Oh god quoting people is different now
This kind of guesswork is temporary at best. You could comfortably slot specs kyurem into most of the gking balances where subtect is run rn (and in fact ctc's corv/ace fat team originally had specs kyu before being changed to subtect in OLT). Likewise, there are going to be cases where your conventional wisdom would be applied incorrectly, like
this game (one of my favorites lol) where you might assume dd dice but it was in fact AV. Or let's take an
older one where you may again assume dd on an HO team but it's something else. Kyurem has many, MANY more sets than a simple subtect/boots/dd trichotomy being suggested here. People are going to remember any day now that even timid specs blizzard can straight up 2hko pivot glowking and blow away moltres. God forbid people remember the fucking subtect dd spear set. Even if you can accurately predict the kyurem set you're fighting, you're still tasked with preparing for all of them in the builder. That's doable, but that's also
centralizing.
And speaking of the meta seeming to have adapted to kingambit,
here's a great replay of that in action. Everything is fine.
And speaking of specs blizzard 2hko'ing glowking...Why are clefable and moltres even being listed here, generously assuming that we are brainlessly clicking ice moves and nothing else? These mons are easily 2hko'd. Why are mons like either ninetales, blissey, and tyranitar being listed under "splashable" counterplay?
This list is largely cool but again both ninetales, blissey, ttar, dirge are the opposite of splashable. You can also pretty easily tailor your sub kyu (56 hp/92 def) so that your subs will tank salt cures, allowing you to easily pp stall garg out.
Most of this list loses to dd tb fire or tb ground
Many of these arguments could be made for a mon like GF at the end of the day. Splashable checks like Lando-T, Zamazenta, Gliscor, etc, weak to rocks and spikes, not super high usage/winrates, "good players would never just sit there and lose to this" (lol), "just use your tera back if they do, it'll work out for sure" (lol). The differentiating factor is that kyurem cannot snowball as effectively as GF did, but is that the standard we hold OP mons to now? Nothing gets banned unless they can sweep teams with the right tera at the drop of a hat? I sure hope not.
Sure, we can shrug our shoulders and accept rng ig
I find the comparison to wake and light clay to be weird. You're saying that subtect kyu is a fad and kyu as a whole will feel less broken once the fad dies down? And a survey of just OLT qualifiers after 4 weeks of laddering is showing the same kneejerk reaction that even a wake suspect failed to show in the end? I don't buy that
Once again, pokemon like zama/kingambit/gliscor had just as good winrates as GF before it was banned, and games where it swept outright were also rare across the whole sample of tournament replays. You could also have said that good players and teams are able to easily fit GF counterplay and sequence accordingly against it, and you'd be right. None of these arguments capture why kyurem should stay or why GF was banned.
I'm going to lump together a response to CTC's post and the last part of supag's post because I think they touch on a similar contradiction, which was the main thing I wanted to address. There's two conflicting points being made here by the DNB side:
1) Existing and presumably not stale, not boring, totally diverse balance structures can handle kyurem
2) We are also going to drown in stale, boring, not diverse balance structures that we need kyurem to defeat
?????
Setting aside the fact that we don't tier around what if's or to keep teamstyles we don't like in check, I find it difficult to believe that both of these statements can be true simultaneously. Surely zapkinglu bootspams will just adjust to fit moltres or balloon ghold or all the other counterplay and continue to bear out your worst nightmares? If anything, kyurem seems like it has a middling/poor matchup into zap/ting/gking/zama/gambit/pult, even if we assume zero adaptation. Surely kyurem is not what's stopping gking pivot balance from taking over? If anything, kyurem loves being supported by gking pivot balance and lifts up that entire style a ton.
The idea that we need kyurem to keep gliscor in check is also getting less believable. The best set is turning out to be fast SD tera normal facade
(a recent performance) and which can overpower many kyurem sets. The best splashable check here is zama, so why should we keep kyurem around? Take another look at clean's
balance team here, featuring absolutely hated and horrific cheesers like pult and hammy, status fishers like moltres. Why aren't we ringing the alarm bells right now if we're so afraid of what might come? Why is zapkinglu "uninteractive" but existing balance structures are totally fine? It seems to me like we're already halfway there and kyurem isn't the spiderman holding the train back.
I think CTC's current meta analysis is fairly accurate, but I disagree that a kyurem ban would lead to a more centralized metagame. Gking loses one of its best partners/mons it checks and kyurem itself is a huge threat to rain/sun, so banning kyu buffs rain/sun (and I'd say gterrain too). This can encourage set up options like grassy seed ghold, bulky NP ib darkrai, perhaps even lefties ID press garg which all naturally curb SD facade gliscor's influence. I no longer have to squeeze tinkaton into my teams either, which was a big gliscor entry point. Maybe kyurem is in fact holding back high powered structures that would solve our little quagmire here?
***
Remember when CTC predicted that Volcarona was holding back special spam HO, and with volcarona gone, it would dominate? And then it did for a while, with that ghold/darkrai/bolt/lando/zama/dnite sample running rampant for a bit? And then...GF took over, and then got banned. And here we are now, in a totally different landscape than what I'm sure anybody saw coming 5 months ago. All this to say that educated guesses aren't worth shit and you shouldn't let them decide your vote, not even mine! Vote ban or dnb based on how you feel about kyurem right now, because it's really hard to predict the future.
I will address these points individually because even though the spirit is there, some things are patently untrue and shows a lack of experience and understanding of recent meta changes.
First of all, specs and any other kyurem set are not immediately interchangeable as gking scout into pivot steel is ever free vs specs, and although specs is able to trade favorably into fatter teams with pivot + choiced blizzard spam, it becomes much more fodder like and frail due to lack of recovery and being forced out more frequently on average. For example, the goal of sub tect is to literally switch in and sit then force switches, whereas specs wants to do its work early and banks on explosiveness. As a rule, specs sets are weaker to opposing setup whereas protect and unchoiced sets in general hedge against the offense mu. In fact, sub tect counters specs with protect scouting, pp stalling, and superior longevity, which is precisely why the original specs kyu on that blim team was replaced by sub protect. In addition, specs is weaker into stall as well whereas sub tect hedges that mu with longevity. Similar to specs val dying out after og dlc meta, this is a meta trend showing that coverage and not getting set up on > explosiveness as a rule. Otherwise, specs bolt/val/prim/band za boast similar explosiveness to specs kyu and amazing coverage, but they see less use than the unchoiced sets. One can argue that specs pult/ mix pult/ band pult are also difficult to tell apart without rocks item reveal, whereas chilly into sub kyu (the popular way to bring it in) also reveals the set with rocks into lefties.
The kind of guesswork involved is no more guess work than a mon that shares a slot on the team you linked, zamazenta. Any offensively inclined mon can have an av slapped on it, this ‘difficult to determine sets’ argument can quite literally apply to any mon w any semblance of tankiness. The wrong switch vs zama results in either idef sweep, idef into sub sweep, band za crunch/edge smoking a ghost/flyer, or boots coverage trading favorably vs almost the entire meta. Even av can surprise munch a moonblast and strike back with slam, for example, as a counter argument to your av kyurem example. Further, surprise techs like that have their pitfalls. Not to hate on my boy lax, but his av spam similar to the replay you linked failed him the very next game vs protect spam to scout and accumulated chip damage via salt cure and hazards, something that very much makes niche sets less viable by nature, which is exactly why we picked the big 3 kyurem sets to discuss: because they are toughest to deal with and most splashable. Saying the mon has many many more usable sets and raising specs as an example is ignorant to the reason why it was obsoleted for the better breaking sets and overall better sets. Like I said, people will use whatever is the easiest to win with, and those are the big 3 sets. Av is beyond a niche example with a blimp in usage amounting to maybe a decimal percent if you round up by the tenths, and if u even attempt to use the dd mono ice set in a meta this aware of ice threats, let’s just say thanks for +18
Once again you discount the list of splashable counterplay by listing how kyurem teraing can muscle past certain counters, while failing to take into account that teraing is a cost that the user has to shoulder— once u tera and get rid of something, your opponent is free to tera and counter your threat— after which the responding tera is usually at an advantageous position. This is why mixed sets are more popular than dd full physical, as committing to a tera that doesn’t fully sweep the opponent and is easily outsped and revenged after (most being adamant also doesn’t help) usually disadvantages the kyurem user, and this is from experience from using all manners of physical dd sets on ladder from fire, ground, ghost, to electric. If you can make that argument, then gambit naturally having fewer safe counters now has 0 actual counters, as flame body/wisp gets Lum or fire tera teched, idef press faces ghost, and fighting types get tb fairy blasted to the dick. This is all assuming u have the exact correct set vs the corresponding counter, as having dd physical tera fire and facing down dozo for example means u not only are down a mon but have a useless coverage move when this mon is not the tera wincon, even if they don’t have a hard counter rather just a team that doesn’t immediately lose to your tera sweep. The link of that tera fairy gambit reverse sweep not only serves to weaken your own argument that even splashable counters can get overcome (the nature of sv) with molt plus 2 fighting types falling to tb gambit, but it was actually the result of a potential missplay— flame instead of roosting at like 80 woulda guaranteed the win, not a good replay to link for your argument champ. Gambit going thru its supposed splashable checks (3 of em) like butter is no healthier than kyurem needing tera to go thru maybe 1-2 checks at best, and I don’t think anyone will argue with me that kyurem is even in the same stratosphere as gambit when it comes to teraing and ending games. You discounting clef and molt as premiere counters of kyurem is almost as laughable as discounting tusk zama and molt as gambit counters simply due to the replay you yourself linked…. a self goob, if u will. btw in that fairy gambit replay look how useless the kyurem looked it got to half vs gking, couldnt afford to tera, then got nuked later doing jack diddly, all vs some generic answers.
The list of counters by supag is generous, sure, but I implore u to list a list half as big as splashable counters to za and gambit, and then apply ur own theory of them using tera to blow past their already scarce counters — then you’ll see that there is no argument.
Gouging is different from kyurem as its typing/coverage allows it to use tera defensively, and recovery further bolsters its ability to tank thru many revenge options that would counter kyurem but not itself (kyurem is weak to fairy/fight/dragon all common types and Tera’s offensively rather than defensively due to gouging’s better coverage). The recovery factor alone is half the reason gouging is so difficult to beat, as it has 2 free slots essentially due to supreme coverage to go sub or morning sun, and counter fat/offense respectively, making it good into literally every style from ho (defensive tera heal and setup) to stall (tera dragon sub). Not to mention band gouging on sun vs specs kyurem are similar in terms of breaking, so gouging has every attribute kyurem does but more extreme (120 bp amazing coverage stabs with booster ignoring unaware) and less pressure to tera for coverage, aka splashability. For example, dd tail or fairy blast or dragon outrage gouging can even muscle past zama, the premiere physdef wall, and dozo, the grand daddy of all physical walls. Kyurem has neither the muscle nor the coverage, not to mention its similar bulk does not come with the same longevity.
As for the survey results, I’m sure if kyurem were surveyed now instead of right after the novelty of sub tect kyurem exploded onto the scene, the score would not be that high, yes. It is quite literally a knee jerk reaction to a new set that feasted upon its old counters such as gking and garg which needed new techs such as molt and tink to stop, so quite literally, yes that’s what I’m selling whether anyone buys it.
As for gliscor before and after gouging, you can see a stark difference— sd sets were a burden and facade knock was way too greedy being a useless slot into ho and getting fodderized by gouging, but now the boots spam structure w sd scor is thriving: example being my tink tea keld scor team which would have been lunch for gouging hos but has farmed no less than 8 games in recent tournaments, replays are available everywhere. Sd gliscor absolutely benefitted greatly from gouging’s departure and it’s either ignorant or disingenuous to discount that literal fact. Further, gambit and za have always been, are always, and will always be broken and cheap as the necessary evils of the tier, so we will not refry those beans again.
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Addressing your points addressing my points:
1. Absolutely, diverse styles can handle kyurem, as supag and I have listed many counters, splashable or not, in the tens and twenties, compared to lemme give u say 10 counters each for ur zama/gambits.
2. We absolutely need kyurem to defeat boring stale styles such as lu gking zap because kyurem ban leads to likely gliscor ban due to another solid splashable counter being gone, and one less way to force tera.
These are not conflicting points at all, these are quite literally facts I have addressed multiple times, but thanks for joining us
Yes we don’t tier around what ifs and with the ramifications of bans in mind, which is why tiering policy is in need of an overhaul to save many perennial Ubers limbo mons from… well limbo. Just because we have been doing something a certain way for years does not make it the right way to approach something. This is how the Industrial Revolution led to us washing our asses in the modern age.
Kyurem does indeed limit zap king lu as it quite literally is good into 2 if not 3 of those mons with the right set. I also mentioned that it’s the domino effect of an eventual scor ban that will set those things in motion as scor is quite literally good into every mon in that archetype, and no, kyurem def isn’t ‘not a gliscor answer because gliscor Tera’s’ as you are still undervaluing the effect of forcing opponent tera on your timing rather than them teraing on their timing. Zama gets knocked off and outlasted by sd scor until it turns normal, which is facilitated by none other than… Also saying an ice isn’t a counter to a ground flying… I mean maybe it doesn’t come hard in on gliscor but it sure is one of the things forcing tera on sd or forcing it out, come on. In fact, forcing them to run fast jolly facade is one of the benefits of kyurem as gliscor has to drop bulk, dying to any stray ice beam from like gking, ya dig?
Even though kyurem loves being supported by gking balance, it’s usage isn’t enough to justify gking being on every team, but a lack of kyurem makes scor bannable which THEN makes gking so splashable that it can fit on almost any team. I know the logic is confusing but if you think hard it makes sense. This is also extrapolated from the meta post scor ban last time where gking either pairs flawlessly with samu or lu, and w a zapdos outbreak unimpeded by scor it creates a feedback loop of those 4 mons countering one another hyperinflating their usage. It’s simple ecology. Existing structures are more interactive because they use setup mons, hazard mons, options from samu, lu, skarm, corv, molt, tusk, scor, gking, tink, oger, woger, rai, apple, pult, zama, gambit, kyurem, keld, tea, nite etc etc. but with centralization, some of those mons simply cannot compete with zap wave trades or cannot break lu king. I’m not saying these mons will be the only style, tho they will inevitably increase in usage and cause the aforementioned feedback loop as all non lu grounds now lose to zap bar like edge lando. We are indeed almost half way there and kyurem is quite literally, alongside gliscor, like spiderman holding back the train so just know this: handle him carefully, he’s a hero
Again with the rain/sun buff: kyurem leaving makes scor leave which makes gking actually more prevalent, and lu/zap alongside it being prevalent means sun rain go bye bye. Grassy ghold in fact would go up in usage and garg would too, I do agree, but you are bringing back 2 structures while hardly solving the issue of centralization (ghold gets even better like I said with the advent of volc ban)
We finally have outs to the special spam dominant meta that is ghold rai bolt, and we wanna take away kyurem making those 3 the de facto offensive bosses again while gking lu and zap become defensive hunchos, if that’s not centralization idk what is.
And yes, I did predict the special brothers would dominate, and theyr still dominant— I literally faced a structure that is basically ghold/darkrai/bolt/lando/zama/dnite just last week in scl, and it took having lu to check a large portion of those mons. Kyu being the saving grace to counter ghold and bolt sets while trading with rai has been a god send for diversity, as the post volc ban meta was filled with those structures, and judging by their persistence, I’d wager theyr doing alright currently, only to go back to the top with kyurem out of the picture. You are actually quite literally arguing my point that the special brothers are a dominant force that overcentralizes the offensive aspect of the game, and with gouging/kyu gone and possibly scor next, ghold bolt rai would absolutely dominate next to gking zap lu, which completes the two sides of the centralization yin yang puzzle. I think we just solved our little quagmire here don’t you think?
Yes I also agree that we should make educated decisions ourselves, but there is sufficient data backing claims and predictions which can help us make those educated decisions. Before kyurem and gouging shook up the metagame, we were indeed stuck with a more stale looking post-volc landscape with most teams being either blims rai bolt ghold special brothers bo or my grassy garg bo, both archetypes boasting crazy win rates. After that, dd gouging ho broke thru to usher in new playstyles and diversified the meta, and bea’s use of sub tect kyurem and tink further stratified different archetypes and broke the oligarchy of gking fat/ bolt ghold rai brothers dominating the meta. This is quite literally the diversity we are looking for, and I am not looking forward to returning to a centralized meta after numerous bans. With all this information in mind, please make your own intelligent decisions, folks!
. most fat balance teams dont run it, so if you cant offensively deal with all 
is niche, 
is just ok and is still weak to ep), or just arent consistent at stopping a kyu behind a sub. the only mon that can realistically always counter sub tect kyu, is AV 
