First off, I never implied it answered Heatran, in fact I said the core struggled with it. Rain has been hardly common as well, and lastly Protect Seed Ferrothorn sounds extremely gimped in moveslots and inefficient overall considering the fact it has 4MSS already. Scarf Zone is really solid this meta, checks MPins, preys on Kartana, and the like. It contends with Sub Z at times, but it works better with other ZMove partners like say Rockium Bulu.
This is something I'm actually interested in, I think it has a few more qualities that give it merit. Being immune to Volt Switch and heavily punishing U-Turners is very nice, it can take on Kartana 1v1, particularly with Fire Blast, only really losing if it is already at +2 and you miss the Fire Blast after being hit once. Paired with Toxapex, you have your Ice weakness covered and provide the Electric immunity, plus you can cycle through your opponents teams with Dragon Tail onto the Toxic Spikes and Rocks. You could tweak the EV's to avoid the HP [Ice]/Dazzling Gleam OHKO from Koko which would be nice too, though this is still only 18.8% chance to OHKO with only HP investment at 100% HP.
Do you even need that much speed TBH? What's Heatran doing to you unless it's Z-Flash Cannon or Specs Flash Cannon (which are both comparatively uncommon, albeit viable).?
z flash cannon as well as z bloom + bulu are used a lil bit so the speed is worth it
It's bulky enough to still be checking what it needs to be checking, aka Kartana and Hawlucha, so having a secondary Heatran check that can outspeed and OHKO it is always nice given how prevalent it is rn
The only problem with using Celesteela as a Kartana check is
I have seen a lot of people running Z Kartana, but slightly more running scarf. What you've seen anecdotally doesn't always represent the full picture. Look at some tournament games and look at the statistics https://www.smogon.com/stats/2018-01/moveset/gen7ou-1825.txt
Magnezone and Cele have completely different roles tho, Cele is used as a wall while Magnezone is used specifically to trap and eliminate steel types for teammates such as Mega Latios to sweep.
FWIW Assault Vest Zone was a thing at one point but it's not very good. I don't even remember the last time I saw one.
Imo this is one of the only reasons to run Chomp in the current meta. It's a great answer to Scarftana and Hawlucha, especially because Dragon Tail lets you phase the latter. Keeps Scizor/Ferrothorn out of play decently well + can swap in non Ice Zapdos and Heatran decently well.
I'm talking tournaments AND ladder. The statistics I posted were from the ladder. 25% of people on the ladder run a z crystal on Kartana of some kind. That's not insignificant. The fact that you haven't run into it much is NOT AN ARGUMENT. That is just anecdotal experience, not reflective of the metagame on the ladder (or tournaments).
Yeah, Scarf is more popular, but there is still significant usage of Z Kartana, so don't assume that your team has no problems with Kartana if Celesteela is your only check. Also yes Celesteela is not comparable to Magnezone at all, its like comparing Toxapex to Greninja because they share a type.
I really like Reuniclus, you do have to watch out for Knock Off on Kartana though.
I know they have different rolls, your missing the point were I said Cele has more opinions. And bringing up Cele is my only counter to Kartana, is irrelevant to who is more useful, Cele or mag. Kartana can't set up if I have taunt, or it it gets hit by rocks, or I set up with Volcarona. Point is both Cele and magn, are still in comp, though I think Cele is more useful. A lot of you just assume things, like I'm sure people use z-move Kartana, just saying I haven't seen it, doesn't mean I don't think it doesn't exist
What set are you using with Celesteela? I've never seen taunt (edit: I was being sarcastic, I didn't get why you would bring up taunt when we were taking about Celesteela?) , ofc your opponent's are rolls of dice and it depends on the ladder, but in terms of team building when you see Kartana, 1 in 4 times it's a Z crystal statistically. Obviously I can't speak to your ladder experience. Magnezone has more options realistically Celesteela has one set (Seed/Slam/Flame/Protect) either Def or sdef. Magnezone has Scarf, AV, Specs and SubZ so at the very least they're even on options (setup sweeper Steela is unviable IMO). Celesteela is suffers from Koko and Volcarona usage as well. Zone fits a more niche role so checks like this aren't as much of a worry.
Yeah I agree, there’s an RMT or Bazaar team floating around featuring Zard X, Subzero Buzzwole and Xatu and it’s pretty effective. It also has access to Heat Wave which is nice. If we were trying to figure out what the undervalued threats are in OU, Xatu would probably lead my list.
It is a very anti-meta Pokémon, yes. But Xatu has one main problem that almost all psychic-types have: And that is pursuit-trapping. Even Reuniclus, which is a very good Pokémon in OU right now, does find itself struggling with that form of trapping, which is why I think Tyranitar is quite frankly amazing in this meta. Both Mega- and Choice Band Tyranitar invalidate almost all sets of almost all psychic-types.
