★ SV UU Suspect Process Round 5 - medicine

[Lily]

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Hey all, it's suspect season once again, and today we're going to be looking at Garganacl.


I will attempt to refrain from making any jokes using the word "salty" in this post, but no promises. Garganacl is a very unique Pokemon; despite its incredible defensive prowess, especially with Tera, it finds itself most effective as a boosting sweeper with either Curse or Iron Defense. Garganacl's absurd natural bulk is very difficult to break through for most unboosted Pokemon, with only the likes of Hoopa-U and Latios managing to do it, and when it boosts its defenses alongside you, it can really feel oppressive to take down. This wouldn't be so bad on its own if not for Salt Cure, its signature move that puts almost everything on a timer and forces them to not only boost past it, but boost fast. It's not super uncommon to see Garganacl get an Iron Defense boost and run away with a game because the opponent just can't break it.

What makes Garganacl so rough to deal with is how much it punishes most passive Pokemon. Purifying Salt makes it really annoying for stuff like Mandibuzz, non-Covert Cloak Toxapex, and similar defensively-inclined Pokemon; being unable to status it means they're almost always free fodder, at best wasting recover PP or Hazing away its boosts. This results in Garganacl shining in balance vs balance matchups, but it's no slouch against offense either; it's not uncommon for offense teams to only have one or two ways of boosting past Fairy/Ghost Garganacl, for instance, and once those are taken out there aren't many more things that are more effective at locking away the game than Garganacl is.

With all that said, there are certainly ways to break it. Latios, Keldeo, Iron Moth, Iron Crown, Greninja, Hoopa-U, and Manaphy are fairly common Pokemon that have the raw firepower necessary to burst through Garganacl on the special side, while Ogerpon and Ogerpon-C, Ursaluna, Azumarill, Kommo-o, and Garchomp can situationally do so on the physical side. The new addition of Haze Toxapex also hurts IDef Garganacl quite significantly, and Everyone's Least Favourite Item is also an extremely effective albeit limiting way of dealing with Garganacl; just about every Covert Cloak user worth their salt renders Garganacl completely useless, most notably Sinistcha but also the newly added Pecharunt and occasional users like Latios, Jirachi, and Amoonguss. Garganacl also dislikes some Regenerator sers, like Toxapex, the aforementioned Amoonguss, Slowking, Mienshao, and most notably Hydrapple. It also really does not like Reuniclus.

Entry hazards being so prevalent without much removal is a major thorn in Garganacl's side, which is a leading reason for its overall low usage; it also frequently takes a Knock Off, meaning it runs through Recover PP more often than it'd like to. Because of this, Garganacl becomes a pretty selfish Pokemon; despite its amazing defensive profile, it doesn't really contribute much to a team defensively, because it really wants to save all its PP for sweeping in most games. With that said, it also has an excellent profile that lets it act as a soft check to Galarian Moltres, Zapdos, Tornadus-T, and Iron Moth without Tera, and just about anything with the right Tera.

Is the oppressive nature of Garganacl's setup sets too much for the tier to handle, or is counterplay abundant enough for it to stick around? That's for you guys to decide. Let us know!

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The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 78 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 78 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 82. As always, needing more than 50 games to 78 GXE is fine.

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
78	50
78.2	49
78.4	48
78.6	47
78.8	46
79	45
79.2	44
79.4	43
79.6	42
79.8	41
80	40
80.2	39
80.4	38
80.6	37
80.8	36
81	35
81.2	34
81.4	33
81.6	32
81.8	31
82	30

The test will operate as always. There will be no suspect ladder. Instead, the standard UU ladder will remain open. Those who wish to participate in this suspect test will instead use a fresh, suspect-specific alt. All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! UU ladder on a fresh alt with the following format: "UU5PI (Nick)." For example, I might register the alt UU5PI Lily to ladder with. You must meet the listed format in order to qualify.

Participants will have until Sunday, February 18th at 7:00 PM GMT -5 to meet voting requirements and post in the Alt Identification Thread. PLEASE DO NOT POST YOUR CONFIRMED SUSPECT RESULTS HERE - there is a dedicated thread for identifying your suspect results. Happy laddering!

 

[NobodyActually]

Got reqs. If anyone’s curious heres the team.

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https://pokepast.es/79f89bf144533b67

In my opinion garg is a feast or famine pokemon. Garg has a couple defensive answers that completely wall it like:


Tanks +2 body press easily and threatens with nasty plot boosted giga drains and can regen out

Any mon with covert cloak like sinistcha and pecharunt can hard wall garg and set up on it.

Doesnt take damage from salt cure due to magic guard and easily tanks body presses.

Without these defensive options you are forced to bring something that can threaten it out. The problem with this is that salt cure chips all switch-ins which will eventually wear you down unless you have recovery.

Now onto why I think garg should NOT be banned.

• The meta is very offense based right now which makes it hard for garg to come in and do its thing.
• Many pokemon can afford to run covert cloak without sacrificing much
• Even though garg applies pressure in the teambuilder, its answers are fairly good and splashable
• The two best mons in the tier lati and chomp are bad for garg
• Knock off and hazards means it is forced to recover a lot
• Huge tera hog

I really do not see garg being a problem, especially in tournament play because of how easy it is to prep against it.

 

[Mossy Sandwich]

Still undecided on Garganacl atm, but leaning ban. To be clear, I don't think it's broken, but I think the meta is in a state where nothing is quite broken, but it's still fishy and unreliable. I think Garganacl makes building certain teamstyles more awkward due to the mons required to check it not quite working for those styles.

For example, Sinistcha badly, badly needs proper removal or Boots to work due to being really vulnerable to Spikes, but due to its nature as a spinblocker (Best for Hazard Stack), it can't properly ran with the only reliable removal in the tier, Mandibuzz, as they don't synergize properly, but some teams might need to fit Mandibuzz on teams that want to stack hazards or Sinistcha on teams that don't just to keep Garganacl in check while trying to have a better rounded out team. Boots Sinistcha is still... fine, but not really as reliable long-term as you'd want it to be.

Something similar happens with Reuniclus and Hydrapple on no removal teams. They're not bad slots for those kinds of team and are good Garganacl answers, but if you're running no removal, you're also probably using Latios which is gonna have serious overlap with those mons. What I'm getting at is that trying to account for Garganacl can force you to run some suboptimal synergy which makes building just... awkward. I've had teams with proper synergy, but no clear Garganacl answer (6-0d at preview, but fine into other matchups) and teams with Garganacl answers, but that fail to consistently face the rest of the meta.

Garganacl also forces you to use its answers extremely carefully so that they don't suddenly start losing. Sinistcha just cannot afford to get Knocked by mons it'd otherwise love to switch into like Donphan or Quaquaval, as Salt Cure can start wearing it down very quickly once Knocked, especially if hazards are up. Hydrapple also hates to have its Boots Knocked, but it also can't really use Tera Steel as it'll then become very weak to Salt Cure and Body Press. Hydrapple into a Garganacl Balance is a bit lose-lose in a way since one of Hydrapple's appealing traits is being able to break balance very efficiently with NP+Tera Steel+Regen, but Garganacl prevents that since Hydrapple needs to check it.

Obviously, other minor checks also suffer from this issue with Latios having to stay in its base typing to avoid getting overwhelmed by Body Press and needing to keep Cloak/Lefties to take Salt Cure properly. Certain answers without the damage output to break through it like Cloak Pecharunt or Amoonguss also need to be careful of Curse.

Overall, I feel like Garganacl just leads to unhealthy interactions in the builder due to its counters just not being sets or mons you really want to use, at least not on certain teamstyles, but it forces you to. Freeing up teambuilder, especially from such an awkward threat, seems like a pretty nice positive to me. It also doesn't add much to the meta, its defensive utility is pretty underwhelming in practice and there are other bulky wincons to use. I don't think it's broken and my opinion could shift, but I think removing it will have a positive impact on the meta.

 

[TohnR]

Got recs ! And I agree with most of the points posted by Nobody, actually :p

I will be voting no ban as I feel like the tier has enough firepower to pressure Nacl and at the same time enough "slow" answers that can win in the long term in more defensive teams (as Recover PP is very limited nowadays). All in all I just think the mon is a bit toxic to the metagame but not enough to warrant a ban, and not too strong as a setup option either.

 

[ThatOneApple]

Got reqs, probably gonna vote ban for a lot of the reasons mossy said here

Still undecided on Garganacl atm, but leaning ban. To be clear, I don't think it's broken, but I think the meta is in a state where nothing is quite broken, but it's still fishy and unreliable. I think Garganacl makes building certain teamstyles more awkward due to the mons required to check it not quite working for those styles.

For example, Sinistcha badly, badly needs proper removal or Boots to work due to being really vulnerable to Spikes, but due to its nature as a spinblocker (Best for Hazard Stack), it can't properly ran with the only reliable removal in the tier, Mandibuzz, as they don't synergize properly, but some teams might need to fit Mandibuzz on teams that want to stack hazards or Sinistcha on teams that don't just to keep Garganacl in check while trying to have a better rounded out team. Boots Sinistcha is still... fine, but not really as reliable long-term as you'd want it to be.

Something similar happens with Reuniclus and Hydrapple on no removal teams. They're not bad slots for those kinds of team and are good Garganacl answers, but if you're running no removal, you're also probably using Latios which is gonna have serious overlap with those mons. What I'm getting at is that trying to account for Garganacl can force you to run some suboptimal synergy which makes building just... awkward. I've had teams with proper synergy, but no clear Garganacl answer (6-0d at preview, but fine into other matchups) and teams with Garganacl answers, but that fail to consistently face the rest of the meta.

Garganacl also forces you to use its answers extremely carefully so that they don't suddenly start losing. Sinistcha just cannot afford to get Knocked by mons it'd otherwise love to switch into like Donphan or Quaquaval, as Salt Cure can start wearing it down very quickly once Knocked, especially if hazards are up. Hydrapple also hates to have its Boots Knocked, but it also can't really use Tera Steel as it'll then become very weak to Salt Cure and Body Press. Hydrapple into a Garganacl Balance is a bit lose-lose in a way since one of Hydrapple's appealing traits is being able to break balance very efficiently with NP+Tera Steel+Regen, but Garganacl prevents that since Hydrapple needs to check it.

Obviously, other minor checks also suffer from this issue with Latios having to stay in its base typing to avoid getting overwhelmed by Body Press and needing to keep Cloak/Lefties to take Salt Cure properly. Certain answers without the damage output to break through it like Cloak Pecharunt or Amoonguss also need to be careful of Curse.

Overall, I feel like Garganacl just leads to unhealthy interactions in the builder due to its counters just not being sets or mons you really want to use, at least not on certain teamstyles, but it forces you to. Freeing up teambuilder, especially from such an awkward threat, seems like a pretty nice positive to me. It also doesn't add much to the meta, its defensive utility is pretty underwhelming in practice and there are other bulky wincons to use. I don't think it's broken and my opinion could shift, but I think removing it will have a positive impact on the meta.

To put it short, it forces really janky interactions in the builder and none of the mons that actually truly beat it are splashable at all due to them commonly leading to stacked weaknesses, which compromises other matchups

Also no we shouldnt need to run a useless item to check one mon, especially since it also means we need to protect the cloak mon from knocks, which just makes in game interactions jank instead of teambuilding

I also want to bring up another thing regarding the "overwhelming garg with offense" thing. While I feel this is definitely possible when its used as a defensive wall, when its used as a wincon thats preserved for later... not so much. Think about it, with iron press it essentially acts as a sort of physical gen 1 amnesia, and while covert cloak and do sit on it, in my experience both playing with and against these workarounds, its not too hard to force a knock on these mons. Also, again, why should we need to rely on a trash item for one mon?

Now for these two: and

this thing just doesnt feel good outside of the garg mu, way too easy to overwhelm for offense, and in my experience, its too easy to beat down/irritate with our steels on defense, most notably , who isnt threatened at all, can knock lefties, and encore you into recover/cm

Not a bad mon by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly not an easy mon to fit given its janky type. It also REALLY wants to use tera steel to start being a massive threat, which... ironically makes it not so great into garg.

I dont think garg is an egregiously broken threat or anything as if you have a good amount of prep for it it kinda flops, but if you DONT dedicate all that effort on a team to beating garg, it can and likely will find a way to eat you. I feel removing garg from the tier will open up the builder a lot more and make teambuilding and prepping for other threats easier.

 

[Geopolitics]

thank you @sirfresh

Just got reqs using a team my buddy Armada made (trust me, the team is very good I just kept trolling games so it took way longer than it should've).



I gotta be honest, I’m pretty surprised Garg is the suspect target right now. I’m no stranger to how good Salt Cure is, but I’m not convinced Garg is one of the three biggest threats in the tier. Don’t get me wrong - Garg is extremely solid and has the ability to tie together bulkier teams by giving them both a passive damage accelerant and a win condition via Iron Defense + Body Press. However, Garg - at least compared to a lot of the other problems in this tier - has clear bad matchups. The rise of things like Terrakion and Iron Crown make burning your Tera on Garg a necessity if you want to take those on, thereby sacrificing maybe this gen’s greatest adaptation tool. Further, there’s not really one Tera that pushes Garg over the top.


To me, Latios presents a much more significant problem: in comparison to Garg, it can choose its counters and build the rest of the team around it. My favorite set (CM + Soul Dew + Recover, which I discussed here) impeccably wears down counters and outlasts traditional answers (notably crushing Garg, even if it chooses to run Covert Cloak to avoid SpDef drops via Luster Purge). Foregoing setup, recovery, or both allows Latios to blow by traditional counters and allow it to serve as a wallbreaker (rather than sweeper), making it extremely splashable. The ability to function as both a S-tier sweeper or S-tier wallbreaker makes this a way more significant problem than Garg.


Further, Moltres-G remains a substantial issue. Tyranitar remains a pretty solid answer for Moltres-G, but the answers beyond that are pretty weak. Tera Steel takes away one of the better answers that walls can use - specifically Mandibuzz Toxic - while lending it resistance to some of the tier’s better priority answers (Scizor Bullet Punch, Arcanine-H Extremespeed). Even against teams that really prepare for Moltres-G (think: wish support + Tyranitar), Moltres-G doesn’t need much support to overwhelm its counters. The prominence of strong U-Turn users (Lokix, Scizor) to pair with Molt-G make it supremely easy to put pressure on Tyranitar and this tier’s sparse Wish users (Jirachi).


Finally, I think Light Clay is extremely problematic. Maybe this comes from my inexperience in tournament play (although I am trying to play tours), but Light Clay completely streamlines games in a materially unfun way. I think that the team I used for reqs is a great signal of this: I can understand if screens are a viable strategy, but taking up two team slots strictly to set up screens should indicate a massive problem as to the strength of the strategy. I think Light Clay, in conjunction with the sheer number of setup sweepers who appreciate the support of these screens (Iron Crown, SD + Scale Shot Garchomp, Clangorous Scales Kommo-o, Sub + Belly Drum Kommo-o, Belly Drum Azumarill, Double Dance Moltres-G, SD Scizor, SD Hawlucha, Take Heart Manaphy, CM + Iron Defense Enamarous) is really unhealthy for the tier.

I take note of the insight that just because I consider other things broken does not preclude me from voting ban on Garg. Further, I am still considering that the removal of the three Pokemon discussed in this post may actually make Garg a better Pokemon in the context of UU. However, I hesitate to vote ban on a Pokemon where the grounds (at least in my view) are so speculative due to the instability of other aspects of the metagame.

TL;DR: I will likely vote DNB due to prioritization of other issues.

 

[Moutemoute]

thank you @sirfresh

View attachment 602905

Just got reqs using a team my buddy Armada made (trust me, the team is very good I just kept trolling games so it took way longer than it should've).



I gotta be honest, I’m pretty surprised Garg is the suspect target right now. I’m no stranger to how good Salt Cure is, but I’m not convinced Garg is one of the three biggest threats in the tier. Don’t get me wrong - Garg is extremely solid and has the ability to tie together bulkier teams by giving them both a passive damage accelerant and a win condition via Iron Defense + Body Press. However, Garg - at least compared to a lot of the other problems in this tier - has clear bad matchups. The rise of things like Terrakion and Iron Crown make burning your Tera on Garg a necessity if you want to take those on, thereby sacrificing maybe this gen’s greatest adaptation tool. Further, there’s not really one Tera that pushes Garg over the top.


To me, Latios presents a much more significant problem: in comparison to Garg, it can choose its counters and build the rest of the team around it. My favorite set (CM + Soul Dew + Recover, which I discussed here) impeccably wears down counters and outlasts traditional answers (notably crushing Garg, even if it chooses to run Covert Cloak to avoid SpDef drops via Luster Purge). Foregoing setup, recovery, or both allows Latios to blow by traditional counters and allow it to serve as a wallbreaker (rather than sweeper), making it extremely splashable. The ability to function as both a S-tier sweeper or S-tier wallbreaker makes this a way more significant problem than Garg.


Further, Moltres-G remains a substantial issue. Tyranitar remains a pretty solid answer for Moltres-G, but the answers beyond that are pretty weak. Tera Steel takes away one of the better answers that walls can use - specifically Mandibuzz Toxic - while lending it resistance to some of the tier’s better priority answers (Scizor Bullet Punch, Arcanine-H Extremespeed). Even against teams that really prepare for Moltres-G (think: wish support + Tyranitar), Moltres-G doesn’t need much support to overwhelm its counters. The prominence of strong U-Turn users (Lokix, Scizor) to pair with Molt-G make it supremely easy to put pressure on Tyranitar and this tier’s sparse Wish users (Jirachi).


Finally, I think Light Clay is extremely problematic. Maybe this comes from my inexperience in tournament play (although I am trying to play tours), but Light Clay completely streamlines games in a materially unfun way. I think that the team I used for reqs is a great signal of this: I can understand if screens are a viable strategy, but taking up two team slots strictly to set up screens should indicate a massive problem as to the strength of the strategy. I think Light Clay, in conjunction with the sheer number of setup sweepers who appreciate the support of these screens (Iron Crown, SD + Scale Shot Garchomp, Clangorous Scales Kommo-o, Sub + Belly Drum Kommo-o, Belly Drum Azumarill, Double Dance Moltres-G, SD Scizor, SD Hawlucha, Take Heart Manaphy, CM + Iron Defense Enamarous) is really unhealthy for the tier.

I take note of the insight that just because I consider other things broken does not preclude me from voting ban on Garg. Further, I am still considering that the removal of the three Pokemon discussed in this post may actually make Garg a better Pokemon in the context of UU. However, I hesitate to vote ban on a Pokemon where the grounds (at least in my view) are so speculative due to the instability of other aspects of the metagame.

TL;DR: I will likely vote DNB due to prioritization of other issues.

Not a uu mod but this kind of threads should not be used to expose other potential problematic stuffs, their point is to talk about the suspected Pokémon / item / feature, nothing more, nothing less, thus all the part on Latios, Goltres and Light Clay should be post in the SV UU Metagame Discussion - The Indigo Disk.

 

[ThatOneApple]

TL;DR: I will likely vote DNB due to prioritization of other issues.

also just wanted to quickly add to what moute said, but this isn’t really a reason to not ban smth. Whether or not something else is broken has nothing to do with Garg

 

[Geopolitics]

also just wanted to quickly add to what moute said, but this isn’t really a reason to not ban smth. Whether or not something else is broken has nothing to do with Garg

On mobile so my formatting is gonna be bad - point taken re limiting discussion.

I generally agree that the philosophy of “saying don’t ban X because Y is more broken is bad” - perhaps I didn’t clearly flesh out what I was trying to say. Maybe a better way of what I was getting at is that Garg is assuredly on the cusp on being too good, but I don’t think that it’s broken in the context of the metagame rn. If some of the other stuff gets taken care of and Garg remains a big issue, I’d support another look. However, because I don’t view garg as too problematic right now, I think that banning it is too speculative.

Further explanation

I think that the options to deal with Garg right now aren’t so backbreakingly bad in the context of the meta that it is too hard to deal with. If other stuff gets taken care of and the garg answers get worse/it makes building around garg more restrictive, then that’s enough of a grounds to ban for me. However, without that knowledge, I will be staying dnb

as always thanks for feedback

 

[Corporate Donkey]

I won't be participating in the suspect test, however I will still make my case for why I believe Garganacl should be banned.

Before that though, I will clarify that I do not think Garganacl is incredibly broken, just that it hurts the meta far more than it helps it.

One big problem about Garg is how it restricts the builder. The main way it does this is by necessitating the use of covert cloak on quite a few team structures, which I take issue with. While covert cloak is not a terrible item, having uses outside of stopping salt cure chip, but many of the pokemon who use cloak would prefer to run another item. It feels like players are obligated to take the opportunity cost of running cloak instead of having a real choice in the matter. While there should be opportunity cost for completely invalidating a mon, the issue when it comes to Garg is that there are hardly any midgrounds when it comes to checking it. You could argue that cloak isn't necessary to reasonably handle Garg, but I'll no move onto explaining the other methods of checking Garg, and why they're not very consistent.

Two things Garg hates dealing with are hazards and knock off. Hazards are the biggest thing holding back Garganacl, but with Mandibuzz becoming more popular it can prevent multiple layers of spikes from being set up and its defog cannot be blocked, so with the right team Garg shouldn't be getting worn down that quickly by hazards if played well. While Garg definitely doesn't enjoy losing its leftovers, it isn't that likely it'll get knocked without doing anything in return. Unless the Garganacl user is recklessly sending it into other mons, you'll be forced to eat a salt cure if you actually want to remove Garg's item with knock off, whether that be by staying in vs Garg, or sending in your knock user directly. Either way, it'll still be racking up damage and potentially setting up while you try to hit it with knock off. On the subject of Garg setting up, while you can phase it out, phasing moves are not very good atm, and the best phasing move user in tankchomp can just be completely invalidated by tera fairy, which is a pretty common tera for Garg. Nothing that gets whirlwind would really want to use it aside from Hippowdon, who isn't too great rn, and the only relevant roar user is Empoleon, who hates being hit by salt cure.

Finally, I'll move on to the issue with trying to break through Garganacl with strong wallbreakers. This is a good way to kill Garg, however trying to get most wallbreakers in front of Garg safely is pretty difficult. This comes down to Garganacl underspeeding every pivot mon bar Slowking, making your switch having to eat a salt cure pretty much inevitable. This is really bad for pokemon like Keldeo and Iron Crown, who would otherwise be able to either kill Garg, or force it out with no problem, but now have to lose 1/4 of their HP every turn they stay in due to Garg being able to use salt cure practically for free. Latios can beat it with calm mind + recover sets, however salt cure chip still makes it go through its 8 pp recovers much faster than it normally would. As for physical wallbreakers, some can threaten Garg before it can set up either curse or iron defense, however if it clicks tera it can just set up on them anyways, basically turning what would normally be a good offensive check into complete setup fodder.

And finally speaking of Garganacl terastalizing, depending on the MU this can make Garg practically unkillable, and while Garg is a tera hog, the payoff for using tera on Garg makes you want to terastalize it in most games.

In summary, despite there being counterplay to Garganacl, this counterplay ranges from being restrictive in the builder to being rather ineffective if the Garg user plays safely with Garganacl, and it can make effortless progress with salt cure due to it being very hard to kill, and being too slow to safely pivot against for most pivots. Oh and the complete status immunity is just salt to the wound(pun very much intended.)

 

[Lily]

Hello, I would like to offer my analysis on Garganacl and how I feel it should both be played around and evaluated as a member of the tier. This post will be quite long and will not feature a TL;DR, but I ask that you read it regardless.

Part 1: Garganacl's sets
Garganacl most commonly runs one of two boosting moves - Iron Defense or Curse - alongside its signature Salt Cure, Recover, and then one of Body Press or Earthquake. There are advantages to both of these. Iron Defense gives Garganacl a stronger offense matchup as it can keep up with boosting sweepers such as Swords Dance Garchomp and Ogerpon at the cost of a weaker matchup into bulky teams that feature Pokemon like Slowking, Toxapex, and Amoonguss which resist Body Press. Curse on the other hands requires a lot more setup and runs through more Recover PP while also weakening the matchup against offensive staples and Pokemon such as Hydrapple and Galarian Moltres, though it does allow Garganacl to more easily defeat Toxapex, Metagross, Iron Moth, and Pecharunt.

Garganacl's most common Tera types are Fairy and Ghost. Tera Fairy has a better matchup against Garchomp, Latios, Galarian Moltres, Greninja, etc while Tera Ghost has a better matchup against Pecharunt, Scizor, Ursaluna etc. - there are other much less common Tera types such as Water and Electric out there as well.

Part 2.1: Garganacl's counters
Garganacl is most commonly hard countered through the use of Covert Cloak on Pokemon that can handle Body Press or Earthquake. The best example is Sinistcha, with others such as Amoonguss, Latios, Pecharunt, Manaphy and Jirachi making appearances as well. Garganacl is also dealt with extremely well by Hydrapple and can be fended off with other Regenerator Pokemon such as Toxapex and Amoonguss which can force pressure onto it. Magic Guard users counter Garganacl, though the only legal one right now is Reuniclus. If you want a Pokemon that can switch into Garganacl every time and deal with it, these are the ones you'll want to use.

Part 2.2: Garganacl's checks
Checking Garganacl is a more nebulous ordeal and is quite difficult to do on paper, which is why Garganacl is such an overwhelming builder presence. However, here is a shortlist of threats to Garganacl that create issues for its user without hard countering it:

Entry hazards: Garganacl does not effectively run Heavy-Duty Boots, and UU's removal options are poor while its best Pokemon frequently runs double hazard sets. This makes entry hazards an enormous hurdle for Garganacl unless it commits to a pairing with Mandibuzz, which causes severe teambuilder strain and makes its matchup into Covert Cloak users even worse than usual.

Knock Off: Garganacl relies on its Leftovers more than most Pokemon do. A decent number of Knock Off users can either switch directly into Garganacl to force its item off, or trade Salt Cure damage for the hit. Some examples include Tornadus-T, Lokix, Okidogi, Metagross, Tinkaton, Mienshao, Cinccino, Scizor.

Strong (special) attackers: Garganacl is very bulky, but strong neutral hits on the special side are capable of forcing it out. Forcing Garganacl out with its item removed and entry hazards up creates a strong gamestate for the opponent; good examples of Pokemon that are able to do this include Latios, Keldeo, Manaphy, Iron Moth, Iron Crown. A number of very powerful physical attackers, such as Ursaluna, Kommo-o, Azumarill and Terrakion are also capable of doing this.

Encore: Forcing Garganacl to click a setup move or Recover can open free opportunities to switch into an Encore Pokemon like Tinkaton, Azumarill, Cinccino, Ogerpon, or Jirachi, effectively forcing Garganacl to switch.

Substitute: A few Substitute users such as Okidogi, Keldeo and Tyranitar can take advantage of Garganacl, especially with Tera. Most Pokemon can also "randomly" do this, allowing for effective luring.

Hitting it on the switch: While a bit more difficult to explain as this can vary so much, Garganacl needs to find opportunities somewhere and will usually find them on weaker special attackers like Tornadus-T or defensive Zapdos. By damaging Garganacl with these Pokemon on the switch - or using their pivot moves - you can force damage onto Garganacl and force it to heal, making it easy to get a Pokemon in without forcing Salt Cure damage onto it.

Part 3: Covert Cloak
I would like to address this item in particular as I see many players seemingly reducing it to "the Garganacl item". Covert Cloak is an item that is most often used for Garganacl. It sees much more sporadic use in metagames without Garganacl around. However, it is not useless - far from it. A large swathe of Pokemon in this tier use moves that have devastating secondary effects. Covert Cloak helps with an enormous amount of these, including but not limited to:

Flinches from Galarian Moltres, Greninja, Jirachi
Confusion from Tornadus-T, Pecharunt, Zapdos
Poison from Pecharunt, Amoonguss, Tornadus-T, Iron Moth I suppose
Scald from Manaphy, Suicune, Slowking
Paralysis from Zapdos
Luster Purge drops from Latios. Shadow Ball drops from Pecharunt, Sinistcha, Gengar
Every move Volcanion uses.
Ice Beam from Greninja and various other occasional users.
Speed drops from Tornadus/Keldeo using Bleakwind Storm or Icy Wind (notable for Latios).

In a vacuum these may not seem influenital. However, they make an enormous difference on the bulky Covert Cloak users in particular - Sinistcha, Pecharunt, Amoonguss for example. If you genuinely think that these are useless or just inconsequential byproducts, genuinely ask yourself; how many times have you been in an endgame where you need to dodge a flinch to win?

Covert Cloak is not some useless item, and Garganacl's existence does not force us to use something we "shouldn't". Not only can you beat Garganacl without it - Salt Cure is only 6% chip on Leftovers Pokemon, something Latios, Sinistcha etc. can very much handle - it also has strong applications in the metagame outside of Garganacl and improves consistency of most of its users.

On the topic of things we "shouldn't have to use" - we do not decide this. We are playing the game that we are given, and we do not simply decide what we should and should have to use on the basis of not liking it. I don't like fighting entry hazards and don't feel I should have to use Heavy-Duty Boots, a suboptimal item, to offset them - but I do, because that's the meta we've been given. Any arguments about whether or not Garganacl is broken should centre around if it's broken or not, not whether or not we should have to use an item to beat it. We also had actual users of Float Stone Gastrodon for Thundurus-T by the way...

Part 4: Garganacl's dominance in game
Here are all of the circuit playoff replay games in which Garganacl showed up. I will mark the Garganacl users in italic and bold the winner.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-738996 - Mimilucha vs Feliburn
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-738997 - Mimilucha vs Feliburn
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-739280 - hariyana grande vs jawabarat
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-739380 - Cam vs starbitstorm
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-739429 - Parpar vs udongirl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-739591 - robjr vs Dj Breloominati
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-739593 - robjr vs Dj Breloominati
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-739864 - Mimilucha vs Lily
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-740649 - JustFranco vs udongirl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-740655 - JustFranco vs udongirl
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-740883 - hariyana grande vs robjr
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ubers-741331 - starbitstorm vs justdrew
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ubers-741335 - starbitstorm vs justdrew
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-743013 - JustFranco vs Mimilucha
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-743070 - starbitstorm vs hariyana grande

In total that's 15 games with a Garganacl in them and in total it's 8 wins for the Garganacl user with 1 ditto. Notably it was rare for Garganacl to run into a hard counter and it still found its way into losing positions at a regular rate. I do not wish to analyse every game as there is simply no point and others can draw their own conclusions, but notably Garganacl did not really take over any games here; it was never found on the winscreen.

Part 5: Miscellaneous finishing thoughts
I disagree with a number of arguments presented thus far about Hydrapple being Tera reliant or awkward to fit. These feel to me like they come from peolpe who haven't actually used the Pokemon and instead just focus on its negative traits and stick to them. Hydrapple rarely wants to use Tera and only does it commonly against balances that rely on Toxic to beat it - it can also panic button against Greninja, Latios etc. but it's rarely required. Hydrapple is excellent with its base typing and there are very few Fairy/Ice moves being thrown around to begin with, with Azumarill and Greninja being the only real common ones. Being weak to Draco Meteor sucks but it's not a death sentence and that's what you've got teammates for - not like the Dragons can switch into you either.

There are some other forms of counterplay I didn't mention like Chilly Reception into Encore or Future Sight + Chilly Reception with a strong special attacker. I didn't want to create a full point about them but they do exist and are an effective method of getting through Garganacl.

Garganacl being a Tera hog and only really fitting on balance structures in a metagame so heavily centered around offense results in low usage and so I think for anyone looking to actually significantly change the metagame this is the wrong angle to take. Suspect testing Latios would've made more sense in opening the tier up.

Garganacl is also one of the better anti-offense tools that helps with stuff like Galarian Moltres, Iron Moth, and SD Garchomp. Its presence is not *necessary* for these Pokemon, but fewer options to deal with them feels like taking the tier in the wrong direction.

I hope that this is in some way informative or helps others to make a decision. Personally I will be voting Do Not Ban on Garganacl as I feel it is a healthy presence in this metagame that provides useful defensive value while not being overly constraining. I encourage others who feel the same way to speak up. Thanks for reading.

 

[Dragapultuser55]

im gonna try join my first ever suspect test here, Im thinking on ban. Ive played against a lot of garganacls in UU before, they are just plain horrible. I usually use defensive teams, which are a pain to go against it, even WITH garganacl, and its almost as bad with offensive teams too. I feel like we need to kick garganacl out of the tier ASAP

 

[Karmazz]

Got reqs yesterday so I thought I might as well share why I believe Garg shouldn't be banned.

1. Hard counters - Mons like cloak Sinis and Reun completely dominate Garg in the 1v1 and make it very hard for Garg to make any progress. While their viability in a vacuum is questionable, the fact that Garg has essentially unwinnable matchups is worth mentioning.

2. Checks - There are many viable mons that can check Garg. Apple is a big one, able to threaten it with giga drain and regenerate off salt cure damage. Slowking can also pivot into salt cure and chilly reception out into either a breaker or a mon with encore. Latios with recover is a solid answer on offensive teams.

3. Breakers - The power level in the tier is high enough where Garg isn't quite immovable. Strong breakers like specs Latios, specs Keldeo, and banded Azu just to name a few can muscle past Garg. If you can manage to get Chomp or Ogerpon in before an IDef they also do well.

4. Hazard weakness - Garg loves lefties so it can't really afford to run boots, which sucks in a tier without great removal and with Chomp. It's also not too hard to sac some HP on a mon like Torn for a knock on Garg, which cuts into its longevity and forces it to recover more.

5. Tera reliance - Pure rock is obviously an atrocious defensive typing, so Garg often needs to tera to get anything done, which cuts into the flexibility of the rest of the team.

6. Other counterplay - Sub and encore both shut Garg down. Taunt is also good to stop IDefs and recovers.

Overall I just think the tier has enough ways to handle Garg, both offensively and defensively. There are games where a well set-up Garg can sweep, but thats also true for Chomp and GMolt and Latios and Greninja and Comfey. There are other mons in the tier that are way more problematic, perhaps one with a red and black color scheme and 2 tails and a long flowing hair crest thing.

 

[Lyssa]

hello. Rather than repeating some of the same great points Apple and Mossy have already talked about in regards to garga and it's counterplay, this post will serve as both a way to go more in depth in some of the dynamics it brings to the table but also as a way to reply to some of Lily's points, some of which i want to expand on and some others I just don't agree with.

Part 2.1: Garganacl's counters
Garganacl is most commonly hard countered through the use of Covert Cloak on Pokemon that can handle Body Press or Earthquake. The best example is Sinistcha, with others such as Amoonguss, Latios, Pecharunt, Manaphy and Jirachi making appearances as well. Garganacl is also dealt with extremely well by Hydrapple and can be fended off with other Regenerator Pokemon such as Toxapex and Amoonguss which can force pressure onto it. Magic Guard users counter Garganacl, though the only legal one right now is Reuniclus. If you want a Pokemon that can switch into Garganacl every time and deal with it, these are the ones you'll want to use.

Part 2.2: Garganacl's checks
Checking Garganacl is a more nebulous ordeal and is quite difficult to do on paper, which is why Garganacl is such an overwhelming builder presence. However, here is a shortlist of threats to Garganacl that create issues for its user without hard countering it:

Entry hazards: Garganacl does not effectively run Heavy-Duty Boots, and UU's removal options are poor while its best Pokemon frequently runs double hazard sets. This makes entry hazards an enormous hurdle for Garganacl unless it commits to a pairing with Mandibuzz, which causes severe teambuilder strain and makes its matchup into Covert Cloak users even worse than usual.

Knock Off: Garganacl relies on its Leftovers more than most Pokemon do. A decent number of Knock Off users can either switch directly into Garganacl to force its item off, or trade Salt Cure damage for the hit. Some examples include Tornadus-T, Lokix, Okidogi, Metagross, Tinkaton, Mienshao, Cinccino, Scizor.

Strong (special) attackers: Garganacl is very bulky, but strong neutral hits on the special side are capable of forcing it out. Forcing Garganacl out with its item removed and entry hazards up creates a strong gamestate for the opponent; good examples of Pokemon that are able to do this include Latios, Keldeo, Manaphy, Iron Moth, Iron Crown. A number of very powerful physical attackers, such as Ursaluna, Kommo-o, Azumarill and Terrakion are also capable of doing this.

Encore: Forcing Garganacl to click a setup move or Recover can open free opportunities to switch into an Encore Pokemon like Tinkaton, Azumarill, Cinccino, Ogerpon, or Jirachi, effectively forcing Garganacl to switch.

Substitute: A few Substitute users such as Okidogi, Keldeo and Tyranitar can take advantage of Garganacl, especially with Tera. Most Pokemon can also "randomly" do this, allowing for effective luring.

Hitting it on the switch: While a bit more difficult to explain as this can vary so much, Garganacl needs to find opportunities somewhere and will usually find them on weaker special attackers like Tornadus-T or defensive Zapdos. By damaging Garganacl with these Pokemon on the switch - or using their pivot moves - you can force damage onto Garganacl and force it to heal, making it easy to get a Pokemon in without forcing Salt Cure damage onto it.

Skipping around on the Covert Cloak mention as I will be coming back to it later, this list is a bit too optimistic although I don't think any parts of it are particularly wrong. The main point for me here is one: need of consistent counterplay against it.

What I feel like should be said before going further is what I think the garganacl counterplay is, and the list goes something like:
- Cloak (later);
- Reuniclus (only mon capable of taking on it no matter the gamestate unless some huge tomfoolery has taken place, unfortunately it's the only redeeming factor it has going for it in current metagame and is pretty bad otherwise);
- Hydrapple (only other mon capable of taking on garga most of the time, healing can be unreliable and it requires it's tera to have not been popped prior to this, but it's genuinely the best thing to look out for if you don't want to go into something more atypical);
- Substitute (not many mons can really run the move effectively/want the move at all in current meta, but it works for beating garga although it will require tera in tandem a lot);
- Slowpivot + Encore (can be awkward against last mon if most encore pps have been burned throughout and stuff like statuses on the pivot can really hurt this, but otherwise pretty good against id press specifically, loses to curse);
Everything else is a little too up in the air for me to consider a lot, and that's what i meant with too optimistic: taking the risk of possibly giving it any kinds of freedom can lead to really unfavourable trades or even worse game ending situations, and that's the problem a lot of these inconsistent measures face. Trick or Encore can occasionally do the job and so are definitely worth the mention as last resource out, but even those are really limited. Other aforementioned stuff such as knock off does hurt the mon a lot but it's really hard to force a sequence leading up to that since garga doesn't really want to deal with any of the mentioned mons before it's already getting going, and once it's setup for what it wants to achieve it doesn't really care much about knock off either for example. And finally it's worth mentioning how hazards based teams and HO are the only 2 playstyles that have high enough amounts of pressure to consistently shut down the mon but they also face their own issues: most hazards setters can be free setup for garga (although considering tera in this case) and so that requires backup measures during your setup to avoid a snowball occurring, and in HO's case it ends up depending on the 6 since setuppers can have a really rough time going up against a garga, but also in most cases garga will end up trading itself for a treat and going 1x1 at worst which isn't a bad thing considering it's the worst mu it can face bar hard counterplay. Garganacl is not broken as the counterplay does exist, it's just unreasonable to put it on every team considering how horrendously limited it is, and every half measures against such a mon are hardly the way to go.

Part 3: Covert Cloak
I would like to address this item in particular as I see many players seemingly reducing it to "the Garganacl item". Covert Cloak is an item that is most often used for Garganacl. It sees much more sporadic use in metagames without Garganacl around. However, it is not useless - far from it. A large swathe of Pokemon in this tier use moves that have devastating secondary effects. Covert Cloak helps with an enormous amount of these, including but not limited to:

Flinches from Galarian Moltres, Greninja, Jirachi
Confusion from Tornadus-T, Pecharunt, Zapdos
Poison from Pecharunt, Amoonguss, Tornadus-T, Iron Moth I suppose
Scald from Manaphy, Suicune, Slowking
Paralysis from Zapdos
Luster Purge drops from Latios. Shadow Ball drops from Pecharunt, Sinistcha, Gengar
Every move Volcanion uses.
Ice Beam from Greninja and various other occasional users.
Speed drops from Tornadus/Keldeo using Bleakwind Storm or Icy Wind (notable for Latios).

In a vacuum these may not seem influenital. However, they make an enormous difference on the bulky Covert Cloak users in particular - Sinistcha, Pecharunt, Amoonguss for example. If you genuinely think that these are useless or just inconsequential byproducts, genuinely ask yourself; how many times have you been in an endgame where you need to dodge a flinch to win?

Covert Cloak is not some useless item, and Garganacl's existence does not force us to use something we "shouldn't". Not only can you beat Garganacl without it - Salt Cure is only 6% chip on Leftovers Pokemon, something Latios, Sinistcha etc. can very much handle - it also has strong applications in the metagame outside of Garganacl and improves consistency of most of its users.

Alright so this is the main part I really disagree with but for starters let's put a thing clear: Covert Cloak is not a useless item, but I'd go as far as calling it one of the worst items in the game for overall use, so not considering stuff like garganacl or serene grace stuff here, o7 to togekiss. Gen 9 as a gen is based around of concept of everything can beat everything they want if conditions are met. So how is this relevant? Well, cloak is just an entirely suboptimal item. Your non-hard countering uses are for consistency against things you can't even begin to think about because the value you're losing out of any other item vs what you're gaining is just not there. Not only do these not pop up on game to game basis and even when they do they're often not even game deciding, but also you're effectively making yourself worse against everything else, which in gen 9 and especially in our current metastate, where you can't even cover for all the threats present in the tier and so are already sacking a couple of matchups out of pure need, you're making yourself a worse middleground and worse positioned in general. That being said, in general I don't think the sub-uses of covert cloak really apply to tourplay as a whole, but this is unrelated to the main point. I think the item is a lot more reasonable for ladderplay for example as you're actually looking at a big sample size of games where these sub effects will actually maybe come up and be game deciding, but for bo1 tourplay is just never going to be worth it, and that's sort of why the item is just never going to see tourplay outside of these really specific situations. The only actual reasonable case use of the ones Lily brought up in this case is poison from pecha/shroom/tornt, which of the """commonly used""" covert cloak mons only affects matchapot and that's it. You could argue the same thing about scald burn, but my answer to that would be that taking a scald burn and going net 0% w/ leftovers is actually better than just avoiding a burn since you also can't get hit by twave, a mon that is commonly used by scald user slowking. So no, I wouldn't go as far as calling covert cloak useless and I think very little people have actually done that, but the reality is that the item is just not something you want to run this gen and especially in this current meta for non-hard countering reasons. You're losing out on so, so much game to game value for almost everytime net 0 gain. And in regards to the last point, wouldn't it be more common to see cloakless matchapot if that was the case? it's not actually wrong that it can happen, but it can be so awkward to the point where nobody takes that gamble against such a mon.

On the topic of things we "shouldn't have to use" - we do not decide this. We are playing the game that we are given, and we do not simply decide what we should and should have to use on the basis of not liking it. I don't like fighting entry hazards and don't feel I should have to use Heavy-Duty Boots, a suboptimal item, to offset them - but I do, because that's the meta we've been given. Any arguments about whether or not Garganacl is broken should centre around if it's broken or not, not whether or not we should have to use an item to beat it. We also had actual users of Float Stone Gastrodon for Thundurus-T by the way...

Putting aside that the last bit was a running joke more than a real thing, this is less about liking it or not and more so about looking at something that has general, universally welcome use vs item that rarely changes a gamestate if it changes one at all. There rarely is tradeoff to be found unless you're looking at a big sample size of games, it's less about "we shouldn't have to use this" and more so this is vocabulary definition of unhealthy presence, because if the mon wasn't here we just wouldn't be using this.

Moving on from the post above, there are a couple of things I want to mention re: some people not being satisfied with the order of tiering, and even going as far as saying they intend on voting dnb since they don't believe garga should ever go first. The last thing is just silly but putting that aside, action is definitely needed on multiple elements present in the tier atm and I think that's just general consensus, I can probably count on one hand the amount of people satisfied with current meta. After the feb shifts, I don't think anything really falls under the broken criteria, except for maybe gmolt who has been slowly getting more and more attention with it's incredible trading abilities and convincingly it takes over games. The 2 big elephants in the room are both garganacl and latios and the reason why I prioritized one as opposing to the other ended up being a mix of personal enjoyment but also I think garga is the more unhealthy presence at the end of the day, with both it's teambuilding insanity but also it's ability to ruin and make gamestates horrendous to look at, as most sequences involving said mon are just 2 mons on the field completely ignoring one another since that's what both garga but also it's counterplay aims at doing. Latios I think got a lot worse with these shifts actually, it's base typing feels a lot more annoying to carry around now but also it feels easier to handle the silly CM sets which are what's problematic about it at the end of the day. It's teambuilding annoyance is still there and it's also the big thing about it, safe counterplay is almost as limited as garga's but I think it's a lot easier to put on teams and at the end of the day, it's also not making games as much of a snoozer as garga's and it's also easier to interact with. This meta is not magically going to fix itself, and taking action on just 1 thing I promise will not do that: We got fucked over by shifts taking away what was pretty much our only real semi-removal option (next up is quaquaval which is b+ on the vr for example) but first and foremost, a tool that compressed so many roles it made a meta that is otherwise terrible, playable. The most important thing about losing treads to me is not just about having lost the only sort of splashable removal (one time spin in reality) option we had, but also losing incredible role compression in a meta where any sort of openspace feels cheated due to how much mileage and how much more you can cover through it, and also it's direct consequences like av tornt becoming 10x worse. We need to open up space and since nothing is over the line broken, hitting the 2 biggest offenders which limit us to about 5 options (3-4 of which pretty niche) each is to me the first step in the right direction, and I beg people that are considering voting due to their dissatisfaction in tiering order to just consider what's in front of them now as their opinions are being heard and we will follow up on them/it's not just over here yet.

Random stuff now because I forgot what else I was going to say and I apologise about that but this post has taken ages this far so forgive me: This is unrelated to my entire reasons behind why I want or not want this mon gone, but I think saying garga has any kinds of positive influences on the tier just feels fake: The only thing of value it provides I can think of is being a "decent" zapdos answer but reality is you just get volted on and goodbye, not to mention calling it a tornadus-t answer when that bitch knock focus blasts you away from the sim. I've noticed a lot of misconceptions in understanding what roles a mon can entertain lately and I think it becomes a lot easier once you stop looking at utopic scenarios and just look at what a mon wants and has the tools to achieve: a recent example that came up during discussion in uu cord is the insane fall of ursaluna after ou took away momola which was it's needed support and also worked as a wincon back then, and the general consensus now is that the mon fell off hard as hell but that doesn't actually mean it's just bad now, just look at it's stats. Different mons can take on different roles depending on what surrounds them in the meta but also what you pair them with, and I know this sounds like i'm explaining mons to children but it's just harder to comprehend in practice than it is just explained this way. What i mean here is that the moment you stop looking at ursaluna as a wincon and rather look at it as a tradebot with upsides, suddenly the mon gets a lot crazier than it currently is, because I mean looking at ursaluna as a wincon when it's not bulkier enough to sustain it's way through multiple mons (dpunch is fake) it's obvious it just sucks, but also it's stats are good enough to pretty much handpick it's targets since otherwise it can bleed out much more than intended, and if you optimize that one trade it's likely you'll end up 1x2 or even better. Where am i trying to go with this? I think a lot of people stuck to the way garga looked in dlc1 and expected exactly that, but reality is just a little different. Garga's stats are still insane for UU but it can't just be thrown into everything to munch and pick 6 anymore, similar to how you wouldn't just throw in your iron hands before getting any kinds of free setup to then proceed to go into trading and such. I think garganacl atm works way better as an iron hands-ish type of mon that wants to enter on a positional advantage and snowball from there rather than be thrown in in an unwelcomed situation, and this also correlates to how rocks protect sets have been the worst performing in tours since well, the mon just can't entertain that role well anymore although the damage it was still able of doing in some of the replays I've been watching on the post above was still nuts.

There are like more things I would like to mention but they aren't directly correlated to garg and also i'm way too tired now so probably going to save them for another time. anyways i'm going to vote ban if that wasn't obvious enough.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I got reqs finally. I wasn't going to make a post initially because I usually just play w/e the tier is in front of me, but because I am so passionate about how terrible the state of the tier is at the moment I thought I'd chime in some quick thoughts.

At the current moment, SV UU is in an absolutely abyssmal state. The tier is near impossible to play honestly and even lots of the people who got reqs just gave up on using an honest team and cheesed the hell out of it (for example I used a Webs + Screens team, was pretty epic). I think it's easy to look at things in a fairly close-minded way and say Garganacle is not broken and thus should not be banned, but I strongly feel you need to take the health of the tier into account and right now it's not good - stuff has to go, and Garganacle is first on the list. I'll be voting ban.

To elaborate further, there's just way too many things you have to account for at the moment in SV UU. Latios, Galarian-Moltres, Iron Crown, and Garganacle are in my opinion the four stand-alone things that require you to specifically prep for, and Garganacle requires the most unreasonable prep to do so. The only mon that beats it by itself is Reuniclus, which is a very bad mon and, as you can see from the mini list I gave, helps you with absolutely none of those other three and makes you more vulnerable. Hydrapple is ok I suppose, but you will usually have to commit your tera with it to fully stop Garg, as if you come in as it gets to +2 with Iron Defense you may not beat it 1v1. Some weird Tera Ghost Ribombee with Shield Dust I guess could also beat it, but now we are getting into crazy territory. So, there's only two mons that can reasonably beat it without requiring you to configure the rest of your team to check Garg, ok. The other way to beat it (besides blasting it with pure offense and hoping for the best) requires you to use a really stupid item in Covert Cloak that, despite what others make it out to seem, would never be used if Garg wasn't in the tier. Yeah it obviously has its uses outside of stopping Garg, but you can say that about lots of unused items like pinch berries, resist berries, room service? etc. They all have uses but they're not really used because they're just not good. Covert Cloak is not good. It's an item Game Freak conveniently created in the same game that Garganacle was introduced (weird right?). We shouldn't be forced to run Covert Cloak just to deal with this mon. But that is unfortunately the only way to really deal with it on a fat/balance team. Basically, after you have done all of this, you don't have as much wiggle room for your team to check the other big threats now. And even if you can manage to make a balance team that checks Garg, Latios, GMolt, and Iron Crown (it's possible), now you probably don't have room for any blanket checks for weird off-meta stuff, so you are going to lose to that Draining Kiss Milotic because your team is so tightly put together for all of the huge threats that you just couldn't fit something for things like that. It's not a very good state for the tier.

So, what many people have done, including lots of people who laddered for reqs, was just not deal with using a balance/fat and just cheese the ladder with HO. It's effective because you don't have to deal with Garganacle as much (although if you aren't careful it can still beat you if you let it boost). While I am a big fan of HO and think it's fun, and would definitely use it even if Garaganacle was not in the tier, I also like using other playstyles but feel as though I am unable to be creative in the builder with those because of all the dedication I have to give to checking Garganacle (i.e. do I use Hydrapple, or am I gonna have to run Covert Cloak on x mon). On top of all of this, Garganacle is also really lame. I don't think many people enjoy watching or playing Salt Cure battles and maneuvering multiple switches and switch ins and it's going to lead to some incredibly stupid UUPL games if it's still in the tier when UUPL starts which would be just horrendous.

It's possible that after Garg is gone, some of the other stuff becomes easier to check because you don't have to dedicate as much of your team to checking Garg anymore. I feel maybe one or two more things should still go, but it would definitely be easier. Please save UU and ban Garganacle. Otherwise it's going to be a long Spring.

 

[Aqua Jet]

I got reqs finally. I wasn't going to make a post initially because I usually just play w/e the tier is in front of me, but because I am so passionate about how terrible the state of the tier is at the moment I thought I'd chime in some quick thoughts.

At the current moment, SV UU is in an absolutely abyssmal state. The tier is near impossible to play honestly and even lots of the people who got reqs just gave up on using an honest team and cheesed the hell out of it (for example I used a Webs + Screens team, was pretty epic). I think it's easy to look at things in a fairly close-minded way and say Garganacle is not broken and thus should not be banned, but I strongly feel you need to take the health of the tier into account and right now it's not good - stuff has to go, and Garganacle is first on the list. I'll be voting ban.

To elaborate further, there's just way too many things you have to account for at the moment in SV UU. Latios, Galarian-Moltres, Iron Crown, and Garganacle are in my opinion the four stand-alone things that require you to specifically prep for, and Garganacle requires the most unreasonable prep to do so. The only mon that beats it by itself is Reuniclus, which is a very bad mon and, as you can see from the mini list I gave, helps you with absolutely none of those other three and makes you more vulnerable. Hydrapple is ok I suppose, but you will usually have to commit your tera with it to fully stop Garg, as if you come in as it gets to +2 with Iron Defense you may not beat it 1v1. Some weird Tera Ghost Ribombee with Shield Dust I guess could also beat it, but now we are getting into crazy territory. So, there's only two mons that can reasonably beat it without requiring you to configure the rest of your team to check Garg, ok. The other way to beat it (besides blasting it with pure offense and hoping for the best) requires you to use a really stupid item in Covert Cloak that, despite what others make it out to seem, would never be used if Garg wasn't in the tier. Yeah it obviously has its uses outside of stopping Garg, but you can say that about lots of unused items like pinch berries, resist berries, room service? etc. They all have uses but they're not really used because they're just not good. Covert Cloak is not good. It's an item Game Freak conveniently created in the same game that Garganacle was introduced (weird right?). We shouldn't be forced to run Covert Cloak just to deal with this mon. But that is unfortunately the only way to really deal with it on a fat/balance team. Basically, after you have done all of this, you don't have as much wiggle room for your team to check the other big threats now. And even if you can manage to make a balance team that checks Garg, Latios, GMolt, and Iron Crown (it's possible), now you probably don't have room for any blanket checks for weird off-meta stuff, so you are going to lose to that Draining Kiss Milotic because your team is so tightly put together for all of the huge threats that you just couldn't fit something for things like that. It's not a very good state for the tier.

So, what many people have done, including lots of people who laddered for reqs, was just not deal with using a balance/fat and just cheese the ladder with HO. It's effective because you don't have to deal with Garganacle as much (although if you aren't careful it can still beat you if you let it boost). While I am a big fan of HO and think it's fun, and would definitely use it even if Garaganacle was not in the tier, I also like using other playstyles but feel as though I am unable to be creative in the builder with those because of all the dedication I have to give to checking Garganacle (i.e. do I use Hydrapple, or am I gonna have to run Covert Cloak on x mon). On top of all of this, Garganacle is also really lame. I don't think many people enjoy watching or playing Salt Cure battles and maneuvering multiple switches and switch ins and it's going to lead to some incredibly stupid UUPL games if it's still in the tier when UUPL starts which would be just horrendous.

It's possible that after Garg is gone, some of the other stuff becomes easier to check because you don't have to dedicate as much of your team to checking Garg anymore. I feel maybe one or two more things should still go, but it would definitely be easier. Please save UU and ban Garganacle. Otherwise it's going to be a long Spring.

you know when bfm wants to ban something its broken

 

[romanji]

Post isn’t gonna be very long or organized, but this seems like a pretty easy ban for me. Salt Cure is simply an over the top move that shouldn’t even exist. Forcing either defensive tera to not take 25% chip, which in turn makes it weaker to the other mons said terastalized mon was supposed to check, is not healthy at all. Curse EQ sets haven’t been talked about much either, but those can also break through keld and most importantly reuniclus very easily, which was the point of then running that set/mon. Cloak in theory does help vs other random stuff like Luster Purge drops, Fiery Wrath/Jirachi flinches, Sludge Bomb poisons, and Scald burns, but in play, the mons that check it already have ways of bypassing due to their bulk, typing, or utility.