hello fellads, im here to at least begin discussion concerning the kingler suspect test that is currently going on, and to share my opinions regarding the matter in hand. for context here, i was one of the council members that opted to suspect test kingler over pyroar, but for the sake of this post (as well as the suspect test) i emplore everyone taking part to not even consider pyroar in the equation of whether or not u want kingler banned. Ive seen far too many people discuss the plausibility of not banning kingler under the premise that banning pyroar is a better solution to the meta, which is a flawed mentality to have. Trust that the council will elect to suspect Pyroar next given the meta doesn't substantially improve in the coming weeks, and that deciding to not ban Kingler over the course of this suspect test purely because u want pyroar tested more isn't helping the meta develop, if you decide that Kingler isnt broken because we have sufficient counterplay, thats something i would like to discuss in this post!



I'm very much so on the Ban Kingler side of this suspect. In my opinion, counterplay to Kingler is extremely limiting at the teambuilding stage as well as the team preview stage, especially if you tend to prefer bulkier archetypes, Kingler is an absolute nightmare to come across because you essentially need to choose at the teambuilder, whether or not you want to be especially weak to Kingler. As far as im concerned, there are 3-4 real Kingler checks that I can attest to using on Balance style teams in order to keep Kingler from getting a free kill on my slower Pokemon, such as Clefairy, Regirock, Eelektross, the list of Pokemon that Kingler takes advantage of goes on and on. The 3-4 checks im referencing to constantly are; Poliwrath, Tangela, Bellosom or Servine. Some people don't count Servine even tho i live and die by the Snek so hence why 3-4. Notice how out of all 3 these checks, you can claim only 1 as being Popular in other metagames.



Tangela; has always been a thing, but id actually class it as one of the worse Kingler checks you can use at the moment, considering Ice Beam is being opted for on almost all Kingler sets as coverage. You can run an alternative set with more special defensive investment on Tangela to avoid the 2hko after SR, however, you do lose significant Physical bulk, detracting more from what the tangela was slapped on the team to do initially; to check physical meta. Myself personally, I run both Knock Off and Ice Beam as the fillers on Kingler, so even a specially invested Tangela can be circumvented with the appropriate plays. So with this thing being a very iffy Kingler check, forced into running special invest at the minimum in this meta, its popularity and use outside of the Kingler matchup is hindered by its inability to deal with Kingler itself, often forcing the Balance player to shrug their shoulders and go well ill just have to outplay if Kingler gets out of hand. I wish this Poke could deal with Kingler better, but it just isn't a valid answer.



Poliwrath; Only really gained popularity because it checked the void that Gastrodon / Ferroseed left gaping in their absence. Rock Types such as Aggron and Lycanroc as well as the suspected Kingler have skyrocketed in usage due to the lack of popular check roaming the meta like they used to. And to answer the call, comes Poliwrath, a mon which hasn't really been great in the last few metas because half of the PU teams used Mesprit, so all teams had an insta check at the minimum, and half of the teams that didn't use Mesprit in previous metas were probably using Clefairy (reminder that this was in the midst of the FerroClef craze), and then take into account the teams that didnt use either of those Pokemon but could still check Poliwrath because it really depended heavily on Toxic to do its breaking on bulkier Pokemon. Basically what im tryna say is Poliwrath has always sucked in current gen PU, people are only really finding usage out of it because its PUs only 100% full on Kingler check, as well as checking another chunk of the meta thats popular, its still that same poke incapable of finding usage. In my opinion, despite its vast improvement in this meta, it can easily be claimed that using a Pokemon scraping around the B ranks at its best moments is too much for a tier to depend on considering how prominent Kingler teams are.



Bellosom & Servine; niche grasses that have found themself some usage (one way or another) because Kingler became used. It kinda follows the same line as Poliwrath, can we really depend on Pokemon found in the C ranks to dependably check one of, if not THE, biggest threats in the tier? In my opinion, the answer is no. The fact I've even had to go as far as using Servine says a lot about how difficult it is to be creative as well as check Kingler well since its one of the only Kingler checks that offers role compression in terms of being a kingler check+something else (in this case defog aka hazards control).



Now I could mention a few much less reliable checks too, so honourable mentions to Silvally-Water and Qwilfish, neither of which can check Kingler in the context of a battle, but can be considered a check if your team manages to not be weak to Kingler in the rest of your slots.

Kingler basically forces you into dedicating a slot to check it, otherwise, you will end up having significant difficulties preventing it from tearing ur elaborate fat core apart. Now, it would be all good if Kingler could only wall break. I mean, Ursaring does the same thing right? Come in on slow mons like Clef and kill something with a much smaller full on counter list than Kingler, what allows Kingler to differentiate itself succesfully and turn it into an A+ meta threat and worthy of a suspect test. And the answer would be 1 thing, Speed and Bulk.



Kingler offers a huge Speed tier where other wallbreakers falter, boasting 249 with an adamant nature, making it by far one of the highest Damage output Pokemon for its Speed tier, allowing it to fuck with not only the Slow Walls that breakers use to abuse, but also the vast majority of breakers themselves. In-game, this makes Kingler very difficult to play against, since it isnt completely dependent on getting an agility up to outspeed stuff and break (differentiating itself from Costa which is a comparison ive seen a lot too). Kingler being viewed in the context of a breaker with utility vs Offense is a much more effective way of looking at the crab, since the view point that its a tool to beat Offense first and Balance next philosophy is often what makes it easy to play against or where it gets poor performances and those "easier to play against in practice" moments that people have been mentioning in general. Agility allows it the utility to outspeed the entire scarf metagame with the exception of the waste of a pokemon that is Scarf Pyroar, so therefore it always gives Kingler an option vs Offense teams so its not completely pointless, where in the same regard an Absol or an Ursaring would be. Its bulk allows it to comfortably lives any priority the tier can throw at it, Hitmonchan and Gurdurrs Mach Punch, Kangas Fake Out+Sucker, Sucker from Skunk. Therefore, due to this, it leads to people staying in with Pokes that don't belong vs Kingler since if kingler does get a free agility, people have little to no resources to revenge kill it effectively. So seeing a Regirock or Hitmonchan stay in on a Kingler is a common occurence due to the amount of damage it can do if it does get an Agility up.



To Summarise this long ass post, Kingler has several elements wallbreakers wish to have. the 130 Attack Sheer Force Life Orb Boosted STAB Move, all the coverage it could ever need, Speed enough to abuse the entire bulky meta, Bulk enough to abuse any wrongly locked Scarfer and a move in Agility which makes it not a deadweight vs Offense the same way most wallbreakers are. The checks we do have are niche as fuck and difficult for current balance teams to implement successfully and as a result, teambuilding variety will 100% suffer, making the tier stale and unenjoyable in the foreseeable future should a Kingler suspect result in a No Ban. With Kingler gone, there will be more room to prepare further for a Pyroar, lessening its impact on the tier, and generally making PU less miserable to build in. (Yay more assault vest)



tl;dr for lazy peeps; i dont wanna use servine anymore to check fucking kingler, please get rid of it :verymad: