Firstly: Do you like the current BW OU metagame and think it's competitive?
Personally, I enjoy playing the current BW OU metagame and I guess by an extension of that, I can say that I like the BW OU metagame. Competitively speaking, I think it's a tad too match-up oriented, but that's the way the generation pans out and that's acceptable as it just makes preparation a bit more of a factor, so I'd say it's level of competitiveness is acceptable.
Secondly: What would you change, if anything? Starting with bans:
Drizzle: I'd never ban Drizzle as a whole in BW OU. I don't know if I have a personal bias on this as I've been an avid rain player since I started playing BW (although I can comfortably play just about anything in BW, rain certainly has its merits), but I just don't see it amounting up to being something broken or toxic for the state of the metagame. I acknowledge that Hydro Pumps in the rain are potent and the other benefits rain brings to teams can be game changing, but preparing for and defeating rain isn't an impossible task and it's (imo) not as hard as doing so for sun, which I'll get to later. So yea, not an advocate of a rain ban.
Kyurem-B: I get why it could be construed as broken, especially because it can arguably fit under the textbook definition of a 'broken' pokemon, but in practice it just isn't too much of a stand-out, game breaking threat, imo. It does well against some slow paced, semistallish teams (especially if they lack something like fat rachi or it's a certain KyuB set that deals with what the team has), but it's rare that a team is entirely unprepared for it and if that's the case then there's a point where you question the team being used and stop calling KyuB the problem. With that being said, I think KyuB could be looked into and there would be a justifiable argument to ban it, but I wouldn't advocate it myself as I just don't think there's enough going for it to consider KyuB broken.
Volcarona: Honestly, it needs a fuckton of support that hinders any argument for it being broken to the extent that I could never seriously call it broken myself. Yan's post sums this topic up quite well. If it wasn't for this, then I'd consider it controversial, but in the current metagame it's fine.
Keldeo: There are really fucking good pokemon and then there are broken pokemon. Keldeo fits into the former classification, being very good in BW OU, but not broken. Scarf, Specs, EB, and even CM are all viable builds and do their job well enough, but teams with Scarf Keldeo are fairly predictable (or at least Keldeo's set is) and EB has lost effect over time sort of, so I just don't see it being broken. It has checks, counters, etc. and quite a few of them while it doesn't have that bad an effect on the meta, so I'd be anti ban.
Garchomp: Same as Keldeo more or less - very good but not broken.
Venusaur: This thing is more controversial than some may consider it to be, as is sun as a whole, as it's really potent and the upside it has is enormous despite having a fair amount of weaknesses. With that being said, I think it's checkable to the extent that a straight ban or complex ban regarding chloro wouldn't be worthwhile, so just going to briefly say that I'm not a big fan of any bans here, but wouldn't be totally opposed to it either tbh.
Thirdly: If any or all of the above were banned, what would you unban?
Is there a perfect combination of bans and unbans that you feel would work best?
Nothing deserves to be freed and nothing deserves to be banned, in my opinion.
Personally, I enjoy playing the current BW OU metagame and I guess by an extension of that, I can say that I like the BW OU metagame. Competitively speaking, I think it's a tad too match-up oriented, but that's the way the generation pans out and that's acceptable as it just makes preparation a bit more of a factor, so I'd say it's level of competitiveness is acceptable.
Secondly: What would you change, if anything? Starting with bans:
Drizzle: I'd never ban Drizzle as a whole in BW OU. I don't know if I have a personal bias on this as I've been an avid rain player since I started playing BW (although I can comfortably play just about anything in BW, rain certainly has its merits), but I just don't see it amounting up to being something broken or toxic for the state of the metagame. I acknowledge that Hydro Pumps in the rain are potent and the other benefits rain brings to teams can be game changing, but preparing for and defeating rain isn't an impossible task and it's (imo) not as hard as doing so for sun, which I'll get to later. So yea, not an advocate of a rain ban.
Kyurem-B: I get why it could be construed as broken, especially because it can arguably fit under the textbook definition of a 'broken' pokemon, but in practice it just isn't too much of a stand-out, game breaking threat, imo. It does well against some slow paced, semistallish teams (especially if they lack something like fat rachi or it's a certain KyuB set that deals with what the team has), but it's rare that a team is entirely unprepared for it and if that's the case then there's a point where you question the team being used and stop calling KyuB the problem. With that being said, I think KyuB could be looked into and there would be a justifiable argument to ban it, but I wouldn't advocate it myself as I just don't think there's enough going for it to consider KyuB broken.
Volcarona: Honestly, it needs a fuckton of support that hinders any argument for it being broken to the extent that I could never seriously call it broken myself. Yan's post sums this topic up quite well. If it wasn't for this, then I'd consider it controversial, but in the current metagame it's fine.
Keldeo: There are really fucking good pokemon and then there are broken pokemon. Keldeo fits into the former classification, being very good in BW OU, but not broken. Scarf, Specs, EB, and even CM are all viable builds and do their job well enough, but teams with Scarf Keldeo are fairly predictable (or at least Keldeo's set is) and EB has lost effect over time sort of, so I just don't see it being broken. It has checks, counters, etc. and quite a few of them while it doesn't have that bad an effect on the meta, so I'd be anti ban.
Garchomp: Same as Keldeo more or less - very good but not broken.
Venusaur: This thing is more controversial than some may consider it to be, as is sun as a whole, as it's really potent and the upside it has is enormous despite having a fair amount of weaknesses. With that being said, I think it's checkable to the extent that a straight ban or complex ban regarding chloro wouldn't be worthwhile, so just going to briefly say that I'm not a big fan of any bans here, but wouldn't be totally opposed to it either tbh.
Thirdly: If any or all of the above were banned, what would you unban?
Is there a perfect combination of bans and unbans that you feel would work best?
Nothing deserves to be freed and nothing deserves to be banned, in my opinion.
