slant

Most of the arguments I see go "BP is pretty easy to beat" and then they list some counters to BP. That's not the point. The point is that any match against a BP team becomes 100% matchup based. Do you have any counters to bp? If so, congratulations you won, otherwise you lost. There is no skill involved, no battle of the minds. The match is won or lost before it is even played. That's what makes it so sucky. Regarding specific BP counters, really the only viable one is haze and perish song, and those users are so few and far between (Politoed, Celebi, Quagsire) that to be locked into one of those pokemon to have a chance against bp is just ridiculous. Other counters mentioned are not a big deal. I have not found taunt to be an issue, at worst I am stuck attacking for 3 turns or so while my opponent barely scratches me after I have a few defense boosts up. Stealth rock can be annoying but really it is not too hard to play against, most pokemon on a bp team do not take too much damage from rocks. Finally phazers can be seen from a mile away (HMM I WONDER WHY MY OPPONENT BROUGHT OUT SKARMORY). Most BP teams carry some combination of Espeon, Mr. Mime, and Smeargle with Ingrain, specifically to shut down all of these counters.

Kam- yeah spdef Heatran can be a pain in the ass. Smeargle is good and the extra line of defense against phazers would be useful, but yeah i'm not sure if Togekiss would be missed or not. DD- i haven't had a problem with ddtar yet since iron defense/acid armor defense boosts outpace dragon dance's attack boosts. In particular Vaporeon can set up acid armor and fish for a scald burn.

BATON PASSING TO THE TOP! TEAM AT A GLANCE INTRODUCTION OK so anyone who has gone on the ladder in the past week or so probably has had to face my annoying as shit baton pass team. Baton pass is basically a broken strategy right now since it does not depend on player skill, it is 100% reliant on team matchup. Either you have a counter to baton pass or you don't (more on this in the 'counters' section); if you don't then you are 100% screwed. The algorithm goes like this: Step 1, Is the opponent's pokemon (i) a hazard setter or phazer, (ii) offensive physical attacker, or (iii) offensive special attacker? If (i) go to Espeon, if (ii) go to someone who sets up defensive boosts, if (iii) go to someone who sets up spdef boosts. Then keep repeating step 1 until you are at +6 in both defensive and special defense, keeping up substitute if possible. Finally once your opponent can't break past your substitute, sweep with someone (most likely Espeon with stored power). This team sweeps on the special attacking side rather than the physical attacking side. Doing this allows me not to worry about foul play, which does negligible damage even to Espeon. I don't have a dedicated baton pass recipient - any single one of my pokemon can pull off a sweep if necessary. This additional flexibility allows me to adapt to my opponent's strategy and allows me to constantly be setting up in my opponent's face. Finally, every single one of my pokemon carries substitute which protects me against status and critical hits. Always try to keep your subs up! So basically I set out to make the most annoying team the world has ever seen, netting me a current ladder ranking of #2 and a whole lot of ragequits and pissed off opponents before my ladder ranking got reset again (someone should look into that...). And yeah I feel dirty for using baton pass. TEAM IN DETAIL Scolipede (M) @ Mental Herb Trait: Speed Boost EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Iron Defense - Protect - Substitute - Baton Pass Scolipede is a staple on baton pass teams for the sole reason that he is the guy that passes speed. Usually the way I play Scolipede is I alternate between substitute and protect a few times until I get enough speed boosts, then baton pass out. Of course if possible I try to get defense boosts in, but it is unlikely in the beginning, I typically use Scolipede to get up defense boosts only after my chain gets going. The only exception is against hazard layers since I don't care too much if my opponent gets up hazards, so I can use that time to set up a defense boost if I really want to. Mental herb is my item of choice here since otherwise an early taunt can shut down the match for me. With mental herb, I can set up an iron defense on the taunt and then baton pass out on the second taunt. Sylveon (F) @ Leftovers Trait: Pixilate EVs: 252 HP / 252 SDef / 4 Spd Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk) - Calm Mind - Baton Pass - Hyper Voice - Substitute Normally Sylveon is a great spdef wall, but it only gets better once it gets some calm mind boosts under its belt. Sylveon belongs in the chain because it has three things going for it: typing, bulkiness, and pixilate. Its typing means there are very few attacks that will hit it super effectively, its bulkiness ensures that after a few boosts, even super effective attacks don't break its sub. Finally pixilate allows me to have a strong stab attack in hyper voice that also bypasses subs (which is useful in many instances, particularly against opposing baton pass teams). Zapdos @ Leftovers Trait: Lightningrod EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk) - Charge - Substitute - Baton Pass - Thunderbolt Zapdos is my secondary special defense wall. In addition to passing around huge subs, with charge it is able to accumulate special defense boosts for my chain. Charge is such a great move, in addition to boosting my spdef, it also allows me to sweep with thunderbolt should I need to. Usually Zapdos is seen baton passing agility boosts, but since I have Scolipede, I don't need additional speed. Zapdos was chosen in order to help me deal with "flying spam" teams, mainly with Pinsir and Talonflame. Vaporeon (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Water Absorb EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk) - Substitute - Baton Pass - Acid Armor - Scald Obligatory Vaporeon on the team. Everyone knows what he does, pass around huge substitutes and defense boosts. Moving on... Togekiss (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Super Luck EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk) - Substitute - Baton Pass - Air Slash - Nasty Plot OK so you're in a jam - for some reason you can't get your defensive boosts up? No problem! If you at least have some speed boosts in your chain, you can flinch something to death. With its natural bulkiness it is easy for it to get up a nasty plot, and then air slash away. Air slash is terrific single-type coverage, hitting most types for neutral damage, allowing Togekiss to be a nice back-up sweeper and special wall. Espeon (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Magic Bounce EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk) - Baton Pass - Stored Power - Substitute - Calm Mind Espeon is a staple on baton pass teams due to its ability, magic bounce. With it, phazers such as Hippowdon and Skarmory can't ruin your baton pass chain. This is the most important part of your chain, and as such it should be kept in complete safety! Once enough boosts are accumulated in your chain, Espeon can easily sweep with stored power (with enough boosts it 1hkos Blissey!). You can also use it to reflect some hazards back if you feel like predicting, although again, it's not the end of the world if you let your opponent get stealth rock up. COUNTERS -Perish Song: I don't have Mr. Mime, so perish song shuts me down completely. Fortunately it's not as common in this metagame since usage of Politoed, the move's main abuser, has declined due to the weather nerf. -Some special sweepers: If they are brought in early, at best my special defense boosts can keep me on equal footing with their special attack boosts (for example calm mind vs nasty plot, or calm mind vs quiver dance). However it can be played around if you are careful. The worst offender seems to be lead Volcarona which my team struggles against. The main tool I use against it is Togekiss, but it isn't 100%. However leading with Volcarona is a bad idea in just about every other situation. -Haze: Most commonly seen on Quagsire. It is annoying to play against, basically you have to pp stall haze before you begin setting up your chain. But it is possible to beat. -Weird shit: Sturdy+red card, Topsy-turvy trick room Malamar, Power swap Ninetales, etc....Yeah it defeats my baton pass team but is unviable in just about every other circumstance. CONCLUSION Baton pass is just a broken, broken strategy. 90% of games are decided in your favor even before the match starts because of team matchup. If you run any sort of stall or bulky team, you're screwed. 5% of the time the baton passing team gets an automatic lose because the opponent has a baton passing counter. The remaining 5% of the time it is uncertain, but the outcome is decided by turn 3 or 4 of the game. Basically the only hope of beating it is to run one of the above-mentioned counters (again they are unviable in most circumstances except against baton pass) or maybe if you are running an all-out offense team, to prevent me from getting up my boosts before my chain gets going. The only thing positive I have to say about this team is that it is so simple to use that it is perfect for newbies that are learning the metagame. Anyways I'm retiring this team, it's gone as far as it will go. Feel free to try it out and tell me what you think! IMPORTABLE

Sup Camelot, Your strategy seems to be a volt turn team - but I don't think Toxicroak or Malamar really fit into this team well. Toxicroak really shines in the rain but you don't have any. Malamar's job seems to be applying status to your enemy but at the same time it has no defensive bulk so it dones't really perform that task well. Finally I'd recommend changing Entei to a choice band variant since with volt turn you'll be able to switch it in for free and do some monstrous damage. Entei does get sacred fire too, I think you just have to update PO to see it. Hope this helps!

We should also discuss banning moody. We all know that with the right combination of boosts it can sweep through an entire team, but the difference between moody sweepers and other sweepers is that it is entirely luck based. By getting rid of moody, the metagame will become more about skill than leaving players at the mercy of the rng.

props on #1, you used some really ridiculous sets to get there (defiant thundurus, mixed blaziken). What do the evs do on Aegislash and Blaziken?

Here's a link to the smogon OU viability thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xy-ou-viability-ranking-thread.3495992/ If you are having trouble figuring out which pokemon to add to your team that should help, it is basically a ranking of all the pokemon in the tier from best to worst. Obviously people may disagree with some of these but for the most part I find it pretty accurate. Now instead of picking your team from like 500+ pokemon you can whittle it down to around 50 pokemon. I'm not sure if we have a tier list for reborn up yet but here's smogon's tier list: http://www.smogon.com/xyhub/tiers Basically our tiers are the same as theirs but Manaphy, Kyurem-B and Zygrade are banned, and Blaziken, Mega-Blaziken, Mega-Lucario, Mega Kangaskhan, and Mega Gengar are not banned.

Smogon.com is seriously the best resource for a beginner to learn about competitive battling. Everyone here hates on it but I don't know why; you can look through really detailed analyses of every pokemon to get an idea of what they can do and they give you sample movesets, pros and cons, etc. Also on the forums you can look at teams that other people have built, in particular they have a hall of fame where people post the teams that they got to #1 on the ladder with. Other than that my biggest piece of advice is to pay very careful attention to teambuilding. I would say that winning a battle is 90% teambuilding and 10% actual battling skill. The most important part of teambuilding is to -have a plan-. You need to figure out exactly how you're going to win and then work backwards from there to build your team. For instance my most recent team was built around Talonflame and Staraptor; Staraptor is a great wallbreaker and lures in the pokemon that can stop a Talonflame sweep and weakens them, leaving Talonflame free to sweep after that. Then I formed my team of the remaining 4 pokemon to support this strategy. Don't just throw together 6 pokemon that cover each other's weaknesses because that team is doomed to failure. If you don't have a plan you are just farting around in battle, but if you have a solid team with a plan, then in battle all you have to do is execute; you should know exactly what you need to do at every moment in a match.

Tomas - I'll give wish/protect a shot but honestly I haven't really had that much problem with wishpassing, but protect's scouting seems useful. And good luck with AV conk, it is seriously one of the best pokemon I have used. Nothing can switch in on it safely and if your opponent tries to play silly prediction games with you, there's always knock off to cripple him.

-Yea Ikaru I'm not 100% sure about king's shield blocking trick now that you mentioned it...and yeah it just makes trick that much more of a pain in the ass to deal with. -Thanks Kamina...I'll definitely try out a change in Mandibuzz's moveset, toxic would be nice since I really have no way to deal with last pokemon sweepers

Gyro ball isn't that helpful on Aegislash since the only time it needs to use a steel move is against fairy types which are inherently slow anyways so iron head does more damage. And yeah trick can be a problem for the team, usually I need to sacrifice something to trick and have it crippled for the rest of the match. Although if heatran or Aegislash are out I can scout with protect/ks and if I see trick I can switch to Kangaskhan.

it can learn flash cannon but iron head hits the things i need it to harder (fairies such as sylveon and togekiss for example)

TEAM AT A GLANCE INTRODUCTION Sup dudes. Today I'm showcasing my bulky offense team. It's one of my favorite playstyles since I'm really a fan of slow pokemon that can both survive a hit and dish out the pain. With six fatties on the team I can easily pivot in a pokemon and either support the team or dish out some damage - with this style of play it is about continuously applying pressure and chipping away at the opponent through repeated assaults. Obviously one weakness of this team is its lack of speed but the fact that I have 3 forms of priority partially makes up for this fact. The team is built around Mega-Kangaskhan, one of the clearly op megas introduced in this generation. Most people have seen the destructive power of this pokemon, it almost doesn't need that much support to get going, but just in case I can keep it healthy with heal bell and wish. The main objective of this team is to constantly chip away at the opponent with attacks and hazard damage, before bringing Kangaskhan out to clean up once my opponent is within kill range. This is how 90% of my matches go. In order to do this, I need to focus on keeping my pokemon healthy at all times (usually with wish support) so that my pivots can come in on a resisted attack and do a little damage, then rinse and repeat until its time to switch in Kangaskhan. TEAM IN DETAIL Mandibuzz (F) @ Leftovers Trait: Overcoat EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SDef Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk) - Foul Play - Roost - Whirlwind - Defog With the buff to dark-type attacks, Mandibuzz becomes a formidable presence on the battlefield. With its impressive bulk (to put it in perspective, it takes around 1/3 from Garchomp's stone edge), Mandibuzz is able to switch in against attack boosters, and then KO with foul play and survive in the process. Defog is obligatory to remove hazards, and roost is obviously to enhance survivability. Honestly I have never used whirlwind yet, but I guess it is nice to beat some weird stuff one on one, that foul play would not allow me to beat (for example, pokemon with cosmic power). Another alternative is to run knock off, which would be a move to mindlessly spam early game since nobody enjoys losing their item early in the match. Also this pokemon is a straight up Aegislash counter which every team needs. Heatran (F) @ Leftovers Trait: Flash Fire EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef Calm Nature (+SDef, -Atk) - Stealth Rock - Lava Plume - Roar - Protect Not much to say here, this dude was all the rage last gen, and that was for good reason. This gen steel lost its resistances to ghost and dark, making Heatran a bit less tanky than last generation, but I have to say it still performs admirably. It still has a whole bunch of resistances for me to take advantage of, easily switching in, setting up rocks and just in general being a giant pain in the ass to my opponent. Protect is invaluable to scout, since I still haven't figured out which pokemon typically carry ground attacks and which don't (if you have a handle on this, feel free to change roar to earth power or something). Also this is my dedicated Talonflame counter. Conkeldurr (M) @ Assault Vest Trait: Iron Fist EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - Drain Punch - Mach Punch - Ice Punch - Knock Off This guy is the MVP of the team, no joke. With assault vest, sooooo bulky. I'm too lazy to present damage calcs, but I'm pretty sure it survives hydro pump from Kyogre in rain, and it is still no slouch on the physical side either. Drain punch and mach punch are standard, and do an assload of damage with a boost from iron fist. Ice punch is for the flying types that resist fighting moves. Finally knock off is the key to this set; not only did it get a power boost compared to last gen, but also drops the opponent's item, and hits most types for neutral damage, making it a great move to spam mindlessly during the early game. With wish support from Chansey, this guy becomes a monster, easily crippling whole teams with his attacks. Chansey (F) @ Eviolite Trait: Natural Cure EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk) - Heal Bell - Seismic Toss - Wish - Soft-Boiled Of course Chansey makes an appearance as my support pokemon. All my other team members besides Mandibuzz appreciate the wishpasses, and heal bell is crucial to keep burns off my team since Conkeldurr and Kangaskhan can't function when burned, and Mandibuzz can't function while toxiced. The inclusion of heal bell allows me to play a bit more recklessly - if my opponent is spamming willowisp, I can send in an offensive threat, let it get burned, finish off my opponent's pokemon, then heal the burn off. This mindset allows me to apply constant offensive pressure to my opponent. I've lost count of the number of times when my opponent wrote off my pokemon as death fodder, only to see it restored back to mint condition and ready to kick ass once again. Aegislash (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Stance Change EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SAtk Quiet Nature (+SAtk, -Spd) - King's Shield - Shadow Ball - Shadow Sneak - Iron Head The pivot of my team - Aegislash easily switches in to most attacks and takes negligible damage thanks to its typing. It also functions as my spinblocker, freely switching in on Starmie and threatening with its ghost attacks. Most people expect the swords dance variant and I don't know why, but its fun to watch my opponent switch in Skarmory and take around 60% from shadow ball. Obviously shadow sneak is for revenge killing, and I have iron head over sacred sword since Aegislash is my main switch in to fairies. Kangaskhan (F) @ Kangaskhanite Trait: Scrappy EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk) - Return - Power-Up Punch - Sucker Punch - Earthquake Here is the dude that the team was built around. Kangaskhan really only needs a single turn to set up. Once it gets going, there is no stopping it. I won't say too much more about it since I'm sure everyone who plays on ladder knows how destructive this thing can be since parental bond is like a choice band boost with the ability to break through substitutes and focus sashes. Jolly over adamant because the extra power is just overkill, while the speed boost allows it to outspeed some key threats such as Lucario (not mega!) THREATS The biggest threat this team faces is against M-Lucario and M-Kangaskhan (but what team isn't threatened by those pokemon?) although with smart play I can usually get through them. To a lesser extent, this team is threatened by last-pokemon sweeps, but honestly that has only happened once or twice to me and due to misplays more than anything else. Volt turn teams are also annoying, but I am willing to sacrifice Heatran to get stealth rocks up, and once that happens it is pretty much over. CONCLUSION This team is all about brute force, with offensive titans such as Kangaskhan, Aegislash and Conkeldurr. With the proper support from hazards, wishpasses, and status removal, my offense can blast holes in the opponent's team while in turn tanking through the opponent's offense. The resistances allow me to effectively pivot and apply constant pressure on my opponent, either through support or offensive pressure. As always feel free to rate/hate/steal. IMPORTABLE

dude congrats on peak...my only suggestion would be to try mega gengar over lucario since volt turn is killer with shadow tag. I don't know how this messes up your team balance but it's something to try out once you get bored of dominating with this iteration of the team.

Full Throttle Team At A Glance: Introduction: Sup dudes. Most of you may know me as a stall player but today I'm going to showcase my hyper offense team. My opinion is that stall is not a viable playstyle anymore (with the exception of Rin's stall team that has dominated the ladder). Even in BW there were too many offensive threats for a stall team to handle; with the arrival of the new generation it is even more so. My team is simply a group of the most threatening sweepers in the tier (some which are clearly overpowered). All these sweepers have some way of breaking through the premier walls through sheer muscle power (e.g. Skarmory vs physical sweepers and Chansey vs special sweepers). Since teams typically carry at most one physical and one special wall, once those walls are worn down by my sweepers, the rest of the team tends to crumble against my attack. The majority of my sweepers are physical, putting tremendous pressure on the lone physical wall that the opponent tends to have. Heavy offense teams are attractive in that there is not a lot of reliance on prediction, or hax. In fact, most games can simply be won on autopilot; the way heavy offense usually plays is to do as much damage as possible with one sweeper, sacrifice it, then rinse and repeat with the next one. Most teams can barely handle one or two sweepers - a team of five sweepers is overkill. That's pretty much the gameplan here: Step 1: Set up some hazards with Deoxys-S. Step 2: After previous team member is dead, bring in a sweeper that threatens the opposing pokemon and attempt to sweep. Step 3: Repeat step 2 until your opponent is dead. The Team: Deoxys-S @ Rocky Helmet Trait: Pressure EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk) - Stealth Rock - Spikes - Taunt - Magic Coat Deoxys's ridiculous speed and movepool make it a prime candidate for a lead on an HO team. The main role for this guy is to set up as many hazards as possible; with its evs invested in HP it is suprisingly durable and frequently able to get down two layers of hazards. Taunt is obviously to stop other hazard setters from getting them up, this is crucial since the rest of my team does not like Stealth Rock that much, while magic coat is used in order to deal with pranksters and some other bullshit that I can't remember off the top of my head. You can probably also move some speed EVs into defense but honestly I'm not sure how much is needed to ensure I outspeed everything I need to. I want to point out two things before moving on: (1) the only chance my opponent has to set up hazards is in the beginning of the match against Deoxys. This team is so high-pressure that if my opponent wastes a turn setting up hazards later, that also gives me an opportunity to set up and sweep. (2) In the case that I get rocks and 3 layers of spikes up, at this point I have pretty much sealed my opponent's fate. HO teams tend to cause plenty of switches, and once everything is around 50% or 60%, any one of my sweepers can easily blow through a weakened team. Azumarill (F) @ Mystic Water Trait: Huge Power EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - Aqua Jet - Belly Drum - Play Rough - Waterfall Next up is the weakest link on my team. Most of the time it is dead weight, but I like to keep it around just to deal with dragons. I remember back in BW I was terrified of shit like DD roost Dragonite and CM roost Latias, but not anymore! It also makes a decent revenge killer in a pinch but often misses the KO by like 1% or 2%, which is just so frustrating. Belly drum is a risky move to use, but if you manage to get it off then you've pretty much won the game (one trick I've learned is to switch it in on a dragon's outrage for a free belly drum). All in all, this is my team's only pivot, and only pokemon that is bulky enough to take a hit. Talonflame (M) @ Sharp Beak Trait: Gale Wings EVs: 192 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 60 Spd Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - Swords Dance - Brave Bird - Flare Blitz - Roost Damn this bird is good. Priority brave bird is nothing to sneeze at, and can tear through teams like tissue paper, even with no swords dance boost. Flying type is such a great attacking type. The main counter to flying attacks are from steel types, which in turn get hit hard by a STAB flare blitz. The speed EVs used are to outspeed Excadrill, the fastest steel pokemon that threatens Talonflame, while the remainder of the EVs are used to max out attack and then add to bulk a little bit. Honestly I have never used roost before, but I guess the option is there just in case. I would also consider trying u-turn over roost just to nab some extra momentum, but again 99.9% of the time I either use brave bird or flare blitz. Off the top of my head there are like 3 counters to this thing: Tyranitar, Rotom-W, and Heatran. Tyranitar and Heatran are handled extremely well by Blaziken or Pinsir, while Rotom-W is hit hard by most of the team. Rotom's poor bulk means that even though it resists Talonflame's attacks, it gets worn down quite easily, taking around 50% damage from a +2 brave bird. Blaziken (F) @ Life Orb Trait: Speed Boost EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - Swords Dance - Protect - High Jump Kick - Flare Blitz So what happens after your team has been softened up a little bit? That's right, Blaziken comes out and stomps your entire team in the face. Flare blitz and hi jump kick form an awesome attacking combo, hitting almost everything for neutral damage. The only exceptions I can think of are Latias and Dragonite, and those guys are handled nicely by Azumarill. The set itself is pretty standard, I chose to go with adamant nature over jolly since I need the extra juice for Blaziken to sweep outright without even needing a turn to set up. Thundurus (M) @ Life Orb Trait: Prankster EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Substitute - Nasty Plot - Thunderbolt - Focus Blast This guy is my only special attacker, and also doubles as my anti-stall pokemon. Substitute keeps it safe from status, while it can easily set up on assholes that try to wall me like SubToxic Gliscor, Harvest Trevenant, Chansey, etc. I don't miss HP Ice at all since the only thing I would really need for it to hit is Gliscor, but most Gliscor I meet are the subtoxic variants that lack ice fang, giving me free rein to set up. Seriously this guy is broken, its typing gives it some key resistances, while still being able to set up and beat Chansey one-on-one. Pinsir (M) @ Pinsirite Trait: Mold Breaker EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - Swords Dance - Return - Quick Attack - Earthquake Here's my obligatory mega pokemon. I pretty much added this guy on a lark but now I've changed my tune. Pinsir is an AMAZING late game cleaner, with just the right combination of bulk, speed, and power to pull out a win. Note that in its mega form, Return and Quick Attack become flying attacks, giving it STAB and superior coverage against my opponent's pokemon, while its speed is slightly higher than Garchomp's. For the steel types and rock types that resist return, Pinsir can hit them super effectively with earthquake. The only exceptions are Rotom-W and Skarmory (which are again handled by the rest of the team). I usually save this guy for the end, and by this time steel types should have been eliminated thanks to my team members, giving him a chance to go for a clean sweep. Quick attack does a surprising amount of damage after a swords dance, and also is my answer to opposing Blazikens. Conclusion: HO is a very powerful playstyle and with XY it got even better. With so many threats, no defensive team should be able to patch up all its weaknesses, and this team is just about finding and exploiting the weaknesses of your opponent until their team crumbles. Honestly like I said in the introduction, a player should be able to win matches on autopilot with this team, just keep sacrificing and sweeping. If you haven't tried out HO, I encourage you to give this team a whirl, and please rate/hate/steal. Importable:

This just does not make sense. Essentially you are saying "it's ok that the tiers suck because nobody cares about the ladder." This is just a flawed argument. If the tiers are broken, we should fix it. Why would you say no to improving something?From the voting results at this point it is pretty clear that people do care about the ladder, around a 66% - 33% split. Even if we do lose this vote later, it should be already be clear at this point that those who ladder are a significantly large group. Plus, I have a hard time understanding why people who don't ladder even care about tiering discussions. Who cares what the tiers are in that case? If you're just battling with your buddies, use whatever you like.You make it sound like we were thrown a bone in getting the CS tier and Kyu-B moved down to OU, so we should be happy with what we got. First off, we were right to get Kyurem-B moved down - I don't have access to the usage statistics, but I've seen like 3 of them on the ladder so far. Kyurem hardly unbalances the tier, so that was an improvement to the metagame.To be clear, the CS tier was introduced as a compromise for those people that asked for swift swim to be banned. It failed because people wanted a metagame where they could use weather, but not get beaten down by all the overpowered swift swimmers. This is why we're asking for swift swim to be banned again.Seriously let's move past the 'us vs them' mentality and just focus on improving Reborn's metagame.

Sure we can wait until X and Y comes out before discussing the tiers, but I have a strong feeling that we'll be having this discussion again after that. Why don't we just have it now so that everyone knows exactly what the issues are? Even if tiers aren't implemented by then (but seriously I think it will take 5 minutes to implement them if we reach an agreement), if nothing else we'll have a better understanding of what's imbalanced and what isn't moving forward. First off, let's agree on what makes a pokemon inbalanced in the tier. It's not godly stats - look at Kyurem-B. It's the fact that the pokemon will overcentralize the metagame. For instance, if Kyogre were brought down from Ubers, everyone would be running Ferrothorn, Chansey, and Gastrodon on their teams. This is overcentralization. Anyone making a new team would be forced to run at least one of these 3 counters on their team, which essentially means every new team has 5 free slots for pokemon instead of 6. Swift swim does exactly the same thing. There are very few counters to swift swim teams, meaning any team that has a hope of succeeding on the ladder must run these counters. This is overcentralization of the metagame and stifles creativity. Chandelure is a different story altogether, in that it has no counters. Sure, it can be revenge killed easily, but that's not the point. Chandelure's whole job is to eliminate problem pokemon - if it has done that, it has succeeded. Consider if the opponent has a Gliscor that is preventing my Excadrill sweep, all I have to do is trap it with Chandelure and KO it with HP Ice. From there, I don't care that Tyranitar can revenge kill my Chandelure with pursuit, since Chandelure has done its job already and Excadrill is free to sweep. The only viable counter, in the sense of preventing Chandelure from getting its job done, is Shed Shell. Once you have to shed shell everything, this is overcentralization again. Here are some counterarguments which really should not be used: "Why would you ban swift swim but not chlorophyll?" Because no fire pokemon gets chlorophyll, while most swift swimmers are water types. This means that swift swimmers enjoy a boosted stab move from the rain, on top of doubled speed. To put it in perspective, in rain, surf is perfectly accurate and the same base power as draco meteor (not even factoring in the STAB boost), with no special attack drop. Hydro pump's base power, including stab and rain boost, becomes 1.5*1.5*120=270. This is higher than the power of explosion. So essentially you are spamming explosions. At double speed. This is ridiculous. "Chandelure is countered by shed shell." See above, this is overcentralization. If you shed shell every single pokemon then yeah I guess Chandelure will be ok. Plus naming a single counter isn't really a good reason why something is not overpowered - for example (again) I can just say that Gastrodon counters Kyogre. Boom! Kyogre for OU! "If you don't like it go to clear skies." Crazy! What if I want to play a game with weather that just doesn't have broken pokemon? Plus, when was the last time anyone laddered in CS? "Reborn's tiers are what make it unique, we can't change it to Smogon's tiers!" This is ridiculous and implies that people come to Reborn solely for the purpose of abusing broken pokemon that they can't use elsewhere. Yeah I guess if we make these changes then those people will go away, but I like to think people come here for the community or something. Moving forward, if the auth doesn't think that having this discussion is productive, another good use of our time is to discuss exactly how to make tiering changes in the future. From what I can tell there are no set rules in place and everything is done kind of haphazardly; I'd like to see a concrete system put into place. For instance voting system - how often do we get to vote on tier changes? who proposes them? who gets to vote?

lol thanks for pointing out that shedinja counters my entire team if rocks aren't up added to the threatlist

Five Minute Swift Swim Team (peak #1) INTRODUCTION OU is pretty stale. I tried for months to shake it up with new strategies, but in the end I couldn't even break 1200, no matter how hard I tried. Healing wish + offense was a disaster. So was my double dragon team (latios and latias). Weatherless offense was just a joke. No matter what I did, Excadrill and Kingdra put a hard stop to any strategy. Then two days ago I threw my hands in the air in frustration, said 'fuck this', and then threw together a swift swim team in five minutes. I just hit #1. In two days. My teambuilding process went like this: I wanted to abuse the most broken pokemon in the tier. Either I could go excadrill in sand, or swift swim in rain. I chose to go with rain since I could cram more broken pokemon into my team. Great, then so far I have half of my team: Politoed, Ludicolo, and Kingdra. Next, I stuck Dugtrio on to trap opposing weather starters. So far if all goes according to plan, I will have rain up and 2 swift swimmers ready to wreck my opponent. The list of counters to my team at this point is miniscule: Chansey, Gastrodon, Jellicent, and Ferrothorn. In other words, my 4 pokemon already steamroll 95% of the OU tier. To patch up my weaknesses, I chose subDD Dragonite to counter all these pokemon, and then added a Starmie for rapid spin support so as to keep Dragonite's multiscale intact. Boom, instant formula for win. The purpose of this post is twofold: (1) to showcase my (admittedly cheap) team that I hit #1 with , and (2) explain how much I hate swift swim. The ability is cheap and stifles creativity in the metagame. You just can't go wrong with Politoed + swift swim, which leaves you with like 5 possible counters to your team. Any jackass can succeed with this formula with minimal planning. Once rain is up, the rest of the match can be won on autopilot by just hammering away with water moves. One final note - this team is not meant to take hits, so don't tell me I don't have type synergy. The point of this team is to get rain up as fast as possible, and just keep blasting away with water moves. This is a very offensive team, all of my matches end in around 30 turns max. TEAM AT A GLANCE TEAM IN DETAIL Dugtrio (F) @ Focus Sash Trait: Arena Trap EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd IV: 21 Hp Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk) - Earthquake - Substitute - Reversal - Stealth Rock Dugtrio is my lead. Most people lead with their weather counters, which means that most of the time I automatically win the weather war. Against Tyranitar and Ninetales it's already gg. Against Abomasnow (without ice shard) I can sub down and KO it with reversal. Hippowdon causes me quite a bit of headache but thankfully almost all sand teams run Tyranitar instead. Against Politoed leads or other non-weather leads, I use Dugtrio as a suicide lead that sacrifices itself to get up a layer of stealth rocks. I have also considered using stone edge on this guy to beat Volcarona, but it's very rare to see it early game, and by late game I already have rain up, meaning it no longer poses a threat. HP Ivs are to give it 201 hp, meaning it can sub down to 1hp and fire off a full-powered reversal, but this hasn't been too useful. Politoed (F) @ Choice Specs Trait: Drizzle EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SAtk Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk) - Surf - Ice Beam - Perish Song - Hidden Power [Grass] Once I have eliminated the opposing weather counter, Politoed comes in to win the weather war. Surf is my stab, easily KOing everything that doesn't resist it, and 2HKOing most water resists. HP Grass is for those Gastrodons that ruin my 'surf spam' strategy. Perish song is needed to stop all setup sweepers, Politoed's decent bulk allows it to survive most attacks if it is at full health. In the beginning I ran Focus Blast over Perish Song, but it lost me many key matches that I would have won otherwise. I elected to give it a specs set to blast holes in the opposition, meaning it can take out some key pokemon, before being sacrificed to bring in another sweeper. The extra power ensures that my opponent needs to focus on killing Politoed asap instead of setting up or laying down hazards, which keeps momentum in my favor. Starmie @ Life Orb Trait: Natural Cure EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Hydro Pump - Thunderbolt - Ice Beam - Rapid Spin Typically after Politoed comes out and dies, Starmie is the next one out. His #1 job is to clear my field of hazards, which is easily done thanks to its high speed. Its next job is to wallbreak, which it does pretty easily. After all, not much can live through a rain-boosted hydro pump from Starmie. Kingdra (F) @ Choice Specs Trait: Swift Swim EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk) - Draco Meteor - Dragon Pulse - Hydro Pump - Surf Not much to say about this guy, this is my late game sweeper and revenge killer all rolled into one. Surf is ridiculous, in the rain it gets boosted to 150 base power. To put that in perspective, that is like draco meteor, except perfectly accurate and with no power drops. It is the move I use 90% of the time. I use the dragon moves only when my opponent is rocking some water immunities, and even then I use the move sparingly. Hydro pump gives me extra power (obviously). To give an idea of how sick it is, against Ferrothorn (arguably one of its biggest counters), STAB + rain boosts make hydro pump a base 135 power move (and does around 40% to it). HP Fire against Ferrothorn in rain is base 140 power, making the difference between a resisted hydro pump and a super effective move a paltry 5 base power. Ludicolo (F) @ Life Orb Trait: Swift Swim EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Surf - Giga Drain - Ice Beam - Focus Blast Ludicolo is a bit weaker than Kingdra but makes up for it with impeccable coverage. After everything has been softened up a bit, Ludicolo just cleans up. Most things are destroyed by surf (see discussion above) and whatever isn't can be hit super effectively. I won't go too much more into detail since everyone on the ladder already knows what a terror it can be. Dragonite (F) @ Leftovers Trait: Multiscale EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 60 SDef / 124 Spd Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk) - Dragon Claw - Dragon Dance - Roost - Substitute Dragonite is my failsafe, the pokemon I use to pull off a sweep when all else fails. With multiscale, it is almost guaranteed to take a hit and set up dragon dance. From there I can stall ice attacks through a combination of sub and roost. In particular, ice attacks do only 1x damage if I roost and get multiscale back. Once my other team members are dead, I bring in Dragonite to go for the last-pokemon sweep when it cannot be phazed anymore. It patches the slight weakness I have to stall teams, for instance Dragonite can set up easily vs Ferrothorn and Jellicent, substituting on a status move, and dragon dancing up while they struggle to break my sub (or switch out). Counters/Final Words The only things that really threaten my team are the pokemon with water immunities such as Gastrodon, Jellicent, and Chansey. Of course 1 on 1 I have plenty of ways to beat these pokemon, but a smart player will keep switching these pokemon in and out, preventing me from executing my 'blindly click water stab move' strategy. Some minimal prediction is required to beat these pokemon, but it is completely doable. Hippowdon or dual-sand teams are also a bit tough to play around, but seriously 2/3 of my team threatens Hippowdon so I'm not too worried. Other common rain counters don't stand up well to this team. The premier rain wall, Ferrothorn takes between 30-40% damage from the water moves that Starmie, Kingdra, and Politoed carry so it is only a matter of time before it is worn down. If it switches in to Ludicolo, it is 2HKOed by Focus Blast. Overall there are like 5 counters total to politoed+swift swim. 80% of the time your opponent won't pack those counters, meaning you can pull off an easy win. The team is designed so that the other 20% of the time when there is a counter, pure offensive pressure allows you to muscle past them and break the counters. Rate/hate/steal this team, I don't care. edit: Shedinja counters this entire team, watch out for this badass. Export

I got 790/800 math, 760/800 verbal, 720/800 writing...comes out to a total of 2270

Mostly Harmless Team at a Glance: Introduction: Wow, I haven't done an RMT in a while! Anyways thanks for stopping by, and bear with me as I try to shake the cobwebs. Today I'm presenting a team that I've been testing for a few days that seems pretty solid and a ton of fun to play. Basically I began by asking myself, 'which pokemon have pretty much no counters?' I came up with specs Latios and specs Heatran, and decided to build my team around that. The end result is a balanced weatherless team, with a defensive core of Skarmory and Chansey (and sometimes Latias), offensive pivots in Latios, Heatran, and Excadrill, and a late game sweeper in CM Latias. This team hasn't been 'stress tested' as much as my others, so I invite any and all critiques here. Team In Detail: Skarmory (M) @ Shed Shell Trait: Sturdy EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk) - Stealth Rock - Roost - Brave Bird - Whirlwind I guess I'll talk about the boring pokemon first. Kicking off the team is Skarmory. Everyone knows what this guy does, but for the sake of completeness I'll say something anyways. This guy is my physical wall and my sand counter, easily sponging physical moves that face the rest of the team. He is my lead and can easily get up rocks first turn against lead Tyranitar, as well as my main counter to dragon dancers etc. Yeah I know he's not the best lead, but he's the closest thing to it on this team. Against rain/sun teams I typically have to switch out first turn and lose the momentum, which isn't that great, but oh well. I chose to give it stealth rock instead of spikes, since there really was no need for spikes - this team is more offensive, so I can't waste the time laying three spikes layers. In addition, all I really need from my hazards is to break focus sashes, since the damage output from my other team members is pretty ridiculous. Roles: Physical wall, sand counter. Chansey (F) @ Eviolite Trait: Natural Cure EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk) - Seismic Toss - Wish - Softboiled - Sunny Day Boring old Chansey is a special wall (durrrrr) but is also no slouch at taking physical attacks either, really being only afraid of strong fighting moves. Obviously the other half of the SkarmBliss core, Chansey easily sponges the special attacks that threaten my team otherwise. Chansey really is the backbone of my team; in addition to tanking, it also wishpasses, keeping my team healthy. Chansey is also critical in supporting Heatran: wishpasses allow Heatran to stay at full health, powering up overheat, while Sunny Day is used to power up Heatran some more. Without it, Heatran is next to useless against a rain team. Latios also appreciates wishpasses a lot, since I tend to switch it in midgame against resistances to fire off draco meteors. Even forgetting about Heatran, Sunny Day is a great move on Chansey. It kills the momentum of any team that throws away their weather inducer after scouting my team, and with Chansey's amazing bulk, it is so easy to get off. Roles: Wall, wishpasser. Latios (M) @ Choice Specs Trait: Levitate EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Draco Meteor - Trick - Surf - Psyshock Specs Latios is a beast. Almost everything succumbs to the sheer power of draco meteor. There are really only a handful of counters to this thing - some steel pokemon, and Chansey. To illustrate how destructive this thing is, it 2HKOs standard CB Scizor with draco meteor, and 2HKOs Blissey with Psyshock. If I predict correctly, Latios can cripple almost every single pokemon, and can trick the pokemon that really give it trouble in a pinch. Even without specs, Latios hits pretty hard so it's not a big loss. I use Latios as a mid-game offensive pivot. With all the resistances that its typing gives, I find it really easy to switch Latios in and wreck something with Draco Meteor. If it gets worn down, I use Chansey to heal it back up. Latios also has nice synergy with Heatran thanks to the dragon-steel typing. Latios can take the water/ground/fighting moves aimed at Heatran and retaliate with Draco Meteor, while Heatran can take ice/dark/ghost moves and retaliate with overheat or flamethrower. Roles: Wallbreaker, weather counter. Heatran (M) @ Choice Specs Trait: Flash Fire EVs: 252 SAtk / 4 SDef / 252 Spd Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk) - Overheat - Flamethrower - Earth Power - Dragon Pulse Woo Heatran. It has the same destructive power as Latios, but different typing, so this entry will be basically repeating a lot of the stuff I just said for Latios. Overheat just kills everything that's not Heatran or Tyranitar. Period. Even Blissey takes upwards of 50% from a specs overheat, meaning that it is pretty feasible that Blissey can be beaten by Heatran if it is worn down a little. If my Chansey manages to set up the sun, then Heatran becomes even more destructive, even having the power to OHKO bulky dragons. Of course, if you are predicting that an effective counter to this Heatran is coming in, you can easily attack with a coverage move: earth power in particular will cripple or destroy any Tyranitar, Terrakion, or Heatran that are switching in to ruin your day. Finally as I said above, Heatran synergizes well with Latios, ensuring that I am constantly able to fire off a powerful choice-specs backed stab attack. One final note - most people tend to assume that Heatran is the specially defensive variant (since I guess that's what most people run these days) so there is a surprise factor that sometimes works to my advantage here. Roles: Wallbreaker, weather counter. Excadrill (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Mold Breaker EVs: 176 HP / 60 Atk / 252 SDef / 20 Spd Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) - Rapid Spin - Earthquake - Rock Slide - Swords Dance I'm on the fence about Excadrill. In some matches, it is the MVP, in other matches, it is close to useless. The evs are taken from Smogon and allow Excadrill to be a bulky special wall, taking hits that the standard Excadrill cannot. Against offensive teams, Excadrill tends to be dead weight, being hampered by crippling fighting, ground, and water weaknesses. However, it really shines against defensive teams. It loves to switch in freely on defensive spikes stackers such as Ferrothorn, Forretress, or Skarmory, and from there, get off a rapid spin. Late game, I always have the option of going for a sweep (don't forget that Mold Breaker Excadrill hits common levitators such as Rotom and Latias!). Overall, Excadrill brings some great resistances (including my only resistance to rock) and solid bulk to the table, in addition to rapid spinning capabilities and occasionally acts as a sweeper. Roles: Spinner, late game sweeper, ferrothorn/forretress/skarmory counter. Latias (F) @ Leftovers Trait: Levitate EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Spd Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk) - Calm Mind - Dragon Pulse - Substitute - Roost Once everything has been worn down by the rest of the team, Latias administers the coup de grace. Against unprepared teams, it easily can get six calm minds under its belt and proceed to sweep. A lot of people think that anything with ice beam can counter Latias, but honestly it is so bulky that against unstabbed ice moves, it just does not take enough damage to stop it. During midgame, I also bring out Latias quite often, since it is just such a fabulous counter to top-tier threats, such as (for example) Keldeo, Landorus, and Blaziken and just a great all-around weather counter. Roles: Weather counter, late game sweeper. Conclusion/Threatlist The game plan is simple: keep Latios and Heatran healthy with wish, and blast away with overheat and draco meteor, and finally during the late game sweep with Latias. Overall the team is designed to minimize prediction - the list of counters to specs Latios and Heatran are so small that usually I am just mindlessly clicking away at their stab moves. The typing in this team is great, boasting at least one resistance to each type, and in most cases I have three or more resistances. Since no single type gives me too much trouble, I'll just talk about how this team matches up versus different team archetypes. Overall the team fares well against rain and sun teams - the Lati twins and Chansey can easily sponge boosted attack from both weathers, while in addition Heatran easily wrecks sun teams. Sand teams are a bit harder to face though, since Tyranitar can pursuit trap the Lati twins and resists Heatran's overheat. However, with a bit of prediction and careful play it should not be too big of a problem. Stall teams are also a bit annoying to face but honestly no team enjoys facing stall. I think that Excadrill's rapid spin + swords dance combination is a great deterrent against spike stackers, and Latios can also cripple a wall with trick. Thanks for reading and any criticism is welcome! Importable

Nice team as always, I remember you beating me pretty handily with it. I don't really see how you deal with sun teams though, you lack a solid counter to them. I'd suggest the following: 1) replace Scizor with a dragon type, either dd dnite or cm latias would be my suggestion. This would give you a solid counter to sun teams, and also give you another late-game cleaning option. 2) replace scarf lando with a bulky version: stealth rock/uturn/eq/stone edge. This would allow Lando to take Scizor's place as a bulky pivot, and also you don't have to rely on your opponent to get rocks up. Revenge killer can still be fulfilled by tornadus. Hope this helps

Whether or not Kyurem-B has a niche in ubers is irrelevant to it being moved down to OU, you need to explain why it unbalances the OU tier. e.g. by the same reasoning I can argue that Gastrodon has a niche in ubers by countering Kyogre and rain teams, therefore it does not deserve to be in OU and should be moved up to ubers, but that doesn't make too much sense.

Bring it down! Sure it has killer attack stats but that's about all that it has. Its weaknesses completely cripple it. Weakness to stealth rock automatically knocks of 25% health. In addition if it gets locked into outrage it is easy to take it out with priority since it is weak to both mach punch and bullet punch. I would put it in the same category as something like Breloom. If you are unprepared for it then it can mess your team up, but with a little bit of prep it won't be a huge problem.

awesome bearded old guys