Resource USUM AG Viability Rankings

Fardin

Tournament Banned
Why did marsh drop?
the new update got rid of the fairy arc spam and introduced 2 news mons that are weak to it. if anything, it has become better, not worse.
i would like to hear the esteemed council's explanation for it pls
 

MZ

And now for something completely different
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Why did marsh drop?
the new update got rid of the fairy arc spam and introduced 2 news mons that are weak to it. if anything, it has become better, not worse.
i would like to hear the esteemed council's explanation for it pls
New mons don't appreciate marsh but it also doesn't become much better for being able to bust through them, if anything the rise of Darkceus is nicer but even then you have things like more Ho-Oh, more prep for physical attackers that covers marsh like defensive zygarde complete, and overall its niche as this strong fast thing is definitely challenged by Ultra Necrozma. Some people felt it shouldn't have been quite so high in the first place, but I still didn't mind it dropping because it feels like there's less place for it in the metagame, in mostly a splashability sense. Oh, and there's more Xern, more scarfers and more scarf Xern. Definitely an obtuse drop and could easily be more related to it not deserving to be so high in the first place rather than the USUM meta changes, but I feel happy with its place in A-.
 

Fardin

Tournament Banned
New mons don't appreciate marsh but it also doesn't become much better for being able to bust through them, if anything the rise of Darkceus is nicer but even then you have things like more Ho-Oh, more prep for physical attackers that covers marsh like defensive zygarde complete, and overall its niche as this strong fast thing is definitely challenged by Ultra Necrozma. Some people felt it shouldn't have been quite so high in the first place, but I still didn't mind it dropping because it feels like there's less place for it in the metagame, in mostly a splashability sense. Oh, and there's more Xern, more scarfers and more scarf Xern. Definitely an obtuse drop and could easily be more related to it not deserving to be so high in the first place rather than the USUM meta changes, but I feel happy with its place in A-.
u have to look at all the pros and cons. cons are that there are more scarfers now, such as xern. thats really isnt that big of a trouble if u ask me, cause it just simply gave marsh another mon to watch out for(which cant even switch in without losing half if its health) when it wants to sweep, but i can see why some might think it is so imma just go with it. as u said another con would be ho-oh and zyagrde, but both can be dealt with depending on marsh's 4th move, hp ice or rock tomb(yes, i use rock tomb cause its an excellent move on it, especially when u dont want mons like zyagrde to set up on u with dd, and ofc ho-oh). Dusk mane has single handedly stopped all this shit fairy ceus spam(tho i mentioned this in my first post) and the presence of mgar which has become much more common also helps marsh out big time.

about marsh not deserving A in the first place, imo thats complete bs. whenever i talked about it to either chloe, or even thimo that 1 time, i didn't hear 1 single decent argument against it. it reshaped the meta completely and made a lot of teams very similar to each other, removing some creativity which i loved about ag ;i
its perfect dual stab with decent power forced a lot of people to run stuff like fairy ceus or something that can live a hit or preferably 2 and possibly ohko back like yveltal. normal support ceus like ground and water didn't cut it out, since marsh can easily Bulk up (due to all the switches it forces) and Z move on their asses, doing a solid 70% on them(ohko if its fast arc), while living their judgment quite easily, and kill them next turn. It decreased SD arcs presence a fuck ton(except normal, since spectral cant go thru it), and shits on one of the more common CM arcs out there, like dark and steel ceus. OOO lets not forget how the new pokes made dark ceus relevant again, and therefore, making marsh even better.

if marsh didnt already deserve A for u guys fsr, it sure as hell would now
 

Chloe

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oh look at savvy me reusing art.


It's no secret that I've been quite vocal about Marshadow in the past few months. Since its release, I've claimed that "it's bad", "it's unviable" and a plethora of other negative things about it. I will admit right now before I start this post, it isn't bad per se nor unviable; however, I do believe:
  • Balance and Stall do not have issues with it.
  • Its offense breaking capabilities aren't enough to justify such extreme usage.
  • Its usage does not reflect its viability whatsoever.
  • Even after the initial hype period has calmed down, it is still immensely overrated.
Let me explain all of these and then refute points I've been presented on Forums, Showdown and Discord.

Balance and Stall do not have issues with it.
Balance and Stall both already required Support Arceus formes, which as displayed here do not drop to Marshadow.

252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 156-185 (24.5 - 29%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 244+ Def Arceus-Fairy: 121-142 (27.3 - 32%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Arceus-Poison: 157-187 (35.4 - 42.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Arceus-Ground: 157-187 (35.4 - 42.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Yveltal: 185-218 (40.5 - 47.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 204+ Def Ho-Oh: 152-179 (36.6 - 43.1%) -- 98.6% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

This is all considering the Life Orb set, running any other item makes it piss weak bar for one turn. All it accomplishes with a Marshadium set could lowkey be compared to Mega Banette as all it does is eliminate one Pokémon from the game if it gets predictions right.

I'm of the belief that without a Life Orb Marshadow's power isn't relevant in the Anything Goes metagame. Marshadium Z has a use otherwise but if it wastes its Z-move, it's dead weight and can virtually accomplish nothing. Adjusting the calculations to non-LO you can see why i retain this belief.

252 Atk Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 120-142 (18.8 - 22.3%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 244 Def Arceus-Fairy: 102-120 (23 - 27%) -- 44.5% chance to 4HKO
252 Atk Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Arceus-Poison: 121-144 (27.3 - 32.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Yveltal: 142-168 (31.1 - 36.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Marshadium Z puts in use, yes. However all the Pokémon listed above shrug it off with ease if its unboosted and can still recover it off fairly easily at +1. If you allow it past this stage, it's really not an argument for Marshadow viability but rather your incompetence as a Pokémon player.

There is absolutely no way to justify its power. 125 Attack isn't good enough for AG standards, nor is good enough to bust through walls. It only functions effectively against a select moiety of offensive teams. You can compare Marshadow's pitiful strength to anything in the metagame but just for the sake of this being my post and all, let me compare its strength to another common threat.

208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 172-203 (27 - 31.9%) -- 32.4% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Giratina: 179-212 (35.5 - 42%) -- 87.4% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 248 HP / 244 Def Arceus-Water: 191-226 (43.1 - 51%) -- 3.1% chance to 2HKO
208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Rock: 260-307 (58.5 - 69.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You can then additionally argue that Marshadow's Speed tier justifies it, or that it doesn't have a Stealth Rock weakness like Ho-Oh does. I can point out that Marshadow dies to most attacks and has no longevity. We can compare apples and oranges but I'm not stating Ho-Oh is a broken Pokémon, I'm stating it's more powerful than Marshadow and it breaks more than Marshadow does. If anyone ever uses the argument of its raw strength again, please correct their fallible logic.

However despite the above paragraph, Marshadow can break through offense with ease whereas Ho-Oh thrives against bulkier playstyles. Hyper Offense doesn't constitute the majority of Anything Goes usage. Let me clarify yet again, before you use this in your strawman rebuttal, that I am not comparing Ho-Oh and Marshadow wholly, solely their strength.

Also, Marshadow's "perfect" STAB combination is undercut by not only the fact that it's incredibly weak but also the fact that other potent offensive threats aren't walled by any type either. Consider Mega Rayquaza, consider Calm Mind Arceus formes, consider Ultra Necrozma. While they don't have a perfect STAB-typing, they get by just fine.

If I was to compare an actual Pokémon to it, the closest option I could have is Ghost Arceus. Both are nice against offensive archetypes; however, Arceus lacks solid checks while Marshadow has multiple notable ones. When you think of Ghost Arceus checks, your mind jumps straight to Yveltal, which can be overcome through the use of Stone Edge. While this isn't perfect, its a better counter measure than Marshadow's options against Fairy Arceus, which are virtually limited to Endeavor.

Ghost Arceus's speed tier is almost the same as Marshadow's. The only thing that Ghost Arceus misses out on (other than tying with Marshadow) is outspeeding Timid Arceus formes; however, even these have been on the decline as of late. It beats all the things Marshadow beats 1v1 bar Substitute Mega Gengar, but even then it can opt for Shadow Claw over Extreme Speed and take that out too.

However, due to the current stigma against Ghost Arceus in the metagame (due to Marshadow's introduction), people don't use it. It's a fine Pokémon, it has more than one narrow use like Marshadow does, and it breaks through the exact same things that SSSSS does with NEN. Marshadow's introduction brought a wave of usage with it, when it's just a glorified Ghost Arceus with a slightly better speed tier and tremendously worse utility.

The argument you'd next go for would probably be to do with the prevalence of Dark Arceus also being a major downfall for Ghost Arceus, whereas Marshadow can thrive in this environment. Dark Arceus can lose if it comes in on the Swords Dance, like it would supposedly; however, I wouldn't count this as a solid counter argument. Marshadow is encouraged in this Arceus-Dark heavy stage of the metagame more than Ghost Arceus is. That's one reason for why Marshadow is better than Ghost Arceus, but then again Marshadow is low A rank and Ghost Arceus is high B rank, so in contrast this one advantage Marshadow has is enough to justify it an entire rank difference.

Adding to this, you've stated that Marshadow can break through Ho-Oh and Zygarde-Complete with the right set. But so can Ghost Arceus and the majority of the metagame. You do realise solely having access to Technician Rock Tomb and Hidden Power Ice isn't an impressive feat. Many offensive Pokémon have these coverage options, if not better ones.

Its offense breaking capabilities aren't enough to justify such extreme usage nor a high ranking.
What I mean by this is, while it does lack direct switchins on Offense, what doesn't?

I hope you can understand what I mean. If I run a Scarf Terrakion or I run a Ghost Arceus against a HO team, and you have an Extreme Killer Arceus on the field, isn't the general play to sack it off in the hopes that another team member can come in and revenge kill it once Extreme Killer dies? What makes Marshadow different in this capacity?

The general counter-argument to this I assume would be the ability to run offensive switchins to other Pokémon whereas Marshadow kind of lacks these. This however is fiction. Calm Mind Fairy Arceus is a potent offensive threat, Choice Scarf Pokémon are already virtually required on offense to deal with Psychic Terrain based teams. The issue with these however is they lack longevity and can't always switchin more than twice if you predict incorrectly. I can also make the case, many offensive teams are often forced to run Poisonceus nowadays to deal with Xerneas, and as you can see in the above calcs, that walls Marshadow. Given the correct set, Poison Arceus can overwhelm Marshadow quite easily, without sacrificing utility that it would have otherwise required.

The trends in the metagame have shifted to the point where Choice Scarf users are ubiquitous on both offense and balance. They can switchin on Marshadow and revenge easily. In the former metagame, we could've seen Marshadow busting through Extreme Killer, Steel Arceus and Ghost Arceus with ease, but now these Pokémon have died down in usage Marshadow sits there and does nothing in a lot of matchups.

The introduction of Necrozma formes, while appearing to aid it, barely affects its viability. It can defeat them if they're weakened to a certain extent but otherwise Necrozma wins. Dusk Mane's defensive typing and Prism Armor allow it to take an LO Spectral Thief without falling, and Ultra Necrozma has /enough/ natural bulk without investment to live an LO Shadow Sneak. Simply revenging these Pokémon isn't enough in a lot of cases.

252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 228-269 (68 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Technician Marshadow Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Necrozma-Ultra: 257-304 (76.7 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That is impressive damage, but it's undercut by the fact that this is super-effective damage and that Choice Scarf users like Yveltal do this much more effectively. Marshadow isn't a solid answer to these Pokémon.

u have to look at all the pros and cons.
The omnipresence of Yveltal (especially Choice Scarf variants) is definitely a con that outweights all the pros made in your post. The increased usage of Mega Gengar, while helpful, doesn't compare to the negative effects this spike in general Yveltal usage has provided.

The metagame has shaped itself to be able to deal with this Pokémon without much effort. It is blatantly obvious but people still insist on running Marshadow even when it's putting them at an apparent disadvantage most of the time.

Its usage does not reflect its viability whatsoever.
As I stated above, the point of this post isn't to convince you Marshadow is bad. It's still useful to an extent, despite what I've shown. Sure, it has ways to get around a few of the Pokémon listed above but then again I ask you, which Pokémon doesn't? Ho-Oh has ways to beat Zygarde-Complete 1v1 evidently and Fairy Arceus can take out every Pokémon in the metagame bar like Haze Toxapex and even then I can think of some garbage niche "set" that can still take that out. Marshadow doesn't even have this ability. It has no way to reliably beat Fairy Arceus 1v1. It has a way to make it borderline unusable for the remainder of the match but then again, every Pokémon in the S and A ranks bar like Yveltal can do this.

People sometimes prefer to justify Marshadow usage not by its sheer strength and speed but rather by its Endeavor set which can be directly compared to a glorified FEAR set. What does Marshadow do that Custap Berry Wobbuffet couldn't do last generation. At least Wobbuffet took out a Pokémon instead of getting it down to 1%. Compare this to trash like Aron, Magnemite and Probopass and you begin to see an overwhelming pattern of inconsistency.

These Pokémon don't see usage because they're gimmicks. The negative stigma we associate with them due to their evident weakness to hazards and other horrendous flaws provides us with an attitude towards them that justifies no usage in high level play. Marshadow is an alternative now. It has a way to take out Ghost-types that come in on Endeavor and other little niches but without a Life Orb or Marshadium Z, it's piss weak and can't accomplish anything bar this one little thing that even Aron can do, albeit less effectively.

Even if we agree on its rank being A, you can't say this is fair.
October 1760-weighted: 3 | Marshadow | 43.37979% | 140413 | 12.758% | 88540 | 13.011%
October Unweighted: 2 | Marshadow | 12.75786% | 140413 | 12.758% | 88540 | 13.011%

It simply isn't that good. You can argue for its viability up to A and it doesn't bother me but seeing it at 2nd and 3rd most used is annoying. It's detrimental to the success of players, as they're being held back by using this Pokémon. I encourage you all to try other things. Try Ghost Arceus, try Flying Arceus, try something obscure like Terrakion. Expand your horizons, it's healthy for you.

Even after the initial hype period has calmed down, it is still immensely overrated.
You have to be trying really hard not to notice this. Marshadow at 3rd most used in 1760 glicko-weighted is laughable. It's not the third best Pokémon by any means, it's not any easier to fit onto your team than other offensive Pokémon, and Arceus doesn't require a dedicated check at this stage in the metagame.

Since this point is more of a summary than an actual essay driven header let me ensure I've missed nothing with a few more points.

Spectral Thief
Marshadow's sole reasoning for being considered overpowered used to be its signature move Spectral Thief. I compel anyone who uses Marshadow to consider the last time they used it to steal an opposing Pokémon's boosts. If it's frequently then you must be somewhat low ladder. No one in high level play sets up Swords Dance with a Marshadow in the back.

All Spectral Thief does is prevent some set-up, while discouraging others. It never actually sees use properly. Perhaps this is what we could consider its main purpose but I assure you that's not what's going through the mind of the average AG ladder hero. Discouraging setup is valuable, sure. But at what extent do we consider discouraging a certain aspect of the metagame enough to justify such high viability.

Otherwise consider what Spectral Thief is. It's a 90 BP physical Ghost-type attack. That's actually somewhat pitiful.

Viability not Impact
But let me justify the above sentiment with the fact that we rank Pokémon based on their viability within the current metagame, not the impacts they've made to the metagame that existed beforehand. In that case Mega Gengar and Primal Groudon would be given even higher credit than they're given now. The difference between these Pokémon and Marshadow is that these put in work nine times out of ten whereas Marshadow does not.

This is a viability ranking. The primary purpose of this thread isn't to determine what made the biggest splash upon addition to the metagame. It's to determine what works. What functions correctly now? What are the most effective Pokémon to use now? It's in the title, this can't be so difficult to comprehend.

Viability: ability to work as intended or to succeed.
Impact: a powerful effect that something, especially something new, has on a situation.

That's not to say the two are mutually exclusive. Impact can affect viability easily, but once the metagame is settled and Marshadow is heavily prepared for, it's really difficult to justify it keeping such a high rank with the argument that it affected the metagame drastically in June.

"Every little bit adds up"
I'll agree that it has a lot of redeeming qualities that when looked at together make it look appealing. Albeit, enough for A rank is a stretch. Consider what it does in full. In most matches a player will switch directly to their Support Arceus or Choice Scarf user, requiring Marshadow to switch out. This accomplishes nothing other than forcing a switch, which again, doesn't justify A rank.

In my experience, the only time I've ever found Marshadow as useful as some make it out to be is when paired with Mega Gengar or Gothitelle. This requirement of team support to provide function, yet again, isn't enough to justify A rank. The viability of both Shadow Tag users is what should be affected through this point. Mega Rayquaza provides the same amount of support for this however.

I don't want Marshadow lowered any further, I'm a strong believer that A- is perfect for it at this current point in the metagame. If someone nominated it for B+ tomorrow, I would be against that. I'm not against Marshadow, I'm against the common belief that it's better than it actually is.

Marshadow should stay at A- rank. It should not rise to A rank. It should not drop to B+ rank. Hopefully this post made sense, I am actually quite exhaused after only getting three hours of sleep and not eating since yesterday. ;w;

use marshadow bc there’s no reason not to
This is the kind of horrid misconception we have to put up with all the time and it's totally incorrect. I encourage you to read the entirety of this post. Don't blindly defend this Pokémon, it is dead weight in a whole lot of match-ups. There is no Pokémon in this metagame that should be used on every team.

marsh is a- lol
restricts teambuilding almost as much as mray lol



How are you even comparing Marshadow to Mega Rayquaza? With all things considered, that great STAB coverage and Spectral Thief isn't enough to make up for that massive loss in power. Consider what is thought to be the best Mega Rayquaza check. Probably Lugia right? Marshadow has a plethora of answers as listed above, it's just that the majority of people don't realise how piss weak it actually is.

Adding to this, can we please stop focusing on the impact a Pokémon had to the metagame rather than its current viability. This isn't how you judge a Pokémon's viability.
u don't really know much about how ag works
To which I respond with: I do, I'm not the one comparing Marshadow to Mega Rayquaza. You don't really know much about how AG works, do you Fardin?
 
Nice post. however, I do disagree with some parts, and will be trimming down this in order to respond to this. The goal here isnt to take anything out of context, just to make it so that i can do soemthing other than respond to a wall of text, so if I accidentally do that you have my apologies.
  • Balance and Stall do not have issues with it.
  • Its offense breaking capabilities aren't enough to justify such extreme usage.
  • Its usage does not reflect its viability whatsoever.
  • Even after the initial hype period has calmed down, it is still immensely overrated.
I don't disagree with 2, and 4 is I beleive partially true, but 1 and 3 I think aren't really the case. This will be the main thrust of my response
Let me explain all of these and then refute points I've been presented on Forums, Showdown and Discord.

Balance and Stall do not have issues with it.
Balance and Stall both already required Support Arceus formes, which as displayed here do not drop to Marshadow.

252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 156-185 (24.5 - 29%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 244+ Def Arceus-Fairy: 121-142 (27.3 - 32%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Arceus-Poison: 157-187 (35.4 - 42.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Arceus-Ground: 157-187 (35.4 - 42.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Yveltal: 185-218 (40.5 - 47.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 204+ Def Ho-Oh: 152-179 (36.6 - 43.1%) -- 98.6% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
I don't really disagree with this, but I would like to point out that Zygarde needs to already be complete form to not lose to bulk up on the switch; In order to not lose to the same set, Arceus-ground and Poison must have will-o-wisp, and if you really want ho-oh gone rock tomb isn't really even that bad. It's obviously not a standard, but marshadow can function as a solid lure to ho-oh should the team have difficulties handling it.

This is all considering the Life Orb set, running any other item makes it piss weak bar for one turn. All it accomplishes with a Marshadium set could lowkey be compared to Mega Banette as all it does is eliminate one Pokémon from the game if it gets predictions right.

I'm of the belief that without a Life Orb Marshadow's power isn't relevant in the Anything Goes metagame. Marshadium Z has a use otherwise but if it wastes its Z-move, it's dead weight and can virtually accomplish nothing. Adjusting the calculations to non-LO you can see why i retain this belief.

252 Atk Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 120-142 (18.8 - 22.3%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 244 Def Arceus-Fairy: 102-120 (23 - 27%) -- 44.5% chance to 4HKO
252 Atk Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Arceus-Poison: 121-144 (27.3 - 32.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Yveltal: 142-168 (31.1 - 36.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Marshadium Z puts in use, yes. However all the Pokémon listed above shrug it off with ease if its unboosted and can still recover it off fairly easily at +1. If you allow it past this stage, it's really not an argument for Marshadow viability but rather your incompetence as a Pokémon player.
Comparing marshadow to mbannete is really dumb. Marsh can run over offense, is much stronger, has two stabs... the comparison doesnt work at al. Even like scarf lunala would be a better Analogy,

This is where the majority of my disagreement comes in. While yes, Marshadium is a 1 turn nuke, a one turn nuke is extremely effective. Any fast arceus form is just straight up removed:
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Fairy: 397-468 (89.4 - 105.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
and while defensive formes are far from uncommon only defensive arceus fairy actually takes it on like that. Every other defensive arceus form must carry wisp and must win the 50-50 to not lose on the switchin. You might be wondering why I'm emphasizing it, but Marshadow's anti offense abilties and solid stabs give it a lot of forced switches versus most balance and bulky offense teams. Should a stallbreaking form be desired, running
Marshadow @ Marshadium Z
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spectral Thief
- Close Combat
- Bulk Up
- Substitute
Is extremely underrated and beats any non arceus fairy wallceus unless heavily outpredicted, usually on the orders of 87-13% in marshadow's favor, and has other utility like stopping glare from zygarde-C and lets you beat Mega rayquaza without wasting your zmove. This brings me into my next point: offensiev synergy. Marshadow pairs rediculously well with just about every stall answer. Gothitelle? Gothitelle + Marshadow loses only to yveltal and dragon tail Zygarde-C that's already in complete form. Mega Gengar? Despite both being ghosts, Marshadow can take on the likes of ferrothorn and tyranitar, while mgar can pick off fairyceus or run alternate sets like wisphex (zygarde), hypnohex (zygarde, groundceus, some hooh) or destiny bond (whatever their marshadow check is). Defensive teams have pretty much answer to this core, and it can also do very well against offense. Or, say, bandray plus marshadow; did you know that marshadow beats every banray answer, and they both pressure a lot of shared checks like as well. Heck, even just deopping 70% on fairyceus and getting koed gives offensive yveltal a free sweep simce defensive fairyceus is outsped; the fairyceus either dies to +1 zmove or is slower than life orb sets. On offensive teams, marshadow is very splashable and a solid team player, as expending itself to remove a mon becomes a lot more appealing when you are spoiled for choice in pokemon that want to take advantage of that gap.

Setting up to plus two on supportceus is not hard at all unless they hit you super effectively, and thats the majority of your suggested answers.
There is absolutely no way to justify its power. 125 Attack isn't good enough for AG standards, nor is good enough to bust through walls. It only functions effectively against a select moiety of offensive teams. You can compare Marshadow's pitiful strength to anything in the metagame but just for the sake of this being my post and all, let me compare its strength to another common threat.

208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 172-203 (27 - 31.9%) -- 32.4% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Giratina: 179-212 (35.5 - 42%) -- 87.4% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 248 HP / 244 Def Arceus-Water: 191-226 (43.1 - 51%) -- 3.1% chance to 2HKO
208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Rock: 260-307 (58.5 - 69.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You can then additionally argue that Marshadow's Speed tier justifies it, or that it doesn't have a Stealth Rock weakness like Ho-Oh does. I can point out that Marshadow dies to most attacks and has no longevity. We can compare apples and oranges but I'm not stating Ho-Oh is a broken Pokémon, I'm stating it's more powerful than Marshadow and it breaks more than Marshadow does. If anyone ever uses the argument of its raw strength again, please correct their fallible logic.

However despite the above paragraph, Marshadow can break through offense with ease whereas Ho-Oh thrives against bulkier playstyles. Hyper Offense doesn't constitute the majority of Anything Goes usage. Let me clarify yet again, before you use this in your strawman rebuttal, that I am not comparing Ho-Oh and Marshadow wholly, solely their strength.
You say you are comparing their strength, but in this situation youve outlined the difference in strength is irrelevant. Hooh doesnt struggle against offense because it doesnt hit hard enough, it struggles because its too slow to sweep offense with that power. Marshaodw, while weaker, is still strong enough to sweep far more than a minority of offense teams, particularly at +1 or after some softening. Unlike hooh, it can convert that power directly into KOes against offensive pokemon without being trivially forced out and revenge killed by, say, mega rayquaza.
If I was to compare an actual Pokémon to it, the closest option I could have is Ghost Arceus. Both are nice against offensive archetypes; however, Arceus lacks solid checks while Marshadow has multiple notable ones. When you think of Ghost Arceus checks, your mind jumps straight to Yveltal, which can be overcome through the use of Stone Edge. While this isn't perfect, its a better counter measure than Marshadow's options against Fairy Arceus, which are virtually limited to Endeavor.

Ghost Arceus's speed tier is almost the same as Marshadow's. The only thing that Ghost Arceus misses out on (other than tying with Marshadow) is outspeeding Timid Arceus formes; however, even these have been on the decline as of late. It beats all the things Marshadow beats 1v1 bar Substitute Mega Gengar, but even then it can opt for Shadow Claw over Extreme Speed and take that out too.

However, due to the current stigma against Ghost Arceus in the metagame (due to Marshadow's introduction), people don't use it. It's a fine Pokémon, it has more than one narrow use like Marshadow does, and it breaks through the exact same things that SSSSS does with NEN. Marshadow's introduction brought a wave of usage with it, when it's just a glorified Ghost Arceus with a slightly better speed tier and tremendously worse utility.

The argument you'd next go for would probably be to do with the prevalence of Dark Arceus also being a major downfall for Ghost Arceus, whereas Marshadow can thrive in this environment. Dark Arceus can lose if it comes in on the Swords Dance, like it would supposedly; however, I wouldn't count this as a solid counter argument. Marshadow is encouraged in this Arceus-Dark heavy stage of the metagame more than Ghost Arceus is. That's one reason for why Marshadow is better than Ghost Arceus, but then again Marshadow is low A rank and Ghost Arceus is high B rank, so in contrast this one advantage Marshadow has is enough to justify it an entire rank difference.
right off the bat, this comparison runs aground. Yes, ghostceus is the closest comparison, but marshadow still blows it out of the water. You talk about running stone edge for yveltal, but that doesnt, you know, actually win, which is generally the goal of adding coverage. Marshadow can take on timid fairyceus, and just needs a little chip to take on fairyceus, which unlike yveltal is heavily pressured and will often actually get weakned outside of theorymonning. Even with shadow claw it cant really take on mega gengar unless its completely pristine, It cant beat wisp rockceus, it does much worse against ferrothorn or toxic chansey where marshadow freely forces a switch, it has issues with coil zygarde, and its complete bait for opposing marshadow, and at low hp It has to win ties against half the ag metagame. Marshadow doesnt entirely outclass, but its better by a much more significant margin than you suggest here.


Its offense breaking capabilities aren't enough to justify such extreme usage nor a high ranking.
What I mean by this is, while it does lack direct switchins on Offense, what doesn't?

I hope you can understand what I mean. If I run a Scarf Terrakion or I run a Ghost Arceus against a HO team, and you have an Extreme Killer Arceus on the field, isn't the general play to sack it off in the hopes that another team member can come in and revenge kill it once Extreme Killer dies? What makes Marshadow different in this capacity?

The general counter-argument to this I assume would be the ability to run offensive switchins to other Pokémon whereas Marshadow kind of lacks these. This however is fiction. Calm Mind Fairy Arceus is a potent offensive threat, Choice Scarf Pokémon are already virtually required on offense to deal with Psychic Terrain based teams. The issue with these however is they lack longevity and can't always switchin more than twice if you predict incorrectly. I can also make the case, many offensive teams are often forced to run Poisonceus nowadays to deal with Xerneas, and as you can see in the above calcs, that walls Marshadow. Given the correct set, Poison Arceus can overwhelm Marshadow quite easily, without sacrificing utility that it would have otherwise required.

The trends in the metagame have shifted to the point where Choice Scarf users are ubiquitous on both offense and balance. They can switchin on Marshadow and revenge easily. In the former metagame, we could've seen Marshadow busting through Extreme Killer, Steel Arceus and Ghost Arceus with ease, but now these Pokémon have died down in usage Marshadow sits there and does nothing in a lot of matchups.

The introduction of Necrozma formes, while appearing to aid it, barely affects its viability. It can defeat them if they're weakened to a certain extent but otherwise Necrozma wins. Dusk Mane's defensive typing and Prism Armor allow it to take an LO Spectral Thief without falling, and Ultra Necrozma has /enough/ natural bulk without investment to live an LO Shadow Sneak. Simply revenging these Pokémon isn't enough in a lot of cases.

252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 228-269 (68 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Technician Marshadow Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Necrozma-Ultra: 257-304 (76.7 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That is impressive damage, but it's undercut by the fact that this is super-effective damage and that Choice Scarf users like Yveltal do this much more effectively. Marshadow isn't a solid answer to these Pokémon.


The omnipresence of Yveltal (especially Choice Scarf variants) is definitely a con that outweights all the pros made in your post. The increased usage of Mega Gengar, while helpful, doesn't compare to the negative effects this spike in general Yveltal usage has provided.

The metagame has shaped itself to be able to deal with this Pokémon without much effort. It is blatantly obvious but people still insist on running Marshadow even when it's putting them at an apparent disadvantage most of the time.
The problem with these offensive switchins is that they dont exist. Cm fairyceus? Not a switchin, single use or otherwise. Choice scarfers not named yveltal? Same deal, and yveltal itself is single use. Poisonceus? You better be running fully defensive wisp, which leaves you 100% walled by pdon, steels, and support arceus while preventing you from running utility moves and seriously impacts your ability to check xern, plus it has to be at almost 100% hp which means that you cant even use it to take on xerneas if its your answer to marshadow.





How are you even comparing Marshadow to Mega Rayquaza? With all things considered, that great STAB coverage and Spectral Thief isn't enough to make up for that massive loss in power. Consider what is thought to be the best Mega Rayquaza check. Probably Lugia right? Marshadow has a plethora of answers as listed above, it's just that the majority of people don't realise how piss weak it actually is.

Adding to this, can we please stop focusing on the impact a Pokémon had to the metagame rather than its current viability. This isn't how you judge a Pokémon's viability.

To which I respond with: I do, I'm not the one comparing Marshadow to Mega Rayquaza. You don't really know much about how AG works, do you Fardin?
I get that this is throwing shade at fardin, but this argument is honestly completely irrelevant. Saying that marshadow is worse than an s rank doesnt mean it needs to drop from A. All A rank pokemon should be worse than mega rayquaza.
 

Chloe

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Oh boy.
I don't really disagree with this, but I would like to point out that Zygarde needs to already be complete form to not lose to bulk up on the switch; In order to not lose to the same set, Arceus-ground and Poison must have will-o-wisp, and if you really want ho-oh gone rock tomb isn't really even that bad. It's obviously not a standard, but marshadow can function as a solid lure to ho-oh should the team have difficulties handling it.
I'm glad that you seem to agree with the majority of my post by only selecting a few minimal statements I made in the 3000 words written that you have chosen to refute. It makes me more confident in my argument. I do however disagree with a lot of the points you've made here. For starters, Zygarde does take a large amount of damage if it comes in on a Bulk Up. Whether it loses against it after that is up to the following actions, as a loss is not guaranteed. My hope would be that a Zygarde user would attempt to set up Power Construct as early as possible in a match, but this for sure, isn't guaranteed.

+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde: 292-345 (69.5 - 82.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

This is undeniably a large amount of damage, and if Marshadow is the 23.343% that runs Bulk Up then there will be an evident issue on the defensive side. I do however disagree with the statement that Ground and Poison Arceus miss out on a lot. The majority of Poison Arceus sets at a high level run Will-O-Wisp and Ground Arceus commonly runs Will-O-Wisp for offensive Arceus formes and Mega Rayquaza. So no you're not missing out on much. Ho-Oh is only a solid answer due to the rarity of Rock Tomb on current sets. Otherwise I could argue Ground Arceus has no issues with Celesteela because a small portion of users run Fire Blast. Pokémon have ways to surpass others, Marshadow doesn't necessarily do this better than other common threats.

Comparing marshadow to mbannete is really dumb. Marsh can run over offense, is much stronger, has two stabs... the comparison doesnt work at al. Even like scarf lunala would be a better Analogy,
I wasn't comparing Marshadow to Mega Banette. My intention was to dramatise how minimal Marshadium Z Marshadow does after it uses its Z-move. It takes out one threat and is useless otherwise. If we're comparing the sheer strength of the Pokémon, of course Lunala is a better comparison in that regard. I however was not doing this.

This is where the majority of my disagreement comes in. While yes, Marshadium is a 1 turn nuke, a one turn nuke is extremely effective. Any fast arceus form is just straight up removed:
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Fairy: 397-468 (89.4 - 105.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
As I just said, it removes one Pokémon. That's what Mega Banette does. I'm not advocating Mega Banette usage or anything but you might as well compare it to a FEAR mon after arguments like this.

and while defensive formes are far from uncommon only defensive arceus fairy actually takes it on like that. Every other defensive arceus form must carry wisp and must win the 50-50 to not lose on the switchin. You might be wondering why I'm emphasizing it, but Marshadow's anti offense abilties and solid stabs give it a lot of forced switches versus most balance and bulky offense teams.
I'm concerned that you didn't read my post in its entirety. I stated multiple times that this ability wasn't exclusive to Marshadow, that many offensive Pokémon have the qualities to allow this to occur. I dislike using this example multiple times but it does help get the point across: If I send out Ghost Arceus you're going to switch to your Dark-type or Celesteela or whatever your answer is. It forces switches, why do you assume Marshadow is like a godsend that allows this to happen as if it didn't before.

Should a stallbreaking form be desired, running
Marshadow @ Marshadium Z
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Spectral Thief
- Close Combat
- Bulk Up
- Substitute
Is extremely underrated and beats any non arceus fairy wallceus unless heavily outpredicted, usually on the orders of 87-13% in marshadow's favor, and has other utility like stopping glare from zygarde-C and lets you beat Mega rayquaza without wasting your zmove. This brings me into my next point: offensiev synergy. Marshadow pairs rediculously well with just about every stall answer. Gothitelle? Gothitelle + Marshadow loses only to yveltal and dragon tail Zygarde-C that's already in complete form. Mega Gengar? Despite both being ghosts, Marshadow can take on the likes of ferrothorn and tyranitar, while mgar can pick off fairyceus or run alternate sets like wisphex (zygarde), hypnohex (zygarde, groundceus, some hooh) or destiny bond (whatever their marshadow check is). Defensive teams have pretty much answer to this core, and it can also do very well against offense. Or, say, bandray plus marshadow; did you know that marshadow beats every banray answer, and they both pressure a lot of shared checks like as well. Heck, even just deopping 70% on fairyceus and getting koed gives offensive yveltal a free sweep simce defensive fairyceus is outsped; the fairyceus either dies to +1 zmove or is slower than life orb sets. On offensive teams, marshadow is very splashable and a solid team player, as expending itself to remove a mon becomes a lot more appealing when you are spoiled for choice in pokemon that want to take advantage of that gap.
You completely missed the point of my post. Other Pokémon can stallbreak, other Pokémon can lure in Ho-Oh and Complete Zygarde. You're just glorifying it like everyone else is.

Setting up to plus two on supportceus is not hard at all unless they hit you super effectively, and thats the majority of your suggested answers.
Considering that Fairy Arceus, Poison Arceus and Yveltal are the three answers I repeatedly vouched for, when all three easily defeat Marshadow in this scenario, I feel as if this point is very weak.

You say you are comparing their strength, but in this situation youve outlined the difference in strength is irrelevant.
No. I stated that its strength is weak and hence shouldn't be considered as a pro-Marshadow argument. Not that its strength is irrelevant, it's very much relevant.

Hooh doesnt struggle against offense because it doesnt hit hard enough, it struggles because its too slow to sweep offense with that power. Marshaodw, while weaker, is still strong enough to sweep far more than a minority of offense teams, particularly at +1 or after some softening. Unlike hooh, it can convert that power directly into KOes against offensive pokemon without being trivially forced out and revenge killed by, say, mega rayquaza.
You're missing the point yet again. I was directly comparing damage output to contrast the common misconception that Marshadow has impeccable strength. Ho-Oh isn't known for its power and yet is much stronger in that regard. That was my sole point in that portion.

right off the bat, this comparison runs aground. Yes, ghostceus is the closest comparison, but marshadow still blows it out of the water. You talk about running stone edge for yveltal, but that doesnt, you know, actually win, which is generally the goal of adding coverage. Marshadow can take on timid fairyceus, and just needs a little chip to take on fairyceus, which unlike yveltal is heavily pressured and will often actually get weakned outside of theorymonning. Even with shadow claw it cant really take on mega gengar unless its completely pristine, It cant beat wisp rockceus, it does much worse against ferrothorn or toxic chansey where marshadow freely forces a switch, it has issues with coil zygarde, and its complete bait for opposing marshadow, and at low hp It has to win ties against half the ag metagame. Marshadow doesnt entirely outclass, but its better by a much more significant margin than you suggest here.
I state Stone Edge as an option as it does take out multiple common Yveltal sets. You stating Marshadow can overwhelm Timid Fairy Arceus after a bit of prior damage is no better. The idea of the argument "can take on 1v1" assumes that both Pokémon are in pristine condition, otherwise it's an unfair argument to make. Will-O-Wisp Arceus-Rock isn't a decent check due to its inability to switch in and reliably win a tie. Ferrothorn and Chansey both give Ghost Arceus residual damage, but you generally care for it as much as Marshadow cares about Life Orb recoil. Issues with Coil Zygarde are fair but keep in mind there are options for Arceus-Ghost to get past this. It has many more coverage options than Marshadow does, seeing as it has the third largest movepool in the game. While Marshadow does out-speed Arceus formes it has an issue breaking them as I've stated a plethora of times here. Out-speeding is useless if it can't do anything to the things it out-speeds. And finally, again, I'm not trying to justify the point that Ghost Arceus is more viable than Marshadow, it's not. But you seem to misunderstand how effective Marshadow is.

The problem with these offensive switchins is that they dont exist. Cm fairyceus? Not a switchin, single use or otherwise. Choice scarfers not named yveltal? Same deal, and yveltal itself is single use. Poisonceus? You better be running fully defensive wisp, which leaves you 100% walled by pdon, steels, and support arceus while preventing you from running utility moves and seriously impacts your ability to check xern, plus it has to be at almost 100% hp which means that you cant even use it to take on xerneas if its your answer to marshadow.
Calm Mind Fairy Arceus is unequivocally a switch-in. Choice Scarf users aren't as frail as you expect through this post.

252 Atk Marshadow Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Yveltal: 199-235 (50.6 - 59.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Xerneas: 150-177 (38.1 - 45%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

A lot of your post is cherry picking, whereas I've responded to every single argument you've made.

I get that this is throwing shade at fardin, but this argument is honestly completely irrelevant. Saying that marshadow is worse than an s rank doesnt mean it needs to drop from A. All A rank pokemon should be worse than mega rayquaza.
Simply a rebuttal of what common misconceptions were. Yes, I was throwing shade at Fardin since he's incompetent but I do agree with the sentiment this point does nothing otherwise.
 
Oh boy.

I'm glad that you seem to agree with the majority of my post by only selecting a few minimal statements I made in the 3000 words written that you have chosen to refute. It makes me more confident in my argument. I do however disagree with a lot of the points you've made here. For starters, Zygarde does take a large amount of damage if it comes in on a Bulk Up. Whether it loses against it after that is up to the following actions, as a loss is not guaranteed. My hope would be that a Zygarde user would attempt to set up Power Construct as early as possible in a match, but this for sure, isn't guaranteed.

+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde: 292-345 (69.5 - 82.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

This is undeniably a large amount of damage, and if Marshadow is the 23.343% that runs Bulk Up then there will be an evident issue on the defensive side. I do however disagree with the statement that Ground and Poison Arceus miss out on a lot. The majority of Poison Arceus sets at a high level run Will-O-Wisp and Ground Arceus commonly runs Will-O-Wisp for offensive Arceus formes and Mega Rayquaza. So no you're not missing out on much. Ho-Oh is only a solid answer due to the rarity of Rock Tomb on current sets. Otherwise I could argue Ground Arceus has no issues with Celesteela because a small portion of users run Fire Blast. Pokémon have ways to surpass others, Marshadow doesn't necessarily do this better than other common threats.
I thought this would have been obvious but evidently not? Don’t bring ladder usage into this. You just got out of saying that ladder uses marshadow badly, and you’re aware of its general quality. Focus on marshadows actually good sets when ranking on viability, not whatever the meme of the month is (s/o sash marshadow).

In order to run wisp, arceus ground can only run once of ice beam / toxic / defog. Its certainly not bad, but its also not the sole standard and for good reason. Running wisp greatly hurts the matchup against 2/3 of <Ho-oh / supportceus / lugia> (toxic), <Yveltal / Mray / Zygarde> (Ice Beam), and <every team with stealth rock, especially ones with rocker pdon since groundceus is one of its best checks> (defog). Even when playing high level opponents, there will very often be occasions where Arceus ground isnt running wisp. Furthermore, even wisp doesnt actually flat out win; it has to win the 60-40 in order to win. If arceus wisps and marshadow attacks,
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 297-351 (66.8 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO + +1 252 Atk burned Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 91-108 (20.4 - 24.3%) -- guaranteed 5HK0, which totals to 88-104 and is about even with rocks up. Its not great for the marshadow in question, as even with the 50-50 after rocks marshdow becomes much less useful, but trading an anti offense mon to crack open a defensive core is almost always going to be a good deal. You might say they can recover on the zmove, but that too is a prediction, as a +2 marshadow will always beat groundceus. Wisp poisonceus is even worse, as its lack of defense investment a) leaves marshadow a chance to just OHKO is anyway, and b) getting off the wisp still leaves poisonceus dead, not to mention that if marsh wants it can just keep boosting despite the burn. Its not like poisonceus can force it out, and a +3 burned marshadow isnt actually that much easier to switch into.
Even though these two mons can in theory take on marshadow, its not without risk and taking it on means they cant do anything else. Even if you just switched that poisonceus into a low hp fairyceus’ judgment and bopped it with poison jab, switching out to avoid the precepice blades from the groudon revenge means you dont have a marsh check anymore.

I wasn't comparing Marshadow to Mega Banette. My intention was to dramatise how minimal Marshadium Z Marshadow does after it uses its Z-move. It takes out one threat and is useless otherwise. If we're comparing the sheer strength of the Pokémon, of course Lunala is a better comparison in that regard. I however was not doing this.


As I just said, it removes one Pokémon. That's what Mega Banette does. I'm not advocating Mega Banette usage or anything but you might as well compare it to a FEAR mon after arguments like this.
Ordinarily I would be charitable and not touch on something this awful in a post thats otherwise pretty solid, but apparently ignoring any part of a post is cherrypicking now so I have to. Nevertheless, you denying the comparison rings pretty damn hollow when you go on to do that in the next fucking paragraph. Prankly, the comparison is one of the worst ones Ive seen. Mbannete cant even come close to guarenteeing a ko, it has no offensive pressure of any sort, its complete bait for all supportceus at pretty much any level of HP, its incredibly obvious what its doing and even in the event that the opponent has no way to avoid procing destiny bond they can at will sack any pokemon to it, it doesnt posess any redeemable defensive qualities, and it uses a mega slot which is far more valuable than a zmove. Like, just about the only similarity between the two is that theyre both ghosts.

I'm concerned that you didn't read my post in its entirety. I stated multiple times that this ability wasn't exclusive to Marshadow, that many offensive Pokémon have the qualities to allow this to occur. I dislike using this example multiple times but it does help get the point across: If I send out Ghost Arceus you're going to switch to your Dark-type or Celesteela or whatever your answer is. It forces switches, why do you assume Marshadow is like a godsend that allows this to happen as if it didn't before.

You completely missed the point of my post. Other Pokémon can stallbreak, other Pokémon can lure in Ho-Oh and Complete Zygarde. You're just glorifying it like everyone else is.

Considering that Fairy Arceus, Poison Arceus and Yveltal are the three answers I repeatedly vouched for, when all three easily defeat Marshadow in this scenario, I feel as if this point is very weak.
Marshadow isnt exclusive in forces switches and can blow away stall, but it is unique in doing that at its speed tier beyond maybe mewtwo, and marshadow is much better against offense. It has an excellent role compression, and what it loses in its low number of extremely good matchups it gains in its lack of bad ones. Marshadow can customize itself as the team demands without sacrificng the reasons for running it, and its quite effective at its jobs.

Poison arceus doesnt stop marshadow from setting up. It does slow the effective boosting with wisp, but if poisonceus is your only check to marshadow at all youve already lost as it boosts to +6.

No. I stated that its strength is weak and hence shouldn't be considered as a pro-Marshadow argument. Not that its strength is irrelevant, it's very much relevant.

You're missing the point yet again. I was directly comparing damage output to contrast the common misconception that Marshadow has impeccable strength. Ho-Oh isn't known for its power and yet is much stronger in that regard. That was my sole point in that portion.
That does make more sense. I think your original post wasnt the most clear on that, but I dont disagree; being uniquely powerful isnt why marshadow is good, especially given that that isnt true.

I state Stone Edge as an option as it does take out multiple common Yveltal sets. You stating Marshadow can overwhelm Timid Fairy Arceus after a bit of prior damage is no better. The idea of the argument "can take on 1v1" assumes that both Pokémon are in pristine condition, otherwise it's an unfair argument to make. Will-O-Wisp Arceus-Rock isn't a decent check due to its inability to switch in and reliably win a tie. Ferrothorn and Chansey both give Ghost Arceus residual damage, but you generally care for it as much as Marshadow cares about Life Orb recoil. Issues with Coil Zygarde are fair but keep in mind there are options for Arceus-Ghost to get past this. It has many more coverage options than Marshadow does, seeing as it has the third largest movepool in the game. While Marshadow does out-speed Arceus formes it has an issue breaking them as I've stated a plethora of times here. Out-speeding is useless if it can't do anything to the things it out-speeds. And finally, again, I'm not trying to justify the point that Ghost Arceus is more viable than Marshadow, it's not. But you seem to misunderstand how effective Marshadow is.

Calm Mind Fairy Arceus is unequivocally a switch-in. Choice Scarf users aren't as frail as you expect through this post.

252 Atk Marshadow Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Yveltal: 199-235 (50.6 - 59.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Xerneas: 150-177 (38.1 - 45%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

A lot of your post is cherry picking, whereas I've responded to every single argument you've made.
Stone edge yveltal cant take on defensive yveltal. It cant take on scarf, except by limiting number of switchins. It does take on life orb on the switch, but both marshadow and ghostceus can a) do that anyway and b) yveltal still deals a ton with sucker. You are conflating taking on an offensive check more easily on the switch and overcoming a defensive check.

Calm mind fairyceus isnt a switchin:
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 72 HP / 184 Def Arceus-Fairy: 340-402 (85.2 - 100.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

Xerneas isnt a switchin either:
252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Xerneas: 322-379 (81.9 - 96.4%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock, and if it lives you can just shadow sneak. The same goes for life orb, as spectral theif -> sneak also revoves choice scarf xerneas.

Yveltal is 2hkoed even without rocks. That looks a lot like a single use switchin to me, but maybe yveltal got regenerator while I wasnt looking? Oblivion wing heals you but unless the marshdow team has none of rockceus / steelceus / celesteela / insert flying check, which is suicide considering mray exists, and no special tanks like pogre either, 2 close combats -> sneak if you get rolled will still ko.
 
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Fardin

Tournament Banned
hm, u made some nice points, butttttt. before i begin i just wanna quickly say, it looks like u tryna argue against something going up to A+ or S. Just look at cele and dusk, which both loses to almost every A+ and S mons. they are below marsh if u compare to how useful they are in their own role....but this is where the problem lies. u dont know how good of a mon marsh is in the first place.
oh look at savvy me reusing art.

It's no secret that I've been quite vocal about Marshadow in the past few months. Since its release, I've claimed that "it's bad", "it's unviable" and a plethora of other negative things about it. I will admit right now before I start this post, it isn't bad per se nor unviable; however, I do believe:
Balance and Stall do not have issues with it. <- Wrong
Its offense breaking capabilities aren't enough to justify such extreme usage. <- Wrong
Its usage does not reflect its viability whatsoever. <- Wrong
Even after the initial hype period has calmed down, it is still immensely overrated. <- Wrong
Let me explain all of these and then refute points I've been presented on Forums, Showdown and Discord.
dw ima go into all of em ig

Balance and Stall do not have issues with it.
Balance and Stall both already required Support Arceus formes, which as displayed here do not drop to Marshadow.

252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 156-185 (24.5 - 29%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 244+ Def Arceus-Fairy: 121-142 (27.3 - 32%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Arceus-Poison: 157-187 (35.4 - 42.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Arceus-Ground: 157-187 (35.4 - 42.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Yveltal: 185-218 (40.5 - 47.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 204+ Def Ho-Oh: 152-179 (36.6 - 43.1%) -- 98.6% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

This is all considering the Life Orb set, running any other item makes it piss weak bar for one turn. All it accomplishes with a Marshadium set could lowkey be compared to Mega Banette as all it does is eliminate one Pokémon from the game if it gets predictions right.
as a stall player, i know that marsh limits teambuilding a fuck ton. marsh had a big impact on a lot of popular stall, which forced some drastic changes. Just cause stall is now prepared for it, it doesnt make it any less of a threat lol. stall is prepared for xern, pdon and mray as well, yet they can still be a big pain. the same goes for marsh. the most common mon people use for marsh is fairy arc, and 80% of the time, its defog on stall. that shit can be baited in very easily and status it with stuff like pdon, yveltal or ur srock arceus user with toxic. it all comes down to ur team support. once fairy ceus is poisoned, the game will heavily be in the marsh user;s favour. everything needs some kind of a support to break thru stall, just like mray, xern or some Cm arcs. In marsh's case, that support was already relevant so thats cuul. fairy ceus is still a great check to it regardless and marsh has an incredibly hard time defeating it, if its not toxiced. tho the fact that only fairy ceus can check it reliably on stalls already makes it a threat if u think about, since the moment its toxiced, the pressure will be on u, and u might jsut end up losing the game(talkin from experience). ig u guys might think i forgot about toxa, but max def one is just not that relevant in ag. the only toxa one should use is mixed, but still in favour of sp def side for shits like CM arcs while still being able to wall LO marsh......but not bulky enuf to take on Z

+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 164 Def Toxapex: 288-339 (94.7 - 111.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

the stuff toxa can do with mixed def totally outclasses phsically one in ag, but i know that some still use it so here is the calc for it

+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 247-292 (81.2 - 96%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

once again im assuming bulk up, since marsh can literally do that to almost every poke vs stall.
not looking guud for both calcs regardless lul

here is one for msab too
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 286-337 (94 - 110.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 114-136 (37.5 - 44.7%) -- 5.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

vs LO, it always needs to be close to max health in order to wall.

for balance, i admit its easier to deal with marsh since u actually got some offensive presence, and ag is full tanks such as ho-oh and pdon, which can take a hit and dash back.
mixed def wisp poison ceus just shuts marsh, and so does fairy ceus (tho the latter can be baited into toxic quite easily, like when it tries to srock or defog),but it doesnt make it any less of a threat regardless. it will still steal every stat boost from slower mons, be immune to espeed and dash out some nice damage to anything that doesnt resist CC lol.
also about those calcs. vs zygarde, hp ice easily deals with it, and there is no reason not to run it on LO since the 4th move is just a filler.

yveltal ALWAYS needs to be close to max health to wall LO marsh reliable, and is fucked if srocks are down, but it walls the shit out of Z marsh and is a generally nice wall for marsh if u can keep hazards away from the field, but then again as i mentioned, it has its flaws.
Rock tomb just shits on ho-oh, and so does srock, but then again, if rocks arent down and marsh doesnt carry rock tomb, ig it can wall it lol

The goal for z marsh is to create some holes in the opponent's team and therefore allowing its teammates to sweep later in the game. ur a balance user, so u should prob know that u'll be in a tough situation if one of ur support mons are gone or down to 20-30% early on the game, especially when facing HO.
also its not like its useless after it used up the Z move. it can still steal every boost, hit some common types super effectivly, and etc. idk why u would compare it to that ghost prankster mon lol..maybe cause it can learn dbond? idk LOL

regardless tho everything, those mons can still wall it nicely, but im not tryna argue for a fucking S rank. just the fact that only those handful can wall it reliably, and still being the mon that puts one of the most pressure vs every playstyle alone should give it an A. u can even look at some A+ mons, and find much more mons that can realibly wall their ass. its honestly sad to see u using this argument for A-
I'm of the belief that without a Life Orb Marshadow's power isn't relevant in the Anything Goes metagame. Marshadium Z has a use otherwise but if it wastes its Z-move, it's dead weight and can virtually accomplish nothing. Adjusting the calculations to non-LO you can see why i retain this belief.

252 Atk Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 120-142 (18.8 - 22.3%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 244 Def Arceus-Fairy: 102-120 (23 - 27%) -- 44.5% chance to 4HKO
252 Atk Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Arceus-Poison: 121-144 (27.3 - 32.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Yveltal: 142-168 (31.1 - 36.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Marshadium Z puts in use, yes. However all the Pokémon listed above shrug it off with ease if its unboosted and can still recover it off fairly easily at +1. If you allow it past this stage, it's really not an argument for Marshadow viability but rather your incompetence as a Pokémon player.
r u nuts. Z marsh is one of the main thing that makes it so great, otherwise u wouldnt even need fairy ceus to wall it...any support arc would be fine lol. ive addressed most of those calcs in the post above. this alone just shows me ur limited understanding of how marsh works lol
also ur post about how allowing marsh to be at +1 shows ur incompetence is just so damn stupid ;i
ur literally just saying, u shouldnt switch out ur mon, but instead stay in and try to risk sacking it in order to stop marsh from bulking up without any consequences...
each time mray sets up on something, should we blame ourself for being incompetent? also marsh aint even that frail to begin with, and after it got the Bulk up boost, it can live a hit from quite a few mons.

btw
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Arceus-Poison: 394-465 (88.9 - 104.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
idk how that shrugs it off easily, but i agree. the other 3 wall quite nicely (Tho fairy ceus still takes a solid 70%, but its a w/e lul)

There is absolutely no way to justify its power. 125 Attack isn't good enough for AG standards, nor is good enough to bust through walls. It only functions effectively against a select moiety of offensive teams. You can compare Marshadow's pitiful strength to anything in the metagame but just for the sake of this being my post and all, let me compare its strength to another common threat.
yh 125 isnt anything impressive, but thats not what marsh is so hyped about. that poor 125 can be boosted with LO, which makes its attack stat roughly around 175-180. but then again, the recoil sucks ;i
what makes up for its low attack stat (above ceus tho lul) is its unqiue Z move, which 195 BP!!! one of the highest in the game....

208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde-Complete: 172-203 (27 - 31.9%) -- 32.4% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 204+ Def Giratina: 179-212 (35.5 - 42%) -- 87.4% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 248 HP / 244 Def Arceus-Water: 191-226 (43.1 - 51%) -- 3.1% chance to 2HKO
208+ Atk Life Orb Ho-Oh Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Rock: 260-307 (58.5 - 69.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You can then additionally argue that Marshadow's Speed tier justifies it, or that it doesn't have a Stealth Rock weakness like Ho-Oh does. I can point out that Marshadow dies to most attacks and has no longevity. We can compare apples and oranges but I'm not stating Ho-Oh is a broken Pokémon, I'm stating it's more powerful than Marshadow and it breaks more than Marshadow does. If anyone ever uses the argument of its raw strength again, please correct their fallible logic.

However despite the above paragraph, Marshadow can break through offense with ease whereas Ho-Oh thrives against bulkier playstyles. Hyper Offense doesn't constitute the majority of Anything Goes usage. Let me clarify yet again, before you use this in your strawman rebuttal, that I am not comparing Ho-Oh and Marshadow wholly, solely their strength.
why even bring up ho-oh. its very irrelevant to this case. u might as well just bring up pdon and compare its attack stats cause that will surely help ur case. as u said it urself, its speed is what makes it different from all the other.
look at it this way. ho-oh can do a solid 43%-51% to water cues, but then its forced to switch out due to being slower. with marsh it does 35.3 - 42.1% with LO CC, and is able to outspeed next turn, allowing it to deal damage to it again. this means that marsh can kill it if rocks are down and water ceus is at 82%

BUT, unlike marsh, ho-oh can live multiple hit from many things.. imma say it once again, but mentioning this mon is just very irrelevant to this case, even if u just wanted to tell me how weak it is compare to other mons. i could just simply show u how slow is the rest of the meta compare to marsh, and what benefit the speed exactly has with the water ceus example above....

Also, Marshadow's "perfect" STAB combination is undercut by not only the fact that it's incredibly weak but also the fact that other potent offensive threats aren't walled by any type either. Consider Mega Rayquaza, consider Calm Mind Arceus formes, consider Ultra Necrozma. While they don't have a perfect STAB-typing, they get by just fine.
u have a point there. marsh got shit stats compare to the ones u mentioned, but its perfect dual stab happens to make it up for it, which is one of the reason why u see people spamming fairy and poison ceus against it :]

If I was to compare an actual Pokémon to it, the closest option I could have is Ghost Arceus. Both are nice against offensive archetypes; however, Arceus lacks solid checks while Marshadow has multiple notable ones. When you think of Ghost Arceus checks, your mind jumps straight to Yveltal, which can be overcome through the use of Stone Edge. While this isn't perfect, its a better counter measure than Marshadow's options against Fairy Arceus, which are virtually limited to Endeavor.

Ghost Arceus's speed tier is almost the same as Marshadow's. The only thing that Ghost Arceus misses out on (other than tying with Marshadow) is outspeeding Timid Arceus formes; however, even these have been on the decline as of late. It beats all the things Marshadow beats 1v1 bar Substitute Mega Gengar, but even then it can opt for Shadow Claw over Extreme Speed and take that out too.

However, due to the current stigma against Ghost Arceus in the metagame (due to Marshadow's introduction), people don't use it. It's a fine Pokémon, it has more than one narrow use like Marshadow does, and it breaks through the exact same things that SSSSS does with NEN. Marshadow's introduction brought a wave of usage with it, when it's just a glorified Ghost Arceus with a slightly better speed tier and tremendously worse utility.

The argument you'd next go for would probably be to do with the prevalence of Dark Arceus also being a major downfall for Ghost Arceus, whereas Marshadow can thrive in this environment. Dark Arceus can lose if it comes in on the Swords Dance, like it would supposedly; however, I wouldn't count this as a solid counter argument. Marshadow is encouraged in this Arceus-Dark heavy stage of the metagame more than Ghost Arceus is. That's one reason for why Marshadow is better than Ghost Arceus, but then again Marshadow is low A rank and Ghost Arceus is high B rank, so in contrast this one advantage Marshadow has is enough to justify it an entire rank difference.
marsh does so much more tho, stealing stat boosts, perfect dual stab, stopping ekiller without having to speed tie, exceeding base 120 speed, stopping CM users, not dying to mgar, and at least having a chance to stop the 3RD most common mon according to ladder, MARSH!
now, i do agree that ghost ceus is better in some cases, and it does have a much better bulk and more power thanks to SD, but its usage and viability will greatly be influenced on how popular marsh is, since its the main mon that stops it from being relevant again. once again, marsh just gives a fuck ton more to a team, its not even comparable. imma get to ur other point in the paragraph


Adding to this, you've stated that Marshadow can break through Ho-Oh and Zygarde-Complete with the right set. But so can Ghost Arceus and the majority of the metagame. You do realise solely having access to Technician Rock Tomb and Hidden Power Ice isn't an impressive feat. Many offensive Pokémon have these coverage options, if not better ones.
mhm, u make a good point there, but unlike with marsh, the difference between chosing sedge and brick break on ghost arc is huge. u either want to take out yveltal or get walled by normal or dark ceus, both common af. with marsh, literally the whole meta struggles against its stabs and only a handful can do something about. i agree tho, with ghost ceus u can take out most of ur checks with the right set, but you leave urself painfully weak to other common mons, while with marsh u can hit everything decently, + that 1 mon ur coverage move checks. and then again, every set is weak to something, even for Mray. we are arguing A here, not S

Its offense breaking capabilities aren't enough to justify such extreme usage nor a high ranking.
What I mean by this is, while it does lack direct switchins on Offense, what doesn't?

I hope you can understand what I mean. If I run a Scarf Terrakion or I run a Ghost Arceus against a HO team, and you have an Extreme Killer Arceus on the field, isn't the general play to sack it off in the hopes that another team member can come in and revenge kill it once Extreme Killer dies? What makes Marshadow different in this capacity?

The general counter-argument to this I assume would be the ability to run offensive switchins to other Pokémon whereas Marshadow kind of lacks these. This however is fiction. Calm Mind Fairy Arceus is a potent offensive threat, Choice Scarf Pokémon are already virtually required on offense to deal with Psychic Terrain based teams. The issue with these however is they lack longevity and can't always switchin more than twice if you predict incorrectly. I can also make the case, many offensive teams are often forced to run Poisonceus nowadays to deal with Xerneas, and as you can see in the above calcs, that walls Marshadow. Given the correct set, Poison Arceus can overwhelm Marshadow quite easily, without sacrificing utility that it would have otherwise required.

The trends in the metagame have shifted to the point where Choice Scarf users are ubiquitous on both offense and balance. They can switchin on Marshadow and revenge easily. In the former metagame, we could've seen Marshadow busting through Extreme Killer, Steel Arceus and Ghost Arceus with ease, but now these Pokémon have died down in usage Marshadow sits there and does nothing in a lot of matchups.
if u dont have something that can live 2 hits from marsh in HO, you are gonna lose to it. marsh is different from all the other mons out there when it comes to dealing with ho. with HO, usually when ur up against something with insane speed such as +1 mray or xern at +2, the best way to finish them is a priority. since marsh got a base 125 speed, it can outspeed 99% of the meta, and the rest that outspeeds will die to sneak (except necro, mewtwo or mmx). that is exactly why u need something reliable that can come in on it multiple times, otherwise it just gonna run thru ur team without u having anything against it. overall, marsh will deal with everything tanky after theyve been chipped a bit, and its amazing typing hits almost everything on ho super effectivly (necro, marsh, steel ceus, normal ceus) and 2kos eveyrthing else that dont resist CC, while u having nothing to revenge kill it with. this more scarf mon bs is not an argument against it, unless they can come in at least 2 times and still live from a sneak. it just literally gave it 1 more mon to watch out for, but they aint gonna be switchin anytime soon, and since they are scarfers, most solid walls or even tanks will come in on them easily.

yes, cm fairy and and posion ceus shits on it, and marsh cant really come in to a lot of attacks safely, but that can go for a LOT of sweepers, and everything has something that can stop it. once again it seems like ur arguing against marsh goin up to S, not fucking A LOL


The introduction of Necrozma formes, while appearing to aid it, barely affects its viability. It can defeat them if they're weakened to a certain extent but otherwise Necrozma wins. Dusk Mane's defensive typing and Prism Armor allow it to take an LO Spectral Thief without falling, and Ultra Necrozma has /enough/ natural bulk without investment to live an LO Shadow Sneak. Simply revenging these Pokémon isn't enough in a lot of cases.

252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 228-269 (68 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Technician Marshadow Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Necrozma-Ultra: 257-304 (76.7 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That is impressive damage, but it's undercut by the fact that this is super-effective damage and that Choice Scarf users like Yveltal do this much more effectively. Marshadow isn't a solid answer to these Pokémon.
ugh, idek where to start. just the presence of those news mons got rid of the poison and fairy ceus spam. they are still very much relevant, but much less spammed, which overall helps marsh, or am i wrong? and the stuff about yveltal. wtf does that have to do with anything. yveltal might be better at dealing with them, but so what? marsh being able to deal 70% to all forms without getting outspeed OR being locked into a move already makes it more useful in my eyes. yes yveltal is better at checking those 2, but it doesnt make marsh any less worse in terms of viability, and in ho, marsh is still one of the better ways(after scarf yveltal) to deal with necros once they are slightly chipped
overall, the usum meta rn gave way more pros than cons to marsh.

The omnipresence of Yveltal (especially Choice Scarf variants) is definitely a con that outweights all the pros made in your post. The increased usage of Mega Gengar, while helpful, doesn't compare to the negative effects this spike in general Yveltal usage has provided.

The metagame has shaped itself to be able to deal with this Pokémon without much effort. It is blatantly obvious but people still insist on running Marshadow even when it's putting them at an apparent disadvantage most of the time.
wtf r u on about in this post. how does yveltal outweighs all the pros. if ur saying that people has started to use yveltal more as a check, its an upgarde for marsh. marsh has a WAY easier time dealing with yveltal, than lets say poison or fairy arc.ig u can mean that Yveltal + fairy core is more common but here is a calc for it. (tho ive noticed people starting to run yveltal as a sole marsh check)
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Yveltal: 185-218 (40.5 - 47.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

yveltla always needs to be close to max health is fucked after rocks.
if u mean scarf yveltal, u have to be an idiot, cause it didnt do shit to marsh. i already made this point many times but scarfers dont do shit to marsh, except that they can outspeed it. yes, scarf yveltal is an upgarde from xern cause it can come into spectral thief easily, but then gets fucked by CC if it predicts wrong. idk which set u were referring when mentioning yveltal, but either one of em is bad. honestly dont know why u think the increase in yveltal's usgae has had such a horrible impact on marsh's viability that it made it outweigh all the pros......unless it got Fur coat without me knowing? idk :o


Its usage does not reflect its viability whatsoever.
As I stated above, the point of this post isn't to convince you Marshadow is bad. It's still useful to an extent, despite what I've shown. Sure, it has ways to get around a few of the Pokémon listed above but then again I ask you, which Pokémon doesn't? Ho-Oh has ways to beat Zygarde-Complete 1v1 evidently and Fairy Arceus can take out every Pokémon in the metagame bar like Haze Toxapex and even then I can think of some garbage niche "set" that can still take that out. Marshadow doesn't even have this ability. It has no way to reliably beat Fairy Arceus 1v1. It has a way to make it borderline unusable for the remainder of the match but then again, every Pokémon in the S and A ranks bar like Yveltal can do this.
yes, marsh has ways to get around those mons, but it does not waste up an important slot, unlike the others. the 4th move on LO is usually a filler, and u can literally put anything on it that can check something that ur team might be weak to. also, just cause if it tries to ct a specific mon, but still not be able to beat them has nothing to do with anything. giving it gimmicks to deal with that 1 mon has nothing to do with how viable it is overall, and its fucking pointless unless u wanna ct. i honestly dont know why u even brought up such a dumb point, since it clearly has almost no use when building a consistent team. but ig its easier to build cts, instead of a solid and consistent team for u right? maybe thats why u dont like marsh, idk >.<

People sometimes prefer to justify Marshadow usage not by its sheer strength and speed but rather by its Endeavor set which can be directly compared to a glorified FEAR set. What does Marshadow do that Custap Berry Wobbuffet couldn't do last generation. At least Wobbuffet took out a Pokémon instead of getting it down to 1%. Compare this to trash like Aron, Magnemite and Probopass and you begin to see an overwhelming pattern of inconsistency.
wew, some "people" claim that endeavor is an amazing set on it. so what? anyone good in ag would tell u its thrash, even if they love marsh. why would u bring in some meme sets into this argument...every mon got one. anddddddd, here is the usage of endeavor on marsh...
Endeavor 4.764% ...wew

These Pokémon don't see usage because they're gimmicks. The negative stigma we associate with them due to their evident weakness to hazards and other horrendous flaws provides us with an attitude towards them that justifies no usage in high level play. Marshadow is an alternative now. It has a way to take out Ghost-types that come in on Endeavor and other little niches but without a Life Orb or Marshadium Z, it's piss weak and can't accomplish anything bar this one little thing that even Aron can do, albeit less effectively.
idk why ur still talking about a meme set and taking it seriously. anyone with a brain would know that its a meme. the ones who actually think its good are the ones whos opinion u shouldn't take very seriously when it comes mons

Even if we agree on its rank being A, you can't say this is fair.
October 1760-weighted: 3 | Marshadow | 43.37979% | 140413 | 12.758% | 88540 | 13.011%
October Unweighted: 2 | Marshadow | 12.75786% | 140413 | 12.758% | 88540 | 13.011%

It simply isn't that good. You can argue for its viability up to A and it doesn't bother me but seeing it at 2nd and 3rd most used is annoying. It's detrimental to the success of players, as they're being held back by using this Pokémon. I encourage you all to try other things. Try Ghost Arceus, try Flying Arceus, try something obscure like Terrakion. Expand your horizons, it's healthy for you.
well after reading my points about marsh, hopefully u changed ur mind bout it not being "good"
also about that ghost, flying arc + terrak bs. huuh. none of them had such a huge impact on ag, why would u consider giving up marsh for those ones?also no point using inferior mons, and if u wanted to be kinda anti-meta, flying ceus would be great, but u should probably replace with something else other than marsh, since they both got different roles, dont u think?

Even after the initial hype period has calmed down, it is still immensely overrated.
You have to be trying really hard not to notice this. Marshadow at 3rd most used in 1760 glicko-weighted is laughable. It's not the third best Pokémon by any means, it's not any easier to fit onto your team than other offensive Pokémon, and Arceus doesn't require a dedicated check at this stage in the metagame.

Since this point is more of a summary than an actual essay driven header let me ensure I've missed nothing with a few more points.
no one is overrating it. just cause its so popular on ladder, it doesn't mean its overrated. look at the impact it had on the meta. ofc people are still gonna be using it since the meta has kind of shaped around it, but its still useful af. if anything, ur constant hating on marsh has changed most people's opinion about it(ig uve achieved ur goal lul). at one point, u have to start asking people who have accomplished something in ag about their opinion on marsh, and move on from randoms/less experienced users.

Spectral Thief
Marshadow's sole reasoning for being considered overpowered used to be its signature move Spectral Thief. I compel anyone who uses Marshadow to consider the last time they used it to steal an opposing Pokémon's boosts. If it's frequently then you must be somewhat low ladder. No one in high level play sets up Swords Dance with a Marshadow in the back.

All Spectral Thief does is prevent some set-up, while discouraging others. It never actually sees use properly. Perhaps this is what we could consider its main purpose but I assure you that's not what's going through the mind of the average AG ladder hero. Discouraging setup is valuable, sure. But at what extent do we consider discouraging a certain aspect of the metagame enough to justify such high viability.

Otherwise consider what Spectral Thief is. It's a 90 BP physical Ghost-type attack. That's actually somewhat pitiful.
uve made an excellent point there, bur ur pov is wrong. u think spectral is quite bad and pointless cause no one is setting up, but thats the point lol. its presence alone stops people from setting up, which is HUGE.
its similar to how msab works. its presence alone discourages people from spamming hazards and status, which gives stall a huge benefit. if u got marsh, u dont have to worry that much about people setting up on with arcs lol. it puts mental pressure on ur opponent. if anything, thats a huge pro, not a con lol

Viability not Impact
But let me justify the above sentiment with the fact that we rank Pokémon based on their viability within the current metagame, not the impacts they've made to the metagame that existed beforehand. In that case Mega Gengar and Primal Groudon would be given even higher credit than they're given now. The difference between these Pokémon and Marshadow is that these put in work nine times out of ten whereas Marshadow does not.

This is a viability ranking. The primary purpose of this thread isn't to determine what made the biggest splash upon addition to the metagame. It's to determine what works. What functions correctly now? What are the most effective Pokémon to use now? It's in the title, this can't be so difficult to comprehend.

Viability: ability to work as intended or to succeed.
Impact: a powerful effect that something, especially something new, has on a situation.

That's not to say the two are mutually exclusive. Impact can affect viability easily, but once the metagame is settled and Marshadow is heavily prepared for, it's really difficult to justify it keeping such a high rank with the argument that it affected the metagame drastically in June.
yes, great point. if we put marsh into pre-marsh era, it would go all the way up to A++(maybe S) without a doubt, idt anyone can argue that, but since people have adapted to it, it viability fell from that.
now look, even if the meta has adapted to it, it can still do whats its suppsoed to do amazingly well, but now it got some walls that can stop it.
it will still shit on a fuck ton of mons including mray, arc, steel ceus, ho-oh or zygarde depending on its 4th move, support ceus that isnt flying/fairy/poison arc, cele, necro, ferro, goth, lugia, msab, skarm, rock/ghost/steel offensive arcs, deo, gira, ttar, chansey/blissey, and luna + solg. those mons that wall it take it down from a possible S ranked to A. look at the A/A+ ranked mons rn. those mons have even more walls than marsh. A- is just super fucking low for a mon that does so much for a team, its insane. even in this post, u made some solid arguments, but most were dogshit, especially when u take into account that we are arguing for A, not SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. those handful of mons remove marsh from S, but not all the way down to A-. imo it easily fits into A+ if u compare it to the other mons there, but im just pushing for A atm.

"Every little bit adds up"
I'll agree that it has a lot of redeeming qualities that when looked at together make it look appealing. Albeit, enough for A rank is a stretch. Consider what it does in full. In most matches a player will switch directly to their Support Arceus or Choice Scarf user, requiring Marshadow to switch out. This accomplishes nothing other than forcing a switch, which again, doesn't justify A rank.

In my experience, the only time I've ever found Marshadow as useful as some make it out to be is when paired with Mega Gengar or Gothitelle. This requirement of team support to provide function, yet again, isn't enough to justify A rank. The viability of both Shadow Tag users is what should be affected through this point. Mega Rayquaza provides the same amount of support for this however.
ugh. u said it forces switches right? how can a piss weak mon be able to do that huh? and the fact that it only has a handful of reliable switchins already makes it A. and that bs about marsh being only good with goth or mgar is the stupidest shit ive heard in ur post.honestly cant be bothered to get into it even more, but u honestly just have to know shit about marsh to come to that conclusion. ive already told u how useful marsh is, in my earlier points. cant be bothered to explain it again. if u still think marsh is only truly useful and good when its paired up with mgar/goth, i feel sad for council for having someone as inexperienced in the current meta as u to be in it. (u dont have to agree with all of my points,but to think that marsh only works with trappers is on another lvl of being dumb)



How are you even comparing Marshadow to Mega Rayquaza? With all things considered, that great STAB coverage and Spectral Thief isn't enough to make up for that massive loss in power. Consider what is thought to be the best Mega Rayquaza check. Probably Lugia right? Marshadow has a plethora of answers as listed above, it's just that the majority of people don't realise how piss weak it actually is.

Adding to this, can we please stop focusing on the impact a Pokémon had to the metagame rather than its current viability. This isn't how you judge a Pokémon's viability.
yh mb there. it still restricts teambuilding but not on the lvl of mray. and the impact it had should tell u how good it is in AG. Adapting to it broguht it down to A, but it can still do a FUCK ton, tho i already mentioned most of em.

To which I respond with: I do, I'm not the one comparing Marshadow to Mega Rayquaza. You don't really know much about how AG works, do you Fardin?
ugh, didnt u lose to a non ag player r1 of ssnl, im fine with being teased but its annoying when it comes from someone like u, srry ;/
tho in ur defence, u dont have to be a good player to know a meta :]


 
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Sorry for the question, but is necrozma dusk mane ranked only for his sets without ultranecrozmium or with all sets including ultranecrozmium? It seems weird to rank this necrozma forms.
 

MZ

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Sorry for the question, but is necrozma dusk mane ranked only for his sets without ultranecrozmium or with all sets including ultranecrozmium? It seems weird to rank this necrozma forms.
This is a fair question. Dusk/Dawn are ranked for everything they do and the ability to turn into Ultra Necrozma definitely factors into their ranking. The key is, Dusk Mane is really good even if it isn't an ultranecrozium set. That's why it's so much higher than Dawn Wings, which is mostly only good for ultra sets. Ultra sets are a bonus, not the entirety of the mon. Ultra Necrozma still has its own ranking which is independent of dusk or dawn, it just happens to be ranked lower than dusk at the moment but that isnt because dusk contains ultra or something.
 

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My apologies I'm definitely going to half-ass my responses to these because I'm frankly sick and tired of wasting hours on an argument I'm not even that passionate about.

I thought this would have been obvious but evidently not? Don’t bring ladder usage into this. You just got out of saying that ladder uses marshadow badly, and you’re aware of its general quality. Focus on marshadows actually good sets when ranking on viability, not whatever the meme of the month is (s/o sash marshadow).
I focused on all of Marshadow's sets in my original post. You're taking the one time I used a moveset usage stat, as a justification when that was unambiguously not my intent. I've clearly mentioned Marshadium Z Marshadow for a large extent of the original post. Just because I mention a usage statistic, it doesn't mean I'm basing my entire argument around it. I blatantly forfeited that Zygarde can't switch into SSSSS at +1 in base form. That if all these conditions are met, it can be an issue.

In order to run wisp, arceus ground can only run once of ice beam / toxic / defog. Its certainly not bad, but its also not the sole standard and for good reason. Running wisp greatly hurts the matchup against 2/3 of <Ho-oh / supportceus / lugia> (toxic), <Yveltal / Mray / Zygarde> (Ice Beam), and <every team with stealth rock, especially ones with rocker pdon since groundceus is one of its best checks> (defog). Even when playing high level opponents, there will very often be occasions where Arceus ground isnt running wisp. Furthermore, even wisp doesnt actually flat out win; it has to win the 60-40 in order to win. If arceus wisps and marshadow attacks,
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 297-351 (66.8 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO + +1 252 Atk burned Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Arceus-Ground: 91-108 (20.4 - 24.3%) -- guaranteed 5HK0, which totals to 88-104 and is about even with rocks up. Its not great for the marshadow in question, as even with the 50-50 after rocks marshdow becomes much less useful, but trading an anti offense mon to crack open a defensive core is almost always going to be a good deal. You might say they can recover on the zmove, but that too is a prediction, as a +2 marshadow will always beat groundceus. Wisp poisonceus is even worse, as its lack of defense investment a) leaves marshadow a chance to just OHKO is anyway, and b) getting off the wisp still leaves poisonceus dead, not to mention that if marsh wants it can just keep boosting despite the burn. Its not like poisonceus can force it out, and a +3 burned marshadow isnt actually that much easier to switch into.
Even though these two mons can in theory take on marshadow, its not without risk and taking it on means they cant do anything else. Even if you just switched that poisonceus into a low hp fairyceus’ judgment and bopped it with poison jab, switching out to avoid the precepice blades from the groudon revenge means you dont have a marsh check anymore.
I do think this is your strongest argument in the entirety of your post, but it still doesn't hold up. The support Arceus disables Marshadow with Will-O-Wisp, it literally can't do anything for the remainder of the match. If you want to overwhelm a defensive Pokémon, Gothitelle works a charm too. The difference is Gothitelle is multi-use. Your arguments against running Will-O-Wisp are somewhat obscure but I'll leave them for now. They're common sets and they're viable, whether they're not optimal in some cases is a different story.

Ordinarily I would be charitable and not touch on something this awful in a post thats otherwise pretty solid, but apparently ignoring any part of a post is cherrypicking now so I have to. Nevertheless, you denying the comparison rings pretty damn hollow when you go on to do that in the next fucking paragraph. Prankly, the comparison is one of the worst ones Ive seen. Mbannete cant even come close to guarenteeing a ko, it has no offensive pressure of any sort, its complete bait for all supportceus at pretty much any level of HP, its incredibly obvious what its doing and even in the event that the opponent has no way to avoid procing destiny bond they can at will sack any pokemon to it, it doesnt posess any redeemable defensive qualities, and it uses a mega slot which is far more valuable than a zmove. Like, just about the only similarity between the two is that theyre both ghosts.
Please don't take my cherry-picking comment as an insult. I was just saying I was glad you agreed with the bulk of my post. Again, I was not comparing Marshadow to Mega Banette. Take a literacy course and learn to read.

Marshadow isnt exclusive in forces switches and can blow away stall, but it is unique in doing that at its speed tier beyond maybe mewtwo, and marshadow is much better against offense. It has an excellent role compression, and what it loses in its low number of extremely good matchups it gains in its lack of bad ones. Marshadow can customize itself as the team demands without sacrificng the reasons for running it, and its quite effective at its jobs.
I've stated that its speed tier isn't as paramount as you're led to believe. Simply stating it's redeeming qualities doesn't make for a good argument.

Poison arceus doesnt stop marshadow from setting up. It does slow the effective boosting with wisp, but if poisonceus is your only check to marshadow at all youve already lost as it boosts to +6.
How horrible must you be to allow a Marshadow to boost to +6? If it's burned and has used its Z-move it falls under the other arguments I've made prior to this one.

That does make more sense. I think your original post wasnt the most clear on that, but I dont disagree; being uniquely powerful isnt why marshadow is good, especially given that that isnt true.
Yay, we're making progress here.

Stone edge yveltal cant take on defensive yveltal. It cant take on scarf, except by limiting number of switchins. It does take on life orb on the switch, but both marshadow and ghostceus can a) do that anyway and b) yveltal still deals a ton with sucker. You are conflating taking on an offensive check more easily on the switch and overcoming a defensive check.
It takes on Life Orb Yveltal which is the majority of Yveltal sets as of the last usage stats released. It takes on defensive Yveltal after Stealth Rock. Your argument for Timid Fairy Arceus is still weaker as it doesn't even take any Fairy Arceus set out in that case.

Calm mind fairyceus isnt a switchin:
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 72 HP / 184 Def Arceus-Fairy: 340-402 (85.2 - 100.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Just a reminder that you have to get this prediction right, otherwise you've completely wasted your z-move. In retrospect, I hadn't realised how much that did if you're not running Bold.

Xerneas isnt a switchin either:
252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Xerneas: 322-379 (81.9 - 96.4%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock, and if it lives you can just shadow sneak. The same goes for life orb, as spectral theif -> sneak also revoves choice scarf xerneas.
Marshadow has a purpose. Good job. As you can see from the calcs in my initial post, after the Z-move has been used, Marshadow is virtually useless.

Yveltal is 2hkoed even without rocks. That looks a lot like a single use switchin to me, but maybe yveltal got regenerator while I wasnt looking? Oblivion wing heals you but unless the marshdow team has none of rockceus / steelceus / celesteela / insert flying check, which is suicide considering mray exists, and no special tanks like pogre either, 2 close combats -> sneak if you get rolled will still ko.
Generally Celesteela isn't an offensive Yveltal check but I'm glad you're learning the metagame. Rock Arceus and Steel Arceus aren't common anymore due to this stigma people associate with them that due to Marshadow's prevalence they're useless. Horrid misconceptions exist in this metagame and it's people like you and Fardin that choose to ignore them and pretend like I'm solely attacking your views on Marshadow instead.

as a stall player, i know that marsh limits teambuilding a fuck ton. marsh had a big impact on a lot of popular stall, which forced some drastic changes. Just cause stall is now prepared for it, it doesnt make it any less of a threat lol.
It does limit teambuilding I agree, you completely took my point out of context but I'm glad we agree on something.

stall is prepared for xern, pdon and mray as well, yet they can still be a big pain. the same goes for marsh. the most common mon people use for marsh is fairy arc, and 80% of the time, its defog on stall. that shit can be baited in very easily and status it with stuff like pdon, yveltal or ur srock arceus user with toxic. it all comes down to ur team support. once fairy ceus is poisoned, the game will heavily be in the marsh user;s favour. everything needs some kind of a support to break thru stall, just like mray, xern or some Cm arcs.
I believe you can say the same thing about Pokémon like Ultra Necrozma, which has an arguably easier time at breaking stall. Yet it sits at A- undisputedly.

In marsh's case, that support was already relevant so thats cuul. fairy ceus is still a great check to it regardless and marsh has an incredibly hard time defeating it, if its not toxiced. tho the fact that only fairy ceus can check it reliably on stalls already makes it a threat if u think about, since the moment its toxiced, the pressure will be on u, and u might jsut end up losing the game(talkin from experience). ig u guys might think i forgot about toxa, but max def one is just not that relevant in ag. the only toxa one should use is mixed, but still in favour of sp def side for shits like CM arcs while still being able to wall LO marsh......but not bulky enuf to take on Z
Did not forget about Toxapex, chose not to mention it, since it's arguably not worth it. You can run Toxapex if you want, no one's stopping you. It's not required nor very helpful by any means though.

+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 164 Def Toxapex: 288-339 (94.7 - 111.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

the stuff toxa can do with mixed def totally outclasses phsically one in ag, but i know that some still use it so here is the calc for it

+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 247-292 (81.2 - 96%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

once again im assuming bulk up, since marsh can literally do that to almost every poke vs stall.
not looking guud for both calcs regardless lul

here is one for msab too
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 286-337 (94 - 110.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sableye-Mega: 114-136 (37.5 - 44.7%) -- 5.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

vs LO, it always needs to be close to max health in order to wall.
Just some more irrelevant calcs to attempt to distract me from your piss weak arguments.

for balance, i admit its easier to deal with marsh since u actually got some offensive presence, and ag is full tanks such as ho-oh and pdon, which can take a hit and dash back.
mixed def wisp poison ceus just shuts marsh, and so does fairy ceus (tho the latter can be baited into toxic quite easily, like when it tries to srock or defog),but it doesnt make it any less of a threat regardless. it will still steal every stat boost from slower mons, be immune to espeed and dash out some nice damage to anything that doesnt resist CC lol.
also about those calcs. vs zygarde, hp ice easily deals with it, and there is no reason not to run it on LO since the 4th move is just a filler.
Yesterday you said there's no reason not to run Rock Tomb. Can you make up your mind? In addition, it seems like you agree with me here for the most part so I won't dwell on it.

yveltal ALWAYS needs to be close to max health to wall LO marsh reliable, and is fucked if srocks are down, but it walls the shit out of Z marsh and is a generally nice wall for marsh if u can keep hazards away from the field, but then again as i mentioned, it has its flaws.
Rock tomb just shits on ho-oh, and so does srock, but then again, if rocks arent down and marsh doesnt carry rock tomb, ig it can wall it lol
Stated my reasoning for including Ho-Oh in my previous post.

The goal for z marsh is to create some holes in the opponent's team and therefore allowing its teammates to sweep later in the game. ur a balance user, so u should prob know that u'll be in a tough situation if one of ur support mons are gone or down to 20-30% early on the game, especially when facing HO.
also its not like its useless after it used up the Z move. it can still steal every boost, hit some common types super effectivly, and etc. idk why u would compare it to that ghost prankster mon lol..maybe cause it can learn dbond? idk LOL
I didn't compare it, as I've stated multiple times it was a dramatisation. It removes one mon and does nothing otherwise by the logic you and Quantum repeatedly use. This isn't difficult to comprehend surely.

regardless tho everything, those mons can still wall it nicely, but im not tryna argue for a fucking S rank. just the fact that only those handful can wall it reliably, and still being the mon that puts one of the most pressure vs every playstyle alone should give it an A. u can even look at some A+ mons, and find much more mons that can realibly wall their ass. its honestly sad to see u using this argument for A-
I can easily compare its offensive presence to Ultra Necrozma and Ghost Arceus, which are A- and B+ respectively. I made one argument that said comparisons to Mega Rayquaza were unfair and now you choose to fall back on the argument that I'm arguing as if someone nominated it for S rank, when I definitely did not.

r u nuts. Z marsh is one of the main thing that makes it so great, otherwise u wouldnt even need fairy ceus to wall it...any support arc would be fine lol. ive addressed most of those calcs in the post above. this alone just shows me ur limited understanding of how marsh works lol
also ur post about how allowing marsh to be at +1 shows ur incompetence is just so damn stupid ;i
ur literally just saying, u shouldnt switch out ur mon, but instead stay in and try to risk sacking it in order to stop marsh from bulking up without any consequences...
each time mray sets up on something, should we blame ourself for being incompetent? also marsh aint even that frail to begin with, and after it got the Bulk up boost, it can live a hit from quite a few mons.
I've addressed that many prefer Marshadium Z as a set. I've addressed why that wouldn't qualify it for such a high rank. As for calling me incompetent and stupid, you're the one who misread what I said so :') (I said past +1, it can obviously force a switch and Bulk Up). The rest of this paragraph is a result of you skim reading my thing and not checking if you misread my statement or not, which you definitely did lol.

btw
+1 252 Atk Marshadow Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Arceus-Poison: 394-465 (88.9 - 104.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
idk how that shrugs it off easily, but i agree. the other 3 wall quite nicely (Tho fairy ceus still takes a solid 70%, but its a w/e lul)
Addressed this earlier as well.

yh 125 isnt anything impressive, but thats not what marsh is so hyped about. that poor 125 can be boosted with LO, which makes its attack stat roughly around 175-180. but then again, the recoil sucks ;i
what makes up for its low attack stat (above ceus tho lul) is its unqiue Z move, which 195 BP!!! one of the highest in the game....
I was tackling the misconception that everyone always states its power is the reason it's so formidable which isn't the case, we both know this, there's nothing here we haven't both agreed on already.

why even bring up ho-oh. its very irrelevant to this case. u might as well just bring up pdon and compare its attack stats cause that will surely help ur case. as u said it urself, its speed is what makes it different from all the other.
look at it this way. ho-oh can do a solid 43%-51% to water cues, but then its forced to switch out due to being slower. with marsh it does 35.3 - 42.1% with LO CC, and is able to outspeed next turn, allowing it to deal damage to it again. this means that marsh can kill it if rocks are down and water ceus is at 82%
Read my post. Read my post. Read my post.

BUT, unlike marsh, ho-oh can live multiple hit from many things.. imma say it once again, but mentioning this mon is just very irrelevant to this case, even if u just wanted to tell me how weak it is compare to other mons. i could just simply show u how slow is the rest of the meta compare to marsh, and what benefit the speed exactly has with the water ceus example above....
Learn to read. Learn to read. Learn to read.

u have a point there. marsh got shit stats compare to the ones u mentioned, but its perfect dual stab happens to make it up for it, which is one of the reason why u see people spamming fairy and poison ceus against it :]
I was stating that its dual STAB doesn't put it above other threats like other people have suggested, silly.

marsh does so much more tho, stealing stat boosts, perfect dual stab, stopping ekiller without having to speed tie, exceeding base 120 speed, stopping CM users, not dying to mgar, and at least having a chance to stop the 3RD most common mon according to ladder, MARSH!
now, i do agree that ghost ceus is better in some cases, and it does have a much better bulk and more power thanks to SD, but its usage and viability will greatly be influenced on how popular marsh is, since its the main mon that stops it from being relevant again. once again, marsh just gives a fuck ton more to a team, its not even comparable. imma get to ur other point in the paragraph
Yes it's made these Pokémon less viable and hence they don't see usage anymore, hence Marshadow is dead weight in a lot of matchups, hence my viability not impact statements come into play.

mhm, u make a good point there, but unlike with marsh, the difference between chosing sedge and brick break on ghost arc is huge. u either want to take out yveltal or get walled by normal or dark ceus, both common af. with marsh, literally the whole meta struggles against its stabs and only a handful can do something about. i agree tho, with ghost ceus u can take out most of ur checks with the right set, but you leave urself painfully weak to other common mons, while with marsh u can hit everything decently, + that 1 mon ur coverage move checks. and then again, every set is weak to something, even for Mray. we are arguing A here, not S
Insert Old El Paso commercial here. You can forgo Extreme Speed without losing a ton of utility. I did state Marshadow was better than Ghost Arceus in the current metagame, so I'm not sure what your argument here was trying to achieve.

if u dont have something that can live 2 hits from marsh in HO, you are gonna lose to it. marsh is different from all the other mons out there when it comes to dealing with ho. with HO, usually when ur up against something with insane speed such as +1 mray or xern at +2, the best way to finish them is a priority. since marsh got a base 125 speed, it can outspeed 99% of the meta, and the rest that outspeeds will die to sneak (except necro, mewtwo or mmx). that is exactly why u need something reliable that can come in on it multiple times, otherwise it just gonna run thru ur team without u having anything against it. overall, marsh will deal with everything tanky after theyve been chipped a bit, and its amazing typing hits almost everything on ho super effectivly (necro, marsh, steel ceus, normal ceus) and 2kos eveyrthing else that dont resist CC, while u having nothing to revenge kill it with. this more scarf mon bs is not an argument against it, unless they can come in at least 2 times and still live from a sneak. it just literally gave it 1 more mon to watch out for, but they aint gonna be switchin anytime soon, and since they are scarfers, most solid walls or even tanks will come in on them easily.
I really shouldn't have to repeat myself but:
1) Viability not impact
2) Marshadow useless if slower in that case as Shadow Sneak does almost pitiful damage if either isn't at like 20%
3) The above point is quite irrelevant but I wouldn't have to make dumb points like this if yours weren't so horrid in comparison.

yes, cm fairy and and posion ceus shits on it, and marsh cant really come in to a lot of attacks safely, but that can go for a LOT of sweepers, and everything has something that can stop it. once again it seems like ur arguing against marsh goin up to S, not fucking A LOL
Compare this to the two Pokémon I mentioned earlier in this post, which arguably have the same amount if not less reliable answers and have other redeeming qualities that Marshadow could only dream of attaining.

ugh, idek where to start. just the presence of those news mons got rid of the poison and fairy ceus spam. they are still very much relevant, but much less spammed, which overall helps marsh, or am i wrong? and the stuff about yveltal. wtf does that have to do with anything. yveltal might be better at dealing with them, but so what? marsh being able to deal 70% to all forms without getting outspeed OR being locked into a move already makes it more useful in my eyes. yes yveltal is better at checking those 2, but it doesnt make marsh any less worse in terms of viability, and in ho, marsh is still one of the better ways(after scarf yveltal) to deal with necros once they are slightly chipped
overall, the usum meta rn gave way more pros than cons to marsh.
Stop acting like I'm giving you a migraine lol "ugh". Poison Arceus and Fairy Arceus are still plenty common and those two new Pokémon remain as Pokémon Marshadow can't handle as well. The Yveltal comments were simply getting at the fact that Marshadow's small niches don't justify extreme usage when Pokémon with more potent uses exist.

wtf r u on about in this post. how does yveltal outweighs all the pros. if ur saying that people has started to use yveltal more as a check, its an upgarde for marsh. marsh has a WAY easier time dealing with yveltal, than lets say poison or fairy arc.ig u can mean that Yveltal + fairy core is more common but here is a calc for it. (tho ive noticed people starting to run yveltal as a sole marsh check)
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Yveltal: 185-218 (40.5 - 47.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
Gengar slight increase in usage does not outweigh Yveltal's large rise in usage. That is my point.

yveltla always needs to be close to max health is fucked after rocks.
if u mean scarf yveltal, u have to be an idiot, cause it didnt do shit to marsh. i already made this point many times but scarfers dont do shit to marsh, except that they can outspeed it. yes, scarf yveltal is an upgarde from xern cause it can come into spectral thief easily, but then gets fucked by CC if it predicts wrong. idk which set u were referring when mentioning yveltal, but either one of em is bad. honestly dont know why u think the increase in yveltal's usgae has had such a horrible impact on marsh's viability that it made it outweigh all the pros......unless it got Fur coat without me knowing? idk :o
Its prevalence is not good for Marshadow. You simply cannot argue otherwise.

yes, marsh has ways to get around those mons, but it does not waste up an important slot, unlike the others. the 4th move on LO is usually a filler, and u can literally put anything on it that can check something that ur team might be weak to. also, just cause if it tries to ct a specific mon, but still not be able to beat them has nothing to do with anything. giving it gimmicks to deal with that 1 mon has nothing to do with how viable it is overall, and its fucking pointless unless u wanna ct. i honestly dont know why u even brought up such a dumb point, since it clearly has almost no use when building a consistent team. but ig its easier to build cts, instead of a solid and consistent team for u right? maybe thats why u dont like marsh, idk >.<
My entire post was an attack on the arguments people use to justify praising Marshadow, Endeavor Marshadow being one of them. I surely wouldn't recommend running it. Unsure if you intentionally ignored the purpose of this point or not.

wew, some "people" claim that endeavor is an amazing set on it. so what? anyone good in ag would tell u its thrash, even if they love marsh. why would u bring in some meme sets into this argument...every mon got one. anddddddd, here is the usage of endeavor on marsh...
Endeavor 4.764% ...wew
"I thought this would have been obvious but evidently not? Don’t bring ladder usage into this." - Quantum Tesseract, two hours before your post.
I'm glad most people agree that Endeavor is trash, I'm not enforcing the belief it's good onto anyone lol.

idk why ur still talking about a meme set and taking it seriously. anyone with a brain would know that its a meme. the ones who actually think its good are the ones whos opinion u shouldn't take very seriously when it comes mons
We agree.

well after reading my points about marsh, hopefully u changed ur mind bout it not being "good"
It is good, I had this belief before and you did not impact it whatsoever.

also about that ghost, flying arc + terrak bs. huuh. none of them had such a huge impact on ag, why would u consider giving up marsh for those ones?also no point using inferior mons, and if u wanted to be kinda anti-meta, flying ceus would be great, but u should probably replace with something else other than marsh, since they both got different roles, dont u think?
Don't directly replace Marshadow with these Pokémon lol. I was just saying it would be nice to have people try new things instead of praising Marshadow religiously.

no one is overrating it. just cause its so popular on ladder, it doesn't mean its overrated. look at the impact it had on the meta. ofc people are still gonna be using it since the meta has kind of shaped around it, but its still useful af. if anything, ur constant hating on marsh has changed most people's opinion about it(ig uve achieved ur goal lul). at one point, u have to start asking people who have accomplished something in ag about their opinion on marsh, and move on from randoms/less experienced users.
People are overrating it, regardless of its ladder usage. As you can see by people like Cryoam and you that defend it without actually thinking what you're saying through.

uve made an excellent point there, bur ur pov is wrong. u think spectral is quite bad and pointless cause no one is setting up, but thats the point lol. its presence alone stops people from setting up, which is HUGE.
its similar to how msab works. its presence alone discourages people from spamming hazards and status, which gives stall a huge benefit. if u got marsh, u dont have to worry that much about people setting up on with arcs lol. it puts mental pressure on ur opponent. if anything, thats a huge pro, not a con lol
Never said Spectral was bad, and I did state that its presence was its primary effect. Never stated this as a con, just tried to provide perspective.

yes, great point. if we put marsh into pre-marsh era, it would go all the way up to A++(maybe S) without a doubt, idt anyone can argue that, but since people have adapted to it, it viability fell from that.
now look, even if the meta has adapted to it, it can still do whats its suppsoed to do amazingly well, but now it got some walls that can stop it.
it will still shit on a fuck ton of mons including mray, arc, steel ceus, ho-oh or zygarde depending on its 4th move, support ceus that isnt flying/fairy/poison arc, cele, necro, ferro, goth, lugia, msab, skarm, rock/ghost/steel offensive arcs, deo, gira, ttar, chansey/blissey, and luna + solg. those mons that wall it take it down from a possible S ranked to A. look at the A/A+ ranked mons rn. those mons have even more walls than marsh. A- is just super fucking low for a mon that does so much for a team, its insane. even in this post, u made some solid arguments, but most were dogshit, especially when u take into account that we are arguing for A, not SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. those handful of mons remove marsh from S, but not all the way down to A-. imo it easily fits into A+ if u compare it to the other mons there, but im just pushing for A atm.
I love how you call my arguments dog shit when you clearly haven't read your own. Also most of this is a repeat that I've posted points against prior in this post.

ugh. u said it forces switches right? how can a piss weak mon be able to do that huh? and the fact that it only has a handful of reliable switchins already makes it A. and that bs about marsh being only good with goth or mgar is the stupidest shit ive heard in ur post.honestly cant be bothered to get into it even more, but u honestly just have to know shit about marsh to come to that conclusion. ive already told u how useful marsh is, in my earlier points. cant be bothered to explain it again. if u still think marsh is only truly useful and good when its paired up with mgar/goth, i feel sad for council for having someone as inexperienced in the current meta as u to be in it. (u dont have to agree with all of my points,but to think that marsh only works with trappers is on another lvl of being dumb)
It's not the only reason it's good, I never said that, stop misquoting me it's insulting. Especially with the unnecessary ad hominem shit that I now need to respond with below.

yh mb there. it still restricts teambuilding but not on the lvl of mray. and the impact it had should tell u how good it is in AG. Adapting to it broguht it down to A, but it can still do a FUCK ton, tho i already mentioned most of em.
Glad you toned it down a little here but I still disagree that A is optimal for it.

ugh, didnt u lose to a non ag player r1 of ssnl, im fine with being teased but its annoying when it comes from someone like u, srry ;/
tho in ur defence, u dont have to be a good player to know a meta :]
I was really looking forward to taking the moral high ground here but eh. I see your argument here is that I lost to an unknown player in a tournament Round 1 and thus my opinion mustn't matter. It's really mature and it definitely helps improve your argument. I know you only went 2-5 in OMPL and I went 3-2, but I'm glad you're commenting on my skill here. You're definitely more qualified to have a say on such a thing.

Fardin, making arguments like this doesn't help, in fact it invalidates a lot of what you said since your personal bias with me and opinion that I'm not quite skilled at the metagame (when I've proven that I'm skilled enough a plethora of times) shines through. Regardless it made me smile, so thanks for that.

In conclusion, I do not want to make any more posts on this matter. I've said what I've needed to say and this is taking up too much of my time. Hopefully I've convinced you all that Marshadow is justified at A- but you're entitled to believe what you want to believe, and that's fine. Marshadow at A rank isn't the end of the world. Writing posts for hours upon hours however is tiring and stressful to me. I'll try not to respond even if this entire post gets refuted to hell.

Thanks for your time.
 

Pigeons

pidge pidge
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I'm pretty happy with the state of the VR atm, there is one thing I'd like to see change


Magearna B- to B

I don't think this should have dropped to begin with, but after having used it in the meta I definitely think it should go back to B. I believe the main reason for Magearna dropping was that it gained competition as a Fairy-type check with the introduction of Dusk Mane Necrozma, which also has reliable recovery, offensive presence, Stealth Rock and versatility compared to Magearna. However, Magearna offers vital role compression to balance teams by combining the ability to check Fairy-types with the ability to check Dark-types as well, and given how many different threats there are to check in the meta such compressions are often vital to bulkier teams. Magearna has a few other notable traits for balance teams, the addition of Heal Bell to its movepool gives it another option for recovery in Z-Heal Bell, anti-status support is also amazing on teams that rely on support Arceus forms like Ground and Fairy, preventing Toxic from permanently crippling either one during a match. Volt Switch is a selling point as well, being effectively immune to Gothitelle's trapping is very important given how weak to Gothitelle balance teams can be. Surprisingly enough, Dusk Mane Necrozma can get stalled out by Charm Gothitelle if Goth comes in on a double switch. Despite gaining competition and retaining some of its old flaws, the compression Magearna offers allows it to perform at the level of the other Pokemon in B rank and it should be moved up to reflect that.
 

Chloe

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NUPL Champion
hopefully some nominations that wont cause controversy ;w;

A+ to A | weve tried to drop this multiple times and every time it gets caught up, why? it clearly isn't what it used to be, it doesnt compete with the other colossal giants in a+ anymore. *cough* marsh *cough* is on virtually every ho, ekiller comparatively puts in no work nowadays. id feel much more confident with having arceus at a rank where it actually is comparable to other threats.

A+ to A- | another pokemon i dont really think is up to the par of a+ is xern; considering dusk mane's omnipresence in addition to pdon, ho-oh, mag, chans, etc all becoming more common. its really hard to justify using xerneas any more, when dusk mane just comes in and walls it without failure.
+2 252+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 154-182 (38.6 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 196-231 (49.2 - 58%) -- 62.9% chance to 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 211-249 (62.9 - 74.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 269-317 (80.2 - 94.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

A- to B+ | something i know others don't share the same viewpoint as me on is ferro. i can't justify this at all anymore especially with how unreliably it checks ogre. if you need a defensive steel type you usually opt for dusk mane nowadays, if you want spike stacking you could run ferro but it has issues keeping it up with the addition of new defoggers like yveltal disabling it from doing so. dusk mane, cele both are better defensively. being a soft ogre check while having a moiety of the defensive qualities the above 2 pertain isnt enough to justify a-. i feel at least.

C to D | i think its kinda laughable that this is in c rank. i wouldnt have it at the same rank as quag and alolan muk, when it deserves to be surrounded by mons like phero and lando-t instead. that being said, i really dont care about this so im fine with whatever.
 

cromagnet

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1514868037417.png

Arceus-Dark To A- from B+

USUM brought with it the introduction of two new AG viable psychic mons, Necrozma-Dusk-Mane and Necrozma-Ultra. These two mons and the shift in the metagame that they brought has created the perfect environment for Arceus-Dark to make a return. I have not seen a single one of these since marshadow was released up until the release of USUM. The best set by far is the calm mind refresh set, which helps to break balance and stall teams with ease. With its ability to prevent status and the blanket effectiveness of the dark typing is enough for this mon to turn the tide of entire games. It can even take on Arceus-Fairy with enough CM boosts. Seeing as though arceus-fairy is one of the most widespread mons on balance teams, the ability of darkceus to take it on renders it able to take on balance 1v1. This validates it moving it up as it essentially renders its most common "answer" useless.
0 SpA Pixie Plate Arceus-Fairy Judgment vs. +1 248 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Dark: 174-206 (39.2 - 46.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Pixie Plate Arceus-Fairy Judgment vs. +2 248 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Dark: 132-156 (29.7 - 35.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
Furthermore, the dark typing of arceus-dark is good for checking another prominent mon in the USUM metagame, Yveltal. It can act as an answer to Yveltals of all kinds, from defensive with toxic to scarf to life orb. Arceus-fairy cannot do this as toxic can really ruin its longevity and wear it down. Also, arceus-dark does not get beaten by MGar in the way arceus-fairy does. Even if gar has focus blast there is the chance of missing or even the chance darkceus has a CM Boost up.
4- Atk Yveltal U-turn vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Dark: 100-118 (22.5 - 26.6%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
252+ SpA Yveltal Oblivion Wing vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Dark: 124-147 (27.9 - 33.1%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252+ SpA Dark Aura Yveltal Dark Pulse vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Dark: 82-97 (18.5 - 21.8%) -- possible 5HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Yveltal Oblivion Wing vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Dark: 161-191 (36.3 - 43.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Gengar-Mega Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Dark: 274-324 (61.8 - 73.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Gengar-Mega Focus Blast vs. +1 248 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Dark: 182-216 (41 - 48.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Now for everyone's favorite little answer to Darkceus: Marshadow. It is true that close combat can beat this mon, but marshadow cannot switch in, and the rest of the team of darkceus can easily be used to keep marsh at bay. With rocks and life orb factored in for marsh, it can only switch in a fairly limited number of times.
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Dark: 424-502 (95.7 - 113.3%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
8 SpA Dread Plate Arceus-Dark Judgment vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Marshadow: 166-196 (51.7 - 61%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Darkceus paired with MGar is a core which truly brings out the best of both mons. If you dont want to risk the crit on arceus-dark while trying to check fairyceus, just bring in mgar, now the opponent has one less threat to darkceus. MGar also beats xerneas for arceus-dark, which is a real pain for it with its high, usually max invested special attack plus fairy aura.
Now that I've spoken on CM refresh Darkceus, I'll give some love to the defog defensive set. It has its merits in that it can check Dusk Mane, a common rocker, as well as the occasional Ultra Necrozma, which also not losing to gothitelle, which is very useful as most support arcs lose vs goth.
0 SpA Dread Plate Arceus-Dark Judgment vs. 252 HP / 132+ SpD Gothitelle: 224-266 (65.1 - 77.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Dread Plate Arceus-Dark Judgment vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gothitelle: 204-242 (59.3 - 70.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-1 0 SpA Dread Plate Arceus-Dark Judgment vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gothitelle: 134-162 (38.9 - 47%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Dread Plate Arceus-Dark Judgment vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Prism Armor Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 153-181 (38.5 - 45.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Dread Plate Arceus-Dark Judgment vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Necrozma-Ultra: 308-366 (91.9 - 109.2%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
+2 252 Atk Necrozma-Ultra Sunsteel Strike vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Arceus-Dark: 225-265 (50.7 - 59.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
I put no def evs as they vary on support arceus-dark but it still shows the ability to wall ultra.
Overall, the USUM metagame has been very nice to darkceus, allowing it to make a lovely comeback. Being "immune" to status, being able to turn the tide of a battle by rendering its common checks and counters useless with its CM boosts, possessing amazing stats as all arceus do, and having a very effective typing has made darkceus a truly scary mon to go up against. For a balance/stall player, it is a real pain unless specific answers, such as magearna, is run. But even then magearna is a sitting duck vs a lot of mons in the meta. In conclusion, Darkceus is a very effective mon in the current meta and deserves to be ranked higher than its current B+.

Replays, just a few off the top, s/o 21pichus
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-682762786
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-681471067

Also s/o Zesty43 for helping compose the nom
 

Fardin

Tournament Banned
agree with all of chloe's and cro's noms. Dark ceus got a huge buff after the necro release imo, and the way most teams are built atm..dark ceus can legit 6-0 most of em
 
Xern to A-: Agree

Xerneas can be difficult to predict with its good coverage and different sets but Necrozma-DM now exists as a counter which is much less niche than the stuff used in SM. It's also at least situationally checked by many top-tier mons such as Pdon, Mega Gengar, Ho-Oh, Celesteela and Ekiller depending on the coverage it runs, and even Mega Ray can beat it 1v1 in some cases.

Ferrothorn to B+: Agree

Agree with the points Chloe made, but I'd like to point out that it also has the minor niche of being immune to Spore while not sucking at everything else

Arceus to A: reluctantly agree

Arceus is a useful pokemon for checking sweepers like Mega Ray, Xerneas and Ultra Necrozma, but I don't think grouping it with Groundceus/Ho-Oh/Fairyceus is unfair. It's not on the level of pdon

My own nomination: Landorus-T to C

Landorus-T is a solid mon for hyperoffensive teams (particularly webs) because of its access to Intimidate and Swords Dance - Intimidate is a nice asset for switching in when a physical threat is going to 1v1 you (read: Pogre vs Pdon or you've just used Dragon Ascent) while Swords Dance shuts down attempts by Arceus to spam recover in your face, letting you hit hard until they decide to apply some offensive pressure and kill you (giving you an opportunity to bring the next thing in). 89 speed is bad, its special bulk is bad, its attack is not enough to OHKO everything it wants to and it hates WoW, though.

Landorus-Therian @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge / Rock Tomb
- Swords Dance
- Explosion / Stealth Rock

252 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Groudon-Primal: 236-278 (58.5 - 68.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Groudon-Primal Lava Plume vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-Therian in Harsh Sunshine: 222-262 (69.5 - 82.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Kyogre-Primal: 195-229 (57.1 - 67.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Kyogre-Primal: 195-229 (48.2 - 56.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 252 Def Arceus: 246-291 (55.5 - 65.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
8 SpA Dread Plate Arceus-Dark Judgment vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-Therian: 183-216 (57.3 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (so you'll probably lose 1v1 but it can't set up on you for free)
-1 252+ Atk Arceus Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Landorus-Therian: 100-118 (31.3 - 36.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
+1 252+ Atk Arceus Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Landorus-Therian: 222-262 (69.5 - 82.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 72 HP / 0 Def Xerneas: 242-285 (58.8 - 69.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-1 252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Landorus-Therian: 136-161 (42.6 - 50.4%) -- 1.6% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Marshadow: 277-328 (86.2 - 102.1%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

EDIT: STOP THE PRESSES IT HAS 91 SPEED
 
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Arceus-Dark To A- from B+

USUM brought with it the introduction of two new AG viable psychic mons, Necrozma-Dusk-Mane and Necrozma-Ultra. These two mons and the shift in the metagame that they brought has created the perfect environment for Arceus-Dark to make a return. I have not seen a single one of these since marshadow was released up until the release of USUM.
Lies. Darkceus was already good pre USUM with a Meta that allowed Goth to trap Fairyceus (also annoying things like Celesteela and Ferrothorn) easily while also being able to run a different Mega. Rn it gained more utility being able to deal with Necrozma forms and Yveltal.

Agreeing with all other noms but Lando even though it was its niche on webs (Rocks, Explosion, Rock Tomb).
 

cromagnet

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Lies. Darkceus was already good pre USUM with a Meta that allowed Goth to trap Fairyceus (also annoying things like Celesteela and Ferrothorn) easily while also being able to run a different Mega. Rn it gained more utility being able to deal with Necrozma forms and Yveltal.

Agreeing with all other noms but Lando even though it was its niche on webs (Rocks, Explosion, Rock Tomb).
Didn't say it was bad, I said it was uncommon and almost never used.
 

pichus

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OMPL Champion
The role compendium looks super cute now! Only thing that bothers me is that Kyogre is listed as niche in choice scarf users, but its honestly really good and can sweep through unprepared teams with very less support.
Few nominations -
Arceus: A+ to A or A-
I have no clue why this is still A+. It can basically provide no offensive pressure and almost every Balance or Stall team is naturally prepared for it. It's definitely far worse than any of the mons in A+ ranking and should be ranked lower.
Xerneas: A+ to A
Dusk Mane is everywhere and it gets walled everytime. Not much to say :x
Arceus-Dark B+ to A- (or higher?)
This is a super good pokemon, offensive and defensively. Addition of Dusk Mane and Ultra Necrozma and drop in usage of Marshadow has made it really good in USUM. It's Calm Mind set sets up on every Supportceus you can think of, including Arceus-Fairy, and an advantage it has over other CM Arceus is that it can run Refresh (as Dark type Judgment can deal damage to every typing) which allows it to set up on Toxic users (Arceus-Fairy, Dusk Mane, Primal Groudon lacking Roar, Celesteela and so on) which makes it pretty much the most threatening Calm Mind user in USUM. I personally find it really to deal with this as well and I usually end up running very specific sets/mons so that I dont get swept by this. Dark is a good typing and it can act as your standard Support Arceus as well. Overall, I think it definitely deserves to be higher than B+ Rank.
I'll post replays later if required
 

Pigeons

pidge pidge
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Giratina-Origin B- to C

I don't know how many times I've nommed this in private but I'll make it public this time. Giratina-Origin stands out in B- as an extremely mediocre Pokemon both defensively and offensively. Its defensive qualities are undermined by high usage of Toxic on Primal Groudon, Shadow Claw on EKiller and generally 'meh' bulk, all of these factors allow to act only as a temporary check to these Pokemon in a match which severely limits its utility. While not being trapped by Gothitelle is a benefit, Giratina-O is mostly outclassed as a defensive check by support Arceus forms such due to lack of reliable recovery. The only argument I'd really heard in favour of keeping this in B- is that Giratina-O can act as a soft check to the previously mentioned Pokemon on offensive teams while still applying pressure to the opposing team. This is nice in theory, but Giratina-O's poor defensive synergy with the top Megas (Rayquaza and Gengar) means teams will often have to rely even more on iffy blanket checks to cover all the relevant threats in the tier, meaning Giratina-O is often a teambuilding liability. While usage is not equal to viability, the fact that Giratina-O has extremely low ladder usage and next to no usage in tournaments speaks to its general lack of strong role on teams. Giratina-O is both difficult to use from a teambuilding perspective and often underperforms in actual games, while other Pokemon in B- are more effective in practice such as Blissey, Excadrill and Shuckle. Giratina-O would fit much better with the C-rank Pokemon that share many of the same shortcomings of being both tough to build around and use in an actual game.


Arceus-Grass B- to C

Another Pokemon I've nommed in private a few times, and no I'm not just doing this to piss off Reffrey. Arceus-Grass, like a lot of the more niche Pokemon in the VR, is in an awkward position in the current metagame. Arceus-Grass certainly has a niche and is reasonably capable of executing that in practice, Grassceus acts as an offensive Pokemon that has the additional utility of checking threats such as Zygarde and Primal Kyogre, blocking Leech Seed from Ferrothorn and Celesteela or Spore from Smeargle is a bonus as well. Firstly, on a more obvious level, Arceus-Grass gained a new threat it underperforms against in Dusk Mane Necrozma, which can completely wall Arceus-Grass with its specially defensive set (Fire Blast doesn't even 3hko after Leftovers) and the usage of threats it previously struggled with hasn't exactly gone down with Yveltal and Mega Gengar thriving in the current meta, but it's also worth noting that the impact of Gothitelle on the meta has greatly hurt Arceus-Grass as well. I'm not just referring to the fact that Gothitelle easily traps Arceus-Grass (which has even less chance to escape Goth due to how weak Grass Knot is vs it), Gothitelle has also lowered usage of Pokemon Arceus-Grass excelled against like Ferrothorn and Celesteela, meaning Arceus-Grass gets less opportunities to threaten teams than it already did. Of course, it's hard to talk about Grassceus without mentioning the sheer number of threats it loses to. Arceus-Grass struggles against some of the most common Pokemon in the metagame like Mega Rayquaza, Mega Gengar, Primal Groudon, Yveltal, Ho-Oh and Dusk Mane Necrozma, obviously a detrimental trait for any Pokemon. Now I know some people will say "But wait Pigeons, Arceus-Grass can bypass all those threats with appropriate coverage / they don't switch in reliably!". While that's true, the sheer quantity of things Arceus-Grass struggles against means it gets very few switchin opportunities, and teams often are able to beat it with almost no planning at all. I think I've said enough, Grassceus is honestly a fairly subpar choice in the current metagame and a drop to C would more accurately reflect its viability.


Tapu Lele B- to C

I'm sure people are beginning to think I have some massive vendetta against everything in B- but I promise this is the last one. Tapu Lele didn't get directly worse with the USUM transition persay, the issue is that the playstyle it represents, Psyspam, is becoming increasingly poor. I'm mostly going to speak about Tapu Lele in terms of Psyspam here because that is it's main niche, outside of that playstyle Lele hasn't proven to be all that potent. In terms of direct changes to Lele's viability, there's obviously the introduction of Dusk Mane Necrozma, which is a superb defensive check to Lele and its accompanying Deoxys hoard alike. That's not the main reason I think Lele should drop though, moreso the overall decline in Psyspam as a whole. Ransei in particular has been vocal about his dislike of Psyspam, and I think it's fair to say it's no longer a particularly threatening playstyle. The main reason for this decline is the rise in usage of Choice Scarf users, notably Mega Rayquaza and Yveltal but also Xerneas frequently carry the item. Because Psyspam has 0 defensive capability, once hazards and set against a Psyspam team a Scarfer often just wins with absolutely no effort at all. With such a simple gameplan being able to completely stop the playstyle, I think it's fair to say that it has diminished in strength. Because Choice Scarf users have become so common on all playstyles, Tapu Lele should drop to represent how niche a playstyle Psyspam has become.

On an aside Deoxys-Attack should drop to B as well, for the same reasons as Lele. Psyspam is harder to justify, and Deoxys-A really isn't that good outside of it.

TL;DR everything in B- sucks drop it

Now that I've written long things for my noms I'll write really short responses to other people's


Arceus from A+ to A
Sure


Xerneas A+ to A-
A- is a little much but a drop to A makes sense


Ferrothorn A- to B+
I will never drop my thorny waifu


Arceus-Dark B+ to A-
Sounds good


Naganadel C to D
Yes please
 
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Giratina-O to C: agree. I've never seen this used well, it has very little niche thanks to the ability to run multiple Arceus formes on the same team. I don't think much has changed, just that it wasn't that good in the first place.

Grassceus to C: agree. I like the idea of a Pogre checking Arceus but 4MSS ruins it because it can't run coverage for steels, flying mons and support moves all at the same time.

Tapu Lele to C: disagree. Although Psychic Spam does not appreciate having to find ways to deal with Necrozma-DM as well as Darkceus etc, it is still a viable playstyle if these threats are answered. Lele may not be the most viable mon in the tier but it's better than the memes in C
 

MZ

And now for something completely different
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Hello. Chloe might be back, but I'm still running the VR now so there.

Magearna B- to B
Arceus A+ to A
Xerneas A+ to A
Naganadel C to D
Arceus-Dark B+ to A-
Giratina-O B- to C
Arceus-Grass B- to C
Tapu Lele B- to C
Deoxys-Attack B+ to B
Ferrothorn A- to B+
Landorus-Therian D to C
I believe of these were discussed above and also should be fairly self explanatory, although obviously if you want more detail on why something did/did not rise/fall then feel free to ask in the room or on discord or PM me or whatever. For the record, Ferro was super close (3-1 and I was like 50/50 on it dropping) and everyone was against Lando-T, it just sucks. Like it's just super not good. Anyway that's it, glad to see some activity here, zard out.
 

MZ

And now for something completely different
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
See Zesty43, this is when a double post is actually acceptable

to A+
This is just a really really good Pokemon at everything it does. Offensive sets are just straight up better than Ultra Necrozma in my opinion, not that Ultra isn't usable but Swords Dance Dusk Mane is just a really terrifying mon. It actually has the bulk to set up both Swords Dance and Autotomize, Searing Sunraze Smash is an incredible move that pretty much guarantees a KO and forces 50/50s like DD Groundium Zygarde-Complete did when that was first becoming mainstream, it's not really susceptible to non-Marshadow priority and even that might not be an issue if you only set up Autotomize, and it's just really really strong. Like there are checks, especially if you are running 2 attacks rather than 3 which is what I talked about more here, but nothing that Necrozma can't bust through with some team support putting it in a solid position (read: things like Ho-Oh and Lugia and Celesteela don't take an unreasonable amount of struggle to get softened up for this). The sheer versatility of offensive sets is awesome too, you've got Autotomize/SD/Dual Dance/Weakness Policy/OTR/Sub+SD (bops celest and ferro trust me try it), plenty of attacks to choose from, plus people have to worry about if it's going to be Ultra or not. I think offensive sets are really what push this to the next level, but defensive is still excellent too and is the kind of Pokemon that you consider running on every team for how much it manages to check in a single slot.
This is probably the most I've ever written for an A to A+ nom because those are really just a subjective "is this better than the other things in A and about on par with the things in A+" because really the ranks are both very similar and very good so it's hard to know what to say. That being said, I think the answer to the above question is an unequivocal yes. Raise this.
 
1516066055474.png
to C rank.
I understand that going from unranked to C is a pretty big jump, but this mon is criminally underrated. It provides immense utility to balance, semistall, and stall builds due to its ability to hard-check primal kyogre, xerneas, and all support arcs. In addition, its access to leech seed and toxic give allow it to punish ho-oh and primal groudon switchins, giving it some sort of utility in almost every match. I have used it a number of times on the ladder and in friendly matches with other players, and it always puts in a decent amount of work. Obviously the opportunity cost of not using other megas is huge, and ferrothorn is arguably a more solid, (but more passive) check, but mega venusaur's ability to counter nearly every variant of xerneas and still adequately check ogre more offensively gives it an important niche in this meta. It also soft checks marshadow, which can usually wreck havoc on some balance builds. Immunity to leech seed allows mega venusaur to stop celesteela in its tracks and prevent ferrothorn from easily recovering health. Overall, this mon role compresses extremely well and definitely deserves at least a C rank.

Some justification for C over D- the mons in D rank have little to no niche or are completely outclassed by any mon, such as arceus fire/ice (outclassed by cm dark/rock/steel), solrock (outclassed by zygarde-c as a ho-oh and pdon check), espeon (only has a place on bp), solgaleo (literally outclassed in every way by dusk mane), lando-t (directly outclassed by primal groudon), and random stuff like glalie whose only niche is cheesing the opponent with moody. Mega venusaur is does not belong with these mons because it is not directly outclassed by anything (it does primal groudon's job of checking xerneas and ogre even better) while also holding its own against every support arc, especially calm mind arceus dark which it can greatly annoy with leech seed toxic and grass knot. There is no logical reason to use the vast majority of mons in D rank, but there is a reason to use mega venusaur as it has the important niches I already listed above.

Here's why it's closer to the mons in C rank: Take a look at arceus dragon. At first glance, it doesn't seem like there's any reason to use it over arc fairy, ground, water, etc. However, it has a niche on certain teams that adequately check xerneas (like teams with mvenu!!!) and need a mon that can do damage to ho-oh and mega rayquaza in one moveslot. Arceus dragon works well on certain builds but is in general an inferior option, which is why it is C rank. The same can be said for mega tyranitar, whose niche is being an offensive check to ho-oh and perhaps the only boosting physical attacker that does not lose to yveltal. However, it is rather slow, beaten by the common support arc fairy, and comes with the opportunity cost of not using mray. The fact that a mon can be extremely useful on certain builds should make it worthy of a C rank. Mega venusaur accomplishes this by consistently checking support arcs, pretty much all variants of xerneas, and primal kyogre in one slot, something that pdon and ferrothorn cannot do. Pdon because it has no recovery other than rest, and ferrothorn because of the common focus blast. Similar to arceus dragon and mega ttar, mega venusaur is generally an inferior option, but can be invaluable on multiple team archetypes. For this reason it deserves a C ranking.


CALCS

252+ SpA Kyogre-Primal Origin Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Venusaur-Mega in Heavy Rain: 120-142 (32.9 - 39%) -- 99.8% chance to 3HKO
252+ SpA Kyogre-Primal Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Thick Fat Venusaur-Mega: 90-106 (24.7 - 29.1%) -- 99.9% chance to 4HKO
0 SpA Venusaur-Mega Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 180 HP / 0 SpD Kyogre-Primal: 204-242 (52.8 - 62.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Groudon-Primal Lava Plume vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Thick Fat Venusaur-Mega in Harsh Sunshine: 120-144 (33 - 39.6%) -- 99.8% chance to 3HKO
+2 252+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Venusaur-Mega: 144-170 (39.6 - 46.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252+ SpA Xerneas Psychic vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Venusaur-Mega: 276-326 (76 - 89.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (even lives this rare move and toxics back)
8 SpA Dread Plate Arceus-Dark Judgment vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Venusaur-Mega: 97-115 (26.7 - 31.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Spectral Thief vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Venusaur-Mega: 156-185 (42.9 - 50.9%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Marshadow Close Combat vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Venusaur-Mega: 104-122 (28.6 - 33.6%) -- 0.4% chance to 3HKO
 
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Hi, since pg did his nom for mega venusaur, id like to do my nom for a mon i believe not only has a great niche, but also does what it does better than any other mon of its kind. Im nomming Vileplume from Unranked to D. Here are a few replays before i go into detail on why i believe vileplume deserves a rank.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-685415757
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7anythinggoes-688455982
Vileplume in usum gained access to a unique move known as Strength Sap, which not only allows it to lower the opponents Attack by 1, but also heals it the same amount of HP as the opponents Attack stat. This is an amazing move to utilize in ag, where most mons even without running a physical set still have a large amount of attack already. Vileplume also has really good natural physical bulk, even though i prefer the special set its still another option. It also has two abilities that can both be utilized effectively. Chlorophyll allows vileplume to outspeed P-Don and put it to sleep with sleep powder. on the other hand, Effect spore has a very good chance of statusing a sweeper in some way such as mega rayquaza. now that we've gotten through the basics, lets move on to more of a competitive explanation.
Vileplume's stats allow it to be very bulky and tank support arceus's judgements, while still being able to deal damage efficiently. its base 110 sp atk is insane, and its 75/85/90 defenses are decent enough once i get into the next argument. We all know how good poison typing is in this tier, but grass/poison is even better, as it negates the ground weakness that poison normally has. with this typing, every support arceus form barring flying and fire (which are extremely uncommon) are neutralized by vileplume.
My last argument is that it does more than just wall arceus forms, it is able to deal hits effectively with its high spatk stat, and tank other mons hits such as bulky dusk mane, e-killer, xerneas, p-ogre, and a lot more.
Important Calcs:
196 SpA Vileplume Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Rayquaza-Mega: 176-208 (50.1 - 59.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
196 SpA Vileplume Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Yveltal: 202-238 (51.3 - 60.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
4 SpA Earth Plate Arceus-Ground Judgment vs. 180 HP / 132+ SpD Vileplume: 132-156 (39.2 - 46.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252 SpA Dread Plate Arceus-Dark Judgment vs. 180 HP / 132+ SpD Vileplume: 160-190 (47.6 - 56.5%) -- 32% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252+ SpA Kyogre-Primal Ice Beam vs. 180 HP / 132+ SpD Vileplume: 238-282 (70.8 - 83.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252+ Atk Arceus Extreme Speed vs. 180 HP / 0 Def Vileplume: 156-184 (46.4 - 54.7%) -- 9% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
0 SpA Pixie Plate Arceus-Fairy Judgment vs. 180 HP / 132+ SpD Vileplume: 65-77 (19.3 - 22.9%) -- possible 6HKO after Black Sludge recovery
196 SpA Vileplume Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Arceus-Fairy: 216-254 (48.6 - 57.2%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Fairy Aura Xerneas Moonblast vs. 180 HP / 132+ SpD Vileplume: 196-231 (58.3 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
196 SpA Vileplume Sludge Bomb vs. 72 HP / 100 SpD Xerneas: 230-272 (55.9 - 66.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 

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