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

[MikeDawg]

I'm aware he wasn't the best, just pointing out if lando-i was the god he was made out to be, the second he got in on heatran i might as well have lost.

Uber =/= god

Well... I guess arceus kind of is a god thematically, but that still doesn't mean that you send him out and its an instant win.

Pokes can have checks
Pokes can have counters
Pokes can have flaws

It's the bigger picture, how they actually function, that determines their viability

 

[Mupa97]

mind you i'm not saying its not broken/banworthy, i'm just not sure. like, the generic keldeo/lando/ttar or scizor core is so common that the metagame (the relevant metagame, anyway) has evolved to the point where it's become more of a liability than anything else. rp lando almost never gets to set up and sweep because offensive teams rarely give it enough room to do so, and if it does, there's usually something like hp ice sash zam / CB nite / CB scizor / mamo waiting to revenge it. and dont give me that "if it needs to be revenged it's already done it's job" bs because that doesnt apply a vast majority of the time with offense. u-turn lando is almost as non-threatening to offense and gives balanced teams some issues, but like... so do a bunch of other things. stall is just never going to be a thing in the relevant bw2 ou so i wont even get into that.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts about RP Landorus. It was good when it was new and all like, "lulz this guy can sweep if you set it up" but seriously, if your team can't play around this thing then it's your team, not Landorus itself. Because it just has so many flaws as a sweeper (priority weak, hard time setting up, not sufficient to OHKO certain threats) that it's honestly not broken at all.

Same with U-turn Landorus. It's been here ever since the beginning of BW, and so has Tyranitar. If you have problems with him then maybe you should take a look at your team and not Landorus.

 

[Nysyr]

Uber =/= god

Well... I guess arceus kind of is a god thematically, but that still doesn't mean that you send him out and its an instant win.

Pokes can have checks
Pokes can have counters
Pokes can have flaws

It's the bigger picture, how they actually function, that determines their viability

My point was more that Lando-I is the most dead weight in the core against offensive teams. Basically only there for U-Turn in that case as a celebi lure. The trio is broken against different teams in different ways... Against offense its Keldeo's speed and Ttars pursuit trap where Lando-I just U-turns once celebi comes in; it can try to RP sweep but will probably get revenged or forced out. Against stall its Ttar trapping what lando-i can't smash while keldeo is mostly dead weight. The only thing consistent between these is Ttar has to be there to pursuit what Keldeo and Lando-I can't break by themselves.

So who do we ban? Which of the 3 pokemon from the core do we get rid of? The one who is best alone (Lando-I)? The one who provides the trap support (Ttar)? Or do we ban the glue; the revenge killer with the coverage, power, and speed to make offensive pokemon shudder (Keldeo)?

Or in the end do we ban none of these and instead force other playstyles to be as rigid in teambuilding as the Keltar-I core is in order to compete?

P.S. if you want something broken to have fun with, try a Tornadus-I. My goodness it wrecks...

 

[-Sparkbeat-]

So who do we ban? Which of the 3 pokemon from the core do we get rid of? The one who is best alone (Lando-I)? The one who provides the trap support (Ttar)? Or do we ban the glue; the revenge killer with the coverage, power, and speed to make offensive pokemon shudder (Keldeo)?

This thread isn't to decide what the best way to break up the T/K/L core, it's to discuss whether Landorus, not the core, but Landorus, is broken.

 

[Nysyr]

This thread isn't to decide what the best way to break up the T/K/L core, it's to discuss whether Landorus, not the core, but Landorus, is broken.

In theory that is; however if you do that individually for every member of the core you might not end up banning any of them. The core is the reason Lando-I is even suspected in the first place (prove me wrong please?).

Keldeo is probably the only exception to this thanks to Drizzle breaking most of everything that it touches. But that would be an indirect nerf to the core that people think is broken.

 

[Jukain]

I've been laddering, and I am not convinced that Landorus is broken. I used it a bit, and it wasn't all that devastating. I might have caught a few Celebi with U-turn, but I didn't seeLandorus being so destructive. It was always the least of my worries while fighting it. I wasn't running some stall team with four defensive checks either. I was running a standard offensive team and had no trouble with Landorus period.

 

[George Eliot]

Looks like I can bring a different perspective to this discussion. I've been mostly using semistall and U-turn Lando is just utterly broken against any defensively leaning team. Life Orb Hydreigon, it can outpredict the crap out of you and you can still limit it to one kill each time it comes in just by letting it Draco Meteor, which then allows you to set up hazards or with an offensive mon. Against Landorus, you can't do that; you have two choices. You sacrifice whatever it just came in on, allowing you to bring in...what? Nothing which beats Landorus on a defensive build can do anything useful for the team; you just scare it out and let the opponent bring a different offensive threat (or Tar, depending on your Pokémon). You've lost a crucial Pokémon, for nothing. Alternatively, you can switch to a counter. Latias / Celebi get U-turned on and die. SpDef Zapdos get's U-turned on and has to take the probable Sandstorm + Stealth Rock damage. Blissey, SpDef Jelli etc, are still Pursuit weak, and even without that, U-turn + SR + Sandstorm puts them quickly into Earth Power 2HKO range. Really the only way I've found to reliably beat it is to use Politoed + Tentacruel + Zapdos / Togekiss, which is just stupid.

Basically, you cannot even check Landorus' destruction unless a) most of your team is faster than it, thus giving it very few opportunities to come in, or b) your team doesn't care about losing a Pokémon. In other words, you can't use anything other than offense. I know this argument has been hashed and re-hashed a thousand times, but because U-turn Lando isn't broken in our current Lando-dominated metagame, in which virtually every team style weak to Lando has been killed off, doesn't mean it isn't ban worthy at all.

 

[phantom]

That's all we can do since Tyranitar would never be banned. Also check out some of the popular offensive teams, many use Scizor thanks to its Steel typing and because it can revenge and Pursuit trap the Lati's.

Scizor gets OHKOd by HP Fire, not sure how that was relevant to mention.

Notice what comes right after that, "They will still get the job done"

Not as efficiently, which is what matters.

Anyone who has played Sand Offense before knows Ttar is much better than Hippo for it since ya know, its offense. And there's a difference between excessive and necessary. This is necessary for the overall health and competitiveness of the metagame. Suspecting Ttar isn't.

Suspecting TTar is needed in this case. Whether you want to believe that or not is up to you. Ttar is the problem with the core and why it's so damn overpowered. It wouldn't be as effective otherwise.

 

[George Eliot]

Tyranitar is the core's glue. Saying that it should be banned is just silly though. It's trapping isn't overpowered in itself; it has few viable targets. The only thing that makes it's trapping overpowered is that Keldeo and Landorus both have only a few viable counters, which happen to be among those which Tyranitar can trap. Thus, it's the power of the Pokémon which literally force those counters to be run which break the core.

 

[Lady Alex]

Scizor gets OHKOd by HP Fire, not sure how that was relevant to mention.



Not as efficiently, which is what matters.



Suspecting TTar is needed in this case. Whether you want to believe that or not is up to you. Ttar is the problem with the core and why it's so damn overpowered. It wouldn't be as effective otherwise.

Like, really? Tyranitar has always been able to trap Lati@s and Celebi, which has never been a problem until now, where we have two pokemon who abuse the shit out of being able to trap those particular pokemon, and you think Tyranitar is the broken one? You're being ridiculous.

 

[BKC]

hey guys if you don't play stall can you please not post stupid shit about how lando affects or doesn't affect stall teams' viability? thanks

as for my thoughts: stall will be (way more) viable (than it is now) without landorus. he and kyu-b are the 2 most unfair mons you could possibly ask for against defensive teams. you know those descriptions of mons that go "x runs through stall" that are obviously exaggerated a bit? well to land and kyu-b, it is actually 100% correct, they quite literally defeat most stall teams on their own or with very little support. keldeo is a bit more manageable if lando gets banned because you can run amoonguss as your grass without having to worry about the lack of a ground resist and obviously amoon isn't so easily pursuited but i would prefer seeing it banned as well because rain-boosted hydro pumps are nothing short of stupid.

also i absolutely despise trapping but it is not ttar that is breaking landorus, i firmly believe it'd be broken even without pursuit tar support. maybe keldeo... but then again, it's ridiculous with rain as well.

 

[phantom]

Like, really? Tyranitar has always been able to trap Lati@s and Celebi, which has never been a problem until now, where we have two pokemon who abuse the shit out of being able to trap those particular pokemon, and you think Tyranitar is the broken one? You're being ridiculous.

Trapping abilities/moves in general are noncompetitive. That's how I see it. It's not as ridiculous as you claim it is. More efficient banning would be nice. Rather banning two Pokemon, just doing away with one is smarter. Tbh, I don't think they would be broken without Ttar and a few other Pokemon that get annoying with tar support (breloom) would be easier to deal with. Really though, if you're gonna call my assertion ridiculous, try to back it up with some facts or at least some half-decent reasoning. Thanks.

Thus, it's the power of the Pokémon which literally force those counters to be run which break the core.

Honestly, that's just a matter of subjective interpretation.

 

[Sapientia]

Trapping abilities/moves in general are noncompetitive. That's how I see it. It's not as ridiculous as you claim it is. More efficient banning would be nice. Rather banning two Pokemon, just doing away with one is smarter. Tbh, I don't think they would be broken without Ttar and a few other Pokemon that get annoying with tar support (breloom) would be easier to deal with. Really though, if you're gonna call my assertion ridiculous, try to back it up with some facts or at least some half-decent reasoning. Thanks.


Honestly, that's just a matter of subjective interpretation.

If you want to take Ttar away, because of its trapping ability Weavile still does the job if you want to trap Lati@s and Celebi.
Of course you have to play a bit smarter with Weavile since it can't tank Latias hits, but it's still not too hard to trap Lati with him.

 

[Lady Alex]

Trapping abilities/moves in general are noncompetitive. That's how I see it. It's not as ridiculous as you claim it is. More efficient banning would be nice. Rather banning two Pokemon, just doing away with one is smarter. Tbh, I don't think they would be broken without Ttar and a few other Pokemon that get annoying with tar support (breloom) would be easier to deal with. Really though, if you're gonna call my assertion ridiculous, try to back it up with some facts or at least some half-decent reasoning. Thanks.

If you think pursuit is noncompetitive, you should be banning Scizor and Weavile as well. Both are able to reliably (less so than Tyranitar, but nonetheless) trap lati@s and Celebi, giving Landorus and Keldeo similar support that they have in Tyranitar. By your logic, we should be banning three pokemon, which is worse than two! the absurdity of your assertion speaks for itself. You think that Tyranitar is broken because it's able to reliably trap a mere three pokemon. Tyranitar is in no way a domineering force in the metagame that forces you to run specific checks in order to deal with it. The metagame is littered with pokemon that can check/counter Tyranitar. Tyranitar's effect on the metagame, unlike Landorus or Keldeo, is a positive one. It gives Balance and Offensive teams a way to easily keep opposing weather in check and very reliably stops Latios from murdering most of the metagame (Scizor and Ferrothorn fear HP fire, Blissey and Chansey fear trick, Celebi can't stomach Specs Draco Meteor). The issue isn't as black and white as "if we ban this one pokemon, these two pokemon won't be broken, so the best solution is obviously to ban the one," and it's very likely that Landorus/Keldeo would still be broken when utilizing Scizor and Weavile as their pursuit support anyway.

 

[Shurtugal]

Weavile can't switch into dmeteor, pursuit won't ohko if you don't switch, and Scizor dies to Hp fire. @Latias

None of the suspects would be considered broken if they used Scizor or Weavile over TTar .


On IPod so I will make another post ellaborating more in a few hours.

 

[Lady Alex]

After taking a Landorus u-turn, Weavile does KO Latios regardless of whether or not it switches. Hidden power fire is only used 26% of the time on Latias and 34% of the time on Latios, so yes, Scizor can reliably trap both of them (Also take into consideration that Latias's most common EV spread is 252 HP / 252 Spe, so it's only able 1hko standard CB Scizor 18% of the time with HP fire after rocks). Like I said, they don't trap them AS WELL as Tyranitar, but they can still do so most of the time and Landorus's strength would go largely unchanged.

 

[Nysyr]

HP fire is pretty standard on offensive latias.

Surf doesn't 2hko ttar, still hits jirachi pretty terribly even in rain, while having ferrothorn wall you dead... so why not run HP fire to cockblock scizors that want to trap you?

 

[ginganinja]

Same with U-turn Landorus. It's been here ever since the beginning of BW, and so has Tyranitar. If you have problems with him then maybe you should take a look at your team and not Landorus.

Just pointing out that Sheer Force Landorus-I hasn't been here since the beginning of BW, and the set itself is fairly annoying to play against, since it turns a large number of situations into coin flips while removing certain counters that Landorus-I would otherwise struggle to beat.

Personally speaking, I hate Landorus-I because I feel so constrained by my teambuilding. Its not impossible to counter or check, but that fact that the U-Turn set effectively removes its best and most viable counters from the picture is exceptionally frustrating. Sure, "I can play around it" and its by no means assured at eliminating my Latias, but ultimately thats coming down to skill vs skill with the Landorus-I player still having (imo) a better edge. Furthermore, while Mamoswine and Weavile can revenge kill it, neither of them cannot actually switch in, so I feel like I need to make my teams faster and faster in order to lessen the impact of a possible Landorus-I (or use shit like Shuca Icy Wind Jirachi to lure it in and KO it).

 

[Tyranical]

Well since smogon has been down for a while, what is the new date for the suspect vote?

 

[TCTphantom]

Hey guys, whats your opinion on Zoroark replacing TTar on a Keldtar-I combo, as it can use illusion to lure out counters?

 

[kd24]

once they see zoroark in team preview, theyre either going to spikes to get info or be more risky with stuff that wouldve lost to landorus anyway. there's also no guarantee of killing anything with zoroark (the latis can be faster and could use draco meteor to kill you which they wouldve done vs landorus anyway) and you arent using pursuit for a guaranteed kill. i understand that there's a good chance they could keep in celebi and lose it to dark pulse but i dont think its worth trying to win so many what if scenarios when you can instead just rely on a ttar's pursuit, just in the scenario of using one or the other.

theres also something to be said about ttar stopping rain which can be a real bitch for landorus. maybe im just hating on a lesser used mon out of inexperience with it, but i just don't see it being a better option than ttar.

 

[PK Gaming]

Hey guys, whats your opinion on Zoroark replacing TTar on a Keldtar-I combo, as it can use illusion to lure out counters?

You can't count on it to consistently lure out Keldeo's checks & counters, because Illusion typically only works once. I just want to clarify that Zoroark typically uses Sucker Punch (or should be using it) so the Lati twins are actually beaten by it.

 

[kd24]

what's the standard set? dark pulse (or night daze?)/sucker punch/focus blast/fire blast? i'd be super scared of so many pokemon using that set, unlike ttar where its going to be solid in almost every game regardless

 

[PK Gaming]

what's the standard set? dark pulse (or night daze?)/sucker punch/focus blast/fire blast? i'd be super scared of so many pokemon using that set, unlike ttar where its going to be solid in almost every game regardless

It either uses an all out attacker set (Sucker Punch / Low Kick / Flamethrower / Dark Pulse or Hidden Power Ice) or Swords Dance. I wasn't trying to compare it to Tyranitar. (because they do different things)

 

[X5Dragon]

So um guys when is the new deadline posting voting reqs?