General Metagame Discussion

[Lady Alex]

The metagame might well be stagnant, but that's the fault of the players, not the bans in place. People are simply spamming the same old easy to use strategy because it's easy. Well you know what? I know for a fact that those strategies aren't completely overpowered because I'm in the top 100 with a team that uses NONE of them. There are plenty of viable strategies aside from Volt-turn, rain stall and (lol) 4drag 2 mag (Seriously? I NEVER see 4 drag 2 mag!). Most people are just too lazy to look for them and just go with the standard.

I completely agree with this statement. The prevalence of volt-turn is because it's an easy, viable playstyle that doesn't take a lot of thought to put together. When people try to use something different and fail, they end up resorting to using what they already know works. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing and that they shouldn't do that, but I think it's important to acknowledge that laziness to look for anything else is one of the primary reasons volt-turn, drag/mag, and rain stall teams are seen everywhere at the moment, not because they're overpowered

Cress in the sun practically shuts down drag/mag by herself, and I firmly believe that sun stall teams can be a nightmare for rain, taking away starmie's ability to muscle through spinblockers. I had a lot of success a while back with a tweaked version of Stunt's sun stall team, and it, among other things, are very viable in today's metagame. I'm also surprised at the lack of deoxys-D usage. Deo-D is amazing right now. Just like Deo-S, it can almost always guarantee at least 2 layers of hazards. This alone makes scizor + rotom much less threatening, cutting scizor's health by 25% every time it comes in, or more if you have more than 2 layers up. Unlike ferrothorn, Deoxys isn't set up fodder like ferrothorn, being able to outspeed and taunt nearly all bulky set up sweepers, so it can set up hazards without worrying about its entire team getting swept afterward by a +4 dragonite. Pokemon like nidoking and cloyster, who very frequently suffer from their checks barely surviving a hit, really appreciate the reliable hazard support, since they become much more dangerous than they usually would be.

I was going to talk about thundurus but then saw Haunter's post.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Sun stall?

I am intrigued, please tell me more. I always though stalling in the sun was counter productive because to virtually waste a pokemon on Ninetails for just some extra recovery on a few pokemon. Unless you mean sun-semistall, I could see that, but full sun stall seems odd.

 

[Lady Alex]

It is full sun stall. I always thought that it seemed counter-intuitive as well, but it's much better than I originally gave it credit for. Cresselia is tremendously bulky on both sides, and can deal with the physical threats that skarmory struggles with, such as band terrakion. Rain tends to struggle terribly with it after you get a layer of rocks on the field, since sableye is able to effortlessly spinblock anything in the sun. Whenever they switch back to politoed to get the rain back up, they usually get nailed with a w-o-w (or whatever else they decide to switch in). I run specially defensive ninetales so it's able to safely come in after politoed every time (unless it's specs'd, which does about 50% with hydro pump in the sun. It isn't a problem since specs toed gets whittled down more quickly than lefties toed), until politoed is eventually worn down. Cress is the star of the team, naturally. She's pretty much the only reason to use full sun stall, but it's soooo worth it. She hard counters dragonite if you run ice beam, only takes about 25-30% from CB scizor's u-turn after you outspeed and reflect, and with heal bell support she's incredibly difficult to take down. The team's biggest problem is heatran who run stealth rock + roar + protect. It takes a lot longer to wear it down because of protect, but If I can get a a layer of rocks and spikes up, chansey can seismic toss as it roars, ninetales can outspeed with its own roar, and tentacruel can spin/scald if heatran brings it in.

 

[Stratos]

I'm going to be a fuck and blame the 1337 stats for the stagnation of the meta. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great tool to see what the pros are using, but we have gotten to a point where people will literally just take the top six mons from the 1337 stats or find a successful RMT and copy the importable onto their team. It's not right.

I'm a terrible battler, and further the unluckiest man alive, but I managed to get to #22 on the OU ladder with 3 UU, Donphan, and Mienshao on the same team. Furthermore, i did not do the traditional Dark Horse of "take a successful team, substitute in one worse mon, and make up for it with skillful playing." I made a very unique team and laddered high. If i could, anyone can. But nobody tries, because it's easier to use someone else's brain as your own.

 

[Spork]

It is full sun stall. I always thought that it seemed counter-intuitive as well, but it's much better than I originally gave it credit for. Cresselia is tremendously bulky on both sides, and can deal with the physical threats that skarmory struggles with, such as band terrakion. Rain tends to struggle terribly with it after you get a layer of rocks on the field, since sableye is able to effortlessly spinblock anything in the sun. Whenever they switch back to politoed to get the rain back up, they usually get nailed with a w-o-w (or whatever else they decide to switch in). I run specially defensive ninetales so it's able to safely come in after politoed every time (unless it's specs'd, which does about 50% with hydro pump in the sun. It isn't a problem since specs toed gets whittled down more quickly than lefties toed), until politoed is eventually worn down. Cress is the star of the team, naturally. She's pretty much the only reason to use full sun stall, but it's soooo worth it. She hard counters dragonite if you run ice beam, only takes about 25-30% from CB scizor's u-turn after you outspeed and reflect, and with heal bell support she's incredibly difficult to take down. The team's biggest problem is heatran who run stealth rock + roar + protect. It takes a lot longer to wear it down because of protect, but If I can get a a layer of rocks and spikes up, chansey can seismic toss as it roars, ninetales can outspeed with its own roar, and tentacruel can spin/scald if heatran brings it in.

Haha I ran something I considered to be 'sun stall' before (I basically only go to OU so I can play sun, and I guess I got bored of all out offense). Cresselia is always hilarious to use, since nothing KOs it, and she can just chip away forever with her crappy ice beam. I also remember running a very dickish Cursed Body Taunt Jellicent. I never considered it to be anything more than a gimmick team, though.

 

[Joeyboy]

Its been said before me but I just wanna say, the metagame isn't really "stale". Volt-turn is used a lot but thats more to do with how well Scizor and Rotom-W fit on practically any team, seriously, any team. I have laddered up on the ladder, as high as top ten, #1 seems impossible, with multiple different team archetypes now. If everyone(as you are all saying) is using Tar/Scizor/Rotom-W/Terrakion/Landorus/etc then build to beat that team already. I don't know how you can fuss, everyone enjoys winning right? If you claim that everyone uses the same 'mons you should be winning like 90% of your games. Build to beat the metagame, thats something that people have been doing for ages.

Anyway that seemed to end in a bit of a rant so I'm going to try and bring up a new conversation. What's everyones stance on Baton Pass teams right now? I've been having a lot of fun abusing them recently and they seem incredibly hard to stop. Espeon doesn't need much more than a few boosts to become a total nightmare. Stall teams tend to fall apart quickly with Espeon or Ingrain and all you need are a few defense or speed boosts to thwart offense.

 

[Lady Alex]

I use stall and very seldom struggle with baton pass. Rain teams frequently carry perish song politoed, which ruins any baton pass teams that don't carry mr. mime (most do not, in my experience). In sun stall, I use sableye, who shuts down baton pass really well, as long as I foul play espeon as it comes in expecting a taunt.

Baton pass frequently struggles with pokemon like lucario in lead as well if you don't lead with mew. I haven't tried a baton pass chain since before deo-s got banned, but I used to enjoy using them. My favorite aspect about them is that the first few turns usually determine the outcome of the match bar a random crit. Oh, and I remember SD scizor being terrible to deal with as well.

 

[Joeyboy]

Yeah don't ever run Mr. Mime(poor guy), Perish Song(and crits) tend to be the only things that stop me. While Perish Song is annoying Politoed shouldn't be taking more than two boosted hits before it goes down and my most recent bp team doesn't mind starting a Bp chain over again.

Lucario ain't getting past Speedy Gliscor ;) Roar, Acid Armor Vaporeon is a pretty solid stop to SD Scizor too. Priority taunt is a real stinker but again those pokemon tend to be quite frail. Also haven't run into a player using Sun Stall ever so I can't say how well BP would do for sure haha. I've only ever seen it used once, by Stunt I wanna say; was something like Ninetales/Tentacruel/Sableye/Chansey/Cresselia/Forretress(maybe?).

 

[Lady Alex]

The last poke was skarmory.

 

[ginganinja]

lol fuck Sun Stall. I have fought Stunts team 3-4 times and won all of them, but that doesn't change the fact that its a bitch to face. Granted, I have been running Specs Tran a lot recently which makes Sun Stall a piece of cake to beat (93% to Cress anyone?) but that does'nt make it any less annoying when your not using Specs Tran.

 

[DDRMaster]

A well timed Dragon Tail or Leech Seed is generally enough to prevent Baton Pass from working. Attacking Espeon as it comes in to bounce back Roar works as well.

A team of 5 U-turners + Rotom-W doesn't work well anymore, so I can't really say that Volt Turn is dominant. It's just that Scizor and Rotom-W are #1 and #3, respectively.

 

[Lady Alex]

yeah... specstran lulz hard at sunstall.

 

[alphatron]

The last time I used specs tran, my opponent laughed at me and called me trash. Probably had something to do with me running flash cannon so that I could 2hko sp. def Tyranitar.

I would argue that choice specs heatran overall gives sun more trouble than any other heatran variant, especially for those teams that attempt to run tentacruel as a spinner/fire resist.

 

[Lady Alex]

I'd agree, since sun teams rarely have anything that can come in on strong fire attacks unless they're using heatran themselves. Even then, it has to be wary of switching in on a specs'd earth power.

I've been wondering how well arcanine + deo-d on a sun team would fare. With 104 atk EVs LO arcanine can safely 2hko politoed after spikes + stealth rock damage with wild charge and 1hko all non-chople berry tyranitar. It's biggest problem is having to waste 3 slots to accomplish this, but venusaur also really appreciates having multiple layers up, so it isn't a complete waste. Being able to threaten politoed, tyranitar, abomasnow, heatran, and anything that doesn't resist flare blitz is pretty impressive, despite arcanine's flaws. What do you guys think?

 

[dcae]

Honestly, people complaining about the meta are getting annoying. As mentioned several times above, the same strategies are being used so much building an anti meta team can send you up in ranking easily. I have experienced using unusual pokes to great success (I've used a suicide Froslass lead to great success in OU, a Sharpedo team that broke into top 100 using Darmanitan, ScarfMoxieMence while everyone abuses DD Dragonite) People have to begin looking at ways to outplay what is being seen instead of coming and complaining about it on a thread.

 

[Nelson]

As Deoxys was ban cuz it didn't had any 100% sure counter, would like to say same about landorus.

This thing is abject and doesn't have any 100% sure check as rotom is 2HKO by SE LO, Skarmory is smacked down..

I ddn't found any pokemon that wasn't 2HKO bar ferrothorn who has small chances not to be 2HKO'ed by LO eq lando (under sand) but come on lol, what can ferro do to landorus ?

So in theory, if this pokemon doesn't have any counters, it should at least be hardly discussed to be banned or not from OU.

 

[ginganinja]

just pointing out that Landorus is hardly within the same league as Deoxys S. Id also like to make the point that just because something has "apparently" no counters does not always mean that something should be banned. For example Salamence has basically no counters and I don't really see a move to ban it.

Landorus might lack a pokemon that 100% counters every set it runs, however it has a fairly large amount of checks. For example, if its not scarfed, Scarf Rotom W can revenge if it lacks a Substitute. Bronzong and Skarmo0ry do well if it lacks Smack Down, Ferrothorn can wear it down with Protect + Leech Seed, Celebi only really worries about U-Turn and Virizion outspeeds non scarf versions, and can threaten back with Hidden Power Ice. Latias also doesn't really worry about about Landorus as it can recover off U-Turn damage, set up a sub (since Smack Down doesn't break the sub IIRC) or set up reflect and gradually wear it down. Mamoswine can revenge with Ice Shard, Scizor revenges it at 50% ish with Bullet Punch... the list goes on. Landorus is not running EQ / Sub / SD / SE / Smack Down / HP Ice / U-Turn with Choice Scarf, LO, and Expert Belt. Its limited and to overly hard to deal with.

In dealing with Landorus your best weapon is clearly prediction which can give a hint at what set it runs. Just play around it and its usually not too difficult to find out what sets its running.

 

[Nelson]

First don't mess up between counter and Revenge kill, it's absolutely not the same thing, every pokemon can be revenge killed.

If you start by saying that you have to rely on prediction to see his set, why did we ban deoxys then ? With a bit of prediction, you could check his set and counter him well. No it was ban cuz it didn't have any sure counter like landorus doesn't have any also.

To be counters , a pokemon needs to avoid a 2HKO when switching on it which isn't the case for skarmory and latias which are both 2HKO, depending on the version.

Prediction isn't an excuse to counter a poke, cuz its same as for revenge killing, every poke can be countered with a bit of prediction, either thundurus or garchomp. No to be Uber, a pokemon must have any 100% sure counter which is the case of landorus.

 

[haunter]

No to be Uber, a pokemon must have any 100% sure counter which is the case of landorus.

This is nowhere written. Many Pokemon can get past some of their usual "counters" by running some uncommon sets. If your statement was true then we should have bannned Volcarona, Terrakion and many other Pokemon already a while ago.

Also, please, try to use proper English. The use of "cuz" and other abbreviations is against the rules.

 

[Nelson]

This is nowhere written. Many Pokemon can get past some of their usual "counters" by running some uncommon sets. If your statement was true then we should have bannned Volcarona, Terrakion and many other Pokemon already a while ago.

Also, please, try to use proper English. The use of "cuz" and other abbreviations is against the rules.

Since when smack down landorus is an uncommon set ? Let me know which pokemon doesn't have any 100% sure reliable counter even by running gimmick sets.

Technically, landorus doesn't have any counters in the contrary of terrakion where hippo can avoid no matter what arrives a 2HKO when he switches in.

 

[ginganinja]

How about instead of nitpicking my post you answer the entire thing. I have you a massive list of pokemon that deal with Landorus and you igored them all. Repeating this again cos apparently you missed it or repressed the memory of it.

Landorus is not running EQ / Sub / SD / SE / Smack Down / HP Ice / U-Turn with Choice Scarf, LO, and Expert Belt.

Please do bear this in mind. As stated many pokemon can run moves to take care of counters but most sets can be countered without much trouble

Technically, landorus doesn't have any counters in the contrary of terrakion where hippo can avoid no matter what arrives a 2HKO when he switches in.

P sure I could OHKO if I ran SD Fight Gem Close Combat :)

Perhaps you could explain what set your actually having trouble with?

 

[Conflict]

Simple case of: "My team is raped by Pokemon X therefore it must be broken. Lets ban it!"

...


This is Generation 5, there are around ~650 different Pokemons every team will have weaknesses. You just have to prepare for the obvious ones. And i think the old definition of being able to counter every single Pokemon is outdated and shouldnt apply at all (because this is - lets face it - just not possible due to the sheer amount of possibilities).

Landorus has several checks (RotomW, Skarmory, Bronzong, Hippowdon, Tangrowth, Slowbro, etc. pp.) which are able to handle him.

 

[Nelson]

I'm speaking in theory. Any OU what ever the set they are running are supposed to have at least one sure counter.

Of course, landorus doesn't run all the versions and doesn't run all the versions lol, but yeah, but i thought a pokemon was banned cause it was unpredictable the first time you saw it as it was the same for deaoxys.

Now, i still believe this thing doesn't has his place in OU like as for deoxys, it can easily quickly to some surprised kills before you get which set it is.

Edit for conflict : lol, when did i say i wanted to ban it cause my team was raped by him lol ? don't mess everything. And all the pokemons you said are 2HKO by landorus. So yeah, it will do at least an unpredictable kill before you get what set it is, that's all.

 

[haunter]

Since when smack down landorus is an uncommon set ? Let me know which pokemon doesn't have any 100% sure reliable counter even by running gimmick sets.

I've already listed Pokemon that have virtually no counters since they're able to bypass them with one set or another. Speaking of Terrakion: +2 LO close combat against max\max impish Hippowdon: 85% - 100%. And this assumes no hazards. SD with balloon can easily get a 2hko when Hippo can't do shit in return. Heck even CB Terra has a chance at 2hkoing it. Oh and, as far as I know, smack down Landorus isn't exactly the most common set. Not to mention that the Lati twins still take crap damage from smack down and can OHKO it in return with draco meteor or surf.

Technically, landorus doesn't have any counters in the contrary of terrakion where hippo can avoid no matter what arrives a 2HKO when he switches in.

Speaking of theorymon is never a good thing. According to the set it's running Landorus has counters and checks.

Now, i still believe this thing doesn't has his place in OU like as for deoxys, it can easily quickly to some surprised kills before you get which set it is.

Salamence has no true counters as well and can get suprise kills with mixed LO sets or as a scarf revenge killer, but nobody considers it broken. Please stop posting nonsense.

 

[Taylor]

If Garchomp never held Choice Scarf, then CSAbomasnow was a 100% counter to it. It was just much easier to use Tyranitar with Excadrills/Landorus, rather than attempt to build a competitive hail team.

Anyone on Smogon watching these YouTube videos whining about "Smogon banned so-and-so, BUT it can be countered by this and that. Why?!" are quick to learn we ban them to prevent situations where the better player in the game did not win; even if his team was "better" than the opponents.

For instance, Garchomp evades Excadrill's Earthquake and proceeds to OHKO with its own. Landorus follows, and Hidden Power [Ice] without Expert Belt has its held item (if so, its outspeed by Garchomp) fails to OHKO and is beaten one-on-one. That's two powerhouses out of the game because Sand Veil determined whether you hit/missed. It was essentially a free Double Team upon entering, when Garchomp already had the stats/typing/moveset which was destined to be one of the domionent OU forces.

Remember after all of this countering/checking, your opponent may simply opt to switch and change the complextion of the battle. This was a fair argument during a suspect period where there were many suspects all fighting for top spot, compensating for one another's very existance. Deoxys-S was left, and even he had to be removed because it was one of the very few questionably strong Pokemon left (post Excadrill/Thundurus) which predictably had a major advantage as a designated lead because of its speed and team support.