Ok, so I'll engage with the risk/reward argument for Hoopa-U now.
First off, Hoopa-U does actually have a substantial amount of risk in using it, although this might not be immediately obvious. When you use a splashable pokemon like Keldeo on a team, you're not just using it to spam scalds, you're also using it to check pokemon like Bisharp, Heatran, Weavile, etc. Compared to this, Hoopa-U actually checks very little in the tier. It checks Alakazam, and some electrics, but that's really all it can provide for a team in terms of defensive synergy. HO teams may be offensive, but you do awant to avoid getting straight up through by common threats. Due to its lack of defensive synergy, it's pretty common to see Hoopa-U teams have very unfavourable matchups against threats that are more common than you want, and also for these threats to be greater in number than weaknesses other HO which does not use Hoopa has.
Yet Hoopa's defence ties in further to how it is not just an easy to use pokemon. Every time you lock yourself into the wrong coverage move, you risk taking serious damage in return, and being taken advantage of. Look at this replay turn 8:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-138988
If TDK had clicked dark pulse instead of focus blast on the incoming terrakion, it would certainly have gotten a kill back, and he would not have been in a favourable situation at all. Every time you try to double in Hoopa, you risk the opponent calling you on it, and you losing the strongest breaker on your team prematurely, because again, this can't take physical hits well at all. As WhiteQueen pointed out, Hoopa-U being used to its fullest extent is heavily reliant on predicting correctly, and in a lot of cases this will be a blind shot in the dark. Calcs showing how Hoopa-U is able to 2hko anything that comes in with the correct coverage move has limited usefulness in being able to demonstrate Hoopa's power, but it assumes that Hoopa-U is always able to hit the correct coverage move, which is not the case.
Every turn Hoopa-U is out on the field is potentially explosive, true, but it is not just a risk free pokemon. At both the building stage and the battling stage, it has significant weaknesses that need to be taken into account. It's pretty clear that Hoopa-U, just from the stats that it has, was designed to be a glass cannon. By putting together a scenario in which Hoopa-U is already out against a pokemon that it will 100% force out, and that can't really touch it back, like Amoonguss, this completely ignores the glass aspect of it being a glass cannon.
There is some truth to this. On the suspect ladder, because people are desperate to get reqs, they have adapted quite quickly to the new meta. There are some main trends for ladder players with a high gxe, from looking at replays, and bare in mind that this doesn't apply to absolutely every ladder player, but for the majority. Those trends boil down to two main strategies for a high W/L ratio, the vast majority will either use a very bulky Sableye team, or a team that is extremely geared towards breaking those Sableye teams. If you look at matches with these Sableye stall builds, you'll see that they will make the safest play every single turn. The main gamble is that the team preview matchup is not awful, and what we can deduce from the W/L ratios is that the vast majority of the time, this is not the case. There are ways to adapt, but if we're trying to make risk reward roughly 50/50, removing a risky to face and use pokemon that keeps what has been proven to be the safest laddering playstyle this suspect in check is not the right way to go about it.
The fact that Kyurem got roost to avoid chip damage meant that it had a large variety in options as a pokemon. Hoopa-U does not have any way to recover its health outside of drain punch, and so saying Kyurem-B has the option to use roost, is pointing out a strength of the pokemon, not a weakness. While ORAS and BW2 might be different metagames, it is not the same as comparing apples and oranges, because it's a progression of game mechanics and options, rather than a new slate all together. If anything, the power creep means we should be prepared for new concepts of how a pokemon can work, rather than banning old ones.
Below is the post where you say that Hoopa-U needs to be able to be checked defensively to be balanced, I've looked at this multiple times, and I can't think of any other way of reading this other than sidestepping around the fact that it is extremely easy to be checked offensively, but because it can't be checked defensively, it is broken.
And yes, I absolutely attacked you ad hominem, but I did not accuse you of doing the same. What I actually accused you of was being smug despite making weak posts, and yes that was brash. However, this is not only because of you not partaking in any previous suspects, but based on what I read from your previous posts, and believe me I read every single post you wrote.
Now, as a conclusion, I'll look at the metagame with Hoopa-U in it, compared to the one without it.
Metagame with Hoopa-U:
- Primarily offensive.
- Reliant on prediction to pick up kills.
- Pokemon are forced to be sacked more frequently.
- Disadvantages pokemon with less than 80 base speed.
- What can't be checked defensively can be checked offensively.
- Mispredicts are usually costly.
Metagame without Hoopa-U:
- Large focus on defensive teams and how to break them.
- Pokemon are forced to be sacked infrequently.
- Reliant on which breakers are on your team to maintain a good W/L.
- Bulk and power are more important, speed is less important.
- Significant numbers of teams will endeavour to check as many threats as possible, and aim to seal up games from the start.
- Mispredicts are usually less costly.
As far as I see it, Hoopa-U speeds up games by making the metagame more offensive. It makes the outcome of a game more about certain crucial turns rather than what you have for a specific core, although often these plays will be a shot in the dark. Without it, more teams are free to try to aim to win based on matchup, you'll see a fair few replays where otherwise well built teams with semi-decent, but not excellent breakers are left with little to no chance of winning a specific game.
To assess this, Hoopa-U puts a greater emphasis on the plays made in a match rather than who has what. Mispredicts and misplays will be punished more harshly. Therefore, I can only view Hoopa-U as a positive thing for the tier, rather than being detrimental.
