Mixed Cloyster invaded the ladder. I queued up with the only reliable answer I could fit, looking down at my defeated ferrothorn clutching his suboptimal Sitrus Berry. When the moment came the detestable mollusc switched out mockingly, flashing his highly animated grin at me. He knew he would get another single turn of setup eventually, after which his unchallengeable boost would be the end of my carefully considered bulky sand team. I beat my keyboard with one fist, tears streaming down my cheeks, sweat pouring down my other cheeks.
When factoring in the taking 2x damage from most attackers ( and the weak special defense) cloyster certainly can feel rather thin at times. But despite that it’s absolutely worth the setup because the only sets that can handle it are meme worthy like the few vacuum wave users which are all very bad in ou barring like Scizor but what you gonna use modest specs Scizor to get enough damage
Ferrothorn only tried to run Sitrus Berry because the fraudulent Pokemon company had not yet added the optimal item for dealing with Cloyster: Tabasco Sauce.
He went from safely switching and spiking on Swampert and dying to any neutral special attack to being banned for the crime of always getting really, really lucky with multi-hit moves... This is sad, can we pour one out for our shelly boy?
Obviously this is a heinous act from the villain Finchinator. Who doesn't adapt like us. It's obvious that we need the super meta relevant threat: HP Electric Empoleon. This is just blasphemy to keep taking away checks from the clear problem, Lando-T........
@@Coteup I was making a sarcastic comment, but I'll tell you this It's better to win because you played well, than because a Gyarados flinched the electric type with Waterfall, thus enabling a sweep that shouldn't have happened.
@@genarftheunfuni5227 And yet the council arbitrarily doesn't ban or test flinch moves like Waterfall but does implement things like freeze clause (literally impossible on cartridge).
Cloyster once again proves his worth as perhaps the most powerful ice type in the series now with an OU ban to his name alongside his multiple gens of OU viabilty and Niches in Ubers.
I would still say this makes Cloyster the most impressive Ice type because it is a Kantonian Pokemon, with a design that only works for Gen 3 and lower, and it just pivoted to being an unstoppable sweeper that would probably befit a Paldean Pokémon.
I mean, at this, Gen 5 Is More than 10 years old, so I guess the player Pool Is small enough that they can all get together and say "we don't like this" so good for them
@@IWestrada not for anyone who actually plays OU lmao. It's just extremely solid and while having very exploitable weaknesses that you'll naturally have via regular team building, and gets checked by a large amount of the tier as well
Hearing about older gen balance changes is so funny with the context of current gen. "Volc and cloyster are an issue as they often win by matchup" when almost every sweeper in current gen ou works like that
Most sweepers rely on match-up. The issue is if you can still have a diverse and healthy metagame while consistently checking it. Not that removing Cloyster fixes Gen 5's many power creep issues.
They should ban gen 4 jirachi. That fuckshit is incredibly unpredictable. Even smogon themselves admited that there is not a single pokemon that can counter every single one of its sets.
defensive empoleon is pretty nice into gen 4 rachi, you could experiment with roar/ knock with paralysis support from a teammate, i always run defensive emp & rachi/ latias are never really a problem
@@usernametaken017 many pokemon? how many pokemon can you name that have a crapload of sets that they can run and make it either hard or impossible to counter them all? jirachi has 5 different sets by the way.
Honestly gen 4 ou doesnt have ferrothorn, so if youre gonna be banning jirachi as well then you better watch out for a meteor rainfall. An iron head ban might be cool though
As much as I adore Cloyster, I really dislike the idea of a pokemon getting a single opportunity to click a move and then sweeping through an entire team, so sounds like a good decision IMO. I also think it was a weird direction to go in, for the super defensive pokemon characterised by a giant shell to specialise in dumping its defenses to sweep. Wish they'd just like, buffed its SpDef to a decent value or something instead, maybe replace skill link with a "reduces incoming damage on switch-in" or "weaknesses become neutral in hail" ability or something too, cool as skill link may be. Given its spikey shell, could maybe also repurpose Shell Smash as a Cloyster signature-move that acts as an Explosion + Spikes combo, like a kamikaze caltrops-frag grenade. Or a hazard version of belly drum, taking 50% max HP damage to set up a duo/triple layer of spikes in one go? Or an ability that causes it to apply spikes upon fainting, or being hit with a super-effective physical attack, or something? ...I like the idea of Shell Smash being a Cloyster (or sufficiently spikey shell-having pokemon) thing that involves spikes and taking damage, basically
My thought train for the longest was “if they won’t ban Latios, they won’t ban anything” but I was proven very wrong. A well deserved ban but not the one I was looking for
One thing I’d be worried about re: banning rain (or any other weather) is that that steps on the identity of Gen 5 mechanics far too much. Permanent weather is a core gameplay mechanic to that generation. Even if it’s overpowered, at some point you’ll just start ripping out core gameplay elements of the series and really then why not just go make an “artificial” gen. Take the Pokemon, adjust their stats, learnsets, game mechanics, whatever you want.
Okay, I can't watch this video as long as I don't know where the piano song (@00:00 - 00:12) is from. I know, I've heard it before but I can't tell the name/source. Pls help
@@IcefrostmiguelUUbers has less variety than OU. It’s mostly dominated by whichever Arceus form stays unbanned and Zacian. The mons that the metagame was made for like Espathra and Annihilape are completely unusable. I view that tiering experiment as a failure.
Something thats worth noting The multi hit moves in Cloyster movepool was buffed from 10 BP to 25 BP in Gen 5. Yes 2.5 as powerful. It went from being at most as good as Gen 5 tackle, all the way to stronger than Outrage Thats how overbuffed this thing was
Personally I can't wait for all the people that have never/barely touched Gen 5 OU to weigh in on this decision with their expert opinions in the comments
Hey Jimothy, question: have you ever thought about doing a compare/contrast between Smogon Singles OU and Doubles OU? It's clearly established that Gen 5 singles OU is a nightmare to balance, but I seldom see any thorough coverage on what Gen 5 doubles is like. The most I can think of would be those VGC segments of any given False Swipe Gaming video on a gen 5 pokemon.
i have never played a single game of this metagame, yet I am throughly outraged by this ban. I clearly know better than the voters and tournament players. clear abuse of power. sad! smogon continues to ban instead of getting good! before we know it pokemon such as "stunfisk" and "voltorb" will be ban!!
In a way, SPL is the perfect metric if there was a random ladder for Gen 5; a Best of One is VERY much like clicking "Battle" with a team loaded into a random player; I'm not playing a best of 3, its a best of one where either one of us have certain pokemon we automatically win, and Cloyster is a pokemon in that gen that gives way more dice rolls for that to happen. But that's just me, I'll be listening to the podcast later anyways so I'm sure to hear more there
Big ask at the end there. I think the decision to ban Cloyster makes sense and will be looked back on as a good decision. As for what's next... gosh, I really don't know. I think that there are a LOT of chain reactions that come with banning mons like Latios or abilities like Drizzle, and whichever one the council and playerbase is more willing to explore seems like the right pipe to jump down. Though these are going to be very, very, very difficult decisions. BW has so many things that are so incredibly powerful that removing basically any of them from the tier is going to instigate a heavily armed race to the top. I think that the most important thing is that the current council have a clear idea of what they believe is a healthy metagame (informed by the community as well) so they can work towards a vision instead of just blindly banning or unbanning different things. I don't envy them, it's a very messy metagame! But like you, I think it's very fun, and has a ton of personality as a result of its many moving parts.
It's nice that Gen 5 OU is getting some updates recently So why can't they let all of the pokemon listed as OU by technicality be allowed in the lower tiers if they are just unusable in Gen 5 OU?
Because they’d potentially ruin those formats. I guess those who actually play those tiers don’t want to try because they like their tier? UU traditionally ends up being a lot more fair of a tier than most OUs
@@Epzilon12 I mean yeah but let's say for example, lucario is OU by technicality in Gen 5 and it drops to UU. In Gen 5 UU, there are a lot of common Pokemon that can take on Fighting type attacks like Nidoqueen, Zapdos, and Cofagrigus to name a few. Lucario would be good in Gen 5 UU but not too broken, and it wouldn't ruin the tier.
@@aldwych285both Zapdos(with rocks up) and Nidoqueen cant switch in to Ice Punch with Lorb (not adamant) and lucario also has crunch and SD. Ofc this is assuming you keep using the OU set
I do remember back in the day of some generations, or perhaps just Monotype, how Shell Smash on Cloyster really is enough to let it pretty much win on the spot if you didn't have anything for it. Always ended up feeling a little _too_ easy to use.
I made master ball tier with a white herb shell smash skill link cloyster . Tera grass always throws off the electric and ground attacks and then I just sweep
I love cloyster so much because of how strong it is with shell smash, one of my top 3 fav pokemon. But it definitely is very hard to swap into with a mixed set. I believe Blastoise(with shell smash) is a lot more fair version of cloyster, still very strong but easier to counter once set up. Skill link is just an insane ability.
despite not having played gen 5 OU in over a decade, I am sad to see Cloyster go because I like Cloyster. I do think this could lead into a "slippery slope" situation because as you said early in the video, there are a ton of other incredibly viable options and toward the end you speak on how there are a bunch of strategies that people want banned outright. I can't help but feel like people are being crybabies because every time something gets banned they just move onto the next thing that frustrates them as an individual and whine about that until its gone too. I'm sure it will be Latios because Magic Guard and Drizzle are too valuable for the format this far down the road, even though Latios is very cool. I understand that there needs to be some balance but I just don't vibe with the way Smogon approaches a lot of stuff. Cloyster was banned by less than 40 votes, out of hundreds if not thousands of players, maybe even more. It wouldn't take much to rally people behind something that you all mutually dislike just to have it removed. The definition of the loud minority. I also feel like Shell Smash is the problem because remember, in gen 4 it also had Skill Link + Rock Blast and it barely made a dent in the grand scheme. Would Icicle Spear make it better? Absolutely. But would it become some dominant meta force with things like Azelf, Zapdos, Lucario, Roserade, Jolteon, and especially Rotom on every team? Absolutely not. Would that change in the next generation where the ceiling is even higher than that? Again, absolutely not. Icicle Spear makes it good but Shell Smash is what made it great, and without it the stats hold it back tremendously. Without the Swords Dance and Agility boost granted by Shell Smash, Skill Link doesn't do much other than scare Landorus and Garchomp and other stuff like that (but historically Smogon absolutely will go so far out of their way to protect Landorus lmao embarrassing). Should just ban Shell Smash from OU to prevent shenanigans with any other line as well, and to preserve all the other tiers and prevent collateral damage. Shell Smash is what gives it the stats to utilize the tools so I think that's the obvious answer. Just like how they're talking about banning Iron Head on Jirachi in gen 4, so it's apparently not that alien of a concept to them. Passing stats with Baton Pass is banned as well and with gems already being banned long ago there's virtually no room to abuse Cloyster if they would just pull the trigger on the real problem, but Smogon "council members" are so notoriously idiotic with the choices they make regarding "complex bans" even though this is a prime contender for a reasonable complex ban that any player with half a brain would look at and go "you know what, that makes a lot of sense." Nobody is gonna run Overcoat and definitely not Shell Armor. Piss poor Speed for the tier, Ice being horrible defensively already, low Special Defense and HP in a tier where tons of things have massive Special Attack, no reliable recovery... Shell Smash is the ONLY thing that made Cloyster relevant. Standard OU Cloyster with Nevermelt, Ice Skill Link, Icicle Spear, with no Shell Smash, vs standard Ferrothorn is a 2HKO and it's a range. 3HKO vs Specs Keldeo. 4HKO vs Jirachi lead. Skill Link is terrifying to Dragon and Flying types but without Shell Smash, Cloyster just doesn't have the ability to enforce it. It gets knocked down hard by basically any Electric or Grass move, and many neutral Special Attacks in general. With 0 investment in Special Attack, Mew, Jirachi, and Celebi all 1-shot the standard Cloyster set with Thunderbolt or Grass Knot and with no chance of being outsped unless the Cloyster opts for Quick Claw I guess? A small RNG based chance to move first and maybe not even get the KO? Alakazam and Reuniclus can 1-shot it with Psychic (Reuniclus is a small chance to be a 2 hit KO, but even so Cloyster's best shot is also only a 2HKO, but possibly 3HKO). Any Draco Meteor nukes it unless Cloyster moves a lot of its EVs into defensive stats which it really can't afford to do. Maybe it could go with a Specially Defensive set with a Scarf? But it sacrifices a lot of damage that way and so it's even less of a threat to anything it doesn't hit super effectively even if it can outspeed. Perhaps some critical hit cheese with Razor Claw? But then its Speed issue is magnified yet again. The point I'm making is, without Shell Smash, the things that are ALREADY VERY GOOD AND POPULAR DESTROY IT OR DEFEND AGAINST IT WITH 0 ISSUES. Even Pokemon that Cloyster "wins" against will delete it with a super effective Special Attacking coverage move on a neutral nature with 0 investment, like Jirachi's Thunder/bolt. Should have banned Shell Smash from OU. No other Pokemon in Gen 5 that has had Shell Smash for this long will be an issue because everyone and their grandma has experimented with every avenue, and Cloyster is the only one who had the stars align to reach the top. Garbage Pokemon like Carracosta, Gorebyss, and Torkoal aren't going to be a problem, I assure you. It's 3am. Why did I sit here and study and research the topic for over 2 hours, to write this comment about a game mode I haven't played in over 10 years? I don't know. I like Cloyster and I don't like Smogon. But there is no alternative so we have to suffer through their incompetence. The only legal Pokemon should be Charmeleon.
Personally I think I stand by what BKC said in his video of banning Spikes as a whole. If you ban Latios then yeah Latias will just take its place and do the same thing. If you ban Excadrill then Reuniclus goes out of control because Excadrill actually threatens it and adds a valuable spinblocker so people wanted to particularly ban Sand Force on Excadrill. You could ban Volcarona which is also a match up fish and just does what Cloyster does with Quiver Dance so that needs to go. Thunderus-T is too threatening of a pokemon after an Agility which is pretty easy to get and then Nasty Plot means the game is over. Reuniclus is another pokemon worthy of the ban because it just doesn't die while everything else gets worn down but will be much better to handle if you remove Spikes. Spikes just looks like the problematic cause for everything that is going on which is what I would look at because every single one of these broken pokemon is abusing spikes so I think banning it might have a healthier impact. Of course Skarmory will be kicked out of OU, Terrakion gets loads better, Garchomp gets better and you could probably free Deoxys-D since there's no spikes. It would change the fundamentals of the game but everything would be less broken imo and a lot of broken threats would stay in the tier if Spikes were gone.
Latias would not nearly be the same as Latios; hat 20 point drop in Special Attack means that teams are less immediately threatened by its Draco Meteor.
@@tbolt__ Yes Latias has less special attack but what they enable is the same thing. They have the same level of longevity and the fact that they are functionally the exact same. If Latios can get around Tyranitar then Latias can as well and we have seen that in practice. Latias is sometimes used over Latios on many BW teams and it has advantages that Latios doesn't have the most notable is Healing Wish. There is merit to using Latias as it is and banning Latios will just make Latias shoot up in usage and just do the exact same thing. Both are very threatening because of their longevity in the fact of hazards. Being able to come in over and over spamming Draco Meteor is what makes them nasty to deal with. They aren't worn down by hazards very easily unlike Tyranitar which gets ravaged by hazards and is forced to come in to swallow the Draco Meteor. They are the fastest dragon types in OU which is incredibly crucial, a very good stab combination that gives them key resistances (Fighting, Water, Grass, Electric) is super good. Latias having 20 less special attack won't make a huge difference in the long run it will just prolong the inevitable.
@destructorthedestroyer7651 The issue with Latias is that its lower Special Attack makes it a worse check into everything that both it and Latios both want to check. Its weaker Draco Meteor doesn't OHKO Keldeo or the bulkier variants of Thundurus-T that Latios powers through, so Latias needs more chip damage than Latios to check them effectively. Latios also heavily dents other Pokemon it doesn't "check" like Reuniclus and Tentacruel.
Ngl I like the direction the tier is going what with the sleep ban, gem ban and now cloyster ban but I gotta say Im gong to somewhat miss the old gen 5. Was fun having a metagame that is just stupidly offensive for once. Not nearly as competitive as the other gens but way funnier.
Check out my interview with BKC where we discuss Gen 5 OU and more.
ruclips.net/video/NhRCWW7alPo/видео.html
Mixed Cloyster invaded the ladder. I queued up with the only reliable answer I could fit, looking down at my defeated ferrothorn clutching his suboptimal Sitrus Berry. When the moment came the detestable mollusc switched out mockingly, flashing his highly animated grin at me. He knew he would get another single turn of setup eventually, after which his unchallengeable boost would be the end of my carefully considered bulky sand team. I beat my keyboard with one fist, tears streaming down my cheeks, sweat pouring down my other cheeks.
😂😂
how many cheeks do you have
No more to clap sadly 😞@@usernametaken017
@@usernametaken017 one pair for kissing and one pair for sitting
Genuine skill issue. Should have used Vacuumn Wave
Cloyster’s ice is anything but thin with that massive 180 base defense
When factoring in the taking 2x damage from most attackers ( and the weak special defense) cloyster certainly can feel rather thin at times. But despite that it’s absolutely worth the setup because the only sets that can handle it are meme worthy like the few vacuum wave users which are all very bad in ou barring like Scizor but what you gonna use modest specs Scizor to get enough damage
But 50 base HP makes it decently frail.
Believe it or not; Cloyster has been on thin ice in Generation 5 OU.
😂😂
Badum tsss
This is insane.
@@ethandaniel7929 dude your comment prompted a "Translate to English" (it says "bathing tsss") 🤣🤣
We failed...
It's a mollusc moratorium.
Mollusco Mori
This, ironically, brings gen 5 OU a little bit cloyster to being balanced.
I will show myself out now.
shell myself out, please
I need it
Oh my
This pun was a shell smash hit
I don't get the pun 😢😭
@@pn7857 "cloyster" is being substituted for "closer" in the sentence
I didn't see it the first time I saw it either
Should change its ability name to "skill issue" now
😂😂😂
Even better, knowing when to pop Cloyster’s sweeping state is a legitimate skill, so it really is a skill issue if you pop it badly.
This is a Cloyster catastrophe, folks
It's a cloystrophe.....I tried.
I appreciate you 😂@@adav838
@@adav838 It was pretty good
Gen 5 OU has been battered by bivalve brutality, but no longer
Ferrothorn only tried to run Sitrus Berry because the fraudulent Pokemon company had not yet added the optimal item for dealing with Cloyster: Tabasco Sauce.
The gen 5 community decided it was finally time to reel in this particular threat after many years of controversy, folks
his cloystroversy
Super Rod pun.
@@dVector13 This is my favorite pun
3:25 tbh, their opponent deserved to be swept on because they named their pokemon after Maroon V songs
As someone who has never played Gen 5 ou, I really think we should be looking at Delibird
Good lord, that B-roll footage of constant Icicle Spears and Rock Blasts...yeah, I'm glad that bivalve caught a ban
Do you even play Gen 5 OU?
@@luckylucas8596 nope! I prefer Gen 6 and 8
@@eternalpoliwhirl So why do you care what they ban in a tier you don’t play?
@@luckylucas8596 cause I'm silly :3c
@@luckylucas8596second hand pain most likely.
Never trust a clam
Luckily it's an oyster
every clam has its clay
He went from safely switching and spiking on Swampert and dying to any neutral special attack to being banned for the crime of always getting really, really lucky with multi-hit moves... This is sad, can we pour one out for our shelly boy?
Obviously this is a heinous act from the villain Finchinator. Who doesn't adapt like us. It's obvious that we need the super meta relevant threat: HP Electric Empoleon.
This is just blasphemy to keep taking away checks from the clear problem, Lando-T........
Finch is a dictator
It is pretty annoying how anti-luck the Smogon elite are when the entire game inherently involves luck
@@Coteup I was making a sarcastic comment, but I'll tell you this
It's better to win because you played well, than because a Gyarados flinched the electric type with Waterfall, thus enabling a sweep that shouldn't have happened.
@@Coteup better to win a battle with trace amounts of luck than to win against someone purely because of luck
@@genarftheunfuni5227 And yet the council arbitrarily doesn't ban or test flinch moves like Waterfall but does implement things like freeze clause (literally impossible on cartridge).
Cloyster once again proves his worth as perhaps the most powerful ice type in the series now with an OU ban to his name alongside his multiple gens of OU viabilty and Niches in Ubers.
Nah Chien-Pao, Calyrex Ice Rider, and Iron Bundle still exists
@@Thund3rDrag0n12ok but have they been banned in gen 5 ou? I don't think so
You named 3 legendaries
@@usernametaken017they are so banned from gen 5 OU you can’t even use them in Gen 5 AG
I would still say this makes Cloyster the most impressive Ice type because it is a Kantonian Pokemon, with a design that only works for Gen 3 and lower, and it just pivoted to being an unstoppable sweeper that would probably befit a Paldean Pokémon.
I mean, at this, Gen 5 Is More than 10 years old, so I guess the player Pool Is small enough that they can all get together and say "we don't like this" so good for them
Give it 10 more years, and gholdengo will be banned from gen 9 OU 😂
@@IWestradanobody on earth thinks Ghold is broken lmao
@@devilman4723If you scroll through r/Stunfisk, you will find that you are quite mistaken.
@@devilman4723 Seriously? It's the most polarizing mon in OU.
@@IWestrada not for anyone who actually plays OU lmao. It's just extremely solid and while having very exploitable weaknesses that you'll naturally have via regular team building, and gets checked by a large amount of the tier as well
I'm shell shocked at this development.
And yet Iron Mugulis is still legal. Smh.
Hearing about older gen balance changes is so funny with the context of current gen. "Volc and cloyster are an issue as they often win by matchup" when almost every sweeper in current gen ou works like that
Welp, Volc has always been like that. Now it's banned xD
Most sweepers rely on match-up. The issue is if you can still have a diverse and healthy metagame while consistently checking it. Not that removing Cloyster fixes Gen 5's many power creep issues.
They should ban gen 4 jirachi.
That fuckshit is incredibly unpredictable.
Even smogon themselves admited that there is not a single pokemon that can counter every single one of its sets.
I mean that's applicable to many, many pokemon
defensive empoleon is pretty nice into gen 4 rachi, you could experiment with roar/ knock with paralysis support from a teammate, i always run defensive emp & rachi/ latias are never really a problem
A lot of people want specifically Iron Head to be banned on Jirachi. I think that'd be good too
@@usernametaken017
many pokemon?
how many pokemon can you name that have a crapload of sets that they can run and make it either hard or impossible to counter them all?
jirachi has 5 different sets by the way.
Honestly gen 4 ou doesnt have ferrothorn, so if youre gonna be banning jirachi as well then you better watch out for a meteor rainfall. An iron head ban might be cool though
Matchup mollusk might be Jim’s best bar yet
I just woke up and this video was posted a minute ago. Yup, Jimothy is a Psychic type.
As much as I adore Cloyster, I really dislike the idea of a pokemon getting a single opportunity to click a move and then sweeping through an entire team, so sounds like a good decision IMO.
I also think it was a weird direction to go in, for the super defensive pokemon characterised by a giant shell to specialise in dumping its defenses to sweep. Wish they'd just like, buffed its SpDef to a decent value or something instead, maybe replace skill link with a "reduces incoming damage on switch-in" or "weaknesses become neutral in hail" ability or something too, cool as skill link may be.
Given its spikey shell, could maybe also repurpose Shell Smash as a Cloyster signature-move that acts as an Explosion + Spikes combo, like a kamikaze caltrops-frag grenade. Or a hazard version of belly drum, taking 50% max HP damage to set up a duo/triple layer of spikes in one go? Or an ability that causes it to apply spikes upon fainting, or being hit with a super-effective physical attack, or something? ...I like the idea of Shell Smash being a Cloyster (or sufficiently spikey shell-having pokemon) thing that involves spikes and taking damage, basically
Shell Smash is one hell of a move.
Don’t you mean…
One SHELL of a move?
Even though this is a cloyster video Jim still always finds time for glazing mammoswine
thumbnail makes it seem like politoed did something to cloyster and I don't even wanna think of what that could've been
Allowed for Hydro Pump to OHKO Heatran, a would-be check
Never thought I'd ever seen cloyster go to ubers under any circumstances, but here we are.
I would love to see some content on the lower tiers of gameplay, especially Gens 5&6 UU! love the content as always and DOWN WITH IRON MUGULIS!
That ban was pretty deserved. It's too strong for the metagame and certainly needed action.
Cloyster got some of the best moves in the early gens. He got Clamp in gen 1, Spikes in gens 2 -4, and Shell Smash in gen 5.
The crooked clam's crimes cannot be countenanced.
The Matchup Mollusk sounds like a potential new ally of iron mugulis
It’s amazing how cloyster could just its ability and moves to mussel though it’s checks
My thought train for the longest was “if they won’t ban Latios, they won’t ban anything” but I was proven very wrong. A well deserved ban but not the one I was looking for
One could even say that gen 5 OU has fallen prey to Cloysterophobia
One thing I’d be worried about re: banning rain (or any other weather) is that that steps on the identity of Gen 5 mechanics far too much. Permanent weather is a core gameplay mechanic to that generation. Even if it’s overpowered, at some point you’ll just start ripping out core gameplay elements of the series and really then why not just go make an “artificial” gen. Take the Pokemon, adjust their stats, learnsets, game mechanics, whatever you want.
They already took out gems, we're already there for gen 5
I am still waiting for all the gen 4 Ou by technicality pokemon drop to UU
A man can dream for Electivire be viabel there... A man can dream.
Congratulations Jimothy for reaching 70k!
As a gen 3 goober, it’s hard to envision this clam fellow causing such a rukus
Can't wait for FSG remaking their Cloyster Video, this is gonna be fun
Cloyster is one of my favorite pokemon! I fell in love with it while sweeping my friend's team in ironically, Gen 5 OU. This is awesome!
The Next one should be Reuniclus.
6:17 Isn't Bo1 literally the ladder format though?
Okay, I can't watch this video as long as I don't know where the piano song (@00:00 - 00:12) is from.
I know, I've heard it before but I can't tell the name/source.
Pls help
Pokemon black and white- emotion
@@yeet8036 Thanks! I assumed it was from an anime, so I would've never found it.
To me, the best meta is the one when everyone is crying about different things. That means there is a lot of variety
No it doesn’t
5 broken Pokémon will cause a meta game to have extreme centralization, leading to less variety
Cmon @@GravityIsFalling. They banned morr than 20 mon last gen. UUbers is more interesting than OU. The coucil sucks
@@Icefrostmiguel come battle flinchinator for the council spot then you may be able to justly and democratically unban them, ofc
@@IcefrostmiguelUUbers has less variety than OU. It’s mostly dominated by whichever Arceus form stays unbanned and Zacian. The mons that the metagame was made for like Espathra and Annihilape are completely unusable. I view that tiering experiment as a failure.
@@Icefrostmiguellast gen didn’t have nearly that many bans. Don’t spread bullshit. OU council has done the best it can do with what they have.
Something thats worth noting
The multi hit moves in Cloyster movepool was buffed from 10 BP to 25 BP in Gen 5. Yes 2.5 as powerful. It went from being at most as good as Gen 5 tackle, all the way to stronger than Outrage
Thats how overbuffed this thing was
Personally I can't wait for all the people that have never/barely touched Gen 5 OU to weigh in on this decision with their expert opinions in the comments
In the words of big yellow, there is nothing sexier than knowing what tf you’re talking about
Honestly matchup fishing is why I think tera is unhealthy in gen 9 because it allows too many pokemon to become matchup fishing pokemon
True. Tera on Team Preview would really help with this.
sire this is a gen 5 video
@@usernametaken017 Did you pay attention to the actual points made in the video? Because those points are very relevant to the state of Gen 9.
Hey Jimothy, question: have you ever thought about doing a compare/contrast between Smogon Singles OU and Doubles OU? It's clearly established that Gen 5 singles OU is a nightmare to balance, but I seldom see any thorough coverage on what Gen 5 doubles is like. The most I can think of would be those VGC segments of any given False Swipe Gaming video on a gen 5 pokemon.
cloyster genuinely is an insane pokemon, cant believe people havent realized how op he is until pretty recently.
Will there be a discussion on gems now?
i have never played a single game of this metagame, yet I am throughly outraged by this ban. I clearly know better than the voters and tournament players. clear abuse of power. sad! smogon continues to ban instead of getting good! before we know it pokemon such as "stunfisk" and "voltorb" will be ban!!
Me
Gen 5 Shell Smash Cloyster, the first pokemon to ever give me core memories on Smogon.
Welcome to the NBA my boy.
I remember all the tiering and metagame issues during Gen 5, it was insane, and it's just never stopped or settled. It's like a soap opera
bald politoed in the thumbnail. cloyster is looking into becoming a barber.
Pokemon is certainly the toughest video game to balance.
It's because he can learn Hydro Pump. If he got that in Gen 3 he would be S tier.
What happened to the money got different outro?😊
Ah I see Gen 5 taking notes from Gen 9
I love cloyster every gen and after 5 he became truly insane
Do you think that with enough pushback we could get SPL to become best of 3?
A cloyst call do cloyster
This is oddly satisfying to watch after the podcast with BKC
In a way, SPL is the perfect metric if there was a random ladder for Gen 5; a Best of One is VERY much like clicking "Battle" with a team loaded into a random player; I'm not playing a best of 3, its a best of one where either one of us have certain pokemon we automatically win, and Cloyster is a pokemon in that gen that gives way more dice rolls for that to happen. But that's just me, I'll be listening to the podcast later anyways so I'm sure to hear more there
i dont know what gamefreak was thinking when they added quiver dance and shell smash to the game lol
0:33 gotta acknowledge the bocchi respect
Tbf this is the gen where OU banned having swift swim and rain dance on the same team, but not separately... so really what are you expecting?
Big ask at the end there. I think the decision to ban Cloyster makes sense and will be looked back on as a good decision. As for what's next... gosh, I really don't know. I think that there are a LOT of chain reactions that come with banning mons like Latios or abilities like Drizzle, and whichever one the council and playerbase is more willing to explore seems like the right pipe to jump down. Though these are going to be very, very, very difficult decisions.
BW has so many things that are so incredibly powerful that removing basically any of them from the tier is going to instigate a heavily armed race to the top. I think that the most important thing is that the current council have a clear idea of what they believe is a healthy metagame (informed by the community as well) so they can work towards a vision instead of just blindly banning or unbanning different things. I don't envy them, it's a very messy metagame! But like you, I think it's very fun, and has a ton of personality as a result of its many moving parts.
Cloysters Collapse
I was just watching your Cloyster vid when I got word of this.😮
Wake up, folks! It's a new BKC video!
It's nice that Gen 5 OU is getting some updates recently
So why can't they let all of the pokemon listed as OU by technicality be allowed in the lower tiers if they are just unusable in Gen 5 OU?
Because they’d potentially ruin those formats. I guess those who actually play those tiers don’t want to try because they like their tier? UU traditionally ends up being a lot more fair of a tier than most OUs
@@Epzilon12 I mean yeah but let's say for example, lucario is OU by technicality in Gen 5 and it drops to UU. In Gen 5 UU, there are a lot of common Pokemon that can take on Fighting type attacks like Nidoqueen, Zapdos, and Cofagrigus to name a few. Lucario would be good in Gen 5 UU but not too broken, and it wouldn't ruin the tier.
@@aldwych285 I don’t think you’re wrong and I’m generally in favor of trying stuff. I also don’t know how much action Gen 5 UU actually gets
@@Epzilon12 I think most lower tiers don’t really get that much updates
@@aldwych285both Zapdos(with rocks up) and Nidoqueen cant switch in to Ice Punch with Lorb (not adamant) and lucario also has crunch and SD. Ofc this is assuming you keep using the OU set
HP fighting accelgor might've helped against anything other than scarf cloyster. Has anybody tried?
That smile, that damn smile
You are now a Banned Bivalve.
I do remember back in the day of some generations, or perhaps just Monotype, how Shell Smash on Cloyster really is enough to let it pretty much win on the spot if you didn't have anything for it. Always ended up feeling a little _too_ easy to use.
Maybe the gen 5 community will find our cloyster was just icing on the cake of imbalancd
On a mollusc monday of all days? Surely there's been a mistake somewhere? This is insane!
I made master ball tier with a white herb shell smash skill link cloyster . Tera grass always throws off the electric and ground attacks and then I just sweep
I love cloyster so much because of how strong it is with shell smash, one of my top 3 fav pokemon. But it definitely is very hard to swap into with a mixed set. I believe Blastoise(with shell smash) is a lot more fair version of cloyster, still very strong but easier to counter once set up. Skill link is just an insane ability.
despite not having played gen 5 OU in over a decade, I am sad to see Cloyster go because I like Cloyster.
I do think this could lead into a "slippery slope" situation because as you said early in the video, there are a ton of other incredibly viable options and toward the end you speak on how there are a bunch of strategies that people want banned outright. I can't help but feel like people are being crybabies because every time something gets banned they just move onto the next thing that frustrates them as an individual and whine about that until its gone too. I'm sure it will be Latios because Magic Guard and Drizzle are too valuable for the format this far down the road, even though Latios is very cool. I understand that there needs to be some balance but I just don't vibe with the way Smogon approaches a lot of stuff. Cloyster was banned by less than 40 votes, out of hundreds if not thousands of players, maybe even more. It wouldn't take much to rally people behind something that you all mutually dislike just to have it removed. The definition of the loud minority.
I also feel like Shell Smash is the problem because remember, in gen 4 it also had Skill Link + Rock Blast and it barely made a dent in the grand scheme. Would Icicle Spear make it better? Absolutely. But would it become some dominant meta force with things like Azelf, Zapdos, Lucario, Roserade, Jolteon, and especially Rotom on every team? Absolutely not. Would that change in the next generation where the ceiling is even higher than that? Again, absolutely not. Icicle Spear makes it good but Shell Smash is what made it great, and without it the stats hold it back tremendously. Without the Swords Dance and Agility boost granted by Shell Smash, Skill Link doesn't do much other than scare Landorus and Garchomp and other stuff like that (but historically Smogon absolutely will go so far out of their way to protect Landorus lmao embarrassing). Should just ban Shell Smash from OU to prevent shenanigans with any other line as well, and to preserve all the other tiers and prevent collateral damage.
Shell Smash is what gives it the stats to utilize the tools so I think that's the obvious answer. Just like how they're talking about banning Iron Head on Jirachi in gen 4, so it's apparently not that alien of a concept to them. Passing stats with Baton Pass is banned as well and with gems already being banned long ago there's virtually no room to abuse Cloyster if they would just pull the trigger on the real problem, but Smogon "council members" are so notoriously idiotic with the choices they make regarding "complex bans" even though this is a prime contender for a reasonable complex ban that any player with half a brain would look at and go "you know what, that makes a lot of sense." Nobody is gonna run Overcoat and definitely not Shell Armor. Piss poor Speed for the tier, Ice being horrible defensively already, low Special Defense and HP in a tier where tons of things have massive Special Attack, no reliable recovery... Shell Smash is the ONLY thing that made Cloyster relevant.
Standard OU Cloyster with Nevermelt, Ice Skill Link, Icicle Spear, with no Shell Smash, vs standard Ferrothorn is a 2HKO and it's a range. 3HKO vs Specs Keldeo. 4HKO vs Jirachi lead. Skill Link is terrifying to Dragon and Flying types but without Shell Smash, Cloyster just doesn't have the ability to enforce it. It gets knocked down hard by basically any Electric or Grass move, and many neutral Special Attacks in general. With 0 investment in Special Attack, Mew, Jirachi, and Celebi all 1-shot the standard Cloyster set with Thunderbolt or Grass Knot and with no chance of being outsped unless the Cloyster opts for Quick Claw I guess? A small RNG based chance to move first and maybe not even get the KO? Alakazam and Reuniclus can 1-shot it with Psychic (Reuniclus is a small chance to be a 2 hit KO, but even so Cloyster's best shot is also only a 2HKO, but possibly 3HKO). Any Draco Meteor nukes it unless Cloyster moves a lot of its EVs into defensive stats which it really can't afford to do. Maybe it could go with a Specially Defensive set with a Scarf? But it sacrifices a lot of damage that way and so it's even less of a threat to anything it doesn't hit super effectively even if it can outspeed. Perhaps some critical hit cheese with Razor Claw? But then its Speed issue is magnified yet again.
The point I'm making is, without Shell Smash, the things that are ALREADY VERY GOOD AND POPULAR DESTROY IT OR DEFEND AGAINST IT WITH 0 ISSUES. Even Pokemon that Cloyster "wins" against will delete it with a super effective Special Attacking coverage move on a neutral nature with 0 investment, like Jirachi's Thunder/bolt. Should have banned Shell Smash from OU. No other Pokemon in Gen 5 that has had Shell Smash for this long will be an issue because everyone and their grandma has experimented with every avenue, and Cloyster is the only one who had the stars align to reach the top. Garbage Pokemon like Carracosta, Gorebyss, and Torkoal aren't going to be a problem, I assure you.
It's 3am. Why did I sit here and study and research the topic for over 2 hours, to write this comment about a game mode I haven't played in over 10 years? I don't know. I like Cloyster and I don't like Smogon. But there is no alternative so we have to suffer through their incompetence.
The only legal Pokemon should be Charmeleon.
There’s no slippery slope, cloyster being an ice type got banned
I've only played gen 3 ou but why not just ban the broken triple boost setup moves?
I think the funniest words to anyone who doesn’t play Gen 5 are “Cloyster is an Ubers tier Pokemon”
its the melmetal of lets go effect.
Personally I think I stand by what BKC said in his video of banning Spikes as a whole. If you ban Latios then yeah Latias will just take its place and do the same thing. If you ban Excadrill then Reuniclus goes out of control because Excadrill actually threatens it and adds a valuable spinblocker so people wanted to particularly ban Sand Force on Excadrill. You could ban Volcarona which is also a match up fish and just does what Cloyster does with Quiver Dance so that needs to go. Thunderus-T is too threatening of a pokemon after an Agility which is pretty easy to get and then Nasty Plot means the game is over. Reuniclus is another pokemon worthy of the ban because it just doesn't die while everything else gets worn down but will be much better to handle if you remove Spikes.
Spikes just looks like the problematic cause for everything that is going on which is what I would look at because every single one of these broken pokemon is abusing spikes so I think banning it might have a healthier impact. Of course Skarmory will be kicked out of OU, Terrakion gets loads better, Garchomp gets better and you could probably free Deoxys-D since there's no spikes. It would change the fundamentals of the game but everything would be less broken imo and a lot of broken threats would stay in the tier if Spikes were gone.
Latias would not nearly be the same as Latios; hat 20 point drop in Special Attack means that teams are less immediately threatened by its Draco Meteor.
@@tbolt__ Yes Latias has less special attack but what they enable is the same thing. They have the same level of longevity and the fact that they are functionally the exact same. If Latios can get around Tyranitar then Latias can as well and we have seen that in practice. Latias is sometimes used over Latios on many BW teams and it has advantages that Latios doesn't have the most notable is Healing Wish. There is merit to using Latias as it is and banning Latios will just make Latias shoot up in usage and just do the exact same thing.
Both are very threatening because of their longevity in the fact of hazards. Being able to come in over and over spamming Draco Meteor is what makes them nasty to deal with. They aren't worn down by hazards very easily unlike Tyranitar which gets ravaged by hazards and is forced to come in to swallow the Draco Meteor. They are the fastest dragon types in OU which is incredibly crucial, a very good stab combination that gives them key resistances (Fighting, Water, Grass, Electric) is super good. Latias having 20 less special attack won't make a huge difference in the long run it will just prolong the inevitable.
@destructorthedestroyer7651 The issue with Latias is that its lower Special Attack makes it a worse check into everything that both it and Latios both want to check. Its weaker Draco Meteor doesn't OHKO Keldeo or the bulkier variants of Thundurus-T that Latios powers through, so Latias needs more chip damage than Latios to check them effectively. Latios also heavily dents other Pokemon it doesn't "check" like Reuniclus and Tentacruel.
Ya, Cloyster was always a bit nuts so this makes sense
Warcrimes. He did warcrimes.
Cloyster ban time.
Why is Politoed bald on the thumbnail??? D:
Cloyster is now ubers
It’s Cloystover folks
Posted 1 minute ago folks. This is insane.
Why not dragon tail or roar counter play? Or maybe red card usage...
Ngl I like the direction the tier is going what with the sleep ban, gem ban and now cloyster ban but I gotta say Im gong to somewhat miss the old gen 5. Was fun having a metagame that is just stupidly offensive for once. Not nearly as competitive as the other gens but way funnier.
Couldn’t they just ban skill link, and allow cloyster?
Practically wouldn't make difference because it would be stuck in ou and do nothing in ou.
Skill link and shell smash is the only reason you use it
It's been awhile since played gen V OU but I could see dragmag teams surging
btw currently you can still use cloyster in OU. So use it while you still can.