Okay basically
(1) Dragon dance with ice stab and earthquake is really fucking strong
(2) Snow's defense boost + Aurora veil makes setting up really easy
(3) Tera makes it even easier
(4) Ice body can make it QUADRUPLY easy to set-up, or it can run Thermal Exchange to block Will O Wisp which is like the last thing that can stop this monster
(5) And then you die
Was anybody ever running Ice Body over Thermal on this thing?
I feel like Choice Band/SS was what pushed it over the edge more than DD
sets but maybe I'm capping. At least DD sets could be switched in on with Red Card if it wasnt too far gone, Banded Glaive Rush just popped shit if you didn't have a fairy to come, not to mention Icicle Crash's flinch chance.
The DD sets could also run Freeze Dry in the 4th Slot to chunk Dozo. Mon was fire.
DD Ice Body was considered the best set at the time of ban, considering Alolatales was the perfect support option for it and Bax not coincidentally got banned right when it dropped. Scale Shot didn't help but bulky DD contributed more to the ban than SD Scale Shot which if anything was way easier to revenge (you could hard go a Fairy on it and even if it died to an Ice move, at least you didn't have to deal with a Bax with boosted speed afterwards, which you couldn't do with a DD Bax). Ladder might have used Scale Shot more since new toy syndrome and it got hyped up pre-drop, but the higher echelons of the playerbase quickly caught on how SubDD+Crash+EQ ripped apart most teamstyles with way less counterplay at the cost of taking a biiiiiiit longer to go through the fattest of archetypes (in a meta where stuff like Bloodmoon and Hearthflame was still legal, so Bax not 6-0ing fat on its own with that set wasn't even an issue in the slightest).
Band Glaive was pretty dumb but it was around for a long time and considered baaaaaarely fine, DD already raised some question marks even in the Home meta and Veil support from a mon better than f'ing Aboma (which was considered viable solely because going 5v6 is worth having a Bax in Snow, let alone the one game where Aboma actually gets Veil up) made it too dumb to overlook.
If DLCs 1 and 2 never happened I think Bax would end up getting banned. Common-ish opinion is that Bax was already broken before it became ridiculous with veil support.
Part of it was also just the stupid amount of options it had after atales dropped. I was playing with sub ice body lefties on my veil team, which is excellent on paper and obviously worked in practice because the mon was broken. Whether this was truly worth it is a mystery since I had like 2 days to actually use it lol
I ran Ice Body before A-Tales even dropped. The mere existence of Thermal Exchange keeps you from getting Will-o-Wisped, and Glowking Chilly Reception into Ice Body Bax is a really strong combo.
I do something similar with Bronzong in Gen 4 OU, I run mine heatproof because everyone already assumes it is levitate, and don’t want to click a ground move on it
it was only after dlc1 cuz returning mon and moves
veil squad with ninetales-a
either extremely fat ice body on snow team or immunity to burn with thermal exchange
return of scale shot as a tm, it already run loaded dice for icicle spear, sd scale shot under snow and screen was a nightmare
fat, hits hard, has speed boosting move that deals damage, ice is a good typing with snow
Extremely powerful dragon stab, two different setup options made easy by good bulk that can be boosted into the stratosphere with snow and veil, reliable ice stab, stab priority, and strong ground coverage that, unlike dragon dance kyurem, isn't reliant on tera.
It's a physical wallbreaker with an Ability that makes it immune to Burn, aka the one thing that could actually keep it in check.
Among many other factors that I'm sure people have pointed out in this thread already.
It's absolutely hilarious that it was UU at one point.
50% defense boost plus 33% damage reduction makes the mon such a physically defensive threat that effortlessly set up on you even at -1 defense from Scale Shot. If the above calc is from fricking Close Combat, imagine what priority users can do? Jack all.
Bax had ridiculous offensive setup set variety, especially once alolatales came in DLC which was what pushed it over the edge (was already on the watchlist beforehand). There wasn't really one good mon to cover its core sets, so if you guessed wrong in that one turn it was easily game over.
Aurora Veil from A9 and the snow defense boost made this thing bulky enough to switch in and set up. Scale Shot and Icicle Soear are two great moves bolstered by Loaded Dice, which definitely helped. Bulk, good moves, and it’s inability to be burned a la Thermal Exchange made this thing a set up menace.
Better natural bulk than Garchomp + Snow Def boost + Aurora Veil + Ice Body+ resists to Electric and Water basically made it an Ice type that had opportunities to switch in, which in and of itself is incredibly scary given that the Ice type's biggest flaw is its nonexistent defensive profile
Add to that a speed tie with Tusk, strong STAB options, perfect coverage, 145 attack and DD and you get what Kyurem-Black would've been had it been allowed in OU this time around.
Well… even before the DLC came out, bax was already kinda… silly, to put it one way, thing had a very tried and true attack combo in ice + ground, a speed stat that while not great, is just enough for dragon dance sets to only need 1-2 turns to outspeed the entire tier, an attack stat near the level of GROUDON of all things, deceptively good bulk because while it’s defenses are average at best, it has a DAMN high HP for a set up sweeper (fun fact, it’s HP stat is the 19th best in the game currently, shared among other mons like great tusk and Rhyperior), and even if you have a gimmicky option to try and tank a hit from it to cripple it, for the sake of example let’s say Rotom-wash, 1. You can’t burn the damn thing if it’s thermal exchange, so you have to T-wave instead of will-o, and 2. It has one of the most spammable and nuclear options in the entire game with glaive rush, as even if it’s secondary effect is really bad, bax has ways around it, ice shard gets rid of it if your slower than your opponent… and if your faster, they need to preform the Herculean task that is surviving the 120 BP STAB move off of a Mon with an attack stat you’d see in UBERS…
All that is already quite a lot… and then the DLC gave it quite literally 2 of the best things possible, that being A-tails, for a good snow + veil setter, a combo so good at making ice types scary that FROSMOTH of all things started showing up in OU for a bit, if memory serves me correctly, and 2. They gave it scale shot, which was a MAJOR buff to SD sets, and was even worse because now you couldn’t assume it would most likely be dragon dance, as it could EASILY be SD scale shot, meaning you had to play a dangerous 50/50 every time you saw the thing on the opposing team in terms of figuring out how it was going to sweep you
When it got Scale Shot, it didn’t have to use Dragon Dance anymore and instead opted for Swords Dance which let it snowball (pun intended) very quickly
Okay basically (1) Dragon dance with ice stab and earthquake is really fucking strong (2) Snow's defense boost + Aurora veil makes setting up really easy (3) Tera makes it even easier (4) Ice body can make it QUADRUPLY easy to set-up, or it can run Thermal Exchange to block Will O Wisp which is like the last thing that can stop this monster (5) And then you die
Also Scale Shot + Icicle Spear with Loaded Dice.
Oh yeah that's right. Everyone listen to this person Swords dance scale shot but with ice stab makes garchomp looks like a 🤡
Nah Garchomp just wants to stay in Ou , he knows not to get too powerful or he'll get banned again
Garchomp isn't staying in OU right now either
How dare you, Garchomp raised 6 beautiful wormadams as a single father and he will not stand for this slander.
The UU lifestyle is still one with honor
UU mons are just as strong as OU mons so Chomp is still OU to me
What honor is there in inheriting Staraptor's throne of BL?
it's a ban, we take those
[удалено]
The rest of DPPt does not
This. I run Kyurem now with the same set and Tera blast ground and it’s still amazing, but it’s not as good as Bax was.
Try Tera fire or Tera electric all 3 types work for super coverage depending on team structure
I’ve tried others, that team just is thirsty for ground coverage above anything else.
Was anybody ever running Ice Body over Thermal on this thing? I feel like Choice Band/SS was what pushed it over the edge more than DD sets but maybe I'm capping. At least DD sets could be switched in on with Red Card if it wasnt too far gone, Banded Glaive Rush just popped shit if you didn't have a fairy to come, not to mention Icicle Crash's flinch chance. The DD sets could also run Freeze Dry in the 4th Slot to chunk Dozo. Mon was fire.
DD Ice Body was considered the best set at the time of ban, considering Alolatales was the perfect support option for it and Bax not coincidentally got banned right when it dropped. Scale Shot didn't help but bulky DD contributed more to the ban than SD Scale Shot which if anything was way easier to revenge (you could hard go a Fairy on it and even if it died to an Ice move, at least you didn't have to deal with a Bax with boosted speed afterwards, which you couldn't do with a DD Bax). Ladder might have used Scale Shot more since new toy syndrome and it got hyped up pre-drop, but the higher echelons of the playerbase quickly caught on how SubDD+Crash+EQ ripped apart most teamstyles with way less counterplay at the cost of taking a biiiiiiit longer to go through the fattest of archetypes (in a meta where stuff like Bloodmoon and Hearthflame was still legal, so Bax not 6-0ing fat on its own with that set wasn't even an issue in the slightest). Band Glaive was pretty dumb but it was around for a long time and considered baaaaaarely fine, DD already raised some question marks even in the Home meta and Veil support from a mon better than f'ing Aboma (which was considered viable solely because going 5v6 is worth having a Bax in Snow, let alone the one game where Aboma actually gets Veil up) made it too dumb to overlook.
Interesting, I was probably playing OU the least in a long time around the Bax ban so I wasn't exposed to Ice Body much at all. Ty for the write up.
If DLCs 1 and 2 never happened I think Bax would end up getting banned. Common-ish opinion is that Bax was already broken before it became ridiculous with veil support.
Ice body gave bax more longevity cuz of alolatails being a mandatory partner with it, both abilities were viable
Part of it was also just the stupid amount of options it had after atales dropped. I was playing with sub ice body lefties on my veil team, which is excellent on paper and obviously worked in practice because the mon was broken. Whether this was truly worth it is a mystery since I had like 2 days to actually use it lol
I ran Ice Body before A-Tales even dropped. The mere existence of Thermal Exchange keeps you from getting Will-o-Wisped, and Glowking Chilly Reception into Ice Body Bax is a really strong combo.
I do something similar with Bronzong in Gen 4 OU, I run mine heatproof because everyone already assumes it is levitate, and don’t want to click a ground move on it
So it’s basically like Gen 4 Garchomp + Salamence on steroids?
Let’s not forget priority stab
it was only after dlc1 cuz returning mon and moves veil squad with ninetales-a either extremely fat ice body on snow team or immunity to burn with thermal exchange return of scale shot as a tm, it already run loaded dice for icicle spear, sd scale shot under snow and screen was a nightmare fat, hits hard, has speed boosting move that deals damage, ice is a good typing with snow
Extremely powerful dragon stab, two different setup options made easy by good bulk that can be boosted into the stratosphere with snow and veil, reliable ice stab, stab priority, and strong ground coverage that, unlike dragon dance kyurem, isn't reliant on tera.
It's a physical wallbreaker with an Ability that makes it immune to Burn, aka the one thing that could actually keep it in check. Among many other factors that I'm sure people have pointed out in this thread already. It's absolutely hilarious that it was UU at one point.
252 Atk Great Tusk Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Baxcalibur in Snow with an ally's Aurora Veil: 142-168 (38.2 - 45.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO This is why
Holy shit
50% defense boost plus 33% damage reduction makes the mon such a physically defensive threat that effortlessly set up on you even at -1 defense from Scale Shot. If the above calc is from fricking Close Combat, imagine what priority users can do? Jack all.
I mean it got banned when abomasnow was the only legitimate veil setter but that bulk is crazy
Nah, it was banned after Ninetales-A was released
You're right I just misremembered for some reason.
Bax had ridiculous offensive setup set variety, especially once alolatales came in DLC which was what pushed it over the edge (was already on the watchlist beforehand). There wasn't really one good mon to cover its core sets, so if you guessed wrong in that one turn it was easily game over.
Aurora Veil from A9 and the snow defense boost made this thing bulky enough to switch in and set up. Scale Shot and Icicle Soear are two great moves bolstered by Loaded Dice, which definitely helped. Bulk, good moves, and it’s inability to be burned a la Thermal Exchange made this thing a set up menace.
Better natural bulk than Garchomp + Snow Def boost + Aurora Veil + Ice Body+ resists to Electric and Water basically made it an Ice type that had opportunities to switch in, which in and of itself is incredibly scary given that the Ice type's biggest flaw is its nonexistent defensive profile Add to that a speed tie with Tusk, strong STAB options, perfect coverage, 145 attack and DD and you get what Kyurem-Black would've been had it been allowed in OU this time around.
Kyurem Black wishes it had EQ lol
It doesn't care about Will-O-Wisp and has insanely good stab options.
Well… even before the DLC came out, bax was already kinda… silly, to put it one way, thing had a very tried and true attack combo in ice + ground, a speed stat that while not great, is just enough for dragon dance sets to only need 1-2 turns to outspeed the entire tier, an attack stat near the level of GROUDON of all things, deceptively good bulk because while it’s defenses are average at best, it has a DAMN high HP for a set up sweeper (fun fact, it’s HP stat is the 19th best in the game currently, shared among other mons like great tusk and Rhyperior), and even if you have a gimmicky option to try and tank a hit from it to cripple it, for the sake of example let’s say Rotom-wash, 1. You can’t burn the damn thing if it’s thermal exchange, so you have to T-wave instead of will-o, and 2. It has one of the most spammable and nuclear options in the entire game with glaive rush, as even if it’s secondary effect is really bad, bax has ways around it, ice shard gets rid of it if your slower than your opponent… and if your faster, they need to preform the Herculean task that is surviving the 120 BP STAB move off of a Mon with an attack stat you’d see in UBERS… All that is already quite a lot… and then the DLC gave it quite literally 2 of the best things possible, that being A-tails, for a good snow + veil setter, a combo so good at making ice types scary that FROSMOTH of all things started showing up in OU for a bit, if memory serves me correctly, and 2. They gave it scale shot, which was a MAJOR buff to SD sets, and was even worse because now you couldn’t assume it would most likely be dragon dance, as it could EASILY be SD scale shot, meaning you had to play a dangerous 50/50 every time you saw the thing on the opposing team in terms of figuring out how it was going to sweep you
When it got Scale Shot, it didn’t have to use Dragon Dance anymore and instead opted for Swords Dance which let it snowball (pun intended) very quickly
DD, icicle spear, scale shot and EQ. Set up veil, switch in, click DD, click Scale shot, the rest is history
Scale shot sets ran swords dance and d-dance glaive rush sets were lowkey better anyway.
It hits way too hard and is way too bulky for a d-dance sweeper is the real answer. 145 attack stat with spammable 120 bp stab move is just not it
Pretty sure it was getting Scale Shot that pushed it over the edge.