Once again, It's not about whether or not Tyranitar is unbeatable, it's the support it provides that's the problem. This is something that you can't (or refuse) to understand.
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np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 11 - Genie in a Bottle [Landorus is now Uber]
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Once again, It's not about whether or not Tyranitar is unbeatable, it's the support it provides that's the problem. This is something that you can't (or refuse) to understand.
Hopefully there won't be one. Even though Smogon was down PS was not so you shouldn't have had any problems time wise when it came to getting the reqs.
lol being able to check a small handful of pokemon by pursuit trapping them is a problem? This handful of pokemon happens to include the only reliable checks to things like Landorus and Keldeo, but since Tyranitar can trap this specific group of pokemon, it is the problematic one, not the pokemon who are broken because their extremely limited number of reliable checks are beaten by it? Terrible, abysmal line of reasoning.
Speak for yourself. The pokemon that it traps just so happen to be the best defensive walls in OU, that "handful" is fucking important. If anything, Celebi and Latias are holding OU together. That's not even mentioning how Ttar provides numerous other kinds of support in sand, rocks, ect. The support it provides is astronomical, taking on the supportive capabilites of two-three pokemon in one; that alone is suspect worthy imo. I don't give a shit if you agree with me or not, your opinion is irrelevant. But if you're gonna call me out, have your facts together.
Landorus and Keldeo are the only reason this has even been brought up. Latias, Latios, and Celebi have always been able to be trapped by Tyranitar. It's only a problem because Landorus and Keldeo are so broken because they have so few checks. If Tyranitar's ability to trap the pokemon I mentioned was such a detriment to the metagame (the idea is really hilarious, honestly), then its effect would have been apparent way before now. If you're using Latias and you know that it's going to be a relatively important part of winning the match, you're going to take into consideration that your opponent has Tyranitar and do what you can to work around it. Landorus and Keldeo prevent you from being able to work around it, however, because they both annhilate the rest of the metagame and you're more than likely to flat out lose without heavily relying on those pokemon who are easily pursuit trapped by Tyranitar, Scizor, and Weavile.
Of course, but there's only so much you can do against Tyranitar. At least with Scizor and Weavile, you can predict a switch and OHKO with HP Fire after rocks. Latias can't do shit to Tyranitar. Weavile and Sczior are no way better just b/c it's easy to nail them with proper prediction. Tyranitar support is brainless and requires near-perfect guesswork to keep Latias alive to beat what it checks, that's the issue. Not to mention that Ttar has more power, bulk, and provides even MORE support, as if that was even enough.
You do have a point in the fact that Latias and Celebi are holding OU together. Now ask yourself, why is that? You'll find that the answer is because Keldeo and Landorus exist. If you're reasoning on support, then you're losing the massive power of the CB set. CM Latias can beat the Specially Defensive set, whether it be by spamming Calm Mind and recover while TTar pursuits endlessly, switching out on Stealth Rocks, or taking a chunk (but no deadly) of damage from Pursuit on the switch. And Celebi gets a magical thing called Baton Pass! And saying it can take on the supportive capabilities of 2-3 Pokemon in one is a pretty bad argument, since the same can be said for Forretress (Hazards + Rapid Spin), Celebi (Rocks, Perish Song, Thunder Wave), Ninetales (Drought + WoW), and many many others. And as for irrelevancy, what you keep bringing up is rather irrelevant as well, since this thread is supposed to discuss Landorus and whether or not it is broken, not whether or not Tyranitar deserves a suspect test.
I'm not gonna argue on tangents any longer, but I don't think you understood what I meant, so I'll clarify. WoW, Perish Song, and Thunder Wave, aren't individual roles, lol. Tyranitar takes on the role of pursuit trapper, special tank, hazard setter, and weather starter. All in one set, that's pretty huge. My whole beef with Ttar is that it's what pushes Keldeo and Landorus. I got called out for that, now I'm explaining my reasoning for that. I'm still gonna vote to ban those two, but I would have preferred if Tyranitar was the suspect instead. Also, CM Latias does not beat specially defense Ttar lol, it runs Crunch and Stone Edge still does a hefty chunk.
Personally, I think that Landorus-I is fine in OU, many things can revenge kill it, but I know the majority isn't with me there. Anyways, I just wanted to point out that I used the exact same team on Suspect and Current ladders, and saw barely any difference, besides the increased usage of sun teams on the suspect ladder.
I've got the second reqs, and, because I'm not sure to what I'm going to vote, I play in OUcurrent and I try to see why Lando-I is broken.
And I don't see why because I don't see Landorus (3 for 100 battles). And I was thinking to myself "Landorus don't overcentralize the metagame like Torna-T and Genesect when they were banned". Don't see him as I can see Breloom or Keldeo today.
We fear against u-turn Sheer Force Landorus but Lando had U-turn 41% of the time (from OU stats of May) and this stats don't except Sand Force Landorus who is play ~35% of the time.
I don't see good reason to ban Landorus. Nothing will be change without him (We need Celebi to counter Keldeo and Breloom). In OUcurrent I see more sun team than in OUsuspect.
And I don't see why because I don't see Landorus (3 for 100 battles). And I was thinking to myself "Landorus don't overcentralize the metagame like Torna-T and Genesect when they were banned". Don't see him as I can see Breloom or Keldeo today.
We fear against u-turn Sheer Force Landorus but Lando had U-turn 41% of the time (from OU stats of May) and this stats don't except Sand Force Landorus who is play ~35% of the time.
I don't see good reason to ban Landorus. Nothing will be change without him (We need Celebi to counter Keldeo and Breloom). In OUcurrent I see more sun team than in OUsuspect.
Actually, while playing on the ladder, Ttar was much more threatening to me than either Keldeo or Landorus: Cresselia helps me wall both but Ttar makes the core broken.
So actually, I would rather ban Ttar than Lando or Keldeo: individually they are not broken, but Ttar makes the core broken.
Without Ttar, the core doesn't do as well: although Weavile is also a good pursuit trapper, it has nowhere near the bulk of Ttar.
So actually, I would rather ban Ttar than Lando or Keldeo: individually they are not broken, but Ttar makes the core broken.
Without Ttar, the core doesn't do as well: although Weavile is also a good pursuit trapper, it has nowhere near the bulk of Ttar.
Usage is in no way indicative of something being broken. Just because the arguably broken set is not the most popular set on the ladder (and, really. You cite anything besides the 1850 stats (and even those are littered with bad players) to make a point?) and it doesn't centralize the metagame (which it kind of does... You have to run at least a couple hard checks as they are almost all liable to pursuit trapping/dying from u-turn. Not to mention how stacking up on lando checks leaved your team very liable to being picked off by pursuit) so it would be very difficult to find a /good/ non HO team that doesn't run 2 or 3 of rotom-w/celebi/latias/gyarados/etc.
Well I've made it and honestly don't know what to vote. I'm glad that I'm not the only one noticing a surge in sun teams in OU. Well.....actually I really don't know what to say, so here it goes: It's fast even without RP, it has a a great ability and good moves, and the mons who are immune to EP don't enjoy either Focus Miss or HP Ice.
But then I'm thinking constantly about comparisons, and I'm reminded by Genesect. Like Gensect, it has the attacking stats and the OP ability to make it work and Landrous even gets away with LO. But Genesect cannot be shot down with priorities most of the time, whereas Landrous can be taken down with any boosted priority and one or two SR switch ins. It's then I'm forced to compare it with another Glass Cannon, Alakzam. Alakazam is fast, has magnificent SpA, has a guaranteed focus sash and can even run LO unpunished, but Zam has even worse bulk and Sheer Force + LO has higher output (Psychic also sucks as a main weapon).
So then I wanted to reach a conclusion, how exactly do you counter Zam? Scarfers, Priorities, Special Walls. How do you counter Landrous? The same. Landrus is annoying but I think if we tested Keledo first (and we should have) Landrous's odds of being OU would have been improved significantly and we would have looked at him individually rather than being some part of uber core.
But hey, if your gonna ban Keledo and rob rain from it's star, then I guess it will only be fair to do the same to sand. Where does leave OU? Well if the OU Current ladder is any indication, prepare to meet Sun overload because you'd be crazy not to take advantage of Cloro + Drought.
Voting ban, unconvincingly.
But then I'm thinking constantly about comparisons, and I'm reminded by Genesect. Like Gensect, it has the attacking stats and the OP ability to make it work and Landrous even gets away with LO. But Genesect cannot be shot down with priorities most of the time, whereas Landrous can be taken down with any boosted priority and one or two SR switch ins. It's then I'm forced to compare it with another Glass Cannon, Alakzam. Alakazam is fast, has magnificent SpA, has a guaranteed focus sash and can even run LO unpunished, but Zam has even worse bulk and Sheer Force + LO has higher output (Psychic also sucks as a main weapon).
So then I wanted to reach a conclusion, how exactly do you counter Zam? Scarfers, Priorities, Special Walls. How do you counter Landrous? The same. Landrus is annoying but I think if we tested Keledo first (and we should have) Landrous's odds of being OU would have been improved significantly and we would have looked at him individually rather than being some part of uber core.
But hey, if your gonna ban Keledo and rob rain from it's star, then I guess it will only be fair to do the same to sand. Where does leave OU? Well if the OU Current ladder is any indication, prepare to meet Sun overload because you'd be crazy not to take advantage of Cloro + Drought.
Voting ban, unconvincingly.
Holy moly why are you subscribing to this logic? Your assumption that Keldeo will ultimatley be voted Uber should NOT influence your decision on Landorus. Vote on landorus As You View it in the Current Metagame. If Keldeo is banned and Landorus becomes a blatant problem then it will be revisited. The fact that i have to explain this to a qualified voter is absolutely mindboggling.
It doesn't shock me someone has piss reasoning for their voting decision, it shocks me that they're piss reasoning is literally a form of pokemon petty revenge. Since we aren't doing paragraphs for this vote, I'd still like to ask qualified voters to just post their reasoning and decision if anyone would be brave enough to volunteer. I'll post mine later. If anyone takes me up on this, we can maybe put it in a smog article about Landorus in the future or chronicle it in a metagame history thread or something. If anyone does post, please be respectful to their opinions and don't call them a moron, I'd like people to actually feel comfortable giving THEIR reasoning. If someone posts something as absurd as what x5dragon posted though, well I'll say something.
I don't feel strongly about voting either way, but I'm leaning towards ban. A large reason is, as others have gone over, that constrictive influence Landorus has on team building. Making any kind of stall team that can deal with a smartly played Landorus is a monumental task. To a lesser degree, Landorus sweeping or wallbreaking often comes down to nothing more than luck on whether he can hit Focus Blast or not. This deprives the metagame of skill, often making the entire game a coin flip. One in which Landorus is still not heavily compromised if he loses —the other party is obviously blown up if he wins.
When laddering I didn't have issues with Landorus, but that was because a) I didn't see many, and b) the ones I saw weren't used as well as they could have been. Additionally I wasn't using a stall team.
When laddering I didn't have issues with Landorus, but that was because a) I didn't see many, and b) the ones I saw weren't used as well as they could have been. Additionally I wasn't using a stall team.
Thinking back now... probably the main reason I didn't have to much of a problem with Landorus on stall was because I loaded up my team with Blissey, Amoonguss, and Zapdos. Once in a while though a good player with the cookie cutter Landorus team can find their way around, mainly putting pressure on Zapdos with rocks up.
I don't want to be misleading and make it seem that Zapdos and friends are a reaction to Landorus, I have had that team format for almost a year now. Zapdos is quite the underrated Pokemon IMO.
My opinion on Landorus hasn't changed in the past 2 weeks, I am voting ban for mainly 2 reasons:
1. to cripple the easily exploited team style which it creates, which from what I have seen on the suspect ladder is and in return makes a little bit more balanced metagame
2. the team style its self may be 'broken,' something which even some anti-ban people in this thread have sort of agreed to, and if something is broken, something needs to be done about it
I may expand my thoughts on the matter a bit more later, I just wanted to get my primary reasons out there, to be discussed.
I also would like a lot more offensive threats to be banned, but I have tried my best to keep that from clouding my opinion on Landorus itself.
I don't want to be misleading and make it seem that Zapdos and friends are a reaction to Landorus, I have had that team format for almost a year now. Zapdos is quite the underrated Pokemon IMO.
My opinion on Landorus hasn't changed in the past 2 weeks, I am voting ban for mainly 2 reasons:
1. to cripple the easily exploited team style which it creates, which from what I have seen on the suspect ladder is and in return makes a little bit more balanced metagame
2. the team style its self may be 'broken,' something which even some anti-ban people in this thread have sort of agreed to, and if something is broken, something needs to be done about it
I may expand my thoughts on the matter a bit more later, I just wanted to get my primary reasons out there, to be discussed.
I also would like a lot more offensive threats to be banned, but I have tried my best to keep that from clouding my opinion on Landorus itself.
I made reqs about a week ago, and when the test first started, I was definitely in favor of banning Landorus-I. Like many others in this thread, I thought its ability to u-turn into Tyranitar as soon as Celebi or a Lati switched in completely broke Landorus, and I was sick of seeing the same basic core in nearly every match I played.
However, after testing Landorus for myself, I’ve started to change my mind. While u-turn is certainly useful for getting rid of Celebi and dealing with stall, I think the life orb damage really hampers its usefulness in the long run. While it is true that u-turning always allows you to keep momentum, I believe you also have to consider that you are taking 10 percent in life orb damage plus damage from stealth rock whenever you switch it back in. Furthermore, when you consider that Landorus-I is already pretty hard to switch in with all the scalds, ice beams, and strong neutral attacks being thrown around, I found that when I actually got Landorus into play, I usually didn’t want to risk taking it out again unless I was absolutely certain Celebi or a Lati was going to switch in. While I guess you could run expert belt or something instead of life orb, I feel like you would miss out on a number of important kills (I don’t have calcs or anything to back that up though).
Additionally, while I do agree that rock polish is deadly, I personally found it hard to set up, and I think that Terrakion and Keldeo are both better late game sweepers right now.
In regards to the stall argument, I definitely agree that Landorus can give stall teams a lot of trouble, but I don't think that banning Landorus is going to make stall much more viable than it is now. Keldeo with Tyranitar support and Kyurem-B with substitute can both be just as effective as Landorus-I against stall teams, and I don't feel that any one pokemon is single handedly destroying stall's viability at the moment. In fact, some of the best teams I saw on the current ladder were stall teams.
Granted, I might have been using Landorus incorrectly, and someone could definitely change my mind in the next few days. However, based on my experience, Landorus-I is not overpowered, and I plan to vote no ban.
However, after testing Landorus for myself, I’ve started to change my mind. While u-turn is certainly useful for getting rid of Celebi and dealing with stall, I think the life orb damage really hampers its usefulness in the long run. While it is true that u-turning always allows you to keep momentum, I believe you also have to consider that you are taking 10 percent in life orb damage plus damage from stealth rock whenever you switch it back in. Furthermore, when you consider that Landorus-I is already pretty hard to switch in with all the scalds, ice beams, and strong neutral attacks being thrown around, I found that when I actually got Landorus into play, I usually didn’t want to risk taking it out again unless I was absolutely certain Celebi or a Lati was going to switch in. While I guess you could run expert belt or something instead of life orb, I feel like you would miss out on a number of important kills (I don’t have calcs or anything to back that up though).
Additionally, while I do agree that rock polish is deadly, I personally found it hard to set up, and I think that Terrakion and Keldeo are both better late game sweepers right now.
In regards to the stall argument, I definitely agree that Landorus can give stall teams a lot of trouble, but I don't think that banning Landorus is going to make stall much more viable than it is now. Keldeo with Tyranitar support and Kyurem-B with substitute can both be just as effective as Landorus-I against stall teams, and I don't feel that any one pokemon is single handedly destroying stall's viability at the moment. In fact, some of the best teams I saw on the current ladder were stall teams.
Granted, I might have been using Landorus incorrectly, and someone could definitely change my mind in the next few days. However, based on my experience, Landorus-I is not overpowered, and I plan to vote no ban.
keldeo with tyranitar support isn't even that bad for stall if you think about it [kyurem b is another issue but even he can be played around sorta], the average [somewhat well built] bw2 stall team has at least 2 pokemon that can handle keldeo/resist water, most of them are running a combo of jellicent/celebi/latias/starmie/slowbro/amoongus along with spikes. between multiple keldeo counters, and having hazards up, it isn't all that easy for tyranitar to kill multiple keldeo counters, especially because he has to predict when to send the tar in; if he double switches to tar and it's predicted, then that's hazard damage on tar, and he can't usually directly send it in on a jellicent because of WoW, or a Celebi because of U-Turn, getting TTar in isn't all that easy when it's just Keldeo, and you have to do that TWICE most of the time, also there's the Crunch/Pursuit game with Jellicent. even if he guesses once and tar ties, keldeo can't break stall if there's still one counter to it around. landorus on the other hand blows everything the fuck out of proportion because it's not as hard a guess, sure it takes 20~% from LO Uturn and SR if it makes the wrong guess, but as it's been said in earlier posts, the landorus user still has a giant advantage, sure you can try and outpredict landorus and leave skarmory in on a predicted U-Turn to prevent Latias from getting trapped but if you stay in, Skarmory gets fucked and now can't wall what it needs to, Landorus is so powerful that you're risking a mon in almost every instance it switches in, and makes the core with keldeo and cb tar a lot more formidable, keldeo and tar don't function as well as they do without landorus, and the keldtar player will have to outplay the stall player significantly in most instances, if they actually hope to sweep a stall team with keldeo via pursuit support. landorus is in fact overpowered and its ban will really help stall, sure it's viable right now but keld tar landorus in the hands of a good player will wreck it 9 times out of 10, keldeo/tar is a hell of a lot more manageable than you think. i hope this changed your mind like you said.
edit: maybe i downplayed the 22% lo+uturn mispredict that landorus takes, but it gets multiple times to make the u-turn prediction and the prediction itself puts a ton of unecessary pressure on the stall player because of landorus's sheer power where the wrong predict for the stall guy usually means something dies or gets hit really hard, if landorus is able to kill one keldeo counter, with uturn and ttar can kill the other, than yeah keldeo can wreck stall after that, but it's a lot harder for keldeo and ttar alone, landorus makes the core extremely good [and broken] while keldeo/ttar is just good. also just because stall might be already fucked already because of other pokemon doesn't really mean we shouldn't ban landorus to help the playstyle out
The reason I am planning to vote Ban on Landorus-I is that it's just so threatening to Stall and Balance teams. I'm talking about the U-turn set here, which imo is the best set Landorus-I can run. It's just so good at luring out it's few checks and easily taking them out with a U-turn, which gains loads of momentum for the Landorus-I user, as well as a weakened Landorus-I check (which will more than likely be eliminated from the rest of the game, but I don't want to bring team-mates into this) for the other players. No matter what happens, the Landorus-I user will always be in a good spot while having Landorus-I out on the field.
Now obviously Landorus-I is much easier to check with an offensive team. This includes Pokemon such as Scizor, Mamoswine, Lati@s, Weavile, etc. But these offensive teams are either...
a) going to be swept by the Rock Polish set once priority users have been eliminated
b) have to sacrifice a Pokemon every time Landorus-I switches in
Overall this Pokemon is just insanely powerful, with very few good checks, which I believe is unhealthy for this metagame.
Now obviously Landorus-I is much easier to check with an offensive team. This includes Pokemon such as Scizor, Mamoswine, Lati@s, Weavile, etc. But these offensive teams are either...
a) going to be swept by the Rock Polish set once priority users have been eliminated
b) have to sacrifice a Pokemon every time Landorus-I switches in
Overall this Pokemon is just insanely powerful, with very few good checks, which I believe is unhealthy for this metagame.
What I want to vote for if/when I qualify in suspect tests usually become pretty clear for me early on; however, Landorus-I is a hard nut to crack. We all know he is one of the best offensive Pokemon in the OU tier. I understand why some will argue he`s the best. He is able to both sweep and break teams on his own and also comes with handy resistances/immunities. Being one of the strongest offensive checks to a few common playstyles is also a huge benefit. I would consider it to be a nightmare if I had to be a Celebi on the BW OU Showdown ladder. Sure, you can make a defensive core that can stop almost all variants of Landorus-I, but these are rare. You also have five other mons to worry about.
I do buy the arguments about him being more or less impossible to counter before you know the set. Then again, the same can be said about a lot of offensive threats in the BW OU metagame. Keldeo is probably much more centralizing than Landrous-I and Kyurem-B is, despite the low usage, way too good against already challenged styles of play. Such as stall, mentioned several times by BKC. I`m not sure if I`m comfortable with banning a threat that I don`t even find to be the king of OU. Still, that doesn`t mean that a metagame without Landorus can`t be more balanced. Regarding balance, there`s also this controversy about weather: Does Sun really need an easier time and does offensive sand/weatherless really need this nerf?
I`m not even sure if I`m attacking this at the right angle, as I play most of my BW OU in tournaments and suspect tests. Traditionally I have tried to stick to the "standard" metagame (OU), but BW OU just don`t feel right compared to other gens and most other tiers in this gen. Maybe I`m just old and bitter and should start learning to accept that BW OU is different already. I dunno.
I want to read a bit more in this thread before I decide where my vote goes. I don`t want to vote abstain, but I might be forced to.
I do buy the arguments about him being more or less impossible to counter before you know the set. Then again, the same can be said about a lot of offensive threats in the BW OU metagame. Keldeo is probably much more centralizing than Landrous-I and Kyurem-B is, despite the low usage, way too good against already challenged styles of play. Such as stall, mentioned several times by BKC. I`m not sure if I`m comfortable with banning a threat that I don`t even find to be the king of OU. Still, that doesn`t mean that a metagame without Landorus can`t be more balanced. Regarding balance, there`s also this controversy about weather: Does Sun really need an easier time and does offensive sand/weatherless really need this nerf?
I`m not even sure if I`m attacking this at the right angle, as I play most of my BW OU in tournaments and suspect tests. Traditionally I have tried to stick to the "standard" metagame (OU), but BW OU just don`t feel right compared to other gens and most other tiers in this gen. Maybe I`m just old and bitter and should start learning to accept that BW OU is different already. I dunno.
I want to read a bit more in this thread before I decide where my vote goes. I don`t want to vote abstain, but I might be forced to.
While I agree with your post in some aspects, I don't think we should be bringing up how other Pokemon are "better" or "more centralizing", since this suspect test is for Landorus-I only. You shouldn't be keeping Landorus-I in OU just because Keldeo is more powerful (I'm not saying I agree that Keldeo is more powerful, it's just an example), you should be asking yourself "is Landorus-I broken in the current metagame?". If the answer is yes, then you vote ban. If the OU council believe that Kyurem-B and Keldeo are over-centralising, then they will be suspect tested too (Keldeo I believe is having a suspect test after this vote, so just be patient).
Yes, I agree. The point I`m trying to make is that I find BW OU broken in general. The powercreep is insane, but I can`t go into every suspect vote thinking "let`s just ban this thing. Then we have one less threat to care about". I wouldn`t hesitate a second to vote ban if I didn`t know that some of the unhealthy stuff would actually become even better without it.
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