These aren't necessarily completely uncompetitive because they don't take the determining factor out of the player's hands; both can use these elements and both probably have a fair chance to win. They are broken because they almost dictate / require usage, and a standard team without one of them facing a standard team with one of them would be at a drastic disadvantage.

These also include elements whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere. Click to expand...

Usage

Reasoning Silvally-Fighting, from the analysis: "Speed tier, adequate offense, good coverage, and access to Defog and U-turn make it a very solid pick for many teams in ZU." These traits alone, along with more appraisal from the analysis, show that this mon exists as much more than a Shiftry check.



Silvally-Dark is one of the few STAB Pursuit user in the tier. That alone makes it a prime pick for supporting Psychics like Egg and Beh to take out Bronz, and also for general Pursuit use. Like Shiftry, the Dark STAB is rare here, so even SD Multi Attack is threatening and unique. Lastly, a BoltBeam set on a Silvally with the Dark typing works against multiple MUs, including checking Swan and Egg.



Maw is a consistent Intimidate user and Normal/Flying resist for the tier that can also provide SR. Maw also checks and punishes the constant U-Turn spam from the Silvally forms thanks to its resistance and sometimes Rocky Helmet.



Phys Def Alt, again from the analysis, "is one of the premier Defog users in the tier. It differentiates itself from other entry hazard removers such as Silvally-Water, Komala, Silvally-Fighting, and Swanna through its combination of resistances, ability in Natural Cure, outstanding overall bulk, and access to reliable recovery." The recent trend with Alt is to run Firium Z instead of leftovers to check Shift on stall team, but ultimately the set and mon still achieves the previously mentioned purposes on top of checking Shift.



Shii resists both of Shifts stabs and only fears bait sets or Flyium Z move sets, which in turn make Shiftry less threatening as a whole. Past that, Shii has a great movepool with Spore and Strength Sap and can stall out many physical attackers like Golem or Evire.

Reasoning Eviolite Combusken can afford to SD in the face of Shiftry with a safe switch in and tier teams apart; worthy of an A+ rank mon. Even without SD or Eviolite, a healthy Combusk can fire off an attack without needing to protect against Shiftry.



Z Mirror Move Swanna dodges the sucker punch and allows the player to set up and KO a weakened Shiftry at around 50% health. Past that, all healthy Swannas can still survive an LO sucker without rocks, or a 37% roll with them. Z Move Shifts cannot 1hko with sucker after rocks, doing only 58% max.



Grassium Z Bellosum and SD Jump both work to Strength Sap and set up in the face of Shift, but also be great late game sweepers on there own.

A growing number of both ZU mains and outsiders and opened the discourse again for the potential suspect of Shiftry. I have spoken informally on the matter, and now the exigence has come for a formal response.It is a mon that has a long history in the tier, growing from B+ in the Frost meta and rising to its now S rank in June. It undoubtably became a huge threat and centralizing mon for the tier.The mater at hand is if it worth suspecting, of which,My main points are as follows:Taken from the tiering policy framework thread on the definition of "broken":Regarding the first bullet point, Shiftry is easily not needed to have a fair chance of winning in the ZU metagame. This is observed in both ladder and tour play, where all three playstyles can avoid having Shiftry and still be viable teams with equal chances to win. Take the first 81 games of ZUPL, where Shiftry was the fifth most used mon, used in 40 games, but the only mon with a losing record out of the 5:Let's also look at the teambuilding combos that the tool provides. With it, we see Shiftry combos being more successful. The infamous Swanna / Shiftry combo saw 22 uses and a 63% winrate, and Golem / Shiftry saw 24 uses and a winrate of 58%. With combos of three, Golem / Swanna / Shiftry saw 18 uses and a 66% winrate, Golem / Electivire / Shiftry with 17 uses and a 70% winrate. This is in comparison to more cores that include Silvally forms with similar high winrates for Shiftry.A broken mon would need to follow through with first part of the above definition provided, and in practice Shiftry has failed to prove so. There proved to be more centralized mons and more successful pics all around, and even in the context of Shiftry making a high winrate core is still challenged by higher or equal combos like Leafeon / Golem (80% winrate), Komala / Electivire (70%), Leafeon / Rotom-Fan (83%), and Swanna / Electivire (66%) to name a few.These stats are of course limited in that Silvally forms are not differentiated, so the top five uses and cobo stats are undoubtably skewed because of this. Still, even when dropping Silvally out of the equation, the stats provide a good look at what some of the more common and successful combos are.Given that Shifty by itself had a losing percentage, and that even in combos still saw competition from other combos, it is fair to say that in the context of ZUPL Shiftry does NOT make a "drastic disadvantage" for a player to exclude it from their team. Instead, Shiftry is only one of the four singular mons (excluding Silvally forms) that were heavily used in ZUPL, and even then it was nothing outstanding.The second bullet point argues that a broken mon is one, "whose only counters or checks are extraordinarily niche Pokemon that would put the team at a large disadvantage elsewhere."Shiftry, in both ZU ladder usage, tour usage, and viability rankings has both naturally viable checks on top of extra niche ones. Niche examples include Vullaby and Zweilous, which can work for checking Shiftry and Egg but not much else for a team. However, if the following S to B- ranked mons are proven to be checks that are natural to the ZU metagame and provide advantages elsewhere than just checking Shiftry, then this definition of broken must be ruled out as well for Shiftry.Defensive:Offensive:These sets mostly were concerned with the standard LO Mixed Shift, which was one of the more used and successful Shifts from the ZUPL data. Z move sets or special NP sets either are easier to deal with or have overlapping defensive or offensive checks.Again, if one were to say that these mons can be checks to Shiftry, and be viable even outside the Shiftry context, then it is fair to say that Shiftry is not broken by having only niche checks. These mons prove that Shiftry can be punished in multiple ways, and that the "Shift check" in teambuilding is natural to other teambuilding roles.This one will be quicker, as "Shift is not broken (Part 1)" already alluded to much of this. The usage stats from both ZUPL and the past 6 months of ladder stats show consistently that Shiftry is not causing the entire tier to centralize around it. Two bigger forces in Golem and Vire are easily more potent in their centralization, and even Swanna has seen more tour use and tour success. Given that Shiftry checks are also viable in multiple contexts, the tier IS able to deal with the mon naturally without resorting to Vullaby or Monferno on every team. There exists many other options to deal with Shift, or to have something similar in its place as a WB.Over-centralization would imply heavier usage and little role competition; which we see to an extent with Golem as a rocker and Vire as scarf. Both preform these roles arguably better than anything in the tier, and these teambuilding aspects are more valuable then the WBing that Shift provides.I am not trying to move the point away from Shift, but centralization problems in ZU are not with the constraints that Shift provide. It is instead with the previous two offenders if anything.This is where I'll lie my case. I do not see it broken by either of the provided definitions, and through that research I found no reason to believe it was over centralizing. Going forward on Shift discussions, I only hope to address and argue Shift's value in the terms and definitions provided in the tiering policy framework, as I believe it will be best for the integrity of the tier.