• Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!

Garchomp and Sand Veil Discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.
Wait, really? You don't think anything has changed since Garchomp was banned?

It's generally acknowledged that Sand Veil was what got Garchomp banned in the first place; it was very good without it, but the ability itself just gave it too many opportunities to set up a Swords Dance and demolish your team.

These days, Garchomp getting a Swords Dance doesn't mean your entire team is dead, because a lot of Pokemon can outspeed it and hit it for heavy damage. Scarf Genesect runs rampant, and it demolishes Garchomp with Ice Beam (or it can just smack it with U-Turn if Garchomp is weakened enough). Keldeo can use Icy Wind to take Garchomp out, and Hydro Pump will do a number on it as well. Choice Band Terrakion almost always OHKOs Garchomp after Stealth Rock. Lati@s outspeed destroy Garchomp with STAB Dragon-type moves. Starmie can KO Garchomp, as always, and even stuff like HP Ice Jolteon has a renewed presence with the dominance of Rain in this metagame. A lot of this stuff existed before, which is why a lot of people didn't think Garchomp was broken before without Sand Veil. But Garchomp's checks have become a lot more prominent. The huge abundance of Scarf Genesect makes a big difference too, since Genesect downright counters any Garchomp that lacks a Fire move...any Garchomp without a Fire move can't run Sub+SD, which was the set that was considered broken before because of Sand Veil's annoying 20% chance to get off a free Swords Dance (and a 4% chance to have up both a Swords Dance and a Sub, which spells death for basically any team lacking Skarmory or, I guess, Bronzong).

So what's changed? Sand is a lot less dominant, Rain is a lot more so, there are a number of new checks to Garchomp's Sub+SD set, and a number of Pokemon who checked Garchomp well become have become more prominent with the prevalence of Rain. Non-Sub/SD Garchomp has become a lot less impressive, since it has to compete with Latios for a team spot, and Latios is generally more reliable at dishing out damage outside of sandstorm. But the problem that got Garchomp banned before still exists; even though every set besides Sub+SD is less threatening than it used to be, the Sub+SD set still has a decent chance of getting off a boost that the opponent can do nothing about, and that will nearly guarantee the opponent will lose at least two Pokemon. Given that people have been bothered by Gliscor's ability to do the same thing, and that Garchomp's other sets are a lot less dominant than they used to be, there's plenty of reason to discuss allowing Garchomp back into the metagame, particularly is Sand Veil is banned.

Also, don't underestimate Gliscor's power. Acrobatics + EQ is actually pretty brutal at +2, especially given that a Flight Gem boosted Acrobatics has a pretty solid shot at destroying (non-Steel) physical walls after Stealth Rock damage.
 
GatoDelFuego said:
After watching this thread for a few days, I've seen it change completely. It's gone from "is sand veil actually broken" to "is garchomp actually broken". Now, it seems like nobody cares whether garchomp is broken or not, but seems to already be discussing the best way to try and loophole around previous systems just to fit him in.

I've also seen a real lack of reason why he should actually be OU. People say that you can check him with Weavile and Mamoswine, but guess what? You could do that before, and just because Mamoswine is used more doesn't make it any better to have garchomp back. It was still banned with those old checks in mind. Now, I hear people saying that garchomp was only banned because of sand veil. So what about that?

If a pokemon is broken with an ability, you don't ban that ability, you ban the pokemon. Is gliscor broken with sand veil? Not really. The chances of missing with that crucial ice beam may still be there, but then again SD gliscor isn't exactly boasting the most powerful coverage out there. Basically any steel-type will deal with him. However, garchomp on the other hand can 2HKO both of his "counters", skarmory and bronzong, with appropriate moves, as well as having a bonus of not even lowering his validity. That seems to remind me exactly of last generation as well as garchomp's previous ban several months ago. What's changed? The usage of mamoswine? Tornadus-T outspeeding him like many things could do before? Please, don't call Tornadus a check to garchomp, its just not.

Basically, a lack of things have changed since garchomp was banned, and the reasons he was banned still stand here today. Why are we debating about sand veil just for one pokemon? If that pokemon is broken, ban the pokemon.

Also, if you have that much of a garchomp fetish and need to use him that bad, just go play ubers.
Click to expand...

This "guilty until proven innocent" mentality sure gets in the way of letting things down from ubers. Not everything gets hard counters anymore and besides, you can't pack a hard counter to everything. This is gen V, there's like 100 threats to consider when teambuilding, and if you can't learn to check things and call it a day, you won't succeed in this meta.

I'm reminded of the quote, though i don't remember who it was attributed to, that said thus: "the problem i have here is that you guys are like "this is the banlist which we originally got from really sketchy methods, never, ever question it." The question should never be "why should we put something in OU?" It should ALWAYS be "why should we put something in ubers?" Besides, if you read the reports from people who are actually using Garchomp in this meta, it's not even that great.
 
The reason no one is talking about whether Garchomp is broken anymore without SV is because there's already a fairly overwhelming consensus from people who've played the suspect ladder that it isn't. Garchomp has proven to be perfectly easy to handle according to most of the posters on this thread, without SV at least.

It's also become apparent that SV is being banned only partially to get Garchomp down. It's mostly being banned because a large number of people (including council members) feel that it is un-commeptitive. I don't agree with that viewpoint, but there it is. So arguing that we should test SV Garchomp is pretty irrelevant when it seems like SV's fate is probably sealed either way.

@ Deluge

The reasons SV is up instead of those other factors are actually pretty numerous. Unlike a lot of the other things you mentioned (Crits, innaccurate moves, secondary effects etc.), it isn't vital to the balance of the game. Also, unlike other luck based tactics (IE Jirachi) it has a grand total of two workarounds. 1. Win the weather war. 2. Run Ariel ace on Scyther or Scizor. Those are seriously the only feasible ways to prevent SV hax against Gliscor and Garchomp. Otherwise, you just have to hope it doesn't happen. I personally find less solid but still good methods like phazing using whirlwind, keeping your walls and checks intact and such to be good enough for Gliscor, and most people do agree that it isn't broken persay. They just don't like that it causes them to lose a match , with no real way to prevent it from happening, every now and then. They believe that is un-competitive, and in a way it sort of is. The nature of SV is that no matter how much risk management you do, sometimes there's just nothing you can do to prevent a loss.

So that's why it's being targeted. It's easy and possible to remove it without affecting the metagame adversely, and it causes loses that cannot be realistically prevented without running very specific counters. I know it's a bit hard to understand at first but when you've been at it for as long as I have you start to figure out the other side of the debate.
 
gato, i think you've lost sight of why sand veil is being discussed here. while there were complaints in the past about sand veil "breaking" garchomp, the real reason that it's being banned, right now, is because the council has deemed it uncompetitive - ie it promotes an unfair and undesirable amount of luck-based play. i was complaining a lot about how unclear the reasoning was and pocket cleared it up. you, and many other people, seem to remain under the impression that sand veil was banned so that the council had an excuse to drop garchomp back down. the reasoning is actually the reverse: garchomp has been dropped back down because sand veil was banned for an altogether separate reason. refer to http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4381782&postcount=234:

Pocket said:
We're only banning Sand Veil, thus Garchomp was dropped down, since it was largely banned b/c of this ability. The OU council people deemed activated Sand Veil as undesirable to this metagame; thus the ban.
Click to expand...

i don't think subsd gliscor is broken. after all, it's not exactly tearing up the ladder or tournament play. however, it IS (according to the council) uncompetitive because it is a set that functions by abusing miss hax even on moves that normally should not miss. the set is probably not overpowered but still not fair or desirable. it doesn't matter how rare it may be, because the fact that it exists, and it abuses sand veil, is already undesirable. the fact that garchomp was the premier sand veil abuser is actually not what this thread is about, and the fact that sand veil pushed garchomp over the edge is beside the point. the real reason this ladder even exists is because activated sand veil was deemed too haxxy to be acceptable. doesn't matter whether it's on garchomp, gliscor, or yes even my main man cacturne whom i keep trying to defend. a sand team that tries to abuse miss hax in this way is undesirable to the metagame, regardless of pokemon. that's why sand veil has been banned.

from there, a few discussions seem to remain. one involves whether sand veil is uncompetitive at all. another involves how the sand veil ban should be implemented - as a combo or as a blanket ban. the last question is really whether or not garchomp deserves to REMAIN banned now that sand veil has been taken away. in this i agree with pwnemon (and kd who said it before): the objective should be to make banlists as short as possible, if anything. of course what should and should not be banned is subjective, but the question should ultimately be "why are we banning this?" instead of "why don't we ban this?"

post summary
from what i gather, this is the rough chain of premises that led to the formation of this ladder. if you would argue against any of the changes that have been made in this ladder, the only way to do so is to target premises that were actually involved in its formation:

  1. Established fact: Sand teams can (and do) abuse Sand Veil to set up for free by obtaining misses on moves that would not miss. In the past this was done with Garchomp, and in the modern era this is mostly done by the admittedly rare SubSD Acrobatics Gliscor.
  2. From the observation of point #1, the council has decided that this play is unacceptable because the luck it introduces into the game is unreasonably high. (this is a premise being challenged by one of the discussions we're having, as illustrated by posts like deluge's. is sand veil uncompetitive in the first place?)
  3. Based on point #2, Sand Veil has been banned from the ladder. (another one of our discussions enters at this step: how should sand veil be banned? this is what i've been arguing about, mostly.)
  4. Established fact: Garchomp, a long-time member of the uber tier, has been banned for a multitude of reasons. However, many of the historical arguments for banning Garchomp have focused on its ability to abuse Sand Veil to maximize its potential.
  5. Point #3 indicates that on this ladder, Sand Veil is banned. Therefore, one of the main reasons for banning Garchomp, as observed in point #4, might no longer be valid.
  6. Established policy: Pokemon should not be banned unless proven uncompetitive or proven broken.
  7. Since Garchomp no longer has Sand Veil to behave uncompetitively as a result of points 2 and 3, and since many arguments for its brokenness centered around Sand Veil as observed by point 4, it is now possible that Garchomp no longer has a reason to be banned, as in point 5. Thus, in accordance with point 6, now may be a good time to retest Garchomp. (this is the last discussion: is Garchomp still broken without its activated sand veil?)
what i am trying to say, gato, is that your post targets a premise that is irrelevant. if sand veil was banned specifically so that garchomp could be returned to the tier, then yes, the focus should be on garchomp, and why we don't just ban the mon. but that's not what this discussion is about. sand veil has been banned for reasons independent of garchomp, and from there garchomp came down.
 
Is anyone out there in suspect found personally that Garchomp is still uber? I find it rather odd how everyone seems to support it here. Enough of this sand viel discussion, I want to see some debate on the actual pokemon that may come down to OU.
 
Scarfwynaut said:
Is anyone out there in suspect found personally that Garchomp is still uber? I find it rather odd how everyone seems to support it here. Enough of this sand viel discussion, I want to see some debate on the actual pokemon that may come down to OU.
Click to expand...

It's not an Uber as a result of its stats or movepool, if that's what you mean. Garchomp used to function extremely well even without Sand Veil, due to its troll base 102 Speed and good coverage, but it doesn't do nearly as well in a metagame dominated by extremely fast threats. I have found that its best set is a Choice Scarfed revenge killer, which utilizes its base 102 Speed to maximum potential, able to beat Scarf Genesect, Scarf Thundurus-T, Scarf Landorus, and other common Scarfers, as well as revenge kill +1 Dragonite, Salamence, etc.
 
Bit of an off topic question, but what items are common on Garchomp in this meta? I am specifically interested in how common life orb and yache berry are. Thanks :).
 
Scarfwynaut said:
Bit of an off topic question, but what items are common on Garchomp in this meta? I am specifically interested in how common life orb and yache berry are. Thanks :).
Click to expand...
| Items |
| Choice Scarf 20.547% |
| Yache Berry 20.402% |
| Leftovers 16.360% |
| Choice Band 10.068% |
| Life Orb 9.608% |
| Salac Berry 6.050% |
| Lum Berry 4.743% |
| Rocky Helmet 3.679% |
| Focus Sash 3.340% |
| Expert Belt 1.186% |
| Other 4.017% |
http://paste.ubuntu.com/1180399/
 
I haven't tested Chomp and it very well could still be broken. It was always very hard to deal with in OU given its great speed tier, powerful dual STAB with good coverage off 130 base attack, and bulk equivalent to Swampert's. Then again, Sand Veil was what pushed it over the edge, giving it the possibility of setting up on basically anything and then sweeping.

I support Sand Veil being banned. We ban Moody, double team, and even hail in UU through evasion clause (snow cloak). Sand Veil is very abusable and on a number of strong pokemon geared towards abusing it. Even Gliscor can be very good at abusng the miss to set up sweeps, and Chomp is much scarier than it. The only downside is losing a couple of moves on Cacturne, which is an extremely obscure reason to not make a ban. In terms of precedent, more unbroken pokemon were disturbed by the drizzle+swsw ban-would you be afraid of swift swim magikarp in drizzle, to make a drastic example? Things like Floatzel are not broken, but it's the incredibly small price we need to pay to make a simple and effective ban.

The alternative banning options are just worse in their effectiveness and their simplicity. I support retesting Garchomp because it'd be interesting, especially if the meta has evolved to work around it. No way to know unless we ban sand veil.

Pocket EDIT: Hail was banned from UU primarily because of Blizzard spam, not Snow Cloak hax (although that was what fueled Hail to become suspect)
 
As per Lavos' request, I've been using Garchomp on my test team for a bit, and I find that the Scarf set has been perfect to fill the holes my team had before with my Dragon choices of Scarf Salamence, Latios, or SubRoost Kyurem. Scarf on that 102 has been awesome for Volcarona, Scarf Thundurus-T, Scarf Landorus-I/T, and other Dragons and boosters. The problem I frequently have though is deciding what move to lock myself into. Mostly it's Outrage for the oomph, but Scarf Ground moves, as you all know rather well, are kinda meh to get locked into - especially with Tornadus-T freakin' everywhere, but often necessary for slapping that opposing Heatran or Jirachi or whatever (besides, TOrnadus-T is what Zapdos lives for, right?) Rough Skin is also hilarious to Scizor and Breloom as well. If you have them whittled down enough from SR and Ferrothorn-like residual damage (Rocky Helmet FTW), it's basically a "come at me, bro" as they die ending your sweep.

So Garchomp isn't the threat I thought it could be, much like most people in this thread. However, I love its utility and niche on my current team, as it can do many thing in one Pokemon slot that not many other Dragons or Scarfers can. Garchomp, I hope you stay.
 
BACK TO GARCHOMP

Seeing how it is pretty obvious that RS Garchomp seems fine in the OU metagame, will there be a re-test for SV Garchomp it is new to the BW2 metagame?
 
Man the last days the thread has became brutal, hasn't it? Hell no.

Alkinesthetase, the problem on the banning of Sand Veil + Sand Stream is, as someone said above, something that would make team advantage that much more important, something undesirable for the metagame. Also, let's go into the topic of Rough Skin vs Sand Veil.

Even though Rain has became much more common, don't underestimate sand, and if people run Kingdra just for the sake of demolishing rain teams then why not running chomp for that same reason. And to quote ginganinja, Sand Veil is passive, there will always be that 20% chance that may or may not make you miss the Ice Beam with your Scarf Genesect against chomp, effectively costing you the game.

Also, someone several pages ago said that players when seeing the ability, instead of relying on one that is sure to work (completely ignoring its effect) to one that causes hax, they will choose hax, forgetting that there's only 20% chance of happening, and that it needs sand up, as long as there's a percentage that might turn a game over from a 5-1 to 1-0, that's enough.

Not really important, but there are players that are, umm, subpar (scrubs) that may run Sandstorm in Garchomp, and it has the same effect as those who use quick claw on their rhyperior (an example) and get the effect 3 times in a row, this might cause you the game against someone with no experience whatsoever, as many have said, hax is uncontrollable, but Sand Veil is as close as it gets.

Btw, if you're so worried about Cacturne, then only impose a ban on OU, for those of you who read this and are from the Smogon Council.
 
it's all theory so there's only so much we can say without actually testing veil chomp vs a sand team, but i will respond to each of your points:

Even though Rain has became much more common, don't underestimate sand, and if people run Kingdra just for the sake of demolishing rain teams then why not running chomp for that same reason. And to quote ginganinja, Sand Veil is passive, there will always be that 20% chance that may or may not make you miss the Ice Beam with your Scarf Genesect against chomp, effectively costing you the game.
Click to expand...
sand veil is a powerful ability but nowhere near as powerful as swift swim. swift swim kingdra works against rain because it can come in on rain's most common spammy attacks (water, ice and electric. btw, ss ludicolo ftw) and because swift swim ALWAYS pays off. even then it's rare for people to actually run kingdra because you're basically gambling a team slot on the chance of facing rain. garchomp is in an even worse position because sand veil does not guarantee a sweep. not only do you have to be fortunate enough to face a sand team in the first place, but you also need to be fortunate enough to score a sand veil miss. so no, kingdra and garchomp are not directly comparable as checks to the weathers in which they historically excelled.

i will admit one other difference in favor of your argument, because i expect to be called out on it and i might as well save myself the time: garchomp is not outclassed if it lacks activated sand veil, where as kingdra IS outclassed if it lacks activated swift swim. therefore the risk of running veilchomp on a non-sand team is less than running kingdra on a non-rain team - if your opponent doesn't have sand, hey, it's still a garchomp, so it's not like it's useless/outclassed (unlike kingdra, where if your opponent doesn't have rain, you basically have to look at it and say to yourself "dammit i wish this was a latios right about now"). my rebuttal is that, if there's no rain at all, even sniper kingdra would outclass swift swim kingdra - at least the ability would have a purpose. the same is true for garchomp - if there was no sand, rough skin chomp straight up outclasses sand veil chomp, since it has all the same sets but it also has an ability that actually does something. the odds are in favor of you not encountering sand, and the odds are in favor of you not getting a lucky sand veil miss, so the likelihood of veilchomp paying off is astoundingly low, which ties in with my points below.

Also, someone several pages ago said that players when seeing the ability, instead of relying on one that is sure to work (completely ignoring its effect) to one that causes hax, they will choose hax, forgetting that there's only 20% chance of happening, and that it needs sand up, as long as there's a percentage that might turn a game over from a 5-1 to 1-0, that's enough.
Click to expand...
i again submit that only an idiot would make that choice. further elaboration below.

Not really important, but there are players that are, umm, subpar (scrubs) that may run Sandstorm in Garchomp, and it has the same effect as those who use quick claw on their rhyperior (an example) and get the effect 3 times in a row, this might cause you the game against someone with no experience whatsoever, as many have said, hax is uncontrollable, but Sand Veil is as close as it gets.
Click to expand...
sandstorm garchomp wouldn't work because there aren't enough moveslots in the first place. again, the only way sandstorm garchomp could possibly work is alongside subsd (that's the only set that can really abuse sand veil well enough to justify actually wasting a moveslot just to activate it), in which case the set is sandstorm/substitute/swords dance/outrage. such a useless set is easily walled and phazed off. obviously you could say that the team might not have a suitable counter or that it's already dead, but you could make that argument for ANY garchomp, sand veil or not. "oh well garchomp is obviously broken because if your opponent traps your steel with magnezone then it sweeps your whole team!!11!one" is true for all chomps. in that case it's the player's own fault for being garchomp-weak in general. find me someone dumb enough to run such a stupid set, and then we'll talk.

and finally, the original response i had to all three of your points, one that i think still stands: these things are all well and good to discuss in theory, but i strongly doubt they will ever occur in practice. that's the problem with raising arguments about sand veil garchomp being used to check sand. it's a dick move for sure and falls under the same bracket of uncompetitiveness as sand veil garchomp being used ON a sand team. however the likelihood of it happening is astoundingly rare because the idea just sucks. i believe that it would be uncommon enough that it can be ignored, in favor of something that we know is common (NU cacturne). we know cacturne would be affected if we banned all veil, but do we know if the meta would lose out from not banning anti-sand veilchomp? we can't say for sure, and my ultimate theoretical argument is that the chance of it being a problem is too low to be concerned over.

the question here, really, is whether or not it's so rare that its uncompetitiveness can be set aside. if we look at something that i myself said before, subsd gliscor's current rarity on the ladder and in tournament play is irrelevant to the fact that it's uncompetitive. i do not deny making this statement, and i do not deny that it could sort of also apply to veilchomp being used against sand. however, two problems with extending my argument there to the argument we are having here.
1) nobody has ever used subsd veilscor in an attempt to check sand, because it's only ever appeared on teams that actually use sand. this is obvious because sand veil + sand stream has never been banned until this suspect ladder. at this very moment, on the standard OU ladder, people could be running subsd gliscor as a sand check, but they don't. so why don't they? it's because there are other mons, and even other variants of gliscor, that do that job better. the same thing is true for garchomp. people could be running subsd veilscor as a sand check on non-sand teams at this very moment, and yet they do not. what makes you think garchomp will be any different?
2) we know right now that subsd gliscor is a fairly rare set, yet i myself argue that right now, it's common enough to be examined. fair enough, but those statistics are from a metagame where sand veil + sand stream is legal. if sand stream + sand veil was illegalized, i strongly believe that veilscor, JUST LIKE veilchomp, would be too rare to be worth noting, since their only usefulness would be to check opposing sand. in other words, if it can be used on sand, veilscor is common enough to justify being targeted as another sand veil abuser, but if it could not be used on sand, i don't think it would be common enough to receive that justification. same goes for chomp.

anyway though most of this post is hot air because it's all theory, really. if we really wanted to go to the trouble, we could try yet another suspect ladder with just sand veil + sand stream banned, to see if sand veil gliscor or garchomp become used to check opposing sand, and to discuss from there whether or not this behavior is also serious enough to deserve mention. but opening yet another suspect ladder is really gonna waste a lot of time for a discussion like this so probably the council will just weigh in on the theory we've been exchanging.
 
Oh yeah, let's only ban something in OU. As someone else(I believe it was voodoo pimp) said, this kind of ban would overcomplicate the lower teirs unnecessarily.
 
Just wondering: is the suspect OU still with Garchomp not banned and Sand Veil banned or did you change it yet to implement the Sand Veil + Sand Stream ban idea?
 
In all honesty, Garchomp was only broken due to Sand Veil/Sub bullshit. There are a ton of pokes in OU with stats like his, and are just as broken. For one, Sand Veil/Acro Gliscor is just ridiculous. Then Tornadus-T deserves a ban hammer. Chomp would benefit the meta immensely and add alot of diversity to teams and hopefully bring another weather back instead of a Rain Ruled metagame.
 
I wonder how many people have used the "I quit if so-and-so gets banned/unbanned" stuff yet? It's too cliché to work anymore.

By the way, I support a Sand Stream + Sand Veil complex ban.
 
Just wondering: is the suspect OU still with Garchomp not banned and Sand Veil banned or did you change it yet to implement the Sand Veil + Sand Stream ban idea?
Click to expand...

afaik, it remains the former: garchomp unbanned, all sand veil banned. ss+veil ban has not yet been implemented
 
well at the moment it's basically a bunch of people (myself included) slinging theory and philosophy at each other =P no council member has really stepped in and taken a stand. concerns have been presented from both sides, and from council members (see jc's post on the previous page), but nobody's really officialized one opinion or the other.

i personally doubt that the ss+sv ladder would be implemented, simply because it takes a fairly long time (1-2 months) for a test ladder's results to become statistically significant enough that policy can be based on it. i mean look at this garchomp ladder. garchomp usage is ridiculously high right now because everyone wants to test it, and judging by past posts, it would NOT be that high in actual OU play. in the time it takes to test sv+ss, smogon could be sending its player base to suspect test something more interesting, like a weatherless tier, or a tier without volcarona, or tornadus-T, or genesect, or any other number of dudes up for discussion (see the general suspect thread).

but again that's just hot air on my part. in a perfect world we'd be able to suspect test everything, so we could get some statistical backing for our theory, but obviously there's not enough time for that. i guess at the moment, the council is still locked in thought, so the jury is out.
 
Something that is kind of bothering me here, is how we talk about how powerful Garchomp is, but we kind of leave out one very strong candidate as well who is almost just as good as chomp (at least without Sand Veil), and that's Hydreigon.

Hydreigon is only 4 points below in Speed and is basically Garchomp as a special attacker instead of primarily physical. He is an outstanding Scarfer, and with his large move pool consisting of powerful SpA moves like Fire Blast, Focus Blast, Dark Pulse, and Draco Meteor, he can revenge kill many top threats in OU.

Unlike Chomp, Hydreigon has the ability to revenge kill Mamoswine with Fire Blast unless it's banded, or if he happens to lock him into Stone Edge or Earthquake. That's another thing, Levitate. He is immune to all Ground types moves, and Spikes/Toxic Spikes. This allow him to switch into anything that tries to possibly EdgeQuake an entire team.

My point is although just ever so slightly slower, Hydreigon can be just as dangerous as Garchomp that lacks SV, and although Chomp carries a little more bulk, Hydreigon lacks a x4 weakness to Ice, an immunity to Psychic, Ground, and Spikes, more diverse move pool, and revenge kill a wider amount of threats.

Yes Garchomp has its advantages, but Hydreigon is very dangerous, which in my opinion makes it seem like Garchomp would fit just fine in OU, as the underrated Hydreigon can be just as dangerous to a team as Garchomp can.
 
Here is the issue with hydregion, its not a sweeper, it is a wallbreaker / cleaner. Garchomp with a little support (or anything that is a sweeper, don't eat me pro-chomp people), can sweep whole teams. Hydregion faces issues, for example Politoed is not a hydregion counter at all, yet Politoed can take pretty much every since one of its moves once and kill it off, making it a very solid check. A lot of pokemon in OU do that same, they might not be able to switch in, but they can take one attack, and kill it off. Also from an offensive standpoint, its kinda meh because of its less than base 100 speed. Finally it can be solidly walled by common pokemon such as Tyranitar, Blissey, Chansey, and even Jirachi in the rain. Simply put, if you don't have a way to deal with Hydregion and are swept by it, you deserve it.

But most of all, it faces competition with Latios, who does pretty much the same thing, but better in a lot of respects, Hydregion has a leg up in not being pursuit weak, that's about it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top