What's wrong with the metagame?

[MMII]

I think it's pretty much widely agreed that BW2 OU is the worst OU metagame we have had yet and would receive a lot less attention if it wasn't the standard one. (Don't worry too much if you disagree or if I'm making a false assumption, the point of this thread isn't to complain.) There's been a lot of suspect tests to try to fix this and even more that people are asking for, many of which would involve quite drastic changes. I feel a lot of this recent BAN ALL philosophy stems from the desperation in trying to transform this perverted metagame to match standards many have grown accustomed to from previous generations and other tiers. This becomes even more evident in threads discussing past metagames where Pokemon that would receive a near unanimous ban in BW2 OU are actually defended in their respective metagame by some of the most vocal of the current pro-ban members.

This leads me to beg the question, what is it about current BW2 OU metagame that upsets players today? Now here is the important twist, I don't want any specific names used at all. That means no mentions of Landorus, Rain or, heck, even weather. I want us to approach this question from a purely fundamental approach. This is to avoid the thread turning into another hate bandwagon as it is a lot easier to carry biases and generate public dislike when specific names like John Proctor are used. I'd rather see arguments advancing ideas like a disproportionate amount of offensive threats to defensive ones or a bloated metagame that exceeds the 6 teamslot limit. It would also be nice if you could explain your own personal suspect testing philosophy and how you decide whether something gets the boot to put the previous perceived issues into your perspective. (If you feel the metagame is a good one feel free to justify it in the same manner.)

 

[BKC]

The fact that the majority of this generation's battles among better players is decided on team matchup (we all know what it stems from) more than anything else is why it sucks so much. None of this shit exists in lower tiers or past gens. Sure, this is what makes BW OU ~unique~ but why should that impact the way tiering is done at all? In-battle skill, what should be the most important aspect of competitive Pokemon, is almost thrown out the window most of the time. Pre-battle preparation is more important, which is how you can tell something is really fucked up. It's important of course, but it should not be more important than what happens in the actual battle.

I thought we wanted a competitive metagame, i.e. one where the better player (the guy who makes the better plays in the actual battle, not the guy who spent hours counterteaming his opponent) wins the majority of the time. With this source of ridiculous matchup influencing the metagame, you're either a mindless abuser of it (i.e. clicking the water move in rain, why bother predicting when you 2HKO resists with no drawback whatsoever) or bending over backwards to make sure you're not going to get raped by it. This isn't what I'd call healthy.

My personal view on how suspect testing should be run isn't complicated... just suspect, not necessarily ban, things that are deemed bad for the metagame (scrub-friendly garbage that lower the amount of skill in games that they're involved in, for example perma-rain specs hydro pumps). There's a reason why the lower BW tiers and the past gens are so great; there's no automatic, easy route to getting wins, you have to earn it.

edit:

a wide spread support provides significant unbalanced advantages that allows multiple Pokemon in the metagame to mindlessly use brute force to create win conditions rather than tatical play

This is exactly what I'm talking about and what's wrong with it. It was hard to not name names sorry :(

 

[MMII]

Again, I want to avoid naming specific things like weather as it brings a lot of biases and personal assumptions. I'd rather you talk about more about how this unnamed weather fundamentally affects the metagame. (something like a wide spread support provides significant unbalanced advantages that allows multiple Pokemon in the metagame to mindlessly use brute force to create win conditions rather than tatical play.) I'll make an example post sooner or later to explain better what I'm looking for. (and where you can hopefully understand why I'm asking you to be so vague)

 

[Stratos]

The metagame is simply too offensive. In the past, games have always been built around smart switching, and hell even in lower tiers they still are. Sure there are HO teams in RU, UU, or DPP; however, they are much less effective there imo. But in OU, the entire point is just to maintain the offensive pressure, because the sweepers have such fucking insane STABs (270 power attacks that aren't Explosion?) that you basically have to switch not just resists but immunes into them in order to avoid a sac. But only defensive Pokemon can avoid being 2-shotted by coverage moves, so you're still stuck using shitty immobile immune pokemon, which lets the opponent's next sweeper come in and set up... frankly put, switching to a 100% healthy resist is often a bad idea in this meta. which is retarded.

 

[Neliel]

There are too many pokemon, too much diversity that a single team with 6 pokemon obviously cant beat everything. And a metagame where you cant beat everything but only deciding wether you are going to lose to x or to y, its hardly competitive. The increase of power also helped to make bw even more shitty; have you ever thought about the fact that something with 110 base atk is considered mediocre?
The last problem i see is with the mentality of some people here, specifically reguarding bans. If a metagame needs 20 pokemon to join ubers to be more competitive, then who cares, lets ban them all. probably bw could have been better if we banned more ( i stress more) things, but its too late now to complaints.

 

[George Eliot]

1. Power of offensive Pokémon and moves relative to defensive ones discourage defensive play. As an example, SR (as offense) vs Rapid Spin (as defense). Offensive play took enormous jumps forward in the transition from 4th to 5th gen, while defense gained very little comparatively.

2. Lack of fluidity in banning process. This might be contentious, but I don't see our current suspect process as being particularly effective when dealing with any aspects of the game considered more "fundamental" than individual Pokémon. I'd prefer that the community was given ways to actively test these aspects, without that necessarily leading immediately to a ban / not ban, so that we're not relying solely on theorymon. I believe that many of these fundamental aspects are responsible for the unbalanced nature of the current meta.

 

[Garchomp for president]

I do like the OU meta, since im all for hyper offence, but I do agree with BKC in that, perma-rain Thunder+Hurrcaine is a deadly combo to say the least (sorry for being a little baised this early) This metagame is very compact, its stale and old. When do you see metagross? (yeah remeber him?) Most people want top tier OU. Not what fits the team best (Notice I say most, not all cause alot of people do try to advance the metagame) Sorry to go into weather again but I mean, weather is OU isnt it? Anyway weather in past generations, to me, is a very effective tool used to help guide the users team in a direction the user choses. This can currently be seen in ubers with Groundon and Kyogre. DW though, gave 2 pokes a power like none other. This is the sole reson both of them are seen in OU and one of them seen at all. Obviously we know who they are but for the sake of everyone who dosent know OU ( Honestly even if you dont know OU you should know) ill keep it quiet. Rain, in all acordanance, is probably the worst influence to this bloating of BW2 as even its walls (Tentacruel, name I forgot but evo of frillish) do heavy damage with rain boosted scalds, while pokes like Jolt can spew thunder and volcanora launch hurrcains with perfect accruacy. A very pure weather would be sand (In all fairness, one could aurgue that walls like ferro abuse it with its SpD raise) since it provides almost no (With the banning of sand veil) offencive pressence other than some awsome additions to OU that would'nt normaly be seen like mybe sandslash.

Well to me, suspect testing is a bit tedious on account, they can ban or keep something no matter what. I think the ideal suspect test is some smogon mods going inside a private group in which only smogon mods can join. Once inside, they state some useage statistics, and depending on what is tested, Moody for example, they put its distribution and start talking about the pokes that get moody. (Lol) Considering all this, the few selected mods decide but in order to ban must have a 65-70% agreement or more. I do have to agree, it takes the power out of people but this is a very importaint matter reserved for smogons finest.

 

[Dark Fallen Angel]

I do like the OU meta, since im all for hyper offence, but I do agree with BKC in that, perma-rain Thunder+Hurrcaine is a deadly combo to say the least (sorry for being a little baised this early) This metagame is very compact, its stale and old. When do you see metagross? (yeah remeber him?) Most people want top tier OU. Not what fits the team best (Notice I say most, not all cause alot of people do try to advance the metagame) Sorry to go into weather again but I mean, weather is OU isnt it? Anyway weather in past generations, to me, is a very effective tool used to help guide the users team in a direction the user choses. This can currently be seen in ubers with Groundon and Kyogre. DW though, gave 2 pokes a power like none other. This is the sole reson both of them are seen in OU and one of them seen at all. Obviously we know who they are but for the sake of everyone who dosent know OU ( Honestly even if you dont know OU you should know) ill keep it quiet. Rain, in all acordanance, is probably the worst influence to this bloating of BW2 as even its walls (Tentacruel, name I forgot but evo of frillish) do heavy damage with rain boosted scalds, while pokes like Jolt can spew thunder and volcanora launch hurrcains with perfect accruacy. A very pure weather would be sand (In all fairness, one could aurgue that walls like ferro abuse it with its SpD raise) since it provides almost no (With the banning of sand veil) offencive pressence other than some awsome additions to OU that would'nt normaly be seen like mybe sandslash.

Well to me, suspect testing is a bit tedious on account, they can ban or keep something no matter what. I think the ideal suspect test is some smogon mods going inside a private group in which only smogon mods can join. Once inside, they state some useage statistics, and depending on what is tested, Moody for example, they put its distribution and start talking about the pokes that get moody. (Lol) Considering all this, the few selected mods decide but in order to ban must have a 65-70% agreement or more. I do have to agree, it takes the power out of people but this is a very importaint matter reserved for smogons finest.

Frillish's evolution is Jellicent, and Ferrothorn does not gain a SpD boost from sandstorm because it is a Grass/Steel-type and only Rock-types gain that boost.

The main problem with the current metagame is the weather. Yes, the weather. Not sandstorm or hail, as sandstorm currently has very few actual abusers, and is perfectly possible to create a sandstorm team without using said abusers; also, people who use sandstorm should take into account the passive damage from sandstorm. The same can be said about hail, and that's rarer.

The problem is rain and sun, and the boosts they give to attacks. This is because when creating a team, you are pratically forced to take into account the rain-boosted Water-type attacks and sun-boosted Fire-type attacks. There are a lot of hard-hitting attacks that aren't boosted by weather, but those are perfectly possible to deal with, without having to ruin teambuilding. This is not even taking into account the Thunders, Hurricanes, and Chlorophyll abusers. This severely limit your options, and this is one of the factors that make teambuilding hard on this metagame, at least if you want to be creative or original.

 

[TUO]

This problem of this metagame is that there are two many powerful moves and how they are easily spammable while having very little drawbacks and opportunity cost (Focus Miss?). This is what heavy offense emphasizes on, with stuff like Rain Dance Kingdra power (that mon is one of the best atm) and the massive damage of Sheer Force Landorus, Keldeo and the list goes on (i don't think this is namedropping, i'm jus tmentioning powerful hard hitters that are used in heavy offense lol). It turns all 50-50 "prediction" games and from raw skill to how well can my team handle this amount of power. Most teams can have specific cores to let them handle Hydro Pumps better, but how do you handle Hydro Pumps, Hurricanes, Thunders, Draco Meteors, Close Combats Sheer Force Earth Powers, and Outrages all at once?

Well the first answer would be to just offensively check and outspeed those Pokemon. There are two problems with that. First, it centralizes the metagame on offense, which is not a good thing at all. Second problem is the constant rise of speed creep, and the fight for speed iwth Scarf Latios, Chlorophyll and with the new speed standards turn some mons to become outright inviable (if the speed standard wasn't so high, i would argue Chandelure would be a force in the meta, even though this thing already IS viable).

So to summarize that. Power is dealt with by speedy power, which invalidates Pokemon with the lack of speed, of course there are exceptions like weather stall teams but that's what makes slower teams outright suffer against the current metaeither in fighting whatever overly damaging playstyle there is.

So the question lies on how the suspect testing can be affected by this. If we ban specific moves and Pokemon, all we'll end up doing is centralizing the meta on to the next powerful thing (i think this was evident in Deo-D and Torn-T ban) and there seems to e so much to the point that it doesn't seem really manageable, and taking out thing can actually remove most diversity in the metagame. I have an unorthodox solution that can be done given time is not a concern. We can use a starting point (like BW2 UU or BW1 OU, maybe with a banned Terrakion in there) and suspect the mons above in that limbo between UU and current ubers, or suspect individually the mons that got huge buffs in BW2. I think that will make a solid ground for a better metagame. It's a weird idea, but I have a good feeling it would work.

 

[toshimelonhead]

The big complaint I have with OU is that there are certain cores that are really tough to break, but none of these pokemon are great on their own. For example, a weather core with Keldeo / Landorus / Tyranitar can tear through most of the meta without much problem. Add NP Celebi to pass boosts to Keldeo and Landorus and stall has no chance of winning. We have broken offensive cores without broken pokemon. Weather just made it easy to make cores because you could use weather + 2 weather abusers + support and have a pretty decent team.

 

[Homeslice]

I'm sure I'll get some bad rap for this, but we don't suspect enough to keep up with the insane power creep added in (along with more Pokemon), and when we do suspect, it feels like everyone who wanted to keep the suspected thing/mon ladders up abusing what we're trying to ban, then votes to keep it. I can't mention names of things, but that's just my take on what hasn't been said yet.

Other than that, I mostly agree with everyone above me. There's too many Pokemon in OU compared to other tiers (excluding NU) that are versatile enough to counter most of the tier when you throw in another fantastic mon to pair with the first versatile one. The reason stall is dead is because it's literally impossible to make a team of 6 that isn't weak to a solid threat in the metagame. No matter how hard you try, there will be a type, or just a mon you're weak to because (like Pwnemon said) the power of Pokemon is too high. When you look at other tiers, like UU, there's a legitimate balance between strategies, not just spam weather with 2-3 sweepers and support. In UU, almost every type is reasonably included in the tier, with multiple viable mons coming from lower tiers. In OU, there's almost no viable mons from lower tiers because of the absolute shitfest that is coming from the power of the OU mons. Sure, there's "walls" in OU- but their main priority isn't to be a wall, it's to provide Hazards and Status against the other team so your overly-powered mons can become more powerful. This is totally apparent, take Skarmory for example- it was (arguably) the best defensive wall in DPP OU. Now everyone primarily uses it as a Custap Lead to spam hazards.

The last thing I'll say is I agree with what people are saying about the less skill involved factor. All you need is something easily abusable and abuse it, and hey, 1850+ ladder points for you.

 

[termi]

Nice thread, I like the idea.

I'd say one of the main reasons the metagame is so offensive (and therefor lacks real quality, for I hate hyperoffense) is that there are so many offensive powerhouses running around that playing defensive becomes too hard for many players, because you can't check every offensive threat, especially when some are so strong that resistances are barely of use anymore. DW, while giving a lot of previously underused mons a good chance of gaining more use, has also given some offensive threats that already had the potential to become top-tier/offensive threats that were already top-tier to begin with, abilities that pretty much made these mons OP.

Another thing I notice is how bulky offense is inviable as of now unless the attacker in question has a very strong priority move to compensate for low speed. The problem is that with so many fast offensive threats spamming double STAB Hydro Pumps and +1 Outrages and the like, bulky offensive mons will be 2HKO'd regardless. Things that aren't 2HKO'd by aforementioned kind of attacks must be dedicated in walling and won't be able to strike back hard enough.

That being said, I do find it easy for myself to get a good rating in today's metagame with sand semistall. I guess it's kind of an anti-meta thing that most teams can't handle or something, idk. Sand remains my favourite weather, for it has plenty of abusers, but most of these are defensive and you don't need to have a team full of abusers to make it work. Having sand as the most used weather would be a nice step in the right direction.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

The huge amount of offensive threats and the few defensive threats. Offensive is a better playstyle than stall because of that. BW has finally reached the ridiculous point of a meta filled with perfect sweepers and flawed walls. I wont go in this ''weather is broken'' crap because we all know the metagame would be shit even without it. I will go into a more general discussion. Just look at threats like terrakion, keldeo, landorus-i, salamence etc. Wtf is wrong with them? The answer is nothing. High offenses, high speed, decent bulk, great coverage. Then we look at jellicent, tentacruel, skarmory, celebi, ferrothorn etc. They either have one of their defensive stats being ridiculous low or have a ridiculous exploitable 4x weakness. Then we get at a look at the items and movepool on the offensive side. Choice items, LIFE ORB, expert belt, Hydro pump, fire blast, close combat, earthquake, outrage, flare blitz. Now lets go to the defensive side. Leftovers and, erm... eviolite? Also the awesomely distributed recovery moves which alakazam totally needs more than snorlax right? And of course we always have the extremely wide distributed cosmic power. Looking at abilities we have the same thing. Moxie, guts, huge power, mold breaker. Then we go to the defensive side. Magic bounce limited to TWO pokemons, marvel scale limited to ONE, pressure having one of the most random distributions i have ever see (lol weavile), magic guard limited to 3 evolutionary lines, intimidate being pretty much limited to offensive pokemons for some reason, the terrible distributed shed skin etc. The point is, its no longer about banning anything. Its about how the metagame is designed to be offensive and decided on sheer power and less on skill. Theres really anything we can do other than try to make it a little better. We can go and suspect as much as we want but the metagame will never become balanced, Gen 5 has already been defined and we can just hope that Gen 6 will completely change for the better.

 

[MMII]

Okay so I want to remind everybody, again, to avoid mentioning anything as specific in a metagame as weather or Pokemon. Even when used as an example, everybody has their own personal opinions about these Pokemon that allows them to interpret it in a different way. Also, the suspect testing bit was more for you guys to share what mindset you are in when participating in them more than giving your own personal opinion on how it should be done.

I'll give my opinion on this metagame now. I want to start with sharing my personal ideals and mindset that I have when participating in suspect tests. When all is said and done, I feel that it is the metagame itself that should be considered when deciding the placement of a special element. I'm not too picky about what sprites I'm playing with as long as the game I'm playing with them meets my ideal characteristics. I feel these ideals are best reflected in this thread but there are certain that I value more than others. For me, competitive Pokemon is a chance for me to express my identity through a constant and engaging competition all with a setting that features something that I've grown up with and have a special attachment for. So Balance, Variety, and Skill are the characteristics that matter to me most. Variety gives me options with which I can express myself, Balance justifies these by allowing me to use them in serious matches that confront the tastes and preferences between my opponent and I through the use of Skill. (either teambuilding or battling) When I'm considering which way I'm going to vote, I'm looking at how the suspected element affects the metagame as a whole, especially in regards to these three. "Overcentralization" or high usage of the specific element is irrelevant to me if the metagame isn't being negatively affected. With that in mind, there are quite a few things in OU that I dislike based upon this mindset.

• There is a disproportion between offensive threats and defensive ones that reduce the legitimate variety in the metagame by disrupting the overall balance.
• The heavy favoritism towards offensive play reduces matches to glorified speed creeps since defensive checks are rare, inefficient, or risky.
• Certain powerful support pushes this towards even greater extremes due to the metagame's lack of sufficient countermeasures.

All these things leave a metagame that is shallow and stupid. There's nothing that I would say is inherently a problem, the metagame itself just simply doesn't have the means to adapt to these new drastic changes. I've not much idea which bits need to be removed (clearly, nothing else can be added) or what is the most efficient way of going about things. I do not like the idea of unnecessary bans as it risks reducing variety (which makes it difficult for me to sympathize with those who think we should ban until things work) and I feel it is very easy to ban things that shouldn't go since the source of this flooding is difficult to pinpoint, much less how to deal with it without butchering everything.

 

[HUARGH]

Seeing as you have all sorts of funky clauses (don't talk about weather, don't talk about this, don't mention that) and keep insisting on abstract stuff I'll just chime in with a short post saying that this game isn't as rock/paper/scissors as previous gens are, but rather rock/rock/rock. I don't feel like I can be smart in bw2 by playing paper against rock, I simply have to play rock as well but make sure my rock is bigger. Dragon being weak to itself doesn't help that either.

 

[Jukain]

think the real issue has been that our only way of dealing with things is to ban them. Banning only exacerbates the issue. We complain about lack of diversity yet continue to ban, ban, and ban more. Many banned Pokemon promoted diversity. Think about it. Banning Deoxys-D killed an entire team type. Without Genesect, sun has become almost obscure. Without Excadrill, offensive sand doesn't really exist. The focus on banning all of our gripes has begun to have a hurtful impact on the metagame.

Defensive threats emerged to counter Pokemon such as Tornadus-T, Thundurus, and Blaziken. Many of these Pokemon are no longer even relevant. Again, banning limits diversity.

It is for this reason that I am so adamantly against banning weather, Stealth Rock, and a whole host of other things. The "ban-all" mentality is having a direct negative impact on the metagame. Some things are broken and should be banned. But when you ban things in the way we are currently, then no one gets what they want in the end.

That being said, I don't actually think this metagame is bad. If your team is weak to a certain threat, then it is your fault alone, not the metagame's. I believe that a bad metagame is being equated with poor teambuilding. There is no unsurmountable team archetype with a well-built team. No game is over at the Team Preview; it is always possible for a skilled player to prevail.

 

[GCSChris]

I don't feel like I can be smart in bw2 by playing paper against rock, I simply have to play rock as well but make sure my rock is bigger.

As funny as this analogy is, it's spot on.

The thing that frustrates me about the meta is that the only foreseeable way to make OU more balanced is ban like everything that is overpowered. The problem with that is that that group of pokemon makes up like the whole tier. As said, BW2 OU is really offensive, and hopefully defensive pokemon become more viable in Gen VI; I'd hate to see it go the other way, towards offense again. I'd prefer to have a "stall-creep" over a power-creep, if you will.

 

[Haruno]

Honestly there really isn't much you can say besides offense is king, hell it's not even possible to get more specific than that simply because you're limiting us to avoid pinpointing a perpetrator. It's generally agreed that we have an autopilot metagame that requires little to no skill.

Also as far as bans are concerned, you have to love the domino effect genes ban had since it caused deo-d/torn-t/keldeo to be suspected with two of them resulting in bans and now there are new threats that thanks to no torn-t/gene the community want to suspect.

 

[JohnnyCrying]

The team preview is kinda annoying too in my opinion, even for the entertainement of the battles. In previous gens, you can think you got a good advantage in the battle and getting swept by a threat that your opponent hided until the end. I really hate the fact that you can say "Ok i'm pretty much dead if he plays right" just by looking at the team preview, it ruins the element of surprise, you can guess the pokemons set just by looking at the team. Leads are now less played, because every of your mons can act as a lead (except for HO with suicide leads such as SashKion or Custap skarm )

The weather war is kinda awful too, there is a "stereotype team" for every weather ( Rain with Politoed / Tornadus / Stamie / Keldeo / Gyarados / Rotom-W...SS with Ttar / Landorus / Keldeo / Celebi, sun with Nintales, Volcarona, Forretress, Heatran, Hail with Abomasnow / Kyurem-w / ...), the spD boost from the SS was just enough imo, no need to have power / speeds boost for Sandshrew / Landorus / The big-ass dog (forgot his name), Hydro pumps and Hurricanes under the rain are also damn overpowered too.

Tl:dr

-Team preview is annoying, ruining any form of surprise and we can't lead like the previous gens
-The weather wars ain't fun anymore, Sand force / Rush are annoying, Hurricane and Hydro pumps under the rain too
-too many threats to check

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

I have to agree with the sentiment that the metagame is to offensive. I don't think anyone will argue that the power creep didn't happen in this gen, but we didn't do much of anything to counteract it, we kind of just let it happen. Is this hyper offensive state the natural progression of the metagame? Perhaps, but just because it's natural does not mean it is the metagame we want, as per the complaints. The only way to get to a more balanced metagame that we are use to love to play in the past is to either 1. ban more Pokemon, something which is often frowned upon and highly contested or 2. unban more defensive Pokemon from ubers, something which is often fought against with scorn. Overall though, to me the surest that the metagame is too focused on offense, is that we have defensive Pokemon such as Giratina and Lugia banned yet we have an offensive powerhouse with 170 attack and +600 base stat, sitting at the bottom of OU.

 

[Halcyon.]

I think people are confusing inability to use unique threats with difficulty using unique threats. In fact, I think you can have quite a bit of success by not using the standard cookie-cutter teams, instead branching out and using lesser known threats. It's all in the team building, I think. Let's take something like Moltres. Can you just use Moltres on any team and be ready to go, expecting it to tear through teams right from the get-go? No, of course not. You have to make sure that you build a team that supports Moltres, and this is entirely possible. Give it rain or sun, give it a Rapid Spinner or a Magic Bouncer, maybe some paralysis support could be helpful too, since its speed is lackluster. Maybe something like Breloom to take out opposing Tyranitar and Terrakion. These are the kinds of things you have to take into account, and if you do, you can use whatever you want and still be successful. There are limits, of course. You're probably not going to find a good use for Camerupt in OU, but that doesn't mean you can't be diverse. In fact, diversity and surprise factor can help net you a few extra wins on the ladder since everyone expects the cookie-cutter teams. So I don't really see the meta as being which rock is bigger.

No, I think the problem with the metagame is how easy it is to just spam things and win. This isn't even a weather-caused problem, necessarily. Yes, Keldeo in the rain can spam Hydro Pump and kill everything, and that is annoying. Tornadus can spam Hurricane as well, and Darmanitan can spam Flare Blitz in the sun. But Latios can spam Draco Meteor regardless of the weather. Then, of course there's the king of spamming: Kyurem-B. I think it's mixed set with Earth Power | Fusion Bolt | Ice Beam | Substitute / Roost is the best set, but the Banded and Scarf sets are by no means bad, either. And they have the luxury of just clicking Outrage late-game once Ferrothorn has been killed and winning. I can't stand the thought popping into my head "I'm going to lose this game in the next 3 turns because he can Hydro Pump my whole team now that Latias is dead." I also hate thinking "well I can win in the next 3 turns so long as Hydro Pump doesn't miss," so there are some drawbacks to just spamming something, but I feel like the risk that is involved in spamming is not even close to the reward that you get. It makes the meta seem so mindless.

I also want to make sure I differentiate between different kinds of spamming. If you use DD Dragonite and their Steel is weakened, I don't see anything wrong with you setting up to +2 or 3 and clicking Outrage for the win. I guess I see that as fundamentally different because you actually have to take time to get to a point where you can spam-win. Keldeo, Kyurem-B, Landorus, etc., don't need to really set up (expect for maybe a Substitute or a Rock Polish, but that's pretty minimal). I feel like it's these Pokémon that can spam moves from turn 1 that is causing the metagame to be as offensive as it is, not necessarily the Pokémon themselves.

 

[MMII]

That being said, I don't actually think this metagame is bad. If your team is weak to a certain threat, then it is your fault alone, not the metagame's. I believe that a bad metagame is being equated with poor teambuilding. There is no unsurmountable team archetype with a well-built team. No game is over at the Team Preview; it is always possible for a skilled player to prevail.

I agree that there is a defensive answer to just about everything, the problem is that 6 teamslots has become inadequate to pack a defensive answer to every relevant threat. This means that the best approach is an offensive one and, with the overwhelming advantage power has over bulk, an individual match-up between two Pokemon is often times decided by Speed rather than multiple other factors.

Also, although banning offensive threats reduces the incentive to use a specific defensive one, this doesn't remove them as defensive options. So a defensive style that worked with those offensive threats present should work just as well, if not better, with them absent.

 

[BKC]

lol jukain... i suppose wanting to create a more competitive metagame is a trivial reason for wanting to ban things? also,

No game is over at the Team Preview; it is always possible for a skilled player to prevail.

this statement is 100% false.

maybe if you'd lost a few important tournament games (read: not meaningless ladder games) because of the retarded matchup syndrome created by weather you'd feel differently.

edit: the more i read your post the more falsehoods i see...

Banning Deoxys-D killed an entire team type

deoxys-d was not a playstyle. it was the poster boy for weatherless HO, which is still very much a thing.

Without Genesect, sun has become almost obscure

oh my fucking god you cannot be serious

Defensive threats emerged to counter Pokemon such as Tornadus-T, Thundurus, and Blaziken. Many of these Pokemon are no longer even relevant

zapdos, the torn-t counter, is still relevant. gastrodon, the thund counter, is still relevant. jellicent/latias, the blaziken counters, are still relevant. and why were they banned? because they were broken. you think that it "limits diversity" (which is a load of crap btw) but it doesn't matter because DIVERSITY DOES NOT TAKE PRIORITY OVER A COMPETITIVE METAGAME as stated in your post. it's clear that you either don't know what kind of metagame we're striving for or you just don't know what a competitive metagame is like. play the game at a higher level than the ladder before making false posts like these.

 

[MMII]

is that we have defensive Pokemon such as Giratina and Lugia banned .

I just want to jump on this since there seems to be a common misconception amongst newer players (I'm assuming that this won't be applying to you) that the defensive powerhouses in Ubers would be defensive powerhouses in OU. The problem with all the potential good defensive additions is that in OU, unlike Ubers, their mediocre offensive stats are actually good and they have the movepool and the gigantic bulk to abuse it as offensive powerhouses. There is no single Pokemon in Ubers that we could unban and have it not turn into another offensive threat.

 

[Jukain]

sorry; trivial was the wrong word choice. I've changed it to be a bit broader. It seems that everyone disagrees on what creates a "more competitive" metagame. My point was that banning instead of adapting has made the metagame worse. In my opinion, adapting how you play to deal with threats is inherently competitive.

On another note, if you could provide some examples of these important matches decided at Team Preview that would be great.