With the release of SV's first DLC, many changes happened to our metagame. Some new Pokemon were added to the tier and some previously existing Pokemon gained new strategies. Fitting into the latter grouping was Baxcalibur, who gained access to Scale Shot and optimized team support.
Baxcalibur was already one of the most potent Pokemon in the metagame and perhaps on track for a traditional suspect and ban if the last metagame had more time. However, DLC came and many people thought this would bring increased counterplay to Baxcalibur with more fast Pokemon, more Fairy types, and so on. With the addition of Scale Shot, the set mix of Baxcalibur became more threatening as it was able to boost its speed while doing great deals of damage. People already used Loaded Dice with Icicle Spear, but now there was even more reason to use this. Throw in the conventional sets, the likelihood of support from Snow Warning and Aurora Veil, and the Terastallization component that allows it to circumvent common revenge killing options and you get one of the strongest options SV OU has ever seen.
We elected to include Baxcalibur in the first post-DLC SV OU tiering survey, which is still ongoing as we speak. While I do not have a formal final score for it yet, I can say with confidence that Baxcalibur's score was one of the highest in the history of our tiering surveys. This prompted us to conduct an emergency council vote, which is similar to how we handled Regieleki with the release of Pokemon HOME.
The vote went as follows:
Given this, Baxcalibur is unanimously banned from SV OU! This is effective immediately Kris Marty -- thank you so much.
*Ruft has been very busy with IRL matters this weekend and I will edit in his vote in the immediate future when we have it. He has been one of the most active and helpful members of the council all generation, but unfortunately his timezone owned him a bit here. His vote would not have changed the verdict regardless.
Stay tuned for the following in the coming days:
Baxcalibur was already one of the most potent Pokemon in the metagame and perhaps on track for a traditional suspect and ban if the last metagame had more time. However, DLC came and many people thought this would bring increased counterplay to Baxcalibur with more fast Pokemon, more Fairy types, and so on. With the addition of Scale Shot, the set mix of Baxcalibur became more threatening as it was able to boost its speed while doing great deals of damage. People already used Loaded Dice with Icicle Spear, but now there was even more reason to use this. Throw in the conventional sets, the likelihood of support from Snow Warning and Aurora Veil, and the Terastallization component that allows it to circumvent common revenge killing options and you get one of the strongest options SV OU has ever seen.
We elected to include Baxcalibur in the first post-DLC SV OU tiering survey, which is still ongoing as we speak. While I do not have a formal final score for it yet, I can say with confidence that Baxcalibur's score was one of the highest in the history of our tiering surveys. This prompted us to conduct an emergency council vote, which is similar to how we handled Regieleki with the release of Pokemon HOME.
The vote went as follows:
| Finchinator | Ruft* | ausma | ima | Lily | mind gaming | NJNP | Star | TPP | xavgb |
| Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
Given this, Baxcalibur is unanimously banned from SV OU! This is effective immediately Kris Marty -- thank you so much.
*Ruft has been very busy with IRL matters this weekend and I will edit in his vote in the immediate future when we have it. He has been one of the most active and helpful members of the council all generation, but unfortunately his timezone owned him a bit here. His vote would not have changed the verdict regardless.
Stay tuned for the following in the coming days:
- SV OU tiering survey results
- Potential first post-DLC SV OU radar
- Potential future tiering votes or suspects