New phase, new slate. As promised, we’ve decided to take action on some of our most glaring threats upon reaching their consensus near the end of NDPL, while the initial plan was to lobby up for a planned suspect during or even post-NDPL, changes in opinion have shifted noticeably since then, prompting the council to reposition ourselves on some of the previous aspects that were slated. Leading us to Gyarados.
GyaradosGyarados is a threat which needs no serious introduction. Possessing just about every significant trait imaginable for an offensive setup sweeper, including a very solid defensive profile, perfect boosting move in Dragon Dance as well as neutral coverage between STABs, and an ability only designed to complicate answers further. Because of this, it has established itself throughout as arguably if not, the single most constricting presence to face in the teambuilder by far.
The classic set of Dragon Dance, Waterfall, and Z-Bounce complemented by common moves such as Substitute is extremely hard to answer despite this more defensive phase of the metagame, leveraging its typing and huge bulk to setup on a plethora of targets, ranging from common walls such as Alomomola or Hippowdon, to Pokemon it can force out in a vacuum, such as Cinderace and Buzzwole. Topping things off, Moxie also allows Gyarados to easily snowball its way past teams post-Z-Move, often stacking with prior boosts from Dragon Dance that allow it to easily muscle past other neutral answers, such as Clefable and Iron Hands with the aforementioned power boost Flyinium Z provides to Bounce. In order to illustrate the mere threat this alone provides teams with, recent examples have also gone as far as to force many otherwise suboptimal move choices on Pokemon desperate to avoid being setup fodder for it, such as electric coverage on Buzzwole, Jirachi, and the Lati-twins, to neutral coverage choices on Celesteela and Slowbro in most situations otherwise unpreferable to them.
Said degree in setup opportunities also narrows down a major piece of sourced counterplay otherwise brought to the table by a substantial margin; many Choice Scarfed or faster Pokemon, especially with Screens up, will either fail to revenge kill Gyarados from full (Galarian Zapdos, Hydreigon), and/or suffer from the imminent risk of being KOed on the way in (Sandy Shocks, Meowscarada, Mega Aerodactyl), which can be navigated around as simply as utilizing the freedom offered from being able to safely grab a Substitute on something else. Thus allowing the Gyarados user to pull its weight far more easily than assumed just to get to this specific point in games. Leading it to often force trades in its favor.
So without further ado, given the sheer strain it puts on defensive options, utmost ease in navigating around most revenge killers, and ability to snowball out of control very quickly. We’ve decided to quickban Gyarados from the tier.
The voting list can be found here:
| Gyarados | Ogerpon-Wellspring | Iron Moth | Ursaluna | Light Clay | Iron Hands | |
| Arishem | Ban | Suspect (2) | Suspect (3) | Do Not Ban | Do Not Ban | Suspect (1) |
| sanguine | Ban | Suspect (1) | Suspect (2) | Do Not Ban | Ban | Abstain |
| Runo | Ban | Suspect (3) | Ban | Suspect (1) | Suspect (2) | Do Not Ban |
| Niadev | Ban | Suspect (1) | Suspect (2) | Do Not Ban | Ban | Do Not Ban |
| Pubo | Abstain | Abstain | Abstain | Abstain | Abstain | Abstain |
| TBIC106 | Ban | Do Not Ban | Suspect (3) | Suspect (2) | Suspect (1) | Suspect (4) |
| Meminger21 | Suspect (1) | Suspect (2) | Do Not Ban | Do Not Ban | Ban | Do Not Ban |
| Outcome | Banned | Suspect (2) | Suspect (3) | No Action | Suspect (1) | No Action |
As we can see, nothing else with the exception of Light Clay demanded immediate action, with the former being the only one to have gained a few votes in favor of a quickban, making it the most pressing option of a suspect test at the moment. Should the incoming tiering shift not impact the metagame by any stretch, we will be certain to move forward as such.
Iron Moth, while absent initially, has since been brought up as a more serious presence both in and out of council lines, and thus we decided to include it here for good measure.
That being said, the full watchlist (and by extension, everything else we’ve discussed recently) remains as follows:
Light Clay
Ogerpon-Wellspring
Iron Moth
Ursaluna
Iron Hands
Cinderace
Alomomola
Sableye-Mega
Tagging Kris to implement the above. Thank you.