Just missed the cutoff, but I have a few noms.
Drizzle: The holy haymaker that dominated the entirety of Round 2. I've tested so many different variations of Rain teams that I've forgotten how to use anything else. My conclusion: there are way, way too many things that can abuse Rain. Electric Pokemon that can now use Thunder, Tornelos, who suddenly rises ranks from 'outclassed' to 'incredible', Steel Pokemon losing their Fire weakness, and the worst of them all, Swift Swim sweepers.
Any variation of these teams can be used to great effect. They don't even have to have very good synergy. I've used multiple teams with no kind of Electric resist and still managed to win by simply OHKOing or 2HKOing the Pokemon packing it. The only kinds of teams that can put up a good fight against Rain are other weather teams, where the battle comes straight down to the player keeping their weather abuser alive
the longest.
The only problem is that Rain has an innate advantage vs. Sand; both Sand inducers are weak to Water attacks. You have to keep coming in on the revenge or something else that doesn't seem quite so threatening. But you just never know whether or not you're going to switch into a Water attack or something else your inducer is weak to.
After the weather war is done with, there's no argument as to who wins: the Rain player. There aren't too many practical methods to stop Pokemon with double speed and a 50% STAB boost. Even worse, the sweepers outside of it that abuse that advantage indirectly by not having a Fire weakness, getting an overpowered Thunder to abuse, or even Hurricane.
Swift Swim sweepers alone aren't the problem, it's Rain teams period. No matter where you shift the blame, the common denominator is going to be Drizzle. We can't have a healthy metagame so long as permanent Rain is in the equation.
Latios: I never predicted this thing would be as much of a problem as it is now. You have no idea what move it's going to use while it's out, or what the opponent is thinking of when they see your team in the viewer, you just know that there's a pretty good chance something will die. You can predict correctly as many times as you want, but you can't stop it until it's dead. It switches in on so many things and just kills them with Draco Meteor that it's almost guaranteed to cause a ridiculous amount of problems throughout the game unless you can get a Specially Defensive Tyranitar or Scizor in and Pursuit it on the way out.
In addition, Latios can break any wall in the game and no sweeper can switch into him safely. And this is just from simply giving him a Choice Specs and clicking an attack. On top of that, he's too fast for what he does; he'd be much easier to switch into or revenge if he had poor speed and couldn't get the 2HKO off, but 110 is faster than almost anything in this metagame that isn't a weather sweeper or Choice Scarfer (and remember what I said about sweepers not being able to switch into him?)
No matter who wins the prediction war, the Latios player has the initiative and can continue weakening any team of any kind to ensure random sweepers have an easier time finishing the job. When both players have Latios, it's a complete crapshoot as to who you're going to sacrifice to and what's going to get the sweep afterward, to the effect that the entire game is just one big gamble. This is uncompetitive as all hell and indicative of an Uber in our midst. Latios needs to be banned.
Drizzle: The holy haymaker that dominated the entirety of Round 2. I've tested so many different variations of Rain teams that I've forgotten how to use anything else. My conclusion: there are way, way too many things that can abuse Rain. Electric Pokemon that can now use Thunder, Tornelos, who suddenly rises ranks from 'outclassed' to 'incredible', Steel Pokemon losing their Fire weakness, and the worst of them all, Swift Swim sweepers.
Any variation of these teams can be used to great effect. They don't even have to have very good synergy. I've used multiple teams with no kind of Electric resist and still managed to win by simply OHKOing or 2HKOing the Pokemon packing it. The only kinds of teams that can put up a good fight against Rain are other weather teams, where the battle comes straight down to the player keeping their weather abuser alive
the longest.
The only problem is that Rain has an innate advantage vs. Sand; both Sand inducers are weak to Water attacks. You have to keep coming in on the revenge or something else that doesn't seem quite so threatening. But you just never know whether or not you're going to switch into a Water attack or something else your inducer is weak to.
After the weather war is done with, there's no argument as to who wins: the Rain player. There aren't too many practical methods to stop Pokemon with double speed and a 50% STAB boost. Even worse, the sweepers outside of it that abuse that advantage indirectly by not having a Fire weakness, getting an overpowered Thunder to abuse, or even Hurricane.
Swift Swim sweepers alone aren't the problem, it's Rain teams period. No matter where you shift the blame, the common denominator is going to be Drizzle. We can't have a healthy metagame so long as permanent Rain is in the equation.
Latios: I never predicted this thing would be as much of a problem as it is now. You have no idea what move it's going to use while it's out, or what the opponent is thinking of when they see your team in the viewer, you just know that there's a pretty good chance something will die. You can predict correctly as many times as you want, but you can't stop it until it's dead. It switches in on so many things and just kills them with Draco Meteor that it's almost guaranteed to cause a ridiculous amount of problems throughout the game unless you can get a Specially Defensive Tyranitar or Scizor in and Pursuit it on the way out.
In addition, Latios can break any wall in the game and no sweeper can switch into him safely. And this is just from simply giving him a Choice Specs and clicking an attack. On top of that, he's too fast for what he does; he'd be much easier to switch into or revenge if he had poor speed and couldn't get the 2HKO off, but 110 is faster than almost anything in this metagame that isn't a weather sweeper or Choice Scarfer (and remember what I said about sweepers not being able to switch into him?)
No matter who wins the prediction war, the Latios player has the initiative and can continue weakening any team of any kind to ensure random sweepers have an easier time finishing the job. When both players have Latios, it's a complete crapshoot as to who you're going to sacrifice to and what's going to get the sweep afterward, to the effect that the entire game is just one big gamble. This is uncompetitive as all hell and indicative of an Uber in our midst. Latios needs to be banned.