RBY 5U Possible Suspects

[Disaster Area]

I don't myself play 5U very much but I understand that these two are both to some extent are or were considered suspect-worthy. For now I understand that Dragonair is the one considered much more problematic.

So I think it's worth starting a discussion on these, and if appropriate, we may have a vote on it.

 

[Peasounay]

Book time. My opinion is pretty simple: they're not ban worthy at all.

I'll start with Seadra, in the beginning of 5U, it seemed incredibly strong. It was, and we had no idea how to play around it, or what works in the tier. Scrapping that thought is absolutely necessary, because it's not as strong as it used to be. I personally rank it at #3.

Most 5U teams have (at least) Seadra and a second water type, meaning Seadra is very easy to neutralize. If your opponent has his Seadra in, you usually send in your own, spam moves either to freeze or to damage it (Surf/Dedge) to force it to rest as quickly as possible. Doesn't this remind you of something ? It's the exact same thing that happens in 3U with Vaporeon and Dewgong, are they broken ? No. They work differently in 3U than Seadra in 5U of course, but I honestly think a sleeping 5U Seadra is useless, whereas sleeping VapGong have very high chances of waking up and being useful later on the game, for two reasons: better bulk, and the stuff that you use to pressure them is easier to switch into than the things you use to pressure Seadra in 5U. Once Seadra is asleep, you can pressure it with:

- Gastly, 40% chance to 2HKO
- Drowzee, 25% chance to 3HKO not accounting drops
- Dragonair, and man if that thing switches in it can either 3HKO or simply set up Agility, not sure you want to let it do
- Primeape, 3HKO
- Pidgeot, 3HKO
- It allows Poliwag and Kabutops to set up

So yea that is definitely punishable, but Dragonair is the main thing to account for even Gastly's everywhere. Also having Seadra + Seaking means opposite Seadra is completely neutred even in the case of a freeze, and if you have a Poliwag Seadra is one of the only switch-in (assuming you have Psychic which you should have) so you make it sleep quickly. I insist on the fact that sleeping Seadra isn't useful midgame because trying to wake it up can lead a loss of momentum, in a not very bulky tier. Imo Seadra is fine. You also spam Waters not only for Seadra, but for Ninetales and Magmar too. Kabutops can be very dangerous.

Now let's talk about Dragonair. It's indeed a very strong pokemon. The reason why I think it's not broken is quite simple lol: Gastly. The little ghost is pretty much the anti meta pokemon. It's so good you don't even use it ONLY for Dragonair. There's sort of a war between these three.

It's pretty much: Seadra is strong, Dragonair makes it not broken, and Gastly makes Dragonair not broken while being useful against Seadra. You just end up with a centralised metagame.

Wrap is boring to go against, Water vs Water can be boring to play, but it's not broken, therefore I think => No ban needed. In all the recent 5U games I played, none came down to wrap spam or freeze wars (small sample, let's see how new frontiers go)

 

[Peef Rimgar]

Honestly, Seadra is just the best at a role which will exist regardless of it being Seadra. Not much to say other than don't ban.

Dragonair is where it gets interesting. After an Agility (which is remarkably easy to set up,in this meta) you have one option: Gastly. For this to be effective, though, you need to avoid as much damage as possible, along with dodging status. This can be tricky, especially if you lead Gastly for early sleep and get fucked by a hypno-miss. Not to even mention that Nair could nail a freeze on Gastly via Blizzard, or a para via Tbolt, if absolutely needed.

Outside of Gastly? Hope your opponent misses or doesn't click Agility on a free turn (which are remarkably easy to come by in the Rest Water dominated meta) due to a cramp of the hand. It's silly, really.

In short: Seadra isn't even worth a vote, Ban Dragonair

 

[Ortheore]

idk why this needed a separate thread but oh well. Also I was gonna wait for the frontiers tour after major league, but it doesn't hurt to discuss now either =]

Wrap is boring to go against, Water vs Water can be boring to play, but it's not broken, therefore I think => No ban needed. In all the recent 5U games I played, none came down to wrap spam or freeze wars (small sample, let's see how new frontiers go)

That's funny because I've had multiple games where one of the players got bailed out by an AgiNair rampage and went on to win the game from a thoroughly lost position or with the opponent capable of doing nothing. Just small sample size I guess?

I agree Seadra isn't broken. I mean sure the game bogs down a bit until you can incapacitate it in some way, but all the other water types do this well and there are plenty of ways to go about exploiting it once it uses Rest or gets frozen

Dragonair I think deserves a ban. Gastly walls it, sure, but Gastly isn't very durable and may be asked to check a whole bunch of other stuff over the course of the game. Not to mention the fact that if pushed to it, Dragonair has a good chance of taking it 1v1 if it's already boosted. Also it's one pokemon. Then there's the usual question of RNG, with Dragonair being capable of accomplishing nothing or sweeping a team outright, usually it will fall somewhere in the middle, where it may not sweep unless the game is in its later stages, but it'll still do a sizable chunk of damage that's difficult to recover from. The real issue though, is the fact that the tier just isn't that hostile to it- there are very few reliable paralysis spreaders (one of which is Drowzee, which gets shredded by Wrap), and the next best bet for scaring it off is to use Ice attacks, which Dragonair is capable of living. This means that it's too easy for it to set up, and Wrap misses don't get punished hard enough

 

[Enigami]

My biggest worry with a ban on Dragonair would be making 5U even smaller than it already is, especially since it doesn't really affect the viability of anything but Dratini. However:

Dratini vs. Dragonair
Bulk: Generally KO'd one turn earlier, strongest Ice-type attack (Seadra's Blizzard) has a 33% chance to OHKO. (technically Tentacool's Blizzard is the strongest at a 51% chance of OHKO, but then you're using Tentacool)
Attack Power: 85%, Wrap seems to inflict about 2 less damage per turn on average.
Special Power: 83%
Speed: 50 (-20), no longer outspeeds Seaking and speed ties Vileplume

There is a possibility that with Dragonair gone, Dratini would be able to fill its role without being borderline overpowered, hopefully finding itself around 1U Dragonite's relative level of strength or better so the tier doesn't shrink with Dragonair's absence.

 

[Diegolh]

I won't talk about seadra cause I don't even know why he is involved in this thread.

Agiwrap dragonair is frustrating cause it requiert no skill to just use agility and wrap everything to death if you are lucky enough to don't miss that often. Gastly is a Dragonair counter. A counter who have good hopes to lost the 1v1 vs who he is supposed to counter btw. Aside Gastly, only firestype are confortables to switch in Dragonair's arsenal.

When I started to read about 5u it was like "double water is mandatory" blablabla. It was, lets say, a shity meta. Nowdays Dragonair will setup on every water that use rest, we are not anymore forced to use double water and we are used to play some gastly, fires or even pidgeot. Vileplume is by far less popular too.
The point that Graveler is still unseen is mostly because we don't want "another" pokemon weak to dragonair in our team. With Dragonair gone Graveler will come like a flower "Hey guys whats up?" So once seadra is asleep, each time Graveler comes in you will have the week1spl Reymedy's problem. "What do I sack now ?"

And then we will end up by playing double water again because it will be mandatory. So I think we will have by far less teambuilding possibility with dragonair gone. (and less fun too)

Its just a fast thinking that I had in 5 mins(not the absolute truth), but I wasted 3h to translate it in english, so tell me its not off topic.

(Piex the interview is about to be a pain, OMG)

 

[Disaster Area]

(Piex the interview is about to be a pain, OMG)

if u want we can get 3rd person involved like peas or someone to translate french to english maybe

with graveler i'm not sure what it actually beats? I guess it's maybe a hard hitter you can switch into sleeping waters but the whole meta seems fairly hostile to it... I guess Pidgeot / to a small extent Fires are worse off vs it but those are far from mandatory? And graveler could be used to stall wrap turns (like rocks do in 1u)

 

[Enigami]

Except Kabutops also beats everything Graveler does outside of the occasional Electrode, while also making much better use of sleeping Waters by setting up with Swords Dance. Doesn't hurt that it's also a Rock-type neutral to Water attacks as opposed to 4x weak.

 

[Ch01W0n5h1n]

I could actually see Dragonair getting banned, similar to the treatment of Dragonite regarding 2U, though it might be a 50/50 decision. Dragonair is potent enough to be played in 4U in Hyper Offensive Teams, but it is pretty frail their so yeah. I do not think that Dratini would take its place, but it being played due to a new existing niche for it and probably less Monsters like Gastly around (Since Dragonair would be banned). However, I am fine with either.

 

[Disaster Area]

5U new frontiers are coming soon, after that's been going on for a few weeks let's have a vote on dragonair. I'll post again closer to the time announcing a date.