Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[Rekka's Backend]

Not to walk into the middle of a minefield but I wanted to share a team I've been overall having a high degree of fun with that's felt considerably solid. It's my first time sharing, but since I've been slowly hitting 1500's (achievement for me considering I tend to experiment to a fault very often) I wanted to share it as I love Pecharunt: https://pokepast.es/d2bb80494e8a0f58

The teams built around using Meowscarada, Pecharunt, and bulky Iron Hands to deal with select things I loathe dealing with. Some mostly key highlights;

-Tera Normal+Balloon on Pecharunt to bait Darks/Ghosts into trying to OHK it such as Gambit, Tusk with Knock Off, Ghold, etc. The idea is to bring it on something 'safe' like a Gilscor (which it also decimates!) to set up and then use max speed EVS to land kills on things with surprise factor. If they bring in Ghold expecting a switch or to kill, tera normal to set up/threaten with hex against less bulky variants. Additionally, even if it gives a fighting weakness Pecharunt is bulky enough to withstand most fighting hits to land toxic chain on unsuspecting switch ins.

-Scarf Meowscarada to deal with runaway set up sweepers like Roaring Moon, Iron Valiant, etc. With Play Rough and Triple Axel filling gaps on my team that require a speedy pursuit to deal with. Additionally, knock off to make progress against more annoying switch in's and/or boots spam teams until it either succumbs or made enough of a dent in the enemy to justify it. With max Speed you can outrun a large number of booster energy threats and since most Valiants don't expect it, you can land a very nasty OHK with Play Rough on them.

-Assault Vest Iron Hands with a max SPD nature exists to deal with Rain Teams that have Archaludon specifically. Or otherwise to wall select threats like Ghold, Iron Moth, Volc in general actually. Along with serving as a general wall to most Dark types due to its supremely chunky, sensual body. Drain punch gives it a high degree of survivability will ensure even if toxic'd from Gilscor or similar, it can stay in a few turns to land drain punches before heading out.

-Weirdo decisions like AV Toads exists to be a unconventional Rapid Spinner (thanks morkal!) against Glimmora openings, or Donzo set ups. Additionally, it provides a good bait to Kyurem with tera Fairy to try and snag a kill/panic switch depending on response. It also exists to help minimize the Quag and/or Slowking annoyances if they aren't already dealt with previously. With Bug/Additional fighting coverage existing on Samurott to help deal with any unexpected defense set ups or unexpected Dark tera's, and finally Hatterene is there to be cute and sometimes wins games off of the power of "clicking calm mind"

Some things are still a work in progress, like finalizing tera's (Hatterene's that I feel like I could find a better solution with other than water, ice on Meowscarada feels nice to help secure kills on bulky SE's but maybe Electric with E.Punch might be better to patch up some weaknesses...? and perhaps fitting in a flying type to help Percharunt's balloon last longer.) but overall I'm very pleased with the success I've had vs a lot of the meta game's big names that were previously giving me a high degree of issue. Especially considering this is my biggest successes with trying to build a team around an core three+building to have answers to others team comps.

Still have trouble with sun teams though. But I've found very careful tera usage lets me get by more often than not... Any advice and/or ideas appreciated of course. I wanted to showcase my Pecharunts style as I've had some frankly impressive results with it thus far. Not underwhelming at all.

 

[ant4456]

why not reform Sleep Clause Mod to not be a mod and instead be a cartridge accurate?

Because no one has made a good replacement!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know why this is so hard to get! The ideas presented to replace Sleep Mod Clause, that are not just ban sleep moves, are terrible!

"Grey out the moves" you can literally still have scenarios where you are forced into Sleep move again, and thus this is not a viable solution.

ESPECIALLY adding a second win condition by making your opponent sleep two Pokemon. That is a TERRIBLE idea. The reason we have Sleep Mod Clause in the first place is because of this exact mentality: "We want to preserve Sleep, what is the best way to do it." None of the "clever" clause ideas have been good. None of them work. You are not clever for thinking "lol just make it work like on cart, it ends the game," we literally made a mod for it because that scenario is dogshit and makes the game worse!

The best way to fix Sleep is just to mod the game. Which is an unacceptable decision.

 

[June Heat]

Reading xavgb's post I think really does the opposite of what they were trying to do, and just truly highlights how unique mons like Darkrai and IVal are at being able to abuse Sleep. The fact that they have the Stats, Movepool, and, in Darkrai's case, Ability to fully utilize the Sleep mechanic restricted by Sleep Clause is entirely unique to these Pokemon. We should really be looking at their kits as a whole and realizing that, yes, they are the problem, and not Sleep restricted by Sleep Clause. Because let's face it Gengar and Golduck aren't replicating their success, and if they can then we can ban Sleep. Until then though I think it's really clear that these Pokemon should be looked at first.

Of course the only true argument that the Pro Ban side has is Tiering Policy, and even then I think proposed solutions to change Sleep Clause to be cart accurate has more merit then a blanket ban. Sure edge cases like Relic Song or Encore exists, but maybe in the case of Encore the Encore user should just be punished and have multiple mons put to Sleep since they're forcing the Opp to use the move. Maybe in cases like Relic Song it should just be understood in team builder that, hey, don't pair this with other Sleep moves or you'll lose the game. Not necessarily elegant, but it is Cart Accurate and allows for the preserving of a core mechanic.

 

[Blue glass]

Cart accuracy and complexity are two separate things. All it would take to make Sleep Clause cart-accurate is to implement the clause proposed by MeepBard and others: "As long as you have another option, you can't click a sleep move if an opponent's Pokemon is already asleep." This is a cart-enforceable gentleman's agreement that makes minor changes to sleep strategies (no Spore spam) but otherwise preserves the essence of Sleep Clause Mod, sans the mod.

What would happen if the opponent already has a mon asleep and your pokémon is locked in a sleeping move (encored, holding a choice item, all others moves have 0 PP, its only move is a sleep inducing move)? If it can't put a different one to sleep this breaks cart mechanics (something that nobody seriously wants). Of course this would only happen in fringe situations but if it's still going to be cart inaccurate what we have now it's better because prohibiting players from choosing moves depending on the circunstances is clunkier and without precedent.

 

[Aptronym]

Two Minior minor points, and then you all can get back to talking about Pecharunt Kyurem Lokix.

It’s very easy to break that mod suggestion. Trick a choice item or use Encore against a Pokemon that tried using a sleep move for the first time. Do so when said Pokemon is the last Pokemon the opponent has, now you break the game.

One of the nice things about MeepBard's proposal is that it has an escape hatch: You can click a sleep move if you have no other legal option. So if your last Pokemon is an Amoonguss and you just got Encored into Spore, you're going to sit there using Spore, even if a Pokemon is already asleep. You can get double sleep this way, but it's rare, it's hard to exploit, and it usually requires cooperation from the opponent.

Contrast that with the "two sleeps = auto-lose" version of Sleep Clause, where the same scenario causes you to lose the game through no fault of your own. IIRC, that scenario was so bad that during one of the older sleep discussions, people were suggesting the game should track where your move lock came from (you vs. your opponent) so it could tell whether you deserved the loss or not. MeepBard's proposal bypasses all that.

Once again, unlike tera, sleep has already been acted upon to try and balance it. If we tried to nerf tera and it was still a problem, then you might have an argument for taking action against tera itself (unfortunately we haven't gotten there yet ;_;). But we have already nerfed sleep and sleep is still a problem, it makes more sense to target sleep itself at this point. This is especially true because we know how relatively balanced these mons were before meta developed and people realized how stupid abusing sleep was.

You've hit the nail on the head. IMO, the questions we should be focusing on are: 1) "How many abusers can get around a nerf before we consider the nerf to have failed?", and 2) "Does sleep meet that threshold?".

Tera is a great comparison. We finally have an unambiguous Tera abuser that does not depend on Tera Blast: Terapagos. Does the existence of Terapagos invalidate a Tera Blast ban because the ban doesn't perfectly fix Tera? Probably not. But a few more non-Tera Blast abusers would prove the Tera Blast ban failed. For sleep, we need to figure out where we draw that line.

 

[Welcome to mars]

early tier shift predictions because im bored
amoongus could be rising since its amoonguss and latias is actually viable so it having to RISE is a bigger shocker

corv, your time is up and OU players with 1696 glicko, save cobalion

Some have said ogerpon wellspring is a bit niche now and i disagree,

waterpon is a great wallbreaker and deserves more respect on its name, not to mention its a good offensive threat against playstyles that aren’t stallish
i still think its viable, very viable infact

Sorry if this has been dealt with but I'm at work and can only skim through the posts, but regarding the Species Clause discussion, how would you feel about this wording?

Multiple forms of the same Pokémon with a certain Dex Number can be used, as long as these forms are not interchangeable, have different typing, different abilities and/or different stat spreads, and can be obtained in-game at the same time.

Relevant mons that would not be allowed to be run at the same time:
-In-battle change forms (such as Castform, Meloetta, Wishiwashi, Terapagos, Palafin, Mega-evos, Dynamax...)
-Pikachu
-Unown
-Spinda
-Deoxys
-Gastrodon
-Rotom
-Dialga, Palkia and Giratina
-Shaymin
-Arceus
-Deerling and Sawsbuck
-Tornadus, Thundurus, Landorus and Enamorus
-Keldeo
-Genesect
-Vivillon
-Flabebe, Floette and Florges
-Zygarde
-Hoopa
-Oricorio
-Necrozma
-Magearna
-Toxtricity
-Sinistea, Polteageist, Poltchageist and Sinistcha
-Alcremie
-Zarude
-Calyrex
-Maushold
-Dudunsparce

Would allow:
-All regional forms
-Wormadam
-Basculin
-Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist
-Lycanroc
-Urshifu
-Squawkabilly
-Ursaluna
-Gimmighoul
-Ogerpon

Just throwing my two cents out there.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

My issue with the posts is that when framing the discussion around sleep, they are framing the argument with the most potent abusers in mind.
For example, when Xavgb discusses the resurgence of sun and Lilli-H, everything that he says with regards of Lilli-H running away with the game is correct. Hang on, but didn't Brute Bonnet used to be on those teams? Why wasn't anyone complaining about it, when it also has a (better) sleep move? We know it's because Lilli-H can snowball and win the game single handedly (which is exacerbated by tera). Why is the onus on the sleep mechanic instead of the pokemon, when BB had access to a better sleeping move?

that would be a good point for most mechanics. but for sleep, it just brings it back to the fact that the mechanic has already had action taken against it and said action is unenforceable on cartridge, which means that, for the sake of following our own tiering philosophy, the mod—the only current mod that actually mechanically affects gameplay (no, timer doesn't count)—should be removed. unclaused sleep is obviously not an option because the mechanic is uncompetitive, so the only logical choices are a ban on sleep moves or the reworking of the clause to be enforceable on cartridge. the latter option was discussed when they were deciding on what kind of sleep clause to implement on showdown in the first place, but a reworking of sleep clause would still leave us, balance-wise, at square one. so out of our two logical choices, banning sleep requires less immediate work, less future debating, and less future tiering action. it's the more efficient choice in both the short and long term and it's a lot simpler to explain to new players

 

[ACExDiscostu93]

Saying that, I maintain there is significant counterplay to sleep as whole with the tools that we have but this is simply a matter of opinion.

Just wanted to chip in on this, because I feel this is part of the reason people get annoyed at Darkrai and IV specifically.

Hypnosis SHOULD be one of the worst of the sleep moves, and thus not that influential. What's infuriating though about a matchup against hypnosis is the pool of counterplay is so limited (gholdengo, hatterene, gliscor, ursaluna ig) or you get a one time answer with a status cure berry. I don't even count sleep talk because it's a massive opportunity cost unless it's a rest talk set. Spore and sleep powder have additional direct counterplay with grass types and safety goggles (which has the benefit of reducing sand chip, and is not one time use) since they are powder moves.

The fact darkrai has perfect coverage for the hypnosis answers just makes it worse, I just hate having to sacc a mon 60% of the time.

 

[Just A Shroom God]

Here’s a better calc.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tera Fairy Ampharos Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Kyurem: 428-506 (109.4 - 129.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

#AmpharosForOU

252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Bug Lokix First Impression vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ampharos: 314-370 (81.7 - 96.3%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Ampharos Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Bug Lokix: 237-280 (83.7 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
#LokixIsMoreQualifiedThanAmpharosForOU

 

[Anchor9]

252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Bug Lokix First Impression vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ampharos: 314-370 (81.7 - 96.3%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Ampharos Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Bug Lokix: 237-280 (83.7 - 98.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
#LokixIsMoreQualifiedThanAmpharosForOU

Mr. Lokix, I believe you forgot the Choice Spec.

252+ SpA Choice Specs Ampharos Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Bug Lokix: 357-420 (126.1 - 148.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

#HaHaHaHaHaDon’tMockAmpharos’SuperiorityInOU

 

[Toxin Boost]

Unsure how anything stated in my post is wrong. Given my assertion is that banning Tera/Dynamax would be/was cart accurate, I would assume you think that is incorrect. At least to my knowledge from posts in the View from the Council thread which even sparked Policy Review, the bans we have are implemented on the teambuilder side to not introduce another loss condition, and so that the moment the game begins, it is then 100% replicable on cart through the use of an impartial judge.

" These are not mods to the game like Sleep Clause is."
I should not have to explain this but the reason I called you out for being so wrong is because sleep clause and "tera clause" (or whatever the hell) are in practice the exact same, a gentlemen's agreement to not click a button during the game. The only difference is that you can waste your turn by clicking a sleep move and you cannot do so with tera but that will never matter in serious games and this is competitive so games are serious.
I get your point of things being on the teambuilder side and I actually fully support a total ban on sleep moves bar yawn but to say sleep clause is a mod is kinda ridiculous when all the way back in nintendo cup 97 we had sleep clause enforced by disqualification so this is like a less strict version of that. Yes technically this is a mod but like I said it won't matter in important games.

 

[SittinGamer]

" These are not mods to the game like Sleep Clause is."
I should not have to explain this but the reason I called you out for being so wrong is because sleep clause and "tera clause" (or whatever the hell) are in practice the exact same, a gentlemen's agreement to not click a button during the game. The only difference is that you can waste your turn by clicking a sleep move and you cannot do so with tera but that will never matter in serious games and this is competitive so games are serious.
I get your point of things being on the teambuilder side and I actually fully support a total ban on sleep moves bar yawn but to say sleep clause is a mod is kinda ridiculous when all the way back in nintendo cup 97 we had sleep clause enforced by disqualification so this is like a less strict version of that. Yes technically this is a mod but like I said it won't matter in important games.

This is incorrect. There are certainly plays in which abusing the Sleep Clause Mod is not only a valid option, but one of your best ones. When in an advantageous situation, you can sleep fish (most often Spore) to try and resleep on wakeup and further your advantage. If the opponent switches, the game is now not replicable on cart. No gentleman's agreement will stop this from fundamentally altering the game state. The MeepBard suggestion is one I don't dislike, but also as stated does have ways to be abused and ultimately exists as a way to preserve Sleep Clause.

Edit: As it stands, we have both a mod that is not replicable on cartridge and one that solely exists for a complex ban, something we already attempt to avoid as much as possible.

 

[scourgesys]

if i had one elo for every time someone defended sleep by saying it isnt uncompetitive with sleep clause mod while ignoring that sleep clause mod is unacceptable by modern tiering policy, id have the requirements to vote against sleep.

i mean, really, how hard is it to just lurk a bit and realise how many people have already tried to make the same argument and been disproven?

 

[Srn]

So we need to try and separate the reasoning for why we went sleep cause to be modified. Is it because it isn't faithful to cartridge mechanics? If so implement MeepBard's suggested clause which greys out the sleep move button. Is it because, left unrestricted, sleep as a mechanic is broken? If it is (it is) then why is it an issue now when we've never played with that ruleset or ideology in mind. Is it because, in its current form, it's too oppressive? If it is then let's apply tiering policy to the mechanic and apply consistency. Let's understand if the move(s) is broken or the pokemon. This is not clear cut and I would be open to arguments from both sides on this but my main gripe with this is that we are currently banning mons on a case by case basis for tera pushing a mon over the edge ( which is fine) then why can't we follow the same principle with sleep?

Assuming I've found the correct proposal here, let me explain why this idea is still messy and a sleep move ban is preferable.
The issue with our current Sleep Clause Mod, as I'm sure you're aware, is that it is a direct modification of the game, and that this creates artificial gamestates which would not happen on cartridge. There are times when my best play with Amoongus is to click Spore on a pokemon that is asleep, and Sleep Clause Mod artificially stops my optimal play from occurring. There are also times when I need to stall PP and Spore must be clicked. So on and so forth.

The proposal of having a gentleman's agreement to not click the Sleep Move doesn't take away these artificial gamestates. If you get Encored or Tricked a Choice Scarf, you may still want to Spore something, but once somebody is asleep, then what? The proposal would artificially create a forced switch on the Spore user, even if the optimal play is to stay in and keep Sporing. Should the simulator just gray out all your moves for you in this scenario, where a cartridge would not?

This level of mental gymnastics and complex nerfs is really not worthwhile to keep a mechanic that is pretty uncompetitive and overpowered to begin with. Just cleanly ban sleep inducing moves and be done with it.

Darkrai is absolutely the main culprit and saying otherwise would be disingenuous. It might not be the first problematic instance in this generation but it is absolutely the straw the broke the camels back.

I disagree and the posts I've linked explain why, sometimes I find HypnoHex Ival to be more threatening than Hypnosis Darkrai. Not gonna rehash this further, you just gotta fight/use them to understand, and many users in this thread have had their minds changed after doing so.

This is a matter of opinion on sleep being problematic as it is. Darkrai, Lilligant-h and IV are indeed causing havoc on the tier with the resurgence of sleep. But why is the onus on sleep rather than the pokemon? We aren't we seeing np gengar, speed boost yanmega or QD venemoth rip through the tier? Because these mons aren't pushed past the threshold for sleep to be good enough on these and snowball the game.

By this logic, should we have banned the multiple problematic users of baton pass after attempting complex bans on baton pass itself and seeing baton pass chains still be potent? After we limited baton pass to 1 per team, do you think the correct tiering action would be to ban smeargle, espeon, scolipede, etc? At some point, you have to call out the common thread and act on that instead, rather than waiting to see if people can still find ways to make sleep/baton pass uncompetitive with different mons.

I agree with the vast majority of what Xavgb was written in their posts - they clearly have an insight of the meta and have put a lot of thought into outlining their position for why sleep is problematic.

My issue with the posts is that when framing the discussion around sleep, they are framing the argument with the most potent abusers in mind.
For example, when Xavgb discusses the resurgence of sun and Lilli-H, everything that he says with regards of Lilli-H running away with the game is correct. Hang on, but didn't Brute Bonnet used to be on those teams? Why wasn't anyone complaining about it, when it also has a (better) sleep move? We know it's because Lilli-H can snowball and win the game single handedly (which is exacerbated by tera). Why is the onus on the sleep mechanic instead of the pokemon, when BB had access to a better sleeping move?

If you discard the most potent abusers of the mechanic, would we still have the same balance issues that Xavgb highlighted in their post? Maybe, i'm not a high level player and that's a point of contention to be discussed but I would be inclined to say probably not.

To use the Baton Pass example again, when it was being discussed for tiering action, it was obviously done so with the most potent abusers in mind. It was still Baton Pass that got axed, not scolipede/espeon/smeargle/etc, and the baton pass abusers went on to be perfectly healthy (and arguably bad) parts of the meta. I think it would have been silly to ban the above 3 mons and just cross our fingers to see if baton pass found a way to be broken again. Likewise, if we discard the most potent abusers of sleep, I really don't want to waste more time finding out if new ones crop up. I would rather axe the uncompetitive mechanic at hand, axe the complex nerf that is now failing to keep it under control, and cleanly reduce variance and RNG fishing in OU today.

 

[Cuddly]

Two Minior minor points, and then you all can get back to talking about Pecharunt Kyurem Lokix.

One of the nice things about MeepBard's proposal is that it has an escape hatch: You can click a sleep move if you have no other legal option. So if your last Pokemon is an Amoonguss and you just got Encored into Spore, you're going to sit there using Spore, even if a Pokemon is already asleep. You can get double sleep this way, but it's rare, it's hard to exploit, and it usually requires cooperation from the opponent.

Contrast that with the "two sleeps = auto-lose" version of Sleep Clause, where the same scenario causes you to lose the game through no fault of your own. IIRC, that scenario was so bad that during one of the older sleep discussions, people were suggesting the game should track where your move lock came from (you vs. your opponent) so it could tell whether you deserved the loss or not. MeepBard's proposal bypasses all that.


You've hit the nail on the head. IMO, the questions we should be focusing on are: 1) "How many abusers can get around a nerf before we consider the nerf to have failed?", and 2) "Does sleep meet that threshold?".

Tera is a great comparison. We finally have an unambiguous Tera abuser that does not depend on Tera Blast: Terapagos. Does the existence of Terapagos invalidate a Tera Blast ban because the ban doesn't perfectly fix Tera? Probably not. But a few more non-Tera Blast abusers would prove the Tera Blast ban failed. For sleep, we need to figure out where we draw that line.

Oh ok so the proposed clause is that you can use sleep move, use it once, but if its the only move you can make you can use it again?
Nah this is way too complex for a clause. For what exactly too?
Literally no one would take this suggestion seriously if sleep only started existing in Gen 9 and people were looking to regulate it.

 

[ACExDiscostu93]

Oh ok so the proposed clause is that you can use sleep move, use it once, but if its the only move you can make you can use it again?
Nah this is way too complex for a clause. For what exactly too?
Literally no one would take this suggestion seriously if sleep only started existing in Gen 9 and people were looking to regulate it.

I mean, if the outcome of all this discussion, the survey, and any theoretical suspect is that everything remains the same... I'd rather have a bit more of a complex clause that fixes the issue with replicating sleep mod clause on cart. Right now, we're either going to now have "Sleep Moves Clause" or we're going to have the exact same argument with the exact same points next generation.

If nothing else is to come of these pages of debate over multiple topics, I'd rather we take even that tiny step forward.

 

[Anchor9]

Everybody, STOP ABOUT SLEEP!!! All this discussion really isn’t going anywhere at this point and really isn’t going to affect council decision making.

Instead, tell me that you have all been using Ampharos in OU. Don’t let my efforts be in vain!

 

[ACExDiscostu93]

Everybody, STOP ABOUT SLEEP!!! All this discussion really isn’t going anywhere at this point and really isn’t going to affect council decision making.

Instead, tell me that you have all been using Ampharos in OU. Don’t let my efforts be in vain!

Not in OU, but I'm using him in my mono-electric team in a doubles draft with friends. Love that it got meteor beam, quite fun to play with.

My most recent lower tier experimentee in OU is , I love the supporting moveset it gets combined with great typing and not AWFUL special bulk. Sure it doesn't like fire or ground, which isn't the greatest, but it's a fun mon to try out.

 

[YubelVT]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there were quite a number of good players that believed the Gliscor meta was far healthier and competitive than the Zapdos Gking Ting-Lu Cinderace Waterpon meta. Saying that a mon got banned does not mean it is necessarily broken, especially Gliscor; mon didn't have that great numbers in SCL, and if you want to take a deeper look into it, you should check out this post by xavgb here.

Saying Gliscor meta was healther than 5 mon core meta is like saying that someone with one variant of the flu is healthier than someone with a different flavor of the flu. It's so marginal it's not relevant because at the end of the day the meta is still unhealthy. I used to be a massive Gliscor defender but I don't think it's healthy for the tier anymore.

 

[KamenOH]

What if we just did nothing? It's quite clear that the current arguments only ferment a brooding unease that can't easily be rectified by any policy change, because there's always a contingent that'll believe that it was clearly the wrong choice. Doing nothing, as a policy, would quell all the arguments, and let us get back to actual metagame discussion, instead of a meta game discussion.

 

[senorlopez]

Assuming I've found the correct proposal here, let me explain why this idea is still messy and a sleep move ban is preferable.
The issue with our current Sleep Clause Mod, as I'm sure you're aware, is that it is a direct modification of the game, and that this creates artificial gamestates which would not happen on cartridge. There are times when my best play with Amoongus is to click Spore on a pokemon that is asleep, and Sleep Clause Mod artificially stops my optimal play from occurring. There are also times when I need to stall PP and Spore must be clicked. So on and so forth.

The proposal of having a gentleman's agreement to not click the Sleep Move doesn't take away these artificial gamestates. If you get Encored or Tricked a Choice Scarf, you may still want to Spore something, but once somebody is asleep, then what? The proposal would artificially create a forced switch on the Spore user, even if the optimal play is to stay in and keep Sporing. Should the simulator just gray out all your moves for you in this scenario, where a cartridge would not?

This level of mental gymnastics and complex nerfs is really not worthwhile to keep a mechanic that is pretty uncompetitive and overpowered to begin with. Just cleanly ban sleep inducing moves and be done with it.

You are advocating a change for sleep clause from multiple angles when we should be tackling one issue at a time. The statements I have quoted relate to cart accuracy. I agree that there exists edge cases which are undesirable and which would require complex bans (off the top of my head I could think of no choice item and sleep move, no sleep move as a single move, un grey out the button if it's the only move left, if the move is encored that's on the opponent etc etc not practical) but this is an argument relating to cart accuracy and not the balance of sleep. If you want to ban sleep because of cart accuracy then do it on that basis but don't go and conflate that with sleep being unbalanced. This argument of advocating for a change on the basis of cart accuracy will have a cascade effect on nearly every other generation and tier whether you want it to or not.

By this logic, should we have banned the multiple problematic users of baton pass after attempting complex bans on baton pass itself and seeing baton pass chains still be potent? After we limited baton pass to 1 per team, do you think the correct tiering action would be to ban smeargle, espeon, scolipede, etc? At some point, you have to call out the common thread and act on that instead, rather than waiting to see if people can still find ways to make sleep/baton pass uncompetitive with different mons.


To use the Baton Pass example again, when it was being discussed for tiering action, it was obviously done so with the most potent abusers in mind. It was still Baton Pass that got axed, not scolipede/espeon/smeargle/etc, and the baton pass abusers went on to be perfectly healthy (and arguably bad) parts of the meta. I think it would have been silly to ban the above 3 mons and just cross our fingers to see if baton pass found a way to be broken again. Likewise, if we discard the most potent abusers of sleep, I really don't want to waste more time finding out if new ones crop up. I would rather axe the uncompetitive mechanic at hand, axe the complex nerf that is now failing to keep it under control, and cleanly reduce variance and RNG fishing in OU today.

I 100% agree with how the implementation of the baton pass ban has been handled. It's not my position to argue that sleep (as it is) is balanced or not balanced ( I think it's absolutely busted in gen 1 as an example), that's what community suspects are for and why I have brought up this discussion in the first place because council having autocratic jurisdiction on quick banning a mechanic as influential as sleep is frankly outrageous and has far reaching consequences.

This brings up my point on tera. Replace what you have said about sleep with tera when time and time again we have seen multiple tera abusers crop up in multiple tiers after previous abusers have been banned:

Likewise, if we discard the most potent abusers of sleep, I really don't want to waste more time finding out if new ones crop up.

We have evidently decided that tera, as a mechanic, is ok to be kept in the tier (fine) and should be evaluated on a case by case basis (fine). My definition of uncompetitive might not overlap with your definition of uncompetitive but I would argue, much like sleep, tera can create coin flip situations which can lead to game winning snowballs which I would class as uncompetitive and has imo elevated the power level of an already power crept gen (maybe not quite the right word but you get the point). Why are we allowed to assess tera abusers on a case by case basis and not sleep if we can arguably class both as uncompetitive? It's like we're picking and choosing what we want to keep at the discretion of people with influence, instead of approaching both with the same mindset. It's ok to agree or disagree with me if something is uncompetitive, but I reiterate, that's what community suspects are for.

 

[SittinGamer]

We have evidently decided that tera, as a mechanic, is ok to be kept in the tier (fine) and should be evaluated on a case by case basis (fine). My definition of uncompetitive might not overlap with your definition of uncompetitive but I would argue, much like sleep, tera can create coin flip situations which can lead to game winning snowballs which I would class as uncompetitive and has imo elevated the power level of an already power crept gen (maybe not quite the right word but you get the point). Why are we allowed to assess tera abusers on a case by case basis and not sleep if we can arguably class both as uncompetitive? It's like we're picking and choosing what we want to keep at the discretion of people with influence, instead of approaching both with the same mindset. It's ok to agree or disagree with me if something is uncompetitive, but I reiterate, that's what community suspects are for.

The core difference is that Sleep is a mechanic which is already nerfed through the Sleep Clause, while Tera is a completely unrestricted mechanic. The Tera comparison would be if Tera Blast/Team Captians/STAB only Tera/literally any other idea flown around were implemented and there were still multiple abusers of the mechanic. I think we would both agree, then, that Terastalization as a mechanic needs to go.

 

[Carl_the_turtle]

This brings up my point on tera. Replace what you have said about sleep with tera when time and time again we have seen multiple tera abusers crop up in multiple tiers after previous abusers have been banned:


We have evidently decided that tera, as a mechanic, is ok to be kept in the tier (fine) and should be evaluated on a case by case basis (fine). My definition of uncompetitive might not overlap with your definition of uncompetitive but I would argue, much like sleep, tera can create coin flip situations which can lead to game winning snowballs which I would class as uncompetitive and has imo elevated the power level of an already power crept gen (maybe not quite the right word but you get the point). Why are we allowed to assess tera abusers on a case by case basis and not sleep if we can arguably class both as uncompetitive? It's like we're picking and choosing what we want to keep at the discretion of people with influence, instead of approaching both with the same mindset. It's ok to agree or disagree with me if something is uncompetitive, but I reiterate, that's what community suspects are for.

You're arguing with someone who isn't there. Trying to pitch an anti-tera debate against Srn is like trying to show how minmaxed a pokemon's stats are against flutter mane.

 

[Srn]

You are advocating a change for sleep clause from multiple angles when we should be tackling one issue at a time. The statements I have quoted relate to cart accuracy. I agree that there exists edge cases which are undesirable and which would require complex bans (off the top of my head I could think of no choice item and sleep move, no sleep move as a single move, un grey out the button if it's the only move left, if the move is encored that's on the opponent etc etc not practical) but this is an argument relating to cart accuracy and not the balance of sleep. If you want to ban sleep because of cart accuracy then do it on that basis but don't go and conflate that with sleep being unbalanced. This argument of advocating for a change on the basis of cart accuracy will have a cascade effect on nearly every other generation and tier whether you want it to or not.

It won't have a cascade effect on other generations, sleep clause will be judged by its own councils in each generation in a case by case basis as stated here. Both Meepbard's proposal and a ban on sleep moves are technically cart accurate, but one still creates artificial gamestates in edgecases and the other is clean and in line with current tiering policy. If I am trying to decide between these two options, cart accuracy is less relevant and we just discuss the other merits of each idea.

I 100% agree with how the implementation of the baton pass ban has been handled. It's not my position to argue that sleep (as it is) is balanced or not balanced ( I think it's absolutely busted in gen 1 as an example), that's what community suspects are for and why I have brought up this discussion in the first place because council having autocratic jurisdiction on quick banning a mechanic as influential as sleep is frankly outrageous and has far reaching consequences.

They don't have autocratic jurisdiction though, they can only have a quickban vote if something gets voted on to be problematic on tiering surveys.

This brings up my point on tera. Replace what you have said about sleep with tera when time and time again we have seen multiple tera abusers crop up in multiple tiers after previous abusers have been banned:


We have evidently decided that tera, as a mechanic, is ok to be kept in the tier (fine) and should be evaluated on a case by case basis (fine). My definition of uncompetitive might not overlap with your definition of uncompetitive but I would argue, much like sleep, tera can create coin flip situations which can lead to game winning snowballs which I would class as uncompetitive and has imo elevated the power level of an already power crept gen (maybe not quite the right word but you get the point). Why are we allowed to assess tera abusers on a case by case basis and not sleep if we can arguably class both as uncompetitive? It's like we're picking and choosing what we want to keep at the discretion of people with influence, instead of approaching both with the same mindset. It's ok to agree or disagree with me if something is uncompetitive, but I reiterate, that's what community suspects are for.

Bro I am tera hater #1. I also think tera should be banned for being the common factor of making many mons broken, but tera hasn't been nerfed yet like sleep has. Ultimately community suspects might decide both, but I really hope sleep goes asap.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Saying Gliscor meta was healther than 5 mon core meta is like saying that someone with one variant of the flu is healthier than someone with a different flavor of the flu. It's so marginal it's not relevant because at the end of the day the meta is still unhealthy. I used to be a massive Gliscor defender but I don't think it's healthy for the tier anymore.

That's a great analogy, it would be even better if you described actual gameplay and relationships between Pokémon like Quacc did, face it, nothing Gliscor does is unhealthy, you just don't like facing it. Balance and stall teams having a fighting chance isn't a problem, and I'm sorry that you don't like slower metas, but we shouldn't ban a useful member of these teams just because we "don't like it." In fact we already did during DLC1 and the result was cheese gterrain teams and one note static spam teams. Maybe you could give gameplay based examples beyond "I can't break it" before declaring that a Pokémon that adds diversity and consistency into the metagame is a "problem?"