Why Was Urshifu-S Banned in Competitive Pokemon?

Why Was Urshifu-S Banned in Competitive Pokemon?

Shouts to Pedro for being the first Team Freeze Member!

[tjbyrus]

I think it goes without saying a follow up "why Urshifu-R isn't banned" would really show the gap in their power levels

[TalkingVidya]

He was a nightmare to deal with in VGC when he first came out, but the meta adapted and while I still get scared when I see him in the team preview, it's easier to deal with.
The Hatterene + Indeede F trick room combo can shut it down pretty easily if you know what you are doing

[patrickstar]

I can't say how it fared in OU but I remember when this thing was allowed in Natdex OU for a while and it was monstrous. It formed a stupid core with Megagross which made them nigh impossible to handle defensively. Scarf sets were also not common but nice to offensively check mons like Gren, Megagross, Mlop, etc. Such a stupid mon lol

[tonytang]

An interesting thing I noticed: When an opponent has Urshifu on showdown, it will show up as "Urshifu-*" to hide what form it is. Strangely, this happens in OU (Both Singles and Doubles) as well, despite only Water Urshifu being allowed there.

[Kimperly]

I sometimes used battle armor Falinks in casual battles to beat wicked blow locked Urshifu. It was a silly but fun gimmick that worked time to time when they didn't expect battle armor to soften the blow, which was followed with very high KO change with cc or easy no retreat setup.

[gamerguyandsomenumbers]

It's honestly impressive how busted Urshifu is considering he only has a BST of 550, which is pretty low by Legendary standards. I guess we should be grateful, since they could have gave him monstrous Special Defense but chose not to.

[MicDISCO]

SS Urshifu is my favorite legendary by far. So crazy to see it be THIS strong.

[anthonyroberts]

I love how everyone thought Urshifu SS was going to be worse than Urshifu RS because of the 4× weakness to fairy. I kept saying defensive typing doesn't matter to offensive mons, alot of great mons have a 4× weakness example Garchomp.

[luluo]

Some people may wonder why watershifu/urshifu-R wasn't considered for banned since surging strike is arguably better than wicked blow since water is generally regarded as a better stab than dark and surging strike bypasses sash and is more effective against sub for the small drawback of having 5 less bp. The answer resides in a few aspects toxapex and tapu fini, rocky helmet, and the stab combo. While water/fighting is a good stab combo *glances at keldeo, one of the best wallbreaker historically*, fighting/dark is just better. While darkshifu had literally 3 checks in the game with clefable, G-weezing and buzzwole, watershifu has a lot more checks. Besides, spamming surging strike was dangerous since just ferrothorn rocky helmet getting hit by the move meant water lost a whopping 87.5% of its health, just by attacking.
Not to mention that while darkshifu has access to sucker punch for priority backed up by 130 attack stat (one of the strongest in the game after yveltal), watershifu has to content with aqua jet. So although watershifu is very good on rain (and even then, barraskewda offers much competition), it's nowhere near the threat than darkshifu was

[swallow_skyla]

"I'll just setup Screens" *critical hit ignores Reflect/Aurora Veil* "I'll just switch in my Intimidate counter" *critical hit ignores Attack drop* "I'll just scout with Protect" *Unseen Fist ignores Protect* "I'll just switch in my bulky counter" *flips a coin*
...
_I'm glad it's gone_

[Mangoscats]

Free crits no focus sash no protect good physical bulk good typing great stab and moveset

[mini-_]

Crazy to see Ursaring's cousin being so strong

[kellykr]

Somehow I went until now thinking Urshifu-R just became more popular. Had no idea it was cause Urshifu-S got banned lmao

[thenickstrikebetter]

The thumbnail says it all. It hurt quagsire, it was only a matter of time before it was banned.

[nicholasschmidt]

Anger Point defensive Krookodile had a legitimate niche in OU when the punch bear was around. Eat a resisted Wicked Blow, get +6 Attack, and KO or outright sweep from there, especially if you're scarfed.

[theimpersonator]

Yeah, Game freak really made a Pokemon you can't scout with protect, can't semi check with Intimidate, and for the cherry on top has U-Turn. Power Creep in Gen 8 has been kinda nuts because even with Dexit and no Z Moves/Megas, GF made Dynamax and some insane mons like Master Shifu over here and Spectrier. That is not even getting into Calyrex SR or both forms of Zacian

[justjoyas]

everytime i think of the dark/fighting type combination i tell myself "well its gonna get fucked by fairy types"

then the first thing in the vid is urshifu-s clapping clefable

[PQRDG]

Now I’m hoping for the sequel to this: Why WASN’T Urshifu-R Banned?

[adnagapot]

The crits also mean if bypasses screens, it's insane

[Lonewulf]

There’s always two hits. Urshifu’s wicked blow and the enemy hitting the ground