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return of the king
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- Kobe's Reality
- Seen Mar 6, 2022
EDIT: Wow I missed like six posts lol
But you have to remember that each month, the Smogon Server has even more battles. The number 13 spot this month (number 14 with Rotom-A) which is Blissey has more usage than that number. I don't know the percentage of Garchomps per team but it was probably higher than Scizor's. It was everywhere.
I agree with Valarauca, it's pretty silly to say that Scizor and Salamence are more centralizing than Garchomp. First of all, centralization is impossible to quantify, so it has to be measured by an eye test basically. That's why "overcentralization" was never a good way to determine if a Pokemon is Uber, not to mention the total subjectivity of something centralizing too much since any top Pokemon is going to centralize the metagame to a certain extent; after all, usage patterns have to come from somewhere.
But even with that in mind, the lengths people would go to to deal with Garchomp are much greater than those people go to now to deal with Salamence and especially Scizor. It seems like only yesterday when SD Scizor was the big dog and CB Scizor was much less popular, but there is a reason for its decline--it's not a huge threat offensively. In other words, Garchomp plays a totally different role than Scizor, which makes centralization even more difficult to measure or quantify because they centralize(d) in different ways.
Salamence is easier though since it is very similar to Garchomp in stat distribution, typing, movepool, and what it's used for. But um, from my experience on the ladder, I've never seen any team with a Pokemon that's basically there to counter Salamence. Actually, most of the teams I faced when using either CBMence or New MixMence didn't have a counter at all but just tried to outplay it. Salamence also has the already-popular/useful revenge killers to worry about like Scarf Jirachi and CB Scizor. It's just a totally different ballgame now, but based on the "eye check" and just general experiences alone (since that's all you really CAN base an opinion like this on), Garchomp centralized the metagame way more than Salamence and Scizor are now...probably even combined.
So Aura, the reason people aren't complaining about Siczor is that it's not used to sweep, and no one is seriously arguing that it centralizes the metagame as much as Garchomp did. People just cope with Salamence instead of stacking up against it with centralized counters and revenge killers. Maybe if Salamence and Scizor were as "centralizing" as Garchomp, or to put it more accurately, threatening, people would complain. There are also other things to consider like Salamence's troubles with Stealth Rock and Sand Stream as well as new revenge killers that Garchomp didn't have to deal with (I'm looking mostly at CB Scizor here).
And again I'll say that arguing about the extent a Pokemon centralizes the metagame when centralization is impossible to measure or quantify completely objectively can get very theoretical and useless, but I hope you get my point.
But you have to remember that each month, the Smogon Server has even more battles. The number 13 spot this month (number 14 with Rotom-A) which is Blissey has more usage than that number. I don't know the percentage of Garchomps per team but it was probably higher than Scizor's. It was everywhere.
I agree with Valarauca, it's pretty silly to say that Scizor and Salamence are more centralizing than Garchomp. First of all, centralization is impossible to quantify, so it has to be measured by an eye test basically. That's why "overcentralization" was never a good way to determine if a Pokemon is Uber, not to mention the total subjectivity of something centralizing too much since any top Pokemon is going to centralize the metagame to a certain extent; after all, usage patterns have to come from somewhere.
But even with that in mind, the lengths people would go to to deal with Garchomp are much greater than those people go to now to deal with Salamence and especially Scizor. It seems like only yesterday when SD Scizor was the big dog and CB Scizor was much less popular, but there is a reason for its decline--it's not a huge threat offensively. In other words, Garchomp plays a totally different role than Scizor, which makes centralization even more difficult to measure or quantify because they centralize(d) in different ways.
Salamence is easier though since it is very similar to Garchomp in stat distribution, typing, movepool, and what it's used for. But um, from my experience on the ladder, I've never seen any team with a Pokemon that's basically there to counter Salamence. Actually, most of the teams I faced when using either CBMence or New MixMence didn't have a counter at all but just tried to outplay it. Salamence also has the already-popular/useful revenge killers to worry about like Scarf Jirachi and CB Scizor. It's just a totally different ballgame now, but based on the "eye check" and just general experiences alone (since that's all you really CAN base an opinion like this on), Garchomp centralized the metagame way more than Salamence and Scizor are now...probably even combined.
So Aura, the reason people aren't complaining about Siczor is that it's not used to sweep, and no one is seriously arguing that it centralizes the metagame as much as Garchomp did. People just cope with Salamence instead of stacking up against it with centralized counters and revenge killers. Maybe if Salamence and Scizor were as "centralizing" as Garchomp, or to put it more accurately, threatening, people would complain. There are also other things to consider like Salamence's troubles with Stealth Rock and Sand Stream as well as new revenge killers that Garchomp didn't have to deal with (I'm looking mostly at CB Scizor here).
And again I'll say that arguing about the extent a Pokemon centralizes the metagame when centralization is impossible to measure or quantify completely objectively can get very theoretical and useless, but I hope you get my point.
