np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)

[astrohawke]

Pretty sure blissey/chansey also walls that latias as it can just constantly break your subs with seismic toss until you need to recover then just toxic you. Also any ferrothorn using gyro ball beats it. I'm sure there are others but that's just based on what commonly beats my sub/cm latias in ubers. There's a lot more counters than just those 3.

But honestly, you might be able to lure kill scizor with that reuniclus but any smart player isn't going to keep TTar in against a reuniclus that's just used trick room anyway. So you're not exactly guaranteed to easily get rid of its counters for the sweep. Then its sweep can also be stopped by scarf revenge killers or excadrill.

IMO, if you're gonna base a team around supporting a sweeper, it might as well be something like excadrill. Just have 5 other pokemon pound gliscor into the ground. Kill off any relevant priority and you're home free.

 

[UltiMario]

Instead of Sub, you can use Refresh. Deals with Status all the same.

Or you could use Roar in that slot, and just make sure lure out and KO Blissey and Chansey that might show up to make sure nobody is going to spoil your fun.

 

[Icey The King Of ice]

latias could counter any blissy/chansey if it has refresh other then a sub once you have scizor and tyranitar out the way latias can easily rip through opponents team with out worrying about annoying status which would other wise get in the way and stop the sweep. i personally find latias with calm mind recover refresh dragon pulse to cause more problems

 

[ginganinja]

@ Yoshiken

LO Adamant Max attack Mamoswines Ice Shard does around 46.15% - 54.95% to Latias. Basically this means Mamoswine switchs in as Latias gets up a Sub, takes a Dragon Pulse while it breaks the Sub, Latias still survives the Ice Shard and your Mammoswine died. You need to be Scarfed I believe but then again, once you move first any opponent with half a brain will know your scarfed and will switch out

But yeah it has more than 3 counters. Cloyster beats it with Icicle Spear, Metagross still beats it and I think Scarf Terrakion can still beat it (though granted they will figure out that you are scarfed once you attack first and break there sub. Any CM'er with Psycho Shock also wins. Id like to point out that Ferrothorn is a rather sketchy counter as Gyro Ball only has 8PP so can easily be stalled out with Substitute + Recover. Sigilyph is also pretty risky. If memory serves Sigilyph only wins if it has Whirlwind, otherwise Latias can set up Subs that don't get broken by Stored Power (if I remember correctly) and try and crit you.

 

[alphatron]

Calm Mind Sigilyph beats SubCM Latias pretty handily as it breaks the subs pretty easily even when Latias is at +6 with stored power. CP Sigilyph loses though.

Mamoswine CAN beat SubCM latias if you're using Icicle Spear over Ice Shard though. Breaks the subs and deals hefty damage to latias. There's also bronzong and volcorona.

 

[Chieliee]

Bronzong is the same as Ferrothorn, stall out Gyro Ball PP and he is not a counter anymore.

And yes, I forgot about Cloyster and Mamo :/ But I think you get the point.

 

[alphatron]

Stalling out of gyro ball PP would be the normal scenario. But seeing as how I ran into a bronzong using payback...(meh, I can't even complain about these kinds of things anymore).

 

[Byrn Dragonstone]

People seem to have forgotten about a great Special tank that can kill the Lati@s twins. Snorlax. Choice Band Snorlax is able to take the hits that they throw at him (Never 2HKO'd by Latios Specs Draco Meteor without rocks on the field), and can KO back with Crunch/Pursuit/Return. He is also able to handle other Calm mind setup pokemon.

Also Scarf Heracross kills lots and lots of things. Especially if you switchin on a Status move (except para). Walled by Gliscor, but since everyone carries a counter for him anyways it isn't that big of a deal.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Sub/CM/Roost/Dragon Pulse Latias is only countered/checked by 3 common pokes:

Jirachi
Scizor
Tyranitar

All you have to do is get rid of these three, and you are ready to sweep.

Personally, I'm using a TR/HP Fire/Focus Blast/Psychic Reuniclus to lure in Scizor and Tyranitar, and trust me, it has killed lots of them. Kill Jirachi with any of your 4 remaining pokes, and CMLatias is ready to sweep.

tl;dr: Latias is probably the most underrated poke in the OU metagame.

Nice job using Reuniclus as a lure, but what else can you use to remove both Scizor AND T-tar which are commonly used together?
I used Latias and she was awesome, but it isn't as easy to sweep as you make it out to be.
I can remove T-tar or I can remove Scizor, but removing both is a hassle as soon as they see Latias in the team preview >.<

What I did(on an alt...) was spam hazards with Deo-S, Skarm, etc. lure Scizor in and force him out, causing him to take a ton of hazard damage.
After everything is weak, just sweep.
Meh, it worked.


Latios is just more of a prick.
It's irritating that Max/Max Steels are taking 50% from a resisted move and these same steels either:
A) Have no reliable recovery.
B) Have reliable recovery, but it cuts away too much of their move pool.
C) Hate running a Sp.defensive set

So, my Scizor has to run a Choice Band to hit hard enough, but I still can't use Band Pursuit anyway because whatever comes in next is going to set up in my face.
What can set up on a 60 BP(After Tech) Dark Attack?

Conkeldurr
Scrafty
Dragonite
Volcarona
Terrakion
Virizion
Excadrill
Thundurus
Latias(IIRC, 252/0 Latias takes like 40% from Sp.Def Scizor's banded Pursuit...correct me on this)
Salamence
Gyarados

T_T
Just use Band U-turn? You're not taking another Meteor after SR, so use Pursuit or you're screwed.

What can set up on a -2 Specs D.Meteor?
Quite a few things actually.

Which of those doesn't easily die to common priority after the second meteor?
Volcarona
Dragonite(If it uses Roost and this is assuming there's no SR)
Gyarados maybe?

/end rant


Umm, back to Latias.
Great, easy to set up, but hard to get rid of counters without lures.
Rapes Rain and Sun and sets up on Scrotom.

People seem to have forgotten about a great Special tank that can kill the Lati@s twins. Snorlax. Choice Band Snorlax is able to take the hits that they throw at him (Never 2HKO'd by Latios Specs Draco Meteor without rocks on the field), and can KO back with Crunch/Pursuit/Return. He is also able to handle other Calm mind setup pokemon.

People don't use Snorlax because they're reminded that fighting moves are flying everywhere :(
Kinda sad, since he's not that bad.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

Also I know this topic is way out of date, but is there any chance we could take another look at Deoxys normal form? (I forget the name for it). If I remember correctly he barley hit the vote to go Uber, and a lot of people took issue with how he was sent there.

idk just asking I remember it being a hot-topic a while ago.

I would support that. Not because I don't think it's broken (I don't know if it is or not), but just because I thought it wasn't right to ban it when it hardly featured in the metagame. I wouldn't mind checking, just incase.

However, it seems we've gone "too far" now, so to speak. I don't think people want to back track so far. I'd support this, but it's what the community wants as a whole which really matters, and I doubt they would want to do that.

 

[Nails]

this thread is not for discussion of what should be banned or not banned, it is for discussion of metagame trends, good pokemon/movesets.

i'm using this post to hype tauntwow mew some more.

252 SpAtk Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs 252 HP/4 SpDef Mew: 84.16% - 99.5%

The strongest special attack in the metagame never ohkoes mew with no (well, 4 evs) special defense investment (it's a 2.56% chance without the 4 evs). Let's look at some physical attackers.

252 Atk Choice Band Haxorus Outrage vs 252 HP/216 Def Mew: 58.91% - 69.8%

After a burn:

252 Atk Choice Band Haxorus Outrage vs 252 HP/216 Def Mew: 29.7% - 35.15%

After leftovers recovery, jolly cb haxorus never 2hkoes mew, and you can stall it out. It has a decent shot of stalling out adamant (like 60% or something)

 

[alphatron]

The draco meteor calcs don't look very impressive when you take into consideration that hazards and sandstorm are the dominant forces of the metagame. Mew will never be at full hp at any point in time.

However, tauntWoW Mew is great stuff. I used to HATE seeing them before Blaziken was banned, simply because he was a wall who wasn't total setup fodder and could actually do something back. He reliably lives through most unboosted attacks and can tango with Scizor with ease (not a big deal, because most people are running specially defensive Scizor...which is just weak as hell.)

Heatran isn't that good against CM LO Latios because most of them run surf. The only way heatran can hope to mess with him is by running sun support and a specially bulky set.

As for snorlax, the fighting attacks are not to blame for his dissapearance. He can't take psyshock at all and while the CB set does a fine job at killing what it needs to, the momentum you lose when the enemy sends in a setup pokemon is just a huge pain in the ass.

I'll end this post by saying that I am really starting to detest choice scarf landorus. Man, I really don't want to run Skarmory...but I guess I could get away with doing so since SD Landorus has gone out of style (I'd say that more people need to use him, but I actually like winning matches).

 

[Eggbert]

Mew is actually good with calm. The set I used took around 70% from a draco meteor, where I had a Skarmory to deal with stuff like Haxorus and Excadrill. Mew could still take on dragonite, CB 252 Atk Scizor, and mixtar though as long as the initial wow hits. Depending on the coverage move, there are few convential ways to deal with mew. Heatran can usually blast it down if it runs ice beam and Gliscor will beat seismic toss versions. Mew without psychic will lose to a boosted conkeldurr. Trick and Toxic work but good luck landing a toxic without being taunted.

Scarf Landy is excellent. I can revenge Volcarona in the sun, deal with random deadly boosters like DDmence and SD landy / terrakion. Not to mention thundurus but they will switch usually because it's so obvious that I'm a scarfer.

Lax doesn't sound too good against stuff like Gliscor, Ferrothorn, Skarmory, Excadrill, ect.

 

[alphatron]

I can't reach the calcutor. How much damage does landorus take from sun boosted Volcorona's fire blast? (Both offensive and chesto rest variants).

I'd probably already know the answer, but that's what I get for using fire blast (it's missed every time he's switched in on me).

 

[Nails]

The draco meteor calcs don't look very impressive when you take into consideration that hazards and sandstorm are the dominant forces of the metagame. Mew will never be at full hp at any point in time.

Mew will burn something, they'll try to attack it a couple times, realize it's futile, and switch out to something that doesn't really mind a burn (Latios) while you heal up to full hp. The situation of Latios vs a full hp mew has come up significantly more than you'd expect.

Screw trick though.

 

[Eggbert]

I can't reach the calcutor. How much damage does landorus take from sun boosted Volcorona's fire blast? (Both offensive and chesto rest variants).

I'd probably already know the answer, but that's what I get for using fire blast (it's missed every time he's switched in on me).

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103439

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

On that random Deo-N retest possibility that would be a scenario that would be perfect for the potential creation of a suspect ladder to test a pokemon's re-entry into the OU metagame. It would allow us to test if its broken without potentially destroying the meta.

 

[Ewil]

this thread is not for discussion of what should be banned or not banned, it is for discussion of metagame trends, good pokemon/movesets.

i'm using this post to hype tauntwow mew some more.

252 SpAtk Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs 252 HP/4 SpDef Mew: 84.16% - 99.5%

The strongest special attack in the metagame never ohkoes mew with no (well, 4 evs) special defense investment (it's a 2.56% chance without the 4 evs). Let's look at some physical attackers.

252 Atk Choice Band Haxorus Outrage vs 252 HP/216 Def Mew: 58.91% - 69.8%

After a burn:

252 Atk Choice Band Haxorus Outrage vs 252 HP/216 Def Mew: 29.7% - 35.15%

After leftovers recovery, jolly cb haxorus never 2hkoes mew, and you can stall it out. It has a decent shot of stalling out adamant (like 60% or something)

I really love Stall-break Mew <3 (just look at my RMT lol)

I pratically burn all physical-based mons of every team i've faced.
What can be a good partner for him ? i think S.Def Jirachi can be useful or maybe Gastrodon to take Special hit specially from Scrotom-Whore

 

[alexwolf]

Then why do you complain about Excadrill then?
>.>

Anyway, T-tar can lose to SpecsSurf, Scizor can lose to HP Fire, Blissey/Chansey can lose to Psyshock or Trick, and Jirachi also loses to Trick.

Meteor/Surf/HP Fire/Trick isn't so hard to run.
Oh, 349 Speed? What out speeds you? Other Lati@s and Gengar.
You shouldn't risk yourself against the former or the latter. So screw that argument.

Actually specially defensive tyranitar is the second best counter to latios after jirachi...
Here is the amount of damage that specs latios does with surf against neutral and positive natured max hp/s.def ttar:
537 Atk vs 448 Def & 404 HP (95 Base Power): 164 - 194 (40.59% - 48.02%)
537 Atk vs 492 Def & 404 HP (95 Base Power): 150 - 178 (37.13% - 44.06%)

So either way ttar survives the 2hko without sr,and with sr if you run sassy,and ohkoes with either pursuit or crunch!

And anyway i don't find latios to be a problem at all this round...Jirachi Ttar,Scizor,Ferrothorn in rain and many more things can all take him very good!
He is a top tier poke for sure but i don't think that he deserves any major attention for nomination right now...
Also weather abusers surely make latios's job harder since they use him as setup bait....Excadrill,Venusaur with some bulk and volcarona are all pokes which can abuse the -2 latios to setup and sweep.

Edit:Also i agree with deoxys-n being retested!
He is not obviously broken and he was never properly tested!I know that he is a superb cleaner and late game sweeper or just a fantastic wallbreaker but you cannot ignore his paper defences,lack of switch in oportunities and lack of good stab.
Even doexys-a needed 1 round to get banned so i suppose that deoxys-n won't be so obviously broken...And anyway i don't think that we have something to lose by testing him.If he is obviosuly broken fine he stays in ubers....But if he is not then we have to seriously think where he belongs...
Also deoxys-n would make for a fantastic scarf user who could handle every single speedy weather abuser,mainly excadrill.
Remember how many people kept saying weatherless offense is almost impossible with excadrill outspeeding everything?Well deoxys-n is there for all your team needs and can actually do some damage unlike scarf deoxys-s(the only other scarf user that can outspeed excadrill in the sand)!

 

[BurningMan]

On that random Deo-N retest possibility that would be a scenario that would be perfect for the potential creation of a suspect ladder to test a pokemon's re-entry into the OU metagame. It would allow us to test if its broken without potentially destroying the meta.

true, but i can't see how deo-n would help the current metagame and we currently have better things to do than retesting( or actually testing it for the first time) Deo-N.

Oh and i see this thread going in the totally wrong direction again, after one page of actually being intresting.

 

[Nails]

I really love Stall-break Mew <3 (just look at my RMT lol)

I pratically burn all physical-based mons of every team i've faced.
What can be a good partner for him ? i think S.Def Jirachi can be useful or maybe Gastrodon to take Special hit specially from Scrotom-Whore

Mew has issues with strong special threats, so pokes that can tank specs draco meteors and the like are valuable partners, any of ttar, blissey, rachi, ferrothorn, jellicent... really any special sponge provides great support for mew. After that, rapid spin helps it a lot since it depends on bulk to burn stuff, and if it can't switch in it can't do its job. Also because it hates toxic spikes (status in general).

Hide

On that random Deo-N retest possibility that would be a scenario that would be perfect for the potential creation of a suspect ladder to test a pokemon's re-entry into the OU metagame. It would allow us to test if its broken without potentially destroying the meta.

Edit:Also i agree with deoxys-n being retested!
He is not obviously broken and he was never properly tested!I know that he is a superb cleaner and late game sweeper or just a fantastic wallbreaker but you cannot ignore his paper defences,lack of switch in oportunities and lack of good stab.
Even doexys-a needed 1 round to get banned so i suppose that deoxys-n won't be so obviously broken...And anyway i don't think that we have something to lose by testing him.If he is obviosuly broken fine he stays in ubers....But if he is not then we have to seriously think where he belongs...
Also deoxys-n would make for a fantastic scarf user who could handle every single speedy weather abuser,mainly excadrill.
Remember how many people kept saying weatherless offense is almost impossible with excadrill outspeeding everything?Well deoxys-n is there for all your team needs and can actually do some damage unlike scarf deoxys-s(the only other scarf user that can outspeed excadrill in the sand)!

true, but i can't see how deo-n would help the current metagame and we currently have better things to do than retesting( or actually testing it for the first time) Deo-N.

Oh and i see this thread going in the totally wrong direction again, after one page of actually being intresting.

Cmon guys. This thread is not for tiering discussion. Please understand that. Anything about "unban x" or "ban x" just clogs up the thread and stops any metagame discussion, which is what this thread is supposed to accomplish.

 

[ssbbm]

The Classic MixMence set posted is really amazing; with correct prediction skills (actually you don't need them i lied all you need is Draco Meteor) you can completely break down all teams, both offense and stall. I think that a few extra Attack EVs are more beneficial, as it allows you to OHKO TTar all the time with BB (stupid TTars live with like 97% /:)

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

537 Atk vs 448 Def & 404 HP (95 Base Power): 164 - 194 (40.59% - 48.02%)
537 Atk vs 492 Def & 404 HP (95 Base Power): 150 - 178 (37.13% - 44.06%)

So either way ttar survives the 2hko without sr,and with sr if you run sassy,and ohkoes with either pursuit or crunch!

And anyway i don't find latios to be a problem at all this round...Jirachi Ttar,Scizor,Ferrothorn in rain and many more things can all take him very good!

BOLD: Pursuit will not OHKO Latios, especially if you run Max/Max T-tar, so if T-tar uses Pursuit and Latios stays in, he gets 3HKOd by Specs Surf.
Actually, a T-tar with only 4 Attack EVs deals 89.70% - 105.65% to Latios so Max/Max T-tar can't even guaranteed the OHKO without Rocks >.<

Just a minor nitpick.

Btw, I want to know. What are these "many more things" that can truly counter Latios without getting screwed?
Anything that doesn't die to Specs Surf/HP Fire/Psyshock/Meteor is made useless by Trick.(I'm looking at you, Rain-protected Ferrothorn)

UU players say "Fuck Chansey"

I say "Fuck Latios"

>.>

 

[alexwolf]

BOLD: Pursuit will not OHKO Latios, especially if you run Max/Max T-tar, so if T-tar uses Pursuit and Latios stays in, he gets 3HKOd by Specs Surf.
Actually, a T-tar with only 4 Attack EVs deals 89.70% - 105.65% to Latios so Max/Max T-tar can't even guaranteed the OHKO without Rocks >.<

Just a minor nitpick.

Btw, I want to know. What are these "many more things" that can truly counter Latios without getting screwed?
Anything that doesn't die to Specs Surf/HP Fire/Psyshock/Meteor is made useless by Trick.(I'm looking at you, Rain-protected Ferrothorn)

UU players say "Fuck Chansey"

I say "Fuck Latios"

>.>

So at worst if you crunch latios and he stays in he has 10% life left ok?
But how did latios rly got in in the first place?Switching in on a resisted attack right?
And don't forget that Latios only needs to go at 6,25% health 'cause at lower life it gets killed by sandstorm!
So latios could survive a crunch from a 4 attack Ttar if SR was not up in latios's side AND if he switched in for free AND if Ttar did a rly small damage roll!But this situation never happens so what are we even discussing?
Ttar always ohkoes latios if he stays in or murders him with pursuit if he switches out...So latios is a very good latios counter and it is actually the most effective way of taking him down since he can ensure it via pursuit!

Finally i didn't said many more counters i said many more things that can take him on well!Which means both counters and checks!
Do you really want me to list you all of latios's checks and counters?

Edit:Basically forget it Latios always gets ohkoed by Ttar no matter which is the situation!'Cause he will always take 2 rounds of sandstorm damage right?1 when Ttar switches in and 1 when Ttar takes the second hit!So this means an extra 12,5% damage!So now Ttar always kills latios even with min damagae roll!

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

So at worst if you crunch latios and he stays in he has 10% life left ok?
But how did latios rly got in in the first place?Switching in on a resisted attack right?
And don't forget that Latios only needs to go at 6,25% health 'cause at lower life it gets killed by sandstorm!
So latios could survive a crunch from a 4 attack Ttar if SR was not up in latios's side AND if he switched in for free AND if Ttar did a rly small damage roll!But this situation never happens so what are we even discussing?
Ttar always ohkoes latios if he stays in or murders him with pursuit if he switches out...So latios is a very good latios counter and it is actually the most effective way of taking him down since he can ensure it via pursuit!

Finally i didn't said many more counters i said many more things that can take him on well!Which means both counters and checks!
Do you really want me to list you all of latios's checks and counters?

Edit:Basically forget it Latios always gets ohkoed by Ttar no matter which is the situation!'Cause he will always take 2 rounds of sandstorm damage right?1 when Ttar switches in and 1 when Ttar takes the second hit!So this means an extra 12,5% damage!So now Ttar always kills latios even with min damagae roll!

You really don't know what a nitpick is do you? *sigh*

Go ahead and post a list of Latios counters because I really want to know what can force SpecsLatios out by taking a hit, heal up, and not get screwed by one of his 4 possible moves.
I don't want checks because that's basically letting one pokemon die to MAYBE kill another. Plus, I think most people already know all the checks.