The Ideal BW OU Metagame Thread Discussion

[Finchinator]

Firstly: Do you like the current BW OU metagame and think it's competitive?

Personally, I enjoy playing the current BW OU metagame and I guess by an extension of that, I can say that I like the BW OU metagame. Competitively speaking, I think it's a tad too match-up oriented, but that's the way the generation pans out and that's acceptable as it just makes preparation a bit more of a factor, so I'd say it's level of competitiveness is acceptable.

Secondly: What would you change, if anything? Starting with bans:

Drizzle: I'd never ban Drizzle as a whole in BW OU. I don't know if I have a personal bias on this as I've been an avid rain player since I started playing BW (although I can comfortably play just about anything in BW, rain certainly has its merits), but I just don't see it amounting up to being something broken or toxic for the state of the metagame. I acknowledge that Hydro Pumps in the rain are potent and the other benefits rain brings to teams can be game changing, but preparing for and defeating rain isn't an impossible task and it's (imo) not as hard as doing so for sun, which I'll get to later. So yea, not an advocate of a rain ban.

Kyurem-B: I get why it could be construed as broken, especially because it can arguably fit under the textbook definition of a 'broken' pokemon, but in practice it just isn't too much of a stand-out, game breaking threat, imo. It does well against some slow paced, semistallish teams (especially if they lack something like fat rachi or it's a certain KyuB set that deals with what the team has), but it's rare that a team is entirely unprepared for it and if that's the case then there's a point where you question the team being used and stop calling KyuB the problem. With that being said, I think KyuB could be looked into and there would be a justifiable argument to ban it, but I wouldn't advocate it myself as I just don't think there's enough going for it to consider KyuB broken.

Volcarona: Honestly, it needs a fuckton of support that hinders any argument for it being broken to the extent that I could never seriously call it broken myself. Yan's post sums this topic up quite well. If it wasn't for this, then I'd consider it controversial, but in the current metagame it's fine.

Keldeo: There are really fucking good pokemon and then there are broken pokemon. Keldeo fits into the former classification, being very good in BW OU, but not broken. Scarf, Specs, EB, and even CM are all viable builds and do their job well enough, but teams with Scarf Keldeo are fairly predictable (or at least Keldeo's set is) and EB has lost effect over time sort of, so I just don't see it being broken. It has checks, counters, etc. and quite a few of them while it doesn't have that bad an effect on the meta, so I'd be anti ban.

Garchomp: Same as Keldeo more or less - very good but not broken.

Venusaur: This thing is more controversial than some may consider it to be, as is sun as a whole, as it's really potent and the upside it has is enormous despite having a fair amount of weaknesses. With that being said, I think it's checkable to the extent that a straight ban or complex ban regarding chloro wouldn't be worthwhile, so just going to briefly say that I'm not a big fan of any bans here, but wouldn't be totally opposed to it either tbh.

Thirdly: If any or all of the above were banned, what would you unban?
Is there a perfect combination of bans and unbans that you feel would work best?

Nothing deserves to be freed and nothing deserves to be banned, in my opinion.

 

[dadoux]

Imma explain a little more than my last post
Firstly: Do you like the current BW OU metagame and think it's competitive?

I both like it and hate it at some moments, i think the metagame got the potential to be really good and balanced but some things are just stupid, i'll explain it later in my post.

Secondly: What would you change, if anything? Starting with bans:

Kyurem-B: This one is weird, i don't get why it's OU in the first place, but now people are like "Oh it's not that bad you see", but it's really threatening for every balanced/stall team, it sucks a bit against offense since it's pretty slow / priority weak but it's really strong AND bulky.
Volcarona: To me, the "It needs support to be effective, it shouldn't be banned because of that" is pretty stupid. If you can 6-0 a sand balance with support, it's still OP, i think every finisher needs support anyway. It's still a real problem. Saying "people who lose to Volcarona are not good players" is plain stupid, you can't cover every threat, and Volcarona is versatile enough to beat your ass even if your team packs an Heatran or another check.
And it's blocking teambuilding too, this deserves an obvious suspect imo.
Keldeo: Keldeo is centralizing the metagame like hell. It's sad because it's typing and all is great for every team, but it's just a bit too good maybe, the Scarf in rain is stupid, the expert belt is a good lure, the cm is pretty surprising and we all know how hard the specs hits. Banning him would mean that teambuilding will be more diverse, and it's always good.
Garchomp: Chomper is clearly one of the best mons in the metagame, but it's nowhere near OP, of course it's threatening, that's what you expect from a mon like Garchomp, but i don't think it deserves a suspect/ban.
Venusaur: Venusaur is scary as hell in a sun team, but i don't think it deserves a suspect, especially if Volcarona is gone, Venusaur in itself can be dealt with, it would be the new main tool for sun teams
Drizzle: I don't think drizzle is that broken in BW OU, the main problem in it is the fact that Scarfkeldeo is stupid, and maybe Tornadus forces you to play Jirachi/Rotom-w a bit too much, but i don't see it as broken, if Keldeo is banned, i don't think it Drizzle will be a subject of suspect.


Thirdly: If any or all of the above were banned, what would you unban?

I think unbanning Excadrill with mold breaker would be good for the metagame, pretty good spinner. I know smogon is not a fan of "specific bans/unbans" but i think that without sand rush, Excadrill wouldn't be OP at all.


Is there a perfect combination of bans and unbans that you feel would work best?

Volcarona, then Keldeo and maybe Kyurem-B in this order would be fine.

 

[Deluks917]

I really enjoy BW quite alot and would probably not change anything. The matagame is very diverse and no playstyle really feels broken. In terms of limiting team building I think the worst offensders are:

Volcarona: In sun its very hard to wall and has resilience vs a ton of scarf mons. Even outside of sun its very hard to stop and still beats jirachi.
Terrakion: The only reliable OU switch ins are defensive gliscor and Lando-T. Though Hippowdon is an ok check. Slowbro is the best answer but slowbro is uncommon
Venusaur in Sun: Really the only thing you can use to stop HP Fire/Sludge Bomb/Giga Drain/Growth reliably is Heatran, priority or an almost fully healthy latias. almost everytihng else is OU gets outsped and ohko'd by +2 venusaur. And the blobs lose to venusuar in the rain due to giga drain recovery.

However the only thing I would consider banning is volcarona. The pokemon is so high variance and does not lead to pleasant games.

On keldeo:

In OU the only keleos I think are good are the CM sets. The choiuce sets tend to be very, very bad against rain. however the CM/Sub set can just win vs rain players relying on tentsacruel or any player relying on special gastrodon. It still sweeps lategame very very well if the oppioent was relying on a Latias that got pursuited. Finally CM keldeo is not handled well at all by rotom-W.

I will concede that you are probably just better off running weather in bW. Unless your team is very specialized (cutsap skarm offense or dragon spam) or you really know what you are doing I would run a weather user.

aside:

90% of the competitive Adv teams are either CM spam+trap, DD spam+trap or Skarm+Gengar generic stalls (If you disagree, feel free to show me I am wrong presenting statistics that deny what I just said).

There are also variants on Snorlax + Magnezone that involve only 0-1 Dd mons. Example:

Salamence/Starmie (prolly lead starmie)
Milotic
Dugtrio
Magnezone
Celebi
Snorlax

 

[Alfalfa]

And the blobs lose to venusuar in the rain due to giga drain recovery.

+1 252 SpA Life Orb Venusaur Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 129-152 (18.3 - 21.5%) -- possible 5HKO
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Venusaur Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 153-181 (21.4 - 25.3%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

Realistically speaking, if Venusaur is in the rain, it still takes Life Orb recoil + Seismic Toss damage that can reduce 131 HP from Venusaur's health each turn. Considering that Venusaur will not accumulate any more than 91 HP from 4 SpD (minimal SpD investment) Blissey each turn, and 76 HP from 252 HP Chansey each turn, Venusaur is going to get worn down gradually each turn. How does it beat the Blobs in rain?

 

[BKC]

how does rain being up make that exchange any different than it would be in sun

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

+1 vs +2

 

[BKC]

and what's stopping venusaur from just growthing again?

 

[Deluks917]

Really sorry. I meant to say Sun in reference to venusaur vs blobs.

 

[Myzozoa]

Firstly: Do you like the current BW OU metagame and think it's competitive?

Yes, I like it, cause I feel good at it and comfortable facing down almost anything. The odds of facing more than one 'cancerous' pokemon in a game is lower than xy, and generally you can outplay to win even from bad hax.
Secondly: What would you change, if anything? Starting with bans:

There is a large list of candidates for the broken Pokemon of the current BW OU metagame. Most commonly it's the following from what I gather, but there may be others or you may disagree with the following:

Drizzle- The reason drizzle never got banned was that, as various pokemon came in and out of ou and the metagame changed, there were different reasons at each stage for why drizzle was broken. So at one point it was scarf Keldeo at another time, Tentacruel, or team matchup considerations: for example at one point there was an issue because of the fact that you could have ridiculously threatening offensive teams that fall back on Ferrothorn. In late bw, drizzle remains really controversial because it enables ferrothorn+jirachi,which is almost certainly the best steel package that most archetypes can hope for. Understanding how various archetypes meet steel-necessities is a huge part of the 'technical' knowledge needed to build well and play well in BW.
Kyurem-B- Never was horribly concerned by Kyub, but thats largely do to the team styles (Weatherless Volt-turn+spikes) I use. Sorry, a slow dragon that is picked off by CB scizor and weak to SR is never going to threaten me unless I'm already very threatened by the opponent's team. I honestly think Latios is more broken and that what Kyu-b is really doing to the meta is forcing your steel package to cover both kyu and latios, which means you 're kind of limited. And the archetype-centered way bw teams are built already limits what type of steels you'll have room for.
Volcarona- A huge threat, perhaps not as much in late bw as early. Not sure how I feel about it, since I already think of almost every tier in team preview metagames as a battle over entry hazards first and foremost. When I build teams, I big part of my thinking is "How can I get hazards up early and keep them up". Volt-turn is really good at supporting quick hazards strategies.
Keldeo- Definitely a huge threat, but then, people prepare for it extra hard. Keld is a big threat to variety of teams and forms a nice combo with U-turn user +Keld+trapper, with the U-turn sometimes Jirachi, sometimes, rotom-w, sometimes landorus-t, scizor, there are a lot of ways of varying the combo that force your opponent into a hard puzzle.
Garchomp- Probably the best pokemon with a choice scarf in the tier. The combination of fast EQ or fast outrage is a MASSIVE late game presence, it's just such a win condition. Since it can run a variety of sets, it's almost always a bad idea to assume what the opponent's chomp will be, a common way to abuse this is to build a team where multiple pokemon could be Stealth Rocks users, they will probably not suspect chomp, and you can use the free-turns it gets, from forcing the opponent to switch out, to get your rocks up consistently. Probably the pokemon with the most utility in the tier, but not broken. In fact, I think Chomp contributes to the balance of BW2 OU.
Venusaur- It's really good, but since it's on sun people don't abuse it quite enough. In addition, people haven't been willing to play with bulkier sets. If venusaur's set was more of a question mark it would be better, but if you see it in team preview, you gotta plan ahead. Same as if you suspect your opponent's garchomp is scarf.

Thirdly: If any or all of the above were banned, what would you unban?



Tornadus-T- Nope, not if drizzle exists.
Thundurus- Lol, maybe. It would be interesting but I suspect rain would break the shit out of it, it's kind of broken even without rain.
Manaphy- Probably would be okay with this one coming back more than the others, but I'm pretty sure it destroys stall, and in the rain it would be pretty unkillable with Rest, scald, and Ferrothorn to back it up.

Is there a perfect combination of bans and unbans that you feel would work best?
Ban Keldeo and Kyu-b. Then test drizzle.

People really have trouble seeing how bans and unbans affect metagames. Keldeo is way better in a metagame with Thunds and Torns because its sets will be destroying teams that sacrifice water-resist spots in order to have a way of dealing with Thunds and Torns. Hell, scarf keldeo will get more use just because it can kill the above pokemon, revenge kill, hit pretty hard, threaten ferrothorn, and take advantage of your own rain. The question you ought be asking is 'do torn and thund' in the meta make Keldeo a better or worse win condition, and to me it's only benefitting.

Unbanning excadrill is a 'joke' because it will be a complete upheaval to the current entry hazard metagame, the leading metagame, the volt-turn+trapping+checks to it metagame, and the steel availability metagame. Each of these a component of the larger metagame that we actually end up playing. People talk with confidence like they really already KNOW what would happen if we unbanned excadrill, but I'm not sure it's obvious. With a Sand Rush ban it would be more interesting, but tbh I'm okay with what the entry hazard metagame looks like right now.


Final Thoughts:

BW OU is a tier that really rewards understanding the metagame in team-building. There are a lot of considerations:dragon spam, leading+hazards strategies, steel availability, water resist availability, how to avoid getting trapped, how to break volt-turn, how various tweaks play out to allow the weather war to be won or lost.