A Reason to Smile : Banned Mawile

[G3n3r4l]

Preface: If you're here to read the replies, note the joke about putting a -1 with no explanation in the text, and understand that many, if not all, are simply as a joke.

 

Mega Mawile has proven to be one of the most destructive forces in various PvP games since it first got it's mega form. This read is a simple explanation on why Mega Mawile deserves a ban from PRO PvP. Now as a preface, I simply do not care if you just say "-1" to the thread, as long as you provide sufficient reasoning. And for reference, I am not a stall player, I do not want Mega Mawile banned just because it's a heavy threat towards every type of stall team. Personally, I am a trick room player. Onto the explanation, the first paragraph written will be a detailed explanation of Mawile's threatening ability, with it's stats, and overall power on the field. The next two paragraphs will include detailed comparisons towards two similar pokemon to Mega Mawile. The first of the two, Alolan Marowak, and the second, Aegislash (credit where credit is due, @Jorogumo was the one that mentioned the comparisons for Aegislash). 

 

Firstly, I would like to bring up Mawile's general aspects, as when you first bring it onto the field, it will not be mega form. Of the two damaging abilities that Mawile has, excluding sheer force, as that is only used with it's non-mega form, it has Hyper Cutter and Intimidate. Now, both of these abilities can provide some type of competitive use, hyper cutter, can be used to deflect intimidate from pokes such as Landorus-Therian and Gyarados, and it also has it's own intimidate, which can be used to take less damage from physical attackers, giving it more prominent room to set up a swords dance. Mega Mawile also does not change it's typing for a mega evolution, meaning it stays as a very threatening pairing offensively. As we know, Mawile takes the measly 6% damage upon switch in from stealth rocks, and is immune to toxic spikes, and also cares very little about sticky web, as it's speed is already low. Now, speed is also one of the huge factors in game, depending on how many IVs you have, or simply how many EV investments you decided you wanted. Mawile ignores all of this with it's access to sucker punch, now understandably sucker punch only works if the opponent is readying an attack, but how do you kill a steel type without attacking it, if you can't click toxic. The final point about Mawile overall will be covered more in the next couple paragraphs as well, and it is all simply, moves. Mawile has a heavy variety of moves, and thus sets. He can run many different things on many different teams, such as iron head, knock off, play rough, rock slide, focus punch + substitute, fire fang, ice fang, Etc. As a result, Mawile alone already sounds devastating, and it only goes downhill from there.

 

Up next we have the first of two comparisons, the first one being Alolan Marowak. Now these two pokemon have a lot in common, while also being very different. First off, Marowak has 2 immunites, 7 resists, and 5 super effective moves defensively, compared to Mawile's 2 immunities, 9 resists, and 2 super effective moves defensively. Now after this, it immediately puts the ball into Mawile's court in regards to bans, as 3 extra double damage type moves is a lot, along with 2 more resists, and the same number of immunities. However, be it the same number of immunities, they are not the same immunities. Marowak, as we know, is Ghost/Fire type, and is therefore immune to Normal and Fighting moves, which are a lot less common than Mawile's immunities, of Poison and Dragon. Most notably the move Toxic. Other than the type effectiveness, the two pokemon both share a similarity in the fact that they both receive a doubled attack stat with the help of an item. For Marowak, Thick Club, and for Mawile, the Mawilite, naturally. Being granted the Mawilite over just a standard item like a Thick Club however, also means that Mawile gains a second ability upon entering, which I already covered, so I won't do again. The two's stats are also very similar overall as well, Mawile being noted for having 15 more base stats in both of the defenses, being special and physical. HP wise, difference of 10, favor towards Marowak with it's 60 HP, compared to Mega Mawile's 50. As we know, neither pokemon is good in speed, Marowak with 45, and Mawile with 50. For the two remaining stats, being attack and defense, Marowak's defense, a rounded 110, however is not matched by Mawile's 125. And finally comes the attack, the difference here, a whopping 25. Marowak's low 80 base attack cannot match the gigantesque of Mega Mawile's 105 attack. One of the other reasons on why Marowak is no match for mawile, is simply the fact of stealth rocks, Marowak takes the large chunk of 25% HP from switch in, while Mawile only 6%. And finally, as it's come down to it, moves. Marowak runs one common set only, this consists of Swords Dance, Flare Blitz, Shadow Bone, and Bonemerang. Which in itself, provides a variety of coverage moves, and overall can do well. Mawile however, as already listed, can run a vast selection of moves, so every time you come across one, you could be expecting a completely different moveset than the one it currently has. To end this off, this goes to show that Alolan Marowak, while dangerous, cannot be compared to Mega Mawile's grandeur, demonstrating it's pure ability to completely ruin teams with one foul swoop.

 

Continuing on, a comparison that I had not noted originally, but was shown to me by a PvP Icon, Mr. @Jorogumo. This one is compared with Aegislash. Now, understandably, there will be the people that say "Well aegislash can use special attack as well so it can't be compared", and yes, it does, however I do not care, at least, that's how Joro put it. Leading off is the same that I did with Marowak, Aegislash has 3 immunities, 9 resists, and 4 super effective moves against it. Most noteable here is once again defensive ability and anti-stall ability, to not being Toxic'd. For clarification I do not care if this post leads Aegislash to a ban, I'm just arguing M-Mawile's case. The two are easily compared by simply both being slow wallbreakers that, at minimum, 2HKO a lot of defensive checks and counters to them. We can take a look into the past and view some of the old threads made to get Aegis banned, as many said it was unwallable. Which was a fair point, because it was hard to check it defensively. This is the same point for Mega Mawile. Overall if people had trouble dealing with Aegislash, or simply were not happy with it still being in the game, Mawile will only make it worse. Onto the next point of comparison, moves. Now both Aegislash and Mega Mawile have a plethora of sets to choose from, the difference however, is that Aegislash's sets can all mostly be stopped by the same select few pokemon, Mawile however, can simply use a different set, and all of a sudden it needs a new pokemon to check it. For example, someone in PRO Discord's PvP channel had said that Mega-Charizard Y was a great way to stop Mega Mawile, as it could outspeed it. Understandably, M-Zard Y would do great against Aegislash, as most of his sets don't run Shadow Sneak. Mawile on the other hand, has Sucker Punch in it's most common set, which after a simple calculation, does above 55%. Add it onto stealth rocks, and charizard is now dead. Now this comes down to mind games, whether or not he roosts, etc. However if he should click roost, a +2 sucker punch can OHKO. As this seems to be getting to be much about Aegislash I'll call it here. As we can already see Mawile and Aegislash are both very similar in many ways, and one final one that I haven't mentioned yet, is that they are both UBERs.

 

Which brings me to my final, shorter, point. Some nice, Smogon detailing. For reference I am not saying PRO should copy what Smogon has said, however I find that as PRO currently sits in a Gen 6 OU metagame, it's information can be very useful. As we can see on Smogon, Mawile was banned from the Gen 6 OU with a 78.2% super majority, which is almost 4/5 people voted to have it banned. Now, this does not mean we have to ban it, it just gives us a rough template on what could happen. It's also worth clarifying that many players will say that we are in Gen 7 OU, however I don't think 4x to fairy, Mr. Kommo-o, would like to meet Mega Mawile's play rough, nor would Ribombee like to see it's iron head. Mega Mawile's massive power can clearly show that it just mows through many of the defensive checks, see calcs below, leave a comment if you want me to add some other's on certain pokemon, and it just grinds up many offensive checks with it's access to sucker punch. With this being said, Mawile clearly is too big of a threat to leave unguarded in the metagame and should be at minimum suspect tested.

 

Checks/Counters:
Listed below are the results of the 10 people that I had asked to provide me with a list of minimum 5 potential checks and/or counters to mega Mawile in order of popularity.

1. Impish Landorus-Therian (9)

2. Mega Venusaur (7)

3. Skarmory (6)

4. Defensive Heatran (5)

5. Bold Volcarona (4)

Understandably this says a lot about what could potentially happen with common sets if this remains allowed. Volcarona will be run timid a lot less, in order to cover for this, Heatran will be a lot more defensive, Landorus will need to be played impish in order to tank something from Mawile, Venusaur will need to have some decent attacking move knowing that giga drain and sludge bomb do nothing to it, and Skarmory will most likely be played whirlwind a lot more often to get Mawile out of the way.

 

Calcs:
These calcs are for the top 5 pokemon that I listed above, if you want more added, leave a comment.

Lando:

- 0 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mawile-Mega: 246-290 (80.9 - 95.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

- 252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Landorus-Therian: 217-256 (56.8 - 67%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

- 252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Landorus-Therian: 129-152 (33.7 - 39.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Result: Play Rough + Sucker punch kills Landorus

 

Venu:

- 0 SpA Venusaur-Mega Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mawile-Mega: 50-59 (16.4 - 19.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leech Seed damage

- 252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Iron Head vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Venusaur-Mega: 154-183 (42.4 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leech Seed recovery

Result: Mawile wins off hits, if need be falling back onto sucker punch still works

 

Skarmory:

Problem here is that most Skarmory's dont run an offensive move, and rather use 4 status moves, so Skarmory cannot well defend Mawile unless it runs counter, in which case it better hope there aren't rocks up.

 

Heatran:

- 0 SpA Heatran Lava Plume vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mawile-Mega: 224-266 (73.6 - 87.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

- 252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 190-224 (49.2 - 58%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO

- 252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 157-185 (40.6 - 47.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Result: Once again a collective sum of damage, then sucker punch wins it for Mawile, unless running a bold heatran, or getting lucky with the damage rolls.

 

Volcarona:

- 4 SpA Volcarona Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Mawile-Mega: 264-312 (86.8 - 102.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

- 252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Volcarona: 188-222 (50.2 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

- 252+ Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Volcarona: 155-183 (41.4 - 48.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Result: Naturally, flame body does provide a burn chance on Mawile, if this becomes problematic, Mawile has access to Rock Slide and Stone Edge, both of which cripple volcarona. Should there be no burn, a mix of sucker punch and knock off wins again, depending on the rolls.

 

These calculations were also not factoring potential stealth rock damage, switching in damage, or previous team damage. And in conclusion, I think this provides sufficient evidence on which grounds to at minimum, suspect test Mega Mawile. And also for the record, Mega Sableye is not a counter, to anyone wondering, 60% from play rough while burned is that it gets. And also this goes to say that Sableye's ban is dependant on Mawile's ban.

 

Thank you to @Baganha, @Farzeen, @Jorogumo, @Gio, @Flap, @iceflake, @Nornornor444, @Ghabra, and @MaitrePoulpe for the list of checks.

and thank you to @Ghabra for the incredible title.

 

Comments are welcome, just don't be jerks to each other, I do not wish for this to become a stall hate thread.

Edited April 8, 2021 by g3n3r4l

[Gagans]

-1 Reeeeeeee 

 

IMO we should give it a Week/Month testing period before ban. (I have a really epik one I wanna use it )

Edited April 7, 2021 by onkar
It's fun to edit every then and now

[Limit]

-1

[BllacKMasK]

-1

[Iampvp]

-1

 

[Leafbolt8]

-1

[Liz]

-1 :V

[Ta7esh]

-1

[Titania]

-1

[Cruelgreen]

+1 as a Hyper stall offense showdown ladder player I can conifirm mawile is very strong and almost impossible to stop