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

[SJCrew]

Furthermore, Garchomp (like everyone) had counters. He was Ice Shard weak, often locked into Outrage, outsped by the Latis, and was troubled by Skarm, Bronzong, and balloon steels. But he went. Yeah, maybe I have the wrong idea about broken vs. breaking the metagame, but in the end it's all about overcentralization. In my opinion, Excadrill does that at least as much as Garchomp did.

I think people are stuck in this idea that simply having counters makes you an irrevocably balanced Pokemon that shouldn't be considered for banishment from the tier. You have to consider how many of them even exist and whether or not they're truly viable in their respective metagames. Cresselia, for example, was largely ignored as a counter for Salamence due to a large number of factors that outright booted it out of OU. And plus, it was just one Pokemon. Cresselia being a mandatory addition to every team that doesn't want to lose to Salamence is a high signifier of unbalance.

Even in this gen, I'll tell you right now that Garchomp without Sand support did not have a striking number of counters. Skarmory is a good check, true, and Porygon2 can now be considered a counter, but all it got was a few more checks; base 102 is still faster than a lot of things and it didn't really get any new counters. What really pushed it over the edge this time around, though, was that even checks weren't safe with that 20% evasion rate factoring at the worst of times and costing games. And when you get sets like Sub/SD that can force it into an even safer position to sweep, most of the voting populace agreed that its time was up.

Thundurus is in a similar position atm. Sp. Def Quagsire is being toted as the #1 counter to Thundurus the game, and yet still, no one is using it. The reason for this is obvious: Specially Defensive Quagsire sucks. Most of the tier's premier special attackers can still 2HKO it easily, and it loses out on its ability to counter physical threats just to cover Thundurus. No thanks.

Even if it doesn't seem like it should be broken to some, there's no denying that Thundurus is just a very hard Pokemon to deal with in general, and a lot of the Pokemon that supposedly 'handle it' can be screwed over with minimal prediction from any one of its standard sets.

 

[Taylor]

Remember Grass Knot is an option on Thundurus, when considering Thunder(bolt)/ HP Ice provides you with good coverage already.

 

[Drawler]

don't put words into my mouth, I just said I wasn't interested into the weather centralization argument.

And then you said Gen 5 was weather and you could go move to Canada if you didn't like it. Which is what I took issue with.

What's really obnoxious is people like you who just come here to bitch instead of trying to provide good arguments as to why weather should be banned. How is weather breaking the metagame? Prove it or shut up.

Pretty strong words for a guy who just said he wasn't interested in providing an explanation for his argument.

You don't even have to use a weather team to use politoed.You can just use him as a scarfer with great power(Drizzle) and great speed against weather abusers.
Just make sure that your team doesn't get hindered by drizzle and you are fine.

I don't actually think this is possible. You could throw Tyrannitar on a team in Gen 4 and not have it be a "sandstorm team" because sandstorm had a relatively small impact on the field and you could still be very flexible with your team building. Drizzle and Drought have much more pronounced effects, and greatly restrict teambuilding, so much so that by using them at all you are pretty much forced to be a "weather team".

 

[TheValkyries]

Seriously? The definition of broken is "breaks the metagame". As Haunter has already said, read Smogon's Philosophy and stop dancing around the point that if it's not broken, we shouldn't ban it.

Honestly, your stating that Excadrill has "detrimental effects on the metagame" is just the recourse for the people who want it banned but admit that their position of Excadrill being banned is indefensible.

That being said, I wouldn't think an Excadrill-less metagame would be bad. What would be bad is the precedent. No, I am not arguing slippery slope, but if we ban Excadrill for having "detrimental effects on the metagame", then we've made a shift from banning only the things that are broken to banning things because we don't like them.

This would be an extremely disturbing contradiction to Smogon's philosophy.

I'm sorry but you're behind the times. Smogon's policy this gen is that we create a more desirable meta-game, and no where is our policy defined solely on whether or not a Pokemon is broken. What you're talking about was our Policy last gen, and as much as I preferred that model, for this generation, in this situation, this new model makes more sense.

In other words, the only contradiction of policy, is in your head. If Excadrill truly is causing all of these problems in the meta-game by breaking the speed tiers in the fashion that he does, then we should ban him. Not because he is broken, but because he breaks the game.

 

[Voost]

I think people are stuck in this idea that simply having counters makes you an irrevocably balanced Pokemon that shouldn't be considered for banishment from the tier.

Even though I'm new I've noticed this in my time spent lurking; you have to remember that just one or two counters doesn't make the pokemon completely balanced and suitable for OU.

I'm looking forward to the results on Excadrill next round too. Seems like it could go either way.

 

[alexwolf]

I don't actually think this is possible. You could throw Tyrannitar on a team in Gen 4 and not have it be a "sandstorm team" because sandstorm had a relatively small impact on the field and you could still be very flexible with your team building. Drizzle and Drought have much more pronounced effects, and greatly restrict teambuilding, so much so that by using them at all you are pretty much forced to be a "weather team".

Not true at all...
The basic thing with scarf politoed is that you bring him in to revenge kill a weather threat or generally a fast threat.
When playing against a sand or a sun team you won't need to send politoed in 'cause your team wasn't meant to abuse drizzle.
You will only bring him in when venusaur,sawsbuck,excadrill,etc are going to sweep,which happens at lategame...So 'till lategame you won't really need to have brought politoed in which means no drizzle...
Of 'course you can take some measures in case you absolutuely have to bring in politoed early game...
So just because i don't use any fire moves in my team,this means that it is a rain team???Not at all!
A rain team is one that is meant to abuse drizzle!If none of my pokes gain any benefit from it then it is not a weather team at all as i don't even need drizzle to play effectively.I just use poitoed's ability individually,meaning that drizzle benefits only my scarf politoed and nothing else... The chance to also support my Ferro for example is just an added sweet bonus!!!But in no way my Ferro doesn't do its job without rain up...

 

[ssbbm]

The main difference I see between Excadrill and all other sweepers is that all other sweepers can be revenged and worn down, even if your team's dedicated counter is down or you have no dedicated counter. For example, you can force DD Mence to play a guessing game (EQ, FB, or Outrage?) and wear it down with LO + SS + SR damage; however, if you lose your counter / check to Excadrill, then if Excadrill gets a +2, it's GG no matter what.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Not because he is broken, but because he breaks the game.

But...AFAIK, in every single game I've played...broken means it breaks the game.

Orlandue in Final Fantasy Tactics breaks the game and is therefore broken.

Tribe Kings in Megaman Starforce 2 are broken because they break the game.

Metaknight in Super Smash Bros. Brawl is broken because he breaks the game.

Karas in the JP ver. of Tatsunoko VS Capcom breaks the game because he's broken.

So, if Excadrill isn't broken....how can he break the game?
Because scarfers aren't useful against him? Scarfers altogether aren't that useful anymore(This is my opinion btw) because a lot of things can sweep entire teams with just a couple turns of free set up, which scarfers so easily hand out.
The problem is that these things also happen to be bulky too :L
It's just much easier to tank a hit and KO back, which more things can do.
Ignoring Excadrill, what would be a good scarfer in Gen 5?

Terrakion
Hydreigon
Garchomp(lets ignore him)

Meh, I don't like scarfers at all. Sure, they can revenge kill stuff, but what's the point of them when I can revenge one thing, but give another a free turn? Why use scarfers when I can use a wall that can tank hits from multiple threats instead of revenge only 2 of them?....I always hated choiced items anyway <,<

Btw, just my (most likely flawed) opinion on scarfers.

 

[AlphaSpade]

Another reason to stray away from scarfers is because Wobbuffet still exists (yeah I know it's UU, but still, not something you'd want to ignore).

 

[PK Gaming]

Man remember when people didn't bicker over trivial matters? Those were the days!

I just wanted to say that max attaclk Swords Dance Scizor under the rain is killer. It has a ridiculously easy time setting up and can demolisj teams late game when everybody is weakened. Yeah Gliscor can sorta check him (kinda, LO +2 BB deals 51.1% - 60.5% to standard Gliscor) and wearing down him is easy. Not to mention and many of "Red Johns" friends can easily wreck Gliscor. Rotom-W for example shares perfect synergy with Scizor. I like to switch it up and use lefties because lefties Scizor benefits from Superpower. And let me tell you, SD Superpower is ridiculously good, especially against Skarmory. Thats the thing about Scizor, nearly every single common physical wall other than Gliscor gets wrecked by him. (Slowbro, Tangrowth, Skarm w/ Superpower etc.)

 

[TheValkyries]

But...AFAIK, in every single game I've played...broken means it breaks the game.

Orlandue in Final Fantasy Tactics breaks the game and is therefore broken.

Tribe Kings in Megaman Starforce 2 are broken because they break the game.

Metaknight in Super Smash Bros. Brawl is broken because he breaks the game.

Karas in the JP ver. of Tatsunoko VS Capcom breaks the game because he's broken.

So, if Excadrill isn't broken....how can he break the game?

You've got it backwards. They break the game because they are individually broken. The problem is, being broken individually isn't the only way to break the meta-game. The point Snunch made and the one that we should be talking about is if Excadrill radically deconstructs the speed tiers to the point where they frankly don't exist anymore, and if that is really something that merits a ban for him.

For an analogy, yes, bringing a gun to a knife fight does break the whole concept of a knife fight. Bringing Throwing Knives to a Knife Fight doesn't necessarily break the concept of the Knife fight, but it certainly changes the game, for better or worse. That's what Excadrill is doing, that's what Snunch pointed out, and that's what I'm trying to redirect all the Excadrill discussion towards, whether his effect on the meta-game is for better or worse, not whether he's borked or not.

Because scarfers aren't useful against him? Scarfers altogether aren't that useful anymore(This is my opinion btw) because a lot of things can sweep entire teams with just a couple turns of free set up, which scarfers so easily hand out.
The problem is that these things also happen to be bulky too :L
It's just much easier to tank a hit and KO back, which more things can do.
Ignoring Excadrill, what would be a good scarfer in Gen 5?

Scarfers aren't useful? How's Thundurus doing, with his near supermajority vote? He's completely neutered by any average scarfer. Should power of his calibur still be talked about even with scarfers around, definitely, but are we going to say that if scarfers were more common he would be just as unmanagable? We'd be lying to ourselves if we did. That speed range of +100's with high power is generally tearing shit up in this meta-game, and the reason they're allowed this free reign is there's not many scarfers to keep them in check. The reason there's not many scarfers is mostly due to the fact that Excadrill completely tears them apart. That's a crack in the meta-game worth discussing despite that Excadrill isn't broken himself.

 

[JSND]

Well my Exca not really "counter" but with that exca set up,you wont have reliable Entry hazard like you always have in normal terms when you switch skarm to unboosted attacking exca.


Not to mention the fact that that time i used it, BB from skarm dont do jack to exca

 

[jas61292]

The whole argument here is that Excadrill makes Scarfers nonviable.

I was unaware that being useless against 1 Pokemon means that something is useless against all 648 others. Excadrill may hurt scarfers, but if they are not appearing, it is not because he makes them nonviable, it is because the metagame as a whole does not support their use. Sure he outspeed everyone in sand, but that does not throw speed tiers out, it just changes them. And as far as I am concerned breaking the metagame is different from changing the metagame. Excadrill may change how we play, but that does not mean it should be banned.

 

[SJCrew]

Scarfers aren't useful? How's Thundurus doing, with his near supermajority vote? He's completely neutered by any average scarfer.

This is part of why I think Thundurus is broken; things that should be able to check him can still be neutered by that priority Thunder Wave at any time. Try as I might to play around it, he might kill my Ground type and force me to get one of my checks crippled. (And you tell me how many times you've had something paralyzed and immobile in the same turn)

 

[knuckles1299]

Thundurus is awesomely unfair. My first, and only, tournament victory was a complete 6-0 sweep with Thundurus. Now personally I have no problem with Drizzle, is it annoying yes but it can be dealt. I'm surprised I don't see a lot of anti-sandstormers out there because sandstorm for me is the most troubling to play against and I wish it had gotten banned. Sandstorm is waaay too overused. Drought is rarely a threat but I've seen some beast drought teams. It's refreshing if I'm honest. Excadrill is becoming easier and easier to counter as more and more people use it; I'm no longer concerned with him although I don't know why people complain more about Kingdra then they do about Excadrill. Drill is fragile but hits like a truck after one swords dance combined with either abilities while Kingdra only has one good ability with decent attacking power. He's only a threat after 2+ dragon dances. Anyways. That's all I have to say

 

[yee]

Thundurus is in a similar position atm. Sp. Def Quagsire is being toted as the #1 counter to Thundurus the game, and yet still, no one is using it. The reason for this is obvious: Specially Defensive Quagsire sucks. Most of the tier's premier special attackers can still 2HKO it easily, and it loses out on its ability to counter physical threats just to cover Thundurus. No thanks.

While I would rather not discuss if Thundurus is broken or not, I have to say everyone calling Quagsire the best and only counter is a load of BS. If you want to think of something that weird, run a Latias with spA/spD evs and Draco Meteor. Not to mention its fellow Water/Grounds, Gastrodon and Swampert, both counter as many sets as it does (all that lack Grass Knot). Once you pair one of them with a bulky Roserade, Jirachi etc. you have those covered too. A user of Extremespeed or Ice Shard in particular really give it a hard time, as does the average scarfer (there are faster pokemon who don't even have to worry about T-Wave, like Starmie to an extent, Jolteon, Excadrill etc.)

If I had to use only one certain poke to counter Thundurus, I wouldn't be using Quagsire. Lanturn would be the best catch-all counter, or I could even cover it with a Seaking (lol).

 

[Bobmonkey07]

If I had to use only one certain poke to counter Thundurus, I wouldn't be using Quagsire. Lanturn would be the best catch-all counter, or I could even cover it with a Seaking (lol).

how about electivire? come in on the fairly predictable electric attack (thunderbolt/thunder wave) and get boosted speed then hit with ice punch.

 

[shrang]

Anyone using just straight LO + 4 attacks Thundurus? I mean, what can switch into something like this?

Thundurus @ Life Orb
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Naive / Timid
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power Ice
- Grass Knot
- Hammer Arm / Focus Blast

Quagsire has nothing on this, Grass Knot can send it to hell. While this Thundurus doesn't have the epic sweeping potential that NP has, come late game, this thing can just clean up easily. A bit like LO 4 attacks Latios, if you will, but not walled by anywhere near as many thing with its better coverage.

 

[Volarion]

This should be somewhere in Smogon's philosophy, honestly. "Broken"=Makes the game unplayable. "Detrimental to the metagame"=some bullshit term that some idiot made up and used as an excuse to ban things.

If you don't like something that's not broken, tough luck. You have no right to vote it Uber. If you don't like weather but realize that it's not broken, you're obligated to vote it OU, regardless of "overcentralization" or "detriments". Banning things on personal preference jeopardizes the excellence of the Suspect Test process.

I completely agree. A lot of us are dancing around the words and trying to convince everyone else to ban pokemon by saying they are "detrimental to the health of the metagame."

Overcentralization is getting thrown around a lot as well. I think it's one of the absolute worst reasons to ban something because it can be perceived in many different ways. OU itself is "centralized" around the top 10 pokemon. Does that mean we should ban all of them because the top 10 show up in X% of teams?

Also, yes; personal preference goes both ways. Some people still want to play with excadrill, and some hate its guts because they have a tough time with it. The fact is that smogon tries ban as few things as possible. It simply makes the process smoother. That means the burden is greater for those who would like to ban it. Thus, it's better for everyone if you make arguments regarding how excadrill is broken rather than bringing up all this other BS.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I think Thundurus is only suspect in Rain, which I think is more a symptom of weather being banworthy. Thunderbolt isn't strong enough to cut it in OU especially with all the Excadrill teams running around and Latios which comes in for free and wrecks it. If you really want to risk the 75% chance of me OHKOing you by staying in and using priority TWave then be my guest.

Most of the wins I get with Thundurus are because people play really stupidly against it. People bring in things like Ferrothorn to take the Thunder only to have me Nasty Plot on the switch and OHKO with Focus Blast. Or they'll bring their Gliscor into the electric attack, thinking they can scare me away with an unboosted Ice Fang while I set up an NP and OHKO it with HP Ice.

Blissey is a huge problem for it as any status move basically means the end of Thundurus. It needs 3 attacks + Nasty Plot to be threatening, anything else is just a frail Zapdos.

 

[haunter]

And then you said Gen 5 was weather and you could go move to Canada if you didn't like it. Which is what I took issue with.

That's a fact, live with it. If you want to take issue, then provide some counter argument, don't try to twist my words.

Pretty strong words for a guy who just said he wasn't interested in providing an explanation for his argument.

Strong words are necessary when random newbies come in and start complaining when they don't even know what they're talking about. I'm not interested into explaining weather arguments, my interest is to stop the kind of attitude that some users keep in this thread.

Also please don't make double posts.

 

[Raikaria]

Can I point this out:

I've been using a Sand team with Excadrill and Wobbuffett.

Weather changer comes in -> Trapped -> Dead -> You can't stop my weather.

Excadrill counter? I'll trap you, and remove you so Excadrill can sweep with no effort whatsoever. Most teams only carry one Excadrill check.

Now if only I was any decent at building a team around that, and my games didn't accord to Murphy's Law... I'd probobly be at voting rights

----

Oh, and people saying Conkledurr isn't an Excadrill revenge killer; use Protect + Status Orb. That lets Conkeldurr OHKO Excadrill.

---

I think Thundurus is only suspect in Rain, which I think is more a symptom of weather being banworthy. Thunderbolt isn't strong enough to cut it in OU especially with all the Excadrill teams running around and Latios which comes in for free and wrecks it. If you really want to risk the 75% chance of me OHKOing you by staying in and using priority TWave then be my guest.

Most of the wins I get with Thundurus are because people play really stupidly against it. People bring in things like Ferrothorn to take the Thunder only to have me Nasty Plot on the switch and OHKO with Focus Blast. Or they'll bring their Gliscor into the electric attack, thinking they can scare me away with an unboosted Ice Fang while I set up an NP and OHKO it with HP Ice.

Blissey is a huge problem for it as any status move basically means the end of Thundurus. It needs 3 attacks + Nasty Plot to be threatening, anything else is just a frail Zapdos.

So, what does that rain grant Thunderus?

100% accurate Thunders, and a STAB boost to HP Water [LOL]

So... Excadrill still comes in on Thunder for free, and Latios/Latias... still don't care.

 

[ungulateman]

Rain also lets him outspeed Excadrill and fuck him up with a boosted Focus Blast, rather than being forced to catch him off-guard with a random Focus Blast.

Thundurus is absurd, but I honestly consider the Lati twins to be more of a threat. Excadrill is countered by non-Sandstorm weather, but non-Sandstorm weather is basically overpowered (coughraincough) or worthless (coughsunhailcough).

My idea of an ideal metagame doesn't gel with Smogon very well (because Smogon wants to emulate the games or some random stuff), but that's another story altogether.

 

[Meru]

Most of the wins I get with Thundurus are because people play really stupidly against it. People bring in things like Ferrothorn to take the Thunder only to have me Nasty Plot on the switch and OHKO with Focus Blast. Or they'll bring their Gliscor into the electric attack, thinking they can scare me away with an unboosted Ice Fang while I set up an NP and OHKO it with HP Ice.

Yeah man everybody is just playing so stupidly against your Thundurus because we're forced to switch to our unreliable counters to try it hold it off from demolishing our team by racking up recoil and/or hoping for a Focus Blast miss. You're definitely outplaying us all.

 

[Birkal]

Can I point this out:

I've been using a Sand team with Excadrill and Wobbuffett.

Weather changer comes in -> Trapped -> Dead -> You can't stop my weather.

Excadrill counter? I'll trap you, and remove you so Excadrill can sweep with no effort whatsoever. Most teams only carry one Excadrill check.

Now if only I was any decent at building a team around that, and my games didn't accord to Murphy's Law... I'd probobly be at voting rights

----

I've done quite a bit of work with Wobbuffet on weather teams and I would argue that your issues don't lie with Murphy's Law. Today's metagame is incredibly powerful in terms of offense, which is no good for Wobby. Since most of OU can 2HKO him, it's basically nonviable. Hydro Pump Drizzletoed will come out on top, especially with Toxic. I'm sure that Ninetales could have some tricks and even Abomasnow can Substitute and Leech Seed. And if you're not running a SandStream team (thankfully you are), Tyranitar would absolutely demolish him. Honestly, Wobbuffet just isn't that stellar anymore. He's unreliable, unoriginal, and a pretty big gamble to play.