Landorus-I Discussion: Evaluating a Potential Suspect

[Mario With Lasers]

I'm sorry, but how does "having a chance to be 2HKOed by Focus Blast" does not automatically translate to "lol <50%"?

 

[Vemane]

Trouble is, its SLIGHTY more than that.

I took a gander at Honkos calc, just to see what Landorus-I could and could not survive. For instance, its not KOed by SDef Heatrans lava Plume (I know it can Roar its just an example of its bulk which you underrate), it can shrug off a Stone Edge from Landorus-T, take Gyro Balls from Ferrothorn etc etc. I could list them all, (for instance a large number of Scalds don't KO) or you could just use Honkos calculator and amend that list of yours a little better. Remember, 75% of its damaging attacks don't trigger LO recoil, meaning it can easily sweep on low health, unlike say, a Lucario which has to watch out for LO eating away at its health.

I was moreso referreing to the pokes that are of extremely little threat to lando and can't put him in ko range of, say, scizor's bullet punch or dragonite's espeed. He CAN theoretically set up on many pokes without being 1hkod, but a landorus at little health is not a happy one at all :( Thus he is relegated to very late game unless one of the complete non-threats exists or priority users are gone.

Your list also ignores the mons Landorus-I can force out, and I really dislike arguments that claim your x4 ground weak mon is going to stay in against a Landorus-I or whatever. Sure, you can stay in, or I could attack, or you could switch and I could set up and we go around and around and by the end of it its ridiculous. The point is, in a proper battle, you are most likely not staying in, because the risk reward factor is WAY to high. When players get decently strong, the risk reward factor is something that comes up quite a lot (for instance I have seen Heist and kd24 mention it in this forum) and THAT is how Landorus-I gets its set up oppotunities. Also, many of the mons you list are pretty darn common (Scizor / Tar / Keldeo / Terrakion / Jirachi) so I don't thik you can claim that Landorus-I struggles at setting up.

Now of course, by nature, lando can force many switches providing for more set up, but that relies upon the opponent mispredicting and may not even work out because...

2. Lando has too many great counters and checks.

Regarding the question of whether or not it is suspect worthy, I believe so. If anything it can't hurt to gather a more isolated analysis of the genie.

 

[Zeta5]

I have yet to try out Spatt Lando but I can say about what it has been like facing it.

I think he's very powerful considering he can do loads of damage. A lot of special walls get chunked hard by his attacks and I have a hard time trying to wall it. He's very hard to beat when you bring him out with good timing (same can be said for many pokes but Lando just abuses it).

On the other side though he can be handled with the appropriate pokemon. All you need is is a Mamoswine and Lando can't do anything without the risk of Mamoswine coming in/revenge killing with ice shard. Gyarados can also take Lando ok since he doesn't get hit by earth power and can take focus blasts. I don't see HP ice doing much and if you keep Gyara healthy I don't see psychic taking out Gyara. All that and you can just simply retaliate with waterfall and that's a dead lando.

Overall I don't know whether he should be put for suspect but hopefully I can help whoever read this a better opinion on the matter.

 

[Meru]

Celebi is just a free switch for a lot of nasty Pokemon, namely Dragons...

This really needs to be emphasized more. As a result of being used to counter Landorus (and Keldeo), Celebi is forced to run Giga Drain, Recover, and Baton Pass. Since it can't afford significant investment in offensive stats (due to risking an easy 2HKO), it can't afford to run HP Ice or HP Fire as they'll both wind up pathetically weak. Psychic can maybe work because it at least lets you dent Breloom, who you're supposed to counter, and giving you somewhat decent STABs to work with. Thunder Wave could also potentially work, but then SD Loom can beat you which is pretty sad. But in the end, without HP Fire or HP Ice, SpDef Celebi can wind up being a liability in the end, as it easily invites Dragons, Skarmory, Ferrothorn, even Forretress the free turns that they need due to being a pathetic pushover.

The fact that such an offensively lacking Celebi set is even viable should speak volumes, as it shows how the need to counter these two metagame threats far outweighs the downsides from getting easily easily set up on. And I don't think SpDef Celebi would be viable if those two were in the tier. Prior to BW2, most Celebi were NP, as they only needed to counter "weak" threats like Politoed, Jolteon, and Starmie, which the NP set can do.

 

[FrostFire]

I've just started using Lando-I (as well as having faced a few), and I just thought I might as well post some of my impressions of it here.

The first thing that you notice about Landorus-I is the absurd amount of power it has; between Earth Power, Focus Blast and HP Ice it can 1-2 HKO upwards of 80/90% of the metagame. What's more, the few pokemon that can counter it decently (Celebi and Latias) are beaten with U-turn over Rock polish. This replacement of U-turn over rock polish leaves Landorus-I sacrificing little however; it may no longer be able to sweep, but it can now scout with U-turn and help ease some predictions. I don't consider U-Turn > Rock Polish a gimmick or sacrifice at all, as some claim.

Alongside my mentioning the incredible power Landorus-I has, it's probably also important here to mention that other pokemon discussed in this thread (namely Restalk Gyarados, Zapdos and Bronzong) are all pretty mediocre in OU. This is important because a player should not have to use unreasonably trashy pokemon just to counter one thing.

For Example: Take Bronzong on a stall team. In order to make room for it, you're probably going to have to sacrifice a slot that would have gone to something like Skarmory, Forretress or Ferrothorn as your steel wall. Giving up one of these means giving up Hazards as well as a more reliable wall/ defensive pivot. Not only this though, Bronzong is unreasonably bad: The only thing that zong has over the other steels I mentioned is the ability to beat Landorus, and nothing else. It's lack of reliable recovery really, really hurts on a stall team where the thing is supposed to live forever too.

The point of all this being: I feel like people are reffering to relatively irrelevant pokemon, just so they can say that Landorus-I has counters. In a way, you're right: Bronzong/ Zapdos (etc) can counter Lando, but only in theory. In reality, the OU meta has not shifted towards incorporating Bronzong and Zapdos as a result of Sheer Force Landorus. This is because the cost of using these pokemon is generally too high, and their ability to counter Lando just isn't enough to compensate for that.

Moving on, I should also mention that Landorus' good 101 base speed means that it gets the jump on quite a lot of pokes even without a boost. Of course, there are many that it doesn't outspeed - notably Starmie, Latios, Terrakion and a few others). However, it still naturally outspeeds 13 out of the top 20, and with all the power it has, it can clean up like nothing else.

I won't deny that Landorus-I has it's checks, and this is largely due to it's speed - it's fast, but it's no Tornadus-T. Still, generally these checks need L-I to have sustained some previous damage (see: Terrakion) to KO, and as others have mentioned, this can actually be pretty hard, considering the sandstorm/ spikes immunity, life orb 'immunity' and stealth rock neutrality, alongside respectable bulk for an offensive pokemon.

I feel like I have more to say, but I can't really think right now. I'll just finish by saying that I do think that Landorus-I deserves a Suspect test. To be clear, I'm not sure if I would banish it to ubers, but I feel it's myriad of strengths are overwhelming enough to warrant the test at least.

 

[kd24]

After IRC discussion, playtesting of my own accord, watching several other prolific battlers play, and some more IRC discussion (and let me shamelessly plug #pokemon because discussion is always best real-time and this is a discussion that you can talk about there as well), I wanted to write up my thoughts on Landorus-I after playtesting. I think the hardest thing to do when trying to make this argument is that much of my words can't be translated from the experience I've had playing but I'll do my best.

I want to start with a replay, one that is 2 turns long from the OU ladder, point out the mistake the guy made and why this is exaggerated, and what it has to do with Landorus-I (hell, Landorus-I doesn't even make an appearance in this replay). Note that this is far from a perfect example because I disagree with what he did, but the point will still stand:

http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou12642167

So why am I highlighting this replay? Because it pretty much paints the perfect picture of an issue we ignore about Landorus-I (and Keldeo), and that is the vulnerability of their counters. When we mention Keldeo and Landorus-I can be placed into check by Celebi and Latias, we need to keep in mind just how dangerous these threats are to the metagame. What happened in my log? He casually switches to Latias, a "perfect" check to Keldeo - he then realizes Tyranitar is surely coming in and he can't risk something as vital as Latias to the Tyranitar. Because Jellicent will die to Crunch, he goes back to Hippowdon. This isn't a case of mind-games that I luckily won, its a case of the offensive threats are just too devastating to play around and this just opens you up to being exploited by the offensive power of Keldeo and Landorus-I. Now, this user could have gone to Jellicent to defend and threaten a future burn on Tyranitar so it's not a perfect example but if we pretend he is relying solely on the shoulders of Latias to defend or we assume he was concerned about a CM HP Ghost Keldeo and wanted Latias to threaten it out immediately, this happens more times than I can count to these defensive minded teams, and this is extremely common with Landorus-I, even moreso than it is with Keldeo. You can stack up on counters for just these Pokemon but if you're going to tell me that's ideal team-building or will give you long-term success, you're just kidding yourself. Latias + Jellicent + Rose was actually one of the most defensive minded cores I saw against Landorus-I/Keldeo and I still took advantage.

But this all leads into my major problem with Landorus-I and it's what I'm going to dub the "chess connection". In chess, you'd want to attack a piece enough times so that it couldn't be defended enough and this has translated to Pokemon in the most extreme of ways. I can rely on my Celebi or Latias or Mew but the threats are now overwhelming in a way that you just don't "get" without the playing experience. Blame it on a power creep but realize it does exist. Terrakion, Scizor, Keldeo, Landorus-I, Dragons, Tyranitar, Breloom - they're all hitting the same pieces and they're destroying your structure in the hands of a competent player. In offensive games where both teams decide fuck defense completely, it becomes a slaughterhouse and clusterfuck of randomness that surely can't be good for the game. In the hands of good players, I find Landorus-I to be one of the most devastating things I've ever seen. I was originally on the fence about even considering it as a suspect until I began playing more seriously with it and learning from good players about it. I'm now entirely convinced.

So why am I against Landorus-I? Is it really a case of "ban the next best thing"? No, I don't think so at all. I am now all but convinced that Landorus-I's versatility and ability to shut down play just isn't healthy for the game. U-Turn Landorus-I is so destructive vs defensive teams that I would consider it unfair. Remember the chess analogy is what applies to this. I'm finding myself overloading the opponent to the point where it isn't Pokemon. I'm just hammering them in whatever their strong point against Landorus-I is because they NEED to defend against it at whatever cost and this just leads to such easy advantage.

Against offensive teams, I think Rock Polish assumes the role of unfair. Set up opportunities can actually be limited, but I honestly don't even need them often. When I do set up, it really is almost game over but the mere presence of Landorus-I can be horrendous for offensive teams. Offensive teams have always relied on some natural bulk to deal with threats but Landorus-I throws it out the window. It's typing and power basically force them to sacrifice, just to hope Landorus-I doesn't eventually set up and sweep. In practice, I just find it too easy to get opportunities and then I'm always asking "what next". As someone using an offensive team, Landorus-I has always been the biggest threat to me. I have to rely on some smart switching but the overload tactic I talk about is consistently used on me from an offensive standpoint. It's hard to play safe when Trick Scarf Rotom, opposing Keldeo, and Magnezone are pairing off with Landorus-I to make everything unfairly difficult.

I hate the are you using it correctly argument because it makes unfair assumptions, but I have to ask it here. Landorus just invites itself to wreak havoc because of its traits (NO LO RECOIL, TYPING, VULNERABILITY OF COUNTERS) and I think abusing it is really unfair. OU is a clusterfuck of overwhelming the opposing force and Landorus-I is not just a posterboy for it, he's overwhelming by himself in a way that's really unfair. I ask that you please test him out more and think of how he takes advantage of the gamestate. A general tip is that U-Turn Lando-I, I've liked pairing with Scarf TTar more for offensive teams because U-Turn Lando is so dominant towards defensive ones, and that with Rock Polish Landorus, I prefer CB Tyranitar because it does the exact same but vice versa.

Is there a time and place for the teammate/game theory analysis and argument? Yes, and I think this is finally it. Below, I've posted the team I've been using lately if you'd like to get an idea of what I mean by overwhelming. Full Credit to Yondie for supplying a team outline that I then used to ladder with and to Ojama for the Landorus spread. Is this "higher level thinking" to be applying the idea of what actually happens in a game? You can decide for yourself because its a metagame argument that is so hard to put into words but like I said, I'll be damned if I don't try so I can get my point across.

Landorus (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Sheer Force
EVs: 168 Spd / 252 SAtk / 88 HP
Modest Nature
- Earth Power
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Rock Polish

Keldeo @ Expert Belt
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Timid Nature
- Secret Sword
- Hidden Power [Bug]
- Surf
- Hydro Pump

Tyranitar @ Choice Band
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 180 HP / 76 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Pursuit
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake

Terrakion @ Choice Band
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Stone Edge
- Close Combat
- X-Scissor
- Quick Attack

Celebi @ Leftovers
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 220 SDef / 252 HP / 36 Spd
Calm Nature
- Giga Drain
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Recover

Jirachi @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Ice Punch
- Iron Head
- Fire Punch
- U-turn

 

[ginganinja]

Agreeing with kd24 here. After we watched each others battles we came to the same conclusion: Landorus-I is creating an undesirable metagame. Here is the key problem with the metagame as it stands: It revolves around two single pokemon: Latias and Celebi. Many teams use these mons to check the various threats of the metagame, such as Landorus, Keldeo, Breloom, Terrakion and others. the problem with this as that a simple overloading of Latias and Celebi, will, win you games. I am legitimately not joking here, I laddered on PS! for most of the day and the entire battle boiled down to me identifying what pokemon my opponent had to check Keldeo and Landorus, whether my Tar could trap them, and if not, how I could cripple them. To aid me with this, I used a specially attacking Landorus-I with U-Turn, and found it very effective. Sure, I missed not being about to sweep those RP Landorus-I weak teams on the ladder but being able to lure in Latias and Celebi and nail them with U-Turn was just amazing. I just used it as a wallbreaker, abusing my 101 base speed to blast apart teams with my 4 move coverage. It was just far too easy.

For a slightly better example of the position Landorus can put you in, lets look at the following core combination: Tyranitar, Keldeo and Landorus-I. Without a doubt, its one of the best cores in the metagame in the present time and I will illustrate why. To begin, I bring in Keldeo safely, and put you in a checkmate postion, you need to bring in something that can take on Keldeo, and that usually means Latias and Celebi. You can bring in your Celebi on my Keldeo if you want, my HP Bug blasts you to hell and boom, Landorus sweeps. You can bring in Latias on my Keldeo if you want, heck, you can even kill it, ut then I will bring in Tyranitar, ill trap and kill you for the 1 for 1 trade, and then ill bring in Landorus later and sweep. This sort of situation is something that comes up time and time again, since you are caught in a lose lose situation that Landorus-I can easily create. You can bring up Bronzong and Gyarados as counters if you want, Ill simple set up SR and Focus Blast Bronzong with Landorus-I (on the switch) or Surf it with Keldeo, in the case of Gyarados ill let SR take its toll, and keep forcing you out, preventing you form Resting over and over again, and then yea, ill win then as well.

Now, as people often mention, Landorus-I is affected by priority, however, during the experience that kd24 and I had during out battling period, this was NEVER a problem. I saw my fair share of Mamoswine, and of Weavile, but they had to get in safely to Ice Shard, and in the meantime I was a 101 base speed wallbreaker, wrecking other members of your team with Earth Power / Focus Blast / HP Ice, and when you finally brought Mamoswine in, well I just switched out, brought in something to threaten Mamoswine, and started the process all over again. This isn't something like DD Nite here, or a SD Lucario, Landorus-I hits very hard off the bat with Life Orb and Sheer Force which means even if it doesn't get the Rock Polish boost, you STILL have to switch into it, you STILL need to force it out or its getting kills or crippling members of your team. Against defensive teams, you don't often need a Rock Polish boost anyway, and can just spam your boosted attacks without a care in the world.

So then, the question remains, is this metagame the result of Landorus-I, or is it Keldeo forcing this issue. Quite honestly, I think its Landorus to blame, because of its select number of checks and counters (compared to Keldeo) which allows them to be easily exploited. Keldeo for example isn't going to win against a Jellicent or something, but Landorus-I has so little mons that can check / beat it that its just so exploitable to handle those mons and sweep. It really is so simple to abuse its just unfair.

 

[Curtains]

Can someone clarify what the "relevant" pokemon in OU are? Why do pokemon like bronzong and zapdos get slammed down as counters so easily? I'm pretty sure they are both viable pokemon and have been used on sucessful teams. I think people are making the metagame smaller than it actually is . As far as land -i goes it is a good pokemon and it does beats up on the standard rain and sun teams but it is not automatic. For land-i to be sucessful you really have to have the right set for the opponents team. Otherwise it will be just be spectating and racking up SR damage on itself. Priority is an issue with this guy because if you're gonna be using this thing for a offensive uturner you better have a spinner so help you. So the idea that land-i only has 2 counters and all this jazz about overloading is not really seeing the entire picture. Land I does its damage from a revenge killing position. It cannot switch in many times (even on resisted hits) and it has 0 recovery.

 

[shrang]

My big problem with a lot of the arguments going around are "Landorus-I (or any very powerful Pokemon for that matter) is undesirable because their counters are too easily removed". We used this somewhat for Genesect and Tornadus-T's banning, and I really don't like it. My problem is that this is what you do for every damn Pokemon. Every Pokemon is going to sweep if you remove its counters its checks, just for some Pokemon, there are less checks than others. You cannot blame a Pokemon for being broken because it sweeps easily when you remove its counters. This is what strategy is about, removing counters so a certain Pokemon can sweep. You can say the same thing about *insert Dragon* + Magnezone support, because Steel-types like Skarmory wall your Dragonite, and removing Skarmory is easy with Magnezone, thus Dragonite is broken because of how easily Skarmory is removed.

For a slightly better example of the position Landorus can put you in, lets look at the following core combination: Tyranitar, Keldeo and Landorus-I. Without a doubt, its one of the best cores in the metagame in the present time and I will illustrate why.

This is what I mean. You labelled a trio of Pokemon, so why is Landorus broken? You cannot say a Pokemon is broken because of its performance in a group because you have to take into account the support that it's getting. This easily confounds any argument that you make about the individual Pokemon because there are external influences on what you're trying to measure. I think the fact that if Landorus-I needs both Tyranitar to kill Latias, AND Keldeo to lure out Celebi with HP Bug shows how NOT broken it is. I understand that running Tyranitar and Keldeo is not really out of the way and both are excellent in their own right, but if you need TWO Pokemon to remove counters for a single sweeper, that sweeper is nowhere near broken. This is not to mention that Latias and Celebi aren't the only Pokemon to check Landorus-I. You have stuff like Gyarados, blobs, Latios, Hydreigon (somewhat), Mamoswine, specially defensive Skarmory, and to a lesser extent, Virizion (for those lacking Psychic), Zapdos, Bronzong, Azumarill, Moltres (I know the last five are mostly mediocre, but I included them anyway since they have OU analyses), while other forms of priority such as ExtremeSpeed and Bullet Punch can all cut Lando-I's sweep very, very short. All of these checks apart from the obscure ones are all quite common and are all very viable. The list of counters / checks to Lando-I is pretty comprehensive. Hell, when I was trolling around with Charizard once and even THAT countered the fuck out of the RP Landorus I was facing (it had EP, HP Ice and Focus Blast), even after taking 50% from Stealth Rock.

 

[ginganinja]

Shrang you are missing the point. The point of mentioning the core was to provide an example of overloading, and just how easy it is for Landoris-I to win games. What I listed as an example (especially since in my experience I didn't see Latias + Celebi, it was usually one or the other and in the end Tar could trap both so w.e) as to how easily it is to remove the checks and counters to Landorus. Ill go through your list of checks and counters right now (just assume Stealth Rock as a common battle condition).

Gyarados I already mentioned, has no recovery (outside of Rest Talk) and is SR weak (unlike Landorus) which means it struggles to consistently switch in. Latios has the same problem as Latias, Hydreigon gets OHKOed by Focus Blast so idk why you listed it, Mamoswine cannot really switch in as both EP and Focus Blast deal with it, Skamory gets flat out 2KOed (yes thats Specially Defensive), Virizion gets 2KOed, Zapdos gets 2KOed, Bronzong gets 2KOed, Moltres gets 2KOed and Azumarill takes between 70-80% just switching in (thats not factoring in SR). All those calculations are done with a TIMID nature, which means that Modest is doing even more to these mons (For instance, Azumarill is going to get OHKOed).

Just to be clear here, the purpose of this point was not to say "oh shit ITS UNSTOPPABLE", it was just pointing out that your best answers to Landorus-I are trappable (or Blissey which has its own problems vs Tar), vulnerable to overloading, or your lesser answers are barely common in OU due to various reasons, and also take up a team slot which potentially could be used for something else AND are often 2KOed themselves anyway. Like shrang, are you REALLY going to be switching in your Hydreigon, when a Focus Blast OHKOs and it outspeeds you anyway unless your scarfed. Even if you are scarfed, would you really just switch it in carelessly, fully aware that if it Rock Polishes your scarfers going to get OHKOed? (Please please please don't suggest 'Focus Blast missing" as a reason for Hydreigon checking or countering Landorus-I x_x).

My big problem with a lot of the arguments going around are "Landorus-I (or any very powerful Pokemon for that matter) is undesirable because their counters are too easily removed". We used this somewhat for Genesect and Tornadus-T's banning, and I really don't like it. My problem is that this is what you do for every damn Pokemon.

Yea I thought that as well, but really, off the top of my head I cannot think of that many sweepers with a countering pool as small as Landorus, which can easily be fixed with 1 pokemon. Dragonite is perhapes the big one (and only due to MultiScale as unlike Landorus, scarfers can actually revenge it) but I don't know of much else. You can theroymon, all you want, the point of this is that kd24 and myself actually tested these combinations and suchlike in a practical setting and we have reported our findings. We believe that due to the ease it can sweep, as well as the ease of handling its (few) checks and counters, its deserving of suspect status and therefore warrants a suspect test. And quite honestly, I haven't seen many solid reasons as to why its not suspect worthy outside of the pretty bad argument that priority OHKOs / 2KOs it (just like Tornadus-T which we suspected and then banned).

again sorry for the disjointed post, its late and I'll edit it in the morning I think x_x

 

[shrang]

Shrang you are missing the point. The point of mentioning the core was to provide an example of overloading, and just how easy it is for Landoris-I to win games. What I listed as an example (especially since in my experience I didn't see Latias + Celebi, it was usually one or the other and in the end Tar could trap both so w.e) as to how easily it is to remove the checks and counters to Landorus. Ill go through your list of checks and counters right now (just assume Stealth Rock as a common battle condition).

Gyarados I already mentioned, has no recovery (outside of Rest Talk) and is SR weak (unlike Landorus) which means it struggles to consistently switch in. Latios has the same problem as Latias, Hydreigon gets OHKOed by Focus Blast so idk why you listed it, Mamoswine cannot really switch in as both EP and Focus Blast deal with it, Skamory gets flat out 2KOed (yes thats Specially Defensive), Virizion gets 2KOed, Zapdos gets 2KOed, Bronzong gets 2KOed, Moltres gets 2KOed and Azumarill takes between 70-80% just switching in (thats not factoring in SR). All those calculations are done with a TIMID nature, which means that Modest is doing even more to these mons (For instance, Azumarill is going to get OHKOed).

Just to be clear here, the purpose of this point was not to say "oh shit ITS UNSTOPPABLE", it was just pointing out that your best answers to Landorus-I are trappable (or Blissey which has its own problems vs Tar), vulnerable to overloading, or your lesser answers are barely common in OU due to various reasons, and also take up a team slot which potentially could be used for something else AND are often 2KOed themselves anyway. Like shrang, are you REALLY going to be switching in your Hydreigon, when a Focus Blast OHKOs and it outspeeds you anyway unless your scarfed. Even if you are scarfed, would you really just switch it in carelessly, fully aware that if it Rock Polishes your scarfers going to get OHKOed? (Please please please don't suggest 'Focus Blast missing" as a reason for Hydreigon checking or countering Landorus-I x_x).



Yea I thought that as well, but really, off the top of my head I cannot think of that many sweepers with a countering pool as small as Landorus, which can easily be fixed with 1 pokemon. Dragonite is perhapes the big one (and only due to MultiScale as unlike Landorus, scarfers can actually revenge it) but I don't know of much else. You can theroymon, all you want, the point of this is that kd24 and myself actually tested these combinations and suchlike in a practical setting and we have reported our findings. We believe that due to the ease it can sweep, as well as the ease of handling its (few) checks and counters, its deserving of suspect status and therefore warrants a suspect test. And quite honestly, I haven't seen many solid reasons as to why its not suspect worthy outside of the pretty bad argument that priority OHKOs / 2KOs it (just like Tornadus-T which we suspected and then banned).

again sorry for the disjointed post, its late and I'll edit it in the morning I think x_x

Just going to respond to the bolded points:

1) I can't see why overloading makes a Pokemon overpowered or broken. Overloading is a legitimately strategy that doesn't say that much about how broken a Pokemon is. You can stack 4 dragons and a Magnezone on a team and "overload" the opponent. Does that really mean one of the Dragons on your team is broken? If it does, which one? Do you see what I mean? You can talk about how overpowered a certain combo is, but that can never prove how broken they are individually, unless one Pokemon is obviously broken, in which case you don't need to talk about the combo anyway. In your example (TTar + Landorus + Keldeo), all three of them could potentially be broken. If anything, at least based on your example, Tyranitar is the most broken one, because if you remove Tyranitar, the combo just sucks (walled by Latias), while removing any of the other two and you still have a decent combo. Tyranitar traps a whole bunch of other Pokemon which could potentially lead to other dangerous Pokemon becoming formidable sweepers too. This is why we take out one Pokemon to suspect at a time.

2) You don't have to rehash on how each of those Pokemon are defeated by Landorus. I'll give you Hydreigon, he's not really a check, but all the others work. I know this already. I already listed them as "checks". Latias and Celebi pretty much counters RP Landorus outright already. I don't know how you can say that when you have 3-4 full counters plus about 10 other decent checks that "the countering pool is small". The countering pool is pretty good, if you ask me. Yes, I know there's also physical Landorus which most people have seem to forgotten, but that's a different story because Landorus cannot run two sets at once (and all of THOSE sets, are perfectly counterable too).

3) I hate to sound condescending, but I seriously doubt that you genuinely cannot think of any Pokemon with a countering pool the same size or smaller than Landorus in OU right now (based on your criteria), so please stop exaggerating. You named Dragonite. What about Salamence? What about Latios? While we're on dragons, Kyurem-B, Haxorus and Hydreigon are all pretty much uncounterable too. Terrakion, Keldeo, Thundurus-T all have about the same size of countering pool as well.

4) This is where I think that you've missed the point. I know it might seem like I'm theorymoning (I'm playtesting too btw, and Landorus-I is certainly one of my lesser worries). However, just because you're dedicating your time to playtesting does not mean you are looking for the wrong things. Like I said, you can chuck virtually any viable OU Pokemon into a combo and make it sweep like the most broken Uber ever. I know this because (like I said before in the rain thread) this is all I do in Pokemon now. I've swept with Bisharp, Charizard, Double Dance Skarmory and all the random shit you can imagine. I did it relatively easily too. I put together a team with Zebstrika or Rapidash and made it pretty successful in Ubers. Your assertion and reason are not linked. Yes, I agree Landorus-I is an excellent sweeper. Yes, I agree that in certain combinations, it sweeps very easily. However, the reasoning of "Landorus-I is broken because in certain combinations, it is overpowering" is not valid. It's like saying "Suspect X is the murderer because his DNA was found at the crime scene." You can do all the forensic investigations you want to prove that it is his DNA, but that means absolutely nothing if that is your only piece of reasoning to convict the suspect of murder. Yes, the reason supports the assertion, but it cannot prove the assertion correct.

 

[Ojama]

Agreeing with both kd24 and ginganinja here. I really disagree with people who think that Latias is a hard counter to Landorus-I because it's wrong. Landorus has only one real counter and it's named Chansey. The other ones are called checks and not counters. Latias has to check too many threats which is the biggest problem. On the paper, Latias counters Keldeo, Landorus-I, Thundurus-T, etc. What if Landorus-I runs U-Turn? U-Turn does like 55% or even more and then a ScarfJirachi / ScarfKeldeo forces you to switch out which exposes Latias to a kill next time you will send it in. Another situation with Specs/Ebelt Keldeo. You send in your Latias against Keldeo thinking you're walling it easy but you get destroyed by Icy Wind + HP Bug or HP Bug / Icy Wind from the Specs.

1) I can't see why overloading makes a Pokemon overpowered or broken. Overloading is a legitimately strategy that doesn't say that much about how broken a Pokemon is. You can stack 4 dragons and a Magnezone on a team and "overload" the opponent. Does that really mean one of the Dragons on your team is broken? If it does, which one? Do you see what I mean? You can talk about how overpowered a certain combo is, but that can never prove how broken they are individually, unless one Pokemon is obviously broken, in which case you don't need to talk about the combo anyway. In your example (TTar + Landorus + Keldeo), all three of them could potentially be broken. If anything, at least based on your example, Tyranitar is the most broken one, because if you remove Tyranitar, the combo just sucks (walled by Latias), while removing any of the other two and you still have a decent combo. Tyranitar traps a whole bunch of other Pokemon which could potentially lead to other dangerous Pokemon becoming formidable sweepers too. This is why we take out one Pokemon to suspect at a time.

People need to understand that a Team contains 6 Pokemon which means there are 5 other Pokemon next to Landorus-I. Landorus-I only needs a few partners, it can even decimate a whole Team alone. This thing is just too good and only needs a few support to be unstoppable. We can't ignore the fact that Tyranitar and Keldeo help Landorus-I a lot. Just imagine that you're facing a guy with Tyranitar + Landorus-I (and maybe + Keldeo). As kd24 said it, you don't want to send your Landorus-I counter/check (Latias, Latios, Celebi...) because you know you will get trapped by Tyranitar without being able to do something. This issue is permanent and recurring and this is why a lot of people want it to be at least suspected. Dragons are the best Pokemon of the game and they are even helped by Magnezone. Once again, it's useless to ignore the fact that Magnezone traps your Steel and allows Dragons to spam Outrage. "I have Skarmory/Scizor to check Dragons". It's not the same story during the battle when you're obligated to use Bullet Punch to kill one of the Dragons. That's exactly the same thing with Landorus-I + Tyranitar/Scizor etc...

3) I hate to sound condescending, but I seriously doubt that you genuinely cannot think of any Pokemon with a countering pool the same size or smaller than Landorus in OU right now (based on your criteria), so please stop exaggerating. You named Dragonite. What about Salamence? What about Latios? While we're on dragons, Kyurem-B, Haxorus and Hydreigon are all pretty much uncounterable too. Terrakion, Keldeo, Thundurus-T all have about the same size of countering pool as well.

Terrakion can't spam Close Combat / Stone Edge as Landorus-I is able to. Terrakion has to be Choice Banded to be extremely threatening and to Spam its STABs. Terrakion requires a few predictions while Landorus-I doesn't at all. Landorus-I doesn't need a Choice Item to OHKO/2HKO 98% of the Metagame which is absolutely amazing. Same with Keldeo and Thundurus-T (although the last one has a monstrous SAtk). Keldeo probably doesn't need a Choice Item to hurt any offensive team, but it is not enough strong to break an entire Stall Team. Celebi, Amoonguss, Jellicent, weak to Spikes + Toxic Spikes + Sandstorm, Celebi if it lacks HP Bug, Tentacruel etc wall it.

The major issue with Landorus-I is that everything that isn't a Levitate Pokemon cannot resist to Earth Power and those Levitate Pokemon are either easily trapped by Tyranitar or 2HKO'd by Focus Blast or Hidden Power Ice. It can Spam its STAB without loosing any HP which is absolutely broken. It seems maybe a bit gimmick but I'm serious about CM Landorus-I. First thing: it 6-0s any kind of Stall Teams at +1/+1. You maybe didn't realize it but Calm Mind also boosts the Special Defense, which means that Scald from Tentacruel / Jellicent doesn't even 2HKO it, that Surf from LOLatios/Latias doesn't OHKO it, that Shadow ball from LOGengar 3HKOs it and that Surf/HP Ice from ScarfKeldeo doesn't OHKO it after Stealth Rock

Some calcs:

Hide

=> 252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Shadow Ball vs. +1 88 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 136-161 (39.88 - 47.21%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

=> 252 SpA Keldeo Surf vs. +1 88 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 248-294 (72.72 - 86.21%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

=> 252 SpA Keldeo Hidden Power Ice vs. +1 88 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 248-292 (72.72 - 85.63%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

=> 252+ SpA Thundurus-T Hidden Power Ice vs. +1 88 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 292-348 (85.63 - 102.05%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

=> 252 SpA Life Orb Landorus Hidden Power Ice vs. +1 88 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 291-348 (85.33 - 102.05%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

=> 252 SpA Rotom-W Hydro Pump vs. +1 88 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 270-320 (79.17 - 93.84%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

=> 28 SpA Rotom-W Hydro Pump vs. +1 88 HP / 0 SpD Landorus: 222-264 (65.1 - 77.41%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

We can't ignore this...

 

[shrang]

We can't ignore the fact that Tyranitar and Keldeo help Landorus-I a lot. Just imagine that you're facing a guy with Tyranitar + Landorus-I (and maybe + Keldeo).

This is the problem with that argument though. You are basing a single Pokemon's ability via its performance in a combo. Like I said, how do you know that Landorus-I is the broken one? If you take it systematically and take out one Pokemon from that combo at a time, it appears to me that Tyranitar is the one exacerbating the problem. We can break it down pretty easily. Landorus + Keldeo = pretty ordinary combo, walled by Latias, Tyranitar + Keldeo = pretty potent, and Tyranitar + Landorus = pretty potent. This is why you can't judge Landorus's ability in that combo (or any other combos for that matter), because you have confounding errors like that. Tyranitar and Keldeo help Landorus a lot, true. Does that make Landorus broken? Not necessarily.

Landorus-I only needs a few partners, it can even decimate a whole Team alone.

This can be said for probably more than half of OU.

 

[ginganinja]

3) I hate to sound condescending, but I seriously doubt that you genuinely cannot think of any Pokemon with a countering pool the same size or smaller than Landorus in OU right now (based on your criteria), so please stop exaggerating. You named Dragonite. What about Salamence? What about Latios? While we're on dragons, Kyurem-B, Haxorus and Hydreigon are all pretty much uncounterable too. Terrakion, Keldeo, Thundurus-T all have about the same size of countering pool as well.

Lol, I had a feeling you would mention "uncounterable mons" such as Hydreigon, I hoped 'sweeper" would be enough but apparently not. Salamence, Haxorus, Hydreigon, Latias etc can ALL be revenged by scarfers fairly easily (Hydreigon's not really "sweeping" a team due to its low speed). Landorus-I on the other hand, is pretty much limited to priority as about the only thing that can revenge kill it.

This is the problem with that argument though. You are basing a single Pokemon's ability via its performance in a combo. Like I said, how do you know that Landorus-I is the broken one? If you take it systematically and take out one Pokemon from that combo at a time, it appears to me that Tyranitar is the one exacerbating the problem.

I addressed this but I think you didn't read my earlier posts and as such didn't see it. Basically, its the small pool of counters / checks it has, that MAKES Tyranitar such a strong partner. If Landorus-I had a wide pool of mons, that could counter it, we wouldn't be having this discussion. However, Landorus-I has SUCH a small pool (I have no idea why people debate this, if Charizard is being mentioned as a Landorus-I check you are reaching and you should know it) Remember, this "combo and whose fault is it" (for want of a better way of describing it) argument came up before, it was Tornadus-T and Dugtrio, and Genesect and Dugtrio. Despite Dugtrio doing most of the "work" at eliminating counters to these pokemon, it was Genesect and Tornadus, having such a small pool of counters / checks which allowed the combination to be so successful. Landorus is just the latest pokemon with a small pool of counters / checks that a single mon can trap and eliminate (CB Tar just decimates pretty much everything that counters / checks Landorus-I).

Also worth noting that technically, Occa Pursuit Scizor could be used over Tyranitar for the trapping of Latias / Celebi. This isn't so say that set is good, just pointing out that its not "Tyranitar" its really just a Pursuiter that checkmates Lati@s and Celebi, letting Landorus-I sweep pretty easily.

 

[shrang]

I addressed this but I think you didn't read my earlier posts and as such didn't see it. Basically, its the small pool of counters / checks it has, that MAKES Tyranitar such a strong partner. Remember, this "combo and whoose fault is it" arguement came up before, it was Tornadus-T and Dugtrio, and Genesect and Dugtrio. Despite Dugtrio doing most of the "work" at eliminating counters to these pokemon, it was Genesect and Tornadus, having such a small pool of counters / checks which allowed the combination to be so successful. Landorus is just the latest pokemon with a small pool of counters / checks that a single mon can trap and eliminate (CB Tar just decimates pretty much everything that counters / checks Landorus-I).

Also worth noting that technically, Occa Pursuit Scizor could be used over Tyranitar for the trapping of latias / Celebi. This isn't so say that set is good, just pointing out that its not "Tyranitar" its really just a Pursuiter that checkmates Lati@s and Celebi, letting Landorus-I sweep pretty easily.

1) Yeah, this is why I disagreed with those arguments, because they were dumb arguments. If those Gene+Dug and Torn+Dug were of any value, they would be more valuable in showing that Dugtrio is broken, not Genesect and Tornadus-T. In those cases, however, Genesect and Tornadus-T had their own things that made them broken apart from the fact that they had Dugtrio taking out their counters. Now, I'm not saying Landorus isn't like that, but I don't want to hear "Landorus's counters are easily trapped by CBTar" as an argument again, because it really tells us nothing, if anything it tells us that Tyranitar / Pursuit is the exacerbating problem, not Landorus.

Also worth noting that technically, Occa Pursuit Scizor could be used over Tyranitar for the trapping of latias / Celebi. This isn't so say that set is good, just pointing out that its not "Tyranitar" its really just a Pursuiter that checkmates Lati@s and Celebi, letting Landorus-I sweep pretty easily.

So again, how is this different from any other combo out there? You could go and make the same sort of arguments like "Volcarona is broken with Xatu and Dugtrio support" (might sound like a lot, but in your example, Landorus needs two Pokemon too, so what's the difference), or "Dragons are broken with Magnezone support" and yadda yadda. I want to hear why Landorus is broken by itself, how it sweeps teams with minimal to no support, not how it "sweeps with support". This is without going into stuff that can stop your sweep (Mamoswine / Weavile / Azumarill). Yes, I know they cant switch in, but I listed them as checks for a reason. It's not like you can freely sent in Landorus and expect it to sweep. Just isn't happening. Also, I know you brushed it aside before, but I can't see how Landorus is beating Virizion that easily. Psychic fails to OHKO (if you're using it), and HP Ice is doing jack shit. Meanwhile Virizion OHKOs you with its own HP Ice. Here's a Pokemon that isn't just eliminated by Pursuit. Just food for thought.

 

[PureQuestion]

I've been using Landorus and I have to say, mind-games, counters, and partners, etc etc, it's just been really god damned powerful. Even in games where they have random shit that forces me to not set up (ie they have a Mamoswine waiting to revenge) just switching in and throwing around an attack or two before getting out of there works wonders.

It really says a lot when the best coverage you can manage is Ground/Fighting/Ice though, because so many things can just switch in and not care at all about those three moves. At least it's specially offensive, otherwise Skarmory and Forretress would laugh in its face too.

But I think it says even more that with coverage that bad, it still manages to be completely dominating. There are so few things that can actually switch into it. I've seen teams just fall apart to Modest Landorus that didn't even manage to get a rock polish.

Completely astounding.

 

[Pocket]

There are some recurring arguments that I find to be false claims

Celebi and Latias are the only answers to Lando-I

Celebi and Latias are certainly perfect counters to Rock Polish Landorus-I, but with the rising popularity of U-turn > Rock Polish I would hardly call these two safe Landorus-I switch-ins.

There are more reliable switch-ins than that, and offensive ones, too: Offensive Gyarados takes pittance from HP Ice and even survives 2 Focus Blasts AFTER SR. We are talking about Gyarados with min HP EVs here.

Gengar is immune to Earth Power and Focus Blast, and quad resists U-turn. It can tank HP Ice with half of its health to spare. Basically if Landorus-I wants to touch Gengar, it will take LO recoil. With LO recoil, SR damage, and LO Shadow Ball Landorus is left with 13% health if it is forced to stay to kill Gengar, easy picking for revenge killer.

The problem lies in players trying to find a "one Pokemon" answer for a devastating Pokemon, such as Landorus-I. Packing a Celebi or Latias is the lazy approach that are easily exploited by U-turn Lando-I players. A more advanced teambuilding would be using a combination of Pokemon to seamlessly deal with Sheer Force Landorus; just like Landorus-TTar form an offensive dual core, defensive cores exist, too. Alexwolf, for instance, suggested Rotom-W & Amoonguss, which is an exemplar of such defensive combinations. Neither are fatally ruined by TTar or U-turn, while being able to toggle switch between Earth Power & Focus Blast. Even a more offensive-minded core like Xatu / Dragonite + Scizor / Mamoswine also works. Landorus's heavy reliance on Ground + Fighting can be exploited by these cores, which should be implemented in any good team these days.

Landorus must be ban-worthy, because Celebi & Latios, etc are Pursuit-bait

As I just mentioned above, there are many other non-gimmicky options to deal with Landorus-I, so Landorus-I & TTar is really nothing to bitch about.

Not to mention shrang is right. One can flip the argument and claim that Landorus-I (especially RP variant)'s dependence in Pursuit-trapping to get rid of its hard counters discredits its ban-worthiness.

To me, Keldeo+Landorus+TTar is just another mainstream team archetype of BW2 offense, such as DragMag and Dual Screen HO. It's simple and effective. However, it's predictable and exploitable. I should know, because I've witnessed many countless Keldeo+Landorus+TTar games used by my fellow Ruiners or from the opponent's BW2 player in this year's SPL. Hell, my team almost lost semis before the tiebreak, because Iconic used a similar team that kd24 posted, and his Landorus-I proved to be set-up bait for SubDD Gyarados. This team is actually quite susceptible to Rain teams - and have very little answers to opposing Keldeo and Landorus-I. It all makes sense, since TTar + Landorus compounds the Rain weakness, and Keldeo + Landorus aren't particularly bulky on the special side. The team archetype that kd24 presented definitely possess plenty of flaws that have owed to crucial losses in the SPL season that would've been avoided otherwise. I can't defend Landorus-I being suspect- / ban-worthy due to the overall mediocrity of this team archetype in the competitive environment; probably a good team to spam on ladder, but will have its work cut out for it when pit against another high-level player.

U-turn Sheer Force Landorus is SHIT

Lot of People are misreading and thinking that people who oppose Landorus-I ban are claiming that U-turn Sheer Force Landorus is shit. If these people improve their reading comprehension, they realize that most of us are saying that U-turn Landorus set is EFFECTIVE, but not good enough to warrant Landorus a ban. Explaining how the U-turn set is good isn't helping their case, because we already acknowledged that - prove us that the U-turn set is broken and we can have a productive discussion.

Landorus-I cannot be taken down easily

This may be true for Rock Polish variant, but U-turn variants wear down quite quickly due to repeated switch-ins that translate to SR damages (forced out easily by faster mons) and LO recoils from U-turn. Landorus-I is certainly one of the best offensive pivot mon this game, but it's gonna go down fast

Even RPolish Landorus have problems, too. Remember that Landorus must spend a turn to set up Rock Polish. Unless Landorus-I is switching in on Dugtrio or a Pokemon locked into a Ground-move, it's not gonna set up unscathed. Landorus-I may be able to tank a hit, but it can't take two. It will absorb a hit on the turn it Rock Polishes, and then it will be finished off by priority or by handful of mons that Landorus fails to OHKO, which are handful (check Honko's man calc for a general picture). Not to mention, unlike our past suspects, Landorus-I is DEATHLY weak to Ice Shard, meaning that as long as Abomasnow / Mamoswine / Weavile is alive in the opponent's team, its sweep will ALWAYS be stopped cold. Rock Polish Genesect, etc didn't have this problem.

Many games, RP Landorus-I would find the opportunity cost too steep to Rock Polish, so they end up never executing a sweep at the end. Sure, Landorus-I with 302 Spe is still scary as fuck, but certainly NOT too fast or unstoppable for BW2 OU.

Landorus-I can only be taken down by priority

This is primarily referring to ginganinja's response to shrang:

Lol, I had a feeling you would mention "uncounterable mons" such as Hydreigon, I hoped 'sweeper" would be enough but apparently not. Salamence, Haxorus, Hydreigon, Latias etc can ALL be revenged by scarfers fairly easily (Hydreigon's not really "sweeping" a team due to its low speed). Landorus-I on the other hand, is pretty much limited to priority as about the only thing that can revenge kill it.

I already addressed in the above section, but Landorus are revenge-killed by every Scarfer and any Pokemon with 302-332+ Speed before Landorus sets up Rock Polish. Even if Landorus-I successfully sets up Rock Polish, there are plenty of Pokemon like defensive Politoed, BU Conkeldurr, OTR Landorus, and specially-defensive Kyurem-Black that can tank a hit and finish off Landorus. There's also Magic Guard Sash Zam that's another fail-safe against Landorus-I. I will not even go to priority, since that's self-explanatory.

Notice how I didn't even mention Rotom-W, Celebi, Latias in dealing with Landorus-I. There are drastically more options than that.

Landorus-I's moves are spammable:

Umm...REALLY??? Earth Power, which is immune to a good third of the metagame (or maybe more) and Focus MISS? Not to mention Ground + Fighting leaves a lot to be desired in terms of coverage. Landorus-I is neither a Genesect that can spam STAB U-turns or Tornadus-T that can spam STAB Hurricanes with little repercussion. Landorus-I user actually have to THINK about which move to use, leading to mind games that I saw so many times in SPL this season.

This reliance on "prediction" or "guesswork" or take the lazy route and U-turn out (more LO + SR damage, woo) is what makes Landorus-I not as stupid as people want to make it out to be. Landorus-I is no Genesect or Tornadus-T folks, I hope we all can agree on that point. As a person that finds those 2 ubers as borderline-uber mons, I can't justify Landorus-I as a suspect- / ban-worthy mon.

Final comparisons:

I think Conflict put it best, that RP Landorus-I is like DPP Lucario - it's a deathly terrific end-game Sweeper. However the stage must be set for this successful sweep to be pulled - it can't simply sweep once SR goes up. This is Pokemon - nothing worth banning here.

In the other hand, U-turn Sheer Force Landorus is an excellent choice in the current metagame, but is it truly broken for the simple fact that it can put Celebi / Latias in a detrimental circumstance? As shrang puts it, this is simply a legitimate lure + destroy tactics that is used in a game of Pokemon. Not to mention there are handful of Pokemon that are not susceptible to Lando+Tar combination, as I have already explained. Unlike Rock Polish Landorus-I, U-turn Landorus are put down easily by faster threats.

 

[PureQuestion]

I agree wholeheartedly, and it kinda follows from what I was saying, and I think it's something that bears some attention: Ground/Fighting is awful, awful coverage. Yes, HP ice hits a lot of things that resist them (flying types, celebi, lati@s), but it's still hidden power, and plenty of things can take a hidden power, especially a neutral one, and you're wearing yourself down every time you have to use it.

If Landorus had a legitimately good movepool, it might be different, but when your best options for coverage are Focus Blast and Hidden power ice? Come on.

 

[alexwolf]

Regarding the things that have beed said about SpD Bronzong and RestTalk Gyarados. Ojama i have already mentioned that the SR weakness are the only shortcomings of RestTalk Gyarados, and they are really big. However even with those taken into account Gyarados still walls a ton of stuff, as long as you pair it with Heal Bell Celebi, its best partner, so that Gyarados isn't forced to always be asleep. I may have exaggereated a bit about what it counters, as i forgot to take SR into account, so sry for that, but even with SR up Gyarados is a strong check for all of those Pokemon. +1 DDnite does 55% max to Gyarados and can't 2HKO at +0 with SR up, while it loses 37% on average from Dragon Tail, so that the next time Dnite comes in it will have only 13% life left (25% + 25% + 37%). Focus Sash or Rocky Helmet 3 attacks Garchomp is walled even with SR. Against any offensive Volcarona, Gyarados survives even Modest LO Fire Blast after SR up, and LO versions need SR to 2HKO with Outrage. and KOes back with Waterfall, where against defensive versions it easily walls it and phazes out or 2HKOes with Waterfall if sun is not up. So as you can see Gyarados can check or counter the threats that i mentioned and definitely can do a lot back. I admit that it does struggle against offensive teams due to its unreliable recovery, meaning it will only manage to wall 1 threat usually, but this is enough, provided you don't have a slow as balls team and have a solid gameplan (meaning that if the opponent doesn't succeed in getting past your defences then you will have a chance to strike back with your own offense). And i will say it once again, use RestTalk Gyarados with Heal Bell Celebi, it helps a lot!

As for Bronzong, ginga said that it is 2HKOed by Landorus's FB, which is false as it avoids the 2HKO even after SR, and FB has a 49% chance to hit twice, so there is that too. This means that Bronzong will be able to stop Landrous once or twice, and this is IF Landorus predicts the switch-in (you don't have Zong as your only Lando check/counter right?). So you have many chances to beat the opponent before Landorus gets past Bronzong, giving you a pretty decent fighting chance against Landorus. You can even use Dual Screens Bronzong, walling Landorus and then going for a countersweep with your own setup sweepers.

Seeing as offensive combos are mentioned that enhance Landorus ability to break through teams, i will mention some defensive combos that are pretty good at keeping Landorus in check or outright walling it.

SpD Amonguss + SpD Rotom-W

Every time that Landorus predicts wrong, one of those Pokemon gets a free switch and procceeds to do serious damage back (Spore, Stun Spore, T-Wave, WoW, Volt Switch, and Hydro Pump are all things that can trouble every offensive team). What's more is that the user of this defensive core isn't even reliant on 50-50 guessing games, as even if it slips up and bring in Amoonguss against an Earth Power, it can switch out and heal half its lost health, while having pivots for every single move that Landorus can use. And even if the Landorus user had godlike prediction skills, don't forget that Landorus has only 49% chance to 2HKO Rotom-W, and if the second FB misses, Landorus will die 80% of the time.

SpD Skarmory + SpD Amonguss or SpD Celebi

Skarmory takes everything bar FB, which can be easily PP stalled if Skarmory gets in on any other move. Also if Skarmory is partnered with Amoonguss, the Landorus player will have to be very careful of spamming FB and giving a free switch to Amoonguss, which will sleep one Pokemon with Spore.

SpD Bronzong + SpD Amoonguss

You should already get the way it works...

LO Gengar + any other strong check

Gengar is only hit by HP Ice, which only 2HKOes, so if Gengar comes in safely (most of the time) it will always manage to get a LO Shadow Ball off, which after SR and 2 LO Rounds (two HP Ice that Landorus will use to kill Gengar) will almost always leave Landorus with 12% or less. So just send something to force it out after Gengar dies, and then it is dead.

Ninetales + Cresselia + Dugtrio

Cresselia walls Landorus, Ttar can't kill Cresselia due to Reflect and Dugtrio traps Tyranitar.

Will add more combos later...

 

[Meru]

I agree wholeheartedly, and it kinda follows from what I was saying, and I think it's something that bears some attention: Ground/Fighting is awful, awful coverage. Yes, HP ice hits a lot of things that resist them (flying types, celebi, lati@s), but it's still hidden power, and plenty of things can take a hidden power, especially a neutral one, and you're wearing yourself down every time you have to use it.

If Landorus had a legitimately good movepool, it might be different, but when your best options for coverage are Focus Blast and Hidden power ice? Come on.

How is Ice + Fighting + Ground bad coverage? Anything that isn't hit by Ground-type is nailed by Focus Blast. The few things that aren't nailed by Focus Blast are either weak to HP Ice (Zapdos), SR weak (Gyarados and Moltres), or Psychic-types (trapped by Tyranitar)

 

[ssbbm]

i feel landorus is like excadrill (though obviously not AS broken) in that it can switch in midgame and start spamming moves and then it wins 100% endgame if you don't have any check to it. it's not like terrakion, which has less "counters" but is easily revengeable; rather, it has some "counters" like latias and celebi to an extent (i'm not counting u-turn landorus, that's too easy), but if you cannot keep those checks healthy then you will lose 100%. the funny thing is that its "counters" really can't do that much back - latias (cm, because offensive is much too frail imo) can't do anything back bar a weak dragon pulse, while celebi suffers the same problem with giga drain. the only way they really beat landorus is by life orb stalling it, to be honest.

the main point is, however, that if you cannot keep your landorus checks healthy then you will die because it can outspeed and ohko / 2hko every pokemon besides these certain "checks". this is unlike terrakion or hydreigon who can outspeed and ohko / 2hko every pokemon but are outsped and revengeable or jolteon who can outspeed but not ohko / 2hko. does that make it broken?

 

[alexwolf]

RestTalk Gyarados or just defensive Gyarados with Wish support + Heal Bell Celebi

Walls any special Landorus even with SR up, and can keep itself relatively healthy with Celebi healing the sleep status

Reflect Latias + any other check

Reflect Latias can set-up a reflect as Tyranitar comes in and thus avoid getting trapped. However, with SR up and sand, Latias has a big chance of getting 2HKOed by HP Ice, so this is why an additional check to Landorus is needed (Landorus almost never spams HP Ice on predicted switches btw, especially when it has a CBTar partner that can trap and kill non-Reflect Latias.

SubRoost SpD Zapdos + reliable spinner (Offensive Starmie or SubToxic Tentacruel)

Zapdos walls Landorus with SR off the field, and even if SR is up, Landorus must predict the switch-in and use HP Ice in order to 2HKO. CBTar can't do anything to SubRoost Zapdos, as Stone Edge gets pp stalled and the same is true for Pursuit.

Toxic Chansey + any other check that resists Focus Blast

Note that those combos are meant to act as reliable checks or even counters not only to special Landorus, but to special Landorus even if is partnered with CBTar, to show to everyone that the combo is not such a big deal as everyone makes it be. I refuse to put Keldeo in this combo, as Keldeo has already been a suspect, and Landorus will most likely be too, and putting two suspects together to prove either of them is broken is just wrong.

 

[Taylor]

What I have said for months now, and even when Tornadus-T was OU, that if you paired up ScarfTar with either Keldeo or Landorus then you're effectively half-way there in terms of trapping their only true counters. You don't even have to OHKO with Pursuit because the residual damage + sandstorm is enough to place either Latias/Celebi within Hidder Power [Ice] range.

There's another ideal partner to go with Landorus. I've been a huge fan of TrickJirachi w/ Choice Scarf for a long time, since DP in fact. I pair it up with Landorus and Terrakion, Trick the super effective move (Fire/Ground) and depending on which attack my opponent has used, I can set up accordingly with either Rock Polish or Substitute.

To prepare for Landorus, I've even used 252 EVs in HP on Keldeo and paired that with ScarfTar to warn off its main checks. Max HP is more than capable of withstanding Landorus' (Modest) Earth Power. It's minor tweaks in movesets like these that can make all the difference.

Not to sound bigheaded in any way but there have been very few occasions where I've been swept by Landorus myself (probably because I send mine in first!), but honestly when I have had to deal with my opponent playing their Landorus intelligently, it generally comes down to forcing them to use Hidden Power [Ice] so that they faint from recoil.

Players who just slapt some popular semi-stall/balanced/balanced offense and expect to go through the ranks without finding themselves in a tight situation every now and then, especially in the 5th Generation of Pokemon, are just looking to find new ways to create a similar feel as to what a metagame used to be years ago.

 

[Lavos]

How is Ice + Fighting + Ground bad coverage? Anything that isn't hit by Ground-type is nailed by Focus Blast. The few things that aren't nailed by Focus Blast are either weak to HP Ice (Zapdos), SR weak (Gyarados and Moltres), or Psychic-types (trapped by Tyranitar)

it would be good coverage if the fighting and ice moves in question weren't named focus blast and hp ice. the first one is more likely than not to miss one out of every two times, a pathetic move to be relying on for a sweep. and as for hp ice...everyone's talking about how scary and powerful landorus is, yet it can't even 2hko such common pokemon as celebi, latias, and gyarados! point is, landorus has no means of powering through its numerous checks without sacrificing a lot of sweeping potential. (if it got ice beam, that'd be a different story)

i've read kd24 and ojama's arguments, shrang and pocket's arguments, and i've done some playtesting on the side. thus far, i remain convinced that landorus is one of the top 'mons in ou, but unworthy of a ban, especially when more pressing issues such as drizzle and drought await us. you don't have to agree with me, but you should be able to respect my conclusion and how i arrived at it.

 

[HardCore]

If Landorus-I Was Banned​

Landorus I is an extremely beneficial Pokémon to the meta game. Although Landours has a surfeit of inundating move sets he also has many key roles in the metagame. His ground typing allows him to allay the sweeping potential that many powerful electric types wish they cannot maintain with a fast and powerful neutralizer. He’s a great electric nullifying pivot with U-turn, scarfed revenger, sweeper, and pretty well balanced wall breaker. A major role he plays is checking Breloom, Conkeldurr, Scizor without boosts, Toxicroak with 1 or no boosts, and an ok Dragonite Revenger. Not only that, but the major priority abusers of the meta game are large threats for Landorus I in all his might to overcome.
Calculations of Priority Users against Landorus I:

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Choice Band Scizor: Landorus: 177-208 (55.48 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
LO SD Scizor:+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 305-360 (95.61 - 112.85%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
Bulky Toxicroak:+1 132+ Atk Toxicroak Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 123-145 (38.55 - 45.45%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Life Orb SD Toxicroak: +2 252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 235-277 (73.66 - 86.83%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
LO SD Breloom:+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Mach Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 153-180 (47.96 - 56.42%) -- 87.5% chance to 2HKO
SD Lucario: +2 252+ Atk Life Orb Lucario ExtremeSpeed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 240-283 (75.23 - 88.71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
CB Dnite: 252+ Atk Choice Band Dragonite ExtremeSpeed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 160-189 (50.15 - 59.24%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
DDnite: +1 252+ Atk Dragonite ExtremeSpeed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 160-189 (50.15 - 59.24%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Keep in mind I've only calc'd priority moves against Landorus, but the manifest, or obvious truth, is those Pokémon can do a lot of damage to Landorus I, KO Landorus with their other moves. Landorus is a good check for most of these Pokémon and without him it'd be that much harder to avoid sweeps.

Face it, without Landorus these mere overpowered sweepers will be a recipe for disaster. Last but certainly not least, Landorus I also is a great scarfed Pokémon to have that competes for defeats the following: Scarfed Jirachi, Scarfed Thundurus, Tornadus I, Salamence, and other speedy Pokémon with or without scarfs like Keldeo, Terrakion, Lati@s, etc. Although this may be a rash statement I believe Landorus I is the “Quintessential Offensive Balancer” of the meta game.

For example: with the large decrease in Sand Force Landorus I, Bulky Volcarona have been able to set up without fear of one of their top checks. Ergo, the potential depletion of this Pokémon would bring a major shift to the meta game that may be literally subversive for the stability of the current BW 2 OU meta game.