Kyurem-B Discussion: Is it Broken?

[yee]

Looks like we're all converging towards Kyu being a bit of a Deo-D in BW1.

Granted I definitely think it's not as unhealthy as Deo-D was when it was literally a guessing game, but the point is in simple terms not many people care about it yet like not many people cared about Deo-D during Deo-S / Exca meta and that short period after where Deo-D just chilled not being discovered yet. Everyone who you could ask at the time when we didn't really identify Deo-D as a lead threat would've eventually said something like "it can probably be a bit nuts if the other team doesn't happen to have a spinner or Tyranitar", but obviously those and other things made it hard to discover an Uber until it was thrown over Deo-S for shits and giggles.

Most people I know who hate BW2 have an almost automatic intuition that something like this is a sign the meta isn't balanced, in the same way Deo-D wasn't really looked upon back then with a common response of "I'm glad that thing is lurking in lower usage and can randomly dominate a game" by these guys. While we're at it people called for a Deo-S suspect when it was in the 40s in OU usage or something just because it looked really really unlikely to be healthy once the metagame got to a more symmetrical state.

Obviously it's completely unfair to name a suspect unless it is visibly a huge part of the metagame and seemingly making it worse. Kyurem-B doesn't complete those conditions yet. If you're like me and seeing that this is an unmistakable sign that the value of play in the metagame is reduced, all there is to do is ban the other broken thing (well you think it's broken if you think Kyu-B is) in Keldeo and wait for that to give rise to something that will now fill the criteria by being both unhealthy and common. Only Kyu-B and Rain / Sun are obviously capable of this but time will tell if Chomp / Rak / Loom / Scizor post-Keld will keep Kyu alive but uncommon and unhealthy.

 

[Goddess Briyella]

What I find hilarious is that an opposing Kyurem-Black can certainly get a kill, but YOU get to choose what dies before you deal with it. And from that perspective, I find it almost no different from saccing something late game to be able to get another mon in safely to do its job. It can be annoying that Kyurem-Black does have the ability to steamroll over a ton of things, but it's far from unstoppable, and in many cases, all Kyurem-Black ends up doing for a team is guaranteeing the death of one opposing Pokemon, and also its own death; but the opponent gets to choose which one goes down. I really think this is a ridiculous thing to complain about, but I suppose everyone is entitled to their own perspective. Even if Kyurem-B wasn't in OU, you should be running at least one Steel and/or Fighting type anyway.

 

[Curtains]

TBH you can build up alot of pokemon to be this overwhelming force that you can't switch into because it can use XYZ moves and it's user always has computer like prediction skills. It is getting pretty old. Like Alderon said I think we just have to as a community learn how to adapt... Unlike other games any bans or unbans probably wont make you a better player or make it easier for you....After thinking about it Kyruem-b really doesn't introduce strategies that make team building impossible..Genesect made team building impossible. It had 4-5 solid sets it could run and an ability that was just overwhelming.. With genesect the only counter was literally heatran or some obscure fire type. I think if we use genesect as the psychological basis for future suspects we (you) can shape a better metagame quicker. There is just so much shit that goes into a regular battle that all this midgame theorymon just won't work as practical arguments for a pokemon getting banned.

 

[Haruno]

I think that the anti-ban side really needs to consider that Kyurem-W, a pokemon that shares many flaws with Kyurem-B, is banned. So I must ask one question: What makes Kyurem-W broken that prevents Kyurem-B from being broken?

Kyube lacks a proper physical movepool, and it has above average special attack. The same problem does not apply to Kyurem White. Kyurem white might share a physical movepool with kyube but who the hell cares about physical when it has such excellent coverage? In terms of coverage as opposed to outrage/hp fire/ice beam/fusion bolt that kyube has to run kyu-w has far better coverage in the form of dpulse/fusion flare/ice beam/focus blast and it's coming from a monstrous 170 special attacking. It doesn't have to run mixed to butcher the metagame. The only flaw I see against kyu-w is that unlike kyu-w it's even more frail on the physical side where things like scizor's banded bp can straight up ohko after rocks among other fighting/steel moves.

edit: on topic, I don't see what's so broken about kyube in particular since although at face value it will break through everything it gets revenged............ really easily I might add. 95 base speed is nothing special in ou, hell if you wanted to go pure wallbreaking terra arguably does a better job since it needs similar prediction to pull off and still 2hko's if not straight up ohko's the majority of the tier with its excellent stabs. Not to mention it has a much more appealing speed.

 

[blizzardmaster]

I really don't think Kyurem-b is broken. It does have extremely high physical attack, but it lacks the movepool to use it. Yes, CB Kyurem-b can be used to spam outrage, which can 1 or 2 hit ko a lot in the metagame, but because of it's lack of speed, can easily be revenge killed by CB Scizor or any STABed fighting move. Although, if my memory serves right, Kyurem-b was introduced to OU as a test, and I don't remember an official determination about that test. I'm really not sure what protocol is, but I think the test does need to be completed, and that might even mean a suspect test. I think it will survive it, but I still think it a suspect should be voted on much like what we did for u-turn/volt switch

Pocket EDIT: Kyurem-B was voted OU with supermajority support (72%)

 

[Gary]

I really don't think Kyurem-b is broken. It does have extremely high physical attack, but it lacks the movepool to use it. Yes, CB Kyurem-b can be used to spam outrage, which can 1 or 2 hit ko a lot in the metagame, but because of it's lack of speed, can easily be revenge killed by CB Scizor or any STABed fighting move. Although, if my memory serves right, Kyurem-b was introduced to OU as a test, and I don't remember an official determination about that test. I'm really not sure what protocol is, but I think the test does need to be completed, and that might even mean a suspect test. I think it will survive it, but I still think it a suspect should be voted on much like what we did for u-turn/volt switch

Kyurem-B wasn't unbanned to OU to test it out. It was given a fair suspect test, and the community voted on dropping it. It's officially OU. I'm a bit confused on what you're trying to say.

 

[Goddess Briyella]

^ Are you implying that in a team being forced to sac something doesn't put you in disadvantage? Will you sac your weather inducer, your spinner or one of your sweepers? I'm pretty sure they're all important.

Or are you suggesting that Kyurem-B *must* go down itself after it killed something? Yo do realize that it doesn't have to lock itself into Outrage to kill stuff right?
The ability to force the opponent to sac something no matter what is terrifying and nothing else really comes close to it in OU... Terrakion and other powerful sweepers are actually much easier to get around than Kyurem.

Being forced to sacrifice something is always disadvantageous but you do get to pick what dies. I acknowledge that it doesn't require Outrage to kill things, but I'm pretty sure the general consensus here is that Kyurem-Black's Outrage is the main "overpowering" factor that guarantees a kill. You can literally punk Kyurem-B just by having a Choice Band Scizor on your team. And you don't have to go out of your way for this solution, because Scizor is #1 in usage as it is, and is an excellent OU poke in its own right, serving as a strong U-turn pivot and also checking many OU contenders such as Celebi and Latios. By simply having it on your team, you are basically daring Kyurem-B to go for Outrage. Because if it kills something with Outrage, it dies next turn. Bring in Scizor and go for the Bullet Punch while it's locked into Outrage and can't switch to safety.

Choice Band Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 56 HP / 0- Def Kyurem-B: 360-426 (88.88 - 105.18%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

Quick fix. By carrying this, you control the entire scope of what happens with a Kyurem-B encounter. If they go for Outrage, THEY lose their Kyurem-B, and YOU lose anything you choose, whatever you deem to be the least valuable at that point. If they are afraid to go for Outrage because they don't want this to happen, their offense is rather limited and suddenly Kyurem-Black isn't scary anymore.

 

[Meru]

I find it funny that people say that nobody sees teams "explicitly" preparing for Kyurem-B. In a vein similar to Deoxys-D, you can't get anywhere near a good counter to Kyurem-B without making a shithole of a team. You'll see Steel-types and think "Oh they're not exactly planning for Kyurem-B" but did you ever stop to realize that maybe that's not possible?

You can run SpDef Jirachi to counter Lati@s and hope you face any Kyurem-B but Choice Band.
You can run PDef Skarm to counter SDchomp and hope you face any Kyurem-B without Fusion Bolt.
You can run Heatran to counter Lati@s, and hope you face any Kyurem-B without Earth Power.
You can run Ferrothorn to counter Lati@s, and hope you face any Kyurem-B without Substitute.
You can run Forretresss but using Forretress as a reliable counter to anything is so bad. Forretress is used for utility first.

My problem isn't Kyurem-B so much as his versatility that makes it able to bypass any usual Dragon-type counter. And when he's used as a wall-breaker alongside the faster Dragon-Types that my pokes are chosen specifically to hold back, I'm checkmated.

None of this post even touches on any of Kyurem-B's other sky-high stats besides his 170 Attack and 120 SpA. There's another 410 BST that aren't even being put to use in dismantling my team. And as much as offense players say that bulk doesn't come into play due to "exploitable weaknesses", I feel like it does.

 

[Gary]

I find it funny that people say that nobody sees teams "explicitly" preparing for Kyurem-B. In a vein similar to Deoxys-D, you can't get anywhere near a good counter to Kyurem-B without making a shithole of a team. You'll see Steel-types and think "Oh they're not exactly planning for Kyurem-B" but did you ever stop to realize that maybe that's not possible?

You can run SpDef Jirachi to counter Lati@s and hope you face any Kyurem-B but Choice Band.
You can run PDef Skarm to counter SDchomp and hope you face any Kyurem-B without Fusion Bolt.
You can run Heatran to counter Lati@s, and hope you face any Kyurem-B without Earth Power.
You can run Ferrothorn to counter Lati@s, and hope you face any Kyurem-B without Substitute.
You can run Forretresss but using Forretress as a reliable counter to anything is so bad. Forretress is used for utility first.

My problem isn't Kyurem-B so much as his versatility that makes it able to bypass any usual Dragon-type counter. And when he's used as a wall-breaker alongside the faster Dragon-Types that my pokes are chosen specifically to hold back, I'm checkmated.

None of this post even touches on any of Kyurem-B's other sky-high stats besides his 170 Attack and 120 SpA. There's another 410 BST that aren't even being put to use in dismantling my team. And as much as offense players say that bulk doesn't come into play due to "exploitable weaknesses", I feel like it does.

I'm about to quote this and put it on the OP. This is what I've been trying to get across in my OP, and I don't think you could have explained it any better. Thank you for this.

 

[blizzardmaster]

Kyurem-B wasn't unbanned to OU to test it out. It was given a fair suspect test, and the community voted on dropping it. It's officially OU. I'm a bit confused on what you're trying to say.

Ok, maybe I did get my history wrong. It did come down to OU quite a while ago. Thanks for the insight.

 

[tehy]

Meru hit the nail on the head here, and so have many of the posts talking about Deoxys-Defense;Kyurem-B has amazing potential to just wreck stuff, and at worst is most likely getting a kill, and if people used it as much as it really deserves, it would probably be suspected.

One thing i keep seeing as a counter-argument is that you can just force it to Outrage, sacrifice whatever you don't care about, and revenge-kill it. This argument has several flaws, however.

For starters, what if you need all of your Pokemon at the moment, and losing any would be a problem for you? Against a team where you already have a disadvantage, or where all/most of the Pokemon are problematic for you, you can't just say "Oh, this old Pokemon? Pfft.", and sacrifice it without a second thought. True, all this does is exacerbate an already existing disadvantage, but the fact remains that you can't always just sacrifice something, revenge, and move on with your life. Also, if you haven't determined all of your opponent's sets, you might sacrifice the wrong thing and then pay for it later.

Also, if this (This being Sac+Revenge) is the prevalent attitude among players, and I use Kyurem-B a lot, I'm going to notice. As such, I can just predict your sacrifice and kill it with something else, then Outrage later and get a total of two kills, which sounds pretty good to me. Also, considering its pretty ridiculous bulk, even with those weaknesses and SR weakness, it's not always that easy to revenge kill for less offensive teams.

The main problem with Kyurem-B's versatility is just its sheer power. For example, Dragonite, Salamence, even Hydreigon and Latios have the versatility to get around their counters/checks, or at least to do so without losing nearly as much effectiveness as other Pokemon would. But, that kind of thing can be played around. For example, if my Celebi is in on Dragonite or Salamence, I can decide to take a hit and use Baton Pass, which allows me to decide what best deals with it, then send it in. Or I can click Roar with Hippowdon and hope I'm in a better situation the next time they roll around. But because of Kyurem-B's monstrous power, these options aren't nearly as safe against it. Or I can burn it with Sableye and switch out with it heavily damaged. For example:

252+ Atk Choice Band Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Celebi: 394-465 (97.52 - 115.09%) -- 81.25% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Hippowdon: 340-402 (80.95 - 95.71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band burned Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Sableye: 249-293 (81.9 - 96.38%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Meanwhile:

252+ Atk Choice Band Dragonite Outrage vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Hippowdon: 286-337 (68.09 - 80.23%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Dragonite Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Celebi: 330-388 (81.68 - 96.03%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band burned Dragonite Outrage vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Sableye: 207-245 (68.09 - 80.59%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Of course, those options aren't great against Dragonite either, but at least I have some way to play around it. With Kyurem-B? Not so much, which means that I'm almost forced to go to Skarmory or Heatran. And then its versatility means that I could easily lose either of them.

Edit: At Ginganinja below;the problem is that Kyurem-B, like i'm saying, is so damn powerful that you can't play around it effectively;which makes it much easier to lure in specific stuff and shatter it. (Or if you refuse to let it; it gets kills until your team falls apart.)

 

[ginganinja]

My problem isn't Kyurem-B so much as his versatility that makes it able to bypass any usual Dragon-type counter. And when he's used as a wall-breaker alongside the faster Dragon-Types that my pokes are chosen specifically to hold back, I'm checkmated.

Hypothetically couldn't you make this claim for other dragons? Like say, Hydreigon which can also bypass all those Dragon counters fairly easily. Kyurem-B isn't the only dragon type wallbreaker (tho its one of the better ones) so if you wanted to use that logic to push for a Kyurem-B suspect test, you would potentially need to reword this since this can be applied to a select number of dragon types.

I also don't like the 'wall-breaker' argument, because that can also be applied to a shitload of other sweepers out there. Its very possible for me to run 2 sweepers that share the same counters, in order to overload that counter. This doesn't make either of my two sweepers broken, just that you lack an effective way at handing the overloading strategy that I am using with my two sweepers. Note that im not specifically arguing that Kyurem-B is / isn't broken, just pointing out that I disagree with your logic if it was being used for pushing for a suspect test.

 

[Meru]

Hypothetically couldn't you make this claim for other dragons? Like say, Hydreigon which can also bypass all those Dragon counters fairly easily. Kyurem-B isn't the only dragon type wallbreaker (tho its one of the better ones) so if you wanted to use that logic to push for a Kyurem-B suspect test, you would potentially need to reword this since this can be applied to a select number of dragon types.

I knew this was going to come up... Hydreigon requires much more prediction and is much more dependant on switching in on the right Pokemon. For example, LO Hydreigon is capable of 2HKOing SpDef Hippowdon, but if Hydreigon decides to come in on SpDef Hippowdon, it can't do anything because shooting off a LO Draco Meteor will just get Slacked Off and then it's at -2 and then what? Kyurem-B doesn't have this flaw because aside from Outrage, any move it shoots off to kill its opponent doesn't diminish how threatening it is. And even then, Kyurem-B's Outrage allows far less set-up opportunities than a -2 Hydreigon (or -1/-1 from Superpower)

 

[alexwolf]

Can you explain again what are the positives of Kyurem-B in OU? This seems to be an argument that the pro-OU side uses a lot and I can't understand it at all. In your previous post you implied that the benefits of Kyurem-B in OU were its effectiveness vs Rain and Sun meaning that these playstyles are somewhat handleable for weatherless teams (correct me if I have misinterpreted here but this is what I understood from your post on page 1). I'd argue that this is not as big a benefit as you make out:

1. Kyurem-B is not as good vs Rain as you make out. The fact that Rain is still popular and consistent is a testament to this. If you claim that Kyurem-B's main positive effect on the metagame is that its good vs Rain, surely you are implying that people are avoiding using Rain specifically because Kyurem-B is around, and I can assure you this isn't the case. Fact of the matter is, whilst Kyurem-B is "good" vs Rain, its simply not good enough against it for it to actually have any influence on whether Rain itself is good or not. Rain is still a very, very good playstyle in a meta with Kyurem-B, so clearly this isn't really a "positive effect on the metagame" at all. This is hard to phrase but the point I'm trying to make out is: why are we are actively keeping a potentially "broken" Pokemon in OU because it apparently keeps Rain in check, when usage stats and tournament usage shows its not even doing a good job at that anyway?
2. Weatherless teams have always had access to Pokemon that can handle these playstyles. Most dragons do a half-decent job of at least putting pressure on opposing weather offense, and stuff like CM Latias is an excellent win condition vs Sun. You have access to stuff like Kingdra who ggs Rain as soon as Ferro is a little weakened. Well-played Volcarona and Scarf Heatran are very good vs Sun too. Or, you know, unless you are just using weatherless teams for the sake of it, there are these cool Pokemon called Tyranitar and Hippowdon (and Abomasnow) that do an okay job of keeping these playstyles in check. Just because some people are adamant not to use Tyranitar doesn't mean we should keep around potentially broken threats to help promote weatherless teams in OU, especially when there are other (arguably better) options for weatherless teams to use to help with their rain / sun match-up.
3. Regardless of whether Kyurem-B has a posititive influence or not, keeping Pokemon X in OU to keep playstyle Y in check is flat-out not a viable justification to keep X in the tier.

1. Kyu-B is a very good switch-in to choiced water attacks and checks many defensive Water-types (Tentacruel, Politoed, Rotom-W, Starmie) and offensive (Starmie, Politoed, Rotom-W, Gyarados) and can also use many of them as setup bait so i don't know what you are talking about. I never said that Kyu-B is the perfect check to have against rain teams (in the level of Gastrodon for example) but it is a good one nonetheless and together with another Water-resist can allow your offensive team to go toe-to-toe against rain teams. Everything else you said in this paragraph makes no sense. Just because rain offense received one extra check means its usage must significantly drop? If this happened then rain offense would be a terrible playstyle. Of 'course rain teams can handle Kyu-B with their versatility and ability to adapt but this doesn't mean that Kyu-B doesn't help weatherless teams deal with them. So yeah, Kyu-B allows my weatherless teams to have a better fighting chance against rain teams and gives me more options of Pokemon that deal with sun and rain, which makes weatherless kinds of teams more versatile and generally better.
2. What you basically say here is: ''there are already checks that weatherless teams can use to deal with rain and sun so we don't need more''. Should i even explain why this reasoning doesn't work?
3. If and only if playstyle Y is broken, which it isn't (rain and sun), imo.

Yes it is absurd, hence the name ad absurdum. You completely skipped the main points of the post and targeted a statement made just to show how silly the idea of Kyu-B boosting weatherless is.

Yeah i skipped those points in purpose because they didn't say anything that hasn't been said before or something that i think deserves attention. Not trying to insult you btw just giving you an honest answer, we all answer to only what we find interesting.

As for the stall argument between you and BKC, it is definitely in favor of the offense. You didn't like the idea of him bringing up more sets but when you're looking in team preview you aren't going to know which Kyurem set youre facing. SpD Jirachi is the only Pokemon listed that really works against multiple sets and that can be taken advantage of.

This argument can work with many Pokemon and this is why we usually single out certain sets when trying to show the brokeness of the Pokemon in question. I won't talk more about which other Pokemon can handle Kyu-B in stall as it will be just a pointless quote war with no real evidence to back up our claims.

Ya know what else appreciates these resistances? EVERYTHING. Sure it's helpful for weatherless teams but you can easily slap Kyurem-B on Rain, Sand, or even Sun and keep these resistances while having the benefit of a weather.

I don't see why this discussion is so focused on the idea of a weatherless buff, most of the time (and by that I mean a good 95%) weatherless is just going to be inferior to weather teams. Sand isn't used in the same way Rain/Sun are, it only has one abuser and is commonly used for the sole reason of stopping over weathers. Hippo and Ttar are easy mons to stick onto teams and putting them on your weatherless team instantly makes it so much better. Again, I hardly call this a benefit for Kyurem-B's presence.

Your first point is true but why does it matter to the discussion we are having? I didn't say that Kyu-B doesn't help all kind of teams against rain and sun, i said that Kyu-B helps weatherless teams deal with rain and sun. Finally, i don't agree with your statement that weatherless teams are inferior to other kind of teams and this is why i think the presence of Kyu-B in the meta is a good thing.

 

[Alfalfa]

Personally, Kyurem B might be powerful, especially Sub and Mixed sets, but its weaknesses are just to massive. It is easy to revenge, due to its slow speed and weaknesses to several great scarfers and priority users, like Scizor, Terrakion, Keldeo, Latios, Salamence, Garchomp, Breloom, hell, even Infernape can revenge kill the Kyube.
252 Atk Life Orb Infernape Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Kyurem-B: 484-572 (123.78 - 146.29%) -- guaranteed OHKO
(Mixed Kyube)
252 Atk Life Orb Infernape Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Kyurem-B: 437-515 (111.76 - 131.71%) -- guaranteed OHKO
(Band Kyube)
252 Atk Life Orb Infernape Close Combat vs. 56 HP / 0- Def Kyurem-B: 484-572 (119.5 - 141.23%) -- guaranteed OHKO
(Sub Kyube)

If Kyurem B had better speed, it might be scarier, but now, it is just dangerous, not deadly.

By that logic....

252 Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Mach Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 385-455 (106.35 - 125.69%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Mach Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 344-408 (95.02 - 112.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
0 SpA Ninetales Flamethrower vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Excadrill in sun: 368-434 (101.65 - 119.88%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Politoed Hydro Pump vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Excadrill in rain: 650-768 (179.55 - 212.15%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

[Laga]

just because something can be revenged does not mean that it is not a threat. If you kill something with Kyurem-B and then oh yay my Life Orb Infernape can revenge kill it, a switch is pretty probable. Besides, if Kyu-B kills a pokemon, and you couldn't do shit about it, it's already a giant threat considering it inevitably gets to KO a pokemon.

That said; due to earlier posts in this thread, I am convinced that Kyurem-B is not broken.

 

[metagamesecrets]

this thread honestly confuses me a little to read, possibly because i have a different idea of what "broken" means, a definition that QB is the very essence of. things i believe to be "broken" are things that such a limited number of viable counters that it becomes more hassle than it's worth to build a team around it. "overcentralizing" is the word i see get thrown around here a lot.

when you think about past bans - DeoD in particular comes to mind, you think it was because it was the epitome of its job, to the exclusion of all else, and to the degradation of its answers. i remember that (part of) the rationale behind the DeoD suspect in the first place is that it was "sooooo versatile" and had "answers" to all of its counters - you could "yeah but superpower!" ttar or "yeah but hp fire!" the bugs and plant or "yeah but skill swap!" the magic bouncers, which is all fine and dandy until you realize that you could only run one of these things to avoid being a worthless sack of shit of a teamslot, and the other 15 things that would handle it are good to go. yes, it added a bit of a "guessing game" to the meta - which extremely specific answer is this DeoD running?

and then you look at QB and think, there's no need for that. a very, very small handful of sets (3 at max) will handle literally every counter QB has by smogon's very definition of being able to switch in and KO or threaten out the offending mon safely. there's no more guessing game as there was for DeoD, it's just switch it in on something slower and something on the opposing team dies. usually it's more than one thing, at that.

and that's not even BEGINNING to touch upon the fact that nearly every single defensive counter QB 'has' (hint, it doesnt) can barely scratch it return. you might switch your skarm in while it subs and pray it lacks fusion bolt, but then what? you take an ice beam for 70% (at best) and whirlwind it away. phew, it's gone! but wait, what's this? your previous "counter" to QB is 30% and another encounter with him will leave you dead. or damn, maybe that QB was running fusion bolt. damn, now what? oh well, better go to heatran and break its s- wait! it outspeeds all defensive variants (and most offensive ones depending on the spread) and wrecks you with earth power, whoopsies. or maybe you have something faster that will break its sub no problem. welp, odds are QB just killed that thing too, since it has enough coverage to severely dent or outright KO 95% of offensive mons in the meta

or hey, maybe you're lucky enough to be carrying a spdef ferro WITH gyro ball (the only thing in all of OU with a moderate chance of living two supereffective hits and threatening it out with an attack) and facing a QB WITHOUT HP Fire. you take 35% min from an ice beam (assuming it's not life orb too heh wow these sure are a lot of assumptions huh) and break its sub. okay, now what? they switch to their magnezone to trap you or damn near anyone really, and you have no instant recovery. which means the next time you let QB get a sub, your 100% dedicated counter is down. and then what do you do?

it all seems like pointless theorymoning, but when you stop and think that every single switch-in QB could possibly have is 3HKO'd under ideal circumstances, it's really is enough to make one think there are actually arguments that it has a healthy impact on the meta

"Kyubey is kind of like when you give your remaining Pokemon list a look over to see who you want spored by this Breloom that just came in. Except you're picking one to die. And if it has sub, you're about to have to pick another as well."

 

[reyscarface]

That said, I don't believe Kyurem-B is broken because I don't believe it actually destroys a playstyle. We have 3 major playstyles: offense, balance, stall. Weather / weatherless are subsets within each of the 3 playstyles (for example, rain offense, sand balance, sun stall). The only "playstyle" Kyurem-B actively screws over is NOT stall but actually PURELY PASSIVE stall...namely the type of stall that focuses entirely on passive damage. It does NOT screw over stall overall...as stall simply has to adapt a bit to deal with it. Yes, that means potentially going with a 2nd or 3rd steel (is that really that rare on stall?), or use one offensive mon with SE priority (Breloom), or whatever. "Screwing over" a subset of a style while being very meh against most of the subsets of the two other major playstyles is a very strong warning flag for me when it comes to suspect status. Sure, PURELY PASSIVE stall is screwed over...other stall is not. Offense and Balance are not...Again, sure, I'll agree that is probably in our best interest to keep the three major playstyles viable OVERALL, but it is NOT our duty to ensure every particular subset is kept viable as well.

Yes, I'm aware the pro ban side can just flood these arguments with tl;dr about blah blah, but I've been observing WCoP very closely, and considering this is a tournament that gives us a huge batch of high level OU matches (it is all OU, all by people handpicked to play), I think it is a decent dataset to consider alongside the ladder.

Kyurem-B kills stall? I've seen plenty of stall in WCoP...in fact, I saw Reyscarface own akhimarth using stall...and akhimarth was using Kyurem-B (and a very anti stall team). I'll wait until the end of WCoP to provide some confirmation stats (thank you to Ciele for being a champ and keeping all the logs), but I'll tell you right now, in the two areas where we analyze Pokemon, ladder for its bulk and tournaments for its quality...the stats don't point to a NECESSITY for a test. But again, we'll see.

Im going to concentrate on replying to your stall part of the post since you used my game as an example.

Regarding Kyurem-B being a bitch to just purely passive stall, nah. Every kind of stall suffers against Kyurem-B. The sheer appearance of Kyurem-B regardless of set when im playing stall makes me go "oh fuck". I dont play purely passive stall, as I believe that doesnt work in this metagame at all. I play stall that uses stuff like offensive starmie as a spinner and scarf garchomp as a pivot. I use other stall teams that run Scarf Politoed instead of the defensive sets and a Kyurem of my own for my offensive pivot. I can tell you Kyurem-B will fuck me up from the team reveal. You might say its different in practice, but lets go back to your marth vs rey WC example.

Marths team was extremely anti stall (mainly because of Victini and not Kyurem but ill get back to that in a bit). When I saw Kyurem in team preview my first thoughts were "damn i hope thats not cb or sub". I won that game because his Kyurem was, like I said in my post in the Keldeo thread, a set in order to deal with offensive teams, Scarf. Scarf Kyurem is a nobody vs stall, but hes potent as all hell vs offense and him + scarf keldeo single handedly can destroy an offense team.

lets go to the highest level ladder imo, frontier. ive watched over 100 games in frontier and played in around 45, and kyurem is an absolute terror. sub 3 attacks kyurem, is catching up, and that set takes advantage of the necessity of offense teams to have at least one defensive pivot (celebi, rotom, etc), getting in on them, netting a sub and proceeding to kill whatever comes in. and kyurem continues the rampage. then theres scarf kyurem, who ive seen demolish offense teams by itself simply by clicking outrage. remember offense doesnt have many options for *defensive pivots* and they usually prefer taking on keldeo so the pivots are lead to him instead, that means ferrothorn is unreliable but the sole reason i can see him being used as defensive pivot in offense would be kyurem. because otherwise kyurem simply destroys. and then theres new set being popularized which is LO draco meteor kyurem with hp fire. enjoy your scizor switching in on a sub, or your ferrothorn.

and thats vs offense, vs stall we all know how it goes if the kyurem is sub roost or choice band.

going back to my game vs marth. simply seeing kyuremb made me misplay a lot. i led with chansey, saw kyurem and went fuck now i have to switch out because this thing can do 80% to chansey and chansey is my win condition. and excuse me everyone who didnt see the match but for those who did, remember the back and forth switching between chansey and skarmory and kyuremb and venusaur for him? the idea of cb kyurem caused that. if i had known it was scarf chansey would have beat it, but kyurem had the ability to make me misplay simply because i saw outrage on a protect and it was too risky for me to stay in. and again this was a more offensive oriented stall team and not purely passive.

kyurem needs a test

 

[peng]

I just wanted to reply to a point I've seen brought up a lot that I disagree with. The fact that Kyurem-B is priority-weak and easy to revenge-kill does not make it any less broken.

Outside of Sub Kyurem-B vs stall (and i guess Scarf vs offense but I still think that set is awful), Kyu isn't attempting to sweep you. Most of the time, its not a sweeper. Its designed to come in, force you to sac something and capitalise on that big hole it just ripped in your team (offensive OR defensive). By the time you've got Breloom / Scizor / Keldeo / Terrakion / Scarf Jirachi / Scarf Tyranitar / some other check in, Kyurem-B has already KOd a mon and is probably fine with either letting itself get KOd (depending on the Pokemon it took out), or switching out to try and do the same thing again 5 turns later. i.e. its already done its job.

Kyurem-B's low speed, priority weakness etc are "flaws" that don't compromise its ability to do its job (get a KO almost every time it comes in, or set-up a sub and run through stall) just like how Blissey's Close Combat weakness doesn't compromise its role as a special wall, for example (shit example but I'm writing this quick and its the first that sprung to mind, a better would probably be non-DD Rayquaza's Ice Shard weakness or something).

 

[Sir Tommy]

Kyurem-B isn't so broken to me, I mean look at its movepool, although movepools don't give a Pokemon its spot on the block. I think Kyu-B isn't very broken at all, it's out sped by all other Dragons in OU, Kyu-B mainly relies on it's sheer power more than diverse movepool though, but still it's movepool is one of the things that renders it most. Kyu-B can be checked by any Dragon that's faster or something that can punch it in the face with Bullet Punch or Mach Punch, it also hates hazards as well, I wouldn't say Kyu-B is broken, it has so many checks, just don't let it get behind a sub is all. I wouldn't call Kyu-B a broken mon at all, it just lacks the necessary movepool to be called "broken" and it's slow. It does have one thing that makes it different from other OU Dragons, it's typing. Being Dragon/Ice type gives Kyu-B neutrality to Ice Shard, that's one thing that's good about it. Kyu-B's bulk and it's sheer power speak for themselves though, I still don't think it's much of a threat though with the movepool it has and it's slow. It could surprised a lot of players though, when you scarf it and Outrage spam lol. In all seriousness though, I don't think Kyu-B is broken at all.

 

[acheron01]

That scarf set on the first post is complete bogus for the metagame. I have experience with scarf kyurem because ive run it thousands of times, and tinkered with it over time. You should always run a MIXED set with Kyurem-b, no questions asked (thats either naive for +speed, which i recommend, or lonely for + attack). This is the set you can run with all possible VIABLE variations:

Kyurem-Black @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature/Lonely Nature
- Outrage/Dragon Claw
- Ice Beam
- Fusion Bolt
- Hidden Power Fire/Earth Power

I know that locking yourself into outrage isn't always the best idea, but that moveslot has one purpose for Kyurem: endgame sweeping. Since Kyurem is the slower of the 3-4 scarf dragons in the metagame, and is not the fastest scarfer of other pokemon either, the idea is to eliminate the opponents scarfer through priority, etc, and then attempt an endgame sweep with Kyurem with either Outrage or Dragon claw depending on your nature, (Outrage for Naive, Dragon Claw for Lonely). However, that doesnt mean that Kyurem can do some early game work, which is where its other moves/ability come into play. Ice beam should ALWAYS be on Kyurem, no questions asked. It takes out threats such as Thunderus-t, Gliscor, Dragonite, non-scarfed Salamence, and is a very powerful STAB even with little sp. attack investment. It will also do a number on Latios (87-97%, good chance of ohko after SR) and countless other pokemon in the metagame. Hidden Power FIre is recommended over Earth Power, because it will always OHKO Foretress even if it has sturdy because it is negated, and it will 2HKO Ferrothorn, and OHKO in the sun. Earth Power is acceptable beause of Heatran and Magnezone, but honestly, you might as well run something else on your team to cover heatran. Fusion bolt is a given, and it will hit Thunderus-t because of teravolt, catching it by surprise when the opponent leads with politoed and switches into it.

In this regard, if Scarf Kyurem is used in both early game and end game, it can take out some serious threats, let its teammates eliminate steel types and scarfers, and then endgame sweep, and subsequently, I find it to be quite broken when i use it against my opponents.

 

[Ropeburn]

Kyurem-Black @ Life Orb
Trait: Teravolt
EVs: 252 SpAtk / 4 Atk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature/Lonely Nature
- Fusion Bolt/Outrage
- Ice Beam
- Earth Power/SubStitute
- Hidden Power Fire

I've been using this to great success. It generally works really well against weather but it's really hard to work around. It requires a lot of support to get rid of Scizor, and faster Dragons. I think it's really anti-sun and anti-rain. The only thing that's a real let-down is that speed. It hits around ~330 with a +speed nature, unlike its cousins Salamence and Garchomp. The bulk is the reason I use it, but honestly, with the absence of good Rapid Spinners in the tier, I just have a hard time justifying it sometimes. It's a great pokemon, but I honestly don't think it's any more broken than Hydreigon would be.

 

[FrostFire]

I'm just going to post some quick thoughts on cube - I think this is an interesting discussion, and I might elaborate a little later when I have more time.

It's quite funny how things have changed recently; not that long ago, cube was considered kind of (I don't want to say 'bad') but maybe just... meh. It's speed, SR (+Spikes/ T-Spikes) weakness, and weakness to both Bullet Punch and Mach Punch really served to nerf it's otherwise outrageous stats. Honestly, I haven't even seen that much of cube recently - and that's not surprising given his usage % in July's stats (he's #30 in 1850 stats, #41 in regular). But of course, this doesn't matter at all; Tornadus-Therian never got that much usage, and it was stupidly broken.

So, what I've actually observed of cube in battle is kind of... interesting. I've tended to find that cube is almost a waste of a teamslot against some teams (i.e. more offensive teams), while being horribly effective against other team types (more defensive). In that sense, when I've used cube, I've always found it to be a high risk, high reward pokemon; there are some battles where it can win entire matches for you, and others where it struggles to do very much. I guess this is why I'm a bit torn, because there's plenty of stuff in the meta which keeps cube in check; but at the same time, it can be a bit restrictive on defensive teams (but then are we supposed to mold a meta that restores balance between defense/ offense or are we just supposed to accept power creeps? I guess that's a good question to think about). There is also the slight issue that, if cube can get a Sub up against any team type, then it's almost guaranteed to kill something (bar, maybe, Gyro Ball Ferrothorn?)

Actually (by the by) Ferrothorn is a pretty good defensive answer to cube most of the time. I know that cube *sometimes* runs HP fire, but honestly, that kind of ruins it's coverage more generally and is arguably not really worth it. So yeah, there's that. (Also CB outrage is ugh. But CB is probably one of it's lesser sets sooooo)

If you can't tell by my absent minded rambling, I don't really know what to think about cube right now. I think I might test him out on a few teams, see how he goes; it'd be nice if cube was higher up in the usage stats actually, then I would be able to better gauge how good/ bad he is.

 

[Spinda]

Ferro isn't a good answer to sub kyurem because gyro ball is ridiculously easily stalled out, I find that even vs offensive teams kyurem-b when played well can get 1 or 2 kills rather easily, I'm not saying that it absolutely wrecks offense as much as it does stall, but the defence that kyurem-b has, which backs up it's enormous attack really gives even offense a hard time, especially if you manage to get it in before rocks

Offense still has the same stay in and lose a poke or switch and lose a poke problem vs kyurem-b, except if they stay in they can get a chunk off, and offense can in general afford losing pokemon easier, but that makes it far from dead weight vs offense.

 

[FrostFire]

^mmmm, I wouldn't say that Gyro Ball is PP Stalled that easily. I mean, it's not like Kyu-b has pressure, so you still have to stall out 8 attacks. I mean, I get what you're saying, but:

0 Atk Neutral Ferrothorn's Gyro Ball V. 56 HP/ 0 Def neutral Kyurem-B: 84.44 - 99.75% damage; guaranteed OHKO after SR.

That means that you're only ever going to 'block' 4 Gyro Balls with Sub, and then you can't roost off the damage, because you'll be straight up OHKO'd. Factor in some smart switching and Kyu-b might be able to manage it, but personally PP has never been an issue for me when using Ferro v. Kyu-b. CB Outrage, Hidden power Fire are problems, but rarely PP.

EDIT: Ahh, blast it, this always happens when I include a calc. I used a lonely (- Def) nature for Kyu-b accidentally - though the sub attacker does use this nature sometimes so that neither it's physical or special attack gets nerfed. Still, if it's neutral, then the same attack does 71.11-84.44%, which is still plenty really.

EDIT2: vv Yeah, SJ's right. Seriously, I have no idea what I'm on.