General Metagame Discussion

[jrrrrrrr]

This metagame is shit. Every team is either:

VoltTurn
Rain Stall
Drag + Mag spam

OU is quickly becoming incredibly stale, even as random new DW mons leak into the tier like Alakazam. If the tier cutoff ended today we'd have only 49 OU pokemon, including 5 within .5% of dropping to UU, and 10 pokemon within 1.5%. So in reality we're looking at a 40 pokemon OU tier and it's no accident that the number is getting so low.

I think we need to start unbanning things because it's obvious that we've funneled everything into a small handful of playing styles, which is far more "overcentralizing" than any Thundurus or Deoxys-S could ever hope to achieve.

 

[Taylor]

I think we need to start unbanning things because it's obvious that we've funneled everything into a small handful of playing styles, which is far more "overcentralizing" than any Thundurus or Deoxys-S could ever hope to achieve.

I started thinking the same thing when we banned Thundurus + Excadrill and how it was painfully easy to predict what would happen next (Deo-S control) in such a narrow-minded playing field that is currently OU.

It won't change for a long while until something from Dream World is released that is destined to make an impact; Keldeo, Genesect, or Shadow Tag Chandelure.

 

[Tonykantos]

This metagame is shit. Every team is either:

VoltTurn
Rain Stall
Drag + Mag spam

Lie, Lie me again... (8)

stop the drama. There's a lot of rain stall because it's an effective team build. Same with the voltturn , although that's not a team (d'oh! ), but a game strategy.
It's not the metagame "fault" per se, but players' for choosing the adecuate mons. If your team or thoughts are weak against these overused tactics, don't bitch about them being so strong and everywhere ( visit PO chat room to do that kind of statements ).

there's more in OU than those sole tactics you mentioned.

The Drag + Mag spam is so noobish I will not say a thing about it more than mentioning it. Who cares if people use that crap? Beat them, and continue laddering.

Oh, and by the way, if you want variety, change tier.
OU is fairly staple because it's what it says on the can: OverUsed pokemons everywhere.

 

[complete legitimacy]

Lie, Lie me again... (8)

stop the drama. There's a lot of rain stall because it's an effective team build. Same with the voltturn , although that's not a team (d'oh! ), but a game strategy.
It's not the metagame "fault" per se, but players' for choosing the adecuate mons. If your team or thoughts are weak against these overused tactics, don't bitch about them being so strong and everywhere ( visit PO chat room to do that kind of statements ).

there's more in OU than those sole tactics you mentioned.

The Drag + Mag spam is so noobish I will not say a thing about it more than mentioning it. Who cares if people use that crap? Beat them, and continue laddering.

Oh, and by the way, if you want variety, change tier.
OU is fairly staple because it's what it says on the can: OverUsed pokemons everywhere.

If everyone thought like you, Overused would become the Neverplayed tier by the people who actually know how to play. The problem is that while those strategies dominate and define the metagame, they don't break the metagame. Therefore, they will never be banned. I don't know about you, but Dream World sounds like a much more fun metagame, since rain stall and Volt-turn is almost nonexistent due the larger amount of threats. Note that I am not biased, as I have never played Dream World and personally think that it is an illegitimate metagame.

I'm in total agreement with j7r's. Honestly, I think that unbanning Thundurus would do a world of good. One of the main reasons it was banned is that there was nothing to revenge kill it due to the absence of Scarfers in the metagame, because they were simply not viable with Excadrill around. With Excadrill gone, there are a lot of Pokemon that now commonly carry a Scarf, like Landorus, Terrakion, and Rotom-W (which are all extremely common already), so I think the metagame has adapted to a place where Thundurus is not broken. It also brings up usage of rain offense, which hurts Tyranitar/Scizor/Rotom-W/Landorus Volt-turn.

 

[jrp]

I'm agreeing with all the unban thundurus sentiments. Although unbanning thundy gives volturn a new weapon to use >.>

The meta has become complete shit imo

 

[Raikaria]

I see where you are coming from on Thunderus.

A major contributor to Thunderus' banning was the lack of scarfers, due to Excadrill making running Scarfers exceptionally dangerous.

However, Thunderus has Priority T-Wave, so he can cripple any Scarfer, unless it's something like Flygon. [And who uses Flygon?]. This means that your scarfer will become practically useless.

So, Thunderus isn't countered by scarfers, because he can shut them down easily with Prankster T-Wave.

The increased prevelance of Scarfers does little to effect Thunderus' power.

However, something interesting about what the metagame seems to centralise around:

VoltTurn: MASSIVE benifits from Rain
Rain Stall: Herp De Derp
Darg @ Mag: Dosen't suffer

So, according to your post... Rain is STILL a problem. After Drizzle + SS, Manpahy, and Thunderus' bans.

I agree something needs to be done about OU. I'm not sure what, but unbanning Thunderus is certainly not the way to go. In all honesty I've always been anti-Drizzle, so I'll not voice my opinions on that again, except stateing we have made 3 bans to nerf it.

 

[X5Dragon]

We need to unban Blaziken (priorities and resists rape him, even in DW OU he was ridiclously easy to get rid of, besides we have clorophyl users who get +2 in Sun AND a free moveslot instead of protect, yet we live unconcerned) and Thundrus (priorities and opposing weather/no bulk) and keep the bans on Excadrill, Deo-S (both wrecked the speed tier and made it their personal whore) and Chomp (sand veil abuse tipped him into ubers).

That is the only solution. At least until we have a couple of more OU relevant DW Mons leak into the metagame.

EDIT: Both Unbans will help check Volt-Turn, tame the Scarf Drag + Mag teams and open up new venues though that's a side point.

 

[Tobes]

Why do people always assume that every Thundurus uses Thunder Wave? Here's a hint: Not all of them do,because by running T-Wave they must either give up Nasty Plot and its power or vital coverage. No Focus Blast? Tyranitar says hi. No HP Ice? Good luck getting past Landorus. And even if it does decide to use Thunder Wave, it's usually dying in order to do so, unless your opponent gets unlucky and FPs on the turn his Pokemon is paralyzed. In effect you're trading the life of your Pokemon to status another. This is of course a simplification, as you might be relying on that Scarfer to handle another threat, but in that case that's just smart play from the Thundurus user. And if you're really paranoid you could just run Scarf Landorus, which is pretty damn common as is.

I always thought Thundurus's ban was the least justifiable of all of our bans, so of course I'd be happy to see it unbanned.

 

[Taylor]

The problem lied within its sweeper set. One that could abuse STAB Thunder at +2 (in rain) and almost force the opponent to run Quagsire, or outspeed it before it swept their entire team. It was a Team Preview masterpiece by all accounts because it could Taunt/T-Wave/Coverage whore the opponent and cripple either the offensive/defensive side of their team.

I wouldn't vote to unban Thundurus while other suspects remain banned. People would still run cookie-cutter, weather teams. Thundurus thrived in rain while Excadrill was dominant in sand; like Garchomp and Manaphy before them.

You couldn't use them both to full effect without creating a mixed-weather team, and they weren't as successful as some people claimed to be.

I do however agree that if any suspect were to be considered for suspect testing, it would be Thundurus.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

While I liked the metagames of Thundurus and Excadrill (contrary to popular belief they where much easier to stall in because you just had to worry about Excadrill and friends), I have to agree with Tonykantos's sentiments. This is in fact overused we are talking about, the best of the best pokemon are used here, top of the line. There is no requirement that says OU has to be fun and diverse, look to past generations, OU had far fewer pokemon. If you want a fun and new metagame, don't play here, we have plenty of new and diverse tiers out there that are begging for more players.

And fact is, if Thundurus and Excadrill are allowed in play, the metagame will simply stagnate around them again within few months.

 

[tehy]

Why do people always assume that every Thundurus uses Thunder Wave? Here's a hint: Not all of them do,because by running T-Wave they must either give up Nasty Plot and its power or vital coverage. No Focus Blast? Tyranitar says hi. No HP Ice? Good luck getting past Landorus. And even if it does decide to use Thunder Wave, it's usually dying in order to do so, unless your opponent gets unlucky and FPs on the turn his Pokemon is paralyzed. In effect you're trading the life of your Pokemon to status another. This is of course a simplification, as you might be relying on that Scarfer to handle another threat, but in that case that's just smart play from the Thundurus user. And if you're really paranoid you could just run Scarf Landorus, which is pretty damn common as is.

I always thought Thundurus's ban was the least justifiable of all of our bans, so of course I'd be happy to see it unbanned.

Thank god, because i always thought that too, but for a different reason:Salamence.
Both these pokemon have about the same checks, and slightly different counters-gliscor for mence, gastro for thundurus. While thundurus does have some more initial power, weak coverage moves don't help, and either thunderbolt isn't as strong as outrage, or you're weather-dependent. Also, salamence can boost speed, so after 2 DDS scarfers are screwed as well. Not to mention, look at alternate sets. Thundurus had a lame annoyer set that, well, annoyed. I never really saw it accomplish much of anything. Mixmence? Lol. With that alternate set existing, mence can constantly catch you in mispredictions, simply by having 2 equally valid sets. Finally, nothing new has REALLY come out that checks or counters salamence any better than older pokemon did, other than perhaps gliscor. So it's not like it got any weaker. Thundurus has the advantage of outspeeding certain pokemon off the bat, but salamence can boost and not be outsped by others.

Understand, by the way, that i don't think that EITHER are ban-worthy. But to me, salamence is just as if not more awesome, and yet it recieved no attention. Why?

(And by the way, no scarfers? Landorus, terrakion, and rotom-w all say hello.)

 

[complete legitimacy]

Agreeing that Salamence is awesome. I wouldn't even call Gliscor a counter, because it's OHKOed by Draco Meteor from MixMence.

I think the reason that Salamence doesn't get more usage is that Dragonite exists. While Salamence is much more threatening after one DD, Dragonite can often get in two. However, I'd like to point out that since Dragonite can't run a Life Orb, +1 Salamence's power is nearly equal to +2 Dragonite's (1.5*1.3=1.95). So then comes the next question, why is Dragonite being used more than Salamence when they boast similar power after setting up twice in Dragonite's case, and once in Salamence's case? Since Salamence is more threatening after one DD, and is practically equal to a Dragonite with two DDs, why not use Salamence?

While Salamence did get a usage bump recently, that was only due to its Dream World release. Personally, I find it funny, because Intimidate is still better. I understand that Moxie has good utility on sets such as the Scarf set, but Salamence's two most threatening sets imo (DD + Mixed) should still use Intimidate. The funny part of this is that it's been available for all this time, before Multiscale Dragonite and before Moxie.

 

[X5Dragon]

Banning Thundrus at the same time Exca was axed to Ubers was a terrible decision, at least Deo-S had a month of two of unofficial testing when everyone and their cat knew he would rape OU after Exca was gone but Thundrus wasn't given the same kindness.

Being the suspect testing of Thundrus, stop banning more than one pokemon together at the same time (unless it's an ability/complex ban thingy) and again, reconsider Blaziken, because like Volca and Nite, unless the team preps him well he won't be sweeping anyone.

 

[malkthegreat]

OK Smogon people, I come to ask can you guys unban blaze blaziken and excadrill without sandstorm? I mean it's annoying being refused usages of pokes i actually like because people are to dumb to decide for themselves that these things AREN'T UBER if the ability isn't the broken one

simple explanation Ban DW BLAZIKEN and give excadrill the drizzle treatment, no sandstream + excadrill but allow sandstorm and excadrill its not broken that way is that to much to ask? hell garchomp is in the same boat why not give him drizzle treatment as well it's not hard and it'll be nice to use these pokes in the meta even if they aren't OU this way

 

[alphatron]

Salamence doesn't see as much play because of the combination of scarfers and priority running out the ass. You pull off a dragon dance only to have something come in and revenge your right away or you go down to a scizor bullet punch after LO damage.

To be honest, blaziken would have the same problem now, being outsped by scarf rotom-w, landorus, terrakion, Latios, etc. And he also hates priority. Even if he resists bullet punch, he's so frail that it's a 3hko. Back during the blaziken era, excadrill also existed. Scarfers who outsped blaziken would probably die to an excadrill. Choice band scizor and e-speed locked dragonite would become setup fodder for excadrill. But there's no more excadrill.

If thundurus is unbanned, then urban garchomp too. Unless your scarfer is landorus, flygon, or some other fast ground type, you run the risk of priority thunder wave fully paralyzing you when you attempt to outspeed him, which could lose you the game. Now I don't know about you guys, but that crap happened to me way more often than a 20% sand veil miss. Besides, I'd like viable scarfers like him around if thundurus was unbanned too, even if every set didn't run twave. Besides, this would be a great chance to test garchomp in OU again. For him alone, we could out the sand veil+SS ban into motion, at least for a short period of time.

If anything, I found thundurus harder to handle than shaymin-s, who you could just outspeed with a choice scarf Pokemon (also when excadrill was around!) and not have to worry about unlucky shenanigans. Against thundurus, I sometimes got too scared to even attempt to use attacks that weren't 100% accurate. Oops, sorry about the stone edge miss, terrakion. Lemme just put up a priority substitute over and over again...

 

[WhiteMagic]

"OK Smogon people, I come to ask can you guys unban blaze blaziken and excadrill without sandstorm? I mean it's annoying being refused usages of pokes i actually like because people are to dumb to decide for themselves that these things AREN'T UBER if the ability isn't the broken one

simple explanation Ban DW BLAZIKEN and give excadrill the drizzle treatment, no sandstream + excadrill but allow sandstorm and excadrill its not broken that way is that to much to ask? hell garchomp is in the same boat why not give him drizzle treatment as well it's not hard and it'll be nice to use these pokes in the meta even if they aren't OU this way" - malkthegreat


I agree with Malk on banning certain Pokemon just because of one ability. If you're going to do that, go ban Sharpedo (even though it's in a different meta). It has Speed Boost.

The OU Metagame has gone to dirt. But what about this? Everyone is always saying "There aren't enough Pokemon in the metagame." Well, why not move to a different metagame? The two largest Tiers in existence are Little Cup and NeverUsed, with 210 and 205 Pokemon, respectively. Even the new RarelyUsed has more Pokemon than the OU tier, at 64 Pokemon strong. So instead of complaining, why can't we start something new?

 

[I Am]

Yeah, this metagame is completely shit. Started laddering up, when I hit the 1400s I saw 5 carbon copy teams of Tyranitar/Scizor/Rotom-W/Landorus/Celebi/Filler that do the same shit over and over. Any teams that weren't volt-turn spam were just rain stall, or the extremely rare hyper offensive team with a deoxys-d suicide lead and some setup sweepers.

Off to RU, getting bored to shit with this. It was a good run, I guess.

 

[alphatron]

On the other hand, people could argue that the metagame isn't stagnant and has a lot of options, but that the dominant forces are just used a lot. Some people quite like the OU tier the way it is. I just personally wish that rotom-w would cease to exist from pokemon altogether or that gamefreak would introduce a physical based grass type pursuit that was learnable by nearly all ground, grass, and fire type pokemon.

 

[Taylor]

On the other hand, people could argue that the metagame isn't stagnant and has a lot of options, but that the dominant forces are just used a lot. Some people quite like the OU tier the way it is.

They are dominant for a reason. Those typically, common sand teams are easy to use in this metagame, of which has been stripped down as we've progressed through the suspect phase knowingly aware that the likes of Terrakion, Landorus and Dragonite would stand out as the devastating forces of OU.

The perception on with which we ban a Pokemon, for the sake of its respective tier, is whether said "suspect" is questionably stronger than the majority of the metagame. So far, there's only a handful of Pokemon that fit this category (you know...), but the likes of Rotom-W and Scizor - who are actually there to help deal with these threats - seem to be miss-translated between the "popular" and the "overpowered".

They wouldn't be so common if they weren't doing their job, would they?

 

[Raikaria]

Why do people always assume that every Thundurus uses Thunder Wave? Here's a hint: Not all of them do,because by running T-Wave they must either give up Nasty Plot and its power or vital coverage. No Focus Blast? Tyranitar says hi. No HP Ice? Good luck getting past Landorus. And even if it does decide to use Thunder Wave, it's usually dying in order to do so, unless your opponent gets unlucky and FPs on the turn his Pokemon is paralyzed. In effect you're trading the life of your Pokemon to status another. This is of course a simplification, as you might be relying on that Scarfer to handle another threat, but in that case that's just smart play from the Thundurus user. And if you're really paranoid you could just run Scarf Landorus, which is pretty damn common as is.

I always thought Thundurus's ban was the least justifiable of all of our bans, so of course I'd be happy to see it unbanned.

It still dosen't change the fact that Thunderus can run Thunder Wave, and thus Scarfers are not counters. Yes, Thunder Wave has it's downsides, but so does Focus Blast or HP Ice.

It turns it into a prediction game. 'Does it have Focus Blast?' *Switches in Scarfer and gets T-Waved*. 'Does it have T-Wave?' *Switches in T-Tar and gets Focus Blased*

Thunderus is as hard to counter now as it was before.

Agreeing that Salamence is awesome. I wouldn't even call Gliscor a counter, because it's OHKOed by Draco Meteor from MixMence.

I think the reason that Salamence doesn't get more usage is that Dragonite exists. While Salamence is much more threatening after one DD, Dragonite can often get in two. However, I'd like to point out that since Dragonite can't run a Life Orb, +1 Salamence's power is nearly equal to +2 Dragonite's (1.5*1.3=1.95). So then comes the next question, why is Dragonite being used more than Salamence when they boast similar power after setting up twice in Dragonite's case, and once in Salamence's case? Since Salamence is more threatening after one DD, and is practically equal to a Dragonite with two DDs, why not use Salamence?

While Salamence did get a usage bump recently, that was only due to its Dream World release. Personally, I find it funny, because Intimidate is still better. I understand that Moxie has good utility on sets such as the Scarf set, but Salamence's two most threatening sets imo (DD + Mixed) should still use Intimidate. The funny part of this is that it's been available for all this time, before Multiscale Dragonite and before Moxie.

I agree that Salamence is underrated, if you're not running Roost+DD Dragonite, you SHOULD BE USING MENCE.

Not to mention if Rocks are up good luck with Multi-Scale. Intimidate fires off regardless.

The main issue is Mence is frailer, so Scizor can Voltturn in and BP.

OK Smogon people, I come to ask can you guys unban blaze blaziken and excadrill without sandstorm? I mean it's annoying being refused usages of pokes i actually like because people are to dumb to decide for themselves that these things AREN'T UBER if the ability isn't the broken one

simple explanation Ban DW BLAZIKEN and give excadrill the drizzle treatment, no sandstream + excadrill but allow sandstorm and excadrill its not broken that way is that to much to ask? hell garchomp is in the same boat why not give him drizzle treatment as well it's not hard and it'll be nice to use these pokes in the meta even if they aren't OU this way

We're not making a complex ban for the sake of one pokemon. If a combination breaks just ONE pokemon, then it's the pokemon that's broken, not the ability. Excadrill will not have a complex ban made for it. Nor Blaziken. Nor Garchomp.

That's like saying we should ban Dark Void Darkrai.

---

And, on the topic of Blaziken:

1: He is NOT raped by Priority. Only Azumarill kills it. And not even he manages it with Sun up.

2: Switch Blaziken on something that won't stay in... like Ferrothorn or Scizor? SD on the switch. Get +1 Speed. Protect as check comes in. Sweep, unafraid of scarfers.

3: Sun boosted Blaziken. Nuff said.

 

[malkthegreat]

<I>We're not making a complex ban for the sake of one pokemon. If a combination breaks just ONE pokemon, then it's the pokemon that's broken, not the ability. Excadrill will not have a complex ban made for it. Nor Blaziken. Nor Garchomp.

That's like saying we should ban Dark Void Darkrai.</I> Raikairia

Um no thats no where near the same, horrible comparison..im not saying ban a move with a specific poke im saying treat dw blaziken as a unreleased dw/ban that specfic ability with blaziken, i mean if thats the case Chandler is uber whenever it's dw is released...I don't see how this is a complex ban when its a stupid ban in the first place no way in hell BLAZE BLAZIKEN shouldn't be allowed entry in battles

Now for excadrill..that pokemon sucks without sandstorm, why the hell is it banned? just eliminate the sandstream + exca same as drizzle + swim that's really no problem

Also to add on, the pro's you gave blaziken are cons also..for 1 blaziken always have fire move and fighting move, if he has swords dance and protect as well he's walled by gyra, chandlure, slowbro and more..most blazes won't carry protect and swords dance making it easy to cripple and if they do carry both its easy to force out soo again whats the problem?

As for oh sun, you can just use a different weather and or something that resist blaziken sun don't = OMG OHKO...and if you guys really wanna get cute run a defensive counter registeel it survives a hi jump kick/flare blitz from blaziken (assuming its not boosted)

I mean you guys are banning pokes based on one strategy (that revolves around that one ability) they can do, why not ban that specific strategy instead of the poke entirely

 

[haunter]

Please try to stay on topic. The only Pokemon that may be unbannned in the near future is Garchomp, and only IF we decide to opt for the complex ban of weather+evasion ability in regard to the evasion clause issue.

Don't post useless theorymon, it's not going to help the discussion. In this thread we're discussing the metagame as it is, not as it COULD be with more or less bans. Thanks.

 

[alexwolf]

This metagame is shit. Every team is either:

VoltTurn
Rain Stall
Drag + Mag spam

OU is quickly becoming incredibly stale, even as random new DW mons leak into the tier like Alakazam. If the tier cutoff ended today we'd have only 49 OU pokemon, including 5 within .5% of dropping to UU, and 10 pokemon within 1.5%. So in reality we're looking at a 40 pokemon OU tier and it's no accident that the number is getting so low.

I think we need to start unbanning things because it's obvious that we've funneled everything into a small handful of playing styles, which is far more "overcentralizing" than any Thundurus or Deoxys-S could ever hope to achieve.

While i agree with you that the Meta as of now is very stale, and you see the same teams again and again, OU have always had this problem. The good thing is that if you don't want to run the same boring things, there are options. Volt-Turn teams can be dealt with by many pokes like Latias, Tangrowth, Gastrodon etc. Rain Stall teams can be dealt with by several strong set-up sweepers like SD Virizion, NP Celebi and Bulk Up Breloom, some Stall Breaker and Wall Breakers and of 'course by kepping the momentum(f.e. Volt-Turn teams), and DragMag teams can be played around, by either Shed Shell Skarmory, or by applying more pressure than they do, thus keeping the momentum.

 

[Jimera0]

Alright, looks like it's time to point out a few more flawed arguments.

On the other hand, people could argue that the metagame isn't stagnant and has a lot of options, but that the dominant forces are just used a lot. Some people quite like the OU tier the way it is. I just personally wish that rotom-w would cease to exist from pokemon altogether or that gamefreak would introduce a physical based grass type pursuit that was learnable by nearly all ground, grass, and fire type pokemon.

I think that this is a very important point the deserves more attention. 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.

We're not making a complex ban for the sake of one pokemon. If a combination breaks just ONE pokemon, then it's the pokemon that's broken, not the ability. Excadrill will not have a complex ban made for it. Nor Blaziken. Nor Garchomp..

Could not agree more with that statement. We should not bend over backwards to allow one or two Pokemon to participate in OU. If they have a combination of factors that make them broken, then they're broken. An ability that breaks a Pokemon is the same as a move combination that breaks a Pokemon. It's a part of the Pokemon itself, not something seperate we can cut off to make a Pokemon we can use. It's like if we were to say "well Shaymin-S wouldn't be so bad without Seed Flare and Air Slash, so we just ban those moves on it and then we can have Shaymin-S!" It's the exact same thing in principle.

While i agree with you that the Meta as of now is very stale, and you see the same teams again and again, OU have always had this problem. The good thing is that if you don't want to run the same boring things, there are options. Volt-Turn teams can be dealt with by many pokes like Latias, Tangrowth, Gastrodon etc. Rain Stall teams can be dealt with by several strong set-up sweepers like SD Virizion, NP Celebi and Bulk Up Breloom, some Stall Breaker and Wall Breakers and of 'course by kepping the momentum(f.e. Volt-Turn teams), and DragMag teams can be played around, by either Shed Shell Skarmory, or by applying more pressure than they do, thus keeping the momentum.

Going back to my first argument, this is the other half. No matter what we do, OU is ALWAYS going to be dominated by a few prevalent strategies. That's the way the game WORKS. And as long as the prevalent strategies aren't overpowered, you're still able to use other strategies should you wish to. I know I do it, and Alexwolf here does it. It requires more effort to come up with your own viable strategy, but you can do it if you find the game getting stale for you. And that's exactly why people default to the easy prevalent strategies; it takes less time and effort for them to jump into the fray. And that's ALWAYS going to be the case; it's human nature. You can try banning and unbanning everything you want, and sooner or later the game is going to find an equilibrium with a few prominent strategies being used the most and the few outliers creative enough to use something different. This is not something we can control. What we CAN control is ensuring that those creative outlier strategies remain viable, and I can say for a fact that they are right now.

That being said, I'm also not convinced Thundurus is completely broken and would not be opposed to giving him another test. However, I'm not sure this is the place to be discussing it.

 

[tehy]

Salamence doesn't see as much play because of the combination of scarfers and priority running out the ass. You pull off a dragon dance only to have something come in and revenge your right away or you go down to a scizor bullet punch after LO damage.

To be honest, blaziken would have the same problem now, being outsped by scarf rotom-w, landorus, terrakion, Latios, etc. And he also hates priority. Even if he resists bullet punch, he's so frail that it's a 3hko. Back during the blaziken era, excadrill also existed. Scarfers who outsped blaziken would probably die to an excadrill. Choice band scizor and e-speed locked dragonite would become setup fodder for excadrill. But there's no more excadrill.

If thundurus is unbanned, then urban garchomp too. Unless your scarfer is landorus, flygon, or some other fast ground type, you run the risk of priority thunder wave fully paralyzing you when you attempt to outspeed him, which could lose you the game. Now I don't know about you guys, but that crap happened to me way more often than a 20% sand veil miss. Besides, I'd like viable scarfers like him around if thundurus was unbanned too, even if every set didn't run twave. Besides, this would be a great chance to test garchomp in OU again. For him alone, we could out the sand veil+SS ban into motion, at least for a short period of time.

If anything, I found thundurus harder to handle than shaymin-s, who you could just outspeed with a choice scarf Pokemon (also when excadrill was around!) and not have to worry about unlucky shenanigans. Against thundurus, I sometimes got too scared to even attempt to use attacks that weren't 100% accurate. Oops, sorry about the stone edge miss, terrakion. Lemme just put up a priority substitute over and over again...

My point to the first paragraph WAS that. If mence has that problem, then why not thundurus? The only real argument you can make is that it resists banded bullet punch, and even then it's a little iffy in my opinion. As for sub thundurus, it's sort of unthreatening because then it gets walled. Send in ferro or something and start loling. Same goes for t-wave thundurus.
And garchomp was just fucking ridiculous, that stays out.