Manaphy in ranked PVP

[Baganha]

Unburden is only banned because it does not work correctly.

 

Really? i couldve sworn it was fixed but eventually banned anyways, thank you for the clarification.

[Chris]

So im not sure if making a new thread is the best idea instead of discussing it in another thread such as pvp rules but whatever im just gonna do it.

 

The reason im making this thread is to discuss manaphy's place in the pvp ranked ladder and why i believe it should be considered "broken" in the meta.

 

I wanna startoff by saying that i do not have a lot of experience in pvp, there might be some things i get wrong in this post and if thats the case i obviously would appreciate if anyone corrected me/tell me why im wrong.

 

For my experience, manaphy has had the most amount of usage in rain teams, which is fair since it boosts its stab while giving it the ability to not get statused thanks to hydration, with this manaphy 6-0 the vast majority of stall teams and if it doesnt do that it gets minimum 2-3 kills, in rain it 2hko chansey at +6 surf which im sure if you've seen manaphy against stall you'd know how easy it is to get 2 tgs up. The only switchins that would threaten manaphy to not get up 2 tg would be av tang, amoonguss and ferro. To which tang gets 1v1 if its switching on a tg, unless it has leaf storm, which is an ohko after rocks, needless to say leaf storm is very if not completely unused due to its lack of recovery that giga offers and low pp and overall less reliable stab. Amoonguss is ohko'd after +3 ice beam/psychic unless its an av set which again is 1v1'd. This in itself wouldnt be a bad thing if stall/bulkier balances were the only thing manaphy had a good time against, however this is not the case as manaphy has the tools to be devastating against every playstyle.

 

Firstly there is its typing and stats which are fenomenal, 100 across the board means that this pokemon definetely has the bulk to set up tail glow with ease, even against the more offensive threatning mons such as drill, scizor, ttar (unless banded), weavile(unless banded), volc etc and can always take a hit from mons like conk, bish, mamo, shell smashed cloyster, gengar, togekiss and so on. Manaphy is able to put so much pressure to offensive teams that the only way to beat it at that point is mainly with the use of priority between sucker from bish plus espeed from banded dnite or using something like latios that can dish out a big hit in draco meteor and potentially ohko if its specs. While playing against manaphy with offensive teams may not feel as if youre pushed into a corner as if you were using more bulkier teams, its still has the firepower to completely breakdown your team, right now ive only been talking about one set in particular which is tg +3 attacks, and id argue it is for sure the best set, but options like tg + rest on rain teams is also insanely dificult to deal with, more so for offensive teams since it gives much more longetivity to manaphy also it is much easier to setup against chansey with rest, so thats also a bigger issue for stall. Cm rain dance manaphy while a very unpopular set and i honestly dont believe it will have much presence in the meta does have its uses, having some better niches compared to crocune, better speed, better spatk, better recovery, no status etc.

In fact i dont see why ho wouldnt want to have this in a team, providing immense wallbreaking power whilst still matchup very well against faster teams.

 

Regarding to actual counters, i believe there is mantine, av goodra, unaware clef and spdef ferro (unless manaphy is hp fire), which is a very limited amount to say the least, also taking into account that spdef ferro is the only rather splashable mon of these three.

Checks consist in a bigger number such as serp, latis, cloro venusaur, ss kingdra on non rest variants, and in general if it not at full, mons like gengar and zam.

 

This last point is pretty subjective and im not sure how exactly pro deals with this kind of things but afaik the only way to get manaphy was through this xmas event, which seems a bit unfair for all the other players that maybe didnt join the game at that time or were too busy and just simply couldnt finish the event, specially when were talking about manaphy, which whether you agree or not to be busted, i think we all agree that its an insanely good mon that no player would refuse to not try to get him for pvp purposes.

 

With that i conclude this post (sorry for the walls of text) i do hope to hear the opinions of the community regarding this, if you dont agree with my points you are more than welcome to explain why, i believe discussions like these should be more implemented in this community and with pvp expanding in interest for a lot of players, i think there needs to be a more critical aproach to what people want pvp to turn into and maybe reducing its influences on communities like smogon because they are very diferent metas.

 

Just a quick response from my side; Just because a Pokémon is very strong or the best in the Meta doesn't mean it has to be banned. In case of Manaphy, there are enough counters and even stronger Pokémon.

[Zytrax]

Just ban all legendaries from pvp and we all have a better life.

[Baganha]

Just a quick response from my side; Just because a Pokémon is very strong or the best in the Meta doesn't mean it has to be banned. In case of Manaphy, there are enough counters and even stronger Pokémon.

 

May i ask some examples of COUNTERS you know on the top of your head?

[Cobramk]

Why does your guys complain, staff never listen us and care about PvP, prefer PvE, we already complain about a lotof things like Sand Veil, nothing happens, Manaphy will be never banned, give up.

[Chris]

May i ask some examples of COUNTERS you know on the top of your head?

Ferro, AV Tang, Gengar can revengekill, Dnite, hard hitting priority (Conk, Breloom), Clef (Unaware) probably a lot more. Some need to be aware of Icebeam tho.

[Baganha]

Why does your guys complain, staff never listen us and care about PvP, prefer PvE, we already complain about a lotof things like Sand Veil, nothing happens, Manaphy will be never banned, give up.

 

If thats the attitude everyone had for pvp then what would even be the point of playing it? Why should i "give up" something i believe it can be corrected and would mean a better future for the meta knowing that other people agree with me as well? If they've never took action before why does it mean they'll never do it?

[Chris]

If thats the attitude everyone had for pvp then what would even be the point of playing it? Why should i "give up" something i believe it can be corrected and would mean a better future for the meta knowing that other people agree with me as well? If they've never took action before why does it mean they'll never do it?

If Manaphy is too strong in your opinion use Unaware Clef and setup on it?

[Cobramk]

If thats the attitude everyone had for pvp then what would even be the point of playing it? Why should i "give up" something i believe it can be corrected and would mean a better future for the meta knowing that other people agree with me as well? If they've never took action before why does it mean they'll never do it?

Your guys play them life to found argument, how is totally false and not good, We are on gen6 here, not gen5, Manaphy will not be banned, i dont want to debate for like 1 hours, i left this post, continue if you want.

[Baganha]

Ferro, AV Tang, Gengar can revengekill, Dnite, hard hitting priority (Conk, Breloom), Clef (Unaware) probably a lot more. Some need to be aware of Icebeam tho.

 

I've specified in my post for you to mention counters to which you've only mentioned 2, giving the edge over ferro against a +3 manaphy for the sake of the argument here, gengar cannot revenge kill manaphy at full and certainly can take a +3 hit, making him only a check, dnite is the same as +3 ice beam ohko's it through multiscale, priority is not a counter but a means of weakening it/ revengekill it, obviously this could never be considered a counter knowing that conk bish and all the priority users die to +3 manaphy.

 

 

If Manaphy is too strong in your opinion use Unaware Clef and setup on it?

 

I dont think you see the problem here, why should i be forced to run a pokemon with almost the sole purpose of beating manaphy, do you not see how centrlising this is? I've given this example already but imagine a scenario where you could use kyogre in pvp, appling your logic would also mean kyogre shouldnt be banned as counters exist for him as well, such as shedinja or chansey, its pretty clear a pokemon like this shouldnt be allowed in the meta and no one should be forced to run one of those two pokemon to beat it.

Edited March 10, 2019 by Baganha