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

[Iconic*]

Round 6 was definitely a roller coaster for all of us, and after several setbacks, culminating with a DDoS server attack, we were finally able to get the long-awaited results! Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are now banned from OU, while Garchomp returns after taking a very long hiatus from the tier. We can finally sleep soundly at night knowing that our attacks will always hit those dastardly Cacturne and that Mr.E no longer has an excuse to spam "FREE GARCHOMP" everywhere he goes.

Before we start testing things to potentially ban from the tier, the OU Council has decided to bring suspects down to test first. As most of you know already, this round will center around testing none other than Kyurem-B in OU. Kyurem-B has been unbanned from the Suspect Ladder, and we'll be monitoring its effect on the metagame very closely.

The process will be nearly identical to last round, with the only change being that requirements to vote on Kyurem-B have changed since the Garchomp vote. Voters must obtain a Glicko2 rating of 2000 or higher and a Glicko2 deviation of 55 or lower on the Suspect Ladder. Please note that we are now using Glicko2 as the rating, not ACRE like last time. I need to double check with the rest of the council if we're still doing screenshots, but in the mean time, take a screenshot whenever you reach these requirements anyways just in case something crazy like a DDoS attack happens again.

As always, here is a nice bullet point schedule!

• Wednesday, October 17th: Suspect Ladder has been reset and Kyurem-B is unbanned from the ladder (thanks to Zarel for setting this up!).
• Thursday, November 1st at 11:59 p.m. EDT: The Suspect Round ends. A screenshot of the ladder will be posted at that time in the Voter Identification thread.
• Saturday, November 3rd at 11:59 p.m. EDT: Special applications are due, and the voting thread will be posted. It will most likely be up for around three days.

That's it that's all. I hope your laddering endeavours are as smooth as Vanilla Ice's flow. Have fun friends!

[Jukain]

I am so excited for this round! At this point, I'm quite neutral but I think that SubRoost is going to be a major player. Additionally, this thing is downright amazing for killing weather inducers, possessing super effective moves on the big three. CB also seems pretty sweet, got to pair it with zone but then smash everything with Outrage.

EDIT: I figured I'd bring up a few discussion points while I'm at it, the debatable things about Kyurem-B.

Reasons for unban:
- lack of good moves somewhat. Kyurem-B is pretty much damn out of luck as far as its movepool. You've got Outrage and Dragon Claw for STABs, of course, but there's no good physical Ice-type STAB outside of Freeze Shock, which is actually viable because Kyurem-B forces out most slower Pokemon. Fusion Bolt is cool for bulky Water-types. Roost is awesome to have recovery, and you've Focus Blast/Earth Power for Heatran. It's kind of like though... it doesn't want to be locked in on much of anything, as it's easily walled if it doesn't click Outrage, but at the same time its bulk makes Life Orb not super desirable. I mean obviously LO is still a good item but it loses out on Kyurem-B's selling point: bulk. To be perfectly honest, if I'm not taking advantage of its bulk, I'm using Salamence, or Dragonite, or Hydreigon, or Haxorus, or Garchomp, et cetera.
- weakness to Stealth Rock. For a 'mon that really wants to go hit-and-run, Stealth Rock is and will always suck. Although, luckily for Kyurem-B it's got good type synergy with Tentacruel and Starmie.
- lack of a real... niche. Okay, I alluded to this before, but among Dragons, Kyurem-B is the odd man out. Salamence has a much better Speed stat, two great abilities in Moxie and Intimidate, Fire Blast and Earthquake to hit Steel-types, and Dragon Dance to boost its Speed and Attack. Dragonite, while slower, has an amazing ability in Multiscale to cushion hits and stall and Dragon Dance, as well as numerous awesome moves in Fire Blast/Flamethrower, Fire Punch, Superpower, Thunder, STAB Hurricane, strong priority in ExtremeSpeed, Dragon Tail to shuffle, and Thunder Wave to cripple. Hydreigon has Levitate, giving it a useful immunity, as well as Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, Surf, Focus Blast, Earth Power, Dark Pulse, and Superpower for coverage. Garchomp has that awesome typing that gives it two equally good STABs, excellent bulk (>Swampert et cetera), Swords Dance, and Rough Skin, even having Fire Blast/Fire Fang if needs to beat Steel-types. Haxorus is a bit iffy, but it's still quite powerful and has Dragon Dance and Earthquake for coverage. That leaves Kyurem-B. Its advantages? Not many. Not weak to Ice? More powerful? Doesn't matter when its got a shitty typing that leaves it weak to Stealth Rock and Fighting- and Rock-type attacks.

[Somebody Anonymous]

If it gets unbanned, Scarfs, Bullet Punch , and Mach Punch will be much more common. Especially Scizcor.

[alexwolf]

Omg this beast comes to OU? Maybe a reason to break my vow and play before Sect gets banned? Mmmmm tough call... Whatever this is going to be very interesting. Expecting DragMag teams to take the meta by storm, and Sect is going to use Iron Head / Flash Cannon much more often now.

[superbadd]

Wut.... That's insane. Totally unpredictable move. I think we may have enough bulky steel types to justify this. This also looks like a huge weapon for hail and non weather. Looking forward to the diversity.

At the same time scizor, breloom, conk and gene will see a huge rise. As if those guys aren't common enough. >.< I still can't believe a pokemon with 700 bst is even being considered...

[/B/utterfree]

...

I'm sorry, but is the attempt here to mimic Pokemon Online's dropping Kyurem-B to OU from Ubers? That's all I genuinely see from this, and I'm going to handily remind people that just because you unban Kyurem-B does not mean the tier is any less broken.

I get Garchomp and how people just looked at its ability back during its Suspect Test. However, there's no excuse whatsoever for unbanning Kyurem-B. I'm genuinely displeased to hear that this Suspect Test isn't one which bans Genesect, Deoxys-D, and Tornadus-T.

If there is a trade-off for those three Pokes being banned in exchange, I'll worry less about this. However, if there isn't I'm going to go on Suspect Ladder, use Kyurem-B, and prove how broken this thing will be in OU.

[ginganinja]

I get Garchomp and how people just looked at its ability back during its Suspect Test. However, there's no excuse whatsoever for unbanning Kyurem-B.

Dude chill out, its a suspect test, and Kyurem-B is what we are testing, why don't you give it a test run before making judgements on it.

[PK Gaming]

One Dragon down, another to go.

This test should be straightforward, I mean Kyurem-B is going to be fine in OU, easy. I'm interested in Kyurem-B's relationship with Genesect since, it's the only Dragon that doesn't get wrecked by most Genesect, which should be a point in its favor.

[PDC]

Before we get into heated discussion, what exactly is Glicko2 rating, and how is it different than CRE? Really excited to get started.

Pocket EDIT: It's the number that comes before your deviation

[CactusCacti]

Kyurem-B to OU feels bit.. So-so.
I mean sure, it kind of checks genesect and that anoying therian bird in a way that honestly speaking, one of the most commonly seen and anoying mons around.

In a way it kind of raises a small eyebrow towards those two.

I could see Kyurem-B fitting in OU as its pretty much a harder hitting haxorus with mix potential and its typing does balance its power a bit. But in a way, I can also see it not really fitting in OU either, it's kind of.. Easy to abuse in a way?


One of my biggest fears out of if it gets to OU is that it just might drop Haxoruses usage quite a bit.

[Stone RG]

Ughhh, no please im begging you guys ban it.

Are we seriously considering a pokemon with 700? the most spammable outrage in the game, and only 1 wall in OU (fuk u ferrothorn)?

Anyways i dont see the Suspect changing that much, except that now
dragon spam > Rain.

[G-Von]

Looking over its movepool, it is physically shallow as hell. Obvious Outrage is obvious. After that, what else? Zen Headbutt, Dragon Claw, Shadow Claw, Stone Edge/Rock Slide, and Iron Head. Its best physical fighting move is (lololololololol) Rock Smash. Kyurem is BL because of its typing and movepool (I guess?) so because of its shitty physical movepool and typing I can see why Kyurem-B is being suspect tested. I suspect Skarmories and Bronzongs and all sorts of steel types to combat this. Of course, DragMag is going to shoot through the fucking Stratosphere in usage, too.

The only reason why I'm not mentioning its special movepool is because of Kyurem's 130 base Special attack over Kyurem-B's base 120 Special Attack.

[Iconic*]

hi guys please cut the super hyperbolic posts!! it's fine if you want to (civilly) bring up your initial impressions on kyurem-b but for the love of god stop making ridiculously exaggerated comments about its assumed broken/non-broken nature. theorymon is fun and all but try to back up your opinions with experience MKAYYYYYYYYY

[ssbbm]

on my team, i literally only have ever used outrage on kyurem-b.

its strong - shit 2hkoes jirachi

it really encourages a bunch of dragon spam

[UltiMario]

The first impression I've always gotten from Kyurem-B is that it's going to be OP as shit but at the same time is seems like a dream of how fun and how cool (no pun intended) the metagame effects could be for bringing it back down.

Looking forward to trying this out soon.

[Lady Alex]

Initial impression: Haxorus v2.0.

[Mario With Lasers]

This is like Game Freak making Outrage a separate entity of its own for OU. Things shall be fun.

And lol Haxorus for UU

[ChrisTehAwesome]

While I haven't played much, in the 15 games or so it took to get me to #7 on the ladder (lol) I saw a few things.

A banded outrage failed to kill my volcarona from full health.
Hidden Power fire is piss weak against anything not 4x weak even with a neutral nature. It did less than a third to a metagross. I feel if this guy is gonna want to run any special attacks he's gonna have to invest in special attack.
However, a scarf set with Outrage / Ice beam / Fusion Bolt has been doing fairly well on my team, albeit with wish, spin, and hazard support.

We'll have to see how he plays out but as of now it's not obvious whether or not he's broken.

[G-Von]

Originally Posted by Fat ChrisTehAwesome

While I haven't played much, in the 15 games or so it took to get me to #7 on the ladder (lol) I saw a few things.

A banded outrage failed to kill my volcarona from full health.
Hidden Power fire is piss weak against anything not 4x weak even with a neutral nature. It did less than a third to a metagross. I feel if this guy is gonna want to run any special attacks he's gonna have to invest in special attack.
However, a scarf set with Outrage / Ice beam / Fusion Bolt has been doing fairly well on my team, albeit with wish, spin, and hazard support.

We'll have to see how he plays out but as of now it's not obvious whether or not he's broken.

That HAD to be a bulky freakin' moth then. Outrage does 94.6 - 111.59% to the standard bulky QD set.

[yee]

Honestly this has next to no effect on the metagame- it's a fun thing when you can channel it's power but with every unbanning defensive teams are becoming more obviously unviable and it's not getting oppurtunities to blast. BW2 is a completely offensively oriented metagame at this point and Kyurem-B doesn't change the face of it that much being the "slow" poke it is.

[Scorpio]

This is, quite frankly, NOT a wise move. Kyurem-B is broken, and a shallow movepool or bad typing isn't gonna change that. Why? This is a Pokemon with 170 base attack, second only to Deoxys-A, PLUS a good 120 base Special Attack for backup, PLUS good bulk, PLUS decent speed. A mixed set will absolutely annihilate anything when it's under hail.

Of course, this is my opinion, and it's likely to change. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to PS to see whether or not I need to change my opinion.

[Lady Alex]

I'm a bit disappointed since I was really hoping for a Deo-D, Tornadus-T, or Genesect test. I really don't think that Kyurem-B is going to help create a healthier metagame, but we'll see, I guess.

[Bologo]

To be quite honest, I'm not that impressed with the Choice sets so far, Band or Scarf. I haven't even used a Kyurem-B yet, but I've faced plenty, which have all been Band/Scarf, and the main problem I've noticed is that it has a ton of trouble actually coming into the match. Stealth Rock is already a problem for any Choice user, but when you're also weak against Stealth Rock, and taking possible Sandstorm damage, it doesn't make life easy.

I understand that he has a base 170 Outrage, but what good is it when he has so much trouble coming in? It's basically got the same problem that the regular Kyurem had. Haxorus does the Choice Band job better because it's not weak to Stealth Rock, plus he can use Earthquake to hit guys like Levitate Bronzong as well as having stuff like Superpower. Kyurem-B pretty much only has Outrage and Fusion Bolt for coverage until he has to resort to Special Attacks for coverage (meaning that he has to actually invest EVs in it). Salamence is a better Choice Scarf user because it has Moxie and has serious sweeping potential because of that (meaning that he doesn't have to come in as much which makes his SR weakness matter just a little less). Garchomp is also a better Scarfer because he not only resists SR, but has a better secondary STAB. Dragonite is a better Choice Bander IMO because he not only has Multi-scale (if you can keep SR off), but he also has a CB ExtremeSpeed, which has very nice utility for cleaning up as well as preventing fast sweepers from wrecking you. Basically, other dragons are doing the job better with Choice sets.

That's not to say that Kyurem-B is bad though. I'm just saying that the Choice sets aren't as overpowering as people may think they are. I'm thinking of trying out a bulky Dragon Tail user though, since Kyurem-B's Dragon Tail is the strongest phazing move in the game. Something like Sub/Roost/Dragon Tail/Ice Beam could be very deadly with some entry hazard support. I think using his bulk combined with his power is the key, because his Speed just isn't as good as the other dragons. A Mixed set will definitely be pretty deadly too with LO, though it's going to have a lot of problems with SR.

[alexwolf]

Yeah i agree with Bologo. The choice sets seem very flashy at first sight because of this sexy attack stat, but attack alone means nothing nowadays. I agree that the best way to play Kyurem-B would be the Sub sets. Whether this means a SubRoost set with Outrage + Ice Beam (or even Freeze Shock), a Sub + 3 attacks set or a Sub + HC set with lot of HP investment. Let's not forget that Kyurem-B has insane physical bulk (125 / 100) and great special bulk too (125 / 90).

[chriso0100]

One thing that might be notable, Pokemon Online (PO) server, albeit it is not smogon, has Kyurem-B already in their OU. Again, its not smogon, but when you compare the differences in the OU rosters, the only notable differences are the results of the recent suspect test. Basically in PO, Garchomp in OU/Sand Veil Snow Cloak Ban, isn't there. But point is, Kyurem-B is in OU, laddering up when im bored....noone uses it. The reasons noone uses it are the following:
1-It is weak to 2/3 of the big 3 priority moves (Bullet Punch, Mach Punch, Ice Shard(
2-Vulnerable to every entry hazard and actually weak to Stealth Rock
3-95 Base Speed is almost unusable in the current metagame
4a-Kyurem-B has a terrible physical movepool, lets see off the top of my head: Outrage, Dragon Claw, Fusion Bolt, thats about it without power herb freeze shock
4b-Its "niche" movepool wise is special attacking, which standard kyurem has higher Special Attack

Basically, with the exception of a crazy powerful outrage, and the ability to OHKO Sturdy hazard pokes (Forretress, Donphan, etc), Kyurem-B has no reason to be banned