np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)

[SJCrew]

I find it funny when people say that now that Excadrill is gone, hazards will become 'more common'. I know what they mean, but the phrasing is just poor. Both 5th Gen OU and UU are absolutely obsessed with entry hazards, whether it's getting rid of them or keeping them. Permanent weather plays a huge part in this - I want Politoed as dead as quickly as possible for the sake of my own weather. Same for those walls that keep my sweepers from destroying everything. Ferrothorn laughs at HP Fire under Rain. Sand in UU means Omastar and Cacturne can now Spike worth half a shit. Froslass.

Now we have another viable spinblocker in the tier and have recently banned the best Rapid Spinner in the game by far. Worse comes to worst, we'll see more Hitmontop in OU. That or we'll just be stubborn as fuck and concentrate an absurd amount of usage into Forry, Starmie, Tentacruel, and Alakazam. I don't mind Alakazam usage increasing, actually, more people need to recognize how good he is now.

Down with Sableye.

 

[EpicTurtle]

Funny how after Excadrill got banned, I simply replaced Excadrill with Starmie and got a 8 battle consecutive win streak. With Excadrill gone, it's a lot easier to sweep, now you don't have to worry about getting revenged killed as much and you can wreck stuff up with frail sweepers. I find that my matches are a lot shorter than how they used to be with Excadrill.

 

[New World Order]

Well it has a lot to do with the fact that every good team had an Excadrill check. So it was not easy at all for Excadrill to get sweeps. Starmie on the other hand, much less people prepare for it, and the teams that are prepared for it are usually just coincidental since they just slapped a Ferrothorn or something onto the team.

Speaking of spinners. Now that Excadrill is gone. You guys should start using this guy:

Hide

Dusclops @ Eviolite
Pressure
Calm
252 Hp/ 176 SpD/ 80 Def
Rest
Sleep Talk
Night Shade
Will-o-Wisp/ Toxic

This is bar none the best spinblocker in the game. Starmie? Dusclops says screw you? Tentacruel? Dusclops says lol. Forretress? nope, try again, even Payback does diddly shit. The only way somebody is getting a spin in is by using Foresight Hitmontop... which really isn't a good pokemon at all.

 

[girazard]

Well it has a lot to do with the fact that every good team had an Excadrill check. So it was not easy at all for Excadrill to get sweeps. Starmie on the other hand, much less people prepare for it, and the teams that are prepared for it are usually just coincidental since they just slapped a Ferrothorn or something onto the team.

Speaking of spinners. Now that Excadrill is gone. You guys should start using this guy:

Hide

Dusclops @ Eviolite
Pressure
Calm
252 Hp/ 176 SpD/ 80 Def
Rest
Sleep Talk
Night Shade
Will-o-Wisp/ Toxic

This is bar none the best spinblocker in the game. Starmie? Dusclops says screw you? Tentacruel? Dusclops says lol. Forretress? nope, try again, even Payback does diddly shit. The only way somebody is getting a spin in is by using Foresight Hitmontop... which really isn't a good pokemon at all.

But then Forretress would just set up Spikes/T Spikes on you, wouldn't it?

 

[yee]

Jellicent is bar none the best spinblocker in the game. Starmie? Jellicent says screw you? Tentacruel? Jellicent says lol. Forretress? nope, try again, even Payback does diddly shit, and it can't set up 5 layers on you. The only way somebody is getting a spin in is by using Foresight Hitmontop... which really isn't a good pokemon at all.

 

[Meru]

People really overglorify the benefits of Eviolite, and insanely underestimate the benefits of Leftovers.

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

I find it funny when people say that now that Excadrill is gone, hazards will become 'more common'. I know what they mean, but the phrasing is just poor. Both 5th Gen OU and UU are absolutely obsessed with entry hazards, whether it's getting rid of them or keeping them. Permanent weather plays a huge part in this - I want Politoed as dead as quickly as possible for the sake of my own weather. Same for those walls that keep my sweepers from destroying everything. Ferrothorn laughs at HP Fire under Rain. Sand in UU means Omastar and Cacturne can now Spike worth half a shit. Froslass.

Now we have another viable spinblocker in the tier and have recently banned the best Rapid Spinner in the game by far. Worse comes to worst, we'll see more Hitmontop in OU. That or we'll just be stubborn as fuck and concentrate an absurd amount of usage into Forry, Starmie, Tentacruel, and Alakazam. I don't mind Alakazam usage increasing, actually, more people need to recognize how good he is now.

Down with Sableye.

out of genuine curiosity what sort of alakazam do you use that is so good?

 

[Avira]

People really overglorify the benefits of Eviolite, and insanely underestimate the benefits of Leftovers.

Yeah, they really do. Passive damage really does a number to Eviolite mons and I would never consider using any of them in OU.

 

[shrang]

Here's a fun Spinner:

Sandslash @ Earth Plate / Life Orb
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 192 HP / 252 Atk / 64 Spe
Nature: Adamant
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Rapid Spin

Sand Rush not being released yet kind of sucks, but Sandslash can make use of what it has. A +2 LO Earthquake has a very high chance of OHKOing 252/252+ Jellicent after SR (86.39% - 101.98%). 64 Speed EVs to outspeed Wobbuffet, and Sand Veil may potentially net you a free kill.

 

[Cold Fusion]

Speaking of Rapid Spin and spin blockers, how many of you have tried out Cofagrigus?

 

[WinstonShnozwick]

How about offensive spinblockers? It sounds a bit weird, but why sit there and take hits while blocking if you can just kill the spinners? Gengar, Chandelure.. (just a thought)

 

[Super Mario Bro]

How about offensive spinblockers? It sounds a bit weird, but why sit there and take hits while blocking if you can just kill the spinners? Gengar, Chandelure.. (just a thought)

While they may be good at other things, most offensive ghosts don't do a great job at spinblocking. Starmie and Gyro Ball Forretress walk all over Gengar, for example, but have a harder time dealing with more defensive ghosts like Dusclops and Jellicent.

 

[GtM]

I know what you meant, but I was just stressing that bans only exist for the purpose of bettering the metagame, and I'd rather have a fun OU metagame with a huge banlist then a metagame in which centralizing or broken Pokemon are allowed.

You know, the 5th Gen Ubers list is actually smaller than the 4th Gen one at the moment, since stuff like Deoxys-D and Mew are roaming around.

 

[NijaSkills]

Jellicent is bar none the best spinblocker in the game. Starmie? Jellicent says screw you? Until it takes a LO Thunder(bolt) to the face and is 2HKO'edTentacruel? Jellicent says lol. Forretress? nope, try again, even Payback does diddly shit, and it can't set up 5 layers on you. The only way somebody is getting a spin in is by using Foresight Hitmontop... which really isn't a good pokemon at all.

 

[animenagai]

Man I've been waiting for these 2 bans since before world cup. About fornicating time.

 

[Yeah Galo Sengan]

Couple of impressions from casually laddering yesterday:

-A lot less sand teams
-Slightly more sun teams
-Every other team is rain stall/semi stall
-Zapdos, Lucario and other long-forgotten shit are staging a comeback

 

[New World Order]

that doesn't answer my question, i'm asking what set; obviously it has magic guard

Here are a couple great ones:

Hide

Sub 3 Attack Ala

Alakazam @ Life Orb
Magic Guard
Timid
252 SpA/ 252 Spe/ 4 Hp
- Substitute
- Psychic/ Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast/ HP Fire

Hide

Crutch

Alakazam @ Focus Sash
Magic Guard
Timid
252 SpA/ 252 Spe/ 4 Hp
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power Fire

Hide

Stallbreaker

Alakazam @ Life Orb
Magic Guard
Timid
252 SpA/ 252 Spe/ 4 Hp
Taunt
Psychic
Focus Blast
Shadow Ball/ Recover

 

[Darusare]

on the stall breaker i use psyshock
but its a personal choice thing

 

[Eggbert]

The same can be said about Rain Stall. People like to base their Rain Stall teams off of pre-existing rain stall or just simply copy it. I just designed a Rain Stall team with Giga Punch that doesn't have Ferrothorn, Tentacruel, or Chansey (let's see how that goes, lol).

On the other hand, Rain offense is not at all stuck to a certain template. All it needs is Rain from Politoed...

You can't blame Rain for player's lack of creativity. Bog standards will always be bog standards, and people like to use bog standard teams. It's the unavoidable truth. It's up to individual players to step up their game and create something that they can call their own.

The difference is that rain stall requires you to pretty much have Toed / Tenta / Ferro in the least in order to be successful. Having ferrocruel lets you set up all three hazards and leave space for other team members, so it is more likely to be stronger.

Rain offense needs to have certain mons so they don't lose to anti-rain pokemon. Jirachi or Scizor is seen on most rain teams so that Lati@s doesn't beat them. Toxicroak to beat Ferrothorn, ect. It isn't locked to a template as much, but the best rain is. Why bother to make a new rain build if it is probably going to be inferior to the existing rain? Also the existing rain already works really well and doesn't take much effort to build, so that's another plus.

 

[ForsakenCarnage]

Why is it that most people dont get the difference between Sand rush+sandstorn and rain+swift swim?

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Y U NO USE CHANDELURE?

No seriously, I'm using a Flame Charge set with LO and all I need is a single free turn to wreak havoc on both Rain, Sun, and Sand(Now that Exca is gone).

Remove T-tar, Tran, Dnite, and the uncommon counters/checks and you got yourself a monster. Why not Heatran or Volcarona?
Well, Heatran gets walled by nearly every Water type while Chandy gets both Shadow Ball and Energy ball to deal with them. Volcarona can be used, but I really dislike the 4x Rock weakness and how more things can resist it's moves, like Band Terrakion(which LO Energy Ball OHKOs IIRC) and Jellicent(Yes, I realize Jelli can't do too much to Volcarona, but getting walled isn't fun and Offensive Moths risk Toxic).

<3 Chandelure

 

[tehy]

I find it funny when people say that now that Excadrill is gone, hazards will become 'more common'. I know what they mean, but the phrasing is just poor. Both 5th Gen OU and UU are absolutely obsessed with entry hazards, whether it's getting rid of them or keeping them. Permanent weather plays a huge part in this - I want Politoed as dead as quickly as possible for the sake of my own weather. Same for those walls that keep my sweepers from destroying everything. Ferrothorn laughs at HP Fire under Rain. Sand in UU means Omastar and Cacturne can now Spike worth half a shit. Froslass.

Now we have another viable spinblocker in the tier and have recently banned the best Rapid Spinner in the game by far. Worse comes to worst, we'll see more Hitmontop in OU. That or we'll just be stubborn as fuck and concentrate an absurd amount of usage into Forry, Starmie, Tentacruel, and Alakazam. I don't mind Alakazam usage increasing, actually, more people need to recognize how good he is now.

Down with Sableye.

Yeah, i'm considering replacing hippo, my baby, with a claydol...

Alhough it's really more like forry for skarm, sableye for exca, and vappy for jelly.

 

[alphatron]

Drought heatran is walled by no water types. Specs/Scarftran for life.

LO chandy is legit. You can almost compare it to flame charge heatran as they essentially have the same purpose but they lose to different things. T-tar can be removed by Chandy itself if you forgo energy ball for hp fighting, which isn't out of the question as they only things you'll probably care to hit with energy ball are the ground/water pokes.

@ tehy: If you try Claydol in OU, you shall be dissapointed.

 

[tehy]

Kefka, if someone knows you have a chandelure, they're not getting rid of their chandelure counter, so how are you getting rid of any of those?\

And jelly rapes volcarona, people are just stupid and use scald over night shade for no adequately explored reason. Seriously, logically i'd hit anything i'd hit with scald with either night shade,will-o-wisp, or taunt.

 

[tehy]

Drought heatran is walled by no water types. Specs/Scarftran for life.

LO chandy is legit. You can almost compare it to flame charge heatran as they essentially have the same purpose but they lose to different things. T-tar can be removed by Chandy itself if you forgo energy ball for hp fighting, which isn't out of the question as they only things you'll probably care to hit with energy ball are the ground/water pokes.

@ tehy: If you try Claydol in OU, you shall be dissapointed.

Well, claydol is a personal favorite, from back in gen 3 emerald battle factory when i spammed quakeslide swagger psych upping. And i need a spinner/recoverer, but i've settled on wishporeon plus pain split forry.

Edit: It doesn't learn recover? Could've sworn it did.