Let's shake up the DW OU metagame...

[kd24]

Gen pmed me with this idea and I really like it because it does a ton of things that are good for the meta - let's just go over what the plan is before I talk about why this is a good move:

Let's drop down Uber Pokemon into DW OU who got shafted into Ubers from Wifi OU.

So yeah, I was actually thinking about this before with excadrill and thundurus being banned from the DW OU ladder just because of their wifi ban, but when unbanned, they just dont have the same affect on the meta and have remained pretty "unbroken". For some reason, I didn't really decide to take the next logical step but because the meta has become kind of stagnant, this is exactly the kind of step we need to take. Here's why:

1.) As I said, metagame is becoming kind of stale - dropping down a Pokemon or a few should increase interest or at least shake things up for the players we have.

2.) Everything is going to be released - it is pretty much inevitable that at some point, we are going to receive our dreamworld Pokemon. However, we are playing in a tier right now that allows us to actually use each one of these Pokemon. So, why not get the jump on Wifi OU now by doing these tests. Because of our status as a "semi-official/official" tier, we have the privilege of being able to perform these tests. And from them, we can learn what is or isn't broken in the metagame.

3.) Some things got lumped into the ban list - I alluded to this earlier with Exca and Thund, but some Pokemon were just immediately banned because of Wifi OU. Garchomp is certainly one of these Pokemon but there are some others.

So what do I want from you guys? Well DW OU is something I push to be community driven ... just because I run the ladder and tier with Gen doesn't mean I don't want your input. So basically, if this thread is relevant to you (either you are interested in any of the 3 things I mentioned, so you may want to chime in even if you don't play DW OU .. or you are just interested in playing with new drop downs) I want you to post the following:

1.) Is this a good idea? - I really like this but it is about you the players, so if the majority of players feel retesting is bad, now is the time to speak up.

2.) Which Ubers would you currently like to see dropped down to DW OU (if any)? - Explanations are definitely important here, because I am going to be making my decision based off your reasoning.

Thanks everyone!

GENNY EDIT:

Current ban-list of DW OU
The standard OU banlist except for Excadrill and Thundurus (both are allowed).
Soul Dew is also banned in DW OU currently

 

[AOPSUser]

It's a really good idea. I love playing DW OU with Imposter Ditto. Ubers to be dropped down...

Can't think of any.

 

[Matthew]

My ultimate goal is to have more fluid tiers, where pokemon can come in and out depending on how the metagame currently is. I haven't spoken much about my plans and I'm keeping this intentionally vague until I have a bit of free time (probably sometime next week / this weekend) to talk to kd and see how he feels about my idea.

In the mean time I think that everyone's favorite land shark should be dropped down. Sand is almost completely gone in the ladder in my experiences, Tyranitar isn't a luxury many get to have with Breloom and Keldo every which way (not to mention Genesect). I'm also considering Manaphy to come out and play. Keldo should provide as a decent enough check to Manaphy; I can't forget that lovely lovely Serperior either.

I'm more than happy to have input from the community on this. This tier is basically community ran with kd and I taking the advice.

 

[Joeyboy]

I think it'd be really cool if Garchomp and Manaphy would get brought down, would lead to some interesting stuff ;)

While we are at it why not try Blaziken coming back down. If the idea is(and I think it is) to try things out in a new metagame then why not bring him down. Techniloom's priority could prove to really curb Blaziken fire(OH how punny). Also Sun in general doesn't seem very prevalent in DW OU so maybe Blaziken could revitalize the playstyle.

Anyway I can't say I have much experience in DW OU, but I thought it'd be fun to talk about.

 

[Steamroll]

We already talked about this in IRC and I agree with these mons who were suggested:
-Blaziken
-Garchomp
-Manaphy (although rather eh about it)
-Thundurus

They're all worth a second chance. After all the point of this meta game is to get a feel for what the future OU will be like when all mons are released. So ofcourse when every other mon is released for OU play they will be in a somewhat neutered tier that they could completely take over and wind up getting banned due to being too good for that current OU play, while if they had some uber mons dropped down they could still be good but stoppable (and the other way around for the uber mons).

You also talked about how we should bring the mons back into OU. Either one at a time or in a "clusterfuck." I would opt for a clusterfuck, because integrating one mon in at a time would technically create a pointless metagame since another mon will be released within a certain amount of time (I would assume a month) and put their own spin on the metagame. The "clusterfuck" will have the metagame right there, we'll just have to wait awhile for things to settle and then we could deem x mon broken or y mon not broken, instead of waiting to see if x mon is broken when y is brought down.

 

[Matthew]

For future reference both Excadrill and Thundurus are both allowed already in DW OU. The current banlist for DW OU is:

Standard OU banlist minus excadrill + thundurus
Soul Dew

 

[Iceydude168]

Oh god no. PO already tested Manaphy, it was too much even for the clear skies tier. Garchomp, Thundurus, can all be relooked at. Blaziken
gets Baton Pass in DW OU... I guess we can retry it but it's more broken than ever in DW OU.

On the other hand, I think Skymin would be interesting.

I think Breloom is broken. Between Swords Dance / Bullet Seed / Rock Tomb / Mach Punch / Spore for Technician and Substitute / Facade / Leech Seed / Focus Punch for Poison heal, it's waaayyyy too much to deal with. Also, in case you think "OMG GLISCOR WALLS", Gothitelle can use Shadow Tag in DW OU, trap Gliscor, and KO with a Hidden Power [Ice]. It also traps Dragonite, Zapdos, Xatu, and can KO them too.

EDIT: Is Chandelure banned in Smogon's DW OU? If it's not, it should be emergency banned.

 

[Matthew]

kd and I both have agreed that Chandelure isn't something that is worthy of being banned in DW OU. Unless things change drastically then we're going to be keeping it around for the time being.

 

[LUST]

kd and I both have agreed that Chandelure isn't something that is worthy of being banned in DW OU. Unless things change drastically then we're going to be keeping it around for the time being.

Yes, finally.

 

[Dark Arceus]

Yes this sounds like a good idea.

Maybe I'll get into the DW OU game now.

Edit: Changing post based of reading some others

Manaphy can be dropped, the only thing making it relatively powerful is Tail Glow. This move alone does not seem to make Manaphy any more usable seeing as how it's decent stats crumble before some offensive strategies. Blaziken I really can't judge because I missed when it could be used in regular OU. Then Garchomp...um..... I can't think of a real reason other than letting a powerful mon back, which isn't good enough.

 

[UltiMario]

Garchomp, Deo-S, and (I know this is more for Pokemon, but...) Brightpowder are the most obvious candidates for trial in DW. They're the least broken out of everything banned currently by a considerable margin.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Unban everything after r2, just to see what happens. Also perhaps Manaphy.

 

[New World Order]

Well, as long as we're trying to reshape the DW OU landscape, why not undo the Swift Swim+Drizzle ban for a round. (not necessarily this one) Its obviously broken, but hey, Chandelure is still allowed.

 

[shrang]

Man, I know it'll most likely be broken as all hell, but I really want to see how dropping Giratina-O down would affect the metagame. Unlike Ubers, Tyranitar is a lot more viable down in OU, and this really limits Giratina-O's effectiveness because 1) its losing 6% of its health every turn and 2) Tyranitar sends it blasting off like Team Rocket (O can't OHKO TTar with anything, not even Aura Sphere). The biggest drive for this though, is that OU has no good spin blockers whatsoever. All your slow, bulky spin blockers are ridiculous setup fodder (Jellicent, Dusclops), while the faster ones are way too frail (Gengar, Rotom, Mismagius). With Excadrill in the metagame, spinning is ridiculously easy.

So yeah, this is just some wild idea that I have, you don't have to take it too seriously. I'm just curious on what kind of effect Giratina-O would have on the metagame. It would be hella fun.

 

[Vemane]

It may be a bit much but I feel like a fun, constructive idea would be to test every single uber. Not all at once as the metagame would level itself out to be just like ubers but in 3 or 4 at a time, we drop ubers down and see how they play out.

In DW there are plenty more checks to lots of things so it isn't fair to not give them a chance.

It was just assumed that they would be broken but under certain conditions, it might not end up that way.

Ie. Pre-5th gen when everyone was aghast at the stats of pokemon like haxorus, conkeldur, chandelure (non-dw), etc... and then really it just turned out to be overhype.

Many ubers are quite slow and can be revenged in a fast metagame with somewhat new movesets.

I'd say it would be worth a try, at least with /some/ ubers.

 

[kd24]

Man, I know it'll most likely be broken as all hell, but I really want to see how dropping Giratina-O down would affect the metagame. Unlike Ubers, Tyranitar is a lot more viable down in OU, and this really limits Giratina-O's effectiveness because 1) its losing 6% of its health every turn and 2) Tyranitar sends it blasting off like Team Rocket (O can't OHKO TTar with anything, not even Aura Sphere). The biggest drive for this though, is that OU has no good spin blockers whatsoever. All your slow, bulky spin blockers are ridiculous setup fodder (Jellicent, Dusclops), while the faster ones are way too frail (Gengar, Rotom, Mismagius). With Excadrill in the metagame, spinning is ridiculously easy.

So yeah, this is just some wild idea that I have, you don't have to take it too seriously. I'm just curious on what kind of effect Giratina-O would have on the metagame. It would be hella fun.

i disagree with you about some of what you said, but i'll note that i don't oppose any drop down as long as their is solid reasoning to back it up. because giratina-o isn't a "suspect" more than it is a "flagrant uber", im not inclined to bring it down on just a whim however... but if you can garner some support and i can see some calcs/justification for allowing it, then id be more than willing. this goes for any pokemon currently labeled as uber. just note that in order for me to want to drop something down, its going to depend on what its current status is and how well you justify these drops.

so right now, "ttar threatens it and it helps spin block" isn't enough...but feel free to expand and try and get some support through your reasoning.

 

[alexwolf]

I think that the following should be moved down from Ubers(some are already moved but whatever):

-Deoxys-S
-Thundurus
-Excadrill

Excadrill is the most obvious imo.There is DW Hitmonlee who recently got released,which makes for a good answer against Excadrill for offensive teams.I know that he is already released but he wasn't when Excadrill got banned.
There are also DW Breloom and Conkeldurr,both of which can check him pretty good and also work very well in offensive teams.I am mentioning offensive teams all the time,because it was mainly them which Excadrill was greatly troubling.

Thundurus is going to have Excadrill to check him once again and also Sandslash.Amoonguss is also a very nice defensive pivot to have against Thundurus.He is one of the best switch ins to him as he doesn't care about Taunt,T-Wave and can even take a +2 HP Ice if needed.It also has Regenerator which makes him the most sturdy Thundurus check.

Deoxys-S also,i think,deserves a chance again with Excadrill and Thundurus keeping offensive teams in check again.Oh and Sandslash!


Now on to the pokes that i don't want to see unbanned:

-Chandelure
-Manaphy
-Blaziken

Chandelure is ridiculously broken as has been already mentioned in the thread discussing whether DW Chandelure should be unbanned in DW OU or not.It is just unhealthy for the metagame.

Manaphy is also too good,with Drizzle present of 'course.Status immunity,with a full healing move,with a very good defensive and offensive typing,with a very good speed,with an instant +3 SpA boosting move and with CM in its arsenal is just too good.If Manaphy comes down,Ferro will go number one easily and Rain will dominate.

Blaziken i am on the fence about,but i lean towards not unbanning.I don't see anything new to check Blaziken.There is Sandslash as a check which can outspeed before Blaziken gets at +2 and there are also some strong priority users like DW Conk and DW Breloom but they don't ohko so Blaziken must be weakened.Which is not so hard with Flare Blitz and HJK.Eh....I am not really sure about this one...

EDIT:Ah i forgot Garchomp...As long as these stupid evasion raising abilites roam free keep this beast in his cage!

 

[reachzero]

If you were really going to do this, why wouldn't you start over where Standard OU started? That is to say, why aren't Darkrai, Manaphy, Shaymin-s, DrizzleSwim, and Blaziken? It seems to me wildly arbitrary to unban some current Standard OU Ubers, but not others with very little actual detailed reasoning.

 

[UltiMario]

Because DW existed during those times.

Darkrai fucked DW. Skymin Fucked DW. DrizzleSwSw fucked DW. Like hard. None of those can even be seriously considered. Hell, more people honestly played DW at the EARLY EARLY beginnings back when stuff like Skymin and Darkrai were all over the place. Anyone that played DW way back when can say with absolute certainty that these things absolutely dominated the metagame in DW, if not moreso than Wifi.

Manaphy was hard as shit to beat without some of the other prominent Ubers floating around, too. Blaziken was more managable, probably the most out of the Upper Ubers in the DW tier. BP Ken was still stupid. Not even like, pure BP. Like, SD 2 attacks BP Ken, which could mash things until it hit a roadblock, then BP off to a backup that could take down what Ken couldn't. God that was TERRIBLE.

So yeah. Basically it's a waste of time to start from scratch considering the DW and Wifi tiers basically mirrored eachother in banning the ridiculously broken stuff in the first leg of Gen V.

The goal is to take the Ubers out when DW has provided checks and counters to the broken stuff when there previously was none. You surely must be joking if you insinuate that DW brings ANYTHING that can tear apart Darkrai, Skymin, or DrizzleSwSw without being nonstandard or a waste in a team slot if the opponent lacks said mon. I remember seeing things as stupid as Sap Sipper Bouffalant and Zebistrika to counter specific Skymin sets and random Lum Berry Mach Punchers to take out Darkrai. That was a problem.

We really don't need a second round of the obvious Ubers when DW had to deal with them in their prime already.

 

[Fluffy Otters]

I'm not sure what you guys are even going on about. Darkrai, Manaphy, Skymin and friends were STILL UBER then and that was in DreamWorld Tier. Manaphy is hella hard to kill (and no, Tail Glow is actually not it's best set, Calm Mind is), BatonPass Blaziken is fun (and broken as crap), Hitmonlee DOES NOT outspeed Jolly Excadrill and still needs to use Mach Punch, Breloom was a pain to Excadrill but Excadrill was still near broken...DreamWorld has always existed running those Keldeos, and Techlooms.

And God, Keldeo+Manaphy+Swift Swimmers? Really? Also...Giratina-O? What in Dream World or now makes that not broken between those defensive and offensive stats? It has Will-O-Wisp/Thunderwave/Calm Mind/Shadow Sneak (die Gengar and Chandelure!)/Trick Room/Rest-Talk/Aura Sphere is an EASY 2 hit ko on T-Tar (bye-bye if you switch in on the Aura Sphere), Scizor gets murdered by Hp Fire...just why? We could also let Ho-Oh in....

No, that wasn't serious. There is good reason why Giratina, Lugia, Ho-Oh and friends are where they are. That's just bloody nuts.

 

[Jibaku]

Agreeing with Gen on Garchomp.

Blaziken could go for a retest as well.

But anyways, I feel that OU Round 3 was where the controversial suspects began. I just would like to see how things would unfold if we go back to that banlist.

If Deoxys-S gets banned from OU, I'd like to see it unbanned in DW OU please. There are a few reasons why I would like this to happen

1) Past OU suspect rounds showed that Deoxys-S was kept in check relatively well by the presence of Excadrill and Thundurus (which are unbanned). Excadrill's presence is more important here, as it outspeeds Deoxys-S in the sand and can spin away entry hazards.
2) Ditto's presence can punish hyper offense. One of the reasons people felt Deoxys-S was overpowered as of the latest OU round is that it offered support to hyper offensive teams a little too well. With Ditto around, for instance, these Pokemon can't set up very effectively, even when behind screens.

These two things should heavily restrict Deoxys-S' dominance, thus returning its role as a balanced Pokemon.

Also, I don't think Brightpowder could be unbanned just for DW OU since iirc it's jammed in as part of evasion clause. Although if it is indeed possible to get it unbanned for specific tiers, then please do that lol.

 

[alexwolf]

I'm not sure what you guys are even going on about. Darkrai, Manaphy, Skymin and friends were STILL UBER then and that was in DreamWorld Tier. Manaphy is hella hard to kill (and no, Tail Glow is actually not it's best set, Calm Mind is), BatonPass Blaziken is fun (and broken as crap), Hitmonlee DOES NOT outspeed Jolly Excadrill and still needs to use Mach Punch, Breloom was a pain to Excadrill but Excadrill was still near broken...DreamWorld has always existed running those Keldeos, and Techlooms.

And God, Keldeo+Manaphy+Swift Swimmers? Really? Also...Giratina-O? What in Dream World or now makes that not broken between those defensive and offensive stats? It has Will-O-Wisp/Thunderwave/Calm Mind/Shadow Sneak (die Gengar and Chandelure!)/Trick Room/Rest-Talk/Aura Sphere is an EASY 2 hit ko on T-Tar (bye-bye if you switch in on the Aura Sphere), Scizor gets murdered by Hp Fire...just why? We could also let Ho-Oh in....

No, that wasn't serious. There is good reason why Giratina, Lugia, Ho-Oh and friends are where they are. That's just bloody nuts.

Excadrill was running an adamant nature more often than not before it got banned.
And anyway any LO Exca run Adamant in general.So as long as you see LO,you can RK with your Lee,if you don't see it then that's better because it is nowhere near powerfull...
Also Lee doesn't run Mach Punch.The standart set that would be used against Exca is Fake Out with Normal Gem to activate Unburden.

Finally as you said Excadrill was almost broken...Not absolutely.And we make bans when we are absolutely sure.So if a poke is semi broken then it deserves some playtesting right?

 

[kd24]

for the record, exca and chandy are unbanned from smogonU's dw tier already

If you were really going to do this, why wouldn't you start over where Standard OU started? That is to say, why aren't Darkrai, Manaphy, Shaymin-s, DrizzleSwim, and Blaziken? It seems to me wildly arbitrary to unban some current Standard OU Ubers, but not others with very little actual detailed reasoning.

the problem here is how absurd letting some of those pokemon in were in the first place. here are the stats from the first ou vote:


Darkrai: 49 Bans, 1 Do Not Ban, and 1 Abstain (98%)
Deoxys-A: 46 Bans, 2 Do Not Bans, and 3 Abstains (95.8%)
Deoxys-N: 28 Bans, 11 Do Not Bans, and 12 Abstains (71.8%)
Doryuuzu: 16 Bans, 27 Do Not Bans, and 8 Abstains (37.2%)
Latios: 7 Bans, 38 Do Not Bans, and 6 Abstains (15.5%)
Manaphy: 26 Bans, 17 Do Not Bans, and 8 Abstains (60.5%)
Shaymin-S: 51 Bans, 0 Do Not Bans, and 0 Abstains (100%!!!)

as you can see, ive bolded the ones who reached supermajority right away...this automatically makes it harder for these specific pokemon to get in especially when dw ou was just as much played then and the consensus was the tier was unbalanced with many of these pokemon. these votes indicate to me that they shouldnt have been ou in the first place (and by that logic, if we started everything over, but wanted to allow these, then we should drop everything down).

as i said though, if you can convince me on specific pokemon, im more than happy to test them out. ive already been convinced on deoxys-s and garchomp because of when they were banned as well as how long they had been in the tier before, and right now im currently learning towards allowing manaphy and im 50/50 on blaziken because of baton pass, but based on that criteria, im not opposed to giving them a chance atm....im not opposed to allowing darkrai or skymin either (along with anything else), but i havent seen anything convincing yet. feel free to change this (you can argue how ditto, breloom, chandy, etc make it harder but because of what ive outlined, i need some convincing)

 

[Fluffy Otters]

I always ran Jolly Excadrill. But never mind.

Since Dream World existed then with Shadow Tag Chand, TechLoom, Unburden Lee then already in the very early stages, what is the point of a test? Wouldn't there be data already or was that unofficial? (Then again it probably was since it was all Abilities). Still...

I don't think Imposter Ditto is going to stop setting up behind screens, especially once Ditto comes in. Most Ditto were scarfed and therefore (thankfully) easier to get around although it is annoying. But as long as you hit super-effective on yourself and can't ko through screen, Ditto would be in trouble. I think Excadrill and Thundurus with priority Thunderwaves were probably what kept screen boosters in more line than Ditto (although Ditto is still phenomenal and would keep them wary of boosting too much).

I guess it would be okay to test Exca/Thundurus but there is no reason for Manaphy, Blaziken, or other ubers, especially the ones that are undoubtedly uber regardless.

 

[Zapdos Brannigan]

Darkrai: 49 Bans, 1 Do Not Ban, and 1 Abstain (98%)
Deoxys-A: 46 Bans, 2 Do Not Bans, and 3 Abstains (95.8%)
Deoxys-N: 28 Bans, 11 Do Not Bans, and 12 Abstains (71.8%)
Doryuuzu: 16 Bans, 27 Do Not Bans, and 8 Abstains (37.2%)
Latios: 7 Bans, 38 Do Not Bans, and 6 Abstains (15.5%)
Manaphy: 26 Bans, 17 Do Not Bans, and 8 Abstains (60.5%)
Shaymin-S: 51 Bans, 0 Do Not Bans, and 0 Abstains (100%!!!)

I think it would be fun (and interesting) to see everything but the above bolded and Aldaron's proposal lifted for DW OU. With other high powered pokes like Keldeo, Genosect, Shadow Tag Candy, Techniloom, etc, we may find the majority of those others to not be so broken anymore. It is at least worth a shot. If things work out, then we may be able to have a metagame all set up and ready to rumble when these big beasts get released into the actual OU metagame.