Why is it so bad to add a weather inducer this early? Choice Band Tyranitar is one of the single best partners to Calm Mind Keldeo in OU, its pretty dumb just to ignore it because we arbitrarily decided we wanted a "weather-independent" team before we'd even chosen what our sweeper is. This is why I'm so against voting for playstyles - people go against voting for a Pokemon that clearly fits excellently in the team all because the team has already been labelled as weatherless. Also btw, even if we do add CBTar, the team will still be weather independent as long as we avoid adding Stoutland or Sandslash down the line.
SubPassing to CM Keldeo should be the team's primary win condition, so I think now would be a good time to consider the Pokemon our core has trouble with, and also how it matches-up against common teams. I really don't like looking at individual threats in isolation because that isn't how Pokemon works.
Rain Offense- Tornadus-T beats both Gliscor and Keldeo with ease, its probably the biggest threat in the game atm so we need to get this checked asap.
- Glisc + Keldeo isn't really too bothered by Dugtrio which is nice.
- Ferrothorn gets Taunted by Gliscor so it can't set-up, Keldeo can break through it after a Calm Mind.
- Keldeo on rain are almost always choiced. We can't really do anything against them atm.
- Genesect 9.9 Keldeo is one of the better offensive checks, as it gives it an Atk boost meaning it can't KO with Thunderbolt after a Calm Mind, plus it resists Bug Buzz / Ice Beam / Flamethrower / U-Turn.
- Overall a very bad match-up - Keldeo is comparatively slow to some of the things this team runs and Calm Mind isn't really helping all too much vs Tornadus-T Hurricanes and Scarf Thundurus-T Thunders. If the Politoed is defensive then we can get off a SubPass whilst keeping the Substitute intact (23.83% max in Rain), but Keldeo ultimately isn't going to breaking through Perish Song Politoed / Torn-T / Dugtrio / Scarf Genesect too easily. They generally have a lot of options to revenge-kill us with so Sub doesn't really save us there.
Sun Offense -
Simulation of a Drought- Venusaur completely walls our current Keldeo and beats us with Giga Drain alone.
- Thats all there really is to say. We might have a small chance of doing something with Keldeo if we run Hidden Power [Ice] over [Electric] as Gliscor can get a SubPass off on Xatu. As it stands this is a very bad match-up, but with Hidden Power [Ice] its a bit better.
Sand Offense -
Canine Carnage- Taunt Gliscor shuts down Hippowdon.
- Latias walls Keldeo all day and Gliscor can't touch it either, so yeah thats gg here.
DragMag- Our current Keldeo can't touch any of the dragons for decent damage at all, yet another reason to run Hidden Power [Ice].
- Gliscor can't touch Salamence / Latios / Dragonite whatsoever.
- Yeah we lose badly.
Deo-D Offense- This match-up isn't actually all that bad in comparison to the others.
- If we run Jolly Gliscor w/ 220 Spd we can outspeed Deo-D and prevent it getting up hazards.
- However, Gengar walls our Gliscor completely so it gets a free sub there. It also outspeeds and 2HKOs Keldeo with Shadow Ball.
- We can't touch Dragonite because Hidden Power [Electric] 9.9
- If Terrakion is Rock Gem then Gliscor loses to it, so we need to rely on a Speed tie p much.
- Genesect again!
- Okay I lied, this match-up is terrible. If they run something like Latios or ScarfMence then its even worse.
I may add some stall teams to this later but they are rare and Keldeo is excellent vs most of them anyway.
Obviously at this point all these match-ups are going to be bad because we only have 2 Pokemon, but I think we need to keep referring back to a threatlist like this every time we pick a new Pokemon. For now, I'm actually going to suggest we go with
Hidden Power [Ice] Keldeo since most of the Hidden Power [Electric] targets are already being hit reasonably hard by Secret Sword (bar Jellicent / Tentacruel), whereas being completely unable to hit the majority of dragons for decent damage in such an offensive metagame is pretty pathetic.
Also in case it wasn't clear, I was coming here to nominate CBTar but I was beaten to it, so I'm obviously supporting that. In terms of how Choice Band Tyranitar helps our match-ups against the teams above:
- Rain offense - not that much, sadly. It can pursuit trap weakened Politoed but ultimately we are still weak to Tornadus-T.
- Sun Offense - Pursuit trap weakened Ninetales to win the weather war. Need to be careful of Will-o-Wisp and Dugtrio, though.
- Sand Offense - traps Latias so Keldeo can actually do something. This is actually a pretty good match-up for us now!
- DragMag - same as above. Traps Lati@s so Keldeo can do some work. I see Starmie quite a lot on these teams now so it helps there too. If we go with Hidden Power [Ice] Keldeo this could be a decent match-up too.
- Deo-D Offense - yea, still weak to this.