Robofiend

Zangoose was not banned but was discussed. Blastoise was not banned (it was moved due to UU usage). The only things that we have banned are Cradily and Ampharos. Like Nik said, be constructive. We don't ban things because we can't handle them, we ban them because you can't handle them (you = the broader community and metagame). So if you think you can handle Walrein, let us know how you do it so we can take that into consideration when we make a decision.

IGN: robofiend Timezone: MST (GMT -8, I think) Tiers: DPP OU, NU Primary Tiers: DPP OU

Yeah I very much agree. My ideas so far are banning vileplume or bringing down BL Pokemon. Vileplume could largely be replaced by bellosom, who actually has more defensive stats but lacks the fighting resistance, making it less reliable against sweepers like breloom or crawdaunt. Nonetheless it resists their stabs and lives their coverage just as comfortably. It's also worth mentioning that bellosom is less effective against things like ampharos that rely on bug type special coverage than plume. Bringing down dodrio or medicham might work but there are pretty strong arguments for keeping them in BL. Nonetheless, adding offense could definitely help to tip the scales.

I agree that banning houndoom doesn't really solve anything. Psychics like grumpig/xatu can't effectively beat special walls like clefable and kangaskhan without bulky sets but they need firepower and speed to prevent getting run over by absol or Scizor. I partly wanted to see zam come back to the tier because with hp fight or fire it can either break walls, beat doom or beat scizor, but not all three - while also being checked by swellow. In any event my best point here is that doom isn't even super highly used and that if we remove it, other dark types like absol or steel types like scizor can still abuse psychics without the right coverage moves or cm boosts. I feel like it's also not proper to ban scizor+slowking or other pokes with instant recovery or make a lot of bans just because we don't like the looks of the tier right now. Banning all or most of the highly used pokes would reshape the entire tier and seems likely a complicated fix that may just backfire and give us another shittier Meta. Anyway so yeah, that's my reasoning for suggesting unbans instead of picking random things that we don't like and throwing them out.

Pretty much /agree with everything zeeb said. Almost all of the listed counters are limited to switching in between once or twice. While some of them can threaten Walrein out, the main problem is that nothing reliably or repeatedly swiches in and forces it out - even with good prediction. @ Orange - props for doing that analysis. the only other comment I have that no one else has touched on is that more than a couple of the Pokemon listed, like hitmonchan, aren't highly used or viable at the moment.

Once Kecleon Color-Changes to Grass it's gonna get nuked by Ice Beam.. Also the "hey why don't we all use this usually not that great pokemon because it checks something that's really good" argument never ends well. If people aren't using it now, that's a good sign that they probably aren't going to start running it (nor should they) because of some new threat that developed. I'm willing to give Walrein some more time though, I feel like the "trouble switching in" argument, as unsatisfying as it is to me right now might become better once NU evolves a little bit, although it is still true that we don't have a lot of pokes that can really threaten Walrein or even check it that well.

The weaknesses aren't *that* noticeable, tbh. We have a couple fighting type attacks in the tier (Wrath/Top/CB Scyther), a couple Tbolt users (Lapras, Electabuzz, Trode), one of two things that run Giga Drain, and the only things that run Rock Slide (Pinsir, Armaldo, Golem?, Aggron) aren't the types of things that Walrein wants to switch in on, nor are they things that can reliably switch in, which is where the real problem comes in, imo. Combine this with the fact that Walrein outspeeds almost every Rock Slider in the tier and you've got instant fear of having something get picked off. Walrein really abuses the tier because of how common Mantine, Flareon and wall Grumpig are - all of whom lack the firepower or diversity to actually break through Thick Fat. Because of how unlikely it is that it will come in on a SE attack, Walrein comes in relatively unscathed against a lot of things and when you combine its coverage with Super Fang you get a wall-breaking machine that's almost as good as Victrebell (plsban). Lastly, a lot of great pokes in NU have trouble getting into play safely in the first place (Scyther fears RS, Poliwrath hates EQ, Grumpig hates random Dark/Bug type attacks), so the fact that Walrein is useful and switches in reliably against common walls is pretty awesome. I think all things considered I'd be for banning Walrein as it's never really satisfactory (to me) to say "oh just Toxic it to death" unless the pokemon both sets up (unlike Walrein, who's useful out of the gate) and has a couple of great checks who can stall while Toxic takes its toll or forces it to switch out.

Poliwrath is base 70, lol and speedy 'Wrath master race 252+ Atk Poliwrath Brick Break vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Walrein: 126-150 (68.1 - 81%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 252+ SpA Walrein Hidden Power Electric vs. 32 HP / 0 SpD Poliwrath: 68-80 (40.2 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery Just sayin, Wrath is a beast. Doesn't mean it should stay for sure, but even a defenseless Adamant Wrath can be effective. Licki/other walls can just Toxic stall the Walrein, now that Haunter's gone there's no real punishment for running Return/Toxic or what have you.

The super fang set is pretty insane, in fact, I think it's the only truly "broken" set. Usually the player brings Walrein in against something slower and relatively offenseless: Flareon, Mantine, another wall. Walrein can then chunk 50% of the switch in's health and then hit it with a super-effective move, given that HP Electric, Surf and Ice Beam hit pretty much everything. Common "good idea" switch ins like Grumpig, Mantine or Poliwrath get bopped for lots of damage on the switch, allowing Walrein to either finish them off (if they're slow) or swap to an appropriate counter and come in later to do more damage. Walrein's respectable bulk allows it to take a hit from pretty much any sweeper in the tier and its STAB combo allows it to do a ton of damage to anything trying to switch in. Players are essentially left with a no-win situation - either send in a sweeper and hope you don't get Ice Beamed, or send in a wall and hope Walrein doesn't Super-Fang you to death. In either event, it's really easy for Walrein to get a kill once it's in play, largely because of its respectable bulk and great movepool. 252 Atk Choice Band Scyther Brick Break vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Walrein: 238-282 (65.9 - 78.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery Unpredictability can help it too: if you think it's going to Super Fang and then it Sub-drums, your team could be in trouble since priority is not super common lately and Water/Normal has good coverage against most of the tier. Sets like this one make sending in an otherwise pretty safe Wynaut scary. I'd say it might meet the offensive criteria, although it's not immediately clear that it'll be broken with Blastoise gone, Poliwrath rising in popularity, Whishcash becoming more popular and specially bulky Wish passers like Lickitung or Hypno seeing more use that Walrein will actually be Uber or even unhealthy really.

I mean part of the problem is that unlike boosting attackers, there's really no penalty for swapping chansey out and sending in flygon marowak, hp fire mag, swampert, etc. all of whom absorb the tbolt that magneton needs to hit to beat chansey. It's not like you need another wall to do that job and chansey provides so much support that any of these options can be saved by wish another time if they take a hp, so long as it's not 4x. Like I said, this would be a better argument if people were actually using magneton jolteon or espeon but the stats indicate that they're not super viable.

Look this whole espeon discussion is a bit of a moot point, mostly because it is used really infrequently and the sets it needs to run to beat chansey make it less effective against a lot of other things. It needs signal beam for slowbro, hp fire to prevent skarmory from whirlwinding or metagross from mashing it and running rest berry means it gives up passive recovery which is really important for beating stall. Slowbro is the least of these worries but it's worth mentioning. So yeah, we're talking about how a Pokemon that is rarely or never used beats chansey with a very particular set that doesn't do much for the discussion. I'm not saying it's definitely banworthy but I don't find this argument super compelling, nor is it really fair to assume chansey will just stay in against magneton or jolteon when it's at -2. Tl;dr these special sweepers might "beat" chansey in theory but if often seems like they need full health, no status and very particular sets. On top of that, none are highly used or even very viable in the first place and part of that is because chansey makes their lives suck more than pory or something.

Forf hit the nail on the head - since Chansey covers every spec. sweeper in the tier it frees up the rest of your team to do other things - mostly just stall the shit out of everyone else. Porygon2 can also do this, but it can get Toxic stalled to death, making it imperfect. If you imagine a meta where Chansey is banned, Porygon2 would have to pair with Vaporeon, Umbreon or Lanturn to be effective and all of these pokemon are open doors for a bunch of terrifying Pokes to switch in and start rolling over your team. With Chansey, however, all of this happens in the same place. It's a wall that checks other walls without being a complete blob on offense (yes, ST and Toxic damage suck to play against) and thus it sees a ton of usage. Just run Counter/Toxic/Softboiled/ST Saying "oh it's not used as much as Snorlax" doesn't actually mean anything - it's a cop out argument based on the idea that we ban things because they're highly used. We ban things because they're broken or unhealthy, not because they are used on 40, 50, or 60% of teams.

#byeboopy

No decision and recall that it's not BL if it's used on more than 5% of OU teams, which it has been for the last month. This is a good chance to make some points regarding usage from the last OU tourney for which we have stats (10/13): 1. Chansey usage increased to 40% while Porygon2 usage dropped to 20%. This is exactly what I predicted would happen and shines a light on "who is the best special wall in the tier". Porygon clearly is not "as good" as Chansey if it's usage rate is half of Chansey's - case closed there. That doesn't mean Chansey is de facto Uber but it shuts down Zebra's altogether bad argument that other walls are just as or nearly as good as Chansey. Weezing has ascended to check Gyarados, Heracross and Aerodactyl, all of whom have become more popular. 2. The supposed best Chansey checks have not materialized in usage. Ursaring is around 16%, Heracross is more popular at 30% and Machamp is no where to be seen. The Calm minders that were supposedly could take down Chansey are not used either, with Espeon at 8%. Magneton, another suggestion of "things that take down Chansey" sits at 9%. Again, this isn't reason to ban Chansey, it just says something about the viability (or maybe availability) of these pokes. Remember that this is just one tournament, but it's the only one that we have new usage for since this discussion started. In the mean time it'd be nice to hear what other people think.

Did someone say Heatran???

those feels when you're fucking everything up and then M-Aero takes over and is like "i gotchu bb" http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-287677935

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-287613403 tfw you hax kili and he doesn't realize it's you

Made a balance team, makes me wonder why Infernape, Machamp, Vaporeon and Forretress are so lowly ranked - I barely even have to use my M-Aero http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-287513400

1st match: you running +Attack Mence??!??! With no Moxie?!?!? In other news, Nidoking is surprisingly bulky, Idk what was up with that Galvantula. 2nd match: lol you got really lucky with the Hurricane dodge to spdef drop on Empoleon. But I guess he was using Moltes/Venomoth/Weezing tho so.. also where's the protect on those high jump kicks? Also why no Outrage Mence?

You and Kili need to cut it out with Nidoking - Queen's higher ranked for a reason

JJ rockin the memento chandy, i like it

ohhh this team's a bit hit and miss after some playing, struggles against bulkier teams but the 12 turn wins are pretty classic http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-286944639

lmao how was that an OU match I'd say you got lucky hitting every stone edge - the main reason why I don't use M-Aero

Kingdra needs two dances to be threatening anyway - might as well go full bulky DD. Also Jolly Flygon is so bad i just don't get why people use it. Imo you underrated Forre/Starmie pretty badly - spikes are common and if you don't have a reliable spinner they're going to become a pain. Team support is one of those things where you're like "eh whatever who needs a spinner" and then you lose to stall and you're like "damn, I should get some support on this team". Keep in mind that viability rankings are for all pokemon seen in the meta and that typically B and C rank is for stuff that just doesn't get used very much.