BW banlist: Why you shouldn't hate us for it

[NinjaDeathStrike]

Newly Banned

Manaphy: Is absolutely broken with permanent rain. +3 tail glow plus completely healing with hydration and rest. There is no doubt here.

Inconsistent (ability): Relies completely on luck. No strategy involved what so ever.

Shadow Tag (ability): Is unfair. Switching is a major part of strategy that has been removed from the game by this ability. However, wobbuffet will be allowed once his dream world ability is released.

Excadrill + Sand Stream: With Sand Rush Excadrill is faster in the sand than Deoxys-S. It also has 135 base attack and swords dance, oh and if you give it a balloon it's can't even be hit with earthquake until you attack with something else. Sand Force isn't much better boosting both of its STABs and its best coverage move to ridiculous levels. Excadrill can play, but not in the sand.

Landorus + Sand Stream: Again another broken sand sweeper. With Sand Force Landorus can use it's incredible speed and attack to quickly tear apart opposing teams. It also as very few real counters, with only Skarmory and Bronzong stopping it defensively and Weavile and Mamoswine MAYBE being able to revenge kill it.

Drizzle + multiple swift swimmers ON THE SAME TEAM: Remember Excadrill being stupidly fast? Now imagine a whole team of that. Swift Swim in permanent rain has the potential to destroy every other team style, which is no fun for anyone. While rain sweepers lack the raw power of Excadrill, filling your team with them easily makes up for that. Therefore, you are only allowed ONE pokemon with Swift Swim if you're using Drizzle (if your only source of rain is rain dance go crazy), but neither of the abilities are banned outright.

Swift Swim Kingdra + Drizzle: While Kingdra doesn't boast the raw power of Excadrill, it's incredible dual STABs and great resistences make it just as much of a threat. In the rain, Kingdra out speeds and destroys every other dragon in the game and wreaks havoc with it's boosted water moves. Sniper and Drizzle are ok together, but not Swift Swim.

Suspects

Latios: Latios is still awesome, even though it's got some stiff competition with the new dragons. We'll be watching it. Obviously Soul Dew is off limits once it's been released.

Volcorona: Very few real counters and fantastic stat distributions. The moth is looking like it's going to be a real pain to take down. If it proves to be too good, we'll have to move it to uber.

[JamesOfJohto]

Well atleast my Victini is still safe territory

[Shark]

My question on Wobbuffet:
Because switching is already blocked in my gym, making shadowtag useless, could I add one to my team?

[M]

No. Your gym rule already acts as a sort of Shadow Tag so you may not. Having Wobbuffet on your team would just make it an Uber.

[Sir Derpington III]

I don't really see the sense in banning drizzle teams.

This can be countered many different ways, I could make a list.

1. Another weather effect. (Tryanatar, for example, could really screw up a drizzle pokemon/team. Especially Sunny Day, weakening a lot of the water types powered by Rain Dance)
2. Another pokemon with that same ability. (fight Fire with Fire)
3. Shedinja, or anything with speed boosting.
4. Go first type attacks with the correct set up. (Aqua Jet, etc.)
5. The new sturdy. (You'd be surprised, you can make huge comebacks with this. Especially with a Sawk)

[darkfire006]

oh god i hate sturdy..........i could have gotten through twist mt. fully healed if not for boldore and sturdy.......
but neut has a point......and it is good......especially if they can learn electric types.....
also what happens if we are using a kingdra and they use a drizzle pokemon?
or excadrill and sandstream......
does this only apply if the same person does it?

[NinjaDeathStrike]

Drizzle isn't banned. Only Drizzle AND more than one pokemon with Swift Swim on the same team. Drizzle and Drought are necessary to help counter Sand Stream. I'll update the first post to make that more clear.

[JamesOfJohto]

I know we will cross this bridge if it comes, but what if someone invents a new stradegy that literaly makes them unbeatable?

[M]

We will examine it first, then draw to a conclusion.

[Pope]

Pokemon that are non-legendary status should not be banned. It's about gaining new strategies and learning from them and implementing them. Volcorona and Excadrill + Sand Stream should not even be considered to be banned AND/OR should not be banned. Trainers just need to figure out a way to go around that if they want to win. Just my opinion.

[JamesOfJohto]

I kind of agree with Pope on this because the whole point of battling here is to come up with ways to be the best, if peoples stradegy's just keep getting banned that takes a lot away from it.

[NinjaDeathStrike]

I understand what you're saying, but I don't think you're looking at this objectively. You cannot go in with the mind set 'Legends are bad, everything else is ok' Tho need to look at what they're capable of within the game.

Take Enti for example. Enti is a legend, but it is also not very good. Sure it has 600bst, but they're not distributed well and it's move pool is shallow. It is much worse than things like Garchomp and Salamance, who are not legends.

Or how about Wobbuffet? Wobbuffet isn't uber, but it was banned last gen because it's ability and stats made it unfair to use. It made the game to centralized because throwing a Wobbuffet on your team essentially gave you AT LEAST one free kill, if you knew how to use it.

Now lets look at Excadrill. I don't believe the argument 'it's not a legend' is a valid excuse for leaving it unbanned. The truth of the matter is that, during a sand storm, Excadrill's stats are HIGHER than nearly every legend and it has the perfect movepool to use them. In the sand, Excadrill's speed reaches 550, that's faster than Deoxys-S with no turns needed to boost. If it gets a single sword dance, it's attack can reach 810. Now it pretty much kills everything in the entire game in one hit, and is faster than almost every pokemon even if they're holding a choice scarf. There are one or two pokemon that can beat it with priority and Skarmory can use whirlwind without being KO'd but that's really about it. Excadrill is broken in the sand guys, and we won't be removing it from the ban list.

Finally, Volcorona is not banned. We're merely keeping an eye on it. Anything with those stats and a move that boost three of them simultaneously needs to be watched closely.

[M]

I agree with Ninja with the same argument that I had.

Excadrill is broken without a doubt in sand. In fact, the only way to beat it without losing guys, is to either have Mach Punch or Aqua Jet, manage to outspeed it, or wall it and hope you can move it away. Weather will not be helpful in getting rid of it that easily because there's only one legal Pokemon with Drizzle, Hail only has one, and Sunny Day needs a turn to be cast. Sand Stream outnumbers them.

Ninja's point about legendaries is also valid. Not all legendaries are great. Examples for this are Entei, Articuno, and Regigigas. While non-legendaries like Garchomp and Salamence are the more preferred option than picking the three I mentioned. So being a legendary does not guarantee it will be stronger than non-legendary.

[JamesOfJohto]

I wasn't agreeing with the legendary point from Pope just the part about stradegies , when you put it that way I guess it makes sense

[Pope]

If the majority of us has issues, then I can understand, but Black and White just came out, and the majority of us just got it recently, so let's just examine these Pokemon first before possibly banning anything (with the exception of Zekrom,Reshiram and Kyurem). I can understand even Wobbuffet to a certain degree.

Just because it's logical, doesn't make it right. That's my opinion. Even though Volcarona isn't banned, it's being considered (or suspect) whatever word you chose to use. It shouldn't be period just because it would be hard to take down, I don't think that's a legitimate reason at all, but more of a personal observation that may or may not be true. A Pokemon is only as good as it's trainer, so I shouldn't be penalized if I raised a Volcarona to be strong or any Pokemon that very few weaknesses or none at all. The same goes for Excadrill and any of it's abilities. I just hope Kindra and Swift Swim (excluding Drizzle) isn't looked at next.