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Please make your votes clear (Ban, Do Not Ban) and provide reasoning5genApagogieczimHo3nConfirm3dkayTuthur
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CentiskorchDo not banDNB. A very good stallbreaker but which is hold back by the fact it still struggled to beat common mons such Altaria, Qwilfish, Cramorant, Gobalt, Coalossal, Garbodor sometimes rotom-fan, most of them already really adviced to deal with the hazard game. Most of offenses deal with it pretty well considering centiskorch is quite slow and relies on low base power stab to inflict the most damage. Centiskorch looks to be fine in the tier for now DNB. Centi is obviously a great wallbreaker that is hard to check defensively, and most solid checks don't really like switching into Knock Off with very few exceptions like Qwilfish and Silvally-Dragon/Water that dont mind it much. Said that, Centiskorch is held back notably by its low speed that is somewhat easy to creep for defensive Pokemon like Qwilfish, Garbodor and Altaria, and its low physical bulk that gets it forced out easily and pressured by many faster mons that can usually take a hit if needed and KO back like Poliwrath, Silvallies and Cramorant for example. It is also extremely prediction reliant and easy to read since its forced to Fire Lash quite often and is easy to take advantage. It also notably exploits very few defensive Pokemon without getting Knocked/Toxiced due to its reliance on Boots.DNB. This one is borderline broken for me due to its insane coverage and how easy it is to gain traction against defensive teams. It falls short against some offensive builds, so I haven't really seen it become a problem in that matchup. Besides full stall, bulky offense and the sort still has a handful of decent checks and good pressure from glue mons like Rotom-S and Altaria to keep it at bay. Even tradding with it isn't the worst if you manage a Knock Off + Stealth Rock versus it. It's one of the best mons in the meta but it's manageable. Do not ban. While a hard breaker to prep for, there are good answers to it and paired with its slow speed and needing to ramp with def drops to really break (which limits what it can actually break as walls/ bulky mons with knock off it can't afford to stay in vs to break) really keeps it in line.Do not ban, Centiskorch is one of the hardest Pokémon to answer defensively since it has insane coverage, Fire Lash Def drops let it break through walls, and Knock Off heavily cripples Altaria and Coalossal, two of the best counters. However, I don't see Centiskorch as a priority rn, because ZU is mostly turned toward offense and Centiskorch is far less effective against this archetype, since Fire Lash isn't as threatening versus faster attackers and due to Centiskorch's low Speed it's easily pressured. Bulkier builds aren't as developped yet and even so they struggle with Centiskorch, it's also because they are struggling to handle other threats like Drampa and Omastar that I'd like to see banned before Skorch. I think that Skorch could be a great candidate for a future suspect though, depending on the results of this slate.
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CofagrigusDo not banDNB. Cofagrigus is hard to switch into with its dual stab unresisted combined with its ability to win the 1v1 against most of mons in this tier. Despite that, there is a serie of mons which deal more or less well with it such as Rotom-Fan, Clefairy, Jellicent, Pyukumuku, Clawitzer, Appletun, Golbat, Spiritomb, Sableye, sometimes rotom or vanilluxe as well. To have tested extensively a lot these last days, I find it pretty easy to weaken as well per hazards or simply in sponging hits that it has to take. Once in position to rest, I find it pretty challenging to maintain it a high percentage for the rest of the game. I really wish it could hold colbur, boots and leftovers in the same set.DNB. Cofa is a hard mon to switch into but its reliance on Iron Defense to actually become a nuke makes it easy to pressure with Special Tanks and special attackers that can easily overwhelm it or put it in revenge kill range. That coupled with its abysmal speed makes it easy to switch into and force out and take advantage of with Pokemon such as Wishiwashi and Rotom-Fan, while strong special attackers like Magmortar, Vanilluxe and Skuntank, albeit not being the greatest switchins in the world can usually force it out and start wallbreaking from there.DNBDo not ban. Really interesting mon as it does a lot of broken things and is a nightmare to prep for and can auto win some match ups. But unless you're building a full physical team, almost all teams can overwhelm it by forcing the rest and keeping it from getting free turns to wake upDo not ban, Cofagrigus Iron Defense set is extremely powerful and able to blanket check and setup on almost any physical attacker. However, its susceptibility to special attackers and reliance on Rest mean that it's not that hard to pressure and revenge kill. I understand the concerns to switch into it between Shadow Ball and Body Press as well as special attackers struggling to switch into it, but in my experience, Cofagrigus is just a really good defensive sweeper and nothing unstoppable or banworthy.
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DrampaBanBan. We lack of dragon resists. If it's sometimes possible to play around drampa with a combinaison of audino + a ghost type + a fairy type , the counterplay stays extremely tiny. An other problem I have with drampa is its ability to come naturally on the field for a wallbreaker which means it has far more chances to try these 50/50 than any other wallbreaker in the tier. I don't think Drampa adds any healthy addition in the tier so it's a ban from me.Ban. Exeggutor-Alola but cuter. ZU just lacks the means of answering strong special attacking Dragon-types that have good coverage (especially Fire and Grass/water coverage) due to our very limited pool of Fairies and Steels (which are all mostly subpar with few exceptions like Ferroseed, Fisk-Galar Clefairy and Carbink) and not having amazing blanket special walls. Drampa just turns matches into a sacking game or a guessing game which makes it extremely unhealthy for balanced and fat buildsBanBan. Its literally egg-a but slightly less broken but still broken. Draco breaks majority of the tier and the rest of the tier dies to its coverage/ secondary stab. Its typing also lets it in very easy to keep the breaking goingBan, it's kinda like Exeggutor-Alola, its Draco Meteor is almost impossible to switch into and the switch-ins to it are super scarce. The few switch-ins are demolished by the other moves and Fairy-types are so scarce in this tier that it's impossible to have one in every team. Even if Drampa is slow, it takes advantage of almost every defensive Pokemon and is fast enough to outspeed them. Its typing also gives it ton of resistances so even against offense it's claiming at least one KO.
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MagmortarBanDNB. Magmortar has enough counterplay both defensively and offensively. Defensively, mons such as Altaria, Appletun, Spd Alcremie, Utility Rapidash, Carbink, Spd Throh, also Spd Jellicent according to the scenario answer it well. I think most pro ban agree with that but find most of the mons not enough viable to quote that viable counterplay. I disagree on that, most of these mons are solid mid tier and has other utilities outside of dealing with Magmortar. Even if it was true, it exists other ways to deal with Magmortar without relying on a hard counter and in using high ranked mons. To be honest, Magmortar struggles against a lot of top mons in the metagame. Spd U-turn Uxie played with Lycanroc or Vally-Ground or Basculin or Sawk is an other way as viable to deal with Magmortar in using highly viable mons in our metagame. Some of these mons can even take one hit if Uxie fainted for some reason. If Magmortar is a really good mon in our metagame, I don't see it specially reliable for these reasons. Its decent but not great speedtier lets it vulnerable to most of our offensive mons, which lets it a hard time to come on the field, it's also somewhat prediction reliant and even in favorable match up against a slow balance or semi-stall, it can fall against mid-tier hard counters, making it pretty useless in the battle. Considering this, I don't think a quickban is deserved Ban, I was leaning DNB on Mortar and it always felt like a borderline broken Pokemon for me. I just don't see it working in our meta where one of its 2 best offensive checks is gone (Silv-Dragon). The counterplay to it was always a bit iffy consisting of mostly mid- or low-tier Pokemon such as Appletun, Centiskorch, Rapidash, SPD Taunt absorbers like Alcremie and Lickilicky, our beloved Palpitoad, and pivoting around with special walls like Wishiwashi, Uxie and Type:Null (although these get worn down over time and dont like to get Taunted or are pressured by one of the coverage moves), Therefore, I am leaning to give Magmortar the ban hammer now and retest it later in April/May once we get more stable. BanDo not ban. While an amazing wall breaker, its limited to only running boots set with taunt and the same coverage which keeps the varience that you have to deal with to a minimum low. Its also not strong enough to ohko a lot of things like Stunfisk-g that you'd want a fire wall breaker to break which leaves it in an almost-strong-enough middle stop.Ban. Magmortar is both a wallbreaker and stallbreaker, is hard to chip down thanks to Heavy-Duty Boots and Taunt and to switch into since it has coverage for Fire-resists such as Qwilfish, Rhydon, and Drampa, and can defeat the most common special walls such as Clefairy and Audino.
Playing without a counter to Magmortar is honestly tremendously hard, as between its great special bulk, good enough Speed, and immunity to hazards, it get a lot of opportunities to come on the field and isn’t that easy to revenge kill. Faster threats such as Silvally-Dark and Rotom need Magmortar to be significantly chipped to OHKO it and take themselves huge damage from Magmortar’s moves. However, counters are either niche (Palpitoad, SpD Alcremie, Appletun), unreliable (Altaria, Centiskorch, Rapidash), to be banned (Silvally-Dragon) or Carbink (people think it's not niche but for using it, I think it's garbage) making it hard to account for Magmortar in teambuilding.
Magmortar is a step above any other wallbreaker in the tier. Unlike stallbreaker Vanilluxe, it can break through the Pokemon resisting its STAB move. Unlike Thievul, Magneton, and Clawitzer which are as hard to switch into, Magmortar doesn’t need to lock itself with a Choice item, making it not abusable. Unlike Skuntank, Magmortar doesn’t need to setup and use a turn to start wallbreaking.
Overall it's just unhealthy for the tier due to how good it is and how much it limits teambuilding.
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OmastarBanBan. Omastar has only a limited pool of defensive answers (basically only ferroseed, poli and pyuku as viable one) and offensive mons to revenge kill are simply not great either, relying on fast scarfs which cannot switch on omastar or Thwackey basically. I have also seen some Omastar SS under rain which can bypass the traditionnal way to deal with it with speed control and not activated weak armor is sometimes more challenging that it looks like. I'm aware that it is sometimes hard to set up but I don't think Omastar has currently any postivie influence on the metagame if it is more restriction and more broken elements in our tier and this weakness can be bypass notably in playing screen. I don't mind suspecting it later in the year to see if it would be healthier after the metagame is more stable but at the moment, I think a quickban omastar would help the tier. Ban. Omastar is a hard one for me because it never performs super well whenever i try to use it or play against it. But it does cause constraint in builder though. The defensive counterplay is very limited consisting of pretty much Pyuk, bulky Poliwrath (this one is a dealbreaker for me, since it forces Poliwrath into running bulk if it wants to handle Omastar), Ferroseed and niche options like our beloved Palpitoad. Offensively, it is more manageable through hazard pressure, choice scarfers that punish it like Rotom, Gourgeist-S, Cinccino, Basculin, and the underused Jynx, Manectric and Mr. Mime, priority users like Thwackey and Gurdurr, and if you manage to bait Meteor Beam, special tanks like Jellicent, Wishiwashi and Cryogonal can dispose of it easily. And that's where the fun ends and creates some unhealthy 50/50s on Omastar's side. For example, if you get a free turn vs a physical attacker that cant 2HKO you like lets say Garbodor, and their counterplay is a Scarfed Rotom, if the Garbodor attacks you and you're Weak Armor and you click Shell Smash, Rotom is no longer counterplay, or if you Raw Meteor Beam or Hydro Pump on Garbodor while they hard in their Rotom their answer is gone now and you can Shell Smash next time you get a free opportunity, but if you bait the Meteor Beam, maybe you have an answer in the back that answers Omastar now? I think all this creates a line of decision making that benefits the Omastar player more than the person playing against it, and for now I am voting ban because of this. Maybe once we have less threats to worry about this can be retested but who knowsBanBan. Crazy sweeper that can use beam + weak armor to break teams without even needing to click SS. Very skill rewarding mon if you can play it more than just sit in the back and click SS when it wins.Ban, if you don't run one of Poliwrath, Ferroseed, or Palpitoad (you shouldn't run this one btw) that are its counter, Omastar is going to murder you. After a Shell Smash there isn't any counterplay but Thwackey and 90+ Scarfers, none of them can actually switch into Omastar. Before a Shell Smash, counterplay is also pretty limited and raw Meteor Beam is still very powerful, meaning that Omastar isn't just a late game sweeper and with Weak Armor it can easily wallbreak midgame and sweep late game with SS.
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Silvally-DragonBanBan. Despite positive traits, this mon has an extremely limited pool of answers which is close to none if we consider special variants. Sub SD on its own is completely broken and relies to be always more imaginative on the way we could deal with this, limited to Piloswine/Rhydon, our rare steel types or Persian Alola which still takes a decent amount of damage. This mon has also a lot of set up opportunities, against passive mon relying on t-wave or u-turn to check offensive threats or simply in using the resists the dragon types offers. ZU simply lacks of Dragon resists and therefore I unfortunately a bright metagame as long as vally dragon is allowedBan. Not gonna go long in this one, how I feel about it has already been covered by others in the thread. Great speed, bulk and wallbreaking potential on both sides of the spectrum makes this extremely hard to manage.BanBan. SD Vally dragon is borderline broken as it is but when you throw in Draco vally into the mix that can break apart the normal SD set's answers it gets really unhealthyBan, both unhealthy and broken. Special sets are only dealt with by Fairies and Special walls whereas physical is only answered by Steel-types and Pyukumuku. Flame Charge and Substitute sets both have different counterplays and both have very limited counterplay. It's almost impossible to offensively pressure because it has amazing bulk and great Speed.
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Silvally-GhostDo not banDNB. Vally-Ghost is a good pokemon but has enough solid counterplay to stay in ZU and doesn't have a clear negative impact on the restriction on the teambuilding to warrant a ban or a suspect at the moment. DNB. Unlike its draconian counterpart, Silvally-Ghost has abysmal coverage relying on moves like X-Scissor, Double-Edge and Reversal for hitting Ghost resists which can easily be played around. Also, having Shadow Ball as the special move makes it much easier to scout even with physical pivots like Persian-Alola. Overall, its just a good SD attacker that preys on specific Fat normals that cant touch it like Miltank and Audino. Easiest vote on this slate by farDNB. Do not ban. Way over hyped mon and not broken at allDo not ban, GhostVally counterplay is diverse and reliable. No reason to ban it.
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