I was one of the two council members who voted against the Kyurem suspect, originally this was because I didn't know what I wanted to vote until we had more time to see how SubTect would develop, but after more thinking on the issue I'm now firmly DNB on Kyurem. I don't have much time for this post so I'll just put my thoughts so far in bullet points:
- I was strongly DNB on the original Kyurem suspect. At the time the main issue being discussed with Kyurem was the relative lack of switchins to the Boots and Specs sets + the occasional DD mixup, but in general I felt that Kyurem teams at the time were railroaded into specific defensive structures that could be exploited heavily by most other styles in the metagame. I think that this aspect of Kyurem has stayed pretty constant, mainly because its profile doesn't really directly fit into any of the most important teambuilding roles - it's not speedy enough to be speed control, it doesn't have priority, it's not Ground/Steel/Ghost or Fairy type, it doesn't have hazards or removal, and it doesn't really want to come in on any of the major speedy boosting threats except for Booster Speed Tusk in some situations. When added together this is pretty relevant, because it means that the teamslot which is given to Kyurem is a slot that other teams will be using to build towards some bigger strategic advantage (which will in turn give them more evident long-term plans). To make all of this more annoying in the builder, special Kyurem isn't even a universal breaker - it still hard loses to stall and at the very least gets perpetually annoyed by Glowking on a lot of balance teams, and it's relatively difficult amongst all the other restrictions to find a strong way to incorporate special Kyurem into a team that also has teammates to address these issues. Kyurem was often painted as a massive menace for balance teams on account of these two sets in the first suspect, and imo this was not realistic to how balance actually played at the time - it had plenty of material to work with against Kyurem in real games, between all the structural flaws i mentioned + other things like the fact that most balance teams wanted to play towards a cleanup with Boots speed control (usually Pult/Zama/Weavile) which Kyurem did absolutely nothing to get in the way of.
- As for DD Kyurem (the most reliable set imo), it addresses some of these issues while leaving others. It's much closer to being a universal breaker in that a well-played mixed DD Kyurem will actually put pressure on every style, but I think it's important to note that when I say well-played DD Kyurem in this context, I mean a REALLY well-played Kyurem. I find it hard to describe DD Kyurem as a sweeper in the same way that something like Gouging Fire or Volcarona was - it's not really something you'd expect to send in and click to a win with even if you have the right set, because you don't have access to recovery and you still have temporary forms of counterplay to deal with (Zama/Steels that are sometimes on a Balloon/Boosters/any number of mons that may live a hit if you choose to click DD first). All of this has to be weighed against the fact that your range of options with Kyurem will close the longer you don't send it in, as hazards will go up and/or the board will eventually simplify to a point that your opponent can do things like directly attacking into Kyurem to put it in range of priority, Teraing in front of the Kyurem, saving sacks to throw out so that Kyurem doesn't kill your remaining important pieces. This aspect of the game does exist to some degree with all of these sweepers, but the difference between Kyu and Goug/Volc is that Gouging/Volcarona found it much easier to punish you to a ridiculous degree just for making a basic initial response. Kyurem's Dragon Dance set mostly exists for making sure people can't wall Icicle Spear, and maybe forcing your opponent to burn Booster/Tera/Zama Dauntless Shield earlier than they wanted to IF you do the early game work necessary to force them into that position.
- Substitute + Protect is the set that originally made me unsure whether or not I wanted to ban Kyurem. Compared to the other special sets, Subtect has some practical advantages in actual games, giving Kyurem the opportunity to scout Choiced users like Gholdengo or drain the PP of checks in general. Compared to Specs Kyurem, Subtect can notably get away with slightly less hazard control, with some successful Subtect Kyurem teams using only Tusk as removal as opposed to the Cinderace + removal cores that are almost always seen with Specs Kyurem. That being said, there's still not that much in the meta in terms of good team structures for Sub Kyurem, and it still usually relies on having very bulky team support that can prolong the game until Kyurem puts in enough work. In this way, you could view Sub Kyurem as just another addition in a long list of long-term balance wincons, which is usually handled by meta adaptation rather than tiering action - eventually the existing Sub Kyurem teams will stop working well in the metagame at large, and then there will be a wait until people find new teams around the set. Regardless of how obviously annoying this set is to face, I don't think I can reasonably support a ban based off of a set that has a similar matchup spread to CM Clef/Boots Weav/Boots Rai/Reuniclus - I think we just have to accept that if the teams around these mons can survive long enough to give their main threat a million opportunities to click buttons, then they will probably win.
- As a small note tacked on the end here, while I don't agree with the premise of trying to predict future metas to make current decisions, I do think that it's possible to hit most of the points from that type of post just by discussing current meta interactions. One of the fundamental things to understand about the matchup between HO and not HO is that most if not all good HO teams will have a couple liabilities against bulkier teams (things that won't meaningfully make progress into the opposing team) and the point of breakers is to kinda balance this dynamic out a bit. I think that the current dynamic between Kyurem and our 4 main Ground types for example is very healthy in both directions - the Ground types tend to find easy free turns against mons that they wall, which is either converted into direct progress through attacks or free hazards that will be used to chip most of the team. From an offense perspective, it's important to have options to punish these sequences, which means having an option that deters these mons while also being good at making progress. On the other side of the same interaction, since the Ground types are still generally good into the offense teams that Kyurem is found on, good play from their side will aim to maximize the value out of their Ground type. A good example of this would be Stareal's game from Week 1 of SCL. Stareal recognizes that early aggressive play with his Ting-Lu will beat out any level of threat that Attribute can create with Kyurem, and as a result of this he's able to create a big early lead that pretty much takes Kyurem out of the game and leaves Attribute with no real answer to Speed Booster Tusk. While Kyurem absolutely is one of the best options this metagame has for an offensive response to the 4 Groundsmen (Lu/Lando/Tusk/Glisc) it's worth noting that this interaction is still mostly based on in-game playing - if you're hoping for a situation vs a high-level player where you get to brainlessly come in on a Ground type as it sets rocks and then DD and start cooking, you may find yourself disappointed when the Gliscor starts cooking with an early SD Tera maneuver, or when the Ting-Lu starts dancing around the rest of your team and putting hazards up, or when the Lando goes for U-turn instead of immediately clicking Rocks. In other words, DD Kyurem isn't being used to put offense over the edge so much as it's being used to patch one of offense's weaknesses that can be found basically everywhere.
- I think that current Kyurem performances in recent tournaments generally support the points I made above, but if there's one place where it hasn't, it would probably be the physical DD sets. These sets have been used more recently after being pretty dead for a while, mostly as a way to target mons that can otherwise safely stop Kyurem like Iron Crown or Scizor. Although this trend is another thing I really would have liked some more time to observe, it's worth pointing out that all of these variants (whether it's Fire/Elec/Ghost/Sub Ground) rely on Tera Blast. Without the physical Tera Blast coming off from the +1 Attack, it wouldn't be possible to land surprise OHKOs on mons that otherwise check every +1 Kyurem, and the existence of Tera Blast allows DD Kyurem to dip into a wider range of defensive teras, rather than always being bound to either Ground or Ice Tera to boost its special moves on the mixed sets.
As a final final note on the metagame (I promise), based off of my personal experience at least, the most banworthy mons in this current meta are Kingambit and Gliscor. Those are really the two mons that punish small building inaccuracies harder than anything else, and they have the upside of absolutely dominating whenever they get a strong matchup, whereas Kyurem still has to do some work to get around its natural answers.
Alright that's all from me for now, honestly I could have gotten reqs in the time it took for me to write this but maybe this is more valuable than a single vote.
- I was strongly DNB on the original Kyurem suspect. At the time the main issue being discussed with Kyurem was the relative lack of switchins to the Boots and Specs sets + the occasional DD mixup, but in general I felt that Kyurem teams at the time were railroaded into specific defensive structures that could be exploited heavily by most other styles in the metagame. I think that this aspect of Kyurem has stayed pretty constant, mainly because its profile doesn't really directly fit into any of the most important teambuilding roles - it's not speedy enough to be speed control, it doesn't have priority, it's not Ground/Steel/Ghost or Fairy type, it doesn't have hazards or removal, and it doesn't really want to come in on any of the major speedy boosting threats except for Booster Speed Tusk in some situations. When added together this is pretty relevant, because it means that the teamslot which is given to Kyurem is a slot that other teams will be using to build towards some bigger strategic advantage (which will in turn give them more evident long-term plans). To make all of this more annoying in the builder, special Kyurem isn't even a universal breaker - it still hard loses to stall and at the very least gets perpetually annoyed by Glowking on a lot of balance teams, and it's relatively difficult amongst all the other restrictions to find a strong way to incorporate special Kyurem into a team that also has teammates to address these issues. Kyurem was often painted as a massive menace for balance teams on account of these two sets in the first suspect, and imo this was not realistic to how balance actually played at the time - it had plenty of material to work with against Kyurem in real games, between all the structural flaws i mentioned + other things like the fact that most balance teams wanted to play towards a cleanup with Boots speed control (usually Pult/Zama/Weavile) which Kyurem did absolutely nothing to get in the way of.
- As for DD Kyurem (the most reliable set imo), it addresses some of these issues while leaving others. It's much closer to being a universal breaker in that a well-played mixed DD Kyurem will actually put pressure on every style, but I think it's important to note that when I say well-played DD Kyurem in this context, I mean a REALLY well-played Kyurem. I find it hard to describe DD Kyurem as a sweeper in the same way that something like Gouging Fire or Volcarona was - it's not really something you'd expect to send in and click to a win with even if you have the right set, because you don't have access to recovery and you still have temporary forms of counterplay to deal with (Zama/Steels that are sometimes on a Balloon/Boosters/any number of mons that may live a hit if you choose to click DD first). All of this has to be weighed against the fact that your range of options with Kyurem will close the longer you don't send it in, as hazards will go up and/or the board will eventually simplify to a point that your opponent can do things like directly attacking into Kyurem to put it in range of priority, Teraing in front of the Kyurem, saving sacks to throw out so that Kyurem doesn't kill your remaining important pieces. This aspect of the game does exist to some degree with all of these sweepers, but the difference between Kyu and Goug/Volc is that Gouging/Volcarona found it much easier to punish you to a ridiculous degree just for making a basic initial response. Kyurem's Dragon Dance set mostly exists for making sure people can't wall Icicle Spear, and maybe forcing your opponent to burn Booster/Tera/Zama Dauntless Shield earlier than they wanted to IF you do the early game work necessary to force them into that position.
- Substitute + Protect is the set that originally made me unsure whether or not I wanted to ban Kyurem. Compared to the other special sets, Subtect has some practical advantages in actual games, giving Kyurem the opportunity to scout Choiced users like Gholdengo or drain the PP of checks in general. Compared to Specs Kyurem, Subtect can notably get away with slightly less hazard control, with some successful Subtect Kyurem teams using only Tusk as removal as opposed to the Cinderace + removal cores that are almost always seen with Specs Kyurem. That being said, there's still not that much in the meta in terms of good team structures for Sub Kyurem, and it still usually relies on having very bulky team support that can prolong the game until Kyurem puts in enough work. In this way, you could view Sub Kyurem as just another addition in a long list of long-term balance wincons, which is usually handled by meta adaptation rather than tiering action - eventually the existing Sub Kyurem teams will stop working well in the metagame at large, and then there will be a wait until people find new teams around the set. Regardless of how obviously annoying this set is to face, I don't think I can reasonably support a ban based off of a set that has a similar matchup spread to CM Clef/Boots Weav/Boots Rai/Reuniclus - I think we just have to accept that if the teams around these mons can survive long enough to give their main threat a million opportunities to click buttons, then they will probably win.
- As a small note tacked on the end here, while I don't agree with the premise of trying to predict future metas to make current decisions, I do think that it's possible to hit most of the points from that type of post just by discussing current meta interactions. One of the fundamental things to understand about the matchup between HO and not HO is that most if not all good HO teams will have a couple liabilities against bulkier teams (things that won't meaningfully make progress into the opposing team) and the point of breakers is to kinda balance this dynamic out a bit. I think that the current dynamic between Kyurem and our 4 main Ground types for example is very healthy in both directions - the Ground types tend to find easy free turns against mons that they wall, which is either converted into direct progress through attacks or free hazards that will be used to chip most of the team. From an offense perspective, it's important to have options to punish these sequences, which means having an option that deters these mons while also being good at making progress. On the other side of the same interaction, since the Ground types are still generally good into the offense teams that Kyurem is found on, good play from their side will aim to maximize the value out of their Ground type. A good example of this would be Stareal's game from Week 1 of SCL. Stareal recognizes that early aggressive play with his Ting-Lu will beat out any level of threat that Attribute can create with Kyurem, and as a result of this he's able to create a big early lead that pretty much takes Kyurem out of the game and leaves Attribute with no real answer to Speed Booster Tusk. While Kyurem absolutely is one of the best options this metagame has for an offensive response to the 4 Groundsmen (Lu/Lando/Tusk/Glisc) it's worth noting that this interaction is still mostly based on in-game playing - if you're hoping for a situation vs a high-level player where you get to brainlessly come in on a Ground type as it sets rocks and then DD and start cooking, you may find yourself disappointed when the Gliscor starts cooking with an early SD Tera maneuver, or when the Ting-Lu starts dancing around the rest of your team and putting hazards up, or when the Lando goes for U-turn instead of immediately clicking Rocks. In other words, DD Kyurem isn't being used to put offense over the edge so much as it's being used to patch one of offense's weaknesses that can be found basically everywhere.
- I think that current Kyurem performances in recent tournaments generally support the points I made above, but if there's one place where it hasn't, it would probably be the physical DD sets. These sets have been used more recently after being pretty dead for a while, mostly as a way to target mons that can otherwise safely stop Kyurem like Iron Crown or Scizor. Although this trend is another thing I really would have liked some more time to observe, it's worth pointing out that all of these variants (whether it's Fire/Elec/Ghost/Sub Ground) rely on Tera Blast. Without the physical Tera Blast coming off from the +1 Attack, it wouldn't be possible to land surprise OHKOs on mons that otherwise check every +1 Kyurem, and the existence of Tera Blast allows DD Kyurem to dip into a wider range of defensive teras, rather than always being bound to either Ground or Ice Tera to boost its special moves on the mixed sets.
As a final final note on the metagame (I promise), based off of my personal experience at least, the most banworthy mons in this current meta are Kingambit and Gliscor. Those are really the two mons that punish small building inaccuracies harder than anything else, and they have the upside of absolutely dominating whenever they get a strong matchup, whereas Kyurem still has to do some work to get around its natural answers.
As far as the general comments on council activity/transparency go, what I would say is that there's always a balance that needs to be struck if you want an actually good council. My take on the last few years is that the council has always relied on having a relatively chill sales pitch, in the sense that the main thing it asks from you is to provide meta insight in the council conversations when they do happen, and most of the rest of the busywork is generally already taken care of. It's something that plays well especially to the vast majority of tournament players who interact almost exclusively on Discord as opposed to the forums, which is why I'd say that the quality of the council has been steadily improving over the last few years. The balance between forum posting and Discord maining can definitely be improved still, but I felt it was worth pointing out the limits of council transparency (from a forums perspective at least). It has always been the case that people find a much bigger task in making these posts where you have to carefully craft arguments, pre-empt and then address counter-arguments, and then do your best to shorten the points to a readable length, compared to a Discord discussion where the flow of the conversation will generally take you where you need to go. From my time on other councils around the site I can say that it's a lot easier than you think to reach a point where things get delayed because seemingly basic tasks don't get done. Especially with past initiatives to do more Smogon posting it only takes one or two members of the group project to procrastinate for too long, and all of a sudden you can't release your fully written suspect test OP. Like I said before, there's always stuff that can be done to reform/improve the process, we just need to be aware of the fact that Finch-level council members who are good at every aspect of council duties are rare on this site, too rare to even make a full council of them. Realistically there needs to be some idea of what qualities are prioritised and what qualities are de-prioritised for council members - for me I'd say the most important things are high skill level, reasonable activity in OU discussions (in any part of the community including Discord), and a strong ability to form logical opinions. Outside of everything I just said, I also think that if there's a way to implement some sort of rotating council system, this would be beneficial for the council's health in the long-term.
Speaking of Discord vs forums, if you ever need to ask me anything about the metagame, I'm generally most reachable in the TrainerAid server
here (link).
Speaking of Discord vs forums, if you ever need to ask me anything about the metagame, I'm generally most reachable in the TrainerAid server
here (link).
Alright that's all from me for now, honestly I could have gotten reqs in the time it took for me to write this but maybe this is more valuable than a single vote.
