np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 7 - Ice Ice Baby

Look, OU is broken. It is broken and it will be until it's fixed. Garchomp was a step backwards, in my opinion. The problem, ironically, with Dragon/Ice is that the typical Dragon counter, Ice, is neutral, and you sure as hell aren't going to do much with a neutral HP. This only makes stall harder, honestly.

The problem with Kyurem isn't just its offenses, which can be countered by only few Pokemon already, but its decent bulk. 125/100/90 defenses aren't that bad, and make it so it can't be KO'd as easily. Of course, CBand Bullet Punch Scizor and Guts Adamant Conkeldurr can 2HKO it, so it might not be as much of a threat as we thought. Just keep in mind that not much else will be able to be able to KO it.

Bulky Metagross, of all things, can counter it:

Calcs said:

252Atk Choice Band Teravolt Kyurem Black (Neutral) Outrage vs 148HP/0Def Metagross (Neutral): 42% - 50% (144 - 169 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.

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And hit back fairly hard:

More calcs said:

252Atk Choice Band Light Metal Metagross (+Atk) Bullet Punch vs 4HP/0Def Kyurem Black (Neutral): 56% - 67% (222 - 264 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.

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So we finally found a niche for Metagross. Welcome back to decency, old friend.

TL;DR: It's a mixed bag. There are reasons for and against it, I'm just trying to give my opinion.

i dont understand this whole "kyurem-b makes shitty metagame shittier argument". i personally thought bannings only happened to pokemon that were deemed broken. last time i checked, making a bad metagame even worse does not qualify the pokemon for being broken. honestly if you dont like how ou is played there are plenty more tiers you can try out.

Well, in regards to the whole discussion on how the metagame should be rebalanced, I think there are two obvious ways to do it. One way would be do bring stuff like lugia down from ubers, which certainly would give stall a better shot. thb, this could pretty quickly shift the metagame in the other direction, as a single Ubers wall like lugia or giratina could wall essentially the entire metagame on its own. Of course, the solution to THIS problem would be to bring down more pokes like kyurem-b with stats that are able to compete with uber walls. This would be exactly what I mentioned above--essentially uberifying OU. The other solution, it seems to me, it pretty simple: change our definition of broken and lower the level of offensive power in OU by banning stuff like kyurem (and, possibly, genesect or torny-t or terrakion--I'm not so sure about these though, particularly the former two, as a great ability and versatility isn't the same type of power creep in my mind as what we've been experiencing. Terrakion is almost over the top though IMO, given its ridiculous stat spread, typing, and movepool--crucially, great set-up moves--, I'd be tempted to say things like terrakion are part of the offense-centralization of the metagame. Don't feel so sure about stuff like gene and torny though, primarily because they can't set up despite their incredible utility potential).

IMO, this second option could be the solution to creating a more balanced OU metagame if that is what we want. Alternatively, if the powers that be determine that the ideal OU metagame is an offensively leaning one, then, our standards of what is broken offensively are less stringent. This comes with the logical repercussions though, one of which is that stall becomes essentially non-existent. There are many who would argue that this is a better metagame, and if that is the general consensus, I think this is exactly what the process will be.

Stall is already if not dead so banning Kyurem-B just to prevent stall getting even lower is a bad argument as stall is already bad as of right now. I have played on the Suspect Ou ladder and i think Kyurem-B is not uber material , even with his Massive Attack stat i would prefer to use other dragons as they are much more reliable and probably can do more things to teams then a Kyurem-B can. All in All i think just because of the simple Power surge in B/W and with B/W 2 was going to Doom Stall inevitably, All in all Kyurem-B is not Broken for this metagame as that Ice typing meaning priority will always hinder Kyurem, along with a 95 speed stat to prevent the monster from sweeping, and also DAT Ice typing ;-;

Stall is already if not dead so banning Kyurem-B just to prevent stall getting even lower is a bad argument as stall is already bad as of right now.

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in case it was not clear, this is a statement that i unequivocally agree with. i honestly don't really care where cube lands right now - whether it falls to OU or remains uber, meta's basically gonna be the same before and after. dragon spam has skewed popularity right now due to novelty of cube, but in the long run, it might be a little more popular once that novelty dies down. but cube doesn't really bring anything new to that table, so we're still back where we started

As a past stall player myself, I really do believe the pokemon that hurts stall the most is Genesect (Garchomp treated the same as any other offensive dragon). I do realize this thread isn't about Genesect, but the topic has moved to why stall isn't viable, so its appropriate to bring up. Genesect really hurts a stall teams creativity and forced options down our throats that make team building nearly impossible. I made some fine creative stall teams in early BW2 before Genesect, but I can't do that any more. If you want stall back, get rid of the Genesect. Heck I would rather swap Kyurem-B with Genesect as a trade, as least there are a few pokemon I can use to wall it.

Kyurem-B does seem like a massive pain though, every other team being drag-mag is just as good for a metagame as every other team being swift-swim offense 2 years ago. I would appreciate if we did not add Kyurem-B, but I don't even play this meta any more because of Genesect, so go nuts. Giratina and Lugia would be cool, but then we are just playing psuedo-ubers, after that are even more pokemon going to drop down.

Overall: if your considered about stall, look at Genesect, not this thing, if not, then bring this down, your not changing anything.

GatoDelFuego said:

I don't believe that the argument that any dragon in OU is superior to Kyurem-B should be used, as if there's something broken but there's another thing more broken, it doesn't make the inferior one any better. Giratina-O outclasses Giratina at offense, but that doesn't make Giratina's offensives any less. Looking at just Kyurem-B, what can switch in to it, and what can counter it is the only we should be considering. It doesn't matter if "half of OU's top threats have no counters", if Kyurem-B has no counters, then it doesn't deserve to be here.

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The idea that "something without counters = uber" is so long ago and dead that I'm reading your posts in this thread and wondering if you're trolling. If you could also point out the other supposedly broken dragons (there is none) then that would be insightful.

PKGaming said:

Well to be fair, it's not like Kyurem-B was the straw that broke the camel's back. Let's not kid ourselves, offense as it stands is pretty ridiculous even without him and I don't feel like it's fair to dump all our misgivings on the tier on Kyurem-B alone. (Especially when all of the Dragon Spam teams still function with or without Kyurem-B.)

Dragon Spam is just a popular trend right now because people want to try out Kyu-B. Dragon Spam was annoying at its peak in BW1 too...!

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I basically agree with this post. Kyurem-B is the focus of the round, of course people are going to be trying it out in what they think is its best environment, that being dragmag. Not to mention it's day 3, so it's early on and everyone wants to try out the new 170 base attack dragon. What PK says about dragonspam stands as well, I don't see how the inclusion of Kyurem-B has suddenly made it better. Enter The Dragon is about as good of a DragMag team as you can get, any more dragons and you're suddenly weak to something like Terrakion. I'm not even sure which of the dragons that have been staples on dragmag teams for over a year you'd replace with Kyurem-B anyway.

The idea that it should stay banned just because its another offensive thing to deal with is somewhat worrying, as that is probably the most ridiculous reason I've seen for banning something since participating in these suspect tests (and I've been here since the start). The viewpoint is moot anyway, because if you're prepared for Haxorus, Salamence and Dragonite, then you're already prepared for Kyurem-B (and I'd rather face Kyurem-B than Haxorus).

If you're looking for a scapegoat to blame for all the offense in OU, then it by far and away shouldn't be Kyurem-B.

PK Gaming said:

I also don't like the idea of selectively banning things to make the metagame better.

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Isn't "selectively" banning things the entire purpose of BL/Ubers though? Banning things that are too powerful to allow a healthy meta? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the impression I got during all my time lurking.

Anyway, Kyurem-B. I'm going to idly theorymon here without actually testing it since I don't really see these things being pointed out that much. Maybe something that's actually better than me can point out how wrong I am.

While the 170 attack might seem "overkill" because it's not netting any more extra OHKOs/2HKOs, you're ignoring the fact it doesn't need as much EV investment to reach the same Attack scores as Haxorous. What Hax needs 252 EVs to hit, Kyu-B only needs 68. This allows room for investment in its respectable bulk (regardless of its terrible typing) or for investing its Speed if you really want to. Hax is listed as Adamant in a lot of its sets (yes I know many say Jolly as well, but the first two say Adamant) and Jolly 224/168 Kyu-B has the same Attack score with one more point of Speed, while still freeing up 118 EVs to put in HP pushing him up to 420. It lets him survive Jolly Techloom LO Bullet Punch with SR (I THINK, my damage calc is out of date and I had to apply the 1.3x manually and I got 261~306), but not SR + any form of Spikes, and he'll die anyway if you Orb him instead of Banding him, so eh. Jolly is probably the norm on Hax now though, and Kyu-B can't compete in that regard, but that's something to consider I guess? It's still not changing his terrible physical pool.

Another thing is he still has a cool 120 SATK stat. If 95 Speed is so "unusable" in this meta, you may as well just click Brave and invest enough ATK to reach Haxorous tiers of carnage and then fully invest his SATK to soften switch-ins with Ice Beam/Earth Power. If you're going to go that route you may as well just be using regular Kyurem though since he doesn't want to do a lot of switching in and out with that SR weakness.

People seem to be looking at Kyu-B from one angle (252/252 attack/speed, click outrage, get revenged) and I dunno, I think it just has other things it can do? It's just a lot of them are outclassed by other things if you don't want to worry about that bulk investment stuff.


I'm kind of saddened, every time I want to consider trying out B/W I see discussions like this and it scares me away. A lot of my favorites are low OU and would get smashed to pieces by the current meta.

Kyurem-B @ Salac Berry
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 6 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SpA)
- Substitute
- Hone Claws
- Outrage
- Fusion Bolt

This set I have found to be very useful in the current metagame. You can set up on weak scalds/resisted moves, and it becomes very powerful, you should be to get to at least +1/+1, and then smack around many of your faster pokemon. It still has problems with scarfers, and Priority moves though. Anything that can't break your sub, be set up bait, and have to deal with a very powerful hit. Outrage+FB will hit most pokemon for neutral damage, ferrothorn will be a bitch though if it has Gyro Ball.

I also want to test out a bulky set, 125/100/90 defenses are very impressive, Dragon/Ice may not be very good defensive typing but it will easily be able to take most moves that aren't SE. Roost/Sub/Dragon Tail/Light Screen or Hone Claws or something like that. I feel like it could be a Special tank, easily taking Hydro Pumps and Thunders with ease.

I feel like testing Kyurem-B is a good idea because it after a few days, it just overrated, not ubers material, but it does have a niche of easily slaying Skarmory/Water types, and being very bulky, which many other dragons can't pull off on the physical side of things.

[00:04] penguinx: what is the point of suspect
[00:04] penguinx: is it to get a meta where every unbroken pokemon is allowed in ou
[00:04] penguinx: or is it to get a favourable metagame?
[00:05] penguinx: because they are both very different and this seems to be where every argument revolving around suspect starts

PenguinX said:

[00:04] penguinx: what is the point of suspect
[00:04] penguinx: is it to get a meta where every unbroken pokemon is allowed in ou
[00:04] penguinx: or is it to get a favourable metagame?
[00:05] penguinx: because they are both very different and this seems to be where every argument revolving around suspect starts

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I always believed it was to get a metagame where every unbroken pokemon is allowed to be used whether the metagame enjoyable or not.

As much as I like seeing all the discussion about the metagame here, and how discussion regarding a new, powerful, thread will undoubtedly lead to these things being brought up, this is the thread regarding Kyurem-B's suspect test, is it not?

A legitimate argument to ban Kyurem-B cannot be made based on changes to the metagame that you think will happen later (in this case, Genesect, Tornadus-T, Terrakion being banished to ubers). The question here on this thread is not whether the metagame should take its foot off the offensive gas by removing some of the big threats that kill stall, but whether Kyurem-B is broken in the current metagame.

In short, I think statements like "It's not broken in today's metagame, but it wouldn't be broken in a metagame that doesn't suck" are really out-of-place in this thread and aren't really usable criteria for banning Kyurem-B at all. Maybe Kyurem-B would be broken in a metagame without Genesect, Politoed, Tornadus-T, Deoxys-D, Terrakion, etc. But that is not the purpose of this thread- those changes have to be made separately. It is not broken in this metagame. I think people who would rather attempt to revive a playstyle that's been effectively dead for 2 years should probably turn their attention elsewhere.

I think a clear, concise definition on what the purpose of suspect testing is would be useful in determining Kyurem-B's placement. If the intent of suspect testing is "to create a healthy metagame," then Kyurem-B, by this definition, should not be introduced into OU. There's absolutely nothing positive that Kyurem-B is going to add to this metagame. It doesn't alleviate pressure from any of the really powerful threats that exist right now and won't create more diversity in the tier. If the purpose of suspect testing is "to allow every pokemon that isn't utterly broken in OU," then, by this definition, there's no reason not to test Kyurem-B. As long as someone could find a legitimate reason not to add X pokemon to their team, it isn't utterly broken, yes?

I concede that the topic has veered from being solely about Kyurem-B, but I find it laughable that you say stall has been dead for 2 years. Have you actually been playing in the last two years?

Played only a couple of games so far (like 15 I believe) and in that limited amount of games Kyurem-B did not appear to be broken at all. Besides Outrage (and the rare Freeze Shock or whatever that move is called) I found him pretty weak (yes I know 170 Base attack and stuff), and it was pretty hard for him to switch in with the U-Turn/Volt Switch, SR, SE moves being thrown around. Pretty sad that a Pokemon with 700 BST can be so underwhelming. Then again it is pretty early to fully determine anything yet.

Besides the Kyurem-B spam what have you guys noticed in the metagame?


Seems like Deoxys-D with 3/4 Dragons and a Magnezone is a very popular team choice at the moment. And I'm still seeing that weird ass Focus Sash Terrakion set.

Here's some clarification:

• Kyurem-B is being tested right now, because PO has tested Kyurem-B in their OU. As the most competitive online Pokemon community, we had to test Kyurem-B, too, lest we leave Kyu-B's designation to theorymon (ie not so competitive). Rest assured, we wont start bringing down Reshiram and Zekrom, because the councilmen are smart people, so RELAX
• Defining what makes a healthy metagame is a straight-forward answer. It's a metagame that is diverse and not stiflingly centralized. If Kyurem-B is making your past teams unviable, then that's a proof of its major influence to the metagame, and may be considered as a negative centralizing & restrictive force. This is a rational reason to scrutinize Kyurem-B's role in OU and decide to ban it or not. "Kyurem-B is unimpressive, but I don't want another offensive mon in the meta." is NOT a reason to ban a Pokemon
• Stall, or any playstyle, is NOT prioritized over other team archetypes. We wont start "balancing" the metagame, just because stall or defensive teams are harder to build (but still possible, as I have found out myself).

I hope most concerns have been answered. If you still have more policy questions, please PM the OU council members (Aldaron, iconic, Bloo, JabbatheGriffin, and Haunter). Below this post, only responses concerning Kyurem-B and the suspect ladder metagame are allowed (all other posts would be deleted & infracted).

So am I the only person that thinks kyurem-b has much more potential when it gets baton passed a speed/attack boost? Since a +2 Atk kyurem-b wrecks the whole tier with outrage and/or fusion bolt from what i've seen it certainly seems viable to say the least.

Every Pokémon gets better when you BP +2 or +3 boosts. I used a Smash Pass Nidoking once to decent effect. The problem is typically passing those boosts.

And like Garchomp, I've found Kyurem-B to be underwhelming. He never did much on my teams (too slow) and he got a few KOs against me, but that's it. 170 Attack being thrown around is incredible, but he can't switch in against anything but a dedicated wall, and those are few and far between enough that he's not doing much except on revenges. But of course, the metagame is so fast and so furious that even if he does switch in (say against standard Scarfsect), he's getting either knocked on his ass immediately or juked into something that breaks him in two.

"Kyurem-B is unimpressive, but I don't want another offensive mon in the meta." is NOT a reason to ban a Pokemon

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I didn't mention the ban or unban of Kyurem in my post at all when I talked about him. Why? Because I assumed he would be unbanned right from the start. His job in OU is the same as other Dragons, but somewhat harder due to his movepool, speed, and typing. Those things aside he is still both hard to wall and kill in one go, so it's going to have an effect on defense (which frankly can't do shit about any kind of Sub Kyurem). We have been talking about this before Kyurem-B, and it's clearly not going to get better with his unban.

Is the phasing out of defense bad for OU? As a primarily offensive player, my point of view is pretty biased on the matter, but I can see why stall players would want to complain. Like I've said before, Kyurem-B is not the start of a new world order, but an establishment.

Okey, so they deleted my post because I talked about future tests - so I'm going to do it again, but in a less blatant way. Basically, the gist of it was, the easiest way to do this is let Kyu in now because in the current meta its obviously not broken and then retest later once we've got rid of other stuff.

Back to Kyu-B discussion; the only set I've found impressive so far is the mixed Substitute set, similar to regular Kyu which works best using SubRoost. It really has its niche in setting up on Waters / Grasses / Electrics and screws over the omnipresent revenge killers.

bubbly said:

Back to Kyu-B discussion; the only set I've found impressive so far is the mixed Substitute set, similar to regular Kyu which works best using SubRoost. It really has its niche in setting up on Waters / Grasses / Electrics and screws over the omnipresent revenge killers.

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What EV spread are you using? I'm sure you don't need full investment in Atk, and it's nice to have some amount of SpA EVs so Ice Beam actually hits decently hard, but I don't know what important KOs you want and how many Atk EVs can be spared.

Pocket said:

just because stall or defensive teams are harder to build (but still possible, as I have found out myself).

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Would you mind spilling the beans one what your stall team looks like? I have tried many itterations of stall teams, with all sorts of defensive cores, and I haven't found them to be effective at all in this metagame. If you have found a successful full stall team core, it would be a great discovery to share.

It's not a full stall team - only a more defensive team that utilizes Landorus-T, defensive Starmie, specially defensive Rotom-H, and physically-defensive Jirachi as its core. I also have Kyurem-B, which is not stally by any means, but can tank Water hits with relative ease. Props to Aldaron who shared Samet's team, where I borrowed a significant portion of my core.

Nachos said:

The idea that "something without counters = uber" is so long ago and dead that I'm reading your posts in this thread and wondering if you're trolling. If you could also point out the other supposedly broken dragons (there is none) then that would be insightful.

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Well, I can guarantee you that I'm not trolling here, I just generally stay out of suspect tests and let other people do the deciding. I'm just voicing my opinion. I still think that something without counters means that it is broken. Someone responded to my post earlier that said that half of OU has no counters--I simply don't see this as a real reason to bring down Kyurem-B; the reason that it's on par or even below things in OU. If something has no solid counters, it shouldn't be here. That's what I think. I believe that Kyurem-B should stay in Ubers, from where we can move on to the next "standard OU threat with no counters".

@pocket It isn't just not full stall. It doesn't really resemble stall at all.

Pocket EDIT: no, but it's a defensive team. Defensive play-style still works.

Can I just say that the notion of an inherent "uber-ness" a lot of people are advocating mystifies me?

OU is the lowest balanced metagame. Ubers is a banlist for OU, around which a metagame has formed.

If something is not broken, it belongs in OU by definition. Kyurem-B is not broken in OU; its power level is far from disproportionate to the rest of the metagame. If anything, it's lackluster in OU.

The goal here is not, and should not be, to reach a "perfect" game. It is to minimize bans to those elements which can be considered to have a disproportionately large impact on the game as a whole. Arceus isn't legal because, if it was, the entire game would revolve around Arceus; you'd see an Arceus on every team, and picking its type would be a massive part of the team-building process.

This is not a thread about Genesect, or Tornadus-T, or Deoxys-D, or whatever you're offended by. This is a thread about Kyurem-B. Given the current metagame, Kyurem-B is not broken. It doesn't do stall any favors, but it's hardly the biggest thorn in that playstyle's side.

Could Kyurem-B be broken in a future metagame? It's a possibility - but that's something we should deal with when we come to it. We are not dealing with a future metagame; we are dealing with the here and now.