Official Metagame Updates and Discussion Thread.

[d0nut]

Huh? Why's that?

Speed Boost made him too fast for his own good apparently. Besides, after a Swords Dance, I can't think of anything that can reliably counter him besides Slowbro. Hi Jump Kick, Flare Blitz, or Stone Edge can OHKO just about everything else in OU when he sets up and after a few turns outspeeding him is impossible. The only reliable way to revenge kill him is priority, though he resists Scizor's Bullet Punch and I'm sure he can take Conkeldurr's Mach Punch if he hasn't taken much residual damage. There might be other reasons, though I was too busy this last round to participate much.

[artbomber_97]

Since this hasn't been updated I'll just post here saying that at Smogon Murkrow was banned in LC, Brightpowder/Lax Incense was banned, and Blaziken has been banned in OU.

Also note that Latios and Deoxys-S were both voted uber by simple majority so they will automatically be suspects next round.

Confirmed. Thanks for updating this for me.

Also, I feel that the Blaziken ban was a correct decision, since every Blaziken can easily get to +2 Attack and +1 Speed, and priorities don't hit it hard enough to KO at full health (resists Bullet Punch, Conkeldurr can't OHKO at full health with Mach Punch, and Aqua Jet is kinda rare). It's only reliable check for +1 Blaziken is Sand Rush Excadrill, but if Blaziken got to +2, it reaches 568 Speed with a + Speed nature, outspeeding Adamant 216 Spd Excadrill, and it's pretty much gg. The only way to stop Blaziken is to predict Hi Jump Kick and switches a Ghost in, so that it crashes and loses a chunk of HP. But there's no true counters for it, so banning it was a right decision.

[Blazios]

I've never had much trouble with SB Blaziken, TBH. Maybe that was because everyhting on most of my teams could either cripple it or 1HKO it it tried to SD.

If I could Toxic it on the SD, I then used Alomomola to Wish Stall it until it stopped moving (Even at +2, HJK is still a 2HKO). It knew Protect too, which gives a chance of HJK crashing. I did a similar thing on other teams with Cofagrigus, except instead of Wish I'd just Hex it for the KO.
Speed Boost Yanmega always beat it 1 on 1 also. Even if I switched it in, as long as its Sash was intact, Air Slash destroyed it.

Also, has anyone considered Haze Vaporeon, or just Haze altogether? Heck, why not just ban Swords Dance on it, as all the arguments I've seen seem to assume that it starts at +2 Attack and enough Speed Boosts to outspeed everything.

Eh, I missed all the arguments.

[d0nut]

Also, has anyone considered Haze Vaporeon, or just Haze altogether? Heck, why not just ban Swords Dance on it, as all the arguments I've seen seem to assume that it starts at +2 Attack and enough Speed Boosts to outspeed everything.

Eh, I missed all the arguments.

Haze is in most cases outclassed by Roar, which Vaporeon also learns, since you can also force opponents to switch as well as removing stat boosts. Banning SD on Blaziken just to keep it from becoming Uber is pointless as you could make a similar arguement for just about everything in Ubers. If one particular move were broken on just about everything that learned it then they might consider banning the move but if it only breaks one thing then its easier to just ban the pokemon. Similar arguements have been made about Reuniclus and Magic Guard though these arguements are usually laughed at and Reuniclus is still voted OU by a super majority every time anyways...

[Blazios]

Similar arguements have been made about Reuniclus and Magic Guard though these arguements are usually laughed at and Reuniclus is still voted OU by a super majority every time anyways...

Which is why I find it odd that they managed to ban Blaziken. Reuniclus is more damaging to stall than Blaziken is to offense, though neither is broken, IMO.

[d0nut]

Which is why I find it odd that they managed to ban Blaziken. Reuniclus is more damaging to stall than Blaziken is to offense, though neither is broken, IMO.

Blaziken is damaging to everything, bar maybe Rain and Sand teams but even they struggle if it gets too many speed boosts. Nothing except Slowbro can effectively counter Blaziken and only strong Aqua Jet users like Azumarill can reliably revenge kill it when it has full HP. Sure Reuniclus can destroy stall and do well against offensive teams, but Blaziken is much more powerful as a sweeper. The only reason I brought Reuniclus up to begin with is to say that no one would agree if you wanted to ban one specific thing on one specific pokemon.

[Blue Harvest]

Which is why I find it odd that they managed to ban Blaziken. Reuniclus is more damaging to stall than Blaziken is to offense, though neither is broken, IMO.

Reuniclus rapes 4th gen stall, but this isn't 4th gen. 5th gen stall has plenty of tricks to get rid of Reuniclus.

[MudkipsAreAwesome]

Oh, and Shadow tag Chandelure was officially banned in PO.

[:wub:disc]

smogon finally has an UU tier! and it's almost as bad as p-o's original UU tier!

i have to say there's a large improvement player-wise, at least, i actually lost a couple of times on my way to #1 with a 3 month old team.

[Twilight Gallade]

Also, I feel that the Blaziken ban was a correct decision, since every Blaziken can easily get to +2 Attack and +1 Speed, and priorities don't hit it hard enough to KO at full health (resists Bullet Punch, Conkeldurr can't OHKO at full health with Mach Punch, and Aqua Jet is kinda rare). It's only reliable check for +1 Blaziken is Sand Rush Excadrill, but if Blaziken got to +2, it reaches 568 Speed with a + Speed nature, outspeeding Adamant 216 Spd Excadrill, and it's pretty much gg. The only way to stop Blaziken is to predict Hi Jump Kick and switches a Ghost in, so that it crashes and loses a chunk of HP. But there's no true counters for it, so banning it was a right decision.

And thus is why they say "Smogon bans what they can't kill in one hit." Am I glad that I don't follow their rules...or anyone else's for that matter.

I'll use whatever the heck I want, thanks. I wanna have fun with Pokemon, not kill the game.

[kaiser soze]

wow. UU looks real weird to say the least. mew, zapdos, suicane?

[DFang]

smogon finally has an UU tier! and it's almost as bad as p-o's original UU tier!

i have to say there's a large improvement player-wise, at least, i actually lost a couple of times on my way to #1 with a 3 month old team.

I checked the main site and the forum, where is the UU tier list??

[kaiser soze]

I checked the main site and the forum, where is the UU tier list??

http://www.smogon.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=170

[jesusfreak94]

And thus is why they say "Smogon bans what they can't kill in one hit." Am I glad that I don't follow their rules...or anyone else's for that matter.

I'll use whatever the heck I want, thanks. I wanna have fun with Pokemon, not kill the game.

They didn't ban it because you can't kill it in one hit. You can easily kill Blaziken in one hit. The problem is hitting it and killing it before it kills you. +2 Blaziken literally 2HKOs the game (except perhaps a select few), and can OHKO a huge number of Pokemon after entry hazards. It's also very hard to outspeed after just one turn, and nearly impossible after two. Now, if that seems fair to you, then that's your beef. But we competitive players prefer to keep things a little more balanced, thank you very much.

I was pretty bummed out that Blaziken got banned at first, but then I realized that he can actually take stuff out easily in Ubers, too. Just for fun, I ran some calcs on an SD Blaziken vs. the mighty Kyorge. The results were amazing. A +2 LO Adamant Blaziken has the power to OHKO a 4/0 Modest Kyorge with Hi Jump Kick---twice! Even a Jolly Blaziken does a ton of damage to a bulky Kyorge. A 252/252 Bold Kyorge will survive Jolly Blaziken's Hi Jump kick with 1% health at best, and no one even runs sets that bulky on Kyorge. Heck, I've found that a set of Swords Dance/Hi Jump Kick/Shadow Claw/Protect works just fine in Ubers.

I'm also glad that Smogon finally got a UU tier started. Considering Smogon's usage results seem a little more reliable than Pokemon Online's as a whole, I'm interested to see how their UU tier ends up when it balances out.

[d0nut]

^
Also thought I'd add that Blaziken actually made #12 on the Ubers list which is impressive. Lugia and Giratina are the only common counters he has in the tier and they both have suprisingly low usage which probably explains some of it. Smogon probably won't take long to catch up with PO in terms of banning the obvious stuff for UU, kinda like they did for OU. They will probably also have to ban a few extra things like Zapdos which didn't make OU on Smogon but did on PO.

[jesusfreak94]

^
Also thought I'd add that Blaziken actually made #12 on the Ubers list which is impressive. Lugia and Giratina are the only common counters he has in the tier and they both have suprisingly low usage which probably explains some of it.

Even then, they have to be careful, depending on what set Blaziken is running. A +2 LO Adamant Blaziken will always OHKO 252/252 Bold Lugia with Stone Edge after SR, and has a small chance to OHKO even without it. That same Blaziken also has a pretty solid chance to 2HKO 252/252 Impish Giratina-A with Shadow Claw, even after Leftovers. Entry hazards ensure a 2HKO.

[ungulateman]

Smogon probably won't take long to catch up with PO in terms of banning the obvious stuff for UU, kinda like they did for OU. They will probably also have to ban a few extra things like Zapdos which didn't make OU on Smogon but did on PO.

We'll see a BL list being formed at some point once OU is better organised. It's a bit early still to concentrate on the lower tiers.

I really hope Zapdos (along with Starmie and Gengar) makes it back into OU though. :[

[Agonist]

At least Evire is UU for now

[Aquadon]

Quick question: Why did Vulpix get the boot from LC/UU on PO? I mean, Hippo and Snover are still both there, and Sand Rush is almost equivalent to Chlorophyll. I may understand LC, but UU? It's almost a waste of a slot for Permanent Sun. I mean guys, it's Vulpix: Not like he's got the best stats in the world.

[Blue Harvest]

Quick question: Why did Vulpix get the boot from LC/UU on PO? I mean, Hippo and Snover are still both there, and Sand Rush is almost equivalent to Chlorophyll. I may understand LC, but UU? It's almost a waste of a slot for Permanent Sun. I mean guys, it's Vulpix: Not like he's got the best stats in the world.

They banned it within one week of the tier being created with virtually zero testing. PO's tiers are based entirely off mod decisions so it pretty much came down to Kokoloko or Bad Romance deciding it was too much.