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BW2 Suspect Proposal

Ojama

Banned deucer.
Hello Pokemon trainers! As said in the title I have a suspect proposal for the BW2 OU tier. I'm posting here first because I don't want the fantastic OU community to ruin my thread with ridiculous comments so here I am.

Some of you may know it but it's been awhile that I want to remove Drought from the OU tier because of the stupidity of this weather. I couldn't really post such a proposal back when everyone was thinking Drizzle was completely broken but I think now is a good time. I always claimed that Drought was the most broken weather and that Sand teams were much better than Rain teams. 3 years later I'm confident that most of you realized Sun teams make the BW2 tier what it is now: a terrible tier. You probably got the picture, I want to suspect Drought + Chlorophyll but not only that. I also want to discuss about unbanning Excadrill@Moldbreaker because the current metagame is way too centralized by Hazards + Alakazam/Reuniclus and the tier really lacks of good spinners. I'm gonna expose my arguments and would appreciate if you guys don't use the "it's a complex ban" + "you want to ban drought because you're weak to that" cards.


Drought + Chlorophyll


I think we aren't focusing on the right issue when we claim that Drought should be banned. The main reason that makes Sun teams ridiculously broken is Venusaur. I would be extremely surprised if some established players would argue against the fact that Venusaur is completely broken in Sun. Here are my arguments regarding this:

1) We banned Swift Swim + Drizzle but decided to keep unbanned Drought + Chlorophyll. First of all, is there any reason for that? It's pretty much a Kingdra vs Venusaur fight here since those two are the main Swift Swim and Chlorophyll users respectively. I completely agree on the fact that Kingdra in Rain is stupid, I support that 100%, but what's the difference with Venusaur in Sun? Do you really think Venusaur in Sun is less strong than Kingdra in Rain? Venusaur has access to Sleep Powder which makes it 10 times better just with that. The sleep mechanics in BW2 makes it even more broken. Venusaur also learns Giga Drain which allows it to restaure itself while doing a ton of damage, something Kingdra can't do. Venusaur learns Growth which allows it to get past Dragons such as Latios and Latias who are most of the time Venusaur's main answer in Balanced/Offensive teams. Venusaur can run Earthquake so Heatran is obviously not a real counter to Venusaur. With Dugtrio being in 90% of the Sun teams and Venusaur learning Earthquake, I'm pretty sure that most of you know that Non-Scarf Heatran isn't a reliable Sun Check/Counter.

2) Sun teams and more specially Venusaur makes the teambuilding extremely specific as in Sun teams have very specific counters that you're forced to use if you don't want to be 6-0'd by the first Sun team you face. If you bring those specific counters it obviously makes your team weaker to the most common threats which is why stuff like Alakazam and Reuniclus are almost unbeatable in the current metagame. The main answers to the Magic Guard sweepers are Jirachi, Scizor and Tyranitar, 3 Pokemon that make your team weak to Sun. I can see you come with the "You can bring one/two of these the 4 others don't have to be necessary weak to Sun teams" argument. If you have played more than 10 games in BW2 in your entire career you'd know that it's easier said than done. I've already addressed the Lati@s case so I won't mention them but Terrakion and Garchomp are considered as huge threats for Sun Teams. I guess it's true for the latter but that's actually not the case for Terrakion since it gets trapped by Dugtrio whenever it gets a kill. Sun teams have most of the time Forretress/Donphan as their spinners so those two aren't huge threats as you may think they are. It's also not that hard to weaken Garchomp enough so that it's in the Giga Drain range with stuff like Volcarona, Heatran, Victini, Darmanitan, etc... Garchomp is a good Sun counter on the short term but definitely not on the long term.


Excadrill@Mold Breaker

As said above, I know this would be a complex ban but do we have to be necessary dumb and follow our policy if everyone agrees that it's for the best of the tier? We've had 2 weeks of BW2 in the current Smogon Tour and I could say without a doubt that 90% of the teams were Sand + Hazards + Alakazam/Reuniclus. I'm part of these 90%, yes. But why would I prevent myself from using something that is pretty much unbeatable in the current metagame? The tier lacks of good spinners. Everyone notices how bad Bulky Starmie is as a spinner especially in BW2. Tentacruel is a good one but only works on Rain teams but everyone also noticed that Rain teams aren't as good as what everybody claimed a few years/months ago. Jellicent is an amazing SpinBlocker and makes this strategy even more stupid. The only chances are to run Toxic on Tentacruel/Starmie or to use Tyranitar and win the 50/50 assuming you didn't get burnt before.

Since BW2, Excadrill gets a new ability: Mold Breaker. This ability is great but definitely not as broken as Sand Rush. I 100% agree on the fact that Sand Rush Excadrill is completely broken which is why I'm not asking you to unban it but this is not the case with Mold Breaker. Additionally Excadrill also gets Stealth Rock which would give more variety to our teams. Excadrill is an amazing spinner and the current metagame really needs one. It can also work as a Scarfer which would give another answer to Alakazam or Modest Volcarona (and god knows how stupid that shit is). The SD set is threatening but not unstoppable because of Excadrill's speed. It would be "easily" rkable and I doubt that SD would be of any use against an offensive team. As for defensive teams, counters remain the same with Gliscor, Skarmory, Hippowdon, etc... With Technician Breloom@Mach Punch being often used this also gives another answer to Excadrill so I really doubt that it would be as broken as it was in BW1 with Sand Rush.


I hope you will take the time to read all my arguments and will answer back with good ones whether they're pros or cons. Thanks!
 
Well, I think the main reason that Swift Swim + Drizzle was considered to be far more dangerous than Drought was because of two main reasons. The first reason is that every single Pokemon that receives Swift Swim is also a Water-Type, meaning that it gains a x2 Speed Boost and an additional bonus to its STAB moves, turning any Swift Swim mon into a pretty potent threat (I remember Ludicolo was also an issue in early BW as well, but not as major as Kingdra was). There are no chlorophyll users that receive a power boost in addition to the speed boost. If it were solely Kingdra that was the issue, then something would have been done about it. The second was that Ninetales is SR weak, so switching in repeatedly yadiyadiyah.

I agree with you that Sun is arguably broken, but Venusaur has 4mss most of the time, which means that it's not broken by itself (you have to admit that no team is "Venusaur weak", the team is "Sun Weak"). It's more that an amalgamation of metagame factors at the moment in BW2 make you either weak to Sun or weak to Reuniclus / Zam. I think a different approach should be taken to handle Sun teams, because they are most definitely an issue.

The Excadrill argument will open a very big can of worms for the Blaziken arguement. I.E. if we unbanned Mold Breaker Excadrill why can't we unban Blaze Blaziken? I personally don't mind complex bans, but you need to be wary of the backlash of other bans with this proposal. I'm for this one though.
 
I'm not a fan at all of older gen suspects BUT I did want to do the Drought + Chlorophyll suspect test for around the last 10 months of BW2.

I actually always thought that while good rain / sand mons were handled by relatively similar concepts / mons (generally "good" cores), Chlorophyll mons were handled by such a different breed that it strongly affected team building in a negative manner.

I can support some tweak suspect of BW2 in the Chlorophyll + Drought idea, so long as it doesn't balloon into multiple suspects or testing of huge things (weather in general).

No comment on the Exca + MB thing; I think before discussing it we should talk about Chlorophyll + Drought and go from there.
 
I'd love to see an Excadrill retest, even with Sand Rush. I agree with Mike that just testing it with Mold Breaker is a little sketchy because it opens the door for people to complain about Blaze Blaziken, Torrent Greninja, etc. being retested as well, and it just doesn't seem worth it. I guess an exception could be made because introducing Mold Breaker Excadrill to the tier could be actively healthy for it, while the others wouldn't make a difference.

Also agree with Chloro/Drought suspect, but there's not much else to say about it.
 
Jellicent said:
A Sand Rush + Sand Stream suspect with Excadrill unbanned would make more sense, as it doesn't open the floodgates to Blaze Blaziken + company and instead adds a consistent ruling to all the weathers (assuming the sun nerf happens, as hail lacks a similar ability anyway).
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Wouldn't that just make it so that no one uses Sand anymore because no one wants to get counterswept by Sand Rush Excadrills on non-sand using teams(Stoutland would also become worthless but this doesnt really matter much)
 
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good thing one of the sand inducers counters driller :] -- "counters"

agreeing that it would make more sense to simply do a ban like "weather + weather-based speed boosting ability" (gonna be tricky to word but w/e). i still think simply banning drizzle/drought is the way to go after all these years but meh, i'll settle lol
 
Kushalos said:
Wouldn't that just make it so that no one uses Sand anymore because no one wants to get counterswept by Excadrills(Stoutland would also become worthless)
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Yea, I kinda agree.
You could argue that "it's the same with Rain and Kingdra!", but Excadrill is probably gonna be a utility addition to the team, if on top of that it can outspeed every single threat, then it quickly becomes just too good. Now, most of the sands will inherently have an answer to Excadrill because, unless it's LO/SD which would barely any sense on a weatherless team (unless you're blatantly trying to matchup a Sand, which is possible, but not really optimal IMO, so people won't do that much). So yea, it's debatable. That's why a suspect is for I guess, I'd love to see if weatherless/rain + Exca really have a strong edge against a Sand.

Back onto Sun, I'd not say it's broken, but I'd say that it's plain unhealthy for the metagame.
It is, by far, the epitome of "matchup". You can usually say from the start if the Sun team lost/won. The combination of trapper(s) + broken sweepers/wallbreakers under specific circumstances is really cancerous to say the least. I think that the best game to illustrate this idea is this one. And we can all agree that both players are good, in fact it was the final game, of the WC from 2 years ago. BKC started Ninetales, did ONE switch, and won.
I don't think I need to add more there.

About Venusaur, I want to point out how Sleep Powder is dumb. I think that's a very important point that has been made.
Sleep is (borderline) broken in BW, if not outright cheap. The way that it naturally "balances" itself is by being accessible to really slow pokémons such as Breloom/Amoonguss. These pokémons scream "tempo loss", because of their low base speed, and, in the case of Breloom, of their lack of bulk.
Venusaur doesn't have any of these issues, you flat out outspeed everything, and when you throw into the mix the poor accuracy of the move, it quickly turns the game into something... not pleasant to play.

About the "4MSS", it would be a valid point if the Pokémon we're talking about wasn't faster than the whole metagame.
IE : when you play Breloom, sometimes you're like "Okay, do I Spore now ? Because I know he's gonna Sleep sac something, better attack" *opponent switches in Latios* "Welp, looks like I lost the tempo".
With Venusaur, it's so damn hard to play around, it makes the scouting very sub-optimal and punishes you quite hard for your mistakes. It means that, basically most of the time, taking a guess is your best move.

All these things, that every BW player experienced over and over while playing Sun, are making this weather and its sweepers way too unhealthy, and I don't think that anybody who loves the metagame would be sad to see them go.
 
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Yeah, the main difference between DrizzleSwim vs Drought/Chlorophyll/Fire-types was the fact that in rain, Swift Swimmers had both the power boost + speed boost which made them more dangerous than the sun users. For example, while Venusaur had Sleep Powder, it was still pretty damn weak when it came in, while on the other hand, Specs Kingdra spamming Surf was pretty much the equivalant of Specs Latias spamming a drawback-less Draco Meteor with like base 200 speed or something absurd like that. While I'm not disagreeing that sun is probably broken, we must be careful to use the logic of the DrizzleSwim ban onto sun.

That being said, I do actually share kokoloko's POV that perma-weather was probably too much for OU in the first place and would have been better if was banned altogether. DrizzleSwim was banned already (and rain was still OP af), sun was near-broken and personally I thought Tyranitar was ridiculous anyways (on top of sand for Excadrill/Stoutland/Sandslash, it provided ridiculous support for pretty much every team that you wanted which resulted in Lando-I being banned and Keldeo being tested). It would have been much cleaner just to axe Drizzle/Drought in one go. If Sand was then thought to be too much, then we could have just axed that as well. I'd be pretty happy leaving Hail as is, though.
 
lol @ people who dont actively play bw anymore bringing out the old arguments why we only banned drizzleswim

it's not 2011 anymore, we dont have to explain this to whiny eleven year olds on the simulator 4x a day, ojama knows why the ban was what it is and thats not really relevant to the discussion of whether we should ban chlorodrought
 
I guess I'm in the minority when I say this but I disagree with retesting Sun in BW. Playing predominantly Sun for most of the year I was interested in BW it is honestly underwhelming. Here are a few reasons why I believe its not suspect worthy:
  • Very specific arch-type that needs to be followed on every sun team, meaning its easy to prepare for.
  • Heatran + Sands popularity forces Dugtrio on every sun team, which leaves room for pokemon like Latios and Gengar to pick up free kills. I have an Earthquake Venusaur team that Jimmy Turtwig used in Tour Finals vs Leftiez, and even when I used this 2 years ago vs Zebraiken in World Cup I was trashed by Heatran + Sand unless I could lure in Tran with Earthquake.
  • Venusaur does have 4 mss, you can't run all of Sleep Powder, Growth, Hidden Power Fire, and Sludge Bomb, without Growth its impossible to break through Chansey. Without Sleep Powder you lose out on sleeping Heatran if you lose Dugtrio which is a huge problem considering the best spinner on Sun is arguably Forretress, and Latios + Dragonite + Scizor are arguably the best revenge killers.
  • Unlike with Drizzle + Swift Swim, you can't really spam Ninetales + Chlorophyl sweepers, Kabutops and Ludicolo are actually pretty bulky and aren't going to fall over to non-stab priority moves like CB Dragonite Extremespeed which Chlorphyll sweepers like Lilligant and Shifttry will.
  • Ninetales struggles to win the weather war, you need to be very experienced to beat Rain-teams with Sun because after Stealth Rocks, Ninetales can switch into 2 scalds maximum (assuming switches onto rocks twice), so you're forced to Sunny Day predicting the switch in to Politoed.
  • Ninetales is easily trap killed by Tyranitar after rocks are down.
  • Sun isn't spinning vs Gengar or Jellicent, whats Forretress and Donphan doing vs those...
I'm not sure what unbanning Excadrill would do for sun teams, perhaps being able to spin for sun teams might put them over the top, but as far as attempting to balance the Spikes + Magic Guard spam, it might be good idea.

I do not support suspecting Drought + Clorophyll.
I do support suspecting Mold Breaker Excadrill.
 
Yeah I agree with the majority of this. I've been disliking Gen 5 OU for a while now because everyone uses the same sand balance teams and how certain weather match ups like sun are so easy to use and have so many auto wins. This proposal addresses these issues rather nicely for the reasons stated. Sun teams would be a lot more fair with the same limitation rain has and it would open up team building a bit more. While bringing Excadrill back under a catch all weather ability + weather speed ability ban would make spinning a bit easier and hazards slightly more manageable. Besides all of that it just makes sense really if we were to give one weather the restriction that we can give the others it and have it be no more complex. When we did the original Drizzle + Swift Swim ban in 2011 I highly disagreed with it for being complex but that was then. I still think that weather itself is broken and more deserving of a ban I also think that this could actually do a bit to improve the old Gen 5 metagame and it's worth a shot.
 
It is not "easy" to prepare for sun, if it were I guarantee it would never be used. The problem with it and reason it sees play is how hard it is to prevent it from fucking your shit up unless you bend over backwards to make sure you don't lose to it, in which case you're probably getting raped by everything else (tldr matchup problem). I've never thought of Venusaur as having 4mss, Growth/Giga Drain/Sludge Bomb/HP Fire is by far the best set. I agree with the weather + speed boosting weather abilities ban, christ knows we could use a non-garbage spinner.
 
Stratos said:
lol @ people who dont actively play bw anymore bringing out the old arguments why we only banned drizzleswim

it's not 2011 anymore, we dont have to explain this to whiny eleven year olds on the simulator 4x a day, ojama knows why the ban was what it is and thats not really relevant to the discussion of whether we should ban chlorodrought
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The reason why I clarified was because he merely said it was an argument of Venusaur vs Kingdra, which is not the case. It also devalues the entirity of why Drizzle + Swift Swim was banned in the first place.

You don't need to make snarky comments that are unnecessary either by the way :]
 
Laurel said:
I guess I'm in the minority when I say this but I disagree with retesting Sun in BW. Playing predominantly Sun for most of the year I was interested in BW it is honestly underwhelming. Here are a few reasons why I believe its not suspect worthy:
  • 1. Very specific arch-type that needs to be followed on every sun team, meaning its easy to prepare for.
  • 2. Heatran + Sands popularity forces Dugtrio on every sun team, which leaves room for pokemon like Latios and Gengar to pick up free kills. I have an Earthquake Venusaur team that Jimmy Turtwig used in Tour Finals vs Leftiez, and even when I used this 2 years ago vs Zebraiken in World Cup I was trashed by Heatran + Sand unless I could lure in Tran with Earthquake.
  • 3. Venusaur does have 4 mss, you can't run all of Sleep Powder, Growth, Hidden Power Fire, and Sludge Bomb, without Growth its impossible to break through Chansey. Without Sleep Powder you lose out on sleeping Heatran if you lose Dugtrio which is a huge problem considering the best spinner on Sun is arguably Forretress, and Latios + Dragonite + Scizor are arguably the best revenge killers.
  • 4. Unlike with Drizzle + Swift Swim, you can't really spam Ninetales + Chlorophyl sweepers, Kabutops and Ludicolo are actually pretty bulky and aren't going to fall over to non-stab priority moves like CB Dragonite Extremespeed which Chlorphyll sweepers like Lilligant and Shifttry will.
  • 5. Ninetales struggles to win the weather war, you need to be very experienced to beat Rain-teams with Sun because after Stealth Rocks, Ninetales can switch into 2 scalds maximum (assuming switches onto rocks twice), so you're forced to Sunny Day predicting the switch in to Politoed.
  • 6. Ninetales is easily trap killed by Tyranitar after rocks are down.
  • 7. Sun isn't spinning vs Gengar or Jellicent, whats Forretress and Donphan doing vs those...
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I would just like to disassemble all of these points because I feel like the "no suspect" side won't find much more ground. Nip it in the bud as it were. Numbering for clarity.

1. A common misconception that Sun teams have some sort of predetermined archetype. They are only slightly more rigid than other team archetypes such as Sand+Hazards+MG and Rain Offense. Your presumed idea of a Sun team is probably Ninetales/Dugtrio/Spinner/Sweeper/Sweeper/Filler. Ninetales is a requirement, as with all weather teams and their respective setters, but from there things can vary a surprising amount. Dugtrio is NOT a necessity, I've run successful Sun teams with Goth>Dug, and even one that didn't feature a trapper at all but instead abused Sunny Day on 4 mons. It's flexible. A spinner is also not necessary although obviously recommended, and the spinner can come in various forms. I've seen Donphan, Forretress, Starmie, Tentacruel, and even Screens Claydol. Magic Bounce is a viable alternative though, and one that I think the meta favors. Rocky Helmet Xatu has always been good but was only figured out in the last year or so of the meta, but Espeon also doesn't get nearly enough credit and threatens really common stuff like Keldeo and Terrakion. Surprise HP Fire with 200+ investment OHKOs standard Scizor out of Sun too. And Baton Pass into a sweeper is terrifying. Sweepers are probably the least variable of all the slots. We're looking at Venusaur, Volcarona, Victini, Sawsbuck and Victreebel for the most part (that's in order of power). The filler slot is usually a Steel type, a Dragon type, or another sweeper. Steel to counter dragons, dragons to beat up on other dragons or dent important walls, another sweeper because why not, Chlorophyll is overpowered. But before you say "well this is still pretty close to an archetype" I've built hundreds of Sun teams and you can do almost anything with them as long as something on your team is abusing it. I would say the potential variance of a good Sun team is upwards of 100 Pokemon.

2. Yeah, Heatran is a problem for most Sun teams, hence Dugtrio. Air Balloon doesn't see play anymore, but for good reason. Shed Shell is ridiculously uncommon and means you're directly preparing to wreck Sun plus you're running some sort of Wish passing on your team because even defensive Heatran can't last forever. But outside of that garbage item which will autowin you 8% of games and autolose you the rest, Dugtrio. If there's a problem getting a duggy on tran scenario, you're quite possibly a bad player. Alternatively, you aren't running enough of the other move that makes Sun broken, U-Turn. Remember when Genesect wasn't banned and everyone was spamming GeneSun with Ninetales/Dugtrio/Xatu/Venusaur/(Volc/Victini)? Most cancer metagame to date. But Genesect wasn't the inherent problem so much as it is that trappers naturally pair super well with turn moves. If you run a Scarf Jirachi in the filler slot and a Xatu over a spinner, that's 2 Pokemon that are directly countered by Heatran and also bait it in for its death. As for Heatran+Sands, first of all please clarify that it's Hippo and not Ttar because that makes a huge difference in the sand matchup. But even Hippo has to get out of the way of Venusaur, and if the latter is packing Sunny Day it's over for the sand team.

3. Of course Venusaur has 4MSS, every good sweeper in the tier has 4MSS. That's why they're still in the tier. If I Quiver Dance once and I kill the entire metagame, Volc's probably headed to Ubers, but I can't run Giga Drain and HP Ice on the same set so it isn't there yet. Different example but you get my point. However, whatever set it does choose to run still makes it a massive threat. And the sheer unpredictability of Venusaur is something else to take into consideration. There's a pure Growth sweeper set with 3 attacks, a Sleep Powder 3 attacks set, a Sleep Powder mixed set with EQ, a Sunny Day Solarbeam set, etc. Not to mention almost all variants run a Hidden Power but you're never sure if it's Fire or Ice and that makes everything a big guessing game when it comes to checking it (Latios or Scizor?) further contributing to the already cancerous effects it has on the game. Saying something has 4MSS doesn't actually mean anything.

4. First of all you construct the logical fallacy of assuming that because Drizzle+SS is broken and thus was banned, that Drizzle+SS sets the bar for any future weather+ability bans. But it's not a high/low here, Drizzle+SS was banned because it's broken as SHIT and if Drought+Chlorophyll is less broken it can still be ridiculous enough for us to get rid of. If I must actually engage the point, I guess I'll just tell you that you're wrong. Chlorophyll users can be spammed, I've done it, it works. And look at it this way: if it took Kingdra+Kabutops+Ludicolo for us to ban Drizzle+SS, but it only takes Venusaur for us to consider Drought+Chlorophyll, which is scarier?

5. This literally amounts to "you have to be good to play Sun". Yes, winning is generally easier if one doesn't suck. Moot point.

6. See above. You have to be good to play Sun. Contrary to popular belief, it is a very high skill cap. Ninetales gets trap killed by CBTar Pursuit with Rocks up. So don't let that situation happen. Most of the time, a Sun team packing Dugtrio will destroy a Sand team with only CBTar to set weather. All of CBTar's moves will break a 0 Defense IV Dugtrio Sash, meaning an easy turn/pass in t1, SR t2 and get sash popped, Reversal t3 for OHKO.

7. Spinblockers are exactly why Xatu and Espeon are so good. It doesn't matter if they only survive a couple switch-ins before dying, that's almost always enough time to catalyze a sweep with Venu/Volc. Easy solution is to run one of both, I prefer Xatu+Forretress because double turn moves are awesome as previously explained.

If it wasn't clear by now, I fully support suspecting Drought+Chlorophyll. Everything Ojama says in the OP is correct and he understands the metagame better than almost anyone else. Having a lot of personal experience both with and against Sun teams, I can say with complete certainty that they are the antithesis of a healthy metagame.

edit: I'll comment on Excadrill if necessary, but like Aldaron said, we should keep this to the most pressing issue for now. Stoutland is cute. That is all.
 
I don't really like suspects of olds gens unless something is THAT bad. I don't think Sun is stupid in the same way ADV Baton Pass was and would prefer not to muddle around in an "old metagame".

That said, I agree with Aldaron when he says that Chloro+Drought should be looked at before thinking about Excadrill. At the time, I was all for the banning of Drizzle/Drought but it's easier to say that when you have Kabutops, Kingdra, and Ludicolo in addition to threats like Venusaur. Right now there is only one broken weather-speed abuser in Venusaur so it seems like an easy way to handle things would be to ban that, a lot easier than it would have been to ban multiple weather abusers years ago. Do we believe Exeggutor or Stoutland to be broken? My point here is that the Chloro+Drought or Weather+Ability suggestions seem to be said with the thought in mind that Excadrill can be set free down the road as opposed to the most effective way to deal with Sun.

I understand the reasoning to not want the complex ban argument to come up but it's kind of hard to avoid. Many users point to complex bans leading to this situation in the first place, it is a fair thought to not want to continue the trend of using them.
 
I think venu to swift swim kingdra is a bit much, cuz kingdra's ability to just click its stab is much greater than Venu. I also think that sun is far from an excellent playstyle, or else you would see people use it more. I think the problem is more that it isn't fun to play against, and seems to cause a lessening of the skill gap and problems for building. I am fine with it being suspected, and I think the meta may be better w/o, even if it isn't broken in itself. Idk what form it would take but exca back would be cool.

Also where is the ban reuni? On like 50 pct of spl teams and sweeps half the games, with no perfect answer besides sd scizor jesus
 
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Of course if you're comparing it to Kingdra Venusaur's not gonna look as threatening...

The issue with sun is that it is really hard to prepare for (unlike rain, which most well built teams check without even trying) and makes games a matchup fest. In those battles where it has a good matchup, it's near impossible to out maneuver.

I've been mentioning a Reun suspect for the last few days on irc because it is fucking retarded with a billion hazards wearing down its limited counters that also happen to be Skarm/Ferro/Chomp/Land-T food (bar Mew, who needs Night Shade to actually beat Reun [and can lose to Shadow Ball, which is viable for those not fond of Focus Miss especially since hazards + RH Chomp/Ferro/Skarm wear down FB targets easily and arguably more reliably anyway, plus you can smack a Taunting Jellicent and... other Reun!] and Sableye, who is frail as fuck [and not all that good lol] - both get raped by Heatran and are worn down stupidly easily with hazards). Even if Exca dropped, while it's certainly a much better spinner than Star/Tenta/Forre/Donphan, it doesn't really love switching into the latter three. However as much as I would love it I think it'd be a lot harder to get pushed through...
 
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I am for the suspect test and it was a good idea to post it in IS first. It is kinda ironic, that today is the hottest day in germany (so far) this year and you want to ban sun. I like Kevins posts a lot and after the sun suspect we should discuss Exca. I could imagine, Genesect being a part of the BW2 OU meta as well, since it helps a lot against the stuff you have listed. (Kazam and Reuni) But that is another thing and step by step is best.
 
MikeDecIsHere said:
Well, I think the main reason that Swift Swim + Drizzle was considered to be far more dangerous than Drought was because of two main reasons. The first reason is that every single Pokemon that receives Swift Swim is also a Water-Type
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Beartic ;]

Posting to say that a weather + speed boosting ability suspect is a good idea (and relatively "clean" in terms of complexity). Building in BW2 is currently trash and I think this issue has a lot to do with it. Also wouldn't be opposed to a Reuniclus test, it's so easy to use for the amount of reward it gives and makes a lot of games almost mindless.

As for it being an "old metagame" I don't really see where the strength of this argument lies, if we can make a tier better why wouldn't we? It still gets active tournament play in multiple different tournaments, so why would we leave it as sub optimal if we can see clearly more work needs to be done?
 
fuck venusaur, seriously. in all the team archetypes which are in bw, sun is always the one that i fear the most. venusaur is an incredibly annoying pokemon to face considering it's already stellar natural bulk, coupled with good typing, and rather decent offenses. while it is rather true that venusaur has 4mss, half the time that doesn't even come into play considering how easy it is to pressure the everliving fuck out of tyranitar and heatran with dugtrio.

  • Very specific arch-type that needs to be followed on every sun team, meaning its easy to prepare for.
It isn't easy to prepare for lol. i guess if you want to make an outright c-team to sun then yeah sure you won't have any trouble facing it, but using stuff like shed shell heatran is generally petty bad outside of facing sun, and over preparing for sun leaves you weak to the other million threats that are in the bw metagame. also there are so many variations of sun (like wobb - kyu-b, for example) and some stuff without even any trappers! believe me sun is not as rigid as it may seem lol.
  • Heatran + Sands popularity forces Dugtrio on every sun team, which leaves room for pokemon like Latios and Gengar to pick up free kills. I have an Earthquake Venusaur team that Jimmy Turtwig used in Tour Finals vs Leftiez, and even when I used this 2 years ago vs Zebraiken in World Cup I was trashed by Heatran + Sand unless I could lure in Tran with Earthquake.
well i mean eq venusaur really isn't that great in the first place, but yeah you are kind of right when you said that dugtrio is forced on pretty much any sun team, i guess. although then again i've seen sun teams without dugtrio which do pretty damn well, they just don't run volc or something like that. hell, the teams i've seen without dugtrio generally aren't even heatran or ttar weak, and they pressure it well (take rey's team for example). latios and gengar are pretty good mons to use vs sun, i'll give you that. latios especially as the combination of draco + psyshock punishes everything that isn't a forretress or wobb, and if it has hp fire then you're certainly in even more trouble. but still i don't entirely agree with "oh latios wrecks all sun builds" as an argument considering how it can be rather easy to pressure latios on a sun team.
  • Venusaur does have 4 mss, you can't run all of Sleep Powder, Growth, Hidden Power Fire, and Sludge Bomb, without Growth its impossible to break through Chansey. Without Sleep Powder you lose out on sleeping Heatran if you lose Dugtrio which is a huge problem considering the best spinner on Sun is arguably Forretress, and Latios + Dragonite + Scizor are arguably the best revenge killers.
it does indeed have 4mss, but it also has dugtrio to eliminate it's best check. chansey is pretty annoying for modern sun, but it isn't impossible to beat by any means, especially if you manage to get enough residual damage on it. also sleep powder is one of the most annoying moves in the game, ESPECIALLY in BW, taking a pokemon out the game for pretty much the rest of it is an incredible gift, especially when venusaur is probably always going to get off its move first due to its speed in the sun. a ton of sweepers have 4mss, like terrakion, garchomp, volc, etc.
  • Unlike with Drizzle + Swift Swim, you can't really spam Ninetales + Chlorophyl sweepers, Kabutops and Ludicolo are actually pretty bulky and aren't going to fall over to non-stab priority moves like CB Dragonite Extremespeed which Chlorphyll sweepers like Lilligant and Shifttry will.
yeah you are right when you say that most sun teams don't rely on spamming ninetailes + 4 chlorophyll sweepers, because that would just make the sun team worse. you only really need 1 sun chlorophyll sweeper, venusaur. also venusaur is bulkier than both kabutops and ludicolo??? kabutops sure as hell can't tank a mach punch or bullet punch any easier than venusaur. kabutops can tank espeed sure, but then again it would completely fail in todays metagame with stuff like mach punch breloom. ludicolo can tank a bullet punch better, but it takes more from espeed and mach punch than venu. if you want my opinion mamoswine is by far the best priority pokemon to use vs sun due to how well ground + ice breaks up the majority of sun cores.
  • Ninetales struggles to win the weather war, you need to be very experienced to beat Rain-teams with Sun because after Stealth Rocks, Ninetales can switch into 2 scalds maximum (assuming switches onto rocks twice), so you're forced to Sunny Day predicting the switch in to Politoed.
yeah but you can burn politoed and the rest of the rain crew, also venusaur does pretty damn great against rain if you ask me. whenever i played venusaur while using rain i always hated it due to its ability to do damage with sleep powder + offensive moves while sun wasn't even up. yeah specs / scarftoed will be able to ruin rain's day all the time due to their strong water moves, but i've seen sun teams carry stuff like kyurem-b and dragonite to combat these strategies. also toed isn't switching into venusaur very often lol. + sun does a very good job at pressuring the shit out of rain's common rockers like ferrothorn / jirachi with dugtrio / strong fire moves / sleep powder.
  • Ninetales is easily trap killed by Tyranitar after rocks are down.
ehhhhhhhhhhh but you're always risking the dugtrio double + will-o-wisp burn. easier said than done by far.
  • Sun isn't spinning vs Gengar or Jellicent, whats Forretress and Donphan doing vs those...
gengar isn't that hard to spin against if you're carrying gyro ball for sure. donphan can't spin vs gengar or jellicent most likely, but once again gengar and jellicent both aren't very hard to pressure under sun, and neither are the majority of common rockers (ttar + heatran need to be very careful of dugtrio trapping them, garchomp is however a very good rocker vs sun, and hippowdon is also good as they can't be trapped by dugtrio, and garchomp can pressure forretress and scares out ninetails). i do see your point however that sun does have trouble spinning and keeping rocks of the field can be a constant uphill battle.
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sun is unhealthy and i want sun + chlorophyll to be suspected. i'll be the first one to say i don't like toying with old metagames, but if we're aiming to make one of the most hated metagames better, this would be a good start.

i'll have to think about the excadrill part a little more before i post on that, it seems like it could be a positive addition, but i'd have to think about it a little more first.

also, NO GENESECT EVER AGAIN
 
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