Announcement np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 5 - King's Dead

[Hot N Cold]

If Kingambit doesn't get banned, nothing will get banned at this point lol because nothing else is near as broken as Kingambit (maybe Valiant?)

requires to overprepare in order to win, requieres multiple Dark resist (including defensive Tera on your side to trade it as backup i.e Fight Tera Zapdos with Tera Blast), requires solid checks not only to regular Kingambit but against common Tera gambit types like Fairy Tera Ice Shard Baxcalibur or Fairy Tera Subtitute Enamorus. I can't think of any other mon that requires to prepare that much, outside of Iron Valiant.

The problem with Kingambit is the combination Supreme Overlord + priority + good bulk along Tera because you only requires to lose your weakness to Fight, Fire and Ground types, so you can tank most neutral hits and then get a +2 boost in late game and sweep, not only requires checks & counter in a traditional way but also a solid late game plan in order to not auto lose versus opposite Kingambit, similar to Last Respects Houndstone, rewards you for losing.

I don't think Terastallization is getting suspected anytime soon if this Kingambit suspect is happening now.

 

[awyp]

If Kingambit doesn't get banned, nothing will get banned at this point lol because nothing else is near as broken as Kingambit (maybe Valiant?)

requires to overprepare in order to win, requieres multiple Dark resist (including defensive Tera on your side to trade it as backup i.e Fight Tera Zapdos with Tera Blast), requires solid checks not only to regular Kingambit but against common Tera gambit types like Fairy Tera Ice Shard Baxcalibur or Fairy Tera Subtitute Enamorus. I can't think of any other mon that requires to prepare that much, outside of Iron Valiant.

The problem with Kingambit is the combination Supreme Overlord + priority + good bulk along Tera because you only requires to lose your weakness to Fight, Fire and Ground types, so you can tank most neutral hits and then get a +2 boost in late game and sweep, not only requires checks & counter in a traditional way but also a solid late game plan in order to not auto lose versus opposite Kingambit, similar to Last Respects Houndstone, rewards you for losing.

I don't think Terastallization is getting suspected anytime soon if this Kingambit suspect is happening now.

I don't think Kingambit will get banned (is my assumption), if anything we need to unban Volc on a retest and maybe consider suspecting Gholdengo next. Gholdengo is extremely polarizing since it almost invalidates most teams rapid spinners with Air-Balloon and forces a lot of teams to run Court Change. Spike stacking becomes almost impossible to stop, Defog is essentially useless (unless you're running Mold Breaker Hawlucha). Most Defog mons can't really touch Gholdengo unless they decide to Tera Blast novelty. For example most thing Corviknight does it U-Turn out.

 

[teal6]

Laddering for the suspect didn't teach me anything I didn't already know. Gambit is insanely good, but I have no fuckin idea if I should vote to ban it or not. I might just abstain and let you all figure it out

 

[Akijuen]

Kingambit is broken due to how well it abuses tera. Due to its many tera options teambuilding to check every Gambit is nearely impossible and if your check to Gambit dies it can oftentimes easily reverse sweep your entire team without too much difficulty and it forces a lot of 50/50s thanks to the sucker punch. Gambit will always be broken as long as tera is legal.

However, the question is if we ban Gambit will already good ghost mons like Dragapult or Gholdengo become even better thanks to them losing one of their main checks to them spamming their stabs.

Ultimately, OU is a mess RN and Gambit is broken but we might need to keep him in OU to check other potentially problematic mons.

 

[Archer Kirby]

I think this has been said to death but broken should not check broken.

If Gambit is banned and other threats rise up, they get suspects and/or banned. I wouldn't vote DNB with that logic. If Pult and Ghold become more oppressive then we can expect they'll be looked into later.

 

[Ctann]

If Kingambit doesn't get banned, nothing will get banned at this point lol because nothing else is near as broken as Kingambit (maybe Valiant?)

requires to overprepare in order to win, requieres multiple Dark resist (including defensive Tera on your side to trade it as backup i.e Fight Tera Zapdos with Tera Blast), requires solid checks not only to regular Kingambit but against common Tera gambit types like Fairy Tera Ice Shard Baxcalibur or Fairy Tera Subtitute Enamorus. I can't think of any other mon that requires to prepare that much, outside of Iron Valiant.

The problem with Kingambit is the combination Supreme Overlord + priority + good bulk along Tera because you only requires to lose your weakness to Fight, Fire and Ground types, so you can tank most neutral hits and then get a +2 boost in late game and sweep, not only requires checks & counter in a traditional way but also a solid late game plan in order to not auto lose versus opposite Kingambit, similar to Last Respects Houndstone, rewards you for losing.

I don't think Terastallization is getting suspected anytime soon if this Kingambit suspect is happening now.

this.

we haven’t needed this level of preparedness for a long time. At least when you take out obvious OP Pokémon like magearna and Tera-eleki.

NME kyurem was right on the cusp as well, and it barely needed to be “prepared for” like gambit needs to be prepared for. Heck, people - and by people I mean finchinator - used replays to show kyurem was broken - and by replays, I mean tour replays - , but they were using teams where 5 out of 6 pokemons were weak to either ice beam or earth power, and the neutral one was Weavile (2 switch ins max). LOL. This was valid evidence why people thought kyurem was OP at the time…!

in contrast, we have replays of gambit breaking through teams that are designed specifically to deal with it.

currently people are stacking teams carefully crafted to deal with kingambit, and then occasionally losing to it anyway… and that’s simply because the traditional way of stacking checks doesn’t work against gambit [in a Tera meta, without mag, urshifu, zam-c, etc].

Here is a free tip to anyone playing gambit against teams that stack some combination of encore/wisp/substitute/status and check1/2/3/4:

use gambit more in the mid game, with 2-4 supreme overlord boosts. You’ll get significantly more mileage and appreciate why it’s too difficult to deal with. It also gives you switch out opportunities to take advantage of valiant wasting an encore turn, etc.

gambit doesn’t need to be the last Pokémon standing to be broken, it’s more than capable of being OP well before that too.

-

In the simplest language:

against the previously determined OP, NME kyurem, you could use anything from offensive pressure, to a simple Volcarona/blissey, to AV + DIB Melmetal with your rotom-w (rotom got setup on, so you force it out with the DIB after you switch out of its substitute). Meanwhile, Kyurem was determined to put too much pressure on the team builder.

Against the incumbent king of OU, Kingambit, you don’t have anything that can simply blanket it, there’s no equivalent to Volcarona/blissey (maybe dondozo if it had slack off ), there’s no equivalent to switching out if it’s setup and “forcing it out”, etc. you need a combination of many different ways of checking it, and this often results in you losing 3 bodies to 1 kingambit. Pretty good trade, objectively. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of people still on the fence if Kingambit is putting too much pressure on the team builder.

I think everyone low key knows kingambit is OP in Tera meta, even people with DNB opinions. It’s just that they’re okay with its dominance, lol. Can’t blame them, kingambit is fun otherwise.

 

[WildWave]

I don't think Kingambit will get banned (is my assumption), if anything we need to unban Volc on a retest and maybe consider suspecting Gholdengo next. Gholdengo is extremely polarizing since it almost invalidates most teams rapid spinners with Air-Balloon and forces a lot of teams to run Court Change. Spike stacking becomes almost impossible to stop, Defog is essentially useless (unless you're running Mold Breaker Hawlucha). Most Defog mons can't really touch Gholdengo unless they decide to Tera Blast novelty. For example most thing Corviknight does it U-Turn out.

I think Kingambit should be banned and I'll go into a more in-depth post later on in the week. You do bring up valid points on Gholdengo (which is why I'm making this post). But let's not pretend that doesn't contribute to the problem in this scenario as well. I am now convinced that Ceaseless Edge is the best move in the game, in a category of it's own in that matter. It's literally a no draw back play. Even going into a resist it's still applying pressure in the long run with Spike stacks. It's basically a lose-lose situation. I view Samurott-H more of an nuisance than .

 

[Alternator]

I don't think Kingambit will get banned (is my assumption), if anything we need to unban Volc on a retest and maybe consider suspecting Gholdengo next. Gholdengo is extremely polarizing since it almost invalidates most teams rapid spinners with Air-Balloon and forces a lot of teams to run Court Change. Spike stacking becomes almost impossible to stop, Defog is essentially useless (unless you're running Mold Breaker Hawlucha). Most Defog mons can't really touch Gholdengo unless they decide to Tera Blast novelty. For example most thing Corviknight does it U-Turn out.

Not being sarcastic here, but what are all these potentially viable defoggers in OU that are being kept down by Gholdengo? Corviknight, yes, absolutely. Who else?

 

[power]

Laddering for the suspect didn't teach me anything I didn't already know. Gambit is insanely good, but I have no fuckin idea if I should vote to ban it or not. I might just abstain and let you all figure it out

I think this is a fundamental problem with newer suspects because we don't remove the suspected element from the suspect ladder.

I don't know why we changed from the old system but it's really difficult to figure out whether a borderline metagame element is unhealthy to the point of being banworthy without actually observing the post-ban metagame and seeing whether it was stifling creativity and forcing overly specific checks / team structures to deal with it.

 

[Floatstonemafia]

Not being sarcastic here, but what are all these potentially viable defoggers in OU that are being kept down by Gholdengo? Corviknight, yes, absolutely. Who else?

Worth noting that Corviknight is literally the only OU mon by tiering that gets defog. So technically yes, Gholdengo trumps 100% of defoggers in OU.

Pedantry aside, just assuming that anything in UU can fit into the right OU team :

Corviknight yes

Liligant-Hitsui yes

Braviary-Hitsui yes

Both Decidueye variants - yes

Hawlucha - doesn't stop it from defogging but beats it otherwise

Noivern - no

Scizor - If it opted into a dark coverage move, then no, Otherwise yes (and defog + dark coverage is not a common combination).

Talonflame - Hell no.

Driftblim - Yes (yes I know it's NU, but you see it some on stall as a ursaluna counter).

Now the issue is that most of them are fringe viable at best with Gholdengo not being the reason why it's fringe, so take it as you will. But Gholdengo does jack up 6.5/10 defoggers that might be worth playing (with the .5 being hawlucha which again it can't stop from defogging and switching but overall loses to it).

 

[JunkoAJ]

I think this is a fundamental problem with newer suspects because we don't remove the suspected element from the suspect ladder.

I don't know why we changed from the old system but it's really difficult to figure out whether a borderline metagame element is unhealthy to the point of being banworthy without actually observing the post-ban metagame and seeing whether it was stifling creativity and forcing overly specific checks / team structures to deal with it.

I think (as members of the council have said before as to why there isn't a No Tera ladder) the reason is because the point of the suspect is to test if the mon or mechanic is broken and overwhelming in the current meta, not to see if the meta would be better without it because supposedly that's bordering on theory.

 

[UnfortunateSal]

I don't think Kingambit will get banned (is my assumption), if anything we need to unban Volc on a retest and maybe consider suspecting Gholdengo next. Gholdengo is extremely polarizing since it almost invalidates most teams rapid spinners with Air-Balloon and forces a lot of teams to run Court Change. Spike stacking becomes almost impossible to stop, Defog is essentially useless (unless you're running Mold Breaker Hawlucha). Most Defog mons can't really touch Gholdengo unless they decide to Tera Blast novelty. For example most thing Corviknight does it U-Turn out.

I really gotta disagree with the notion that Gholdengo is the most problematic thing in OU right now. The problem is pretty clearly the lack of good hazard removal availible, even with Gholdengo gone we only have one good defogger, one and a half good spinners, and Court Change which comes with its own problem of only being effective against Spikes teams. Gholdengo can't switch in on Tusk reliably more than once, so it isn't a great answer in the long term all things considered, and if all you need is one switch into Tusk, you can just use Pult since the vast majority of Tusk aren't offensive and Pult can always take a hit from no attack invested Tusk.

Honestly, I feel like Kingambit makes hazard stacking way more of a problem than Gholdengo, specifically because Kingambit absolutely requires you keep Great Tusk as healthy as possible for the endgame. This means that switching Great Tusk in midgame to get a spin off becomes a really risky proposition. I have genuinely seen people argue that they just need to keep Great Tusk healthy for the endgame to deal with Kingambit, but that seems so unreasonable given how much Great Tusk has to carry per battle. From experience many teams wish they could run an offensive set on Tusk, but can't because of they do, they get rolled by lategame Kingambit. And even if your Great Tusk is max / max defense, it's so, so much more limited in what it can afford to do vs Gambit teams than vs non-Gambit teams, especially with Spikes support,

What makes Kingambit broken, imo, is the amount of restraint it puts on teambuilding combined with the immense preassure it puts on the opponent, even if they come prepared for it. Anything that veers outside of generally accepted teambuilds tend to get ruined by Kingambit, and it still does way, way too well against meta teams. Gambit puts so much strain on the metagame as a whole, and if we want a metagame that's actually balanced and fun, the first thing we need to do is get rid of it imo

 

[matte]

Okay so, I think everybody and their mother has now complained about the song, so let's just put some music for the moment

Okay so the kingambit suspect, so let's get out of the way first, I'm one of the worst players of all time so probably won't get reqs, but I would love to vote DO NOT BAN because this helps chesnaught's viability, but luckily for me, there are arguments to be made, so let's see what we got

1) its variations are a bit, overexaggerated, the general gambit set has always SD, Kowtow and Sucker Punch, most of them take Iron Head out for something else, and only very few people drop kowtow, these moves are generally either low kick, tera blast with tera flying or fairy being the flavors. Moving to the tera, the most common one is flying, which can be used anywhere, but fairy, ghost and fire are common in bulky gambits, while dark is cool on offensive gambits. While this in paper sounds a lot, you need to take into an account that Kingambit´sets look like this

Kingambit @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Lum Berry / Black Glasses
Ability: Supreme Overlord
Tera Type: Flying / Dark / Fire / Fairy
EVs: 112 HP / 252 Atk / 144 Spe (HP and Speed always varies, max attack always goes and most of the time adamant is the preferred nature, only very few gambits run jolly)
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Iron Head / Low Kick / Tera Blast
- Kowtow Cleave
- Sucker Punch

With this, and some scouting, you can pinpoint the most possible set for the occasion, he has some options, but you can see that is between the laws of manageable

2) the list of mons that have a natural good matchup against kingambit is big, he has so many checks that no set can counter all of them. thus, I have collected all the mons that can do something against kingambit in some sort of fashion


Going Alphabetically:

Bulky sets can burn it, offensive sets Pyro ball it to the ground, it even has low kick, HJK and sucker punch to really fuck the gambit

he is the absolute best kingambit counter nothing comes to it, only tera flying tera blast, and tera steel iron defense, and where is your god now uh? The best Pokémon in the game, god tier S+++, the entire metagame in shambles

Corviknight needs Iron Defense to check gambit, but Iron defense Body press wins against all barring Ghost gambit

The best check for defensive teams, can only be somewhat threatened with 3 supreme overlord boost and that's a big if, Curse donzo just outright laughs at it

Can brawl long term with roost and encore, stalls SP with Extreme Speed, can lose to SD Kowtow or Low kick if careless

loses hard to iron head, but pivots into dark nicely and forces it out with Mystical Fire/Earth Power

doesn't pack recovery, but most gambit moves are contact, therefore, tankchomp will punish it hard, run scarf and attack to be honest

gambit doesn't want to switch into it directly due to salt cure, always loses to Iron head if it is fairy garg, always wins if it is water garg, curse and iron defense helps a lot

Can trick a choice item and focus blast it or tera fighting tera blast, but most of the time kingambit wins the matchup

is the most common kingambit check. It stops early game gambit entirely and stops it forever if the gambit user wasted the tera on other mon. gambit can only beat tusk if he has supreme overlord boost and or sd and tera flying/fairy tera blast, and even the first one can fail if tusk is packing Ice Spinner. And both sets lose to BU tusk

Magma storm, taunt to deny sd and earth power, can lose if +3 Supreme overlord AND +2 from SD

Can naturally tank a lot of hits from kingambit and force him to tera, loses to tera fairy tera blast

varies from set to set, but boosted Moonblast, Close Combat, Destiny Bond, Encore, Thunderbolt, Spirit Break, Aura Sphere, can lose if Valiant can't put good numbers and gets popped by an iron head or an unsuspecting tera blast

Kingambit vs Kingambit matchup is the current equivalent of melee fox or Lando vs Lando, you could be running offensive iron head vs bulky tera fairy, or tera fire low kick vs tera flying offensive, and so on and so forth, the most dangerous ones are when both are fast gambit with low kick, some people have become paranoid to the point of running jolly, which is otherwise a dogshit monetary decision, just for this matchup

Intimidates it and quakeedge will always work against gambit

Some people have run Low Kick on scarf sets for it as a cool trick, its an offensive frail check that can tank dark moves, but anything else kills it

and (for this specific case both are pretty similar) flame body fishing + wow, you can also take a direct approach and flamethrower the bitch

Can either burn it with wow or para with twave, can win if it is physically defensive, specially defensive has it rough

with no tera involved, will always win with CC, with tera involved, can potentially hax kingambit with dire claw

252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ting-Lu: 364-430 (70.8 - 83.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery bro wtf lmaoo, and tera poison just fucks this btw

scald I mean uh flamethrower I mean uh eruption I mean uh scald scald scald scald

dog, same strategy as tusk

static fishing + heat wave, +3 Supreme overlord AND +2 from SD can do the trick

Some of these mons are the best in the metagame, you will always have at worst 2 checks on a team

3) There's also specific moves that can check it, Encore lock into swords dance or sucker punch will either force him out or pp stall him. You can also use Substitute to eat sucker punch predicts or pp stall them further with a boosting move. Trick ruins it, Wisp neutralizes a good portion of the supreme overlord boost, and even with lum berry, you can just do it again

So to conclude, it is centralizing, but the amount of things you can bring against this thing makes it possible for all team styles to handle it in some form or capacity, and kingambit will ALWAYS lose to something. To finalize this argument and post, I want to really steel man the argument by posting a cute bunny video, look at this baby, she just won a tournament game with kingambit, and kingambit is her favorite mon, you don't wanna make this bunny sad right?

lmao the chesnaught bias is funny

 

[UnfortunateSal]

don't open this if you're 1LDK

+2 252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Iron Head vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Chesnaught: 277-327 (73 - 86.2%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes

 

[June Heat]

So.... uh.....

| 2 | Kingambit | 46.043% |

we gonna talk about this? Is this actually healthy and totally fine for the tier's best setup sweeper to have nearly 50% usage? To have almost the same usage as Mr Role Compression, Great Tusk, himself? I'm not going to pretend like I'm an expert at reading these types of stats, and what they could possibly mean. It's just, kinda head tilting is all I'm saying.

 

[KamenOH]

So.... uh.....

| 2 | Kingambit | 46.043% |

we gonna talk about this? Is this actually healthy and totally fine for the tier's best setup sweeper to have nearly 50% usage? To have almost the same usage as Mr Role Compression, Great Tusk, himself? I'm not going to pretend like I'm an expert at reading these types of stats, and what they could possibly mean. It's just, kinda head tilting is all I'm saying.

Honestly anything with near or actual 50% usage is worrying. If its on half of all teams, its likely overpowered.

 

[658Greninja]

Honestly anything with near or actual 50% usage is worrying. If its on half of all teams, its likely overpowered.

High Usage =/= Broken

Tusk isn’t broken
Lando wasn’t broken
Gen 8 Pre-DLC Clef wasn’t broken
GSC Lax wasn’t broken
ADV Ttar wasn’t broken

If you are gonna make a case for banning Kingambit, try again.

 

[Seanobiwan]

High Usage =/= Broken

Tusk isn’t broken
Lando wasn’t broken
Gen 8 Pre-DLC Clef wasn’t broken
GSC Lax wasn’t broken
ADV Ttar wasn’t broken

If you are gonna make a case for banning Kingambit, try again.

GSC Lax is broken, in the sense that it’s very centralizing and puts a lot of strain on the team builder, and would almost certainly be banned if Gen 2 was released as current gen now.

But I agree high usage doesn’t automatically equal broken, it’s more of just a potential warning sign.

 

[Lily]

Usually stuff that's so high in usage, at least in modern gens, ends up being the easiest glue to fit on teams. The point behind Gambit's usage is that it's pretty weird for such a high-usage mon to run one singular set (and in particular such a game-ending one). Other high usage mons like Great Tusk, Lando-T, and historically stuff like SS Clef and BW TTar aren't really at such heights off the basis of their setup sets, despite the fact that all of them can run those, and it's rare that the setup sets turn a game around so effortlessly too. This is even reflected in moveset data; Gambit runs SD on over 97% of its sets according to ladder usage, while Great Tusk runs Bulk Up 33% of the time, Gen 8 Clefable runs Calm Mind 15% of the time, etc.

This isn't really me saying that Gambit is broken, I haven't made my mind up on that at all. But what is ultimately most commonly a late-game setup sweeper having 50% usage is definitely cause for concern; typically that does mean it's way above the level of everything else and too good at winning games to drop.

 

[June Heat]

High Usage =/= Broken

Tusk isn’t broken
Lando wasn’t broken
Gen 8 Pre-DLC Clef wasn’t broken
GSC Lax wasn’t broken
ADV Ttar wasn’t broken

If you are gonna make a case for banning Kingambit, try again.

100% agree, but it's just interesting that a Pokemon that has close to no utility get such a high usage rating in OU. Usually you see these usage ratings in severely limited dex's, or when the Pokemon has a lot of utility in its kit that gives way to role compression. Right now we see that with Great Tusk. Being the only real reliable form of hazard control in the tier, and access to Knock Off, Stealth Rock, Taunt, Bulk Up alongside immense physical bulk allows Great Tusk to fit any role from Hazard Setter/Cleaner to Pure Tank to Set Up Sweeper. A true definition of a glue mon.

Kingambit on the other hand doesn't provide anything like that. Even with access to Rocks/Twave/Taunt no one uses bulky support Gambit sets because Set Up Gambit is just so much better. So when you put Gambit on your team it really is just because it's the single best late game mon in the tier. I guess you could argue it provides a host of resists most stand out being Ghost. Though there are plenty of Pokemon in the tier that can handle the Ghosts of the tier, and people are using Gambit solely because it's the best sweeper in the game currently.

 

[Ctann]

Why use gambit defensively to check something, when you can simply use it offensively and win the game.

 

[AK]

ant4456 Just wanted to say you are spot on about absolutely everything.

I’ve gotten reqs and intend to vote ban, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more centralizing mon than gambit. While there are some obvious benefits to Kingambit in the tier, I just dont think it’s enough to justify keeping it in. You’re allowed to be absolutely awful and still 1v9 in the end with gambit which embodies non-competition, and won’t even talk about how restricting it also is for team building. Get it out of here

 

[Baloor]

ant4456
While there are some obvious benefits to Kingambit in the tier, I just dont think it’s enough to justify keeping it in. You’re allowed to be absolutely awful and still 1v9 in the end with gambit and to me that’s absolutely uncompetitive, won’t even get into how restricting it also for team building. Get it out of here

I’ve already made a post of my thoughts but just wanted to comment that this is probably the best TLDR you can give on the ban side and summarizing all my thoughts. Like Lily said, a late game with near 50% usage is definitely very concerning and that’s not mentioning how restrictive it is on building. The fact of the matter is, making progress and winning with Gambit is way too easy and its doesn’t exactly promote skillful play. It’s incredibly reflective in this months usage stats and this weeks OLT laddering, dealing with the repercussions of banning such a centralizing mon is likely better long term health of the tier.

 

[ant4456]

High Usage =/= Broken

Tusk isn’t broken
Lando wasn’t broken
Gen 8 Pre-DLC Clef wasn’t broken
GSC Lax wasn’t broken
ADV Ttar wasn’t broken

If you are gonna make a case for banning Kingambit, try again.

speaking of usage I've made an interesting discovery I'd like to talk about here, and it isn't just about the suspect in question, it's Great Tusk!

We all know Great Tusk, right? Great Pokemon, not overbearing, Rapid Spinner that loses to tbe Ghost Types- I mean, hey, great utility!

It's #1 in Usage, and it's obviously because of the great amount of Pokemon it checks. Looki g at the recent tier shift, I put a checkmark next to every Pokemon that Great Tusk can reliably switch into and counter.

As we can see here, Great Tusk is spammed because it has a lot of consistent things it can check. The yellow are Pokemon that don't entirely mind Tusk switching in (Will O Wisp, Spikes + Tera Ghost to block spin and CC, Clodsire)

(Ignore Garg which should be an X Tera sets up lol, and if BU Tusk can at least chip, and Ursaluna which does a lot a lot. Roaring Moon Tera Fly Easy wins. Clod I'd argue Toxic makes it a meh switch.)

The X means that either this Pokemon can win against most Tusk sets (EQ/Knock/Ice/Rapid), or that Tusk cannot reliably switch in. This includes Tera.

Wait a second. That's almost the entire tier. Okay, then what is it switching in on?

Kingambit...............

Oh, but c'mon! Tera makes match-ups barely matter anyways! Let's remove Tera from the equation on both sides and I'm sure Tusk-

Sure, it checks a few of these Pokemon, I guess, but it still cannot switch into the vast majority of the tier. Then, I wonder why en masse people continue to spam this one Pokemon!

it's because kingambit forces it on a shit ton of teams people it's so obvious

Great Tusk is nowhere near a bad Pokemon, that isn't what I'm saying, but the days where Physical Attackers that can't do anything to Great Tusk keep viability is over. It's a great stat check and besides for Kingambit, it's basically just "The Only (Arguably) Good Spinner In The Tier" + Knock Off.

Except for one role which is even more invaluable. "The Only Pokemon That Has Utility And Checks Kingambit"

You could argue it can be tough to switch into Great Tusk, and kind of? Knock can be annoying, Ice Spinner can be annoying, but it's nowhere near overbearing. It's just good because it's a good Pokemon, but depending on set it either loses quicker to Physical Attackers too, or does more damage (only to still probably get Staticed by Zapdos anyways lol)
I think without Kingambit we'd see a much larger rise in Lando T, which can check a lot more Pokemon because of its more middling SpDef allowing it to not die to any uninvested STAB Special Attack. I mean shit, I'd love to have a pivoting Ground-Type with a Ground immunity that checks Pokemon defensively at least once or twice, but I can't fit both on this team, and I have to take a hit from Kingambit and make progress at some point.

Even though a Pokemon like Dondozo does defensively check Kingambit, it needs to Rest and has no Utility. It has to wait until basically every Special Attacker is down to start going for its endgame, and so it's really not enough on the average team that is trying to make more progress first.

I know it's almost certainly controversial to talk shit on the number one usage in the tier, but I really do not have anything against Great Tusk, it's a great Pokemon, but IMO in this meta especially it would be a lot less in usage if not for literally just Kingambit, when basically every Physical Pokemon in the tier has a break Great Tusk plan.

Including Kingambit, which makes this even more funny to me. Kingambit continues to adapt and it and Great Tusk, funnily usually on the same teams no shocker, are in an arm's racd with movepool and Tera to beat the other. Now THAT's funny.

Anywho, when this mon gets DNB at 72% or something and Great Tusk goes back to Tera Steel and Bulk Up to beat Tera Fairy Blast LMK, or maybe that's already happened!

 

[Moyashi]

speaking of usage I've made an interesting discovery I'd like to talk about here, and it isn't just about the suspect in question, it's Great Tusk!

We all know Great Tusk, right? Great Pokemon, not overbearing, Rapid Spinner that loses to tbe Ghost Types- I mean, hey, great utility!

It's #1 in Usage, and it's obviously because of the great amount of Pokemon it checks. Looki g at the recent tier shift, I put a checkmark next to every Pokemon that Great Tusk can reliably switch into and counter.
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As we can see here, Great Tusk is spammed because it has a lot of consistent things it can check. The yellow are Pokemon that don't entirely mind Tusk switching in (Will O Wisp, Spikes + Tera Ghost to block spin and CC, Clodsire)

(Ignore Garg which should be an X Tera sets up lol, and if BU Tusk can at least chip, and Ursaluna which does a lot a lot. Roaring Moon Tera Fly Easy wins. Clod I'd argue Toxic makes it a meh switch.)

The X means that either this Pokemon can win against most Tusk sets (EQ/Knock/Ice/Rapid), or that Tusk cannot reliably switch in. This includes Tera.

Wait a second. That's almost the entire tier. Okay, then what is it switching in on?

Kingambit...............

Oh, but c'mon! Tera makes match-ups barely matter anyways! Let's remove Tera from the equation on both sides and I'm sure Tusk-

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Sure, it checks a few of these Pokemon, I guess, but it still cannot switch into the vast majority of the tier. Then, I wonder why en masse people continue to spam this one Pokemon!

it's because kingambit forces it on a shit ton of teams people it's so obvious

Great Tusk is nowhere near a bad Pokemon, that isn't what I'm saying, but the days where Physical Attackers that can't do anything to Great Tusk keep viability is over. It's a great stat check and besides for Kingambit, it's basically just "The Only (Arguably) Good Spinner In The Tier" + Knock Off.

Except for one role which is even more invaluable. "The Only Pokemon That Has Utility And Checks Kingambit"

You could argue it can be tough to switch into Great Tusk, and kind of? Knock can be annoying, Ice Spinner can be annoying, but it's nowhere near overbearing. It's just good because it's a good Pokemon, but depending on set it either loses quicker to Physical Attackers too, or does more damage (only to still probably get Staticed by Zapdos anyways lol)
I think without Kingambit we'd see a much larger rise in Lando T, which can check a lot more Pokemon because of its more middling SpDef allowing it to not die to any uninvested STAB Special Attack. I mean shit, I'd love to have a pivoting Ground-Type with a Ground immunity that checks Pokemon defensively at least once or twice, but I can't fit both on this team, and I have to take a hit from Kingambit and make progress at some point.

Even though a Pokemon like Dondozo does defensively check Kingambit, it needs to Rest and has no Utility. It has to wait until basically every Special Attacker is down to start going for its endgame, and so it's really not enough on the average team that is trying to make more progress first.

I know it's almost certainly controversial to talk shit on the number one usage in the tier, but I really do not have anything against Great Tusk, it's a great Pokemon, but IMO in this meta especially it would be a lot less in usage if not for literally just Kingambit, when basically every Physical Pokemon in the tier has a break Great Tusk plan.

Including Kingambit, which makes this even more funny to me. Kingambit continues to adapt and it and Great Tusk, funnily usually on the same teams no shocker, are in an arm's racd with movepool and Tera to beat the other. Now THAT's funny.

Anywho, when this mon gets DNB at 72% or something and Great Tusk goes back to Tera Steel and Bulk Up to beat Tera Fairy Blast LMK, or maybe that's already happened!

Great Tusk is used as much as it is because it's the best form of hazard control in the tier and most splashable, while compressing many roles. Checking Kingambit is part of the role compression and important in its own right. Without Gambit, Tusk will still be high, probably top in usage