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Resource BW Simple Questions, Simple Answers Thread

Has a BW1 pre-BW2 format ever been considered? Like a format that's just identical to BW OU the day before BW2 released (this could be applicable to most old gens, but BW is the old gen I'd like to see do this the most, so I'm asking it here). This seems like a very fun thing to do. I understand metas develop and all, but this would be nice for people that weren't there to experience it and fun in general. Plus, this isn't easily done with a challenge code, especially when considering the move tutor moves. And I'm sure this wouldn’t get much activity, but it would be nice for it to at least be a challengeable format.

(I know my other post was the latest question asked. sry. just very curious about this)
I would love to play BW1 again too, it is my teenage years generation and has huge nostalgic value to me, but there are some problems. I don't think there are enough players, it's hard to code it, and there are a fair amount of meta team comps that are BW1-legal so odds are people would just use those instead of cooking...
 
I would love to play BW1 again too, it is my teenage years generation and has huge nostalgic value to me, but there are some problems. I don't think there are enough players, it's hard to code it, and there are a fair amount of meta team comps that are BW1-legal so odds are people would just use those instead of cooking...
would it be hard to code? Im not a tech guy, but isn't it just minor changes to current BW ou. Just some bans, unbans and move tutor stuff.
 
would it be hard to code? Im not a tech guy, but isn't it just minor changes to current BW ou. Just some bans, unbans and move tutor stuff.
There's a lot, like, illegal movesets (superpower+multiscale dnite, stealth rock+poison heal gliscor), unreleased DW abilities (regenerator amoongus, sheer force landorus-i), bans, etc.

Too much research to do and special "rules" to add.
 
Is sun viable in current Gen 5 OU? Creating some unique sun teams (such as using infernape and ferrothorn) and wanted to know if my teambuilding is as hard as it seems.
 
Is sun viable in current Gen 5 OU? Creating some unique sun teams (such as using infernape and ferrothorn) and wanted to know if my teambuilding is as hard as it seems.

Yes, it's "viable" but in tour play it's rarely ever seen. You either get Sun Stall or the occasional Victini/Darm Offense.
 
Hello! I am wondering if there is a post/document of a BW OU threat list? It is harder to build teams that dont get 6-0d by a broken mon when i cant actively remember everything since i have a lot of metagame info and concerns already crammed into my brain.
 
Is Cloyster the first ever old gen mon to ever receive a ban? (Excluding technicalities like ADV Mr. Mime, Gligar, Cacturne, and DPP Froslass/Glaceon)
 
Is Cloyster the first ever old gen mon to ever receive a ban? (Excluding technicalities like ADV Mr. Mime, Gligar, Cacturne, and DPP Froslass/Glaceon)
Dugtrio the Pokemon was banned from BW OU prior to the ban of Arena Trap and Shadow Tag, effectively not making Cloyster the first Pokemon outright banned since the main generation of BW. Cannot speak for every other generation, but nothing comes to mind.
 
Is Cloyster the first ever old gen mon to ever receive a ban? (Excluding technicalities like ADV Mr. Mime, Gligar, Cacturne, and DPP Froslass/Glaceon)
Slurpuff and Conkeldurr were banned from XY UU, Dugtrio from BW OU, and Scraggy and Murkrow were banned from BW LC post-gen I believe. It's largely been technicalities, items, and abilities over the years. These are counting tiers that were official at the time of the gen, excluding WIP tiers like RBY/GSC/ADV lower tiers
 
Hi, I've barely played this format since I was like 14 or 15 when it was current gen and I was a little curious about something. Why is Metagross considered to be weak in this format? I read over the analysis page and the explanation on there makes sense, and I can sorta infer certain other parts just based on my general understanding of how singles tends to work+what I loosely know about BW, but I guess I'd be interested to know whether my thinking is along the right track or if there's more to it/if there's some additional meta-specific thing that I forgot about that makes it very difficult to use.

My best guess as an outsider is:
  • Defensive typing matches well into Psychic-types and grants an immunity to sand
  • Good role compression w/ SR+Explosion+Pursuit lets it spec into a targeted anti-Latios/-Alakazam role on fast-paced offensive teams fairly easily.
  • Its defensive role revolving around Pursuit means that it doesn't strictly need to stick around for very long to do its job (unlike Jirachi and Bronzong), similar to T-Tar when it doesn't need to win a weather war.
  • Being grounded is a big problem when Psychic-types are typically run on Spikes-stacking teams, especially if you lack any reliable recovery and can't afford to mitigate it with Leftovers
  • Popularity of Colbur Berry Latios exacerbates Spikes weakness as it can afford to tank a Pursuit, forcing Metagross to have to deal with Spikes twice at minimum
  • Rain makes Latios matchup far dicier:
    • Rain counteracts the buffer that exists against Surf even without a boosting item, as you can't rely on Custap as a fallback vs Colbur Berry variants to force a guess with Explosion vs Pursuit if SR+1 Spike are up:
      • 252 SpA Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 160 SpD Metagross in Rain: 143-169 (39.2 - 46.4%) -- 90.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes
    • Can't deal with Specs effectively in rain due to the reduced incentive to click Draco Meteor while it's still around:
      • 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 160 SpD Metagross in Rain: 215-253 (59 - 69.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
      • 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Thunder vs. 252 HP / 160 SpD Metagross: 181-213 (49.7 - 58.5%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
    • Seems very inconsistent compared a more measured defensive approach that you can adopt by bringing SpD Jirachi > Custap Metagross (not an entirely fair comparison, obviously, as you're not bringing SpD Rachi on HO, but worth mentioning considering they share typing):
      • 252 SpA Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Jirachi in Rain: 114-135 (28.2 - 33.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock, 3 layers of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
      • 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Jirachi in Rain: 170-201 (42 - 49.7%) -- 89.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery (still bad, but at least it can't midground with other buttons quite as easily)
      • 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Thunder vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Jirachi: 142-168 (35.1 - 41.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock, 2 layers of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
  • Less important considering that Steel is typically one of the easiest types to double up on, but competition from Steels makes it that much harder to justify outside of a fairly specific HO role.
Is that all there is to it, or is there anything else that it matches particularly poorly into?
 
With Metagross, it is not able to trap Psychic types in practice, taking a ton from Latios and Alakazam while not doing enough to Reuniclus. This compounded with some clear net negative matchups against Spikes, Rain, and certain special heavy HOs makes it a really hard sell.

My favorite Metagross set actually is SR / Mash / EQ / Boom @ Lum Berry with speed for Rotom-W. Idea is to pair it with Magnezone, allowing for a Boom into Ferro/Skarm to not be a net negative and for rocks + Boom to chip away at a Ground type or Rotom-W to promote a net positive early game on hyper offense. It kinda falters behind certain other early game SR setters though and other variants like Pursuit or Agility just aren’t consistent enough.

Agility needs TP for Starmie, which is seeing insane usage right now, Mash for STAB, and EQ for Steel types, but it would love being able to run Ice Punch or Zen Headbutt for various Pokemon as well and it desperately needs Magnezone support — overall, it’s just too spread thin.

Pursuit variants just don’t lead to net-positive sequences as they can’t switch in, don’t always assure traps, and lose to many common partner Pokemon, making it more of a liability even in the desired PsySpam matchup than one would hope.
 
Hi, I've barely played this format since I was like 14 or 15 when it was current gen and I was a little curious about something. Why is Metagross considered to be weak in this format? I read over the analysis page and the explanation on there makes sense, and I can sorta infer certain other parts just based on my general understanding of how singles tends to work+what I loosely know about BW, but I guess I'd be interested to know whether my thinking is along the right track or if there's more to it/if there's some additional meta-specific thing that I forgot about that makes it very difficult to use.

My best guess as an outsider is:
  • Defensive typing matches well into Psychic-types and grants an immunity to sand
  • Good role compression w/ SR+Explosion+Pursuit lets it spec into a targeted anti-Latios/-Alakazam role on fast-paced offensive teams fairly easily.
  • Its defensive role revolving around Pursuit means that it doesn't strictly need to stick around for very long to do its job (unlike Jirachi and Bronzong), similar to T-Tar when it doesn't need to win a weather war.
  • Being grounded is a big problem when Psychic-types are typically run on Spikes-stacking teams, especially if you lack any reliable recovery and can't afford to mitigate it with Leftovers
  • Popularity of Colbur Berry Latios exacerbates Spikes weakness as it can afford to tank a Pursuit, forcing Metagross to have to deal with Spikes twice at minimum
  • Rain makes Latios matchup far dicier:
    • Rain counteracts the buffer that exists against Surf even without a boosting item, as you can't rely on Custap as a fallback vs Colbur Berry variants to force a guess with Explosion vs Pursuit if SR+1 Spike are up:
      • 252 SpA Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 160 SpD Metagross in Rain: 143-169 (39.2 - 46.4%) -- 90.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes
    • Can't deal with Specs effectively in rain due to the reduced incentive to click Draco Meteor while it's still around:
      • 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 160 SpD Metagross in Rain: 215-253 (59 - 69.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
      • 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Thunder vs. 252 HP / 160 SpD Metagross: 181-213 (49.7 - 58.5%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
    • Seems very inconsistent compared a more measured defensive approach that you can adopt by bringing SpD Jirachi > Custap Metagross (not an entirely fair comparison, obviously, as you're not bringing SpD Rachi on HO, but worth mentioning considering they share typing):
      • 252 SpA Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Jirachi in Rain: 114-135 (28.2 - 33.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock, 3 layers of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
      • 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Jirachi in Rain: 170-201 (42 - 49.7%) -- 89.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, 1 layer of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery (still bad, but at least it can't midground with other buttons quite as easily)
      • 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Thunder vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Jirachi: 142-168 (35.1 - 41.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock, 2 layers of Spikes, and Leftovers recovery
  • Less important considering that Steel is typically one of the easiest types to double up on, but competition from Steels makes it that much harder to justify outside of a fairly specific HO role.
Is that all there is to it, or is there anything else that it matches particularly poorly into?

Metagross has a lot of flaws, it doesnt do a lot of damage with pursuit, has no recovery, its not very bulky either, explosion was it's biggest asset from 4th gen and it's giganerfed in 5th gen, takes spikes, bad movepool, overall hard to justify as there's better options for steels like ferrothorn jirachi scizor and even bronzong

Only user of metagross I know of is Dark Eeveon don't ask me how he makes it work but he has a pretty good win rate with it

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-751330
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-662799
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-623724
 
Seeing hail becoming more popular is cool but has any innovation been done with sun? I've been scooping though dozens of replays but the few stuff I found seems still dedicated to matchup fishing.
 
Sun stall is used on occasion—the biggest issue is that sun doesn't really have 'abusers' in the same way that hail or sand does. Sure scaf/band victini and darm are cool in theory, but they're more on par with kyurem + hail in terms of threat level. The real abusers (reun on sand/hail, zam on sand, thundy on rain) are what give weathers their distinct advantage. For the most part, sun's abusers do not possess that same threat level.

The other issue with sun is defensive. HO is the only other style who has similar defensive issues to sun ofensive, but it at least has the idea of mitigating the issue by immediately pressuring the opponent t with a barage of setup sweepers (SD loom, yache chomp, scizor + DD nite). The idea is that common checks (scarf keld, lando), will be worn down by the constant barrage of offense. Sun simply...isn't able to play that fast. From the get-go, there is tension between needing to get your weather up or bouncing (Xatu) / spinning hazards (forri), but the bigger issue is speed. Sun simply does not have the level of longevity needed such that it can switch around and apply support from stuff like tran or ninetales—you need to be constantly on the offensive. But you also aren't exactly outspending stuff because the fastest you go is scarf latios, and you need to preserve that to a degree so that you can actually check special attackers. You could go scarf on one of tran / victini / darm, but then you're still outsped by keld and surf has odds to 2HKO tini in sun, and darm has a 31.3% chance to fold outright to a single pump in sun. That's not to mention how horrendous it to pivot your scarfer in against Zam, who actually can switch moves. Spdef heatran doesn't really solve the issue—rain still shreds you apart.

Again sun definitely isn't dead, and there's been some cool variants where tales is used primarily to remove sand and enable a Volc sweep. At the end of the day though, sun in current BW OU is high-risk low-reward. It's biggest 'positive' matchup, sand, is currently in its most magic-guard / defense-spam phase it's been in for a while. Rain still trucks it, and you are terrified of HO terrak and ttnite with how hard rocks are to get up. There are (generally) better options, unless you are teccing a sun team for a specific matchup.
 
Seeing hail becoming more popular is cool but has any innovation been done with sun? I've been scooping though dozens of replays but the few stuff I found seems still dedicated to matchup fishing.
Sun stall is used on occasion—the biggest issue is that sun doesn't really have 'abusers' in the same way that hail or sand does. Sure scaf/band victini and darm are cool in theory, but they're more on par with kyurem + hail in terms of threat level. The real abusers (reun on sand/hail, zam on sand, thundy on rain) are what give weathers their distinct advantage. For the most part, sun's abusers do not possess that same threat level.

The other issue with sun is defensive. HO is the only other style who has similar defensive issues to sun ofensive, but it at least has the idea of mitigating the issue by immediately pressuring the opponent t with a barage of setup sweepers (SD loom, yache chomp, scizor + DD nite). The idea is that common checks (scarf keld, lando), will be worn down by the constant barrage of offense. Sun simply...isn't able to play that fast. From the get-go, there is tension between needing to get your weather up or bouncing (Xatu) / spinning hazards (forri), but the bigger issue is speed. Sun simply does not have the level of longevity needed such that it can switch around and apply support from stuff like tran or ninetales—you need to be constantly on the offensive. But you also aren't exactly outspending stuff because the fastest you go is scarf latios, and you need to preserve that to a degree so that you can actually check special attackers. You could go scarf on one of tran / victini / darm, but then you're still outsped by keld and surf has odds to 2HKO tini in sun, and darm has a 31.3% chance to fold outright to a single pump in sun. That's not to mention how horrendous it to pivot your scarfer in against Zam, who actually can switch moves. Spdef heatran doesn't really solve the issue—rain still shreds you apart.

Again sun definitely isn't dead, and there's been some cool variants where tales is used primarily to remove sand and enable a Volc sweep. At the end of the day though, sun in current BW OU is high-risk low-reward. It's biggest 'positive' matchup, sand, is currently in its most magic-guard / defense-spam phase it's been in for a while. Rain still trucks it, and you are terrified of HO terrak and ttnite with how hard rocks are to get up. There are (generally) better options, unless you are teccing a sun team for a specific matchup.

Sun has traditionally had a dominant matchup into many Rain builds, as chesto rest Ninetales, Xatu, and Chansey can perma sit on many rain structures.

However, it struggles immensely with many defensive builds and has to rely on one of bulky Volc or Heatran to make progress at all into sand staples like Reuni and Gliscor in particular. Keeping consistent Sun into Sand is also very difficult, as Sun strangely has trouble swapping into Ttar before knowing the set and Hippo can come in consistently to reset Sand, while Ninetales can struggle to find opportunities even with hazards cleared.

Even against builds where Wisp/Tox can make progress, Sun can struggle very hard to swap into regular sand balance staples. Landorus-T can threaten Xatu/Donphan/Exca decently hard with Eq+Ice to get rocks eventually, Rotom pivots forever and can heal itself consistently off of stuff like Cress Chans, Keldeo behind a Substitute in Sand is nightmarish to handle, and Terrakion has no reliable swaps.

Finally, Sun builds truly rely on Sun being up over Sand in order to fuel and protect their Cress/Chans, so Ninetales' poor longevity really harms what Sun is trying to accomplish.

While Sun definitely has powerful and appealing traits, it's simply too hampered by the most common style and usually is just an attempted rain fish.
 
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