Generation 5 tiers, an initial list.

[gengod]

[For context and purpose, see this thread.]

I've read through a couple of the threads made recently in Policy Review and have been constantly keeping up with the discussion about tiers and the "no banlist" proposal over in the "What did we learn from tiering in generation four"? thread.

One thread in particular stuck out to me and that was Aeolus' initial ban list thread which was subsequently locked due to us as a community not knowing much about Black and White at the time. However, with their release and people starting to test different Pokemon and different sets through various methods whether it be through Wifi or through Pokemon Online's simulator we have had a large amount of information come in with regards to how the current metagame is shaping up and what Pokemon are becoming big threats and what not.

Obviously it's too early to be looking at suspects or anything but I do feel we should be looking more into an initial ban list just to give us some kind of starting point because quite honestly a lot of people including myself think it's an incredible waste of time to start off with no bans.

This post by Elevator Music basically sums up my feelings towards starting with completely no bans.

I don't like the idea of not banning Kyogre/Mewtwo/Rayquaza/etc, aka the 'obviously broken' Pokemon. I understand the importance of not making incorrect assumptions about tiering, and I know a lot of new stuff has come up with Black and White. However, I think we are wasting a lot of time in UT right now pretending we won't end up banning these Pokemon.

I know some of you guys really want to test everything, but we will likely not have a working simulator for a very long time. Consider a scenario, just for a second, that Kyroge is still incredibly fucking broken in a Gen 5 metagame. Since it's currently not banned, all discussions that we have in Uncharted Territory about the OU metgame are of a Kyogre-centralized metagame (which is likely very different from a Kyogre-less metagame). If we wait out the period until we have a working simulator or a big enough WiFi base to warrant a test, all the discussion we had in UT that pertained to Kyorge, which would be mostly everything, would be useless.

I understand that the definition of "obviously broken" is varied from user to user, but I'm pretty sure the users of this forum can come to a consensus about what is and isn't removable (if it's controversial then we may as well include it after all!). My point is that Kyogre/etc aren't controversial for the most part. And, at the very least, even if they aren't "obviously broken", it is "obvious" that they aren't part of a desirable baseline (I'm basically quoting Rising_Dusk from earlier in the thread here).

I don't know.... "lets wait it out and test it and if its broken ok" seems like a really silly thing to do for Pokemon like that when we're talking about wasting months of time. Isn't that what we're trying to avoid?

As a side note, I also agree with Chou and others who have echoed the sentiment that we make this metagame for players and that we should be giving them a metagame they want. But that is an entirely different issue and not my reason for posting.

In short, no bans is not the ideal way to go.

From my experience with Black and White I'd say my ban list below is a pretty nice starting point.

Mew
Mewtwo
Ho-oh
Groudon
Kyogre
Darkrai
Deoxys A
Deoxys S
Deoxys N
Rayquaza
Dialga
Palkia
Giratina A
Giratina O
Arceus
Shaymin -S
Reshiram
Zekrom

EDIT: Two Pokemon that I have omitted from the list have caused some concern with some smogon members, those two being Lugia and Deoxys-D, which were previously Uber last gen. However, in my testing I've found both of them to be somewhat underwhelming in comparison to how they were last gen, especially Lugia. With the overall offensive boost in this gen Lugia is pretty hard pressed to deal with top threats like Sazandora, Shandeera and Terakion and this is just the tip of the iceberg. He is still a good wall but I believe he is definitely worth testing in OU this gen. My reasoning behind Deoxys-D is similar.

I've discussed this with quite a few people and I haven't had too much opposition. So I'm bringing this up in Policy Review to see what you guys think.

 

[reyscarface]

As I said in IRC, I agree that a list should be made (although a part of me doesnt want one because its soooo fuuuun... but thats what the uber tier is there for).

I agree with that list too, except for other 2 mons.

Mew is one, yes, I know Mew is the "master of unpredictability" and all that stuff, but lets be HONEST for a damn second, Mew isnt used for ANYTHING other than being a Baton Passer (maybe as a lead, but I digress). Mew will have a horrible time passing boosts around with all these new insanely powerful mons, but the biggest one is probably the Mischievous Heart ability. As people mentioned on IRC, your speed is irrelevant when a Pokemon can just get in and Taunt you because of its ability, which makes Mew Struggle or switch, and again lets be honest, once you see Mew youre not giving it ANOTHER chance to set up, well, at least I wouldnt (maybe I would if i planned on keeping the MH Pokemon considering it makes Mew shit).
Of course, this isnt to say that Mew is OU, its more of giving it a trial period to see how it goes, who knows, maybe as the Metagame settles Mew proves to be nothing but a "Top Tier OU" or maybe its still too powerful and it gets a Test and is sent to Ubers, and for that to happen its way easier to observate in the OU environment instead of on the Uber one.

The other one is Shaymin-S. Basically for the same principle as Mew, it may prove uber, it may not, but in the end its easier to see what it is more by putting it on OU rather than on a banlist. Besides, with the addition of stuff like Shandera, Nattorei, and a good amount of fasty / bulky mons, it may have a way harder time on doing its job, or maybe, on the other hand, an easier one by using those new mons to remove "counters", but I repeat, we will not know this if we just put it on the banlist.

Just my 2 pesos.

 

[capefeather]

waste of time

This has been posted and addressed to death. I don't even want to dignify it with yet another post repeating how it misses the point, it makes completely wrong assumptions about what No Bans is trying to achieve, we've done this before, etc. I actually don't even care that deeply about whether we start with a banlist or not. I just get annoyed when one side of a debate is misinterpreted over and over again.

 

[Cathy]

It's pretty clear that this isn't what the community wants to do. We already have a thread for discussing general issues and another one for specific testing scheme discussion.

I initially locked this thread as well, but I've changed my mind. There's no harm in discussing any possible approaches that might be taken. At some point the issue will have to be decided finally with a "real poll", though, so arguments on whether that poll should include everybody, or just badgeholders, or whatever, might be a good thing to start considering.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Just saying that I agree with Rey's post almost entirely. Mew and Shaymin-S have a lot more potential counters in this metagame, between better resisters of Shaymin-S' STABs and priority Taunters messing up Mew's attempts to Baton Pass stuff, they should definitely be reconsidered.

 

[shrang]

While I'm opposed to an initial ban-list, I do want to reinforce that Mew and Shaymin-S should still definitely be tested. With ridiculously powerful new Pokemon like Shanderaa, Ononokusu and others, Skymin doesn't look that much above the rest. I mean, come on, it lasted to at least 3-1 last gen, so it should still be given a chance. Also to add onto the "priority Taunters" to deal with Mew, we also have Dragon Tail, meaning Mew can't Taunt some new phazers, making him a lot harder to pass off boosts, which arguably is the thing that really broke him in 4th gen.

 

[gengod]

I'd have no problem testing both Mew and Shaymin-S in our initial list.

 

[Elevator Music]

I agree that Mew and Shaymin-s probably deserve a community test.

I also want to bring up perhaps that Deoxys-S should be excluded from the list. Pokemon like Erufuun can Mischevious Heart Taunt to beat lead Deoxys-S, etc. On top of that though, revealing all 6 Pokemon will usually show whether or not someone has a lead Deoxys (it could potentially be endgame sweeper/revenge killer but), so you have much more ability to beat it (may as well lead with Scizor or Erufuun or something). Endgame Deoxys-S got no better this gen, but a lot of other Pokemon did.

Just a thought....

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

Alright since the issue is now banlist v. no banlist the banlist side has to produce a single, agreed upon banlist as I think it would serve best to unite the group.

Right now I'd say on your banlist the points of contention would be Deoxys-S, Shaymin-S, Shanderaa (i'm just going to call it chandelier from now on and also want to note this is in contention because of the arguable brokenness of shadow tag), Lugia, Deoxys-D, Mew, Wobbuffet (wynaut??).

So I think discussion in this topic should focus on these Pokemon and what side they go on. Clearly Pokemon that don't have a general consensus should not be included in the initial banlist. I'll post tomorrow about what I think about each of those Pokemon. But let's make sure that if banlist v. no banlist is going to be a legitimate issue that there is at least an initial banlist that is consented upon by everyone on that side.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

If we're going to do a list, it should be 670+ only, barring Regigigas and Slaking, because their raw stats and lack of hindering abilities overwhelm so much of the rest of the metagame. Having talked to some people that have played the new BW metagame on PO (before it was taken down), I am certain that our preconceptions about Wobbuffet, Shanderaa, Deoxys, Mew, and any of those 600- BST Pokemon are false and completely misinformed. The only banlist we should start with is:

Arceus
Dialga
Giratina
Giratina-o
Groudon
Ho-Oh
Kyogre
Lugia
Mewtwo
Palkia
Rayquaza
Reshiram
Zekrom

While I agree that we should start with a banlist, I definitely do not want us guessing at the tiering of the 600 BST crowd without testing. With the 670+ Pokemon banned, we can focus on the 600- crowd during the testing phases and see if they really are trouble or not in the new metagame; I suspect that many of the Pokemon we think to be broken right now simply are not.

You'll notice that Kyuremu isn't on the list. This Pokemon is the only 660BST Pokemon in the game. I think he should probably be the only controversial Pokemon for this initial banlist because his BST kinda sits just under the threshold of overwhelming; he's really walking the fine line between stat-wise overwhelming and fair. Because I err on the side of fewer bans in lieu of better and more conclusive testing, I think we should leave him unbanned and test to see if he really is broken or not, but I open the floor to discussion on the matter.

 

[lilyhollow]

I don't believe that we should have an initial banlist, but I would prefer Rising Dusk's more objective list to one that is based on limited theorymon.

 

[gengod]

If we're going to do a list, it should be 670+ only, barring Regigigas and Slaking, because their raw stats and lack of hindering abilities overwhelm so much of the rest of the metagame. Having talked to some people that have played the new BW metagame on PO (before it was taken down), I am certain that our preconceptions about Wobbuffet, Shanderaa, Deoxys, Mew, and any of those 600- BST Pokemon are false and completely misinformed. The only banlist we should start with is:

I disagree with this simply because a Pokemon's BST should never be used to determine whether a Pokemon should be banned or not. Obviously, Uber Pokemon will have high BSTs, but to use that simple numerical value to determine a Pokemon's tiering status is pretty impratical as it never takes into account how the Pokemon does in actual play.

I don't believe that we should have an initial banlist, but I would prefer Rising Dusk's more objective list to one that is based on limited theorymon.

His list isn't really objective. A list banning only Pokemon with a BST 670+ is only really an assumption on that person's part that those Pokemon are Uber. A list like that is based on just as much "theorymon" as any other one is.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I like Rising Dusk's list. If we are going to have an initial ban list (which I personally am for), it should be as liberal as possible. Shaymin-S and co should definitely see face in the meta.

Shadow Tag Shanderaa is quite a tricky one, but frankly, until the dreamworld abilities are released this is a non-issue.

 

[Firestorm]

Alright since the issue is now banlist v. no banlist the banlist side has to produce a single, agreed upon banlist as I think it would serve best to unite the group.

This seems like a good purpose for this thread. Initially I was pretty annoyed this thread was made, especially with Elevator Music's post quoted for support, but this could be productive.

Something I haven't seen anyone post about yet is going off Nintendo's banlist. I know what it was for Generation IV, but I haven't seen exactly what they've done this time around for Generation V. Could someone with Black & White please check the Battle Tower equivalent's banlist?

 

[Rising_Dusk]

I disagree with this simply because a Pokemon's BST should never be used to determine whether a Pokemon should be banned or not. Obviously, Uber Pokemon will have high BSTs, but to use that simple numerical value to determine a Pokemon's tiering status is pretty impratical as it never takes into account how the Pokemon does in actual play.

You're right, the BST really doesn't mean much in competitive Pokemon, but it is very indicative of another stat that does mean a lot in competitive Pokemon. Because you seem doubtful of this fact, however, I've written up the below explanation.

There is this thing that X-Act came up with once upon a time called BSRs (Base Stat Ratings) that measure how Pokemon fare competitively in the game against all other Pokemon. There is a calculator for BSR's here, if you want to play with it. Anyway, BSR is a very good measure of a Pokemon's net worth and power relative to the game in which it exists. Let us consider the BSR of the Pokemon on my proposed banlist.

Arceus      546
Dialga      467
Giratina    497
Giratina-o  485
Groudon     480
Ho-Oh       469
Kyogre      454
Lugia       478
Mewtwo      502
Palkia      485
Rayquaza    489
Reshiram    468
Zekrom      466

Kyuremu     465

Max: 546
Min: 454

The numbers to the right of the names are their overall BSR values. These values represent how the Pokemon's raw stats fare against the entire rest of the game. Note that these values will change very little to the next game because they are based on the most powerful moves in the current game (which largely have not changed in BW) and the base stats, which have not changed. To put this in perspective, look at the list of pseudo-legendaries that we consider "powerful" and that I have excluded from my above banlist.

I'd also like to call attention to the 660 BST Kyuremu, who sits at a very respectable 465 BSR, just 1 point under Zekrom and 11 points over Kyogre. He's definitely, according to BSR, something that should be included in our initial banlist for BW.

Garchomp    408
Tyranitar   353
Latias      380
Latios      390
Salamence   401
Shaymin-S   396
Darkrai     390
Mew         391
Manaphy     391

Deoxys      432
Deoxys-A    500
Deoxys-D    327
Deoxys-S    317

(Excluding Deoxys)
Max: 408
Min: 380

Notice how, excluding the extreme anomalies in Deoxys, all of the BSRs on the list are substantially lower than those of the first list. I want to draw special attention to Garchomp and Salamence, though, which sit at 408 and 401, respectively. They are a whole 50 BSR lower than the lowest BSR in my proposed banlist, which is Kyogre. The 670+ BST crowd clearly sits at a BSR far above that of the other Pokemon, and this is about as objective a measure of the stat-moves qualification of a Pokemon that we can come up with. You can clearly see that the Pokemon I've listed in my initial banlist are quite objectively superior in raw numbers when compared to those I have removed.

About the Deoxys anomaly above. It is because of the extremeness of their stats that results in Deo-A getting 500 BSR and Deo getting 432. regardless of the fact that they have poor defenses on the average, they have immensely potent sweeping stat spreads, resulting in their having superior BSRs. If we want to follow the BSR route, I would definitely move Deoxys and Deoxys-A into the initial banlist, but leave Deoxys-S and Deoxys-D down in the unbanned group due to their more rounded stats.

We could also take this all one step further and factor in the Type Defense & Power of the Pokemon I am suggesting be in our initial banlist. This would factor in how effective their STABs are against the rest of the metagame as well as factor in how well their defensive typing sets them up against the rest of the metagame. Before doing this work, though, I can tell that this will reduce the Psychic-types values and increase the values of Pokemon like Kyogre and Garchomp. That said, the rift between my first list above and the second list will maintain itself despite these added calculations, so there is little to be gained besides to say that we did it in doing that work.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I think the optimal one is simply BST 670+ as a baseline. It's the one that Nintendo uses, barring event Pokemon, which are only banned due to lack of distribution (which is not an issue for the vast majority of them at this point). The BST 600s are significantly more complicated, and testing would definitely be required to find the home of these contested Pokemon.

 

[Hipmonlee]

If we are genuinely interested in testing everything that could fit reasonably into the bw metagame, considering the strength of some of the new pokemon (most notably Doryuzu), I think it is definitely worth testing everything under 670, and Ho oh, Lugia and possibly one of the Giratina forms which I must admit I know fuck all about.

Though to be honest, while I am completely confident there is no way in hell Groudon, Kyogre and especially Arceus wont be banned, I dont really see the problem in testing them. Its just easier..

Have a nice day.

 

[eric the espeon]

I would be happy with either a "no bans" start or an absolutely minimal starting ban list (no deoxys formes, no darkrai, no mew, nothing but the "cover" legends and others with well over 600 BST). The reason for this is that there is a fairly large amount of empty ground as far as raw power between the 600 BST legends and pseudo legends and the real heavyweights. Though.. I think I still prefer the idea of a banless initial metagame.

 

[gengod]

Though to be honest, while I am completely confident there is no way in hell Groudon, Kyogre and especially Arceus wont be banned, I dont really see the problem in testing them.

If you are confident that these Pokemon would be banned why even bother testing them in the first place? Just to say we did?

You're right, the BST really doesn't mean much in competitive Pokemon, but it is very indicative of another stat that does mean a lot in competitive Pokemon. Because you seem doubtful of this fact, however, I've written up the below explanation.

I'm aware of what a BSR is and figured that you would bring it up if you responded to my post but similarly to a BST a BSR does not take into account how a Pokemon actually fares in battle, abilities, it's movepool, whether it's weak to common types, etc...

I'm not saying these ratings have no value or do not matter completely but using them as a starting point is just as I said before pretty impractical.
For example, look at some of the BSRs of some of the top Pokemon in gen 5.

Keruido - 378
Terakion - 378
Randorosu - 410
Doryuuzu - 297
Nattorei - 257
Shandeera - 274

Some of these numbers seem pretty low and if I was just going by BSR I could assume the first 3 would be fine in OU and the last 3 "might" work there but could possibly be UU, especially in comparison to some of the Pokemon in the game with higher BSRs.

However, in actual play things are extremely different. BSRs don't take into consideration a number of things and I just feel it would be entirely inaccurate to use either a BSR or a BST as a starting point.

About the Deoxys anomaly above. It is because of the extremeness of their stats that results in Deo-A getting 500 BSR and Deo getting 432. regardless of the fact that they have poor defenses on the average, they have immensely potent sweeping stat spreads, resulting in their having superior BSRs. If we want to follow the BSR route, I would definitely move Deoxys and Deoxys-A into the initial banlist, but leave Deoxys-S and Deoxys-D down in the unbanned group due to their more rounded stats.

You contradict yourself here. If we were simply using BSR to decide a starting point or at the very least comparing Pokemon's BSRs then why take into consideration that Deoxys -A and Deoxys - N have such high attacking stats and poor defenses? Why allow Deoxys - D and Deoxys -S to be tested simply because they have more "rounded" stats in your opinion? That has absolutely nothing to do with a BSR rating and things like that are what I'm getting at. You simply can't use BSR or BST as a large determining factor.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Some of these numbers seem pretty low and if I was just going by BSR I could assume the first 3 would be fine in OU and the last 3 "might" work there but could possibly be UU, especially in comparison to some of the Pokemon in the game with higher BSRs.

You aren't going purely by BSR, though. The whole point of my post was to reaffirm that my proposed banlist is clearly more powerful than the rest of the metagame from a pure stat perspective. Imagine, if we factor in all of these things like movepool, typing, and metagame dependencies, Pokemon like Palkia and Dialga are only going to become more measurably powerful. That means that they should be the only things we obviously ban.

You say that I contradict myself, but you're not paying attention to why I brought BSR up in the first place. I am not saying to base our banlist on BSR, because it is not a fully accounted for metric of all things in Pokemon. We can factor in as much as we want, but just by looking at stats alone, we see that my proposed banlist is much more obviously above and away better than other Pokemon, bar the anomalies who are dragged in the dirt by the metagame factors. Regigigas, for example, has an amazing BSR, but is murdered by Slow Start, which is why he is not on my banlist. Kyuremu, another example, has redundant type coverage, a weakness to SR, and a poor movepool. These other factors keep them from being considered 'obviously' Uber, and we should be focusing on those obviously broken 'mons here.

The point of my post is to use BSR as a means to objectively support the 670+ banlist as the logical choice. If you mathematically factor in all aspects of Pokemon, which we shouldn't do because it is an absurd amount of work and still misses the 'big picture', you will clearly see the cutoff between the 670+ crowd and the 600- group. You will clearly see that the 670+ Pokemon are leaps and bounds better than the 600- group, and that is what we should base our banlist on.

 

[Elevator Music]

Both of you have generally the same end product anyways (from what I can understand Dusk, by "base our banlist on" you mean that we won't just be settling on what we have?), so this is almost just an argument of how to get there.

The proposed banlist in the OP is (with Mew and Shaymin-S removed because it was somewhat agreed upon?):

Mewtwo 
Ho-oh 
Groudon 
Kyogre 
Darkrai 
Deoxys A 
Deoxys S
Deoxys N 
Rayquaza
Dialga
Palkia
Giratina A
Giratina O
Arceus
Reshiram 
Zekrom

The banlist of 670+ is (with Deoxys A and N included as they had high BSR/Dusk said they should be/etc):

Mewtwo 
Ho-oh 
Lugia
Groudon 
Kyogre 
Deoxys A 
Deoxys N 
Rayquaza
Dialga
Palkia
Giratina A
Giratina O
Arceus
Reshiram 
Zekrom

So really the only differences in the banlists are Deoxys S and Lugia. May as well just argue about those two... though personally I think both should be excluded from the banlist (the fact that they are 'controversial' in the first place somewhat emphasizes this). EDIT- Also Darkrai which I missed. I guess I feel the same way about it, but I'm not so sure... It's not like there are any new sleep immunities this gen (insomnia delibird go!)

 

[reyscarface]

You forgot that Darkrai is not on Dusk's which is probably the most controversial one considering the new Sleep mechanic.

 

[the_artic_one]

Deoxys S definitely needs to not be on the initial banlist. It would be a terrible idea to initially ban anything that was a suspect in gen IV.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Alright, we had a huge discussion on IRC about this and what would be the smartest approach for having an initial banlist. We came to the conclusion that it is better to err on the side of fewer bans so that we do not alienate possible voters and because someone can always be banned later if it is not banned initially. This is important because this banlist serves as the most rudimentary and obvious list of bans we have. Everything borderline has been unbanned, and consistency is the most marketable feature about what I present below.

Arceus
Deoxys
Deoxys-a
Dialga
Giratina
Giratina-o
Groudon
Ho-Oh
Kyogre
Lugia
Mewtwo
Palkia
Rayquaza
Reshiram
Zekrom

This is the 670+ banlist with two additions, Deoxys and Deoxys-a. They are logically defensible to be banned because their BSRs are 432 and 500, respectively, which put them leaps and bounds above the competition and their sweeping movepools pretty clearly illicit that they only improve when all factors are considered.

There were a few controversial Pokemon in our discussion:

Darkrai
Wobbuffet
Lugia
Deoxys-s
Kyurem
​

Because we want to not alienate voters who feel that we shouldn't be banning everything haphazardly, we all agreed that this entire list should be left unbanned with the exception of Lugia which should stay banned due to its overwhelming stats.

I'd like to invite the opinions of everyone to pitch into this. Remember that this is not purely a banlist based on competitive merit, but a banlist based on leniency and actually attempting to successfully convince the voting populace that we're not arbitrarily banning things. It is the smart way to go; fewer bans will result in fewer people worrying that they're doing the wrong thing. We can always ban things later, but we really need this skeleton list of things banned right away.

 

[Bologo]

Mewtwo  
[B]Ho-oh  
Lugia[/B] 
Groudon  
Kyogre  
[B]Deoxys A  
Deoxys N[/B]  
Rayquaza 
Dialga 
Palkia 
[B]Giratina A [/B]
Giratina O 
Arceus 
Reshiram  
Zekrom

While 670+ (or the BSR thing) is a nice baseline, it certainly shouldn't be the absolute criteria for making a banlist. We have a lot of info about the game now and the kind of pokemon in it, and there's clearly some pokemon in this range that really need to be tested along with everything else, particularly the defensive threats, since even in Gen 4, it was damn near impossible for something to fit the defensive characteristic, even Cresselia in UU didn't fit it.

The bolded pokemon could definitely use with some testing, and I'll explain my reasoning:

Deoxys-A/Deoxys-N - I understand that their BSR and their offensive stats look intimidating...for Gen 4. But in Gen 5, there are honestly a lot of things that have ridiculously high offensive stats. While they may not have 150 base Speed, they can actually take a punch or two, and a lot of them actually have resists to switch in on. Also, Scarf Ditto can take on these threats on a revenge-kill. Unlike a lot of pokemon who got massive improvements through Dream World abilities, these things are still stuck with Pressure. Lastly, while they do have 150 base Speed, with all of the weather in the game now, there's a lot of Swift Swimmers, Sand Throwers, and Chlorophyllers running around, not to mention all of the Choice Scarf users. Priority is especially important in this metagame too, because of things like Cloyster, and the many other frail threats that need it to be revenge-killed. This means that the offensive Deoxys formes will no longer be able to clean up everything, because there's inevitably going to be a lot of pokemon that can still outpace them, regardless of their Speed.

Lugia - Already explained by the OP, and quite simply, to sum it up, it's not looking easy for Lugia to wall things to hell anymore. While he can run a nice CM set, there's also a lot of things like Wobbuffet, Choice Scarf users, and all the weather abusers to shut him down. The Stealth Rock weakness isn't nice either. Not to mention how much more common Tyranitar is going to be in this game, as well as all the Shadow Balling and new users of Wild Bolt (and new viable users of Thunder).

Ho-oh - While it did get Regeneration, Fire/Flying is still riddled with common weaknesses of Water, Rock, and Electric. While Sacred Fire is still a pain in the ass for many physical attackers, keep in mind that there are a lot of new Fire-types in this game, and many which have gotten improved. Ie. Blaziken, Urgamoth, Rotom-H, Hihidaruma, Heatran, and of course Shanderaa. Firing off Sacred Fire may not be the safest thing to do anymore. In addition, due to Politoed and his Rain buddies, Ho-oh will not always be at an advantage, and may actually get his ass handed to him by the Swift Swimmers.

Giratina-A - Personally, I think that this one is in even more trouble than Lugia when it comes to the OU metagame. While his defenses are in fact enormous, he doesn't even have reliable recovery to take advantage of them. This means that he has to use Rest, which, as the research thread has shown, is much worse in this game. Now every time Giratina switches out while he's asleep, the sleep counter resets, meaning that he has to take 2 hits to the face (possibly 3 since he's not the fastest thing out there) before he'll wake up. This inevitably means he's going to want Sleep Talk so he can actually do something while he's asleep. I'm guessing Will-O-Wisp. But unfortunately, this only leaves him with one attacking slot, which isn't going to actually hurt much since he won't be investing in his 100 base Special Attack. This means that many things can come in and set up against his defensive sets. Not to mention that while he has a nice set of resists, he also has a bad set of weaknesses, all of which are looking to be pretty common in this game. The offensive sets aren't really strong enough, at least compared to some of the other stuff in this game, to warrant an instant ban.

I was also thinking about Giratina-O, but that one's a little more debatable considering how much harder he can hit, though he sure as hell isn't going to be RestTalking anymore either considering how much worse it is in this game.

Anyway, although I'm still opposed to an initial banlist, it could work, as long as people aren't going to pretend like this has to be objective, because while figures like BST and BSR are good for some things, they really aren't the best thing for banning pokemon, especially because when we ban something, it makes it incredibly unlikely that it will ever see OU again, even if it is re-tested.