20210403 Virizion Council Votes

Quickban. Virizion was already an extremely potent force in the previous metagame, requiring borderline excessive counterplay, and almost singlehandedly being responsible for Weezing's high usage towards the back end of the meta. However, now with the new shifts and the loss of Talonflame, its best offensive check and situational switchin, Virizion is not only even more potent but has become unquestionably unhealthy. Talonflame allowed Virizion to never cross the edge in my eyes, due to its ability to prevent its Swords Dance and Calm Mind sets to ever pull off a sufficient sweep, as well as preventing large immediate damage from its powerful STAB attacks. Virizion's limiting effect on the metagame is only exacerbated with Talonflame's removal, however. While it still has checks in Garbodor, Whimsicott, Weezing, Golbat and Gourgeist, these can all be overcome with certain coverage that, without Talonflame, it is allowed to run more frequently. Virizion is no longer reliant on Stone Edge in order to beat potential Talonflame switchins and can free up a slot for Zen Headbutt in order to prevent several of its aforementioned checks with this now standard coverage. Calm Mind sets also get substantially better without Talonflame being there to wall them and prevent their utility. Mixed sets now have very little drawback at all when they were already very prominent before. Virizion has been taken off its leash and given full control over the tier, and I believe the metagame would be substantially more well off without it.

Quickban. I think Virizion is too much for the meta game, especially with Talonflame gone. When we had Talonflame, Virizion was still an issue turn by turn in games, however you would at least need them to be one/two out of many sets, make a prediction, and land Stone Edge for Talonflame to not be a great check. Without having such a splashable check, building feels much more warped. I don't believe our other forms of defensive counter play are splashable enough, or even viable enough in some cases, for me to want to keep Virizion in the tier. Weezing is solid but gets chipped down far too hard, and is extremely passive, losing to CM straight up without Clear Smog. Garbodor is solid but has issues with SD Zen Headbutt, having a solid chance to die after just one round of rocks. Golbat while fitting on defensive teams quite well still can't safely switch in if rocks are up.

Quickban. I already made a post explaining this. Basically the reasoning is the following: Virizion has no true switchins, and almost every competitive team checks it with the combination of a bulky poison (weezing or garbodor), talonflame, and a scarfer or glass cannon faster than virizion. These 3 members are essential: poison+talon prevent virizion from spamming moves and forcing it to choose between leafstorm and stone edge. Talonflame yes and not charizard, since the former can switchin on any of virizion's moves except stone edge and force it out thanks to its speed. The scarfer (mesprit or passimian are the best vs virizion) or glass cannon (usually whimsicott or ribombee) are essential to Revengekill virizion, since talonflame is always at the mercy of stone edge and cant be relied on to answer virizion offensively. The possible 4rd important member that many teams use is vaporeon, able to pass wishes to the poison, talonflame or the speed control such as scarf mesprit or whimsicott. The tier shift took away both talonflame and vaporeon, which means at least to me, that the pressure virizion will now exert on teams will simply be too much. It was almost too much before the shift, and answering virizion was really painful in the teambuilder. Virizion could come in for ever on rock setters like regirock and palossand as well as bulky waters like vaporeon and lanturn, but the "anti-virizion" combination listed earlier could make up for this especially with vaporeon's wishes. That is why I believe virizion should be banned asap for the sake of the PU open metagame. tl;dr: Talonflame and Vaporeon rising = impossibility to answer or even keep at bay Virizion defensively.

Quickban. would like to use option D) and use first round of slam to figure things out, but thats not possible, so im going ahead on quick banning viriz in that case. We lost few of its best check and relying on golbat to take hits from it doesnt sound like good idea. Golbats great mon, but not that great to shut down alone viriz. Who ever says golbat is unviable in HDB meta sucks

Quickban. Pretty much already gave my reasoning in the NP thread, but to reiterate: I already felt teambuilding in PU to be rather constrained and the tier's balance was very precarious, so the #1 offensive check to Virizion leaving I think really tipped things over the edge. Fat balance has to rely on very specific mons to keep Virizion somewhat at bay (Garbodor + Aromatisse comes to mind) whereas for offense, you basically have nothing as nothing that outspeeds Virizion naturally can stomach a LO/Specs Leaf Storm and Whimsi/Bee can't even revenge it without specs. This wouldn't be a problem if Virizion was a breaker along the lines of, say, Absol - slowish, frail, just powerful - but this is not the case, as Virizion sports a fantastic speed tier and great special bulk plus a number of resistances that allow it to come in and wreak havoc vs offensive teams - its middling offensive stats being offset by high-powered STABs and amazing coverage. This leads me to believe that insofar as the tier can manage Virizion, it is only by relying on very specific mons to keep it in check and tending towards a style of fat balance that is very exploitable with the amount of potent breakers the tier has. In addition to this, any adaptation made within the meta can be accommodated for by Virizion users, as the lack of Talonflame makes a move like Stone Edge way less imperative, increasing the viability of sets like SD Zen Headbutt and CM sets. I am convinced Virizion will absolutely have an unhealthy effect on a metagame in which builders are already hard-pressed to account for all major threats and as such, it has to leave immediately if we are to establish a healthy and balanced tier during PU Open.

Quickban. How well you answered Virizion last meta hinged upon teams being fast enough to answer setup variants of Virizion (SD, CM) and simultaneously, bulky enough to withstand its dual STABs and Stone Edge (AoA). In one shift, Virizion's most splashable check rose, and at the same time, bulky answers to its Grass and Fighting moves (ex. of these options, Garbodor and Weezing are cited most often) lost a critical support partner in Vaporeon, leaving Virizion much more difficult to deal with than it was previously. Its lack of reliable switch-ins outside of options like Golbat already make it very constricting at builder, especially as Golbat does not fit easily on every build, but these two major changes have left us with even fewer avenues for dealing with Virizion. This last shift basically swung the meta out of balance, and this was reflected in my recent matches with other players, as Virizion proved itself to be overwhelming in battle and difficult to prep for (if not impossible, given how few answers there are to Grass & Fighting STABs + Psychic / Rock / Flying coverage). There are some Pokemon in the meta that freely answer 3 of Virizion's moves on any given set, but never all 4 on AoA sets; for example, Toxicroak can soft check Grass + Fighting + Rock Virizion, but loses to Air Slash or Zen Headbutt; Rotom-S (unmon) can check CM sets with Grass + Fighting + Flying coverage, but loses to Stone Edge; Exeggutor / Orbeetle / Xatu can answer Grass + Fighting + Psychic coverage, but lose to Flying and Rock coverage, and so on. Therefore, the best way to answer Virizion in current meta is to gain momentum and be quick to apply offensive pressure, as answering it defensively is just too large a pill to swallow, but that's not always possible given how fast it is and how easily it can use its set of unique resists to pivot into the defensive portions of the meta and start firing off high-BP moves.