Dream World General Metagame Discussion

[danilo]

I'm really happy with the DW OU metagame at the moment. I don't think that anything is truly incredibly broken, other than Blazikien. Keldeo is a Pokemon that is very difficult to switch into, from my experience. Playing against Keldeo is a pain in the ass, but it's doable and certainly not broken.

Rain is definitely the best archetype at the moment. As mentioned earlier, it's just so flexible. You can go with Keldeo, Thundurus, Tornadus, Starmie, Raikou, etc etc. Personally, I play sandstorm because it's rather easy to play around rain teams, imo

As for the Suspects
Chandelure: Not really broken. Weak to every form of hazard and not incredibly difficult to revenge kill. Even things like Tyranitar Wall it
Blazikien: Pushing broken. In the sun, nothing really walls it, aside from Slowbro and Jellicent. Outside of sun, it's very easy to deal with.
Keldeo: Is this suspect???
Deoxys-S: This is the only thing that needs to be banned imo. It's just sooooo good on offensive teams. It always give u a huge upper hand. it's simply too much value.

Just some thoughts ~~~~

 

[blaZofgold]

And for those who say Manaphy is broken, Serperior is just as broken if unchecked, since it has a whole 13 more base speed than Manaphy and can deal massive damage WHILE it sets up. With defensive stats almost as good as Manaphy, it really requires a OHKO in order to check it.

So which is better, running a 100+ speed pokemon with Thunder to check Manaphy, or running a 113+ speed pokemon with to check Serperior.

I know this isn't entirely true, as Mamoswine can revenge Serperior quite easily and such. But, I'm saying, Manaphy isn't that hard to check.

It still is really good though. I'm just iffy on the ban thing. People should just be more wary of it.

 

[shrang]

Chandelure is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. Him + *insert sweeper* is probably the most broken combo ever. I'll just list the number of Pokemon that this thing eliminates or weakens to the point of unusable: Skarmory, Ferrothorn, Scizor, Jellicent, Reuniclus, Latias, Slowbro, Forretress, Tangrowth, Breloom, Dusclops, Serperior, Virizion, Lucario, Heracross, Jirachi, Celebi, Magnezone, Metagross, Sableye, Mew, Genesect, Amoonguss, Dragonite, defensive Salamence, Venusaur, Gliscor, Hippowdon and if you're running Sub/CM, the blobs just become fodder. If you really want to, you can even trap and kill bulky Politoed (which you know, is supposed to COUNTER Chandelure) if you run Sunnybeamer. Like I said in my RMT, holy shit, this is like half the tier. If one Pokemon can trap and rape about half the metagame, you know something is wrong. Most of these Pokemon all form a defensive barrier against something in the tier, and with Chandelure trapping and removing them as easily as just switching in and clicking one of its four moves, you'd wonder how the fuck you can defend against so many threats, especially when we have other broken shit like Manaphy, Blaziken and Excadrill running around.

The main arguments I have seen against banning it are 1) Shed Shell, 2) it's underwhelming because everyone prepares for it and therefore if you play smartly, it doesn't do much. I'll address the first point first. Do you every one of those Pokemon listed above to run a fucking Shed Shell? Sure, stuff like Skarmory and the blobs may be able to get away using it because they have reliable recovery, but do you expect all of them to be able to not run Leftovers and still be effective. Also, some those aren't even walls. Would you get them to not run a Life Orb or whatever offensive item suits them best just because Chandelure exists? Running Shed Shell Dragonite sounds like a brilliant idea, doesn't it? Even if you are a wall and have reliable recovery, it still heavily impedes on your ability to wall when you're forced to carry Shed Shell, firstly you lose out on the recovery, and more importantly, that 6.25% may just push you into an OHKO or 2HKO range. For example, standard Skarmory takes 43.11% - 50.60% from +0 Adamant LO Lucario's Close Combat. With Leftovers, you have a >50% chance to survive being 2HKOed, while without it, you're almost guaranteed to be 2HKOed. I'll try and find more of these, but there are plenty of cases out there.

To the second point, all I can say that that is biggest load of crap and you all know it. That argument applies to every Pokemon that exists and therefore has no validity. You can easily prepare for ExtremeKiller Arceus and it would be quite manageable. In fact, Chandelure is probably even more broken because you can't even switch out against it, meaning it takes the match completely out of your hands. Are you really going to double switch every move in the game just so Chandelure doesn't come in and hand your ass to you on a plate? That's pretty much all I've seen these days. Even then, you can probably kill something and Chandelure immediately comes in and goes "goodbye". Here's just a common example: Your opponent just switched in their Excadrill and used SD. You switch in your Breloom as he SDs. Do you go "oh shit, my opponent has a Chandelure, I can't just Mach Punch this Excadrill right now, I'm going to die to Chandelure if I do, but if I don't use Mach Punch, Excadrill could just kill Breloom right now, and I'll just lose the match right there." Do you want to face this kind of bullshit prediction every fucking match? You can pull the Shed Shell argument again, but I've already covered that. You also have stuff like having Mamoswine out against a 50% Venusaur in the sun. Do you go for the Ice Shard and then get raped by Chandelure, or try and predict the Chandelure switch-in and then just getting killed by Vensaur, and then losing the game because of it? Or do you be ridiculous and run Shed Shell Mamoswine? See what I mean? Even if you do play at the top of your game, it can STILL come in and trap one of your Pokemon and therefore completely make you fall apart. You need to be predicting at 100% if you want to avoid getting dicked by Chandelure, because even if you have like a 90% prediction rate, you'd be sure that that 10% is Chandelure coming in a biting you in the ass.

tl;dr - Get Chandelure out please

 

[blaZofgold]

If Chandelure could get Shadow Locked, then that'd be fine. Alas, it can't. Most of the victories I've had against Chandy were when the other guy miscalculated speeds or never expected me running a scarf. Or when they couldnt switch to a better check.

I think Chandy can only be consistently checked by Rocks. And that really sucks.

 

[Taylor]

Blaziken is considered broken under sun? Which would imply sun itself has to be somewhere near broken. Simply not the case in Dream World, so I think it should be fair to assume Blaziken should be switching into Stealth Rock and taking residual damage from sand or losing its Fire STAB in rain.

The problem is that these "suspects" are easier to abuse when Chandelure can remove said counters; ones which need to carry Leftovers to universally deal with the metagame when used in conjunction with each other.

How exactly can you prepare for someone using Shed Shell? I mean, if they hold it, Chandelure can't lock the Pokemon and therefore it is your strategy which you then begin to struggle executing. Also if you're playing "smartly" already, then why not double-switch to bluff the item held so your opponent assumes you don't have it?

You can successfully slap Garchomp, Blaziken and Deoxys-S on the same team and use Yache Berry, Focus Sash and all other items available to you in order to prevent Chandelure from being much of a threat at all.

I used Timid ScarfChand from the day "stage "1 became official, and I don't see why anyone wouldn't? It is a Pokemon that allows you to expand and explore the different team structures, select a Pokemon you wish to use and place Chandelure in your team to support it; like sun does with Dugtrio! Plus getting outspeed by Timid Politoed holding CS is embarrassing to say the least.

 

[alexwolf]

Blaziken is considered broken under sun? Which would imply sun itself has to be somewhere near broken. Simply not the case in Dream World, so I think it should be fair to assume Blaziken should be switching into Stealth Rock and taking residual damage from sand or losing its Fire STAB in rain.

The problem is that these "suspects" are easier to abuse when Chandelure can remove said counters; ones which need to carry Leftovers to universally deal with the metagame when used in conjunction with each other.

How exactly can you prepare for someone using Shed Shell? I mean, if they hold it, Chandelure can't lock the Pokemon and therefore it is your strategy which you then begin to struggle executing. Also if you're playing "smartly" already, then why not double-switch to bluff the item held so your opponent assumes you don't have it?

You can successfully slap Garchomp, Blaziken and Deoxys-S on the same team and use Yache Berry, Focus Sash and all other items available to you in order to prevent Chandelure from being much of a threat at all.

I used Timid ScarfChand from the day "stage "1 became official, and I don't see why anyone wouldn't? It is a Pokemon that allows you to expand and explore the different team structures, select a Pokemon you wish to use and place Chandelure in your team to support it; like sun does with Dugtrio! Plus getting outspeed by Timid Politoed holding CS is embarrassing to say the least.

Yeah except that Chandelure can trap kill everything, and has an actual attack stat.

As many have already said before, Chandelure offers so much support to sweepers that it is just ridiculous. How are you supposed to counter or check threats like Excadrill and Terakion, when your checks/counters risk getting trapped by Chandelure?

Of 'course you can be cautious about it but this is not an arguement. Anything can be handled if you play extremely cautious and are overprepared for it, but this means shit. Running Shed Shell on every wall or offensive mon weak to Chandy is the same as seeing Gastrodon and Ludicolo in every team to counter Kyogre. Are we so blind? It is obvious that Chandelure is overcentralizing as fuck, when so many things are unviable because of her.

Iirc Hail was banned in UU, because it diminished variety, in addition to the Snow Cloak and Bliizard hax of 'course. Leftovers became much more common to counter the effects of Hail, and many pokes that didn't work good under hail, or were weak to Ice moves, became much rarer. Now replace Ice and Lefties with Shed Shell and Ghost/Fire/Ice/Grass and/or weak SpDef and you have Chandelure...

I hope that when DW Chandelure actually gets released, and it draws more attention, people will start focusing more on her, and hopefully get her quickly banned.

 

[blaZofgold]

How exactly can you prepare for someone using Shed Shell? I mean, if they hold it, Chandelure can't lock the Pokemon and therefore it is your strategy which you then begin to struggle executing. Also if you're playing "smartly" already, then why not double-switch to bluff the item held so your opponent assumes you don't have it?

How many of those strategies are actually sound and viable? If the only way to "beat" Chandelure is to bluff and invent some massive mindgames strategy, then you've basically proven that Chandelure is too good. I wasn't in favor of banning Chandelure until I started reading some of the arguments for and against it, and then I realized that it should be thought over.

Oh, I forgot. Focus Sash is a sure way to counter Chandelure. Yup, let one of your pokemon die, send in your focus sasher, let it take a hit while revenging. All sarcasm aside, that actually works pretty well.

You can successfully slap Garchomp, Blaziken and Deoxys-S on the same team and use Yache Berry, Focus Sash and all other items available to you in order to prevent Chandelure from being much of a threat at all.

...That's a whole freaking core. Are you expecting that every team run something similar to that in order to stop Chandelure? Plus, that really doesn't counter Chandelure because it could just SWITCH TO A DIFFERENT POKEMON. If it requires 3 pokemon to successfully diminish 1 pokemon's threat, then that 1 pokemon could easily pair with 2 others to rip through your counter.

 

[Taylor]

How many of those strategies are actually sound and viable? If the only way to "beat" Chandelure is to bluff and invent some massive mindgames strategy, then you've basically proven that Chandelure is too good. I wasn't in favor of banning Chandelure until I started reading some of the arguments for and against it, and then I realized that it should be thought over.

Oh, I forgot. Focus Sash is a sure way to counter Chandelure. Yup, let one of your pokemon die, send in your focus sasher, let it take a hit while revenging. All sarcasm aside, that actually works pretty well.

I don't really need tutoring on how well Focus Sash works in Dream World, believe me. And I suggested Sash because it works as a surprise and allows you to throw the opponent off-guard; I don't know how you interpreted this suggestion as a way of countering Chandelure specifically.

But Chandelure, in such a clustered metagame like DW (where there are already so many viable options), Chandelure isn't going to centralize anything because so many Pokemon can sweep before the opponent has figured out how to trap "x" Pokemon.

Chandelure (who requires Scarf to actually be successful) is set up on by the next Pokemon you bring in. Users are both entitled to us Chandelure, therefore it is down to who predicts their sweepers' counter will show up; that's if both players have Chandelure in their "team".

It's not glorified guessing either because competitively, well-built teams should be considering all of the options in Dream World. OU is a struggle to winning weather wars; how fun is that?

...That's a whole freaking core. Are you expecting that every team run something similar to that in order to stop Chandelure? Plus, that really doesn't counter Chandelure because it could just SWITCH TO A DIFFERENT POKEMON. If it requires 3 pokemon to successfully diminish 1 pokemon's threat, then that 1 pokemon could easily pair with 2 others to rip through your counter.

"A whole freaking core"?

It's three, versatile Pokemon (again, not a direct solution to Chandelure; as again, I never said that in my previous post) but it gives the opponent more to think about than just simply trying to trap said Pokemon, when they've got your entire team to take into consideration.

The reason why I mentioned Dugtrio (and this is also in reference to alexwolf) is that its 5th Generation moveset is designed to trap Tyranitar and win the "weather war". It just so happens to take Heatran out the way before it thrives in your own sun.

 

[Tobes]

Ok I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what the current suspects are, and I'll be blunt... there are none at the moment. Shocking, yes? I really hate banning things, and avoid it whenever possible. At the moment nothing actually leaps out at me screaming "I should be banned", and I don't want to disturb the delicate balance we have in this tier, which, if tampered with, could result in a need for a cascade of bans, which is the last thing I want. There is also the factor that a lot supposedly broken Pokemon are synonimous with Dream World itself. I don't want to remove icons of the meta if I can avoid it, as right now they are THE draw to playing the metagame for a lot of people. Unless I see absolutely absurd amounts of centralization in the statistics (which there is none of atm) I have little reason or inclination to tamper with the metagame.

At any rate, let's take a look at Chandelure. No, using Shed Shell is not overcentralization to the degree of running Gastrodon on every team to counter Kyogre. To be frank that is a ridiculous argument. It's one item. It's not even one that you have to run on everything that can be vulnerable to Chandelure. I believe shrang said something about Shed Shell Dragonite? That's stupid. Run Yache Berry or Jolly DDNite if you're really paranoid about Chandelure. You all also seem to be under the assumption that Chandelure operates in a vacuum. It can't switch in easily because it's pretty damn frail. Which means that usually when it comes in, it's off a revenge kill. In other words, it's only evening up the score. And if it happens to remove a lynchpin? The only thing stopping X Pokemon from sweeping? Then you should have given it a Shed Shell or had secondary measures on your team in case it was trapped. Additionally, if Chandelure gets a kill, it's usually opening up its own team to a free shot from a Pokemon of your choice. Garchomp got OHKOed by HP Ice? Ok, bring in Keldeo and set up a free Calm Mind. Chandelure's also weak to every entry hazard, so it's not like it can come in on revenge kills an infinite number of times. Chandelure can be trapped as well. Tyranitar eats it for breakfast, and it's not the only one. Even Scizor, who so many people are (incorrectly) claiming is rendered useless by Chandelure, can effortlessly trap it when it's locked into anything other than its Fire-type STAB. If your entire team can be disected by Chandelure with no way to prevent it, that's not because Chandelure is broken. It's because you're a bad teambuilder.

 

[GaryTheGengar]

Gotta start this off by saying how stuck up most of the posters here sound, like there opinion is the only thing in the world matters.

The main point of this post though, is how much I agree with shrang. His post is spot on, chandelure is fucking broken. A common argument is that it only gets 1 kill per match, and then gets trapped by tyranitar. I know sand (and therefor tar) are very common, but not every single team uses it. Even so, I'll kill your gliscor, then get pursuited. Have fun stopping my terrakion now! If you're not using a tyranitar, chandelure can just switch back in, it isn't dugtrio. Chandelure has its uses besides trapping pokemon. You're using shed shell on a pokemon that needs its item, and even though you can switch out, I can just switch back in and fire off an overheat from my 140 base spatk later.

Chandelure isn't completely broken on its own, but it is much too good of a support Pokémon. Many of the pokes that recently dropped to overused, such as excadrill and blaziken, have 2-3 counters at most. Chandelure conveniently beats them all. While yes, shed shell skarmory is viable, shell slowbro and jellicent aren't. Shed Shell Gliscor sure as hell isn't. Most teams only carry one 'counter' to a pokemon, so once chandelure is removed, you're fucked.



I feel like most of the other suspects are broken, but its very hard to tell with chandy removing all of their counters. I think the best course of action would be to remove chandelure, then see where everything goes.

EDIT: reading over some posts again, I see the stealth rock weakness brought up as a reason to keep chandelure in OU. Without hp investment, chandelure has 261 hp and can switch in 5 times. That means that I can get 5 kills. Even with two layers of spikes, I can still get 3 kills. I can also use a spinner (chandelure removes ghosts that block spin nicely)

 

[shrang]

Ok I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what the current suspects are, and I'll be blunt... there are none at the moment. Shocking, yes? I really hate banning things, and avoid it whenever possible. At the moment nothing actually leaps out at me screaming "I should be banned", and I don't want to disturb the delicate balance we have in this tier, which, if tampered with, could result in a need for a cascade of bans, which is the last thing I want. There is also the factor that a lot supposedly broken Pokemon are synonimous with Dream World itself. I don't want to remove icons of the meta if I can avoid it, as right now they are THE draw to playing the metagame for a lot of people. Unless I see absolutely absurd amounts of centralization in the statistics (which there is none of atm) I have little reason or inclination to tamper with the metagame.

At any rate, let's take a look at Chandelure. No, using Shed Shell is not overcentralization to the degree of running Gastrodon on every team to counter Kyogre. To be frank that is a ridiculous argument. It's one item. It's not even one that you have to run on everything that can be vulnerable to Chandelure. I believe shrang said something about Shed Shell Dragonite? That's stupid. Run Yache Berry or Jolly DDNite if you're really paranoid about Chandelure. You all also seem to be under the assumption that Chandelure operates in a vacuum. It can't switch in easily because it's pretty damn frail. Which means that usually when it comes in, it's off a revenge kill. In other words, it's only evening up the score. And if it happens to remove a lynchpin? The only thing stopping X Pokemon from sweeping? Then you should have given it a Shed Shell or had secondary measures on your team in case it was trapped. Additionally, if Chandelure gets a kill, it's usually opening up its own team to a free shot from a Pokemon of your choice. Garchomp got OHKOed by HP Ice? Ok, bring in Keldeo and set up a free Calm Mind. Chandelure's also weak to every entry hazard, so it's not like it can come in on revenge kills an infinite number of times. Chandelure can be trapped as well. Tyranitar eats it for breakfast, and it's not the only one. Even Scizor, who so many people are (incorrectly) claiming is rendered useless by Chandelure, can effortlessly trap it when it's locked into anything other than its Fire-type STAB. If your entire team can be disected by Chandelure with no way to prevent it, that's not because Chandelure is broken. It's because you're a bad teambuilder.

Okay, I'll answer the bold points first, then I'll talk about the rest. Bold point 1: Yes, it isn't overcentralising to slap a Shed Shell on a wall to prevent it being trapped by Chandelure. It is, however, when ALL of your walls have to do it. Say I have a stall team that looks something like Hippowdon / Blissey / Skarmory / Jellicent / Celebi / Gyarados. Chandelure can trap and kill FIVE of those Pokemon, all six if you've weakened Gyarados. No, it's not because I'm a bad teambuilder, since that's pretty much a pretty standard looking stall team. Do you expect me to run a Shed Shell on every one of them? I also easily got into the top 15 with one of my joke sun teams with SunnyBeaming Chandelure. This thing can successfully trap and kill Politoed, who is supposed to counter the bastard. Don't believe me? Run some calcs on how much Scald from bulky Politoed does to Chandelure in the sun and how much SolarBeam does in return. If you don't consider having to run Shed Shell on Politoed just so it doesn't get its ass raped by Chandelure overcentralising, then I don't know what is.

Bold point 2: What about all its other sets? Dragonite has a lot of trouble with something bulky Volcarona if he gets off the burn with Flame Body, which is kind of likely. Yache Dragonite is quite weak to begin with. You really need CB or a defensive set with Dragon Tail to be able stop Volcarona from just spamming Morning Sun and eventually burning you, making you useless. Trust me, I have use non CB or defensive Dragonite to deal with bulky Volcarona. It plain fails. Also, about Jolly DDNite, you are speed-tieing with Chandelure at best, since they have the same base speed, and don't tell me "It outspeeds Modest Scarf Chandelure" because if I want I Scarfed revenge killer, I will run positive nature because it would just be shooting yourself in the foot to do otherwise.

Your other points assume that the opponent is using Scarfed Chandelure, which while its probably standard, doesn't give the full scope of its abilities. Chandelure is far, far more versatile than just running some crappy Scarf set. I've had Chandelure switch into many walls on Stall teams and just used SubCM to 6-0 them. Again, would you put Shed Shell on ALL of your walls? I've also touched on SunnyBeaming Chandelure. If Politoed has to run Shed Shell to escape from something it's supposed to counter, you know something is wrong. Chandelure also has a whole bunch of other support moves that it could use. You can run a gimmicky Curse set to piss off walls even further, while if you're running a non-Choiced set, you can trap Pokemon X and then when they bring in their weak-ass Tyranitar, you can use Memento to bring in Terrakion or something like that for free. That's pretty much two game-changing pieces of support that Chandelure has already done, right there, in two or three turns.

Chandelure being frail and easily trapped doesn't stop it being the best supporting wall-remover in the game. Yes, Tyranitar can easily Pursuit and get rid of it, while Scizor can too if you're running Scarf. Guess what. To trap Chandelure, you are implying that you have already got one of your key Pokemon destroyed already, unless as I've said, you decide to chuck a Shed Shell on half your team, which in and of itself already makes a team half as potent. You also said that Chandelure doesn't exist in a vacuum. You're right, it doesn't. It can remove a Pokemon but you get free setup chances, right? Well guess what, Chandelure also has teammates. Chandelure just removed Garchomp with HP Ice, so you bring Keldeo in for a Calm Mind? What about that Latias, or Toxicroak, or Starmie, or other counters that may exist on the other team? Yes, it's not Chandelure 1v1 against its prey in the game, but it isn't Chandelure 1v6 either. It's kind of like the "unban Lugia" arguments I saw in DST (although not as radical). Yes, you have Pokemon that can beat Lugia, like Tyranitar running around in OU, but people failed to realise that Lugia itself is also surrounded by a team that most likely doesn't give a crap about Tyranitar. Same sort of concept here.

EDIT: About the SR and Spikes business, so what if Chandelure can only switch in 2 or 3 times? A well played Chandelure only needs to switch ONCE to do its job.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

Ok I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what the current suspects are, and I'll be blunt... there are none at the moment. Shocking, yes? I really hate banning things, and avoid it whenever possible. At the moment nothing actually leaps out at me screaming "I should be banned", and I don't want to disturb the delicate balance we have in this tier, which, if tampered with, could result in a need for a cascade of bans, which is the last thing I want. There is also the factor that a lot supposedly broken Pokemon are synonimous with Dream World itself. I don't want to remove icons of the meta if I can avoid it, as right now they are THE draw to playing the metagame for a lot of people. Unless I see absolutely absurd amounts of centralization in the statistics (which there is none of atm) I have little reason or inclination to tamper with the metagame.

I want to jump out of the screen right now and hi5 you. Our OU tier is more diverse than Standard OU, and that's WITH at least a dozen different pokemon that people are complaining about being broken in this thread. One ban will inevitably lead to others, and this metagame is way too young to start the inevitable shitification that bans bring. Just look at how OU is turning out. Do people really want that to happen in DW too?

We shouldn't just ban something because it's good, we should ban something when it breaks the game. And right now there is nothing that is obviously breaking the metagame, at least according to usage statistics and my personal experience. So there should be no bans at this time.

Okay, I'll answer the bold points first, then I'll talk about the rest. Bold point 1: Yes, it isn't overcentralising to slap a Shed Shell on a wall to prevent it being trapped by Chandelure. It is, however, when ALL of your walls have to do it. Say I have a stall team that looks something like Hippowdon / Blissey / Skarmory / Jellicent / Celebi / Gyarados. Chandelure can trap and kill FIVE of those Pokemon, all six if you've weakened Gyarados. No, it's not because I'm a bad teambuilder, since that's pretty much a pretty standard looking stall team. Do you expect me to run a Shed Shell on every one of them?

This is a big lie and you know it. You don't HAVE to run shed shell on all or any of your walls. If you design a team that is weak to the most common pokemon in the tier, you can't complain when that mon sweeps you. It's when that pokemon can overpower you even while you have solid counters that something becomes broken. It's your fault for copying/pasting a stall team from OU and expecting it to work in DW. This is a new tier with new threats that you must account for. For example, in addition to Chandelure that team is also destroyed by Breloom and HP Ghost Keldeo.

PLUS, you ignore the fact that your hypothetical stall team that you designed intentionally to complain about Chandelure is still swept 6-0 even by Flash Fire Sub CM Chandelure. I don't see how your example proves anything about Shadow Tag Chandelure being broken.

Maybe stall just isn't good enough to compete in this metagame?

 

[NatGeo]

And maybe there are metagames where stall just doesn't work. I think that is the direction that DW OU has taken, and it's not a bad one per se. Shadow Tag Chandelure isn't the sole cause of stall being unviable either - many of the Pokemon allowed in DW OU are just way too powerful for traditional stall teams to work around. Take a look at Specs Keldeo for an example - it 2HKOes the entire metagame under rain, and Secret Sword allows it to muscle through Chansey and Blissey.

That said, I believe stall is still viable - there is a team that was published recently in the RMT forum that peaked relatively high with stall. Cases like that are hard to pull off, however.

 

[shrang]

Hey, I only just thought of the most bog-standard list of stall Pokemon you can think of, not a proper team. The point is that Chandelure can beat 70-80% of walls in the tier, and if you want to design a stall team that counters most of the Pokemon in DW metagame, you're going to have to run Shed Shell on just that, 70-80% of your team.

And yes, we have had Pokemon banned for cutting down entire playstyles. Stall, balance and offense are the three main team archetypes in Pokemon. Gallade and Heracross was banned in gen 4 for completely dismantling stall by itself. Yanmega was banned because offense could not work with it in the tier. Same goes with Excadrill this gen. It's not just stall that Chandelure beats too. It can easily tear down your defensive Pokemon on a balanced team so something like Excadrill/Terrakion/Blaziken/whatever can just sweep whenever it wants. Again, you can make the Shed Shell argument, and the "playing better than your opponent" argument, but even then, Chandelure does its job way too easily. I know we aren't using Uber characteristics any more, but even then, they are still excellent guidelines to follow. Chandelure is probably the epitome the Support Characteristic

 

[jrrrrrrr]

And yes, we have had Pokemon banned for cutting down entire playstyles.

I would hope that our council system would prevent this kind of logic from making an impact on tiering decisions. The health and diversity of the metagame is much more important than preserving preconceived notions of what people can use. "cutting out playstyles" is a complete fabrication, and even if it was true, it's hard to prove that it's actually a bad thing.

To further illustrate how "cutting out playstyles" is not a real thing...Let's use that "stall team" that you totally didn't make on purpose with 5 pokemon weak to Chandelure: Hippowdon can use EQ or Roar, Celebi can paralyze it or use Earth Power, Jellicent has STAB Water-moves and beastly SpDef to survive an attack, and Blissey beats any set that isn't subCM, Skarmory even has Sturdy Whirlwind to phaze it. Not to mention that with the hazards on that team, the Chandelure user must have impeccable timing or else sand and SR will whittle that lamp to nothing. It's not nearly as easy to kill with Chandelure as you say it is. And this just making minor tweaks to a team that doesn't exist off the top of my head, nothing that could possibly be deemed as "overcentralizing". Stall isn't destroyed by Chandelure and certainly isn't 'cut out' by it's mere presence.

 

[danilo]

Chandelure is anything but broken. The notion that something should be banned because it eliminates viable archetypes is silly, and jrrrrrr went into plenty of detail on why it's silly. Chandelure is just an excellent utility Pokemon. It fixes up team flaws, and it does its job very effectively. But, that's not to say that it doesn't have flaws.

Chandelure is weak to EVERY single form of entry hazard. Chandelure can't switch in one hundred times in a battle, and rarely takes down more than one Pokemon. Secondly, Chandelure is no where near overcentralizing. Shrang, your stall team example is pretty terrible, to be blunt. If 5/6th of your team is weak to one of the most common Pokemon, then you deserve to lose. That's bad teambuilding, not a broken Pokemon.

Finally, Chandelure is a 1 for 1 at best. It come in, kills one of your Pokemon, then you can switch in and kill it. Unfortunately, Chandelure can switch out. Luckily for all of us, Chandelure can prove to help teams more than it hurts teams. Say Chandelure kills something on your team with Shadow Ball, after said Chandelure has switched into Stealth Rock once. You then switch into your ghost resist, say Scizor. Scizor sets up a Swords Dance and proceeds to put dents through your opponents team. This common example can be used for any of Chandelure's coverage moves.

It seems that i forgot to mention one thing. Chandelure is mediocre vs rain and sand teams. Rain teams don't care about Chandelure's main STAB, and most Ferrothorn's should be running Shed Shell in this meta. Sand teams have one of their guys taken out by Chandy, then Tyranitar comes in and uses Pursuit.

All in all, Chandelure is a good utility mon, but farrrr from broken.

 

[shrang]

Chandelure is anything but broken. The notion that something should be banned because it eliminates viable archetypes is silly, and jrrrrrr went into plenty of detail on why that it's silly. Chandelure is just an excellent utility Pokemon. It fixes up team flaws, and it does its job very effectively. But, that's not to say that it doesn't have flaws.

Chandelure is weak to EVERY single form of entry hazard. Chandelure can't switch in one hundred times in a battle, and rarely takes down more than one Pokemon. Secondly, Chandelure is no where near overcentralizing. Shrang, your stall team example is pretty terrible, to be blunt. If 5/6th of your team is weak to one of the most common Pokemon, then you deserve to lose. That's bad teambuilding, not a broken Pokemon.

Finally, Chandelure is a 1 for 1 at best. It come in, kills one of your Pokemon, then you can switch in and kill it. Unfortunately, Chandelure can switch out. Luckily for all of us, Chandelure can prove to help teams more than it hurts teams. Say Chandelure kills something on your team with Shadow Ball, after said Chandelure has switched into Stealth Rock once. You then switch into your ghost resist, say Scizor. Scizor sets up a Swords Dance and proceeds to put dents through your opponents team. This common example can be used for any of Chandelure's coverage moves.

It seems that i forgot to mention one thing. Chandelure is mediocre vs rain and sand teams. Rain teams don't care about Chandelure's main STAB, and most Ferrothorn's should be running Shed Shell in this meta. Sand teams have one of their guys taken out by Chandy, then Tyranitar comes in and uses Pursuit.

All in all, Chandelure is a good utility mon, but farrrr from broken.

1) Chandelure being weak to all hazards doesn't matter because it doesn't need to switch in many times anyway. Most of the time, Chandelure only needs to switch in once to remove Pokemon X. It isn't THAT weak to hazards, either, since it's only 2x weak to SR, meaning it would usually get at least 1 or 2 switches per match. Chandelure dying doesn't matter if it removes a counter before it does so. Yes, the stall team that I thought up in 10 seconds isn't very good, but again, it demonstrates that walls are very susceptible to Chandelure. My earlier post has a list of things can Chandelure just wipe clean from the face of the Earth if you don't run Shed Shell. It is about half the damn metagame. If, on average, your team is similar to what the rest of the metagame is using, that'll be half your team you need to be running Shed Shell on, based on the assumption that your team is from the metagame we are talking about.

2) Chandelure is a 1 for 1, in terms of Pokemon killed, yes. However, looking at that is meaningless, although there are times where Chandelure can do way more than 1 for 1 (SubCM), unless you go run Shed Shell on all of your mons. Chandelure is not a sweeper, I think we've already established that. However, it is which Pokemon that Chandelure that's important. Of course if you've got your Gliscor removed by Chandelure (which is not going to run Shed Shell any time soon), you can bring in Tyranitar to revenge kill it with Pursuit. However, if you look just one step ahead, you'll immediately see that something like Excadrill or Terrakion just came in and set up on your Tyranitar. "Wait a minute... where's my Gliscor?! Holy shit now I'm fucked". This sort of thing happens all the time. Mm, what about switch in Scizor? Yes, you can SD on the switch and maybe kill something (Scizor's a really bad sweeper by the way. What happens next? Chandelure comes back in and completely dicks you again. Okay, you're Choice Banded and you Pursuit Chandelure to death. Same thing happens with Excadrill or whatever sweeper again. "Where's my Gliscor?" So, the "fair trade" wasn't so fair, after all. It's like in chess. You just took the opposing queen with your bishop or something only to realise that they sac'd the queen to mate you in three. Sure, you took away 9 points (what the queen is) for a loss of 3 points (bishop), but you just lost the game. You don't even need kill the Pokemon that you're after either. Leaving it at 10-20% is pretty much the same thing in terms of a sweeper that can take advantage of it.

3) Chandelure isn't as poor as you think in the rain and sand. If you haven't noticed, the main most common team circulating around IMO (TTar/Excadrill/Garchomp/Chandelure/Keldeo/filler) is using Chandelure on a sand team. Sand does nothing to deter Chandelure. In terms of rain, Chandelure isn't that bad, either. I've already mentioned how you completely boss bulky Politoed or Choiced ones locked in a non-Water move with Sunnybeam (again, are you really going to run Shed Shell on Politoed?). Chandelure can also run Choice Specs to nail down on things he couldn't kill before. For example, Jellicent is cleaned OHKOed by Specs Shadow Ball.

 

[danilo]

Counter Points
1. What do you mean the fact that Chandelure is weak to every kind of entry hazard doesn't matter? Volcarona only needs to switch in once to destroy a team. Many walls are susceptible to being OHKO'd by Volcarona, but the notion that Volcarona is broken is silly by any stretch of the imagination. How many Pokemon Chandelure can finish off is irrelevant. This is a metagame, if you're not prepared for a threat, then you deserve to lose. Every viable Pokemon can take out a number of other Pokemon with ease. The fact that Chandelure has to lock itself into a move is a both a gift and a curse.

2. How is the fact that Chandelure is a 1 for 1 meaningless? You kill something on my team with Chandelure. I send in something else that can set up on Chandelure because my team is built decently, and I accounted for a major threat in the metagame. Now you're facing a situation where I have a decent chance to sweep your team or put some dents in it. I'm happy with the situation that Chandelure provided. The notion that Chandelure is broken because it paves the way for a Pokemon on your team to sweep is so silly. If that's the case, Dugtrio is broken because it makes sun such an amazing archetype. I mean, Dugtrio can kill Tyranitar and Heatran. Oh wait, Dugtrio has a ton of flaws, just like Chandelure.

3. I'm not going to go into how I feel that Chandelure isn't that good against rain/sand. I generally don't have a problem vs chandelure just because of the way i play.

Before you respond to any of my points, respond to this question.
If Chandelure is so broken, then why aren't we seeing Shed Shell being ran on so many more Pokemon? If Chandelure is as overcentralizing as you claim, surely players will want to escape from Chandelure, thus leading to more Shed Shell usage

 

[Rakan]

Just a quick point, I just want to emphasize that bans are not in any way endorsed by usage. A lot of usage does not equal a ban, nor does little usage automatically put a Pokemon out of the running for being banned.

 

[shrang]

Counter Points
1. What do you mean the fact that Chandelure is weak to every kind of entry hazard doesn't matter? Volcarona only needs to switch in once to destroy a team. Many walls are susceptible to being OHKO'd by Volcarona, but the notion that Volcarona is broken is silly by any stretch of the imagination. How many Pokemon Chandelure can finish off is irrelevant. This is a metagame, if you're not prepared for a threat, then you deserve to lose. Every viable Pokemon can take out a number of other Pokemon with ease. The fact that Chandelure has to lock itself into a move is a both a gift and a curse.

2. How is the fact that Chandelure is a 1 for 1 meaningless? You kill something on my team with Chandelure. I send in something else that can set up on Chandelure because my team is built decently, and I accounted for a major threat in the metagame. Now you're facing a situation where I have a decent chance to sweep your team or put some dents in it. I'm happy with the situation that Chandelure provided. The notion that Chandelure is broken because it paves the way for a Pokemon on your team to sweep is so silly. If that's the case, Dugtrio is broken because it makes sun such an amazing archetype. I mean, Dugtrio can kill Tyranitar and Heatran. Oh wait, Dugtrio has a ton of flaws, just like Chandelure.

3. I'm not going to go into how I feel that Chandelure isn't that good against rain/sand. I generally don't have a problem vs chandelure just because of the way i play.

Before you respond to any of my points, respond to this question.
If Chandelure is so broken, then why aren't we seeing Shed Shell being ran on so many more Pokemon? If Chandelure is as overcentralizing as you claim, surely players will want to escape from Chandelure, thus leading to more Shed Shell usage

I'm sorry, but your reasoning is quite weak, IMO.

1) Volcarona isn't broken because with Stealth Rock up, it is quite manageable and the hazard impedes its ability to do its job, which is to sweep. That and it requires quite a lot of support. Chandelure doesn't need that support. By the time it's come in and gone once, it's quite likely that it's killed off something important. It's done its job, unlike Volcarona. Chandelure can easily do its job with hazards up or not, Volcarona not so easily. If you want to apply that logic, then fine, what about Ho-oh? It's 4x weak to SR, but it gets its job done whether SR is up or not, which is why its in Ubers. While I'm not saying Chandelure is as broken as Ho-oh, my point is that Chandelure easily gets its job done whether or not hazards are up or not, because he doesn't need to switch that many times anyway.

2) Again, I will explain why the 1 for 1 is meaningless. When Chandelure kills something and locks itself into a move that you can set up on (which again, we are assuming Scarf/Specs, which isn't the whole picture), it doesn't mean that you can't automatically sweep their team either. Chandelure's team is also a team of 6. It also has a capacity to deal with whatever threat you're setting up on Chandelure. It is which Pokemon is removed that is important. Again, your Gliscor got removed by Chandelure. How the hell do you deal with Excadrill now? Say it's early game and you were both 5-5 before Gliscor got assassinated. Now it's 5-4, and you send in Keldeo to set up on Hidden Power Ice. However, with still five Pokemon in play, your opponent is probably still very well prepared for Keldeo with his Latias, Dragonite, Thundurus, Serperior, or whatever he's using to check your Keldeo, while you are now either very weak or at worst defenseless against whatever Gliscor checks, be it Excadrill, Terrakion, Breloom, whatever. Other option is to send in Tyranitar or Scizor (depending on move) to Pursuit Chandelure and get rid of it. Good, now you're 4-4. Again, now all that happens is Excadrill comes in on Pursuit, sets up an SD, and you are now without your Excadrill counter, or at best it is much harder to check Excadrill because you lost your best one. It's not just 4-4, but 4-4 with the momentum very much in your opponent's favour. Basically, if we're talking chess, there are pawns everywhere on the board, and you just swapped your knight for a bad bishop that got blocked by all those pawns. About the Dugtrio comparison, the easiest way to reply to that is the sheer amount of Pokemon Chandelure can trap and kill as opposing those that Dugtrio can. Chandelure can trap and kill half the metagame. Dugtrio even has trouble with those he's supposed to remove, sometimes.

3) Not going to try and talk about this because it's your experiences and I'm not going to try and pass judgement on it.

Now to your final point. Why aren't we seeing more Shed Shell on everything? Firstly, we are. You don't see good players running Skarmory, Ferrothorn, or whatever without Shed Shell any more. Secondly, it may because it is really impractical? Running Shed Shell on Blissey just sucks. It's almost like an Eviolite Chansey without Eviolite. With sand everywhere, do you really think Blissey wants to go without Leftovers? Even if Chandelure is the most broken mon in the metagame, do you really think we're going to run Shed Shell on every mon and weaken ourselves to everything else? Do you see 2 or 3 of Gastrodon / Palkia / Grass Arceus / Eviolite Chansey on any one Ubers team? Of course not. Is that to say Kyogre isn't broken? Did you see 2 or 3 of SpD Scizor / Spiritomb / SpD Metagross / Cresselia on any one team when Deoxys-A was around? If not, did that stop it being ridiculously broken? If you look at the big picture, you will see that running you can't just run Shed Shell on every mon because your team would suck.

All I can say, mate, is that you're not looking at the big picture. You're more concerned about the immediate effects of Chandelure KOing something and not looking at how Chandelure works with a team or the opposing team.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

If you're comparing Chandelure to Deoxys and Kyogre you're really going to lose that argument lol. Chandelure will never even compare to DPP Garchomp levels of brokenness, let alone Kyogre. That is, the level where you need Gengar to counter Garchomp and you need Blissey to counter Gengar so those three pokemon are on >50% of teams. I know "usage isn't everything", but it's a pretty reliable tool to detect something that is breaking the metagame. If there are huge spikes or gaps, it's usually something important. It's what caused the first rumblings of suspect testing on this site. Chandelure is on 15.5% of teams, and this is even with advantages against a handful of the top 10. (In 1337 stats, its only the 5th most used) It's a great revenge killer and with perfect timing it can be a remarkable setup machine. It has its weaknesses but its a dominant force in the metagame. The metagame is clearly adjusted to it at this point in time, but there may be a point in the future where this is not the case. The best way to prove this is to show everyone how broken it is in battles.

Whether or not we disagree, let's keep this as a real discussion instead of hyping it to Kyogre levels or dumping on it like Magikarp.

 

[shrang]

I'm not hyping Chandelure to Kyogre levels, I'm just showing that his logic is flawed. Using a far-fetched example using your opponent's logic is perfectly legit. Even then, you don't see Kyogre being countered by more than one of its counters on a team. So why should we see Chandelure see more than one Pokemon running Shed Shell per team? The problem is that a lot of Pokemon that aren't running a Shed Shell seems to be susceptible to being killed by it.

 

[Taylor]

Firstly people should build teams that synergize well together whilst being capable of doubling-up at times when the pressure mounts; that's if you want a balanced yet solid offensive/defensive core.

This tier is demanding in that respect because of the wide variety of Pokemon available, but it's not as if there's only play-style which has a vast amount of advantages over the rest.

The current number of Pokemon and the ones which may seem to stand out are as equally concerning as one another, which can work in favor for/against depending on the team match-up.

I conclude that just because "x" Pokemon may theoretically glue your team together on paper, but gets thrown off because your team's strategy is not as focused to take advantage of the situation as your opponents, shouldn't be how desire our metagame to be. It is meant to flourish and continue to sport different trends as it continues to develop.

 

[blaZofgold]

However, for some reason Stall is completely out of DW OU. I don't think it's even partially viable to pull off a stall team, simply because of a huge amount of setup sweepers and insane combos that prevent a Pokemon from stalling.

Anyways, it's kinda obvious that the Chandelure argument is getting out of hand. I shouldn't talk with this kind of authority, because I myself have been guilty of having some rather heated posts, but Chandelure shouldn't be causing that much of a flame war.

I don't really need tutoring on how well Focus Sash works in Dream World, believe me. And I suggested Sash because it works as a surprise and allows you to throw the opponent off-guard; I don't know how you interpreted this suggestion as a way of countering Chandelure specifically.

Actually, this just gave me the best idea of an anti-Chandelure strategy yet. Throw a sash on a Starmie, tank a Energy Ball and return KO with Hydro Pump. Actually, I suppose that its quite simple to check Chandelure as long as you plan ahead and bait Chandelure out of its shell. Chandelure's main boon for it is that it can easily switch into a counter before it get's KOed while you're stuck with whatever you've got. Checks and counters won't work in a traditional sense, so its theoretically pretty broken. I don't think its nearly as broken in actuality as it is theoretically, but then again I don't think I've seen Chandelure played correctly as of yet.

 

[danilo]

shrang, if you're losing to Chandelure, just build a better team. Tyranitar is the most used mon in 1337 stats because it makes Chandelure a 1 for 1 100% of the time. Tyranitar is a hard counter to Chandelure.

Your logic on the fact that Chandelure can kill a Pokemon that walls your opponent's teams is intrinsically flawed. Sun teams have trouble with Heatran, so they run Dugtrio.

If you're complaining about how Chandelure takes out on of your checks to your opponents mons, then build a better team, or a different team.