Gotta say, playing around on the ladder post Lando-T ban has been a real blast. I have praise the leadership on seeing the strain Lando-T put on teambuilding. Pre-suspect I probably would've voted no ban, but after considering points brought up in this thread and making an extra effort to consider how Landorus-T effects teambuilding, especially for balance, I'm certain the right call was made.
I took a look at the suspect archieve and noticed Deoxys-S was suspected with a slim majority (65%). Apparently this was because of abusing Pidgeotite with, I assume, Zap Cannon/Thunder, Blizzard, Hazards and Hypnosis. Totally agree with that. However, a month later Pidgeotite was banned too. I was wondering if anyone in the community, and if I'm lucky, the council could explain their reasoning behind not unbanning Deoxys-S in the wake of its strongest set being scourged from the meta.
It's certainly still viable as the lead set almost gurantees hazards, but that's certainly not broken as suicide leads has the opportunity cost of forgoing an entire team slot in exchange for nearly guranteed hazards (Rapid spinners and Banettite-Taunters have a decent shot of removing rocks and taking Deo-S down). Even then Pdon is one of the best rockers in the metagame too since it doesnt really need mold breaker to go through magic bouncers thanks to its sheer power.
With its best set gone, and being banned with a slim majority, would the council consider a quick-unban?
Sorry for being late to this, but I kinda forgot to put something on the thread after the discussion we had later that night on showdown. This was something that had also been discussed on the mnm cord following the pidgeotite ban, reaching the consensus that the meta was simply better off without a lead as effective as Deo-s. We all know that Deo-S is capable of guaranteeing at least one hazard in practically any matchup, so I won't speak much of it, but instead I'll give my own thoughts on why we shouldn't reintroduce Deo-S.
1. Deo-S can set two hazards fairly easily against bulkier builds
The combination of Mold Breaker, Taunt, and decent bulk lead to Deo-S being able to claim two hazards against nearly any bulky team. This is very dangerous as it amplifies the effectiveness of every strong offensive threat in the meta, whilst making it very hard to actually use mons that would otherwise be counters against the threats they're supposed to beat. For example, take the situation of Sablenite Buzzwole switching into Metagrossite Kartana; normally it would answer Kartana pretty comfortably, taking around 60 percent from a boosted Smart Strike and retaliating with an OHKO from Superpower. However, when Stealth Rock and one layer of Spikes are up this becomes much more strained, as one successful double switch from the Kartana user will leave the Buzzwole forced out at 75 percent and then coming back in at 50 percent, which is in range of +2 Smart Strike. Mons that fit well on offense builds for other reasons such as being fast and resisting atespeed, or being fairly bulky, are now also able to break down bulky cores with ease, making teambuilding much easier for the HO user and much more difficult for anyone trying to defensively check mons.
2. Deo-S is the only lead in the meta without large drawbacks when trying to get rocks up (outside of being a suicide lead)
Thanks to Deo-S' fantastic speed tier, it's able to dodge Taunt unlike other leads such as Shuckle and Deo-D. The closest replacement to Deo-S' ability to get up Stealth Rock and Spikes sometimes is Deo-D, which has notable drawbacks in speed tier, leading to an easier time taunting it and also making it easy to set up on (especially when running magic coat in an attempt to deal with the first problem). Teams featuring Deo-D have to go out of their way to account for this, which decreases the effectiveness of supporting mons and makes it harder to use them successfully. Once again this points to Deo-S having more freedom in the builder whilst also unlocking the potential of dangerous offensive threats.
3. Deo-S could get up two hazards against nearly any build with the correct 50/50 predictions
This argument falls more on the uncompetitive side, which I'm normally not a fan of arguing, but as i've explained in the first two points Deo-S is friendly enough to teambuilding to make this is worth considering. One of the things I noticed myself when playing with Deo-S HO builds in the meta was that if Deo-S was delayed a couple turns it could put itself in a matchup where it can live a hit and therefore get two hazards. Additionally, when fighting against Deo-S builds you're playing a guessing game before turn 1, as there's a limited amount of threats that can stop Deo-S getting two hazards and therefore there's pretty much always a counter-lead to the counter-lead (for lack of a better way to say this). Normally, the ability for an HO lead to do this would be counteracted by the fact that HO generally doesn't possess the bulk to make those maneuvers early game - it comes at a cost of momentum that isn't worth it for the playstyle. However, M&M as a metagame has always been home to HO picks with a surprising amount of defensive utility, and given that there's only a few mons that can limit Deo-S to one hazard in the first place, it's not too much to ask to find a switchin for them. For example, Groudon-Primal + Kartana covers Altarianite espeeders and Sablenite Magearna, whilst providing two cleaners and still maintaining pressure on Defoggers. On top of this, M&M has access to other bulky picks such as Pinsirite Magearna, Lunala and to an extent Altarianite Zygarde. It's not uncommon for Deo-S to manage two hazards without much cost other than the one mon trade, and imo whenever it does get that return, it's worth it, as even in the event that they get removed, at this level of power in the metagame that almost always involves sacrificing the Defogger anyway.
Also to address a couple other things - I really don't think much can be drawn from the direction of discussion in the Deo-S suspect test; the discussion was always likely to be geared towards Pidgeotite primarily, since it had the capability to sweep teams itself, as well as the ever so important hax element that most people dislike (Zap Cannon was also a topic brought up in that thread). Banettite as a stone is already barely relevant, and Banettite taunters just arent a concept that would work well in any area other than counter-leading Deo-S. A similar thing applies to Rapid Spinners, although there is at least one viable user in Excadrill (I suppose Cloyster exists, but it's also destroyed by Psycho Boost).
TLDR; M&M has a bunch of threats that could easily be tipped over the edge when placed on Gyara Deo-S HO teams, and in return Deo-S' contributions to the metagame boil down to removing skill elements in both teambuilding and playing in favour of matchup luck and 50/50s. For this reason I think that reintroducing Deo-S to the metagame is a bad idea.