Implemented Revisiting the Sleep Clause for SV OU

[dex]

Sleep is not the issue, Darkrai is the issue. Darkrai provides OU with, for the first time, fast Sleep backed by a super strong attacker. The difference between it and Iron Valiant is it doesn’t rely on a single use item and its setup is exceedingly punishing, much more so than Iron Valiant. But hey, if Hypnosis Iron Valiant is also doing too well with such an inconsistent strategy, then ban Iron Valiant too. Or ban Hypnosis, since its inconsistency seems to be an issue. However, it is evident that Darkrai is what is bringing up all this. Extending the situation to cover all Sleep moves is disingenuous at best and purposely deceptive at worst. Now, I will say that whether Sleep Clause or a Sleep Ban should be in place due to cart accuracy is a completely different discussion. But if you want to just talk about SV OU and not older generations, which is where some confusion is stemming from, the conversation needs to be about whether or not Darkrai is a healthy component of the tier, not Sleep moves. As has been said previously, Sleep existed just fine beforehand, wielded primarily by Amoonguss, who is just an average user of Sleep moves (see: can pressure Grass-types with STAB moves but is not fast). Darkrai is just broken. Look to Darkrai for the source of your complaints, don’t try to change reality.

 

[igiveuponaname]

Regardless of whether or not sleep gets banned in SV, it's clear that this is opening up discussion about sleep clause as a whole across all generations.
I have no real opinion on sleep clause in SV OU but since a good amount of posts have been talking about its implementation in past gens I figured I'd share my thoughts. Some people have posted about their desire to see sleep clause removed from most if not all past gens, having an opinion such as that is fine but decisions as big as that should really be discussed and voted on by the communities surrounding those gens themselves. We've seen some recent policy decisions be made with 'consistency across major tiers' as a major driving factor as well as the communities surrounding those tiers not being properly consulted (at its worst culminating with the RBY Bo1 fiasco, though this assumedly wouldn't be anywhere near as outrageous).

If there's a desire among old gen playerbases to ban sleep in-lieu of sleep clause, sure, let them do that. Just don't come out of nowhere with a blanket sleep ban across all gens once this is over.

To add onto this, if oldgen councils want to follow suit then there’s no issue with that either since this is a general dialogue with SV OU as a primary focus. But nothing would be changed retroactively without consultation or the decision of each generation’s respective councils.

I know what I'm saying has already been said/confirmed by ausma here, and I trust what is said here. I simply wish for that trust to not be broken by sudden retroactive action across past gens because of what some are saying in this thread.

 

[Lily]

I just spent a couple of hours laddering with Hypnosis Valiant to see if it really is just Darkrai causing problems. Before this I was of the opinion that Hypnosis Darkrai sucks ass, and Hypnosis Valiant also sucks ass, so I tried to challenge that by using them myself. I also laddered for about 20 minutes with Darkrai but nothing noteworthy really came of it.

To be honest I've never had less fun laddering in my life, there's absolutely zero skill expression or fun to be had here. It usually boils down to hit the move and win or miss it and lose. But regardless, here are some highlights:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2033549107-bzsr758unqswwcjnhvmkmmbb3p1ladqpw - I hit the move and I win

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2033553160 - I hit the move and I win, albeit in less simplistic fashion

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2033582055 - should've lost to volcarona realistically but no need to worry about that

The arguments that apply to Darkrai apply here too:

- Speed tier above everything else
- Perfect two-move coverage (which Darkrai does not actually have)
- Game-ending setup potential
- Threatens all sleep absorbers extremely hard (heavily disagree with the idea that it loses to ghold hatt etc - hex sends them flying)
- Unreliable and cheese, because the move it's using to sleep shit sucks

Despite this silliness I did pretty much break even in points. And that's expected! These guys aren't consistent. Nobody's ever gonna claim they are. You live and die by a 60% move, it's only going to work so many times. The point isn't about whether or not these guys are rampaging to the point of being unstoppable, it's just concerning that the counterplay is almost always limited to "don't get hit".

Some of the arguments presented in this thread don't make much sense to me. "If sleep was an issue before now it would've been brought up" is debunkable through a) King's Rock getting banned from every tier under the sun only two years ago despite existing since GSC, because people only started to actually abuse it in SS, and b) the fact that sleep *has* come up in recent memory - twice! It isn't solely a Darkrai issue, but Darkrai's kit being built around the mechanic is obviously a huge incentive to try it, which leads us to now.

SV sleep in its current state is pretty reminiscent of BW sleep. With the immense power level of the HO threats SV has brought, your sleeping mon either gets a turn 1 wake or it's dead. You can't afford to give free turns to the threats these mons find themselves teamed with. So in that sense you could take the broken angle, and single out Darkrai and Valiant because they're incredibly fast and abuse the move at least somewhat regularly. Normally this is a path I'd agree with - take out the abusers first. But Sleep Clause is already modding the game in a wait that makes it completely unreplicable in actual Pokemon games as an insufficient attempt to nerf something we accepted was broken from the beginning.

So to me, the obvious solution is to remove sleep. It's not balanced on its own and we don't take these half measures towards nerfing it in modern tiering. It's not about "preserving Darkrai" or whatever - it's extremely unlikely it gets banned regardless given its certified Not Good even with hypnosis - but instead about having a cohesive, sensible ruleset that eliminates this nonsense from the game. The viability of Amoonguss and whatever unviable mons beyond that exist isn't worth it, although Amoonguss with Stun Spore has proven itself just as reliable if not more in plenty of metas anyway given it's not randomly useless once it clicks the move a single time.

 

[Alternator]

Sleep Clause mods the game to balance the sleep mechanic, and it's not even doing that successfully anymore, since Darkrai and Iron Valiant can both fish for sleep successfully enough to maintain rating on ladder. It's not even a new tech for Valiant, running Hypnosis as the last move to improve your otherwise-hopeless matchups at the cost of weakening your favorable matchups has been around all generation.

Grandfathering in bad policy is all well and good while it works, but it's no longer working, so let's bite the bullet and switch to Sleep Moves Clause.

 

[Aberforth]

I dont really have an opinion, but I'd just like to say for the people saying this is only about Darkrai.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/on-sleep-clause.3695183/

This is a discussion that was also started in the middle of SS (not to mention the very start of SS), when Darkrai wasnt legal, and the thread itself lacked a real conclusion to it. This is a conversation worth having regardless of whether or not Darkrai should be banned from OU.

 

[McMeghan]

I'd personally be down to see Sleep be nuked from ADV onwards.

I think this mechanic in unhealthy in every aspect of it. Unreliable moves, extremely big swings of momentum awarded by the uncertainty of the move hitting, or the Pokémon waking up, as it's often a "good" play to just stay in and hope for a short sleep.

I do not think Sleep is "broken", just unhealthy and considering it's already been heavily nerfed by a clause, I'm in favor of personally just going all the way about it.

My one concern is that it makes Balance stronger in general, and it's already the "safe" route to go for many gens.

Anyway, I reckon this is a thread for Sleep in SV, but just in case it becomes a subject of discussion for other generations, I wanted to post my stance as an old gen main.

 

[R8]

If sleep is still causing any kind of issues despite being limited by something as extreme as a mod - which is by the way something that should be avoided as much as possible, according to our own tiering policy framework (you can read it at the very beginning of the first post) - then I believe it should directly be targeted instead of banning the mons that are pushing sleep over the edge. Implementing a mod to balance out a metagame should be an open possibility if there are no other options, and if there is proper justification behind it - see: freeze clause in ADV and DPP - but at this point the sole reason why sleep clause is kept is because it currently stands as the status quo.

I don't see why when a new generation comes out, sleep clause should be implemented without any kind of justifications when a clearer, more in line with Smogon's modern tiering policy exist: banning sleep moves.

In less hohoho tiering policy consistency words: there isn't really any good reasons to keep the current sleep clause imo, especially if sleep is still being a problem. I would more than gladly send Amoonguss to hell if it means Sleep Clause won't be standard anymore, at least in the current and future generations - older gens def should have the right to choose what they want to do by themselves, regardless of the outcome of this thread.

 

[KaenSoul]

The Sleep Clause Mod takes away from what OU represents, is supposed to be a format that follows what's possible ingame, but with rules build up by the community, to distinct it from the formats controlled directly by Game Freak, when our rules go beyond what's possible ingame then we create something way too different from what is supposed to be, the rules should be only to decide what is fair to use, not to changes how the game is coded, we have other formats for that.

It basically means we are playing a different game, SV OU has different mechanics from the SV you use to play VGC. Like how you find different mechanics in Stadium from what you find in Yellow, but we got to decide if we are fine with it or not.

I imagine my view on the subject is different from others as I joined Smogon much later, for me the mod just doesn't make much sense and is kind of weird how it's seen as the standard, when is such a weird thing to keep around, like with Dynamax last gen, the logic thing to do with a broken mechanic is to ban it, not to modify it so it works in a way we are more comfortable with, the mod is even a contradiction on what is trying to accomplish, we are trying to preserve something by turning it into something different? That doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[BigFatMantis]

The fact that Sleep Clause is a mod should be separated from whether or not Sleep is too much in SV OU in its current state. A lot of these arguments are trying to lump the two together and I think that’s inappropriate unless you want to directly talk about Sleep Clause mod in general across the generations it affects. We should be looking at this from two different stances:

1) Is Sleep too much/broken/unbalanced/uncompetitive in the current state of SV OU? And if so, is is necessary to ban sleep moves to fix it or is it just very few abusers that can be banned instead? Pursuant to tiering policy framework that was previously linked, that is the question we are supposed to look at, and it’s up to those seeking change on why banning sleep is the right route over another solution. Whether or not sleep clause is mod does not factor into this argument specifically, unless you are going to look at it from perspective 2:

2) Should we abolish Sleep Clause because it is modding the game in contrast to the spirit of adhering to cartridge mechanics? If yes, then the specifics of what makes Sleep too much in SV OU is irrelevant. Darkrai or Valiant doesn’t matter for example - if it’s a mod, then it’s a mod, and if you feel we shouldn’t have it then that’s really all there is to it. But this is true for various generations and if the reason to eliminate the clause is to adhere to cartridge, then if we are consistent with this we should also be revisiting it for gens 6-8 at the very least, if not all of 3+.

My personal stance is that if Darkrai was causing the issue then ban Darkrai. But if it’s a combination of things that break it then it’s fair to target Sleep altogether for SV OU, but in doing so we shouldn’t use it being a mod as a reason to do so unless we are re-evaluating how we apply that mod in general without regard to SV OU tiering and balance issues.

 

[KaenSoul]

The fact that Sleep Clause is a mod should be separated from whether or not Sleep is too much in SV OU in its current state. A lot of these arguments are trying to lump the two together and I think that’s inappropriate unless you want to directly talk about Sleep Clause mod in general across the generations it affects. We should be looking at this from two different stances:

1) Is Sleep too much/broken/unbalanced/uncompetitive in the current state of SV OU? And if so, is is necessary to ban sleep moves to fix it or is it just very few abusers that can be banned instead? Pursuant to tiering policy framework that was previously linked, that is the question we are supposed to look at, and it’s up to those seeking change on why banning sleep is the right route over another solution. Whether or not sleep clause is mod does not factor into this argument specifically, unless you are going to look at it from perspective 2:

2) Should we abolish Sleep Clause because it is modding the game in contrast to the spirit of adhering to cartridge mechanics? If yes, then the specifics of what makes Sleep too much in SV OU is irrelevant. Darkrai or Valiant doesn’t matter for example - if it’s a mod, then it’s a mod, and if you feel we shouldn’t have it then that’s really all there is to it. But this is true for various generations and if the reason to eliminate the clause is to adhere to cartridge, then if we are consistent with this we should also be revisiting it for gens 6-8 at the very least, if not all of 3+.

My personal stance is that if Darkrai was causing the issue then ban Darkrai. But if it’s a combination of things that break it then it’s fair to target Sleep altogether for SV OU, but in doing so we shouldn’t use it being a mod as a reason to do so unless we are re-evaluating how we apply that mod in general without regard to SV OU tiering and balance issues.

I don't think it is fair to make this discussion apply to all gens, even if everything still applies to them, it should be discussed between their individual communities what should be done, if we want to convince them that's fine, but it should be done in different instances for each of them like how is done for Baton Pass, after all for past gens there is also this factor of "preserving the format that was played when it was the current gen" that doesn't really concern us.

 

[Bughouse]

Nothing mechanically has changed about Sleep in several generations now, rather just 1) what abusers exist and 2) what community (or council) sentiment on it is. BW obviously did ban sleep moves some time ago, but I think we all know that BW sleep was its own kind of monster and arguments related to BW shouldn't be taken seriously in other generations. This is a new discussion specific to SV.

The first (what abusers exist) is a potential argument about whether one should ban individual abusers or the moves, so unless this list is so long (I would generally think of this as being certainly no less than ~at least as many users as the N of moves you'd be seeking to ban, but ideally considerably more than the N of moves) so as to justify banning N moves, following this argument and banning moves to save abusers would not be consistent with Smogon tiering philosophy.

This is because if you're evaluating banworthiness, we should always prefer to ban Pokemon to other elements and so there should be a high threshold to banning moves, even more so when it's a whole class of moves and not just one:
Spore, Hypnosis, Sleep Powder, Yawn, and Sing
(Dark Void, Lovely Kiss, and Grass Whistle no longer usable)

I do think there's 2 caveats to this debate.

1) Since these would naturally be banned for all SV usage tiers, it's fair to count the number of abusers across tiers. I don't think it's necessarily fair to say "well OU's only problem is Darkrai, so 5 moves > 1 mon". If UU is also having problems with Amoonguss, I have no problems taking that into consideration for a SV-wide change from old Sleep Clause to banning Sleep Moves.
2) I do concede to at least some degree that the count of abusers who would need to be banned is potentially higher if there were no Sleep Clause at all, i.e. if Amoonguss wasn't already on the list being considered under point 1, I assume it definitely would be under a no-clause ruleset, given Spore's reliability. I'm not sure this would change too many other Pokemon though since Hypnosis and Sing in particular are very unreliable and even Sleep Powder is pretty unreliable. In any case though I think comparing to the status quo is still appropriate here, given longstanding history of all singles metas having Sleep Clause and the fact that it does currently exist as the status quo in SV. It's an argument to make, just not one I agree with.
From what I can tell this list might not even be 5, but it's certainly not vastly more than 5. Therefore, I do not think this is a valid argument to ban moves rather than Pokemon. If I'm wrong and there are 6+ mons, then I guess this argument is live.

The second (community/council sentiment) is a much more philosophical argument about whether we prefer to turn the game that GF has given us into something playable and competitive either by doing something not fully replicable on cartridge or by just totally* removing an element from the game. Obviously we have done the second before with things like ohko moves and evasion clause, and these have been removed for similar reasons as Sleep, where they're in a middle ground of possibly just straight up broken but if nothing else, variance-inducing and uncompetitive. If sleep clause had never existed going back to stadium days as a compromise, I imagine we would have treated sleep the same ways as evasion and ohko going back many years. No sensible compromise exists for evasion and ohko, really. What would it even be? You can only ohko 1 opposing mon per game? It wouldn't make sense. Sleep clause only exists because it had GF-endorsed precedent as a reasonable compromise. In BW there was a very clear argument that this wasn't just a philosophical choice of which of the two options to balance sleep we prefer, but really that the historical sleep clause just didn't frankly do the job. BW sleep is just simply that broken (which we finally acknowledged very late). In SV I don't believe that we're anywhere near BW levels such that the clause is not working as an intended compromise. That said, I also don't think SV has to meet the BW level-brokenness threshold. BW needed to meet that kind of high threshold because it was an old gen by that point, and I would expect to require a similarly high threshold for evaluating sleep in other old gens before we would make such a major change to them. But for current gen itself, I don't see any problem with preferring to ban Sleep Moves, even if it breaks with all other past gens not named BW.

My personal preference would still be to tackle the most problematic abusers first, since it sounds like there really aren't very many of them. And this is especially so for Darkrai because we know for a fact it is very, very good under regular old sleep clause (see performance in numerous generations of Ubers with sleep clause, much less how it would have torn up OU) and probably should have never been even tested in OU with regular old sleep clause. I do acknowledge of course Hypnosis is a huge downgrade from Dark Void, but all the same, I think it was likewise ill-advised and may be skewing this debate. All the same, my personal preference is not that strong and I don't think there'd be anything so cataclysmically wrong as a matter of policy about just switching to sleep moves over old sleep clause, during current gen, with majority community support.

*technically sleep as a mechanic is not totally removed by banning sleep moves, since you can still get effect spores (or run jank like sleep talk psycho shift in old gens)

 

[Amaranth]

sleep since gen6 and onwards has been a blatantly uncompetitive mechanic with no annoying enough abusers to get any substantial action going against it, but I don't know how anyone can look at "33% to sleep 1 turn, 33% to sleep 2 turns, 33% to sleep 3 turns" and not see a giant issue. even on accurate sleep moves, let alone inaccurate ones.

this is king's rock / brightpowder / snowcloak etc. levels of randomness, and those are largely gone from all newgens automatically. likewise sleep's only niche is giving players a random chance of lucking into enough free turns to obtain a substantial lead.

this mechanic is fundamentally synonymous with random chance, same as brightpowder and all such things. i don't understand how it hasn't been nuked the same way all similar things were already nuked. s/o to the homie darkrai for giving people a reason to push for this, but this mechanic is inherently a lottery, it doesn't have enough competitive merit anymore to be used as anything other than desperation fishing, just axe it (and get rid of a big aberration in tiering policy while we're at it)

 

[Exotic64]

Hey all, you might know me from probably pioneering all this cheese when I made my Ogerpon-Wellspring HO earlier in DLC1 which featured a Hypnosis Iron Valiant, which was the most spammed team on ladder and in tours with great success (even making a finals appearance in the Charity Bowl) in the first few weeks of the DLC1 metagame, which even showed itself in the usage data to the point where all 6 mons on the team were amongst the top 12 of usage. I am mentioning this because during this time, there was a lot of discussion about the cheese around Hypnosis mons, and this discussion is returning again so I just wanted to give my insight on the whole situation. My original reasoning for using a Hypnosis Iron Valiant set was that it was able to reverse its matchups on its counters with the RNG of sleep turns and Hypnosis' 60% accuracy, with the exception of Gholdengo. Someone such as Zapdos or Amoonguss who would have normally stopped Iron Valiant in its track could have been beaten with the power of luck, and running Moonblast + Psyshock as coverage to hit everything with the exception of Gholdengo and CM as its coverage proved to be very successful. However, many people argued against this, saying Hypnosis was just cheese and it was terrible to play and something with more consistency like Encore or Destiny Bond would have been better, however I believe that being able to turn a matchup from completely lost to 40% lost with the power of RNG was, whilst uncompetitive, a perfectly viable strategy. Recently, we have been seeing the rise of Sash Darkrai with Hypnosis as a lead, completely coinflipping games (no longer matchups) by fishing for a Hypnosis and going from there. As someone who has played against it a lot, I can say that it is terrible to play against since it is simply annoying, and there is limited counterplay however switching to another faster mon such as Zamazenta or booster Ival right after getting slept is the best counterplay right now, however if you are playing as balance it is almost an insta-loss, especially if the Darkrai is Nasty Plot. As for Iron Valiant, Vert had shared me a CM hypnosis Hex Moonblast set around the end of DLC1 before all this controversy on sleep, and it has come back and proven itself to be great at what its doing, albeit this time it also hits Gholdengo too. I strongly believe this sort of "cheese" to outright win games is extremely uncompetitive and it stems from the problem of sleep itself, rather Darkrai. This is even more ridiculous when even at high level tour play such as PTPL, both players are trying to cheese a win with lead Darkrai LOL.
Personally, I believe this all more of a sleep issue than a Darkrai issue, and I think banning the latter mon would be a terrible idea. Darkrai is the prefered choice of lead on these hypnosis cheese strategies thanks to its ability complementing well with sleep, however it is forced to choose between 2 coverage moves if you are running Nasty Plot + Hypnosis, often having to neglect being able to deal with Kingambit due to lack of Focus Blast or being able to deal with opposing Fairies due to no Sludge Bomb. Having to scout for that last "coverage" move is extremely annoying if you are slept and will put you behind in game a lot, since you are practically gambling on the 50/50 in terms of whether Darkrai will be able to hit you. Not to mention, you are practically forced to switch out if you are slept by Darkrai, or else that slept mon will die and the cycle will continue with the Hypnosis fishing. This is incredibly uncompetitive and I will not be opposed to the introduction of a outright sleep ban, however I do not want Darkrai to be caught up in any of that since outside of sleep it has a good niche in the tier being able to deal with Gliscor and have great coverage, and even good utility too with trick choice-item sets and wisp + knock. Back to the topic of sleep, it does not help that the wake-up timers are literally RNG as well; when I played with Hypnosis Iron Valiant if I was able to get 2 Calm Minds thanks to a 3 turn sleep it was pretty much game over. The same goes for Darkrai here, however being able to use sash to fish for 2 Hypnosis it is really unfun to play against. At the same time, waking up at the 1st turn will pretty much ruin the Darkrai cheese strat altogether, making the counterplay frankly RNG dependant as well. However, there is another thing with this cheese Darkrai strat that I think Aislinn outlined perfectly, being that if you do lose the hypnosis 60%s twice in a row, the game becomes very unfavourable for you, considering now you gotta play a 5v6. This is literally just a gambling game at this point, and I think this is the real reason why sleep may be viewed as "balanced" in a sense.
However, in my opinion I think it would be unfair to only focus on sleep when it comes down to the natures of uncompetitiveness. Throughout the generations, I believe paralysis has been the most frustrating status condition to play against, even moreso than sleep. Although sleep is seen to be more "insta-gamewinning", paralysis can do this too, and arguably easier and more consistency due to moves like Thunder Wave having higher accuracy and Static existing. Flame Body can be added to this discussion too, as I can say for certainty throughout the years that there have been infinitely many more games being insta-lost by Flame Body or Static, whether its getting the Weaville, Urshifu or Kartana getting paralyzed/burnt by those abilities in SS, or Gambit/Tusk in SV, they are extremely detrimental and all come down to that "30%" chance which feels like 100% a lot. I recently played a game vs mind gaming where despite having an auto-won matchup thanks to prep, a series of 4 paralyses made the game go from easily winnable to straight up unwinnable. Flame Body and Static are not the main sources of hax either; the most relevant likely being Scald's supposed "30%" chance to burn, being more relevant in past generations, however many games came down to whether this move burnt or not, and I think we can all agree that scald fishing is most definitely a viable strat to save/end a game outright. If we are going to ban sleep for its uncompetitveness, I strongly believe that there needs to be a look into Flame Body/Static/Scald since similarly to sleep, they are also in a sense "gamelosing" that cannot be stopped unless you specifically run something like covert cloak/protective gloves, often a much worse item than something like a choice item or leftovers.

If there had to be a decision made between the ban of sleep, keeping the metagame as it is, or the ban of Darkrai, I lean towards the ban of sleep, purely for the sake of this frustration and how annoying it is to face one of these cheese strategies, even if half the time it fails. Banning Darkrai here would be completely nonsense as whilst its the main culprit of abusing sleep, whats stopping a sash Iron Valiant or speed boost Ninjask to be sleep cheesing everyone? Sleep is completely RNG-dependant, stemming from the poor accuracy of the moves (excluding Spore which are all on slow mons), to the 33% wake-up chance per turn, which could easily define a game. Reiterating what I said above, I believe this kind of RNG can be compared to the likes of Paralysis and Scald burns, with Flame Body and Static being massive culprits too, and if sleep was to be banned I would strongly advocate to at least have a discussion around those for the current gen. At the same time, Pokemon Showdown is supposed to be a cart simulator, and by banning sleep, although it may be healthier and less uncompetitive for the metagame, it will raise questions whether PS is really upholding its real purpose of existing. One thing is for sure - I strongly believe Darkrai is not the issue, and it is sleep itself, so please can we not go around wanting Darkrai nuked, because realistically if that does happen, sash Iron Valiant will be next up.

 

[xavgb]

op is blatantly disingenuous by stating this proposal exists for any other reason apart from darkrai. in fact, the other 3 pokemon mentioned were available pre-dlc with hypnosis/sleep powder movesets and a discussion regarding a potential sleep ban never arose.

Gonna address this because it definitely is more than Darkrai nowadays. There are many reasons that people didn't worry too much about Hypnosis Valiant before this DLC:

1) The only major ladder usage it got came from exotic64's RMT which featured Hypnosis Iron Valiant with Psyshock. At the time the coverage was pretty poor and most top players gave it a short leash in testing because they didnt want to click a 60 percent move with one of the best offensive threats in the metagame. Because of this, the narrative around this Val set was generally about how awkward it was to use and how it wasnt good enough to cheese teams without immense luck.

2) Valiant was a top tier mon that could still run away with games using its other movepool options. Many people defaulted to Encore for its utility, but when it wasn't running that you could see CM Valiant still run away with games with Taunt or Focus Blast. This made anything that Valiant did with Exotic64's Hypnosis set seem a lot less impressive, because Valiant owning u with a random 4th move was just kinda part of the game.

3) No one was really prompted to test out Gen 9's sleep users until they saw Darkrai in action. As I said earlier, good players do not enjoy clicking Hypnosis, so with the lack of a clear pattern to suggest that Hypnosis was anything more than "another thing Valiant might use to cheese a game" people didnt really look too deeply into things like Lilligant-H Sun. Sleep Clause has been around for a long time and in that time it has generally functioned fine for its intended purpose - in the older gens it keeps some defensive grasses and shitmons on life support while not really breaking anything, thus adding options to the metagame. It wasn't really until Darkrai became a major topic of discussion with Hypnosis that people realised "wait can't we do this on other mons too".

All three of these points kinda disappeared in the recent DLC, where Val got significantly worse in general, while also improving its Hypnosis set by running Tera Ghost Hex. This set is the closest thing that Valiant has to a one size fits all option for beating its answers - sometimes the odds are 60 percent if you just need the powered up Hex (Volcarona, Tera Roaring Moon), sometimes it's 40 percent if you need one sleep turn after that (for Gking/Amoon/Pex level answers), sometimes it can be 20 percent if it's a super hard check to Fairy/Ghost Val like Clodsire. The point of this Val set is that you get an insane matchup spread that no other single Valiant set can reach, and the cost of running this set is pretty one-sided - The Valiant player decides whether they're comfortable with the level of fishing they need to do, and if the other player doesn't want their strong check to get rolled over without doing any damage 40 percent of the time, cope I guess. These types of odds are much higher than any other situation where you can force your opponent to rely on luck to beat a threat with a strong answer.

We're also seeing the start of a Hisuian Lilligant wave on DLC 2 sun teams, with sun opting for a more offensive threat-stacking structure over the Tusk/Hat type builds we're used to seeing. Sun is a style that few people in this metagame can build well, so metagame development of Sun teams can move pretty slowly - for example, Sun was pretty bad when Wake dropped, and continued to be pretty bad all the way until OLT when Vert managed to make one of the top teams of that metagame. Realistically, there was probably some good sun team that could have been found in the months between those tournaments, the community just didn't find it. Lilli-H was treated as a side option on sun, so not many sun builders even had the time to look into it much, especially as Lilligant needs a shift in how sun is built to unlock its full potential. Eventually a couple buffs later (Lilli-H received Triple Axel in this DLC), and some assorted metagame trends that came around as DLC 2 is starting to settle a bit, people are starting to realise that this mon is actually pretty insane. Here's an example of one of these new structures winning in the USA vs The World tour - note that Lilligant has a 50 percent chance to win on the spot starting from Turn 14, with a sleep on Tusk Tera into one turn sleep and then a Stellar Tera to pick off Hat and Walking Wake. Replays like this serve as a good example of why Sleep Powder is so dangerous on sun - the style already has a ton of power and speed to make use of, and being forced to burn your Tera without a chance of even getting to hit the mon you're defensively Teraing against is the type of play that can lose you the game pretty quickly with Sun. Existing combos like Lilli + Gambit are fantastic for drawing out physical walls and then disabling them so that Gambit can pull out a win late-game, and the cost of running Sleep Powder is very low when you're a speed control mon that smacks almost everything with STABs + Axel anyway.

I talked more in depth about Valiant and Lilli-H in my posts in the other thread, but I felt that at least some of it needed re-iterating, since certain people still seem to be going with the Darkrai narrative. In my opinion as a council member, I seriously doubt that any argument for banning Darkrai actually stops at banning Darkrai. Normally we have to wait for the original threat to get banned for people to explore alternative options, but in this case even a hint of HypnoRai being banworthy allowed people to instantly start spamming sleep on other mons and successfully cheesing opponents. Each of the sleep users mentioned in this post have their own advantages over the other, and all of them have the capability of stealing games, so I think it's pretty naive/out of touch to suggest that this problem just goes away with a Darkrai ban.

As a sidenote, since we all agree that sleep as it was originally intended in the game (no clause) needed action, I don't see why it's somehow so much worse to have a sleep ban than a sleep clause. Sleep Clause may have made sense as a compromise in the past, where implementing the clause basically ensured that there would be no broken activity from sleep users, and you actually got positive effects in the form of more mons being viable, but for Gen 9 this doesn't really apply anymore. For SV OU, the most viable sleep users are doing broken mon things, while the non-broken sleep users are barely relevant, so if having the clause doesn't stop otherwise balanced sleep users from being broken, AND it doesn't even preserve a larger portion of the metagame than what we would lose through bans, it kinda begs the question - what does Sleep Clause even do for us at this point?

 

[CrashinBoomBang]

Sorry for derailing this thread, again, for something that's not strictly about SV OU, but I really don't want some of the posts that I consider to be uninformed in here to just stand like this.

For people suggesting blanket bans on Sleep in older gens and abolishing Sleep Clause, there's two options I see:

1. They legitimately think it would make the tier better/more competitive. For those people: Please stop talking about tiers you know little about at the highest level. I'm always happy to discuss, of course, especially with all the other active ORAS players, but I doubt anything resembling a sleep ban would even garner much attention at all in ORAS OU. I'm pretty sure almost everyone playing at a high level is going to tell you that they don't really care about sleep because it's such a non-factor here, and I actively think it's a positive addition to the metagame. It lets Amoonguss and Breloom, who are already plagued by numerous issues (I could list them here, but seeing how this thread isn't about sleep in old gens, I just want to keep it concise), have more of a niche in ORAS OU. Using Amoonguss who, by almost every standard, is very much a mediocre Pokemon at best in current ORAS OU to get access to Spore is one of the most fair trades in the teambuilder I can think of. You get a Pokemon that blanket checks a lot of things but actually deals super well with few Pokemon, especially long-term, and you get access to Spore. A move that isn't even guaranteed to incapacitate something (Taunt, other statuses being applied first, Gliscor, Substitute on HO/Screens, getting blocked by Grass types, most notably Ferrothorn, the list goes on...) and that helps Amoonguss be less of a dead weight in games. Breloom is in a similar boat, if anything I've found that Spore can be very tough to fit onto sets that actually want to do damage because you get shut down by other things even harder. I think both of these are legitimate, fine options that are not broken or uncompetitive in any way. Sleep being 1-3 turns when it's already this niche is not a good argument to axe it completely. Getting rid of Sleep Clause would actively make the tier worse, in my opinion, by taking away options from two Pokemon that already aren't very good, and the effect of keeping it this way has no downside to me. Like I said, all of this can be discussed with people who play the tier, but suggesting anything close to a blanket ban under this point of view is ludicrous.

2. They want to follow cart mechanics as closely as possible, in which case, why isn't Freeze Clause being discussed at all? Yes, it's not something that can be inflicted "purposefully" the way sleep can be a lot (which sure doesn't stop people from fishing for it), but we should adhere to cart mechanics. Right? Not like I can choose when to and when not to freeze Pokemon on cart. Or maybe we could ban all ice moves that can freeze so this can never happen? How about a mod that won't let you click ice moves if a Pokemon is already frozen? If you want to abolish Sleep Clause by this logic, then please, that's your opinion on the game, but apply it to everything that falls under this umbrella. There is no reason to get rid of one but not the other, or think of stupid workarounds for both. It's literally just people being selective about things they want to police, and not others, when there's no reason to treat them any differently. There's also no reason to make a cut-off for gens here, you either delete Sleep Clause and Freeze Clause (and probably work on a few other things, since we value staying true to cart mechanics so much) in their entirety, or you don't. For what it's worth, I think this would be a huge step backwards, but at least try to be consistent in your requested policy changes.

In a nutshell, either stop trying to drag in tiers that want nothing to do with this proposed change or push for Freeze Clause to also go so we can go back to the roots. Sorry for the post on old gens when the ship has largely (fortunatetely) sailed, but some of the posts in this thread just rubbed me the wrong way, and the last thing I want is for people to read some of these posts as factual when they are anything but.

 

[Finchinator]

Old generation tiering shouldn’t be dictated at all by this thread. If people want to make other threads about specific generations, then so be it, but not here. Sleep clause has been the status quo across many generations for so long that if they wish to maintain it, then that should be perfectly fine.

This thread should be strictly about SV OU and coming to a decision on this topic one way or another, not about ORAS OU, which is fine as is, or other metagames. There does not need to be perfect uniformity across every generation on every topic when greater nuance exists.

 

[Mimikyu Stardust]

2. They want to follow cart mechanics as closely as possible, in which case, why isn't Freeze Clause being discussed at all? Yes, it's not something that can be inflicted "purposefully" the way sleep can be a lot (which sure doesn't stop people from fishing for it), but we should adhere to cart mechanics. Right? Not like I can choose when to and when not to freeze Pokemon on cart. Or maybe we could ban all ice moves that can freeze so this can never happen? How about a mod that won't let you click ice moves if a Pokemon is already frozen? If you want to abolish Sleep Clause by this logic, then please, that's your opinion on the game, but apply it to everything that falls under this umbrella. There is no reason to get rid of one but not the other, or think of stupid workarounds for both. It's literally just people being selective about things they want to police, and not others, when there's no reason to treat them any differently. There's also no reason to make a cut-off for gens here, you either delete Sleep Clause and Freeze Clause (and probably work on a few other things, since we value staying true to cart mechanics so much) in their entirety, or you don't. For what it's worth, I think this would be a huge step backwards, but at least try to be consistent in your requested policy changes.

I really want to add to this so slight apology for adding to derailment, i'm only familiar with gen 7-9 and as far as im aware freeze clause is only available for gen 1 through stadium and in generations like 3 and 4 it doesnt exist.

if thats the case, freeze clause should be abolished too, i've read a bit about freeze clause in gen 3 and 4 and its mainly due to jirachi in this thread and it really just seems like its restricting basic hax. Its a slippery slope as in that thread theres people suggesting something as ridicoulous as a Serene Grace Clause where its effectively just does nothing. As time goes on, we should really try to stray away from modding the cartridge game for the sake of balance. The only time we should mod a cartridge if there is a game breaking glitch that just stops you from battling. Sleep Clause and Freeze Clause should not be added to any tier in the future, just a blanket Sleep Ban for the generations that doesn't have an in-game sleep clause.

I am not a gen 3 or gen 4 player so i don't know the balance of those tiers outside of some basic footnotes, but a removal of both freeze and sleep clause to keep consistent with cartridge in my opinion should be a priority. Pokemon Showdown is a simulator after all and having rules that follow the ingame battles should always be a priority.

A removal of Sleep Clause and add a Sleep Ban (be it a full sleep ban or just moves like Hypnosis, Dire Claw, Spore are banned, but ability like effect spore arent) from modern gens like 8 or 9 would be a great start. Sleep in SV as of now, be it Darkrai, Lilligant, Iron Valiant or Amoonguss does not feel broken, but it largely stems from the fact that sleep clause exist. Vert made a great post about Darkrai and sleep here in the Views for the Council thread where this argument of sleep ban originated. but i think to solve this issue, we just rip the very old bandaid of sleep clause mod for sleep ban.

 

[Heroic Troller]

Allow me to chime just to say that all the arguments about being "Darkrai's fault" feel silly to say the least. Is it Darkrai that breaks sleep or sleep that breaks Darkrai? Neither and both obviously, trying to pin it on Darkrai alone is in bad faith, and a sign that many would rather click "undo" on a recent change, sweep it under the rug and keep the old status quo until something else breaks it all over again, just because it's easier. The good arguments about why sleep clause is stupid given this a simulator not a hackrom has already been made crystal clear, and are probably enough by themself to win any debate.
So i'd like to ask everyone who just wants to carpet ban Darkrai and maybe Valiant what are their arguments on why sleep is a good addiction for the tier, to the point of banning valuable OU resources to keep it. Plus determine if all this mental gymnastics to hate on Darkrai has some substance behind it or it's just easy to produce a scapegoat for a mechanic that is quite literally borderline broken by itself and has survived this long off having mediocre or worse abusers.

 

[Brambane]

Competitive Pokemon players, as a collective, have gotten better at optimizing the game. This isn't really news for anyone, but this came with a culture change where being more open with bans and even unbans is now the norm. I think the definition of what we want a "competitive" metagame to look like has also changed and become optimized, with the growing vocal opposition to the likes of King's Rock, Swagger, and Quick Claw across multiple formats.

This thread is really just a sign of the times. The high variance that is mechanically part of sleep is evidently seen in the thread as less palatable with the evolving view of what modern Smogon metagames, especially OU, should look and feel like to play. SV OU deserves to have sleep banned across the board, I find the arguments for their ban to be sound and in-line with the direction Smogon's tiering has progressed. Going on 15 years of being on the site, it is interesting to see how we have evolved as a community with tiering philosophy.

At the very least, I wouldn't pin things here on Darkrai. I thought Darkrai would be broken in OU, and I would rather eat crow now than try to shoehorn validity into my previous stance.

 

[Stads]

Good content in this thread, it's given me a lot to think about. As someone who's spammed OU ladder a lot recently (and got to #2 a couple days ago), just a couple general thoughts on Sleep and Darkrai:

- When an offensive Mon hits the Hypnosis and gets a free turn or two at the right time, it can absolutely break a game wide open. Darkrai is of course the poster child for this, with it's great speed tier and adequate coverage options, but as pointed out, Valiant, Hisui-Lilligant, and maybe others like A9 can do this as well. If your team isn't built for it, counterplay can be very difficult, because it's really hard to preemptively play around all the worst case scenarios. What if Hypnosis misses on my sleep sack? What if I get 3 turn slept? What if Dark Pulse flinches/Crits my other wall? Sleep is absolutely an extra pain point that makes these mons a bit more difficult to deal with for sure.

- That said, sleep is definitely seeming to be a part of the HO toolkit right now. And HO has ALWAYS been a playstyle that brings hax to the forefront. If the HO team gets a Crit at the perfect time, it can be very hard, if not impossible, to win the game as a balance/fat matchup. To a lesser extent, HO also tends to promote one of the most arbitrary aspects of the game in speed ties, which honestly have a similar outcome profile to Hypnosis hitting. That's kind of just the way it is - when there are fewer turns and the power level is higher, the variance is also higher, and games are going to be decided on a pivotal moment of hax. Sleep doesn't feel great, but it's also hardly a complete outlier on this front.

- I think the meta can adapt to Sleep a bit more. On my main team (check my rmt if you want it), I have 3 vaguely status-immune mons in Gliscor, Gholdengo, and Garganacl. The first two are certainly popular, which has allowed Darkrai to tech against them with sets like Hypnosis/NP/Ice Beam/Dark Pulse and Valiant to tech Hypnosis/CM/Hex/Moonblast, but I wonder if Garg is heavily being slept on right now as an answer to these two. It's certainly not a silver bullet or anything, but it can ignore sleep, put the sweepers on a timer, scout coverage with protect, etc. And if Garg may be an underexplored answer, there may be others as well. Speculative, but meta adaption comes for everything in Pokemon.

- On a similar note, the general meta is also probably nearly optimized for sleep to be abused. Hazards everywhere means Boots are a near necessity on so, so many Pokemon. In previous gens or metas, niche counterplay like Lum Berry/Chesto Berry may have surfaced, but in gen 9, that seems quite laughable. There's also an argument that the hazard prevalence has also heavily limited what team structures are viable, letting Darkrai/Valiant specialize so much against those structures. Another note - with tera still around, and the general power levels of OU at an all time high, the value of a free turn that sleep can provide is only going to increase.

- Lastly, a general question - what good does sleep provide to competitive Pokemon? Why do we want it to exist? We'd rather not ban things if unnecessary, but if the best argument for something existing is that we can't think of a sufficient reason to ban it, that's really weak. Traditionally, it was sometimes a way to shut down opposing setup sweepers, sort of like Spore is on Amoonguss, but now it's being abused by those same sweepers. I'd love to hear others' thoughts on the positives sleep brings to the team building and playing experience, because I'm struggling to find much myself.

Thanks to anyone who's read these notes, the current meta is definitely in a very interesting place. Shoutout to Slainey/Pinkacross' hax team, it shows just how degenerate things are right now, and why we're all sort of looking for answers in our own way.

 

[Sneakyplanner]

On modding and rule enforcement: If sleep clause breaking cartridge accuracy is a problem then just modify it to not do that. Any person who hits a second sleep move just gets instantly disqualified as if there is a referee watching every game. The reason that the mod exists as-is is because we just kind of understand that it's acceptable to mod the game to solve some edge case scenario where the alternative is disqualifying someone who forgot the rules/doesn't understand the rules yet. Personally, I don't see how this is an issue to anybody except those looking to start shit and argue about pointless edge cases. Sleep clause breaking the game rules isn't reason to ban sleep altogether, it's a reason to redo sleep clause so that it doesn't, if that is even a problem at all.

On sleep itself: Personally, I just feel like the pro-ban gaggle hasn't actually done anything to prove that it is a problem in the first place, and if you ask me the structure of this thread seems to be made to force a sleep ban with the only options being to ban it altogether or do nothing with some sneaky wording trying to frame the latter in a negative light.
Darkrai and valiant are annoying with their ability to flip a coin and potentially remove their only check. But one of those mons is one that was banned in every generation before and the other is one I believe hypnosis is just a fad on. There are just more reliable moves on valiant, and eventually I feel like people will move onto them just like the last time hypnosis valiant became a fad.
But beyond those two, all that has been said is "some people are using sleep powder on Lilligant" and it seems like everyone who has been using this as a ban argument has intentionally avoided elaborating. If it really is a problem then you should have more to say than listing fun facts about Lilligant. And directly responding to something said in the OP, are you really calling red card amoonguss an issue because it's "adding an additional layer of RNG that can potentially lead to a key Pokemon being put to Sleep with no turns burnt off"? If red card amoongus putting something of yours to sleep is seen as an unhealthy RNG element then maybe play a game where moves don't fail 20% of the time or start a poolicy review thread to mod stone edge to 100 accuracy. In gen 6 onwards, amoongus' spore is a tool that does more god than harm for game balance, and trying to slip it into a discussion on unbalanced and random bullshit because of red card is just wrong.

My preference on a course of action, in order: 1) do nothing, at least for now. 2) Ban Darkrai as it seems to be the catalyst for this whole debate. Nobody with any credibility was asking for sleep as a whole to be banned before Darkrai was legalized. 3) Ban hypnosis/sing/grass whistle/whatever other moves exist. Unlike the powder sleep moves, these don't have any immunities and their inaccuracy makes them problematic. And sort of in parallel to these options, if sleep clause is being challenged for pedantic reasons then just modify it to disqualify rulebreakers instead of giving them a warning. We have a system that works and makes the game better than both completely liberated sleep and a full ban, there's no reason to abandon that just because it makes some pedants happy.

 

[Lily]

Our Sleep Clause is like their Item Clause, a simple rule that we can easily apply on cartridge, as long as the 2 players agree on that point, exactly like Species Clause.

Do you mind explaining how this could be done?

 

[MeepBard]

Our Sleep Clause is like their Item Clause, a simple rule that we can easily apply on cartridge, as long as the 2 players agree on that point, exactly like Species Clause.

Like Sneakyplanner pointed out, since we can not put a referee behind every players on Showdown, we just had to force the Clause, which is not actually "modding" the game.

the issue with sleep clause is that it can't be applied on cartridge in its current state, which is why it's referred to as Sleep Clause Mod. using a sleep move while a pokemon is already sleeping on the simulator will cause the move to fail, which is not something that can actually happen on cart. this can even be beneficial in situations where you're anticipating the opposing pokemon to wake up and you want to fish for an immediate sleep.

reworking the clause to something like graying out the move if an opposing pokemon is asleep as i'd suggested in my previous post would be replicable on cart and more in-line with a gentleman's agreement like you're probably referring to, but sleep clause as it stands now is a mod

 

[Lily]

Oh, really ? Come on...
=> Do not to click a sleeping move if an opposing Pokemon is already asleep.

It is way more difficult to replicate the Freeze Clause on cartridge though, because you can't prevent the freeze to occur on multiple Pokemon, which you can't do without having an actual mod, which, again, Sleep Clause is NOT.

Right, except this isn't how sleep clause works. You can currently put a Pokemon to sleep and spam your sleep move to your heart's content - every time it'll just fail and say "Sleep Clause Mod activated". It's not as simple as "don't click a sleeping move", because there are valid competitive states where you'll be forced into clicking it more than once - such as being out of PP in other moves, being locked into the Sleeping move via Encore, or just attempting to re-sleep something that's already burned a couple turns. It sounds like you don't actually know how Sleep Clause Mod currently works.

If you hate Freeze Clause that much then go make a thread about it. Nobody's gonna stop you. No point coming in here with blatant misinformation though.

 

[Magcargo]

With Encore being a more popular option this generation, the likelihood of Amoonguss or something being locked into Spore by a Valiant looking to setup is much higher. When looking at sleep clause as a mod, this is a worthwhile concern. EDIT: Actually, upon talking about this more with Finch, this is never a realistic concern.

I don't think banning Darkrai would be the end of the world since I think it is a fairly mid mon that the metagame will not lose much from if it were gone (I largely prefer running Meow, Roaring Moon, and Weavile for most roles as offensive Darks are concerned). That being said, even if sleep moves were to remain legal, I still don't think Darkrai is this super meta defining force that action is warranted against.

The problem with fast sleep mons like Darkrai and Valiant is that against threats that stay in as they click Hypnosis, you realistically only have a 40% chance of getting that free setup turn that you need to run away with the game, since you are banking on Hypnosis hitting, then the opponent not waking up turn 1. If the opponent switches into a Pokemon like Pex, odds are more in your favor, but not necessarily. Oftentimes, I feel these Pokemon need to land multiple Hypnosis in a row to truly sweep, and both Darkrai and Valiant are sacrificing quite a bit in order to even run Hypnosis (Darkrai sacrifices a coverage move, Valiant sacrifices a more useful utility move). Currently, the best sleeper imo is still red Card amoonguss since that mon feels like it's more guaranteed to incapacitate a mon, in comparison to Valiant / Darkrai which have to rely on unfavorable dice rolls to 6-0. Lilliagant-H is probably a more worthwhile concern I think, particularly as it's sleep move is more reliable, and it achieves very good coverage in two moves (Axel + CC), though sacrificing Tera Blast Ghost for Ghold / Dirge may be a bit annoying, esp since sleep powder is also useless against Ghold. I haven't used lilligant-H though, so this is speculation more than anything.

Overall, I think either banning Sleep moves or doing nothing is preferred in this situation. I prefer the former, but see some merits to the latter. I don't think Darkrai or Valiant alone should be banned.