Flavor of the Month

[PDC]

Gliscor, while still very viable, has faced a large downfall from its glory days back in BW1. I think we all remember a time when Gliscor was considered a top tier physical wall that a majority of teams used simply to combat Excadrill, Garchomp, and Terrakion. Slowly Gliscor began falling down in usage as Excadrill and Garchomp left the tier, but it still remained pretty high due to the prevelance and increase of Terrakion as BW1 came to a close. Gliscor was one of the most annoying Pokemon of BW1, and its SubToxic set has definitely made me rage more times than it should have. To be perfectly honest, I am glad it dropped in usage, as it was one of the most annoying Pokemon I have ever had to play against. This was quite awhile ago though, and its times of being a premier physical wall are long gone, and that is something I am actually rather thankful for.

In BW2, as many of you have stated, Gliscor is still viable, but it has taken on a more offensive role with Acrobatics sets instead. Gliscor has been overshadowed defensively by Landorus-T, as it is much stronger, has Intimidate, and is overall a "better" choice for a lot of teams. While the two may look similar at first, Landorus-T is rather superior in a lot of aspects with its ability to act as an overall better defensive pivot and offensive Pokemon that doesn't kill momentum at all at the same time. Like many have said above, Gliscor is not anywhere near bad, it just has a lot of flaws that seem to make it a little inferior to Landorus-T of today in BW2.

This week we will be discussing a special Pokemon in my heart, that I personally have always liked.

 

[ShootingStarmie]

Virizion is a pretty versatile Pokemon, and had quite a bit of usage in BW1. This is mainly because it's typing allows it to destroy most weather based teams, and it done very well against Volt turn based teams, which were both really popular at the time. The great thing about Virizion is that it was pretty versatile, thanks to it's stats and very nice move pool. These stats included an impressive 90 / 72 / 129 defenses, while it had 90 / 90 / 108 offenses, while it's move pool consisted of a lot of stat boosting moves, like Work Up, Calm Mind, and Swords Dance. This allowed Virizion to run a few sets, including Calm Mind, Swords Dance, Work Up, and even a Dual Screens set.

Unfortunately, when BW2 came around, so did Technician Breloom. It severally outclassed Virizion as an offensive Grass / Fighting type Pokemon, thanks to it's new ability, access to strong priority, and much higher attack. While Virizion could separate itself from Breloom with a Work Up / Calm Mind set, it just wasn't bulky enough to get a few boosts like back in BW1. With the new releases of powerful threats such as Tornadus-T, Genesect, and Garchomp, Virizion found it tough to find a good opportunity to set up. Because of this, Virizion actually fell into the UU tier, because of the lack of usage. I remember during the Keldeo / Landorus-I / Tyranitar core era that it started to get a bit of usage, as it could check Landorus-I and Keldeo, as well as counter Tyranitar, but that was short lived as Landorus-I got the boot to Ubers.

Overall I think the biggest reasons why Virizion dropped is because it was outclassed by Breloom, and it just isn't bulky enough for this metagame. I hear it does pretty well in UU though...

 

[PDC]

Virizion was really cool at one point. It was fast, decently bulky, and had some pretty solid typing to it. I remember it could wreck a huge amount of teams way back in the BW1 scene. Most common defensive Sand Builds hated facing it, and it could actually act as a secondary check (while no that reliable) to Garchomp. Virizion was really solid back then, and I always used it whenever I had the chance too. Slowly Virizion fell out of favor though for more powerful fighting types like Terrakion and Lucario late BW1, and although it still had the niche of do well against Sand and Rain, that would slowly come to and end. There was a large Tornadus spikes during the end of BW1 during World Cup, and people began to realize that Virizion wasn't too amazing against Rain. Sand teams often could muscle through Virizion, and it would almost need to carry a Lum Berry if it wished to even take Rotom-W on consistently. Celebi overcame it due to Natural Cure and better ability to sweep, and slowly Virizion fell out of its place. While I personally still like it, I feel it is much less useful now than ever. Breloom has replaced it offensively for the most part, so the question really is, what else does it have left?

This week, our Pokemon will be a Late BW1 favorite, which after it's other form's ban, seemed to die out.

 

[Prosecutor Godot]

Tornadus-I is a pokemon that in all fairness should be OU. However when Tornadus-T was released, it was obvious that it was superior than it's Incarnate forme in almost every way possible. Tornadus just never seemed to catch back on afterwards, and is now in UU where it also has low usage. Tornadus is fast and powerful but it's held back by being frail, SR weak and the metagame isn't very nice to monotypes anyway. Regardless of those flaws, Tornadus-I just wasn't able to recover from Tornadus-T's release.

 

[Gary]

Yeah I agree with pretty much everything Prosecutor Gobot said. When Tornadus-T ran rampant through OU, Tornadus-I was deemed too outclassed to even consider competing with its counterpart. Even after the ban, with no competition at all, Tornadus-I still struggled to make it up to OU. It did come close though, I think it was like 3.2% in usage or something like this? Regardless of that, I think there's more to it then just people forgetting about him. Although its frailness and SR weakness does suck, I think the high usage of its common checks and counters is what's keeping people from using it. Jirachi, Tyranitar, and Rotom-W are all very good Pokemon right now and they all do a superb job at switching into a Specs Hurricane multiple times even. Mamoswine, Scarf Keldeo, Starmie, and Scizor are also common checks to Tornadus-T, and normally at least one of them is used on almost every team. A lot of odds are against Hurricane spam in general right now, which is why Moltres has been getting a bit more hype lately because of its ability to beat most of what is used to counter Tornadus with Fire Blast before it proceeds to spam Hurricane itself.

So no, I don't entirely blame it on the lack of people forgetting about Tornadus, I blame it on the lack of teams that are no longer ill prepared for Tornadus, which in turn makes it harder for people to ever find a chance to use it properly. I've been using Tornadus lately, and I rarely ever use it. It usually just sits there and waits for the Jirachi or Tyranitar to be eliminated first, but most good players wouldn't let that happen anyway. I've actually had more success with Agility Moltres because of the reasons listed above.

 

[PDC]

And this is where we end, with X/Y among us now, it is time to finally retire Gen 5 OU. This thread was a bit of a look-back on the previous trends and threats that were once top tier in this metagame, and now that it is done, we will repeat this process once again. I look forward to re-creating this thread a few months into X/Y. My final sentiments on Tornadus are basically how amazing it was during its prime. Nobody prepared much for it, and it got US East extremely far in the previous World Cup. Hell, Tornadus still is amazing, but I don't think it matters too much anymore. As the decline of types of teams that were ill-prepared for it kind of died off, and people became more accustom to using it, its popularity died off and it ended where it is today.

I'll see you guys next time, but I think that's it for the OU Gen 5 Flavor of The Month thread for now.