np: OU Suspect Testing Round 3 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

[AccidentalGreed]

Posting my two cents.

Drizzle: No, not broken. Aldaron’s proposal happened to moderate this well, and now I find Drizzle teams a fun, yet viable challenge. Double Genies, Breloom, Jirachi, and Starmie are just a few of the many who flourish under Drizzle, and with some readiness, Drizzle teams are fairly challengeable.
Reuniclus: OU. Really, I don’t see the problem with facing Calm Mind Reuniclus, and I could easily revenge kill it given its low Speed. Trick Room versions are also fairly easy to handle, as Reuniclus’ attacks are predictable and you can use a specially oriented defense like Jirachi to pivot any Reuniclus.
Garchomp/Landorus/Excadrill: Heh, the hype, huh? Excadrill is fairly manageable, and if it sets up and sweeps me, it’s my own fault. Landuros is easily outsped, so he should manage to stay in OU as well. There were a few rare occasions where I came across a Sand-abusing Garchomp and lost to it, but Sand Veil has never caused me trouble and is somehow overpowered. Salac versions trouble me, however.
Blaziken: Ah, yes. He’s the one I have to most trouble with. Once he gets going, he’s hard to stop. I can never seem to predict whether he’s using Mixed or Swords Dance, and I find myself wishing I went against a mixed Blaziken so I would make fewer sacrifices. I would put him on the Suspect list, but I doubt he would make it to Ubers.
Latios: I’m undecided. The metagame has adapted too much to Latios for him to be a safe threat, with all the Specially Defensive variants of Scizor and Tyranitar and all. Hell, I even put Specially Defensive Jirachi on my team to take its attacks. But I never have trouble with it, and like most other threatening Pokemon, “it is manageable”. Again, I’m undecided; Specs has the potential to rip through teams (I lost to it on moderate occasions), and yet the metagame has adapted.

As for Deoxys-S? It's a healthy on presence on the battlefield, and I don't think it's gamechanging enough.

Side question: May I ask why Deoxys-S and Mew were deemed Uber last generation? It seems to somebody on PO that Mew was banned "just because it's Mew".

 

[Miscellaneous]

All proposed new bans involve the current metagame, therefore they are relevant.

Removing use of Sand Veil is not a ban proposed for the purpose of making Pokemon 100% skill. It is meant only to remove use of Evasion, which is an undesirable luck element in addition to the elements inherent in the game. For this reason, while Garchomp is the best example that a problem exists, the problem is a matter of principle, and therefore should apply equally to all Pokemon with Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, just like how it was not just certain Pokemon banned from using Double Team or Minimize.

I notice you argue a lot against a blanket ban of Sand Veil, but then you dismiss the option of banning Sand Veil + Sand Stream. Could you explain your reasoning behind this? Is it just because it's different from Swift Swim?

I'm sorry I hadn't noticed you were taking about evasion clause. I suppose that is relevant.

The combination ban would be fine, if it was due to violating the clause. But is using sandstorm + sand veil different to using sandstream + sand veil? If it is evasion clause then there's not a distinction to be made: sand veil should be banned because it violates the clause or it should not.

 

[Ulevo]

I'm a little annoyed that I have to slap Tyranitar on every single one of my stall teams to beat Reuniclus and Latios. But for some reason, people in this thread think that's fine and dandy :/

That's because it is. There are likely other alternatives to dealing with them that you are overlooking.

 

[Meru]

I'm a little annoyed that I have to slap Tyranitar on every single one of my stall teams to beat Reuniclus and Latios. But for some reason, people in this thread think that's fine and dandy :/

But in regards to other things, I think Blaziken, Rain, the Genies, and Excadrill are currently fine. I want to promote some kind of complex ban on Sand Veil and Snow Cloak but I have no idea how to do that while making it Wifi-friendly.

 

[Forsety]

On the issue of Sand Veil/Snow Cloak, I would so love to ban them at the speed of light, seeing match winning Ice Beams/etc. miss two times in a row is absurd. Hell I'm actually convinced the RNG on PO is bugged because I nowhere ever near see the ammount of crit/miss spam in game that PO seems to enjoy. (I sure as hell never gone 6 missed WoW a row in game before but PO somehow made it happen.)

But realistically its a stupid idea, Sand Veil/Snow Cloak are too random and complicated to ban at all. Doing so would simply open up a new pandora's box.


Revisiting a older subject I'm getting the feel that OU has no place for Latios but not quite for the reasons most may think. Yes Latios has a monstrously powerful Draco Meteor, he is also unpredictable, bulky and a all round asshole. Really good god seriously the thing can survive non-STAB +atk 252 Pursuits from a base 135 attack.

Hear me out but the reason I feel he does the environment absolutely no good is because of what he checks. Just for a moment if you look at some of the most common Pokemon being used and some of the big threats most complain about being hard to handle. Not naming anything specifically but I'm beginning to think that the reason alot of counters/checks are completely unviable within the upper echelons is simply because they are all good as dead or free switch ins for Latios. Many of the Pokemon that are thriving in this environment are doing so because of Latios's prescence and the sheer overpoweredness of the Dragon typing.

Don't get me wrong, Latios is relatively straightforward to kill if you can play the right counters or tactics. But his power alone forces only a very tiny minority able to directly take him on head to head who also happen to do well normally too. It makes countering his counters far, far too easy and seems to just narrow down what you can actually play.

 

[badabing]

Posting my two cents.

Drizzle: No, not broken. Aldaron’s proposal happened to moderate this well, and now I find Drizzle teams a fun, yet viable challenge. Double Genies, Breloom, Jirachi, and Starmie are just a few of the many who flourish under Drizzle, and with some readiness, Drizzle teams are fairly challengeable.
Reuniclus: OU. Really, I don’t see the problem with facing Calm Mind Reuniclus, and I could easily revenge kill it given its low Speed. Trick Room versions are also fairly easy to handle, as Reuniclus’ attacks are predictable and you can use a specially oriented defense like Jirachi to pivot any Reuniclus.
Garchomp/Landorus/Excadrill: Heh, the hype, huh? Excadrill is fairly manageable, and if it sets up and sweeps me, it’s my own fault. Landuros is easily outsped, so he should manage to stay in OU as well. There were a few rare occasions where I came across a Sand-abusing Garchomp and lost to it, but Sand Veil has never caused me trouble and is somehow overpowered. Salac versions trouble me, however.
Blaziken: Ah, yes. He’s the one I have to most trouble with. Once he gets going, he’s hard to stop. I can never seem to predict whether he’s using Mixed or Swords Dance, and I find myself wishing I went against a mixed Blaziken so I would make fewer sacrifices. I would put him on the Suspect list, but I doubt he would make it to Ubers.
Latios: I’m undecided. The metagame has adapted too much to Latios for him to be a safe threat, with all the Specially Defensive variants of Scizor and Tyranitar and all. Hell, I even put Specially Defensive Jirachi on my team to take its attacks. But I never have trouble with it, and like most other threatening Pokemon, “it is manageable”. Again, I’m undecided; Specs has the potential to rip through teams (I lost to it on moderate occasions), and yet the metagame has adapted.

As for Deoxys-S? It's a healthy on presence on the battlefield, and I don't think it's gamechanging enough.

Side question: May I ask why Deoxys-S and Mew were deemed Uber last generation? It seems to somebody on PO that Mew was banned "just because it's Mew".

I definitely think Blaziken should be getting more suspect attention (nommed him last round). He's really versatile, easily going mixed, and his unpredictability makes him difficult to stop before he gets rolling. With a couple of free Speed Boosts, all he needs is a coverage move and dual-stab to wreck shit late game.

I also agree with your post regarding Latios that due to meta adaptation, he's been made pretty manageable and deservingly OU.

 

[StarmanXL]

Side question: May I ask why Deoxys-S and Mew were deemed Uber last generation? It seems to somebody on PO that Mew was banned "just because it's Mew".

I'm wondering this as well. Not so much Deoxys-S as we had a big test for that (I do not remember the exact reason it was banned though, only that at some point people were running Scarf Deoxys-S leads to get down SR first or some shit like that), but Mew, and Deoxys-D as well. I know there was some plan to test Mew at some point but it was dropped--I do not know if it was because of time constraints or people in PR looked at it and said, "Yeah, this fucker's broken,"--but from the way things have shaped up it doesn't seem all that dangerous. Deoxys-D, likewise, has proven pretty underwhelming, and the few times you do see it it doesn't really do shit.

 

[Silent Storm]

Deoxys S was banned because of his lead set on stage 1. Stage 3 got hectic with Deoxys S (using scarf to counter other Deoxys leads) and it got banned two weeks into the first stage 3 test.

People didn't want to test Mew and Deoxys D, so it never happened. The idea was brought up, but it was opposed, so it never happened.

 

[Thorhammer]

I'm sorry I hadn't noticed you were taking about evasion clause. I suppose that is relevant.

The combination ban would be fine, if it was due to violating the clause. But is using sandstorm + sand veil different to using sandstream + sand veil? If it is evasion clause then there's not a distinction to be made: sand veil should be banned because it violates the clause or it should not.

I wouldn't be opposed to a ban of Sandstorm + Sand Veil, but I think it's quite a bit less practical than a ban of Sand Stream + Sand Veil and wouldn't accomplish anything. We already have a complex ban in place involving a combination of abilities, and abilities are simple enough that bans involving them wouldn't get too complex. However, we should avoid complex bans involving moves, because moves are far more complex and such a ban would open the door for so much more.

 

[Sprocket]

Y'all are too ban happy. I think I'll have more fun playing Flat Battles than I will Smogon OU at this point.

 

[Lightning Tiger]

wow, the first nomination in the nomination thread had Drizzle, come on now, Starmie and tornadus/thunderus arent that bad are they? and to think some people around here still wanna bring some of the swift swimmers back.

 

[TEA_DEMON]

wondering why people are bothering with wondering about complex bans involving evasion abilities when it's the abilities themselves that cause problems anyway, so banning the ability is both the simple way out and the correct decision.

also i am curious about how many people have used gravity starmie in rain this round and whether it was successful or not.

 

[KurashiDragon]

@Tea Demon

DW Garchomp isn't released yet so a complex ban would have to be in order lest people want to ban garchomp as well and from what I hear garchomp isnt broken this gen so much as Sand Veil is just annoying as all hell.

@Lightning Tiger

I personally hate seeing rain teams simply because of the number of strong pokemon that can abuse it. Thundurus and Tornadus can both abuse a 120 power 100 acc move in thunder and Hurricane respectively. Starmie can abuse both Hydro Pump and thunder. Not many top standard threats can abuse sun and not enough top threats can abuse Sand.

Also it's not all the swift swimmers they wanna bring back. Ludicolo, Kabutops, and Kingdra are off limits but Swift Swimmers themselves aren't to broken. Do you think Floatzel would be broken with swift swim? How about Luvdisc?

 

[JSND]

Seriously rain team right now is not nearly hard as before but is crazy enough. Tornadus is the big cent though. SPecs hurricane rape stuff in face and fuck them out. If it use LO 4 attack, it can even go mixed.

About deo-D and mew i am really 1000000 % sure had mew is used in last gen OU, it is broken. Deo-D wall many things in last gen meta really hard and fuck every wall and even latios cant really break it with DM. Good luck if he KO or T-wave your latios too.
It is underatted really.

Mew's Taunt W-o-w set that i use in this meta is stopped by gen 5 mon. Gen 4 mon fall really hard against this thing. I mean seriously back in gen 4, thsi thing basicaly rape most if not all Top Threats with one darned set without needs to change moveset drastically. It is more broken than Deo-D tbh

 

[Thorhammer]

wondering why people are bothering with wondering about complex bans involving evasion abilities when it's the abilities themselves that cause problems anyway, so banning the ability is both the simple way out and the correct decision.

also i am curious about how many people have used gravity starmie in rain this round and whether it was successful or not.

Actually, it isn't. Sand Veil and Snow Cloak don't cause any problems outside of their respective weather.

 

[Judas DN]

About deo-D and mew i am really 1000000 % sure had mew is used in last gen OU, it is broken

Mew's Taunt W-o-w set that i use in this meta is stopped by gen 5 mon. Gen 4 mon fall really hard against this thing. I mean seriously back in gen 4, thsi thing basicaly rape most if not all Top Threats with one darned set without needs to change moveset drastically. It is more broken than Deo-D tbh

The most used pokemon in Gen IV Heatran, completely walls that set. The reason the Taunt/WoW/Recover/Light screen set on Mewtwo was good in Gen IV ubers was because of the lack of fire types(DPPt Ho-oh was a pretty short lived hype). Just one pokemon immune to WoW is enough to make the pokemon useless for the rest of the match.

The reason Mew fails at using it in Gen IV Standard is simply because 100 base speed is too slow to pull it off effectively and is set up bait for the omnipresent Gliscor. In fact Mew is too slow to pull off anything effectivly in this generation.

That's because it is. There are likely other alternatives to dealing with them that you are overlooking.

Probably, but i have yet to think of something that deals with both without being garbage against teams that don't carry Latios or Rankurusu. I 'tried' Jirachi and man i rarely had such a massive drop in rating after i did that.

 

[JSND]

In gen 4, mew is pretty much boss and its not like i cant cover heatran.
I mean hes the most sued poke in the meta making weaken it to play with mew so easy.
I actualy tried using taunt/W-o-w mew in OU gen 5 and things that stop me mostly come from gen 5 and heatran as you said.

 

[Judas DN]

In gen 4, mew is pretty much boss and its not like i cant cover heatran.
I mean hes the most sued poke in the meta making weaken it to play with mew so easy.
I actualy tried using taunt/W-o-w mew in OU gen 5 and things that stop me mostly come from gen 5 and heatran as you said.

Not sure in what kind of dreamworld you're living in. 'Covering' Heatran doesn't mean your Mew will be any usefull during the game, seeing as i can switch it in for free and even grab a Flash Fire Boost. Heatran doesn't get weakened if i switch out every time you switch to that counter of yours(meanwhile your team will be burned to ashes from repeated Flash Fire boosted Fire Blasts)

Unless you hope your opponent is that retarded and doesn't bother to keep Heatran alive of course.

 

[JSND]

Well i mean heatran is the most used things in gen 4 back then.
So MAYBE i can just use other mew set and i wont even know the result since i havent played g4 mew instead of T/w set that is fucking a lot of things in gen 5.

Also i think since there is not many fighters, i can change the 4th moveslot for other things. In gen 5 i have 2 slot used and 1 slot for move i want with T/W set. Psychic is one of the most useful and my fav since it allow me to break through many things and surprisingly very useful. In gen 4, there is not spo many fighting type. I can use, say Aura sphere or other stuff to beat threats and it will change depend on what move i currently wanted.

REMEMBER its just theory though i havent use it so i cant say how it will work

 

[petrie911]

There is little practical risk in using evasion boosting items, yet the reward of a miss is immense in comparison.

This is getting ridiculous. Little practical risk? How about the immense downside that, by using Brightpowder, you're not using Leftovers or Life Orb or Choice Band or any one of a myriad of items that are much, much better.

We are now looking at banning a metagame element that is demonstrably an inferior option. An option that no serious player uses not because of some code of honor, but because it legitimately sucks. Spectacular people. Just spectacular.

 

[alphatron]

An inferior option that causes sometimes undeserved wins against more skillful opponents. I could see why its upsetting.

Deoxys-D is barely used. I would like to see what originally threw him into ubers, or if he is really as bad as he seems.

 

[Lightning Tiger]

@Lightning Tiger

Also it's not all the swift swimmers they wanna bring back. Ludicolo, Kabutops, and Kingdra are off limits but Swift Swimmers themselves aren't to broken. Do you think Floatzel would be broken with swift swim? How about Luvdisc?

regardless, people are having a hard time as it is with drizzle when there is no swift swimmers, its still easily the mightiest of the weathers, and yet people want to make the sutuation worse by adding some speed demonds with boosted stab moves?, its unnecesary, rain needs no more boosts its too powerful as it is, and no i dont care Quilfish or Ludvisc or any of those guys (yes Quilfish would be pretty badass with a boosted waterfall and double speed but thats the point, no need to boost rain any more than it already is powerful).

People whine about rain boosted hydro pumps from politoed and starmie right now, bring the swift swimers back and they will have way more to whine about, like freaking double speed Omastar raping shit.

 

[MMF]

I'm a little annoyed at how many people are nomming Excadrill. I can honestly say he's pretty easy to stop with ever 1 in 4 teams being some kind of weather and with how prevalent Pokes like Skarm and Gliscor are, he shouldn't be nommed.

 

[IcyMan28]

The idea of a complex ban is being taken way out of the context of Aldaron's original purpose. Banning Sand Veil + Sandstream is the equivalent of banning Drizzle + Hydration, or Drought + Speed Boost. If the pokemon is broken, ban the pokemon.

 

[Miscellaneous]

I wouldn't be opposed to a ban of Sandstorm + Sand Veil, but I think it's quite a bit less practical than a ban of Sand Stream + Sand Veil and wouldn't accomplish anything. We already have a complex ban in place involving a combination of abilities, and abilities are simple enough that bans involving them wouldn't get too complex. However, we should avoid complex bans involving moves, because moves are far more complex and such a ban would open the door for so much more.

Both practicality and complexity are completely irrelevant if sand veil violates evasion clause. Abusing +1 evasion modifiers is the same whether you accomplish that by using sandstorm or sandstream. Either sand veil is banned or Garchomp as a pokemon is nominated because it's obvious that sand veil does not break Garchomp on its own. The general consensus is that Garchomp is not broken however, so that part is easy.

Does sand veil violate evasion clause? Yes. It's a minor violation but it's still an impeachment. You are actively raising evasion. There may be a question of whether or not to ban a combination of sand veil (and sandstorm creators) or just to ban sand veil. Its probably the former as evasion clause encompasses deliberately raising evasion. But this isn't so much a suspect nomination* as it is a question of the nature of a clause. That's why a sand veil discussion doesn't really belong here, in a suspect nomination thread.

*Unless someone thinks that sand veil is the most overpowering aspect of the current metagame, disregarding clauses, in which case good luck trying to argue that.