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

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SlimMan said:
I'm sad they're gone, for the sole reason that I never faced a masterfully used one of either and thus never actually had significant issues with either of them. It means I can't abuse them.
That's a terrible reason to be sad over a ban, but I'm not gonna lie to you guys.

edit: fuck yeah, Zapdos is going OU. T-rus didn't outclass but soooo many people thought it did. :\

Also, how do people deal with Offensive QD Volcarona under the Sun? There's Scarfers, but there's no way to wall it whatsoever. The only things that avoid a 2HKO are Chansey, Blissey, and Snorlax when it's at +1, and all three of them have to run totally specially defensive EV spreads! Okay, so there's probably more, but I'm not exaggerating by that much. You basically can't defensively beat Volcarona in Sun. It probably screws with weatherless defense as much as Excadrill screwed with weatherless offense. In the past I've just dealt with it by running Scarf Landorus/Terrakion, or running weather myself, but...
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I wished I could have abused the likes of Blaze myself XD.

Anyway, pooling your Volca thing with general Sun concerns. As has been stated, speed abusers don't get the free SE boost on their STABs (since only grass types get that) so it isn't as dangerous as SSwim was. Drill's typing was useful defensively, and it had the nice coverage of Rock and EQ, along with utility and raw power (immunity to paralysis aside from glare, BS, or Tri Attack didn't hurt either). The main weakness of Grass is also boosted under Sun. Solar Beam? any opposing weather starter makes that an unfortunate liability.
As for Volca... vulnerable to every form of residual damage other than burn (lol). 4X stealth rock weak...
Sun also has the weakest starter... I like Ninetales, but even Aboma can dish out some nice hits. Which brings me to....

Tyranitar
Hippowdon
Politoed
Ninetales
Abomasnow

Of those listed above, which ones would you use if they didn't have those abilities? Yeah... there may be less SS teams, but I don't see that decline being a major one, not with Ttar being such a good Poke in its own right.
SS still has the best starter, an overall advantage with residual damage, and rock boosts.
Sun still has its weaknesses to the other two weathers and a general frailty, but it still has SOME advantages.
Rain still has its advantages against its fellow weathers, utility in Thunder abuse, and decent pokes that like rain.

@Thundurus ban: I'm personally not sure if he deserved this ban. Prankster is a wonderful ability, but the abusive thunder ind the rain style I saw a lot didn't abuse that much.
@Drill ban: More freedom of choice? Yes please.

I hope they were for the better, I do cringe at the thought of ban-happiness. We have to bear in mind that every generation has and will add many new pokes, making the management of a stable metagame significantly harder than the former. On top of that, it will become harder to effectively teambuild as well, having many more new threats to address. It may come off as ban-happy, but it makes sense that more pokemon will equal more possible bans. Of course, bans should be kept as few as possible, but you get my meaning.
 
The thing is Excadrill had been a suspect every other suspect test, while Thundurus was one vote away from a supermajority last round. Dragonite and Volcarona were only nominated this round. I don't see them getting banned anytime soon.
 
Lack of an excadrill to counter and even more scarfers who outspeed him even on drought teams means that the time is right for tangrowth to drop even FURTHER!
 
Exca AND Thundurus banned?
Where the hell was I when this happened?
Now, I wonder what will happen to the metagame now two pokemon who were constantly called "broken" are gone.
 
Yea, Excadrill was gonna get banned. I won't be missing it, since the all-out attacking Excadrill was a MENACE in sand. It sucks to lose one of the best rapid spinners of all time, but I am also glad that I do not have to devote a slot or two in countering this beast.

Excadrill is rather irreplaceable, especially as a Rapid Spinner. I'm going to try out Hitmonchan, which does almost everything that Excadrill needed to do for my team, except for blocking Volt Switches :/

Thundurus, in the other hand, is pretty replaceable. Rash Raikou with Aura Sphere can be just as devastating as Thundurus, albeit with more support. Raikou also has to choose between Ice + Grass, when Thundurus can pack both, but Raikou comes closest in terms of an "Electric Sweeper." Alakazam is also a valid replacement, if all you need is a strong and fast special sweeper / wall-breaker.
 
Zapdos focuses more on being a bulky attacker, with no boosting move and only average speed, so it doesn't really fill Thundurus' role of Special Sweeper very well...
 
The one thing that both Raikou and Thundurus possess that Zapdos lacks is a strong special fighting move to easily dispatch Tyranitar, which I think is big, since Ttar is a fearsome special tank.
 
SubCM Raikou is great, I always liked it better than Thundurus. Sure, not as much coverage and probably worse in most ways, but that's the way I like it I guess (Masquerain > Volcarona).
The CM + 3 Attack set is good as well, but I always found that Shadow Ball is rather forgettable and I love running Sub on pretty much everything.

Excadrill is irreplaceable and that's a good thing. I don't want that bitch to be replaced by something similar. Maybe Gamefreak will spontaneously change Landorus's DW ability to Sand Rush.
 
Pocket said:
Yea, Excadrill was gonna get banned. I won't be missing it, since the all-out attacking Excadrill was a MENACE in sand. It sucks to lose one of the best rapid spinners of all time, but I am also glad that I do not have to devote a slot or two in countering this beast.

Excadrill is rather irreplaceable, especially as a Rapid Spinner. I'm going to try out Hitmonchan, which does almost everything that Excadrill needed to do for my team, except for blocking Volt Switches :/

Thundurus, in the other hand, is pretty replaceable. Rash Raikou with Aura Sphere can be just as devastating as Thundurus, albeit with more support. Raikou also has to choose between Ice + Grass, when Thundurus can pack both, but Raikou comes closest in terms of an "Electric Sweeper." Alakazam is also a valid replacement, if all you need is a strong and fast special sweeper / wall-breaker.
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Dude, Hitmonchan just sucks, specially for Rapid Spinning. Keep him away from upper tiers(upper than RU and I think in RU he might suck anyway)
 
All I need is a Rapid Spinner that can actually Rapid Spin while also threatening Volcarona's solid counters. Hitmonchan does all of the above with a simple moveset of Drain Punch - Thunderpunch - Ice Punch - Rapid Spin.

Drain Punch Heatran / Chansey / Blissey, Thunderpunch Jellicent / Gyarados, Ice Punch Dragonite. With Iron Fist boost, it's hitting as hard as Conkeldurr with its moves, but with much greater coverage. I may give it Expert Belt to hit even harder. Hi Jump Kick and Close Combat are also options if Drain Punch doesn't hit hard enough.
 
I don't agree with Excadrill being banned, but we needed to see if the metagame is better without it, so we banned it. There's always the possibility of an unban if something even more broken shows up.

Excadrill wasn't required for a good sand team, but it was very good at it. Look at sand teams last gen, before it existed. There was no Drizzletoed or Drought Ninetales, yet sand still wasn't broken.

As for Thundurus, that one was pretty obvious. It completely abused its ability, so I was expecting a ban for a while now. It wasn't even in the top 10 in usage, making it the lowest-ranked ban yet (other than Gen IV Wynaut because it's a pre-evo) but I suppose that people weren't using it because they knew it was getting banned.
 
Darusare said:
it doesnt matter if hes not good in ubers
wynaut wasnt good in ubers either.......
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but thundurus was my favorite pokemon. wynaut sucked xD. the only reason it got banned is because big brother wobbufett got bannd :( it never even got a chance

thundurus isn't uber omg. people checked it a lot and i never got swept by it. i ran cb abomasnow and life orb mamoswine and i never had problems.

in short, thundurus is innocent. the real culprit is polifrog. it always made thundurus too strong for the n00bs.
 
Pocket said:
All I need is a Rapid Spinner that can actually Rapid Spin while also threatening Volcarona's solid counters. It does all of the above with a simple moveset of Drain Punch - Thunderpunch - Ice Punch - Rapid Spin.

Drain Punch Heatran / Chansey / Blissey, Thunderpunch Jellicent / Gyarados, Ice Punch Dragonite. With Iron Fist boost, it's hitting as hard as Conkeldurr with its moves. I may give Expert Belt to hit even harder.
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Toxic is probably better than thunder punch. Hitmontop is better though, you don't need that utility. If you looking for power just use hi-jump kick > close combat.
 
Heist said:
dont forget tyrogue
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Eviolite Tyrogue may be bulkier than the hitmons, but it's low attack stat really makes a difference.

For reference:
0 Atk Tyrogue Hi Jump Kick vs 0 HP/0 Def Lucario: 59.79% - 71.53%

Tyrogue may be able to take some hits that Hitmonlee can't, but that doesn't matter if Tyrogue can't ohko the frailest sweeper in OU with a super effective stab attack.

Let's forget Tyrogue.
 
xero_k said:
@Thundurus ban: Decent attacking capabilities, ability to abuse them with rain and amazing utility in priority Twave. I'm not sure how 'broken' he was, but I won't really miss him...
@Drill ban: More freedom of choice? Yes please.
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When "decent attacking capabilities" is on your list of reasons for why a ban is okay, that's a good sign that there's something wrong with that ban.
 
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