Manaphy

[Dragon]

Sooo. Manaphy. I made this thread so we can discuss Manaphy in greater detail in the competitive scenario.

Manaphy is a very capable wall and stall breaker in the OU metagame, with good ability to beat more bulky and balanced play styles too. It's primary tool to do this is Tail Glow, which it can set up on pokemon such as Heatran, Skarmory, Defensive Landorus, Slowbro, Gliscor, Keledo locked on a water move, and so on. Tail Glow itself is a move that boosts it's SpA by +3, which makes it pretty dangerous if left unchecked! Surf and Scald are it's main STAB moves, but it can use moves such as HP Fire for Ferrothorn, Energy Ball for opposing bulky water pokemon, and Ice Beam for incoming dragons like Lati@s. It depends on the player's preference, their team, etc.

Another viable moveset it can use is it's Calm Mind build, using a more defensive spread (252 HP / 240 Def /16 Spe) so it can tank hits from Talonflame, Landorus, or Scizor as it proceeds to set up. It utilizes Hydration in this set, using Rain Dance and Rest, with Scald to Burn and cripple it's answers like Ferrothorn, or Unaware Clefable.

I can go on and on about Manaphy's strengths and tools, but, this is what this discussion is based on! So, this thread's questions, for you to think about are: What do you think about Manaphy in this current OU metagame? Is it a potential candidate to be suspected? If you think so, why? If not, why not? But again, these questions are for you to think about. I'd love to hear any more thoughts on the matter!

 

[Dragovion]

I think it's a very powerful mon for sure, but not one that really needs to be suspect tested so much. The base 100 across the board stats are nice. And the WIDE move pool is great as well. scald/surf, and tail glow are given moves I think. Energy ball has its uses as you stated for bulky water types that want to wall it. Ice beam is a good move for dragons and grass types. But sometimes depending on the team coverage I like to run dazzling gleam for dragon, dark, and fighting types. I also find that psychic is a good move too. BUT I think between dazzling gleam and psychic the first has better coverage. And HP anything for whatever type of move you need.

I think Manaphy is one of those poor mons that has SOOO many moves but only four slots. But since I play mix OU I find he's a prized mon on my teams as a sweeper/wall breaker. He kinda just fits nicely anywhere in my eyes.

 

[gimmepie]

Personally I think Manaphy has got to go. Once it gets that Tail Glow in it just rips through everything until it dies. The lack of recovery outside rest might seem like it offsets things at first but at +3 Sp. Atk after just one turn to set up I don't think it does. Not to mention how hard it is to switch into once it gets that boost because of it's enormous movepool.

Even Hoopa-U is more balanced if you ask me since it has trouble switching in to a fair few pokemon and has painfully weak defence.

The only truly reliable check to Tail Glow manaphy was Shadow Tag on Gothitelle (or even Wobbu I guess) and that was even worse for the game and had to go.

 

[Anti]

not sure how the metagame has changed in two months, but i laddered pretty extensively in october and used manaphy on *all* of my teams. it's a very good strategic poke in that it can have two solid checks on the opposing team and you can work through them with good play and support from teammates and maybe a little scald "luck" (lol).

it does remind me a little bit of cm mega slowbro in this regard: it has very very few hard checks/counters, but a ton of soft checks. if you're facing a faster team, its impact will be severely limited because it's bulky enough to survive a powerful stab attack, but definitely not two of them. you don't even need to be facing a hyper offense for this to happen: balances that use, say, a combination of keldeo + latios (presumably still extremely common) can keep manaphy in check even if you can theorymon something about manaphy wearing them down with scald or pursuit trapping the lati or whatever else. truth is, this kind of ad hoc defense against manaphy can and does work. i thought of the mega slowbro comp because very few things can stop it on paper, but it kind of sucks when your team's water can't switch into heatran because toxic (and even taunt) cut into its functionality so much. one thing that annoys me in suspect discussions is when people act like these types of negotiations you have to make--you can't perfectly cover everything!--somehow act as proof that something is broken. no way!

predictably, i don't think manaphy is broken at all, and i think a suspect would be kind of a waste of time. i find "it punishes everything with tg+coverage" to be very lazy when there are plenty of ways around it. the only matchup issue i really see w/ manaphy is rain sets against stall, which are extremely difficult to check, but let's be real here: rain manaphy is not particularly common, certainly not consistent enough against non-stalls that it's an amazing poke overall. every pokemon is a "matchup pokemon" to some extent, and there is plenty of tiering precedent that we don't ban on those grounds alone, for the same reason mega heracross, charizard y (talk about a matchup mon lol), weather+speed boosting ability, etc. aren't banned.

maybe manaphy's checks all went out of style, but not seeing the suspect for this mon. it's really awesome though, i ran tg/scald/icebeam/energyball most of the time and it put in a ton of work, especially when combined with charizard. it is very easy to fit into offensive cores.

 

[KorpiklaaniVodka]

Manaphy is great, and imo the 3rd best 'mon in the OU metagame, but I hope it doesn't get banned.