This might be an ignorant question, but out of curiosity, why is the BW OU metagame and playerbase so split? I understand it's an old generation, but I hear so many takes about this metagame from just about everyone, and no one agrees. Ban this, ban that, don't ban this, don't ban that. Being introduced to the tier is confusing as it is, trying to understand the real state of the metagame is even worse. Convoluted as it probably is to find, I think there could be a more scientific and methodical evaluation to the state of the metagame, but I wouldn't be able to assess it from this community at the surface. Help?
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OU BW OU Tiering Discussion [ SURVEY POST 107 ]
- Thread starter Finchinator
- Start date
Idt is that split as alot of people may think. But is just that doesnt feel like there isnt any urgency to ban anything atm. But doesnt mean the tier doesnt have issues from new meta developments. If anything as survey shows most ppl still enjoy bw as is even if it could be improved , if you wanna understand a tier theres no better place than playing games , interact with the community
Late as fuck here but idt the community is divided on anything. Volcarona maybe but that’s about it. I think getting bw people to agree on anything is just as hard as getting anyone on the internet to agree on anything. I agree with leoperi tho, there’s not much that needs attention rn.
The BW OU tiering council is once again conducting a survey and we want YOUR 
opinion
While we think BW OU is in a healthy state, we included a couple of controversial topics brought up throughout the year. Additionally, we left an open-ended question for anything else people wish to bring to the attention of the council. We will read through the responses and provide a summary of overall responses from the general playerbase and the more qualified playerbase next week.
Please reply to the survey here! Deadline will be Nov 22nd
opinionWhile we think BW OU is in a healthy state, we included a couple of controversial topics brought up throughout the year. Additionally, we left an open-ended question for anything else people wish to bring to the attention of the council. We will read through the responses and provide a summary of overall responses from the general playerbase and the more qualified playerbase next week.
Please reply to the survey here! Deadline will be Nov 22nd
Volcarona is fine right now. People have adjusted to LO and LO has the constant push-and-pull between fourth move and nature to cover things that are encountered frequently. I will not fault someone for saying they want it banned as it is disruptive and requires conscious team building efforts to cover, but it’s not broken or at the peak we saw previously.
Alakazam is not broken and never has been broken. It is arguably one of the best glue Pokemon even. LO has become a terror to some archetypes, but it still has more checks/counters than stuff that we largely agree upon keeping (Latios, Thundy-T, Exca, etc). The speed and the sheer strength with LO differentiates it a bit, but not to the extent it needs to get banned.
Bringing back Cloyster now would be silly. The main thing that changed between now and when it got banned in terms of counterplay is the uptick in Conkeldurr with Mach Punch to RK chipped Cloyster and Jirachi picking up in usage, which doesn’t even beat Cloyster reliably with the most common set. We cut off the cycle of Cloyster adapting to counterplay with set mix adaptations at the appropriate time previously and we don’t need to open this can of worms again with SPL coming up. If you think X amount of games are dictated by nonsense or matchup as is, X goes up dramatically with Cloyster being reintroduced. No thank you.
I put unsure for Chlorophyll. I get why it comes up and I am fine with the bandaid being ripped off for the sake of testing it out when council feels the time is right. I just don’t feel too strongly about it either way and would need to physically play around with it in modern context more to form a concrete opinion.
I gave the tier a 7/8 on the scale. That’s about as high as I will go. It will never be perfect or close to perfect with the inherent variance of some BW moves, strategies, Pokemon, etc., but we are in a good spot aside from that and I think BW is experiencing a good time with the ongoing tournaments. Def think council should tag here/everyone in discord and BW spaces to maximize the survey’s reach, but great job with this.
Alakazam is not broken and never has been broken. It is arguably one of the best glue Pokemon even. LO has become a terror to some archetypes, but it still has more checks/counters than stuff that we largely agree upon keeping (Latios, Thundy-T, Exca, etc). The speed and the sheer strength with LO differentiates it a bit, but not to the extent it needs to get banned.
Bringing back Cloyster now would be silly. The main thing that changed between now and when it got banned in terms of counterplay is the uptick in Conkeldurr with Mach Punch to RK chipped Cloyster and Jirachi picking up in usage, which doesn’t even beat Cloyster reliably with the most common set. We cut off the cycle of Cloyster adapting to counterplay with set mix adaptations at the appropriate time previously and we don’t need to open this can of worms again with SPL coming up. If you think X amount of games are dictated by nonsense or matchup as is, X goes up dramatically with Cloyster being reintroduced. No thank you.
I put unsure for Chlorophyll. I get why it comes up and I am fine with the bandaid being ripped off for the sake of testing it out when council feels the time is right. I just don’t feel too strongly about it either way and would need to physically play around with it in modern context more to form a concrete opinion.
I gave the tier a 7/8 on the scale. That’s about as high as I will go. It will never be perfect or close to perfect with the inherent variance of some BW moves, strategies, Pokemon, etc., but we are in a good spot aside from that and I think BW is experiencing a good time with the ongoing tournaments. Def think council should tag here/everyone in discord and BW spaces to maximize the survey’s reach, but great job with this.
I haven't been too active recently in this tier, but I do have 3 opinions, one of which I don't think is too odd.
Unban Drought + Chlorophyll, maybe ban Venusaur: From what I've understood with this tier's history is that Drought + Chlorophyll got a clause due to Venusaur being overwhelming and swept teams immediately, thanks to Sleep Powder, Growth and boosted fire coverage. But not only was this complex ban not necessary over just banning Venusaur, it also went against Smogon's standard tiering and banning philosophy. Since the Drought + Chlorophyll ban, many things have changed, which includes sleep moves, and Arena Trap, something that allowed Chlorophyll Sun teams to easily get rid of Tyranitar and Heatran. With that alone, Sand teams have very consistent counters to Chlorophyll teams now, without getting instantly punished for it. And if Venusaur does end up still too broken and unhealthy for the tier, ban it, not the complex ban for Chlorophyll, because the other Chlorophyll pokemon, like Victreebell and Sawsbuck, were also good, but suffered from lack of viability because they weren't allowed to use their abilities when that ban was for the majority from one other pokemon's unhealthy success. They themselves were not the problem. And the banning of sleep moves and Arena Trap also apply to them, so they are still worse off compared to pre-Chlorophyll ban. Personally, to me, current Sun teams feel like archetypes trying to limit both Sand teams and Rain teams at the same time, and are otherwise... well, viable, but not as much as Sand and Rain teams.
Unban Cloyster or ban Volcarona: So, I never thought Cloyster was too broken, I think it's just as hit-or-miss of a sweeper as Volcarona is, either they get KO'd trying to set up, or they sweep entire teams. I do understand why Cloyster got banned, once it gets a Shell Smash off, it's difficult to stop without a priority move. But if Cloyster got banned, I think Volcarona should also follow. If Volcarona stays, I think Cloyster needs to be unbanned. I understand that that's not how tiering and banning works but that's how I see it.
Ban Jirachi/Serene Grace + Flinching moves: I am an avid Jirachi hater in competitive and have openly complained about it for years, so I'm not expecting too much from this one. I think boosting the chance to flinch with damaging moves is simply much worse than Evasion moves, it's not fun to deal with and it's unhealthy for any meta, no matter how one spins it. It takes much less time to set up a paralysis, and one can also go for it turn 1 without risking all that much. The opponent is always at a disadvantage if the Serene Grace Pokemon gets paralysis off. When facing Evasion boosting, you can at least use healing, boosting, or field effects. With flinching you can't even use that. Of course I understand, Jirachi, and other Serene Grace abusers, have counterplay. But that doesn't remove the RNG factor. One still needs to get lucky to fire off the move they want to use against the Serene Grace abuser, and I'm assuming that is the same reason why Evasion moves and abilities were banned.
Unban Drought + Chlorophyll, maybe ban Venusaur: From what I've understood with this tier's history is that Drought + Chlorophyll got a clause due to Venusaur being overwhelming and swept teams immediately, thanks to Sleep Powder, Growth and boosted fire coverage. But not only was this complex ban not necessary over just banning Venusaur, it also went against Smogon's standard tiering and banning philosophy. Since the Drought + Chlorophyll ban, many things have changed, which includes sleep moves, and Arena Trap, something that allowed Chlorophyll Sun teams to easily get rid of Tyranitar and Heatran. With that alone, Sand teams have very consistent counters to Chlorophyll teams now, without getting instantly punished for it. And if Venusaur does end up still too broken and unhealthy for the tier, ban it, not the complex ban for Chlorophyll, because the other Chlorophyll pokemon, like Victreebell and Sawsbuck, were also good, but suffered from lack of viability because they weren't allowed to use their abilities when that ban was for the majority from one other pokemon's unhealthy success. They themselves were not the problem. And the banning of sleep moves and Arena Trap also apply to them, so they are still worse off compared to pre-Chlorophyll ban. Personally, to me, current Sun teams feel like archetypes trying to limit both Sand teams and Rain teams at the same time, and are otherwise... well, viable, but not as much as Sand and Rain teams.
Unban Cloyster or ban Volcarona: So, I never thought Cloyster was too broken, I think it's just as hit-or-miss of a sweeper as Volcarona is, either they get KO'd trying to set up, or they sweep entire teams. I do understand why Cloyster got banned, once it gets a Shell Smash off, it's difficult to stop without a priority move. But if Cloyster got banned, I think Volcarona should also follow. If Volcarona stays, I think Cloyster needs to be unbanned. I understand that that's not how tiering and banning works but that's how I see it.
Ban Jirachi/Serene Grace + Flinching moves: I am an avid Jirachi hater in competitive and have openly complained about it for years, so I'm not expecting too much from this one. I think boosting the chance to flinch with damaging moves is simply much worse than Evasion moves, it's not fun to deal with and it's unhealthy for any meta, no matter how one spins it. It takes much less time to set up a paralysis, and one can also go for it turn 1 without risking all that much. The opponent is always at a disadvantage if the Serene Grace Pokemon gets paralysis off. When facing Evasion boosting, you can at least use healing, boosting, or field effects. With flinching you can't even use that. Of course I understand, Jirachi, and other Serene Grace abusers, have counterplay. But that doesn't remove the RNG factor. One still needs to get lucky to fire off the move they want to use against the Serene Grace abuser, and I'm assuming that is the same reason why Evasion moves and abilities were banned.
I think not doing more to improve the sun and hail situation, which is them being less-to-none viable, is a detriment to the format as a whole. I'd like to see something happen there.
Sun:
Chlorophyll venasaur - seems to be essential sweeper on sun teams. And its sort of the one thing sun really has going for it, honestly. Perhaps in continuing in the tradition of featuring overly complicated gen 5 ou rules, sun could be neutered by an unconventional means, of restricting what other team members they can use, in order to specifically allow them a powerful sweeper like chlorophyll venasaur, at the expense of limiting what other coverage options they get, thus balancing them enough to allow them to compete, and giving them a significant draw back for running 'gotta go fast' venasaur. Which team members would have to be abandoned would likely have to be determined by grinding matchup win percentages until relevant choices become evident.
Sun:
Chlorophyll venasaur - seems to be essential sweeper on sun teams. And its sort of the one thing sun really has going for it, honestly. Perhaps in continuing in the tradition of featuring overly complicated gen 5 ou rules, sun could be neutered by an unconventional means, of restricting what other team members they can use, in order to specifically allow them a powerful sweeper like chlorophyll venasaur, at the expense of limiting what other coverage options they get, thus balancing them enough to allow them to compete, and giving them a significant draw back for running 'gotta go fast' venasaur. Which team members would have to be abandoned would likely have to be determined by grinding matchup win percentages until relevant choices become evident.
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The goal of tiering is to have a balanced metagame, not to pander to specific or niche styles. There is no doctrine claiming all four weathers must be equal or even viable outright.
Besides the biggest building block preventing them from being more mainstream is entry hazards, which aren’t going anywhere. Rain’s setter is neutral to SR with multiple spinner options being natural fits. Same with Sand and Drill being an exceptional fit on the builds it needs a spinner. Ninetales and Abomasnow provide less consistent upside (arguably) at a greater cost and need for support. There’s just no world where they can be fully equated or tiering can account for the difference.
Hence why it’s best to focus on the topics highlighted in the survey.
i think unbanning chlorophyll would be insanely stupid, when you see how well sun already matches up into a majority of rains and certain suns designed to beat ho. you’d have to go through and ban multiple chlorophyll threats before even considering it and thats a slippery slop. why dont we ban kingdra and kabutops to allow swift swim ect.
as finch said above the goal is a balanced metagame not one that lets everything have viability unfortunately.
now, been discussing with a few of the active bw players, conkeldurr seems to be an issue thats been mentioned a few times. it’s ability to restrict building is quite reminiscent of cloyster, almost always requiring a psychic or a strong special water (keldeo politoed, starmie take ur pick). i think conkeldurr should be the priority of council personally.
my own agenda would also be a thundurus suspect because i think that mon is ridiculous however that might just be me oops. sorry for the rush job still at work.
as finch said above the goal is a balanced metagame not one that lets everything have viability unfortunately.
now, been discussing with a few of the active bw players, conkeldurr seems to be an issue thats been mentioned a few times. it’s ability to restrict building is quite reminiscent of cloyster, almost always requiring a psychic or a strong special water (keldeo politoed, starmie take ur pick). i think conkeldurr should be the priority of council personally.
my own agenda would also be a thundurus suspect because i think that mon is ridiculous however that might just be me oops. sorry for the rush job still at work.
My votes:
6/8, good meta. When Gen ended, most of the bans and unbans that happened I don,t approve. Despite that, the meta is still good.
Volcarona is not the strongest Mon of the Tier, but I support a Suspect. Meta improved dramatically in SV when it got banned, I think it would happen here too.
Alakazam I consider bad Mon due to relying on Focus Blast way too often to win. No need for a Suspect and if you feel its needed, finish reading the post for an alternative.
Don,t really care if Cloyster stays banned but would support Unban if suspected.
Strongly support Chlorophyll Unban. It was a very wrong ban in first place, since it was not even banned on its own merits but to unban Excadrill. Since then, not only Chlorophyll Mons lost Sleep Powder, they also lost the trappers that removed their counters. If Venusaur becomes broken (unlikely), it can always be banned.
Finally, I think big changes are better for the meta than small changes that attempt to remove what people call "cheese". Big changes are the ones that make the meta evolve and force players to adapt. For this reason, as additional suggestions I suggest one of these 2 things: 1, Ban Latios, the best Mon of the meta. Or 2, Ban Spikes, which many of the best teams use. If you think (I disagree with this) that Alakazam should be banned, this is an alternative. Alakazam absolutely needs Spikes to work best and not rely as much on Focus Blast to win, without Spikes (to which it itself is immune), it will be a worse Pokemon. Neither Ferro, nor Skarmory would lose much viability, they are still decent defensive Mons. The excuse to unban Excadrill (and ban Sandslash, Stoutland and many Chlorophyll Mons) was to nerf Spikes, it didn,t achieve that since Spikes are still dominant.
6/8, good meta. When Gen ended, most of the bans and unbans that happened I don,t approve. Despite that, the meta is still good.
Volcarona is not the strongest Mon of the Tier, but I support a Suspect. Meta improved dramatically in SV when it got banned, I think it would happen here too.
Alakazam I consider bad Mon due to relying on Focus Blast way too often to win. No need for a Suspect and if you feel its needed, finish reading the post for an alternative.
Don,t really care if Cloyster stays banned but would support Unban if suspected.
Strongly support Chlorophyll Unban. It was a very wrong ban in first place, since it was not even banned on its own merits but to unban Excadrill. Since then, not only Chlorophyll Mons lost Sleep Powder, they also lost the trappers that removed their counters. If Venusaur becomes broken (unlikely), it can always be banned.
Finally, I think big changes are better for the meta than small changes that attempt to remove what people call "cheese". Big changes are the ones that make the meta evolve and force players to adapt. For this reason, as additional suggestions I suggest one of these 2 things: 1, Ban Latios, the best Mon of the meta. Or 2, Ban Spikes, which many of the best teams use. If you think (I disagree with this) that Alakazam should be banned, this is an alternative. Alakazam absolutely needs Spikes to work best and not rely as much on Focus Blast to win, without Spikes (to which it itself is immune), it will be a worse Pokemon. Neither Ferro, nor Skarmory would lose much viability, they are still decent defensive Mons. The excuse to unban Excadrill (and ban Sandslash, Stoutland and many Chlorophyll Mons) was to nerf Spikes, it didn,t achieve that since Spikes are still dominant.
I don't think anything needs to be touched necessarily, but I will always say "yes" to revisiting Cloyster on principle because I don't think it was broken in a way that was any more banworthy than current metagame staples like Latios. To me, if old gens are willing to admit that Pokemon are broken but can't be touched due to ripple effects, they should not be putting any Pokemon on the chopping block at that point. Getting swept by a scary set-up Pokemon (who was given that free turn, and in this case, is very flawed defensively) is not "cheese": it's a part of the game. The post-Cloy meta is generally fine, but I found the Cloyster meta good as well, so I'm pretty ambivalent either way. These are the reasons I'd be staunchly against touching Volcarona, even though I can relate to the annoyance that comes with getting swept by it.
Alakazam is oppressive in a weirdly similar way to Volc, but similarly, it's very flawed defensively so hard to call broken. The annoying aspect of it is LO Focus Blast just being a dice roller set that wins or loses vs some teams based on luck, way more so than Fire Blast Volc to continue that comparison. Can't say my problems with the Pokemon are really its fault though, weirdly.
The idea of retesting Chlorophyll is always interesting to me. To me, there's no way it's broken, and diversifying an otherwise fairly centralized metagame is always a good move to me. Sun suffers from having the shittiest weather setter of all time, and unlike Swift Swim, Chlorophyll users don't get a boost to their STAB, and unlike Sand Rush Excadrill, none of them have 135 Attack and a bonkers defensive typing. Would strongly support looking at this.
As for my slightly shitpost-y entry in the open-ended part: I'm convinced the perfect metagame has Sand Rush Excadrill back even if it's obviously broken as shit. It would somewhat kill weatherless offense as a style (which I'm pretty sure many are okay with), but it would also let you build some mad greedy teams when you have such a broken speed control option in place of traditional scarfers, which sounds fun. The metagame would likely devolve into trying to find Excadrill's kryptonite, but honestly, we already do that with Latios anyway.
Alakazam is oppressive in a weirdly similar way to Volc, but similarly, it's very flawed defensively so hard to call broken. The annoying aspect of it is LO Focus Blast just being a dice roller set that wins or loses vs some teams based on luck, way more so than Fire Blast Volc to continue that comparison. Can't say my problems with the Pokemon are really its fault though, weirdly.
The idea of retesting Chlorophyll is always interesting to me. To me, there's no way it's broken, and diversifying an otherwise fairly centralized metagame is always a good move to me. Sun suffers from having the shittiest weather setter of all time, and unlike Swift Swim, Chlorophyll users don't get a boost to their STAB, and unlike Sand Rush Excadrill, none of them have 135 Attack and a bonkers defensive typing. Would strongly support looking at this.
As for my slightly shitpost-y entry in the open-ended part: I'm convinced the perfect metagame has Sand Rush Excadrill back even if it's obviously broken as shit. It would somewhat kill weatherless offense as a style (which I'm pretty sure many are okay with), but it would also let you build some mad greedy teams when you have such a broken speed control option in place of traditional scarfers, which sounds fun. The metagame would likely devolve into trying to find Excadrill's kryptonite, but honestly, we already do that with Latios anyway.
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The fact nobody is talking about Keldeo is beyond insane to me. I'd rather have Cloyster than Keldeo. And Cloyster is awful to deal with, haha. I agree with MM about it.
But you don't even have to boost Keldeo, and it can still 1HKO sweep an entire team, while either rain is present or a single entry hazard has been laid. And it one hit ko blissey, even though its a special sweeper. That's crazy to me.
But you don't even have to boost Keldeo, and it can still 1HKO sweep an entire team, while either rain is present or a single entry hazard has been laid. And it one hit ko blissey, even though its a special sweeper. That's crazy to me.
for what it’s worth i was close to mentioning keldeo on my survey at the bottom. i do think keldeo is incredibly over bearing both in game and in the builder. either rain with incredibly strong water moves or on sand with pursuit support. however, i think keldeo is limited by the fact the teams you find keldeo on having to pick and choose their matchups, between not losing to zam spikes or to conk volc. it’s definitely on the borderline but just about fine