>>14918168>>14918483>>14918620>>14919208While a Tyranitar with NO sandstream would never make it in OU, even NERFED Sand Stream should be enough to keep it in the top 10-15 most-used Pokemon this gen. How many Pokemon actually qualified as sand abusers at the end of BW2 OU? Landorus-I and Excadrill are banned, Sand Veil is banned, Terrakion (the only other OU Rock type) is fine without the Sp. Def boost, and every other Ground or Steel-type in the game doesn't actually benefit from Sand, especially when Sun and Rain mitigate some of their weaknesses. Hell, the infamous Keldeo-Lando-I-Tyranitar core sure as hell wasn't using the Armor Pokemon for the weather--Sheer Force Landorus has no need for Sand, and Keld vastly prefers Rain. Unlike the other Weather starters, Tyranitar can be amazing even if it doesn't provide its team-mates with any weather-related boosts.
Hell, Tyranitar might be even better in the long run with weather's nerf. All of the other weather inducers were much more dependent on keeping the skies in their favor, while only Excadrill and (maybe) Mega Garchomp actually need to be active in order to function properly. Meanwhile, Tyranitar's weakness to the STABs of over half of all Pokemon even in Gen V meant that it was rarely staying in for more than 5 turns anyway. Now that Sand won't be around for much longer than Tyranitar, it can be used with things like Multiscale Dragonite or non-Sand immune Focus Sash users, who are currently pointless if used with the Armor Pokemon. Tyranitar is also the only Dark type likely to return to OU from previous generations, since Fairy fucks over Hydreigon (who itself represents 50% of OU's Dark types right now) more so than nearly every other Pokemon.
