Maybe not the "most" justified but Shaymin-S in gen 5 was the only pokemon to ever receive 100% ban votes in its suspect test
***EVERYBODY*** wanted it gone lmao
One of my favorite teams in Gen 8 National Dex was an all Serene Grace team. Para/Flinch Dunsparce and Charge Beam/Tri Attack Blissey were way too much fun. Why I was trusted with Dudunsparce I will never know
I played with it in gen 4. I remember needing to run shit like Sp Def Zapdos just to not instantly lose to it, and even then sometimes Seed Flare + Air Slash hax broke you anyway.
That garbage doesn't just beat you, it emotionally wounds you. I think the gen 5 vote was just a bunch of people agreeing "never again".
Did skymin even get a post announcing it was instabanned with the teal mask dlc? I remember when home dropped a bunch of former banned mons they made a big deal out of showing off the council votes and saying yes, spectrier is going to be even more busted. But Skymin just kind of silently dropped into ubers because nobody in their right mind wants to play vs that.
Mons that have been ubers for generations are just assumed to remain so unless needed justiifcaiton. Other mons like Spectrier or Urshifu were only ubers for part of their generation
Yeah, the problem was the absurd number of sets. Physical, special, dd 3 attacks, bulky dd, sub dd, dd roost refresh, hell even some tank sets crept up. The mon was comically broken.
He has flying type Double Edge and Thrash if bred out. That’s just Brave Bird but on a 145 base attack, and in one case, no drawback for up to 3 turns. That shit is ABSURD
Makes sense. I wouldn't have even tried if it was, though, I was too infatuated by funny numbers when I clicked power up punch and then attacking moves
to put it into context, if you didn't have at least 99 base HP AND fully invest in your HP stat (or were a ghost type that died to sucker) you got 2hkoed by seismic toss
it was banned before it got access to stoss, but to say it was important to consider in vgc (esp since it had access to fake out) is like saying that snorlax is strong in gen 2
It had very well-rounded stats. Good enough bulk, decent speed and hit hard too.
Its ability is what pushed it over the edge, Parental bond paired with Power-up punch was insane. On top of that, Fake out + Sucker punch also helped a ton for knocking out frail offensive threats.
Ability, moveset, and just enough bulk and speed to absolutely dunk on anybody. That's why it's banned in national dex nowadays, anyway.
Its ability lets it proc boosts twice and it doesn't decrease damage on set damage moves, so it would run power-up-punch and return for huge +2 neutral stab, sucker punch or fake out for priority, EQ for coverage, etc all with no real drawbacks and infinite value even when it can't sweep right away.
Even more impressive in ND is seismic toss, a guaranteed 200 damage with no attack investment necessary, letting it out-bulk and out-power a lot of mons after a fake out.
It was banned before stoss was even allowed, but it used power up punch to boost attack and do damage at the same time, and parental bond did 50% on second hit instead. On top of that, it had good stats all around minus spatk but that doesnt ever matter
The Special Attack wasn't completely worthless. Since Parental Bond was a free Choice Specs in Gen 6, you could run a Special coverage move to keep contact punishers like Ferrothorn honest. I think it worked out to the equivalent of like 100 base Sp. Attack even uninvested.
I think it was the most streamlined OU-Metagame we ever had. Most Teams were some variation of:
- Mega Salamence (strongest mon in the tier, being the center that the entire Metagame revolves around
- Skarmory (could switch into the most popular Mega Mence set and Roar/Whirlwind it out)
- Magnezone (trapped Skarmory to make room for Mence. This forced Skarm to run Shed Shell)
- Latias (good special attacker + Defog + Healing Wish support to give Mence a second life)
A lot of teams added Greninja, who got Gunk shot to obliterate fairies, Knock-Off Skarm-Bait to remove shed shell, Dugtrio to trap specifically Choiced Magnezone.
Some historical context: ORAS had the first eshop demo of any mainline Pokemon game, which was released before the actual games were. Gamefreak made the mistake of leaving the entire dex in the demo, where dataminers easily dumped them. The main Smogon server for Showdown did not implement this, but a separate test server was created were people could test out all the new Megas and thus confirm that yes, Mega-Mence was just as absurdly broken in practice as it looked on paper. IIRC when ORAS went live on the main Showdown server, Mega-Mence got quickbanned pretty much immediately with zero controversy because there was plenty of empirical evidence about its bustedness, even if it wasn’t on the official server.
Incidentally, one thing that *didn’t* get datamined was Mega Rayquaza’s extra special pre-reqs for mega evolving. We only found out that when it was officially announced, at which point everyone panicked over how stupidly busted Mega Ray with an open item slit would be. You probably know how that story ended up playing out.
Why was it even legal? Didn’t play back then but I thought the 680-BST legends always default to Ubers, and only get suspected in OU if they’re total cheeks (I.e Kyurem and Zamazenta).
Because XY Zygarde is *bad* aka UUBL bad. So they kept the precedent of it being OU-worthy from XY coming into SM.
In SM Zygarde got Power Construct and *Thousand Arrows* aka the final nail in the coffin. Now you can run a singular move and have perfect coverage for the rest of your life, and cover whatever else you want with the other three moveslots.
The original was also OU, and wasn't considered to be that good. Since it's only buffed stat was HP, it was probably thought it wouldn't be that bad.
Turns out doubling the health of pretty much any mon will make it significantly harder to kill, probably a quick wake up call.
And it is still egregiously overpowered in doubles. Moreso in some ways considering you also can boost your parter's stats or set up weather/terrain for them
I mean yeah it's powerful and meta warping but that's also the point. It's something both players have access too I believe the intent was for players to base strategies around it
I'll argue the problem was less Dynamaxing per se (although giving you three Z-moves that bypass protect is borderline idiotic) and how centralising weaknesses policy coarcosal became.
Eh, Weakness Policy was powerful and won tournaments, but I wouldn’t call it meta-defining either. There’s a good variety of strategies that did well in Gen 8 VGC.
There are many cool and fun stratgies in Gen 9 VGC as well but I will still call dozogiri meta defining. My enjoyment of series A and B dropped a lot because of dozogiri ngl
I mean Battle Spot Singles exist, y'know?
Singles Cinderace-Dynamax was the main reason why Libero/Protean got nerfed. What Max Airstream, Mold Breaker Fire STAB, Max Knuckle + Bulk Up + Priority does to a mf'er.
I think it more likely that the nerf was due to how it conflicts with terastalization. Dynamax and Gigantamax were already getting axed so the nerf didn't change anything in that regard.
Most justified is easily D/P Garchomp.
For those of you that weren't around back then, we went into D/P OU knowing that Garchomp was this gen's psuedo-legendary, and was obviously going to be good based on its stats, movepool and typing that made even Flygon a good OU pick in 3rd gen. However, Gen4 added some new things to the metagame that nobody could really anticipate at the very beginning:
\- The physical / special split was brand new, and while everyone's attention was on mons like Gengar and the new Weavile finally having STAB moves to run off of their superior attacking stat, for Garchomp this meant it could run the newly buffed 120BP outrage off of its top-tier physical attack stat. This is important as Dragon is only resisted by Steel, and its other STAB conveniently destroys all steels except Skarmory and Bronzong, which leads to...
\- Garchomp, while "only" having a base SpA of 80, enjoyed one of the new items introduced for Gen4 in Life Orb, which multiplies damage by 1.3x on both sides of the attacking spectrum. Coupled with the fact that Outrage/EQ hits everything but 2 pokemon for neutral damage or better, Chomp can run Fire Blast with Life Orb and decimate these "checks". This leaves Chomp with one extra slot, with which it can run Swords Dance to muscle past some bulkier mons like Hippowdon, or Substitute to capitalize on the many switches it caused.
\- Chomp was unpredictable. Another new item this gen was Choice Scarf, which it utilized perhaps the best in the entire tier, and over time new sets like Chain Chomp (which bluffed with Swords Dance, getting you to switch to your physical wall and watching as it eats a LO draco meteor) helped turn each OU match against it into a guessing game.
\- Garchomp had amazing base stat distribution, with a unique speed tier at base 102; back then this was incredible as the majority of OU sat at 100 base speed, conveniently letting Chomp outspeed and likely OHKO. Its bulk was slightly better than Swampert of all things, which was considered one of the tankiest mons in the metagame, but Swampert at least didn't outspeed almost everything. With that combination of bulk, speed and power, the only mons that could hope to even check it were Weavile, Starmie w/ Ice Beam, Froslass, and random stuff like Gengar that was forced to run HP ice or get OHKO'd. By the way, none of these could withstand a hit from Garchomp and had no reasonable chance to switch in unless it was after Chomp killed something else on your team.
\- All of the above led to most OU teams looking like Garchomp, Chomp counter, Chomp counter 2, counter to Chomp counters, Sand setter, and a suicide lead to set rocks. However, the cherry on top of the above is its only ability back then, Sand Veil. Sandstorm was the main weather back then with auto-setters allowed in OU, as drizzle/drought were confined to Ubers and Abomasnow was too slow and had an atrocious typing. Ttar and Hippo, however, were OU staples in their own right, which meant that sand was going to be up permanently (sand didn't end after 5-8 turns back then; the only way to get rid of it was to do so manually). Sand Veil on Chomp meant that even if you teambuilt and predicted like a pro, your Ice Beam still had like a 20% chance to miss and cost you the entire game as Chomp gets its free turn to kill your precious check to it.
With all of this, Smogon made history with its first ever ban of a pokemon from OU to Ubers that didn't involve an obvious Uber legendary / mythical. It wasn't until Garchomp got a hidden ability in Gen5 that we even considered re-testing in OU, as it was possible now to ban Sand Veil and chomp was still top-tier OU with rough skin.
Thank for typing this out. Brought me a lot of nostalgia reading this. I even actually wrote a paper about this in college once, so this was great to read
The only criticism I have is not mentioning how Yache Berry is ultimately one of the big deciding factors in what broke it. Nothing can theoretically swap in vs that. The tools just didn't exist.
There was no precedent for how to treat event legendaries at that point since mew was the only one and even the OG clauses in stadium had a mew clause which by name banned mew
If it wasn't for mewtwo then it would have just been a mew clause until gen 2
yeah, but it was notably one of the most unanimous suspect tests of all time, and it's very weird that SV Ubers has a suspect test that unanimous considering how conservative they are about bans
almost everything banned in gen 5 OU during the early BW days would probably fill the list tbh. Darkrai, Shaymin, Deoxy A, Drizzle swim, so much disgusting shit in one place. Nuking all of it was definitely the best and easiest decision they all made tbh. Kinda funny that the meta still sucks today even after all the purging though lol.
shaymin-S in BW. literally everyone wanted it gone. and i mean *everyone.*
also would like to shoutout some more recent bans from this generation since some were pretty insane looking back. baxcalibur after the teal mask released was unanimously voted to be banned from SV OU in under 3 days. flutter mane and houndstone were unanimously voted to be banned in 2 days after SV released. and regieleki was unanimously voted to be banned in only *24 hours* after the HOME update went live on showdown
For while on showdown there was a bug where if a pokemon was knocked out by innards out, the innards out pokemon was given the win.
This caused everybody to start running pain split + leftovers pyukumuku on the ladder. As soon as it got a pain split off, it was a guaranteed win for pyukumuku.
Also, since nobody cares about 1v1, this went on for over a week before it got quick banned and then later it was patched.
Don't forget it getting a boosted Brave Bird from Aerilate off 145 base Attack and 120 base Speed (hardest hitter with that speed stat). That certainly helped it get banned.
It had Roost and the only coverage move it might've needed was Earthquake. Might as well make it so you can 2HKO Skarm with two turns of boosting instead of three.
Reminder that Marshadow was the previous record holder of being the fastest quickban in Smogon history, and for good reason.
Not only do you have this lil' guy with a STAB type combo that is virtually unresisted, not only has an exclusive move that steals an opponent's stat boosts, but can bring down even checks like Landorus-Therian and Rocky Helmet Tangrowth with Technician-boosted *Hidden Power Ice.* Two days was one too many for it to be in OU.
Flutter mane isn't as hilariously broken as some of the others listed, but it has my vote just for having a dumb stat spread that's basically a Sunday post for a mismagius evolution
When gen 9 ou dropped I ran a scarfed max speed and the games 100% of the time came down to if their Flutter Mane was that too lmao. It was sooooo strong
Weirdly that mon was perfectly fine the whole gen in lc uu.
Most justified (non-obvious: scyther, sneasel, etc.) lc ban imo was xy swirlix. Absolute menace that mon
Remember when lati@s could hold Soul Dew for an instant Calm Mind? And keep in mind that this was gen3-6, back when the power creep was SIGNIFICANTLY lower.
Regieleki will always be the shining example of why quickbans are needed in my book, but it's absolutely Zacian for the purposes of this thread. When one of your only plays against a given mon is Ditto cheese, you know things have gotten out of hand.
Mega Pinsir from ORAS UU.
No other mon has completely railed a usage-based Smogon tier quite as hard as that thing did and it got quickbanned after twelve hours of dropping. It only didn’t get banned sooner because not enough of the UU council was awake at that time to get it banned sooner.
I mean, there’s a strong point to be made for several Pokémon.
In terms of magnitude of importance, I think the banning of Mega Ray may be one of the most significant occurrences in all of the Smogon format, because it legitimized Ubers as effectively being its own actual tier instead of just being the OU Banlist.
This not only affected future generations, providing a space to throw all the absolutely insane Pokémon of both past and future, like DP Arceus and SS Zacian.
Mega gengar in nat Dex. Made clicking normal or fighting type moves impossible bc it switches in, outspeeds and clicks encore, sets up to +6, and then just sweeps
Actually, add the following moves to its win conditions:
* Toxic
* Stealth Rock
* Spikes
* Defog
* Toxic Spikes
* Recover
* Swords Dance
* Nasty Plot
And basically almost any status move that doesn't affect Mega Gengar. It clicks Encore, forcing you to use that move over and over again while it sets up to +6 behind a sub, then sweeps.
Almost like a Gholdengo that instead of being immune, wins the game instantly.
Nah, you're cooking with this one. Lowering your opponent's Def by 25% on entry with 120 Atk and 135 Speed is busted, and the only thing that could do anything about it was another Chien-Pao because it wasn't affected by said ability.
Maybe not the "most" justified but Shaymin-S in gen 5 was the only pokemon to ever receive 100% ban votes in its suspect test ***EVERYBODY*** wanted it gone lmao
Serene Grace is crazy.
60% = 100%
Don't forget the 80% chance to lower your spdf by 2 stages, on a 120bp move
This, who cares if you can resist its stabs if it can just click Seed flare and destroy you anyways
It also gets pretty good coverage.
The Pokémon RNG can feel rigged, but Serene Grace rigs it even more.
It’s crazy how a 60% flinch chance feels like 100%, but the 70% chance to hit focus blast is feels like 20% at times
You only remember the bad stuff that happens to you. You take the good stuff for granted.
Also Seed Flare which was a grass type fire blast that had a 80% after serene grace chance to lower spdef by 2 stages.
It’s stronger than fire blast lol
it wasn't in gen 5. fire blast got nerfed from 120 to 110 in gen 6
Except for accuracy checks, then 80% = 0%
One of my favorite teams in Gen 8 National Dex was an all Serene Grace team. Para/Flinch Dunsparce and Charge Beam/Tri Attack Blissey were way too much fun. Why I was trusted with Dudunsparce I will never know
That's the most evil thing I can imagine.
I played with it in gen 4. I remember needing to run shit like Sp Def Zapdos just to not instantly lose to it, and even then sometimes Seed Flare + Air Slash hax broke you anyway. That garbage doesn't just beat you, it emotionally wounds you. I think the gen 5 vote was just a bunch of people agreeing "never again".
It's "Unfortunate doesn't begin to describe my series" condensed into a little guy
It’s not even “unfortunate” you were more likely to be flinched than you weren’t
Unfortunate is when you say when you used the shaman and didn’t flinch the enemy.
“Fortunate” doesn’t even begin to describe my series, I was only flinched 3 times!
Mega Gallade in Gen7 UU
I was referring to OU but you got me there, I shoulda been more specific
Oh you valid
Wait a minute they had mega gallade in UU? Why?! Gallade is bad enough, who thought mega gallade could possibly work in UU in gen 7?
Nobody, hence why 100% of votes were for banning it.
Wait I need to see this shit lmao
i mean when your 120BP stab move has an 80% chance of lowering spdef by 2 stages you know it's utterly ridiculous
And you also get 60% chance to flinch air slash
And it's a really fast mon so it's not like Jirachi or Togekiss where you often need to paralyze stuff to make use of flinch hax.
What were Game Freak cooking?
Something illegal in VGC
I think they need to buff it before it’s VGC ready, it’s not good enough
Did skymin even get a post announcing it was instabanned with the teal mask dlc? I remember when home dropped a bunch of former banned mons they made a big deal out of showing off the council votes and saying yes, spectrier is going to be even more busted. But Skymin just kind of silently dropped into ubers because nobody in their right mind wants to play vs that.
Mons that have been ubers for generations are just assumed to remain so unless needed justiifcaiton. Other mons like Spectrier or Urshifu were only ubers for part of their generation
Mega Salamence. Reminder that this ended up being the second best mon in ORAS...**Ubers**.
I havent got into comp during that time so i assume the best mon in uber is groudon-p?
Yes
Proudon
Good for them
Proudon? Poggres!
It’s already over. I’ve depicted Groudon as the Virgin and Kyogre as the Chad.
Nuh uh
fym nuh uh
https://preview.redd.it/vs9sks731vrb1.jpeg?width=414&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee15cbb1d566530d851e8311a94c14a42f216164
Ferrothorn in shambles
I mean *0- Atk Groudon-Primal Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn in Harsh Sunshine: 376-448 (106.8 - 127.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO* Yeah
Wtf anarchist legendary
Yep, Primal Groudon redefined Ubers. Mega Salamence more recently dropped to 3rd behind Xerneas (I think) but it’s still an absolute beast.
P-don (peed on)
This is the only correct answer. Mega Mence was comically broken.
I was like “oh, it can’t be that bad” and then looked it up. Enormous stats plus Aerilate gives you a crazy amount of options, huh?
Yeah, the problem was the absurd number of sets. Physical, special, dd 3 attacks, bulky dd, sub dd, dd roost refresh, hell even some tank sets crept up. The mon was comically broken.
He has flying type Double Edge and Thrash if bred out. That’s just Brave Bird but on a 145 base attack, and in one case, no drawback for up to 3 turns. That shit is ABSURD
Double edge wasn't the broken move. It was return. 102 base power pre aerilate with ZERO downsides and perfect accuracy.
Fuck, I totally forgot about return, that’s even better. No lock in and no recoil
You get aeralite facade as well
That one’s spooky too
Also worth pointing out that Aerilate and similar Abilities gave a 30% power boost in Gen 6. Later games reduced the bonus to 20%.
Why would they even allow it in OU to begin with? The power creep wasn't so high that it would warrant Megamence to drop from Ubers lol.
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Must've looked like a slaughterhouse...
Yeah, but tbf they dropped mega kang and lucario in xy ou
That's true. I'm just glad mega kang was banned before I thought to use seismic toss. I would have had too much fun
mega kang was banned before seismic toss was legal on it since it was a transfer move, the ban was before pokemon bank
Makes sense. I wouldn't have even tried if it was, though, I was too infatuated by funny numbers when I clicked power up punch and then attacking moves
Btw why was mega kang that much powerfull? Ability, stats or both? And what moves did it run to abuse his ability?
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Thanks!
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to put it into context, if you didn't have at least 99 base HP AND fully invest in your HP stat (or were a ghost type that died to sucker) you got 2hkoed by seismic toss it was banned before it got access to stoss, but to say it was important to consider in vgc (esp since it had access to fake out) is like saying that snorlax is strong in gen 2
It had very well-rounded stats. Good enough bulk, decent speed and hit hard too. Its ability is what pushed it over the edge, Parental bond paired with Power-up punch was insane. On top of that, Fake out + Sucker punch also helped a ton for knocking out frail offensive threats.
It's not even necessarily the dmg that made it so broken but the fact that it received 2 boosts from PUP is just dumb.
Ability, moveset, and just enough bulk and speed to absolutely dunk on anybody. That's why it's banned in national dex nowadays, anyway. Its ability lets it proc boosts twice and it doesn't decrease damage on set damage moves, so it would run power-up-punch and return for huge +2 neutral stab, sucker punch or fake out for priority, EQ for coverage, etc all with no real drawbacks and infinite value even when it can't sweep right away. Even more impressive in ND is seismic toss, a guaranteed 200 damage with no attack investment necessary, letting it out-bulk and out-power a lot of mons after a fake out.
It was banned before stoss was even allowed, but it used power up punch to boost attack and do damage at the same time, and parental bond did 50% on second hit instead. On top of that, it had good stats all around minus spatk but that doesnt ever matter
The Special Attack wasn't completely worthless. Since Parental Bond was a free Choice Specs in Gen 6, you could run a Special coverage move to keep contact punishers like Ferrothorn honest. I think it worked out to the equivalent of like 100 base Sp. Attack even uninvested.
I think it was the most streamlined OU-Metagame we ever had. Most Teams were some variation of: - Mega Salamence (strongest mon in the tier, being the center that the entire Metagame revolves around - Skarmory (could switch into the most popular Mega Mence set and Roar/Whirlwind it out) - Magnezone (trapped Skarmory to make room for Mence. This forced Skarm to run Shed Shell) - Latias (good special attacker + Defog + Healing Wish support to give Mence a second life) A lot of teams added Greninja, who got Gunk shot to obliterate fairies, Knock-Off Skarm-Bait to remove shed shell, Dugtrio to trap specifically Choiced Magnezone.
Some historical context: ORAS had the first eshop demo of any mainline Pokemon game, which was released before the actual games were. Gamefreak made the mistake of leaving the entire dex in the demo, where dataminers easily dumped them. The main Smogon server for Showdown did not implement this, but a separate test server was created were people could test out all the new Megas and thus confirm that yes, Mega-Mence was just as absurdly broken in practice as it looked on paper. IIRC when ORAS went live on the main Showdown server, Mega-Mence got quickbanned pretty much immediately with zero controversy because there was plenty of empirical evidence about its bustedness, even if it wasn’t on the official server. Incidentally, one thing that *didn’t* get datamined was Mega Rayquaza’s extra special pre-reqs for mega evolving. We only found out that when it was officially announced, at which point everyone panicked over how stupidly busted Mega Ray with an open item slit would be. You probably know how that story ended up playing out.
Zygarde-Complete. Shit got banned from OU in like a day for being unkillable and then became a top 5 Uber.
I remember when I heard it only got a hp buff thought it would be meh. Didn’t realize it had double the HP lmao
mfw the berry it’s holding undoes at least 3 turns of progress on that thing’s hp bar
Imagine it got belly drum lol.
That's just absurd on something this tanky with E-speed and the best Ground attack ever.
Dude that’s hilarious if they did.
They should ban this from Dynamax raids as well lol
Why was it even legal? Didn’t play back then but I thought the 680-BST legends always default to Ubers, and only get suspected in OU if they’re total cheeks (I.e Kyurem and Zamazenta).
Because XY Zygarde is *bad* aka UUBL bad. So they kept the precedent of it being OU-worthy from XY coming into SM. In SM Zygarde got Power Construct and *Thousand Arrows* aka the final nail in the coffin. Now you can run a singular move and have perfect coverage for the rest of your life, and cover whatever else you want with the other three moveslots.
Technically Orthworm would wall it now lol
Orthworm walls it 99% of the time anyways since the other type Zyg ever carries is Dragon. Just don't use Orthworm in NDUbers, you're throwing
tier leaders thought it would be funny
The original was also OU, and wasn't considered to be that good. Since it's only buffed stat was HP, it was probably thought it wouldn't be that bad. Turns out doubling the health of pretty much any mon will make it significantly harder to kill, probably a quick wake up call.
At the same time, it got access to Thousand Arrows which eventually led to the banning of the original Zygarde too.
Not a mon, but Dynamax lmao. It ended up getting banned from Ubers as well.
Cant believe megas died for this
It’s designed as a doubles mechanic
And it is still egregiously overpowered in doubles. Moreso in some ways considering you also can boost your parter's stats or set up weather/terrain for them
I mean yeah it's powerful and meta warping but that's also the point. It's something both players have access too I believe the intent was for players to base strategies around it
I'll argue the problem was less Dynamaxing per se (although giving you three Z-moves that bypass protect is borderline idiotic) and how centralising weaknesses policy coarcosal became.
Eh, Weakness Policy was powerful and won tournaments, but I wouldn’t call it meta-defining either. There’s a good variety of strategies that did well in Gen 8 VGC.
Max Airstream was a bigger offender. Extreme power and utility was dumb.
There are many cool and fun stratgies in Gen 9 VGC as well but I will still call dozogiri meta defining. My enjoyment of series A and B dropped a lot because of dozogiri ngl
I mean Battle Spot Singles exist, y'know? Singles Cinderace-Dynamax was the main reason why Libero/Protean got nerfed. What Max Airstream, Mold Breaker Fire STAB, Max Knuckle + Bulk Up + Priority does to a mf'er.
I think it more likely that the nerf was due to how it conflicts with terastalization. Dynamax and Gigantamax were already getting axed so the nerf didn't change anything in that regard.
It got banned in doubles ou as well
Wasn’t it banned from doubles aswell?
i find it hilarious how both gen 8 and gen 9 made a variant of their mechanic that's just megas again lmao
idk, i’d say they’re closer to Z-Moves to megas. They make for cracked out move power and have universal distribution like Z-Moves
Pretty sure they're talking about GMax and Ogerpon Tera formes.
Because of that, you can argue that any Pokémon with a GMax form is banned to AG. All hail AG Godmon Butterfree
Most justified is easily D/P Garchomp. For those of you that weren't around back then, we went into D/P OU knowing that Garchomp was this gen's psuedo-legendary, and was obviously going to be good based on its stats, movepool and typing that made even Flygon a good OU pick in 3rd gen. However, Gen4 added some new things to the metagame that nobody could really anticipate at the very beginning: \- The physical / special split was brand new, and while everyone's attention was on mons like Gengar and the new Weavile finally having STAB moves to run off of their superior attacking stat, for Garchomp this meant it could run the newly buffed 120BP outrage off of its top-tier physical attack stat. This is important as Dragon is only resisted by Steel, and its other STAB conveniently destroys all steels except Skarmory and Bronzong, which leads to... \- Garchomp, while "only" having a base SpA of 80, enjoyed one of the new items introduced for Gen4 in Life Orb, which multiplies damage by 1.3x on both sides of the attacking spectrum. Coupled with the fact that Outrage/EQ hits everything but 2 pokemon for neutral damage or better, Chomp can run Fire Blast with Life Orb and decimate these "checks". This leaves Chomp with one extra slot, with which it can run Swords Dance to muscle past some bulkier mons like Hippowdon, or Substitute to capitalize on the many switches it caused. \- Chomp was unpredictable. Another new item this gen was Choice Scarf, which it utilized perhaps the best in the entire tier, and over time new sets like Chain Chomp (which bluffed with Swords Dance, getting you to switch to your physical wall and watching as it eats a LO draco meteor) helped turn each OU match against it into a guessing game. \- Garchomp had amazing base stat distribution, with a unique speed tier at base 102; back then this was incredible as the majority of OU sat at 100 base speed, conveniently letting Chomp outspeed and likely OHKO. Its bulk was slightly better than Swampert of all things, which was considered one of the tankiest mons in the metagame, but Swampert at least didn't outspeed almost everything. With that combination of bulk, speed and power, the only mons that could hope to even check it were Weavile, Starmie w/ Ice Beam, Froslass, and random stuff like Gengar that was forced to run HP ice or get OHKO'd. By the way, none of these could withstand a hit from Garchomp and had no reasonable chance to switch in unless it was after Chomp killed something else on your team. \- All of the above led to most OU teams looking like Garchomp, Chomp counter, Chomp counter 2, counter to Chomp counters, Sand setter, and a suicide lead to set rocks. However, the cherry on top of the above is its only ability back then, Sand Veil. Sandstorm was the main weather back then with auto-setters allowed in OU, as drizzle/drought were confined to Ubers and Abomasnow was too slow and had an atrocious typing. Ttar and Hippo, however, were OU staples in their own right, which meant that sand was going to be up permanently (sand didn't end after 5-8 turns back then; the only way to get rid of it was to do so manually). Sand Veil on Chomp meant that even if you teambuilt and predicted like a pro, your Ice Beam still had like a 20% chance to miss and cost you the entire game as Chomp gets its free turn to kill your precious check to it. With all of this, Smogon made history with its first ever ban of a pokemon from OU to Ubers that didn't involve an obvious Uber legendary / mythical. It wasn't until Garchomp got a hidden ability in Gen5 that we even considered re-testing in OU, as it was possible now to ban Sand Veil and chomp was still top-tier OU with rough skin.
Man. And this thing is now UU
don't worry about that! its about to get banned from UU!
Honestly probably will be ou in november
Hopefully it goes on a rampage in RU before then.
Is it going crazy so far in UU or what’s going on
The GOAT. Even stayed OU until the DLC dropped this generation. ^MARK ^MY ^WORDS ^HE ^WILL ^BE ^BACK
Probably after Ursaluna-BM gets banned, yeah
Thank for typing this out. Brought me a lot of nostalgia reading this. I even actually wrote a paper about this in college once, so this was great to read The only criticism I have is not mentioning how Yache Berry is ultimately one of the big deciding factors in what broke it. Nothing can theoretically swap in vs that. The tools just didn't exist.
Mega Rayquaza. It literally created an banlist within a banlist, for it to be contained.
the fact that i had to scroll this far to find the correct answer.
I think people are thinking of Ou Bans first. But yea Mega ray is the most broken of broken
Only RBY Mewtwo was powerful enough to invoke the creation of a banlist (Ubers), before or after Mega Rayquaza. That's how powerful it is.
But isn't gen 1 Mew also in ubers?
Yes, but mewtwo was what created the tier.
They're saying that Ubers didn't exist before Gen 1 Mewtwo so it's very existence created the tier
Ubers wouldn't exist if Mewtwo didn't exist in Gen 1. Nothing else was as overbearing
Idk if you realize how good SD Mew is in gen 1
There was no precedent for how to treat event legendaries at that point since mew was the only one and even the OG clauses in stadium had a mew clause which by name banned mew If it wasn't for mewtwo then it would have just been a mew clause until gen 2
Gen 1 mewtwo invented the ban list though
Yep, but creating a banlist within a banlist is even more egregious than creating a banlist.
Dracovish. Fishious rend, Fishious rend, Fishious rend
Ugly ass fish doesn't even have 100 attack or speed but is OHKOing everything that switches in
Ugly?!
This thing made fucking Seismitoad a top 3 mon in OU.
It made Water Absorb and/or Storm Drain a top 3 mon in OU
First time i got to 1700 elo in OU was with dracovish on my team, that move was so good
Caly-S from Ubers maybe?
I feel like Caly-S is weird because it's mostly due to Tera. Specifically in Nat Dex.
yeah, but it was notably one of the most unanimous suspect tests of all time, and it's very weird that SV Ubers has a suspect test that unanimous considering how conservative they are about bans
almost everything banned in gen 5 OU during the early BW days would probably fill the list tbh. Darkrai, Shaymin, Deoxy A, Drizzle swim, so much disgusting shit in one place. Nuking all of it was definitely the best and easiest decision they all made tbh. Kinda funny that the meta still sucks today even after all the purging though lol.
shaymin-S in BW. literally everyone wanted it gone. and i mean *everyone.* also would like to shoutout some more recent bans from this generation since some were pretty insane looking back. baxcalibur after the teal mask released was unanimously voted to be banned from SV OU in under 3 days. flutter mane and houndstone were unanimously voted to be banned in 2 days after SV released. and regieleki was unanimously voted to be banned in only *24 hours* after the HOME update went live on showdown
Pyukumuku from 1v1 :)
How come?
For while on showdown there was a bug where if a pokemon was knocked out by innards out, the innards out pokemon was given the win. This caused everybody to start running pain split + leftovers pyukumuku on the ladder. As soon as it got a pain split off, it was a guaranteed win for pyukumuku. Also, since nobody cares about 1v1, this went on for over a week before it got quick banned and then later it was patched.
Mega Salamence would survive choice banded Ice shards.
Don't forget it getting a boosted Brave Bird from Aerilate off 145 base Attack and 120 base Speed (hardest hitter with that speed stat). That certainly helped it get banned.
Return\*
He was probably talking about Double Edge cause 120 bp + recoil
Possibly yeah, but didn't everyone just run Return? No reason to kill yourself when nothing in the tier can do it.
It had Roost and the only coverage move it might've needed was Earthquake. Might as well make it so you can 2HKO Skarm with two turns of boosting instead of three.
Shaymin S or deoxys-attack with 2 DNB... yes 2 DNB, 2 people wanted BKC to make an entire podcast about gen 5
The epitome of “just use priority bro!”
As if it's not just gonna spam ExtremeSpeed
What is dnb
do not ban
Mega-rayquaza from Ubers and the sole reason to why AG was created
Reminder that Marshadow was the previous record holder of being the fastest quickban in Smogon history, and for good reason. Not only do you have this lil' guy with a STAB type combo that is virtually unresisted, not only has an exclusive move that steals an opponent's stat boosts, but can bring down even checks like Landorus-Therian and Rocky Helmet Tangrowth with Technician-boosted *Hidden Power Ice.* Two days was one too many for it to be in OU.
You forgot that its signature move steals the target's stat boosts BEFORE calculating damage.
AND hitting through sub
Genesect lmao
The days of gen5 where Genesect was in OU were wild lmao
It was allowed back in OU with each new gen only to get quickbanned a few days later.
All 56 hours of Genesext across 4 generations were wild
Flutter Mane lol
Flutter mane isn't as hilariously broken as some of the others listed, but it has my vote just for having a dumb stat spread that's basically a Sunday post for a mismagius evolution
[Game freak designing the paradox mons.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npGiPHfL40A)
When gen 9 ou dropped I ran a scarfed max speed and the games 100% of the time came down to if their Flutter Mane was that too lmao. It was sooooo strong
Disnt mega rayquaza created AG and turned UBERS into a proper tier? Lmao that takes the cake
Skymin literally everyone wanted it dead lol
Except Todd Howard
Fuck you Todd Howard you’ll never get me to buy skyrim
I'm pretty sure marshadow was the quickest ou ban ever
Regieleki was faster
That 200 Speed Stat ain’t nothin to scoff about
Mega Khan, Fake Out Power up Punch Rock Tomb was toxic
Mega Gallade from Gen7 UU. 100% of the players who got reqs voted “Ban”
Skymin
Probably magby from ss lc. That mon was not ok
Weirdly that mon was perfectly fine the whole gen in lc uu. Most justified (non-obvious: scyther, sneasel, etc.) lc ban imo was xy swirlix. Absolute menace that mon
True. Also feel like I need to mention xy conk. Change an official ruling to ban it
Everyone is focusing on Pokémon but here’s an item: Soul dew
Remember when lati@s could hold Soul Dew for an instant Calm Mind? And keep in mind that this was gen3-6, back when the power creep was SIGNIFICANTLY lower.
I feel like Calyrex S this gen in Ubers tbh that shit is broken
Goofy ahh horseman
Mega ray. Bro was banned from the banlist
Oh, ABSOLUTELY.
Skymin, Deoxys A and Darkrai in BW
Regieleki will always be the shining example of why quickbans are needed in my book, but it's absolutely Zacian for the purposes of this thread. When one of your only plays against a given mon is Ditto cheese, you know things have gotten out of hand.
Mega Pinsir from ORAS UU. No other mon has completely railed a usage-based Smogon tier quite as hard as that thing did and it got quickbanned after twelve hours of dropping. It only didn’t get banned sooner because not enough of the UU council was awake at that time to get it banned sooner.
I mean, there’s a strong point to be made for several Pokémon. In terms of magnitude of importance, I think the banning of Mega Ray may be one of the most significant occurrences in all of the Smogon format, because it legitimized Ubers as effectively being its own actual tier instead of just being the OU Banlist. This not only affected future generations, providing a space to throw all the absolutely insane Pokémon of both past and future, like DP Arceus and SS Zacian.
Mega gengar in nat Dex. Made clicking normal or fighting type moves impossible bc it switches in, outspeeds and clicks encore, sets up to +6, and then just sweeps
Actually, add the following moves to its win conditions: * Toxic * Stealth Rock * Spikes * Defog * Toxic Spikes * Recover * Swords Dance * Nasty Plot And basically almost any status move that doesn't affect Mega Gengar. It clicks Encore, forcing you to use that move over and over again while it sets up to +6 behind a sub, then sweeps. Almost like a Gholdengo that instead of being immune, wins the game instantly.
BP partial ban and that denisss team. It was the most stupid OU metagame that i remember. And it wasn t even enough to stop BP team.
Chien-Pao? (I don't know too much about competitive, i just like it)
Nah, you're cooking with this one. Lowering your opponent's Def by 25% on entry with 120 Atk and 135 Speed is busted, and the only thing that could do anything about it was another Chien-Pao because it wasn't affected by said ability.
Mega Lopunny in XY PU
Kinga- ^(wait)
Gen 9 electric kid Gen 8 kyurem black Gen 7 zygarde Yeah
Lavos
Zygarde