at Calyrex-S win rates in the recent Ubers Open further corroborates this).
I think one of the biggest reasons why people (especially those leaning toward anti-ban) feel Calyrex-S isn't as broken as its predecessor Zacian is that it cannot end a game as quickly, nor is it as restrictive. With Zacian, any player was one Assurance or Choice Banded hit from losing the game. However, Calyrex-S can do similar things, and the only way it is kept in check is if Yveltal and other vital parts of your opponent's defensive backbone are fully healthy. Scenarios like this rarely occur in practice. To put it bluntly, Yveltal and Eternatus are the most likely mons to lose their item or get afflicted by status in a vacuum. A well-played Calyrex-S can take advantage of your opponent's defensive backbone at any point in the game. It has too many sets to account for, and no single team can viably cover them all (remember, stacking Caly checks makes you weak to its common offensive partners). Before saying that every threat in Ubers can potentially do this, remember that Calyrex-S has a combination of Base 150 speed, over a half-dozen viable sets, and the ability to snowball faster than anything else we have seen in this generation of Ubers. Its restrictiveness on the builder is comparable to that of Zacian-H. Do I believe Calyrex-S is necessarily broken? Not quite. Do I believe Calyrex-S should be banned for all the reasons I mentioned above? Yes.
On another note, we cannot meaningfully predict what the new metagame will look like, but I am almost certain every team will still run some permutation of Yvel/Etern/NDM (because that core is probably the most solid core in DLC2 SS Ubers). If a Caly-less tier ends up being extremely volatile and even worse than the one we have right now, it is certainly possible to re-suspect it before the middle of November since Ubers is a tier now. We'll just have to wait and find out, but I implore all of you to consider the points I brought up and make an informed decision. It is truly disheartening and unfortunate how many misguided and low-quality posts made by certain users detracted from the overall purpose of this thread.
As a high-level tour player and member of the SS Ubers Council, I genuinely feel the removal of Calyrex-S will introduce a breath of fresh air that this tier desperately needs. Otherwise, building teams will continue to remain a stale nightmare, since you're forced to use up four slots just to not lose to one ghost horse. I hope you enjoyed the read!