I’m only going to be nominating one Pokemon for Suspect status, as it is the only one that I feel particularly strongly about at this moment in time. I have put a lot of thought into this one though, so here goes:
Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is BL if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep.
For the purposes of this argument I am going to assume that the word ‘sweep’ is interchangeable with ‘stall’ with regards to the above definition, as this is very important for my case.
Abomasnow:
Now I’m aware that many people have already mentioned this one and given their own unique reasoning, so I’m going to attempt to do the same. That is to provide my own interpretation of the potential problem that I see Abomasnow posing for the UU metagame, and hopefully convince you as to why it requires Suspect testing.
I must stress first of all that I currently do NOT believe that Abomasnow is broken. This is for the most part due to the fact that I am a strong proponent of the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ mindset, and I believe that this particular case will require more than simply drawing on my own personal experiences in order to accurately pinpoint the severity of the problem. This is important as there is fine line between a strategy that is simply viable and effective and a strategy that is broken. Placing Abomasnow as a suspect would be an ideal method of going about this as it would encourage players to focus on the effect that it has on the metagame not just from a personal perspective but hopefully, with the appropriate level of cooperation and interaction within the community, from the perspective of others as well.
Why do I stress this need for multiple perspectives so strongly? Well there is only one main reason really, and this is that, in my honest opinion, each player has their own characteristic tendencies with regards to how they approach competitive battling. I believe that this is mostly a sub-conscious effect, and can result in a biased interpretation that the individual is not necessarily aware of, and will most likely not be able to evaluate objectively.
I will use myself as an example of what I’m getting at. I’ve noticed that with the teams I normally construct I often take a rather conservative approach to battling, i.e. not taking too many unnecessary risks early-game, exploiting setup turns to try and get the momentum back on my side, then slowly scouting the team for the right opportunity to launch my all-out sweep. With this mindset I tend to have the most success with Pokemon like Encore Clefable and SubRoost Moltres, as they get many chances to come in against typical teams and take full advantage of non-attacking moves. I mention these two in particular because it so happens that, when it comes to the style of team in question, Hail stall, these two in particular have a field day in my experience.
Now compare this to a player who tends to be more comfortable utilizing more reckless, offensive teams. Said player may find, for example, that once Walrein gets a turn to set up, his/her team no longer gets a look in and is stalled to death. He/She may feel that dealing with Hail teams would require ’unreasonable measures’ such as the use of more conservative strategies or Pokes like Clefable and Moltres as mentioned above, whereas for players like me dealing with Hail teams would come naturally. Is it possible therefore that my personal experiences are not indicative of the true overall potential of Hail teams in the metagame?
Now I’ll briefly discuss the various support aspects that Abomasnow and its auto-Hail brings to the fore that I believe are potentially the most problematic:
1) First of all I want to talk out the residual damage factor. As you know, Hail damage is negated by only Ice types, Golduck and Clefable. That is a very small pool of Pokemon, far less than the number of Sandstorm-immune Pokemon in OU, which allows Hail teams to put a great deal of pressure on the typical non-Hail team in terms of the average residual damage rate. This problem is further amplified by the fact that of those few Hail-immune options available, far fewer still are viable together on the same team. Multiple Ice types are seldom seen on teams that are not specifically built to utilize Hail, and for good reason; it is a dreadful defensive type that leaves you saddled with multiple common weaknesses to very common offensive types. So it is clear that there is a huge overall damage rate involved already when considering only the end-of-turn Hail effect. This effect is nowhere near as pronounced in OU for several reasons. The most obvious one is the omnipresence of Tyranitar, and to a lesser extent Hippowdon. This makes Sandstorm the dominant weather effect, whereas in UU the only option for this is Hippopotas, who let’s just say is a little lacking in competitive potential in its own right. There is also the presence of many viable anti-Ice Pokemon in OU, particularly Steels such as Scizor and Metagross. In UU such parallels do not really exist except in a few rare and tentative cases. Aside from Clefable, the best candidates are often strong Fire types, but a combination of Stealth Rock and constant Hail damage means that they usually have a very short lifespan and do not require much effort to be worn down.
2) The second factor to consider is Stallrein. The number one potential problem with Walrein in Hail is that, once it's able to set up a Sub, you cannot even so much as wear it down through direct attacking. In fact, unless you are using specific moves to disrupt its stall pattern (Encore, Taunt, Roar etc), any non-attacking move you use will just allow it to heal further behind its Sub. This also gives Walrein the chance to use one of its supplementary moves, usually Surf/Blizzard for attacking and Roar/Toxic for support. Combined with the fact that residual Hail is very difficult to defend against, Walrein is capable of wearing down the majority of Pokemon in UU with little effort, whether it be Toxic stalling or shuffling with entry hazards. Now there certainly are ways of dealing with this, such as disrupting its flow using the above mentioned moves and others, or simply exploiting its lack of serious offense to play around it and stall using team maintenance (Wish support, Cleric support, Rapid Spin etc). I have used both methods with reasonable success against Hail teams, but it does beg the question: to what degree are such measures generally accessible? This is an important factor that must be analyzed carefully. Remember that this is not a case of ’play around with prediction’ or ’100% counters aren’t required’. When faced with Walrein in the Hail, you need a clear plan of action, and it must be executed as such.
3) Lastly there are the issues of Snow Cloak and perfect accuracy Blizzards, which I‘ll discuss together. The two most common Snow Cloakers on Hail teams, Glaceon and Froslass, are very much viable and effective Pokemon in their own right, and their effectiveness is even more pronounced when they have access to 100% accurate Blizzards. Even with this boost however, and backed up by residual hail damage, they can still be countered to some extent, mainly by bulky Water and Fire types. However, this is where Snow Cloak comes in to ruin things. Much like the situation with Garchomp in OU, you could end up doing absolutely everything right, setting up a situation where you’re just about able to brave any onslaught the Snow Cloak Pokemon can muster and you’re prepared to KO back. Then suddenly . . . you miss, costing you the match through no fault of your own. This problem is exemplified by the fact that said Pokemon, particularly Froslass, can consistently set up Subs to attempt to force hax on to their side. Then there’s the fact that Specs Glaceon’s Blizzard is so absurdly powerful that almost nothing can avoid being at least 3HKO’d (barring some Water/Ice types and maybe Registeel), meaning that you may only get one chance to counter it in certain circumstances, if that (it’s not like Glaceon is frail either).
All of these factors can be directly attributed to Abomasnow and its auto-Hail ability. However, I don’t feel that any one of these factors is broken by itself. It is the combination of these factors that makes Hail potentially too much for UU IMO. That is, making sure that your team is well equipped to deal with all aspects of a Hail team may well be making team-building too restrictive. This is what needs to be looked at in particular when comparing with a metagame lacking Abomasnow.
On a final note, I’d like to state that I am currently not in favour of placing Snover as a Suspect, for the time being. My reasoning for this is simple: we have yet to thoroughly test the effectiveness of Hail teams led by Snover instead of Abomasnow. It is very much possible (and quite likely from my experience) that a significant fraction of a Hail team’s overall power is contributed by Abomasnow itself. It is a rather decent Pokemon after all, and only testing will show us to what degree the typical Hail team’s effectiveness is weakened with the much weaker Snover in its place. By placing them both as Suspects at the same time we lose the opportunity to test this possibility right now, and doing so will essentially be making an untested assumption based on theorymon. I feel that Snover needs a little time in the spotlight by itself first, and we can always place it as a Suspect later on if need be.
So have I made a valid argument for placing Abomasnow as a Suspect, or am I overanalyzing the problem in an attempt to be more open-minded? It’s up to you guys to judge.
Results
Lemmiwinks MkII : Abomasnow | Accepted . (1 Nom)
Double Checking:
Abomasnow - Accepted
