BW2 RU Suspect Results

Introduction

Throughout its history, BW RU has been a fairly balanced tier. The balanced metagame that BW RU has ended with now is one that, despite seemingly few bans, has taken quite a while to actually achieve. Despite a few tier shifts, the tier has undergone quite a few changes in the time it took to reach the state it is now at. With XY RU on its way and BW becoming more and more obsolete by the day, let us take one last look back at BW2 RU's history, and both the things it did right and the mistakes it made along the way towards the wonderful metagame we have today.

Round 8

Round 8 of RU marked the end of BW1, the beginning of BW2, and a variety of changes that came along with that transition. With many new Dream World abilities released, new move tutors which gave life to Pokémon previously overlooked in RU, and the introduction of Nidoqueen and Escavalier into the tier, the metagame was shaken up significantly from the metagame that was left at the end of BW1. Amidst this shaken up metagame, two Pokémon in particular stood out as suspects: Nidoqueen and Moltres.

Nidoqueen

Nidoqueen was perhaps BW2 RU's most controversial suspect when it dropped into the tier in July. While Nidoqueen may not seem overly threatening at a first glance, many people were clamoring for Nidoqueen to be suspected due to the, well, Sheer Force of her special attacking set. Using her incredible coverage that was both boosted by Sheer Force and Life Orb (without the recoil, mind you), Nidoqueen was able to pose a huge threat against most of the slower, bulky offense dominated teams that were prevalent in BW1 RU. For the people who wished to see her banned, they claimed that Nidoqueen's amazing coverage, relatively decent Speed, and almost-complete immunity to passive damage (as Nidoqueen is immune to Thunder Wave, Toxic, Toxic Spikes, and is resistant to Stealth Rock!) was simply too much for the slower teams of the tier to handle, and they believed that Nidoqueen's ability to render many otherwise good Pokémon so much worse, simply because they were slower than her, was banworthy. On the other hand, the people who did not believe that Nidoqueen was broken believed that defensive teams did have solid answers to her in specially defensive walls such as Clefable, Lickilicky, Gardevoir, specially defensive Gallade, and Uxie, and that defensive teams could "play around" Nidoqueen using a combination of things like defensive Slowking and Cryogonal with Speed investment. Furthermore, Nidoqueen, while not entirely useless against them, was mediocre against most offense teams, which were by far the most common team archetype at the time, as against offense, her Speed suddenly began to look much less impressive, and her bulk insufficient to handle the powerful attacks that those types of teams would throw at her. Against these types of teams, Nidoqueen was not terribly difficult to play around since most teams had a combination of Pokémon to resist certain attacks that Nidoqueen would use, and more likely than not, those Pokémon that could outspeed Nidoqueen had an attack that could outright OHKO her. Both sides argued extensively, with many heated arguments occurring in #rarelyused over the course of the suspect test, but when the voting came around, only one voter voted to ban her; the rest of the pro-banners had Abstained, as they had come to the conclusion that, while they believed it was a terrible influence on the tier, they could not justify banning it without further testing.

Moltres

With the onset of BW2, Arceus decided to give Moltres an incredible gift in the form of Hurricane. When members of #rarelyused learned that Moltres gained Hurricane, there were many people clamoring for it to be banned. After all, with Hurricane, Moltres could easily 2HKO what was previously its best and most common counter, Slowking, with just a Life Orb. However, as the suspect test rolled on, Nidoqueen proved to be far more controversial than Moltres, and discussion to it was mostly left to the wayside. By the time of the voting, though, it was pretty much unanimously decided that Moltres was not broken. While in theory it could 2HKO Slowking with Hurricane, realistically hitting with Hurricane proved more difficult than most people would have thought, and due to Moltres's 4x weakness to Stealth Rock, missing often proved fatal for it. Moltres's Stealth Rock weakness also made it so that simply forcing Moltres out with a faster Pokémon would often spell its doom, as losing 50% of its life upon switching in severely limited its opportunities to switch in, especially against the more offensive teams that dominated this round. And, if one was really that worried about Moltres, people believed that Regirock, Aerodactyl, and Lanturn were sufficient answers to it, so as a result, Moltres was unanimously voted to remain in RU.

Round 9

With the end of the Nidoqueen and Moltres suspect discussion, it seemed that people finally were content with the tier once more. However, that peace would not last for very long. Immediately after the results for Nidoqueen and Moltres came in, Gothitelle gained its Dream World ability, Shadow Tag, and immediately there was a lot of talk about quickbanning it. Historically, even limited trapping abilities such as Arena Trap and Magnet Pull have proven to be incredibly deadly, and Shadow Tag's ability to trap whatever you want, especially when combined with Gothitelle's expansively movepool, made it appear to be a match that would tear apart the tier. As a result, Gothitelle was quickly put up for a quickban vote.

Gothitelle

Prior to Shadow Tag, Gothitelle gained little to no usage in RU. In the past, it was always outclassed by the variety of other better Psychic-types in RU, particularly Slowking, Uxie, Mesprit, and even Gardevoir, and as a result, there was little to no reason to use it. This changed when Shadow Tag was released, which gave Gothitelle a new leash on life; instead of being a mediocre, outclassed Psychic-type, Gothitelle suddenly became the tier's best trapper. Gothitelle's best set was probably the Choice Specs set, as the boost to its Special Attack in tandem with Gothitelle's fantastic coverage options and decent Speed, allowed it to effectively pick and KO basically any slow Pokémon in the tier. On the other hand, Gothitelle could also wield a Choice Scarf to boost its Speed to acceptable levels, which enabled Gothitelle to effectively pick off offensive Pokémon. Both of these sets allowed Gothitelle to work its magic on any type of team, regardless of whether it was fast or slow.

However, despite the initial outcry about Gothitelle, the hype surrounding it soon disappeared. While Gothitelle could trap any kind of Pokémon it wished, people found that in a heavily offensive metagame, that ability was not nearly as useful as one would have thought. After all, losing a single Pokémon on an offensive team is not nearly as game changing as losing a crucial wall on a defensive team that is meant to cover a huge amount of threats on its lonesome self. Furthermore, because the metagame was so offensive at the time, there wasn't really as much of a need for a trapper that could pick and choose the walls it wanted to KO, and as a result of this, Gothitelle actually wasn't really used that much throughout the test. Due to these things, the RU senate unanimously decided that Gothitelle would not be quickbanned, and that the test would go on as usual. However, despite the RU senate's vote, less than a week later, Gothitelle was banned by UU's senate, and as a result, Gothitelle was also banned from RU.

Round 10 - 11

With the banishment of Gothitelle from UU, and thus RU, RU was now back to the state it was in at the end of Round 8. For a short while, RU enjoyed a peaceful stage with no suspects; however, soon people began to get restless with the tier. People began to clamor for a retest on some of the previously banned suspects, including Cresselia, Durant, and Venomoth. After some discussion, tiering heads Oglemi and SilentVerse decided to have the council vote on whether or not they'd like to see Cresselia and Durant retested. In a surprisingly one-sided vote, Cresselia was voted unanimously to be retested, while Durant was voted 5-2 in favor of a retest. With that, Round 10 ended and Round 11 began!

Cresselia

Throughout each of its times in the tier, Cresselia has consistently been a highly controversial suspect. With its ridiculous 120 / 120 / 130 defenses, reliable recovery in Moonlight, and Levitate, Cresselia has always been the most resilient defensive threat RU has ever seen, and each time it has been in the tier, it has created a massive shift in the metagame, mostly by centralizing the metagame around itself. This time around, Cresselia did the exact same thing: as soon as it dropped, the metagame changed significantly. Thanks to Cresselia, the RU metagame slowed down significantly from the fast, offensive metagame before its arrival, and Pokémon such as Drapion, Absol, Escavalier, and even the likes of Crawdaunt and Pinsir began to arise. For many people, this was a somewhat welcomed change from the hyper offensive metagame that was dominant in the previous round, but for others, Cresselia was simply extremely polarizing and often led matches to be determined by whether or not one could keep their Cresselia alive longer than their opponent. In the end, the voters decided in a 3-8 vote that the metagame with Cresselia was a more diverse and better metagame than the one before its drop, and as a result, Cresselia was unbanned.

Durant

When Durant was first banned in BW1, many people were disappointed as they felt it was not an overly broken threat that really needed to be removed. However, as evidenced by the council's vote, this time around Durant was the suspect that the council was most wary of. With the addition of Superpower into its movepool via the BW2 move tutors, Durant finally had a means of hitting its former hard counters, Steelix, Magneton, and Poliwrath, extremely hard, and it would seem as if this would make it broken. During its retest period though, due to the fact that it was so overshadowed by Cresselia, Durant was used very sparsely, and from the use that it did see, people agreed that Durant just wasn't broken. Due to Hustle, Durant was very unreliable as an attacker, and while it could use Hone Claws to remedy this, setting up a Hone Claws proved extremely difficult due to Durant's pitiful Special Defense. Also, even if it did set up, Pokémon such as Qwilfish and Rotom were able to act as solid checks, as they could easily take one of Durant's attacks and either paralyze or burn it. Furthermore, Durant's low Special Defense made it very susceptible to revenge killing from fast Choice Scarf special attackers, such as the omnipresent Rotom-C, and because of that, Durant was not seen as much of a threat and was unanimously voted to be unbanned.

Round 13

With the unbanning of Durant and Cresselia, tier leaders Oglemi and SilentVerse initially decided to try something new. Due to the controversy over Cresselia and Nidoqueen, they decided to have the next round have a staggered ladder, where for two weeks, Cresselia and Nidoqueen would be allowed, while for the other two, they would be temporarily banned in order to assess the impact of both of these Pokémon on the metagame. However, in the middle of this staggered ladder, UU unbanned Snow Warning; because RU never officially banned Snow Warning whereas UU did, Snover was immediately dropped into RU and as a result, the plan to stagger the ladder was canceled and instead replaced with a quick, two week round with Snover and Cresselia as the suspects.

Snover

Coming into the round, Snover was the more controversial of the two suspects. The last time hail was allowed in RU, it was very nearly banned for being too strong, and as a result, people were very wary of having it back in the tier. After all, the last time Hail was in the tier, the combined forces of Blizzspam, Stallrein, and Trick Room Endeavor Solosis and Duosion proved difficult for the tier to handle, and it looked like it was going to be just as deadly. To some people, it was just as lethal: Stallrein was still capable of stalling out huge portions of teams, and Blizzspam hit most teams incredibly hard, as they often lacked enough Ice resists to handle the huge damage brought from the likes of Glaceon and Rotom-F. However, other people felt that hail was very manageable thanks to Pokémon such as Overcoat Escavalier and Choice Scarf Emboar, which were able to act as solid answers to hail while fitting easily onto a wide variety of teams. In the end, hail was voted 2-4 in favor of not banning, and as a result, Hail stayed in RU.

Cresselia

Even though Snover was the more controversial target of the two, Cresselia still stirred up its own share of controversy. While Cresselia had just been unbanned from the round before, people had begun to feel that Cresselia was simply far too over-centralizing for the metagame to handle, and felt that it should be banned. As time had passed from the last round, people had realized that many of the Pokémon they thought could solidly handle Cresselia actually were unable to do so effectively with a small change in Cresselia's moveset, and as a result of this, teams were severely restricted in terms of the Pokémon that could be used. The so called diversity that Cresselia was supposed to end up promoting ended up being nothing but a dream, and by the end of the round, it was almost unanimously decided that Cresselia needed to be banned, and so it was banned in a completely overwhelming 6-0 vote.

Round 14

With Cresselia banned once more, the metagame reverted to the state it was in Round 8, except with Snover and Durant. With the metagame back in its balanced state once more, it was decided that there should be one last suspect test in order to tie up some loose ends on threats that people might still think would be broken. So, a suspect discussion was opened, and it was decided through that thread that Nidoqueen should be suspected one more time.

Nidoqueen

Once again, Nidoqueen was on the chopping block, and just like the last time it was designated as a suspect, the RU playerbase was torn. For the most part, all of the same arguments from the last time it was suspected applied; to the people who were pro-ban, Nidoqueen significantly limited the playstyles and Pokémon that could be used, while others believed that Nidoqueen did not nearly have the effect that the pro-banners attempted to make people believe. For the entire round, voters argued back and forth with neither side changing their minds, which caused Nidoqueen to affectionately be called "dramaqueen" by user -Tsunami-. In the end, the time to vote finally came, and in a 3-6 vote, it was decided that Nidoqueen would stay in RU.

Round 16

However, despite the voters deciding that Nidoqueen was not to be banned, during the April tier shifts, Nidoqueen ended up moving up to UU, which ultimately caused it to leave the tier for good. With Nidoqueen's leave, the metagame shifted rapidly, but for the most part, nothing was really overly broken and the tier enjoyed a relaxing couple of months of stability. Overtime, as the metagame fleshed out more and people began to experiment with new things that were previously discouraged by Nidoqueen's presence in the tier, people began to realize that there was still one thing that needed to be addressed for one last time: Snow Warning.

Hail

Even though hail was initially voted to not be banned in Round 13, as the metagame developed, people quickly began to clamor for it to be suspected once more. In particular, the combination of Ice Body + permanent hail, especially on the likes of Walrein, Glaceon, and Glalie, was the subject of many debates. With this combo, these Pokémon could alternate between Substitute and Protect while healing off the damage through Ice Body and Leftovers, letting them stall opponents for as long as they had the PP to do so. While this combination has always been present in RU as long as hail has been allowed, it was never really explored or used to its full potential until this round, where top RU player august popularized the use of Toxic Spikes alongside this combo. As Nidoqueen had moved out of RU due to tier shifts, Toxic Spikes in general suddenly became significantly more powerful because of the lack of an omnipresent Toxic Spikes absorber apart from Qwilfish, and alongside the incredible stalling ability of Ice Body, the three aforementioned Pokémon could actually stall out entire teams should the enemy lack a Toxic Spikes absorber or Cryogonal. Furthermore, while the stalling ability of hail was its strongest attribute, the ability to spam 100% accurate Blizzards was also extremely strong, especially with Glaceon and Rotom-F in the tier. As a result, in a tight instant run-off vote, Snow Warning was ultimately banned from the tier.

Conclusion

With Snow Warning's banishment to BL2, the general consensus has been that RU has finally reached a state of balance. In fact, RU is so balanced right now that even though the metagame should be, by all means, dead after XY was released, RU has still managed to evolve significantly since Snow Warning's ban. Despite all the drama and perhaps some missteps along the way, RU has managed to shape itself into a tier that, unlike many of the other BW tiers, is both fun to play and balanced. While it is inevitable that RU will soon die once XY RU rolls around, moving forward, we can only hope that XY RU will end up as balanced as BW RU, though perhaps without some of the missteps along the way.

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