np: OU Suspect Testing Round 1 - ...wait, I'm not Jumpman16!

[PK Gaming]

I actually use an entirely different Magnezone set on my rain team, which has proven to be destructive if the opponent has a Nattorei or a Forretress:

Magnezone @ Leftovers
Modest
EVs: 252 HP/252 SpA/4 Spe
-Substitute
-Charge Beam
-Thunder
-Hidden Power [Water]

You bring Magnezone into Nattorei while it sets up Rocks, set up a Substitute, and begin using Charge Beam to accumulate boosts. After Nattorei dies, you are often at +4 - +6 Special Attack, which practically guarantees a kill on the Pokemon that breaks your substitute.

Preferably, you should pair this with a Rapid Spinner, as Nattorei can easily set up 3 layers of spikes while you trap it with Magnezone. Two great rapid spinners on rain teams include Kabutops and Starmie, as they are both able to abuse the rain and have good offensive/defensive synergy with Magnezone.

Haha good times. This varient of Magnezone will actually fuck you up, since he guarantees a minimum of 1-2 KO's if he traps Nattorei / Forretress. Personally I dropped zone for Nattorei (I was tired of losing against sub DD Kingdra) but It was pretty good when I used it.

 

[Jaroda]

It does learn Psychic, which I forgot about. But even with if you max the SpD and HP it'll only 3HKO. Meanwhile if you got TS up or Toed switches into an HP Electric I'm inclined to say Tentacruel will win. Besides, aren't most Toeds bulky? I suppose if Hail Tentacruel DOES reach the level of notoriety we're talking about I suppose Specs with Psychic might become the new standard but in the meantime, until players catch on, it's a great match for Tentacruel.

 

[BurningMan]

Not necessarily. I haven't tested it, but I certainly will when I get back from holidays and I get my PO access back. Just theorymoning so far, here's a nice Poli + 5 Swift Swimmers/Hydration team:

-Specs Politoed
-Specs Kingdra
-SD Kabutops
-SD Qwilfish (Bye-bye Toxic Spikes and Birijion)
-Ludicolo (Special is probably better by the looks of it at the moment) (Good Nattorei switch in)
-TG Manaphy (Bye-bye Chansey/Blissey/Burungeru)

I actually tried this team and you horribly lose against DD Kingdra and other weather, because you are just too reliant on rain. You also lack a defensive Backbone so you will have to sacrifice a Poke for almost every switch since noone of these pokes can really take a strong hit, Manaphy actually can and has can rest back health, but often lacks the speed to do so.

The concept is cool and it really works against teams without other weather, but i think you really need something like Nattorei to patch up the teams holes.

 

[Demoness]

Juat sorta theorymonning this, but would a SubRise Magnezone be the best set to paro with Choice Specs Latios? Magnet Rise allows Magnezone to shit all over a huge part of the Steels who relay upon Earthquake to KO him, and without Steels in the way, Latos' Darco Meteor brings alot more pain to the other team. Also, would Spikes support help a signifgcent ammount or is it too much hassle to set it up?

 

[astrohawke]

Honestly anyone running Nattorei or skarmory as part of a defensive core should and probably will be using shed shell because it's not just magnezone now, shandera is very common.

 

[Forte.EXE]

Not necessarily. I haven't tested it, but I certainly will when I get back from holidays and I get my PO access back. Just theorymoning so far, here's a nice Poli + 5 Swift Swimmers/Hydration team:

-Specs Politoed
-Specs Kingdra
-SD Kabutops
-SD Qwilfish (Bye-bye Toxic Spikes and Birijion)
-Ludicolo (Special is probably better by the looks of it at the moment) (Good Nattorei switch in)
-TG Manaphy (Bye-bye Chansey/Blissey/Burungeru)

No Toxicroak? For shame.

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

...Now that Shaymin-S is banned, Perversity Shuckle is less viable in Standard.

But could Perversity Shuckle be good in Ubers now?

 

[Demoness]

Uh, Shadow Tag Shandera is not released, so I don't think i'll run into the Shed Shell all that much. Unless for some reason everyone decides to run Magnezone+Dragon.

 

[Fluffy Otters]

What do people think of teching Kyurem to take advantage of Hail if it becomes popular? I mean, it screams for Kyurem to take advantage of it with it's insane Blizzard power and is an EASY 1-2 hit ko on pretty much everything (well, except maybe special defensive oriented Jirachi, Heatran, and Metagross although normal Metagrosses can be 2 hit koed by Specs Blizzard). It isn't that slow and is insanely bulky (it can survive Breloom Mach Punches at full health with zero investment and has a chance of Scizor) and can even use Reflect/Light Screen to support the rain team, Nattorei doesn't want to come in on it, Abomasnow only helps it, it takes advantage of all the random Hail users, has resistances to GRASS/ELECTRIC, resistance to fire with rain, etc. And Kyurem is seriously underrated (as well as being able to blast Virijion with STABBED SUPER EFFECTIVE Ice moves and Virijion is bad for rain).

Everything faster can't switch in worth a darn pretty much and well get outsped by all the Swift Swimmers in rain, supports the team...

 

[Lamppost]

Honestly anyone running Nattorei or skarmory as part of a defensive core should and probably will be using shed shell because it's not just magnezone now, shandera is very common.

Shadow tag isnt released yet and i likely wont be running one even when it is released.

 

[shrang]

Hail Tentacruel is probably the best rain counter. Resists Water, Ice and Fighting attacks and is neutral to grass on top of fantastic special defense which is great considering most rain sweepers are specially based. With Liquid Ooze Ludicolo's Giga Drain, it's best option of damaging it, actually hurts it. Paired with a Nattorei who can soak up the Dragon attacks and paralyze it. With HP Electric it acts as a great Politoed counter since it can't be poisoned and resists all its moves. Plus, it's a great utility pokemon in general being able to use screens, Toxic Spikes and Rapid Spin. I expect Tentacruel usage to raise a lot if Drizzle remains.

Tentacruel falls flat against physical rain sweepers, like Kingdra, Kabutops and friends. Manaphy also sets up on Tentacruel with ease.

I actually tried this team and you horribly lose against DD Kingdra and other weather, because you are just too reliant on rain. You also lack a defensive Backbone so you will have to sacrifice a Poke for almost every switch since noone of these pokes can really take a strong hit, Manaphy actually can and has can rest back health, but often lacks the speed to do so.

The concept is cool and it really works against teams without other weather, but i think you really need something like Nattorei to patch up the teams holes.

Well, the point is just to rush out and smash your opponent as possible. Hyper Offense teams would always lose if you let your opponent set up anyway. All you need to do is play carefully (and is a bit easier to do with Team Preview).

 

[SJCrew]

Team preview matters very little in the grand scheme of things, aside from your opponent using it to waste time in the beginning of the match. Skim his team to see what lead to use or what weather he's carrying, then play as you normally would. Overpredicting is bad even if you're aware of the roster.

 

[shrang]

Well, I wouldn't overpredict too much anyway (although Ice Beaming Skymins was fun last round), but the thing is, if you see stuff like Kingdra on the opposing team and you're running a team like Politoed + 5 rain abusers, you would be more careful when throwing stuff like Choiced Surfs around.

 

[Jaroda]

Tentacruel falls flat against physical rain sweepers, like Kingdra, Kabutops and friends. Manaphy also sets up on Tentacruel with ease.

Well thank God there are five other slots on a team. Blissey sucks against physical mon too, doesn't mean it isn't useful against rain teams in general. Also Tentacruel can at least use Hail to prevent Manaphy from Hydraresting.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

Well thank God there are five other slots on a team. Blissey sucks against physical mon too, doesn't mean it isn't useful against rain teams in general. Also Tentacruel can at least use Hail to prevent Manaphy from Hydraresting.

Shhhh. Tentacruel has never used Hail in any of the previous generations before, so we should make appropriate bans to ensure it doesn't have to use Hail this generation either. :D

 

[monte.valentine]

The whole idea of banning specific abilities scares the shit out of me. Granted, Inconsistent needed to be dealt with, but it could have been dealt with by banning pokes with the ability rather than the ability itself. I don't agree with setting that kind of precedent. But, that's already done.

Still, banning abilities doesn't neccessarily need to continue. If you want to ban Drizzle, ban Politoed. If you want to ban all auto-weather, ban all the auto-weather inducers. Keep it simple.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

The whole idea of banning specific abilities scares the shit out of me. Granted, Inconsistent needed to be dealt with, but it could have been dealt with by banning pokes with the ability rather than the ability itself. I don't agree with setting that kind of precedent. But, that's already done.

Still, banning abilities doesn't neccessarily need to continue. If you want to ban Drizzle, ban Politoed. If you want to ban all auto-weather, ban all the auto-weather inducers. Keep it simple.

The thing is,that Politoed has an alternative.
He doesn't need to run Drizzle to be decent,he's normally just out classed by other bulky waters.

Banning the other weather inducers doesn't make much sense though.
Drizzle should be banned because only 2 things can stop it:
1.Hail Tentacruel
2.Abomasnow
And only Tentacruel is useful outside of countering rain :/
There's no reason to ban SS,if you want to ban something,ban Sand Throw on Dory.
There's no reason to ban Sun,seriously,Venusaur is the most dangerous mon on a Sun team,and he's easier to wall.
There's no reason to ban Hail,it just sucks.

 

[Exclamation!]

The whole idea of banning specific abilities scares the shit out of me. Granted, Inconsistent needed to be dealt with, but it could have been dealt with by banning pokes with the ability rather than the ability itself. I don't agree with setting that kind of precedent. But, that's already done.

Still, banning abilities doesn't neccessarily need to continue. If you want to ban Drizzle, ban Politoed. If you want to ban all auto-weather, ban all the auto-weather inducers. Keep it simple.

I agree with you to a certain extent, it would make way more sense to ban the pokés instead of the abilities, but that would render a lot of pokés unusable. Imagin banning Bidoof or Bibarel because of their Inconsistent ability. Seriously, is Bidoof broken now?

 

[Fluffy Otters]

The thing is,that Politoed has an alternative.
He doesn't need to run Drizzle to be decent,he's normally just out classed by other bulky waters.

Banning the other weather inducers doesn't make much sense though.
Drizzle should be banned because only 2 things can stop it:
1.Hail Tentacruel
2.Abomasnow
And only Tentacruel is useful outside of countering rain :/
There's no reason to ban SS,if you want to ban something,ban Sand Throw on Dory.
There's no reason to ban Sun,seriously,Venusaur is the most dangerous mon on a Sun team,and he's easier to wall.
There's no reason to ban Hail,it just sucks.

The only reason Hail sucks is because of the other weather. If Hail was the only automatic permanent weather, that would be a different story (Hail Stall is vicious and it now has Kyurem to blast people to heck). There are other dangerous things on Sun than just Venasaur although Venasaur is definitely one of the more dangerous ones like Exeggutor, Charizard, Hidiharuma, Heatran, Shandera, Mebjuka, Tangrowth, Moltres...banning Sand Throw vrs Sandstorm can go either way but if you're banning weather, just ban all the permanent weather. They don't really miss it either way but then you don't get luck haxed by Sand Veil on Garchomp and other users (lol no one uses Cacturne) and Doryuzu wouldn't nearly be as broken anyhow.

Abomasnow does have certain uses but it's kinda average (except against water) and dangerous weaknesses (having 4x weak to fire is not good against Sunny Day teams nor is that Steel/Fighting weakness because it isn't Kyurem). And it's weather does not really help you so unless you're against rain, there isn't much point in crippling your own teams recovery/health with Hail unless it's a Hail based team.

 

[monte.valentine]

The thing is,that Politoed has an alternative.
He doesn't need to run Drizzle to be decent,he's normally just out classed by other bulky waters.

Banning the other weather inducers doesn't make much sense though.
Drizzle should be banned because only 2 things can stop it:
1.Hail Tentacruel
2.Abomasnow
And only Tentacruel is useful outside of countering rain :/
There's no reason to ban SS,if you want to ban something,ban Sand Throw on Dory.
There's no reason to ban Sun,seriously,Venusaur is the most dangerous mon on a Sun team,and he's easier to wall.
There's no reason to ban Hail,it just sucks.

I don't disagree with any of this, I'm just acknowledging previous comments made about banning all auto-weather abilities. The point is that banning any specific aspect of a Pokemon, rather than the mon itself, is a bad idea. It could set a dangerous precedent.

I agree with you to a certain extent, it would make way more sense to ban the pokés instead of the abilities, but that would render a lot of pokés unusable. Imagin banning Bidoof or Bibarel because of their Inconsistent ability. Seriously, is Bidoof broken now?

As ridiculous as it sounds, that might be true. If any aspect of a Pokemon is broken, it should be considered so itself.

 

[masterful]

The whole idea of banning specific abilities scares the shit out of me. Granted, Inconsistent needed to be dealt with, but it could have been dealt with by banning pokes with the ability rather than the ability itself. I don't agree with setting that kind of precedent. But, that's already done.

Still, banning abilities doesn't neccessarily need to continue. If you want to ban Drizzle, ban Politoed. If you want to ban all auto-weather, ban all the auto-weather inducers. Keep it simple.

That makes so little sense I am astounded. So you would rather cast Politoed himself off into a metagame where he is so thoroughly outclassed by one of the most popular pokes there than simply ban his broken ability and allow him to keep being used in NU. On pokes like Wobb it made sense to ban them in particular, as they can't really be expected to run Telepathy. Yet banning Bibarel, Glalie, Octillery, and especially Smeargle (who has an insane amount of uses outside Inconsistent) is so inane when just one ability could be banned instead. I don't understand why you have a problem with this "precedent." The goal her is to make as varied a metagame as possible, and banning every poke with a broken ability and not the way to get it.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

The only reason Hail sucks is because of the other weather. If Hail was the only automatic permanent weather, that would be a different story (Hail Stall is vicious and it now has Kyurem to blast people to heck). There are other dangerous things on Sun than just Venasaur although Venasaur is definitely one of the more dangerous ones like Exeggutor, Charizard, Hidiharuma, Heatran, Shandera, Mebjuka, Tangrowth, Moltres...banning Sand Throw vrs Sandstorm can go either way but if you're banning weather, just ban all the permanent weather. They don't really miss it either way but then you don't get luck haxed by Sand Veil on Garchomp and other users (lol no one uses Cacturne) and Doryuzu wouldn't nearly be as broken anyhow.

Abomasnow does have certain uses but it's kinda average (except against water) and dangerous weaknesses (having 4x weak to fire is not good against Sunny Day teams nor is that Steel/Fighting weakness because it isn't Kyurem). And it's weather does not really help you so unless you're against rain, there isn't much point in crippling your own teams recovery/health with Hail unless it's a Hail based team.

Ehh,Hail sucks for two reasons:
1.Sand,Rain,and Sun outclass it in almost every way and they have more GOOD abusers of the weather.
2.It offers NOTHING whatsoever other than 6% damage to all non-Ice types and a 100% Blizzard.
Hail just sucks.
Sand gives a +1 boost to Rock types and it doesn't hurt Steel types,which are some of the best walls.
Rain and Sun give a 1.5 boost to Water and Fire respectively and halve damage from Fire and Water respectively.(I.E. Fire types are hit neutrally by Water and Water types are 4x Resistant against Fire)

 

[monte.valentine]

That makes so little sense I am astounded. So you would rather cast Politoed himself off into a metagame where he is so thoroughly outclassed by one of the most popular pokes there than simply ban his broken ability and allow him to keep being used in NU. On pokes like Wobb it made sense to ban them in particular, as they can't really be expected to run Telepathy. Yet banning Bibarel, Glalie, Octillery, and especially Smeargle (who has an insane amount of uses outside Inconsistent) is so inane when just one ability could be banned instead. I don't understand why you have a problem with this "precedent." The goal her is to make as varied a metagame as possible, and banning every poke with a broken ability and not the way to get it.

But, banning individual aspects of a Pokemon seems off. We've already done items. What's to stop future bannings of different attacks, or other qualities? Like, "Pokemon X is overpowered, but only with Bullet Punch," or "Pokemon Y is overpowered, but only with a Careful nature."

 

[Fluffy Otters]

I don't disagree with any of this, I'm just acknowledging previous comments made about banning all auto-weather abilities. The point is that banning any specific aspect of a Pokemon, rather than the mon itself, is a bad idea. It could set a dangerous precedent.



As ridiculous as it sounds, that might be true. If any aspect of a Pokemon is broken, it should be considered so itself.

But it is obvious that the problem is Inconsistent. All the Inconsistent users had useful alternative abilities and Inconsistent was a broken ability. I don't know what Game Freak was thinking when they made Inconsistent but every now and then, game creators love to create broken combos and abilities (they get pleasure in it watching it frustrate people or something) that they KNOW are horrible. And just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it isn't necessary at times in special cases like Inconsistent for example. Without Inconsistent, they were just average to NU pokemon but with Inconsistent, they became monsters. Moves have been banned, evasion has been banned, Soul Dew (although really it should have been just the Latis in general since they were still found broken even without Soul Dew) had been banned. Banning an ability is no different and if the poke is still broken without it, it is obviously the poke that is the problem and worthy of being banned and banning pokes with Single ability is banning them regardless since no amount of tinkering would ever make things like Arceus or Kyogre OU (without completely destroying Pokemon and making it pointless).

The dangerous precedent (Soul Dew) has already been done and the Latis are much stronger than usual average things anyways. There not as big now but Latios is still a beast. Inconsistent is FAR worse than the Latis twins or nearly everything. And frankly, Inconsistent has already been banned so why are we still discussing things like dangerous precedents for banning abilities anyways? It's done.

 

[Fluffy Otters]

Ehh,Hail sucks for two reasons:
1.Sand,Rain,and Sun outclass it in almost every way and they have more GOOD abusers of the weather.
2.It offers NOTHING whatsoever other than 6% damage to all non-Ice types and a 100% Blizzard.
Hail just sucks.
Sand gives a +1 boost to Rock types and it doesn't hurt Steel types,which are some of the best walls.
Rain and Sun give a 1.5 boost to Water and Fire respectively and halve damage from Fire and Water respectively.(I.E. Fire types are hit neutrally by Water and Water types are 4x Resistant against Fire)

I said if Hail was the ONLY Automatic weather. Other automatic weather is really the only thing that keeps Hail down since quite frankly, there is little use for it when you get more and better advantages elsewhere and it ruins the permanentness of it that are integral to Hail Stall.

And eating Specs Blizzards are no small treat either since they 1-2 hit ko nearly everything and Kyurem is a monster and if it had Snowstorm would have probably been banned. But it is bulky and survives ridiculous things with invested defenses and screens (like being 2 hit koed by Choice Band Scizor after Stealth Rock) if it isn't abusing Specs Blizzards.