np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 12 - Always (I Wanna Be With You) [SEE POST #263]

[haunter]

No, you can get them on different accounts for the two ladders.

 

[Goutland]

I just finished OUcurrent (what a relief!), gonna start OUsuspect tomorrow and hopefully finish that soon.

A question I have is, with ladder decay, how do you verify that we ever had reqs in the first place? I asked this in the RU forum before and never really got a real answer. I'm slightly worried that my score will decay below reqs before the identification thread goes up, which is why I'm asking. I know there's screenshots (which I've already taken), but anyone can fake those really. So hopefully this can get answered.

As for my opinion on Keldeo now that I've finished the ladder with it included: I still don't think it's broken. Provided that I prepared for it (with Gastrodon and scarf Latios), the fact that you can prepare for it with a wide variety of offensive and defensive pokemon is reason enough for me to believe it's not broken. Do I think it's centralizing and that the metagame might be better off without it? Maybe, but I don't believe banning for stupid reasons.

And as for my opinion on Keldeo vs offense: Yes, Keldeo is good against offense. It's very difficult to check it offensively without prediction or something like Toxicroak. But I don't think that's an issue for a well built hyper offensive team. It's totally possible to beat a team with Keldeo with no real checks to it at all, as long as you have at least one fighting and one water resist to force it out, which every team should have anyway. A scarfer would help too. Even if you do you have to sack something to Keldeo to get your check in safely, it's often not even a huge deal because you take the momentum back, giving you a setup opportunity or a kill. You have tons of options whether it's choiced or not. You don't have to have something that can switch into it with impunity. Offense has never been about that.

 

[gr8astard]

Agreeing with undisputed and Ojama. While Keldeo is undoubtedly a very good Pokemon, it has plenty of checks and to a lesser extent counters (unlike Landorus), and I don't see the need for us to ban it. I don't have anything to say to add to the "no-ban" side that hasn't been said already, but I feel like these are the two points that people tend to forget when they think of banning Keldeo:

scarf keldeo is probably the best scarf user in the game, but it certainly has exploitable flaws. it's pretty much useless against defensive teams, and i don't think that's a disputable point.

We also shouldn't forget that Keldeo is useful for the Metagame as it can Revenge Kill a lot of powerful threats like Dragonite, Alakazam, Garchomp, Gengar, Jirachi, Volcarona, Gyarados (Icy Wind that drops its Speed) etc. We would really miss it if it finally gets banned.

Keldeo is a very good mon, sure, but it also plays an important role in the metagame. Not only that, but its usual checks/counters are still good Pokemon regardless of Keldeo's existence, and its not putting a strain to our teambuilding the way Landorus did. Jellicent is still the best spinblocker in the game; Lati@s, Celebi, Amoonguss/Roserade are good checks to Breloom and other fighting types; Starmie and Tentacruel spins; physically defensive Gastrodon handles Rotom-W and numerous rain and physical threats; Toxicroak is still a solid rain sweeper, and so on.


I do agree that Keldeo puts more strain on offensive teams, however. @X5Dragon, while I'm not saying that your argument is completely wrong, your replay certainly didn't help your case.

I would like to use this mere example to show how a team with checks and offensive pressure can deal with Keldeo:
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-40494117

What kind of offensive pressure did you apply exactly? All I see is you scraping a win vs a guy who didn't make the smartest plays all game (and not the smartest Celebi set for that matter), because he summoned permanent rain and you happen to have a Kingdra. Really the only "relevant" part of that replay is the part where the opponent has a Keldeo. All I learned from that replay is that Kingdra in rain wrecks~

 

[X5Dragon]

To be deleted by a mod.

 

[PDC]

It wasn't against CTC. You're also forgetting the big part where Jirachi was critted which cost the player the game.

 

[gr8astard]

You get a spin off for free because he chose to U-turn out to Forretress for whatever reason. Almost everything on his team are OHKO'ed or can't do much back to Kingdra once he lets his Celebi get weakened to that extent. I'm not here to criticize, but just saying if that's the replay you use to back up your argument of offense dealing with Keldeo just fine, people will have doubts. Now if this is a Kingdra suspect test....

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Keldeo brings nothing positive to the metagame. It makes rain and sand offense overpowered and restricts team building. Its just another ridiculous powerful threat that happens to stand out from the pack by being nearly impossible to revenge kill and switch into. Whether you believe its broken or not its up to you but the fact is its not a good influence to the meta, all it does is make the dominant playstyles even stronger than they are.

 

[Matthew]

Keldeo brings nothing positive to the metagame. It makes rain and sand offense overpowered and restricts team building. Its just another ridiculous powerful threat that happens to stand out from the pack by being nearly impossible to revenge kill and switch into. Whether you believe its broken or not its up to you but the fact is its not a good influence to the meta, all it does is make the dominant playstyles even stronger than they are.

If you think Keldeo is impossible to revenge or switch-in to you're absolutely silly!

 

[RaXes]

We also shouldn't forget that Keldeo is useful for the Metagame as it can Revenge Kill a lot of powerful threats like Dragonite, Alakazam, Garchomp, Gengar, Jirachi, Volcarona, Gyarados (Icy Wind that drops its Speed) etc. We would really miss it if it finally gets banned.

@SmashBrosBrawl I wouldn't call that "nothing positive".

 

[X5Dragon]

To be deleted by a mod.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

RaXes anyone of the dozens of generics scarfers that exist in the tier can revenge kill anyone of the dozens of generic sweepers. If keldeo is banned you simply use another scarfer in its place.

 

[Honus]

No, I'm saying is: "I have no counters to Keldeo and can check it and utilize offensive pressure to eliminate it".

Also, no one said Keldeo didn't do well against offense; only that offense also does well against Keldeo.



Maintaining offensive pressure isn't as hard as you try to imply AND offensive teams are built to maintain offensive pressure.

You can use offensive pressure to eliminate any threat, that's the game of Pokemon. This is obviously an exaggerated example but ShakeItup beat Laurel, who's a decent player, with a team of LU Pokemon while Laurel used an OU Team. It's possible to play around a LOT of Uber and broken Pokemon, especially if there's a disparity in skill between the 2 players [Suspects need to be considered in the hands of a skilled player, where they're most lethal, rather than a ladder random], that doesn't mean that these Pokemon aren't broken just because your HO teams can use offiensive pressure to play around them. We can't all outplay every Keldeo user we go up against while packing 0 counters against it, unlike you.

 

[PDC]

lol

needs much more than SR to "break through". It also needs to keep said SR in the field (and have an SR user) and either strong checks to spinners or/and spinblockers. And then it needs all outspeeding pokemon to be dead (no priorities, no bulk investment to tank a hit), be relatively in good health (to escape death to neutral priorities), kill anything that can tank it's hits and threaten to status or damage it (Jellicent, Ammongus, Toxicroak, Cresselia, and Venusaur, etc.) and prevent the opponent from setting up by applying offensive pressure (ironic, right).

Keeping Stealth Rock isn't too hard. Pairing a Stealth Rocker isn't even complicated in the slightest. But hey, you're the one who hasn't used Stealth Rock on some of your best HO teams, so what would I know. Keldeo doesn't give a shit about priority at all, Mach Punch is basically all it needs to concern itself about unless it is low in Health or the opponent has boosted attack. It is already pretty bulky, and the typing it has just supports itself. Jellicent, Ammoongus, and Cress are all seen on defensive teams. Toxicroak can be 2HKO'd by Specs Secret Sword, and although it is a very underrated Pokemon that usually "checks Keldeo" (srsly its cool try it out), it can definitely be beaten. Venusaur under sun can handle it, although who uses Venusaur outside of it? So in that entire list you compounded 2 Pokemon that can somewhat consistently beat Keldeo that are offensive. Toxicroak, and Venusaur. You left out Lati@s and Starmie, but then again offensive Starmie gets wrecked consistently over time. To be honest you don't really even need to pair that much too support Keldeo to break through its high usage counters. Considering 3 of those are completely weather-reliant you're not using them that often. Ojama put this perfectly in listing Keldeo's counters, and I think I said it more than once KELDEO DOES NOT DO WELL AGAINST STALL AS WELL AS IT DOES AGAINST OFFENSE. This has been said by so many players, I don't know when it will get through to you.

Let's see how this started:

1) X5D begins posting in topic saying Keldeo worries defensive teams more than offensive one, on the ban side fence until I read enough arguments.
2) Someone angry starts saying offense suffer against Keldeo
3) Joins discussion defending offensive teams against Keldeo
4) PDC backs up claim that offense sucks against Keldeo
5) X5D continues defending offensive teams against Keldeo
6) PDC accuses me of saying HO handles Keldeo well therefore not broken (don't laugh yet)
7) X5D points out to number 1
8) PDC backtracks and says I said it some time ago and insists I go back to defending HO again

Your statement about offensive teams only being able to use offensive pressure to beat Keldeo implies that offensive teams are effective WITHOUT offensive pressure. Offense barely need counters to beat Keldeo. They just need sturdy checks and offensive pressure to do the job.

Keldeo doesn't like facing defensive teams, it does FAR BETTER against offense. When you can comprehend that then talk to me. Don't laugh yet? I should be the one laughing, your arguments are fucking stupid. Literally, you can't even grasp the concept of "stall teams don't care about Keldeo as much as offense" even after being said so many times. When you can point out WHERE I SAID 7-8 I will maybe consider this sequence of events. I defended the fact that offense does bad against Keldeo. You have said HO handles it well through offensive pressure, you're the one who brings nothing new to the table at all. I don't know who else has to tell you offensive pressure doesn't work that well against Keldeo. Most offensive teams get destroyed by Keldeo, as they are all light checks / counters. Maybe Lati@s can handle it, but really outside of that you can absolutely do work against offense. Ojama is a great player, and he just said basically the same thing I did in how Keldeo does well against offense. Does that mean you'll always win? No, obviously. Also, your last sentiments literally mean nothing at all. You can't apply offensive pressure as easy as you say, just please, stop. Keldeo can absolutely destroy offense if given a bit of an opening. It can manage to 2HKO most offensive teams with ease, and wear them down very quickly. I have a feeling you wouldn't do as well against actual competent players who can use Keldeo correctly.

No, I'm saying is: "I have no counters to Keldeo and can check it and utilize offensive pressure to eliminate it".

Also, no one said Keldeo didn't do well against offense; only that offense also does well against Keldeo.

Is that some sort of fucking paradox? Keldeo does fine against offense, it is the other way around. YOU said Keldeo didn't do well against offensive, it does well against stall. YOU said that Keldeo can be beaten apparently so easy with offensive pressure, even when facing "good players." Let me get this fucking straight. Your replay was facing a scrub. Shutugal's haxxed a player while applying basically no real offensive pressure at fucking all. If anybody is backtracking, its you.

Maintaining offensive pressure isn't as hard as you try to imply AND offensive teams are built to maintain offensive pressure.

Well no fucking shit they are. I never would have figured that out by myself. But it is harder against Keldeo than it is against so many other threats that you can apply more simple offensive pressure too. Keldeo has great coverage, great power, and does overall very well against offense. IT IS HARDER IN PRACTICE THAN IN THEORY. Can you win against Keldeo with offense? Of course you can, but you have to realize you are at a bit of a disadvantage.

 

[X5Dragon]

To be deleted by a mod.

 

[Hot N Cold]

I agree that Keldeo does much better against Offensive than against Defensive, mostly Rain Keldeo against offensive weatherless or sand imho Defensive teams fits very well most common checks / counters to Keldeo like Latias, Celebi, Jellicent, Gastrodon, Shedinja, Tentacruel, Venusaur (sun), Amoonguss etc. While against offensive teams Keldeo resist or is neutral against every priority and have a decent bulk, is super fast with a choice scarf and almost outrun everything while in Rain hits super harder so you need play around with water resist / inmunity to tank water spam.

 

[X5Dragon]

To be deleted by a mod.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Pratically every single team out there has stealth rock, stop talking as if that was some costly support that takes up a teamslot. There are a shit ton of mons that can easily fit rock on their sets while providing other support for the
team. No, keldeo doesnt need spinblockers, epbelt keldeo destroys every single spinner in the tier. No you dont need to make your team centered around keldeo, it requires minimum support because its counters can either be defeated by the appropriate hp, are pursuit weak or just suck. No one is saying it doesnt require support, what people are saying is it doesnt require any more support than you would give to any other sweeper.

 

[PDC]

First off I want to say lets agree to disagree on the last part as well, its pointless.

Then stop saying these bizarre comments, if offensive teams can win by applying pressure against Keldeo that means it working just fine.

They are still at a pretty decent disadvantage. My posts already argued this so many times, offensive teams ARE at a disadvantage, offensive pressure doesn't always beat Keldeo. Just like Keldeo can't always 100% destroy offense, but still, Keldeo has a very distinct advantage. undisputed, VN, and Ojama have both pointed it out.

Yes there is a contradiction, Keldeo does well against offense, offense is at a disadvantage. Offense is not at an advantage.

You don't always need a spin-blocker with Stealth Rock. SR + Spikes maybe just because its very helpful, but you don't always need 3 spots to sanction a hazard. Keldeo can be revenged, i'm not denying that. You don't need an "entire team to support Keldeo". Is an entire team built to support SD Scizor? It works together in correlation. TTar + Keldeo + Landorus-T works amazing together, that's 1/2 of a team, and then you have room for plenty of other Pokes. Keldeo doesn't need that much support to do very well. Everything needs support to sweep, DPP Garchomp did, Swift Swimmers did, and hell, Excadrill and Blaziken did. That doesn't make them not broken or even extremely deadly.

I faced someone who couldn't support his Keldeo, Shurtgal forced her player to give up Keldeo after he failed to support it and couldn't keep it out of harms why while she had 2 outspeeding checks. You interestingly haven't shown anything so far that demonstrates how powerful Keldeo is against a well built offensive team. Care to share or is CAPsing and loling your only strengths?

Shurtugal crit his Jirachi. You faced a player who wasn't very good, he didn't even have Recover on his Celebi, which is just plain stupid. Your replays mean nothing. Shurtugal asked for the replay to be removed btw, so I guess she wasn't so proud of it. gr8stard said this perfectly, why don't you listen to him?

Oh, and don't forget cursing. Cursing is definitely high up there.

 

[X5Dragon]

To be deleted by a mod.

 

[Reymedy]

Keldeo Scarf crushes the offensive teams for so many reasons, interesting ones IMHO are :

- The sheer power and the speed tier that you can reach with scarf guarantees a 2HKO on pretty much anything an offensive team could use. But everybody told about it pretty well.
- Second is, the Steel. Yes, like 95% of the teams have a Steel type and in offensive it's usually Scizor/Jirachi (scarfed Jira most of the time) in... I don't know, a good 75% of the time. Let's see what can do Scizor and Scarf Jirachi to Keldeo.. ahm, not much for sure. Unless you play Zen Headbutt (sacrificing a GOD KNOWS important slot on your Jirachi, who is anyway outsped, so you probably will have to pull the prediction of the year, or keep that pixie healthy as hell), or AcroZor (same thing basically, you have to hit on the switch which is meh)
- The viable scarfers in offensive teams (unless you're a HO Scarfless believer, you will use a Scarf in your team). Jirachi, Keldeo are by far the best options, Terrakion is a less used possiblity. Once again, let's assume you face another offensive team, I can tell you that you'd rather be the team with the Scarf Keldeo and not the Scarf Jirachi because in the end, Scarfers will seal the game.

So, two "stamples" of any BW teams, when it comes to offensive teams, are fucked uo by Keldeo. It's the sign of a weaknesses, inherently present, or at least, hard to mitigate in my opinion.

Now, I just found interesting to post my own conclusions, since I'm a big HO player when it comes to laddering. HOWEVER I'm strongly against a Keldeo's ban. I feel like the pony has been put on the table because Specs under Rain illustrates what really means HORSEPOWER, but then ban Drizzle, because without Rain support Keldeo is a really good pokemon, but definitely not a ban worthy one. And as Ojama I consider him as beneficial for the OU tier. He fills a hole, with his interesting typing, his mixed power, he has many tricks under his sleeve (stuff like Lead Keldeo with Taunt and shit is hella funny to play and imo could be "viable", CM sets and all) and what he does to OU (RKing, supporting some team archetypes, while holding back some others : I find funny to see people whining about offensive teams being too strong, but willing to ban their worst nightmare). I don't want another victim of the "don't ban weather" policy.
#freepony


EDIT : Before someone says "what the fuck is this guy saying, defensive teams can have Steel and Scarfers so they're fucked too", I wanna underline that defensive teams are about switching around, offensive teams are not. So what can be annoying in a defensive team, can be almost unsurmountable for offensive teams without a good back-up strategy.

 

[doublenikesocks]

I don't know if you have played OU or read the thread at all but lati@s and dragonite are not the only answers to keldeo.

Yes I am putting Amoongus or Gastrodon on my offensive team. Or NP celebi lol. Latias maybe, but if I don't run max HP than I just get crushed by Keldeo and still doesn't solve Ttar issues. Also specs jelli

 

[Curtains]

Curtains, he is speaking as an offensive player and none of keldeo counters fit in such teams, as such he is restricted to use soft checks (if they switch into icy wind, they lose).

Alright give me an example of these offensive teams because I guarantee they have some smart answer for keldeo. Note that you never really can completely stop some threats. You can't legitimately stop terrakion. It can always go for stone edge OR close combat and basically 2hko the entire game at minimum. I don't understand the idea that you always have to have a hard counter for everything especially with the clusterfuck of shit introduced in gen 5. I personally think keeping weather only exasperated this clusterfuck but that is a different story. Tell me... How the flying fuck do you beat a banded or scarfed darmanitan in the sun with your weatherless team? Besides something like heatran what can legitimately step in a kill it? Don't say keldeo.

252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo in sun: 315-371 (97.52 - 114.86%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

So the idea is you will have overpowered threats in this game. It is up to you to deal with it. There are an over abundance of tools available to defeat keldeo. Yes you can change the HP and give keldeo perfect prediction but in a real game situation you won't get every move right. Besides, who even says balls to the wall offensive is even good or the best play style? Is it even a playstyle worth saving? Having 6 pokemon with no defense or water resist is suicide in this metagame. Literally everything with a pulse can step in and do massive damage. Depending on the pokemon scarf keldeo is probably the least of your worries if you have just one pokemon that can take a water and fighting hit. So this keldeo kills offensive argument is asinine because of the ambiguity of what exactly an "offensive team" is and the obivious lapse in team building and planning if you do happen to get swept by a scarfed keldeo.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Dude every single sweeper out there can revenge kill darm not to mention its sun reliant and suicides everytime it attempts to wallbreak. Terrakion can be revenged easily by scarfers or priority because its weak to like everything. Keldeo doesnt has any of these issues, thats why this thing is on a whole new level, over all the other sweepers in the tier. Scarf latios and to some extent dragonite are the only reliable offensive answers for keldeo.

 

[Honus]

X5Dragon and Shurtugal, I apologize for attacking your arguments and after some careful study of high profile matches, I think I've come to see the validity of your viewpoints of Keldeo in the context of battles against Hyper Offense team. I will use this replay as an example, in which Smogon newcomer n00bcaek plays against her tutor AB2 in their first battle together, to get a feel for each other's playing styles' and abilities, although it does seem that both were giving it 100%, some might even say that n00bcaek was giving it 200%. Looking at the teams it is clear that Feraligatr and Keldeo can possibly break through n00bcaek's team, although Vaporeon must be weakened first. [To give some context, noobcaek says that she tends to use pokemon from a range of tiers, in her battles, as it catches people off guard]. Anyways, looking at noobcaek's side, it looks like Kyurem-B will end up being the win condition, especially if it isn't a choiced variant. However, noobcaek will need to get rid of or weaken Jirachi, and possibly kill Keldeo/Landorus-T so it can't be revenged. AB2 manages to lure in Heatran so that Keldeo can come in for free, but n00bcaek begins to show why Keldeo does not in fact decimate offense, as she sends in Mew on the predicted secret sword. Mew then paralyzes the Keldeo as she carefully plans out her endgame involving a Kyurem-B sweep, thus mitigating the threat of the water pony, despite the fact that her team is, somewhat weak to it on paper, especially in the rain. A simple Thunder Wave is all it takes for n00bcaek to get rid of the threat of Keldeo and take the advantage to be able to put offensive pressure on AB2's team successfuly, which she then does by luring in and KOing Jirachi with a +2 Weavile, setting the stage for the BIG 700 BST Dragon to do work and sweep the team. All in all, I believe that, offensive teams definitely have the opton to get rid of, cripple, or mitigate Keldeo if they keep constant offensive pressure or sacrifice a Pokemon that isn't vital in the endgame, such as n00bcaek's mew and that based posters x5dragon and shurtugal actually have some good points, visionaries of their time, even. Keldeo is certainly dealable with for mighty hyper offensive teams offensive teams everywhere, even in vicious drizzler offense.

also curtains i do not even know what you're on about with darmanitan lol

 

[Curtains]

Dude every single sweeper out there can revenge kill darm not to mention its sun reliant and suicides everytime it attempts to wallbreak. Terrakion can be revenged easily by scarfers or priority because its weak to like everything. Keldeo doesnt has any of these issues, thats why this thing is on a whole new level, over all the other sweepers in the tier. Scarf latios and to some extent dragonite are the only reliable offensive answers for keldeo.

You are thinking about the game to linearly. You are essentially talking about a team that is all dragons/sweepers right? That's not a good team bro. You have a ton of shit that can prevent a keldeo sweep. Toxicroak, alakazam, sun and the plethera of pokemon that resist it's main moves can stop of force keldeo out to regain momentum. Also know the fact that keldeo has to switch in most of the time or come in on the revenge.... So if you damage it early then it becomes way easier to handle in the endgame. if you work your resist and scout the way you are suppose to then you can find ways to beat it.