Resource BW CAP Hub

Steam Buns

:rosetriumph:
is a Pre-Contributor
approved by Mx
cropped BW hub banned.png

Art by Meganium1579
Welcome to the BW CAP Hub! The home for all resources and discussion regarding the BW CAP metagame. Though BW CAP is very old, any resources that may have existed for CAP while BW was the main generation either haven't been preserved or are very poor quality. Meaning that everything you find here is brand new! This once lost metagame, has been essentially reborn, and our hope is that this hub can help to sustain it so that it continues to grow and be enjoyed, for many generations of pokemon to come. Much care and attention went into making sure they were as accurate and high quality as possible and we will continue to update and improve everything in this thread as the meta grows. Enjoy!


Available Caps
:syclant::revenankh::pyroak::fidgit::stratagem::arghonaut::kitsunoh::cyclohm::colossoil::krilowatt::voodoom::tomohawk::necturna::mollux::malaconda:
+ prevos
Clauses:
Banlist:
  • All Pokemon in the Uber tier.
  • Camwodore
    :cawmodore:

  • Aurumoth :aurumoth:


  • Higher base power of following moves: Draco Meteor (140), Hydro Pump (120), Thunder (120), Fire Blast (120), Surf (95), Ice Beam (95), Flamethrower (95), Thunderbolt (95) Overheat (140), Hurricane (120), Dragon Pulse (90), Hidden Power (70), Sucker Punch (80)
  • Will-O-Wisp has an accuracy of 75%
  • Burn deals 12.5% damage per turn
  • Defog clears hazards, Light Screen, Reflect, and Safeguard only on the target's side of the field, not your own
  • Dark and Ghost are resisted by Steel
  • The abilities Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream, and Snow Warning enable permanent weather
  • Knock Off has a base power of 20
  • Ghost types are affected by trapping abilities and effects, such as Shadow Tag
  • Critical hits deal 2x normal damage, not 1.5x
  • Thunder Wave is 100% accurate
  • A paralyzed Pokémon's speed is 0.25x
  • Electric-types can be paralyzed by Thunder Wave.
  • Tomohawk can learn Earth Power and Reflect, but teambuilder shows them as illegal.
  • Krilowatt can learn surf, but teambuilder shows it as illegal.
  • Arghonaut can learn waterfall, but teambuilder shows it as illegal.

Resources:
Other Links:
Cap Oldgens Discord
 

Attachments

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Steam Buns

:rosetriumph:
is a Pre-Contributor
BW CAP Viability Rankings/Set Compendium
This post contains a ranking of every viable Pokemon in BW CAP, separated in tiers to indicate power gaps. They are ordered alphabetically within their own subranks. This VR also doubles as a set compendium of sorts, each pokemons name either links to an OU analysis or a paste containing cap specific sets, as well as brief analyses for the more viable CAPs, these links will all be updated and improved upon as the meta develops.

Also keep in mind that these ranking are subjective placements, intended to represent the metagame as it is being played at the time of posting, if you disagree any of the rankings I highly encourage you to leave a post suggesting changes, as long as your thoughts are well informed and explained thoroughly.

S Rank:

S Rank

S- Rank

A Rank:

A+ Rank

A Rank

A- Rank

B Rank:

B+ Rank

B Rank
:mew:Mew

B- Rank

C Rank:
:xatu:Xatu
 
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Steam Buns

:rosetriumph:
is a Pre-Contributor
BW CAP Sample Teams
Provided here is a collection of successful and reliable teams from the BW CAP metagame, intended to reflect the type of teams you'd expect to face while playing. The primary purpose of the resource is to make it as easy as possible for a newer player to learn the metagame as both a source of teams to play with, and a tool to refer to when building your own teams.

_______________________________________ :tyranitar: Sand Teams :stratagem: ________________________________________
Among every archetype in BW and the new tools CAP has provided them, sand remains the most consistent and versatile choice. Sands primary setter, tyranitar, has exceptional bulk and power, stealth rocks, pursuit and the ability to form strong but flexible defensive cores with a variety of teammates. The extra utility tyranitar provides, beyond just summoning sand, gives it a distinct advantage over other weather setters. On sand you will typically see the excellent defensive core of Ttar, then a bulky flying, steel and water, although many teams can successfully deviate from that structure. The remaining two mons can generally be anything you want, but the best teams will find ways to benefit from the advantages sandstorm provides. The passive damage from sandstorm may not seem too significant but being able to deny an opponent leftovers recovery or put them on a timer is huge, and will skew many individual matchups in your favour.
:tyranitar::tomohawk::ferrothorn::jellicent::excadrill::krilowatt:
Sand #1 [Scarf drill +kril spikes]

:tyranitar::landorus-therian::rotom-wash::mollux::kitsunoh::latios:
Sand #2 [Tspikes Mollux + VoltTurn]

:tyranitar::skarmory::revenankh::slowking::excadrill::stratagem:
Sand #3 [Revenankh + Skarm Spikes]

________________________________________ :politoed:Rain Teams :mollux:________________________________________
Rain in BW CAP has an interesting dilemma, the indroduction of both tomohawk and mollux gives rain teams so much flexibility, which is in extreme contrast with ou, where politoed, ferrothorn, tentacruel and latios are almost always a given. However, those same two abusers are also excellent counters to rain when used on other structures and are significant obstacles when building your team. Politoed is a must on rain, being the only pokemon in the tier with drizzle and while it may not be as effective on its own as tyranitar is, politoed provides stronger support to it's team, as rain is much simpler to abuse than sand. Having rain active offers direct boost in power or accuracy, to many of this tiers most dangerous offensive threats, so while a sand structure will usually outlast rain is a long game, that won't matter if the rain team can overwhelm the opponent before politoed is taken out, which is why rain teams tend to be more offensive in nature.
:politoed::ferrothorn::mollux::latios::keldeo::colossoil:
Rain #1 [Scarf Colossoil + CM Keldeo

:politoed::ferrothorn::tomohawk::latios::krilowatt::mollux:
Rain #2 [Spdef Tomo Balance]

:politoed::ferrothorn::mollux::thundurus-therian::garchomp::scizor:
Rain #3 [Scarf Chomp + Thundurus]

______________________________________ :aurumoth: W-less Teams :necturna:_______________________________________
Weatherless teams are limited not by choice of pokemon, but by needing to effectively handle an opposing team with their weather unopposed. This is usually best accomplished with an offensive team, that uses the extra teamslot freed up by not needing a weather setter to fit in another attacker to break through defensive cores, this slot is filled very nicely by one of the many terrifying set up sweepers unique to cap.
:jirachi::kyurem-black::magnezone::latios::necturna::garchomp:
W-less #1 [Necturna DragMag]

:garchomp::starmie::volcarona::necturna::scizor::latios:
W-less #2 [CAP Smurf]

:ferrothorn::tomohawk::kyurem::kitsunoh::terrakion::rotom-wash:
W-Less #3 [SubRoost Kyurem Balance]

________________________________________ :ninetales: Sun Teams :malaconda:_________________________________________
Sun teams can be seen as a more extreme version of rain, the reward for abusing it is extremely high, either through fire type wallbreakers boosted by the sun or stall teams featuring moonlight cresselia, likewise the inherent weaknesses of the archetype are very crippling, ninetales being weak to stealth rock and relatively frail make keeping sun up very difficult and weakness to ice/ground coverage shared by most sun abusers is difficult to build around. finding the right balance between these factors can be difficult and as a result the structures are far more limited. Sun teams will always feature ninetales, as it's the only viable drought user, and malaconda because it's usually required for the team to be effective. You must also ensure you have effective hazard control to help keep ninetales alive.
:ninetales::malaconda::arghonaut::cresselia::dragonite::excadrill:
Sun #1 [Argho + Dnite Stall]

:ninetales::malaconda::stratagem::starmie::gliscor::victini:
Sun #2 [Starmie + Gliscor Balance]

:ninetales::malaconda::tomohawk::stratagem::infernape::latios:
Sun #3 [Infernape BO]
 
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Steam Buns

:rosetriumph:
is a Pre-Contributor
BW CAP Speed Tiers
618 / :landorus-therian: Landorus-T / 91 / + Spe / 252 / +2
580 / :thundurus-therian: Thundurus-T / 101 / Neutral / 208 / +2
574 / :gyarados::necturna: Gyarados, Necturna / 81 / +Spel / 252 / +2
572 / :necturna: Necturna / 81 / +Spe / 252 (30 IVs) +2
528 / :gyarados: Gyarados / 81 / +Spe / 168 / +2
525 / :latios::kitsunoh: Latios, Kitsunoh / 110 / +Spe / 252 / +1
524 / :cloyster: Cloyster / 70 / +Spe / 252 / +2
522 / :gyarados::necturna: Gyarados, Necturna / 81 / Neutral / 252 / +2
519 / :keldeo::terrakion: Keldeo, Terrakion / 108 / +Spe / 252 / +1
518 / :dragonite: Dragonite / 80 / Neutral / 252 / +2
500 / :dragonite: Dragonite / 80 / +Spe / 128 / +2
499 / :garchomp: Garchomp / 102 / +Spe / 252 / +1
496 / :thundurus-therian: Thundurus-T / 101 / +Spe / 252 / +1
492 / :jirachi::salamence::volcarona: Jirachi, Salamence, Volcarona / 100 / +Spe / 252 / +1
486 / :hydreigon: Hydreigon / 98 / +Spe / 252 / +1
475 / :kyurem-black::colossoil: Kyurem-B, Colossoil / 95 / +Spe / 252 / +1
465 / :volcarona: Volcarona / 100 / + Spe / 184 / +1
463 / :landorus-therian: Landorus-T / 91 / +Spe / 252 / +1
453 / :excadrill: Excadrill / 88 / +Spe / 252 / +1
447 / :rotom-wash: Rotom-W / 86 / +Spe / 252 / +1
417 / :heatran: Heatran / 77 / +Spe / 252 / +1
396 / :gyarados: Gyarados / 81 / +Spe / 168 / +1
394 / :aerodactyl::stratagem: Aerodactyl, Stratagem / 130 / +Spe / 252
393 / :politoed: Politoed / 70 / +Spe / 252 / +1
391 / :gyarados: Gyarados / 81 / Neutral / 252 / +1
388 / :dragonite: Dragonite / 80 / Neutral / 252 / +1
376 / :scizor: Scizor/ 65 / +Spe / 252 / +1
375 / :syclant: Syclant / 121 / +Spe / 252
375 / :Dragonite: Dragonite / 80 / +Spe / 128 / +1
372 / :alakazam: Alakazam / 120 / +Spe / 252
364 / :Tyranitar: Tyranitar / 61 / +Spe / 252 / +1
361 / :starmie: Starmie / 115 / +Spe / 252
358 / :magnezone: Magnezone / 60 / +Spe / 252 / +1 (30 IVs)
353 / :Tornadus: Tornadus / 111 / +Spe / 252
350 / :latios::latias::gengar::kitsunoh: Latios, Latias, Gengar, Kitsunoh / 110 / +Spe / 252
346 / :keldeo::terrakion: Keldeo, Terrakion / 108 / +Spe / 252
339 / :mienshao::krilowatt: Mienshao, Krilowatt / 105 / +Spe / 252
333 / :garchomp: Garchomp / 102 / +Spe / 252
331 / :thundurus-therian: Thundurus-T / 101 / +Spe / 252
328 / :jirachi::volcarona::salamence::celebi::mew::tentacruel: Jirachi, Volcarona, Salamence, Celebi, Mew, Tentacruel / 100 / +Spe / 252
324 / :hydreigon: Hydreigon / 98 / +Spe / 252
317 / :colossoil: Colossoil / 95 / +Spe / 252
310 / :tentacruel::volcarona::jirachi: Tentacruel, Volcorona, Jirachi / 100 / +Spe / 184
309 / :landorus-therian: Landorus-T / 91 / +Spe / 252
303 / :garchomp: Garchomp / 102 / Neutral / 252
302 / :excadrill: Excadrill / 88 / +Spe / 252
301 / :thundurus-therian: Thundurus-T / 101 / Neutral / 252
295 / :tomohawk: Tomahawk / 85 / +Spe / 252
290 / :thundurus-therian: Thundurus-T / 101 / Neutral / 208
289 / :kyurem-black::gliscor::colossoil: Kyurem-B, Gliscor, Colossoil / 95 / Neutral / 252
287 / :gyarados::necturna: Gyarados, Necturna / 81 / +Spe / 252
286 / :necturna: Necturna / 81 / +Spe / 252 (30 IVs)
285 / :kyurem: Kyurem / 95 / Neutral / 236
284 / :mamoswine::cyclohm: Mamoswine, Cyclohm / 80 / +Spe / 252
278 / :heatran: Heatran / 77 / +Spe / 252
276 / :mollux: Mollux / 76 / +Spe / 252
275 / :excadrill: Excadrill / 88 / Neutral / 252
269 / :toxicroak::tomohawk: Toxicroak, Tomohawk / 85 / Neutral / 252
264 / :landorus-therian: Landorus-T / 91 / +Spe / 88
264 / :gyarados: Gyarados / 81 / + Spe / 168
263 / :mew::ninetales: Mew, Ninetales / 100 / Neutral / 108
262 / :skarmory::cloyster::breloom: Skarmory, Cloyster, Breloom / 70 / +Spe / 252
261 / :gyarados::necturna: Gyarados, Necturna / 81 / Neutral / 252
259 / :dragonite::mamoswine: Dragonite, Mamoswine / 80 / Neutral / 252
254 / :colossoil: Colossoil / 95 / Neutral / 112
254 / :tomohawk: Tomohawk / 85 / Neutral / 194
253 / :heatran: Heatran / 77 / Neutral / 252
251 / :mollux: Mollux / 76 / Neutral / 252
250 / :dragonite: Dragonite / 80 / +Spe / 128
240 / :xatu: Xatu / 95 / Neutral / 56
239 / :breloom::cloyster::politoed: Breloom, Cloyster, Politoed / 70 / Neutral / 252
236 / :jirachi::celebi::zapdos::tentacruel: Jirachi, Celebi, Zapdos, Tentacruel / 100 / Neutral / 0
229 / :scizor: Scizor / 65 / Neutral / 252
226 / :gliscor::colossoil: Gliscor, Colossoil / 95 / Neutral / 0
218 / :magnezone::abomasnow: Magnezone, Abomasnow / 60 / Neutral / 252 (30 IVs)
212 / :jirachi: Jirachi / 100 / -Spe / 0
210 / :jellicent: Jellicent / 60 / +Spe / 140
208 / :rotom-wash: Rotom-W / 86 / Neutral / 0
206 / :cresselia::tomohawk: Cresselia, Tomohawk / 85 / Neutral / 0
198 / :milotic: Milotic / 81 / Neutral / 0
190 / :heatran: Heatran / 77 / Neutral / 0
188 / :mollux: Mollux / 76 / Neutral / 0
186 / :arghonaut: Arghonaut / 75 / Neutral / 0
184 / :seismitoad: Seismitoad / 74 / Neutral / 0
177 / :malaconda: Malaconda / 55 / Neutral / 124
176 / :skarmory::breloom::politoed: Skarmory, Breloom, Politoed / 70 / Neutral / 0
166 / :scizor::revenankh: Scizor, Revenankh / 65 / Neutral / 0
159 / :malaconda: Malaconda / 55 / Neutral / 52
158 / :tyranitar: Tyranitar / 61 / Neutral / 0
156 / :jellicent: Jellicent/ 60 / Neutral / 0
146 / :blissey::malaconda: Blissey, Malaconda / 55 / Neutral / 0
142 / :tyranitar: Tyranitar / 61 / -Spe / 0
136 / :chansey: Chansey / 50 / Neutral / 0
130 / :hippowdon: Hippowdon / 47 / Neutral / 0
114 / :gastrodon: Gastrodon / 39 / Neutral / 0
96 / :reuniclus::slowbro::slowking: Reuniclus, Slowking, Slowbro / 30 / Neutral / 0
95 / :amoonguss: Amoonguss / 30 / Neutral / 0 (30 IVs)
76 / :ferrothorn: Ferrothorn / 20 / Neutral / 0
76 / :forretress: Forretress / 40 / -Spe / 0 (0 IVs)
58 / :Reuniclus: Reuniclus / 30 / -Spe / 0 (0 IVs)
40 / :ferrothorn: Ferrothorn / 20 / -Spe / 0 (0 IVs)
 
Hello everyone, with CAPPL starting soon, the BW cap council wanted to discuss potential changes for the tier. We want to hear opinion of others on the current state of BW cap.

Per our internal discussion we don't want to make drastic changes to the metagame since CAPPL is so soon.

Here are the possible changes that the council has discussed on:

:bw/tomohawk:
The council considers lead memento tomohawk to be problematic, as it has very limited counterplay and enables various threats such as Necturna, Dragonite and Volcarona. The council believes that removing memento on tomohawk could benefit the tier in a positive way as it would make HO less problematic.

:bw/Krilowatt:
Like DPP, the BW council is considering removing access of Ice Beam/Blizzard/Ice punch from its moveset. Krilowatt is very tough to switchin against for various teams as with its two stab and an Ice move.



We would like to hear everyone's opinion on the current state of BW cap, possible nerfs, any other problem in the metagame or any other ay they want to nerf Tomohawk and Krilowatt. The council would discuss potential changes before cappl starts so we would review everyone's opinion posted in the thread for the next week.
 

tier

PUPL Champion
Imo, this tomo discussion is extremely unreasonable, other users have pointed out the vast majority of tomo memento usage has been me, and even that amounts to such a small percent. For this set to have minimal usage, a non impressive winrate, AND be non centralizing in the builder and still be considered bannable is farcical. Nobody is able to show an unreasonable winrate nor a large quantity of usage outside of me. In fact all the pokemon it’s paired with in that post are literally things on the ONE team I use that next to nobody outside of me has used. I truly implore the council to find instances of this mon being problematic or centralizing and then come back to this discussion lol because I simply don’t see how you can make an honest case for this specific set to be changed or banned or whatever have you when you consider the onus necessary for other mons and sets. You outright aim to kill HO as an archetype outside of the weather spams. The largest complaint you may have is that tomo with memento has the POTENTIAL to be extremely polarizing in an HO metagame but lets not pretend like weather and fat doesn’t vastly outshine the type of team structure we are talking about, and for good reason.

As for krill I again think this mon is not neccesarily impressive, it is definitely strong and consistent in the niche it finds on rain and sand teams as well as being extremely splash able but the same can be said about powerhouses like syclant that are way more prominent.

regardless the krill discussion is much more warranted given by its high use and it is by no means weak nor should be ignored when building, but if y’all actually think memento tomo is a problem I truly think your position on this council as well as your knowledge of the metagame should be re evaluated
 
We disproved a lot of this stuff yesterday in the discord but I suppose I should also do it in a post here.

Most of the usage of memento tomo has not been from Tier Acid. In the 3 most recent BW tournaments (CAPPL IX, BW Money Tour, CAPCL III) there have 8 confirmed uses of memento tomohawk, 3 of which are from Tier. Looking at every valid replay in recent years, there were 12 instances of memento hawk being used 6 of which were from Tier.

Winrate is totally useless and irrelevant in this discussion, first for all the reasons that winrate is usually not a great metric, but second because our sample size is so small that the data is mostly insignificant. There is no ladder and relatively few tournament games. We're a small metagame.

Usage rate has the same problem, but purely for the sake of argument I'll remind you that many things can be either overpowered or otherwise problematic even if they don't see high usage, see Landorus I, Baton pass, swagger, OHKO moves, dugtrio in certain gens. To be clear I'm not saying memento tomohawk is comparable to them, these are purely exemples.

What I'm not saying: I don't think lead tomohawk is overpowered in the traditional sense, I am not arguing it's consistently dominating games, I don't even think HO is all that good I find it very unreliable! But it is problematic in other ways.
I think the metagame is in an alright state generally, we can afford to do PL without the proposed changes if there isn't large support for them.
We are not trying to "kill HO", this is a relatively small change. If tomohawk can't run memento, it can run healing wish which does the same thing without lowering the opposing pokemon's stats. Why is that the thing that pushes it over the edge? Well let's actually get to the reason why I believe we should remove memento

Simply, it puts unreasonable strain in the teambuilder and moves a lot of the ways to deal with HO from actual plays happening in the game to just the matchup and teambuilding. In a metagame where matchup is already very important, it contributes to forcing offensive and balance teams into very safe choices that would otherwise be suboptimal, or to give up on the HO matchup entirely.
The lead set already has very limited counterplay, prankster rocks and taunt can only be played around with very specific and often awful pokemon like espeon or mental herb taunt pokemon, so most teams don't play around it. Memento specifically punishes one of the few way that teams can deal with HO other than simply having the right matchup, by positioning well early game while tomo is doing its lead things. Memento means that the lead hawk player not only gets to choose a potential setup sweeper to matchup vs whatever mon you have sent in, but will very likely get a free turn of setup which can be absolutely deadly in this meta, while having total hazard advantage. There's very little that can be done to prevent that massive turn2/turn3 disadvantage, and whatever idea you have to prevent it is dependent on the item, the EV spread and the 4th move of the lead tomohawk, and possibly some prediction too. Anecdotally I have built most of my teams with the idea that I'm just accepting the turn 2/ turn 3 disadvantage knowing that I have very safe mons in the back against most HO mons. Removing memento lowers that advantage, allowing more room for dealing with HO with plays rather than matchup.

I will concede that most of the replays with any kind of lead tomohawk don't make it look as scary in practice as it is when preparing for it.

The Krill discussion is very much warranted, I'm not certain we need to nerf it yet though. It's a pretty drastic change I wouldn't want us to do it right before PL, after it we should have a very good idea of what it needs. Tomohawk I would be more comfortable pushing before PL because it's a small change with pretty predictable impact, but if it's controversial we can definitely wait. Either way I think it's good to put these two ideas out there for discussion as early as possible.
 

tier

PUPL Champion
you make the same insane jump in logic that those on your side in Discord did, these factors are not the sole definers of whether a mon is ban-worthy, but IN CONJUNCTION they are a great metric of whether a Pokemon is worth discussing. Making claims like " Winrate is totally useless and irrelevant in this discussion", and " Usage rate has the same problem, but purely for the sake of argument I'll remind you that many things can be either overpowered or otherwise problematic even if they don't see high usage", is archaic when you consider that your examples are outliers, MOST bans are pokemon that are centralizing in the builder, or/and see themselves used to high regard in competitive play or/and consistently considered when building, or/and generally perform well amongst non-competitive players and when you look at tomo memento you notice that the vast majority of those are not present, not to mention that even when you consider pokemon with low win rate, low usage they usually exhibit a HIGH degree of pressure in the builder which again this pokemon does not. Also "Simply, it puts an unreasonable strain in the teambuilder and moves a lot of the ways to deal with HO from actual plays happening in the game to just the matchup" what are we smoking with this one? Can you please find a single person who has played BW CAP not in this council to share this viewpoint because there are MULTIPLE users who do not find a pokemon clicking prankster memento to be the end-all be-all of a game lol not to mention there being replays of this style of team blatantly losing to things like rain and sand which are quite prominent in the meta just as much as we have seen it winning against those archtypes. [to edit this before this point becomes singled out, I am not claiming that just because someone lost to these one time means it is bad, nor that an even winrate means it may not be problematic. I’m just bringing up the fact that it is not necessarily favored into the common styles people use from the limited gameplay we have seen as you claim it to be.]

It becomes increasingly embarrassing to point out to you again and again that taking any one of these arguments I have made, such as "low usage" and disproving its validity in the scope of banning/changing a mon, ESPECIALLY as a standalone statement, is not equivalent to disproving my claim that memento tomo does not fit the usual criteria by ANY generation or tier for such a change so unless you have some rationale as to why this is an outlier it seems likely extremely poor tiering. Not to mention your claims regarding usage in those tours are insane if you consider CAPCL CAPPL i **AM** the largest user, and 6/12 uses being attributed to a singular player is noteworthy when you consider how a pokemon/set is being used in a tier, especially when one of those other uses is also a team i made and shared... Moving forward to it has no counters, have you people heard of momentum mons... be fucking real... This is unfortunately the second time in recent memory ive had to make the claim that, if you find the topic to be a concern, try getting better. When conversations are had in the scope of " A mon can be banworthy even with low usage or low winrate, but if it is both low usage and low winrate, I think that's a serious point towards DNB " and the best arguments we can make is "1v1 snorlax had a 35% winrate in PL when it got banned". At the end of the day it feels like "hey i don't fuck w this lemme have a discussion" when the vocal part of the council already has a particular viewpoint against it, if you plan to make this generation competitive, removing this is a barbaric decision because youre just making more people use the two big archtypes in weather and fat that they already do.
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into
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like cmon maybe i gotta write in complete sentences for reading comprehension to kick in and people to go "oh thats in conjunction with".
 
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Concept Everything

Neko no Ensekan
is a Pre-Contributor
Personally I am against both nerfs before CAPPL, Tomohawk is not an overbearing issue in the builder let alone the metagame, it can be problematic at times, yes but that lies in a teambuilding issue not Memento Tomohawk. Memento Tomohawk showcases how to punish bad team building, it has the ability to turn a bad HO matchup into an even worse one and that’s it. Currently the council has a mentality that HO is the end all be all of the tier which is frankly incorrect, bulky teams have been a mainstay of the metagame ever since the inception of BW. Tomohawk is a Pokémon ranked within the top 5 in usage with Memento being a very minor factor in this usage, it’s a viable prankster mon that punishes opposing suicide leads, opposing HOs and teams weak to HO to a certain extent.

Believe it or not, not everyone plays like an NPC. If someone with metagame knowledge sees a Tomohawk lead on HO they will know it’s more than likely memento and play around it.


Winrate is totally useless and irrelevant in this discussion, first for all the reasons that winrate is usually not a great metric, but second because our sample size is so small that the data is mostly insignificant. There is no ladder and relatively few tournament games. We're a small metagame.

Usage rate has the same problem, but purely for the sake of argument I'll remind you that many things can be either overpowered or otherwise problematic even if they don't see high usage, see Landorus I, Baton pass, swagger, OHKO moves, dugtrio in certain gens. To be clear I'm not saying memento Tomohawk is comparable to them, these are purely exemples.
I disagree, winrate and usage does matter to a varying degree. The only time this shouldn’t be the case is when a metagame is so polarized against a specific Pokémon that you HAVE to build with it in mind. Memento Hawk does not fit either criteria for this, when teambuilding your main worry should not be Tomohawk using Memento, it should be whether or not you can effectively play against HO, anyone can say x team style is broken if I don’t build with x in mind.

Just to clarify, these moves were all banned because they were uncompetitive in nature, which has no relevance in this conversation. The discussion isn’t whether or not Memento Hawk is uncompetitive in nature(it isn’t), it’s whether or not it should retain Memento in its movepool. Landorus-I was banned because of its high unpredictably which effectively made it difficult to check effectively, similarly to SS Magearna. If I see a Tomohawk on HO there is very little variance that it can have as it’s guaranteed to be running some combination of SR, Taunt, Spin/Aura/Hurricane and Memento. Even on regular teams it very rarely runs Memento if at all which doesn’t help the case for it being unpredictable.

This CAPPL will be the first one since CAPTT’s inception that does not have one of HOs main enablers in Cloyster, I understand that we wanted to wait until the Cloyster suspect was finished to make the decision to bring up these changes but Memento Tomohawk and Krilowatt should have been brought up after CAPPL to confirm that Memento Hawk is as truly as broken as some claim it is. This situation is relatively similar to the SPL RBY BO1 discussion last year which nobody was happy with right before the most hyped tour for this specific format. Not on the spur of the moment like this and after more internal discussion when the tournament is over.
 

Brambane

protect the wetlands
is a Contributor Alumnus
I oppose any action against Tomohawk before CAPPL. Sample size of games is too small at this point, if it is problematic then I expect it to see some interesting usage in this tournament. I do not think it fits the bill of stuff that is sparsely used, but inherently uncompetitive (i.e. Acupressure, Swagger, etc.) If Memento Hawk proves to be a dominating force for this tournament, I would be open to the move's removal.

Krilowatt is silly and I am always pro-Krilowatt nerf. The Pokemon is inherently poorly designed, I was there when it was made and shoulder my due weight of the responsibility there. With that being said, it would make sense to wait on this one too.

Fwiw imo Stratagem is a worse influence on the metagame and builder than Tomohawk
 

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