Bye bye Latias! Bring in the apes...

[Lockeness]

I am disappointed to see Latias go. I am of the opinion that she was OU and very counterable in the current metagame. That being said the only thing we can do is play the game and not whine about things we cannot control. I think that the metagame will become centralized around fire and water. I don't think that this metagame will be more "fun" than the last. The OU metagame will centralize around whatever powerful attacker is up next. In this case I see Heatran and infernape going to town with a lot of the metagame. Latias filled some awesome roles and she will be sorely missed. I think Mixed Mence and choice band mence usage will spike. Without Latias to come in on an Outrage and revenge kill Salamence it will be a heck of a lot easier to spam Outrage IMO.

I am not sure how much I like this new metagame. If we end up banning both Latias and Salamence I feel the metagame will become too slow. I don't want to play UU 2.0 but OU. The jury is still out on this new metagame at least for me.

 

[mtr]

I was going to think that banning Latias would make Gyarados more viable.

But then, banning Latias also moves up Celebi, Vaporeon, Cresselia, and Starmie in terms of usage since all of them were partially overshadowed by the more versatile Latias. So perhaps not.

 

[Shadow Tectike]

Haha, so Latias bit the dust? Fair enough, the whole metagame started to revolve around Latias (ScarfTar was, if I remember correctly, originally thought up as a counter to Latias).

Infernape will no doubt be revived for his wallbreaking capabilities. Of course we could bring back Cresselia and increase the Gyarados usage to counter it. The only issue is Stealth Rock wearing down Gyarados.

Celebi is a Pokemon I can imagine increasing in use.

Scarf Latias is no longer around to give a huge check to DDMence and can no longer cripple Blissey with Trick. Perhaps more Scarf Starmies will be around for this reason.

This doesn't mean I want Salamence banned, however. I imagine the metagame to turn a little dull/slow-paced if that does occur. Stall won't really pick up too much now that Infernape can run around, but if Mence is banned then it will almost level out.

Basically, I'm not too surprised but I don't want this metagame going too slow with the changes that have been made.

It was fun while it lasted, Latias. Now to go replace her on my team. :P

 

[Wikey]

Scarf Latias is no longer around to give a huge check to DDMence and can no longer cripple Blissey with Trick. Perhaps more Scarf Starmies will be around for this reason.

This, my main team used ScarfLatias to check DDMence and DDGyara. I can do the same thing with ScarfStarmie but Latias was so much better with Levitate and Draco Meteor.

 

[Ice-eyes]

The problem with Scarf Latias is that you couldn't reveal it early-game for fear that it would get Pursuited and you'd lose your main check to DD Mence/Gyara etc. With Tar hopefully going down, Starmie won't suffer such severe problems.

 

[Vaz]

By removing Latias we can make the metagame a better place. No as much stupid Scarf Tyranitar which will mean a rise in Rotom-A.

Other dragons will start to become more viabel, physically defensive water types, maybe Cresselia rising up.

A lot will happen for one pokemon.

 

[Instinctive]

The biggest issue with all of these replacement pokes is that they aren't anywhere near as good (why Lati was voted uber I suppose)

Cress - Levitate, but all of the Psychic half's weaknesses and none of the dragon's resistances

Celebi - resists ground, gains some STAB on Leaf Storm/EBall/GrassKnot, but still has huge Scizor weakness and replaces a fire resist with a fire weak

Starmie, no ground resist, electric weak instead of electric resist same psychic weaknesses

Vappy - again, bulky, but now lacks all of Lati's resists, and one resist becomes a SE (electric)

 

[SushiOnToast]

Enter Water/Grass/Fire cores, especially if Salamence goes. I reckon so at least. Starmie should be able to shine being the best user of boltbeam in OU, which of course dismantles that core. Water types in general are benefitting the most from no Lati.

Edit: Heck, what doesn't benefit from its removal other than when using it yourself when you really think about it. What uses Latias as setup bait...

 

[Chou Toshio]

There's pretty much only one reason why I will miss Latias: It was a solid check to bulky water types. With grass being shitty and the vast majority of dragons being 4x weak to ice, Latias was pretty much the only truly solid non-water check to water types, with its typing, special defense and access to thunderbolt/grass knot. It's also rare for a pokemon to have STAB that combines well with Thunderbolt and actually learns thunderbolt.

Scarf-TTar has a lot of great uses outside of being a Latias counter. When it comes to Rotom, I kind of assumed that what made scarf-tar was the fact that PRE-Scarftar Rotom could almost guaranteed depend on staying in on TTar to W-o-W/reflect. But on first sight, Band-Tar and Scarf-Tar are the same, but it meant that if rotom whent for wow or reflect, ttar would just crunch for massive damage.

 

[RayePenbur]

Personally, I always refuse to use Legendaries on my team. I think that they're designated differently for a reason. If you can't breed it, then it's not worth it.

That said, I never used Latias and I hated the pink little freak. It never had any place being in the OU metagame. With that 110 base speed and those stats, it was way over powered.

Salamence will never be banned that's for damn sure. By losing 25% health from SR and facing major challenges from opposing Salamence, it's own LO health depletion and anything with an Ice Beam that it can't OHKO, it will remain OU forever.

I can see Infernape going back up but honestly I used an Infernape lead while Latias was present and I never had too much of a problem. I see the monkey getting a boost as well as much of OU.

Honestly I KNOW that the metagame will see a fantastic jump in UU, and NU Pokemon because the vast majority of those trick and novelty strategies simply couldn't work with that demon around. Honestly, all the OU heavy hitters will have to look out because there I forsee switching in my Tyranitar and somehow being wrecked by a Furrett or something ridiculous.

 

[Ice-eyes]

So, suddenly UU/NU novelty strategies are going to explode because the no. 5 pokemon got banned? No. There will be jumps in pokes like Infernape, Heatran, Zapdos and Jolteon as people experiment with stuff that gets better as a result of Latias' ban and things like Starmie will become temporarily popular as the closest like-for-like replacements available. Things will settle down after a while and the usage of these pokes will be higher than they are now, but not too dramatically.

Yes, Latias' removal is going to have a big impact on the meta, but you can overestimate the impact of that.

I think Breloom is a big sleeper pick that not a lot of people have talked about. Latias was one of its main switch-ins, and things like Vaporeon and Suicune look as if they might go up in usage to check Infernape and Heatran.

 

[Lorenz]

Very happy to see Latias go Uber. I know I wasn't playing on this particular site before Latias went OU but once that happened almost every team I played against used one, as most other sites tend to stick with smogon tiers anyway. Teams almost started following a set formula. Step 1) add Latias, Step 2) add Latias counter(s), Step 3) Profit. Very glad to see the thing back where it belongs.

I've seen some talk on this thread about Salamence going Uber? Am I reading that wrong? Why would Salamence go Uber? I don't use one myself but I've never had a problem killing them. Maybe I've just been playing sucky players using them. I'd say easily 80-85% of the ones that I've run into have been physically based and I run Porygon2 in my team. Steal it's Intimidate and attack with Ice Beam. I run into mixed ones every now and then, but Draco Meteor doesn't kill it on the switch in and it's now got -1 Atk debuff and -2 SpAtk debuff, Porygon2 will take the next hit no problem and again, kill it with Ice Beam (won't live against the next switch-in admittedly). The only time I have a problem with Salamence is when its a pure special attacker variant since Intimidate won't do any good and Porygon2 probably won't take another hit after the switch in. Even if Porygon2 dies before I can use it on Salamence I easily revenge kill it (though that is with the support of Rocks). I think I'm also one of MAYBE a million players that uses a Porygon2. I view it the same as Gyarados and Electivire: overrated. I really don't understand how Salamence is considered for Uber-ness. Not trying to be a smart-ass but someone please explain this, I've rarely had a problem with it and I just simply don't understand.

 

[SushiOnToast]

Personally, I always refuse to use Legendaries on my team. I think that they're designated differently for a reason. If you can't breed it, then it's not worth it.

That said, I never used Latias and I hated the pink little freak. It never had any place being in the OU metagame. With that 110 base speed and those stats, it was way over powered.

Salamence will never be banned that's for damn sure. By losing 25% health from SR and facing major challenges from opposing Salamence, it's own LO health depletion and anything with an Ice Beam that it can't OHKO, it will remain OU forever.

I can see Infernape going back up but honestly I used an Infernape lead while Latias was present and I never had too much of a problem. I see the monkey getting a boost as well as much of OU.

Honestly I KNOW that the metagame will see a fantastic jump in UU, and NU Pokemon because the vast majority of those trick and novelty strategies simply couldn't work with that demon around. Honestly, all the OU heavy hitters will have to look out because there I forsee switching in my Tyranitar and somehow being wrecked by a Furrett or something ridiculous.

People who think like that are often (too much to say always?) at the bottom of the ladder.

Actually the majority of posts seem to think it will be banned and are giving good arguments for it to be, and I agree with a post made quite a while ago when Manaphy was being tested: It's Garchomp/Latias/Salamence or none of them. You only have to skim through this thread to know that there is a definite chance of Salamence flying the coop.

UU/NU pokemon are barely any more viable in OU than they were before -.^ What did Latias do that made such a difference to them. Seems like a Furrett has eaten your brain or something.

@Lawrence - Look at the April stats and you will realise that most people can't know what set they are facing first time round. It's 50/50. I also think its more 'how do I defend against it?' than 'how do be offensive against it?'.

Edit for jc104: thats karma for reccomending an anti lead nite run 24Spe :P

 

[jc104]

I'd say easily 80-85% of the ones that I've run into have been physically based

On the smogon server, roughly 50% of Salamence were DD versions. Most of the rest carry Draco meteor, which wrecks Porygon2. Plus, DDmence may have been the reason you were running Porygon2 in the first place.

Edit - 500th post wasted

 

[Lorenz]

On the smogon server, roughly 50% of Salamence were DD versions. Most of the rest carry Draco meteor, which wrecks Porygon2. Plus, DDmence may have been the reason you were running Porygon2 in the first place.

Edit - 500th post wasted

DDMence and DDGyara was the original reason for adding Pory2. Then I found many other uses for it. Also, I don't play on Shoddy I play only on the game boy. So that might have something to do with the abundance of DDMence I've run into.

 

[akarias]

Well people almost never bring out their ddmence early. You can guess which mence it is I'd say 75% of the time.

People always say nothing can switch into mence, but i find both vaporeon and suicune strong counters. Vaporeon can stall the daylights out of mixmence, and can icebeam out ddmence. Suicune almost always beats sally 1v1. Scizor can switch into 3 out of 4 of sally's moves and switch out.

Personally I think instead of plotape, physical mixape will see extremely effective play. With u-turn, it can get enough switch-ins along with when something dies, that it can threaten almost everything with its dual stabs. Vaporeon can get 2hko'ed by closecombat. Scarftar gets demolished by mach punch. Starmie is pursuit bait for scizor and both swampert and suicune take hefty dmg from closecombat, which they can't recover. Overheat destroys almost every physical wall out there, ohko'ing rotom, celebi, steels, while doing incredible damage to zapdos and hippo. People who say tentacruel is like the end all be all of counters fail to note that outside of stall tentacruel blows, unable to switch in and counter anything besides mixape and heatran. Gyara often has eq, which will ohko. Suicune can roar or just calm mind. Besides as a tspiker it's almost entirely outclassed by roserade.

 

[Ice-eyes]

Scarf Heatran is actually incredibly difficult to switch into now - I'm using the classic combo with Breloom and it's amazingly effective. Things like Salamence, Starmie and Infernape are 2HKOd by Fire Blast after Rocks and Water-types like Vaporeon, Suicune and Swampert give Breloom a free switch-in to wreak more havoc.

 

[Missingno. Master]

Hmm... Let's see... A fast, powerful special attacker with STAB on Psychic moves is no longer allowed in the OU tier. This can mean nothing other than a large uprise in Weezing usage, culminating in my longtime prediction of Weezing's return to OU.

 

[BurningMan]

Hmm... Let's see... A fast, powerful special attacker with STAB on Psychic moves is no longer allowed in the OU tier. This can mean nothing other than a large uprise in Weezing usage, culminating in my longtime prediction of Weezing's return to OU.

yeah that will happen for sure. Because everyone relied on Psychic to get rid of Weezing o.O

There are many reasons why weezing is now UU (mainly Physical/special Split i guess), but Latias and Psychic got nothing to do with that, because its killed by any strong special attack.

 

[Missingno. Master]

Maybe Latias wasn't the reason Weezing became UU, but it played a significant role in keeping it down there. Psychic or no Psychic, Latias was still a large, levitating thorn in Weezing's side. Now that Latias's banishment to Ubers has made the OU tier a slightly safer place for Weezing, it'll see more and moar usage. Remaining OU special attackers notwithstanding, Weezing remains a great physical wall. Hell, all we gotta do is banish Heatran to Ubers, and Weezing's practically guaranteed to be back in!

 

[blasphemy1]

Maybe Latias wasn't the reason Weezing became UU, but it played a significant role in keeping it down there. Psychic or no Psychic, Latias was still a large, levitating thorn in Weezing's side. Now that Latias's banishment to Ubers has made the OU tier a slightly safer place for Weezing, it'll see more and moar usage. Remaining OU special attackers notwithstanding, Weezing remains a great physical wall. Hell, all we gotta do is banish Heatran to Ubers, and Weezing's practically guaranteed to be back in!

Weezing wasn't OU before Latias, and it probably won't be OU after. Pokemon like Lucario (because ScarfTar was used for Latias) and Heracross (because ScarfCross can revenge Latias) should have thrived during a Latias metagame, which are two pokemon Weezing is actually able to effectively tank hits from. Weezing could also effectively defeat ScarfTar (since it's attacks weren't all that powerful) and now that Latias is gone Heatran will see more usage (who completely destroys Weezing). On top of that, pokemon like Zapdos will be more usable because Latias is gone, so the Lucario check of most people's choice won't be Weezing.

 

[Lil Niglet]

Hmm... Let's see... A fast, powerful special attacker with STAB on Psychic moves is no longer allowed in the OU tier. This can mean nothing other than a large uprise in Weezing usage, culminating in my longtime prediction of Weezing's return to OU.

Starmie

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Hmm... Let's see... A fast, powerful special attacker with STAB on Psychic moves is no longer allowed in the OU tier. This can mean nothing other than a large uprise in Weezing usage, culminating in my longtime prediction of Weezing's return to OU.

I know I may get reprimanded by saying this but Jesus fucking Christ man, have you ever played OU in your life? Since when did Latias use to use Psychic in her movesets? Since when does ANY Psychic-type have Psychic as their main, necessary way of attacking? Besides, Weezing isn't OU since early D/P because Heatran exists and frankly, he sucks this gen due to no Recover and lack of a GOOD support moveset+resists.


I seriously hoping you're trolling, no one can be that dumb.

 

[Aircraft Cemetery]

Salamence didn't have one single counter in OU before and now that one of the only revenge killers for it is gone, it will be the one and only King of OU until it gets banned itself (imho it was even more broken than Latias before).
Until then, this is what's probably going to happen:

Rising Usage:
Infernape, Heatran, Flygon, Kingdra, Salamence, Dragonite, Tentacruel, Starmie, Vaporeon, Zapdos
Falling usage:
Scizor, Weavile, Metagross, Scarf-Tyranitar

But how will it go on?
Latias gone --> Mence gone ? --> Dragonite gone ???
The metagame could lose its dragons, which on the one hand will decentralize it, but which will on the other hand take away some of the coolest pokemon out there.
Maybe banning Draco Meteor and Outrage or having a second Dragon-resisting type would lead to a more enjoyable metagame where we could keep the dragons ;D but anyways. (more a joke, don't quote me on this)

 

[CCM30]

I highly doubt Dragonite will be banned. If any dragon will be banned to Ubers, it won't be Dragonite.