Mega sableye rant

[Ghabra]

Disclamer: i wrote this post about 3 months ago and posted it in the pro pvp council discord chat , so from my perspective here i'm speaking before the introduction of wave 3 ,and it was copied straight from discord,  so some wording might be off , i'm a bit lazy to just go through it and change it. 

Since council chat is lively , only a few people managed to read this post and it was just lost in chat and that's the reason why im reposting this here.

 

Hi, today i would like to make a rant about the upcoming mega sabeleye in wave 3 , and that it deserves some looking into.
Experienced players know how strong of a defensive presence mega sableye is . It walls everything that is not a dedicated wall breaker and that does not rely on setup , and ones that do rely on setup are walled by its partners ( unaware clefable and skarmory since its basically played only on stall anyways) . Mega sableye will never get 2 hkoed unless its facing something like a nuke mon that does not fear getting burned ( like darmanitan) , but thoes can be easily worn down or walled by its partners.
In gen 7 , mega sableye was not a huge problem due to the plethora of fairy types ruling the tier (the tapus) that can easily check it ( tapu fini with misty terrain and moonblast , and tapu lele with  its nuking stabs, with both of them having access to taunt to cripple whatever sableye is switching out into) ,and also due to the various powerhouses like kartana that hit extremely hard , not to mention z moves that make it possible to break through it . Even though pro is using gen 7 mechanics and moves, its much much closer to gen 6 so far because the meta defining pokemon of gen 7 are not available yet in pro.
I will now bring up the biggest 3 points i can think of as to why mega sableye will be a problem

1- Mega sableye has tremendous bulk and will almost never be 2hkoed by non super effective moves:
This means that mega sableye can shrug off hits from these mons and retaliate with nasty status , a knock off that will really annoy whatever is switching into it , any other attack , or even get the opportunity to set up with calm mind even though that's kind of rare to see.
It can basically stay as long on the field as it wants because the list of pokemon able to break it is not that long , and the ones that can switch into it safely can be easily handled by its partners , which brings me to my next point.
 

2- The Lack of viable fairies in the meta : Like previously mentioned , mega sableye is very hard to ohko by a non super effective move , and since it's only weak to fairy we do not have many options. So what fairies that are viable in the meta can handle it? 
-Magic guard Clefable : can easily switch into anything mega sableye does , but does not appreciate getting knocked off. But also  cannot exactly do anything once it's in due to  the combination of its partner chansey and unaware clefable ( which are and should be on every decent stall team).
-Unaware Clefable (Mg and unaware clefable do very different jobs so i'm seperating them): Can switch into mega sableye but does not appreciate getting burned or knocked off , and is heavily crippled by the occasional toxic. It could carry heal bell, but heal bell has only 8 pp compared to the huge pp numbers of toxic and will-o-wisp. Best thing it can do is wish into one of its partners as mega sableye switches out but the cycle will just repeat itself and mega sableye will have better longetivity overall.
-Azumarill: Can almost never switch in safely in fear of a will-o-wisp , also does not apppreciate knock off(yeah im repeating this alot) , does not appreciate chip from it's attacks. The banded set is walled by skarmory , and the belly drum set is walled by unaware clefable and the opponent can easily figure out the set since sableye justt loves to spam knock off.
-Mega altaria: Can easily take a hit from mega sableye , and doesnt mind getting burned that much if it's carrying heal bell or refresh. But can't exactly do much once it switches in , dragon dance sets are absolutely walled by unaware clefable and are hazard fodder for the sableye's skarmory partner , and bulky support variants also cannot do anything to clefable.
-Togekiss: yeah no.
-Alolan ninetales: well it's a fairy and it's kinda meta so i had to bring it up but it can't do anything to mega salbeye.
-Mega gardevoir: while walled by chansey, it can carry an encore or a taunt to annoy it but it loses in the long run.
- The incoming mega mawile: while mawile can ohko every variant of mega sableye with play rough,  it can never switch into it safely in fear of a will-o-wisp, it also doesnt appreciate the chip from shadow ball. It can also never be brought it safely through volt/turn because there is no viable pivot who is slower than mega sableye. Meaning the only way to get it in is to have to sacc a mon to be able to switch it in , or to hard switch on the sableye which is very risky.
In addition , mega mawile does not always carry play rough because of its wide movepool and its desperate need for coverage ( knock off , sucker punch , fire fang , thunder fang , swords dance , focus punch , iron head , play rough, the very rare rock slide or stone edge for zapdos etc... ) and if it's carrying play rough but not carrying to perfect set to break through its partners , it can't really do much. The best thing it can do is make a dent in the opposing team when played very well which can lead to breaking the stall team eventually , but that's all in theory, applying it in an actual match  is a bit harder.
- The incoming mega diancie (?) : while mega diancie can bounce status back on mega sableye and threaten it with moonblast , it's kind of walled by its partner chansey since diamond storm has a 54.5% chance to 3hko chansey , and diancie not having access to taunt.

 

**While there are some other pokemon that come to mind that can break through /annoy mega sableye and are not fairy type , they are also not exactly solutions :
- Heatran : does not appreciate getting knocked off , can kind of shrug off the chip from other attacks thanks to leftovers , it can't really do much once it's in. It can't put up rocks or taunt it due to magic bounce ( which i'll get to later) , magma storm from defensive heatran does not even 2hko it , and even if it gets a flash fire boost from will-o-wisp , sableye can just sit on it and recover until it exhausts its measly 8 pp ( this is all assuming magma storms connects in the first place)
- Mega charizard Y: while it can shrug off hits with roost and threaten sableye out due to its nuke fire stabs , it can't exactly come in every time if rocks are up , and is also competely walled by chansey.
- Mega charizard X: while it sounds good on paper because it's very hard to wall , and can switch in to mega sableye basically for free , and set up for free , there is a reason mega charizard X has a 47% winrate at its peak last season. Its x4 weakness to rocks before it mega evolves is not exactly helping , it could be walled before it can set up by sableye's alomomola partner , slowbro , unaware quagsire and toxicked which basically puts it on a timer . It can take a pokemon or two down with it but the problem persists.

-Keldeo:  Keldeo is never a switch in , it really really does not like getting its specs or leftovers knocked off, and once they are , it really can't do much to sableye anymore , even if it manages to switch in on a will-o-wisp from  sableye by any chance , specs hydro pump does  57.7 - 68.3%  to spdef focused sableye , which it can just recover to scout the move it's locked into and switch into an appropriate teamate. And the calm mind set just loses to unaware clefable.

- Mega pinsir : (edited in) While return threatens to 2hko all types of mega sableye ,  cannot exactly switch in to it in fear of getting will-o-wisped ,and is completely walled by skarmory . While it's usually partnered up with a magnezone which can trap skarmory , skarmories on stall often run shed shell for this very reason.
 

---These should be all the pokemon that i could think of that could possibly annoy mega sableye and why they are not viable answers. Would appreciate it if you tell me if i missed one or two.
Now let's move the cherry on top.
 

3- Magic bounce : This is what all stall teams were missing all along : a way to shrug off the best way to deal with them ; hazards and status.
This is how balance teams for example  usually beat stall (balance has the best matchup against stall , but idk maybe bulky offense could be better): Since stall is really hard to break through by brute force  , the premiere way to deal with it from a balance team's perspective is  through continuous chip and patience.
What would have been a 3hko is now a 2hko after stealth rocks chip . Their unaware clefable that was pestering you is getting slowly worn down by rocks and from passive damage from what could possibly be status (burn or toxic)  or other status moves like leech seed , and you can finally break through with your setup sweeper once clefable is down or heavily chipped.
Magic bounce basically negates all this and makes it alot harder to wear down the stall team over time. It can safely switch in against every single stealth rocker in the entire game , except for maybe jolly garchomp with rocks and swords dance and mold breaker excadrill with maybe toxic ( although the careful set with toxic exists , its ver rare) and again , thoes are easily handled by its partners.
Magic bounce is just the perfect solution for all the problems stall was suffering from , it can beat taunters 1v1 and wall most of whatever stall was weak against.

I'm pretty sure the only way to beat a well played stall team with mega sableye in it would be through pp stalling it ( happy Deidaraa noises) or waiting for the stall player to mess up which could very much happen . Either way i think it's going to be very opressive.

 

To whoever reads this , thank you for your time , this was just me expressing my concerns towards what's coming in the soon to be here wave 3 and i hope you have a great day.

Constructive criticism is obviously welcome.
 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Ghabra

[Armin11]

i agree so much with you ghabra

[Xeety]

yes

[Pispi13]

+1

 

[Kirito2op]

+1 I completely agree with everything you said. 

[Cruelgreen]

-1 Mega mawile won't be banned, same for mega sableye.

[Ghabra]

7 minutes ago, CruelGreen said:

-1 Mega mawile won't be banned, same for mega sableye.

great reasoning 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Ghabra

[Cruelgreen]

15 minutes ago, Ghabra said:

great reasoning 

Thanks

[Pureheart2803]

Clef m.g carry all :)))

 

[G3n3r4l]

well written, well said, i think the dependent ban will be mawile, while sableye is very strong, i don't think it'll be banned alone. 

 

Magic bounce alone means it can't have it's hp dwindled by toxic unless the switch in is predicted, however i think most teams would just use it as a lead, to block hazards. so it becomes mega on turn 1. Typing wise 3 immunities, one super effective type, and as you specified, not many. he's also got will-o-wisp, which basically means any physical attacker that doesn't go by the name mega mawile will have a a hard time killing it. so you have to result to a special attacker, and then 1v1 it's move known as calm mind.

 

and im wagering these good comments are because you're saying to ban a stall poke. not a stall breaker