RBY 2U General Discussion Thread

Ortheore

Emeritus
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Hey all, post your thoughts on the tier here! This is also the place to call for any potential suspects. Eventually we'll be getting up a VR ranking thread (probably soon, since we can just modify the old one) so that'll also be another place to discuss.

My first thoughts after my series vs Drud:
  • Atm it seems like the tier has enough para spreaders to keep AgiNite in check, but holy hell is Dragonite bulky. Gyarados barely dents it with Body Slam, so you can expect it to start running Blizz, over either BSlam or HPump imo. Actually come to think of it, is there anything Gyara does that DNite doesn't? I guess there's outspeeding DNite lol, but otherwise it's just got STAB HPump and that's it
  • What does Kangaskhan run? Without Don there's no need for Surf, but does DNite replace it with Blizz, or is Khan more free to run Counter?
  • Electabuzz is at least as good as Raichu- Surf is nowhere near as useful as it was with Don around, while Buzz's Psychic at least hits Bel- not the biggest threat, but still relevant, more so than Surf. It feels like a bold statement to say that Buzz is better, but it's plausible tbh. More likely they're on par with each other.
  • Dodrio is a thing. It still struggles to stand out from the other Normals but without Don to fall back on it can be pretty scary
  • Yeah Haunter's probably S
 

Ortheore

Emeritus
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Kadabra's not even a good lead tbh. Terrible status absorber, while its matchup vs Hypno is terrible- it tends to paralyse it, at which point Hypno becomes a mammoth obstacle to getting sleep off. Meanwhile Hypno in return is enigmatic in that it could spread para or sleep with either one being as likely as the other

Just felt like making a note of that
 
  • Gyara trades 4x ice weakness for a 4x elec weakness which may be preferable since Blizzard is such a stupid good coverage move on things that get it (though Tbolt is probably more common filler move so it probably evens that out), and aside from that and it's 1 extra point in speed... no, I don't think Gyara has anything over Nite. Though that speed may be crucial in 1v1 since Gyara should carry Blizzard with Nite in the tier.
  • Blizzard and Counter are the most popular 4th moves on Kanga, I prefer Blizzard since it lets it 2hko Nite but Kanga's good defense lets it take attacks nicely so Counter can come in handy as a surprise move, assuming you are good at predicting of course since it's Counter.
  • Buzz outspeeds Tenta while Raichu speedties which is probably the biggest pro Buzz has over Raichu. But I agree I don't think Buzz is that much better and wouldn't mind Buzz dropping to B rank (discussion probably better for the viability thread)
  • Haven't used Dodrio yet, looks pretty scary though.
  • I don't see much appeal in Haunter. Yes, it counters Wrap and has the unreliable Hypnosis but it's such a free invitation to psychics and even Dugtrio that it just feels I am trading one weakness for more weaknesses and it's just a terrible momentum sink. Sure it has boom but coming off a base 50 attack it's pretty pathetic.
    Haunter Explosion vs. Dragonite: 168-198 (43.6 - 51.4%) -- 7.2% chance to 2HKO
    I know I'm alone in this but I just have no idea how to use that thing effectively but I know at least it's far from being one of the best since it doesn't stop Nite and Tenta to spam attacks which they still can do after Haunter has been revealed.
  • Agree on Kadabra. It's way too good to be a status-fodder and aside from Haunter it doesn't have any other good lead-matchups.
 
Gyara vs. DNite: 2 big things Gyara has: no 4x Ice Weakness, so Tentacruel, bulky waters and Articuno don't obliterate it, and Hydro Pump which hits really really hard on things that don't resist it. The former is the bigger reason though, since Tentacruel is the top dog of the tier. That said, Tentacruel still outspeeds and Wraps, and Blizzard is still neutral against Gyara. All in all, I'd say use Gyara if your team isn't looking great against Tentacruel or general Ice attackers, otherwise use DNite.

Buzz vs. Raichu: Buzz with Body Slam can ruin Dugtrio's day more than Surf when it paralyzes, so in my opinion, Buzz seems superior due to Psychic hitting more targets, 105 Speed and Body Slam being an option to cripple Dug on the switch, reducing the value of Raichu's Surf a little (unless you happen to face Sandslash). On the otherhand, a crit Surf does OHKO Dug and Raichu's matchup with Sandslash is vastly better than Buzz's.
 
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Let's try and get some discussion going on this again... Some players have voiced their complaints about the state of 2U, particularly regarding Wrap with Tentacruel (and Dragonite, but Dragonite seems to me to be nowhere near the same threat level). Opinions on it are quite contentious, and while it is not broken by itself, it does seem to be some level of unhealthy. Some have even argued to break transitivity, which is off the table. Ultimately unnecessary in my opinion too. A possible solution to this that doesn't break transivity what I'd propose as Fast Wrap Clause, preventing the combination of high speed and Wrap to be used together. Wrap in this case would be the move Wrap itself, and not the less accurate and thus far non-unhealthy other partial trapping moves.

Some possible implementations of Fast Wrap Clause could include:
Fast Wrap Clause A) 100+ Base Speed & Wrap - Eliminates Wrap Tentacruel.
Fast Wrap Clause B) 80+ Base Speed & Wrap - Eliminates Wrap Tentacruel, Dragonite and Arbok.
Fast Wrap Clause C) 70+ Base Speed & Wrap - Eliminates Wrap Tentacruel, Dragonite, Arbok, Victreebel, Dragonair and Tentacool.
Fast Wrap Clause D) 298+ Speed & Wrap - Eliminates Wrap Tentacruel, and can also be used to ban Agility + Wrap on the grounds those combination of moves allowing you to achieve speeds of 298 or higher and thus circumventing Fast Wrap Clause similar to the case of Mean Look + Sleep in other gens technically violating the spirit of Sleep Clause.

What is your opinion on Wrap? Fine as is, unhealthy when utilized with something with high speed, or broken? (and please, no arguing for banning Wrap in 2U only, Fast Wrap Clause has multiple ways to target Wrap without a non-transitive ban)
 
I don't think wrap is broken. Wrap is fine in every other tier (including 5U where one of the S ranks uses wrap). I don't know about 2U specifically but I feel that if anything should be done about the current state of the tier then it probably ought to be a ban on individual pokemon rather than a move.

If you wanted to do a complex ban, it would be better to ban Wrap on a specific Pokemon than Wrap on Pokemon above a specific speed, but I would rather there be no complex ban if there were to be a ban (which I strongly oppose).
 
Personally I'd probably leave 2U as is but if there is going to be a ban it should just be on Tentacruel, I'm not someone who's against complex bans but this is clearly targetted at a single mon in a roundabout enough way that I think just banning the mon would be better
 
I think it needs more testing, I too am against complex bans, but a speed-wrap clause would be the best way to go, if needed, instead of banning Pokemon. Currently, nothing with wrap seems to be broken to me, as long as you're prepared for these threats. But this can be played around, and taken advantage of. In UU you can never cover all threats. There's the powerful birds, the wrappers, counter to those 2, and then counter to the counter.
But if we ban wrap on tentacruel & dnite, it will just make the birds op again, as tentacruel is the main thing curving them. Will Tentacruel still even be 2U with its best tool is taken away? 2U is a wrap-centralized tier after all. Sure it may not be fun, but not fun ≠ broken.

I propose we run a couple tests and see how it snowballs:
Test 1. Fast-Wrap Clause (on Dnite+Cruel)
Test 2. No tentacruel (BL)
 
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Ban Wrap, even though at this point I don't believe in bans anymore.
From a purely historical standpoint , votations on banning Wrap from RBY OU showed a 60-40ish split (PO on AgiliWrap, for example) in favour of not banning it: remember that Wrap is pretty rare in OU (you have fast and/or bulky pokemon with TWave) to put it in perspective.
If anything, Wrap in 2U is a big reason for players to not like the tier.

There are just too many things to be aware of 2in U: Tentacruel is stupid and to make it very simple the good old RBY 2k10's BL was way more enjoyable than this (people were not using Tentacruel and Moltres and I don't know why, maybe it was simply due to Jolteon - this is what we would need to understand and fix if we start from there, indeed).

Rhydon is back in OU, and other things should be discussed as well (there is enough evidence for Jolteon I guess)
| 1 | Chansey | 24 | 100.00% | 50.00% |
| 1 | Snorlax | 24 | 100.00% | 50.00% |
| 3 | Tauros | 23 | 95.83% | 52.17% |
| 3 | Exeggutor | 23 | 95.83% | 47.83% |
| 5 | Starmie | 11 | 45.83% | 54.55% |
| 6 | Alakazam | 9 | 37.50% | 44.44% |
| 7 | Zapdos | 6 | 25.00% | 50.00% |
| 7 | Rhydon | 6 | 25.00% | 50.00% |
| 9 | Jynx | 5 | 20.83% | 60.00% |
| 10 | Lapras | 4 | 16.67% | 50.00% |
| 11 | Slowbro | 2 | 8.33% | 50.00% |
| 11 | Persian | 2 | 8.33% | 50.00% |
| 11 | Gengar | 2 | 8.33% | 50.00% |
| 14 | Jolteon | 1 | 4.17% | 100.00% |
| 14 | Moltres | 1 | 4.17% | 0.00% |
| 14 | Dragonite | 1 | 4.17% | 0.00%
This modus operandi (aiming at single pokemon) failed. Would you please bring me more options (rulesets) for a 2U tiers and test them?
 
So Persian is moving up to 1U with that sort of logic?

Jolteon is definitely viable, and good in OU. Just look 100% win rating. He can outspeed everything & is definitely threatening to everything. Not the best, but definitely OU material. & I don't know if 1 tour is "enough evidence". We should view it from a longer time scale, it could have to do with the current meta being the way it is, is all.

I may have misread your post, mb

--
But on topic. Banning Wrap, can make everything a lot simpler, but why not include all Partial-trapping moves?
 
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I am not opposed to banning partial trapping moves in RBY 2U at all - in fact, I think their overcentralizing nature is harmful for the tier and thus, would probably vote in favour of it if a vote is ever held.

I had several people tell me that they didn't like 2U/UU because of the Wrap spam - too many to not be a red light for me. So yeah, definitely in favour of banning trapping moves as a whole.
 
If we banned wrap then yeah we should probably ban all partial trapping moves, nothing separates wrap and the others except in power, typing, and accuracy.

RBY 5U is fucking amazing though entirely because of partial trapping (in that case, specifically wrap). I am 100% against banning partial trapping moves. If people really hate the state of RBY 2U right now, banning tentacruel is a far superior option to banning partial trapping. It is much better targeted with much less collateral.

If people want to hear a pro-wrap argument I can make an impassioned case, but I don't feel like writing it out right now.
 
So Persian is moving up to 1U with that sort of logic?

Jolteon is definitely viable, and good in OU. Just look 100% win rating. He can outspeed everything & is definitely threatening to everything. Not the best, but definitely OU material. & I don't know if 1 tour is "enough evidence". We should view it from a longer time scale, it could have to do with the current meta being the way it is, is all.

--
But on topic. Banning Wrap, can make everything a lot simpler, but why not include all Partial-trapping moves?
Lol no, Persian won't be OU due to making 2 appearances.
Lol, 100% win rate = 1/1.
Top RBY players don't like Jolteon, facts. Slowbro is pretty unliked too at the moment, but we're not sure about what's going to happen with it; on the other hand Jolteon doesn't have the stats or the movepool - 2U pokemon that can be used in OU at your own risk (Jolteon) against OU power level (Slowbro).

Yeah, ban trapping moves: Fire Spin too, etc.

RBY 5U is fucking amazing though entirely because of partial trapping (in that case, specifically wrap). I am 100% against banning partial trapping moves. If people really hate the state of RBY 2U right now, banning tentacruel is a far superior option to banning partial trapping. It is much better targeted with much less collateral.

If people want to hear a pro-wrap argument I can make an impassioned case, but I don't feel like writing it out right now.

Well, you think it is... 5U has always been ultra-underground in first place.
If you want to Wrap people in 5U, just ban it from 2U and leave it unbanned in 5U...
Banning Tentacruel would mean that you didn't learn a thing after what went wrong so far, and finally no - people don't want to hear a pro-Wrap argument: they hate it when it's all over the place.
 
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Well, you think it is... 5U has always been ultra-underground in first place.
If you want to Wrap people in 5U, just ban it from 2U and leave it unbanned in 5U...
Banning Tentacruel would mean that you didn't learn a thing after what went wrong so far, and finally no - people don't want to hear a pro-Wrap argument: they hate it when it's all over the place.
That's not how our tiering system works.

We should ban wrap if generally speaking, pokemon which can use it effectively significantly reduce the competitive depth of the game (see the current Banworthiness Guidelines) [if you disagree with that standard, post in the thread about it!].

It seems clear to me that in 2U, the problem is tentacruel, not wrap, if anything.

And do we do this for Ubers-ZU or just in 2U because people deem wrap boring? ...or 2U & down bc cloyster is fine? The wrappers have to belong somewhere. 2U is their home. If we ban Partial-trapping moves only in 2U, but not lower, it can just cause tentacruel or Vic to fall to 3U, and just doninate there & same story all over again.
And this is why we have transitivity. If something is banned in 2U it is banned in every tier below it too, to prevent stuff like this happening. Thanks EB0LA for making such a clear depiction of it.
 
And do we do this for Ubers-ZU or just in 2U because people deem wrap boring? ...or 2U & down bc cloyster is fine? The wrappers have to belong somewhere. 2U is their home. If we ban Partial-trapping moves only in 2U, but not lower, it can just cause tentacruel or Vic to fall to 3U, and just doninate there & same story all over again.

I faced trapping moves very rarely in Ubers, and I was fine with that; they are gimmicks in OU: Victreebel and Cloyster as main options, and I Dnite after them.
Those pokemon aren't used heavily in OU, and it's only fair to allow the trapping-less versions of them in 2U; we'll take care of what happens to them in the future: I don't understand the point of being worried about what is going to happen to Tentacruel and Victreebel in 3U, when 2U (which is the tier we're realistically using for tournaments) has issues.

That's not how our tiering system works.
It failed so hard and you're still restrained into it...
The ultimate proof is that you're refusing to hear the community's opinion on trapping-moves in 2U because you need to defend your little 5U heaven...

Oh, anyway... I don't have a problem giving a shot at every possible approach against Wrap (example: 1) ban Wrap on Tentacruel only 2) ban it on DNite too 3) ban on Victreebel too, and so on..).
In the best BL/2U version I've ever played, they were allowed but they were very rarely used - that's the amount of Wrap people can take (and honestly, I 100% agree).
 
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Ortheore

Emeritus
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Hi, I'm adamantly against banning Wrap and against the implementation of any sort of fast wrap ban. In the case of the latter it's a rather silly complex ban imo, and so specifically targeted that we should be talking about individual pokemon bans. As for Wrap as a whole, I think that all of the evidence we have demonstrates that Wrap is not consistently broken, instead that it only causes issues in specific cases, such that it's better to ban individual pokemon rather than the move as a whole.

Now if people wanted to ban Tentacruel, that's something I can definitely see happening. Tenta doesn't feel broken to me, but from a rational standpoint it possesses a lot of the traits that make something banworthy- it directly limits options via Wrap, demands that you run at least one pokemon capable of revenge killing it (possibly more) while also limiting the viability of other pokemon. The reason it doesn't feel broken is possibly because I've adapted to the warping of the metagame that it produces. In any case, if people feel the need to take action, Tentacruel would be the best choice imo
 
Before we ban partial-trapping moves out of 2U we need to test what the tier would look like & feel without them.

Will it be like GSC with Snorlax removed that it's even worse? How many more will join the 2U banlist if wrap &or Tentacruel are removed. (Articuno? Moltres? Smthelse?what?)

(For the record, I still don't see partial trappers as evidently being broken, as there are ways to deal with these threats. Only argument that I'm seeing is that it is boring.) So I find GSC boring so I don't play it simple.. lol maybe 3U can fancy your likes & leave 2U for the players who don't mind it.

Also I feel if it does get banned in 2U, it should just go ahead and follow suit down all tiers below it as well. But this is up for discussion too, when the time arises. We need to figure out the first issue first.
 
It failed so hard and you're still restrained into it...
The ultimate proof is that you're refusing to hear the community's opinion on trapping-moves in 2U because you need to defend your little 5U heaven...

What do you mean, it failed? I don't know what you guys' problem is. 2U is fine. If people want to talk about a ban, then I agree with Ortheore, it should be Tentacruel. But even that is far from clear.
And yes, just because Wrap is dominant does not mean the tier is not fine. Wrap is a move that exists in Red Blue and Yellow and works the way it does. Thunder Wave in OU is just as "unhealthy" (one could argue, which I'm not gonna).
And I don't see any reason to differentiate 2U from 3U in terms of importance. Why is 2U of all things the tier people would play in tours? Why can't it be 3U? It makes no sense to me.
EB0LA said:
Only argument that I'm seeing is that it is boring
That seems to be the case. But it is no argument... "boring" is not an argument, sorry.
 
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