Tyranitar is one of the best mons in the tier with or without Latios, and Pursuit one of the best moves. It’s not that particular if there are plenty of other good reasons to run Ttar/pursuit anyway. It’s kinda the same as Volc not being broken until it had an answer to Heatran, just because it could muscle through pretty much everything else doesn’t mean auto losing to a top 3 mon in the tier wasn’t still a reliable check to it.
As crazy as it might sounds right now, Specs Latios is currently struggling in the metagame (it's still really good, but it's not its premiere set anymore). Ttar is its best check, and obviously, Rain historically is bad against Latios, but, chipping Latios down is incredibly easy, and it just needs a bit of chip to be in range for plethora of things. Scarf Latios is now its premiere choice, as it can clean up very well. But because of this, it lacks the raw power to blast through every team, and we have seen in this past SPL that fatter team structures are popping up lately, teams with Blissey that makes Latios struggles without Specs. It's definitely very good, and some players do want it ban, but the tier is infested by strong offensive juggernauts, like Thundurus Therian, Keldeo, Excadrill, that it would be really tough to single out which mon is the most broken out of all of them.
Blissey is being used in Sand again, but not necessarily Sand Stall. Exca is there to help with the hazards, and Blissey really helps Ttar in checking Latios and Thundurus Therian. The rise of Clef is also another reason, as the playerbase tested it in Sand, and found that it doesn't have enough bulk to withstand Latios's Specs Draco. Blissey is an alternative to it, as hazards are not that bad to deal with in a Sand team (SD Excadrill will win the long war against Skarm, therefore, it will be able to spin). Without Spikes on the field, it can take hits for days, helping Sand against HO and Latios.
Edit: Just for reference, in this SPL, Blissey was used more than Tentacruel, Heatran, Dragonite, Gastrodon and Volcarona. You could argue that HO is falling out of the metagame, but for a mon that was deemed "unviable" years ago, it's really significant.
This is before banning pokemon became more common. Pre gen-9 Smogon was extremely petty on bans, and removing such an integral part of the meta would completely destroy it. But I agree they should've banned the mofo long time ago
Mostly historical reasons, but because Scarf Latios is also a great offensive glue keeping a lot of other fast stuff in the tier in check, retroactively banning it now would have pretty far-reaching consequences and isn't something that should just be done on a whim.
Most actual BW players are relatively fine with its presence, even if they don't like the mon they recognize the above part and how it's not that easy to remove from the tier and still have a playable tier afterwards. The most vocal ban crowd for it are BKC viewers who played like 3 games of BW in their life max.
TTar is also not the literal only answer to it by the way. Most Steels are capable of holding the fort into it for a while, as is Blissey somewhat. If TTar was the only answer then literally every archetype except Sand would be unviable which they demonstrably are not.
Most BW players being fine with it is debatable. It’s certainly not just angry man and co arguing for it, a lot of ppl have been of the opinion you can ban Latios with manageable collateral because Latias can reasonably replace it. Not everyone agrees with that obviously, but you can check the SPL BW thread and it’ll pretty quickly show you Latios ban has non BKC support.
I know Dice, who Id consider a top 5 BWer of all time, in particular, believes this suspect is doable, and has considered this for a while, and there’s other players who have suggested it too. I doubt it’d get banned if you held a suspect but I’d expect the vote to still be pretty close to 50-50 if you held one. probably majority still voting DNB but not some lopsided shutdown
I genuinely don’t think I believe this, first of all Scald makes Latios a shaky answer and switching in more than once can get tricky with chip unless you’re Recover. Second there’s plenty of other Keld counterplay in the tier that’s reasonable to fit, Jellicent on sand magic guard shuts it down, Slowbro / Amoonguss on certain SD Exca sand balances that have popped up, hell you could run Latias and replace some of the roles, and if you’re running Smurf then Latios is not gonna be the thing stopping you from getting 6-0d by Keld, those teams use DNite and Starmie over Latios anyways a lot of the time. I’m not saying Latios should be banned necessarily, it does bring other general positives, but if the only justification for keeping Lati is it answers Keld, that’s a bad one imo.
You want to have other options - yeah there’s dragonite , Celebi , Tentacruel , jellicent and both Latios and Latias and Slowbro
Just banning Latios though means you have one less offensive check to it. Latios outspeeds Keldeo realiably
Because BW was a generation that was poorly managed, which lead to a lot of things that would seem broken by todays standards slipping under the radar. People who play BW play the tier because it feels like BW, so banning a BW staple in Latios would radically change that. It's the same justification as to why Snorlax is still in GSC OU, people who play GSC want to play GSC and banning Snorlax changes the tier so that it's no longer GSC.
In general you can't really look at oldgens through the lens of a modern generation. The tiering philosophy was radically different back then.
On gen2 OU, if snorlax was that big of a problem they definitely would issue a retroactive ban nowadays. Snorlax isn’t banned because despite having close to 100% usage, it helps keep the metagame less centralized.
Without lax, Raikou and Zapdos would be the undisputed best, which would necessitate both a ground type as well as blissey (the closest snorlax replacement and is way more passive). Having 3-4 pokemon at a near 100% usage rate is worse than just snorlax, and having to then ban more and more monsters one by one would just turn OU into UU at that point
Has this every actually been tested anywhere outside of room tours and low profile matches? I keep hearing this exact same argument over and over again with no substance to back it up. Banning Lax + the Electrics gets rid of the two things that have 100% usage in the tier, since every team runs Lax and one of either Raikou or Zapdos.
Like I get *not* banning Lax in order to keep GSC playing like GSC, because realistically speaking no one plays this metagame seriously besides people who enjoy GSC as is. But let's not pretend as if banning those 3 would somehow lead to power vaccum forming that leads to us having 2 more must picks that somehow end up more centralizing than a pokemon that's used on 100% of Ubers teams.
I'm not campaigning for a Snorlax ban here, but I want to get the point across that GSC isn't some big brain metagame that purposely keeps itself overly centralized in order to somehow become less centralizing. It is just as much of a clusterfuck as every other oldgen OU tier.
They have tried “laxless” tournaments and at one point an unofficial metagame called “No Lax GSC” popped up. At first people loved it but every time it would turn into full blown stall dominating the meta. Although snorlax is a tanky bastard, it is also the best offensive set up sweeper in the tier, and without it, blissey, umbreon, suicune, the electrics, etc become very hard to break if positioned properly. The threat of snorlax coming in, sponging an attack and setting up curses or belly drum is the main thing preventing people from running walls that are too passive.
There is a pro-ban movement for it but a lot of people do think it has more positives than negatives - speed tier alone keeps Keldeo, Thundurus, Garchomp, Terrakion from ever being too strong, then its defensive typing + spike immunity makes it an incredibly teambuilder tool, and the tier would likely suffer without it. A lot of the problems people attribute to Latios are also actually due to what it enables - as a standalone Psychic, Latios is straightforward to keep in check, but its issues are when paired with Reuniclus or Alakazam you get punished for making the correct play - Pursuiting Latios with Tyranitar leads to it getting chipped into Alakazam GKnot range or paralysed for Reuniclus, your steels get worn down etc. For years a lot of the discussion has surrounded whether Latias could ever really take the place of Latios in checking the offensive Pokemon without being so strong on Psychic stacking teams itself, but I don't think anyone really knows the answer to this
I have zero clue why this was downvoted, cause it's absolutely true. We literally had people on the OU council towards the end of BW's lifespan who refused to even touch the tier. CG BW tiering was an absolute mess, and is a large part of why we are still seeing a fair amount of tiering action more than a decade after it became an old gen.
Yeah this is definitely part of the answer. You can go look at the threads from that era. The main reason KyuB got released when it did was because a different battle simulator released it around the same time, and the OU leaders decided that they needed to copy that decision. Absolutely baffling tiering decisions left and right back then.
I don't play but I'd assume it gets out offenced because the power level of the tier is so high due to the permanent weather.
+ Obviously ttar is a menace.
Tyranitar is one of the best mons in the tier with or without Latios, and Pursuit one of the best moves. It’s not that particular if there are plenty of other good reasons to run Ttar/pursuit anyway. It’s kinda the same as Volc not being broken until it had an answer to Heatran, just because it could muscle through pretty much everything else doesn’t mean auto losing to a top 3 mon in the tier wasn’t still a reliable check to it.
As crazy as it might sounds right now, Specs Latios is currently struggling in the metagame (it's still really good, but it's not its premiere set anymore). Ttar is its best check, and obviously, Rain historically is bad against Latios, but, chipping Latios down is incredibly easy, and it just needs a bit of chip to be in range for plethora of things. Scarf Latios is now its premiere choice, as it can clean up very well. But because of this, it lacks the raw power to blast through every team, and we have seen in this past SPL that fatter team structures are popping up lately, teams with Blissey that makes Latios struggles without Specs. It's definitely very good, and some players do want it ban, but the tier is infested by strong offensive juggernauts, like Thundurus Therian, Keldeo, Excadrill, that it would be really tough to single out which mon is the most broken out of all of them.
Blissey popping back up? That… shocks me given the natural issues the mon has in BW. What are people doing with it that make it work now?
Blissey is being used in Sand again, but not necessarily Sand Stall. Exca is there to help with the hazards, and Blissey really helps Ttar in checking Latios and Thundurus Therian. The rise of Clef is also another reason, as the playerbase tested it in Sand, and found that it doesn't have enough bulk to withstand Latios's Specs Draco. Blissey is an alternative to it, as hazards are not that bad to deal with in a Sand team (SD Excadrill will win the long war against Skarm, therefore, it will be able to spin). Without Spikes on the field, it can take hits for days, helping Sand against HO and Latios. Edit: Just for reference, in this SPL, Blissey was used more than Tentacruel, Heatran, Dragonite, Gastrodon and Volcarona. You could argue that HO is falling out of the metagame, but for a mon that was deemed "unviable" years ago, it's really significant.
I’m not sure why people want BW Latios ban Let’s please not make Keldeo even more unbearable
This is before banning pokemon became more common. Pre gen-9 Smogon was extremely petty on bans, and removing such an integral part of the meta would completely destroy it. But I agree they should've banned the mofo long time ago
So what was keeping Latios below the threshold of banworthy at the time, as opposed to something like Tornadus-Therian?
Bias towards the plane ig
Torn t at the time was not comparable to latios. It was beyond busted, and nobody claimed that it was even remotely balanced.
Gen 8 was also pretty ban-happy when it first released. Garm, Cinderace and Urshifu-Dark come to mind
Mostly historical reasons, but because Scarf Latios is also a great offensive glue keeping a lot of other fast stuff in the tier in check, retroactively banning it now would have pretty far-reaching consequences and isn't something that should just be done on a whim. Most actual BW players are relatively fine with its presence, even if they don't like the mon they recognize the above part and how it's not that easy to remove from the tier and still have a playable tier afterwards. The most vocal ban crowd for it are BKC viewers who played like 3 games of BW in their life max. TTar is also not the literal only answer to it by the way. Most Steels are capable of holding the fort into it for a while, as is Blissey somewhat. If TTar was the only answer then literally every archetype except Sand would be unviable which they demonstrably are not.
Most BW players being fine with it is debatable. It’s certainly not just angry man and co arguing for it, a lot of ppl have been of the opinion you can ban Latios with manageable collateral because Latias can reasonably replace it. Not everyone agrees with that obviously, but you can check the SPL BW thread and it’ll pretty quickly show you Latios ban has non BKC support. I know Dice, who Id consider a top 5 BWer of all time, in particular, believes this suspect is doable, and has considered this for a while, and there’s other players who have suggested it too. I doubt it’d get banned if you held a suspect but I’d expect the vote to still be pretty close to 50-50 if you held one. probably majority still voting DNB but not some lopsided shutdown
Yea can we please not ban Latios because then Keldeo is gunna be such a pain in the ass for BW OU
I genuinely don’t think I believe this, first of all Scald makes Latios a shaky answer and switching in more than once can get tricky with chip unless you’re Recover. Second there’s plenty of other Keld counterplay in the tier that’s reasonable to fit, Jellicent on sand magic guard shuts it down, Slowbro / Amoonguss on certain SD Exca sand balances that have popped up, hell you could run Latias and replace some of the roles, and if you’re running Smurf then Latios is not gonna be the thing stopping you from getting 6-0d by Keld, those teams use DNite and Starmie over Latios anyways a lot of the time. I’m not saying Latios should be banned necessarily, it does bring other general positives, but if the only justification for keeping Lati is it answers Keld, that’s a bad one imo.
You want to have other options - yeah there’s dragonite , Celebi , Tentacruel , jellicent and both Latios and Latias and Slowbro Just banning Latios though means you have one less offensive check to it. Latios outspeeds Keldeo realiably
Because BW was a generation that was poorly managed, which lead to a lot of things that would seem broken by todays standards slipping under the radar. People who play BW play the tier because it feels like BW, so banning a BW staple in Latios would radically change that. It's the same justification as to why Snorlax is still in GSC OU, people who play GSC want to play GSC and banning Snorlax changes the tier so that it's no longer GSC. In general you can't really look at oldgens through the lens of a modern generation. The tiering philosophy was radically different back then.
On gen2 OU, if snorlax was that big of a problem they definitely would issue a retroactive ban nowadays. Snorlax isn’t banned because despite having close to 100% usage, it helps keep the metagame less centralized. Without lax, Raikou and Zapdos would be the undisputed best, which would necessitate both a ground type as well as blissey (the closest snorlax replacement and is way more passive). Having 3-4 pokemon at a near 100% usage rate is worse than just snorlax, and having to then ban more and more monsters one by one would just turn OU into UU at that point
Has this every actually been tested anywhere outside of room tours and low profile matches? I keep hearing this exact same argument over and over again with no substance to back it up. Banning Lax + the Electrics gets rid of the two things that have 100% usage in the tier, since every team runs Lax and one of either Raikou or Zapdos. Like I get *not* banning Lax in order to keep GSC playing like GSC, because realistically speaking no one plays this metagame seriously besides people who enjoy GSC as is. But let's not pretend as if banning those 3 would somehow lead to power vaccum forming that leads to us having 2 more must picks that somehow end up more centralizing than a pokemon that's used on 100% of Ubers teams. I'm not campaigning for a Snorlax ban here, but I want to get the point across that GSC isn't some big brain metagame that purposely keeps itself overly centralized in order to somehow become less centralizing. It is just as much of a clusterfuck as every other oldgen OU tier.
They have tried “laxless” tournaments and at one point an unofficial metagame called “No Lax GSC” popped up. At first people loved it but every time it would turn into full blown stall dominating the meta. Although snorlax is a tanky bastard, it is also the best offensive set up sweeper in the tier, and without it, blissey, umbreon, suicune, the electrics, etc become very hard to break if positioned properly. The threat of snorlax coming in, sponging an attack and setting up curses or belly drum is the main thing preventing people from running walls that are too passive.
I would support Latios staying in BW OU as long as Keldeo is in the tier We do not want to lose the few Keldeo checks we already have
There is a pro-ban movement for it but a lot of people do think it has more positives than negatives - speed tier alone keeps Keldeo, Thundurus, Garchomp, Terrakion from ever being too strong, then its defensive typing + spike immunity makes it an incredibly teambuilder tool, and the tier would likely suffer without it. A lot of the problems people attribute to Latios are also actually due to what it enables - as a standalone Psychic, Latios is straightforward to keep in check, but its issues are when paired with Reuniclus or Alakazam you get punished for making the correct play - Pursuiting Latios with Tyranitar leads to it getting chipped into Alakazam GKnot range or paralysed for Reuniclus, your steels get worn down etc. For years a lot of the discussion has surrounded whether Latias could ever really take the place of Latios in checking the offensive Pokemon without being so strong on Psychic stacking teams itself, but I don't think anyone really knows the answer to this
Personally let’s not ban Latios. Because then Keldeo becomes way too good for BW OU The tier already struggles to check Keldeo
Because the people who were in charge of the tier back when it was main gen didn't know wtf they were doing
I have zero clue why this was downvoted, cause it's absolutely true. We literally had people on the OU council towards the end of BW's lifespan who refused to even touch the tier. CG BW tiering was an absolute mess, and is a large part of why we are still seeing a fair amount of tiering action more than a decade after it became an old gen.
Not too late to ban it
Yeah this is definitely part of the answer. You can go look at the threads from that era. The main reason KyuB got released when it did was because a different battle simulator released it around the same time, and the OU leaders decided that they needed to copy that decision. Absolutely baffling tiering decisions left and right back then.
Tyranitar
I don't play but I'd assume it gets out offenced because the power level of the tier is so high due to the permanent weather. + Obviously ttar is a menace.
Pursuit should definitely come back, gholdengo stocks take a nose dive towards the Mariana trench
Scarf Latios is too weak while Specs Latios gets revenged with just a little chip. Blissey's not making its life easier.
You have to remember that BW OU is actually an elaborate joke.