Announcement np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 1 - Oops!...I Did It Again

[KeemyCakez]

I get what everyone is saying about the Tera ban vs stay but lets be real. If its banned it fixes nothing which is like yea cool we can all sleep happily. But again to utilize a mechanic that has competitive potential is also a worthy stay. I see the value in banning it but I also see the value in keeping it with limitation. I do agree that limitless boundaries is a bit OP but at the same time people forget the simple fact that both players have access. Its a 50/50 without knowing a players tera yes. But; lets say you tell a player your tera mon its fair. What different is it compared to swapping out a mon or unrevealing a moveset? Ban or unban there are mons that will always roam effortlessly. You limit a Tera to one and tell the player its fair. This now creates a defensive reaction and offensive option for either player. You would know the tera type thus making it easier to play neutral damage.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

The thing is, Tera is healthy in UU. It’s healthy in every tier besides OU (and Ubers but balance isn’t exactly necessary there) because OU is hoarding all the broken abusers besides Espathra (for like 6 more days). But this isn’t UU and we shouldn’t be voting like it is.

I completely agree and personally I do hope for the alternative (policy review on tiering options towards generation mechanic bans). I don't think its fair to the OU userbase for people to vote like this, but they are and they have to if they're content the current UU meta.

That being said it will always make me a bit uneasy that this suspect result could be influenced by 'OU vs UU' rather than by the health of the tier itself, and I don't really know what the size of the UU voting population could be. It starts to show how suspects like these can be flawed when you factor the result influence externally from the tier itself, we just never had anything like this before and dynamax pretty sure no tier wanted any part of anyways and z-moves never had a suspect to bring this up with.

Probs not good to discuss this but also without discussing it or allowing discussion on it, you miss how many votes are actually not even in the consideration of the OU format.

This is one response from the UU tier leader regarding whether or not leaders should even suggest voting this way:

I'm not sure why this is an issue. The suspect test is very much about this tier just as much as it is about OU; it has as big of an impact here as it does there, and as such I don't think there is an issue with UU players voting the way they want. The suspect system is set up the way it is to ensure that you can vote for whatever you want regardless of what your reasoning might be. I don't think it's perfect to have to vote in a tier you don't play; I also don't think it's perfect that a tier you do play should be screwed over based on what the tier above it wants, though. I'd rather this than tell everyone to just sit back and take whatever punches OU throws at them, and it's the only choice we have if we want a say, so it's the only thing I can choose to advocate for. If you think it's a problem, then it's probably pointing more towards it being evidence of a problem with the system as a whole.

Again, I do not want to put shade on lily in anyway, its a genuine concern that this test actively affects UU as much as OU and there's a bigger divide on whether tera is problematic or not between the tiers. Its surely something that can be worked out better via policy review than "choose to fuck over OU or fuck over UU", and being that's a policy thing its entirely out of the communities hands to really make initiative on that, especially so late into a suspect.

 

[Mega Breloom]

I'm going to try this because I was told I can bring this up from the UU thread, otherwise forgive me Finchinator;

OU feels more like the problem than tera itself, I think tera would be fine without its abusers, but, again can't stress enough we're banning more pokemon than we need to, just to preserve it in the tier, and I'd rather play in a tier where I can use volcarona without tera than ban it from tera frankly.

This is something I agree totally, even if the suprise factor of tera can be annoying, the issue I see with OU rn is the dex and overall the nerf to defensive mons.
For example, I played around 90 games on 3 accounts to get my reqs and most of the games were decided by just doing a bit of chip damage to the bulky pokemon on my rival team and then just sweep with +speed booster energy mons or priority spam because there are very powerful mons like iron valiant that can do easily even without tera. In most of my games I just used tera on my lead ting lu to ensure SR and spikes instead of doing it with one of my sweepers.

 

[alephgalactus]

What, realistically, is preventing lower tiers from holding another internal suspect test for Tera later to unban it in their tier alone? It doesn’t have precedent, but none of this has precedent. OU is suffering greatly right now in a way the other tiers aren’t and Tera is playing an outsized role in that. If the other tiers need to suffer briefly to stop OU from suffering for the whole generation, so be it.

 

[PokePoindexter]

I get what everyone is saying about the Tera ban vs stay but lets be real. If its banned it fixes nothing which is like yea cool we can all sleep happily. But again to utilize a mechanic that has competitive potential is also a worthy stay. I see the value in banning it but I also see the value in keeping it with limitation.

I'm sure neutralizing at least 8 problematic mons that wouldn't be so if they couldn't use the gimmick in the first place doesn't "[fix] nothing".

I do agree that limitless boundaries is a bit OP but at the same time people forget the simple fact that both players have access. Its a 50/50 without knowing a players tera yes.

I guarantee you nobody forgets that "simple fact". Both players had access to Dynamax last gen; didn't stop that from being banned.

But; lets say you tell a player your tera mon its fair.

I'll let my past self from yesterday respond to this:

"When something Teras into a different type, it becomes weak to other types."
Sure, but it's not weak to those other types until it does. As an example: A Tera Ground Volcarona that has QD'd once can be RK'd by a Flower Trick from Scarf Meowscarada... if Volc has Tera'd, that is. If you're playing Meow in that circumstance, do you think it would make any sense to bring it in against Volc if it hasn't? Hell no; the most you're doing to it is tickling it with Knock Off before getting roasted by the inevitable Fire Blast that follows. And if you're playing Volc, are you Tera'ing while Meow is still around? Of course not; unless a previous circumstance absolutely required you to, you're staying away from that Tera button until Meow is gone. And remember, you don't know when something will Tera or what it will Tera into until it does. The aforementioned Volc's Tera type could just as easily be Ice, and Meow wouldn't save you if it was.

Besides, does it really make any sense to have to run both a check to a given mon in its normal form, and then another check to that same mon once it Teras?

What different is it compared to swapping out a mon or unrevealing a moveset?

Outside of Legends Arceus (EDIT: or pivot moves), I've never heard of being able to attack the same turn you switch out.

Ban or unban there are mons that will always roam effortlessly. You limit a Tera to one and tell the player its fair. This now creates a defensive reaction and offensive option for either player. You would know the tera type thus making it easier to play neutral damage.

See my past self's quote again.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

What, realistically, is preventing lower tiers from holding another internal suspect test for Tera later to unban it in their tier alone? It doesn’t have precedent, but none of this has precedent. OU is suffering greatly right now in a way the other tiers aren’t and Tera is playing an outsized role in that. If the other tiers need to suffer briefly to stop OU from suffering for the whole generation, so be it.

Because policy directly states that changes in the higher tiers must always affect the lowers tiers too and there's no going back on it unless the highest tier does (OU, since ubers is ban list more than a tier). If a mon is banned in OU, its gone in the lower tiers even if it was a lower tier mon (example: if arena trap is banned, all tiers ban it including NU which would only have LC mons like diglet, gothrita, etc, otherwords NU following the shadow tag/arena trap bans might in hindsight be redundant even if no one cares to try and appeal it.)

Apparently tier leaders even when they want to aren't allowed to try and unban things in lower tiers, normally they don't need to but this is an example of where allowing them to do it would be a significant QoL since tera potential has an opposite effect compared to OU.

The only precedent is spore from BW that I can think of which was tier exclusive, but that's because it was an old metagame with an old policy.

I'm personally using 'X by technicality' as a precedent because Megas were a generational mechanic that went by the usage policy, and we were able to bypass that for the non-mega stone forms.

 

[Vall]

Outside of Legends Arceus, I've never heard of being able to attack the same turn you switch out.

U-turn, Volt Switch, Flip Turn?

Especially on fast mons like Eleki, Koko, and Barraskewda, this is in 't a good comeback.

 

[Vall]

Because policy directly states that changes in the higher tiers must always affect the lowers tiers too and there's no going back on it unless the highest tier does (OU, since ubers is ban list more than a tier). If a mon is banned in OU, its gone in the lower tiers even if it was a lower tier mon (example: if arena trap is banned, all tiers ban it including NU which would only have LC mons like diglet, gothrita, etc.)

Apparently tier leaders even when they want to aren't allowed to try and unban things in lower tiers, normally they don't need to but this is an example of where allowing them to do it would be a significant QoL.

This train of thought is important and interesting to me. It's true and as a general this should be true, however, I must point out that this suspect is already explicitly stated to be entertaining complex solution. due to the mechanic's nature. As such, I do think it is worth discussing making an exception for this case.

Especially due to the discussion in UU, as the current format isn't fair to either party.

I guess this is a discussion of the identity of UU and below. Is the tier's goal to be the tier below OU, or is it to be the best tier for mon's not viable in OU? Interesting stuff to consider

 

[alephgalactus]

This train of thought is important and interesting to me. It's true and as a general this should be true, however, I must point out that this suspect is already explicitly stated to be entertaining complex solution. due to the mechanic's nature. As such, I do think it is worth discussing making an exception for this case.

Especially due to the discussion in UU, as the current format isn't fair to either party.

I guess this is a discussion of the identity of UU and below. Is the tier's goal to be the tier below OU, or is it to be the best tier for mon's not viable in OU? Interesting stuff to consider

I think this is definitely a place where we should consider making an exception to tiering policy, since even this suspect test is pretty far from normal. However, this discussion should probably be taking place after tiering action happens, and the fate of UU and lower tiers shouldn’t be considered when making this vote—we can deal with consequences as they come, but action on Tera needs to happen now for the good of not just OU but the whole competitive community, which largely revolves around it. It’s difficult to have to triage entire tiers like this, but it’s necessary.

 

[Vall]

I think this is definitely a place where we should consider making an exception to tiering policy, since even this suspect test is pretty far from normal. However, this discussion should probably be taking place after tiering action happens, and the fate of UU and lower tiers shouldn’t be considered when making this vote—we can deal with consequences as they come, but action on Tera needs to happen now for the good of not just OU but the whole competitive community, which largely revolves around it. It’s difficult to have to triage entire tiers like this, but it’s necessary.

In an Ideal world I would agree, but if a full ban does go ahead it's going to really mess up UU in the short term, especially if they eventually unban tera so if at all possible it should be avoided by having this discussion now. Fundamentally, I think the discussion needs to at least reach a point where there is a defintive plan for later action.

 

[A_Wild_Noob_Appeared!]

The thing is, Tera is healthy in UU. It’s healthy in every tier besides OU (and Ubers but balance isn’t exactly necessary there) because OU is hoarding all the broken abusers besides Espathra (for like 6 more days). But this isn’t UU and we shouldn’t be voting like it is.

I have generally been in favor of a ban, but if it is indeed true that Tera is balanced in UU, then that is a very good argument that the mechanic is not inherently broken. The pro-ban side needs to argue that the mechanic is systematically problematic and the issue cannot be solved by just banning a handful of Pokemon. Such arguments include "it creates too many 50/50 situations which completely swing the game" and "preparing for all of the different Tera types puts a heavy strain on teambuilding". I generally agree with these arguments, but I definitely have not explored that much and I'm pretty rusty. I know that a lot of anti-ban people don't agree with these arguments, so it's necessary for the pro-ban side to demonstrate that these arguments have held true.

If it's turned out that in practice, most people agree that Tera is fine in UU, then what's stopping OU from aggressively banning things to Ubers until the power level is more in line with current UU? Yes, that would probably require banning at least 10-15 of the strongest Tera abusers. However, it's hard to deny that even without Tera, the level of powercreep is higher than it's ever been (just look at all of the Pokemon with broken signature moves/abilities or super min-maxed stats), so it's not unreasonable to ban so many things.

I feel like tiering Tera separately in each tier is just an attempt at a compromise that doesn't really work. Yes, there have been some non-transitive ban shenanigans, but having Tera tiered separately in each tier has much larger consequences. Pokemon with Tera and Pokemon without Tera (or with a heavy restriction) are very different games. The tier system is supposed to (more or less) rank Pokemon according to their power levels. It cannot do this if Pokemon are rated by two different standards.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Keep in mind its more balanced in UU. They would have to suspect test themselves to conclude it, but going off of the post in the NP thread there, a lot are in favor of it in the tier, with only a couple mons broken by it (one going to tier shift to OU next month anyways).

IMO banning 10-15 mons still isn't a good idea either, but if tera does get banned, I don't believe UU should be forced to recieve OU's tiering action against it. They can figure that shit out themselves (and another reason why the complex ban options are also complicated, if we did have separate tiering or applied 1 tier rules to all, how does the restriction affect the other tiers? is it as necessary? can they remove the restrictions? etc.)

Tera preview only has value if;
Everything's tera type was unpredictable, which most of the primary abusers stick to one or two typings anyways
If predicting wrong was so catastrophic you couldn't come back from the game; UU prediction might be an issue, but the damage dealt won't be as severe when you do mispredict so its a lot more manageable. Tera preview would only dumb it down for UU or over nerf the mechanic if its fine.

In OU on the other hand, you have to ask the question:

Does tera break mons, or does OU mons break tera?

There's a large portion of mons that become problematic, and we do see this in national dex, where there was such a large number of OU threats.

If 26ish% of OU is broken from the mechanic, thats 1/4th of the tier basically dexitted from an already small pool of mons to work with. DLC comes and we have the same rodeo, then DLC 2 and we're seeing a significantly larger portion of the game being broken by tera collectively, and have to cherry pick which ones to go first before gen 12.

This is where there's a divide because one tier does need action, the other does not but involuntarily gets the action, and can influence the action it recieves via participating in this test without factoring in the consequences of the tier above it.

No ban is looking closer to an option for me, not because I think tera is fine, Its why I hate the tier as is, but I think the votes on this are scuffed (even if they do ban it which is what I wanted anyways), and we don't really have a solution for the other tiers beyond telling them to go fuck themselves.

 

[Vall]

I think then the most obvious conclusion is that we don't "need to wait for the meta to develop," but instead "we need to wait for MORE meta's to develop." If RU, NU & PU all become available and Tera isn't deemed problematic, then it becomes pretty cut and dry that it's a broken mons problem, not a broken mechanic. From there it might become possible to negotiate an exception for lower tiers, or ban the problematic mons from OU.

Actually, now that I think about it, a lower tier tera suspect could be performed for all tiers collectively. There's a referendum system in Australia that requires both a majority of the total population & a majority of states to approve.

OU, UU, RU, NU, PU, maybe add ZU & Ubers

Maybe Make a suspect across all tiers requiring both a 50% total majority and at least 3-4 tiers in favor. For banning something as influential to a game as tera, such a system would ensure OU has more influence, but the will of the lower tiers aren't completely forgotten.

Edit: Additionally, this suspect is fundamentally different from almost any other, as it affects all tiers simlutaniously. Almost all prior suspects have concerne pokemon that are in the tier, or would likely soon rise into the tier by usage, meaning that no lower tier could use them anyway. This is fundamnetally different to Tera, where this decision fundamentally affects all other tiers.

 

[Vall]

Does tera break mons, or does OU mons break tera?

The true heart of the matter. I feel like the main reason tera is so problematic in OU bc in combination with prevalent hazards and shed tail, setup sweepers easily get all the time they need to win games.

ineffective move on shed tail -> Switch to setup sweeper counter -> break sub -> ineffective move on tera -> Switch to new setup sweeper counter

All the while racking up chip from hazards.

Without shed tail and the powerful setup sweepers, tera is mostly fine (not denying there are still some questionable elements), because in a meta with less power, wasting a turn against a tera just isn't as game-ending.

 

[Mega Breloom]

A quick question for the council: the option "1 Tera user per team (Only the first member of your party will be allowed to Terastallize during the course of the battle)" will be handled as Zoroark ability and we would be able to change the order before every battle or our rival will be able to tell in team preview which mon will be our tera user?

 

[alephgalactus]

In an Ideal world I would agree, but if a full ban does go ahead it's going to really mess up UU in the short term

But the trouble is, OU is already messed up. If a full ban doesn’t go through, OU will continue to be messed up until the inevitable second suspect test, or the third, or whenever enough people come to their senses. That’s what this is about, not what will happen to UU.

 

[Vall]

But the trouble is, OU is already messed up. If a full ban doesn’t go through, OU will continue to be messed up until the inevitable second suspect test, or the third, or whenever enough people come to their senses. That’s what this is about, not what will happen to UU.

But that's exactly why we need to have this discussion now, so the results of the suspect aren't affected by outside factors. There needs to be some assurance that those from UU & below won't be messed up by the results so they don't feel the need to vote for there own interests.

Regardless of whether or not tera is problematic in OU, to ensure the fairest outcome, there needs to be some assurance that tera can be preserved in lower tiers.

Right now, a UU player might feel the need to vote to preserve tera bc they have no other way to preserve tera in the tier they play.

 

[alephgalactus]

But that's exactly why we need to have this discussion now, so the results of the suspect aren't affected by outside factors. There needs to be some assurance that those from UU & below won't be messed up by the results so they don't feel the need to vote for there own interests.

Regardless of whether or not tera is problematic in OU, to ensure the fairest outcome, there needs to be some assurance that tera can be preserved in lower tiers.

Right now, a UU player might feel the need to vote to preserve tera bc they have no other way to preserve tera in the tier they play.

I don’t think there’s any way I, or anyone besides maybe tier/site leadership, could provide that assurance, but for those of you whose primary motivation is to preserve Tera in UU and lower tiers, I urge you to vote Full Ban now, and here’s what I hope will be a compelling argument as to why:

The longer Tera sticks around in OU, the higher the chance becomes that the general playerbase will sour on it. Right now, enough people still like the mechanic that there would be significant support for some kind of discussion on preserving the mechanic in lower tiers. If Tera isn’t banned, by the time the second suspect test rolls around a couple months from now, the prevailing opinion may very well be “just get it out, I never want to see it again”, and then no one will want to have that discussion anymore.

 

[Vall]

The longer Tera sticks around in OU, the higher the chance becomes that the general playerbase will sour on it. Right now, enough people still like the mechanic that there would be significant support for some kind of discussion on preserving the mechanic in lower tiers. If Tera isn’t banned, by the time the second suspect test rolls around a couple months from now, the prevailing opinion may very well be “just get it out, I never want to see it again”, and then no one will want to have that discussion anymore.

...I honestly see it the other way. At this point, if there's a full ban, any retests would be seen as hugely unpopular as the thought process would be "why are we revisiting this, we already decided." Preserving the status quo is designed to be easier than changing it, so it'd be easier to support a partial ban than banning and then un-banning it later.

It would also generate a lot of conflict with some complaining "why are we retesting it, it was already banned." Supporting a full ban is not the right path here for the lower tiers.

 

[Levant Mir Celestia]

I do agree that limitless boundaries is a bit OP but at the same time people forget the simple fact that both players have access.

Both people had access to Dynamax. Care to guess how THAT worked out?

I get what everyone is saying about the Tera ban vs stay but lets be real. If its banned it fixes nothing which is like yea cool we can all sleep happily. But again to utilize a mechanic that has competitive potential is also a worthy stay.

How does it fix nothing? Banning it means that we no longer have to take risks on literally every goddamn action we take in any given battle. Even something that should only be risky for the opponent is risky as well for the advantaged player thanks to tera. Like the aforementioned Tusk vs Gambit example. Without Tera, it's an easy click Close Combat and remove Gambit from play (or you at least force it out). With tera, it becomes a huge mess as to what Tusk's user should do, because their opponent can simply blunt Close Combat with a terastallization, and then proceed to set up. In a situation they had no business setting up in. That is just plain stupid.

Its a 50/50 without knowing a players tera yes. But; lets say you tell a player your tera mon its fair. What different is it compared to swapping out a mon or unrevealing a moveset?

Outside of pivot moves, you don't get to attack the turn you switch out. But what's more damning is the fact that it allows you to set up in situations where you had no business setting up. It takes zero skill to play the uno reverse card on your unaware opponent. Also, let's not pretend that knowing your opponent's mons' tera types does much to alleviate the rampant paranoia it fosters. Knowing that my opponent's Dragonite is Tera Normal is only small comfort when I still don't know when they'll use it, let alone that that will be the mon they terastallize.

Ban or unban there are mons that will always roam effortlessly. You limit a Tera to one and tell the player its fair. This now creates a defensive reaction and offensive option for either player. You would know the tera type thus making it easier to play neutral damage.

See above. Also, the defensive part of terastallization is far outstripped by the offensive component.

 

[Cresselia92]

So, I’ve been mostly a spectator and watching the thread and metagame develop — mostly because I don’t have the spoons to get back on track with competitive battling — but I felt the need to chime in about something.

I don’t think there’s any way I, or anyone besides maybe tier/site leadership, could provide that assurance, but for those of you whose primary motivation is to preserve Tera in UU and lower tiers, I urge you to vote Full Ban now, and here’s what I hope will be a compelling argument as to why:

I largely disagree with voting Full Ban, in that case. If all, I’d say that the opposite should be considered: either restriction, or no ban.

For one thing, a second test can always happen down the line, and it’s so much easier to test something that is still currently on the tier than something that has been banned already and brought back down. By the time a second test would occur, people would be used to the new metagame and would be far less inclined to revert things back to the previous state.

Meanwhile, keeping the mechanic around for a bit longer would allow us to keep studying it, and if all the other things on the radar are gone — namely Fire Fish and Shed Tail, which contribute into warping the metagame with the destructive firepower (boosted further with Tera) of the former and the sheer supportive potential of the latter (which facilitate setup, especially for Tera attackers like Dragonite and Espartha) — then we can also see more clearly whether it’s the mechanic that is broken or the Pokémon who are broken.

Heck, there was a similar discussion way back in the SM metagame, which was about whether the problem was the amount of attackers who could abuse the offensive prowess offered by the generational gimmick or the Pokémon themselves (sounds familiar?): https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/state-of-sun-moon-ou.3654499/

Among the things discussed were Magearna being able to constantly adapt to the metagame by swapping to the Right Z-Move, and that Z-Moves are what pushed Pheromosa and Zygarde into being the unstoppable forces they became. They probably would have been banished even without Z-Moves, but those contributed in making them broken.

However, at the end of the day, Z-Crystals weren’t removed from the game. Why throw an entire mechanic is we can get rid / nerf the few offenders?

Honestly, it would probably help to answer these questions in an objective way. (Hopefully not with stuff like “50/50” which has basically become a meme at this point.)

• What Pokémon are broken because of Tera or facilitate Tera abusers? Would they be as troublesome even without Tera around?

• What Pokémon are balanced with Tera? Did Pokémon with bad typing get a new lease of life by being able to ditch their original typing?

• If the unpredictability of Tera is the problem, then why not entertain the preview option (+1 Tera user, eventually) before nuking Tera as a whole? Even if nobody is a mind reader and can tell when the opponent is about to Tera, wouldn’t knowing the opposing Tera help mitigate the risks of failing predictions (ex. by relying less on supereffective attacks and using more neutral hits, perhaps)?

If it turns out that Tera is undeniably broken on multiple Pokemon even with restrictions, then sure. Get it out of the game as soon as possible. But make sure to consider all the angles of this topic and try to understand where the other side is coming from, no matter whether you’re pro-ban and anti-ban, while making your decision.

 

[Wolf-X]

The thing is, Tera is healthy in UU. It’s healthy in every tier besides OU (and Ubers but balance isn’t exactly necessary there) because OU is hoarding all the broken abusers besides Espathra (for like 6 more days). But this isn’t UU and we shouldn’t be voting like it is.

Have you thought that MAYBE, just maybe the reason for this might be some mons need to be suspected and or BANNED?

ChiYu -> Ban
Roaring Moon -> Ban, its just too powerful and too many sets, it can be very easy or very hard to deal with depending on the set and match up.
Shed Tail -> Ban
Dragapult -> Suspect but imo its kinda broken with its many set options...
Annihilape -> Ban/Suspect tricky one

Garganacl -> Suspect
Skeledirge -> Suspect
Spathra -> Suspect
Dondozo -> We will see but MAYBE suspect?
Volcarona -> Maybe Suspect? Ive seen some valid discussion this gen is the strongest its ever been.

This is my opinion of what should be done to solve the main troubles of the meta.

 

[Finchinator]

The discussion of individual future suspects and lower tier ramifications just don’t belong in this thread. People are allowed to vote based off of whatever they want and nobody can ever stop this, but these matter don’t really belong in the suspect thread for this because they don’t have to do with the topic of this thread. Otherwise, every suspect will devolve into a thread where you can justify discussing just about anything.

Let’s say no action happens and we go through the tiering process for every Pokemon that’s currently problematic in the metagame, which consists mostly (but not all) of major Tera beneficiaries. At that point, there’s no saying the metagame is balanced either as all we have done is de-crept the power level of the tier and we could potentially spend all generation chasing a balance that simply won’t exist given the nature of the mechanic. There’s also no saying that it won’t be a fix — the point is that we have no way of knowing for sure. Any speculation on what will ultimately balance something when balance is months and many moves away is sheer theorymon, which is pretty clearly not a good faith argument that holds the most water here.

In a similar light, assuming Tera will naturally balance in UU and lower tiers is somewhat theorymon. UU is the only lower tier that exists now and it’s in its infancy. UU players can draw some conclusions and I respect that as they have had an unofficial metagame to play for some weeks now, but further down the line really cannot. Once it becomes official and strategies continue to refine, tiering practices continue to update, and so on, a more substantial sample and perspective will exist for UU even and obviously below as they don’t even exist yet.

It has never been a best or optimal practice to let a lower tier stop a higher tier from having any tiering action. This has been the standard forever and if we were to ditch it, then we would also have to consider ditching rises based on usage and the transitivity of tiering as a whole — you don’t just get to handpick what does and doesn’t apply. And if you wanted to begin handpicking or fundamentally alter the system, that goes way above my head and the scope of this thread, so it wouldn’t belong here regardless.

You can vote based on whatever ideology you wish and that’s one of the best parts of our system — you are free to make that choice if you read reqs, but I don’t see how discussion of other tiers and discussion of future suspects that are largely based off of theory rather than anything substantial and known have a place in the suspect thread. This has never been allowed before and has derailed discussion many times, so let’s not start up with it now. Otherwise, this’ll just devolve into the “let’s discuss anything relevant to any Gen 9 format“ thread and the specific suspect thread just won’t exist.

 

[qways]

I got reqs and i will vote no ban. The reason is that i dont think tera is uncompetetive, since neither the tera types you or your opponent pick nor the time you decide to tera is chosen randomly.
On the other hand there are some mons that may not be broken without tera that may be broken with tera. However instead of banning the mechanic i prefer to ban the mons, as i also dont think the amount of mons to whom this applies is a lot (maybe 5 or so - im thinking mainly of roaring moon, chien pao, iron valiant and maybe dragapult, baxcalibur or kingambit). Afterall defensive tera also helps to keep some threats in check rigth now, so im not sure if the amount of broken mons is very diffrent with or without tera.

If tera gets restricted, i vote for the following restrictions
1. Reveal Tera type at team preview
2. 1 Tera user per team
3. Outright ban
4. Only STAB Tera types allowed

 

[KeemyCakez]

Both people had access to Dynamax. Care to guess how THAT worked out?


How does it fix nothing? Banning it means that we no longer have to take risks on literally every goddamn action we take in any given battle. Even something that should only be risky for the opponent is risky as well for the advantaged player thanks to tera. Like the aforementioned Tusk vs Gambit example. Without Tera, it's an easy click Close Combat and remove Gambit from play (or you at least force it out). With tera, it becomes a huge mess as to what Tusk's user should do, because their opponent can simply blunt Close Combat with a terastallization, and then proceed to set up. In a situation they had no business setting up in. That is just plain stupid.


Outside of pivot moves, you don't get to attack the turn you switch out. But what's more damning is the fact that it allows you to set up in situations where you had no business setting up. It takes zero skill to play the uno reverse card on your unaware opponent. Also, let's not pretend that knowing your opponent's mons' tera types does much to alleviate the rampant paranoia it fosters. Knowing that my opponent's Dragonite is Tera Normal is only small comfort when I still don't know when they'll use it, let alone that that will be the mon they terastallize.


See above. Also, the defensive part of terastallization is far outstripped by the offensive component.

What limitations were there to be made with both players dynamaxing, none really; you can at least control limitation on Tera. But guess we will see the solution in the end.