I didn’t want to say anything but I was thinking the same thing, this video is way more ranty and unfocused than most of his other videos. It was funny but it made it kinda harder to follow.
My favorite tier ever.. such a shame how it regressed over the years. You should feel proud tho u got a lot of ppl into this tier and will always be my goat in gen5ou. Great vid kev
TLDW: BKC agitating for popular support in order to start a coup in the BW regional capital of RoA (Republic of Alph) and establish a provisional government
Gems are actually quite terrifying when thinking about it in a modern context, Dragapult was banned in NatDex due to Z-moves just allowing it break its counters, and gems would be the same. Like I imagine dragon dance sets running steel gem to break any fairies, or water gem to boost hydro pump to pick off lando or heatran, even ghost gem for the extra power against pex and or buzzswole
252 sp.attack specs hydro doesn't ohko max sp.def lando so i doubt hydro pump of a invested hydro would be too threating. Plus ddance pult beats lando anyways.
Back when Snorlax was still OU as ever in BW, a STAB explosion+norm gen in vgc to a steelix did nearly 65% (This is RESISTED keep in mind while Steelix still had the best phys-def [200] in the game) 😰😳 idk the defense comparison to Ferrothorn [134] however that’s still terrifying
Probably less of a problem for your typical audience, since I think most people who're willing to sit through 2 hour videos on mons probably already have a feel for it, but what's always missing from these sorts of analyses (for any PvP game) is the principles and values by which meta-games are assessed in the first place, and going over how policies can affect these values. Some examples, all with justifications around RNG: * a "solved" metagame is probably a bad metagame, because it'll result in 2 identical (or nearly identical) teams facing off, which will too often come down to who gets the crit/body slam paralyze/blizzard freeze * a metagame with *too* much variety can actually be even worse, when it results in RPS matchup fishing (this is not really encapsulated by "variety" per se, but it's related) * evasion/OHKO/moody/etc. are banned because (1) they lack any application outside of RNG fishing, and (2) RNG fishing is not a valued "skill". Theoretical/actual viability in practice are pretty much irrelevant to this assessment; it's more about "we all agree that this is bullshit and competitive games are better without it". * to use a more specific example, the first time I remember hearing someone applying a value judgment to a metagame in a way that resonated with me was about BW RU (which I have not personally played). Their rationale: BW RU sucks, because Moltres and Durant are both S-tier for their ability 2HKO pretty much anything, as long as they get through hustle/hurricane accuracy. It'd probably be worth doing a video on the subject so you can point to it in similar discussions. Also, I'd just like to hear your thoughts on the matter :).
I was an avid Gen 5 player when the metagame was new. I think the problem is the metagame didn't have the time it needed to settle due to a variety of factors. When Politoed came out with drizzle and Ninetails with drought, it threw everything out of wack. Aldarons Proposal was the most controversial decision at the time, up there with banning Garchomp and Salamence. At the same time, Smogon was using Pokemon Online to battle , which lessened the weight of its tiering decisions. For some dumbass reason Pokemon Online had like half of the Uber tier in their OU, this put pressure to the nonsense like trying to allow Deoxys Defense and Speed in the metagame, there was even talk of fucking Darkrai and Giratina for a period. So BW1 was trying to deal with 2 fires at once, both from rando Ubers falling in, while also weather bullshit. The priorities of the council were also super out of wack depending on recent tourneys, they go SOO close to banning REUNICLES. Talk of missing the forest for the trees. Once that was dealt with Gamefreak through a boatload of overpowered Pokemon and new abilities right at the end of the metagame and we needed to apparently playtest them all, and there was a time crunch to finish this all before gen 6. In my opinion, you gotta keep weather. Weather IS Gen 5 OU. However, everything else, needs to be entirely re-done. If we are already messing with the tiering of old tiers like Gen 1 and Gen 2, might as well fix the one that needs it. The metagame has backed into it dumbass priorities considering the politics of the rival Pokemon Online and time crunch.
>Be me >15 year old Smogon Council member >Marks in school have been steadily lowering but this is my “job” so idc >Some sperg is complaining that the My Little Pony creature is too strong in rain >He has all these damage calcs and how common team structures are required to be interrupted with a counter to the horse as “proof”. >mfw if I start a suspect test we’ll have to ban the jet plane for the same reason >the redditors would also get mad, and they don’t even play the game >Tell the monkey that he just has to adapt (git gud lmaooooo) >He asks me to elaborate >”If you and the rest of the playerbase don’t adapt then the playerbase is going to have to adapt to no horsy and lizard plane in OU” Another day in the life of a Smogon council member, my work is extremely important.
Gen 5 OU had always been such a clown fiesta that I jumped ship to Ubers after BW2, which was pretty fortunate because BW Ubers ended up becoming one of my favorite tiers of all time.
idk why it got cut off at the end, but the sentiment was that we should fully follow through on one person's vision for the tier, as opposed to (not even) half-heartedly "committing" to several people's strewn-about vision. also anyone who says "but if you ban rain there'll just be sand!" or "bw's identity is the weather generation!" - because that will be said - clearly doesn't have competitiveness as their first priority. #SAVEBW
While I get your frustration, this solution is basically just becoming exactly what the dumb Smogon detractors have claimed Smogon is for years: a dictatorship that arbitrarily decides what is and isn't "correct" Pokémon, a kind of Pokémon Papacy. Smogon's legitimacy comes from the fact that it (at least in theory) is a grassroots fan movement, that its decisions mostly reflect at least the consensus of the majority of skilled and committed competitive players. The second you say "OK, instead this guy rules and gets to decide what BW OU should be like", you immediately open yourself up to the obvious counter-argument of "Who died and made him King?" "Why does This Guy get to be the BW OU Pope who decides what Good Pokémon looks like?". Once you remove the grassroots community element of it, Smogon actually does become just as its haters say it is - an arbitrary ruling body dictating to other players what they ought to do based on nothing more than their own flawed opinions. Plus, do you REALLY want to give nerds absolute power over any particular subject? Experience suggests that they tend to be especially bad about abusing what little power they're given.
I appreciate the sentiment, but it's not arbitrary decision making. the person would be qualified through being one of the best bw players for an extended period of time. plus, there's nothing that couldn't be undone. (also I don't really care about the dumb detractors)
@@BKCplaysPokemon Then you're not really changing anything. If there's a King who is really just the biggest member of the council, and the council can veto his decisions if they don't like them, he's not really much of a King, you basically still have the Bickering Council problem and your solution has changed nothing. If his decisions are absolute, but he can be ousted by a vote, then you're asking for politicking and backstabbing to be made even worse. If he rules completely solo, with no recourse to removing him, then you have what I described above, where we have an arbitrarily appointed Pokémon Pope, plus you would have no way to prevent him from abusing his power (say he decides to ban a strategy he doesn't like, and invents a spurious argument defending his decision). Basically, since you're talking about how the community should be organised and run, you're running into political questions, which I'm not sure you've properly thought through. I would always defer to you on knowledge about competitive Pokémon, but that's not what's in question here.
Something worth pointing out to anyone who says "but if you ban rain there'll just be sand!" or "bw's identity is the weather generation!" is there is a reason that weather abilities got nerfed in gen 6. Even gamefreak was able to see how fucked up permanent weather was in this context.
I think that the "dictatorship" route is a smart way to go for older gens. You don't have the big playerbase to deliberate over stuff and test things, so you just need somebody who's gonna get shit done. Especially when the community can never agree on what needs to be done. Plus, as somebody who doesn't play old gens I actually think that shaking up a tier big time is a way to kind of revive it. You could easily get people who play modern OU to check out the older meta after a big shake up. People shouldn't be so freaked out by rocking the boat in older metas. If RBY can undergo radical shifts almost 30 years after release, Black and White can deal with banning some stupid tactics 10 years after.
Then that is the problem. How do you keep focus on a small active playerbase for long enough such that it becomes large enough for a long time to determine the actual threats and to get people to say that Gen 5 OU has a bevy of broken stuff that needs to be fixed? You don’t, because Pokémon is a series where people drop the earlier generations, and has a strange mix of casual and competitive players that will never see eye-to-eye nor influence each other. Gen 5 OU is basically dead and irreparable.
45:33 this scald point really opened my mind when you said "any metagame", I realize that the amount of bulky waters such as toxapex and slowbro who can sit and click scald in gen8 ou can be fixed by banning scald. I am not saying that they are broken since as anyone who has played the recent metagame should know that these pokemon aren't the problem but getting rid of scald would remove the stupid burnfishing with scald which is annoying and can make building progress against these pokemon really tough(this doesn't just apply to bulky waters, I've seen stuff like slowking galar being able to take it's checks in landorus and garchomp just removing them off the game by one 30% chance). Edit: I said dumb shit here an exaggerated, I should've just mentioned how annoying it is and not broken which is way high. Either way scald is cringe.
@@fulltimeslackerii8229 it’s less welcome in a meta where the burn is doing more than leftovers heals. Scald is more manageable now because burn damage was nerfed to not be as significant- in earlier gens, burns are just as nasty as 1 layer of toxic spikes, except the only burn-immune mons also happen to be weak to Scald.
Black and White OU is what got me into high end Pokemon and I hold the metagame in high regard, with rose tinted goggles glued onto my ridge. The extreme punishment for messing up, the absurd threat accounting, the fast pace and intense turns probably forced me to learn more Mons than any other gen in hindsight. I was never really big into OU, played it either a lot of sparsely, but nailing rank 1 on main gen Ubers with the whole lobby chat cheering me on is something I will always look back on with a lot of love. ..But with that massive introductory tangent out of the way, the issues with modern Gen 5 OU is to me mostly from how ridiculously centralizing the two biggest damage dealers are. Sand, Rain, everything inbetween has to play so safe versus Latios and Keldeo that it kindof ruins any sort of balancing you can do because of just how much damage they do to the entire metagame without any sort of proper and fair counterplay. On top of their sets being varied they have speed tiers that force awkward interactions with every other wincon that isn't "set rocks, keep my 2 psychics untouched, choke out the toad and its' two obligatory compadres and hope they're not one of the six different interchangeable sets that kill my psychics on the switch." Introducing more threats to combat the two dosen't really change as much as a lot of people claim it will since they will probably just adapt in less than two weeks of the new clauses and introductions. I feel that at its' core most people get annoyed with Latios and Keldeo and they should be suspected in modern BW2, probably just instantly banned, to see how that affects the metagame in the same way Brelooms main boon got axed and made the metagame as a whole more interesting.
@@whydoiexist2180 Yeah. But do you think a person who is only vaguely into older generations will look at Breloom and not think it presses A sleep move? Its' just semantics.
Breloom still can put work on Sun, absolutely cleans house versus Tain and Sand and literally ends the game if you get a Swords Dance. The only issue is that it’s complete setup fodder for Dragonite or most of the other brutal dragon sweepers in the meta.
Ban Scald from every gen and every tier. That's the first step to fixing Pokemon. Every argument against a ban from your thread for banning Scald was "haha woah then we gotta ban Body Slam" as if the two are even in the same dimension
From what you're saying, it seems like the biggest that have been dragging BWOU down are reluctance to ban objectively oppressive Pokemon and disconnect between casual and competitive players, all of which is exacerbated by the incompetence of the council. I think that banning Keldeo and Latios as well as Gems is one of the best things we can do for the meta at this stage, and would probably lessen the need for Ttar to manhandle the entire metagame just to keep it alive. I'm personally against going full dictator, but unless the meta wants to completely ignore casual players, it may be the only thing we can do.
I'm not really sure if casual players should be allowed to influence tiering. There are people that will defend broken Pokemon on the basis that they like it. It's something that happened in Bdsp OU when Gengar was suspected, one of the most common defense's against Gengar ban was that people liked using it. It eventually got banned and for like a week people kept crying over it
Gen 5 OU is where I really got into Showdown and doing competitive battles. I still remember most of my team. Donphan, Breloom, Rotom-W, Electivire, Gengar, and Chansey. For some reason, I still believed using Legendaries was cheating back then.
Definitely agree that banning Gems is a logical first step, that shit is absurd. Cloyster Ice spear with Ice gem does 90%+ to Keldeo with a decent roll to kill, that's not right man. And if it has Rock gem it can nuke through the other things that are supposed to check it. At this point there's no such thing as a check anymore
Thanks kev, I enjoyed the discussion and also really enjoyed the ciele appreciation session quietly going on in the background, what a phenomenal player, I would really enjoy if we got to see other legends battles in the background in future discussions!
If smogon wanted to represent themselves as a competent competitive outlet for Pokémon players, they have to sacrifice their face to casual players. Competitive play is not for everyone and that’s okay. VGC and battle spot singles exist for a reason. A ban everything movement would have been so good for the entire community from early on too. Not only for tier shaping, but for cutting casual players from shaping a game they wouldn’t be invested in anyways. Imagine how far we would have come if we had started that way.
the way they could have both is to have a ban list that takes effect at a certain elo that can be deemed “high ladder”. in their surveys, they already weigh the averages in this regard anyway.
Counterpoint: it's also super easy for a small elite group, especially a group of socially awkward nerds, to get completely up their own ass to the point where they lose all touch with reality. Look, it's easy to hate on the dumb casuals, and they can be pretty darn dumb, but don't become arrogant and cocksure you ignore your own weakness and blind spots.
@@CantusTropus always love the homies that think they can dodge the basement dwelling fedora enjoyer accusations by saying it first; anyways, L+ scrub mentality+qualify for a suspect
@@CantusTropus I agree wit your counterpoint although its quite hard to tell for sure what should be done at this point since radical change like having basically a mega ban could be what we need but it could also just as easily result in the same or even worse situation
Been playing with rain a lot on ladder and can confirm that the amount of Scald wars I find myself in is way too much. It often feels like games don't progress until someone gets a burn, and, of course, whoever gets it first will most likely win in the end thus making the game way too reliant on RNG. Banning gems also sounds like a great idea. Thinking about it now: it's like having Z-moves, but you're able to give all 6 of your team members a Z-move at the same time. Maybe that's why GameFreak got rid of the gems in gen 6 and replaced them with Z-moves in gen 7. In terms of Keldeo and Latios, I think Keldeo should go first and then test Latios. Between threats like Ttar and Ferro, Latios already feels fairly well checked. The only Latios sets that come to mind that could directly break through those without team support are the Choice Specs and Calm Mind + Dragon Gem sets. The Choice Specs set can get revenge killed by an opposing scarfer fairly easily once it's been revealed, and the Dragon Gem set won't exist to begin with if the gems are banned.
I think the most broken set personally isn't either of those. Colbur Latios is actually busted, suddenly ttar has to take two dracos after rocks instead of just one and god forbid they set up spikes too. Also unlike any other latios form just knowing the set doesn't let you know all the moves it has; Dragon Pulse, Roar, HP Fire, Twave are all good options
@@vtmagno23 Ah that sounds rough I personally haven't run into any Colbur Latios sets on ladder myself, so I wasn't aware of that one (Note: I'm speaking purely from my ladder experience as I've never entered any tourneys. Forgive my casual ass)
Wait, Latios and Keldeo are still legal? I thought Latios would have be banned years ago, he's such a meme of how overpower to the point that if you don't have Tyranitar, you lose, period.
Hey Kev, while I really like the tangential style, I think you could really benefit from half-scripting the videos. Not insofar as a full script, since a full script for an hour long video would be pretty tedious to make, but structuring your argument out using bullet points or the like would make it a lot more cohesive. It also lets you bring up specific talking points and counterpoints in the order you want. Cheers!
Listened to this on the way to a friends house, really awesome dive into the annoying history of tiering in BW OU and also your suggestions. I would love to see this happen for BW OU, amazing video/podcast as always BKC. Top level content from a top level creator
The discussion about early BW really brings it back and remind you how dumb that era was. Deo A, Skymin, Darkrai, KingColoTops, and Dory all in one place This is before people figure out that Gems are horrendously broken as well iirc which is kinda scary since it could get worse in hindsight
You saying the japanese name of Excadrill also reminded me that PO had Dream World as a tier, and was its main one, it really says a lot, when DW was more chaotic than normal BW OU.
I'm definitely on board with the notion that Gems are dumb, but I also fear that the tier devolves into Tri Psy vs Tri Psy every game in their absence. Weakening HO indirectly invalidates Rain. I think it's dumb to say "Well you just want to win with Sand," when using Tyranitar on a majority of teams does not imply the absence of variety, but I think saying "We're going to fall into Reuniclus wars" is a reasonable concern regarding what the absence of Gems creates. With this in mind, I think another option worth considering (especially when you casually mentioned how dumb Reuniclus is) is banning Magic Guard. I can think of a few positive effects that would come out of this: 1. I think there's a high possibility that Volc/Cloy/Gems/whatever lose appeal a bit when A) the main structure they're fishing is gone and B) the structure that they HATE facing (i.e. Rain) is indirectly made better by the absence of another structure. 2. Latios is still very strong stand-alone, but its tango partners that team up to overwhelm Ttar are gone, and Latios serves as a check to dumb rain threats Keldeo and Thundy-T. 3. All Sand teams would be more or less forced to accommodate a need for hazard control when building, which could re-open possibilities for the variety that Sand itself offers, and also wouldn't need to worry about being worn down by an opposing team whose wincons CAN'T be worn down. I don't think action on Magic Guard would "fix" the tier or anything, but I think it's a starting point worth considering since it would also indirectly weaken the overbearing influence HO has right now. I think the absence of Magic Guard would make Tentacruel really dumb, but there are obviously ways to circumvent that much.
The funny thing about BKC’s Rayquaza example is that there’s legitimately people who act like that every gen, e.g Zamazenta-C, Reshiram, etc As well as when something gets banned: “Well gunk shot Greninja can just be revenge killed by scarf Lati!” I think the worst is when people look at the game completely in a vacuum as if the game is 1v1 and not 6v6, yeah sure sheer force Lando-I loses to Weavile/Mamo, but you can switch to a counter to Weavile/Mamo… There’s also people who complain about Lando-T in 6/7 even though it’s usage is like Gen 5 Ttar
What I thought was a really interesting take away is what if we had banned things like that early on. Imagine if we had nothing to compare to today’s landorus. It’s like saying imagine what basketball fans would talk about if they didn’t have MJ and lebron. It’s actually insane to think about where the tiers and competitive scene would be today.
As a VGC player I hate Lando-T because in terms of doubles it ruins every format it touches. In terms of singles for gen 6/7 there were certainly bigger fish that needed frying imo (Gen 6 I think of Clefable. It can get away with basically anything and in Gen 7 Either celesteela or pex NEEDED to get hit because stall is way too strong and particularly hitting pex would allow other strategies to flourish (Also ban Z-moves, that is the worst mechanic ever. Literally better gems. Dynamax in gen 8 is banned so I don't have to mention how Dynamax was clearly balanced around doubles)
In terms of Zamazenta-C, I still think the reaction to it's "brokenness" was vastly overblown. Offensively it was quite inept, even after a boost it massively struggled to break past the common defensive staples of the tier like Slowbro, Zapdos and Toxapex and even if it did manage to break one (like tended to happen with Slowbro with Wild Charge) it would basically KO itself in the process, the trade could be worth it, but that meant you needed your team to be built in a specific way to overload the opponent, so offensively it definitely wasn't as splashable as people claimed (I'll have more on that later). Defensively, it had amazing traits of course between the sterl typing, the insane bulk, the fact it is the best Knock off sponge of all time etc, but at the same time, it has absolutely no recovery, not even passive, it is weak to the most common coverage moves in the game (even if it can survive any one such hit in a pinch due to it's bulk) meant that it was easily worn down and it has no utility whatsoever so it's only sets had to be offensive (cutting down on the bulk because without investment it's dealing pathetic damage and it needs the speed because it's fast but not enough to not invest in it like a Regieleki could) and without a boost, it's still not that strong and it can have a hard time forcing a switch out against the offensive threat it switched into if it were somewhat bulky (think of Specs Dragapult, it could definitely withstand a Behemoth Bash and Zamazenta if it came on a Shadow Ball (or worse, Fire Blast) was definitely not gonna appreciate the exchange). Add to that how weak it is to spikes since, again, it has no recovery, and Zamazenta frequently wasn't something that you could simply switch in and out of battle since if it wanted to actually damage the team it needed a boost and for gaining said boost it needed to be at high health especially since it naturally wears itself down by attacking, so yet again, it's defensive utility was cut short. The only type of team that truly got good mileage out of it's defensive/offensive talents were hardcore stall teams since they could heal it with Wish and it in exchange gave a good stop gap to some big offensive threats like Kartana and it gave these teams some speed and offense of their own As I said earlier, a big argument against Zam at the time was that it was over centralizing and it was seen everywhere when ........ ot was a box art legend being suspect tested, of course it was gonna be everywhere, people wanted to play it, those abnormally high usage were due to the circumstances of the time, but if it stayed I'm sure they would have dropped way down due to how actually specific it was in it's effectiveness. To me, Zamazenta appeared relatively balanced for OU, maybe it could have been seen as toxic over time, maybe underwhelming, but I still think the way this ordeal was handled was a disaster (notably because it came at a time where the metagame wasn't really healthy in other ways and Zamazenta didn't help fix much of it outside of Knock Off spam. The timing of this suspect was really garbage imo and (combined with the current community that choses to ban everything put on a suspect, it's actually insane that every suspect in gen 8 has resulted in a ban, I overall agree, but looking back at previous gens it's insane to think about) it didn't give Zamazenta a real chance (I voted to unban if you couldn't tell lmao)
@@sephikong8323 Zamazenta-C is a strange one because (once again....from a mostly doubles player's perspective) it's not even considered better than base Zamazenta because you can't hold items when crowned.
@@sephikong8323 Zamacenta isn't doing work against fat balance teams and especially not stall teams, but what are offense teams suppose to do against it? It absolutely manhandles Weavile and checks Tran. If those two are gone a defensive team can do pretty much whatever it wants with 0 fear. If you think SSOU is slow and/or defensive (and a lot of people do) I think Zam-C would just exacerbate the issue over time.
Ttar is also the slow, clunky kind of threat that you can bring in a lot of hate against if you really wanted to, without severely compromising your team, if it ever did become the dominant threat. Kinda reminds me of gen 6 lando t. Offensive sweepers and wallbreakers that don't need too much setup are the ones that tend be backbreaking in team building.
It'd be downright unplayable. That ban was gonna happen sooner rather than later. If it didn't we'd have a ban list that exceeded the list of usable Pokémon.
I would like to see a Dynamax meta or something. If only to see how that sorts itself. It would not be serious because Dynamax is broken and does not reward good plays (except in double OF COURSE) but it would be funny to see what Pokémon would really be on top assuming a singles format with Dynamax.
My solutions to Gen 5 OU (since BKC said you can propose anything and it'd be an improvement) -Ban Chansey. Special attackers, especially under rain, aren't strong enough -Ban Hyper Cutter on Gliscor. It shouldn't even be an option -Ban all weather setters except Snover. I just really like snover and wanna see him more -Heatran forced to run 4 fire type moves unless running exactly 136 speed EVs and a Bold nature. This would be funny -Ban Lando-T. I'm tired of seeing this stupid dog in every game I play ever. -Bring back sand rush Excadril. No lando = no counterplay. We need an instant win button like the good ol days of swift swim -Ban choice specs, unless on TTar, who is forced to run all physical moves. Thanks for coming to my ted talk
Scald clause: all water type pokemon are forced to run scald Ban lations unless is a choice scarf set Only one insta win button is boring, let's bring back genesect as well Modify the game to add fairy type than program xerneas and magearna in the game and put in OU (they are going to be the only fairies btw) Remove species clause for tyranitar, everyone shoud be able to use at least 2 on a team
Raw ass video. I love hearing people wax poetic about their passions and the frustration in this video gives it a pretty interesting colour. Really interesting hearing all of your thoughts on this, especially given the way the meta has developed since.
"Just adapt" is a reasonable response to johns, but a suspect discussion doesn't care about salty scrubs - the competitive meta has already tried to adapt & a healthy adaptation was not found.
if we're bringing up Smash comparisons, this sounds a lot like the discussion around banning Bayonetta in Smash 4, where action wasn't taken while Smash 4 was the newest generation on the basis that the top players just needed to adapt (on the murkier side is the discussion around melee puff where its more arguable that the top players really did just need to adapt)
The underline issue is not adapting to someone, you can adapt to Latios, Keldeo, Volca, HO, volturn etc, you cannot adapt to all these powerful things with 6 slots at your disposal.
Finally got to finish the video after listening to the video on and off all day. I absolutely love the idea of making Gen5 OU just Ubers lite lol. Fantastic hypotheticals as always. Glad to see more uploads
I can’t believe gen 5 OU is the only tier that’s is available 24/7 when literally every other gen 5 meta game is better I mean ubers is great UU is great RU is just gen 4 UU but with butter free being viable for some odd reason and NU may not have that many spinners but way more balance then the mess of gen 5 Ou
There are arguments I get around it, but I will never not think of "ban scald" as a Smogon meme. It's the point at which I start to say "go play a game designed around competitive" because the arguments around it often feel like they're complaining about one luck based factor in a game absolutely chock full of them. When scald is oppressive enough to be considered banworthy that's the sign of a bad metagame as a whole, and it feels like not seeing the forest for the trees.
It's interesting to learn about these things as someone who only played gen 8. I've already watched enough to know that the novelty of the weather wars isn't a good justification to keep Drizzle but could at least see the counterargument of throwing the tier into chaos. Emphasizing just how much better that chaos would be than the tier's current state was very important and I hope that massage got to more people than just me. A lot of the other stuff makes sense too. Latios forces Pursuit on every team and Keldeo goes unchecked with Pursuit support while Gems are less extreme but still very stupid versions of Z moves. I only really disagree with Scald and even then I think it makes water types even more frustratingly privileged and hope it gets cut from the next game. I just don't think it's broken.
A way to help prevent this situation in the future if this is resolved. Gen 5 OU is overrun with “guessmons” and “guessitems”. To explain those in very basic wording, A guessmon is a pokemon that to have a fighting chance you need to have multiple checks and guess which set it is, send in the appropriate check and pray your right to have a fighting chance. If not it’s gg. Guessitems are when any Pokémon can run a set with more than 1 item for that set that can be swapped and the potential prescene forces a gamble heavy decision where guessing wrong means you’ve lost the game and guessing right means you still have a fighting chance. Both situations on even one pokemon or their sets is unhealthy and need to be addressed. If it’s a particular pokemon ban it and for guessitems for certain pokemon forbid their use on that pokemon using said set. Point being one let alone Arceus knows how many of said situations above are in gen 5 OU. Also pls to help with Gen 5 OU let Lugia into that tier.
@@ehfoiwehfowjedioheoih4829 yes when it forces 50/50 when its gg if you get it wrong with no prior info without any setup on the opponents end for that situation
Hey, TH-cam algorithm brought me here. I was a casual player of BW OU back when the games just came out and I follow a few competitive games so this video was quite facinating. I'm probably in the minority but this video wasn't long enough! It seems like it cut off midpoint and now I'm lost. Gunna check out your other videos, good luck!
i actually quit competitive during BW OU and ever since then I went from being pretty decent to just playing it on/off and I'm glad to see my frustrations with the meta at the time get justified so much later. I complained about rain and scald saying they were unreasonable and people would just tell me to git gud, playing this when it was the current meta completely sucked.
I’ve watched this like five times and I fully agree with every non-joking proposal you bring up wrt going manic pixie dream girl on BW OU. One thing potentially to explore could be (at the end of this tunnel) experimenting with a Sandless TTar OU. Tyranitar is absolutely the glue holding the tier together at the moment, but if all of the broken Pokémon dominating OU were finally eliminated, I think TTar Sand could be evaluated for how centralizing of a force it would be. A big issue threatening this would be the difficulty in ever proving Hippowdon Sand anywhere near as centralizing (let alone Hippopotas). One thing I would be concerned about in a BW OU without brokens and led by TTar Sand where TTar isn’t constantly having its head pushed back below the water is that Sand structures led by it would stifle teams not running Sand or stacking sand-resistant or sand-tolerant Pokémon. I could foresee a big evolution in play styles using Magnezone as a trapper to help eliminate problematic Steel types that offenses may use to threaten Sand structures’ longevity, giving it more dimension beyond leading Dragmag. A lot of this is spitballing and theorymonning from someone who is not on the pulse of BW OU, but I think evaluating the health of a BW OU metagame with and without a force like Tyranitar would make for potentially more diverse cores and generic offenses/balances.
Banning rain alone makes weatherless hyper offense even more obscene because now you can optimize them to beat sand without worrying about the rain MU. PsySpam also doesn't change at all since it alreadt beat rain anyway and still decimates opposing sand balances
I'm not a particularly knowledgeable bw player by any margin, but almost every team that I've ever made witg the montra "be creative/innovative" just gets toppled by the same annoying threats. Keldeo, reuniclus, or latios. Only a very small group of viable mons properly check these things and if you don't run more than one check to any of them they can basically roll over your team. It's one of the many very annoying things about trying to build for bw that probably gets made worse by my own inexperience
With that description of the tier I can only think of the spider man homecoming ferry sequence, in which Peter holds the ferry together. The ferry in this case is Gen 5 OU and Peter is Tyranitar
If nothing else, I think gems should go. I'm a big Volcarona anti, I think it restricts teambuilding more than anything else, and with gems gone at least Ttar could check it. I do think Keldeo should probably go as well, and I'm not confident that nerfing Rain as a whole would fix it. Water/Fighting is still a really broken STAB combo in the meta, with most fighting resists taking at least 50% from Hydro Pump (even without specs or rain), and water resists basically come down to other rain mons, who wouldn't be in the meta if rain was banned, and Ferrothorn. The only real counters are Jellicent, Latios, and Dragonite (only if you can keep rocks off). Basically, even without Rain, I still think Keldeo would still be too good for BW OU, especially if Latios was banned. In the case that Latios was banned, Keldeo and Thundurus should follow, at which point we're starting to neuter rain pretty hard. I think from there we just give it some time and see how the meta settles, possibly come back to look at Tentacruel if need be but I honestly think that without those three, rain wouldn't be nearly as devastating as it is now. Not to mention, with so many threats gone, sand and weatherless teams would have more freedom to experiment with other mons that could more reliably check Tentacruel.
I remember years ago when I used to play, there was an OM that I liked (I forget which one), and everyone was saying we needed to ban a certain pokemon because it was extremely broken (I forget which one), and there was this one guy who kept insisting we couldn't because "it would start a slippery slope where we ban every pokemon".
I think BW OU has to be splitted in 2: The broken OU, with several Ubers pokemon unbanned as well as speed control abilities and the "Balanced OU", going all the way to ban every weather ability outside of Snow Warning and banning important threats like Latios, Keldeo and Volcarona, as well as gems, while again unbanning the speed control abilities since there is no perma weather. Its time for Abomanasov to shine in OU for once. For Broken OU, I would start unbanning Groudon, Giratina and maybe some dragons between Zekrom, Kyu-W, Palkia and to a lesser extent Dialga. Also Darkrai could be unbanned keeping the sleep ban, but i would prefeer to add slow bulkier ubers to make the tier a bit more stable (maybe gems should just go as well). Lets be real, the real problem of BW OU is the perma weather wars, and maybe gems as well. Broken threats like Latios and Volc exist to balance broken stuff with something more broken, since you cant play everything super safe or you die to some HO bs even without gems, or even Dragspam. That or just make OU light OU and promote BW Ubers a bit more to make it as relevant as BW OU
Interesting proposal regarding making two OUs. Though I would argue that a team, just because it has Tyra in there, doesn’t make it sand, tyra grants you several boons no other ‘mons can, and its sand ability is used more so he can tank stuff like dm more easily, rather than have its moves powered up by it.
@@MennydorgesERArchive Yeah, i recognise that i was probably pretty exaggerated in the idea of banning every weather just because they were metagame defining. Sand is fine if Sand Rush/Sand Veil are not allowed in OU. But the main ways to deal with Sun and Rain is to shut down the weather, unless you play some specific dragspam or HO team. Even something like Charizard or Feraligatr dont have a good defensive answer if you dont overwrite weathers, let alone Keldeo or Volc. This is very restrictive and it can be easily exploited (like Every rain sweeper easily pressures Ttar, Hippo or Ninetales, so they cant came in very often). All in all, i think that it might be possible to make a more balanced metagame if Drought and Drizzle are not in it. Then you deal with Sand as always like in gen 4 or 3. Ofc stuff like Latios, Volc, Zam and gems could be banned but stability should be found much faster than rn.
I hated Gen 5 so much. I thought I was alone with feeling that way. I find it funny how Smogon would instantly ban pokemon without any testing, but Pokemon who obviously were over centralizing the meta like Politoad stuck around. And look how that turned out, if you don't run a weather team in Gen 5, there is no way of beating it without luck honestly. Previous Gens were nice because there was more freedom to team building but this Gen you actually can't do anything really unique outside of choosing what weather you are playing your team around. It was honestly the worst competitive Pokemon Gen in my opinion. Totally zapped the originality out of making teams.
28:30 "creativity" so yeah people want competitive to die i swear all this "playing few Mons is Just boring " is the stupidest thing which is killing any competitive Pokémon tournament ... so, a question, since RBY Is getting a PU... is BW getting a rework?
In my opinion (keep in mind I hover at like 1200 and one trick drag mag) latios is the most broken Pokémon in the tier, specifically scarf latios. It one shots way too much with only draco and far too many of my games have come down to whoever wins a speed tie with scarf latios. With that mon gone I think keldeo would need to be banned aswell but I think rain still has other great offensive options
Latios is a monster, yeah, but scarf latios isn't anywhere near the definitive set. The fact that you're a dragmag player means scarf latios speed ties will surprisingly often define a game, yeah, especially if you face against another dragmag, but that isn't the experience for most other players, and dragmag isn't considered anywhere near dominant as a team style rn.
If you have to ban this much stuff to make it balanced, maybe its just not worth saving. The issues in gen 5 that make it broken come from the mechanics programmed into the game
First off, loved the video, keep up the great work! As someone who's played BW in a few team tours (never in SPL, but once in WcoP, and a bunch in smaller tours), I definitely agree with Scald, and can get on board with banning gems as well. With Keldeo and Latios I'm kinda torn, but I'd like to see them tested b/c I'm curious what the meta would look like. I've always kinda liked the volatile nature of gen 5 where you have to dance around powerful threats and offense running offensive checks to stuff rather e.g Toxapex in SM which from my experience just slows the game down. However, at this point it feels like rock paper scissors matchup wise, which is obv unhealthy. So there definitely needs to be changes, but I definitely want to preserve the fast paced nature of BW, because that's what I've always liked the most abt it.
To be honest when you said "There are too many different kinds of threats and you can't prepare for all of them on the same team" my first thought was TCG's have this problem too, they solved it with sideboards. If the singles game was Bring 6 choose 4 then you could have some slots on your team that you wouldn't want to bring to every match, then in best 2 out of 3 style games you have the option to bring in certain mons or leave them out. VGC does this and it often results in most teams packing a slow bulky sweeper for example just in case they run into a trick room team. Now If there was a way to implement it I would probably have it be bring 9 choose 6 but I think rather than banning a teamstyle if you could tech in certain options to help you with that matchup without compromising your team against different matchups that could help
honestly as someone who doesnt play this gen hearing about it sounds like hearing about a post apocalypse pokemon meta.It makes sense that gamefreak basically nuked weather after this gen.honestly one alternate reality i like to think about for gen 5 is if hail was the only weather left and if gems were banned alongside rain and sand.I dont think that would really fix the issues in the meta but at this point i cant think of anything that can and at least hail being the only weather is a fun little thought to have
I love listening to your content and hearing your opinions on things, but a suggestion I'd like to add- get a pop filter or maybe back up from the mic a bit as you have these incredible mic peaks that make my skull crack.
in fact it would not only just be others complaining, you yourself would realise that even after 10 years of tiering you were still not quite satisfied
POV: You're on a family vacation, your dad's had four beers and starts telling you how everyone he works with is an idiot at the hotel pool
How did you know my dad works at the hotel pool?
Same vibe, they're both based
Bkc is my dad?
I didn’t want to say anything but I was thinking the same thing, this video is way more ranty and unfocused than most of his other videos. It was funny but it made it kinda harder to follow.
My favorite tier ever.. such a shame how it regressed over the years. You should feel proud tho u got a lot of ppl into this tier and will always be my goat in gen5ou. Great vid kev
The same tier where all hell let loose the second politoed got drizzle
And Ninetales gets Drought
@@Kali_Krause y E s
Gen 5 ou is cancer compared to Gen 6 imo. Then gen 7 had to mess it all up again with Tapus and Toxapex
@@Kali_Krause sun teams arent actually very good in gen 5 so no not really
I think we should unbanned species clause so u can have 3 T-Tars to check Latios and rain
3 ttar, 2 latios, 1 cup
6 ttars becomes the best team to use
Time to spam a whole herd of Tauros
TLDW: BKC agitating for popular support in order to start a coup in the BW regional capital of RoA (Republic of Alph) and establish a provisional government
“This isn’t about me, this is something greater than me” in the most menacing tone I’ve heard in a video about PS lmao
Gems are actually quite terrifying when thinking about it in a modern context, Dragapult was banned in NatDex due to Z-moves just allowing it break its counters, and gems would be the same. Like I imagine dragon dance sets running steel gem to break any fairies, or water gem to boost hydro pump to pick off lando or heatran, even ghost gem for the extra power against pex and or buzzswole
252 sp.attack specs hydro doesn't ohko max sp.def lando so i doubt hydro pump of a invested hydro would be too threating. Plus ddance pult beats lando anyways.
Back when Snorlax was still OU as ever in BW, a STAB explosion+norm gen in vgc to a steelix did nearly 65%
(This is RESISTED keep in mind while Steelix still had the best phys-def [200] in the game) 😰😳 idk the defense comparison to Ferrothorn [134] however that’s still terrifying
+ it procs things like Unburden and Acrobatics attack boost
@@judehaylesa who runs max spdef lando
@@jeff2x837 it's literally the most common set in gen 8 high ladder, so lots of people
Imagine Kyogre was Politoed and Groudon was Tyranitar, then imagine the Sootopolis City crisis cutscene from Pokemon Emerald.
That's probably gen 5.
who’s the rayquaza now lol
@@aeternis7680 Specs latios
@@Kuroo39 LOL
Theyre abilities on legendaries for a reason
@@Kuroo39 that's so accurate lol
Probably less of a problem for your typical audience, since I think most people who're willing to sit through 2 hour videos on mons probably already have a feel for it, but what's always missing from these sorts of analyses (for any PvP game) is the principles and values by which meta-games are assessed in the first place, and going over how policies can affect these values.
Some examples, all with justifications around RNG:
* a "solved" metagame is probably a bad metagame, because it'll result in 2 identical (or nearly identical) teams facing off, which will too often come down to who gets the crit/body slam paralyze/blizzard freeze
* a metagame with *too* much variety can actually be even worse, when it results in RPS matchup fishing (this is not really encapsulated by "variety" per se, but it's related)
* evasion/OHKO/moody/etc. are banned because (1) they lack any application outside of RNG fishing, and (2) RNG fishing is not a valued "skill". Theoretical/actual viability in practice are pretty much irrelevant to this assessment; it's more about "we all agree that this is bullshit and competitive games are better without it".
* to use a more specific example, the first time I remember hearing someone applying a value judgment to a metagame in a way that resonated with me was about BW RU (which I have not personally played). Their rationale: BW RU sucks, because Moltres and Durant are both S-tier for their ability 2HKO pretty much anything, as long as they get through hustle/hurricane accuracy.
It'd probably be worth doing a video on the subject so you can point to it in similar discussions. Also, I'd just like to hear your thoughts on the matter :).
Excellent comment
Thanks for playing something that moves in this video. It makes it so much easier for me to watch.
I was an avid Gen 5 player when the metagame was new. I think the problem is the metagame didn't have the time it needed to settle due to a variety of factors.
When Politoed came out with drizzle and Ninetails with drought, it threw everything out of wack. Aldarons Proposal was the most controversial decision at the time, up there with banning Garchomp and Salamence.
At the same time, Smogon was using Pokemon Online to battle , which lessened the weight of its tiering decisions. For some dumbass reason Pokemon Online had like half of the Uber tier in their OU, this put pressure to the nonsense like trying to allow Deoxys Defense and Speed in the metagame, there was even talk of fucking Darkrai and Giratina for a period.
So BW1 was trying to deal with 2 fires at once, both from rando Ubers falling in, while also weather bullshit. The priorities of the council were also super out of wack depending on recent tourneys, they go SOO close to banning REUNICLES. Talk of missing the forest for the trees.
Once that was dealt with Gamefreak through a boatload of overpowered Pokemon and new abilities right at the end of the metagame and we needed to apparently playtest them all, and there was a time crunch to finish this all before gen 6.
In my opinion, you gotta keep weather. Weather IS Gen 5 OU. However, everything else, needs to be entirely re-done. If we are already messing with the tiering of old tiers like Gen 1 and Gen 2, might as well fix the one that needs it. The metagame has backed into it dumbass priorities considering the politics of the rival Pokemon Online and time crunch.
Giratina!? Why?!?
It's embarrassing when Gen 7 OU is more regulated than Gen 5 OU.
>Be me
>15 year old Smogon Council member
>Marks in school have been steadily lowering but this is my “job” so idc
>Some sperg is complaining that the My Little Pony creature is too strong in rain
>He has all these damage calcs and how common team structures are required to be interrupted with a counter to the horse as “proof”.
>mfw if I start a suspect test we’ll have to ban the jet plane for the same reason
>the redditors would also get mad, and they don’t even play the game
>Tell the monkey that he just has to adapt (git gud lmaooooo)
>He asks me to elaborate
>”If you and the rest of the playerbase don’t adapt then the playerbase is going to have to adapt to no horsy and lizard plane in OU”
Another day in the life of a Smogon council member, my work is extremely important.
Gen 5 OU had always been such a clown fiesta that I jumped ship to Ubers after BW2, which was pretty fortunate because BW Ubers ended up becoming one of my favorite tiers of all time.
idk why it got cut off at the end, but the sentiment was that we should fully follow through on one person's vision for the tier, as opposed to (not even) half-heartedly "committing" to several people's strewn-about vision.
also anyone who says "but if you ban rain there'll just be sand!" or "bw's identity is the weather generation!" - because that will be said - clearly doesn't have competitiveness as their first priority.
#SAVEBW
While I get your frustration, this solution is basically just becoming exactly what the dumb Smogon detractors have claimed Smogon is for years: a dictatorship that arbitrarily decides what is and isn't "correct" Pokémon, a kind of Pokémon Papacy. Smogon's legitimacy comes from the fact that it (at least in theory) is a grassroots fan movement, that its decisions mostly reflect at least the consensus of the majority of skilled and committed competitive players. The second you say "OK, instead this guy rules and gets to decide what BW OU should be like", you immediately open yourself up to the obvious counter-argument of "Who died and made him King?" "Why does This Guy get to be the BW OU Pope who decides what Good Pokémon looks like?". Once you remove the grassroots community element of it, Smogon actually does become just as its haters say it is - an arbitrary ruling body dictating to other players what they ought to do based on nothing more than their own flawed opinions. Plus, do you REALLY want to give nerds absolute power over any particular subject? Experience suggests that they tend to be especially bad about abusing what little power they're given.
I appreciate the sentiment, but it's not arbitrary decision making. the person would be qualified through being one of the best bw players for an extended period of time. plus, there's nothing that couldn't be undone. (also I don't really care about the dumb detractors)
@@BKCplaysPokemon Then you're not really changing anything. If there's a King who is really just the biggest member of the council, and the council can veto his decisions if they don't like them, he's not really much of a King, you basically still have the Bickering Council problem and your solution has changed nothing. If his decisions are absolute, but he can be ousted by a vote, then you're asking for politicking and backstabbing to be made even worse. If he rules completely solo, with no recourse to removing him, then you have what I described above, where we have an arbitrarily appointed Pokémon Pope, plus you would have no way to prevent him from abusing his power (say he decides to ban a strategy he doesn't like, and invents a spurious argument defending his decision).
Basically, since you're talking about how the community should be organised and run, you're running into political questions, which I'm not sure you've properly thought through. I would always defer to you on knowledge about competitive Pokémon, but that's not what's in question here.
@HOTSHOCK I think Bkc just wants temporary dictatorship so changes can actual occur at a quick pace unlike usual.
Something worth pointing out to anyone who says "but if you ban rain there'll just be sand!" or "bw's identity is the weather generation!" is there is a reason that weather abilities got nerfed in gen 6. Even gamefreak was able to see how fucked up permanent weather was in this context.
I think that the "dictatorship" route is a smart way to go for older gens. You don't have the big playerbase to deliberate over stuff and test things, so you just need somebody who's gonna get shit done. Especially when the community can never agree on what needs to be done.
Plus, as somebody who doesn't play old gens I actually think that shaking up a tier big time is a way to kind of revive it. You could easily get people who play modern OU to check out the older meta after a big shake up. People shouldn't be so freaked out by rocking the boat in older metas. If RBY can undergo radical shifts almost 30 years after release, Black and White can deal with banning some stupid tactics 10 years after.
There already is an under representation of *active* players. That's the problem.
Then that is the problem. How do you keep focus on a small active playerbase for long enough such that it becomes large enough for a long time to determine the actual threats and to get people to say that Gen 5 OU has a bevy of broken stuff that needs to be fixed? You don’t, because Pokémon is a series where people drop the earlier generations, and has a strange mix of casual and competitive players that will never see eye-to-eye nor influence each other. Gen 5 OU is basically dead and irreparable.
@@iantaakalla8180 haha woah there's just no solution so let's not try anything XDDD
We should probably also have different versions of these tiers like an anything goes for each Gen
45:33 this scald point really opened my mind when you said "any metagame", I realize that the amount of bulky waters such as toxapex and slowbro who can sit and click scald in gen8 ou can be fixed by banning scald. I am not saying that they are broken since as anyone who has played the recent metagame should know that these pokemon aren't the problem but getting rid of scald would remove the stupid burnfishing with scald which is annoying and can make building progress against these pokemon really tough(this doesn't just apply to bulky waters, I've seen stuff like slowking galar being able to take it's checks in landorus and garchomp just removing them off the game by one 30% chance).
Edit: I said dumb shit here an exaggerated, I should've just mentioned how annoying it is and not broken which is way high. Either way scald is cringe.
Scald isn't even threatening in gen 8 compared to 5
if anything, i see bulky waters getting regenerator as more an issue. scald is so welcome on special attackers. protects you from other status
@@fulltimeslackerii8229 it’s less welcome in a meta where the burn is doing more than leftovers heals. Scald is more manageable now because burn damage was nerfed to not be as significant- in earlier gens, burns are just as nasty as 1 layer of toxic spikes, except the only burn-immune mons also happen to be weak to Scald.
@@XtheGAMEmaster true true. i forgot that burn used to be 12%.
many toxapex dont even run sacld anymore in gen 8 lol. its not even a comparison to gen 5
Black and White OU is what got me into high end Pokemon and I hold the metagame in high regard, with rose tinted goggles glued onto my ridge. The extreme punishment for messing up, the absurd threat accounting, the fast pace and intense turns probably forced me to learn more Mons than any other gen in hindsight. I was never really big into OU, played it either a lot of sparsely, but nailing rank 1 on main gen Ubers with the whole lobby chat cheering me on is something I will always look back on with a lot of love.
..But with that massive introductory tangent out of the way, the issues with modern Gen 5 OU is to me mostly from how ridiculously centralizing the two biggest
damage dealers are. Sand, Rain, everything inbetween has to play so safe versus Latios and Keldeo that it kindof ruins any sort of balancing you can do because of just how much damage they do to the entire metagame without any sort of proper and fair counterplay. On top of their sets being varied they have speed tiers that force awkward interactions with every other wincon that isn't "set rocks, keep my 2 psychics untouched, choke out the toad and its' two obligatory compadres and hope they're not one of the six different interchangeable sets that kill my psychics on the switch."
Introducing more threats to combat the two dosen't really change as much as a lot of people claim it will since they will probably just adapt in less than two weeks of the new clauses and introductions. I feel that at its' core most people get annoyed with Latios and Keldeo and they should be suspected in modern BW2, probably just instantly banned, to see how that affects the metagame in the same way Brelooms main boon got axed and made the metagame as a whole more interesting.
it's not breloom main boon it's ammongus main boon dude basically felled of the map after that
@@whydoiexist2180 Yeah. But do you think a person who is only vaguely into older generations will look at Breloom and not think it presses A sleep move? Its' just semantics.
I started competitive ou in bw then stopped because how unfun it got
@@whydoiexist2180 AMOoNGUS was SUSpect tested. this is crazy
Breloom still can put work on Sun, absolutely cleans house versus Tain and Sand and literally ends the game if you get a Swords Dance.
The only issue is that it’s complete setup fodder for Dragonite or most of the other brutal dragon sweepers in the meta.
The easiest way to fix BW OU is to ban literally every pokemon in it to Ubers, because BW UU is just an infinitely better tier anyway
Ban Scald from every gen and every tier. That's the first step to fixing Pokemon. Every argument against a ban from your thread for banning Scald was "haha woah then we gotta ban Body Slam" as if the two are even in the same dimension
"whats there to loose? an unplayable metagame?"
i love this quote, this applies to so many tiers with with unnefective councils (cof gen 8 dou cof)
Can't believe we have an Ally Switch suspect...
From what you're saying, it seems like the biggest that have been dragging BWOU down are reluctance to ban objectively oppressive Pokemon and disconnect between casual and competitive players, all of which is exacerbated by the incompetence of the council. I think that banning Keldeo and Latios as well as Gems is one of the best things we can do for the meta at this stage, and would probably lessen the need for Ttar to manhandle the entire metagame just to keep it alive. I'm personally against going full dictator, but unless the meta wants to completely ignore casual players, it may be the only thing we can do.
I'm not really sure if casual players should be allowed to influence tiering. There are people that will defend broken Pokemon on the basis that they like it. It's something that happened in Bdsp OU when Gengar was suspected, one of the most common defense's against Gengar ban was that people liked using it. It eventually got banned and for like a week people kept crying over it
@@exi_dudi2037 most of them are just casuals or vgc fans that hate when smogon needs to swing the ban hammer.
BKC GETS HIS WISH, GEMS HAVE BEEN BANNED!
Gen 5 OU is where I really got into Showdown and doing competitive battles. I still remember most of my team. Donphan, Breloom, Rotom-W, Electivire, Gengar, and Chansey.
For some reason, I still believed using Legendaries was cheating back then.
Definitely agree that banning Gems is a logical first step, that shit is absurd. Cloyster Ice spear with Ice gem does 90%+ to Keldeo with a decent roll to kill, that's not right man. And if it has Rock gem it can nuke through the other things that are supposed to check it. At this point there's no such thing as a check anymore
When BW OU becomes like Sailor Moon S
gen 5 OU was the only metagame i completly stopped playing and only got back to gen 6
"Fix" implies there's something wrong with BW OU. Who doesn't love E N D L E S S R A I N and E T E R N A L S A N D S T O R M?
Thanks kev, I enjoyed the discussion and also really enjoyed the ciele appreciation session quietly going on in the background, what a phenomenal player, I would really enjoy if we got to see other legends battles in the background in future discussions!
If smogon wanted to represent themselves as a competent competitive outlet for Pokémon players, they have to sacrifice their face to casual players. Competitive play is not for everyone and that’s okay. VGC and battle spot singles exist for a reason. A ban everything movement would have been so good for the entire community from early on too. Not only for tier shaping, but for cutting casual players from shaping a game they wouldn’t be invested in anyways. Imagine how far we would have come if we had started that way.
the way they could have both is to have a ban list that takes effect at a certain elo that can be deemed “high ladder”. in their surveys, they already weigh the averages in this regard anyway.
Idk if I agree with that lol
Counterpoint: it's also super easy for a small elite group, especially a group of socially awkward nerds, to get completely up their own ass to the point where they lose all touch with reality. Look, it's easy to hate on the dumb casuals, and they can be pretty darn dumb, but don't become arrogant and cocksure you ignore your own weakness and blind spots.
@@CantusTropus always love the homies that think they can dodge the basement dwelling fedora enjoyer accusations by saying it first;
anyways, L+ scrub mentality+qualify for a suspect
@@CantusTropus I agree wit your counterpoint although its quite hard to tell for sure what should be done at this point since radical change like having basically a mega ban could be what we need but it could also just as easily result in the same or even worse situation
Been playing with rain a lot on ladder and can confirm that the amount of Scald wars I find myself in is way too much. It often feels like games don't progress until someone gets a burn, and, of course, whoever gets it first will most likely win in the end thus making the game way too reliant on RNG.
Banning gems also sounds like a great idea. Thinking about it now: it's like having Z-moves, but you're able to give all 6 of your team members a Z-move at the same time. Maybe that's why GameFreak got rid of the gems in gen 6 and replaced them with Z-moves in gen 7.
In terms of Keldeo and Latios, I think Keldeo should go first and then test Latios. Between threats like Ttar and Ferro, Latios already feels fairly well checked. The only Latios sets that come to mind that could directly break through those without team support are the Choice Specs and Calm Mind + Dragon Gem sets. The Choice Specs set can get revenge killed by an opposing scarfer fairly easily once it's been revealed, and the Dragon Gem set won't exist to begin with if the gems are banned.
I think the most broken set personally isn't either of those. Colbur Latios is actually busted, suddenly ttar has to take two dracos after rocks instead of just one and god forbid they set up spikes too. Also unlike any other latios form just knowing the set doesn't let you know all the moves it has; Dragon Pulse, Roar, HP Fire, Twave are all good options
@@vtmagno23 Ah that sounds rough
I personally haven't run into any Colbur Latios sets on ladder myself, so I wasn't aware of that one
(Note: I'm speaking purely from my ladder experience as I've never entered any tourneys. Forgive my casual ass)
This sounds just like a complicated metaphor of real world politics lol
Wait, Latios and Keldeo are still legal? I thought Latios would have be banned years ago, he's such a meme of how overpower to the point that if you don't have Tyranitar, you lose, period.
Pokepasters: just adapt
Also: don't change stagnant format, adapting to new format is hard
GEMS BANNED, 1 STEP FORWARD LET'S GOOOO
Crossing the smogon rubicon to place BKC as dictator to save the BW republic with the bois
Hey Kev, while I really like the tangential style, I think you could really benefit from half-scripting the videos. Not insofar as a full script, since a full script for an hour long video would be pretty tedious to make, but structuring your argument out using bullet points or the like would make it a lot more cohesive. It also lets you bring up specific talking points and counterpoints in the order you want.
Cheers!
Listened to this on the way to a friends house, really awesome dive into the annoying history of tiering in BW OU and also your suggestions. I would love to see this happen for BW OU, amazing video/podcast as always BKC. Top level content from a top level creator
The discussion about early BW really brings it back and remind you how dumb that era was. Deo A, Skymin, Darkrai, KingColoTops, and Dory all in one place
This is before people figure out that Gems are horrendously broken as well iirc which is kinda scary since it could get worse in hindsight
You saying the japanese name of Excadrill also reminded me that PO had Dream World as a tier, and was its main one, it really says a lot, when DW was more chaotic than normal BW OU.
The more I look into gems, the more I'm like "It's just a better version of Z moves". Ban them and suspect Z moves in SM OU as a preventive measure
The no editing even when the screen freezes entirely is a stylistic choice
Holy shit BKC has had his joker moment
Someone help this man
ban keldeo
I'm definitely on board with the notion that Gems are dumb, but I also fear that the tier devolves into Tri Psy vs Tri Psy every game in their absence. Weakening HO indirectly invalidates Rain. I think it's dumb to say "Well you just want to win with Sand," when using Tyranitar on a majority of teams does not imply the absence of variety, but I think saying "We're going to fall into Reuniclus wars" is a reasonable concern regarding what the absence of Gems creates.
With this in mind, I think another option worth considering (especially when you casually mentioned how dumb Reuniclus is) is banning Magic Guard. I can think of a few positive effects that would come out of this:
1. I think there's a high possibility that Volc/Cloy/Gems/whatever lose appeal a bit when A) the main structure they're fishing is gone and B) the structure that they HATE facing (i.e. Rain) is indirectly made better by the absence of another structure.
2. Latios is still very strong stand-alone, but its tango partners that team up to overwhelm Ttar are gone, and Latios serves as a check to dumb rain threats Keldeo and Thundy-T.
3. All Sand teams would be more or less forced to accommodate a need for hazard control when building, which could re-open possibilities for the variety that Sand itself offers, and also wouldn't need to worry about being worn down by an opposing team whose wincons CAN'T be worn down.
I don't think action on Magic Guard would "fix" the tier or anything, but I think it's a starting point worth considering since it would also indirectly weaken the overbearing influence HO has right now. I think the absence of Magic Guard would make Tentacruel really dumb, but there are obviously ways to circumvent that much.
Unaware Clefable 😳
The funny thing about BKC’s Rayquaza example is that there’s legitimately people who act like that every gen, e.g Zamazenta-C, Reshiram, etc
As well as when something gets banned: “Well gunk shot Greninja can just be revenge killed by scarf Lati!”
I think the worst is when people look at the game completely in a vacuum as if the game is 1v1 and not 6v6, yeah sure sheer force Lando-I loses to Weavile/Mamo, but you can switch to a counter to Weavile/Mamo…
There’s also people who complain about Lando-T in 6/7 even though it’s usage is like Gen 5 Ttar
What I thought was a really interesting take away is what if we had banned things like that early on. Imagine if we had nothing to compare to today’s landorus. It’s like saying imagine what basketball fans would talk about if they didn’t have MJ and lebron. It’s actually insane to think about where the tiers and competitive scene would be today.
As a VGC player I hate Lando-T because in terms of doubles it ruins every format it touches.
In terms of singles for gen 6/7 there were certainly bigger fish that needed frying imo (Gen 6 I think of Clefable. It can get away with basically anything and in Gen 7 Either celesteela or pex NEEDED to get hit because stall is way too strong and particularly hitting pex would allow other strategies to flourish (Also ban Z-moves, that is the worst mechanic ever. Literally better gems. Dynamax in gen 8 is banned so I don't have to mention how Dynamax was clearly balanced around doubles)
In terms of Zamazenta-C, I still think the reaction to it's "brokenness" was vastly overblown. Offensively it was quite inept, even after a boost it massively struggled to break past the common defensive staples of the tier like Slowbro, Zapdos and Toxapex and even if it did manage to break one (like tended to happen with Slowbro with Wild Charge) it would basically KO itself in the process, the trade could be worth it, but that meant you needed your team to be built in a specific way to overload the opponent, so offensively it definitely wasn't as splashable as people claimed (I'll have more on that later). Defensively, it had amazing traits of course between the sterl typing, the insane bulk, the fact it is the best Knock off sponge of all time etc, but at the same time, it has absolutely no recovery, not even passive, it is weak to the most common coverage moves in the game (even if it can survive any one such hit in a pinch due to it's bulk) meant that it was easily worn down and it has no utility whatsoever so it's only sets had to be offensive (cutting down on the bulk because without investment it's dealing pathetic damage and it needs the speed because it's fast but not enough to not invest in it like a Regieleki could) and without a boost, it's still not that strong and it can have a hard time forcing a switch out against the offensive threat it switched into if it were somewhat bulky (think of Specs Dragapult, it could definitely withstand a Behemoth Bash and Zamazenta if it came on a Shadow Ball (or worse, Fire Blast) was definitely not gonna appreciate the exchange). Add to that how weak it is to spikes since, again, it has no recovery, and Zamazenta frequently wasn't something that you could simply switch in and out of battle since if it wanted to actually damage the team it needed a boost and for gaining said boost it needed to be at high health especially since it naturally wears itself down by attacking, so yet again, it's defensive utility was cut short. The only type of team that truly got good mileage out of it's defensive/offensive talents were hardcore stall teams since they could heal it with Wish and it in exchange gave a good stop gap to some big offensive threats like Kartana and it gave these teams some speed and offense of their own
As I said earlier, a big argument against Zam at the time was that it was over centralizing and it was seen everywhere when ........ ot was a box art legend being suspect tested, of course it was gonna be everywhere, people wanted to play it, those abnormally high usage were due to the circumstances of the time, but if it stayed I'm sure they would have dropped way down due to how actually specific it was in it's effectiveness. To me, Zamazenta appeared relatively balanced for OU, maybe it could have been seen as toxic over time, maybe underwhelming, but I still think the way this ordeal was handled was a disaster (notably because it came at a time where the metagame wasn't really healthy in other ways and Zamazenta didn't help fix much of it outside of Knock Off spam. The timing of this suspect was really garbage imo and (combined with the current community that choses to ban everything put on a suspect, it's actually insane that every suspect in gen 8 has resulted in a ban, I overall agree, but looking back at previous gens it's insane to think about) it didn't give Zamazenta a real chance (I voted to unban if you couldn't tell lmao)
@@sephikong8323 Zamazenta-C is a strange one because (once again....from a mostly doubles player's perspective) it's not even considered better than base Zamazenta because you can't hold items when crowned.
@@sephikong8323 Zamacenta isn't doing work against fat balance teams and especially not stall teams, but what are offense teams suppose to do against it? It absolutely manhandles Weavile and checks Tran. If those two are gone a defensive team can do pretty much whatever it wants with 0 fear. If you think SSOU is slow and/or defensive (and a lot of people do) I think Zam-C would just exacerbate the issue over time.
LOOL BKC listened! My ADHD is satisfied. Like.
Ttar is also the slow, clunky kind of threat that you can bring in a lot of hate against if you really wanted to, without severely compromising your team, if it ever did become the dominant threat. Kinda reminds me of gen 6 lando t. Offensive sweepers and wallbreakers that don't need too much setup are the ones that tend be backbreaking in team building.
I wonder how bad the current OU would be if they never banned dynamax
It'd be downright unplayable. That ban was gonna happen sooner rather than later. If it didn't we'd have a ban list that exceeded the list of usable Pokémon.
@@LordLucario12 agree but its interesting to think about having to ban every pokemon that had over base 120 attack and 80 speed.
@@windwaker0rules *and a flying move ;)
I would like to see a Dynamax meta or something. If only to see how that sorts itself. It would not be serious because Dynamax is broken and does not reward good plays (except in double OF COURSE) but it would be funny to see what Pokémon would really be on top assuming a singles format with Dynamax.
@@iantaakalla8180 I don't think it's even that balanced in doubles. I saw all the broken sun teams.
I still call Conkeldurr Roopushin lol. Same with Hihidaruma
Nattorei and Sazandora for me, I remember when Shofu had a intro rap with Roopushin and Hihidaruma lol
My solutions to Gen 5 OU (since BKC said you can propose anything and it'd be an improvement)
-Ban Chansey. Special attackers, especially under rain, aren't strong enough
-Ban Hyper Cutter on Gliscor. It shouldn't even be an option
-Ban all weather setters except Snover. I just really like snover and wanna see him more
-Heatran forced to run 4 fire type moves unless running exactly 136 speed EVs and a Bold nature. This would be funny
-Ban Lando-T. I'm tired of seeing this stupid dog in every game I play ever.
-Bring back sand rush Excadril. No lando = no counterplay. We need an instant win button like the good ol days of swift swim
-Ban choice specs, unless on TTar, who is forced to run all physical moves.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk
Scald clause: all water type pokemon are forced to run scald
Ban lations unless is a choice scarf set
Only one insta win button is boring, let's bring back genesect as well
Modify the game to add fairy type than program xerneas and magearna in the game and put in OU (they are going to be the only fairies btw)
Remove species clause for tyranitar, everyone shoud be able to use at least 2 on a team
Give Icicle Spear and DDance to Kyurem-Black - it was interesting to play that set in gen 8 OU for a short while, let's see how it rolls in gen 5
Dang can I get a bite sized version of this with just the 5 ideas off the bat?
Raw ass video. I love hearing people wax poetic about their passions and the frustration in this video gives it a pretty interesting colour. Really interesting hearing all of your thoughts on this, especially given the way the meta has developed since.
"Just adapt" is a reasonable response to johns, but a suspect discussion doesn't care about salty scrubs - the competitive meta has already tried to adapt & a healthy adaptation was not found.
also pokemon aint designed to be a comp pokemon unlike a lot of other comp games
if we're bringing up Smash comparisons, this sounds a lot like the discussion around banning Bayonetta in Smash 4, where action wasn't taken while Smash 4 was the newest generation on the basis that the top players just needed to adapt (on the murkier side is the discussion around melee puff where its more arguable that the top players really did just need to adapt)
The underline issue is not adapting to someone, you can adapt to Latios, Keldeo, Volca, HO, volturn etc, you cannot adapt to all these powerful things with 6 slots at your disposal.
I propose a new tier completely separate to everything else. BKC OU. Where BKC gets to be the dictator of OU just to prove his points
Finally got to finish the video after listening to the video on and off all day. I absolutely love the idea of making Gen5 OU just Ubers lite lol. Fantastic hypotheticals as always. Glad to see more uploads
BW ou is the ssb brawl of competitive pokemon
Gems are finally banned, let's go
this video is a gd trainwreck but its so entertaining
"So your opponent would lead with Politoed, which was the style at the time..."
I can’t believe gen 5 OU is the only tier that’s is available 24/7 when literally every other gen 5 meta game is better I mean ubers is great UU is great RU is just gen 4 UU but with butter free being viable for some odd reason and NU may not have that many spinners but way more balance then the mess of gen 5 Ou
There are arguments I get around it, but I will never not think of "ban scald" as a Smogon meme. It's the point at which I start to say "go play a game designed around competitive" because the arguments around it often feel like they're complaining about one luck based factor in a game absolutely chock full of them. When scald is oppressive enough to be considered banworthy that's the sign of a bad metagame as a whole, and it feels like not seeing the forest for the trees.
gen 5 has probably my favorite uber tier so I wouldn't mind if everything got unbanned
My only takeaway from this video is #RaquazaForGen5OU
It's interesting to learn about these things as someone who only played gen 8. I've already watched enough to know that the novelty of the weather wars isn't a good justification to keep Drizzle but could at least see the counterargument of throwing the tier into chaos. Emphasizing just how much better that chaos would be than the tier's current state was very important and I hope that massage got to more people than just me. A lot of the other stuff makes sense too. Latios forces Pursuit on every team and Keldeo goes unchecked with Pursuit support while Gems are less extreme but still very stupid versions of Z moves. I only really disagree with Scald and even then I think it makes water types even more frustratingly privileged and hope it gets cut from the next game. I just don't think it's broken.
"I am your leader now," the metagame.
A way to help prevent this situation in the future if this is resolved. Gen 5 OU is overrun with “guessmons” and “guessitems”. To explain those in very basic wording, A guessmon is a pokemon that to have a fighting chance you need to have multiple checks and guess which set it is, send in the appropriate check and pray your right to have a fighting chance. If not it’s gg. Guessitems are when any Pokémon can run a set with more than 1 item for that set that can be swapped and the potential prescene forces a gamble heavy decision where guessing wrong means you’ve lost the game and guessing right means you still have a fighting chance. Both situations on even one pokemon or their sets is unhealthy and need to be addressed. If it’s a particular pokemon ban it and for guessitems for certain pokemon forbid their use on that pokemon using said set.
Point being one let alone Arceus knows how many of said situations above are in gen 5 OU.
Also pls to help with Gen 5 OU let Lugia into that tier.
Variety is... Le bad
@@ehfoiwehfowjedioheoih4829 yes when it forces 50/50 when its gg if you get it wrong with no prior info without any setup on the opponents end for that situation
Would Gen 8 OU Kyurem be a good example of a guessmon, as a more modern example?
Hey, TH-cam algorithm brought me here. I was a casual player of BW OU back when the games just came out and I follow a few competitive games so this video was quite facinating. I'm probably in the minority but this video wasn't long enough! It seems like it cut off midpoint and now I'm lost. Gunna check out your other videos, good luck!
Key takeaway: BW Ubers is an awesome tier and everyone should play it :)
it is a very fun meta. One of my fav uber tiers, along with gen4 ubers
i actually quit competitive during BW OU and ever since then I went from being pretty decent to just playing it on/off and I'm glad to see my frustrations with the meta at the time get justified so much later. I complained about rain and scald saying they were unreasonable and people would just tell me to git gud, playing this when it was the current meta completely sucked.
I can physically feel the frustration in your voice. Lol
I’ve watched this like five times and I fully agree with every non-joking proposal you bring up wrt going manic pixie dream girl on BW OU. One thing potentially to explore could be (at the end of this tunnel) experimenting with a Sandless TTar OU. Tyranitar is absolutely the glue holding the tier together at the moment, but if all of the broken Pokémon dominating OU were finally eliminated, I think TTar Sand could be evaluated for how centralizing of a force it would be. A big issue threatening this would be the difficulty in ever proving Hippowdon Sand anywhere near as centralizing (let alone Hippopotas). One thing I would be concerned about in a BW OU without brokens and led by TTar Sand where TTar isn’t constantly having its head pushed back below the water is that Sand structures led by it would stifle teams not running Sand or stacking sand-resistant or sand-tolerant Pokémon. I could foresee a big evolution in play styles using Magnezone as a trapper to help eliminate problematic Steel types that offenses may use to threaten Sand structures’ longevity, giving it more dimension beyond leading Dragmag. A lot of this is spitballing and theorymonning from someone who is not on the pulse of BW OU, but I think evaluating the health of a BW OU metagame with and without a force like Tyranitar would make for potentially more diverse cores and generic offenses/balances.
This felt like an unhinged rant that will provide nothing to the discussion. Desperately needed a script.
What if we just banned Rain? judging from this video, rain is pretty much the core of the issues and the pokemon it facilitates
Banning rain alone makes weatherless hyper offense even more obscene because now you can optimize them to beat sand without worrying about the rain MU. PsySpam also doesn't change at all since it alreadt beat rain anyway and still decimates opposing sand balances
I'm not a particularly knowledgeable bw player by any margin, but almost every team that I've ever made witg the montra "be creative/innovative" just gets toppled by the same annoying threats. Keldeo, reuniclus, or latios. Only a very small group of viable mons properly check these things and if you don't run more than one check to any of them they can basically roll over your team. It's one of the many very annoying things about trying to build for bw that probably gets made worse by my own inexperience
I remember when at start of BW Deoxys Speed wasn't in Uber
With that description of the tier I can only think of the spider man homecoming ferry sequence, in which Peter holds the ferry together. The ferry in this case is Gen 5 OU and Peter is Tyranitar
Just yesterday on ladder I had a Volcarona use a Psychic Gem boosted Psychic to end Tentacruel, so yeah i’m totally on board with nuking gems.
So ban 1. Gems, 2. Scald, 3. Keldeo + Latios, 4. rain... and 5. unbanning ubers & Making Gen 5 ubers the default tier... makes sense.
If nothing else, I think gems should go. I'm a big Volcarona anti, I think it restricts teambuilding more than anything else, and with gems gone at least Ttar could check it. I do think Keldeo should probably go as well, and I'm not confident that nerfing Rain as a whole would fix it. Water/Fighting is still a really broken STAB combo in the meta, with most fighting resists taking at least 50% from Hydro Pump (even without specs or rain), and water resists basically come down to other rain mons, who wouldn't be in the meta if rain was banned, and Ferrothorn. The only real counters are Jellicent, Latios, and Dragonite (only if you can keep rocks off). Basically, even without Rain, I still think Keldeo would still be too good for BW OU, especially if Latios was banned. In the case that Latios was banned, Keldeo and Thundurus should follow, at which point we're starting to neuter rain pretty hard. I think from there we just give it some time and see how the meta settles, possibly come back to look at Tentacruel if need be but I honestly think that without those three, rain wouldn't be nearly as devastating as it is now. Not to mention, with so many threats gone, sand and weatherless teams would have more freedom to experiment with other mons that could more reliably check Tentacruel.
Thanks for the advice bro
Im honestly not sure if a gems ban would fix volcarona. Sure now ttar checks it, but ttar is also super easy to wear down.
Dang the ops caught him before he could finish his plan
The battles in the background make this much easier to watch
I remember years ago when I used to play, there was an OM that I liked (I forget which one), and everyone was saying we needed to ban a certain pokemon because it was extremely broken (I forget which one), and there was this one guy who kept insisting we couldn't because "it would start a slippery slope where we ban every pokemon".
what if we just make "BKC OU" and it is just BW Ubers no scald no gems and it is actually the funniest metagame of all time?
I think BW OU has to be splitted in 2: The broken OU, with several Ubers pokemon unbanned as well as speed control abilities and the "Balanced OU", going all the way to ban every weather ability outside of Snow Warning and banning important threats like Latios, Keldeo and Volcarona, as well as gems, while again unbanning the speed control abilities since there is no perma weather. Its time for Abomanasov to shine in OU for once. For Broken OU, I would start unbanning Groudon, Giratina and maybe some dragons between Zekrom, Kyu-W, Palkia and to a lesser extent Dialga. Also Darkrai could be unbanned keeping the sleep ban, but i would prefeer to add slow bulkier ubers to make the tier a bit more stable (maybe gems should just go as well).
Lets be real, the real problem of BW OU is the perma weather wars, and maybe gems as well. Broken threats like Latios and Volc exist to balance broken stuff with something more broken, since you cant play everything super safe or you die to some HO bs even without gems, or even Dragspam.
That or just make OU light OU and promote BW Ubers a bit more to make it as relevant as BW OU
Interesting proposal regarding making two OUs. Though I would argue that a team, just because it has Tyra in there, doesn’t make it sand, tyra grants you several boons no other ‘mons can, and its sand ability is used more so he can tank stuff like dm more easily, rather than have its moves powered up by it.
@@MennydorgesERArchive Yeah, i recognise that i was probably pretty exaggerated in the idea of banning every weather just because they were metagame defining. Sand is fine if Sand Rush/Sand Veil are not allowed in OU.
But the main ways to deal with Sun and Rain is to shut down the weather, unless you play some specific dragspam or HO team. Even something like Charizard or Feraligatr dont have a good defensive answer if you dont overwrite weathers, let alone Keldeo or Volc. This is very restrictive and it can be easily exploited (like Every rain sweeper easily pressures Ttar, Hippo or Ninetales, so they cant came in very often).
All in all, i think that it might be possible to make a more balanced metagame if Drought and Drizzle are not in it. Then you deal with Sand as always like in gen 4 or 3. Ofc stuff like Latios, Volc, Zam and gems could be banned but stability should be found much faster than rn.
idea: make sun viable again by unbanning groudon
I hated Gen 5 so much. I thought I was alone with feeling that way. I find it funny how Smogon would instantly ban pokemon without any testing, but Pokemon who obviously were over centralizing the meta like Politoad stuck around. And look how that turned out, if you don't run a weather team in Gen 5, there is no way of beating it without luck honestly.
Previous Gens were nice because there was more freedom to team building but this Gen you actually can't do anything really unique outside of choosing what weather you are playing your team around. It was honestly the worst competitive Pokemon Gen in my opinion. Totally zapped the originality out of making teams.
Instead of the usual image, I would like to see you do a time-lapse of some environmental scenery for your next video.
28:30 "creativity" so yeah people want competitive to die
i swear all this "playing few Mons is Just boring " is the stupidest thing which is killing any competitive Pokémon tournament ...
so, a question, since RBY Is getting a PU... is BW getting a rework?
I appreciate you giving me the script to push for a rayquaza OU meta game. Oh and great video btw 👍🏽
Ban Scald? Based
Can someone explain why Eo made the aroma play at 1:59?
In my opinion (keep in mind I hover at like 1200 and one trick drag mag) latios is the most broken Pokémon in the tier, specifically scarf latios. It one shots way too much with only draco and far too many of my games have come down to whoever wins a speed tie with scarf latios. With that mon gone I think keldeo would need to be banned aswell but I think rain still has other great offensive options
So long as rain has Thundurus-T to keep it alive it'll be fine.
you probably know this already but if you hover at 1200 your opinion is worse than useless
@@GeneticallyMortified sorry for sharing my opinion?
Latios is a monster, yeah, but scarf latios isn't anywhere near the definitive set. The fact that you're a dragmag player means scarf latios speed ties will surprisingly often define a game, yeah, especially if you face against another dragmag, but that isn't the experience for most other players, and dragmag isn't considered anywhere near dominant as a team style rn.
BKC explains why democracy is cringe: The Movie
If you have to ban this much stuff to make it balanced, maybe its just not worth saving. The issues in gen 5 that make it broken come from the mechanics programmed into the game
First off, loved the video, keep up the great work! As someone who's played BW in a few team tours (never in SPL, but once in WcoP, and a bunch in smaller tours), I definitely agree with Scald, and can get on board with banning gems as well. With Keldeo and Latios I'm kinda torn, but I'd like to see them tested b/c I'm curious what the meta would look like.
I've always kinda liked the volatile nature of gen 5 where you have to dance around powerful threats and offense running offensive checks to stuff rather e.g Toxapex in SM which from my experience just slows the game down. However, at this point it feels like rock paper scissors matchup wise, which is obv unhealthy. So there definitely needs to be changes, but I definitely want to preserve the fast paced nature of BW, because that's what I've always liked the most abt it.
Can’t wait for the Freezai video if any of these happens with 98% casual commenters who don’t even know anything about the tier, great video!
To be honest when you said "There are too many different kinds of threats and you can't prepare for all of them on the same team" my first thought was TCG's have this problem too, they solved it with sideboards.
If the singles game was Bring 6 choose 4 then you could have some slots on your team that you wouldn't want to bring to every match, then in best 2 out of 3 style games you have the option to bring in certain mons or leave them out. VGC does this and it often results in most teams packing a slow bulky sweeper for example just in case they run into a trick room team. Now If there was a way to implement it I would probably have it be bring 9 choose 6 but I think rather than banning a teamstyle if you could tech in certain options to help you with that matchup without compromising your team against different matchups that could help
Not gonna lie, the idea of just opening up the flood gates is hilarious.
Poor Mence missing everything on the background XD
honestly as someone who doesnt play this gen hearing about it sounds like hearing about a post apocalypse pokemon meta.It makes sense that gamefreak basically nuked weather after this gen.honestly one alternate reality i like to think about for gen 5 is if hail was the only weather left and if gems were banned alongside rain and sand.I dont think that would really fix the issues in the meta but at this point i cant think of anything that can and at least hail being the only weather is a fun little thought to have
I love listening to your content and hearing your opinions on things, but a suggestion I'd like to add- get a pop filter or maybe back up from the mic a bit as you have these incredible mic peaks that make my skull crack.
Hell yeah new BKC video. Today I will sleep tight
in fact it would not only just be others complaining, you yourself would realise that even after 10 years of tiering you were still not quite satisfied
RIP Flying Gem Acrobatics