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np: UU - Six Deadly Suspects

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True, Zuzu is everywhere...but Slowbro isn't half as common. I've also been seeing several Entei as well, but most of them came from battles with Scoopapa.

I'm very pleased with the rating reset. Now I actually am able to make it to the leaderboard, and currently I've made it to #24. That can only rise. Speaking of ratings, the board seems very volatile as of now, but that can only be true in the first few days of a new metagame.

Many Honchkrow run Pursuit now, which is really annoying, especially for stuff like Roserade.

SubPunch Azumarill wrecks teams. So far, the only thing that stopped it without resisting both FP and STAB was Clefable, and that was because of Encore.

More thoughts later.
 
I made it to #5 (1460~) the other day with a team of Uxie, Spiritomb, Hitmonlee, Shaymin, Espeon and Feraligatr. But this team has tended not to work as well in my latest matches. I was really weak to Baton Pass teams and surprisingly, Dragon Dance + Roost Altaria; that thing is a real pain IMO. I was thinking of working Ice Punch in somewhere but it's really not good enough so I'm going to make a new team soon.

I've seen a lot of Slowbro, Milotic, and Azumarill, which I found a little bit surprising as like Aldaron said above, I'd expected more of the Rain Dance team threats to get more love than they have. I'm surprised to have not seen a single Ludicolo yet, and I've only faced one Rain Dance team. None of the bulky Water-types have been a huge problem for me though, since I was using Shaymin.

I thought Hitmonlee would be more effective, but I'm constantly bombarded with bulky Water-type switch-ins (mainly Slowbro), along with Pokémon like Claydol and Weezing, Gallade was so much better at showing these who's boss. Fighting-type attacks are generally difficult to pull off now.

I also don't understand why people are constantly switching Haze Milotic into 'CroTomb', you eventually lose.

Also, try SpecsChairzard, that thing is a bit ridiculous. Very hard to switch in on.
 
Crobat, Gallade, Raikou, and Froslass all used to be problematic for Espeon. With them gone, Espeon's speed relative to the rest of the metagame has risen considerably, making specs Espeon a real force. If you can get their Registeel out of the way, you can OHKO most things that aren't bulky on the special side, and trick special walls (though obviously you lose the power after that).
 
We need to ban Slaking. It's glitched on Shoddy, allowing it to move every turn instead of every other one.
 
As you've probably all noticed, hail teams absolutely suck now. Although, I'm starting to think that at least half of that, and perhaps more, is due to Froslass' banning rather than Abomasnow's. If you think about it, even if Abomasnow went down on turn 1, you still have hail for the rest of the battle more than likely. Snover performs the exact same function regardless of stats, but the loss of your main hail-abusing Spiker (which virtually guaranteed 3 layers with Sub/T-Wave/Snow Cloak) as well as the fastest Blizzard for late-game sweeping may hurt more than losing Abomasnow. Without that, Hail teams generally have to resort to Roserade to lay Spikes, who is then severely nerfed by losing both Sleep Powder and Leaf Storm.

If not paired with Froslass, Abomasnow and Walrein might not be broken at all. When you think about it, when nearly everything in the tier can hit you super-effective because of your 7 glaring weaknesses, it doesn't really matter too much whether you're a NFE or a final form, you still can't do much beyond your ability. I'm really starting to think that Froslass may have been the main problem with Hail teams. And because of the way it centralized the lead role as well, and was still almost guaranteed multiple layers of Spikes, I am seriously considering voting for it to be banned and for Abomasnow to stay. If Froslass does stay UU, though, then Snover's auto-Hail is probably enough to put it over the edge.

I must say, though, this suspect-free metagame is incredibly well-balanced. The only other thing I would even consider banning is Shaymin.
 
The amount of missy's I've seen is just unreal. Her immunity to fighting and ground award her so many switch-ins. I've faces specs, subcm, and subwow versions which have all been a pain for my team to take down (she is just so damn fast). See plenty of roserade too but that isn't too odd with frosslass being suspect. I haven't seen a ton of fire types around though to threaten her or shaymin.

From what I've seen the removal of frosslass has made the first few turns of a match much more entertaining. Her ability to get spikes up and possibly (probably) KO another poke was ridiculous. I'm not sold on Crobat being a suspect though. He stop other leads from setting up which is bothersome but the only thing bat set's up is weather if that. Fast taunt doesn't make something broken and crobat's moveset is horribly predictable. Top tier UU poke for sure but suspect? Just not so sure.
 
To be honest, Crobats most "broken" set was Brave Bird - Roost - Whirlwind - Substitute. Setup Spikes and phaze with Crobat. Most spinners are 2HKO'd by BB after spike damage. Reset Spikes continue phazing.
 
Can I just say, I love the metagame as it is now. To me, it seems almost perfectly balanced, with high variety. The only thing that very occasionaly stands out is Shaymin, but then, Shaymin doesn't seem to be too much of a problem yet. Hopefully it won't do a Garchomp and take years to reveal itself.
 
The metagame is great. A lot of Pokemon that didn't see a lot of usage before due to Taunting Crobat and Frosslass are out in force. I still find Ambipom a common annoyance, but there's so many leads being tested to beat that, it's rather fun. Shaymin and Slowbro are good walls, although Shaymin's a trifle hard to get through.
 
You're wrong there are plenty of problems with this metagame. The biggest issues are spiritomb, uxie, and to an extent clefable. Spiritomb's Crotomb set is still as effective as ever. Except with Raikou gone it's as strong as ever. While it's easy to phaze it away, once it's the last pokemon your team is in for a pounding. Uxie meanwhile still presents the same problems as it did before the suspect test. While nobody used it before, it was still very effective back then at what it did best: support. While support comes in many forms like stealth rock, yawn, twave, toxic, weather, memento, screens. The main problem with uxie is its duals screens set. The ability to basically make your team highly resistant to damage for 8 turns is amazing when coupled with powerful wallbreakers using statups. Being the main component to the uxie -->gligar-->bibarel strategy, it's a highly dangerous pokemon that can't be stopped until it's already done it's worst. Clefable is epitome of anti-stall. It has just enough defense and just enough spdef to survive anything a stall team can throw at it. Meanwhile any status, entry hazard, and leech seed damage is nullified, making this thing an extremely potent weapon almost engineered by Gamefreak to screw stall teams. It's ability to provide wish support, status, and encore are what makes it lethal. Things that are immune to it's status are eventually worn down it's seismic tosses and ghosts are encored on the spot. This provides clefable with 8 guaranteed switch outs, which is horrible for a stall team since a stall team wants to control the game, meanwhile clefable causes disruption.
 
demon238 said:
You're wrong there are plenty of problems with this metagame. The biggest issues are spiritomb, uxie, and to an extent clefable. Spiritomb's Crotomb set is still as effective as ever. Except with Raikou gone it's as strong as ever. While it's easy to phaze it away, once it's the last pokemon your team is in for a pounding. Uxie meanwhile still presents the same problems as it did before the suspect test. While nobody used it before, it was still very effective back then at what it did best: support. While support comes in many forms like stealth rock, yawn, twave, toxic, weather, memento, screens. The main problem with uxie is its duals screens set. The ability to basically make your team highly resistant to damage for 8 turns is amazing when coupled with powerful wallbreakers using statups. Being the main component to the uxie -->gligar-->bibarel strategy, it's a highly dangerous pokemon that can't be stopped until it's already done it's worst. Clefable is epitome of anti-stall. It has just enough defense and just enough spdef to survive anything a stall team can throw at it. Meanwhile any status, entry hazard, and leech seed damage is nullified, making this thing an extremely potent weapon almost engineered by Gamefreak to screw stall teams. It's ability to provide wish support, status, and encore are what makes it lethal. Things that are immune to it's status are eventually worn down it's seismic tosses and ghosts are encored on the spot. This provides clefable with 8 guaranteed switch outs, which is horrible for a stall team since a stall team wants to control the game, meanwhile clefable causes disruption.
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Seems like you just need to wait for NU. If the Uxie->Gligar-> Biberrl is killing you try using Brick Break - Whirlwind Hariyama.
 
Steelix's usefulness as a stall engine has gone way down now that Crobat, Raikou and Strapator are gone, and Azumarill and Hariyama have taken their place.

This has completely reshaped my stall team, with Venusaur and Slowbro shining as the top walls against the new top threats.
 
@Tv Boy Canti: Do you use vespiquen? She is an awsome pokemon, but she is somehow behind Aron and Butterfree in the standings, which is odd. Has noone read Age of Kings' warstories?
 
Quad weakness to SR, as well as a weakness to many common attacking types (Ice, Electric, Rock, Fire), makes Vespiqueen near useless.
 
Sub-roost Moltres is an amazing Shaymin counter if you can keep stealth rock away. Seed Flare quad resist, Earth Power immunity, and decent defenses for neutral hits is about as much as you could ask for in a switch-in. The only problem is it pretty much requires you use a team slot and battle time to have spin support. I can only imagine that Articuno would perform similarly well, although I haven't tried it.
 
There are definitely a number of new leads(im facing a steelix lead as i type) But i dont see it as a bad thing. I havent faced anything that was OMG Too Strong yet, although ti could be the fact im using the OMG Too Strong Pogeys...
 
Exclamation Point said:
Seems like you just need to wait for NU. If the Uxie->Gligar-> Biberrl is killing you try using Brick Break - Whirlwind Hariyama.
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Brick Break Hariyama can of course break walls, but he will never be able to get his whirlwind off before getting taunted by gligar. Meanwhile gligar will get an agility as you brick break and it can only get worse from there.
 
Havak said:
I thought Hitmonlee would be more effective, but I'm constantly bombarded with bulky Water-type switch-ins (mainly Slowbro), along with Pokémon like Claydol and Weezing, Gallade was so much better at showing these who's boss. Fighting-type attacks are generally difficult to pull off now.
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You want Primape. Immunity to sleep is golden, u-turn lets you give slowbro and uxie a bloody nose while switching to a more suitable counter, ice punch hits Claydol and grassers that like to wall you, while CC and EQ are enough to carry the day when the walls are gone.
 
I'm finding that Uxie's a very common lead now. My solution is simply to sleep it with Roserade, and set up TSpikes. Really, they're still as effective as ever in stopping BP chains. Hariyama is also by far one of the best Phazers, as it's very bulky and almost no recipients of a BP chain sport Psychic moves.

Also, as for Articuno and Moltres, they are simply amazing walls. Almost nothing that isn't Electric or Rock can break through them. SR even isn't that big of an issue, as you can come in on something that can't really hurt them and Roost it off. SubRoost + STAB + HP/Toxic is...you'd simply have to use it yourself to see how well it works. I use them both on my current stall team, and it's got a record of 22-3 at the moment.
 
MapleSandwich said:
Also, as for Articuno and Moltres, they are simply amazing walls. Almost nothing that isn't Electric or Rock can break through them. SR even isn't that big of an issue, as you can come in on something that can't really hurt them and Roost it off. SubRoost + STAB + HP/Toxic is...you'd simply have to use it yourself to see how well it works. I use them both on my current stall team, and it's got a record of 22-3 at the moment.
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The big problem in playing around SR with the legendary birds, I've found, is that you have to be very careful not to fall victim to a double-switch that leaves you at a severe disadvantage. If your opponent predicts perfectly just once, it is very difficult to get your bird back into contention, often relying on a sacrifice against something slower that can't do anything to you in order to Roost back up, which is still very risky. This was the case for me before Raikou's removal though, who was the major annoyance for this kind of thing.

That said, if your opponent hasn't made the effort to make it difficult for you to spin, they can be extremely effective stallers. I personally don't like Articuno so much bacause it is setup bait for Curse Registeel if it does not have Roar (and if it does it will not stall well at all), as well as not being able to do enough damage to most builds of Steelix. Moltres on the other hand could almost always leave its mark before getting forced out, and could even Pressure stall Gallades with its higher speed. Anyway I'm going slightly off-topic so I will stop here.

On a more relevant note, anyone else noticed an increase in Venusaur usage? I have to admit I'm contributing rather heavily to that as I'm relying on it more than ever, but nevertheless I've seen it much more often on opposing teams. I'm guessing the main factors are a combination of the removal of Crobat and the spike in SubPunch Azumarill usage. I could definitely see a future increase in Ice Punch usage over Encore / second Water move in order to do at least some good damage to Venusaur switch-ins. What do you guys think?
 
Encore Azumerril hardly has its merits any more. I'd much rather go Waterfall/ Return/ Ice Punch/ Substitute. Ditch the Priority for hard hitting power. Jumpluff is incredibly useful as well.
 
Mismagius seems to be even more of a problem than it ever was and it was always a problem. I think that some of the Six were checks on her. I know she CAN be countered (Steelix should be able to Roar her out but still doesn't like taking repeated Shadow Balls), but I'm still going to say that she's an additional suspect.
 
Exclamation Point said:
Encore Azumerril hardly has its merits any more. I'd much rather go Waterfall/ Return/ Ice Punch/ Substitute. Ditch the Priority for hard hitting power. Jumpluff is incredibly useful as well.
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A more effective Set would be Substitute/Focus Punch/Ice Punch/Waterfall imo, because Focus Punch hits so much harder.
 
Mismagius is just going to HP fight Steelix. Clefable is actually a better counter, since HP fight does much less and all forms of missy are punked by encore.

The metagame is much improved now, but clefable still needs to peace out with the quickness. One more round of bannings should do it.
 
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