CorruptedOmega
Banned deucer.
I think you've misinterpreted my post. I wasn't trying to prove to everyone that Azumarill should be banned, I was pointing out to others how you just shouldn't vote no ban for Azu because you're upset about the result of the Jirachi suspect. Mostly I was responding to Lohgock 's post a couple before mine. I didn't attempt to prove anything, nor am I going to attempt to, because honestly I don't have a lot to contribute that hasn't been said already. I think Dawgie put it best when he said:I disagree heavily with this premise. The onus is on you (those proposing a change to sq) to prove that Azu is a problem in the current meta, whether that be in combination with Jirachi or not. You certainly cannot start your post with this as an underlying accepted assumption, or we should just get rid of the suspect ladder and the suspect thread and just ban it.
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The main issue I take with pro-ban is that you've got two mons that are pretty much consistently top 6 usage, LandoT and Heatran, and these threats are like beyond Azu setup-bait, but you're trying to say Azu is an oppressive threat... Why are the two threats that Azu consistently beats extremely well still really high usage even though Azu is "banworthy"? These two facts don't add up.
Like if you really think Azumarill is an oppressive ban-worthy threat why are you not using that new mon released a couple months ago that literally beats the core that everyone is saying is broken? There are ways to adapt to an Azu meta.
Also idrc if you're going to say "people have to run haze Volcanion, Checkmater, Azu is so opressive" because that contributes literally nothing to the discussion at hand and quite frankly I don't really care what your mother is running. If anything Haze Volcanion exists as proof that there are innovative ways of accounting for Azu in teambuilding. It would be a much different story if Haze Volcanion was standard, or even somewhere close to 10% usage, but it's not. Don't know why we're using teambuilding creativity as a point against Azu.
I've seen countless examples and been in countless games where Azu did nothing, setup and wasn't able to cash in enough momentum, or ended up heavily skewing team-building into some kind of weakness or difficulty finding switchins.
To add to that I'd argue that Azu in itself promotes very skillful play, which should be the main focus of our suspecting process.
I've had some very exciting and intense games both using and against Azu where I have to think like 4 turns in advance, ask myself "can I lose Aegis here and then be able to clear this Azu with my next switchin? Can I afford to double-target to guarantee that I get this Azu kill after it just protected or do I have to risk protecting one of my mons because I won't be able to win otherwise? If I do that which is is my opp more likely to target? What is their thought process going into this turn?" Azu in itself promotes very skillful play, and while it might be frustrating to end up having your own Hydreigon+Heatran out while your opp whips out Azu+Kangaskhan or something you should be able to both recover from said situation and also reflect on why you were in that situation in the first place. Maybe if you predict the Fake Out right you can recover properly by switching into a Jirachi on that slot, yada yada. There's always counterplay and options for recovery, even when you find yourself in shitty situations. The game certainly isn't over when Azu gets to setup. There's pressure on both sides, on Azu's opp to recover, and on Azu to play positionally and avoid being punished, while trying to cash in on Azu as much as they can.
As far as archetypes or whatnot go, Azu isn't really an issue for Rain or Sun in my experience, while Full Trick Room isn't really a thing atm (but it is very cool on TR).
Simply put, Azumarill, even when in the back of a team, forces opponents to make certain sub optimal plays, such as having to lead always for azumarill.
Furthermore, when one has led, and not seen Azumarill, they have to be super careful not to lose all of their resources into protecting their team from the likely leads of kang / lando / heatran / thundurus / sleep mon/s / speed control, in order to protect the initial azumarill checks that they were forced to lead with.
Generally, people aren't taking into account, that the azumarill player is allowed to think too! They know how you intend to stop their set up, and as a result will just play for a free turn to get azumarill in, as I illustrated in some VR tiering posts. even when teams have all these checks, such as amoongus / bulky zard + zapdos, it's super important to note that the azumarill team has the benefit often of fake out support and redirection to just dodge these problems.
In terms of win conditions, with azumarill in the back, the opponent has to literally play the WHOLE GAME, with the intention of not letting azumarill get in for free, or the game is over, I'm not convinced this is healthy for the tier whatsoever.