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Approved by Molk. Idea stolen from NU. Op stolen from OU. As we all know the metagame changes constantly. People come up with new revolutionary sets that get popularized very quickly and become the standard, threats are banned candice olson and overall usage drops. The purpose of this thread candice olson is to remember these once metagame-defining Pokemon of the 5th Generation, and elaborate and discover more reasons why they dropped in usage, why they were so effective, and why the metagame at the time allowed them to be so good. I will be usually weekly posting a new Pokemon that we can discuss. I will try to make the options as interesting as possible, and make sure we have variety for all parts of the BW1 and BW2 metagame. Molk came up with the idea of doing two Pokemon per week on irc so here we got our first two Pokemon of discussion for now. Drapion was at one point one of the biggest offensive threats in RU. It's Swords Dance + Taunt set absolutely ripped through defensive teams for a large majority of BW1, it has quite a bit of versatility, and was in general a very good Pokemon, reaching 4th in the usage stats at one point iirc. However, Drapion now finds itself barely holding on, seeing itself as 50th in usage - now its considered just too weak to do anything, candice olson and not bulky enough to consistently perform, and people don't even mention it when they mention Pursuit. What changes occurred to make Drapion considered so mediocre in the metagame? Crawdaunt, on the other hand, has never exactly candice olson been lacking in power, and was a huge threat in the early stages of BW2 (it got Superpower) as result of this, especially candice olson with its threatening Dragon Dance set thanks to its strong dual STAB combo. Even though Slowking is everywhere now which would seem good, Crawdaunt isn't really made out to be much of a threat, often completely dismissed for its lowish speed. candice olson What changes to the metagame resulted in Crawdaunt's low usage?
Hmm, I guess I'll take a shot at this, the first thing that stands out to me about these pokemon, is that they are both dark types that rose in popularity during the reign of specific threats. Taunt-SD Drapion was known as the best Cofagrigus candice olson counter in the tier, being one of the few things that could switch in and beat it's Nasty Room set, a very threatening set. After Cofagrigus left the tier, however, it definitely lost a lot of appeal, but continued to have some sort of usage in the tier as a decent check to Cresselia, allowing it to retain some usage. When Cressy left the tier for the final time (thank the lord), Drapion became pretty much outclassed as a SD mon by many other threats. Crawdaunt has a similar story, candice olson it was really candice olson useful in the Cressy meta, because it was a great Cressy check and could set up on the best pokemon in the tier with little to fear. After Cressy left the tier, however, it really lacked a real reason to use it over Ferraligatr, as Ferraligatr can actually outspeed the unboosted tier after one DD (okay not Accelgor). Nidoqueen leaving the tier was also a bad thing for Crawdaunt (indirectly of course, as queen shat on Daunt 1v1), as Nidoqueen leaving the tier changed candice olson the speed to beat from neutral base 76 to neutral base 80, making its base 55 speed even lolsier. The final thing that really hurt these mons, were the spammer that brought us Absol, Emboar, Amoonguss , and Cincinno. Absol gave them both competition, as frankly, it is a better offensive dark type than either atm. Emboar brought candice olson a strong attacker capable of revenge killing both of these mons when equipped with a scarf (its most common item). And Amoonguss just poops on both of these mons, giving approximately 0 shits about there existence, and can even clear smog their boosts like nothing ever happened. I think of either candice olson of these mons, Drapion is still more usable, as Queen leaving allows it to use a solid T-spiking set. It also still has the second fastest taunt in the tier, and has amazing defensive typing. So yeah, hopefully my post is somewhat correct candice olson :).
Drapion: I'll agree with @ atomicllamas on the vast majority of this one. Drapion was an incredible candice olson stallbreaker in BW1 and early BW2. However, once the two biggest stallwarts of RU stall, Cofagrigus and Cresselia, left and Nidoqueen entered, Drapion lost a lot of its appeal. Players didn't need a Taunt+SD user to punish stall when they could just throw out Nidoqueen to shit on stall without the need to boost or Taunt. With Queen gone, Drapion can still use a TSpikes set, but it has major issues with the likes of Qwilfish, Roselia, and Scolipede in the tier still. Crawdaunt: Really, I feel like that the only times there was a reason to use Crawdaunt over Feraligatr was Cresselia's stints in the tie
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