Between a Rock and OU: Borderline

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Ecthel

Ecthel

The idea of this article is to give some attention to Pokemon currently languishing in Borderline. I've always felt bad for things in this zone, as they're simply too good for UU and yet too outclassed to rise to OU. Most will see little use this generation, doomed to be irrelevant barring a major metagame shift. They deserve a little time in the spotlight. This is their story.

The format would each would probably be:
Why it's too strong for UU?
What outclasses it OU?
When could you use it in OU?

Some mons that would be good for discussion:

Hydreigon
- Coverage and power (128 SPA) backed by respectable bulk, good defensive typing and access to U-turn was too much for UU. The only thing that could consistently wall it was Florges.
- Hard to operate in OU with fairies like Sylveon, Clefable, Togekiss and (especially) Azumarill running around. Generally, the Lati twins do all his sets better - LO gets defog, and Latios is clearly superior for Specs thanks to its much better speed tier.
- Forms a great defensive core with Aegislash, resisting or being immune to every type between them.

Staraptor
- Carries the strongest Brave Bird in the game, and combines with Close Combat for downright terrifying coverage. Like Hydreigon, the amount of raw offensive power is too much. BL veteran.
- 100 speed is good, but not good enough to revenge kill OU threats like Garchomp, Keldeo, Greninja, Lati Twins. Getting completely walled by Aegislash does it no favors. You could carry a scarf, but then why not use Banded Tflame?
- Functions as an excellent wallbreaker and momentum-grabber for the Double (or Triple?) Birds core. Functions better when given defog support.

Magnezone
- Magnezone was extremely good at forcing switches, and combined with the sheer power of Analytic Choice Specs (Latias needs full investment to not get 2hko'd by flash cannon!), along with the power behind its volt switches, the momentum this guy gave you was too much.
- While Magnet Pull gives it a potential OU niche, 4Drag2Mag isn't what it used to be with the introduction of fairies. The worst thing for Magnezone is that it can't trap Aegislash!
- ... But it does have the niche of trapping Skarmory for Double Birds.

Crawdaunt
- Excellent wallbreaker - Adaptability Knock-off is a SCARY sight! Also gets boosting moves such as Dragon Dance and Swords Dance.
- Just outclassed. It's hard to compete as a wallbreaker in a tier where things like Aegislash and Kyurem-B exist, and being destroyed by OU favorite M-Venu doesn't help.
- It's one of the few things that can one-shot Deoxys-D, which is quite a feat. And the vast majority of OU simply cannot switch into Crawdaunt's Knock Off. The trouble is getting it in safely and dealing with its horrendous speed.


Tornadus-Therian
- (Placeholder)
- Rain! Lack of perma-rain means no more 100% accuracy Hurricane, which makes Tornadius go T-T. Why doesn't it get Aeroblast?!
- Tornadus-T can see some use as a pivot, since it gets access to U-turn and Regenerator, but you miss out on benefits like Landorus-Therian's Intimidate and Rotom-W's defensive typing. Stealth Rock weakness also doesn't help.

Klefki
- Stellar defensive typing, the ability to set Screens or Spikes on the majority of the tier, emergency checking sweepers with Thunder Wave, and the Non-Controversial Swagplay made these keys waaaay too jingly.
- While steel/fairy is still an excellent typing even in OU, the prevalence of Excadrill alone makes Klefki earthquake in fear. It also faces competition with the Deoxys formes.
- Klefki is certainly viable in OU - but rather than a dedicated hazards or dual screens lead, it's best used as a team supporter you can bring in later to check things via typing and rack spikes. Think like a skarmory, but less narrowly tailored.

Another way to organize it might be to group them into categories, for instance:

The Dragon Sweepers (Mence, Zygarde, Haxorus)
Free Momentum (Magnezone, Hydreigon)
Trappers (Wobuffet, Gothitelle)

Thanks for your time, and please offer feedback. I gleaned what information I could from old UU threads - if someone with more expierience could point out any places I'm wrong (for OU stuff too, ofc), that would be great!

Edit: I was straight up wrong on why Tornadus got banned, so I snipped it. Will be replacing.
 
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Hello! I like the idea, and you also made a great outline. The only "issue" is that we don't know much about you, but your outline is just very convincing that I want to give you a try right off the bat. When you get your thread in Article Workshop, you'll be allowed to ask for feedback from other experienced players (hopefully they'll respond).

I'm going to give this another day to see what the other mods say (if they have anything to say anyway), but otherwise, I'm leaning towards yes.

edit: Oh, and I'd mark this down for Metagame.
 
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Metagame seems like a good category for it.

And yeah, I get that I'm a bit of a wildcard. I understand the hesitation and definitely appreciate giving me a shot!
 
Okay, I think we want to be on the safe side. Ecthel, would it be okay for you to fully write out one or two of these (say, Hydreigon and/or Staraptor). We'll then get some feedback on your content and, if it's solid, we'll fully approve you. Does that sound okay?
 
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Hydreigon

What makes it too good for UU?

There have been plenty of non-OU Pokemon whose movepools have made even Ubers green with envy, but Hydreigon does them one better by having an excellent stat spread to go with its coverage. Hydreigon works in UU for essentially the same reason it worked in BW OU - it's a tall order for anything to switch into a potential Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, Earth Power, Focus Blast, or Surf coming off a 128 base Special Attack. This makes Hydreigon extremely unpredictable and difficult to play around, which is compounded by being able to run both Choice and Life Orb sets. In addition to its vast coverage movepool, it has reliable recovery from Roost and the ability to gain momentum for its team via U-turn. For UU in particular, Hydreigon was very happy to see Chansey banished to Borderline, leaving Florges as pretty much the only thing in UU that could actually wall it. The lack of solid checks and only one real counter led to Hydreigon's ban from UU.

Why doesn't it shine in OU?

Firstly, the OU metagame's makeup isn't very kind to Hydreigon. The fairies populating the tier are much more dangerous than Florges - rather than being walled by one thing, Hydreigon has to deal with Sylveon, Togekiss, Clefable, and its old nemesis Chansey. Of particular note is Azumarill, which resists Hydreigon's STAB moves and most of its coverage options while being very scary as a sweeper. Hydreigon also sits at an unfortunate 98 base speed in a tier much faster than UU.

The second issue is that, with the exception of U-turn and Earth Power/Fire Blast, Hydreigon is pretty much completely outclassed by the Lati twins. Specs and Scarf Latios are generally considered bad in OU at the moment, so the fact that they both outclass Hydreigon's Choice sets by virtue of a much better Speed tier is telling. The Lati's Life Orb sets also get the new and improved Defog, a valuable move to have when most of the best sweepers in OU are at least 2x weak to stealth rock.

When can you use it in OU?

Hydreigon and Metagross were very commonly used together before Hydreigon's ban, and a core of Hydreigon and Aegislash is even better. Between the two, no type in the game goes unresisted or ignored completely, with the exception of Mold Breaker Excadrill. (Excadrill causes many exceptions in this manner, really.) Of particular note is Aegislash scaring away Fairies with its STAB Iron Head and Hydreigon having a Fire resistance and Ground Immunity.


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Staraptor

What makes it too good for UU?

Staraptor is a BL veteran, having being banned to it since it was introduced during the DPP era. Staraptor is pretty one dimensional, but it does its job extremely well - punching massive holes in everything. Flying is already one of the best STABs a Pokemon can have, and being backed by an extremely good 120 base Attack and a fantastic ability in Reckless sends the raw power of Staraptor sky-high. While both of its STAB moves are resisted by Steel and Rock, Staraptor gets access to the very coveted Close Combat, one of the best Fighting moves in the game. Finally, if all else fails, it can simply U-turn out and hide in the shadows, waiting for a more opportune moment to continue its rampage. All of these factors have led to Staraptor being in limbo for 3 generations straight.

Why doesn't it shine in OU?

Firstly, Staraptor is definitely relegated to wall-breaking only in OU. While 100 speed is good, it's not enough to outrun threats such as Garchomp, Keldeo, Greninja, Landorus-I, or the Lati Twins. You could run a Scarf, but then you lose the main reason to use Staraptor - and will find yourself wondering why you aren't just using Banded Talonflame. As far as wall breaking goes, the amount of offensive power sets a much higher bar in OU. In a tier with competition such as Mega-Pinsir, Kyurem-Black, and Excadrill, Staraptor finds it much harder to stand out from the crowd. On top of facing stiffer competition, the walls needing to be broken in OU are much scarier in general - Staraptor struggles to get past the likes of Skarmory, Landorus-Therian, and Mandibuzz. Aegislash, being one of the most common and most dangerous threats in the tier, also carries an unfortunate immunity to Close Combat. Staraptor just has a harder time doing its job in the face of stronger walls.

When can you use it in OU?

Speaking of Talonflame, Staraptor does work well with it in the so-called Double Birds core. The principle behind it is that the opponent will likely be relying on the same things to deal with both of them - by wearing down each other's counters, you open up the possibility of a sweep by overwhelming the opposing team. However, switch in opportunities can be difficult to engineer, particularly when the omnipresent Sneaky Pebbles is taken into account, so hazard removal and VoltTurn support are essential.

First draft ahoy. Thanks for the consideration and I hope you enjoyed it!
 
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Okay, I'm going to contact kokoloko and blackmail him; he has to respond to this if he wants to have his own interview! He can also ask other people if he doesn't have the time to do so, it's just he so happens to have super mods and can respond here hehehe. Basically, is the information correct, could there be more information, etc?

edit@below: ty! <3

Oh, also, if you don't know anything about the OU parts, I'll get Treecko or someone, don't worry about it.
 
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ok i forgot to do it yesterday but ima do literally it right now sorry for the wait!

hydreigon: correct on every point except "how you use it on OU", here you should focus on its wallbreaking ability. draco / dark pulse / flash cannon / fire blast @ expert belt kinda shits on stall), but most of the time you're better off using a better wallbreaker.

staraptor: correct on every point.

magnezone: yep but make sure to emphazise how retardedly strong it really is--2HKO on SpD hippo with flash cannon oml

crawdaunt: reason its in BL is mostly the HUGE strain it puts on balance/stall teambuilding. it was seriously chesnaught, mega blastoise, or death. your pick.

tornadus-t: BL because it does the exact same thing that sent it to Ubers last gen: regen allowed it to outlast every one of its checks 100% of the time, if well played. knock off killed lefties recovery, taunt stopped healing, and acrobatics deals pretty good dmg on everything (yes the best set was itemless acro LOL). it really is a shame this fucker got sent up, cause it was my absolute favorite mon to use in UU :[

klefki: remove the bit about swagplay since it was banned alongside swagger, but those of us who vote to ban it anyway, it was because priority screens, twave and spikes were retardedly good. twave was especially sketchy because it allowed to careless play knowing that you had a backup plan in case you fucked up. i dont like shit that allows careless play.

WHERE ARE THE REST
 
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Oi, I just outlined a few to give a general idea of the article. fwiw I definitely would've put more emphasis on what you mentioned for Kefki - the SwagPlay mention would've just been more of a joke than anything else, and the other sets are way more consistent.

If you guys would like the rest before grennlight, I could probably have them done by tomorrow.

Edit: Yeah, that didn't happen. Sorry. x:

I'm off today, so they should be written up by tomorrow morning.
 
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Ecthel, sorry for the delay. I'm currently being a bit lax here since we're close to release, meaning your article will be automatically pushed for the next issue (so lots of time!).

I'm fine with you and this article. You can write up the rest at Article Workshop. koko and friends can post in your thread if they have more comments. Approved!

I'll call Toast++ here for your AW access. In the meantime, you can set up your thread for Issue 35. This should probably be tagged for Metagame, since it talks about Pokemon that affected the metagames.

So just some notes, do your work on time (pretty much given hehe), and if you can't do that, just let us know by posting in your thread about your issue and ask to push it to the next issue. And, don't leak any content out of The Smog. We want to try to keep things a surprise. :)

There are these weird tag thingies we use. You'll see threads with [34-M] and stuff like that. The number is the issue number and the letter(s) represents the category. So if yours is Metagame, you'd put [34-M] in front of your title. You can read more about this in the Article Index. There's also the other tag that says [WIP], [Grammar], and stuff like that. That's the stage your article is at. You start at work in progress (WIP), then when you feel you're finished, you can move it to the grammar stage to get some checks. Afterward, move it to HTML for it to be encoded, and if it wasn't already done, Images should be the next step. You're Done after all that!

Thanks for your interest in The Smog! You can visit #thesmog on IRC if you want to get some help about your article and whatnot. It's more of a work-friendly area than a casual area, but you can still be goofy at times, don't worry!
 
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