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np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 14 - Hazy Shade of Winter
- Thread starter Finchinator
- Start date
- Status
This year we’ve had like 3 top players just call people shit if they disagree with them. I’ve played for around 18 months; my main impression is that the community is pretty elitist and the best argument you can make is “well you’re not good enough to understand”
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We're doing this again, eh?
I don't know what else to say that hasn't been said before. If you believe Kyurem is broken, then you'll know exactly why it's broken. But I'm still going to give a quick rundown of why it's broken. Basically, it's got a lot of things that made it busted in gen 8. It's got pressure for pp stalling potential, it has 130 physical attack and 130 special attack, leading to a lot of set variety, and it can go crazy with heavy duty boots, dragon dance, and icicle spear. In gen 9, it actually became even more powerful with newfound toys in loaded dice, scale shot, and most importantly, terastalization. Terastalization in my eyes is what really convinces me to ban Kyurem. It arguably would already be banworthy ignoring tera, but tera pushes it even further.
Long story short, I vote BAN.
also, I think it's funny bax was banned before kyurem
I don't know what else to say that hasn't been said before. If you believe Kyurem is broken, then you'll know exactly why it's broken. But I'm still going to give a quick rundown of why it's broken. Basically, it's got a lot of things that made it busted in gen 8. It's got pressure for pp stalling potential, it has 130 physical attack and 130 special attack, leading to a lot of set variety, and it can go crazy with heavy duty boots, dragon dance, and icicle spear. In gen 9, it actually became even more powerful with newfound toys in loaded dice, scale shot, and most importantly, terastalization. Terastalization in my eyes is what really convinces me to ban Kyurem. It arguably would already be banworthy ignoring tera, but tera pushes it even further.
Long story short, I vote BAN.
how could it not have been? kyurem only showed up in dlc2
3 players is very low comparatively, and they often get called out for their nonsense by other top players and the general community. In the past, behavior like that was either accepted or even encouraged. To have a true perspective of how much we've improved can only be understood fully in a historical context, you sort of just had to have been there. You don't have to take my word for it though, and I won't argue that there are still highly toxic, specifically elitist elements floating around this space, unfortunately. All that said, there are times where "you're not skilled enough to grasp what we're talking about" can and should be applied, sparingly of course and only in extreme cases such as someone seriously saying Bundle should be OU.
Is there any way for OU council to make an announcement that no Ubers will be dropped in SV? This topic has derailed pages of forums.
It wouldn't stop random weird posts but when they do get posted other forum users could reference the official post- it would shift these Uber drop posts from semi-serious debates and conversations to more of the realm of theorymon stuff and unserious "What If?" levels of posting that a mod could put a quick end to if needed.
If there is any talk amongst council of dropping an Uber I would literally be shocked lol... I think it's safe to assume it's not on your radar whatsoever, right?
If the answer to making an official post is "no" I understand 100% but I have to at least ask; this Uber craze is way past the point of a fad now. Every thread is getting infected with this nonsense. It's been going on for months now.
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To recap my thoughts on Kyurem: I think it's overpowered partially due to how strong its boots, specs, ddance, mixed, and subtect sets are, but mainly due to how well it's able to run all of them and conceal its set, forcing you into a guessing game that might lead your core defensive pieces wounded or killed outright. While some may argue that Kyurem has sufficient counterplay for each set, and to some extent I agree, I don't believe the counterplay is varied enough to properly account for its unique sets with any level of consistency, while at the same time covering for the rest of the metagame.
I think it should be banned.
I think it should be banned.
Lol This post did not make me feel better at all. “Yeah you’re shit is still a valid argument sometimes”
Hello just dropping in to give my opinions on kyurem, because of some people not being fair and co-operative, people giving invalid or faulty arguments on both stances and people not productively criticizing either stance, i will be providing arguments for both stances.
Watching this thread alone ive seen people laugh at ctc cuz he allegedly said zapkinglu cores will come back and the meta will be boring, broken checks broken is not what he meant, hes trying to say kyurem isnt any more broken than the other giants in the tier like kingambit or raging, and that removing it will create a more boring meta that would be less enjoyable in general, i have not seen one person ask ctc for some arguments as to why he thinks kyurem is fine, nor have i seen a person try to tackle his stance by providing good arguments for ban rather than haha reacting. Which made me realise that its a lose lose to just hop on a wave/stance because NEITHER side are understanding of the other, very immature and childish behaviour from both sides. Finch, it might not be my place to play peacemaker but the way this thread is divided with a high level of ignorance is starting to piss me off. I'm gonna focus on making both sides happy so here are BOTH ban and dnb arguments:
BAN:
1. Each set has different counters, if you have a counter for one set, you will lose to the other, so lets look at subtect, some answers for it are weavile, roar moltres, rest talk ting lu with tera, all of these things lose to specs and dd loaded dice, lets see specs and dice counters now, take scizor, which is arguably the most consistent one, sciz loses to subtect tera ground, tank s 2 bps easily without tera, if it tera steels ep kills and it can tank 1 tera steel bp post tera.
2. High bulk and splashability, these zap/king/lu cores synergise well with kyurem, and it actually makes these cores even more powerful, cause chilly boosts kyurem, its the most splashable gking partner because not only does it give the snow boost, it provides a powerful breaker thats almost impossible to stop in the snow if you dont guess the set right. Kyurem makes alot of structures so much dumber especially zap/king/lu, and glisc/lando cinderace ones, it also creates new annoying ones with roar molt, which leta be honest flame body molt + gking + gambit + zama + kyu is dumber than zapkinglu by far, glisc + tusk + kyu + gking + molt + gambit is way more powerful than zapkinglu, and just for the record, zapkinglu isnt coming back we have new healthy tools that deal with it now, like np deoxys, np rai, cm tera bug raging, can even use taunt to muscle past lu, and sd tera normal glisc(which is the only broken thing on this list fight me lol), we also have unique ways to beat it like sd weav, ursaluna on tr which is good , tera ground volcanion, wake sun with literally any gking answer, growth eq mixed venu sun which is amazing rn, and stuff like plot tank ghold, and even dd taunt moon, and besides, some of these are better than kyurem at breaking this core, it was only relevant last dlc cause nobody cared to innovate some nice unique cores to beat it, myself included, im sure gen 8 would have ugly defensive cores if i didnt fill 90% of the gen with unique offense and BO cores like lando ferro(which i almost single handedly defined that gen with btw lol, nobody was using that shit before i tore spl down with it in 2021) , weavile venu sun(sun in general tbh), specs zapdos, aegislash BO, beat up weav, lele slowbro fs offense, trick np gking, band assurance ttar, future sight lele BO, all the volcanion bandpult offenses, the nihilego offenses, eleki rain, flame body tran being the biggest one, lots of melm kart BO, blacephalon offense, bulu grass spam, and sub swarm volcarona, sorry if i "ruined" that tier by introducing flame body tran in my 5+ massive team dumps that are flooded in gen8 smogon disc servers, without me, these most likely wouldnt have existed in gen8 and hippo skarm, ttar drill clef pex along with other defensive cores would still be ugly and people would fear monger gen8 too. But this is not the place to discuss that, im still salty about getting tourbanned and not getting a trophy in my own gen and my own tier resulting in me joining smogon masters with HIGH motivation. But this is a stray, sorry finch, my point is this shitty core would NEVER rise if people cared to innovate, which makes me regret not dropping team dumps, taking the gen more seriously, hiding my teams and only saving them for tours, which makes no sense cuz i ladder in plain sight, so if the fear mongering for an easy to counter core is what you're worried about, ill gladly drop some unreleased innovations to counter it in an rmt later in this tier.
3. Good matchup vs most standard SV Comps and arguably forces balance to run more boring options, im sure youd rather wanna see hydrapple skeledirge gweez, or meowscarada molt garg rather than lu gking, or gking tinka rai, but yeah most comps ive seen have been losing to a kyurem set, lets take an example, the bea team which has kyurem, if you kill his kyurem, your sub kyurem becomes unstoppable and itll just beat that entire team, any gliscor comp ever loses to dice mixed, tusk gambit or lando gambit cores lose to subtect, clod clef balance loses to dice mixed, clod comps are a nice addition to the meta, say clodsire skarm meowscarada skele with a boots raging , and even mandibuzz fez cores, since mandi walls entire teams rn, weavile should rise, scream tail too, and rillaboom stuff which im sure would have things to counter lu gking like sd cornerpon, kyurem also just wins vs rain, rain should be a good archetype rn, with raging, overqwil and torn, gambit too, its not as bad as people say it is and everyone's go-to answer is kyurem thats mostly why they say its bad, sub kyurem also destroys sun which should be good since this is the gen which introduced protosynthesis, and it destroys sand, its become anti weather, this dynamic is unhealthy, you can't have a good matchup vs almost an entire meta.
4. Most of the reasons why dnb was voted earlier on in this meta are gone now, when the kyurem test went up, archaludon rain didnt pop off until like half way into the suspect, who couldve predicted that rain would become this broken, nobody, it was one of the only things scaring the rain usage, also we still had volcarona in the tier, which made it more bearable because it countered every set that wasnt specs tera dragon draco, or scale shot dice, and those two sets had arguably the same counters , and volc could even tera fairy against those, with volcarona gone kyurem has become unbarable, and i can understand why they want to bring volcarona back by banning terablast(which honestly is a stupid move that broke volc) ,i never thought volc was broken without it, itd lose to tran dnite skele, and thirdly, back then, sub protect wasnt a set yet in sv , it was a set in previous gens but not in sv, so it wasnt there to blow out 90% of its would-be answers.
5. Freeze, this would never be an issue if sub protect didnt exist, it would be a faulty argument if the move wasnt spammable by set of choice, sub protect gives multiple chances to freeze since it subs on so much, which indirectly breaks it, but ONLY because its so spammable on the sub set, on ANY other set freeze wouldnt be a valid argument, on specs if they freeze u , u can call hax, its not spammable enough to call uncompetitive, the only set where its spammable enough to be called uncompetitive is sub protect.
Alright now that we got the Ban stance, lets look at the DNB Stance:
1. On the contrary to the ban argument above, although each set has different counter play, theyre still counterplay, remember scouting/guessing sets has become the norm in the gen9 meta, its no different from any tera sweeper, u guess the wrong gambit set you almost auto lose, you guess the wrong raging bolt set you can lose, you guess the wrong valiant or moon set u can lose, its a teambuilding adjustment you have to make, you need to build with more backup answers to threats this gen its how you build SV, for say gambit, pack a fighting type AND a wisp/encore/destiny bond user, not just a fighting type, for dnite , pack an ice type AND a tera ghost or bulky fighting or water type for its tera fire/normal. Id say this is the norm for sv, as long as we have tera, so this argument that each set can beat the other sets' counters is invalidated, and is not a reason to ban kyurem, scout its set and have backup ready in the form of priority or a defensive tera and you should be fine.
2. Very weak to hazards in a gholdengo and spikes dominated meta, if its boots it cant be dice, subtect(with longevity) or specs, and boots is easy to check/revenge kill with anything really, the other sets get destroyed by hazards, glimmora is a staple of this tier if it gets tspikes kyu is scared to come in, itll set rocks, ting lu can tera and get max layers(or get max layers on subtect cuz fdry does 30), garg can set rocks and can also run ironpress spdef to check it, if hazards are up, kyurem has a hard time making progress due to it being weak to it, which gives a valid reason not to ban it in my opinion.
3. Kyurem feels underwhelming compared to other giant threats in this tier that people say are fine like gambit and zamazenta, it feels like just another mon in a tier of tera sweepers. This is NOT a kingambit stray argument its just a logical approach to the kyurem arguments. Personally, i think gambit is stronger than kyurem, so if people are universally agreeing that kyurem is dumb and should be banned, then they should be arguing gambit also, and if people are universally agreeing that gambit is fine, then kyurem is not broken by any means because it does significantly less than the giants of this tier like zamazenta and kingambit, the only thing kyurem has over these two is breaking , they've got kyurem beat in EVERY other area.
4. Feels slow and easy to lure in a tier with a bunch of dangerous sweepers especially booster sweepers and fast breakers in general, lets take wellspring for example, kyurem would normally swap into it, if ogerpon clicks play rough its suddenly not a check to oger anymore, booster valiant clicks destiny bond, and suddenly tera fire is no longer dangerous and is forced out immediately or is forced to trade, tera dark glasses sucker from gambit merks kyu after rocks, or any tera really, spdef cloak corv beats it, cloak avoids freeze, cloak tera steel latios/cress cm also stops it completely,and both of those are amazing in this tier, any tera ice ever, and let me say something about tera ice, it might be one of the worst defensive tera typings in the game but its probably the BEST offensive tera typing rn, due to the high usage of grounds and dragons, its not that bad to use tera ice on anything even tusk or Lu, if anything tera ice lu gets a defense boost in the snow so u can completely wall dnite while potentially terablasting it, and completely shutting down non cc tusk and dd moon, tera ice can also be used offensively on stuff like lando, valiant, zapdos, with blast ofc, and on hydrapple defensively cuz its 4x ice weak, and u turn to a resist and wall weavile, ice on gking is useful too just to strengthen ice beam to kill gliscor/lando, but mostly scor, so you see ice is not a bad tera typing in this specific meta where grounds and dragons run wild.
5. It lost roost, so it has no reliable recovery outside of wish passing, protecting lefties(which is fair tbh since atleast tect sub is spammable), its still a significant nerf for a mon thats hazard weak in a gholdengo meta where its almost impossible to safely and effectively keep the hazards down, so if it takes rocks + spikes, likely itll remain at 70 forever or eventually die if u keep the pressure up.
So now that we have concluded both the ban and dnb stances, lets weigh the pros and cons of each outcome:
Ban PROS:
1. more diverse balance with nice mons like skele, clod,drapple etc
2. More diverse offense, not fearing subtect can really boost offense and make it better because its a strain to prep for that in the builder
3. BO can focus on beating other things like stall rather than worrying about kyurem sets so hard.
4. Weather teams become significantly more viable especially rain/sun.
Ban CONS:
1. Un-interactive play will rise for example gliscor will be everywhere rewarding no skill structures clicking protect and sd or protect toxic spikes
2. Offensive monsters like gambit, raging, moon, dnite, ogerpon become even stronger and the ripple effect could possibly break those blowing the tier into disarray and setting off entire chains of bans potentially.
3. The balance of physical and special attackers is no longer there, kyurem gone is one less special breaker, and we already have significantly more physical breakers than we do special breakers which can become an issue.
4. Kyurem had high splashability, so ALOT of structures that were once viable would need lots of editing to become viable again, or they would disappear completely, every structure that was good into kyurem like scizor ones all get worse, scizor will remain good but it would lose its biggest reason to stick around which is checking kyurem.
Do Not Ban PROS:
1. Splashable check to the powerful dragons and grounds that would otherwise dominate the tier, and making offense less powerful than it is. Any mon that punishes click offenses like pon gambit bolt, dnite glimmora oger, glimmora oger booster tusk, is healthy.
2. It will prevent un-interactive, skillless play from broken structures like gliscor Bulky offense, glowking pivot BO, garg etc.
3. We keep another special breaker in the tier to fight against the physical walls like skarm and dozo, like i stated above theres no balance in physical/special attackers, theres too many physical breakers and not enough special breakers, raging darkrai deo iron crown alone wont suffice with all the physical breakers dnite moon gambit tusk zama weavile ogerpon gliscor, just to name a few.
Do Not Ban CONS:
1. Most team structures and playstyles will struggle vs other matchups like stall and hstack due to the fear of losing to one of the many kyurem sets.
2. Defensive and balance structures are heavily altered to less enjoyable structures, i would much rather see pecharunt meowscarada skarm/roarless molt, clef clod skele meow/weav than lu gking corv and blissey zama scor.
3. It enables other powerful hyper offensive and defensive threats like waterpon/gambit/raging bolt/gking, for example kyurem kills most if not all grounds, that heavily benefits stuff like gking and raging bolt.
I am concluding this post by saying i won't be voting here due to the sole reason that there are too many cons for each outcome, and because of this my stance is right in the middle, I am directly on the fence. So instead my contribution here is providing good arguments for both stances, providing both pros and cons for each outcome and letting people decide off that.
Watching this thread alone ive seen people laugh at ctc cuz he allegedly said zapkinglu cores will come back and the meta will be boring, broken checks broken is not what he meant, hes trying to say kyurem isnt any more broken than the other giants in the tier like kingambit or raging, and that removing it will create a more boring meta that would be less enjoyable in general, i have not seen one person ask ctc for some arguments as to why he thinks kyurem is fine, nor have i seen a person try to tackle his stance by providing good arguments for ban rather than haha reacting. Which made me realise that its a lose lose to just hop on a wave/stance because NEITHER side are understanding of the other, very immature and childish behaviour from both sides. Finch, it might not be my place to play peacemaker but the way this thread is divided with a high level of ignorance is starting to piss me off. I'm gonna focus on making both sides happy so here are BOTH ban and dnb arguments:
BAN:
1. Each set has different counters, if you have a counter for one set, you will lose to the other, so lets look at subtect, some answers for it are weavile, roar moltres, rest talk ting lu with tera, all of these things lose to specs and dd loaded dice, lets see specs and dice counters now, take scizor, which is arguably the most consistent one, sciz loses to subtect tera ground, tank s 2 bps easily without tera, if it tera steels ep kills and it can tank 1 tera steel bp post tera.
2. High bulk and splashability, these zap/king/lu cores synergise well with kyurem, and it actually makes these cores even more powerful, cause chilly boosts kyurem, its the most splashable gking partner because not only does it give the snow boost, it provides a powerful breaker thats almost impossible to stop in the snow if you dont guess the set right. Kyurem makes alot of structures so much dumber especially zap/king/lu, and glisc/lando cinderace ones, it also creates new annoying ones with roar molt, which leta be honest flame body molt + gking + gambit + zama + kyu is dumber than zapkinglu by far, glisc + tusk + kyu + gking + molt + gambit is way more powerful than zapkinglu, and just for the record, zapkinglu isnt coming back we have new healthy tools that deal with it now, like np deoxys, np rai, cm tera bug raging, can even use taunt to muscle past lu, and sd tera normal glisc(which is the only broken thing on this list fight me lol), we also have unique ways to beat it like sd weav, ursaluna on tr which is good , tera ground volcanion, wake sun with literally any gking answer, growth eq mixed venu sun which is amazing rn, and stuff like plot tank ghold, and even dd taunt moon, and besides, some of these are better than kyurem at breaking this core, it was only relevant last dlc cause nobody cared to innovate some nice unique cores to beat it, myself included, im sure gen 8 would have ugly defensive cores if i didnt fill 90% of the gen with unique offense and BO cores like lando ferro(which i almost single handedly defined that gen with btw lol, nobody was using that shit before i tore spl down with it in 2021) , weavile venu sun(sun in general tbh), specs zapdos, aegislash BO, beat up weav, lele slowbro fs offense, trick np gking, band assurance ttar, future sight lele BO, all the volcanion bandpult offenses, the nihilego offenses, eleki rain, flame body tran being the biggest one, lots of melm kart BO, blacephalon offense, bulu grass spam, and sub swarm volcarona, sorry if i "ruined" that tier by introducing flame body tran in my 5+ massive team dumps that are flooded in gen8 smogon disc servers, without me, these most likely wouldnt have existed in gen8 and hippo skarm, ttar drill clef pex along with other defensive cores would still be ugly and people would fear monger gen8 too. But this is not the place to discuss that, im still salty about getting tourbanned and not getting a trophy in my own gen and my own tier resulting in me joining smogon masters with HIGH motivation. But this is a stray, sorry finch, my point is this shitty core would NEVER rise if people cared to innovate, which makes me regret not dropping team dumps, taking the gen more seriously, hiding my teams and only saving them for tours, which makes no sense cuz i ladder in plain sight, so if the fear mongering for an easy to counter core is what you're worried about, ill gladly drop some unreleased innovations to counter it in an rmt later in this tier.
3. Good matchup vs most standard SV Comps and arguably forces balance to run more boring options, im sure youd rather wanna see hydrapple skeledirge gweez, or meowscarada molt garg rather than lu gking, or gking tinka rai, but yeah most comps ive seen have been losing to a kyurem set, lets take an example, the bea team which has kyurem, if you kill his kyurem, your sub kyurem becomes unstoppable and itll just beat that entire team, any gliscor comp ever loses to dice mixed, tusk gambit or lando gambit cores lose to subtect, clod clef balance loses to dice mixed, clod comps are a nice addition to the meta, say clodsire skarm meowscarada skele with a boots raging , and even mandibuzz fez cores, since mandi walls entire teams rn, weavile should rise, scream tail too, and rillaboom stuff which im sure would have things to counter lu gking like sd cornerpon, kyurem also just wins vs rain, rain should be a good archetype rn, with raging, overqwil and torn, gambit too, its not as bad as people say it is and everyone's go-to answer is kyurem thats mostly why they say its bad, sub kyurem also destroys sun which should be good since this is the gen which introduced protosynthesis, and it destroys sand, its become anti weather, this dynamic is unhealthy, you can't have a good matchup vs almost an entire meta.
4. Most of the reasons why dnb was voted earlier on in this meta are gone now, when the kyurem test went up, archaludon rain didnt pop off until like half way into the suspect, who couldve predicted that rain would become this broken, nobody, it was one of the only things scaring the rain usage, also we still had volcarona in the tier, which made it more bearable because it countered every set that wasnt specs tera dragon draco, or scale shot dice, and those two sets had arguably the same counters , and volc could even tera fairy against those, with volcarona gone kyurem has become unbarable, and i can understand why they want to bring volcarona back by banning terablast(which honestly is a stupid move that broke volc) ,i never thought volc was broken without it, itd lose to tran dnite skele, and thirdly, back then, sub protect wasnt a set yet in sv , it was a set in previous gens but not in sv, so it wasnt there to blow out 90% of its would-be answers.
5. Freeze, this would never be an issue if sub protect didnt exist, it would be a faulty argument if the move wasnt spammable by set of choice, sub protect gives multiple chances to freeze since it subs on so much, which indirectly breaks it, but ONLY because its so spammable on the sub set, on ANY other set freeze wouldnt be a valid argument, on specs if they freeze u , u can call hax, its not spammable enough to call uncompetitive, the only set where its spammable enough to be called uncompetitive is sub protect.
Alright now that we got the Ban stance, lets look at the DNB Stance:
1. On the contrary to the ban argument above, although each set has different counter play, theyre still counterplay, remember scouting/guessing sets has become the norm in the gen9 meta, its no different from any tera sweeper, u guess the wrong gambit set you almost auto lose, you guess the wrong raging bolt set you can lose, you guess the wrong valiant or moon set u can lose, its a teambuilding adjustment you have to make, you need to build with more backup answers to threats this gen its how you build SV, for say gambit, pack a fighting type AND a wisp/encore/destiny bond user, not just a fighting type, for dnite , pack an ice type AND a tera ghost or bulky fighting or water type for its tera fire/normal. Id say this is the norm for sv, as long as we have tera, so this argument that each set can beat the other sets' counters is invalidated, and is not a reason to ban kyurem, scout its set and have backup ready in the form of priority or a defensive tera and you should be fine.
2. Very weak to hazards in a gholdengo and spikes dominated meta, if its boots it cant be dice, subtect(with longevity) or specs, and boots is easy to check/revenge kill with anything really, the other sets get destroyed by hazards, glimmora is a staple of this tier if it gets tspikes kyu is scared to come in, itll set rocks, ting lu can tera and get max layers(or get max layers on subtect cuz fdry does 30), garg can set rocks and can also run ironpress spdef to check it, if hazards are up, kyurem has a hard time making progress due to it being weak to it, which gives a valid reason not to ban it in my opinion.
3. Kyurem feels underwhelming compared to other giant threats in this tier that people say are fine like gambit and zamazenta, it feels like just another mon in a tier of tera sweepers. This is NOT a kingambit stray argument its just a logical approach to the kyurem arguments. Personally, i think gambit is stronger than kyurem, so if people are universally agreeing that kyurem is dumb and should be banned, then they should be arguing gambit also, and if people are universally agreeing that gambit is fine, then kyurem is not broken by any means because it does significantly less than the giants of this tier like zamazenta and kingambit, the only thing kyurem has over these two is breaking , they've got kyurem beat in EVERY other area.
4. Feels slow and easy to lure in a tier with a bunch of dangerous sweepers especially booster sweepers and fast breakers in general, lets take wellspring for example, kyurem would normally swap into it, if ogerpon clicks play rough its suddenly not a check to oger anymore, booster valiant clicks destiny bond, and suddenly tera fire is no longer dangerous and is forced out immediately or is forced to trade, tera dark glasses sucker from gambit merks kyu after rocks, or any tera really, spdef cloak corv beats it, cloak avoids freeze, cloak tera steel latios/cress cm also stops it completely,and both of those are amazing in this tier, any tera ice ever, and let me say something about tera ice, it might be one of the worst defensive tera typings in the game but its probably the BEST offensive tera typing rn, due to the high usage of grounds and dragons, its not that bad to use tera ice on anything even tusk or Lu, if anything tera ice lu gets a defense boost in the snow so u can completely wall dnite while potentially terablasting it, and completely shutting down non cc tusk and dd moon, tera ice can also be used offensively on stuff like lando, valiant, zapdos, with blast ofc, and on hydrapple defensively cuz its 4x ice weak, and u turn to a resist and wall weavile, ice on gking is useful too just to strengthen ice beam to kill gliscor/lando, but mostly scor, so you see ice is not a bad tera typing in this specific meta where grounds and dragons run wild.
5. It lost roost, so it has no reliable recovery outside of wish passing, protecting lefties(which is fair tbh since atleast tect sub is spammable), its still a significant nerf for a mon thats hazard weak in a gholdengo meta where its almost impossible to safely and effectively keep the hazards down, so if it takes rocks + spikes, likely itll remain at 70 forever or eventually die if u keep the pressure up.
So now that we have concluded both the ban and dnb stances, lets weigh the pros and cons of each outcome:
Ban PROS:
1. more diverse balance with nice mons like skele, clod,drapple etc
2. More diverse offense, not fearing subtect can really boost offense and make it better because its a strain to prep for that in the builder
3. BO can focus on beating other things like stall rather than worrying about kyurem sets so hard.
4. Weather teams become significantly more viable especially rain/sun.
Ban CONS:
1. Un-interactive play will rise for example gliscor will be everywhere rewarding no skill structures clicking protect and sd or protect toxic spikes
2. Offensive monsters like gambit, raging, moon, dnite, ogerpon become even stronger and the ripple effect could possibly break those blowing the tier into disarray and setting off entire chains of bans potentially.
3. The balance of physical and special attackers is no longer there, kyurem gone is one less special breaker, and we already have significantly more physical breakers than we do special breakers which can become an issue.
4. Kyurem had high splashability, so ALOT of structures that were once viable would need lots of editing to become viable again, or they would disappear completely, every structure that was good into kyurem like scizor ones all get worse, scizor will remain good but it would lose its biggest reason to stick around which is checking kyurem.
Do Not Ban PROS:
1. Splashable check to the powerful dragons and grounds that would otherwise dominate the tier, and making offense less powerful than it is. Any mon that punishes click offenses like pon gambit bolt, dnite glimmora oger, glimmora oger booster tusk, is healthy.
2. It will prevent un-interactive, skillless play from broken structures like gliscor Bulky offense, glowking pivot BO, garg etc.
3. We keep another special breaker in the tier to fight against the physical walls like skarm and dozo, like i stated above theres no balance in physical/special attackers, theres too many physical breakers and not enough special breakers, raging darkrai deo iron crown alone wont suffice with all the physical breakers dnite moon gambit tusk zama weavile ogerpon gliscor, just to name a few.
Do Not Ban CONS:
1. Most team structures and playstyles will struggle vs other matchups like stall and hstack due to the fear of losing to one of the many kyurem sets.
2. Defensive and balance structures are heavily altered to less enjoyable structures, i would much rather see pecharunt meowscarada skarm/roarless molt, clef clod skele meow/weav than lu gking corv and blissey zama scor.
3. It enables other powerful hyper offensive and defensive threats like waterpon/gambit/raging bolt/gking, for example kyurem kills most if not all grounds, that heavily benefits stuff like gking and raging bolt.
I am concluding this post by saying i won't be voting here due to the sole reason that there are too many cons for each outcome, and because of this my stance is right in the middle, I am directly on the fence. So instead my contribution here is providing good arguments for both stances, providing both pros and cons for each outcome and letting people decide off that.
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fair assessment of both sides of the argument storm, but i do take issue with this:
because there was definitely one post that did outright ask him what he thinks beats it
i also think the "dnb pros" you mentioned are falling into the same broken-checks-broken trap and highlighting things that might not even actually happen or be problems if they do—"x will dominate the tier", "y structure will become broken", literally none of that is guaranteed to happen—but i'm not going to change any minds by arguing about that, i'll just accept that it's part of the discourse for this gen and hope that next gen we can come to our senses and leave it behind
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Overall I agree with the sentiment of Storm Zone’s post. It feels as though there are so many different philosophical angles people are taking here that’s causing both sides to heavily misunderstand each other, and leading to people remaining heavily convicted in their stances and sometimes even undermining the opposing side. This is a huge reason why I have been saying that I think it’s important that we evaluate Kyurem for what it is, instead of the potential of the future. I prodded CTC in Smogtours the other day regarding his stances on what Kyurem counterplay looks like, and I think his mentions made enough sense. I would recommend for him (as well as other pro-Kyurem posters) to publicly share what makes Kyurem balanced in the tier, as I mentioned earlier, since it would help level the different perspectives of the argument and ensure we’re all looking at Kyurem for what it is. However on top of that I’d like to also ask how applicable this counterplay would be into different Kyurem sets.
Regarding the big anti-Kyurem argument that’s really spurred up in this thread lately:
My qualm with the Ting Lu + Galarian Slowking + Zapdos argument is rooted in a few different issues. For one, I don’t like that it’s a theoretical argument, as I just said. I mentioned earlier that the DLC1 metagame is not a valid framework for projecting what the future metagame will look like, as the metagame is so fundamentally different and shaped around the new unbans and new Pokemon in general, whether they’re using these Pokemon or prepping against them.
With that in mind, I struggle to see how the metagame will overcentralize around this core without Kyurem, not just because we haven’t seen Zapdos work as well in this metagame in part due to other additions like Raging Bolt, but also because this metagame is filled to the brim with balance busters (many brought in by DLC2). To name a few: Darkrai, SD Landorus-T, Lum Kingambit, CM Iron Valiant, SD Gliscor, NP Deoxys-Speed, and Triple Axel users like Weavile and Meowscarada. Darkrai, in particular, fills the exact niche that people arguing this are wanting to keep Kyurem for, since it ravages this core with a bit of chip damage on Ting-Lu and in general is well known for its insane offensive flexibility. Regardless of its set, it can consistently exert pressure, make progress, and cleave past potential checks, to a point of being suspectworthy during WCoP. I appreciate Storm Zone’s clarity regarding the idea of this argument, being that losing Kyurem means losing options. I personally just think that’s being overblown a bit, especially when we don’t even know if this core will even be all that present in the first place. Even if it winds up being super strong, there are so many potent balance busters — many brought in by DLC2 — that I’m near certain the metagame and offense in general would be able to adapt. Due to these potential avenues, its strength is likely to trend in an ebb and flow as these aforementioned forms of counterplay slowly become more common as a response, at the end of the day, and is par for the course; so if this core becomes strong without Kyurem, I doubt it would be really a bad thing or even really unreasonable to respond to. There are strong defensive cores now, even, that somewhat resemble this core, and yet teams have been able to respond even without Kyurem, an offensive Pokemon that’s not egregiously common even with its offensive profile. Defensive cores that are overcentralizing just can’t really exist in this metagame imo unless we delete half the tier.
To me, removing Kyurem moreso means removing gameplay variance, as opposed to acting on it on the basis of being conventionally broken. I believe that there are no true counters; counterplay does certainly exist, but that counterplay does mean you have to maneuver around Kyurem in a way that can punish an incorrect guess and/or lead to important pieces being overwhelmed by Kyurem teammates as a result of how you have to play around it. Again I appreciate Storm Zone’s clarity in this regard, claiming that Kyurem is not too much different from other Pokemon in how its brokenness manifests compared to contemporaries like Kingambit and how counterplay means outmaneuvering it by exploiting its long term weaknesses, but I do also think this is a bit overblown too since there are actually consistent checks to these Pokemon. I think a big issue that’s being underrated here is that Kyurem can attack on both ends of the offensive spectrum, and is why Pokemon like Galarian Slowking are not reliable checks, which makes counterplay less consistent in a vacuum compared to other threats like Kingambit who can be generally responded to by Pokemon like Zamazenta or Great Tusk (provided no random Tera Blast lmao).
Overall the point of this post is to just really double down on providing arguments about Kyurem being a fair Pokemon in the present; that is all I’m gunning for, and hearing more arguments like this might genuinely sway my opinion. Future-based arguments and what-aboutism are not going to do anything for me.
Regarding the big anti-Kyurem argument that’s really spurred up in this thread lately:
My qualm with the Ting Lu + Galarian Slowking + Zapdos argument is rooted in a few different issues. For one, I don’t like that it’s a theoretical argument, as I just said. I mentioned earlier that the DLC1 metagame is not a valid framework for projecting what the future metagame will look like, as the metagame is so fundamentally different and shaped around the new unbans and new Pokemon in general, whether they’re using these Pokemon or prepping against them.
With that in mind, I struggle to see how the metagame will overcentralize around this core without Kyurem, not just because we haven’t seen Zapdos work as well in this metagame in part due to other additions like Raging Bolt, but also because this metagame is filled to the brim with balance busters (many brought in by DLC2). To name a few: Darkrai, SD Landorus-T, Lum Kingambit, CM Iron Valiant, SD Gliscor, NP Deoxys-Speed, and Triple Axel users like Weavile and Meowscarada. Darkrai, in particular, fills the exact niche that people arguing this are wanting to keep Kyurem for, since it ravages this core with a bit of chip damage on Ting-Lu and in general is well known for its insane offensive flexibility. Regardless of its set, it can consistently exert pressure, make progress, and cleave past potential checks, to a point of being suspectworthy during WCoP. I appreciate Storm Zone’s clarity regarding the idea of this argument, being that losing Kyurem means losing options. I personally just think that’s being overblown a bit, especially when we don’t even know if this core will even be all that present in the first place. Even if it winds up being super strong, there are so many potent balance busters — many brought in by DLC2 — that I’m near certain the metagame and offense in general would be able to adapt. Due to these potential avenues, its strength is likely to trend in an ebb and flow as these aforementioned forms of counterplay slowly become more common as a response, at the end of the day, and is par for the course; so if this core becomes strong without Kyurem, I doubt it would be really a bad thing or even really unreasonable to respond to. There are strong defensive cores now, even, that somewhat resemble this core, and yet teams have been able to respond even without Kyurem, an offensive Pokemon that’s not egregiously common even with its offensive profile. Defensive cores that are overcentralizing just can’t really exist in this metagame imo unless we delete half the tier.
To me, removing Kyurem moreso means removing gameplay variance, as opposed to acting on it on the basis of being conventionally broken. I believe that there are no true counters; counterplay does certainly exist, but that counterplay does mean you have to maneuver around Kyurem in a way that can punish an incorrect guess and/or lead to important pieces being overwhelmed by Kyurem teammates as a result of how you have to play around it. Again I appreciate Storm Zone’s clarity in this regard, claiming that Kyurem is not too much different from other Pokemon in how its brokenness manifests compared to contemporaries like Kingambit and how counterplay means outmaneuvering it by exploiting its long term weaknesses, but I do also think this is a bit overblown too since there are actually consistent checks to these Pokemon. I think a big issue that’s being underrated here is that Kyurem can attack on both ends of the offensive spectrum, and is why Pokemon like Galarian Slowking are not reliable checks, which makes counterplay less consistent in a vacuum compared to other threats like Kingambit who can be generally responded to by Pokemon like Zamazenta or Great Tusk (provided no random Tera Blast lmao).
Overall the point of this post is to just really double down on providing arguments about Kyurem being a fair Pokemon in the present; that is all I’m gunning for, and hearing more arguments like this might genuinely sway my opinion. Future-based arguments and what-aboutism are not going to do anything for me.
Hi, could you elaborate on this point? I read the rest of the paragraph it was attached to, and didn't see how it related back to this point, although that could just be me.
More importantly, and I guess what my real issue is, what's wrong with gameplay variance? Isn't it better that we have a diverse (and not stale) meta, where one strategy isn't the best? Or am I misinterpreting what you said?
Sure thing! Sorry, I can be a bit wordy sometimes.
When I talk about gameplay variance, I’m specifically referring to in-battle interactions, as opposed to building interactions. To me, teambuilding and gameplay dynamics are immutably different, and factors like Stealth Rock, their Speed tier, and how a Pokemon enters battle/finds setup opportunities are a huge reason why some Pokemon that look broken on paper are manageable in practice. From what I understand this is mostly where pro-Kyurem arguers are at regarding why they believe Kyurem is balanced, and CTC’s counterplay mentions appeared to operate on this basis (he mentions Tinkaton for instance).
But my point is that I believe Kyurem’s set variety puts a chokehold on these interactions and over-exerts pressure on how you weave around Kyurem when you don’t know its sets. In particular, gameplay variance to me is talking specifically about set variety and how that set variety impacts the way in which you play around said Pokemon. This can lead to many potential avenues you can take to respond to a given Pokemon. Take Kingambit for example: you know that it’s going to be a Swords Dance attacker and win condition, so that will likely mean you use your Great Tusk, Moltres, or Zamazenta to hold it down in the early/mid game. These Pokemon account for most of its sets, so you can maneuver around it semi-reliably because the margin of error is smaller.
With Kyurem, due to how many set options it has and how it can hit on both ends of the offensive spectrum, there are a lot of potential checks you may have, but the pool of overlapping checks is a lot smaller. Because you don’t know what it has specifically and how it can threaten a majority of the metagame with nearly all of its sets, nearly all of which having different measures of counterplay, it can be harder to scout it without falling into a margin of error since checks to each set are more specialized to reacting to each set and difficult to reliably position due to how set variance can impact their ability to respond to Kyurem. This is my main issue with it, since knowing how to play around it can be more of getting a correct guess or reading it on team preview as precisely as possible, causing it to create unhealthy gameplay mechanics that undermine common avenues of check management.
Hi everybody, just a classic suspect thread where Srn is going to drop his classic short novel on why (OU Pokemon) should be banned.
This time around though, I feel the vibes are less in my favor, because it's important to make a distinction here: Kyurem is not the kind of threat that'll whip out an unusual tera and snowball out of control, most of the time. I wouldn't really put DD Tera fire blast or mixed DD in that category for example, because it's reasonably predictable (after you see the DD anyway) and the counterplay is fairly reasonable and common, like zamazenta and kingambit after some chip. In other words, this is no Volcarona/GF/sneasler.
A lot has already been said about its set versatility and ability to constrain balance, so I won't repeat that. I will instead say that I think Kyurem actually holds back a lot more diversity than it enables. I've really hated trying to build rain or grassy terrain lately, for example, because I feel like they get absolutely 6-0d by subtect kyurem unless I run an AV crown. I've seen variations of my own sun team w/lilligant-h over AV slither and that seems so cool until you remember subtect kyu 6-0s without slither. Tinkaton in particular really doesn't feel like a great check either. Kyurem is faster, for one, and 8 pp on encore/gigaton hammer can very easily be pp stalled if the game is dragged out. If I really felt like it, I could just freeze dry as tink swaps in, ep as I tank gigaton hammer, then ep again to kill. Great Kyurem answer folks, losing to standard boots 4a not factoring in tera or snow. I personally feel like I'd be able to make a lot of other ideas work if (SubTect) Kyu isn't breathing down my neck. But those are my subjective teambuilder feelings.
I also want to point out that kyurem is not even an amazing gliscor check anymore, as we have seen an uptick in fast SD tera normal facade/knock gliscors that could take a few hits from a relatively weak subtect kyu and beat it with repeated facades. It's a mildly busted set, and if kyurem does go, I wouldn't mind seeing discussion on gliscor next. I don't understand the pessimism about some wave of fat dominance because we have tons of counterplay+a history of banning defensive mons in this very generation. If we've banned gliscor once, we can do it again. But that's enough off-topic rambling.
***
To address some of heileone's arguments: I really did look at these OLT balances and think "wow subtect kyu would've beaten all of these lol." Tinkaton is no long term answer, tons of teams had scarf ghold (easily protect scouted) as their only freeze dry resist, I really don't see what you're seeing. Just because subtect kyu was not brought, doesn't mean that the teams are solid against it. That keldeo/sinistcha/lu team for example? Sinistcha and dnite are pretty free entry points, tinkaton is slower, shit is just gonna break apart after passive ass tink dies easily and accomplishes very little into any team with any ground (unless you make room for ice hammer, tough to do). No ghold to block corv defog either, so that corv/dozo/lu/kyu/ace/gking team will beat you in the long run easily.
I don't really see the kingambit/raging bolt comparisons when kyurem has plenty of unique defensive utility just by virtue of raw BST. It can comfortably swap into most tusk, dnite, gliscor, ting-lu, samurott-h, waterpon, rillaboom, meow, lando-T and zapdos at least once and threaten them out, and the list of mons it can 1v1 is even greater, depending on your set. It does plenty of things that bolt/gambit can't and idk why its defensive utility, especially when paired with the defense boost under snow from chilly reception, is being downplayed. I can basically use kyurem as my roaring moon check if I'm under the snow and healthy lol. AND I'm not even counting wack but viable sets like AV kyurem that lax brought to wcop playoffs tiebreak to beat us south, shit was fire against offense in testing.
You make the comparison of set variety between kyurem and kingambit to downplay the threatening variety of kyurem's sets but that wasn't my takeaway here...kingambit's pretty fucking broken too lmao
This time around though, I feel the vibes are less in my favor, because it's important to make a distinction here: Kyurem is not the kind of threat that'll whip out an unusual tera and snowball out of control, most of the time. I wouldn't really put DD Tera fire blast or mixed DD in that category for example, because it's reasonably predictable (after you see the DD anyway) and the counterplay is fairly reasonable and common, like zamazenta and kingambit after some chip. In other words, this is no Volcarona/GF/sneasler.
A lot has already been said about its set versatility and ability to constrain balance, so I won't repeat that. I will instead say that I think Kyurem actually holds back a lot more diversity than it enables. I've really hated trying to build rain or grassy terrain lately, for example, because I feel like they get absolutely 6-0d by subtect kyurem unless I run an AV crown. I've seen variations of my own sun team w/lilligant-h over AV slither and that seems so cool until you remember subtect kyu 6-0s without slither. Tinkaton in particular really doesn't feel like a great check either. Kyurem is faster, for one, and 8 pp on encore/gigaton hammer can very easily be pp stalled if the game is dragged out. If I really felt like it, I could just freeze dry as tink swaps in, ep as I tank gigaton hammer, then ep again to kill. Great Kyurem answer folks, losing to standard boots 4a not factoring in tera or snow. I personally feel like I'd be able to make a lot of other ideas work if (SubTect) Kyu isn't breathing down my neck. But those are my subjective teambuilder feelings.
I also want to point out that kyurem is not even an amazing gliscor check anymore, as we have seen an uptick in fast SD tera normal facade/knock gliscors that could take a few hits from a relatively weak subtect kyu and beat it with repeated facades. It's a mildly busted set, and if kyurem does go, I wouldn't mind seeing discussion on gliscor next. I don't understand the pessimism about some wave of fat dominance because we have tons of counterplay+a history of banning defensive mons in this very generation. If we've banned gliscor once, we can do it again. But that's enough off-topic rambling.
***
To address some of heileone's arguments: I really did look at these OLT balances and think "wow subtect kyu would've beaten all of these lol." Tinkaton is no long term answer, tons of teams had scarf ghold (easily protect scouted) as their only freeze dry resist, I really don't see what you're seeing. Just because subtect kyu was not brought, doesn't mean that the teams are solid against it. That keldeo/sinistcha/lu team for example? Sinistcha and dnite are pretty free entry points, tinkaton is slower, shit is just gonna break apart after passive ass tink dies easily and accomplishes very little into any team with any ground (unless you make room for ice hammer, tough to do). No ghold to block corv defog either, so that corv/dozo/lu/kyu/ace/gking team will beat you in the long run easily.
I don't really see the kingambit/raging bolt comparisons when kyurem has plenty of unique defensive utility just by virtue of raw BST. It can comfortably swap into most tusk, dnite, gliscor, ting-lu, samurott-h, waterpon, rillaboom, meow, lando-T and zapdos at least once and threaten them out, and the list of mons it can 1v1 is even greater, depending on your set. It does plenty of things that bolt/gambit can't and idk why its defensive utility, especially when paired with the defense boost under snow from chilly reception, is being downplayed. I can basically use kyurem as my roaring moon check if I'm under the snow and healthy lol. AND I'm not even counting wack but viable sets like AV kyurem that lax brought to wcop playoffs tiebreak to beat us south, shit was fire against offense in testing.
You make the comparison of set variety between kyurem and kingambit to downplay the threatening variety of kyurem's sets but that wasn't my takeaway here...kingambit's pretty fucking broken too lmao
There's a fine line where we have a good mix of diversity and centralization to have the ideal meta. Different people have different opinions on where this perfect mix is on the scale. Variance is the changes in each individual game whether that be secondary effects, speed ties or having an unpredictable or otherwise unexpected moves. Both too much diversity and overcentralization leads to variance spiking thanks to increased unpredictability and reliance on speed ties & rng, respectively.
Kyurem is interesting because it, from a pro-ban perspective, it increases in-game variance by having numerous sets with shared moves and items while also constricting teambuilding and pigeonholing certain pokemon and sets. Banning it would ultimately boost diversity is the idea.
From a DNB perspective, kyurem restricting other pokemon through its own variance keeps the meta intact by reducing offensive diversity while boosting defensive diversity. Keeping it would prevent the meta from warping around a smaller selection of pokemon.
Storm zone put it best where there's no one unanimous solution because of how influential it is as a pokemon and it's overall impact goes beyond it prevents centralizing defensive cores or getting rid of it will ensure in-game variance drops greatly.
I completely agree I have been wanting to know if they are going to be testing anymore ubers for ages please at least answer their question
This is essentially the best perspective to have when tiering. If a mon has the sheer power and/or set variety that it literally has no consistent counterplay in the forms of hard checks or consistent answers in the form of viable mons or playstyles then it should be banned. It is up to pro-ban players to make this point as clear as they can with demonstratable facts and concrete evidence. If the DNB side cannot refute these points in a meaningful way then the argument is over. People can still vote against this logic, but this is the level of tiering a serious community should strive for.
Any other type of discussion is subpar. Referencing other mons as broken, or broken checks broken, or what the tier would look like after, or how seemingly essential a mon is to the tier are just a lower form of tiering, and that's illustrated by the tiering policy that expressly forbids logic like this.
As I said earlier, and this is just my personal opinion, but defensive Tera should not be in the discussion when tiering. There is no policy on this but as I said the amount of variables to consider is mathematically impossible. "Just save your Tera and you should be fine" is an incredibly flimsy argument. Kyurem doesn't need to be the last mon standing to be broken, as with any suspect mon. If your consistent answer to Kyurem is "just Tera" then you are forcing your opp to burn a Tera that they most likely need later. You're in control of the match still even if they KO the mon. If Ghold has to Tera Fairy to stop Kyu, now you can Rapid/Mortal Spin on it, has a worse MU vs mons it checks like Iron Val/Crown. A defensive Tera often just invites in a mon that can now capitalize off of it that next turn, or later in the game. You trade all your momentum to take out a mon. I don't see how defensive Tera is a valid argument for DNB whatsoever.
I’m not gonna fence sit and here I will explicitly spell out the dangers of a kyurem ban which will narrow the scope of the metagame due to things getting too good once it leaves.
Currently, as I mentioned to ausma in stours discord, there are many hard and soft checks to kyurem. On ho we have scizor, gambit with or without balloon, moth to chip and pivot in (if they have gk or lu u might as well trade for chip), zama all sets, pult, sash glim, tera bolt, val, av prima, enam, ghold, other kyurem, boulder, fblast rai, sash samu to chip and leave w a spike up (cease + sucker chip), cc tusk tera, band nite tera espeed x2, crown, among other things.
On fatter teams we have tink, reg/spdef corv, lu to trade half for half hp and tera ww for sub sets, tera scor knock off to neuter, gking is omnipresent and forces tera, coat alo, pivot move + encore for sub sets, tera pex for dd, moltres, tera hydra, clef, and basically most tera fairy tank mons if u have a spdef mon for sub tect.
In the absence of kyurem, Woger will no longer have to run prough, and the damage sd knock does to most current fats will obsolete most midrange mons in general leaving splashable zapdos and maybe steel birds alive. Gliscor will spam sd because one of the tera forcers are gone and tera water becomes more viable again, making the mon that much harder to check if not running normal facade (which i invented circa last spl). Due to this, spike scor will be at a huge disadvantage leaving basically two other viable spikers samu or lu, and a minority population of skarms. Sd woger and sd gliscor are so oppressive that they very much obsolete fat styles that don’t run them, and the former is even compatible with ho.
Further, a kyurem ban gives us fewer breaking options and reduces special breakers to a numbered few, as lu single-handedly walls pretty much all special guys besides the occasional val which will be covered by gking zap/molt/corv as well. Offense already lost a breaker in gouging, and when we take away kyurem, most of the breaking will have to come from woger or sd scor, making centralization a reality and pushing new centralized mons to the forefront of the suspect list. We are not banning ‘the next threat that comes up whenever it comes up’, we are artificially creating a demand for the new threat then outlawing it because it is fulfilling the demand due to a reduced viability pool, it’s simple economics.
This is not to say zap king lu will for sure rise or for sure will be the meta, as I can foresee mons like woger and gliscor immediately warranting bans in the post kyurem ban environment not long after. We are artificially reducing the diversity and viability of ou to do what? Boost the usage of some garbage mons? The best mons will still be spammed, we ban them then the next best will be spammed. When volc and gouging were around we DID have dirge usage, clod, more diversity as a whole. Ban side loves to tote ‘broken checks broken’ as a counter argument but that’s literally how ecology works, which is why species diversity is championed even in the wild. Disrupting the food chain via unnecessary intervention only makes the metagame less diverse and less healthy, with more bans leading to more bans. I do not like ou council’s arbitration of what needs to be banned with little consultation of actual top players who understand how the meta works, as surveying casual players (no offense) is counterintuitive, as usage and winrates both are indicative of kyurem being aptly handled in tournament. A poster above linked several replays from recent tour games olt and scl to show that like only one kyurem won the game when all others got outplayed positional or straight up checked, while we see zama win with impunity game after game with no complaints because it is a ‘necessary evil’, same as gambit, while we ignore that kyurem is in league with these mons while not even being as good.
Why possible woger and gliscor bans aren’t good for the meta? It’s cuz they are some of the remaining answers to lu alo gking and other passive mons. Passive regen is already inherently good into stall/passive, and lu has such a gargantuan mu vs offense that taking away its breakers and checks one by one skews the checks and balances system of play styles so much that centralization is bound to happen. We don’t suspect fat mons fsr but a mon that is regularly used to check Ubers is thriving in ou tanking any and all special attackers with impunity, and we wanna take away more mons which will lead to more mons being taken away which threaten it or survive its onslaught of brainless hazards + 50% chip + phazing? No fear mongering only truth pondering, I implore potential voters to look at the usage and winrate then use these very recent tour replays with very clear paths to overcoming kyurem as reference, and to think a few steps ahead. It would pay dividends not only in terms of improving skill as a battler but also making you a better critical thinker.
Lastly, while I somewhat agree with points made by storm, I strongly disagree with the weight to which pros and cons are attributed. Cons of kyurem leaving the tier will cause ripple effects that change the entire landscape of ou causing centralization and more bans, and this is not a prediction, it’s a guarantee. He mentions that it cannot have a good mu vs the entire meta, which is patently untrue. The best kyurem sets don’t even use boots, making you rocks weak which every team runs, and that fact alone makes rocks + anything faster and hits u super effectively force it into a BAD mu vs the entire meta. In addition, I listed no less than 2 dozen options in total as to how teams can check kyurem both positionally and straight up countering it. We all see how good players can circumvent kyurem much more easily than gambit and zama, which in some positions are simply insurmountable, use that knowledge to judge whether this mon really deserves to leave. It is not even volcarona or gouging levels of skilless and cheap, needing dice to access power that gouging has inherently while lacking booster and recovery. We also forget that at the end of the day, it is still plagued with ice typing, one of the if not the worst in the game. The threats mentioned above all give kyurem a run for its money, so let’s not upend the entire metagame because muh ice ground perfect coverage can’t be switched into wahhh. Remember it took a learning curve to get past gambits various Tera’s, as did zama. The tour scene has long figured out ways around sub tect kyurem, it’s ok for the casual players to be slightly behind but give it some time and everybody will have overcome their kyuremphobia.
tldr: listed no less than 20 counterplay options to kyurem on offense and fat, it is in fact very checkable via positioning and chip/revenging not to mention its rocks weakness (boots being the least cheap set rn bolsters that). Kyurem leaving will cause a ripple of bans and no, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there is not the solution you think it is because something called planning exists.
DO NOT BAN
Currently, as I mentioned to ausma in stours discord, there are many hard and soft checks to kyurem. On ho we have scizor, gambit with or without balloon, moth to chip and pivot in (if they have gk or lu u might as well trade for chip), zama all sets, pult, sash glim, tera bolt, val, av prima, enam, ghold, other kyurem, boulder, fblast rai, sash samu to chip and leave w a spike up (cease + sucker chip), cc tusk tera, band nite tera espeed x2, crown, among other things.
On fatter teams we have tink, reg/spdef corv, lu to trade half for half hp and tera ww for sub sets, tera scor knock off to neuter, gking is omnipresent and forces tera, coat alo, pivot move + encore for sub sets, tera pex for dd, moltres, tera hydra, clef, and basically most tera fairy tank mons if u have a spdef mon for sub tect.
In the absence of kyurem, Woger will no longer have to run prough, and the damage sd knock does to most current fats will obsolete most midrange mons in general leaving splashable zapdos and maybe steel birds alive. Gliscor will spam sd because one of the tera forcers are gone and tera water becomes more viable again, making the mon that much harder to check if not running normal facade (which i invented circa last spl). Due to this, spike scor will be at a huge disadvantage leaving basically two other viable spikers samu or lu, and a minority population of skarms. Sd woger and sd gliscor are so oppressive that they very much obsolete fat styles that don’t run them, and the former is even compatible with ho.
Further, a kyurem ban gives us fewer breaking options and reduces special breakers to a numbered few, as lu single-handedly walls pretty much all special guys besides the occasional val which will be covered by gking zap/molt/corv as well. Offense already lost a breaker in gouging, and when we take away kyurem, most of the breaking will have to come from woger or sd scor, making centralization a reality and pushing new centralized mons to the forefront of the suspect list. We are not banning ‘the next threat that comes up whenever it comes up’, we are artificially creating a demand for the new threat then outlawing it because it is fulfilling the demand due to a reduced viability pool, it’s simple economics.
This is not to say zap king lu will for sure rise or for sure will be the meta, as I can foresee mons like woger and gliscor immediately warranting bans in the post kyurem ban environment not long after. We are artificially reducing the diversity and viability of ou to do what? Boost the usage of some garbage mons? The best mons will still be spammed, we ban them then the next best will be spammed. When volc and gouging were around we DID have dirge usage, clod, more diversity as a whole. Ban side loves to tote ‘broken checks broken’ as a counter argument but that’s literally how ecology works, which is why species diversity is championed even in the wild. Disrupting the food chain via unnecessary intervention only makes the metagame less diverse and less healthy, with more bans leading to more bans. I do not like ou council’s arbitration of what needs to be banned with little consultation of actual top players who understand how the meta works, as surveying casual players (no offense) is counterintuitive, as usage and winrates both are indicative of kyurem being aptly handled in tournament. A poster above linked several replays from recent tour games olt and scl to show that like only one kyurem won the game when all others got outplayed positional or straight up checked, while we see zama win with impunity game after game with no complaints because it is a ‘necessary evil’, same as gambit, while we ignore that kyurem is in league with these mons while not even being as good.
Why possible woger and gliscor bans aren’t good for the meta? It’s cuz they are some of the remaining answers to lu alo gking and other passive mons. Passive regen is already inherently good into stall/passive, and lu has such a gargantuan mu vs offense that taking away its breakers and checks one by one skews the checks and balances system of play styles so much that centralization is bound to happen. We don’t suspect fat mons fsr but a mon that is regularly used to check Ubers is thriving in ou tanking any and all special attackers with impunity, and we wanna take away more mons which will lead to more mons being taken away which threaten it or survive its onslaught of brainless hazards + 50% chip + phazing? No fear mongering only truth pondering, I implore potential voters to look at the usage and winrate then use these very recent tour replays with very clear paths to overcoming kyurem as reference, and to think a few steps ahead. It would pay dividends not only in terms of improving skill as a battler but also making you a better critical thinker.
Lastly, while I somewhat agree with points made by storm, I strongly disagree with the weight to which pros and cons are attributed. Cons of kyurem leaving the tier will cause ripple effects that change the entire landscape of ou causing centralization and more bans, and this is not a prediction, it’s a guarantee. He mentions that it cannot have a good mu vs the entire meta, which is patently untrue. The best kyurem sets don’t even use boots, making you rocks weak which every team runs, and that fact alone makes rocks + anything faster and hits u super effectively force it into a BAD mu vs the entire meta. In addition, I listed no less than 2 dozen options in total as to how teams can check kyurem both positionally and straight up countering it. We all see how good players can circumvent kyurem much more easily than gambit and zama, which in some positions are simply insurmountable, use that knowledge to judge whether this mon really deserves to leave. It is not even volcarona or gouging levels of skilless and cheap, needing dice to access power that gouging has inherently while lacking booster and recovery. We also forget that at the end of the day, it is still plagued with ice typing, one of the if not the worst in the game. The threats mentioned above all give kyurem a run for its money, so let’s not upend the entire metagame because muh ice ground perfect coverage can’t be switched into wahhh. Remember it took a learning curve to get past gambits various Tera’s, as did zama. The tour scene has long figured out ways around sub tect kyurem, it’s ok for the casual players to be slightly behind but give it some time and everybody will have overcome their kyuremphobia.
tldr: listed no less than 20 counterplay options to kyurem on offense and fat, it is in fact very checkable via positioning and chip/revenging not to mention its rocks weakness (boots being the least cheap set rn bolsters that). Kyurem leaving will cause a ripple of bans and no, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there is not the solution you think it is because something called planning exists.
DO NOT BAN
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CTC, why do you believe Ogerpon-Wellspring won't run Play Rough with Kyurem no longer in the tier?
Raging Bolt and Dragonite are both targets of Play Rough and are pretty popular mons in their own right, both of which have higher usage than Kyurem. Knock Off also thuds really hard into the standard Raging Bolt set, so there should still be some incentive to run Play Rough in a post-Kyurem meta. Additionally, Dragon is one of the more common defensive Tera Types used against Ogerpon-Wellspring, which Play Rough is effective against.
Raging Bolt and Dragonite are both targets of Play Rough and are pretty popular mons in their own right, both of which have higher usage than Kyurem. Knock Off also thuds really hard into the standard Raging Bolt set, so there should still be some incentive to run Play Rough in a post-Kyurem meta. Additionally, Dragon is one of the more common defensive Tera Types used against Ogerpon-Wellspring, which Play Rough is effective against.
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Good debate is not anything we want to stop, it just becomes a problem to us when people start slinging insults and derailing from the core topic of question itself. We love to see passion and encourage you to express it, just as long as you do so respectfully and deliberately.
i'm starting to get a much better idea of your perspective here, but i still gotta respectfully disagree w/ you on some of this. the majority of the counterplay options you listed are purely offensive and are only meant to either switch in once and force it out (zama and AV prim, latter doesn't like freeze-dry) or can simply just pick it off (booster mons, scarf enam, gambit/dnite). and that isn't to say that i disagree with you here or that that's strictly a bad thing, forcing it out and having it take hazard chip later in the game is incredibly valuable and is always a legitimate gameplan vs kyurem. but when most of your supposed checks are just revenge killers, it's definitely raises a lot of questions as to why this mon should stay. and while i'm on the topic of kyurem's defensive checks i don't really agree with some of the mons you listed here; spdef corv is too passive against kyurem unless it runs iron head, tera gliscor is often a waste and can hinder its longevity, spdef fairy garg pivots into kyurem quite nicely but doesn't like seeing sub, pex isn't common and gets owned by sub or specs, and tera hydra and ting-lu to trade hits or WW it out feels too situational for a lot of the same reasons as tera gliscor is, except even moreso. with all that being said i still do agree with a lot of the other points you brought up in this post (besides gliscor but that's a different topic). overall good post, very refreshing to see a DNB argument that actually lists valid counterarguments against banning kyurem instead of simply bringing up hypothetical consequences of banning it
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ok, now these are actual valid points about the mon from a dnb perspective. this is the type of suspect thread content we should be seeing from someone with your building and playing experience. you're improving, but the rest of your post is falling into the same trap of trying to predict the future instead of looking at the present. no matter how prescient you think you are, nobody can actually see the future
as for the checks and counters themselves, i have to respectfully disagree for reasons that viivian already covered. too many of those checks for my liking are uncommon, hard to fit on teams, reliant on tera, or weak to some kyurem set and/or tera anyway
I'm not entirely sure whether Kyurem should be banned but i'll likely vote ban out of preference.
Suspect threads have been lively and some good points have been made here. I try to avoid "broken checks broken" and "X will be broken" arguments; While I fully get where they come from (and I do think they have a place in the discussion as they're not really empty), my understanding is that the goal is to discuss the suspected pokémon alone, and whether the tier as of tomorrow, for example, would be better off without it.
With that said let's get to Kyurem. It's a very bulky (125/90/90) attacker with OU-worthy attack and SpA stats (130), and is in an above average speed tier. Considering OU has 40 mons, it's usual ice/ground coverage allows it to hit 19 Pokémon for super effective damage. If you also consider dragon-type coverage, the number goes up for 21. Add the move freeze-dry to that mix, the number goes up once more to 25: Kyurem is a wallbreaking blessing for those who appreciate it, and has the bulk to 1v1 a few faster threats. Numbers alone don't tell us much but I like using them to help me visualize things. Further analyzing this would reveal some interesting things I'm sure, but surely we can be more objective than that.
While keeping bulkier teams in check with it's arsenal, Kyurem is weak to stealth rock and is outsped by at least 12 Pokémon that can hit it for super effective damage, so it isn't without flaw. I have the opinion that sets like boots+3 attacks and choice-locked sets are absolutely fine and healthy to the tier, but quoting Finch's remark about Gouging Fire in the previous suspect thread, Kyurem might adapt to the metagame faster than the metagame can adapt to it - or rather, can the metagame adapt to it at all? Earlier in DLC2 when Sash Glimmora hyper offenses were extremely common and everyone packed a bunch of speed-boosting paradox Pokémon, Kyurem didn't quite stand out as much. Considering only the above, one could say Kyurem is fine and doesn't have to be banned at all and I'd be fine with it, but Kyurem has other cards up it's sleeve.
In SV, we have this lovely trump card in Tera, which adds a whole layer of complexity to things here. A terestallized Kyurem can now have STAB ice/ground coverage, while benefiting from STAB freeze-dry for hitting water-types - and it can do that physically or specially. This makes things tough, but one could still live with it in a fast-paced meta. As a wise man once said, strike first, strike hard.
From my perspective, it's a tough call from here and I'd still be fine with either result. But any of the more experienced here know, there's more to Kyurem. The freeze status is absolutely uncompetitive and in my opinion surpasses our notion of random, and it definitely skews game results if we were to analyze data, I'm sure all of you lost games because of that before. It's true, the chance is low, it's true that it's not necessarily deciding a game's outcome, but it's also true that more often than not it equals a OHKO. And as mentioned already in this tread, the rise of substitute/protect sets capitalizes among other things in maximizing the amount of times a freezing move can be used during a match. Basic probability knowledge help us here, if you keep playing in the lottery repeatedly, the overall probability of winning is higher, although never guaranteed. So from where I stand, i'd be completely fine if someone wanted any strong Pokémon capable of freezing banned, although I have no particular opinion on that: Many other random mechanics could affect a game's outcome, it is the nature of the game. But in all fairness, still worth noting that we can ban the problematic users.
From my own personal preferences and experience in overused metagames, i'm not the most fond of bulky, powerful Pokémon that can boost it's speed. It's essentially the same issue with Gouging Fire, but much less predictable because Kyurem sets are way more diverse and often enough hit specially and physically. If you add that to the fact that it freezes and hits a large portion of the tier for super effective damage (often being able to OHKO the unprepared), i'm inclined to vote to ban Kyurem and my argument ends here.
Meta-discussing these suspect threads though, I think it's alright to have opinions and share them - the game is as fun as we make it to be, so it's natural for everyone to pick their sides. But if X becomes broken in case of a ban, well, then let's suspect X next. It's natural for discussions like these to become heated, but take it easy guys, I'm sure everyone wants a fun and competitive tier to play and I'm sure we can get there in any given generation, we just have to stay on topic and keep our eyes on the horizon.
edit: uncompetitive
Suspect threads have been lively and some good points have been made here. I try to avoid "broken checks broken" and "X will be broken" arguments; While I fully get where they come from (and I do think they have a place in the discussion as they're not really empty), my understanding is that the goal is to discuss the suspected pokémon alone, and whether the tier as of tomorrow, for example, would be better off without it.
With that said let's get to Kyurem. It's a very bulky (125/90/90) attacker with OU-worthy attack and SpA stats (130), and is in an above average speed tier. Considering OU has 40 mons, it's usual ice/ground coverage allows it to hit 19 Pokémon for super effective damage. If you also consider dragon-type coverage, the number goes up for 21. Add the move freeze-dry to that mix, the number goes up once more to 25: Kyurem is a wallbreaking blessing for those who appreciate it, and has the bulk to 1v1 a few faster threats. Numbers alone don't tell us much but I like using them to help me visualize things. Further analyzing this would reveal some interesting things I'm sure, but surely we can be more objective than that.
While keeping bulkier teams in check with it's arsenal, Kyurem is weak to stealth rock and is outsped by at least 12 Pokémon that can hit it for super effective damage, so it isn't without flaw. I have the opinion that sets like boots+3 attacks and choice-locked sets are absolutely fine and healthy to the tier, but quoting Finch's remark about Gouging Fire in the previous suspect thread, Kyurem might adapt to the metagame faster than the metagame can adapt to it - or rather, can the metagame adapt to it at all? Earlier in DLC2 when Sash Glimmora hyper offenses were extremely common and everyone packed a bunch of speed-boosting paradox Pokémon, Kyurem didn't quite stand out as much. Considering only the above, one could say Kyurem is fine and doesn't have to be banned at all and I'd be fine with it, but Kyurem has other cards up it's sleeve.
In SV, we have this lovely trump card in Tera, which adds a whole layer of complexity to things here. A terestallized Kyurem can now have STAB ice/ground coverage, while benefiting from STAB freeze-dry for hitting water-types - and it can do that physically or specially. This makes things tough, but one could still live with it in a fast-paced meta. As a wise man once said, strike first, strike hard.
From my perspective, it's a tough call from here and I'd still be fine with either result. But any of the more experienced here know, there's more to Kyurem. The freeze status is absolutely uncompetitive and in my opinion surpasses our notion of random, and it definitely skews game results if we were to analyze data, I'm sure all of you lost games because of that before. It's true, the chance is low, it's true that it's not necessarily deciding a game's outcome, but it's also true that more often than not it equals a OHKO. And as mentioned already in this tread, the rise of substitute/protect sets capitalizes among other things in maximizing the amount of times a freezing move can be used during a match. Basic probability knowledge help us here, if you keep playing in the lottery repeatedly, the overall probability of winning is higher, although never guaranteed. So from where I stand, i'd be completely fine if someone wanted any strong Pokémon capable of freezing banned, although I have no particular opinion on that: Many other random mechanics could affect a game's outcome, it is the nature of the game. But in all fairness, still worth noting that we can ban the problematic users.
From my own personal preferences and experience in overused metagames, i'm not the most fond of bulky, powerful Pokémon that can boost it's speed. It's essentially the same issue with Gouging Fire, but much less predictable because Kyurem sets are way more diverse and often enough hit specially and physically. If you add that to the fact that it freezes and hits a large portion of the tier for super effective damage (often being able to OHKO the unprepared), i'm inclined to vote to ban Kyurem and my argument ends here.
Meta-discussing these suspect threads though, I think it's alright to have opinions and share them - the game is as fun as we make it to be, so it's natural for everyone to pick their sides. But if X becomes broken in case of a ban, well, then let's suspect X next. It's natural for discussions like these to become heated, but take it easy guys, I'm sure everyone wants a fun and competitive tier to play and I'm sure we can get there in any given generation, we just have to stay on topic and keep our eyes on the horizon.
edit: uncompetitive
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This point seems very backwards to me. We literally just had a survey of exclusively top players after SPL rating what they thought about problematic threats in the meta after the tournament, and Kyurem was voted on average a 3.8/5 for a ban on top players. You’re absolutely allowed to disagree with the idea that Kyurem is banworthy, but don’t pretend there’s some kind of divide between top players and lower level players here when top players overwhelmingly voted in support of a Kyurem suspect extremely recently.
Are the top players in the room w us?
The source of this post so dubious it evolved porygon 2
Furthermore, saying majority of kyurem counterplay is offensively checking it is actually helping my argument because why would u want a meta where every mon is defensively checked by switching around passively? Getting rocks up and pivoting correctly is enough even for fat teams to deal with most kyurem as the rocks immune set has the least breaking power. Not everything needs multiple guaranteed counters and even if u did want a splashable fat check to kyurem, molt with roar is reliable and used on many tank teams in addition to mons like corv. The base stat argument also fails to make sense because we have a 670 bst ru mon with one of the best typings in the game in dark, also able to run mix sets with greater offensive stats/arsenal similar to kyurem’s predicament. Uncompetitive is moreso a mon being able to go 1 v 6 at the flip of a tera or idef to boost offense and defense while being outspeed by 2 mons in the game. I enjoy spreading knowledge and engaging in debate so let the ban side keep coming with arguments which I will address.
Thanks for joining us
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