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Excadrill is gone, now what?

Cometk

west side
Has nothing to do with the tier...but chances are it will be tentative replacement (if it hasn't already been one already)

Chances are it'll be bad, too.
 

gregjammer

Feather Trainer
With excadrill gone, in my opinion, Steelix with sturdy ability will become the more popular of the two ground/steels in the metagame. The three things it lacks when compared to excadrill, however, is the high base speed excadrill has, rapid spin, and last but not least, sand rush...

In terms of metagame impact, however, you may think that sun teams will get more popular, until you find that the existence of tailwind gives rain teams a form of "pseudo-phyll" that gives the same benefit of chlorophyll: double speed, even to those who don't really have the actual ability itself. And that same speed boost gives all of the user's allies equal footing against chlorophyll users, if only for one less turn than the real chlorophyll, meaning sun teams not boosted by tailwind as well as sun can still be countered. So, until the time tailwind becomes a banned move, when and if it comes, a check to sun teams will still exist in OU, ensuring fair metagame all-around....
 

The Jock

Banned
With excadrill gone, in my opinion, Steelix with sturdy ability will become the more popular of the two ground/steels in the metagame. The three things it lacks when compared to excadrill, however, is the high base speed excadrill has, rapid spin, and last but not least, sand rush...

In terms of metagame impact, however, you may think that sun teams will get more popular, until you find that the existence of tailwind gives rain teams a form of "pseudo-phyll" that gives the same benefit of chlorophyll: double speed, even to those who don't really have the actual ability itself. And that same speed boost gives all of the user's allies equal footing against chlorophyll users, if only for one less turn than the real chlorophyll, meaning sun teams not boosted by tailwind as well as sun can still be countered. So, until the time tailwind becomes a banned move, when and if it comes, a check to sun teams will still exist in OU, ensuring fair metagame all-around....

Steelix is RU and doesn't replace Excatrill in any way.
 

LinksOcarina

The true master
Steelix is RU and doesn't replace Excatrill in any way.

Soaking damage and type coverage I think is what he was referring too. Although it can't compare via speed or attacking capabilities. Still, rise in usage would be nice for the old snake, at least in my opinion, but I doubt it will set foot in OU any time soon.

And how would Landorus be bad, exactly? It would be the comparable power for sandstorm teams with Excadrill gone. The only thing it lacks is a good movepool so it will be pretty predictable at what it does, but what it does is hit hard and hit fast.
 
Soaking damage and type coverage I think is what he was referring too. Although it can't compare via speed or attacking capabilities. Still, rise in usage would be nice for the old snake, at least in my opinion, but I doubt it will set foot in OU any time soon.

Yeah, how to put this delicately...every Steel and Ground type in OU could all just die one day and I still don't think Steelix would make it into OU.
 

Fireflies

Aura Master
Screw Smogon and their bans. It makes me feel that they can do whatever they want, but I don't care. I'll still use Excadrill. Those who don't like just need to get over it. That and Speed Boost Blaziken, that things a beast. I feel like Smogon is banning what is made to make it more difficult so they can benefit and we can't.
 
Screw Smogon and their bans. It makes me feel that they can do whatever they want, but I don't care. I'll still use Excadrill. Those who don't like just need to get over it. That and Speed Boost Blaziken, that things a beast. I feel like Smogon is banning what is made to make it more difficult so they can benefit and we can't.

It's fine if you don't want to play with Smogon tiers. In fact, if you're using Speed Boost Blaziken and Excadrill, then you're obviously not playing by Smogon tiers. That said...why exactly are you posting in a thread about a Smogon tier metagame?
 

Gamefreak

Well-Known Member
As a stall player, I'm not a fan of the Excadrill ban. Now Heavy Offense is a lot more prominent and Max Speed Acrobaticas Gliscor are starting to appear. I agree with your points about Drought and Drizzle, though. I think that the term of "winning the weather war" is less relevant with sand, as it isn't as dominating as Drought/Drizzle. Sand is merely quelling the other weather types when they 'Win the weather war'. Sun is going to dominate the metagame, most likely, considering how effective Volcarona is in Drought and the fact that Chlorophyll is still allowed, so stuff like Sawsbuck can rip through the metagame, the fire types are obviously more potent under drought, but Sawsbuck/Venu is a great cleaner.
I think stall is more mindblowingly mighty than ever before. Without Excadrill threatening to sweep you as the last pokemon standing, or spinning all your hard earned hazards away, stall got a major boost. Jellicant also becomes a much better spinblocker since Starmie needs Thunder to beat the specially defensive variants, and Hitmontop is NU. The spinners have trouble against it. Heavy Offense is a pretty hard matchup for stall, but I think the pros out-weigh the cons. Quagsire helps against Heavy Offense on stall, especially when combined with Skarmory.

I don't think Sun will completely dominate. Sun and Rain didn't get that much worse, and people will just run Terrakion, Landorus, or Tornados on their respective teams. Sun has the problem of type synergy, being tight against every metagame threat, and always had trouble winning the weather war.

This is why Sun teams have been running Dugtrio lately, and why Sun hasn't been nearly as common as Sun or Rain. Dugtrio not only allows you to beat Sand pretty consistently, it allows you to become water tight with your Chlorophyll sweepers revenging most things. Jabba had a successful sun team without even abusing Chlorophyll sweepers.

Max speed Acrobat Gliscor isn't very good by the way, and I would never use it. It isn't bulky, doesn't have great coverage, and plenty of things can switch into it or check it.

I honestly can care less. I hope to see more ingenuity with the higher level metagame now, but chances are I shall be dissapointed in that regard and we will just see a rise in a few pokemon; Dragonite and Volcarona were mentioned for examples by some people already.

As for what we shall see afterwards, I doubt we will see more glass cannons and hyper offensive teams in there. There are still a ton of defensive pokemon in the metagame that can out-stall or downright cripple the unprepared still.

I don't know...I honestly see very little changing fundamentally, the only thing is that some usage will go down for specific pokemons, and few will go up and maybe become popular.

Dragonite and Volcarona are a double sided coin. Yes, there is one less pokemon to revenge them. On the other side though, there won't be Excadrill spinning undisputedly every single time, meaning Dragonite and Volcarona get nerfed by rocks more often.

I believe there will be more heavy offense teams. They are just so good right now, and I witnessed a guy reach over 1500 points with it on Smogon PO without dual screens. Defensive pokemon will not stop you, if your entire team is meant to overwhelm them. The people who run heavy offense will be very well prepared to deal with the generic ways of dealing with sweepers. heavy offense will not completely dominate the metagame, but its usage will rise. It is like a smashpass team with more win conditions. High risk, high reward team.

You can find the Heavy Offense thread for a guide. You can also find my numerous posts in that thread, the Heavy Offense RMTs, and this thread to learn more about it. When prepared, walls will not stop you.

http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthread.php?t=540753
 

complete legitimacy

pack that fudge
I think Terrakion will get some more love that it deserves. It's fast enough to run a Choice Band set, and it's powerful enough to run a Choice Scarf set. It has good bulk for a sweeper, especially in sand on the special side. Using that bulk with its potent STAB coverage, it is one of the only viable double-boosters in the game. It can either boost attack or speed with a coverage move as well (X-Scissor).

Also, I think Ttar will drop in usage to be replaced by Rotom-W at the coveted #1 spot.
 

Gamefreak

Well-Known Member
Screw Smogon and their bans. It makes me feel that they can do whatever they want, but I don't care. I'll still use Excadrill. Those who don't like just need to get over it. That and Speed Boost Blaziken, that things a beast. I feel like Smogon is banning what is made to make it more difficult so they can benefit and we can't.

You do not have to follow Smogon's bans. Smogon is the standard banlist though, because they take the time to test everything. They also have the best players, and have reasons for everything they do. I can tell you that the people that voted Blaziken and Excadrill uber are mostly very strong BW OU players. They won't let a random person who whines vote on the tiers. They have the people who consistently abuse, or consistently beat the suspects vote on the tiers.

Smogon is doing this to have a healthy metagame for all of us. As a very active member on Smogon, and a person who participated in these tests, I can assure you on the integrity of them. I myself participated to confirm the integrity, to have a say because I didn't always agree with everything they did, and to prove myself.

Speed Boost Blaziken has like no checks or counters in Sun. At +2, you OHKO Latios with a resisted move. I can talk about Excadrill too, but Blue Harvest's post summed it up well enough. http://www.serebiiforums.com/showpost.php?p=13462379&postcount=490
 

LinksOcarina

The true master
You do not have to follow Smogon's bans. Smogon is the standard banlist though, because they take the time to test everything. They also have the best players, and have reasons for everything they do. I can tell you that the people that voted Blaziken and Excadrill uber are mostly very strong BW OU players. They won't let a random person who whines vote on the tiers. They have the people who consistently abuse, or consistently beat the suspects vote on the tiers.

Smogon is doing this to have a healthy metagame for all of us. As a very active member on Smogon, and a person who participated in these tests, I can assure you on the integrity of them. I myself participated to confirm the integrity, to have a say because I didn't always agree with everything they did, and to prove myself.

Speed Boost Blaziken has like no checks or counters in Sun. At +2, you OHKO Latios with a resisted move. I can talk about Excadrill too, but Blue Harvest's post summed it up well enough. http://www.serebiiforums.com/showpost.php?p=13462379&postcount=490

Best players is highly debatable.

And as for the voting committee, I won't deny that they are trying to look out and make everything more streamlined and integral to the competitive community as a whole, but there is a lack of vision sometimes, especially in the OU tier, when it comes to finding viable strategies, hence my cynicism about things not actually changing after the ban, minus a few getting a bit more use now.
 

Big Beluga

u r a fatty
couple things i think will come out of exca's ban...

• significant rise in ho teams. previously, you could just slap excadrill onto a team and not worry one bit about ho. it outran even boosted mons automatically, had the power to take out almost every offensive pokemon in existance, and didn't have the burden of a choice scarf, allowing it to easily run right through pure offensive teams at will. with it gone, i see a lot of glass cannon teams coming into play, especially with the power creep that b/w presented.

• decline of sand; rise of rain. one of the main reasons to run sand was to abuse the speed, power, and utility of excadrill, but now with it being called up to ubers, teams are almost solely limited to landorus as a sand abuser. in contrast, the drop in sand use will open the door for a huge surge in rain abuse (if it wasn't already high enough). rain will most likely become the premier playstyle and almost overrun the metagame.

• rise in scarf users. as stated before, players could just slap exca onto a team and fill numerous roles on a team all in one sitting. one of those roles was being the premier revenge killer and making scarf users almost obsolete. well, now that's changed and scarf users will once again come into the limelight as the premier way to revenge opposing offensive threats.
 

Cometk

west side
Best players is highly debatable.

No it's not.

And as for the voting committee, I won't deny that they are trying to look out and make everything more streamlined and integral to the competitive community as a whole, but there is a lack of vision sometimes, especially in the OU tier, when it comes to finding viable strategies, hence my cynicism about things not actually changing after the ban, minus a few getting a bit more use now.

Alright, I can kind of see what you're saying here. To my understanding, you're saying that things like a Drought team remain static; say if Tyranitar got banned, people would still use Donphan to check something like Terrakion and be able to set up Stealth Rock / Spin. And how a Drizzle team can have the generic scheme of Politoed / Rotom-W / Scizor / Ferrothorn / Latios / Toxicroak, even though almost everyone has experience in playing these types of teams and easily laying waste to them. Is this right?
 

GOLDENCRS

I'm a f***** Ponyta
Best players is highly debatable.

Who else has players who even come close? If you can't make the voting requirements, don't bash on the players
 

The Jock

Banned
excadrill banned!?noooooo!now whats gonna be on my team?excadrill is one of my favorite pokemon!

oh mai god what do!?!!?!?!:! ;446;

Also, while I agree with Gamefreak that Stall may have benefited since Excadrill was the best Rapid Spinner in the game, Excadrill was also a nice tool for SemiStall itself, and provided a great means of Rapid Spin/Revenge Killing. Also, it usually didn't sweep as the last poke, as most legitimate stall teams at the time ran Gliscor/Bronzong and conserved it for most of the game.
 
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