Metagame np: SV Ubers Stage 2 - Power

[Fc]

​

The Ubers council has decided to suspect test Miraidon!

Reasoning:

Miraidon has been a topic of controvery since the generation came out, with an incredible speed stat only eclipsed by few niche Pokemon and the strongest raw attacking stat of any Pokemon when in Electric Terrain. It's been present on all but our first playerbase survey, with consistent high dissatisfaction regarding its presence in the tier. On the most recent one, it recieved a 6.48/10 overall and a 6.78/10 from the qualified playerbase. This is far higher than almost anything else we've ever asked about on one of these, and with its high usage and warping metagame it was fitting to be the target for a suspect test.

Miraidon is one of the strongest Pokémon ever released. In terms of raw damage, it outclasses even Mega Rayquaza. It is one of the most meta defining Pokémon of all time, and is a brutal combination of speed, bulk, and power. Miraidon does have a handful of checks, but these are Pokémon that are very easily exploited by the other Pokémon in the tier. Miriadon has shaped the tier around itself since it was released in SV, and has never been less than a top 2 Pokemon in the tier, constantly shifting sets to be more effective at breaking the trends of the time designed to put a stop to it. Miraidon's raw power is further bolstered by its excellent other stats, with respectable bulk for an Ubers setting, and existing within the crucial 135 speed tier. On top of this, Miraidon has a surprisingly high amount of set variety, between the raw breaking power provided by a Choice Specs or Life Orb Miraidon, the pivoting prowess of Heavy Duty Boots, and the various options for setup Miraidon on HO teams with tools like double dance and various Tera type combinations. This can make it difficult while teambuilding to prepare for every set, putting a strain on both Pokemon choice and tera type choice to try and shore up any possible weaknesses to this variety it has.

However, Miraidon isn't the most overwhelming force we've ever seen either, which is why it's survived this long in the generation in the first place when compared to something like Calyrex-S getting quickbanned on release. While it does have immense power, both of its STABs have immunities from 2 very powerful types, Ground and Fairy, and the Pokemon pool with those types not being weak with the existence of Arceus, Gliscor, Zacian-C, and others. This leads to it needing to predict well to get through certain bulky cores, and losing momentum in a tier with Pokemon this strong can be difficult. With one of its best STAB moves also being Draco Meteor, this can leave it susceptible to becoming set-up fodder if it takes a KO, although it can use Taunt to try and deal with this. Also, other strong Pokemon like Zacian-C, Choice Scarf Koraidon, and lesser used picks like Deoxys-A, Iron Bundle, and Chien-Pao can pick it off with either minimal chip damage or terastallization, making it not completely overwhelming against offensive teams either. While it has good enough natural bulk to survive these hits and high natural speed and power, it can only hold one of Heavy-Duty Boots for longevity, Choice Scarf / Specs for speed or power, or Leftovers / Electric Seed for set up sets, making it more reasonable to play around Miraidon in game than in the builder since you can work around the possible sets or any information that is revealed early.

Considering the results of the survey and also our most recent PR thread, a common question would probably be: why not Last Respects? When we were looking at the results as well as that PR thread it was quite split overall, with Miraidon being the far more impactful Pokemon on the metagame but Last Respects getting higher numbers on the survey's qualified section by a lot, just not the overall section. To solve this, we had an internal council vote, which again in the split opinion nature of this topic ended 4-4 with our 8 person council. Ultimately it was left to myself and Aberforth as tier leaders to make the final call when our council could not come to even a simple majority, and we decided on suspect testing Miraidon first.

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Council Member Votes

Aberforth​	Edgar​	Entrocefalo​	Fc​	Fogbound Lake​	Kate​	Manaphy​	Minority​
Miraidon	Last Respects	Miraidon	Miraidon	Last Respects	Last Respects	Miraidon	Last Respects

Suspect Test Information

• The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE will suffice. For reference, there's a minimum games required table posted below.
• You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be UBMS. For example, I might sign up with the ladder account UBMS Fc.
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here. If there is any doubt or hesitation when making the alt, just pick another name. There are infinite possibilities and we have had trouble for this repeatedly. If you wish to participate in the suspect, you should be able to exhibit decent enough judgement here. We will not be lenient.
• We will be using the regular Ubers ladder for this suspect test. We will not be creating a new Suspect Ladder. At the beginning of every battle, there will be an announcement denoting the ongoing suspect with a link to this thread.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• We will be posting the voting identification thread shortly after this thread. Your voting requisites will be confirmed by a moderator. Please avoid getting more games before getting confirmed.
• The suspect test will go on for two weeks, lasting until Sunday March 17th, 10:30 PM GMT -4, and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.

Minimum Games Required Table

GXE	Minimum Games Required
80	50
80.2	49
80.4	48
80.6	47
80.8	46
81	45
81.2	44
81.4	43
81.6	42
81.8	41
82	40
82.2	39
82.4	38
82.6	37
82.8	36
83	35
83.2	34
83.4	33
83.6	32
83.8	31
84	30

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. However, this thread will be strictly moderated, more so than the average Ubers forum thread. Our moderators will apply discretion as to what is appropriate. Please read and keep in mind the following before posting:

Suspect Test Rules

• Do not discuss the banning of other topics such as Koraidon or Last Respects. Posts involving those will be deleted.
• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects;
• No discussion on the suspect process;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the Ubers Council and the Ubers Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated.
  • Do not argue because it's your favorite Pokemon. This should be common sense, but please don't do this, because we will delete posts like this.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it.
  • This thread is not to voice complaints about the suspect process or decisions of the council. While we are more than open to hearing complaints that may arise, this isn't the place for it. I suggest you message the Ubers Council, an Ubers Tier Leader (myself or Aberforth), or make a post in Senior Staff requests, should you have a badge.

Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you. Happy posting and laddering!

The test will run until Sunday March 17th, 10:30 PM GMT -4. In order to ban Miraidon, a 66.6% supermajority will be required. If you meet the requirements then post a screenshot in the voting requirements thread - but please take note of the criteria outlined there when you do in order to be eligible!

Current Ubers Council

Aberforth
Edgar
entrocefalo
Fc
Fogbound Lake
Kate
Manaphy
Minority

Tagging dhelmise and Marty to announce this on the Ubers ladder, thank you!

 

[cyrtie]

Miraidon for me doesn’t give the same impressions as the other AG mons in the sense that it has counterplay that isnt gimmick pokemon. The main issue for it is Draco Meteor, which it needs to beat certain checks but which also makes it different in the sense that it cant as easily press a button and sweep an entire team. This combined with both of its stabs having immunities makes it a bit harder to sweep. I feel like Ubers should have bans but only if a pokemon is essentially impossible to beat. TLDR i dont think Miraidon is Calyrex-S, Zacian or Mega Rayquaza level of threat

 

[LBN]

One of the big things about Miraidon that lead it to being one of the most broken presences in ubers not just right now but in general, is the complete dearth of quality in who actually succeeds at "checking" it. Below I will highlight all of it's defensive soft checks, which I will calling soft checks because defensively this pokemons checks are terrible.

<- Defensive soft checks | Offensive checks ->

These are the only pokemon who can be claimed to handle Miraidon. Now you may be thinking "wow this looks like a large list of pokemon" you would be right. Unfortunately, alot of these work on the foundations of a tenuous slender reed. Firstly, Iron treads and clodsire are terrible. They should be considered lucky they even get to be placed here for how abysmal they are in every other context. Do nothing shit mons who force no progress, and Iron Treads spinning niche means very little when it loses to every setter in the entire tier besides a Stealth Rock Arc-Fairy. Groudon is unfortunately not very good either, and more than that it's not a Miraidon check. Draco from Boots Miraidon does 62% averaged to a max max careful groudon, and that doesn't consider things like hazards into the equation either, and Tera dragon sets can do roughly 80%. Suffice to say, it's not competent at the task, and that's Miraidon's least "powerful" set. Sets that's go the mile like CM Miraidon, Life orb or Specs are favored to just OHKO after a singular spike.

Gliscor is a great pokemon who can do many things, but switching into Draco Meteors isn't one of them. Draco to a non max max careful is a clean OHKO after rocks, and it can't afford to run that as it wants stats in other areas, like phys def for Koraidon/DD Arc-Grounds or speed for opposing gliscors. And again, CM Sets can ram right through it. No dice there. Now we get to one who could call themselves switchins. Arceus Ground can infact, boast the claim of living 2 consecutive Draco Meteors from the weakest Miraidon, but this claim is built on a foundation of wet sand. Arceus-Ground's inability to run boots combined with the fact Ubers's list of competent hazard removal starts and ends with Giratina-Origin makes it so Arceus-Ground struggles heavily in practice at the job, though it is infact, better than others. However, alot of sets like CM Tera Dragon, Specs, and the diabolical Tera Grass Solar Beam can just cleave through it without any real fuss. Ting lu is the longest running member of the "checks" club from previous metas. However the fact of the matter is Ting lu is a sleeper shitmon. It forces no tangible progress vs things like Ho-oh, Gliscor, and Arceus forms like Water and Fairy just laugh at it aswell. It can't afford boots, it's weak to U-turn and abused incredibly easily by Miraidon just clicking U-turn or Taunt as it enters to keep momentum, and every time this happens ting lu is less and less of a check than before. When ting lu is at like... 75%, it's no longer good at stopping Miraidon. Pivot Miraidons can even taunt it as it tries to lay up spikes on the common U-turn. Sets like life orb draco do roughly 50% to ting lu, and that Tera Grass solar beam set I mentioned is a clean 2hko from boots without tera, and Miraidon can freely reach for more power with choices like Life orb and Tera grass.


As for offensive counterplay, I'll go through the proper ones now. Ekiller can cleanly take care of it after some chip, but can be duped by a Tera Ghost Miraidon, which has been used multiple times just for Ekiller. Zacian-Crowned post gutting does not bode well and clicking play rough immediately can suck when Intrepid sword is a 1 time endeavor, as both NDM and Ho-oh are near constant presences, especially the former. Iron Bundle is an odd case of an on-paper master being fucking awful in practice somehow each and every singular time it's used. It also has no defensive value to speak of so that's another slight against it. It's got qualities but I can't act like it ever wins when it's brought it's actually hilariously sad to see. The others.. do note how 4/7 listed are a fucking speed tie. Koraidon and Miraidon can run Choice Scarf to get around this issue, while Chien pao boasts priority and in sun Flutter mane can outspeed it, but that's not particularly compelling, especially since Chien Pao doesn't crack an ohko with either priority with a choice band, to say nothing of Miraidon Tera'ing.

That OHKO portion is important, and it's one of the reasons Miraidon is particularly stupid, even moreso than SS Zacian-C and Calyrex-Shadow. The big things with those 2 Pokémon is their flaws. Zacian-C can boast about a lot but longevity was not a strong suit. Vulnerability to Rocky Helmets, Spikes and Intimidates allowed people to chip it down with a decent degree of consistency, and it's item restriction forced it to lack flexibility. Calyrex-Shadow on the other hand was stifled by less, but it's defensive integrity was practically null and it's reliance on it's item to even attempt to break past an Yveltal meant Boots were off the table. Miraidon does not share these drawbacks, it's position as a Special attacker with an open item slot allows it to stick around very easily, and it's defensive bulk of 100/100/115 with common resistances allows it easy entry points. Ho-oh is a very popular and great Pokémon whom Miraidon switches into all non EQ variants, which is a good number of them. Resisting Kyogres stab, twave immunity, and resistant to Electric and Fire lets it switch in on things like Flare Blitz locked Koraidons and opposing Miraidons if your cheeky enough.

Miraidon is not an easy pokemon to actually kill, it weaves in and out of the game on a whim while it's counterplay is incredibly bad whenever it does start to attack directly. Sets that setup like Electric Seed Agility + CM with longevity from Parabolic Charge, CM Tera-Dragon and LO Agility are nigh uncounterable, and it's impossible to tell what set it is until it actually does something, and that volatility is compounded further by Tera. Tera Grass, Tera Ghost, Tera Fairy, Tera Dragon, Tera Normal, Tera Flying are all potential options it can run, and I'm probably missing some too.

TLDR, it's counterplay is incredibly poor and can be broken through with next to zero effort or commitment, it's longevity is extremely potent with absurd firepower on even it's pivoting sets, High setup potential and it's speed and defensive value are both incredibly good aswell. It's a broken presence that suffocates the entire tier around it, it's a Ban from me.

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

Banning Miraidon is gonna make Koraidon the new ban target as sun teams will truly dominate. My outlook on this

 

[Champion lama]

Koraidan is 4x weak to fairy I use tera fairy gholdingo to counter it and player can use flutter Mane with booster energy you can out speed him and ko koraidon but it's isn't same for miraidon

 

[Finchinator]

Keep in mind that the goal of any individual suspect is to gauge if the suspect itself is broken or not. This shouldn’t be focused on conditional tiering or the future after the suspect, but just the present.

I don’t have a ton to say on the suspect itself yet beyond the fact that I am really glad action happened after we saw support during the survey and from the council. I plan on getting reqs and giving my thoughts afterwards.

 

[Senhorolho]

This is my first time making a post on the matter of any suspect since 2020 and my first time doing it with anything close to enough tier knowledge to give an actually not-baseless opinion, so y'all may not know me much outside of Smogon Discord and Ubers Discord (where I go by as Stallsun Guy). Either way, I find it to be one of the harder tiering choices this generation, but overall, I'm likely voting BAN if I get reqs unless something drastically changes my mind.

What makes Miraidon broken in my opinion is a little more "obscure" than people seem to think. Yes; Miraidon deals "doo doo damage", but that's what Ubers has always been. Saying it's broken only because of this is a stretch imo. The Choice Specs set that everyone likes to bring up as well is a bit amidst the hardest to use too, due to the prediction reliance of it and existence of immunities to both Electric and Dragon meaning the player has to make good reads to wallbreak properly.

However, Miraidon not only has a blatant lack of proper checks, with select 2 or 3 sets (from Miraidon's Smogon sets) being able to beat every Ubers-viable Pokémon ever, whereas it also - and this is the most important part in my opinion - acts as a tremendous wallbreaker that enables several other brokens (along the lines of Scale Shot Koraidon, Basculegion with Last Respects, Dragon Dance Arceus-Ground, and others like this) to do whatever they want on the opposing team, applying HEAVY pressure on their already limited checks while having even less, if not zero, reliable checks itself. And Choice Item sets, while having the prediction problems I stated above, are not bad in any way, shape or form either; they are guaranteed a kill nearly every game if the player gets a single read right or a single free chance to use a move, which is more often than not unavoidable at least in some point during the game.

Another issue with Miraidon is how utterly unpredictable it is in the majority of cases, and this brings me back to the lack of reliable checks I stated earlier in the post. The word "reliable" is key; each Miraidon set has a check, but those checks can be circumvented, pivoted on, or just broken through pure force (because Miraidon just wallbreaks that much). For example, Ting-Lu is the closest Pokémon available for a check, but the Life Orb + Calm Mind set has a 45% chance (accounting for Draco Meteor accuracy) to straight up knock it in one hit with one boost and Tera Dragon. Meanwhile, Clodsire might have a better chance at checking this set, but it gets 2HKO'd by a Choice Specs Draco Meteor even without Terastallization. Both of these can also get pivoted on easily.

Terastallization also manages to make Miraidon even more unpredictable (as it has four or more viable Tera types across all sets), meaning there is just no solid counterplay to Miraidon; no matter what you're using to check it, one Miraidon set beats it. No exceptions.

All of this, backed up by incredible Speed (which makes revenge killing it seriously more difficult than some assume it would be otherwise), serviceable bulk, and immense amounts of power even for Ubers standards (which as I said above may not be enough of an argument on it's own to justify banning Miraidon, but it's still an extremely real point and definitely not the only one) make this Pokémon way too complete and hard to play against or punish in any way in my opinion. Yes, it's possible, but extremely painful to do so.

TL;DR: Miraidon doesn't 6-0 games alone, but it's unmatched damage output, lack of reliable checks, and most of all ability to pair so well with and enable the other brokens in the tier, besides the part where it's extremely difficult if not nearly impossible to prevent Miraidon from wallbreaking, make it the most unhealthy Pokémon in the metagame in my opinion, and if I'm able to get reqs, I'm voting BAN.

 

[DaRotomMachine]

Who did not see this coming?
I don't know how I feel about not being in Ubers tho
Everything is literally almost built around this mon being a incradible set-up sweeper/breaker unless you're running hard stall, and if you are, (very nice word) you.

 

[Vert]

you were never required to use ting-lu / clodsire / groudon / arceus-ground balance to beat miraidon. during the last ubers open me and my brother, the champion Giannis Antetokommo-o grinded the tier spamming landorus-t + zacian-c / arceus-fairy / flutter mane cores and that was enough to beat miraidon in practice. if we are on the topic of defensive grounds however, i'd like to remind players these are all fine picks. ting-lu is one of the best hazard setters in the format with great moves such as whirlwind and ruination. arceus-ground with special defense invest can check miraidon while threatening a dragon dance sweep. groudon is squishier but its mere presence + a fairy-type still makes miraidon's stabs awkward to click. clodsire is admittedly the weakest here and more prone to taunt than the others; still won't deny its effectiveness at clicking spikes and toxic, even if i personally didn't have success with it during ubers circuit finals.

there are also secondary checks you can use as extra insurance to take out a chipped miraidon
choice scarf users-- koraidon, kyogre, miraidon, eternatus, basculegion,
faster 'mons-- zacian-c, iron bundle, flutter mane in sun, deoxys, sneasler (slept on)
priority-- arceus, kingambit, chien-pao, rayquaza, giratina, deoxys
tanking a hit to trade damage or kill-- calyrex-i, arceus, necrozma-dusk-mane, zamazenta-c, lunala
defensive tera

while it's true miraidon can u-turn on X defensive tera turn you still need to defeat the +1 tera-fairy kyogre or +1 arceus turning ground & gaining stab earth power in front of you. these 'mons clicking tera are much scarier than miraidon turning -fairy or -dragon, in my opinion.

more creative options

haven't even went into more creative team-building options such as resist berries and niche 'mons like iron treads, slowking-g, and sneasler. here is a team giannis and i made for ubers open round 6, and haban berry eternatus was a nice lure for not only chipping miraidon but palkia-o in this game. we enjoyed using this team by Star too, since slowking-g can cover 2 out of 3 miraidon plays: [a] draco meteor → special attack drop, & calm mind → toxic / chilly reception. not sure how effective slowking-g is post-DLC but just wanted to highlight some creative ways to check miraidon if you don't want to give arceus-ground a calm nature like on Star's team. finally i mentioned sneasler which is extremely underrated. was confident bringing it twice 1 / 2 (ignore my terrible luck kek) to ubers circuit and it's criminally under-ranked for its revenge killing, utility via toxic spikes or taunt, and sweeping potential.

dlc1 added gliscor to the batch of ground-types which opened up some new structures. this team made by xavgb i enjoyed using during ubers circuit and once again the miraidon answer is outplaying it via your ground- and fairy-type. koraidon & basculegion are more oppressive if we are talking potential bans since the immunities are harder to come-by, along with buffs in scale shot & last respects + sticky web strategies being consistent with ribombee's release. i'm aware the thread says not to discuss other suspects but i'm only mentioning these 'mons as a power level comparison. koraidon can literally boost while dealing damage unlike miraidon's set-up sets. i was quite surprised popular opinion shifted from a koraidon ban to a miraidon ban so the only way to find out what changed was by laddering and watching some UWC. so that's what i did. finished my reqs and all i can say about sending miraidon to AG is

most of the 'mons, cores, and checks i listed above still exist and are just as effective dude. DLC2 we even received deoxys-a to reverse offensive momentum. i also believe miraidon is an essential part of the ubers ecosystem because it keeps more cancerous pokemon in check. most notably ho-oh which has had 2 toxic effects on the tier: (a) forces ratchet coverage moves such as power gem and stone edge on metagame staples & (b) locked every physical attacker into using tera-fire, vs DLC1 where tera-fire was good but not mandatory. end of the day though this might be a blessing in disguise because of how ridiculous necrozma-dusk-mane is. i'm surprised more people don't complain about this thing btw; with tera it's fucking absurd. in fact, if there was a sequence of suspect tests i'd follow it'd be last respects (the only element i'd seriously consider banning rn) > NDM = koraidon > miraidon, but y'all want to ban the only 'mon in this tier that makes ho-oh and broken NDM spammers to use their braincells. after all, fatter 'mons will always get the benefit of the doubt and are considered a "skill issue" if you complain about them...

the funniest part about this suspect test however is the same players pushing for this ban are the same clowns who voted do not ban on calyrex-s last gen. the reasoning? yveltal. 1 'mon, which is just as much of a "soft check" as everything i listed above. yveltal was just a trick away from a terrible spot, not to mention lacking sucker punch or snarl can be an immediate loss vs focus sash or leech seed cheese sets. miraidon though? i will use the same buzzword y'all throwing around which is "soft check" and unlike yveltal and friends (basically shitters like zarude) there's ~15+ miraidon "soft checks," all of which are extremely viable, not to mention practical sequences of plays you can make to defeat it. if you want to argue and tell me gen8 calyrex-s wasn't broken, cool story bro but that's not my point.

if gen8 calyrex-s is the precedent and that stayed, then miraidon is not AG worthy, or even close. i'm voting DO NOT BAN

 

[Highlord]

Not even close to broken. It’s similar power level to ADV Latios against a no Bliss team. Obviously not a 1 to 1 comparison, but it’s similar levels of breaking power if you adjust pace for SV’s naturally faster game progression.

I also think it offers much needed offensive and defensive utility in the tier and requires a lot of strategy to use to its fullest potential. It doesn’t have the ability to snowball games like SV Caly and still has plenty of checks. Not really close to SS Zacian or ORAS Ray either. The standard for being broken Ubers goes beyond being able to 2HKO the whole tier, especially in a gen as fast paced as SV.

 

[DBJ2024]

Hello fellow gamists, my name is DonBoneJones, and I've always enjoyed several Ubers tiers across many generations, despite many of them having a fair deal of centralization. After getting into this tier recently, I've found several fundamental problems with it, and I'm glad we have a council that isn't afraid to ask what among the banned pokemon is itself banworthy; furthermore, I'm glad Miraidon is being suspected before Last Respects or Koraidon. The counterplay, however limited, to Last Respects and Koraidon is fairly well understood between competent players as this metagame has progressed. While I think those two are certainly banworthy, Miraidon has no such reliable counterplay, never mind having a good consistent counter.

I take this stance not because of the ridiculous firepower of this mon (seriously how do people not see outdamaging m-ray as an issue), but instead due to the principle that you can not make a good team that beats every relevant Miraidon set. Let's say I'm building an offense team that wants to use Ground Arceus that sets up and helps break down bulkier teams. A lot of people would consider Ground Arceus to be the best (offensive) check to Miraidon, but if I choose an Offensive Dragon Dance set, then I easily get OHKO'd by Draco Meteor from a Choice Specs or +1 Special Attack Miraidon. What's more, a Bulky Calm Mind set gets shut down by the very potent Taunt + Calm Mind Miraidon set, and doesn't even switch into the more niche yet dangerous Life Orb set.

What if I want a bulkier team that takes advantage of Hazard Stacking in a metagame starved for any hazard removal? Then Ting-Lu becomes my dedicated Miraidon check, but without reliable recovery, it gets broken down by common teammates such as Koraidon and Ice Rider Calyrex. This is to say nothing of the fact that an unboosted Draco Meteor does a minimum of 35% to fully a Specially Defensive Ting-Lu, and although this does mean that the set takes on Miraidon better than anything else in the game, consider the following three counterpoints:

1. Miraidon can use a Calm Mind + Taunt set with an Electric Seed to circumvent both Earthquake and Whirlwind while preventing Ting-Lu from getting up any more spikes. While this doesn't completely blank Earthquake's damage, it's not even a favored roll to 2HKO Miraidon as it sets up with Calm Minds.
2. Hazard Stacking is a play style that has clearly fallen by the wayside in recent years with the surge of Heavy-Duty Boots spam, and in the absence of viable Knock Off users in the tier, teams that operate at such a pace are often too passive to make meaningful progress against a metagame currently defined by hard-hitting offense.
3. All of what I've listed is assuming the perfect situation where Ting-Lu or whatever Miraidon check(s) a team might have are quite healthy, which of course won't be the case when Miraidon pairs so well with and enables its teammates to such a degree that it becomes very hard to use anything other than offensive teams, unless you want to build bulky offense teams that have 2 mandatory Miraidon checks that might not even beat it in the long run. Also Ting-Lu doesn't get reliable recovery, so have fun preserving health on it for the entire game.

Despite the undeniable fact that Miraidon outdamages Mega Rayquaza under Electric Terrain, I understand that this alone makes not a banworthy Ubers pokemon. For one, you always know what types of moves Miraidon will have, save for the occasional Dazzling Gleam and Overheat on Choice Scarf/Specs sets, making it not so much of a game of prediction as to its movesets compared to something you might see in the case of Mega Rayquaza or Shadow Rider Calyrex. Its speed, while great for the tier, does miss out on key benchmarks such as Crowned Zacian and Attack Deoxys. However, I never said Miraidon doesn't have counterplay. I said that none of it was reliable.

For everything that makes Miraidon debatably overbearing, my issues with it are its moveset flexibility and ability to enable its teammates. I hold the opinion that no pokemon in the tier both consistently counters Miraidon and takes on its teammates. You could make every argument for Ting-Lu and Clodsire and Ground Arceus having the ability to stop Miraidon from running away with games, but any check you can name gets taken advantage of by 3 other pokemon that are commonly seen on the same team. This is to say nothing of the task of forming a plan on how to take on Miraidon before it's already gotten the ball rolling, which can look like many different things.

I maintain that Miraidon's incredible blend of power, flexibility, and synergy with many other top pokemon make for an unhealthy presence in the tier, and that banning it would make for a more competitive tier overall. There are simply too few viable options that reliably beat Miraidon, and most answers to it fit on very specific team structures that are made obsolete by the many pokemon Miraidon pairs so well with. It is for the reasons I have stated that I will be voting to BAN Miraidon.

 

[LBN]

you were never required to use ting-lu / clodsire / groudon / arceus-ground balance to beat miraidon. during the last ubers open me and my brother, the champion Giannis Antetokommo-o grinded the tier spamming landorus-t + zacian-c / arceus-fairy / flutter mane cores and that was enough to beat miraidon in practice. if we are on the topic of defensive grounds however, i'd like to remind players these are all fine picks. ting-lu is one of the best hazard setters in the format with great moves such as whirlwind and ruination. arceus-ground with special defense invest can check miraidon while threatening a dragon dance sweep. groudon is squishier but its mere presence + a fairy-type still makes miraidon's stabs awkward to click. clodsire is admittedly the weakest here and more prone to taunt than the others; still won't deny its effectiveness at clicking spikes and toxic, even if i personally didn't have success with it during ubers circuit finals.

there are also secondary checks you can use as extra insurance to take out a chipped miraidon
choice scarf users-- koraidon, kyogre, miraidon, eternatus, basculegion,
faster 'mons-- zacian-c, iron bundle, flutter mane in sun, deoxys, sneasler (slept on)
priority-- arceus, kingambit, chien-pao, rayquaza, giratina, deoxys
tanking a hit to trade damage or kill-- calyrex-i, arceus, necrozma-dusk-mane, zamazenta-c, lunala
defensive tera

I didn't intend to respond to any posts in the thread but this post is so egregious I can't not. I can't believe I even need to say this but using DLC1 experience is not infact, a valid argument to not ban something. 80% of your post was using DLC1 points which are entirely both irrelevant to the discussion, and not indicative of the tier anymore. Not a single bit of your experience in last ubers open nor circuit is of any relevance, the tier has changed a lot and Pokémon like Groudon are hardly present if at all in tournament play or ladder. Literally all of your replays are from last DLC. You are arguing that Miraidon is fine based on a format that doesn't exist anymore. Also no, Zama-Crowned is not infact good at trading damage vs Miraidon it does 35 without dauntless. Nor is Giratina-O priority good at answering miraidon shadow sneak does damage in the 20% range. Scarf Eternatus isn't real either, neither is sneasler.

Also the claim of Miraidon bringing "key defensive utility" is an interesting point even if it's wrong, so let's actually talk about that real quick. Ho-oh (which is not a toxic presence cannot even fathom that this needs to be said) is often used as a tank to handle threats like Koraidon and NDM with alot of physical bulk, so alot of times it's not actually running either EQ or attack investments. Most of the time it's BB Sacred fire recover whirlwind. This is fairly easy to check with the likes of Toxic Eternatus, Gliscor, Arceus-Rock, Arceus-Water, Arceus-Ground, Bulky Ogre, Imprison Ho-oh (a set ive used vs kate in UWC here. I've also used it in ssnl but I dont have those replays). It's incredibly prone to knock off, toxic and other status, NDM can force it to take knock offs very easily, and Ho-oh post knock off is INCREDIBLY abusable, as shown here when origami let it get knocked and then basically auto lost from there. Ho-oh is not hard to check, infact it's fairly abusable in part due to tera fire, especially as more offensive variants lack the bulk required to handle things it wants to like NDM or Koraidon. Any other defensive tidbits it brings are not remotely impressive enough to justify arguing to keep it for, even if soft checking things like ogre is nice. It's good enough to be very useful for Miraidon, it's not good enough to be a selling point.

I'll also elaborate on that "Ground + Fairy makes Miraidon sufficient point and why it isn't as clear cut as you think. Firstly, all of those fairies type die the second they call incorrectly. Flutter mane dies in 1 drift after rocks from Boots, Zacian-Crowned is a roll to die with a single spike up from Boots, and Arceus-Fairy dies in 2 and is cleanly outsped (it is also required for Koraidon so nobody goes into arceus fairy on miraidon for that reason). Ground types I went over in my point, but the issue here is this.

Miraidon doesn't lose anything from being wrong. Miraidon is a fantastic pivot and it's longevity with boots allows it to repeatedly try again thanks to easy entry by Koraidon U-Turns, aswell as other entry points I outlined before, ie Ho-oh Arc-Water etc. Miraidon holds the initiative whenever it's entering, the same cannot be said for these switchins. Miraidon users go say alas when they are wrong and move on to try later, the receiving end is scrambling the moment they are wrong because they got put in a horrid spot and likely lost one of their checks in 1 hit, or 2 if they are lucky. Very often in the games Miraidon is outlasting it's checks in UWC and cases where it didnt were either cases like Drud getting 6-0d by a DD ndm so miraidon did nothing or cases where Seroo loaded fucking scream tail to wish pass it. Both of which are not ideal.

Also, because I've seen a disappointing amount of this, It seems i need to make it abundantly clear. Calyrex-Shadow not being banned in SS has absolutely zero relevance to this suspect. You can think how you wish about Caly-S in SS staying, I personally voted to ban it so I wasn't thrilled by the result but using it as a reasoning to not ban Miraidon despite it being a completely different metagame and generation is entirely against every single point of tiering.

 

[Celestiial]

Also, because I've seen a disappointing amount of this, It seems i need to make it abundantly clear. Calyrex-Shadow not being banned in SS has absolutely zero relevance to this suspect. You can think how you wish about Caly-S in SS staying, I personally voted to ban it so I wasn't thrilled by the result but using it as a reasoning to not ban Miraidon despite it being a completely different metagame and generation is entirely against every single point of tiering.

preach.

I think something ive seen a ton is the fact people are equating this gen far too much to any other meta in the past, when I think we've seen enough to see that SV completely changes how the game shakes out. I think taking a more liberal approach to bans this generation will be more helpful then a hinderance, and I think that the worry of "blank doesn't match the power of insert ag pokemon here therefore it should be allowed" will ultimately harm the tier. Watching UWC and seeing the amount of pressure that things like Miraidon and Basc create both in the teambuilder and the actual game feel far way too oppressive to make the metagame particularly "fun". If Beating Miraidon came to maneuvering your checks well and required really good play from both ends i would consider not wanting it banned, but its the way that Miraidon has more then enough tools to both beat its our checks while still effortlessly exerting ridiculous amounts of pressure in any game through its variety of sets + tera meaning I would ultimately like to see it banned.

 

[Anchor9]

One of the big things about Miraidon that lead it to being one of the most broken presences in ubers not just right now but in general, is the complete dearth of quality in who actually succeeds at "checking" it. Below I will highlight all of it's defensive soft checks, which I will calling soft checks because defensively this pokemons checks are terrible.

<- Defensive soft checks | Offensive checks ->

These are the only pokemon who can be claimed to handle Miraidon. Now you may be thinking "wow this looks like a large list of pokemon" you would be right. Unfortunately, alot of these work on the foundations of a tenuous slender reed. Firstly, Iron treads and clodsire are terrible. They should be considered lucky they even get to be placed here for how abysmal they are in every other context. Do nothing shit mons who force no progress, and Iron Treads spinning niche means very little when it loses to every setter in the entire tier besides a Stealth Rock Arc-Fairy. Groudon is unfortunately not very good either, and more than that it's not a Miraidon check. Draco from Boots Miraidon does 62% averaged to a max max careful groudon, and that doesn't consider things like hazards into the equation either, and Tera dragon sets can do roughly 80%. Suffice to say, it's not competent at the task, and that's Miraidon's least "powerful" set. Sets that's go the mile like CM Miraidon, Life orb or Specs are favored to just OHKO after a singular spike.

Gliscor is a great pokemon who can do many things, but switching into Draco Meteors isn't one of them. Draco to a non max max careful is a clean OHKO after rocks, and it can't afford to run that as it wants stats in other areas, like phys def for Koraidon/DD Arc-Grounds or speed for opposing gliscors. And again, CM Sets can ram right through it. No dice there. Now we get to one who could call themselves switchins. Arceus Ground can infact, boast the claim of living 2 consecutive Draco Meteors from the weakest Miraidon, but this claim is built on a foundation of wet sand. Arceus-Ground's inability to run boots combined with the fact Ubers's list of competent hazard removal starts and ends with Giratina-Origin makes it so Arceus-Ground struggles heavily in practice at the job, though it is infact, better than others. However, alot of sets like CM Tera Dragon, Specs, and the diabolical Tera Grass Solar Beam can just cleave through it without any real fuss. Ting lu is the longest running member of the "checks" club from previous metas. However the fact of the matter is Ting lu is a sleeper shitmon. It forces no tangible progress vs things like Ho-oh, Gliscor, and Arceus forms like Water and Fairy just laugh at it aswell. It can't afford boots, it's weak to U-turn and abused incredibly easily by Miraidon just clicking U-turn or Taunt as it enters to keep momentum, and every time this happens ting lu is less and less of a check than before. When ting lu is at like... 75%, it's no longer good at stopping Miraidon. Pivot Miraidons can even taunt it as it tries to lay up spikes on the common U-turn. Sets like life orb draco do roughly 50% to ting lu, and that Tera Grass solar beam set I mentioned is a clean 2hko from boots without tera, and Miraidon can freely reach for more power with choices like Life orb and Tera grass.


As for offensive counterplay, I'll go through the proper ones now. Ekiller can cleanly take care of it after some chip, but can be duped by a Tera Ghost Miraidon, which has been used multiple times just for Ekiller. Zacian-Crowned post gutting does not bode well and clicking play rough immediately can suck when Intrepid sword is a 1 time endeavor, as both NDM and Ho-oh are near constant presences, especially the former. Iron Bundle is an odd case of an on-paper master being fucking awful in practice somehow each and every singular time it's used. It also has no defensive value to speak of so that's another slight against it. It's got qualities but I can't act like it ever wins when it's brought it's actually hilariously sad to see. The others.. do note how 4/7 listed are a fucking speed tie. Koraidon and Miraidon can run Choice Scarf to get around this issue, while Chien pao boasts priority and in sun Flutter mane can outspeed it, but that's not particularly compelling, especially since Chien Pao doesn't crack an ohko with either priority with a choice band, to say nothing of Miraidon Tera'ing.

That OHKO portion is important, and it's one of the reasons Miraidon is particularly stupid, even moreso than SS Zacian-C and Calyrex-Shadow. The big things with those 2 Pokémon is their flaws. Zacian-C can boast about a lot but longevity was not a strong suit. Vulnerability to Rocky Helmets, Spikes and Intimidates allowed people to chip it down with a decent degree of consistency, and it's item restriction forced it to lack flexibility. Calyrex-Shadow on the other hand was stifled by less, but it's defensive integrity was practically null and it's reliance on it's item to even attempt to break past an Yveltal meant Boots were off the table. Miraidon does not share these drawbacks, it's position as a Special attacker with an open item slot allows it to stick around very easily, and it's defensive bulk of 100/100/115 with common resistances allows it easy entry points. Ho-oh is a very popular and great Pokémon whom Miraidon switches into all non EQ variants, which is a good number of them. Resisting Kyogres stab, twave immunity, and resistant to Electric and Fire lets it switch in on things like Flare Blitz locked Koraidons and opposing Miraidons if your cheeky enough.

Miraidon is not an easy pokemon to actually kill, it weaves in and out of the game on a whim while it's counterplay is incredibly bad whenever it does start to attack directly. Sets that setup like Electric Seed Agility + CM with longevity from Parabolic Charge, CM Tera-Dragon and LO Agility are nigh uncounterable, and it's impossible to tell what set it is until it actually does something, and that volatility is compounded further by Tera. Tera Grass, Tera Ghost, Tera Fairy, Tera Dragon, Tera Normal, Tera Flying are all potential options it can run, and I'm probably missing some too.

TLDR, it's counterplay is incredibly poor and can be broken through with next to zero effort or commitment, it's longevity is extremely potent with absurd firepower on even it's pivoting sets, High setup potential and it's speed and defensive value are both incredibly good aswell. It's a broken presence that suffocates the entire tier around it, it's a Ban from me.

Wait, where is Blissey / Chansey?
#RESPECTFORSTALL

Ok, on another note I want to put some thoughts down. I don’t play Gen 9 Ubers too much but I use to pre DLC2. Whenever I load into a battle, I always see Koraidon and Miraidon. The entire game for me is trying to kill their Miraidon and Koraidon, while not losing my own Koraidon and Miraidon. It always ends with a stupid 50 / 50 speed tie, mistaking Spec for Scarf, Scarf for Spec, and then Agility scares my brain out. It’s not impossible to work around, but the work around always ends up with some 50 / 50 speed tie and sometimes a 50 / 50 Tera guess. It doesn’t feel very skill based and just is miserable to play in. Whether or not Miraidon is broken is one thing, but whether it’s a misery to play against is another, even with your own Miraidon. This is one of the reasons I just dropped Ubers for the most part( and the fact I’m bad and can’t stand facing defensive Arceuses. And Last Respects Basculegion. That’s a misery.)

 

[Icemaster]

Just achieved reqs and am very happy this suspect is happening. I will absolutely be voting ban on Miraidon.

• With Heavy Duty Boots, Miraidon becomes exceptionally hard to chip. It becomes extremely hard to punish it as a result, as it has great defensive stats and speed and power all at once. HDB sets repeatedly force switches and KO their counters while forcing extremely telegraphed plays from the opponents - Miraidon just simply OHKOs too much of the metagame or does upwards of 70% for pokemon that must be preserved otherwise you just lose the matchup.
• Due to Miraidon's insane power, its true counters are extremely limited. Clod, Bliss, Glisc etc are all abusable via Taunt or U Turn or one shottable and are huge momentum leeches. Miraidon with U Turn abuses this easily.
• Specs sets OHKO many common switchins like Glisc or Groundceus, and you might not even be able to tell what set they are until its too late.
• Miraidon is a part of a wider problem on this metagame for me - relating to the crowded 405 speedtier, the inconsistency of revenge killing options (due to how potent it is with Tera), locking into dragon moves to revenge it (extremely abusable by other teammates). This makes HO extremely powerful, and makes Miraidon commonly get way more value than one pokemon should ever get, while also making games far more volatile than they should be for a fair metagame IMO. Speedties simply decide too many games, and part of that is HDB Mira vs HDB Mira.
• LO Agility, Dual Dancer, LO DMeteor are all super powerful as well especially with Screens Support. The main problem this causes is that part of beating Miraidon is knowing its set. But it's very very hard to predict its set without having sacrificed a pokemon to it. Of course, protect is more common now to help with this, but god help you if you protect as they click CM.
• For people who haven't been playing since DLC 2 dropped, the landscape of the metagame has changed massively - with HO or HDB spam spike teams being supreme. I would have agreed with you that Miraidon was balanced in DLC 1 except maybe Dual Dancer sets. We're not playing DLC 1 anymore. Miraidon is far more powerful now in this spike spam, knock spam metagame, as it provides the perfect conditions for its HDB set to be OP, and things like Clod/LandoT/Zacian C naturally got way worse as Ho-Oh, NDM and the likes released, which themselves are weak to Miraidon.

Not even close to broken. It’s similar power level to ADV Latios against a no Bliss team. Obviously not a 1 to 1 comparison, but it’s similar levels of breaking power if you adjust pace for SV’s naturally faster game progression.

I also think it offers much needed offensive and defensive utility in the tier and requires a lot of strategy to use to its fullest potential. It doesn’t have the ability to snowball games like SV Caly and still has plenty of checks. Not really close to SS Zacian or ORAS Ray either. The standard for being broken Ubers goes beyond being able to 2HKO the whole tier, especially in a gen as fast paced as SV.

Saying its not close to broken and has a similar power level to X when the other team doesn't have Y is unhelpful. Like, what is this supposed to mean? Am I supposed to interpret this as "Miraidon is as good as ADV Latios in its best matchup"? Surely that goes against your point - are you saying Miraidon doesn't really have weak matchups?
The comparisons to other gens of Ubers are not good for this thread in general IMO - we're trying to see if Miraidon is too powerful in SV. But in case anyone was convinced by this argument I'd like to give some perspective on SS Zacian, as that's something I'm familiar with:

• SS Zacian Crowned was banned precisely because it 2HKOes the entire tier (with Assurance sets that cropped up in the run up to its suspect) while outspeeding everything bar one mon which is hard to get in (Calyrex Shadow) - an attribute shared by SV Miraidon (bringing in Zacian C may "waste Intrepid Sword"), of course not accounting for scarfers in both tiers. Miraidon can run way more sets than Zacian could, too.
  • Miraidon and SS Zacian-C are incredibly hard to chip due to resisting Hazards or HDB, but Miraidon goes further by being able to Taunt and U Turn on its checks. Zacian got IIRC ~87% ban vote - and as I describe they share very similar profiles. So if you think SS Zacian C is a benchmark and Miraidon doesn't meet it, I'm confused why.
• SS Zacian Hero was banned also mainly because it 2HKOed the entire tier, but with CB sets. Miraidon does the same thing, but doesn't take hazard chip, rocky helm chip, wild charge chip, or rely as much on prediction.
• Since SS Calyrex was mentioned inanely too, and I can offer some insight there, here is some comparison. Miraidon can come in quite easily on many mons, and begin to do its work. It doesn't fear getting OHKOed by many mons unlike Caly on the switchin, ... like the comparisons to Trick Caly (which needs MANY switchins to do work) or Encore (which lose out to many common Yveltal sets / the ease of teching Shadow Ball Etern, or using Ho-Oh Yve cores which are ridiculously common) just don't pan out at all.

Thank you for reading. I urge everyone to think carefully about how the metagame is now, the huge variance between speed ties, low accuracy moves, and set guessing elements and ask themselves if this is a metagame that is truly as fair and rewarding as it could be.

 

[Wailm0re]

TL;DR - If Miraidon is superb in pretty much every way, even by Ubers standards, it’s probably broken, and having it banned wouldn’t actively make the tier worse to play without it.

Though I don’t intend to get reqs for voting qualifications, as I’ve long since retired from serious competitive play, one thing I learned from my past experience playing competitive is that in any tier, if a pokemon is superb at literally everything (Even if it’s not downright broken in any one aspect), can fit on essentially any team style, and can do pretty much anything it wants while still being dominant with whatever set it may be using, it ultimately creates situations where teambuilding becomes very restrictive in the sense that if a dominant set has very limited checks/counters, but has other dominant sets that deal with those checks/counters, it often requires that you have multiple checks to the pokemon in question, since if you guess wrong, there’s a good chance you can lose the game on the spot or, if not that, suffer serious damage that’s nearly-impossible to recover from (Especially when faced with strong cleaners as teammates like Zacian and Koraidon). Alternatively, it forces a very specific check(s) that are otherwise a hinderance to your team in almost every other situation (Such as Iron Treads).

When situations like this arise, where the are effectively no reliable checks or counters, it’s a sign of a broken pokemon.

It also really can’t be argued that the tier would be dramatically worse to play without Miraidon in the tier, which is a rare, but existent situation (i.e. GSC Snorlax).

 

[LouisIX]

Frankly speaking, the reason I will vote ban is solely because I am bored with bikes and thats it.

The more I play, the less I find miraidon is a problem. I don't think Offense being dominant is a sign of unhealthy - and often people tease on my HO spamming yet do not stop me from winning in uwc for example.

I have said it many times and I will say it again - the more offensive your team is, the less threatening opp miraidon is. An Offensive meta eventually shuts the usage of DM miraidon which we have see how this happen in dlc1 already, and dpulse miraidon...

Reading vert post is such an enjoyment to my end, but well I just had enough bikes so ban it is.

Koraidon

Though I am extremely not happy about those saying koraidon is ok. I am not sure will I change to dnb miraidon lol so I would probably stop reading post saying koraidon is ok to prevent me being emotional and vote dnb miraidon kekkk

Vert nice post buddy you speak everything that I would never try to talk about it publicly lmao

 

[BolTingBlazie]

Frankly speaking, the reason I will vote ban is solely because I am bored with bikes and thats it.

The more I play, the less I find miraidon is a problem. I don't think Offense being dominant is a sign of unhealthy - and often people tease on my HO spamming yet do not stop me from winning in uwc for example.

I have said it many times and I will say it again - the more offensive your team is, the less threatening opp miraidon is. An Offensive meta eventually shuts the usage of DM miraidon which we have see how this happen in dlc1 already, and dpulse miraidon...

Reading vert post is such an enjoyment to my end, but well I just had enough bikes so ban it is.

Koraidon

Though I am extremely not happy about those saying koraidon is ok. I am not sure will I change to dnb miraidon lol so I would probably stop reading post saying koraidon is ok to prevent me being emotional and vote dnb miraidon kekkk

Vert nice post buddy you speak everything that I would never try to talk about it publicly lmao

I feel like with Miradon and to a lesser extent Koraidon can beat everything and are just impossible to account for unless you have your own Koraidon and Miradon which well frankly isn't a healthy dynamic for the tier. Even checks like ting lu for Miradon can lose if Miradon is packing solarbeam and is paired with Groudon and Koraidon. Seems like a decently clean cut case of a banworthy pokemon here with Miradon, since it has no true counters

 

[Anchor9]

I feel like with Miradon and to a lesser extent Koraidon can beat everything and are just impossible to account for unless you have your own Koraidon and Miradon which well frankly isn't a healthy dynamic for the tier. Even checks like ting lu for Miradon can lose if Miradon is packing solarbeam and is paired with Groudon and Koraidon. Seems like a decently clean cut case of a banworthy pokemon here with Miradon, since it has no true counters

-Do I not count to you?!

#RESPECTFORSTALL

 

[Heatranator]

-Do I not count to you?!

#RESPECTFORSTALL

Run chansey/blissey in Ubers and tell me how that goes (the red motorcycle dragon would like to have a word with you).
Don't have much to say in this matter, I think Miriadon should probably be banned, but if it stays it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

 

[gabraltar]

Just got recs and personally, Miraidon is an easy ban vote for me.

It was manageable pre-dlc1 because of how good Zacian-C was, so it was always at the mercy of letting an absurdly strong threat break huge holes in teams. However, with the dlc's additions of Ho-oh and Necrozma-DM, Zac, as well as other decent Mirai checks like Clodsire and Fairycues, became notably worse. Zac in particular is no longer guaranteed to make a huge impact when it's rking Mirai when it has to contend with Ho-oh and NDM.

Ho-oh and NDM also make Mirai more broken in the sense that they are both vulnerable to giving it a switch in. This is especially dangerous since both are tasked with dealing with a good number of pokes, so they can quickly be put into a catch 22 situation. Sure, smart positioning with those two can limit Mirai's switch in opportunities but Miraidon can also carefully position itself to gain more opportunities. And it's entirely in Mirai's favor a) because of u-turn to gain momentum on even otherwise bad matcups, and b) the sheer reward of it actually being positioned correctly.

Although Miraidon is fairly managable itself, its brokenness is really shown alongside Koraidon. Less so in their synergy in battle, but actually teambuilding for them. Ground and Fairyceus being encouraged to run special defense investment and the mear existence of Ting-lu and Clodsire in this tier all combine to make it even harder to beat Koraidon. Groundceus often runs special defense investment on its Calm Mind set of all things.

There's more I can say (esp its relation to tera, not just it using it, but the amount of tera ground/fairy it forces on teams), but I can't fit it all here. Overall, the tier would be far better off without miraidon and teambuilding/playing around the other absurd threats in ubers (KORAIDON!!!!) would be much easier without it.

 

[Manaphy]

I was fairly neutral on this topic until recently but having played this meta more thoroughly, I’ve come to the conclusion that Miraidon is simply too unhealthy for this tier to justify it staying around. This is why I was one of the council members who voted for this Miraidon suspect to happen.


I find it very interesting that many of the anti-ban arguments are players who experienced it mostly in DLC 1 - I find the anti-ban arguments more compelling in the earlier metas of this tier. This principle reason is that Miraidon’s effect on the teambuilder was more manageable back then. With DLC 2, we’ve added a ton of new offensive powerhouses. It’s extremely difficult to check threats like NDM, Kyogre, and Arceus-Ground in the current metagame; There’s simply not enough role compression in the tier compared to what the offensive options offer. This creates a more matchup-focused meta as teams that are somewhat safe against most threats are few and far between. Miraidon is by far the biggest contributor to this, forcing a sub-optimal specially defensive Ground type on your team that you would never run without Miraidon being legal.


In many ways, Miraidon is actually considerably worse than some of the previously suspected mons; Calyrex-S was checked by Yveltal, the best pokemon in the tier; Zacian-C was (sometimes) checked by NDM, again one of the best pokemon in the tier. Miraidon is… temporarily checked by Ting-Lu? And halfway checked by Clodsire and Arceus-Ground? Again, all of those mons are ones you would never run in this tier without Mirai around (outside of Groundceus which would normally never run SpD sets). This is on top of Miraidon essentially forcing the majority of teams to have some sort of Fairy-type as an extra layer of defense against it. This necessitates a very frustrating chain of plays which necessitates correctly guessing whether Miraidon will Draco or Drift, as your ground type is only a few dracos away from being KOed (while your mons are taking entry hazard damage, mind you!). It can do all of this on top of wearing Boots, meaning that chipping over the course of a game is nearly impossible. I don’t even need to bring up set-up Miraidon sets which have a ton of variety and can just clean sweep some teams provided that they don’t have the specific tera type to counter it.

For all of this offensive power that Miraidon offers, what do we actually get out of it? Well, for one, Miraidon is such a strong offensive threat that it basically stuffs out a lot of other potential wallbreakers, lowering the variety of the tier pretty significantly. Miraidon’s near-50% usage could be filled by a variety of other mons. How about defensive utility? Miraidon offers… not nothing, but it’s fairly close to it. It’s an OK Kyogre switch-in once. The argument that Miraidon by itself somehow keeps Ho-Oh at bay simply does not hold up; it folds to Earthquake easily and we already have a variety of good Ho-Oh switch-ins like Eternatus, Gliscor, and Arceus-Water, so Miraidon’s effect there is pretty minimal. I also really don’t like the effect that forcing Ting-Lu, Clodsire, and SpD Gliscor has on the tier, as it makes the meta much, much more entry hazard focused than it otherwise would be. It’s highly likely that this Specially Defensive Ground-type slot would be filled by checks to the other dangerous mons that are currently hard to dedicate slots to - Eternatus could be more easily run to check Ogre, Giratina-O would be a much easier fit to Defog as well as check Groundceus and Ekiller, and dedicated NDM checks like Arceus-Dark or the steel birds could be much more easily justified on teams. All of this is much more worth it than just leaving Miraidon there since it’s a cool box legendary.

tl dr;

• Miraidon's degenerate effect on teambuilding is greater than or similar to SS Caly or Zacian-C
• This makes checking other threats like NDM, Kyogre, and Groundceus much harder
• In turn, games are more matchup-reliant (luck-based) as a result
• Miraidon's checks would not be run without it
• Miraidon's checks either lack reliable recovery or are not bulky enough to check it reliably
• Miraidon offers little defensive utility and stuffs out other offensive threats
• Miraidon often cannot be whittled down thanks to Boots and it forces a guessing game between Ground and Fairy-types
• Miraidon exacerbates the issue of entry hazard management as many of its checks spam hazards and makes fitting hazard removal or T-Spikes absorbers much harder.
  Ban Miraidon.

 

[PrimalKyogre]

DLC2 has caused major changes to the metagame, finally shifting it in such a manner that Miraidon can show its true colors as one of the most centralizing Pokémon Ubers has ever seen. Miraidon’s damage/momentum potential on every single turn is an affront to teambuilding integrity and metagame consistency. Some Pokémon are simply beyond the power level of Ubers, and Miraidon is one of them.


Before addressing counterplay, I would like to go over Miraidon’s movesets. The defining set right now, and for good reason, is the pivot set. With an immunity to hazard-induced residual damage, Miraidon becomes virtually untouchable - without threatening a OHKO, it often can’t be taken down without sacrificing a Pokémon or your Tera due to its overwhelming firepower and sneaky bulk. Of course, Miraidon can tera itself, often utilizing Fairy or Ghost to cheat revenge killers. Its worth noting, especially considering the discourse within this thread, that this set is significantly less healthy with DLC2’s additions. Ho-Oh and Necrozma-Dusk are incredibly common balance Pokémon that can match the longevity of Miraidon’s pivot set, allowing Miraidon to show the true horrors it can pull off in an extended balance standoff. Not to mention, these are simply more Pokémon that Miraidon pressures immensely.


On to counterplay, Miraidon is obscenely difficult to account for in the builder. Defensive answers for Miraidon are nothing short of laughable. Ting-Lu struggles to handle Miraidon, folding very quickly to and wallbreaker sets and being at the mercy of and sets’ pivoting capabilities. Even against the common Hyper Offense set in / , Ting-Lu is worn down very easily and fails to provide any momentum. While Ting-Lu is ranked at A on the VR and sees plenty of usage, many note that this is almost solely due to its ability to take a hit from Miraidon, and would fall to the C-Ranks or even off of the VR with a Miraidon ban. A few other Pokémon would fall to utter obscurity without Miraidon - Clodsire and Iron Treads see usage as defensive “answers” for Miraidon. They share the same issues as Ting-Lu, but are even less competent against the rest of the meta. Finally, the strongest Pokémon that can take a Draco Meteor from Miraidon is Arceus-Ground. Of course, Arceus-Ground is vulnerable to hazards, and would often rather be used offensively or to hold off other threats such as Necrozma-Dusk. Should it be used to hold off Miraidon, other threats are allowed to wreak havoc. Other Pokémon with type advantages such as Landorus-T, Gliscor, and Groudon simply don’t have the special bulk for Miraidon’s absurd firepower.


Miraidon’s most glaring unhealthy trait (its set variety aside) lies in the fact that offensive momentum is the best way to stave it off. Of course, aggression always comes at the cost of safety and stability. Fairy types such as Flutter Mane, Zacian-C, and offensive variants of Arceus-Fairy did a fine job of keeping Miraidon (somewhat) at bay in dlc1, but all took a steep decline in viability when DLC2 came around. Down to the Pokémon you lead with, one has to prevent Miraidon from getting free turns. Miraidon’s set potential is a contributing factor to inconsistency, with the chance that its impacting decisions made with otherwise faster Pokémon. Its potential to simply Tera out of things that would KO it and ability to set up can make every turn a gamble, even from the very first. Especially with speed ties taken into account, many turns are decided by chance (often even coin-flip) decisions.


What I harp on most often in competitive Pokémon is consistency. Miraidon is the antithesis to the very concept of consistency in Ubers.

It’s a resounding BAN from me.

 

[arbiter1337]

Every time I play against or use this thing it gets 1 to 3 kills a match, nothing can reliably wall it save and can run like 4 different sets
I am forced to use as a hazard setter because instead of being ohko by meteor it only takes 60%!!!
Also lu has no recovery so it switches in once, gets a spike and dies
smashes every mon in this tier, nothing is safe, this is really not fun to fight

 

[Highlord]

Just achieved reqs and am very happy this suspect is happening. I will absolutely be voting ban on Miraidon.

• With Heavy Duty Boots, Miraidon becomes exceptionally hard to chip. It becomes extremely hard to punish it as a result, as it has great defensive stats and speed and power all at once. HDB sets repeatedly force switches and KO their counters while forcing extremely telegraphed plays from the opponents - Miraidon just simply OHKOs too much of the metagame or does upwards of 70% for pokemon that must be preserved otherwise you just lose the matchup.
• Due to Miraidon's insane power, its true counters are extremely limited. Clod, Bliss, Glisc etc are all abusable via Taunt or U Turn or one shottable and are huge momentum leeches. Miraidon with U Turn abuses this easily.
• Specs sets OHKO many common switchins like Glisc or Groundceus, and you might not even be able to tell what set they are until its too late.
• Miraidon is a part of a wider problem on this metagame for me - relating to the crowded 405 speedtier, the inconsistency of revenge killing options (due to how potent it is with Tera), locking into dragon moves to revenge it (extremely abusable by other teammates). This makes HO extremely powerful, and makes Miraidon commonly get way more value than one pokemon should ever get, while also making games far more volatile than they should be for a fair metagame IMO. Speedties simply decide too many games, and part of that is HDB Mira vs HDB Mira.
• LO Agility, Dual Dancer, LO DMeteor are all super powerful as well especially with Screens Support. The main problem this causes is that part of beating Miraidon is knowing its set. But it's very very hard to predict its set without having sacrificed a pokemon to it. Of course, protect is more common now to help with this, but god help you if you protect as they click CM.
• For people who haven't been playing since DLC 2 dropped, the landscape of the metagame has changed massively - with HO or HDB spam spike teams being supreme. I would have agreed with you that Miraidon was balanced in DLC 1 except maybe Dual Dancer sets. We're not playing DLC 1 anymore. Miraidon is far more powerful now in this spike spam, knock spam metagame, as it provides the perfect conditions for its HDB set to be OP, and things like Clod/LandoT/Zacian C naturally got way worse as Ho-Oh, NDM and the likes released, which themselves are weak to Miraidon.

Saying its not close to broken and has a similar power level to X when the other team doesn't have Y is unhelpful. Like, what is this supposed to mean? Am I supposed to interpret this as "Miraidon is as good as ADV Latios in its best matchup"? Surely that goes against your point - are you saying Miraidon doesn't really have weak matchups?
The comparisons to other gens of Ubers are not good for this thread in general IMO - we're trying to see if Miraidon is too powerful in SV. But in case anyone was convinced by this argument I'd like to give some perspective on SS Zacian, as that's something I'm familiar with:

• SS Zacian Crowned was banned precisely because it 2HKOes the entire tier (with Assurance sets that cropped up in the run up to its suspect) while outspeeding everything bar one mon which is hard to get in (Calyrex Shadow) - an attribute shared by SV Miraidon (bringing in Zacian C may "waste Intrepid Sword"), of course not accounting for scarfers in both tiers. Miraidon can run way more sets than Zacian could, too.
  • Miraidon and SS Zacian-C are incredibly hard to chip due to resisting Hazards or HDB, but Miraidon goes further by being able to Taunt and U Turn on its checks. Zacian got IIRC ~87% ban vote - and as I describe they share very similar profiles. So if you think SS Zacian C is a benchmark and Miraidon doesn't meet it, I'm confused why.
• SS Zacian Hero was banned also mainly because it 2HKOed the entire tier, but with CB sets. Miraidon does the same thing, but doesn't take hazard chip, rocky helm chip, wild charge chip, or rely as much on prediction.
• Since SS Calyrex was mentioned inanely too, and I can offer some insight there, here is some comparison. Miraidon can come in quite easily on many mons, and begin to do its work. It doesn't fear getting OHKOed by many mons unlike Caly on the switchin, ... like the comparisons to Trick Caly (which needs MANY switchins to do work) or Encore (which lose out to many common Yveltal sets / the ease of teching Shadow Ball Etern, or using Ho-Oh Yve cores which are ridiculously common) just don't pan out at all.

Thank you for reading. I urge everyone to think carefully about how the metagame is now, the huge variance between speed ties, low accuracy moves, and set guessing elements and ask themselves if this is a metagame that is truly as fair and rewarding as it could be.

I brought up ADV Latios in the non-Bliss MU (consider rain HO, sun BO) to show that even in a game where a fast, high longevity attacker can shred its checks (even to a much greater extent than Miraidon at times), the game remains competitive and sophisticated. Given that nobody plays ADV Ubers, this was understandably a poor method of explanation, so I will explain why Miraidon’s offensive prowess is fine strictly in the context of SV.
One of SV Ubers’ best qualities is the ability to recover positionally after taking a hit:

• Ho-oh and Gliscor have amazing passive healing abilities in conjunction with stats/typing that allow them to be excellent pivots.
• Using Boots to ignore residual hazard chip that would make defensive switches difficult.
• Access to very good revenge killers in Koraidon, Zacian and Ekiller to regain momentum.
• The potential of defensive Tera (especially with Ho-oh and Arceus) when backed into a corner.
• Good Knock absorbers like Gliscor and Arceus.

When recovery potential is this potent, the breaking power is allowed to match. A Miraidon with a right set can certainly beat Ting Lu, Clod, Arceus, and other checks assuming it gets all the turns correct, but that’s rarely the case in practice. Often Miraidon is forced to click Taunt to maintain progress vs Arceus or even switch out vs Ting Lu to avoid dying/taking significant damage. Its stabs are met with two big immunities, and revenge killers will force it to Tera or switch out. While these are interactions are all in favor of the aggressor, that’s completely fine because that is how progress is ideally made in a meta with so many recovery options. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of cyclic processes centered around Ho-oh to slowly push for advantage, which is painfully uncomplex with how good Boots are.

As for your points about Zacian in SS, you are completely wrong. Zacian-C and Zacian-H were never banned simply because they had the capability to 2HKO the whole tier. Several Pokemon in the history of this game are capable of this feat. You must consider the pace of SS and how likely it is to recover from taking a hit from Zacian. Dedicated revenge killers are less prominent in SS, which has traditionally been one of the best ways to deal with offense. There are also more Miraidon checks in SV than Zacian checks in SS, which allows Zacian sets to be highly specialized (think Assurance for NDM). SS is also very cyclic in the sense that Knock Off + hazard chip is more prevalent making recovering from Zacian’s hits incredibly difficult. And about Caly, I was referring to SV Caly, not SS. I edited my post to clarify this now.

Frankly, I find SV very enjoyable and having Miraidon accelerate progress in new ways has been refreshing after a couple generations of slow, grindy gameplay. The tier is also still in its infancy, and I think a lot of good things will happens once Tera types become optimized.