rant incoming as I've had an epiphany/woke up to two of the dumbest replays I've ever seen in this tier (1,2) (speaking just for myself ofc)
I've been around this tier since the very beginning, from the first day Mega Gengar was legal, to the days of Genesect ohko'ing tapu fini with espeed, to the NDPL Zygarde meta, to the coaching idiocy just a few months ago. This has always been a very freewheeling tier with a special and unique identity of basically being "DOU's Greatest Hits", and preserving this identity is something that always needs to be kept in mind. From the way I see it, this philosophy has been the single biggest contributor to the state of the tier at any given time: the power level has always been extremely high between the megas, z-moves, mons that aren't legal in any other dou tier, and all the inherent degeneracy of SV's mons(and I think this is primarily a good thing).
However, despite having some really insane mons legal during this tier's life, I've never felt the tier was so uninteresting as it is now. Banning shifu (a really stupid mon that shouldn't be legal in any doubles metagame) has unfortunately messed things up and predictably exposed just how dumb a lot of the mons in this tier really are. Maybe it's just me talking here but I find this metagame dominated by 4 pokemon (Marshadow, Megagross, Zamazenta, and to a lesser extent, Jirachi) that almost certainly won't be legal in any other doubles format with the tools they have here to feel really stupid and unfair. These mons generally just outclass everything else, stat-checking the vast majority of legal mons- when I watch a replay I feel like my first thought (as a player well-versed in the metagame) shouldn't always universally be "why is this legal bruh".
More in-depth thoughts:
and now for the actual culprit I think needs immediate action:
TLDR:
This tier is currently at a crossroads between the way it's been treated up until now and creating an actually playable format. Personally, I think we need to just get rid of the broken stuff once and for all and finish what we started with banning shifu. It's fun to play with broken stuff for a little bit but we're approaching the one-year anniversary of the tier and I don't think it's sustainable to keep Natdex Doubles as the safe space for DOU's historically banned mons.
IMO the next steps should probably be:
Ban metagross --> ban zama --> see what marsh/jirachi are like after
I've been around this tier since the very beginning, from the first day Mega Gengar was legal, to the days of Genesect ohko'ing tapu fini with espeed, to the NDPL Zygarde meta, to the coaching idiocy just a few months ago. This has always been a very freewheeling tier with a special and unique identity of basically being "DOU's Greatest Hits", and preserving this identity is something that always needs to be kept in mind. From the way I see it, this philosophy has been the single biggest contributor to the state of the tier at any given time: the power level has always been extremely high between the megas, z-moves, mons that aren't legal in any other dou tier, and all the inherent degeneracy of SV's mons(and I think this is primarily a good thing).
However, despite having some really insane mons legal during this tier's life, I've never felt the tier was so uninteresting as it is now. Banning shifu (a really stupid mon that shouldn't be legal in any doubles metagame) has unfortunately messed things up and predictably exposed just how dumb a lot of the mons in this tier really are. Maybe it's just me talking here but I find this metagame dominated by 4 pokemon (Marshadow, Megagross, Zamazenta, and to a lesser extent, Jirachi) that almost certainly won't be legal in any other doubles format with the tools they have here to feel really stupid and unfair. These mons generally just outclass everything else, stat-checking the vast majority of legal mons- when I watch a replay I feel like my first thought (as a player well-versed in the metagame) shouldn't always universally be "why is this legal bruh".
More in-depth thoughts:
man. For a very long time stretching back to gen 8 I actually wanted to see how this mon would play in a DOU-level format. After seeing this thing legal for almost a year in this tier, I now regret that position more than any other meta take I've ever had playing mons. The other day I realized that this mon has been the biggest spoiler for the enjoyment of the tier for the majority of its history. It has too many stats to be as fast as it is, and was one of the two big coaching mons while that was legal, probably more unhealthily than zeraora imo (as zera always feels like a more balanced mon in general).
Now, as a result of the context of the metagame, this mon has found another route to causing me to log off the website: the generally physical-heavy metagame and absence of Shifu has led to the rise of IDBP Zama. This was the primary driver of me making this post, as this iron press set feels really dumb from the games I've seen- I don't think iron-press mons are supposed to simultaneously be damn near unkillable (with some variance depending on the matchup) and be the fastest thing in the metagame. I'd like to see this removed personally, but I think other things are likely a priority, as if more special attackers were actually viable I think this mon might be a bit more healthy (tera steel walls the majority of good special attackers that can hit it at the moment).
I really wish we didn't free this mon back at the start of the tier but realistically it's a good thing because now we have enough evidence to bar this mf from being legal in any current gen DOU tier as long as it learns coaching and body press. o7
Now, as a result of the context of the metagame, this mon has found another route to causing me to log off the website: the generally physical-heavy metagame and absence of Shifu has led to the rise of IDBP Zama. This was the primary driver of me making this post, as this iron press set feels really dumb from the games I've seen- I don't think iron-press mons are supposed to simultaneously be damn near unkillable (with some variance depending on the matchup) and be the fastest thing in the metagame. I'd like to see this removed personally, but I think other things are likely a priority, as if more special attackers were actually viable I think this mon might be a bit more healthy (tera steel walls the majority of good special attackers that can hit it at the moment).
I really wish we didn't free this mon back at the start of the tier but realistically it's a good thing because now we have enough evidence to bar this mf from being legal in any current gen DOU tier as long as it learns coaching and body press. o7
This guy is a pretty fun hyper offensive mon in concept so I'm not upset that we've had this legal for so long but I think with the way the powerlevel has shaken out with the last few bans it might be almost time for this guy to go. This one's pretty simple: it just hits really really hard and with shadow sneak doing so much and hitting the entire tier with unresisted stab coverage (except zoroark-hisui) it's really difficult to outposition. The majority of my losses from laddering ladder tour were from various shadow sneak speedties between Marshadows where I didn't have any other options available to me. It's far from the worst offender on this list here, I def think there's bigger priorities, but we need to keep on this one: it's banned from SM and SS for a reason and realistically with the tier settling a bit in terms of powerlevel Marsh can't really be a player anymore.
This is a really solid mon but I don't realllllyyyy understand the hate it's gotten throughout the the tier. Follow Me is admittedly pretty stupid on 100/100/100 bulk but I think it's typing in this metagame is a bit outshadowed by a more broken mon and as a result suffers from having to deal with a lot of attackers that match up well into it typing wise. I'd honestly rather have wellspring on most teams at the moment for how valuable its typing is, but I have to concede that realistically if we get rid of a few things this mon is probably also dumb, I just don't quite see it on the same level of the other mons I'm discussing here. Should be looked at in the future, but at least for me it's very very far from the first priority and I think it's reasonably dealt with currently.
and now for the actual culprit I think needs immediate action:
What if you took the best mega in SM, gave it dynamic speed support, a variety of new partners that punish intimidate, and a 120 base power stab move (boosted by it's ability)? Yea. That's Mega Metagross. This behemoth almost entirely outclasses every other mega to the point I'd almost never run any of the others even on teams where they seem like they'd fit. The damage this mon does with heavy slam is really bad for this tier in terms of power level and centralization and I think we'd really see a lot of benefits if we just took it off the table. I don't think any of the other mons here are even close to how stupid this mon is, it trades favorably literally every time, threatens the strongest special attacker with bullet punch, forces torn to run a ridiculous amount of defense investment just to not get ohko'd by a neutral move, ohko's rilla with a pao switch-in, and 2hko's incin after intimidate. There's very little consistent counterplay to this mon as heavy slam will torch even resists for huge amounts when they try to switch in. We quickbanned terapagos for less. Please ban.
TLDR:
This tier is currently at a crossroads between the way it's been treated up until now and creating an actually playable format. Personally, I think we need to just get rid of the broken stuff once and for all and finish what we started with banning shifu. It's fun to play with broken stuff for a little bit but we're approaching the one-year anniversary of the tier and I don't think it's sustainable to keep Natdex Doubles as the safe space for DOU's historically banned mons.
IMO the next steps should probably be:
Ban metagross --> ban zama --> see what marsh/jirachi are like after
