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np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 11 - Genie in a Bottle [Landorus is now Uber]
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phantom
Banned deucer.
Achieved OU current requirements to my surprise. I had to forfeit like my last 4 matches or something to get it. =/ Like most people here, I just used a generic Lando / Tar / Pony core and a three mon filler. In any case, if I get the other requirements, I'll be voting to ban this thing. I've been seeing a little more sun than usual and the other meta seems quite a bit better due to having more variety.
MikeDawg
Banned deucer.
OuCurrent
After being like 38-5, deviation was starting to go down one point like every other battle :(
Rapid forfeiting ensued T_T
Didn't use lando/keld/ttar (never got it to work for me) and only saw a couple landos. But then again, pretty much all of the matches were against people from 1500-1600 for some reason so it isn't too great of an indicator. Either way, I believe lando needs to go.
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On the suspect ladder, I am getting nothing but random noncompetitive teams (with equally noncompetitive users) with the occasional competitive player going for reqs. So, sorry chou, but I have nothing on the no-lando meta (though the competitive teams seem identical to the ones on the normal ladder)
Suspect reqs:
Suspect ladder is annoying
I lost to an aron :(
After being like 38-5, deviation was starting to go down one point like every other battle :(
Rapid forfeiting ensued T_T
Didn't use lando/keld/ttar (never got it to work for me) and only saw a couple landos. But then again, pretty much all of the matches were against people from 1500-1600 for some reason so it isn't too great of an indicator. Either way, I believe lando needs to go.
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On the suspect ladder, I am getting nothing but random noncompetitive teams (with equally noncompetitive users) with the occasional competitive player going for reqs. So, sorry chou, but I have nothing on the no-lando meta (though the competitive teams seem identical to the ones on the normal ladder)
Suspect reqs:
Suspect ladder is annoying
I lost to an aron :(
Why are there so many posts about rankings, and so few about impressions on the Landorus-I free meta? :/ (but I haven't started laddering on the Lando-Free ladder yet so I shouldn't criticize-- I just want to hear people's impressions so far).
There isn't so much to say on the matter, it's just one less broken threat you have to take care for, the only bans who were really game-changing in BW were Excadrill, the Swift Swim one and Genesect, not even the Deo-s and Deo-d ban changed much, since now Skarmory has taken their place.
Ehh, i suppose it's a mandatory result when there is too much ''diversity'' there is nothing that shapes the Metagame that much to bring a drastic change, and the metagame remains stale, even the ones who says ''weather shapes BW2'' should understand that Weather itself is HUGE, it's divided in multiple categories, rain, sun, sand, hail, and these 4 weather are divided to more sub-categories, like say, Rain stall, Rain Balanced, Rain offense, Sand Stall, Sand offense and so on.
After Landorus-i, and Keldeo ban, we will just return to BW1 (if Chandelure isn't released, but, honestly, I doubt he will stick around OU for much...) the only difference though, is that landorus-t will replace physical landorus-i, and Thundurus-t will replace the Expert Belt one, Breloom will still be able to make one of your 'mons useless, the only difference this time is that he can take a more offensive approach, Amoonguss will see usage just like Tangrowth did in BW1.
Now, don't get it wrong, I think that eliminating Landorus-i and Keldeo will bring ''relax'' to the Teambuilding of the players, and i'm curious to see how the Suspect Rounds will end, but I don't see the Metagame changing that much.
Why not ban Landorus-T? It can make Ice Shards weaker with Intimidate, set up Rock Polish or Swords Dance or even atempt to use Double Dance. Also it has much greater Attack in compensation for 2 Base Points in Speed less and a weaker Special Attack.
So far, on the OUSuspect, I am seeing a lot more sun teams (and Espeon, which I really hate because I lead with SR / Spikes Smeargle). I never realized how much pressure Landorus-I put on sun before now (I mean, I knew it threatened it, but I never knew just HOW MUCH it discourages sun teams in general).
Seeing a lot of Clear Skies teams, surprisingly. Still thinking Lando-I needs to stay, for the sheer fact it keeps tons of things in check, eh, that doesn't mean it's not broken, if anything it keeps things from becoming broken. (cough Sub CM Jirachi cough)
Lando-T is way more predictable, as well as lacking a super effective move to use against Skarm and Forry, on top of being much slower than Lando-I make it much, much easier to handle.
MikeDawg
Banned deucer.
Welp. I'm just a couple games from having both reqs, and I have to say that this suspect test was very uninformative
The suspect ladder was of such poor quality that it was hard to find any sort of difference, if one even existed. Not having to keep rotom-w alive or face insta death (which is hard when it counters/checks half of your opponent's very hard hitting team) is nice.
I'll be voting ban.
Still undecided on keldeo, but I think that test will be a bit more educational
The suspect ladder was of such poor quality that it was hard to find any sort of difference, if one even existed. Not having to keep rotom-w alive or face insta death (which is hard when it counters/checks half of your opponent's very hard hitting team) is nice.
I'll be voting ban.
Still undecided on keldeo, but I think that test will be a bit more educational
After battling a little bit on OUcurrent, I came across the Tyranitar-Landorus-I-Keldeo core, and I can honestly say it's tough to play around. I'm not sure if this is the best match, but I have it here:
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/oucurrent-34958874
I'm running a more defensive sand team with Scarf Latios, and my team really struggles with the core. Really, the only way I managed to win were with some very lucky predictions, and essentially stalling out Landorus with Life Orb + SR damage; also, this could have been much worse if my opponent was using E-belt Keldeo, and hadn't let Tyranitar die.
It's weird, because it's almost like I don't think Landorus is broken on it's own, but I think when you add in Keldeo and Tyranitar, Lando becomes a bit too much. Because we can't play pokemon in a vacuum, I suppose I'm leaning towards ban at the moment, but it's a near thing. Maybe someone can change my mind?
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/oucurrent-34958874
I'm running a more defensive sand team with Scarf Latios, and my team really struggles with the core. Really, the only way I managed to win were with some very lucky predictions, and essentially stalling out Landorus with Life Orb + SR damage; also, this could have been much worse if my opponent was using E-belt Keldeo, and hadn't let Tyranitar die.
It's weird, because it's almost like I don't think Landorus is broken on it's own, but I think when you add in Keldeo and Tyranitar, Lando becomes a bit too much. Because we can't play pokemon in a vacuum, I suppose I'm leaning towards ban at the moment, but it's a near thing. Maybe someone can change my mind?
So on my Rain team I'm running SubDD Gyarados. I want as much offensive power as possible, but I also rely on Gyara against Volcarona, landorus-I, and Keldeo. What EV spread allows me to comfortably deal with these pokemon while still being an offensive presence?
Sorry, but you're gonna have to lower your expectations of Gyara. It can handle Lando and Volc reasonably well in this meta, but Keldeo is going to smash it no matter what you do. Surviving two Scarf rain Hydro Pumps after SR (lefties accounted) takes over 200 HP EVs, and outrunning it after two DDs requires max speed. Specs Keldeo isn't getting countered by any Gyara; 0/0 can actually be straight up OHKOed by Hydro Pump after SR.
This flows into why I'd say both are overpowered. With Lando being able to fairly easily smack every check but Latias in a Vaccuum, and Keldeo blowing by offensive and defensive checks (another fun fact, Mence can be OHKOed with no rocks at all by a water move and Amoonguss is 2HKOed the same way), in a metagame with Tyranitar you're just not going to counter them. Say Lando could be stopped by Blissey / Rotom-W / Gastrodon etc., or Keldeo was stopped by general bulky waters like Tentacruel and Rotom, or even if they weren't so fast we wouldn't be having this suspect discussion. Since they do however, they centralize the metagame and we have to try to figure out if and why it's a bad thing as I've done below.
It is reasonable to just try to outplay them or use them yourself, but look at the spectrum of defense and offense in other metagames. When you're dealing with them using methods of "run 6 weird mons that are faster" or "just use offense" (obviously this is a simplification but the point is clear), the play of the metagame gets stale. There's no where near an even distribution of teams between Hard Stall on one end and Full Heavy Offense on the other, the right side of the teeter-tooter is going through the ground by people obeying their competitive interests.
X5, I don't know where you got that "criteria" but it's wildly inaccurate.
1) Usage has a very very small impact on whether or not something is put up for suspect. Scizor and Ferrothorn have dominated the metagame since BW1 (with Scizor taking a back seat during Genesect's reign of terror), you don't see them being suspected.
3) Garchomp was banned two generations in a row for Sand Veil SubSD set-up, and that's a ludicrous requirement anyway. Genesect's Rock Polish set was also one of the red flags for ITS suspect test. Again, I would like to reiterate that "not requiring set-up" is one of the most laughable things I've ever seen as a requirement for a ban.
4) Garchomp is 4x weak to ice, Tornadus-T and Thundurus-I are both 2x weak to ice and are significantly less naturally bulky than Landorus-I (who often runs bulk because he doesn't need max Speed EVs with Rock Polish), Genesect was 4x weak to Fire and Heatran was a perfect counter (Dugtrio notwithstanding, but then Shed Shell Heatran is again a perfect counter), Deoxys-S and -D were stuffed by Magic Bouncers. Need I go on?
5) Modest Sheer Force-boosted Landorus has an effective Special Attack of 469. That's the same as base 164 Special Attack. It hits as hard as Adamant Rampardos with infinitely better accompanying stats and an infinitely better movepool. Hidden Power Ice is the outlier but is hitting 4x weak Pokemon primarily anyway.
I'll end this post here before I get infracted for really going into detail on why your "criteria" is such bullshit.
EDIT: I'm still working on reqs, but I still don't really know which way I'll vote. If you aren't carrying a really solid counter/check (SpDef Celebi, SpDef Latias, Mamoswine) and Landorus does set-up, it's game. Period. On the other hand, the metagame is offensive enough that you can keep up pressure on Landorus and not even worry about him setting up, which I've had quite a bit of success doing recently. If rain and sun are here to stay, sure, let's get a vote on Landorus, not like he's a real problem in the grand scheme anyway, he's just damn good.
1) Usage has a very very small impact on whether or not something is put up for suspect. Scizor and Ferrothorn have dominated the metagame since BW1 (with Scizor taking a back seat during Genesect's reign of terror), you don't see them being suspected.
3) Garchomp was banned two generations in a row for Sand Veil SubSD set-up, and that's a ludicrous requirement anyway. Genesect's Rock Polish set was also one of the red flags for ITS suspect test. Again, I would like to reiterate that "not requiring set-up" is one of the most laughable things I've ever seen as a requirement for a ban.
4) Garchomp is 4x weak to ice, Tornadus-T and Thundurus-I are both 2x weak to ice and are significantly less naturally bulky than Landorus-I (who often runs bulk because he doesn't need max Speed EVs with Rock Polish), Genesect was 4x weak to Fire and Heatran was a perfect counter (Dugtrio notwithstanding, but then Shed Shell Heatran is again a perfect counter), Deoxys-S and -D were stuffed by Magic Bouncers. Need I go on?
5) Modest Sheer Force-boosted Landorus has an effective Special Attack of 469. That's the same as base 164 Special Attack. It hits as hard as Adamant Rampardos with infinitely better accompanying stats and an infinitely better movepool. Hidden Power Ice is the outlier but is hitting 4x weak Pokemon primarily anyway.
I'll end this post here before I get infracted for really going into detail on why your "criteria" is such bullshit.
EDIT: I'm still working on reqs, but I still don't really know which way I'll vote. If you aren't carrying a really solid counter/check (SpDef Celebi, SpDef Latias, Mamoswine) and Landorus does set-up, it's game. Period. On the other hand, the metagame is offensive enough that you can keep up pressure on Landorus and not even worry about him setting up, which I've had quite a bit of success doing recently. If rain and sun are here to stay, sure, let's get a vote on Landorus, not like he's a real problem in the grand scheme anyway, he's just damn good.
On the contrary, Landorus is very predictable. Most of the time, it'll U-Turn, Rock Polish, or use a STAB move. Smart players are breaking away from that, but I'm seeing (and as well as finding myself using) one of those options most of the time.
Despite the power of those options, it's frail and hard to actually bring in on anything but immunities and very weak resisted moves. You rarely get more than one free turn to make that decisive impact, and if you try it the wrong time, he's gone.
I'm using him heavily right now and I cannot fathom how he's this controversial.
Alright so i've gotten my reqs for OU current (forfeited the last 5 games or so because man getting your dev down is a drag ;-;). I'm going to try for suspect reqs tommorow when i'm a little less groggy. I actually only faced two Landorus-I other than my own while i was laddering so i don't really know what to say about playing against it, but it was definitely pretty easy to dent the opponent's team with my own Landorus, and it won a huge amount of games for me when paired with tyranitar. I'm still not sure whether i want to ban Landorus-I or not but hopefully playing some matches on the suspect ladder will help me figure out which meta i like better and decide. I honestly really didn't have too much trouble with Keldeo tbh, although KeldTar is definitely really good and i'm not totally sure how good the opponents using it were considering its the ladder :/.
Finally done with the suspect ladder. Ran a full stall team the whole way through (Hippowdon, Skarmory, Heatran, Celebi, Jellicent, Starmie). Went ahead and quick-forfeited the last 5 matches or so; should have started doing that quite a bit earlier...
The general quality of play there was pretty awful, but as a defensive player it was great to not have to worry about Landorus-I. My team carries SpD Celebi and so theoretically should do fine against him, but between hazards and random U-turns, this is not really the case. I feel that Landorus is definitely the most broken threat still around, and I'd be very glad to see him go. Sure he's easy to revenge, but for a defensive team this is meaningless. His sheer power makes him incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to deal with defensively. One less overpowered threat turns down the offensive heat noticeably and, from what I could garner from my few matches against decent opponents, makes the metagame much more balanced. Still have normal OU to do, where I'll probably be abusing a Keld-Tar-Lando core myself, but I'll definitely be voting "ban".
The general quality of play there was pretty awful, but as a defensive player it was great to not have to worry about Landorus-I. My team carries SpD Celebi and so theoretically should do fine against him, but between hazards and random U-turns, this is not really the case. I feel that Landorus is definitely the most broken threat still around, and I'd be very glad to see him go. Sure he's easy to revenge, but for a defensive team this is meaningless. His sheer power makes him incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to deal with defensively. One less overpowered threat turns down the offensive heat noticeably and, from what I could garner from my few matches against decent opponents, makes the metagame much more balanced. Still have normal OU to do, where I'll probably be abusing a Keld-Tar-Lando core myself, but I'll definitely be voting "ban".
I said criteria, in plural. Having one of these great aspects is fantastic for a mon, having several and it gets too powerful to exist in it's tier. The more advantages and control a single pokemon or playstyle has, the greater the demands are for it to get banned. Being a constant in everyteam ala Genesect or Excadrill style is one such thing.
Genesect and Deo-S were very tiring to everyone because of their vast movepools and their ability to pull multiple sets to perfection and predicting which one they were using would cost you mons and even the game.
That being said, we could have suggested a B) section for this criteria and made it one single OP set that is nigh unstoppable.
Yache Chomp with it's reknown bulk (for a dragon anyways), U-Turn Genesect, Taunt Deo-S and mental herb, etc. It's not as simple as you make them. Having common weaknesses, being able to hit them without them switching, resistance to priorities are all factored in when counting how many counters does a pokemon have.
Again, had you have been more constructing we could have made this criteria better and added "or OP abilities" and it would have scored. Yes but as some people have calculated before me that's still not enough to by the most common of Special walls for starters.
Attained reqs. I ended up running rain hyper offense based around sharpedo and when I was hitting Hydro Pumps I generally won most battles. With Landorus gone I didnt really see too much Band Tar + Keldeo although most of the standard sand teams that i did see using it just replaced Landorus-I with Landorus-T...
OU Current should be easy, most likely just going to spam Band Tar + Landorus + Keldeo for easy wins.
OU Current should be easy, most likely just going to spam Band Tar + Landorus + Keldeo for easy wins.
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