Metagame Views From The Council

[zioziotrip]

against kokoloko method on principle but also think it's a poor fit for this tier. kokoloko method is the closest you can get to speculative tiering with absolutely no idea of where the meta will head with a massive amount of immediate bans on mons you can't be certain are broken. feels bound to waste a ton of time resuspecting mons that were not broken when we could focus on improving the tier in feasible directions. in truly dire situations like sneasler terrain during dlc1 the mon was just qb'd and don't see why the same approach won't be taken in the future.

@ metagame specifics I dont feel like just banning a bunch of ho threats accomplishes much with it being in a weirder place than ever with so many opposing ho styles to worry with and thudding into so many balance archetypes now that they can afford to run solid unawalls again. I feel like the unhealthiest interaction in this tier has always been balance into balance (knock off race is pretty accurate) but if we want to address that there are surely more quantifiable directions (gholden glis) than just ban 10 A tier pokemon and pray.

 

[Magcargo]

If Kyurem is proven to be balanced enough to stay bax can at least be suspected. How is it that much better than kyurem, it has glaive shard and eq over kyurem at the cost of mixed capabilities and veil benefits both equally. Tho i would run kyu w bax for the maximum overload

The physical walls this gen are good but Baxcalibur just overwhelms them too easily, which is bad since those guys can already struggle holding the line against Gambit and friends.

Specs Kyurem is about as strong as Band Baxcalibur & is probably the most dangerous Kyurem set. That being said, SD and DD are the sets that got bax banned imo. They had no weakness of being move locked, could easily run boots, and after a boost, had no real switch ins aside from stuff like PhysDef Ghold in G-Terrain, Dozo, and Balloon Steels.

The most general forms of counterplay to Bax (being Balloon steels & Booster Energy mons) have big weaknesses in that they only work 1 time.

Kyurem at least can't boost its special attack & the move lock of specs can be exploited via hazards + pivoting into regen mon like G-King, then swapping out into a resist like Volcarona or Enamorus.

Even if Bax is balanced, I think its arguable whether its services are really needed anymore. Weavile & Kyurem fulfill the niche of an Ice Attacker that Bax would have filled. Personally I think Shifu-RS is balanced, but I am fine with not retesting it since Keldeo fulfills a similar role as a Gambit check + strong water breaker w/o the elements players found unhealthy about Shifu.

 

[Avira]

The physical walls this gen are good but Baxcalibur just overwhelms them too easily, which is bad since those guys can already struggle holding the line against Gambit and friends.

Specs Kyurem is about as strong as Band Baxcalibur & is probably the most dangerous Kyurem set. That being said, SD and DD are the sets that got bax banned imo. They had no weakness of being move locked, could easily run boots, and after a boost, had no real switch ins aside from stuff like PhysDef Ghold in G-Terrain, Dozo, and Balloon Steels.

The most general forms of counterplay to Bax (being Balloon steels & Booster Energy mons) have big weaknesses in that they only work 1 time.

Kyurem at least can't boost its special attack & the move lock of specs can be exploited via hazards + pivoting into regen mon like G-King, then swapping out into a resist like Volcarona or Enamorus.

Even if Bax is balanced, I think its arguable whether its services are really needed anymore. Weavile & Kyurem fulfill the niche of an Ice Attacker that Bax would have filled. Personally I think Shifu-RS is balanced, but I am fine with not retesting it since Keldeo fulfills a similar role as a Gambit check + strong water breaker w/o the elements players found unhealthy about Shifu.

I don't think there's anything balanced about Urshifu-Rapid Strike now that it has Swords Dance. Look at the calc below and tell me with as straight face that it's okay:

+2 252 Atk Punching Glove Tera Water Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex in Rain on a critical hit: 228-270 (75 - 88.8%) -- approx. 12.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

Pretty much anything less bulky than Pex gets its shit kicked in.

I don't think balance wants to be forced into using Dondozo, Hydrapple, or Water Absorb Clodsire to not get dumpstered by Urshifu-Rapid Strike.

 

[Welcome to mars]

The kokoloko method would fail because OU is now a legitmately diverse and stable metagame, thats simply not what the method is for

 

[Mimikyu Stardust]

Personally, i think the kokoloko method is horrible for OU especially so close to SPL. currently we have the perfect equilibrium where a lot of pokemon feels really good but non of them feels truly broken. Even some of the most talked about mons like Volcarona, Roaring Moon and Kyurem, all of them can be handled easily by common mons and just well built teams in general. There are great strategies like Meowscarada Fat, Screens, Volcarona Roaring Moon HO, Kyurem/Serp BO, Gliscor Balance but non of them are broken at the moment. People are still experimenting with the meta so why cut it short and ban potentially 10+ pokemon for a completely new meta that can be potentially worse when nothing is inherently wrong?

I'm pretty much echoing CTC's post of why quickban pokemon when the meta is not broken instead of letting people build and explore this rich meta and find out when the meta settles. I think we should use the standard suspect test method for OU, just watch how SPL and Ladder will turn out and if something is broken, just test that. If it ain't broke, then don't fix it.

 

[Wolf-X]

Personally, i think the kokoloko method is horrible for OU especially so close to SPL. currently we have the perfect equilibrium where a lot of pokemon feels really good but non of them feels truly broken. Even some of the most talked about mons like Volcarona, Roaring Moon and Kyurem, all of them can be handled easily by common mons and just well built teams in general. There are great strategies like Meowscarada Fat, Screens, Volcarona Roaring Moon HO, Kyurem/Serp BO, Gliscor Balance but non of them are broken at the moment. People are still experimenting with the meta so why cut it short and ban potentially 10+ pokemon for a completely new meta that can be potentially worse when nothing is inherently wrong?

I'm pretty much echoing CTC's post of why quickban pokemon when the meta is not broken instead of letting people build and explore this rich meta and find out when the meta settles. I think we should use the standard suspect test method for OU, just watch how SPL and Ladder will turn out and if something is broken, just test that. If it ain't broke, then don't fix it.

Aparently the OU Monarchy hates when there isnt a clear meta where X stuff is clearly stronger or more viable.

They also got used to banning so much stuff that now they feel useless, hence the need to ban something to become relevant again.

Current state of the monarchs:

 

[JunkoAJ]

Aparently the OU Monarchy hates when there isnt a clear meta where X stuff is clearly stronger or more viable.

They also got used to banning so much stuff that now they feel useless, hence the need to ban something to become relevant again.

Or, they're gauging the temperature of the meta as it's calmed down by asking about different tiering methodologies and running a survey to understand what people want. Just a thought!

 

[njnp]

Did a video on Jimothy Cool's channel discussing the Kokoloko Method. Enjoy

 

[Bruh Wobuffet]

Very against the idea rn, basically this metagame is suprisingly balanced with nothing immediately overpowered besides terapagos which shouldn't be in the tier anyway, the fact the no radar exist is a testament to that. For now, let the meta settle for a bit first before doing anything big if at all.

 

[rarc-th]

Why ban 10 Pokémon

 

[FCKNfuego]

Kokoloko method just seems arbitrary af on a number of points.

It breaks some current policy, doesn't address the concerns of it, moves away from data usage as supplementation for action and likely adds more issues as opposed to the current system. Hard pass on this for me.

 

[Mega64]

Here's what I want to ban.



I don't want to punch a brick wall. I want to taste blood. I want to taste my opponent's blood. I want to taste my own blood. I want to drown in a pool of many people's blood, fighting and dying to the very end. I don't play Pokemon to nap, I play Pokemon to feel, to live, to be a human being. If I wanted to participate in a slap fight, I'd have registered a Smogon account years ago. I want to orphan my opponent's children, and I want my opponent to dine on mine.

Basing major decisions on your dumb tournament is a foolish idea and suggests you care more about your tournaments than your player base.

Also, any Pokemon singles tier is like shoving a square peg into a round hole, as there's good reason VGC ain't singles. This ain't gonna be perfect, it will never be perfect, and Game Freak probably designs their games at this point specifically to spite Smogon. Balance takes time, and we've got time now that we're done with DLC, so let's chill and not ban ten Pokies, since then people will call for another ten Pokies to be banned and eventually SV OU will be people slamming each other's heads with Metapods until something breaks.

If we should ban anything it's anger and rage and horror over a Pokemon singles meta game not being balanced. If you really wanted balance above all else you'd be playing something else, as Game Freak doesn't care about your wants. Show patience, and kindness, and love. If you hate any Pokemon for any reason you don't deserve to play Pokemon. If you need validation by a number and are angry you're too bad at Pokemon to have a big number then you've lived a failure of a life and should reevaluate your life choices. Look a Ditto in the mirror and see if you're honestly proud to play Pokemon.

Anyway enjoy the thousand-plus Pokemon as the precious creatures they are, love everyone on this freaking forum, and have a nice day.

 

[njnp]

Closing the thread now, appreciate everyone's input! This conversation has been great and I'm happy with the discourse! This thread will reopen once a council member wants to bring an issue to the full front of the community

 

[Lily]

Heya everyone, some of the council has had a conversation today about sleep and its effect on the tier this generation. Disclaimer that this post does not necessarily reflect every council member's individual view.

SV OU has had a few sleepers over the course of the generation. To give a quick rundown;

- Amoonguss did what it usually does for a while, and to some extent it still does that. However, as people realised the power of neutralising mons in SV, "lead Amoonguss" was discovered - it'd run Red Card and just lead off, click Spore, and you didn't have much of a choice but to sack something to sleep. Red Card obviously had the side benefit of being great against Booster Energy users.

- There were a few popular Hypnosis Iron Valiant teams at various points in the metagame. It'd turn beating it with any non-Gholdengo check into a slightly weighted coinflip, Games against this thing got ugly really fast, especially because Iron Valiant is so versatile that you didn't necessarily see it coming unless you knew the team, as opposed to Amoonguss.

- Alolan Ninetales, at its peak, was super high in usage, and a lot of its variants ran Hypnosis. Considering it was supporting the incredibly broken Baxcalibur, it's not hard to see why this would become a problem very quickly, and it's not like Ninetales-A does a ton of damage on its own, so it didn't lose much by clicking it. Its bulk and typing also gave it plenty of fishing opportunities.

- Venusaur's new popularity has led to a decent amount of Sleep Powder sheananigans, which is very dangerous considering its threat level. Hisuian Lilligant has been fringe in OU since it dropped but its antics on Sun teams with Sleep Powder are incredibly frustrating to play around. Brute Bonnet was much the same thing. All of these were also incredibly threatening to everything that could hope to absorb Sleep.

- Our newest addition, Darkrai sometimes runs Hypnosis and does silly things with it when it lands. Obviously Darkrai is pretty much built around Sleep as a mechanic given Bad Dreams and all, so it makes sense that it's more popular on this than anything else, but it has served to highlight the unpleasant gamestates Sleep creates.

There's also the elephant in the room that PS's implementation of Sleep Clause Mod is exactly that - a mod. It's not possible to recreate on cartridge; the argument of "just don't click Spore after you put something to sleep" doesn't really hold up, considering the PP limitations which honestly aren't even negligible on Amoonguss.

We're thinking about opening a dialogue on whether or not Sleep Clause Mod should be removed and Sleep moves should just be banned as a whole. There would technically still be ways to put opponents to sleep like Effect Spore and Relic Song, but that's not really the point we're going for here.

---

To address the obvious question of "why not Darkrai?" - we have a few reasons;

a) Darkrai is certainly moving the needle here, but we have seen enough examples of this throughout the generation;
b) Sleep's layers of RNG - between 1 vs 2 vs 3 turn sleeps and whether or not the moves actually hit to begin with - are undesirable regardless of Darkrai's presence;
c) The mod we currently use for sleep is unfaithful to cartridge mechanics, which would *maybe* be okay in exceptional circumstances to keep the game playable (such as the various RBY desync patches on sim), but we do not necessarily feel that this warrants such a mod.

Any and all feedback from here is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Finchinator]

Let the record show that I support the initiative Aislinn mentioned in her post, but will only support action if we have significant community support between here and an eventual Policy Review thread.

I do not want to meet the same fate as a certain predecessor of mine at the start of generation 8…

 

[Chicos]

Sleep has a whole is anti-strategic. It's the same debate as king rock. It's not consistent but when it does, it just breaks what makes pokemon a competitive game. A mon asleep is basically a dead mon. It will always be better if sleep is not around

(I loved you my little muschroom )

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

i agree that sleep is a cheap, stupid, and sometimes straight-up uncompetitive mechanic, and that sleep clause as it stands is unenforceable on cartridge and built on shaky precedent. logically, it should be an easy cut-and-dry ban, with obvious exceptions like relic song and effect spore. however, the near-total ban of an entire status condition seems kinda… icky, for lack of a better word. i don't know why, but some part of me deep down is in open rebellion when my logical brain says "ban sleep". maybe it's because even though i know it's uncompetitive, i just don't see it as a problem right now. or perhaps it's because sleep moves clause could eventually lead down a dark path where freeze and even paralysis fall onto the chopping block even though both are distinctly not a problem in the current gen. maybe it's because status conditions are such a deep and integral part of the game that banning one almost entirely seems like going too far. or maybe it's subconscious personal bias and i just want to keep using hypnosis darkrai. it's probably a combination of all of those, but i don't know. whatever the reason is, i'm kind of ambivalent on the sleep question and i'll support whatever action or non-action the council and the community decide to take. (unless everyone collectively loses their minds and decides to unrestrict sleep altogether, in which case i'll find something else to do with my life)

although if this discussion does end up leading to a ban of darkrai or sleep, i'm chalking that up as a huge win for me because i said hypnosis darkrai would be a problem and people got so mad at me for bringing it up that i pretended to change my mind and just quietly let the community gaslight itself into thinking hypnosis darkrai is fine so i could cheese more wins with it. so if this does end up leading to something, you can bet your buttons i'm gonna make the smuggest saltpost of all time

 

[Srn]

Lead sash hypnosis darkrai has been turning into a dominant force on HO teams, and the ceiling of the amount of work it can do is frankly disgusting. You can carry dark pulse+ice beam to nail the tier's most common sleep absorbers, gholdengo and gliscor, and your last slot can be Nasty Plot or a 3rd attack like Focus Blast or Sludge Bomb to hit pokemon like Kingambit, Primarina, etc which resist dark+ice moves.

Darkrai can be a positive and balanced force in the metagame, acting as an offensive ghost resist+speed control combining great coverage with utility moves like Wisp, T-wave, Knock Off, Taunt, etc. I think sets like these are very healthy for the tier, and genuinely something I'd like to stick around. But when you have a dice roller like hypnosis darkrai in the tier, things get worse.

***
Imagine you're fighting a hypnosis darkrai with this successful sample team (https://pokepast.es/86419b27e4369442) and you want to sack a mon for sleep fodder, let's say my dondozo is weakened and has done its job by killing the opposing roaring moon already, night night dozo. Once dozo is asleep, I have a clodsire who can comfortably amnesia up and wall darkrai forever barring any big hax.

But what's that? Hypnosis missed? And now Darkrai gets to just kill the mon that you were planning on letting go to sleep?

Ok...well the speed control on this balance team is meow so I can't revenge kill it..I guess I have to let another mon get put to sleep? My Clodsire can amnesia up and still wall darkrai if it's only 1 turn of sleep, but what if it's 3? Having 1 sleep fodder and 1 counter to darkrai apparently wasn't safe enough already??

***
In this way, I actually think hypnosis is somehow WORSE to fight than spore is, the extra layer of RNG in the accuracy can actually fuck up your gameplan and make things even worse for you than spore might.

While the sash lead hypnosis set was not exactly what I predicted, I was sounding the alarm bells months ago about hypnosis. It's here and it's awful and the tier would be much better without it.

 

[Tio Chico]

Misty Terrain, Electric Terrain, Taunt, Lum Berry, Substitute, even Sleep Talk. The means of dealing with Sleep Status are more diverse than Freeze and we do not have Freeze Clause.
If Sleep is really on the radar causing so much nuisance, may the most unhealthy element be identified (just one user or all the scams that induce it) and removed from the game.
But this may have some cons, such as Yawn being the anti-setup alternative to momentarily stop some threats.
If an anti-cartridge clause is maintained, add Freeze clause too, Freeze is completely RNG dependent and it would make more sense to break the cartridge rules to make the game healthier. Sorry to divert a bit of focus btw.
The elephant that I see in the room has another color, in fact, it can have 19 colors to choose from.

 

[bigasschungusboi]

Fuck hypno krai its a total ass mon that only invites more and more bs to matches it needs to get gone

 

[Duck Chris]

The strength of sleep depends heavily on how much you can get done in the one to three turns you get out of your opponent sleeping. This is not new but of course the amount those turns matter changes every gen. Does this make it less competitive this gen than before? I'm not sure. Of course we have very good sleep abusers now but that can be said about all sorts of moves.

And while we're at it all the same points can be made about thunder wave/glare. Both status effects that force absorbers in, give a ton of free turns, raise rngs effect on the outcome of the game, etc. The main difference being the chance for it to never full para, the fact that were using cart accurate mechanics and of course the valuable speed control it offers. But are they really that different? It feels like it would be hard to argue for action on sleep without the same arguments applying to paralysis

 

[ninth]

Sleep Clause Mod is an unacceptable and substantial change to cart mechanics. Whatever the solution is — and I personally think Sleep Moves Clause is the best path — the mod has to go. It's not too late to rectify this mistake.

 

[Lazyboy0337]

This just feels like a harsh reaction to Darkrai and the very offensive metagame that is SV. Darkrai and Iron Valiant being threatening while also having the ability to coinflip against their counters seems more as an individual problem than sleep as a whole. Amoonguss and Bonnet having the ability to soft trade one-for-one with Spore is less impactful when the mushrooms aren't as threatening once given the one free turn sleep grants. Sleep turns being hard to wake up from is ultimately due to the meta's speed, which is fueled by Tera harder than any individual pokemon, move, or status condition.

Any discussion of removing Sleep Clause Mod on the basis of being a mod should put all other mods into question as well. Battle Timers (complete with move animation times) would need to be added, to replicate console battles timing out. Endless Battle Clause would be removed on the basis of all battles eventually ending. Freeze Clause Mod would need to be removed right with Sleep Clause. Trying to replicate the console games would need to be an all or nothing option, as picking and choosing which parts to retain and which to mod goes against the original argument.

 

[Seucra Lockhart]

Lead sash hypnosis darkrai has been turning into a dominant force on HO teams, and the ceiling of the amount of work it can do is frankly disgusting. You can carry dark pulse+ice beam to nail the tier's most common sleep absorbers, gholdengo and gliscor, and your last slot can be Nasty Plot or a 3rd attack like Focus Blast or Sludge Bomb to hit pokemon like Kingambit, Primarina, etc which resist dark+ice moves.

Darkrai can be a positive and balanced force in the metagame, acting as an offensive ghost resist+speed control combining great coverage with utility moves like Wisp, T-wave, Knock Off, Taunt, etc. I think sets like these are very healthy for the tier, and genuinely something I'd like to stick around. But when you have a dice roller like hypnosis darkrai in the tier, things get worse.

***
Imagine you're fighting a hypnosis darkrai with this successful sample team (https://pokepast.es/86419b27e4369442) and you want to sack a mon for sleep fodder, let's say my dondozo is weakened and has done its job by killing the opposing roaring moon already, night night dozo. Once dozo is asleep, I have a clodsire who can comfortably amnesia up and wall darkrai forever barring any big hax.

But what's that? Hypnosis missed? And now Darkrai gets to just kill the mon that you were planning on letting go to sleep?

Ok...well the speed control on this balance team is meow so I can't revenge kill it..I guess I have to let another mon get put to sleep? My Clodsire can amnesia up and still wall darkrai if it's only 1 turn of sleep, but what if it's 3? Having 1 sleep fodder and 1 counter to darkrai apparently wasn't safe enough already??

***
In this way, I actually think hypnosis is somehow WORSE to fight than spore is, the extra layer of RNG in the accuracy can actually fuck up your gameplan and make things even worse for you than spore might.

While the sash lead hypnosis set was not exactly what I predicted, I was sounding the alarm bells months ago about hypnosis. It's here and it's awful and the tier would be much better without it.

Don't really have much to add to the whole sleep clause discussion but isn't the most common item run on lead darkrais with hypnosis leftovers? I haven't seen a single focus sash lead variant and leftovers just honestly sounds like a way better item to run on darkrai since it means it can stick around longer throughout the game thus having a better chance to weaken and dismantle the opponent's team if not even sweep them especially if you tera fairy on the right turn

 

[Chlora]

IMO, sleep is outright broken.

Getting slept is extremely ruining. Moves like Spore are essentially riskless if your opponent doesn't have a grass type, which are not particularly abundant at the moment due to the dex cuts, or the new sleep absorbers in Gholdengo & Garganacl. When you get slept, your mon is essentially worse than dead in a lot of cases; if it had died you'd be able to bring something in safely to keep up pressure and momentum, but now you are the definition of set-up fodder.
It's not fun at all to engage with sleep, because on more offensive mons you'll rarely ever get the chance to have them come back, but on your defensive ones you can also get easily overwhelmed by whatever you were meant to check and whether you potentially lose on your spot is down to luck.

At least with Spore you can kinda know it's coming, but Hypnosis is gut wrenching to get hit with. Iron Valiant, Darkrai, Ninetales and others landing it just does not feel like a fair interaction to me, since their last slots are greatly costumizable (at least for Valiant and Tales) and varied in a lot of teams, so you can just run whatever you want. Hypnosis is unreliable, but when it lands it's extremely rewarding, letting you either bring in a teammate for free to keep up pressure and/or continue setting up.
There's no way you know it's being ran, and your only way to play around it (if that's a possibility anymore) is to just pray. It's a roll the dice. It's not fun or even a remotely competitive interaction. It's a lot of the time your opponent getting lucky (because 60% is very unreliable) and invalidating your counterplay. There was no skill involved in clicking Hypnosis. It's just dumb luck being rewarded immensely. In my opinion anyway


Although sleep clause thankfully prevents this from happening repeatedly with hypnosis or breloom completely taking over, it does not solve the core issue that getting out of sleep is a completely based interaction that takes no real effort to enforce on your opponent.


Honorable mention to Sneasler for being absolute cancer to play against defensively, with good part due to it's 1/6 chance to sleep after clicking an 80 BP STAB move :) really fun times to just get cucked on Skeledirge because your opp rolled the "fuck you i win now :3" number on their dice

I'd be in full support of a sleep ban if there was a suspect test. Even if it's unreliable and not seen all that often, it's still sanity draining whenever you have to play against it. I don't think an extra layer of rng bs should be ignored just because it's not the most popular thing. This is not a Darkrai issue, this is a general issue wherever you go