Kyurem-B Discussion: Is it Broken?

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I honestly think Kyurem-B is right on the edge of broken. While it's obviously held back by its speed and Ice typing, you can't ignore its stupidly high base stats. Base 170 Atk is absolutely insane, giving its Outrage jaw-dropping power. Heck, specially defensive Jirachi is 2HKOd almost all the time by CB Outrage with Stealth Rock down. Even the standard Ferrothorn in 3HKOd, so unless the opponent uses Leech Seed + Protect, Ferrothorn actually has a shot of being killed by CB Outrage. That Atk stat is so high that Kyurem-B can run full defensive investment and still be more powerful than a Jolly Salamence. This is obviously complimented by Kyurem-B's great base 120 SpA stat, giving it far the best overall offensive status in OU and making the mixed sets all the more dangerous. You've also got insane bulk on Kyurem-B that even some defensive Pokemon would love to have, even bulkier on both sides than a Ferrothorn with equal EV investment. No common OU Pokemon has the overall bulk of Kyurem-B, with only a handful of lower tier Pokemon that can match or beat it, and there's no Pokemon in OU or lower that can match it at all for power. That combination of raw power and excellent bulk is one thing that I really think has pushed Kyurem-B over the edge for a while now.

However, one big problem I have with Kyurem-B is that I still see no reason as to why it was necessary to drop it in the first place. It's not like it was a Pokemon that was formerly OU and had no reason to continue being banned. I know there were arguments that Kyurem-B would be a good new Genesect check and could help balance Rain and Sun, but Genesect ended up being voted broken and banned, and Rain/Sun have been brought up several times as potentially broken aspects of the game even after Kyurem-B was dropped. If Kyurem-B was dropped down for that, then it just seems like another case of dropping potentially broken things just to keep other potentially broken things in check. I also think it's apparent that dropping it didn't help since, again, Genesect was banned, and Tornadus-T (one of the best Rain abusers out there) was banned, with Keldeo (another dangerous Rain abuser) being suspected in the near future. What we pretty much did was drop a Pokemon that was already insanely powerful in its own right and put even more pressure on stall, which was already hindered by powerful Pokemon already present in OU.

All in all, I'd consider Kyurem-B to be broken. I also see no reason why it was unbanned in the first place, and it's just one more burden on stall in OU. Get rid of it.
 

Gary

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I have a question. Anyone can answer this if they know the answer, but preferably I would like to hear it from someone that has direct contact with the OU council. Here's my question.

What made the OU council want to suspect Kyurem-B in the first place? I know that some people say that it was to check certain things in OU, but was that really it? Why Kyurem-B?
 

Shrug

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Agent Gibbs said:
However, one big problem I have with Kyurem-B is that I still see no reason as to why it was necessary to drop it in the first place. It's not like it was a Pokemon that was formerly OU and had no reason to continue being banned.
I'm not going to get into the Cube argument but this logic is... completely against normal notions of banning. The logic you argue "well it was arbitrarily thought to be broken when it came out, so gosh that means we can never test it", which is incorrect. We want every pokemon that is not broken in OU to be useable; how crazy is it to say "Latios isn't broken, but it's legendary and was Uber at one point, so ban it". A metagame where accepted non-broken things are banned is just ludicrous, and what's the harm in testing things that never got a test? So thats why it was tested, and it was dropped because at the time of the tested, it was felt that it was not broken. Things can become broken that weren't before, thats what happens when a metagame evolves. So please stop complaining about "why was it ever retested it sucks that it was tested in OU" as that isn't the point

Gary said:
What made the OU council want to suspect Kyurem-B in the first place? I know that some people say that it was to check certain things in OU, but was that really it? Why Kyurem-B?
Why not test it? What's the harm? I'll point out again, at the time, it was deemed not broken
 

Gary

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Why not test it? What's the harm? I'll point out again, at the time, it was deemed not broken
Okay then, why not test out Giritina-O? It's obviously broken, but why not? What about Ho-oh? It's got a lot of flaws like Kyurem-B, it's even slower. We haven't tested that out before, so why not? See? You could say that for anything. There's got to be more to it then just, "Why not"? Kyurem-B was tested for some particular reason most likely, because if it was just for the fuck of it, then other Ubers would have probably been tested out previously.

#freearceusice
 

TheFourthChaser

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Why not test it? What's the harm? I'll point out again, at the time, it was deemed not broken
What's the harm? How about wasting time trying to drop down a broken dragon that offered no benefits to the metagame instead of trying to remove problems that already existed in the meta like Genesect, Rain or Torn-T/Keldeo? We wasted months on tests like this and because of that we may end the generation with a terrible metagame.

I think that the anti-ban side really needs to consider that Kyurem-W, a pokemon that shares many flaws with Kyurem-B, is banned. So I must ask one question: What makes Kyurem-W broken that prevents Kyurem-B from being broken?
Kyu-W has the helpful Fire move, doesn't get trapped with its main STAB, and actually benefits from a weather. W is clearly better than B and I don't see the purpose in bringing it up.

Wow. I leave for two hours, and I come back to 71 posts. That's amazing guys keep up the discussion!

I think some of you guys need to back up a bit and focus more on KyuB himself, and not just the sets. Yes, some of his sets are what pushes him over the broken line, but some of you need to be more specific on why Kyurem-B as a whole is either broken or not broken.
By looking at the separate sets one comes to a thought on the overall. Each set examined looks great, showing you the overall power and versatility.
 

Shurtugal

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When a Verdict is reached in court, unless your name is Casey Anthony or Zimmerman, most people will not dispute it afterward. The discussion should be whether or not this should go to trial again; stop disputing a verdict that has already been reached. The only thing we need to do is decide whether or not KyuB is good enough for a retrial, where disputing the verdict would be normal. (Since technically you do not see a "Is Landorus broken?" thread since its already been declared broken).

It's just the order of things is all.

I personally believe in another suspect.
 

Lady Alex

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I have a question. Anyone can answer this if they know the answer, but preferably I would like to hear it from someone that has direct contact with the OU council. Here's my question.

What made the OU council want to suspect Kyurem-B in the first place? I know that some people say that it was to check certain things in OU, but was that really it? Why Kyurem-B?
Because PO found that it wasn't broken, so it was tested here as well, if I remember correctly.
 

phantom

Banned deucer.
PO unbanned it before smogon did. I'm not going to guarantee that was the reasoning or if the test was even influenced by that at all, but given the circumstances, it's hard not to look at it in any other way.

edit: ninja'd uhg
 
I'm not going to get into the Cube argument but this logic is... completely against normal notions of banning. The logic you argue "well it was arbitrarily thought to be broken when it came out, so gosh that means we can never test it", which is incorrect. We want every pokemon that is not broken in OU to be useable; how crazy is it to say "Latios isn't broken, but it's legendary and was Uber at one point, so ban it". A metagame where accepted non-broken things are banned is just ludicrous, and what's the harm in testing things that never got a test? So thats why it was tested, and it was dropped because at the time of the tested, it was felt that it was not broken. Things can become broken that weren't before, thats what happens when a metagame evolves. So please stop complaining about "why was it ever retested it sucks that it was tested in OU" as that isn't the point

The problem is that if you're going to start experimenting with Ubers in OU, do it after the metagame is already settled. It's pretty obvious that there were still suspects in OU to test, as Genesect, Tornadus-T, Deoxys-D, and Landorus were all banned after that point in time, and Keldeo is up for another round of suspect testing. It's obvious why it was initially banned: it's base stats were through the roof compared to Pokemon in the standard metagame, and it had several other attractive aspects such as Dragon-typing. Maybe it wasn't broken at the time, and maybe it deserved a test of its own eventually, but at least wait until you're done suspecting things in the current metagame. The question still remains, why Kyurem-B? Why at that point in time? Why nothing else? In a metagame where stall was already suffering, why not try Lugia out first, anything besides one of the few Pokemon in Ubers with Dragon STAB and insane combined offensive stats? Lots of 670+ BST Ubers were quickbanned at the beginning of the generation, but how many of those have we tested?

If we had waited and went ahead with other suspects at the time, who knows? Maybe we would have gotten to all the other bans earlier and last test would have been Keldeo's, giving us a little time before XY to give Kyurem-B a test after the metagame had settled (assuming there were no suspects after Keldeo). But it looks like we now won't have much time before XY to give it a good suspect test after Keldeo, and so even though many people have already posted expressing disdain over it, we're more likely than not stuck with it.
 

Shrug

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Gary said:
Okay then, why not test out Giritina-O? It's obviously broken, but why not? What about Ho-oh?
TFC said:
What's the harm? How about wasting time trying to drop down a broken dragon that offered no benefits to the metagame instead of trying to remove problems that already existed in the meta like Genesect, Rain or Torn-T/Keldeo?
It's a matter of priorities. At that time, it wasn't prevalent that any of those things were broken, so it's perfectly natural to want to retest something when there's nothing to suspect out. Gary, as for things like giratina, why not is fine, but then why not something over it? Sure a test on anything is good, there might be better things to test though. TFC, the order is subjective, for sure, but the idea of dropping Cube is perfectly ok. When it was dropped, people found it not broken, that was the point of the test. If it is now is irrelevant to the dropping

Edit: Again to Agent Gibbs, it's a priority thing, "why wasn't cube tested after Keldeo/Landorus/Genesect" is a matter of personal opinion and not the point
 

TheFourthChaser

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The only problem with what you're saying is that there were many prevalent broken Pokemon, even at the beginning of BW2. Deoxys-D had been a huge problem before BW2 started, Rain and Landorus both received large buffs, and Genesect was instantly ridiculous. Kyurem-B looked "acceptable" in a metagame filled with obviously broken mons and had this happened later in the metagame I have doubts the same conclusion would have been reached (I don't think it should have back then but whatever).
 

Shrug

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Not saying it was correct, but it does make sense that if nothing is broken, then retesting things is ok, so the problem comes down to some people (partly at the time, and partly in retrospect) said things were broken before they were thought to be by the people who create tests (the broken pokemon being all the ones you said). But the logic behind unbanning Cube isn't faulty, it's just people are adamant that it was applied at the wrong time, which is possible. I'm saying people don't bash Cube's unbanning, as that's a subjective thing, and debate if it's currently broken.

Edit: Gary at the time a lot of people didn't think of Gene/Torn-T that way, and so testing Cube was ok. I highly doubt (and if someone who made the decision disagrees, please say and I'll admit I'm wrong) that the the people who said "Lets test Cube" did it with the intent to check broken mons.
 

Gary

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It's a matter of priorities. At that time, it wasn't prevalent that any of those things were broken, so it's perfectly natural to want to retest something when there's nothing to suspect out. Gary, as for things like giratina, why not is fine, but then why not something over it? Sure a test on anything is good, there might be better things to test though. TFC, the order is subjective, for sure, but the idea of dropping Cube is perfectly ok. When it was dropped, people found it not broken, that was the point of the test. If it is now is irrelevant to the dropping

Edit: Again to Agent Gibbs, it's a priority thing, "why wasn't cube tested after Keldeo/Landorus/Genesect" is a matter of personal opinion and not the point

I HIGHLY doubt that Kyurem-B had a priority over suspecting something like Genesect or Tornadus-T. I think Kyurem-B was suspected before Genesect because we thought that Kyurem-B had the potential of checking the broken shit that we had in OU at the time. There's no other reason that comes to mind honestly. Why test a broken dragon over something like an overcentralizing Genesect or an extremely broken rain abuser like Tornadus-T? It doesn't make much sense to me.

What they should have done is tested Kyurem-B AFTER banning currently broken Pokemon like Genesect, Tornadus-T, Deo-D, and possibly Landorus. Then the argument about unbanning a Pokemon to check other broken Pokemon wouldn't even be considered a possiblity.
 
I can't really see the argument that banning Kyurem-B will help stall. Well, of course it will aid stall as a playstyle, but BW is just a huge offensive metagame. While banning Kyurem-b (apparently we're calling it cube now? I must've missed the memo) would help stall, I feel that it helps balance out the various types of offense, as trying to make stall viable at this point in BW2 seems impossible. I like how Kyurem-B is amazing on weatherless offense and balance, like Alexwolf said:
Finally, how some people can say that Kyu-B brought zero positive things in OU, when it's one of the few viable pokes that can fit in weatherless offense teams and go toe to toe with rain and sun teams, as well as fit on weatherless balanced and stall teams to do the same thing. It brought a much needed boost to all kind of weatherless teams.
I feel that Kyurem-B brought more balance to the meta than imbalance. Sure it hurts stall, but stall has so many problems in this meta, and this generation, that i don't really believe that it has had that much of an impact on stall. Kyurem-B gives a huge boost to weatherless teams, and I like how that increased the diversity of the tier (while still incredibly offensive, mind you, but diverse nonetheless).

I just want to add that I'm more of a balance/stall player, but it's not really as good in this meta. Balance is still good, but stall is pretty much dead. So i actually don't like this super duper offensive stuff, but I think that while Kyurem-B contributes even more to offense in the OU tier, it actually balances the tier, or at least makes it more diverse.
 
It was a matter of priorities Shrug, and I feel that the priorities were not in order. There very well were complaints about other suspects during the time this was going on. Looking at Kyurem-B's suspect thread, I can count 3 instances where someone complained about Genesect being a better suspect (two of these also mentioned Deoxys-D and Tornadus-T as better suspects as well) and one other where someone stated the opposite about Genesect, and that's just on the first page. Discussion of other potential suspects did exist at the time, and the metagame was anything but perfectly stable when this test took place. In fact, it was during Kyurem-B's suspect test that Genesect hit that infamous 50% usage mark, which further prompted its suspect test and served as an argument for its ban.

Again, I'm not against testing Ubers entirely as long as the metagame has settled first. Even if there weren't any obvious suspects at the time, the metagame was still fairly new, and it's doubtful that it had completely settled within the couple of months between BW2's release and Kyurem-B's test. Besides, voting something unbroken in the middle of a bunch of soon to be bans/suspects does not prove that it's truly unbroken in a settled metagame, nor does it make it a good idea.
 

Shrug

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Gibbs said:
It was a matter of priorities Shrug, and I feel that the priorities were not in order. There very well were complaints about other suspects during the time this was going on. Looking at Kyurem-B's suspect thread, I can count 3 instances where someone complained about Genesect being a better suspect (two of these also mentioned Deoxys-D and Tornadus-T as better suspects as well) and one other where someone stated the opposite about Genesect. Discussion of other potential suspects did exist at the time, and the metagame was anything but perfectly stable when this test took place. In fact, it was during Kyurem-B's suspect test that Genesect hit that infamous 50% usage mark, which further prompted its suspect test and served as an argument for its ban.

Again, I'm not against testing Ubers entirely as long as the metagame has settled first. Even if there weren't any obvious suspects at the time, the metagame was still fairly new, and it's doubtful that it had completely settled within the couple of months before Kyurem-B's test. Besides, voting something unbroken in the middle of a bunch of soon to be bans/suspects does not prove that it's unbroken, nor does it make it a good idea.
So we agree it's basically a difference of opinion between who think Gene and the like were broken and those who didn't until later? Thats fair, and it's a matter of opinion (in fact, I Agree with you, but that isn't the point). Point is, this thread shouldn't be "why was it ever unbanned", as there was a reason: at the time, it was deemed not broken. Whether it is now or not has no bearing on the retest was valid. So the argument for if Kyurem-B is broken has to be based on what it can do now, not if it should have ever been unbanned.
 
I hate to say this guys, but what is done is done, hindsight after all is 20/20. While I agree with the sentiment of Gary and FourthChaser, this discussion really isn't going anywhere.

This point kind of keeps on being avoided, and I would like it addressed, as a few other people have asked it here, even if it kind of is just a question:

What exactly distinguishes mixed Kyurem-B from regular Kyurem in the frame of this discussion? Overall, there are pretty much 2 kinds of Kyurem-B, offensive versions that mainly rely on Outrage and Fusion Bolt to break walls and cores, and mixed versions, which are usually more defensively oriented, to break defensive teams. It is generally considered by most people that the first case, the straight up offensive versions, are not much of a problem and are easily checked. For the later, as far as I can tell, regular Kyurem gives it stiff competition, having access to Pressure, much more easily breaking stall teams. I understand that Kyurem-B has certain advantages which help it distinguish its self: 170 base attack, but I still can not help feeling that what we are saying about said mixed sets could just as easily apply to the regular form.

How exactly to you rectify these differences if you are pro-suspect? Again this is just a question to prompt discussion.
 

ginganinja

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I HIGHLY doubt that Kyurem-B had a priority over suspecting something like Genesect or Tornadus-T. I think Kyurem-B was suspected before Genesect because we thought that Kyurem-B had the potential of checking the broken shit that we had in OU at the time. There's no other reason that comes to mind honestly. Why test a broken dragon over something like an over centralizing Genesect or an extremely broken rain abuser like Tornadus-T? It doesn't make much sense to me.
If you recall, we had (iirc) just unbanned Garchomp from ubers. Cube was the logical progression since it has just been declared OU by PO. As Iconic stated:
Before we start testing things to potentially ban from the tier, the OU Council has decided to bring suspects down to test first.
IDK id that was a good option or not, with 20/20 hindsight and all that, but its not hard to see why this occurred, considering BW2 had just been released, and it was a good idea for the metagame to "settle" before making a suspect test. Cube was (at least in my mind) a "free' test, in that looking at Genesect / Torn / Deoxys-D were good options, and the council could test cube while evaluating how broken those mos were. Bear in mind, that (at the time) certain pokemon now banned, were not see as broken. For instance Keldeo back then, wasn't always thought of as broken, but over time, we realise some of these pokemon are just too good (not the best example, but J7r and a few others believed Torn was low OU, high UU material). Giratina-O was not tested because its 100% broken and I will crucify you if you suggest otherwise. Cube was NOT brought down to "check shit" since its been stated time and time again, we do not allow that policy. Don't you think its incredibly rich (not to mention a rude accusation) for the council themselves to state that bringing stuff down to check broken shit is an exceptionally shit idea, and then you turn around and suggest they did it themselves. IDK man.

What they should have done is tested Kyurem-B AFTER banning currently broken Pokemon like Genesect, Tornadus-T, Deo-D, and possibly Landorus.
Agree with this, but at the time, it wasn't so clear cut (IMO). Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, for example I suspect if we could turn back time Drizzle would be banned. (Thats a topic for another time).

Can we discuss Cube in this meta please rather than bitching at why it was unbanned in the first place tyvm
 
I don't get where this ''stall can't deal with Kyu-B'' mentality comes from, at least for the most common and dangerous set, the Sub +3 attacks, which is easily handled by stall teams with classic stall Pokemon such as SpD Jirachi and Chansey. Kyu-B is dangerous for stall to deal with, not impossible, as is Hydreigon, Sableye, and Mew (this is the only similarity between Kyu-B and those Pokemon, just sayin' before people jump on the bandwagon). Not to mention that if Kyu-B gets locked into Outrage, it will most likely be revenge killed by the scarfer / Sand Rush poke that most stall teams have, meaning that it will take down one Pokemon at most.
chansey sucks outside of rain/sun stall, is setup bait for subroost + hone claws and gets slaughtered by cb / lo mix. sdef jirachi sucks on stall, gets crushed by cb / lo attacks, and is harassed by subroost + hone claws. by your logic, if it's not impossible to deal with, it's not broken. time to start unbanning shit then lol!

Also BKC, i don't know if you were referring to me, so if you were, no i don't usually play all out offense, i prefer more balanced teams and still i deal with Kyu-B fine, provided i prepare for it (you can't expect to deal with a top-tier threat you haven't been prepared for).
i was referring to X5Dragon.
if you pack 2 "counters" [they're really checks, but i digress] to kyu-b on every stall team [which are inferior to other stall pkmn and aren't even guaranteed to beat it, might i add] then no wonder you have no issues with it, it's like "i have celebi/jellicent/ttar/hippowdon and i never lose to rain therefore rain isn't broken!!!"

Finally, how some people can say that Kyu-B brought zero positive things in OU, when it's one of the few viable pokes that can fit in weatherless offense teams and go toe to toe with rain and sun teams, as well as fit on weatherless balanced and stall teams to do the same thing. It brought a much needed boost to all kind of weatherless teams.
1) kyu-b is actually a really shitty rain offense counter/check
2) if it's found broken then it doesn't matter how many things it checks

idk how to quote multiple posts on the new forums so pls bear with me
"...bait Kyurem-B to use Outrage / Dragon Claw with my Politoed and bring in Ferrothorn for Iron Barb + LO recoil damage"
teravolt ignores iron barbs.

"Are there saved replays from this? Where can I watch the matches or read logs of them?"
i'm CHESS BOXIN. i usually run spikes on forretress but i made the switch to ts for this game because i knew the chance of my opponent bringing kyu-b was high. thankfully subroost + HC isn't as threatening with tspikes immediately down [although if kyu-b had switched in as they went up i would've been in huge trouble, as gyro ball only has 8 pp, doesn't come close to koing, and i'd be forced to have celebi eat a boosted dragon tail as i went for perish song just to force it out and get it poisoned], but if it had been a 3 attacks variant i would've had to rely on a bunch of switching while it wore itself down.

to other people mentioning how a kyu-b ban won't help stall because there are other threats: first of all, you're quite perceptive, who knew other dangerous pkmn existed?! on a more serious note, none of those pokemon combine the insane power/coverage AND ridiculous bulk like kyurem-b does. hydreigon has the potential to kill a lot of shit, sure, but its bulk isn't even close to kyu-b's. mew does annoy stall but it is never beating sand's sdef heatran, and it doesn't like rain-boosted scalds too much either. same goes for sableye.
 

Soul Fly

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I hate to say this guys, but what is done is done, hindsight after all is 20/20. While I agree with the sentiment of Gary and FourthChaser, this discussion really isn't going anywhere.

This point kind of keeps on being avoided, and I would like it addressed, as a few other people have asked it here, even if it kind of is just a question:

What exactly distinguishes mixed Kyurem-B from regular Kyurem in the frame of this discussion? Overall, there are pretty much 2 kinds of Kyurem-B, offensive versions that mainly rely on Outrage and Fusion Bolt to break walls and cores, and mixed versions, which are usually more defensively oriented, to break defensive teams. It is generally considered by most people that the first case, the straight up offensive versions, are not much of a problem and are easily checked. For the later, as far as I can tell, regular Kyurem gives it stiff competition, having access to Pressure, much more easily breaking stall teams. I understand that Kyurem-B has certain advantages which help it distinguish its self: 170 base attack, but I still can not help feeling that what we are saying about said mixed sets could just as easily apply to the regular form.

How exactly to you rectify these differences if you are pro-suspect? Again this is just a question to prompt discussion.

The only set regular Kyurem does better than Kyu-B is the sub-roost set, and by better I mean, it's criminally underused. Pressure is a much better ability to aid stalling, it's just that most people are really shortsighted (and ladder is plain dumb) and he ends up falling in Kyu-B's shadow. Well D-Tail is stronger but that's about it. Kyurem-B pulls of other sets much better.
 
You know that feeling you get when you accidentally wander onto the Ubers ladder with your OU team? Or if you ever accepted an Unrated challenge from a random back on PO, and their team pops up with four OU mons, Electivire, and Dialga/Reshiram/Palkia/Mewtwo etc. You know that you can run through the first five no problem, as this person is a very bad player -- but still you can't help but keep a wary eye on that Dialga, as even in the hands of a poor battler it could turn the tide of the game. That's what playing again Kyurem-B feels like -- at the risk of sounding vague and airy, like playing against an uber.

Perhaps there's a more to this assertion than just "feels". Kyu-B has bulk the likes of which is simply never seen on a moderately-fast, offensive pokemon outside of ubers. Perhaps the closest comparison is Tyranitar, but that has low speed and a double weakness that somewhat negates its titanic defenses. In terms of offensive prowess, Kyu-B sits among the weather-boosted sweepers -- having comparable power, but without needing the support of rain or sun. The next most dangerous pokemon in OU -- Breloom and Keldeo -- suffer from the flaws of being frail as a tissue or requiring weather support to work to their full potential, respectively. Kyu-B on the other hand, is unreservedly threatening. Having used it, I honestly think it gives a psychological advantage against some players, because no matter their style, they must shift out of their comfort zone and play extremely carefully to avoid losing key pokemon against it -- the "wary eye" I mentioned previously.

I'll try to explain why I think it's broken from a more concrete and hopefully convincing standpoint. I play mostly stall and balance, and have used Kyu-B on sand stall (Sub shuffle) and HO (Band), and played against a wide variety of sets with a wide variety of teams. There's been a lot of focus in this thread on the Substitute sets, and while I agree that they are immensely dangerous sets, I don't think people in this thread are quite appreciating how threatening Band Kyu-B really is. I've seen defensive Skarmory, Jirachi, and "any steel type" given as counters to it. Defensive Skarmory is easily and cleanly 2HKOd, while SpD is OHKOd through Sturdy. Jirachi can be flat out 2HKOd by Outrage, even without rocks, and with them only escapes the guaranteed 2HKO from Fusion Bolt by using Protect. I'll leave some calcs just to make it a little clearer.

252+ Atk Choice Band Kyurem-B Fusion Bolt vs. 224 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 248-294 (75.84 - 89.9%) -- 18.75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Kyurem-B Fusion Bolt vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Jirachi: 220-259 (54.45 - 64.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Kyurem-B Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 187-221 (48.44 - 57.25%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Kyurem-B Fusion Bolt vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Scizor: 220-259 (64.13 - 75.51%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock [potentially leaving Scizor unable to switch in to rocks again]

I'm sure everyone saw these kind of calcs during the Kyurem-B suspect test. However it's only after its unbanning that we're able to truly see the effect of these damage outputs on a team facing Kyurem-B. But I think there's an overlooked aspect of this set that its raw power, bulk and coverage allow no other pokemon in OU to perform. Now while it likely won't sweep a full, healthy team with a Choice Band, I noticed while using it that it functions as a sort of pseudo-trapper, being able to eliminate almost any defensive or offensive threat under the right circumstances, simply because the consequences of switching out of it are far too great. It's a case of either: lose the pokemon it comes in on, or lose the pokemon that comes into it. Few things faster than it can safely switch into its attacks; nothing faster that can survive that switch in can subsequently OHKO it, and nothing slower can avoid being 2HKOd (save Forretress, who ultimately loses against it, and Relaxed Ferrothorn, the one pokemon in OU that can be accurately called a counter). And this is all without the "MixMence or DD Mence?" surprise factor and uncertainties; bringing the possibility of a Substitute set into the equation virtually eliminates the possibility of switching out from it. As has been seen in this thread, HO can deal with this as losing one or two pokemon may not open a defensive hole that leaves them vulnerable -- but bearing in mind that these HO teams would likely lose the same pokemon to Outrage as they would to Fusion Bolt or Dragon Claw, leaving Kyurem-B free to switch back out at the first sign of Scizor or Terrakion, it seems that even they fall victim to Kyu-B's 'trapping' capabilities.

Though the Substitute sets may be argued to be broken on account of their purely offensive capabilities, I feel that the Band set can be compared with the old 'support characteristic' under which Latias was banned in gen 4. If well-played, it can put the opponent into a situation where the choices are: lose the pokemon that Kyu-B has switched into, or lose the switch-in rinse and repeat. It does not provide a meaningful opportunity to switch out, switching being at the core of competitive pokemon, and I certainly think of it as being like a mini-Chandelure in this sense.
 

alexwolf

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Deoxys-D and S boosted weatherless teams too, I guess we should unban those.

It has been said in Kyu-B discussion that it is the fault of the voters, well that applies to weatherless too. As a community, we have made multiple votes that allowed weather, Rain especially, to thrive. Kyu-B may aid this single playstyle but it is a huge factor in the decline of other playstyles and adds onto the mindlessness we have dealt with for the entire generation. Honestly, I'm hesitant to call a boost for weatherless a benefit for the metagame. Certain Pokemon, Terrakion, Kyu-B, Genesect, and Landorus are the ones that come to mind atm, are good regardless of which weather was in effect, if any at all. So not only are these mons boosting weatherless but they're boosting just about any offensive team (in the case of Kyu-B, Sun is an exception) which, to me, nullifies this "benefit" and adds on to the silly offensive meta we have.

A Kyu-B test after Keldeo's would be great but it may be too late by then. Even taking into consideration that XY won't be ready for awhile after its release I'm sure that caring for BW will be at an all time low (which is incredibly low looking at how this generation has gone).

I feel it is worth noting that I honestly don't care about stall. Our metagame is offensive because broken Pokemon were allowed to roam free for such a long period of time and if an offensive metagame were created without this characteristic I would be fine with it.
Just because Deo-S and Deo-D have one thing in common with Kyu-B (help weatherless teams in some way) means that it's the same situation? This is absurd.

chansey sucks outside of rain/sun stall, is setup bait for subroost + hone claws and gets slaughtered by cb / lo mix. sdef jirachi sucks on stall, gets crushed by cb / lo attacks, and is harassed by subroost + hone claws. by your logic, if it's not impossible to deal with, it's not broken. time to start unbanning shit then lol!
Venusaur sucks outside of sun offense/balance too, but why does it even matter? Chansey is viable in the kind of stall teams you mentioned and this is what matters. SpD Jirachi doesn't suck on stall and since i know how absolute you are in general there is really no point in arguing about this. Finally, please pick one Kyu-B set to address when talking about how Kyu-B hurts so much stall. Right now you have already put in the discussion SpD + Hone Claws, CB, and LO. I assure you that if you allow me to pick 3 sets when trying to show how a Pokemon gives stall trouble, i could even show you how uncounterable Shiftry is. CB Kyu-B can be handled by stall teams without taking extreme measures and the same is true for the Sub +3 attacks set. Hone Claws and Mixed Kyu-B are far more difficult to deal with for stall, but not impossible to, and don't fare so well against the omnipresent offensive teams so by opting to use them you are opening yourself up to something else. Stall always had the trouble of certain Pokemon fucking it up which will only get worse as in every new gen that comes more offensive tools are introduced than defensive ones. Kyu-B is one more of the Pokemon that can fuck up stall but has various flaws that keep it in check against other kind of teams so that's fine by me. Hydreigon is an absolute bitch to deal with for stall teams as well and almost as hard to beat as Kyu-B for stall teams, should we ban it too?

i was referring to X5Dragon.
if you pack 2 "counters" [they're really checks, but i digress] to kyu-b on every stall team [which are inferior to other stall pkmn and aren't even guaranteed to beat it, might i add] then no wonder you have no issues with it, it's like "i have celebi/jellicent/ttar/hippowdon and i never lose to rain therefore rain isn't broken!!!"
When did i ever state that i pack two checks/counters in each of my stall teams to deal with it? One counter and one check is fine. And why is packing two checks or one check and one counter in order to prepare against a major threat bad? How many checks do you usually have for Latios, Scizor, Terrakion, and Keldeo on your stall teams?

1) kyu-b is actually a really shitty rain offense counter/check
2) if it's found broken then it doesn't matter how many things it checks
Since you didn't go through the trouble of giving any real reason to back up your claims, let me do the same (partially):
1) Wrong
2) I am arguing that it brings more positives than negatives, which means it is not broken. Not all Pokemon are as easy to spot and going with the logic ''shit is too strong'' or whatever doesn't always work so sometimes you have to weight the pros and cons of a poke in the meta to see if it's worth keeping.
 
Let's look at Kyurem-B's flaws more carefully before we start judging that it is not broken:


- Weak to Bullet Punch and Mach Punch - not OHKOed by either unless hazards are taken into the equation. And Scizor and Breloom will get hammered back
- Crappy movepool - Kyurem-B has enough viable offensive moves, including Outrage, Dragon Claw, Fusion Bolt, Ice Beam, Blizzard, and Earth Power, to make up for lack of moves like Ice Punch, Brick Break, or Earthquake.
- Awkward speed tier - Jirachi is the most reliable paralysis spreader in OU and causes so many ragequits. Combine that with Kyurem-B and you have the opponent's hell if you use them right.
- Walled by Steels - except Ferrothorn and Forretress the only common steesl in OU that can take on Kyurem-B and be 3HKOed by Choice Band Outrage. Skarmory is 2HKOed by Fusion Bolt, and Jirachi only has a 3.91% chance to not be 2HKOd after Stealth Rock.
- Common weaknesses - So do Blaziken, Excadrill, and Tornadus-T. Blaziken is weak to the common Water, Psychic, and Ground type moves, and Excadrill was weak to the common Water, Ground, Fire, and Fighting-type moves. Tornadus-T's three weaknesses in Electric, Ice, and Rock-type moves were all fairly common. It should be noted that although they were much faster than Kyurem-B, they all were absurdly fragile.
-Weak to Stealth Rock - So is Thundurus. Yet, he got banned. Although he is OU on PO, he was still banned for a certain period of time. Also, some Kyurem-B sets can find room for Roost.

So basically, although he does have negatives, he brings a lot of positivies to the table. Before you get me incorrect, let's look at this fact: every team does need a check or counter to common pokemon in the metagame. However, when a pokemon can potentially get past over 90% of all of its checks and counters, it is declared broken. Kyurem-B is not intended to be a late-game sweeper because it has so many counters. Kyurem-B can break through every steel in the metagame; Ferro and Forry with HP Fire, Skarmory with Fusion Bolt, Jirachi with Outrage/Fusion Bolt/Earth Power, and so on. Scizor does not even cleanly OHKO Kyurem-B with Bullet Punch unless Stealth Rock is out, nor does Breloom.

Let's reflect for a second on the past suspects: primarily Tornadus-T and Deoxys-D. Tornadus could literally just switch out of all of its checks and counters, and heal 1/3 of its HP in the process. Chansey could not handle Superpower or Focus Blast, Jirachi could be U-turned out of, TornT could just switch out when a Scizor or Mamoswine came out, etc. It could avoid all theoretical checks and counters, even the legendary DeoD.

Deoxys-D essentially gave a ridiculously unnecessary emphasis on offense; it just made the outline of offensive teams so easy. Just slap on a DeoD, a Gengar, and four offensive pokemon of your choice. Its two "biggest counters", Espeon and Xatu, were handled with Skill Swap, which allowed DeoD to get past Magic Bounce. DeoD could also run a Mental Herb to avoid Taunt, so it could at least get down Stealth Rock. As a result, it could guarantee at least Stealth Rock, and maybe even 2 layers of Spikes. That made it overcentralize the metagame, as it was a foolproof way for Hyper Offense teams to lay down their hazards. It had no clear checks or counters.

Now, let's look at Kyurem-B, and all of its hypothetical checks and counters. As I mentioned before, Scizor and Breloom cannot cleanly OHKO with their priority moves. Now we can argue that Hydreigon has no clear counters, but Hydreigon is too easily checked by threats like Scizor and Breloom. Kyurem-B has enough bulk to stand up to Scizor and Breloom at full health. Ferrothorn is handled by the mixed set, so is Forretress. Jirachi and Skarmory can be handled even with Choice Band. Sure, it is not taking a on Specs Latios or Keldeo anytime soon, but could Blaziken or Excadrill take them on? No, not unless you were already set up to do so. So I can cleanly argue that Kyurem-B is banworthy to balance out the metagame.
 
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