Originally Posted by Fat Pocket
It's hard to justify banning a Pokemon when handful of hard counters and plentiful of checks exist in the metagame. Blissey and Heatran are not the only ones that counters Genesect. Try Rotom-H, Ninetales, Tentacruel, Rotom-W, Kyurem-B, Jirachi in the rain, Volcarona, or Tyranitar (for RP). Lol that took me 5 seconds to come up. Now try and name this many counters to SD Terrakion.
What about checks? Let's see - any Pokemon that is faster than it! I just had a conversation with PK Gaming on irc, and he mentioned an interesting point - all the suspects that were banned had great Speed that lets them outrun most of the metagame, letting them not only wallbreak but sweep in a moment's notice. Genesect lacks that Speed factor, and it's really a major drawback that showed up through my laddering almost exclusively with Genesect.
"Pocket, nothing is faster than RP Genesect!" The same thing can be said for Agility Thundurus-T and Rock Polish Landorus. Yes, there's Ice Shard, but not all teams are packing Mamoswine are they? Are teams without Mamoswine doomed to be swept by these therians every time? Of course not. Reliable checks and counters exist for each of them, allowing teams to tank a hit and inflict a lethal blow to them. Genesect is in the same boat. I just listed a bunch of mons that dgaf about Genesect's doubling in Speed in my first paragraph - you don't need faster checks when slow checks and counters are numerous. Past Uber suspects have wallbreaking powers to even overwhelm their counters and must solely be dealt through revenge-kills. We don't even need to resort to that desperate measure with Genesect.
Plenty of checks and counters - and all because of these two points: the lack of power and Speed. People have equated that Download is similar to Sand Veil - the ability that broke the camel's back.
That's so far from the truth.
In fact, Download is what allows Genesect to carve its niche in OU with the rest of the top dogs, while without it, it would be joining the "barely OU" mons. This is because Download is the only viable way it can boost its relatively weak moves. Yes, 120 SpA means shit if the hardest move have a measly 90 BP. +1 Scarf Genesect is hitting just barely harder than Scarf Terrakion.
Genesect's power: 339 SpA * 90 BP * 1.5 DL = 45.8k
Terrakion's power: 357 Atk * 120 BP = 42.8k
A 7% difference, and that's with DL boost. Its coverage moves that it uses for revenge-killing merely gets a STAB boost some of the time, whereas Terrakion can spam powerful STAB moves for its revenge-killing purposes. Genesect is simply a ordinary Scarfer, because it's weak even with DL boost, and a diverse movepool is irrelevant when you're locked into 1 move.
This brings me to the next point - Not all teams can afford Genesect. Yes not every team is made better by adding Genesect. I recently replaced Scarf Genesect for Scarf Landorus, because it was simply non-threatening other than spamming U-turn. Scarf Landorus not only pivots but checks more threats and can actually threaten a sweep. Hell I've swept many games with Scarf Mienshao's Reckless HJK more than I can count. Genesect just doesn't compare with powerful Scarfers that are already available in OU. Scarf Genesect is therefore nothing extraordinary compared to other Scarfers, probably less amazing. It's not like DL boost lets it kill Dragonite through MultiScale, so I don't see where the boost actually matters other than a stronger U-turn (so broken!)
So Scarf Genesect isn't all that great, and RP Genesect gets solidly checked or hard-walled by many mons. Where does broken come into picture? 50% usage statistics in a sad excuse of the ladder where half of the people spammed the same dumb GeneRain team for 70+ games a player? Or is it because of its "unpredictability," because you somehow could not figure out Genesect's set in the early phase of the match and get outplayed? Or because it's "overcentralizing" the way Scizor, Rotom-W, or any useful mon centralized the metagame in the past and present? Enlighten me.
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