np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 11 - Genie in a Bottle [Landorus is now Uber]

[breh]

I used the generic Landorus / Tyranitar / Keldeo core that everybody has been playing with. Ironically, if anything, I felt that Keldeo was the scariest thing to a lot of teams. There is, flat out, pretty much nothing that takes Keldeo even remotely well bar three Pokemon - Celebi, Amoonguss, and Jellicent. Celebi works well, but can't run U-turn or it gets OHKOed, Jellicent has to be speed creeping the hell out of Tyranitar to succeed, and Amoonguss definitely works, but doesn't hold up all that well otherwise. Once you get rid of your opponent's faster Pokemon / Keldeo counter, it's a free sweep half the time.

Oddly, I saw far less Landorus than Keldeo. I'm assuming that's just shitty ladder opponents and not overpreparation, but I couldn't get a very good feel of how powerful it is.

 

[W_M]

Team I used for reqs:

Hide

Scizor (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 240 HP / 252 Atk / 16 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower
- Pursuit

Hippowdon (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 232 Def / 24 SDef
Impish Nature
- Whirlwind
- Earthquake
- Slack Off
- Stealth Rock

Amoonguss (M) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 236 HP / 40 Def / 216 SDef / 12 Spd
Calm Nature
- Spore
- Clear Smog
- Giga Drain
- Hidden Power [Ice]

Latios (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Trick
- Surf
- Psyshock

Garchomp (M) @ Choice Band
Trait: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Fang

Magnezone @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Magnet Pull
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Flash Cannon
- Thunder

I only remember three Landorus-I in the current ladder. I was expecting to prove the team against it but it'll be in other moment . Well, although everybody has hidden their Landorus-I now, I'm voting BAN because I know that Landorus-I is able to do. I didn't need this suspect.

Excuse my English.

 

[ginganinja]

One of the questions I would like to pose to my fellow tiering contributors - would you believe Landorus-I will remain broken without Keldeo forming the LandoKeldTar trio? Which of the two sweepers, Keldeo or Landorus, are the bigger offenders of this core?

I don't really care who the "biggest" offenders are, as both of these pokemon are exceptionally annoying with Tyranitar. Removing Keldeo would hurt the core, sure, but its still a U-Turn Landorus luring in and destroying Celebi / Lati@s and its not hard to find something that enjoys those pokemon gone (Breloom?). Id argue both pokemon (Keldeo and Landorus) are pushing the envolope pretty darn hard. Also, I find Landorus-I trickier to counter and check. At least with Keldeo I can run shit like Amoonguss, Jellicent, Tioxicroak etc etc, but Landorus strains my teambuilding.

 

[shrang]

There is, flat out, pretty much nothing that takes Keldeo even remotely well bar three Pokemon - Celebi, Amoonguss, and Jellicent.

Latias, Slowking, Tentacruel, (and for the lols) Parasect and Mantine. There are also a bunch of Pokemon that check it very well, too.

 

[Mupa97]

Gah, I used Landorus-I with some random team I took from this thread.

It was like: "Okay, I lost more than 50% but I set up a Rock Polish, time to sweep!"
*clicks Earth Power, opponent lives with 25%*
BOOM
Landorus is dead.

like wtf, maybe the way I use it just sucks but it's hard to even set up with that thing, and even if you do you end up dying to whatever survives Earth Power (and a lot does).

And it's more or less the same whenever I face them too. They just try to set up and end up dying in the process, sweep cut short by priority, fails to KO one of my Pokemon, etc. Either that or they don't set up at all and they're slow enough to pick off pretty easily.

Though pretty much all the Landorus I see are specially based, even those physical sets don't stand out to me that much. I've used Scarf Landorus a ton and he was great and all, but no way did it ever feel broken. Entry hazards and priority takes care of those variants...

 

[FrostFire]

Latias, Slowking, Tentacruel, (and for the lols) Parasect and Mantine. There are also a bunch of Pokemon that check it very well, too.

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but just thought I should point out that the Expert Belt HP Bug set has almost no counters; Tentacruel is still alright, though SubCM sets up on it (though it's a really rare set). I guess part of the reason why we're suspecting Landorus-I - and later Keldeo - is generally because of their ability to power through damn near everything. This isn't actually true of any other pokemon I can think of; For example, Choice band Terrakion has massive power - but it has to lock itself into an attack, so in reality it's easier to play around. Keldeo and Landorus-I on the other hand, have immense power which is easily spammable, without any drawback.

Not that I've decided whether Landorus-I specifically is broken yet, but after laddering and (finally) getting requirements in the OU current ladder, I can see the problems that these two pokes present; especially because I laddered with a sand stall team, which fares pretty badly against Landorus-I + Keldeo.

 

[shrang]

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but just thought I should point out that the Expert Belt HP Bug set has almost no counters

Um, the Pokemon I just listed counter EB Keldeo. Latias isn't taking that much from HP Bug, nor is Slowking. Amoonguss and Jellicent listed above that beats HP Bug Keldeo as well.

 

[FrostFire]

Um, the Pokemon I just listed counter EB Keldeo. Latias isn't taking that much from HP Bug, nor is Slowking. Amoonguss and Jellicent listed above that beats HP Bug Keldeo as well.

Oh, my bad. For some reason I thought Latias took more from HP Bug than it actually does (a 252/0 takes 40.1 - 47.52). Still, after SR and with not-to-much prior damage, Keldeo can take on Latias pretty nicely (though ideally it'll have to Icy wind (which is weaker) then HP Bug for the KO. So basically, if the Latias is sitting at around ~75% then Keldeo can deal with it, by and large (unless it's specially defensive, though I don't think Latias typically runs it as it means forfeiting it's good speed tier etc).

But eh. These two have always been fairly marginal in my mind, so I won't be too disappointed with the outcome of this. My opinion on them is actually that they're not really broken in OU; but I also feel that the metagame would probably be better without them, thanks in part to Tyranitar shenanigans. So... what do you do... O_o

 

[Shurtugal]

Icy wind + SR won't put Latias into hp bug KO zone and it'll roost spam (especially 112 Hp variants). Though most Tias switch out after icy wind to scout EB...

 

[FrostFire]

Oh, my bad. For some reason I thought Latias took more from HP Bug than it actually does (a 252/0 takes 40.1 - 47.52). Still, after SR and with not-to-much prior damage, Keldeo can take on Latias pretty nicely (though ideally it'll have to Icy wind (which is weaker) then HP Bug for the KO. So basically, if the Latias is sitting at around ~75% then Keldeo can deal with it, by and large (unless it's specially defensive, though I don't think Latias typically runs it as it means forfeiting it's good speed tier etc).

But eh. These two have always been fairly marginal in my mind, so I won't be too disappointed with the outcome of this. My opinion on them is actually that they're not really broken in OU; but I also feel that the metagame would probably be better without them, thanks in part to Tyranitar shenanigans. So... what do you do... O_o

^the bolded bit being the important part :P

tl;dr: Icy wind + HP Bug to a Latias coming in to battle at about 75% is going to be 2HKO'd. (and it's still vulnerable to Tyranitar, of course)

heh.

But I just wanted to add too, that part of the problem with both Landorus-I and Keldeo is how they pair with Tyranitar. Sure, Latias can counter Keldeo - but then it's just Pursuit bait for Ttar. The same goes for Landorus-I, except in some ways it's worse, because it can actually U-turn (by the way; U-turn > Rock Polish, imo it's a lot better). It's a weird situation, because I don't think the suspects are broken by themselves, but Tyranitar's ability to beat the few counters they have make them a lot more obnoxious in the metagame. Honestly, I don't think you can judge whether to ban Landorus-I or not until you've faced the Landorus-I + CB Ttar + Keldeo core in a battle.

 

[dinodino56]

Its hard trying to make Req with a hail team though I got pretty close one time. Dumb Keldeo keeps killing me (Sometimes(Live Celebi)) can't wait to suspect that, but Landorus is pretty easy to beat though mostly with Ice Shard and stuff.

 

[shrang]

Yeah, I've went over why you can't judge really either Landorus-I's or Keldeo's brokenness because of their performance in a combo in the previous Landorus-I suspect thread. There are too many confounding factors to tell which one is actually broken. Personally, I think Tyranitar is the one that actually makes that trio work. Take it away and you have a couple of suckers that are walled by Latias and other bulkier Ghost/Psychic types like Slowking. Taking away Tyranitar would be the move that cripples that core the most. This is why I think you cannot judge their performance in a trio. Furthermore, I think you're expecting too much if you're expecting a single Pokemon to be able to counter a whole trio, although said trio can be handily beaten if you set up on Pursuit with Terrakion / Lucario / Gyarados or something.

Anyway, I've been testing stuff just via pure curiosity, and I found something that actually does wonders against both Landorus-I and Keldeo, while not being immediate Tyranitar bait. Meet MANtine:

Mantine @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Nature: Modest / Timid
- Rain Dance
- Hydro Pump
- Air Slash
- Ice Beam / Surf

OR you can run an SpD set with Scald / Air Slash / RestTalk with Water Absorb to better defeat Keldeo.

Has enough Special Defense to take Keldeo's attacks and Landorus has nothing to hit whatsoever, unless they want to start using HP Electric. You can Hydro Pump Tyranitar's face in, as well as 2HKOing Celebi after Stealth Rock (Needs Modest nature though). Go and have a try, it dicks the entire Tyranitar + Keldeo + Landorus-I + Celebi + whatever setup you see these days/

 

[Nysyr]

On an individual level, Landorus-I is definitely the most broken offender when it comes to overwhelming power and lack of prediction required. Being only weak to Ice and Water, with exceptionally good bulk, stealth rock neutrality and immunity to spikes, ground moves, and electric moves (twave especially), he gets by far the most switch ins for free. On top of his superior typing, he has far more immediate power and is much more difficult to switch in on if he gets in for free on something he OHKOs. His ability to run rock polish also lets him run modest. He can also run a physical set which has completely different counters.

Landorus-I is the reason Ttar is such a good partner, he can U-Turn out unlike Keldeo, and thanks to focus blast and earth power you need to be a levitator/flying type that can switch into these moves with impunity. What types are those? You got it, psychics and ghosts, which Ttar just nomnomnoms with pursuit.

With Lando-I gone, the standard Keldeo checks are much less pressured to be healthy to handle both of them, plus you can run things like tentacruel (standard as hell on most rain teams, isn't a dead teamslot), Amoongus which grabs momentum with spore, can actually revenge it/OHKO it with priority moves (boosted Exspeed and Mach punch, which by the way Lando-I lives comfortably). Physical def jelly can work without Lando-I around as well since Keldeo would be forced to run HP ghost, which leaves it dead in the water vs celebi. Toxicroak also loves Lando-I gone. Tl;dr the things Lando-I is countered/check by just generally suck.

I predict with Lando-I gone, Keldeo/Ttar will be much more comfortable to handle and easier to play around. It's simply a matter of needing to run less counters/checks to handle this godly 'Mon.

 

[brizz]

Yeah, I've went over why you can't judge really either Landorus-I's or Keldeo's brokenness because of their performance in a combo in the previous Landorus-I suspect thread. There are too many confounding factors to tell which one is actually broken. Personally, I think Tyranitar is the one that actually makes that trio work. Take it away and you have a couple of suckers that are walled by Latias and other bulkier Ghost/Psychic types like Slowking. Taking away Tyranitar would be the move that cripples that core the most. This is why I think you cannot judge their performance in a trio. Furthermore, I think you're expecting too much if you're expecting a single Pokemon to be able to counter a whole trio, although said trio can be handily beaten if you set up on Pursuit with Terrakion / Lucario / Gyarados or something.

Anyway, I've been testing stuff just via pure curiosity, and I found something that actually does wonders against both Landorus-I and Keldeo, while not being immediate Tyranitar bait. Meet MANtine:

Mantine @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Nature: Modest / Timid
- Rain Dance
- Hydro Pump
- Air Slash
- Ice Beam / Surf

OR you can run an SpD set with Scald / Air Slash / RestTalk with Water Absorb to better defeat Keldeo.

Has enough Special Defense to take Keldeo's attacks and Landorus has nothing to hit whatsoever, unless they want to start using HP Electric. You can Hydro Pump Tyranitar's face in, as well as 2HKOing Celebi after Stealth Rock (Needs Modest nature though). Go and have a try, it dicks the entire Tyranitar + Keldeo + Landorus-I + Celebi + whatever setup you see these days/

Nice set ahah :-)
Now, I'm pretty sure you know that such a pokémon wouldn't work in OU by yourself, but I just want to point out that fews Keldeo run HP [Electric] :P
Anyway that gimmick seems fun fun n_n

EDIT: ok, reading more carefully I noticed that you already knew about hp electric
my bad :(

 

[jc104]

Yeah, I've went over why you can't judge really either Landorus-I's or Keldeo's brokenness because of their performance in a combo in the previous Landorus-I suspect thread. There are too many confounding factors to tell which one is actually broken. Personally, I think Tyranitar is the one that actually makes that trio work. Take it away and you have a couple of suckers that are walled by Latias and other bulkier Ghost/Psychic types like Slowking. Taking away Tyranitar would be the move that cripples that core the most.

While removing Tyranitar and not replacing it with anything would cripple the core, of course, Tyranitar is actually rather easily replaced by something like Weavile or even Choice Specs Gothitelle. They clearly aren't as good, but they let you use rain making keldeo into a total monster. Weavile is actually pretty incredible at the moment, I have to say. While I was testing, I made the OU half of recs using a weavile team despite some abysmal luck (being haxed to death by a linoone, for instance). Weavile even 6-0ed a couple of teams almost completely on its own. So the point is, Tyranitar is as far from being irreplaceable as any member of the core.

 

[BKC]

i think landorus would be broken even without pursuit tyranitar [or scizor/weavile] helping it out. its list of counters is so limited as is and it can still beat virtually all of them. the fact that all its counters are either pursuit or sr weak [bar chansey who still won't like sr + sand + attacks being rubbed in its face] is just icing on the cake.

rey and lavos' posts on the previous page are spot on btw.

 

[BurningMan]

While removing Tyranitar and not replacing it with anything would cripple the core, of course, Tyranitar is actually rather easily replaced by something like Weavile or even Choice Specs Gothitelle. They clearly aren't as good, but they let you use rain making keldeo into a total monster. Weavile is actually pretty incredible at the moment, I have to say. While I was testing, I made the OU half of recs using a weavile team despite some abysmal luck (being haxed to death by a linoone, for instance). Weavile even 6-0ed a couple of teams almost completely on its own. So the point is, Tyranitar is as far from being irreplaceable as any member of the core.

Weavile, Scizor and Gothitelle can however all be beaten by Latias, Jellicent and Celebie and have a much harder time trapping these threats while TTar can just switch in without really fearing anything if CB TTar got a safe switch-in these things are dead no matter what while the other pokes all have to predict right or risk getting beaten by what they are supposed to counter/check. Yes Tyranitar may not be irreplacable, but the other Pokemon can't do its job nearly as good as TTar can do them.
I really agree with Shrang when he says that TTar is propably the one that cause the problems since it is completly broken as a trapper and allows to remove certain pokemon way too easy making Pokeon like Latias a complete liability, when i am using Keldeo with TTar 90% of the time i won't switch out when Latias comes in knowing that the other player most likely will switch out directly simply because of the psycological threat TTar is.
Trapping Abilities/Pursuit really contribute towards the whole team match-up issue since shit like Gothtielle/TTar/Magnezone/Dugtrio puts so much pressure on the opposing teams that the other player will at some point over-predict just to keep their counter alive and puts you in an completly unfair disadvantage from turn 1.

However banning TTar would propably cause way more problems since it would really mess with the whole weather wars issue ripping "weatherless" HO teams off one of the beast ways to combat Sun/Rain.


On Topic: I got ranks for current yesterday abusing TTar/Keldeo/Landorus-I with a Volt-Turn core with Scizor, Rotom-W and Celebie make trapping even easier and it made winning extremely easy ,although the skill level of my opponents was questionable, because i played like 3 players that had a rating over 1900 while the majority was around 1600. I found Rotom-W extremely useful in this meta, being a very solid check to a lot of threats including Landorus-I as well as being pretty hard to switch into using the bulky tank set on-site the only real downfall is WoWs shaky accuracy wich was propably the cause of 90% of my rage attacks. Landorus itself was really good against balanced teams wich it sometimes could destroy with very little effort/support overall, i maybe used RP maybe once or twice and did the late game sweeping against HO most of the time with Scarf Keldeo wich is propably one of the best late game cleaners in the game. I am not completly sure if i want to ban Landorus-I anymore seeing how Landorus-I itself isn't that broken compared to other top threats, but it gets ridiculous when used in the mentioned core. Overall i think banning Lando and maybe Keldeo might be the most applicable option to get more balance for the BW 2 meta, but i am pretty sure it won't be the best.

 

[Woodchuck]

During my climb on the current ladder I never actually lost once to Landorus-I. However, I was running a fairly offensive team with almost nothing Landorus could actually set up on; Landorus is a lot easier to deal with when you can force it to attack and most of your Pokemon outspeed and can put it in Scizor BP range. Landorus-I is not difficult for heavily offensive teams to deal with; the problem is balanced teams (e. g. teams with Forretress as a spinner) can't avoid giving Landorus-I switch-in opportunities, and once it gets in on something slower, it truly is threatening. Right now, despite not losing to Landorus-I, I'm leaning towards banning it simply because while I was using it I could get it in on something slower and with minimal prediction weaken its checks by spamming attacks and then switching out; some of them I could trap with TTar, but for others I only needed to get a solid hit in in order to clean them up later after a Rock Polish. Tyranitar is only made so good a trapper by Landorus because Landorus has such a narrow array of counters that uniquely fits Tyranitar's ideal targets for trapping. Tyranitar isn't the problem here.

Also, shrang's Mantine looks pretty fucking funny, so I'll probably give that a try. (although Gyarados does pretty much the same thing to TTar + Keldeo + Lando-I cores, so why not use that??) I should also ladder some with slower teams to really get a feel for Landorus's power, since it struggles against hyper offense -- which is mostly what I play. I'd like to ask the people for / against banning Landorus what playstyles they've been mainly using on the ladder, because Landorus is an extremely powerful Pokemon with limited utility against hyper offense (bar a cleanup sweep with Rock Polish if you can grab a setup opportunity) but is extremely dangerous to more defensive teams.

 

[Corumba]

If you think Landorus isn't broken, I suggest you try to build a balanced team that counters it. I've been trying to do so for a while now and consistently fail to do so.

Every time my opponent gets a free switch to Landorus, I'm scrabbling around my team looking for the best thing to sack. When modest earth power ohkoes everything on an offensive team and 2hkoes everything on a defensive team regardless of whether its super effective, you have a problem. Running latias or rotom-w is not an answer since a well played Landorus will switch/ uturn out and outlast them if used by anyone competent.

There's a reason I have been running Dusclops for a while on my main team, and Lando is a large part of it (although more stuff needs to get the chop too imo.)

The only way to beat it consistently is by offensively checking it- something that offensive teams are capable of, but defensive and balanced teams aren't, without going out of there way to lob lots of weird and unconventional stuff on their team, which is useless and a waste of a team slot against the rest of the metagame.

 

[BKC]

banning TTar would propably cause way more problems since it would really mess with the whole weather wars issue ripping "weatherless" HO teams off one of the beast ways to combat Sun/Rain.

irrelevant. if ttar is broken then we get rid of it regardless of what the effect on the meta would be.

 

[Halcyon.]

To be honest, I don't even think Keldeo/TTar/Landorus is that scary. Things like Baton Pass Celebi can beat it if the core is using BandTar. The thing that I think is truly scary is Landorus and Keldeo paired up with Nasty Plot Baton Pass Celebi. Now that is something to be feared. I mean, +2 Scarf Keldeo or +2/+2 Landorus? Good luck countering those.

EDIT: Also, to answer Pocket's question, I think Keldeo is probably the most broken of the three (Tyranitar, Landorus, and Keldeo, that is). Rain boosted Hydro Pump and the ability to run all sorts of different Hidden powers to beat its counters is just fantastic. I don't know if I would say that it's broken enough to be banned, but I think it's the most powerful of the three.

 

[Freze]

To be honest, I don't even think Keldeo/TTar/Landorus is that scary. Things like Baton Pass Celebi can beat it if the core is using BandTar. The thing that I think is truly scary is Landorus and Keldeo paired up with Nasty Plot Baton Pass Celebi. Now that is something to be feared. I mean, +2 Scarf Keldeo or +2/+2 Landorus? Good luck countering those.

This is true and the core I would run if I were to build a lando/keldeo based team, but the key here is that even with BPNP Celebi you should run T-Tar. Add some hazards to the mix and virtually everything is OHKOd by Landorus and Keldeo.

Landorus is simply too strong to allow to stay. You need to have a pokemon with Ice Shard on your team or 2 pokemon with priority or you are royally screwed by it after a RP and some hazards. It imo centralizes the game too much because with the proper support it is just too good. There are some walls to it, like Chansey, but if played with BPNP Celebi they are irrelevant as with SR and Spikes it is over for Chansey I believe (not sure how many layers of hazards are needed to OHKO at +2).

I understand that some say that it can't be banned based on the core it is in, but why not? Ban the core starting from the largest offender until the core is no longer broken.

 

[Tressed]

One of the questions I would like to pose to my fellow tiering contributors - would you believe Landorus-I will remain broken without Keldeo forming the LandoKeldTar trio? Which of the two sweepers, Keldeo or Landorus, are the bigger offenders of this core?

I haven't been doing suspect yet, I'm into exams right now, but based on prior experience I can say that both are have pros and cons, but I think Landorus is the bigger offender here. Sure, Keldeo has Rain boosted STAB + pseudo-mixed sweeping move, but at the end of the day you can't boost your Speed without sacrificing offences, you can't boost your offenses without losing to faster things, and at the end of the day you'll end up losing to things such as Jellicent, Latias, and Amoongus, unless you run TTar and lose your boosted Water STAB (which as we all know isn't a huge deal, but it still affects Keldeo's power). Landorus doesn't have these problems, because you effectively get more power than Choice Specs while retaining the ability to switch moves and boost your speed. Meanwhile, you can't effectively wall Landorus because it can switch moves and if it happens to U-Turn to TTar while you switch Latias in, you're done. At least you can predict the switch with Keldeo. Meanwhile, at the end of a game, there is going to be one thing that can always shut Lando down, which is priority, and it had better be powerful, too.
I really do think that the problem with the core itself is how brainless it is. It makes a win-win situation for you that an opponent can't break. Its a die if you switch, die if you don't thing because your opponent can do either, and if they screw up, its generally less of an issue for them than if you screw up. But yeah, imo Lando is the broken one out of this core, not Keldeo, although I think that banning one will balance out the other a bit, just because both are really strong and once you beat one, TTar traps you and the other one can come in and finish you off without a problem, for the most part. If you're only allowed to use one of the two, though, that can't happen as easily, and fixes the problem much more easily.
So yeah, I'll probably be pro-ban for this one, once I have the time to get reqs.

 

[TEzeon]

Forgive me if I missed something, but wasn't the idea of this suspect put to a vote? I was pretty sure that the community overall voted against. Just wondering.

 

[Subject 18]

Forgive me if I missed something, but wasn't the idea of this suspect put to a vote? I was pretty sure that the community overall voted against. Just wondering.

Well yes but the OU Council has the final say in whether something it going to be tested or not. We (the community) can discuss it and try to influence the council towards test or not testing but the OU Council gets the final say.