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[bdt2002]

I have a question the more experienced player base. Coming from a low ladder scrub- hey, I’m just saying my skill level as it is- am I the only one who finds Spikes to be a bit obnoxious in the current metagame? Or is that just me? To a point, my concerns also stretch to Stealth Rock, but for now I’m mainly just focused on Spikes. I don’t have enough experience to speak on whether or not Spikes is “broken”, but what I can say with a decent level of confidence is that Spikes seems to restrict creative team building at both the lower and higher levels of play rather than encourage creative team building.

What makes Spikes unique in Gen 5 compared to other generations isn’t the move itself, but how this is arguably one of the hardest generations to actually deal with the move without specifically addressing the core issues. Gen 5 has multiple spinblockers available and while some of them are significantly more viable for the role than others, often times you don’t even need to run a spinblocker to punish the opponent for trying to clear your hazards. Yes, you absolutely can still run things like Jellicent to great success, but if your team doesn’t need a spinblocker or if none of the best options synergize well with your core, you still have Gen 5’s improved options for contact punishing. The distribution of Rough Skin was increased here, as was Iron Barbs being introduced, and on top of that you have the Rocky Helmet which is a common item on multiple viable hazard setters. Couple this with the fact that the available options for viable Rapid Spin users can feel somewhat limited at times, and you start to realize that the hazard metagame and specifically Spikes stacking is massively skewed towards the hazard setters to the point where teams are better off running multiple Spikes-immune Pokémon, which isn’t strictly a problem on its own. After all, Gen 3 has a lot of these “Superman” structures. The problem is, the ever-looming threat of Stealth Rock makes those kinds of structures hard to justify when you need to spend valuable team slots accounting for Gen 5’s powerful offensive threats and the ease of stacking Spikes makes those Pokémon feel unbearable to play against sometimes.

This brings me to my other point. I already mentioned Rapid Spin, but the other available counterplay to Spikes isn’t exactly viable either. Magic Bounce users are rare as is being limited in what teams they fit on, and while Xatu can still U-Turn out of Tyranitar to avoid a Pursuit trap, the Tyranitar user can elect to try and play around this accordingly. Using Taunt to stop the opponent from setting up their hazards seems like it would be more consistent, and it definitely is depending on your Taunt user, but if your opponent suspects you clicking Taunt is too obvious not to do, depending on the state of the battle and what their hazards setter is, they may blindside you with something you’re not expecting. In fact, this just happened to me in a Gen 4 battle earlier today, where I used my leads Crobat’s Taunt on their Azelf expecting Stealth Rock only to get blasted by a Psychic to the face. (Note to self- don’t forget the Focus Sash next time.) Ultimately my issue is just how easy it is for Spikes to be set up and stacked in Gen 5 relative to the difficulty of playing and building around it. Magic Guard and Levitate Pokémon have it the best where they’re immune to Spikes without being weak to Stealth Rock, and those same Magic Guard Pokémon would likely feel far less oppressive if Spikes were out of the picture. I can promise you a lot less people would think, say, Reuniclus is broken if Spikes aren’t involved.

Edit: I almost forgot, I also want to shout out two Spikes users in particular who on their own are definitely not broken Pokémon but have specific traits that enhance their ability to set hazards to a potential unhealthy degree. Ferrothorn is in a unique spot with its typing where it can used on both Sand and Rain and also to where it can set up hazards and also Leech Seed, while we’re on the subject of Rapid Spin, and naturally has Iron Barbs built in to punish spinning away Ferrothorn’s moves. You’d be surprised to see how often people forget Rapid Spin works against Leech Seed. Meanwhile Skarmory is seen more on hyper offense and has gained some stock of its own with both Rocky Helmet and Custap Berry + Sturdy as a dedicated Spikes lead who can, pending Taunt, usually get its team off to a strong start and synergizes well with Jellicent and various offensive sweepers, though I’ve also seen Skarmory on bulky Sand teams on occasion.

 

[Monai]

Post

I have a question the more experienced player base. Coming from a low ladder scrub- hey, I’m just saying my skill level as it is- am I the only one who finds Spikes to be a bit obnoxious in the current metagame? Or is that just me? To a point, my concerns also stretch to Stealth Rock, but for now I’m mainly just focused on Spikes. I don’t have enough experience to speak on whether or not Spikes is “broken”, but what I can say with a decent level of confidence is that Spikes seems to restrict creative team building at both the lower and higher levels of play rather than encourage creative team building.

What makes Spikes unique in Gen 5 compared to other generations isn’t the move itself, but how this is arguably one of the hardest generations to actually deal with the move without specifically addressing the core issues. Gen 5 has multiple spinblockers available and while some of them are significantly more viable for the role than others, often times you don’t even need to run a spinblocker to punish the opponent for trying to clear your hazards. Yes, you absolutely can still run things like Jellicent to great success, but if your team doesn’t need a spinblocker or if none of the best options synergize well with your core, you still have Gen 5’s improved options for contact punishing. The distribution of Rough Skin was increased here, as was Iron Barbs being introduced, and on top of that you have the Rocky Helmet which is a common item on multiple viable hazard setters. Couple this with the fact that the available options for viable Rapid Spin users can feel somewhat limited at times, and you start to realize that the hazard metagame and specifically Spikes stacking is massively skewed towards the hazard setters to the point where teams are better off running multiple Spikes-immune Pokémon, which isn’t strictly a problem on its own. After all, Gen 3 has a lot of these “Superman” structures. The problem is, the ever-looming threat of Stealth Rock makes those kinds of structures hard to justify when you need to spend valuable team slots accounting for Gen 5’s powerful offensive threats and the ease of stacking Spikes makes those Pokémon feel unbearable to play against sometimes.

This brings me to my other point. I already mentioned Rapid Spin, but the other available counterplay to Spikes isn’t exactly viable either. Magic Bounce users are rare as is being limited in what teams they fit on, and while Xatu can still U-Turn out of Tyranitar to avoid a Pursuit trap, the Tyranitar user can elect to try and play around this accordingly. Using Taunt to stop the opponent from setting up their hazards seems like it would be more consistent, and it definitely is depending on your Taunt user, but if your opponent suspects you clicking Taunt is too obvious not to do, depending on the state of the battle and what their hazards setter is, they may blindside you with something you’re not expecting. In fact, this just happened to me in a Gen 4 battle earlier today, where I used my leads Crobat’s Taunt on their Azelf expecting Stealth Rock only to get blasted by a Psychic to the face. (Note to self- don’t forget the Focus Sash next time.) Ultimately my issue is just how easy it is for Spikes to be set up and stacked in Gen 5 relative to the difficulty of playing and building around it. Magic Guard and Levitate Pokémon have it the best where they’re immune to Spikes without being weak to Stealth Rock, and those same Magic Guard Pokémon would likely feel far less oppressive if Spikes were out of the picture. I can promise you a lot less people would think, say, Reuniclus is broken if Spikes aren’t involved.

Edit: I almost forgot, I also want to shout out two Spikes users in particular who on their own are definitely not broken Pokémon but have specific traits that enhance their ability to set hazards to a potential unhealthy degree. Ferrothorn is in a unique spot with its typing where it can used on both Sand and Rain and also to where it can set up hazards and also Leech Seed, while we’re on the subject of Rapid Spin, and naturally has Iron Barbs built in to punish spinning away Ferrothorn’s moves. You’d be surprised to see how often people forget Rapid Spin works against Leech Seed. Meanwhile Skarmory is seen more on hyper offense and has gained some stock of its own with both Rocky Helmet and Custap Berry + Sturdy as a dedicated Spikes lead who can, pending Taunt, usually get its team off to a strong start and synergizes well with Jellicent and various offensive sweepers, though I’ve also seen Skarmory on bulky Sand teams on occasion.

I don't personally agree with a lot of the assertions made here, but it's the general opinion of "spikes too strong" is held by a pretty big number of players, so I'll try to address it point by point rather than writing it off. At the end of the day Ferro is a really fucked up Pokemon so I get it.

but what I can say with a decent level of confidence is that Spikes seems to restrict creative team building at both the lower and higher levels of play rather than encourage creative team building.

This is a very subjective claim, and one that I think you could pretty easily level at other tiers with broken spikers like adv and SV. If you don't like it, then fair enough, but pretty much any top tier / good Pokemon "restricts" the team building options around it, and my opinion is that it's only problematic when it completely crowds out other options or is "unreasonably difficult" to handle, which I'll address based on the rest of your post.

What makes Spikes unique in Gen 5 compared to other generations isn’t the move itself, but how this is arguably one of the hardest generations to actually deal with the move without specifically addressing the core issues. Gen 5 has multiple spinblockers available and while some of them are significantly more viable for the role than others, often times you don’t even need to run a spinblocker to punish the opponent for trying to clear your hazards. Yes, you absolutely can still run things like Jellicent to great success, but if your team doesn’t need a spinblocker or if none of the best options synergize well with your core, you still have Gen 5’s improved options for contact punishing. The distribution of Rough Skin was increased here, as was Iron Barbs being introduced, and on top of that you have the Rocky Helmet which is a common item on multiple viable hazard setters.

There's a couple of weird assertions made here, and I'll try to argue against them.
- Spin blockers being too strong is almost a non starter. Our best is Jellicent, who is solid, and our options then taper off into like Gengar and Rotom-Normal? Who are hyper niche at best? Jellicent itself notoriously barely spin blocks Excadrill and can be beaten out by it, while it relies on pretty narrow teammates to beat out starmie more than once.
- Rough Skin / Iron Barbs / Rocky Helmet hints at the actual "problem," being Ferrothorns insane splashability and good matchup into nearly every Spinner. Rhelm Skarm is great too, but it's usually confined to very fat teams and can be played around with plenty of common options like Knock Off + Exca, Starmie virtually always spins at least once while being very threatening without the aforementioned Scarf Tar or maybe Alakazam. Sand balances also regularly carry plenty of anti fat tools to abuse skarm's slow pace and lack of natural recovery while styles like Rain and HO can blitz through depending on matchup. RHelm Chomp is OK but hardly on anyone's radar. If you want to make an argument about spikers and residual being too good, you should probably narrow your scope to ferrothorn

Couple this with the fact that the available options for viable Rapid Spin users can feel somewhat limited at times, and you start to realize that the hazard metagame and specifically Spikes stacking is massively skewed towards the hazard setters to the point where teams are better off running multiple Spikes-immune Pokémon, which isn’t strictly a problem on its own. After all, Gen 3 has a lot of these “Superman” structures. The problem is, the ever-looming threat of Stealth Rock makes those kinds of structures hard to justify when you need to spend valuable team slots accounting for Gen 5’s powerful offensive threats and the ease of stacking Spikes makes those Pokémon feel unbearable to play against sometimes.

Superman structures are hardly weak to Stealth Rocks? The term usually includes being resistant to SR and residual too. I think you accidentally alluded to another solution to Spike Stacking + cleaners balance, which is just hitting them with "Gen 5's powerful offensive threats." Pokemon such as Terrakion, Garchomp, Thundyt, and Conk can put tremendous pressure on spikers and are a viable playstyle outside of Spikes offense/bulky off.

this is memes man come on

This brings me to my other point. I already mentioned Rapid Spin, but the other available counterplay to Spikes isn’t exactly viable either. Magic Bounce users are rare as is being limited in what teams they fit on, and while Xatu can still U-Turn out of Tyranitar to avoid a Pursuit trap, the Tyranitar user can elect to try and play around this accordingly. Using Taunt to stop the opponent from setting up their hazards seems like it would be more consistent, and it definitely is depending on your Taunt user, but if your opponent suspects you clicking Taunt is too obvious not to do, depending on the state of the battle and what their hazards setter is, they may blindside you with something you’re not expecting. In fact, this just happened to me in a Gen 4 battle earlier today, where I used my leads Crobat’s Taunt on their Azelf expecting Stealth Rock only to get blasted by a Psychic to the face. (Note to self- don’t forget the Focus Sash next time.)

Ultimately my issue is just how easy it is for Spikes to be set up and stacked in Gen 5 relative to the difficulty of playing and building around it. Magic Guard and Levitate Pokémon have it the best where they’re immune to Spikes without being weak to Stealth Rock, and those same Magic Guard Pokémon would likely feel far less oppressive if Spikes were out of the picture. I can promise you a lot less people would think, say, Reuniclus is broken if Spikes aren’t involved.

This is pretty much the core of the issue, and it's a valid take to not like spikes spam. But I would encourage you to learn how to actually play around spikers more thoroughly, as you listed pretty meme options compared to just like, Exca + Rotom and beat Ferrothorn to death.

Edit. Meanwhile Skarmory is seen more on hyper offense and has gained some stock of its own with both Rocky Helmet and Custap Berry + Sturdy as a dedicated Spikes lead who can, pending Taunt, usually get its team off to a strong start and synergizes well with Jellicent and various offensive sweepers, though I’ve also seen Skarmory on bulky Sand teams on occasion.

Skarm is absolutely a fat or bulky option, skarm jelli is really rare outside of ladder.

 

[bdt2002]

I don't personally agree with a lot of the assertions made here, but it's the general opinion of "spikes too strong" is held by a pretty big number of players, so I'll try to address it point by point rather than writing it off. At the end of the day Ferro is a really fucked up Pokemon so I get it.

This is a very subjective claim, and one that I think you could pretty easily level at other tiers with broken spikers like adv and SV. If you don't like it, then fair enough, but pretty much any top tier / good Pokemon "restricts" the team building options around it, and my opinion is that it's only problematic when it completely crowds out other options or is "unreasonably difficult" to handle, which I'll address based on the rest of your post.

There's a couple of weird assertions made here, and I'll try to argue against them.
- Spin blockers being too strong is almost a non starter. Our best is Jellicent, who is solid, and our options then taper off into like Gengar and Rotom-Normal? Who are hyper niche at best? Jellicent itself notoriously barely spin blocks Excadrill and can be beaten out by it, while it relies on pretty narrow teammates to beat out starmie more than once.
- Rough Skin / Iron Barbs / Rocky Helmet hints at the actual "problem," being Ferrothorns insane splashability and good matchup into nearly every Spinner. Rhelm Skarm is great too, but it's usually confined to very fat teams and can be played around with plenty of common options like Knock Off + Exca, Starmie virtually always spins at least once while being very threatening without the aforementioned Scarf Tar or maybe Alakazam. Sand balances also regularly carry plenty of anti fat tools to abuse skarm's slow pace and lack of natural recovery while styles like Rain and HO can blitz through depending on matchup. RHelm Chomp is OK but hardly on anyone's radar. If you want to make an argument about spikers and residual being too good, you should probably narrow your scope to ferrothorn

Superman structures are hardly weak to Stealth Rocks? The term usually includes being resistant to SR and residual too. I think you accidentally alluded to another solution to Spike Stacking + cleaners balance, which is just hitting them with "Gen 5's powerful offensive threats." Pokemon such as Terrakion, Garchomp, Thundyt, and Conk can put tremendous pressure on spikers and are a viable playstyle outside of Spikes offense/bulky off.


This is pretty much the core of the issue, and it's a valid take to not like spikes spam. But I would encourage you to learn how to actually play around spikers more thoroughly, as you listed pretty meme options compared to just like, Exca + Rotom and beat Ferrothorn to death.


Skarm is absolutely a fat or bulky option, skarm jelli is really rare outside of ladder.

A few things I wanted to mention since I agree with pretty much everything here. Looking back at my post, some things were poorly phrased:

• When I made it sound like spinblockers were too strong, I said that with the notion that the more experienced playerbase may have more input than I do. I think we can all agree Jellicent is indeed the best spinblocker, but I must have been under the impression the other options were better than I made them sound like. So in a way, my hunch that more experienced players had more ball knowledge was… kind of right? …no, seriously, have the non-Jellicent spinblockers always been underperforming?
• Superman structures and their measure of viability against Stealth Rock is something that’s been hard for me to judge for a while now. On one hand, Stealth Rock setters aren’t in short supply at all and many of those setters have options to help with some of Superman’s most common pieces, but at the same time, I can’t exactly argue with anything you said. This may be a result of me frequently getting the Gen 3 and post-Gen 3 definitions of Superman mixed up fairly often. Must be force of habit, I guess.
• It seems like after reading your response that my problem I have with contact punishing Rapid Spin (and Leech Seed, to some extent) might just be a Ferrorthorn problem. And a skill issue in my end. I had a feeling that might be the case. In regards to Skarmory, the one thing I will say is that when I said “Skarmory is better on offense”, I wasn’t saying that in such a way to try and diminish Skarmory’s defensive strengths that allow it to succeed on bulkier teams too. This might be one of those situations where I just have to play the game more and learn for myself, honestly.

You had mentioned that I accidentally alluded to a possible solution to my own problem, also. I hadn’t realized I did that. The issue I’ve ran into in the past that’s kept me stuck in the depths of low ladder “bad at the game” level is that I can sometimes struggle with getting those threats onto the field to deal with the hazard setters in the first place. Maybe I just need to get better at pivoting? My whole point I’m trying to make is, your post was informative and helpful.

 

[ohko by scald]

Thoughts on cb ferro? Like I know it's not exactly good, but it's super fun to use. Clicking Bulldoze only for the Heatran coming in to have air balloon sucks, but I could see cb ferro as a Heatran lure to enable for example Volcarona.

 

[Finchinator]

Thoughts on cb ferro? Like I know it's not exactly good, but it's super fun to use. Clicking Bulldoze only for the Heatran coming in to have air balloon sucks, but I could see cb ferro as a Heatran lure to enable for example Volcarona.

The issue really is fit. If you’re exhausting a team slot on Ferrothorn, but investing fully in attack and Choice Band, you still need to use other slots for entry hazards, potentially checking BW cornerstones like Rain Hydro and Specs Draco, etc. — you lose the bulk and utility of the conventional set.

I wouldn’t try this seriously due to this, but there’s novelty and one-off lure appeal there. Similar to SD Ferro, which has some funny interactions against HippoClef, NP Recover Celebi, and utility Gliscor games. Isn’t really something that is too serious sadly, but you can justify it and build a somewhat consistent team if you really want to.

 

[peng]

Helped a team for SPL again this year but we got knocked out, sad!

Just wanted to point out some trends that have been interesting to me this year. Even among "standard" "boring" teams there are re-inventions of the meta staples constantly.

Rocky Helmet
9 appearances 2024 -> 14 appearances 2025 -> 17 appearances 2025 (so far)
Feels like an obvious one from this SPL - helmet has been kinda everywhere. Normally this has only been common on Skarmory and Slowbro, but we've seen it extended to Rotom-Wash, Starmie, Cresselia, Hippowdon, and Magnezone this tournament. Lots of useful applications for Rocky Helmet (messes with spinners, Uturn scarfers, helps Pursuit-weaks chip Tyranitar etc), but its particularly good right now as a way to flip the Conkeldurr MU. Rocky Helmet Magnezone is an interesting one too, giving Magnezone some utility beyond just trapping (makes good use of the defensive typing into Dragonite, punishes ScarfRachi even if it U-turns, etc).

Custap Berry (mostly on Tyranitar)
2 appearances 2024 -> 3 appearances 2025 -> 8 appearances 2026 (so far)
Gradually decreasing usage of Focus Blast across Alakazam, Reuniclus, and Thundurus-T over the last few years means Tyranitar can drop Chople Berry more often and run some interesting item choices. We've seen more CBTar than usual this year, but the bigger impact has come from Custap Berry. The idea here is that Tyranitar is frequently left at low HP, and Custap Berry allows you turn that death fodder into a single time revenge killer to many of the tier's top threats with access to Crunch, Rock Slide, Ice Beam, Fire Blast, Superpower, and Thunder Wave. We've also seen a lot of Custap Stealth Rock, which can Pursuit Starmie and then lay up a free SR on the following turn. Custap is particularly strong into the pairing of Latios + Alakazam, with Tyranitar often chipped into Custap range by Latios + hazards, but then getting a cheap Crunch/Pursuit into Alakazam lategame. Other Custap users we've seen are Landorus-T (can be both a rocker and a ScarfDrill / Chomp / Dnite rkiller) and Jellicent (can beat Starmie with Modest Shadow Ball).

Landorus-T moving to Specially defensive OR Scarf
It seems like Max Speed Lefties Landorus-T is kinda... dead? Its been usurped by two sets, on two completely opposite sides of the spectrum - SDef, or good old-fashioned Choice Scarf. Both of these are adaptations towards offensive Psychics and Volcarona. Compared to Naive LandoT, SDef gains a favourable MU in mirror against opposing fast Landorus-T, tanks Meteors, checks Volcarona, checks non-Ice Alakazam can tank moves from Starmie etc etc etc, meaning it actually fits on a lot. This set has even been seeing some usage as a slow pivot / SR lead on Hyper Offense, cutting into some of Garchomp's usage. There are trade-offs to running this bulk - being slower than Excadrill can be pretty dire, as well as Breloom, Heatran, and so on. On the other side of the coin, Scarf Lando-T is also seeing a ton of usage, as it outruns Modest Volc at +1, and is a good punish to LO Alakazam. Naive Lando-T still has some important traits - its much better into things like Protect Heatran and Excadrill, which annoy Scarf and can outrun SDef sets, but these applications increasingly feel less important than checking the meta defining special attackers.

Physically defensive Excadrill
Excadrill has a crazy base stat spread that makes it excellent for EV experimentation, and one that we've seen pop up recently is physically defensive on sand. PDef Excadrill has been around before as a niche wless/sun stall spinner, but never made a serious metagame impact. In 2026, we've begun to see it pop up more frequently in order to give Excadrill more favourable MUs into the Spikers - Skarmory and Ferrothorn. Skarmory in particular really struggles to win the hazard war when its Brave Bird is turned from a 6HKO to a 9HKO. Bonus upsides - not getting OHKOd by Superpower Tyranitar in the Custap era, and being marginally better into Outrage-locked dragons.

Drop-off in Colbur Berry, return to Choiced
Colbur Berry activations per year: 8 times in 2024 -> 6 times in 2025 -> once in 2026 (so far)
Even Latios, the best Pokemon in the game, changes in the way its used from year to year. Choiced Latios have been historically dominant, but dropped off a little in recent years as we found value in unchoiced, Colbur Berry sets. That seems to be reverting to norm a bit, with a large majority of Latios in this tournament being Choiced once again (when counting revealed sets: 22 Specs, 10 Scarf, 8 unchoiced). Interestingly, Colbur Berry has only activated once in 50 games this tournament, indicating that even when brought, its maybe not finding the same value it once had. In my personal experience I have found myself building more and more with Specs this year especially - a lot of that is due to the threat of Conkeldurr but it also owns any kind of Pursuit-less fat team. Also just very high on Trick right now.

-----

Fun stuff I liked building with this year below. Scooters ended with an incredibly based 100% Lati@s usage btw


Brine week 2
Protect Terrakion + Spikes
Adaptation of a Fakes team. Built this for brine week 2 and we got bopped by HWish + LO Scizor, but the concept felt strong. Basically, lots of Terrakion rkillers in the current metagame are choiced - I've already pointed out Specs Latios being very prominent once again, but also Scarf Lando-T, Scarf Jirachi, and rain running Scarf/Band Scizor. This is a dream metagame for Protect Terrakion, which gets to call the bluff of those U-turn Scarfers especially and get the opportunity to fire off free LO CCs if the opponent gets cute. A fun micro-synergy was Leech Seed Protect Ferrothorn + Protect Terrakion, which could let your cheese out of some late game situations.


Unused
Weather clear Heatran + Conk
A lot of people had a similar concept at roughly the same time: what if Volc Conk could run a different fire type? This has been used in some other tours before, and Franco did a Magma Taunt Heatran version in week 9. I thought Sunny Heatran with Conkeldurr felt strong, as its weakest MU is probably aggro rain. Magma Heatran does some other interesting things like trapping Jellicent to let Starmie spin more freely. I think these Heatran Conk teams are kinda interesting and worth messing around with some more


Brine week 3
HP Fire Rotom-W + LO Focus Blast Alakazam
Will just mention this one briefly cos its obviously a very established 6, just a set combination I liked. We really wanted to use LO Focus Blast + HP Ice Alakazam cos its the sand balance shredder and I think we faced Gary this week, who spammed a lot of Heatran Keldeo Celebi Sand stuff. Issue with the set is just consistency - it can end up in spots where it needs to land Focus Blasts into Ferrothorn which is super dire. Normally you'd just use Wisp Rotom-W here but 1) it can miss 2) burnt Ferro can still paralyze Alakazam lategame if you miss a Focus Blast on it... So leading HP Fire Rotom-W with some investment felt like a rly good way to take loads of pressure off of Focus Blast accuracy. Tiny thing but it tested really well.

 

[Posho]

I'm kinda back in action again and I wanted to do so through the gen I'm most in love with. A lot has changed since I last stepped into the BW fields, and I'm not exactly unhappy with the state of the meta. No mon feels disproportionally threatening, but it is true that the team-building in this tier is insanely demanding. It's easy to slap the 6 most viable Pokémon into your team, but there's a certain nuance to BW building that doesn't allow you to get away with subpar choices.

I've been larping quite a lot on the BW discord about how much I despise Spikes, especially now given the psyhic guarders are much more comfortable than ever since Cloyster and gems were vanished. Honestly, it's really hard to ascertain where the threat lies. On the one hand, spikes are insanely powerful because Rapid Spin users aren't as reliable in their roles, requiring you to play aggressively to comfortably position yourself to remove hazards. On the other hand, Magic Guard is insanely powerful in a tier filled to the brim with passive damage: hazards, 12% burn, sand, hail.

I've also realized how insane Rotom-Wash is in this meta. Gems really helped the guy become slightly more annoying. It was possible to threaten it back then with the likes of Gem Lati, Lando or Keld. Now, most mons in the tier don't directly threaten it other than Lati@s, Celebi, Amoonguss or the rare MB Exca, which none can directly switch into it unless they wanna eat wisp or volt switch into Ttar lol. I'd say the only mons that put a stop to him is either Breloom or Gastrodon, but I haven't seen them much.

I'm also sad to announce that rain fucking sucks. Poli losing Hypnosis is kinda big and I just don't like how it takes up a slot. It's really hard to keep rocks away with tenta or starmie, so most of the time the weather geniuses are put on a timer.

Anyways, as I said I'm not exactly unhappy because I don't think BW is unplayable, but I kind of wish for some sort of change coming into the future. I feel performing some tests could help the tier branch out new teambuilding options.

Also, can you keep Clefable's stinky musty ugly ass out my tier? Thank you

 

[harshest]

Hello,

I have decided to make a post on some sets I think are underutilised in the current BW2 metagame - they won’t all be the most creative ideas, but I have been working around each for the past year or so


Excadrill @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Force
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rapid Spin

Everyone knows Excadrill is a top Pokemon in every sense of the word - resilient typing, very customisable and most importantly, will be useful in any matchup you play. Popular teams in today’s metagame take two approaches to sets: choice scarf or leftovers + swords dance.

I have always personally disliked choice scarf, I like my teams to be sturdy and have the option to go the distance in a longer game. Not to say the set doesn’t have its place, but it requires an aggressive approach to building where I would rather apply that to the playing side.

On the other hand, swords dance is obviously a fantastic resource Excadrill can use to pressure slower teams. This is well suited to having a durable long-term gameplan which I am a fan of. Whilst great against slower teams, I find myself rarely taking advantage of swords dance versus more high-tempo sand, rain and weatherless styles - its a really useful set, but I started to re-consider the possibility of compensating with the rest of the team to open up other options in Excadrill’s toolkit. I think the ORAS metagame gives quite a good insight for how this can be done.

Stealth rocks are the best move in the game, Excadrill is a versatile Pokemon - why not put the two together? Conventional wisdom says your stealth rock setter should beat the rapid spinners in a tier. Since Excadrill is weak to Starmie, Tentacruel and itself, this seems to be breaking the rules. I would argue for a different approach - your stealth rock setter should be able to pressure rapid spinners OR you should structure your team to gain momentum from the spin. In these regards, Excadrill can get the job done well in my experience. With its great typing and capacity to go for a defensive spread, it finds a lot of opportunities to set the rocks - I think it especially shines in psyspam matchups where your Excadrill can find entries versus many members of the team and take a hit. Like I said, swords dance isn’t a move you would click every matchup, whereas stealth rocks are going to be valuable no matter what you face.

Should this be the most common set? No. Does it deserve more use than it sees now? Absolutely.



Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
- Protect
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Ice Fang / Knock Off / Toxic

Onto my other favourite ground type with two prominent sets. Traditionally, Gliscor has either run a swords dance set or opted for being the stealth rock setter for a team in recent years. Both sets are incredible at their job - no surprise considering Gliscor has the most longevity in the tier alongside Reuniclus. This is my favourite trait a Pokemon can have, but I always found myself thinking there is more room to abusing Gliscor than these two avenues. Knock Off is typically used in place of U-Turn on a defensive stealth rock set. I think it’s a big opportunity cost, considering Gliscor can be a blanket check that can gain momentum on so much of the tier with U-Turn.

The focus on this set is to use Gliscor as a momentum grabber with fantastic longevity - that is where it shines the most for me. Knock Off, Ice Fang and Toxic all have tremendous utility in different matchups if you can afford to creatively shift stealth rocks to another Pokemon. Definitely worth considering a set like this for your teams.



Jirachi @ Custap Berry
Ability: Serene Grace
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
- Iron Head
- Healing Wish

This Jirachi is onto a similar theme of momentum grabbing. This metagame is no stranger to Jirachi on weatherless teams - it is arguably the defining Pokemon of the style. Most that I see opt for choice scarf, which has amazing utility and is one of those rare cases of a Pokemon actually not minding the price of being choice - locked. It is the most popular set for good reason.

I started exploring this set just to try making my HO teams more durable where I could, and I began really enjoying the result. A slow Jirachi U-Turn is amazing to bring in big-hitters - I often paired this with slower threats like Mamoswine and Choice Band Breloom which are always Pokemon which benefit from a pivot like this. Stealth rocks again have the best utility ever, and I was regularly being put into Custap range to pop a healing wish - turning many games around with this strategy.

I will admit - a lot of the strength of this set comes from obfuscation - the opponent doesn’t know my Jirachi lacks trick, and only has the easily resisted U-Turn and Iron Head. It would lose a lot of potency if they were aware. The good thing is Jirachi’s move pool is so vast that you can afford to cheat in ways like this from time to time. Jirachi will forever be a Pokemon we owe more exploration, but regardless of set - the custap healing wish combo is always going to be valuable in-game.



Dragonite @ Choice Band
Ability: Multiscale
- Outrage
- Extreme Speed
- Fire Punch
- Superpower / Ice Punch / Dragon Claw etc.

Wow Choice Band Dragonite, how original. What I wanted to say about this set is a more controversial opinion - I actually think it’s better than dragon dance. It pressures in any matchup imaginable, has nice defensive utility, has a more versatile gameplan, and of course - the element of surprise. There will obviously be many teams that benefit from the lategadme threat which dragon dance can provide, but if you want to step on the opponents throat from turn 1, this can be the superior choice. Id also make the case that choice band can fit onto more styles of team - just by virtue of a reduced need for hazard control and preserving multiscale in general.



Starmie @ Choice Specs
Ability: Analytic
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Thunder
- Psychic

Starmie is one of my favourite Pokemon in the tier, because I love rapid spin and am obsessed with managing hazards. In 95% of cases, you will need the rapid spin - especially on a rain team which lends itself to Starmie taking on that role. In the 5% you dont - just try and use this set. Starmie has one of the most incredible move pools, an amazing speed tier, and synergises fantastically with Politoed and Latios in pressuring to ‘win’ the weather war. Nothing can safely switch in, and this set is extremely difficult to trap without really taxing their Tyranitar. It definitely deserves more use than we see - but is admittedly difficult to accommodate for.



Latias (F) @ Colbur Berry
Ability: Levitate
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Roost
- Healing Wish

Conversely, I’ll move onto a set I find very easy to fit on teams. Many will know I am not the biggest fan of Latios / Latias. I don’t enjoy teams which lack rapid spin, unless they have incredible longevity with the likes of Gliscor / Reuniclus / Skarmory / Clefable. This set helps to offset some of my concerns on traditional psyspam structures. Obviously Latios / Latias have the best speed / typing / ability combination in the tier which makes them easily splashable. The introduction of healing wish can really benefit less hazard-resilient teams. You can allow Latias to take up its defensive responsibilities, and when no longer useful, give a much-needed second life to a teammate which can really change the game around. This is useful in any game (assuming they dont know your set at preview)

Other sets I am enjoying and are seeing increased use: Stealth Rock Heatran; TWave Rotomw; Knock Off Landorus; SpAtk Kyurem-Black

Thanks for reading - a big shoutout to all the amazing BW minds on this website

 

[IUPLC]

Love the CBNite take, surely it can be a neat pick on more balanced teams for both its offensive (strong priority, big Outrage) and defensive (tanks non-Ice Volc) capabilities.

That Jirachi set is heat too: I imagine it can free up SR from Garchomp partners if you want.

 

[Posho]

Disclaimer, almost none of what I share here I think is very original, but these are sets I've grown fond of.


Tornadus (M) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hurricane
- Focus Blast
- U-turn
- Hidden Power [Ice] / Tailwind

Someone used this guy against me on ladder, and I've grown to love it quite a lot. In an era where we're seeing a lot of Scarf Exca/Lati and Kazam, Tornadus hardly finds a way to shine even though on paper Specs/Shark Beak sets are really good. Rain has very much taken a toll lately and relying that much on setting in up for Torn to be effective throughout the game is quite the hassle. Hazard removal has become insanely harder as well, and I always find myself on a timer when it comes to the rain genies / dnite in rain.

So, I found Scarf Torn to be quite a pleasant surprise. One of the coolest things it provides is catching Alakazams off guard with U-Turn effectively breaking their Focus Sash or you can also catch Scarf Lando lead off guard with HP Ice. Against opposing rains with Scarf Keld and Lati it tends to be a huge threat in late game stages. Weatherless HO also hates to see this guy coming because their fastest threats tend to be Starmie and Scarf Jirachi, which both get outsped by Scarf Torn and the latter doesn't like coming into him.

Obviously, the sand match-up is the one thing that's hard to overcome by this set, but that's always been the issue with running choiced Torn anyways.

Some cool companions:
with wisp dbond (peng, you're so fucking cool for this) gets rid of/cripples ttar so you can hurricane without being punished
specs, which pressures steels / ttar into taking dracos
hp grass fucks rotom over.


Tyranitar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 208 HP / 48 Atk / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Pursuit
- Rock Slide
- Crunch
- Ice Beam

Bulky Scarf Ttar is kinda cool. The main attractive of this set is that without crits you're guaranteed to trap non colbur latios. I made this set for a team that was specifically kinda vulnerable to specs latios, because no bulk meant that I was at the mercy of a 50/50 to kill it. This bulk on ttar is also nice because from full kazam and thund have a 50% chance to kill it with focus blast, and the same goes for +1 Timid insect plate Volcarona. Reuniclus also can't kill with unboosted focus blast after rocks.

Obviously, this is not meant to be a set made to deal with those threats, but the extra insurance against them can come in handy sometimes. I don't think it's 100% reliable, but it worked for me there and gave me some wiggle room.

Ok, now here come two Latias sets.


Latias (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder Wave
- Recover
- Trick
- Dragon Pulse

This one was specifically made for a team that wanted a glue mon that could put a stop to set up sweepers, as well as providing yellow magic for my Reuniclus to wreak havoc. Last move, is pretty flexible depending on what your team needs. You can run Ice Beam if you're scared of Gliscors or Chompers. This one had Dpulse for Kyurem Black.

for reference, this is how the team looks:



Latias (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 Spe
- Thunder Wave
- Ice Beam
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Recover

Similar to the last one, but this one is meant to paralyze jirachis and ttars, as well as chipping down ferro/sciz so Reuniclus has an easier time late game. It is quite a neat set that I also found unexpectedly useful against HO, because if Sciz takes a bit of damage the rest of the usual HO structures just crumble. IB beats loom, chomp, dnite. Twave screws volcarona, dnite, scarf jirachi. Also, since it's not a common set, some SpDef Landorus just stay in and take on an ice beam, which is really neat for late games with rocks up.

I think overall Latias is such a cool glue mon for some teams and provides cool utilities. I'm usually not a fan of do-nothing walls that are just there to stop certain threats. I like that these Latias sets have such a big impact in the overall development of games.


LASTLY, since I've been playing a lot of BW ladder, I ran multiple times into , which I believe to be one of the most effective team comps in the current metagame. As I said before, Rotom-Wash got so much value now that gems and sleep are gone, meaning that it is more free to stay in and spread status. However, I noticed one clear weakness that those teams possess, and that's where my friend comes into play:


Excadrill @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide / X-Scissor

Scarf Mold Breaker Exca is really cool. I think Sand Force is really nice too, but I hate having to aggressively predict Rotom-Wash or Latios to come in, losing a lot of momentum in exchange. There are barely any mons in the tier that can threaten Rotom-W with a KO with a super effective move.

This set is obviously not threatening from the get go. Its main hurdle will always be gliscor/lando and skarm, and even the rare Brelooms or Celebis that are roaming about. Usually I design teams around getting rid of those guys, which usually implies placing a surprise ice move, or wisp in the team. After that, Exca just goes haywire. There have been times where I've been able to late game sweep by just spamming Earthquake. You do give up damage by not running sand force, but in exchange you get to use eq against a lot of common bw team comps without facing much punishment.

Also, random shoutouts to the BW ladder demons

These guys are always running the same team, but always give me a run for my money with their insane plays

 

[Cow]

I've wanted to do a small post for a while but never really got to it, but I would like to talk about the metagame a little bit and go over some stuff I've been enjoying in the tier recently.

Thundurus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 24 HP / 220 SpA / 56 SpD / 208 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunder
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Focus Blast
- Taunt

Been having a lot of success with this recently. It's pretty interchangeable with the likes of Nasty Plot and Grass Knot in terms of some of the targets you're going to be clicking on. Main difference with it is in the hazard war. Turn one of Rain into a Hippo Psyspam is usually going to be you leading your Ferrothorn into Hippowdon, which is ultimately going to let up either Stealth Rock, or Spikes if they decide to pivot to Skarmory. With Taunt you can flip that and Taunt the Hippowdon and gain momentum in the hazard war from the start. If they decide to pivot into their Lati-twin you still end up getting up with your Ferrothorn the turn after and you'll be at a pretty neutral game state instead of behind. Other applications like Taunting a Custap Skamory turn one, Leech Seed Ferrothorn or a low HP target all apply too but the main jist of it is trying not to fall behind in the hazard war, which for Rain can sometimes mean death.
(The speed on this spread is for a last resort Taunt vs a Volcarona if you're ever in a position where if they Quiver Dance on Thundurus they win, but you can drop the speed to 310 and go max Special attack and it's the same)

Rotom is surging in usage right now so it seems a bit silly to say Chople Ferrothorn is good right now, but with how often Ferrothorn has been Lum/Rawst Berry in recent times, the Rotom user typically decides to Volt-Switch out turn one instead and preserve HP in the case of a Lum Berry Ferrothorn. Obviously a set thats been around for quite a while but I think now you can probably find more usage for it, would only really use on Rain to patch the shakey Terrakion and Keldeo matchups these structures seem to have. Honourable mention to Custap Ferrothorn too that sets too nice, either on the Ferrothorn HO's with Scarf Jirachi/SD Scizor as the second Steel or on Psyspam. I think reading back the main takeaway from this should be that Ferrothorn has more options to experiment with it's item again, rather than just Chople Berry being the good one.

I was only going to talk about Excadrill but I thought it was also worth mentioning Tentacruel too. I think running Physical Defence on both of these guys right now is probably the best option in this current metagame, especially for Tentacruel. I think a lot of structures you'll find Excadrill on have a pretty annoying time switching into Ferrothorn and actually finding the opportunity to spin hazards away, unless you're doing some sort of Nasty Plot Fire Celebi or HP Fire Latios or simply just tricking away your Choice item onto it, and same goes for Rain too with you either commiting to trading max hazards with your own Ferrothorn or sending in your Thundurus to preasure but ultimately bleeding out. With max PDef Tentacruel you can come in on max layers of Spikes + Stealth Rock, spin away and then send out your threat or if they decide to up again just fish the burn and continue the cycle.

With Max PDef Excadrill you have a lot more options with how you play specifc matchups. You can take a hit from both Gliscor and Hippowdon and decide to just straight up hit them for huge damage if you think that will lead to progress, as well as better take on Skarmory (not that it hugely struggled with that anyways). I think my main draw to this Excadrill is that, a lot of the time at the moment it does feel like you want to Scarf your Landorus for the Zam matchup, and that leads you to being pretty irritated by Ferrothorn, so maybe it's just the teams im using that suck, but I also believe PDef Excadrill is a great enabler for this and works well right now.


Slowbro @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 19 Spe
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Slack Off
- Flamethrower

Last set which I think is nice right now is Helmet Slowbro, which underspeeds Conkeldurr. Honourable mention to Psychic which does do the exact same thing as the underspeed version. Only reason I bring up the underspeed version is so that you can fit Flamethrower, again sound like a broken record but simply so you can get preasure on Ferrothorn from the getgo. Conkeldurr is lebron james right now and requires very specifc counter play, which is usually just a Psychic with Stab or Choice Specs Special attackers like a Rain Boosted Keldeo, or a Choice Specs Latios, so being able to underspeed your Slowbro to beat Conkeldurr, while also not sacrifising a move slot is pretty neat. A lot of Choice Scarf Jirachi in the metagame right now too which contact is great at punishing so not just this set but Slowbro in general is just a pretty wise pick I'd say. (You can go 0 Speed Iv's if you really wanted to, but you do run the risk of being outsped by a Paralysed Thundurus if you're running an Amoongus but you can easily go 0 Speed for a guarantee on the Conkeldurr underspeed if you're not pairing it with that.


With that out of the way, would like to see if we're getting some sort of tiering form to fill out or if there's anything going on behind the scenes. Personally would be a big fan of a Gems unban + Volcarona Ban or at least guaging what the rest of the community thinks of the metagame right now.

 

[Posho]

Hello, respectable gamers of the BW community, I find myself in the mood for delivering some musings on the tier, mostly thoughts on my current experience and some tiering discussions I believe we should be having.

It has been quite cathartic to come back to this tier and discover both a new metagame and a new community embracing it. I used to find veteran players rambling on about their old gens so passionately while refusing to play current gen funny back then when I was actively playing the main generations, and with growth comes perspective so I do understand them now. Not to diss SV because I like how almost none of the teams look similar, but I can't help but think that I find it unremarkable as a generation, but then again, I am very biased.

I have been quite invested in the tier for the past two or three months, building teams, playing a considerate amount of ladder games and also watching a lot of tournament replays and youtube videos. I reached the conclusion that BW is such a tightly-knit generation that it's quite hard to find room for reinvention: overlook a potential gap in your teambuilding and you'll find yourself re-adjusting your whole team to account for that weakness, which usually leads you astray.

That doesn't mean I don't have fun creating teams in the tier. I guess the counterpoint to what I said is that the moment you actually find those elements that click you can't help but be engulfed by joy. Though, most of the time what happens is that I'll put together a random 6, share it on a discord and get reactions such as:

And I take no offense by this because I do consider peng an excellent, if not close to the best, teambuilder in the tier. I do recommend reading his RMT's.

Coming back to what I said about BW being so "tightly-knit", I want to use this space to foster some tiering discussion. I have previously stated to want some tiering change given some elements of the tier are clearly unbalanced. However, different to other gens, not all of them make the tier uncompetitive. Teambuilding can perfectly adjust to those, and in some cases, they are a necessary evil for the tier so that it doesn't go out of control.

Now, enough vagueness. These are the ones I want to address:

Magic Guard, Alakazam and Reuniclus.

I do believe that we were a little too late in addressing these controversial elements of the tier, because now they've become a tough issue to tackle, mainly because I don't think there is a "correct way" to go about it. Get rid of Magic Guard and spikes stack becomes even more insufferable. Get rid of Reuniclus and fighting types like Conkeldurr and Terrakion become more menacing, not to mention Rotom-Wash eliminates one more obstacle in its path to spread passive damage onto every team. Get rid of Alakazam and you lose one of the most effective revenge-killers in the tier, effectively lowering the speed tier, and thus Starmie, Latios, and a lot of stat boost sweepers become harder to deal with.

Obviously, this is all in theory, there is a chance any of these bans could be enacted and it would be a positive for the tier. It is just quite hard to find the right target without harming the overall state of the tier.

Latios

To me, a potential suspect target. However, I do believe that its presence in the tier has its merits. Even if you could say that all you have to do is ban it and replace all your Latios with Latias (and I naively believed this too), the fact of the mater is that Latios has enough firepower and sets to not become an immediate Pursuit target, which Latias tends to more often be.

However, why would it matter that Latios can escape Tyranitar's clutches? Basically because Latios provides a healthy speed tier with which it can check threats such as Keldeo and Garchomp. If you get rid of it, I believe you give more leeway to already potent threats like Keldeo and Garchomp paired with a Pursuit user. Moreover, Reuniclus would remove yet another barrier on its way to CM sweep an opposing team given a lot of teams utilize Trick, Roar or Twave sets to have it in check.

Still, even if it's with care, I do believe a suspect is warranted. This thing's Draco Meteor is very much unstoppable unless you run dedicated counters, which usually imply running Max SpDef Tyranitar or Jirachi. One gets destroyed if it gets crit (1/16 chance btw) and the other one tends to be an easily abused set.

Thundurus-Therian

With this guy, I feel much less compassionate. Teambuilding has to account for this guy's Agility sets, which are just a pain to deal with. It's a suspect I wouldn't be really opposed to. Like, once again Tyranitar has to overwork itself in order to keep it in check. There are some dedicated counters like SpDef Hippo and Gastrodon, but if you encounter the occassional Grass Knot Thundurus, then you're screwed either way. So, yeah, add this guy to the chopping block actually lol!

Volcarona and Quiver Dance

So, with Volcarona I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it is just so incredibly hard to fit into teams because it forces you into running Rapid Spin, which is really hard to reliably use given Excadrill and Starmie would love to click any other move. On the other hand, the moment you let this mon get a free turn to Quiver Dance you can just click forfeit at that point.

So, I've been thinking, is Volcarona itself dangerous or is it Quiver Dance that makes it so hard to deal with? I know that current tiering doesn't allow for moves to get banned, but it's one thing I'd seriously consider given that I believe that a move that allows you to boost 3 stats in one turn is just unbalanced. If Volcarona were to run Calm Mind over Quiver Dance, people would have much less of an issue with it. Then again, it would be like saying ban Draco Meteor because it makes Latios broken, I know. Though, it's an option I would heavily consider: banning moves that boost more than 2 stats in one go: a.k.a Shell Smash and Quiver Dance.

Why don't I advocate for an outright Volcarona ban? Once again, Reuniclus will always be in the back of my mind. Volcarona is yet another roadblock for the blob to overcome in its way to sweeping your team, so I think it's important to proceed with caution before smashing the ban hammer. Not only that, I also don't like the concept of Ferrothorn being able to swap in more comfortably given the other viable fire type in the tier is Heatran.

I drew this!!!

Scald

I've consumed enough BKC content, so now I have been captivated by the sentiment that this move has to go. Borderline stupid in how much it allows you to get away with. Yeah, I know I said I don't want Ferrothorn to roam about that freely, but Scald is such a stupid move that can change the tide of a battle.

This gen specifically is where burn damage is probably at its worst: 12% damage in a tier that thrives in passive damage moreso than in other gens. Not only that, BW OU is also the only OU tier that brandishes permanent rain + rain boosted scald.

I'd honestly be curious about how a Scald-less BW would look. I'm generally not a fan of this move, so although I prioritize other broken elements more than Scald, it is one I would look into.

Complex banning Sand Rush Excadrill

I know, another precedent we don't want to set, but I do believe this would be such a positive for the tier. I think what's balanced about Sand Rush that the other weather boosting abilities don't have is that sand doesn't really allow you to boost stab moves. Other than Excadrill, the other two viable Sand Rush users in Sandslash and Stoutland aren't the most threatening forces in BW, but I think they'd contribute positively in the tier.

We gain two crucial elements from bringing them back: another sort of viable spinner and ways to prevent Alakazam and Volcarona from messing with the speed tier. Specifically I want to talk about Stoutland because I think its presence would open up new building venues. It is a very good revenge killing option with really bad defensive typing and weak to prominent elements of the tier, namely Iron Barbs, Protect, Conkeldurr.

It doesn't want to come in on anything, and when it does you must make sure you can directly threaten your opponent. I like it mainly because it provides us with another Pursuit user and an effective revenge killing option for Volcarona given it needs to be at +2 to even outspeed.

Anyways, that is it. I wanted to also share teams, but I think that would make this post very unfocused, so I'll leave that for another time. Have a nice day, Smogon gamers.

 

[Cow]

iceman album ruined the drizzy drake rain aura

 

[bello figo]

made a big post about SPL XVII BW OU!
would love if y'all gave it a read, some cool observations

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spl-xvii-bw-discussion-thread.3776030/post-10999677

 

[bdt2002]

I have a question the more experienced player base. Coming from a low ladder scrub- hey, I’m just saying my skill level as it is- am I the only one who finds Spikes to be a bit obnoxious in the current metagame? Or is that just me? To a point, my concerns also stretch to Stealth Rock, but for now I’m mainly just focused on Spikes. I don’t have enough experience to speak on whether or not Spikes is “broken”, but what I can say with a decent level of confidence is that Spikes seems to restrict creative team building at both the lower and higher levels of play rather than encourage creative team building.

What makes Spikes unique in Gen 5 compared to other generations isn’t the move itself, but how this is arguably one of the hardest generations to actually deal with the move without specifically addressing the core issues. Gen 5 has multiple spinblockers available and while some of them are significantly more viable for the role than others, often times you don’t even need to run a spinblocker to punish the opponent for trying to clear your hazards. Yes, you absolutely can still run things like Jellicent to great success, but if your team doesn’t need a spinblocker or if none of the best options synergize well with your core, you still have Gen 5’s improved options for contact punishing. The distribution of Rough Skin was increased here, as was Iron Barbs being introduced, and on top of that you have the Rocky Helmet which is a common item on multiple viable hazard setters. Couple this with the fact that the available options for viable Rapid Spin users can feel somewhat limited at times, and you start to realize that the hazard metagame and specifically Spikes stacking is massively skewed towards the hazard setters to the point where teams are better off running multiple Spikes-immune Pokémon, which isn’t strictly a problem on its own. After all, Gen 3 has a lot of these “Superman” structures. The problem is, the ever-looming threat of Stealth Rock makes those kinds of structures hard to justify when you need to spend valuable team slots accounting for Gen 5’s powerful offensive threats and the ease of stacking Spikes makes those Pokémon feel unbearable to play against sometimes.

This brings me to my other point. I already mentioned Rapid Spin, but the other available counterplay to Spikes isn’t exactly viable either. Magic Bounce users are rare as is being limited in what teams they fit on, and while Xatu can still U-Turn out of Tyranitar to avoid a Pursuit trap, the Tyranitar user can elect to try and play around this accordingly. Using Taunt to stop the opponent from setting up their hazards seems like it would be more consistent, and it definitely is depending on your Taunt user, but if your opponent suspects you clicking Taunt is too obvious not to do, depending on the state of the battle and what their hazards setter is, they may blindside you with something you’re not expecting. In fact, this just happened to me in a Gen 4 battle earlier today, where I used my leads Crobat’s Taunt on their Azelf expecting Stealth Rock only to get blasted by a Psychic to the face. (Note to self- don’t forget the Focus Sash next time.) Ultimately my issue is just how easy it is for Spikes to be set up and stacked in Gen 5 relative to the difficulty of playing and building around it. Magic Guard and Levitate Pokémon have it the best where they’re immune to Spikes without being weak to Stealth Rock, and those same Magic Guard Pokémon would likely feel far less oppressive if Spikes were out of the picture. I can promise you a lot less people would think, say, Reuniclus is broken if Spikes aren’t involved.

Edit: I almost forgot, I also want to shout out two Spikes users in particular who on their own are definitely not broken Pokémon but have specific traits that enhance their ability to set hazards to a potential unhealthy degree. Ferrothorn is in a unique spot with its typing where it can used on both Sand and Rain and also to where it can set up hazards and also Leech Seed, while we’re on the subject of Rapid Spin, and naturally has Iron Barbs built in to punish spinning away Ferrothorn’s moves. You’d be surprised to see how often people forget Rapid Spin works against Leech Seed. Meanwhile Skarmory is seen more on hyper offense and has gained some stock of its own with both Rocky Helmet and Custap Berry + Sturdy as a dedicated Spikes lead who can, pending Taunt, usually get its team off to a strong start and synergizes well with Jellicent and various offensive sweepers, though I’ve also seen Skarmory on bulky Sand teams on occasion.

Following up on this post I made back in January because I’ve given this more thought and played a bit more since then. I feel like I still agree with a lot of what I thought about Spikes back in the winter, but it does appear to be the case that there is more explorable counterplay to Spikes Stack than I initially thought. Emphasis on “explorable”- my mistake I made back then was that I was relying too much on older, more traditional strategies that the 2026 metagame has been able to adapt to, both when using Spikes and when playing against the move.

However. My opinion on Spikes being potentially unhealthy for this tier still persists, only now it’s for a slightly different reason. Let’s pretend for just a second that Spikes were to actually get a suspect test. Generally speaking, what is the goal of a suspect test? To make the metagame better, healthier, and more enjoyable. Previously, I was looking at this from the point of view of Spikes itself being the issue, but what I’ve started to notice is that almost everything people seem to have a problem with in this tier- Volcarona, Alakazam, Thundurus-T, Latios, Excadrill, Magic Guard in general, the Gems ban… Spikes indirectly has an impact on all of them in some form.

I do think there’s an argument to be made that banning Spikes would make some of those parts of the tier more manageable. Magic Guard would be indirectly nerfed relative to the rest of the tier. Those speedy attackers would theoretically be easier to deal with defensively, and Latios and Thundurus-T are both immune to Spikes on top of that. Volcarona would still have to deal with Stealth Rock and possible checks like, say, defensive Heatran would gain significant traction in the matchup. Clearly suspecting Spikes SHOULD be the play here, right? But… remember, Spikes itself doesn’t seem to be the problem. Just like you could make an argument that Spikes enhances these potentially broken threats, I think it’s also just as likely that these threats are making Spikes look like a bigger problem than it actually is.



Imagine yourself in this scenario. You’re a BW OU tournament player, maybe something like SPL, WCoP, the BW Cup, whatever it is, something is going on that you’re participating in. You see your opponent’s running a well-crafted Spikes HO at team preview, and most importantly, you’ve had extensive practice preparing for Spikes before your game is next up. Now imagine yourself as someone with far less experience in modern BW. Maybe it’s your first time ever playing in a BW tournament game. The lesser experienced player may be more inclined to say that their performance was influenced by Spikes making the opponent’s win condition(s) feel unfair, but the more experienced player would, I assume, be more likely to correctly pin down what makes something uncompetitive on a fundamental level of understanding of the game. This is ultimately why I currently believe Spikes is potentially unhealthy, but that suspect testing it would be avoiding the bigger issue in an effort to find a band-aid solution to multiple things at once. Even following the Gems ban, I would still feel more inclined for test something like Volcarona, if the tier elects to test anything at all, since Volcarona provides less interaction between players with its Quiver Dance strategies and ability to take advantage of matchups and pick and choose maybe not all of, but definitely some of its counters. Making the most of Spikes still requires competitive knowledge of the game and this tier, whereas Volcarona’s uncompetitive nature has been debated for years and even now still comes up in discussions.

Edit: The other problem with wanting to suspect Spikes instead of, say, Volcarona like I used as an example, is that you have to ask yourself if you’re a common player of the tier if the thing being suspected provides anything positive to the tier, and for as bad as Spikes can look when enhancing these Pokémon, the move overall still provides something to the tier and gives multiple Pokémon something to do, whereas I sometimes have to ask myself, “what positive benefit does Volcarona provide to the tier exactly?”. I know there are some things it does provide, but you get my point.

 

[YunieUchiha]

Hey im a big celebi fan and was wondering if anyone could help me build a gen 5 OU team centered around celebi im new to team building but not competitive battling;-; i just love celebii and have a bunch of q’s

 

[Monai]

Hey im a big celebi fan and was wondering if anyone could help me build a gen 5 OU team centered around celebi im new to team building but not competitive battling;-; i just love celebii and have a bunch of q’s

Feel free to join the BW discord to ask any questions you need

 

[bello figo]

hi every1! roapl just ended, and this year i've managed the arctic abomasnows. we had a very unlucky season but im proud of my team and we all gave our best till the end
i built a lot of teams and sets and helped my team during prep, especially in bw. big shootouts to the goat playes Nalorium and Duke Sux. this szn was so fun and I was always hyped to see you play.

week 1 (click on the images for the pastes)


[AA] Duke Sux vs Dababy2 [GS]
Duke was playing against our dear friend The Baby Two, who has a preference for fat teams. Instead of using something that isn't very common in the meta of now like Mamoswine, whose role is to wallbreak, we decided to use a team mainly built by Raiza. He posted this. This way we would have a good matchup against fat teams and slower paced teams (which Duke ended up playing against, with a good matchup). I decided to use Choice Scarf Rotom-W, as he could trick the Scarf to a wall, and regain his ability to pivot and hit Gliscor without fearing to miss or finish his PPs with HydroPump. Worry Seed Amoonguss with HP Ice offers another weapon against Gliscor, Dababy's most used Pokemon (who we didn't face). Choice Band Tyranitar is a great wallbreaker, and it can catch by surprise players who like to hard switch Lando on him, with his strong Ice Punch.

[AA] Nalorium vs Monai [GS] - Game One / Game Two / Game Three

game 3

Nalo was a bit rusty, coming off 2 or 3 years without team tours, and my goal was to allow him to shine and come back to his prime supporting him to my best. He was famous for playing stall often; and we were sure everybody would be prepared for it, especially at first in fact Monai brought Band Mamo, Keldeo, and Dragonite game 1 + CB Terrak and SD Excadrill in the other two). We decided to run an hyperoffense team, with Kyurem-Black (a mon ive been building a lot of stuff with) over Latios (having the same 6 as Finchinator's SPL week 3 team and Star's week 6 team, but it was already something I had been working on), game 1, while for game 2 we opted for an hail hyperoffense that Tizio often used, making Nalo going out of his comfort zone to come back in his prime (as they say, comfort zone is poison for progress). For the eventual game 3 we decided on running this version of the same team Monai used against us in game 2 and 3, and we had decided upon this before the set.

Week 2

[AA] Duke Sux vs VictoriasDelibirds [MS]



VictoriasDelibird had a good usage of rain teams who are good in the mirror, Terrakion sands, and Celebi on Sand. At first I thought about Sash lead Tyranitar HO, but after looking at the scout we decided to bring a solid team into anything, opting for a LifeOrb Terrakion (I thought about Adamant too LOL) on Sand ourselves, with Spin support. We ended up facing Aerodactyl suicide Lead HO, and we won with a bit of luck after missplaying the first turn.

[AA] Nalorium vs LB [MS] - Game One / Game Two / Game Three



We prepared mainly for Posho, but he was busy having fun at a birthday party, so Nalo played LB who subbed in. Nalo was on vacation so we brainstormed and tried to pick the teams before he came back. Game 1 we decided to use TR Reuniclus with Terrakion, basically a recreation of Monai's SPL week 1 team. For game 2 we had in plan to use Rain, but Nalo opted to use the alternative we had, Psyspam Sand, using the big 6 with the sets I put. For game 3 we used the rain we had planned on for game 2, showing how Thundurus is OP when it hits his moves.

Week 3

[AA] Duke Sux vs Baddy [CL]

Duke feared either HO or fat coming, and was feeling confident with this solid sand team with the frog, with NP Celebi as one of its main win conditions. In this game we werent able to get much value out of Seismitoad and Baddy's Alakazam put in the work.

Nalorium vs Quarante8 - Game 1 and 2


Before even the week was out, I said which mons we were yet to bring, and this was the response

We noticed 48 was pretty low on Rotom overall compared to other players, and we wanted to color the scout. We decided to use the Hippo team I had just built, including Heatran over Bronzong. We ended up giving Toxic to Hippo over IceFang, so that we could chip Rotom too, and giving IceBeam to Clef to better deal with Lando and Dragon types. Thunder on Reuniclus is to avoid getting completely destroyed by Rain stuff. I was very proud of the team. For game 2 Nalo used a Skarm Sand Spikes team he already had in his builder, as we didn't use Skarm yet (except for game 1) and we thought Skarm had a good matchup against some of his stuff and the mon ended up winning us the game.

Week 4


[AA] Duke Sux vs JabbaTheGriffin [YP]

Jabba had a pretty old-style scout, with most teams sharing a weakness to Volcarona, so we decided to use it and run HP Ground to better face his Heatran usage, so Duke recreated an old team of Brine with some tweaks. Jabba ended up using the Mixed LifeOrb Hydreigon HO that has been going around recently. Matchup was pretty even, on turn 11 Jabba missplayed by tricking the Specs into our Starmie, who then claimed 3 mons.

Nalorium vs magialice

I was away for most of the week so I couldn't help Nalo as much and I spent the time before my departure by building in GSC. I suggested the game 1 team with Slowbro (who of course got crit) to check her Conk and Terrakion usage, two Pokemon she brought, the former in g1 and latter in g2.

Week 5

[RR] Ale Duncan vs Duke Sux [AA]

We decided on raining my bro Ale Duncan, not a lot to say. He won thanks to a last turn crit, typical.



[RR] dice vs Nalorium [AA] - Game 1 and 2


This was the funniest week. Nalo was in the tropical forest all week and had to play from phone, so his time was limited. We noticed people LOVED Terrakion against Nalo, so we decided to try to outmatch the offensive output of our opponents, while being careful of Dice's trends, but as always it's so difficult to predict such a creative player. We decided to run Specs Kyurem in game 1 on a weatherless offensive structure, and Specs Keldeo as a very strong wallbreaker on a Sand team, with HP Bug to nail Celebi.

Week 6

[MM] MichaelderBeste2 vs crying [AA]

Crying subbed in over Lolebruh and loaded a comfort team, that sadly was pretty weak to Conkeldurr overall.

[MM] evakiyama! vs Nalorium [AA] G1 / G2

Nalo was feeling hot and practicing a lot on ladder, and both teams were almost out by now. Game 1 we used again the Specs Keldeo team, with the goal to be good into both offense and most Sand structures, while in game 2 we recycled again the Kyurem HO we used against Monai, with NeverMeltIce KyuB being very strong. Thankfully we got 2 great matchups.

VARIOUS TEAMS and SETS


Heatran (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 16 Atk / 240 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Lava Plume
- Protect
- Payback

I like Payback Heatran, I think it's very nice and can help a lot against both Alakazam and Latios.

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 96 HP / 8 Def / 152 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Magma Storm
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Dragon Pulse
- Flame Charge

I've also experimented with Flame Charge Heatran, I think it can be fun and help a lot against HO



Gyarados @ Liechi Berry
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Earthquake
- Natural Gift

Can't wait to unleash this on a Seismitoad.



I built this team with the idea of renouncing Thundurus-T because I hate missing moves, so I chose a Pokemon that still misses moves. I think this Thundurus set can be ok and tedious to more bulky teams, while Tailwind > Taunt would help against offensive teams more. Chople Ferro helps against opposing Thundurus.



I've been experimenting with KyuremBlack on hyperoffense, and it's been pretty fun. It's such a strong Pokémon and his wallbreaking power is amazing. On this HO team I decided to run some fun sets: Lum KyuB, Psychic on Mie to help against Conk, Chople Magnezone. At first Chomp, Scizor, and Kyurem were all Life Orb (first version of the team).

In this team instead of stacking Psychic types I decided to try overload the team with a strong VoltTurn core and two CB users, in Scizor and Terrakion. Felt fun.




I built this team on my phone while I was shopping with my sister and I was getting bored. The idea is baiting Latios in with Keldeo, getting hit with Slowking, and trapping it with Weavile. Weavile with IceShard offers a nice priority, Landorus can revenge kill and pivot, it's physically bulky and it can help a lot to check things like Terrakion. The team is definitely flawed but it's very fun. I think Eject Button Slowking needs to be explored more, just because it's very fun imo.

I've also built quite a lot with Abomasnow, I've always found Hail HO super fun to play with, and I tried fitting two different Fire types on it: Volcarona and Heatran.
Trump Team
Berlusconi Team
Obama Team

 

[Posho]

I'm out of ROAPL and Global Champs, so I can now take a proper break and not overload myself with many tournaments. If life allows me to, I will make an appearence this upcoming SPL. I fell back in love with this game, but growth has given me the wisdom of knowing when to step back and not fall for the FOMO.

This being said, I want to dump some stuff I used over the course of ROAPL that I really liked. VictoriasDelibirds helped me a fuckton through the tournament given I'm very bad with certain teambuilding nuances. I hope people are in the lookout for him.

Specifically I want to glaze Forretress, which is a fucking awesome pokémon: very underrated monster that can just ruin your opponent's hazard control. Ferrothorn has risen a lot in popularity, whereas Magnezone has become marginally worse, turning Forretress much less punishable now. These are the two teams I used in ROAPL which feature it.

(I do the cool thing where I don't show the spreads, so if anybody wants to grab the team will have to use their brainpower. Though I doubt people want this lol)

So, this team draws inspiration from the ABR stall, but I adapted it more into my style, by placing a glue CB Nite into the mix. I was initially trying to come up with ways to make sub dtail dragonite work, but then I realized that Excadrill is a thing and it will just shut down any phazing attempts. I still liked the 6, and I thought I'd still get the best utility from this Dragonite by making it CB, which can either revenge kill dangerous threats like LO Kazam, Thund and Volc, or it can nuke the likes of Rotom-wash, Lando, Conkeldurr, etc.

Knock Taunt Gliscor for me was the cherry on top because it's quite powerful against slow-ish sands, and allows me to more successfully shut down Ferrothorn and Skarm.

Then, this Forretress set I took inspiration from a guy running peng hail on ladder. He had eq over hp fire, but I made mine that set because otherwise Scizor becomes quite a nuisance (and it still is, let's not kid ourselves).

Overall, it's a solid team, but it has quite noticeable flaws, which I think I make up for with good play.

Games used:
vs. Quarante8 G2
vs. Quarante8 G3



Probably my favorite team that I have created in this tournament. It's a team that initially had Garchomp over Terrakion, but I changed it for the second time I used it because it made my life against Volcarona and Clefable a tad easier. It is however, a really difficult team to run, but one that can be quite effective when the right conditions are reunited.

It was kind of happenchance that I managed to create this team, because I was just messing around with mons and suddenly I felt quite comfortable with the 6 and I was winning constantly on the ladder, so I figured I would use it vs dice that week, given he was begging people to use Weavile.

(this was the building process I went through until the team formed).

Tspike Hail + Knock Off Gliscor is such a deadly combo when pulled right. I also love Sash Aboma's get out of jail card. I feel I can get away with some hard MUs if I keep its sash intact.

If you're wondering about Punishment on Weavile, it's mainly for this:
252+ Atk Weavile Punishment (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Volcarona: 288-340 (92.6 - 109.3%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Weavile Punishment (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Reuniclus: 410-486 (96.6 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO (+2 reuni)

I know it's not really reliable vs. Volcarona, but it's at the very least not game over if it QDs once on you. As for Reuniclus, I can't run beat up because of Gliscor and Night Slash is weak as balls, so my gameplay against Reuni is usually forcing it into +2 or +3 with Slowking then murk it.

Games used:
vs. dice G2 ROAPL
vs. nigel G2 ROAPL
vs. SamuelBest Global Champs

I have more stuff I liked, but I also have to remain cool and mysterious and not dump every team I have because then I whine about not having readily available teams for tours hehe. That's it for me. See you around and I'll keep making videos for youtube when I fancy, as well as maybe learning and re-learning other tiers. Pokémon is awesome!

 

[Monai]

View attachment 846035

definitive hail gay team

cool post, forre is a mon that's talked about a lot but doesn't see the usage it maybe deserves

 

[LuckOverSkill]

definitive hail gay team

cool post, forre is a mon that's talked about a lot but doesn't see the usage it maybe deserves

I like Forretress, with a caveat: it forces you to adapt your team to help it thrive. The same could be said for most other mons around that viability level, but Forretress has a job to do: spin. If you run Forretress and you can't spin you're getting a layer or two of Spikes from it at best. But with how important spinning is in this tier, the tradeoff works against you.

Since Forretress has to do its one narrow job — with t/spiking as a nice extra — you want at the very least a strong pursuit option to go along with it. Weavile, as in Posho's case, works great; I'm a fan. With Toxic Spikes you don't even need CB, as hail and poison will suffice, especially since every other spinner suffers Hail damage. You will win the attrition war in most cases.

 

[EG Jhonx~]

Tmr team dump

 

[Finchinator]

While I fear interrupting the impending Jhonx team dump could leave me at risk for exposure to Chernobyl levels of radioactivity, this post is overdue.

I am stepping down from BW council (and BW mod lol) after BW Cup ends. I will play whatever BW invitational happens later this year, but then I have no (current) set plans on playing BW OU. Thanks so much to everyone who helped make this metagame one that I grew up alongside.

I have played BW OU since I was in middle school, BW1 OU was the CG format, the concept of a Rarelyused metagame was in its infancy, Thundurus-I and Deoxys-D were legal, and Pokemon Showdown was not yet created. Now I have been graduated from college for over six years, SV OU is entering year 4, PU has been an official tier for over ten years, and both Thundurus and Deoxys-Defense are lower tier Pokemon. It’s time.

I have gradually grown into a person I actually like being through learning from many mistakes over the years as this metagame has matured into a more stable old generation after enduring mistakes of CG BW OU tiering. I have always viewed our trajectories as aligned, but I am a whole ass human being and BW OU is a public Pokemon game, so I’m going to go be an actual adult with responsibilities and you guys should keep pushing BW forward.

It’s been perhaps my biggest source of pride and honor on here to be an inner-circle top BW player. You cannot tell the story of BW OU, especially over the last 10 years, without referencing my accomplishments, sets, teams, and failures. The last one sticks out the most to me despite the sets and teams having the biggest community impact — never winning STour with BW in it, Classic, or SPL despite coming so close will always leave me feeling like my tenure as a top competitor has been a failure results wise. I have so many regrets. I am not close to being as good as I used to be nowadays and I think a “point of no return” has probably been crossed when it comes to approaching my annual 6 win SPL level-of-play I used to showcase. I find myself missing details or forgetting information often during games, and I am not sure there is much I can do to fix this unless I get more game reps than I have time to. However, I had fun playing BW OU and I was mostly happy. That has to count for something. It took me a while to accept that and there are still times when I look back frustratedly, but it was a blast. I’ll use this rest of this post to give some thoughts on the community and the metagame.

As for the community, it used to keep me invested during lulls in the tournament calendar or personal motivation, but it doesn’t anymore. We used to have a lively social scene with a lot of discussion of the metagame, but nowadays we have a dead chat with a gross person added and a splinter chat that feels like it has the same sample teams debate every few days. I like just about everyone individually and over the years I have made so many great friendships with fellow BW players, but it has been a frustrating dynamic recently.

The main discord is cool sometimes, but I find myself less patient and tolerant of ignorance as I have less spare time, so I’ve become a lot less present rather than staying and being a bitch to new players who should be worked with carefully. And the larger community is just not fun to discuss BW with usually because we have people who play the tier infrequently spouting their opinions that are either outdated, flawed, or downright incorrect far too often. Perhaps I am just more irritable and less generous with my free time, but taking a little step back is for the best. I still appreciate the BW community as it has been a rock for me since the early 2010s, but so many faces I built rapport with aren’t around anymore and that’s alright.

As for the metagame, I still enjoy it. I feel like people play create-a-crisis out of boredom or impulsivity far too often. It’s not perfect and it never will be, but there are ways to find solutions creatively and conventionally while achieving decent consistency. Not everything needs to be met with skepticism — sometimes incremental change in the community or metagame strategies can be for the best.

The tier has been largely stable for a few years with BW quirks admittedly remaining present. We did a good job old gen tiering wise removing trapping, baton pass, evasion, and sleep as clearly uncompetitive elements to assure playability, but there is a lot of argumentation between the lines on other matters that I understand at least. With this said, there is a strong and reliable nucleus of the metagame that offers a lot of room to work with that I identify with the metagame and personally appreciate. You can add some flavor with different Pokemon having good stretches (Jirachi in SPL 2025, Conk during the HO HWish surge, Terrak and Heatran returning this past SPL, etc.) to reach higher A tiers in viability, for example, and players adapting to their surroundings prompts innovation each big tournament, but we have not seen the biggest players shift all too much.

Nothing is broken besides Latios, but we clearly cannot ban it. Some people believe we should deface the tier, but doing that will take 5-10 years of tiering and adapting with the snail’s pace old generations shift at due to dead time/low ladder activity. If people want to do that, have fun, but I have no interest and believe old gen tiering should handle extremes and focus on playability rather than totally changing the identity and spirit of metagames that have so many years of history and plenty of competitiveness. We can argue in circles for years about Volcarona, Alakazam, Thundurus-T, Excadrill, Spikes, Magnezine, and whatever else registers with people, but none of them amount to enough to get banned without a dramatic departure from current community sentiment. I wouldn’t touch any of these anytime soon personally either. Gems are probably the best discussion to have, and I do see some lane to discuss it, but this isn’t my battle to fight and the next council will have their say if the community ever pushes the issue.

As for some vague, disorganized tips for current BW players: Plan your leads and early move options out for common games before playing, it’ll save you and improve your play by default. Pre-game ghosting yourself will go a long way in BW OU. Prepare more for Rotom-W and specifically having early lines for it. Focus on chipping Scarf Jirachi and trading with Scizod/Dragonite when using standard Psy Sand if you want to compete with modern HO. Rain can be better and more mainstream if you are ok being boring or if someone finds the optimal creative combinations, but we aren’t there yet. Ferrothorn and Latios are the goats, never hesitate to use them. Abomasnow and Ninetales are frequently not worth it, but if you can make it work, you’ll look cool for a week or two. Stop using teams from before 2020. Gliscor is a catfish until it’s randomly god, but then goes back to being a catfish. Alakazam is the great equalizer and don’t be afraid to risk Focus Blast — famous last words.

Thank you to everyone who played and discussed BW with me.

 

[EG Jhonx~]

Thanks for all your work Finchinator , u wanted to see Chernobyl so ill gift you something much higher than that before you leave, this dump is a gift from my deepest of my heart and my pure love for BW, my love for exploring stuff even when we all know they will be bad or will not work consistently, Im a builder that doesnt stay with that I hear or read only, I always must test the stuff by myself thats how I can upgrade things, get new ideas or finally conclude if its truth or lie what community think, so without more shit to say, lets fucking throw the biggest NUCLEAR BOMB made in BW Building, this is a crack symphony, an oda to most wild ideas, a gift to the most dangerous cows of BW.

WARNING: HIGH LEVEL OF CRACK AND UNCOMPREHENSIBLE STUFF GETTING POSTED HERE, READ UNDER YOUR OWN CAUTION.

Team 1: THE GO TO HELL AND PLEASE QUIT JHONX TEAM

This Rain team is just a Rain just aimed to troll all it can agaisnt any matchup, It have some variants like Tentacruel Calm or PhysDef with 280 Speed over Excadrill and LandorusT Def or Scarf (both SR) over Thundurus-Therian, Specs Politoed just setups Rain and deals most damage it can, Breloom SDef BU aims to tank Rotom-W and status spreaders, Bulk Up allow it to 1v1 on many things and break, Excadrill here is just an option that fit SR and Spin in one but tbh SR not even needed in this Rain, Thundurus-T Dual Dance its fucking impressive because it can break or sweep, I tested many variants but this one is the strongest one u can put here and HP Flying because at +2 w SR it does KO LandoT, Latios, Chomp, nearly kill Gliscor, it does excellent agaisnt Conkeldurr, Abomasnow, KO at +2 Celebi and Amoongus which are important af, I run Thunderbolt over Thunder lot of times to not lose the setup agaisnt Sand weather up but Thunder is good too, and Jirachi is the most important set here, because SubCM is absurdly broken, WaterPulse under Rain hit any ground type but more than that, its the best Jirachi moveset because it keeps spreading confuse with WaterPulse so opponent dont break ur Sub and Psyshock does 1v1 any CM, hits Gastrodon Seismitoad and destroys Sun or Stall, now the MOST IMPORTANT SET OF THE TEAM. CRESSELIA, THAT FAIRY MIGHT LOOK BEAUTIFUL, BUT NO DONT BE WRONG, ITS PINK COLOR DONT MAKE IT FRIENDLY HOW IT SEEMS, IT JUST COMES INTO GAME, RECEIVE DAMAGE WHILE THROWING KISSES, IT CLICK REST AND UNDER REST IT JUST KEEPS SPAMMING PSYSHO SHIFT WITH SLEEP TALK, THIS POKEMON DOESNT CARE OF SLEEP BAN CLAUSE, IT JUST SLEEP ANYTHING IN FRONT OF IT, IT CAN SLEEP UR WHOLE 6 AT THE SAME TIME IF OPPONENT LETS AND IF U GET THE ODDS, also Cresselia is excellent in Rain because it cover DD Dnite and many Phys Def weaknesses Rain has, with this Rain I did peak top1 making most players ragequit and even get locked for write banned words insulting me lmfao

Team 2: Rain from the Hell

This Rain is focused into Skarmory lead offense, it just setups SR and Spikes then start pushing with all it can, Scarf Politoed to revenge kill or just kill stuff fast, DD Jolly Dragonite because at +2 it outspeed Scarf Latios and Lum Berry let it 1v1 Rotom-W and Jellicent, Tornadus Wide Lens to hit Hurricane and Focus Blast easier if Rain not up, Tailwind is a must to help ur Pokemon sweep or kill first, Jirachi Sub3 ATK because it breaks anything as well and becomes hard af to stop with the combo of IronHead Thunder WaterPulse u get Para Confuse and Flinch, and Gengar to spinblock, the EVs on Gengar let tank a Starmie Hydro Pump w SR up but without Rain, Endure Gengar is just to help´vs locked shit like Outrage boosted Dnite or Scarfers then Dbond in front of them taking them down, the Sdef EVs helps a lot cuz no one expects Custap, while the Defense IVs and -Def nature let it Dbond and die to Pursuit Tyranitar or tank 1 Iron Head from Jirachi then die to next hit, Tornadus also carry HP Ice to hit ThundurusT, another option for Tornadus is Wise Glasses which increases its SpA instead the accuracy.

Team 3: Old End Game Rain Style ft. @-PkmTrainerBlue-

This Rain is kinda standard, Defensive Chesto Politoed for longevity agaisnt Sand, Keldeo CM Lum Berry to heal from Paralyz and break Jellicent Celebi and many other stuff, Starmie Specs just breaks anything and Trick a wall, it can run HydroPump like EG Blue does, im the one who is afraid and prefer Surf to always deals damage and help the Scarf Salamence, Ferrothorn here acts as SR Spiker, with Boom to KO ThundT and Volcarona, Scarf Landorus as pivot and rkiller with Boom to create a Boom core and always take at least 2 kills and in the end Salamence Scarf to end sweeping since it will have its checks weakened enough and Moxie will help to end winning. I love this Rain due to its high offensive pressure.

Team 4: EG Jhonx Rain Treasure and Masterpiece, a true love and deep relationship with Rain weather

This Rain is my best and favorite Rain, its the rebuild of my first KyuB Rain from 2022, I did this rebuild during 2025 and won many tour games with this, this team just defines everything of myself as player, people always tells me that my teams are bad because they dont have solid defensive backbone switching into threats but they do not realize my playstyle rarely switchs, my defense is my sheer offense breaking anything, Politoed here runs Eject Button to stay agaisnt Rotom-W VoltSwitch and come with KyuB to get a Substitute, KyuB with this set just removes Ttar and Ferrothorn with Freeze Shock which enables to keep Rain weather whole game, Ferrothorn setups hazzards but also call into game Terrakion and Keldeo, so I lure them with ChopleBerry + PowerWhip, Explosion just enables a 100% KO agaisnt any ThundT and Volcarona, Starmie Life Orb here deals huge damage, it was mainly Specs but I want to keep doing max damage as possible and LO let it move free while also spinning without issues or having to switch to spin, Jirachi Scarf cuz its one of the best Scarfers in the game giving me HW into KyuB or anything desired, Zen Headbutt hits Volcarona Tentacruel Keldeo and thats awesome in this team, ThundurusT Agility is just to clean and sweep with +Spe Nature to remove LandoT or move first than 310 mons.

Team 5: The Fucking Wild Cow

This is one of my favorites HO, a Volturn Spam oriented, it uses Scarf Lando w Boom acting as pivot or rkiller, Choice Band Scizor adds Uturn with heavy damage using Bullet Punch, Rotom-W Choice Specs HP Fire always removes Ferrothorn and KO many fat pokemons, this 3 mons core its hard or near impossible to stop since they can keep doing Volturn doing constant damage or just attack when they can and take the kill, Tyranitar Choice Band here is mainly to break Amoonguss with Pursuit and always remove Colbur Latis, also it can be played making opp think ur Scarf Ttar vs LandoT and do Pursuit dealing huge damage, Ice Punch just to catch Gliscor LandoT and Chomp on switch, Slowking here with Eject Button helps to pivot into Latis or anything so u come with something that allow u to get offensive pressure again, and Virizion just 6-0 many Rain and some of the most used Sands, Virizion can remove Calm Mind for Stone Edge so it can lure Volcarona too, this team its insane and during BW Ladder Tour I started from 1360 and won all my games, only lost 1 game in that run but peaked top 1 with 1722 rank, and I didnt qualified into the tour because I missed 32 seconds only lmfao rip

Team 6: PINK: THE COLOR OF DEATH (MUSHARNA)

Same shit of above, only difference is it carry a Musharna which is absurdly broken and sweeps really easy once Taunter or Dark type is gone lol

Team 7: THE BIGGER THE STRONGER

Standard SkarmJelliTar HO, It just features Kyurem-Black as breaker which fits really good on this kind of Hazzards HO, team is self-explanatory.

Team 8: COCAINE REHABILITATION PROCESS

This HO is an experiment I built with Heatran on Offense, always heard it was an interesting option but never saw one in action since Pokemon Online times, so I tried my own, The Heatran set is designed to live 1 Terrakion CB Close Combat and hit back w HP Grass, Garchomp set could be any to be honest, Yache Berry or Scarf or Rocky Helmet are the best, I had SubSalac which was great too, even LO SD its great, Starmie is only to spin, Choice Band Dragonite acts as wallbreaker and rkiller w ExtremeSpeed, Scizor SD LO w QuickAttack to hit Keldeo ThundT Volcarona, etc, while Reuniclus acts as soft Fight resist and setup Trick Room to sweep and support Scizor / Dragonite.

Team 9: I DONT WANT TO LET IT GO, I DONT ACCEPT IT, COKE ILL MISS U....

This team is fucking funny, a day someone said my building is trash so I chose to build literally with a trash form Pokemon and peak top LMAOO, Garbodor just setup both Spikes and gets speed boost if hit by a Physical hit, also Boom, Garchomp Rocky Helmet for Priority mons and setup SR, Kyurem-Black Scarf to break or sweep, Jirachi Expert Belt breaks anything, Cofagrigus acts as spinblock and the set just tank DracoMeteor Latios Specs trapping with Mean Look then killing with DestinyBond, Conkeldurr just abuses of Trick Room and wrecks anything.

Team 10: I CHOSE LOVE OVER DRUGS

This Offense was fucking fun to build, I built this around Dual Dance LandoT which is never used now, to make it work I added Specs Latios to remove any water or stuff needed, also trick walls, Tyranitar Chople removes Latis and Zam while setting SR, Expert Belt Jirachi hits Skarmory and other LandoT checks, Keldeo Scarf acts as revenge killer and deals huge damage while Mixed Chomp w HP Ice calls in LandoT and Skarm into game so I kill both to have a clean path for my LandoT sweep.


BIG SHOUTOUTS TO ALL END GAME TEAM CLAN, thanks.

 

[Nalorium]

Hello everyone, to begin with the usual, please excuse my English in any situation, my English is not very good

First of all i want to publicly apologize to Brine for everything i did in the past, those actions I did 2 or 3 years ago dont represent me nowadays in any kind of way. I was an absolute idiot back then and yeah i dont have any kind of excuse for everything i did, im sorry. Also want to apologize with anyone that was affected by those actions. As i repeat every stupid decision i took in those years dont represent the kind of person i became. Sorry from the botton of my heart, i made a lot of very bad and big mistakes. im not asking to be forgiven or smth but yeah i just wanted to apologize for the wrong decisions i took back then. They dont represent me


Second, i want to do a little showcase of some teams i have played lately and has given me very good results.

I got this results like a month ago, using the teams i will show to yall now, i got 4 out of 10 alts in the top 10, but i dont want to focus on it as an achievement, its more to show yall how consistent these teams are that they can get a lot of times in the top 10. I also had an account i went 30-2 or smth like that with a team ill also show later. All this teams have been proven in ladder and friendly games but with very good players.

THE BEST ONE

This team is absolutelty incredible, currently im a very good win streak with this team on ladder, i got 30-2, ive also won A LOT of test games here. This tems is very good vs any kind of MU. The idea of this team was creating a team i saw Tizio Potente Ao use in bwcop if im not wrong, with kyub, gyarados and spd lando. So i tried something similar but with weavile a latios trapper. Latios was a very annoying mon in previous versions of this team so yeah when i started using weavile everything improved and it really gets the job done whenever u need to trap a zam or a lati. I encourage yall to try this team out since it really gets a lot of wins. Gyarados is a mon that alongside rachi healing wish, is capable of winning a lot of games vs HO and rain specially. So it the synergy between trapping latios with weav, dd gyara and scarf rachi healing wish, is a very deadly combo to todays meta. Mie is HP fire since scizor and ferrothorn are a big thtreat to this team so yeah, catching it with a hp fire is always good.

Weavile Beat Up is a very deadfull move since almost all my mons are 100 or more of atk base

Keep the nicknames since it was a gimmick i had with fakee so yeah its a nice detail if you can preserve it whenever ur using it.

GOOD ONES

im gonna be short when describing the teams from now on since i dont want to talk a lot. This is another weav idea i had thinking some teams with rotom-w weav combo. Tizio had the idea of putting up hippo and excadrill there and it was a very good idea since you really need a good spin specially with weav, cuz with rocks weav is a mon that will be able to get in at the most 2 times. Reuni set can also be CM, but i highly recomment this LO set since it helps me a lot to destory some rain teams

https://pokepast.es/ec729d225669fe5b

this is a very difficult team to use the first 2 or 3 times but once u get the idea of how to use it, even though i know it looks very weird, i swear to you it gets wins. The idea around this clef is to first bait the trick with reuni and try to get the most para mons before trying to set up. Reuni is very useful here since u can chip tar with the night shades and also get it para + it helps a lot in the rain MU, this reuni set is an idea i think i saw monai using so yeah i stole it, very good idea Monai. as me, a fan of stall and fats, its a very intereting idea that should be tried more.

https://pokepast.es/e3cc0f3b7f474200


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I will be trying to post some more teams in these days or weeks since i have some teams that still needs edits and i prefer to go quality over quantity, so yeah ill try to get more teams soon.

Also wanted to share an small thought i have these days and it is that gyarados is way much better that people think it is, it is very versatile it works as a sweeper but also as a breaker, a lot of teams arent prepared for him, specially all those new HOs and sand balance, so yeah give it a try, i promise it wont dissapoint