np: Latios - "unban me"

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Philip7086 said:
From my experience, Latios almost always forces someone to switch in a sacrifice before switching their real "counter" in. In that sense, it seems like Latios almost guarantees a kill, and is just easily revenged. If the only reliable way of dealing with Latios involves revenging it, I think that is evidence alone that it's broken. I feel like most people find that because they aren't getting 6-poke swept by Latios on their centralized teams, Latios isn't broken. I, personally, am sickened by all the cookie cut anti-Latios teams. It really limits the number of viable pokemon in the OU metagame, and such centralization is not desireable.
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I would more likely attribute this necessity to revenge to the fact that you are playing with offensive teams. Offensive teams, in general, rely on death fodder and sacs to get their pokemon in anyway, or to scout. The manner in which offense is played is why suicide leads exist, is why people are sacrificing pokemon to Latios, and is why revenging is so common. I think it's perfectly normal for an offensive team to be sacrificing something to feed Latios, whether it be fodder on your team or whatever is sitting against it; in Standard, offensive teams must still do this against big threats like Salamence as well. For example, when you look at a team that epitomizes offense, like husk's Astral Projection, revenging and sacrificing are an absolute necessity.

Stall meanwhile, should have multiple answers to Latios, whether they be Blissey or bulked up Steels, being a stall team. Why do we see a lot of stall teams in Suspect? Because they can, and always have, handled big threats like Latios quite well. Stall is just as strong as ever in Suspect in my experience; indicating Latios isn't really affecting much there.

As for your little trapping team, that has always been effective, no matter what pokemon it is. Is there really any difference between double trapping with Magnezone and Dugtrio with something like Lucario or Scizor or Salamence than it is with Latios? Trapping/Luring counters have worked, will work, and always will work.

My OU team that I moved to Suspect has been just as good in my opinion. I do lose a bit more, but that is more likely a result of better players than of Latios overwhelming my team (which it does not). And the effectiveness of my meant-for-standard team has been proven by me able to get to the lower voting requirements within a few days.
 
Yeah, Philip, I agree with both of your posts there (and Syberia's).

I've been using Magnezone with Latios for the whole test and its almost always worked for me (to get rid of Scizor) and help demolish other Steels so I can get them with predicted Surfs (or Thunderbolts) from Latios later.

It's so hard when everyone is using the likes of Metagross, Scizor, Magnezone, Lucario, Jirachi, Bronzong, Blissey, Choice Scarf Salamence and to a lesser degree, Mamoswine. Although I'll admit, I'm using a lot of those myself as I feel I have to in order to climb the ladder. I've managed to climb up to 13th on the Leaderboard now, and have met the lower end of the Voting Criteria. I need to have a talk with Jumpman at some point though abuot something else.

I'm not sure if Latios would really be 'Uber' based on this though, as people (myself included I'll admit again) feel forced to use these kinds of teams on the Suspect Ladder if they want to win. It might be just as easy to counter, or revenge kill Latios, with teams that only utilize one or two checks, instead of teams of counters. However, we don't know this due to lack of it actually happening.

But maybe this has more to do with me (us?) using offensive teams more often..
 
Modest Choice Scarf Latios is simply Godly. Almost every non-Steel is 2HKOed at least. I can just keep switching him in and out, sacrificing a Pokemon until I eventually win, with help from Magnezone and a Fighting-type of course.

If I get to vote, I think I may vote Uber, even though I wouldn't have before. It's huge attack and Draco Meteor just make it near broken. Although I've never really been swept by one, it is still just an astounding Pokemon, the raw power it packs.
 
Havak said:
It's so hard when everyone is using the likes of Metagross, Scizor, Magnezone, Lucario, Jirachi, Bronzong, Blissey, Choice Scarf Salamence and to a lesser degree, Mamoswine. Although I'll admit, I'm using a lot of those myself as I feel I have to in order to climb the ladder. I've managed to climb up to 13th on the Leaderboard now, and have met the lower end of the Voting Criteria. I need to have a talk with Jumpman at some point though abuot something else.
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I think that regardless of whether Latios is in the metagame, these pokemon WILL always be relevant and used a lot, because they are great pokemon, period. Except for CS Salamence, and Mamoswine to a certain extent, all of those pokemon are extremely common in standard too, and are needed to win in standard as well.

I myself use a CM Jirachi, a Metagross lead, and a SD Scizor. However, they were all there before I adjusted to Suspect testing because they are already great pokemon. Regardless of what metagame you are playing in, if you don't use good pokemon, you are not going to climb the ladder anyway. Using such pokemon is a compulsion regardless of Latios because they are good.

^^^^ Choice Scarf Latios is seriously a dangerous thing to use though; unlike the Specs of LO set, you really lose out against common switch ins, like Scizor and Tyranitar, and as a result get eaten up by Pursuit because you really don't hit hard enough.
 
Yeh, sorry. I forgot to mention that in my post. I was going to continue on from there that these Pokémon would be, were, and are going to be used a lot regardless of Latios' presence. But then I got sidetracked by my own mind when moving onto talking about my current ranking and then remembering I need to question Jump on something lol.

Edit: Yeh, I don't think Choice Scarf Latios is all that. Sure, you'll beat other Latios and get a revenge kill in a game (that admittedly could play a big part in you winning a match) but you stand even less of a chance against the more common switch-ins.
 
Philip7086 said:
Yeah, I agree 100%. I feel like the criteria for "uber" almost has a stench of bias in it itself. I'm not trying to discredit any of the people who created the system, I just feel that the criteria for uber or OU should not be so black and white like it currently is, especially considering the environment in which the pokemon is being tested. There should be a criteria around centralization, or something to that extent as well. Most ubers would not be able to flourish in an OU environment in which all teams are built to specifically handle said uber. Does that mean that they should be moved down to OU? Definitely not.
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The sole purpose of this test is to gain as much experience with Latios as possible, which will have obvious impact on its overall usage, and of its counters. Knowing this, exactly why should we have an Uber characteristic based on centralization?
 
Blame Game said:
The sole purpose of this test is to gain as much experience with Latios as possible, which will have obvious impact on its overall usage, and of its counters. Knowing this, exactly why should we have an Uber characteristic based on centralization?
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Why should centralization not play a role at all though? I realize that it's the nature of the suspect test to have a somewhat centralized metagame, but then one can argue that it is not a true test anyways.

On a side note, I would like to point out that Specs Latios has no true counter, save Blissey (who doesn't like eating a Trick). When I ran Specs Latios, I knew I was guaranteed a kill every time I brought it out. I went from off top 50 to top 6 on the Suspect Ladder in 2 hours by abusing Specs Latios.

And honestly, CM Rachi, Metagross, AND Scizor on one team being completely normal? I don't know how you normally make teams, but for most people, 3 Steels not including Heatran would be unheard of on the same team.
 
Philip said:
I realize that it's the nature of the suspect test to have a somewhat centralized metagame, but then one can argue that it is not a true test anyways.
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Actually, people have argued that, but most of the people who've done so aren't talking about it anymore because the "issue" has been addressed so many times (probably most recently in the post you just responded to: "The sole purpose of this test is to gain as much experience with Latios as possible." Not that Jumpman hasn't already done pretty much everything humanly possible to get the true point of the Suspect Test process across, in this thread and others).
 
And honestly, CM Rachi, Metagross, AND Scizor on one team being completely normal? I don't know how you normally make teams, but for most people, 3 Steels not including Heatran would be unheard of on the same team.
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I don't see whats so surprising about a standard OU team that uses a Metagross lead, Scizor, and Jirachi. Metagross lead is number one in usage, Scizor is obviously number one, and Jirachi is 14. Based on X-Act's nifty metagame snapshots my team would be very standard depending on how used Latias is. If it were for the Latias suspect test, then my team is more standard than normal.
 
In regards to centralization, I personally use three checks to Latios, but only one was intended as an outright counter to Latios (Blissey). The other two were placed on there to check other Pokemon (Cresselia for Salamence, and Heatran for Scizor). I do not deny that there are teams that are built to be dead set on countering Latios, but I don't think it's quite fair to assume that every team loaded with checks for Latios was built specifically as an "anti-Latios team"; rather, some high concentrations of Latios counters may just be the byproduct of preparing for other threats. I agree that centralization is present because this is a Suspect test for Latios, but I think that some other Pokemon share the blame for it and all the overcentralization cannot be used as a factor in determining Latios's tier placement without determining how much of it is actually caused because of Latios.

In regards to its actual power, I think that that is to be expected from a Choiced Pokemon. Nothing can switch safely into every attack from a CB Tyranitar or a CB Salamence.
 
Philip7086 said:
Yeah, I agree 100%. I feel like the criteria for "uber" almost has a stench of bias in it itself. I'm not trying to discredit any of the people who created the system, I just feel that the criteria for uber or OU should not be so black and white like it currently is, especially considering the environment in which the pokemon is being tested. There should be a criteria around centralization, or something to that extent as well. Most ubers would not be able to flourish in an OU environment in which all teams are built to specifically handle said uber. Does that mean that they should be moved down to OU? Definitely not.
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The fact that when casting your vote you're forced to observe the 3 uber criterias defined by Jump, doesn't mean that you can not use other criterias in addition to those 3. In fact, when motivating my vote for latias in OU, I also included the "centralization factor" and my vote was accepted.

Now, according to January stats, scizor is 1st, metagross 5th, blissey 8th, jirachi 14th, bronzong 16th. All of these are common counters\revenge killers to latios. So I don't think that the possible transition of latios to OU could centralize the game around these pokemons more than it's already centralized.

At the moment, I'm not sure yet about latios' tiering, but I'm sure that "overcentralization" would not be my argument to make latios uber if I thought that it's too strong for OU.

Oh, just another thought: maybe it's because of my time zone, but I'm experiencig again long waitings to find a battle on the suspect.

Have a nice day.
 
Yeah, I think it's more to do with the time zones. I'm only finding Infinity and Haunterfan on there now so I think I'll wait until later before I play again. Haunterfan, I'd expect the usage of everything you've mentioned there to rise a bit still, but you're pretty much right.
 
^ Thank you.

Just played some more suspect.

Jolteon has been extremely useful to me, though I used to think Jolteon was not all that, being able to 2HKO Latios with Shadow Ball as well as check some threats has really helped me win one of my matches.
 
Havak said:
Yeah, I think it's more to do with the time zones. I'm only finding Infinity and Haunterfan on there now so I think I'll wait until later before I play again. Haunterfan, I'd expect the usage of everything you've mentioned there to rise a bit still, but you're pretty much right.
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I think the suspect is at it's top at about 3 pm GMT until sometime about 1-3 am GMT. Other times, you barely find anyone. Generally, the times the most people active on Smogon is the time the most people are active at suspect. At least this is in my experience...
 
Philip7086 said:
Why should centralization not play a role at all though? I realize that it's the nature of the suspect test to have a somewhat centralized metagame, but then one can argue that it is not a true test anyways.
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True, centralization is always going to happen in any metagame. It is uncontrollable because it is absurd to think that an over-centralized pokemon would be thrown up the ladder just because it's over-centralized, except for Garchomp of course, that was just terrible times for everyone. But that is why it can not be considered a factor in a test.

Honestly, I can't tell whether you are saying that centralization should or shouldn't play a role in testing, but because you may be smart, I'm thinking you're saying that it shouldn't. When Latias turned OU, it was used on plenty of teams, however, that isn't the case anymore. A big argument on Latias staying in Ubers was that it was going to over-centralize. But the fact is we can't possibly know what the future will tell us about Suspects. The reason we are testing Latios is to gain information on it and discuss whether or not it is OU or Uber based on that information (Jumpman has explained that too many times). In the event that it does become too good for OU, then we move to the next Stage.

Hope this helped ;D
 
Frankly, at this point, I'm packing a Blissey just to deal with Latios, even though I have always felt that Blissey is a completely overrated Pokemon in this physically dominant metagame. I have come to absolutely despise this metagame completely, and would not hesitate to dump Latios back into ubers. Blissey and Steels carrying an absolutely ridiculous amount of Sp. Def EVs are really the only safe switch-ins into this thing, as far as I can tell - and while it is not too hard to revenge kill the thing, I frankly could have said the same thing for Garchomp, who if anything was easier to revenge-kill due to his lower speed. (yeah, yeah, I know I'm opening up a huge can of worms here).
 
Keep in mind that this test doesn't accurately show what the metagame will be like with Latios in it, so you shouldn't be voting something down based on what the metagame is like with it inserted, but rather how it affects the pokemon in the metagame.
 
I've had quite a few matches on the Suspect Ladder as of late, so I figured I'd go ahead and report on my observations...

First of all, I have not had any problems with Latios at all, whether it's a Life Orb or Choice Specs variant. I've been able to get around Latios with little trouble through the use of bulky-steel types, primarily being Bronzong and Empoleon (on my team anyways).

However, I've been able to use Latios to deal with everything barring Metagross, Blissey, and Cresselia. Even Scizor is at risk of being 2HKO'd by a Draco Meteor followed by Surf, assuming Latios is running Life Orb. In either case, I've been seeing numerous Mamoswine being run to counter Latios, who (through experience and analyzing damage calculations) can't take Ice Shards at all.

I've been finding stall teams to be most effective on the Suspect Ladder from my experience. Particularly, Blissey and Cresselia alone can cause major trouble to almost all Pokémon on the ladder barring Tyranitar, and this is assuming Cresselia isn't running "Burn Orb + Psycho Shift", which literally wiped out most of my team, although I'd like to note I was not running Tyranitar at the time.

In conclusion, I'd like to summarize the following points:

- Increased usage of Mamoswine which run Ice Shard to specifically revenge kill Latios
- Stall teams running both Blissey and Cresselia, which are nearly unstoppable if played right
- Increased usage of Agiligross, which I've noted gets excellent coverage on the current Suspect metagame; I'd like to add that (SubPetaya) Empoleon, which I'm running, has helped me win more than 75% of my matches as only Blissey, Cresselia, and Calm Mind Latios have stood a chance of beating it one-on-one.
 
To tell the truth Latios/Blissey/Skarm is a terrific defensive combo, as they all possess recovery and Latios can defeat all of those wallbreakers that can take on SkarmBliss (Ape, Mence, Luke, off the top of my head, for starters.)
 
Does Empoleon really beat Latios? I always imagined when Latios (as) was OU that it would start sucking as it would have to run Ice Beam and shit to win and then if tspikes were out there could be trouble. I may run one on the ladder just yet!

To be honest, I don't have a lot of free time. I have less than I did at the beginning when I decided to wait until my work cleared up x_x. If I had a shot I would spend a day at this, but to be honest it's not evry likely I'll make 1655 at all. So it's like "why bother trying". I think that's a common mentality; I've heard it a lot that since you can fuck up your chances at voting with 3 or 4 bad games that it's not worth the effort.

Now the real challenge is figuring out if that's a bad thing. If it's not a bad thing then we have no reason to feel bad when only 15-20 people qualify. If it is then we should brainstorm a solution.
 
I've been laddering a bit but its really rare that I even find opponents >__>

What I have picked up is that more Infernape run U-Turn to deal with Latios switch-ins. Wierd, but whatever. And yeah, I've seen a lot more Mamoswine being used as counters to Latios.
 
^^I think he meant latios, not latias. And, as you know, it can easily deal with it with Hidden power fire and deals at least 80% damage with a specs.

Anyways, I'm thinking of something like a rain dance sweeper Latios. Have anybody tried something like that? Something along these lines:

Latios Modest/Timid@ Life Orb
4 HP/ 252 Sp. Att/ 252 Spe
- Surf
- Thunder
- Draco Meteor
- Recover

With Latios' massive sp. att and Rain support, Thunder, with its 30% percent paralysis chance, coupled with 100% accuracy, is a great move. Surf is also boosted by the Rain, and Recover helps healing Life Orb's recoil damage. Draco Meteor can be used as a last resort, but Dragon Pulse can go there, too. I made some damage calcs. All assume a Modest Nature with 252 EVs, Rain, and Life Orb:

Surf vs. Neutral Scizor with 32/0 EVs= 92% - 108% (OHKO with SR)
Surf vs. +Nature Bronzong with 252/92 EVs= 48% - 57%
Surf vs. Neutral Jirachi with 252/0 EVs= 54% - 64%
Surf vs. Neutral Metagross with 240/188 EVs= 54% - 64%
Surf vs. Neutral Skarmory with 252/0 EVs= 88% - 104% (OHKO with SR)
Thunder vs. +Nature Empoleon with 252/92= 82% - 98% (Slight chance to OHKO with SR)

Advantages over the Specs set:
- The ability to switch moves
- Surf has a boost equal to Specs + Life Orb
- A great Electric move with 30% of paralysis

Yeah, I'm still theorizing, but it looks pretty solid, especially since it can give an electiric reisistance to your team. You could also use Rain Dance over Recover and Leftovers over Life Orb, but sweeping is generally better for Latios. Anyways, anybody have thoughts?
 
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