BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread

So even if you fuck up and Taunt as they use Magic Coat, you lost nothing.
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Is this CB Genesect you are using (which changes the dynamic since yes, some people still decide to give you a SpA boost) since iirc U-Turn from Tournadus-T + Genesect doesn't OHKO (and I think thats without Tanga Berry). If I didn't fuck up my calculations (which is possible I guess) then your above point is incorrect as Deoxys-D just got 2 layers on you (you taunted, it magic coated, set up SR on U-Turn, then spiked on U-Turn. and thats a win in my book. its still a 50/50 I think tho, when leading with Tornadus-T, but its still going to get SR up most of the time. Also, U-Turn doesn't really cripple Deoxys-D (from Tornadus-T), iirc it does around 25% or something, which enough for a player to make a judgment call, switch out Deoxys-D, and bring it in on a slower member of your team anyway.
 
Taunt is amazing on Tornadus-T, but I find Substitute to be an underrated option. Combined with Life Orb recoil, it may not sound appealing at first. But when you see how you can be protected from Genesect and other Choice Scarfers, and Mamoswine, you start to see why Substitute is a good move. Mamoswine and Genesect, for example, must break its Substitute. In the process, they eat one Hurricane, and are certainly OHKOed. Mamoswine can only survive if it has an intact Focus Sash. Substitute also blocks Thunder Waves that can otherwise nullfill Tornadus-T. I remember the various times that I switched Tornadus-T on enemy Ferrothorn, and then used Substitute. They didn't knew that I would use this, and they wasted a turn trying to paralyze my Tornadus-T. Then, Tornadus-T 2HKOed that Ferrothorn with Hurricane. Until that Substitute was breaked, if it could be breaked, Ferrothorn already died and if Substitute was still intact, Tornadus-T could make the next switch-in eat another Hurricane and then switch-out without losing much health thanks to Regenerator.
 
Dark Fallen Angel said:
Taunt is amazing on Tornadus-T, but I find Substitute to be an underrated option.
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Supporting this. Too often in the endgame of a lot of battles, the opponent needs to sacrifice something to Tornadus-T so that they can bring in their Genesect to sweep, etc. If you Sub as they switch out to fodder off their, say, 25% Terrakion, then you kill it and their last-'mon Genesect can't break your Sub without eating LO Hurricane and dying. Substitute as Torn's 4th moveslot has won me a bunch of games.

Rain Dance is great as well, if your team is weak to Sun. Oftentimes, Sun teams don't have a better check to Torn-T than switching in their SDef Ninetales. If you go for a Rain Dance as they switch in, they're screwed. I remember back when my Sun team was popular, I ran an anti-my-team with Rain Dance Torn-T and it wrecked face. Give it a try.
 
Scarf Mamoswine with Icicle Spear cripples you with two hits, and KOs with 3 or more. Two hits of Icicle Spear deals a minimum of 73%, so assuming you were at max HP, you run the risk of being OHKOd with no chance of retaliation, and unless you were running Life Orb (which is incredibly risky with Sub and no other way to refill HP besides Regenerator), you never OHKO Mamoswine even after Rocks. Of course, running LO means you get the KO with Hurricane, but are crippled for something faster to force you out or KO you if, and only if, Mamoswine only gets 2 hits. 3 or more hits is GG for Tornadus.

Yes, Scarfswine is incredibly uncommon (I've literally never encountered it), but saying that Sub suddenly protects you against Mamoswine, guaranteed, is foolish.

Hell, since you never OHKO without LO or multiple layers of hazards, he doesn't even need to be Scarfed if you're running Lefties, which most Pokémon with Sub will do.
 
Lord of Bays said:
Scarf Mamoswine with Icicle Spear cripples you with two hits, and KOs with 3 or more. Two hits of Icicle Spear deals a minimum of 73%, so assuming you were at max HP, you run the risk of being OHKOd with no chance of retaliation, and unless you were running Life Orb (which is incredibly risky with Sub and no other way to refill HP besides Regenerator), you never OHKO Mamoswine even after Rocks. Of course, running LO means you get the KO with Hurricane, but are crippled for something faster to force you out or KO you if, and only if, Mamoswine only gets 2 hits. 3 or more hits is GG for Tornadus.

Yes, Scarfswine is incredibly uncommon (I've literally never encountered it), but saying that Sub suddenly protects you against Mamoswine, guaranteed, is foolish.

Hell, since you never OHKO without LO or multiple layers of hazards, he doesn't even need to be Scarfed if you're running Lefties, which most Pokémon with Sub will do.
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Whaaaaaaaaaaaat.

1. Nobody runs Scarf Mamoswine, ever.
2. Icicle Spear isn't even all that common on regular LO/CB Mamo - I generally run Icicle Crash, pretty sure that's the generally accepted secondary Ice STAB.
3. How do you never OHKO without LO or multiple layers of hazards? Focus Blast is almost ubiquitous on Torn-T...
 
U-turn from LO Torn-T vs 252 HP / 4 Def Deo-D: 28.94 - 34.21%

So Torn-T does ~31.5% to Deo-D with U-turn, leaving it with 68.5% life afterwards, or with 84.25% if it has Tanga Berry. The scenarios where Genesect OHKOes are:

1. If Genesect is running a CB set and Deo-D doesn't have Tanga Berry. If it has one and it runs 4 SpD evs, then Genesect still OHKOes.
2. If Genesect is running a Scarf / Expert Belt set and Bug Buzz, and Deo-D is using 4 Def evs.
3. If Genesect is running a Specs / LO set, so it OHKOes with Bug Buzz regardless of where Deo-D puts his 4 EVs

Yeah Ginga i fucked up with my calcs, as Scarf Sect cannot OHKO with U-turn, even after Torn-T's U-turn.
 
alexwolf said:
1. If Genesect is running a CB set and Deo-D doesn't have Tanga Berry. If it has one and it runs 4 SpD evs, then Genesect still OHKOes.
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Well, if Deoxys-D had a Tanga Berry in the first place, it would have eaten it when Tornadus-T used U-Turn, so you shouldn't factor it into your calculations with Genesect because it won't take effect anymore (one-use item). You might want to edit that out.

Thanks for doing those calcs though, they were very informative!
 
I realize nobody runs Scarfswine, but it's on the site and was heavily advertised as a check (with Icicle Spear) to SubSD Garchomp. As nobody used Garchomp and everybody continued to spam Rain, SubSD Chomp wasn't an issue and Scarfswine never surfaced.

The calcs I ran used Superpower, so that explains that. Okay. He does a minimum of 97% with Focus Blast, but I've always ran Superpower. In my experience, the drop in power is made up in the perfect accuracy. I've won more games thanks to an opponent missing Focus Blast than I've lost because they landed it.
 
Lavos Spawn i mentioned the Tanga Berry for a reason. If Deo-D runs 4 Def evs, then CB Genesect won't get the Atk boost, and will do 71.05 - 83.55% to Deo-D. This never OHKOes, even after Torn-T's U-turn most of the times.

EDIT: Why would you use anything except Hurricane against Mamo, which does 95.01 - 112.46%, guarantedd OHKO after SR?
 
I want to ask how much effective Jellicent is on this new metagame. I haven't used it by myself for a long time, and didn't see many people using Jellicent. By my experience, it is one of the best, if not the best Ghost-type to use on OU. Since Halloween I've been thinking of using a Ghost-type on my team, and my choice is Jellicent, but I don't know how well it does nowadays. I remember to have kept on my PC a set with an EV spread that avoids the 2HKO from Starmie's Thunderbolt, and lets Jellicent "burn" stall any Starmie lacking Recover. It is generally a good spinblocker and is a good stallbreaker in general, but the only thing on stall that it cannot handle well is Tentacruel, and stall teams aren't that common.
 
Dark Fallen Angel said:
I want to ask how much effective Jellicent is on this new metagame. I haven't used it by myself for a long time, and didn't see many people using Jellicent. By my experience, it is one of the best, if not the best Ghost-type to use on OU. Since Halloween I've been thinking of using a Ghost-type on my team, and my choice is Jellicent, but I don't know how well it does nowadays. I remember to have kept on my PC a set with an EV spread that avoids the 2HKO from Starmie's Thunderbolt, and lets Jellicent "burn" stall any Starmie lacking Recover. It is generally a good spinblocker and is a good stallbreaker in general, but the only thing on stall that it cannot handle well is Tentacruel, and stall teams aren't that common.
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I think Jellicent's biggest issue is that it's typing overlaps with the two best spinners in the metagame, Starmie and Tentacruel, which makes it hard to fit into teams. It's also kinda iffy at spin blocking because it can't beat Tentacruel one on one very often and Starmie can do a fair amount of damage to it on the switch in. It's not a bad check to rain teams, especially since it handles Keldeo really well, and it's always going to be annoying to deal with because of it's stats / ghost-typing / water immunity / scald / recover / taunt, but it's not as good as it used to be both because it can't really fill the roles it needs to to be useful to a team and because defensive pokemon in general aren't super productive in this metagame. That said, I used Jellicent on one of my more recent teams and enjoyed having it around because it can at least block the rapid spin and switch out, it's great against Keldeo which my team had issues with, and I love having something that can safely switch into scald. Definitely give it a try but don't be surprised if it's underwhelming.
 
I think Jellicent's biggest issue is that it's typing overlaps with the two best spinners in the metagame, Starmie and Tentacruel, which makes it hard to fit into teams.
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definitely this is the #1 problem. jelli is good on sand and rain (sableye is better than jelli when in sun). starmie is generally the best sand spinner, particularly the bulky kinds (donphan and forry are both meh, they both get destroyed by rain), and there is absolutely no contest for tentacruel being the best spinner in the game in rain. but if you run either of them and jelli at the same time, you become electric weak (cough thundurus-T)

also tspikes suck so subtox cruels (and in general, cruels carrying toxic) are becoming more common. they beat jelli one on one, of course. starmie will only beat you if you're really predictable and send in the jellicent straight away on the tbolt. sometimes you gotta mess around and play mindgames. LO thunder will hurt you regardless though.

nevertheless jellicent is still the only good defensive spinblocker available to OU (pain split sucks, don't run cofagrigus as a spinblocker, and don't EVER run dusclops) so already it's got a place. tends to also make a good genesect check - barring thunder, you can take anything genesect throws at you (you can take unboosted thunderbolts and recover them off), and moreover land the burn on that motherfucker, which is basically taking it out of the game. overall i would definitely say jelli is good shit right now; bulky sand in particular loves it
 
Sableye is an excellent Deo-D counter, but can be difficult to fit into teams. Prankster taunt lets you keep them from setting up anything more than the rocks or one layer spikes on the switch, but you have to switch into something else to KO. It also opens up the door for you to either burn Deoxys, something else, or make an accurate prediction as to what they'll bring in to avoid the WoW. 90% of the time this is Heatran. If you pair Sableye with something like Conk, this allows to bring in Conk on the Heatran switch and bulk up, allowing you to do some real damage.
 
Shammas said:
Sabeleye is an excellent Deo-D counter, but can be difficult to fit into teams. Prankster taunt lets you keep them from setting up anything more than the rocks or one layer spikes on the switch, but you have to switch into something else to KO. It also opens up the door for you to either burn Deoxys, something else, or make an accurate prediction as to what they'll bring in to avoid the WoW. 90% of the time this is Heatran. If you pair Sableye with something like Conk, this allows to bring in Conk on the Heatran switch and bulk up, allowing you to do some real damage.
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I sort of disagree with Sabeleye being a Deoxys counter given that most Sableye's get shut down by magic coat if they taunt or wow turn one. It's kind of a prediction matchup (similar to the one undergone by Deo-d vs Deo-d if they both have magic coat), and while I think Sabeleye is kind of in the advantageous position here I think just flat out 2HKOing and surrendering stealth rock which you can spin away later or just play through it. I think it's better to just take the safe route and go into damage control as opposed to risking letting it get more hazards for a chance to completely shut it down.
 
Huntofthelion said:
I think Jellicent's biggest issue is that it's typing overlaps with the two best spinners in the metagame, Starmie and Tentacruel, which makes it hard to fit into teams. It's also kinda iffy at spin blocking because it can't beat Tentacruel one on one very often and Starmie can do a fair amount of damage to it on the switch in. It's not a bad check to rain teams, especially since it handles Keldeo really well, and it's always going to be annoying to deal with because of it's stats / ghost-typing / water immunity / scald / recover / taunt, but it's not as good as it used to be both because it can't really fill the roles it needs to to be useful to a team and because defensive pokemon in general aren't super productive in this metagame. That said, I used Jellicent on one of my more recent teams and enjoyed having it around because it can at least block the rapid spin and switch out, it's great against Keldeo which my team had issues with, and I love having something that can safely switch into scald. Definitely give it a try but don't be surprised if it's underwhelming.
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Don't worry, I'm not going to use Starmie; I definitively disagree that Forretress is meh on sand teams. It is definitively a good choice over Starmie for two reasons; because it can also setup Stealth Rock by itself, and has Volt Switch to mantain momentum. A specially defensive is generally the best to use on sandstorm, as it doesn't fear Water-type attacks as much as it would otherwise.

Back to Jellicent, I am thinking of running her mainly because of her supporting options and typing (seriously, Jellicent has one of the most amazing typing on the metagame, combined with her Water Absorb ability; you have a pokémon that resists Fire, is immune to Water and Fighting, resists Bug and resists Ice! It actually brings a lot of defensive synergy to many teams that don't run too many Water-types)

It's a shame that Jellicent is mostly going to be defensive, because its fantastic typing would be amazing if Jellicent had the stats to go offensive.

Unfortunately I think that the 5th generation is mostly lacking versatile Ghost-types; most of them have problems that prevent them from being good on nearly all teams, which is a shame because Ghost is an amazing type to have. Jellicent is a defensive pokémon for the most part, Gengar is frail, and both can't really defeat Starmie, a common spinner. The worst thing that Game Freak made has taking out Rotom-A's Ghost typing, as Rotom-A was the most versatile Ghost-type that existed. It could go offensive or defensive. Rotom-W, for example, would be the most versatile and best spinblocker on BW OU, as it is already very versatile without its Ghost typing.
 
I know this isn't really related to the last few posts, but I just wanted to say that more people should give Froslass and Gothitelle a try.

For Froslass, I've actually been finding her to be almost on par with Deoxys-D in terms of Spiking (in my opinion at least, though Deoxys-D is certainly very good and it can use Stealth Rock too while being much bulkier). I hadn't used her very much in this generation because the generation started off with Deoxys-S unbanned (who totally outclassed her at the time), but I'm going to use her a lot more now.

The reason I'm finding it so good is that the 110 base Speed gives her a really fast Taunt as well as fast Spikes. Even Deoxys-D needs Magic Coat to stop it, though Froslass might be carrying a STAB Shadow Ball, which will hurt like hell, even off of 80 base Special Attack. I personally run a spread that has max Speed and Timid but has the rest dumped into Defense and HP to survive a Tyranitar Crunch.

Froslass can also play a lot of mind games with the opponent because of Destiny Bond. Because Froslass is so fast, she can Destiny Bond on slower attacks and take the opponent with it. This means you have to risk attacking her and getting killed, or risk not attacking her and letting her set up another layer of Spikes. Another thing with Destiny Bond is that if something like Scizor comes in and uses Bullet Punch while your Sash is up, you can predict that and use Destiny Bond before it does so. Because Destiny Bond lasts until you execute your next turn (ie. if you use Destiny Bond, then it lasts until you use another move or switch), Scizor will get killed if it tries to Bullet Punch you again the next turn, meaning that you can set up a layer of Spikes in the meantime. Of course, Froslass can also Taunt her opponent to force it into attacking mode for Destiny Bond.

Because of Froslass's Ghost-typing, she can also block spins by herself so she can't be rudely interrupted while she's setting up hazards (though it might be a good idea to carry a dedicated spinblocker too). She actually does pretty decently against the spinners too, especially Donphan and Starmie, who are both weak to her STABs. Tentacruel and Forretress can't do much against her either because she can just Taunt their hazards and they risk getting Destiny Bonded too.

Also, just for the record, Cursed Body has messed up many opponents who try attacking Froslass, getting me some nice extra layers of Spikes.

Just pair her up with a Stealth Rock user and she'll do a really good job.

--

As for Gothitelle, all I really have to say is that Tricking a Choice item with Shadow Tag is absolutely evil. I think it's actually more potent than Encore + Shadow Tag from Wobbuffet simply because it literally screws up the pokemon of your choice for the remainder of the match, instead of just the Encore. Plus, it makes for very easy setup. Just Trick a Specs or Scarf onto the opponent's wall and that pokemon basically become setup bait for the rest of the match.

I'm actually really surprised at how little I see Gothitelle, because he's really good and ridiculously easy to use.
 
alkinesthetase said:
definitely this is the #1 problem. jelli is good on sand and rain (sableye is better than jelli when in sun). starmie is generally the best sand spinner, particularly the bulky kinds (donphan and forry are both meh, they both get destroyed by rain), and there is absolutely no contest for tentacruel being the best spinner in the game in rain. but if you run either of them and jelli at the same time, you become electric weak (cough thundurus-T)

also tspikes suck so subtox cruels (and in general, cruels carrying toxic) are becoming more common. they beat jelli one on one, of course. starmie will only beat you if you're really predictable and send in the jellicent straight away on the tbolt. sometimes you gotta mess around and play mindgames. LO thunder will hurt you regardless though.

nevertheless jellicent is still the only good defensive spinblocker available to OU (pain split sucks, don't run cofagrigus as a spinblocker, and don't EVER run dusclops) so already it's got a place. tends to also make a good genesect check - barring thunder, you can take anything genesect throws at you (you can take unboosted thunderbolts and recover them off), and moreover land the burn on that motherfucker, which is basically taking it out of the game. overall i would definitely say jelli is good shit right now; bulky sand in particular loves it
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Jellicent beats tentacruel and starmie very reliably. Assuming 252/252

Jellicent vs Tentacruel: WOW, then spam shadow ball, even poisoned you should be able to 4-5hko and with recover and the fact that tentacruel can't do any direct damage you should survive long enough and even if you don't just revenge kill and they can't spin away hazards.

Starmie: Even if they predict a switch and Tbolt you're taking 43 from LO starmie and you can recover stall and if they don't you can shadow ball and recover. If starmie somehow kills you, it'll be low enough where you can revenge kill and still save hazards.

The whole goal of Jellicent is to spinblock, doing anything more is golden. As long as you can get the spinners to a low enough range to revenge kill you win.
 
I find Jellicent to be pretty anti-metagame right now, actually.
+ Speed Genesect with a boosted SpA can only 2HKO special wall Jellicent after SR. Terrakion can't do poop to Jelly if it is healthy.
Lols at Keldeo unless packing HP Ghost and Specs.
It's typing just happens to resist a lot of the popular sweepers these days save dragons and Breloom, both of which it can WOW on the switch, and lures out many a rain sweeper ala Thundurus-T. Pretty decent if you ask me.
 
I have to say that Scarf Jellicent is a very underrated set. With Ice Beam, Water Spout, Surf/Scald, Shadow Ball, it can come in and revenge many common threats like Latios (does 66% minimum with Shadow Ball) -- it won't outspeed it, but still. It also is able to spam a 150 BP STAB rain boosted move early game, which can be devastating for an offensive team that tries to wall standard Jellicent with less bulky mons like 252/0 Rotom-W (2HKO after rocks), Specs Keldeo (2HKO), or Dragonite (2HKO after rocks)

All calcs assume Jellicent has taken one round of SR damage, which weakens Water Spout a bit, and is running Modest -- which you absolutely need in order to OHKO Starmie and 2HKO non-Specially Defensive Rotom.

EDIT: Most Starmie usage comes in the rain. In the rain, LO Starmie runs Thunder, which ALWAYS 2HKOs Jellicent. Honestly, Jellicent is really not that useful as a spinblocker against rain when it is going to lose to SubToxic Tentacruel and Starmie. That's another reason Scarf Jellicent is great: you can come in on any non electric move and one shot an unsuspecting Starmie (OHKO w/Shadow Ball after rocks) that will generally stay in just try to finish you off with Thunder. (And yeah, you fail to outspeed it, so maybe I should just say offensive Jelly)
 
SD LUCARIO IS A BEAST.
He can take on (assuming +2 which is actually pretty easy. Switch into ferrothorn, Choiced Landorus or Chomp or Ttar using Stone Edge. Switch into Forretress. Switch it into a bug, rock, dark, ice, steel, grass move or toxic and proceed to scare out the Mon. On the switch you use SD :D) many threats such as tornadus and therian, thundurus therian, breloom , infernape, mamoswine, ttar, gengar, terrakion. All of these guys are pretty much OHKO by either ExtrememSPeed or Bullet Punch, or they can die from switching into CC.
Also Lucario sweeps late game. Meaning the opposing team should be worn. Landorus and Garchomp for example get OHKOd at like a 60-80% HP Range. Lucario also easily smashes walls not named Landorus-T and Gliscor and Jellicent and SLowbro.
Genesect also gives him hell (but switching into a +2 CC will end him forever >:P)
My point is, Lucario is actually still vvveeerrrryyy potent in the right hands with smart plays. My current team that I will RMT soon, speaks for itself.
 
I see the term "anti-metagame" thrown around quite often on a numerous amount of threads. I was just curious: what are the pokemon that are considered anti-metagame and would a full team of anti-metagame pokemon (if there are even 6) be viable?
 
I guess stuff like Zapdos, SpDef Rotom-W, Rock Polish Gene, Abomasnow, Scolipede, Gyarados, SubSalac Terrakion and Trick Room in general all qualify. I'd be really interested to see some other guys opinions though.

As for 6 anti-metagame pokemon on one, team, not really. A team could feasibly be put together such that each Pokemon took advantage of some minor metagame trends, but for full anti-metagaming, it's impossible without leaving gaping holes in your defensive coverage.
 
when i think of anti meta i think of something who's relatively low in recognition and usage (not quite non-OU, but we're talking not top 20) but has the tools to counter a broad selection of metagame threats, or combinations thereof, that ARE up there in the top usage. for example i totally agree with bubbly's suggestion of zapdos as an "anti-meta" mon. it totally captures the feel for me of what that term means.

oh and since we closed the dark horse project for the month, i was wandering around looking at what people did this month, and i was reminded of this, which is probably about as "anti meta team" as you can get
 
Kyurem-B is now unbanned.

I'm just glad SpDef Jirachi can take it on at this point so my backup team doesn't get mauled by it (I do have Scarf Garchomp on it, but the only Dragon move it has is Outrage so...)
 
This is ballabrown24's set from the suspect testing thread.

favorite kyurem-b moveset:

Kyurem-Black @ Leftovers
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 56 Spd / 252 HP / 120 SDef / 80 Def
Careful Nature
- Substitute
- Dragon Tail
- Hone Claws / Earth Power / Ice Beam
- Roost

this thing is a replica of the set i used with kyurem when it was uu way back when. it is a boss cause it destroys rain and makes rain wish it was never born. seriously you can set up on a good majority of rain -- you can even set up on tornadus-t by bluffing a choice scarf set. if the rain team doesnt have ferrothorn then you utterly destroy them. if it does then thats not a real problem cause you can just switch out to your counter while they attempt to break your sub with gyro ball -- giving you free reign to DESTROY. if you pair this guy up with wobbuffet then you destroy rain even better, because you know that your opponent will attempt to perish song kyurem-b and you can just switch to wobbuffet and win the weather war. give it entry hazard support and you gonna win. plus this thing is bulky as f so even if you arent facing rain (which you probably will be) its still useful!! earth power if you wanna wreck jirachi but i like hone claws since it makes you super powerful zzzzzzzz

edit: oh yeah the ev spread sucks but whatever i just wanted to make it bulky as possible while also outspeeding tentacruel in order to set up da sub
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This set is amazing. You can set up on so much stuff, and no one ever expects it. Once you get to +1 you can rack up some major damage with hazard support. I would suggest pairing it with a rapid spinner so you can set up on Forretress and other hazard stackers and not be screwed by the three layers of spikes and stealth rock they set up.
 
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