np: Doubles OU Stage 5 - Little Bunny Foo Foo | Gravity + Sleep Ban will Allow Spore!

[CorruptedOmega]

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).

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:

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.

 

[Checkmater]

"I think you've misinterpreted my post."
No, you literally put "Azu+Jirachi is undeniably a problem" in your post.

I get that your post was mainly about "If you think Azu+Jirachi is a problem then vote ban on Azu" but the phrase literally assumed that Azu+Jirachi was a problem. I don't think it's a problem and I've very specifically detailed my reasoning both in response and in the past, so clearly this assumption isn't valid.

I also don't mean to harp on this too much but you could have easily said "oh yeah I meant to put the word 'if' into that sentence" or "yeah oops typo but yeah I meant that if you think that Jirachi+Azu is a problem you can't go back to Jirachi suspect" or w/e. It's not a misinterpretation, I just think you didn't quite put what you meant to put into words properly, and I was pointing that out.



Azu functions just like any other offensive attacker: you have to play around it while it's in the back. This is true of any kind of threat from Gardevoir to Sylveon to Char Y to Kangaskhan to Heatran to Aegislash to Keldeo etc. You have to ask yourself "do I have switchins? can I afford to lose my X here or do I have to switch it out to deal with Garde later?". If it's in the back you have to account for it in your decision-making. Also Fake Out and Redirection don't let you just spontaneously ignore/dodge the issue of dealing with stuff like Char Y.

 

[StarChar]

When do we vote on this?

 

[Dawg]

"I think you've misinterpreted my post."
No, you literally put "Azu+Jirachi is undeniably a problem" in your post.

Azu functions just like any other offensive attacker: you have to play around it while it's in the back. This is true of any kind of threat from Gardevoir to Sylveon to Char Y to Kangaskhan to Heatran to Aegislash to Keldeo etc. You have to ask yourself "do I have switchins? can I afford to lose my X here or do I have to switch it out to deal with Garde later?". If it's in the back you have to account for it in your decision-making. Also Fake Out and Redirection don't let you just spontaneously ignore/dodge the issue of dealing with stuff like Char Y.

This in itself is obvious, however Azumarill causes a lot tougher decision making, when you make a decision based on other offensive threats, you might lose 1 MAYBE 2 mons as a result of incorrectly playing for it in the late game. Not actively playing for azumarill, ends the game.

 

[Matt]

Has anyone used Haze Milotic as an Azu check?

+6 252+ Atk Huge Power Azumarill Aqua Jet vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Milotic: 132-156 (33.5 - 39.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Milotic outspeeds it and can stick around for a while with Recover.

I have to admit that n1n1 has a point, people aren't actually searching for "unorthodox" strats to deal with Azu, they seem to be expecting normal teams + stellar prediction to be all they need. Haze Milotic isn't a gimmick and checks it very nicely but I've never seen it once.

 

[Dawg]

Has anyone used Haze Milotic as an Azu check?

+6 252+ Atk Huge Power Azumarill Aqua Jet vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Milotic: 132-156 (33.5 - 39.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Milotic outspeeds it and can stick around for a while with Recover.

I have to admit that n1n1 has a point, people aren't actually searching for "unorthodox" strats to deal with Azu, they seem to be expecting normal teams + stellar prediction to be all they need. Haze Milotic isn't a gimmick and checks it very nicely but I've never seen it once.

If you play with "unorthodox" or even random pokemon that n1n1 suggests, other matchups are severely compromised. This huge compromisation of basic matchups, because of silly checks, is probably a fairly relevant sign of an unhealthy pokemon.

 

[Matt]

That's true, but I don't think Haze on Milotic, Volcanion and Politoed is actually silly. If you're running Volcanion already, are your other matchups severely compromised by having Haze in the last slot? Like you're gonna lose if your opponent doesn't bring Azu? I don't think so, and it might be the case that people are overreacting if they're considering banning this thing while not even considering using Haze.

 

[Dawg]

I think if Haze HAS to be one of the best answers to azu, we might have a fairly large problem on our hands. It's worth mentioning that all of the hazing mons that you've mentioned will faint to a double target from:
Kang + Azu
thundurus + Azu (as well as a super safe taunt if this ever picked up lol) - dont take that as a joke, taunting crobat to stop this is ridiculously common in vgc 16, in regard to its relationship with xerneas.

 

[Matt]

Haze is probably the best answer to Azu, yeah, but consider this:

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.

When Volcanion/Politoed/Milotic are in the back of a team, Azumarill has to think twice about using Belly Drum because it's quite easy for those mons to switch in and remove its stat boosts. Suddenly it's not enough to send in Azumarill when your opponent is on the back foot, because YOU might be on the back foot if you don't have Thundurus or Kangaskhan to support you. And suddenly it's not clear whether you want Thundurus/Kangaskhan or Jirachi next to Azumarill, which is great progress for people who are scared of Azurachi.

They don't need to beat Azumarill 100% of the time, they just need to counteract the ridiculous mind games that Azumarill causes the minute you see it. If Azumarill decides to use Knock Off or Protect for a turn because it's trying to read a Volcanion switch then Haze is already doing its job.

 

[Lohgock]

So you want people to drop Protect, the best move in Doubles, on Milotic in favor of Haze, when Haze is only there for one single Pokemon and Protect is there for.. every one of them? (I assumed you want to replace it with Protect since you were talking about recovery on Milo and it definitely doesn't want to drop its attacking moves). You'd also have to run some speed on it since Azu can be fast, too. And you always need to have something next to Milo that deals 75% of damage to Azu since otherwise Jirachi has a 60% chance of destroying your plan. Not to mention there's a reason Milotic is such a rare sight. Doubt dropping Protect makes it any more useful.

If you run Haze Politoed, you're forced to build a rain team and I don't want all my 'Azu safe' teams to be rain.

It's ok on Volcanion I suppose but you'd still have to give up a move that's better in every other matchup.

Dawgie already said it: if you have to use stuff like that to compete a Mon, it's a clear sign something is wrong.

 

[DonVGC]

While Azumarill is pretty strong when combined with Jirachi, it isn't broken. There are lots of options to counter Azumarill. Quick Guard, priority moves like Talonflame's Brave Bird, strong spread moves like Sylveon's Hyper Voice, Earthquake from banded Lando won't let it Belly Drum and it will destroy Jirachi. Pokemon like Ferrothorn and Venusaur exist. Azumarill is very slow too, and doesn't have amazing bulk so you can force some good hyper offensive options with good positioning to prevent from getting it to set up.

 

[FloristtheBudew]

While Azumarill is pretty strong when combined with Jirachi, it isn't broken. There are lots of options to counter Azumarill. Quick Guard, priority moves like Talonflame's Brave Bird, strong spread moves like Sylveon's Hyper Voice, Earthquake from banded Lando won't let it Belly Drum and it will destroy Jirachi. Pokemon like Ferrothorn and Venusaur exist. Azumarill is very slow too, and doesn't have amazing bulk so you can force some good hyper offensive options with good positioning to prevent from getting it to set up.

You just said you need a good position. So a hyper offense team then loses if it does not have the initial good position. Since those kinds of teams don't usually build for strong defensive switching.

 

[Lohgock]

While Azumarill is pretty strong when combined with Jirachi, it isn't broken. There are lots of options to counter Azumarill. Quick Guard, priority moves like Talonflame's Brave Bird, strong spread moves like Sylveon's Hyper Voice, Earthquake from banded Lando won't let it Belly Drum and it will destroy Jirachi. Pokemon like Ferrothorn and Venusaur exist. Azumarill is very slow too, and doesn't have amazing bulk so you can force some good hyper offensive options with good positioning to prevent from getting it to set up.

You just said Azu + Rachi isn't broken and then named a dozen Pokemon that can't touch Azu when it's next to Jirachi. How about naming some real options that aren't suboptimal sets and need to be in before Azu gets its boosts?

 

[Matt]

So you want people to drop Protect, the best move in Doubles, on Milotic in favor of Haze, when Haze is only there for one single Pokemon and Protect is there for.. every one of them?

Haze is not there for just one Pokemon. Haze also stops: Calm Mind Sylveon, Calm Mind Cresselia, Dragon Dance Gyarados, Weakness Policy Aegislash, and less commonly Calm Mind Suicune. The first two have been relatively popular lately, so it might be a good idea to bring a Hazer even if you're not worried about Azumarill.

You'd also have to run some speed on it since Azu can be fast, too. And you always need to have something next to Milo that deals 75% of damage to Azu since otherwise Jirachi has a 60% chance of destroying your plan.

Milotic is way faster than Azumarill, 81 vs 50, there's no way Azumarill is outspeeding it. And honestly, if it's Iron Head and not Follow Me we're worried about here, that's a Jirachi problem and not an Azumarill problem. Isn't this the reason we banned Shaymin-Sky and Swagger?

 

[Bughouse]

0 Spe Milotic hits 198 Spe. 252 Spe Azumarill hits 199.

So if you really, really want to be sure that you always outrun and haze before the +6 Knock, you actually need 8 Speed EVs :p

 

[FloristtheBudew]

0 Spe Milotic hits 198 Spe. 252 Spe Azumarill hits 199.

So if you really, really want to be sure that you always outrun and haze before the +6 Knock, you actually need 8 Speed EVs :p

I thought people used jolly Azumarill as a set for belly drum. So it's maybe a better idea to be consistent and out speed jolly 252 speed Azumarill.

 

[Bughouse]

if people are seriously using 252 jolly on azu, then I give up on the world

 

[Checkmater]

:3

 

[Lohgock]

Haze is not there for just one Pokemon. Haze also stops: Calm Mind Sylveon, Calm Mind Cresselia, Dragon Dance Gyarados, Weakness Policy Aegislash, and less commonly Calm Mind Suicune. The first two have been relatively popular lately, so it might be a good idea to bring a Hazer even if you're not worried about Azumarill.

Milotic is way faster than Azumarill, 81 vs 50, there's no way Azumarill is outspeeding it. And honestly, if it's Iron Head and not Follow Me we're worried about here, that's a Jirachi problem and not an Azumarill problem. Isn't this the reason we banned Shaymin-Sky and Swagger?

Haze doesn't stop them, it just means these mons need to start boosting again. While Azu won't have a second opportunity to BD (at least it shouldn't), Cresse and Sylveon certainly will (I guess Gyarados, too, but I'm ignoring that until I see the first good DD Gyara team). They especially will when they can setup against a Milo. If you want to stop them, use Toxic or use Mons that actually KO them instead of delaying their sweep. Plus these somewhat rare threats are still not worth giving up Protect.

We're talking about Azu + Rachi. Rachi does carry more moves than Follow Me alone. I have to admit, though, Rachi can't Follow Me + IH at the same time, so I guess your point is kinda valid there. Still, you'd need to have a Mon not getting OHKO'd by Jet and capable of KOing Azu in return next to your Milo in order to force Rachi to Follow Me.

The reason people didn't ban Rachi is quite simple and logic: Rachi itself isn't what we call broken. Usually, when people think of banworthy mons, it's because they beat most of the metagame, only have a very limited amount of checks and so on. That's why we powerhouses like Mence and Skymin got banned. Jirachi isn't quite what you expect from a suspected Mon. It's reasonably weak, doesn't endure until the end of the match most of the time, doesn't beat teams on its own, it 'just' dies at some point in the game doing 'nothing' but redirecting some moves and maybe flinching an opponents mon or two. That doesn't sound that impressive at all and Jirachi on its own isn't the real threat, however, it enables certain partners to be nearly unstopable with it's excellent typing and bulkiness being able to redirect a ridicolous amount of moves, not to mention nasty Iron Head flinches. I completely understand why so many people didn't vote for ban and it's not like I fully realized how bad for the meta Jirachi was until this suspect either. That's why I hope Jirachis case will be reconsidered and there won't be stupid bans like Azu. I mean, let's be honest: as off now people, who vote pro ban Azu, only vote for it because it's the only way to stop Azu + Rachi at the moment. The real reason why they're broken will still be out there after this though.

 

[BlueSkiddo]

Haze doesn't stop them, it just means these mons need to start boosting again. While Azu won't have a second opportunity to BD (at least it shouldn't), Cresse and Sylveon certainly will (I guess Gyarados, too, but I'm ignoring that until I see the first good DD Gyara team). They especially will when they can setup against a Milo. If you want to stop them, use Toxic or use Mons that actually KO them instead of delaying their sweep. Plus these somewhat rare threats are still not worth giving up Protect.

The issue with set up mons comes AFTER the set up. That's why haze works. Cress, CM sylv, and are not very dangerous pre-boost. Saying they can just set up again makes no sense, especially with Azu, because post-haze you have a chance to put yourself back in a position to deal with the threats which previously would run through you, or put them out of range of a second BD in azu's case.

Secondly, who says you need to give up protect on Milotic. Scald or Hydro/Ice Beam or Icy Wind/Haze/Protect is perfectly reasonable.

 

[Lohgock]

That's why I pointed out Azu usually won't have a second chance to BD. While it does negate Cress' and Sylveons boosts, it still doesn't harm them in terms of dealing damage, that's all I wanted to say.

Yes, you can run that set but if you run Milo you want it to last as long as possible which won't happen if you don't have Recover. There's just rarely room for a move to give up for somethings that's as useless as Haze most of the time.

 

[GRAND EMPRESS]

After Mence, Azu will be the second 'mon to be banned not because it's too good on it's own but because of Jirachis presence.
You can easily beat Azu on it's own, Azu + Amoo is not that tricky to beat either and full Azu setup will only work against certain matchups, is prone to misstakes and hard to pull off. Unless you got Jirachi. Against Azu Amoo it's often enough to throw some Goggles on something being able to touch Azu (which is not exactly uncommon) or simply capitalize on them being so incredibly slow (+ Amoo being passive af) and not play like an idiot.
Thing with Jirachi compared to Amoo is, most good mons have a way to seriously hurt the latter with an attack that'd also hurt Azu, while Jirachi simply doesn't care about those. Kanga, Gardevoir, Lati@s, Sylveon to an extent, Cresselia, Amoonguss, Diancie, Ludicolo, Hoopa, Kyurem, Venusaur + all the mons you could slap Goggles on (Aegi, Rotom, Thundy etc), just to name the most important ones. Same goes for other redirectors btw.

Regarding Mence it's the exact same problem: Mence itself is good but definitely not broken. It interacts nicely with Kanga and Gardevoir, checks some of the very common threats rn (I'd imagine Mence balances the usage of Volcanion and Heatran) but isn't untouchable whatsoever, it can easily be checked defensively (Cresselia, Cune, Rotom, Thundy, Aegislash, Mawile) and offensively (TR, Diancie, fast Ice attacks, fairy Hyper Voice, Rain, Deoxys, Darkrai). Except when there's a Rachi next to it. Oh it also tanks a +6 Aqua Jet and deals heavy damage in return.

Azu is just a mediocre mon overall. Don't ban it, ban the real reason why it's so good. After that, unban Mence. It solves nearly every problem this meta has.

This man needs a damn medal. Pretty much nailed my exact thoughts on this whole thing

 

[DonVGC]

You just said you need a good position. So if a hyper offense team then loses if it does not have the initial good position. Since those kinds of teams don't usually build for strong defensive switching.

Well, you need to be in a good position every time while playing Doubles. Azumarill also can't get the boost if it ain't in a good position. That's what playing Doubles is about. People who lose to Azumarill+Jirachi kinda need to review their own team and style of play.

 

[SingleThunder]

Well, you need to be in a good position every time while playing Doubles. Azumarill also can't get the boost if it ain't in a good position. That's what playing Doubles is about. People who lose to Azumarill+Jirachi kinda need to review their own team and style of play.

Please read what Lohgock has been writing.

 

[DarkKnight2.6]

as much as I actually wanted to see how i feel about this suspect it was nearly impossible. either it was a 100% gymicy teams/forfeit majority of the ladder. i saw maybe 5 azumarill's the whole ladder and they did not have any effect on the game in a broken way from those matches. honestly we need a better way of doing suspects. but back to the suspect, even when trying to counter azumarill and follow me i felt like it did not hinder team building at all. follow me is a staple on most teams because of its utility and if there is not a few checks/counters then you will lose to them. is there any other azumarill movesets besides belly drum that are worth considering? i remember at one point a band or lo set had some popularity.


edit: why is there a 60 game limit and a 77% gxe for this suspect?