This post has been restarted and rewritten about 6 times and still seems far from cohesive or easy to understand. Sorry.I'm going to be voting no ban on Kingler. I wish I had come to this conclusion earlier so I could raise some discussion before literally the last day of qualifying, but the decision really was that close for me. You can hear some of my earlier thoughts on last week's untier talk , and since then I've done a lot of reflecting on Kingler's place in the new PU metagame. Kingler isn't broken. I dislike Kingler because of what it does to teambuilding, and I dislike the current PU metagame in general, but my uncomfortableness with what PU has become just isn't enough to warrant a ban vote to me. PU right now reminds me of RU. During RUPL I got exposed to a metagame which I saw as much more offensive, lacking consistent ways to counter lots of offensive mons without similar blanket checks and forcing very offensive teamstyles and playstyles, and at the time I really hated it. Pokemon like Mega Blastoise couldn't be countered by any team without a Milotic and had to be handled with lots of offensive pressure and faster breakers, and that to me is the best Kingler analog right now except we have more, shakier checks. Kingler isn't broken and it doesn't put too much pressure on teams on its own, it's just obnoxious and different to deal with in a way that I don't personally love but have been slowly adapting to and accepting.I don't think Kingler would be overbearing if we didn't have Pyroar. It'd remain a really good Pokemon that forces you to think about it a lot, but not unfairly centralizing or unstoppable. And no, "I think Pyroar should've been suspected" isn't an argument, but noticing the way Pyroar pushes the PU meta in a direction which makes it much weaker to Kingler is reasonable. We have a lot of options for keeping Kingler in check offensively, we have the rise of Helmet and Spikes, we have plenty of neat Pokemon like Tangela and Lurantis. It's just that in a metagame with such a stupid offensive threat with far fewer offensive means of checking it, balanced or fatter teams are inevitably so much weaker to Kingler because of that. And this isn't entirely down to Pyroar, but I feel like its presence has a very large hand in these building issues. Fatter teams are so close to being able to put their resources into checking the strong, crazy wallbreakers like Kingler and Aggron, but also needing to work out a way to handle the strong, crazy, and really fast and much more versatile wallbreaking of Pyroar is what pushes building over the edge to me. I wouldn't be voting do not ban if I didn't feel very confident that Kingler's effect on the metagame really isn't that bad and that Pyroar is the real culprit of the building issues. I'm not voting do not ban because I'd rather ban something else, I'm voting do not ban because Kingler isn't a problem and isn't banworthy on its own.My original ban Kingler stance took a lot from wanting the metagame to change. I didn't and don't love the current PU meta, so banning Kingler should help change things. That is not a good mindset for fixing the metagame though. Getting change right is more important than getting change quick. And if you really look hard about the kind of change you want to see in PU, what will banning Kingler do? Most of its checks are popular Pokemon that will remain popular. Watervally, Dragonvally, and Qwilfish are all great, Poliwrath is here to stay as a good Pokemon so deal with it, and Lurantis and Tangela will always be solid options at least. We'll just shift to new strong physical wallbreakers like Aggron, or maybe physical Water-types like Floatzel, SD Qwil, Huntail, Basculin, I don't know, weaker and less spammable Pokemon but ones that still force similar-ish kinds of preparation for physical Water-types, that need won't just go away. And Pyroar will still be an issue unless we handle him too. Like I don't think Kingler is going to help the metagame very much. So the only stance I could get is if you think Kingler is outright broken or centralizing, and sure some people think that. I just don't see it quite dominating games as this unstoppable force. If you look at recent performances in tournaments, Kingler has shifted more into a threatening but manageable wallbreaker than anything else, kept in check by proper but not overbearing preparation. Maybe I'll end up 100% wrong, and either Kingler sticks around and gets even dumber or nobody agrees and it just gets banned. It's looking very much like Kingler will be going after the suspect, although it's always hard to tell due to most discussion happening in the PU room or discord, where you can't easily look back at opinions like you can with forum posts. Still, I hope this maybe changes somebody's mind, if they can read or understand my long-winded gibberish.