Metagame SV Monotype Metagame Discussion [Indigo Disk]

[TTK]

I am quite happy that mushamu has opened the gates of the sleep discussion in this tier, I feel like someone who's generally regarded as one of the best mono players will ignite discussion and people will at least give sleep a critical thought for the first time rather than pokemonmastertrevor9 saying sleep should be banned. In any case...

I myself have stated on some occasions that I think sleep should be banned. I won't go as far to say it should be banned in every Mono gen. That's moving the cart too fast and there's really only incentive to ban it in SV. I've either been rebutted with "nah sleep is fine" or "para is worse", both of which are frankly weak arguments (the latter is even worse but I'll get onto that later). My main reasoning for sleep is simple, it's not particularly competitive and creates probability management issues, "emphasising the result of RNG more often than not". The pokemon playerbase over the generations, I'd say since gen 6, have been on a quest to limit the effect RNG has on the game. We cannot do it fully, not like we can get rid of critical hits and even damage calculation has RNG elements, but we try to reduce it to the best of our ability. Hence, we ban Razor Claw, King's Rock, Bright Powder, XY Swagger, the list has gotten longer and goes on. My question to you all reading this, and really apply critical thinking here. What makes sleep different from all of these? You get put to sleep, and the game basically tells you "First you must burn 1 turn, then either you wake up the following turn, or you take another 3 turns to actually move or wake up in between." No one knows when you'll wake up. The player who has used sleep has quite the advantage. They are able to take risks with their setup sweepers because they can believe "oh if my opponent gets 3 sleeping turns then I win from here" and you can say "they can swap out the sleeping pokemon" but that mon is still asleep until you unfortunately have to bring it out at some point and just pray you can wake up so you don't end up losing. I do not really see any skill involved with this.

I am also able to acknowledge that sleep has its own risks, mainly with the moves that of course induce the status condition. The current status moves that induce sleep are: Dark Void, Hypnosis, Sing, Sleep Powder, Spore, and Yawn. All of these moves bar Spore and Yawn have god awful accuracy. Sing with the second worst accuracy of them all also has a miniscule pool of mons that learn it, Dark Void is only Darkrai and it also just uses Hypnosis. It's considered a huge risk to click these moves because you lose a whole turn if you miss, giving your opponent an advantage. But if it lands, it's a massive reward and your opponent is at war with RNG. Isn't this the reason why we literally see Darkrai lead on Dark (which I've run numerous times) because sleep is that devastating? The high risk generally is something players do not mind actually doing because they are aware the payout is good. It's also in your favour overall to land these attacks, with even pokemon like due to what it runs even boosting Sleep Powder's accuracy thanks to Wide Lens. I cannot not compare this to literally running any of the RNG items to get an "unfair" advantage?


I will quickly address some points I've read so far since mushamu posted and respond to my thoughts regarding them.

For me sleep status is fine as you can easily play around and have a sleep fodder / sac in your team contrary to how paralysis is totally broken. Right now, sleep users are mainly Breloom, Darkrai, Amoonguss. Even Torkoal is not that often used and yawn is a 2 turn move so it's fine (I haven't seen a Ninetales used it since a while). There are obviously more mons going from Lilligant-H to Quagsire but the 4mss hit a lot of them. I don't think it would dramatically change the metagame to totally ban it, contrary to paralysis ! The fact that it halves speed is a very interesting tool but throwing a dice to hope being able to play is... Totally stupid and I blame game freak/nintendo for this. Considering having a clause would limit the no skill level of spamming para.

Saying paralysis is more broken than sleep isn't the argument you think it is unfortunately. As I alluded to in my first paragraph, paralysis is not more "broken" or "uncompetitive" than sleep. Paralysis is 1, only a 25% chance of completely making you unable to move, meaning you have a 75% chance of still moving. You would be "statistically unlucky" if you got get para'd consecutively. 2, if you think of game state, you can still utilise your plan of using that pokemon because you're aware it can still move 75% of the time. With sleep, you don't know when you'll wake up, and that's the problem. Also stating only "Breloom, Darkrai and Amoonguss" are the main sleep users is also false. Fair you mention Lilligant Hisui but frankly, it's not massive 4mss for it if it runs Powder, dropping Leaf Blade is not that important imo, especially for Grass. If you want me to name good mons, Iron Valiant can perfectly run sleep if it really wanted to. Heck, Vivillon on bug basically has a near accurate chance of landing Sleep Powder. We have established that not every user of an element in this game has to be used to be considered broken or we would keep Booster Energy in the format and ban etc

Also, I don't understand how we can view deciding which one of your 6 is taking the sleep move "as easily playing around sleep" when you eventually has to risk turns trying to get it up in the first place, especially if you don't burn that first initial turn early on in the game.

I would have thought that strictly sleep inducing moves like Spore and Hypnosis, were manageable with Sleep Clause. In the SV Monotype meta you can plan for / play around Sleep inducers - such as Breloom, Amoonguss, Smeargle and Darkrai - knowing that Sleep Cause only means 1 mon takes a nap. There is also counter play such as mons with sleep / powder move blocking abilities, items like Safety Goggles and Chesto Berry or simply having a grass type for Powder moves.

Sleep is not this oppressive force that has pokemon actually running Safety Goggles or Chesto Berries. We didn't prep for the Acupressure learned by 11 FEs and no one builds to take sleep into account. It has the most "counterplay" of all the RNG elements since there is some sort of control in your hands (Grass types immune to Powder moves, abilities) but we cannot act like these counterplay options are even good nor spammable.

Only 12 FEs get the combination of Vital Spirit/Insomnia. 1 is banned and the rest are unmons. Garganacl, Komala, and Gholdengo are immune to sleep but only 4/18 types have access to these mons. Grass types may be immune to Spore and Sleep Powder but they are still at the mercy of Hypnosis.


Overall, I've said my piece on sleep. I probably won't have any time to respond to any posts replying to my own. I'll be responding on the monotype Discord if anyone wants to discuss this or if you see me in the showdown room. Sleep may not be the top priority since there are still dumb mons in this tier but this should be considered at one point or another imo. Note that I didn't even bring up the inconsistent tiering of Sleep Clause Mod which sasha brought up, and there isn't really any argument to rebut that. Look at OU.

 

[maroon]

Hey all, I just wanted to chime in with some of my thoughts on the current sleep debate happening in this thread. While its true that OU had recently banned sleep moves and changed their clause, it was not because Sleep had the potential to be broken, it was because Sleep literally warped their metagame. In the month that DLC 2 was released, notably Darkrai was freed, which yes also is what we did in Monotype. However there is a key difference between how that affected both tiers. OU in that month had become a tier that was centered around Sleep, not just because of Darkrai, but because of entire archetypes being built around abusing sleep, such as Iron Valiant using Hypnosis + Hex or Hisuan Lilligant being on sun teams often featuring Darkrai using Hypnosis on Focus Sash sets. All of this created an extremely unhealthy environment in OU, where literally the entire tier was warped around these archetypes and countering these teams, whereas nothing close has happened in Monotype, infact sleep is not close to as abusable as it was in OU just due to the fact of how Monotype is setup.

Here are two prominent OU teams from that time period:

vert HO https://pokepast.es/c659931228a8905b
hypno spam https://pokepast.es/849c4c0b9a879421

As you can see made evident by these two teams and a number of replays from a variety of different tours, Sleep made a large impact on DLC2 OU before action was taken on it. Which brings me to my point about why I think its not the move to ban Sleep like it has been in OU. First and foremost, it is nowhere near as common to abuse sleep as it was in OU at the time. While its true you have access to Hypnosis Darkrai and Iron Valiant, these sets rarely see daytime in Monotype, while the more consistent sleep move 'Spore' is known by Amoonguss, Smeargle, and Breloom, at least for viable pokemon who can use the move. This means relaibly only 4 types have access to sleep, being Grass, Fighting, Poison, and Normal. Of these Fighting has the most opportunities to take advantage of it using its setup sweepers. The only problem being how inconsistent the move is, if you switch out and setup, way more often than not the Pokemon will have woken up before you can take advantage of it, or they will have chosen a Pokemon to absorb sleep. Pokemon such as Breloom, Darkrai, Iron Valiant and Hisuan Lilligant are the only ones I would consider even remotely close to a reason why sleep should be restricted in Monotype due to them having both Sleep+setup moves, however this severely limits the amount of attacks they can use, increasing the number of Pokemon that can reliably check them.

Overall, I would like to remind everyone that to change mechanics like this there needs to be a highly fair burden of proof that it is impacting the metagame, which there is not currently one in Monotype. We should be focusing our energy on the current threats of the metagame being Pokemon like Ursaluna-B, Chien Pao, Ogerpon (Water+Fire), Flutter Mane, Gouging Fire, Zamazenta, Archaludon, and Heat Rock. Which have all been mentioned previously in different posts or mentioned on community surveys. At the moment these Pokemon/items in my eyes present a more relevant urgency in the tier, rather than sleep which at the moment is mostly theorymoning. If somehow the metagame does develop into a point where Sleep does become more prevalent and a real threat I would love to circle back and focus on it, but for now it does not have any real impact on the metagame, therefore no tiering action should happen.

 

[ArkenCiel]

Thank YOU, maroon!

I also want to add on that comparisons to OU don't even make sense when you consider the fact it is a different tier altogether. We can't constantly switch back and forth between "we're different tiers so we tier differently" and "OU did something right, let's do that too" whenever it's convenient to the case we're trying to make (insert Gouging Fire joke here). That decision by the OU council is received differently by the people, so their sacred ruling isn't really anything of note. What some may see as a progressive move, many others look to as a complete joke and a total failure by those shepherding the tier.

After generations of contentment with the sleep clause, they should have looked at what has made "sleep moves" problematic within the tier. When it comes to making a big decision regarding something that has clearly worked for a while, SURELY you would consider all the recent changes and factors contributing to the problem to get to the root of it AND SURELY at the top of the list would be that one Pokemon that was freed earlier in the generation, has mostly been locked to Ubers in previous generations, is equipped with an ability to damage sleeping targets passively, outspeeds even Greninja, has SpA matching that of Flutter Mane, and can put it to good use with a colorful movepool, WHILE ALSO being present in the most problematic teams. Can you think of what Pokemon might be? Without access to sleep, that Pokemon might be manageable, but it has access to it. All that means is that this Pokemon has a potent mix of attributes that deserves being looked at and that's okay, the unbanned Pokemon may actually be broken after all. That doesn't mean you should take out the sleep mechanic instead... Wtf.. That just opens up a whole can of worms that no one has answers to.

The right and logical move is to undo whatever change led us there OR run a suspect test without

And only after going about it that way can we reach a greater understanding of what's at the root of the prooblem. Was it "sleep" or is it Darkrai? But that's not how it went. And we should take care to avoid that instead of jumping gleefully onto the bandwagon. Judge for yourself how well that situation was actually handled.

Personally, I can't look at the way OU handled that and be impressed, so looking at OU doesn't mean anything to me. Only after taking action against Darkrai and still being unhappy with the resulting state should then the question of addressing the sleep clause be brought back up. I'm not even saying that there's no problems with the sleep clause (it's ugly asf), but the way it was handled just makes no friggin' sense. It doesn't even matter if it was the right call, the fact is we can't know now if it was the right call because we didn't go through the damn protocol. Undo recent changes first and check its effect before messing with crap that's held up nicely this entire time. God I hate talking about tiering.

Also wanted to address this real quick

Hence, we ban Razor Claw, King's Rock, Bright Powder, XY Swagger, the list has gotten longer and goes on. My question to you all reading this, and really apply critical thinking here. What makes sleep different from all of these?

I think the reasoning behind removing Sleep altogether is similar to the reasoning used to remove the evasion items.

Similar, I mean yeahhh, sure, but the difference is even bigger lol
- Items can go on any Pokemon lol, you cannot account for that, maybe use Magic Room to deal with it
- Swagger can be used by a whopping 702 out of 721 Pokemon, invites the unbridled rage of your peers
- Sleep-inducing moves on the other hand? Inaccurate, comes with opportunity cost, limited - usually only on mediocre Pokemon, you quite literally have access to the info of which Pokemon can learn these sleep-inducing moves, can't be spammed because of the sleep clause, can't be relied on by the user to keep the target asleep, funny memes tho, gets a haha out of people, fact: 60% and under sleep moves are a strategic crutch and generally don't work out, you won't find a lot of people abusing it in tours because they don't have the cojones for it

Really when we say luck is PART of the game, sleep is being described here. When you use evasion items and swagger, luck IS the game because you cannot account for it to a reasonable degree - it's just lingering there at all times. Can we say there is a difference here or am I just insane wtfff

 

[TheWyvernKing]

Yeah priority right now is definitely not sleep. Peace and love and all that but it's a discussion that was only proposed because of an OU ruling, a sleep ban will largely hurt lower viability types more than anything else, and there's only one perpetrator of sleep right now which I see as problematic:

I'd rather shift focus to what mons people think still stick out as problematic in the tier. I don't fully think the meta has settled enough to jump into a suspect just yet, but when I pop into mono room chat I still see alot of discussion on what to suspect next. and are probably the two mons I see talked about the most at least from my perspective so far. That being said there's still a decent amount of talk on and , I think Steel right now is causing problems for some players with it's core, so I would probably need to ladder with some different types to get a better idea of that since I'd mostly been using like Water and Fighting recently. In addition, cheese mons like and are pointed out for their one sided matchups. in particular is solely picked on psy monos as a recognized cheese mon.

IMO we need to look at and ask whether or not this mon is inherently a problem for types that can't reasonably fit Dark types, and that those types would not get inherently cheesed by Psy to begin with, and if we can agree that this is the case, we need to put it side by side with "cheese mons" we saw as more acceptable in the past such as Acid Armor/Calm Mind Reuniclus.

Don't mean to sidestep any ban talk by focusing on Espathra. I think it's a mon that's been clear in what it does since day 1 and now is no different. The ideal in my head at least, is that if we decide sometime soon on a mon that needs to be suspected, that we make it a dual suspect with Espathra + said mon. Obviously we'd need to establish whether or not Espathra is suspect worthy to begin with, but I don't think Espathra's role in this metagame will ever change regardless of what we get rid of, nor do I think it's an overly centralizing mon to the point that we'd need to wait after a ban for the meta to settle. In this train of thought, since I'd seen it brought up a couple of times and at least in my opinion think there's a worthwhile discussion there, it makes best sense to me to potentially include an Espathra suspect along with the next problematic mon that we'd seen as overly centralizing. Lmk your thoughts on it.

One last note: I personally don't know if I'm convinced yet that an Espathra suspect itself is warranted. It's better to have discussion on mons like this though, while we could debate whether or not Pao or Bear is broken, Espathra will be a constant in what it does and it's been brought up as a mon that solos types. One of the things I'd like to see pointed out, is as I said, how Espathra is more unhealthy than mons like Reuniclus in past gens, and examples of types that get turned from neutrals to highly disfavored solely from espathras presence.

 

[Jahkem]

An extended discussion of Sleep isn’t necessary. There’s hundreds of pages on Smogon discussing the same arguments for and against Sleep spoken in circles. The solution is either ban Sleep inducing moves or do nothing at all. The most prevalent sleep inducing move we see is Spore from and . We don’t see Breloom often enough on both its types but it’s there. The second most prevalent move that causes sleep is Dire Claw which wouldn’t be affected by a sleep moves ban at all. Sure, there’s Yawn from Torkoal, too.

In this tier, it just doesn’t make as much sense to ban Sleep in any way. Just keep things the way they are.

 

[Ethereal Sword]

Just wanted to put some numbers to the discussion here.

Using mid-ladder (1630) stats from February (this is pre bax ban, but I don't imagine the bax ban changes too much in terms of sleep usage nor has anyone talked about the direct effect of the bax ban on sleep usage), here are the most commonly seen sleep-inducing moves:

table

Sleep Move	Pokemon's Usage	Move Usage on Pokemon	Sleep Move Usage
Sneasler's Dire Claw	8.45453%	91.841%	7.7647%
Amoonguss's Spore	2.25148%	90.981%	2.0484%
Vivillon's Sleep Powder	1.06652%	99.937%	1.0658%
Torkoal's Yawn	2.15040%	38.248%	0.8225%
Breloom's Spore	1.21527%	61.436%	0.7466%
Darkrai's Hypnosis	1.90729%	31.321%	0.5974%
Smeargle's Spore	0.73385%	77.732%	0.5704%
Lilligant-H's Sleep Powder	0.85073%	53.584%	0.4559%
Ninetales-A's Hypnosis	3.71865%	7.950%	0.2956%
Ninetales's Hypnosis	2.21303%	10.053%	0.2225%
Hippowdon's Yawn	2.81428%	7.227%	0.2034%
Toedscruel's Spore	0.30974%	46.118%	0.1428%
Skeledirge's Yawn	1.78156%	6.581%	0.1172%
Quagsire's Yawn	2.23811%	5.139%	0.1150%
Meloetta's Relic Song	0.50818%	16.808%	0.0854%
Gastrodon's Yawn	1.52041%	5.412%	0.0823%
TOTAL			15.3361%

Sources

Pokemon Usage https://www.smogon.com/stats/2024-02/gen9monotype-1630.txt
Move Usage on Pokemon https://www.smogon.com/stats/2024-02/moveset/gen9monotype-1630.txt
Sleep Move Usage = Pokemon * Move

I'll keep the commentary brief and hopefully neutral. Most players will encounter a sleep-inducing move once in every 6.5 games on average, half of which is Sneasler using Dire Claw (which has a 1/6 chance of inflicting sleep). Is this a lot? Well, most of the moves on the list either have counterplay or are unreliable. If we only include the Spores and Sleep Powders, the total number falls to 5.03%, one in every 19.88 games, which is approximately the same usage as Primarina.

Now, it is interesting to note that OU did not ban Dire Claw (nor, also relevantly, Relic Song), though a large part of the reason is surely that Sneasler was already banned. If we were to follow OU (which, to be clear, is not a very persuasive argument), we would likewise permit Dire Claw to stay, meaning over half of the sleep usage is untouched by such a ban unless you similarly follow OU in banning Sneasler, a Pokemon that currently has little support for a ban. One could also consider banning Dire Claw instead of Sneasler until one recalls the similar Houndstone/Last Respects situation from the beginning of the gen.

The numbers don't support an OU-esque sleep ban, so any argument in favor of one in Monotype must be made on philosophical grounds (i.e. the mechanic is too luck-reliant / uncompetitive), which I won't discuss here.

 

[Vodoom]

gun to your head name 5 reasons why bloodmoon isnt suspected till now

 

[boomp]

1. cute bear
2. Gouging and Bax was higher priority
3. ppl still want pao and gambit gone b4 bear
4. Did i say cute bear???
5. kanye west said keep the bear

 

[adjustments]

gun to your head name 5 reasons why bloodmoon isnt suspected till now

1. last survey had bax and gouging higher
2. next survey is next week or the week after apparently so VOTE BLOOD MOON 5/5 UNHEALTHY
3. there's some mfs in here arguing about SLEEP
4. kanye did NOT say to keep the bear
5. if i said something about council in this point my post would get edited

 

[Pengairxan]

gun to your head name 5 reasons why bloodmoon isnt suspected till now

Well your gun is slow so I can get my sources!
1. "... It has exploitable weaknesses (mediocre typing, slow, can't hit Flying types twice in a row) that most types can take advantage of" ~ Trichotomy on Feburary 29th, 2024 at 5:05 AM (In the timezone of GMT+10)
2. DLC1 survey not enough mentions of Bloodmoon to warrant a comment, only Pao and Gambit (along with Urshifu-S and Bax) ~DLC1 Survey
3. General - 2.90/Qualified - 2.88 ~ DLC2 Survey
4. People voted for Gouging, Bax, Pao, and Oger-H as more problematic than Bloodmoon in the survey. ~ DLC2 Survey
5. The fact that it wasn't considered mandatory Pokemon on Ground (the far more viable of its two types according to a majority of the player base) until recently on the viability rankings (A Rank DLC1 and DLC2 until March 11th, 2024 at 12:06 PM (In the timezone of GMT +10)) ~ Monotype Viability Rankings [October 2023] and Monotype Viability Rankings [March 2024]

I will not be the second half a HBomberguy video so here are my, Sources:
Trich's reasoning: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-discussion-indigo-disk.3732581/post-10006236
DLC1/2 Survey: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-monotype-tiering-surveys-results.3723042/post-9805686
October 2023 Viability Rankings: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/monotype-viability-rankings-october-2023.3729937/
Bloodmoon rising to S Rank on the March 2024 Viability Rankings: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/monotype-viability-rankings-march-2024.3734792/post-10024922

Not saying this mon is healthy, I believe it is unhealthy myself. But these are 5 reasons Bloodmoon hasn't been suspected until now.

 

[Gorechomp]

gun to your head name 5 reasons why bloodmoon isnt suspected till now

1. He should be banned
2. He should be banned
3. He should be banned
4. He should be banned
5. I don’t find him very cute

 

[cpt.kraken]

1. Actions are way too slow
2. Chien-Pao is still in the tier
3. Kingambit is still in the tier
4. It should be quickbanned
5. It is ugly as f and already dead

 

[DaRotomMachine]

gun to your head name 5 reasons why bloodmoon isnt suspected till now

1. Chien Pao is still here
2. KIngambit is still here
3. Design is so much better than regular Ursaluna I don't know what you mean about it being ugly
4. More support for othe mons in the survey
5. I feel like more people want a Chien Pao suspect than an Ursaluna-Bloodmoon one (that's my opinion tho)

 

[Woomsicle]

1. Chien Pao is still here
2. KIngambit is still here
3. Design is so much better than regular Ursaluna I don't know what you mean about it being ugly
4. More support for othe mons in the survey
5. I feel like more people want a Chien Pao suspect than an Ursaluna-Bloodmoon one (that's my opinion tho)

Honestly you could have simplified your answer more. For example;

1. Chien Pao is still here
2. KIngambit is still here
3. Chien Pao is still here
4. KIngambit is still here
5. Chien Pao is still here

 

[DaRotomMachine]

Honestly you could have simplified your answer more. For example;

1. Chien Pao is still here
2. KIngambit is still here
3. Chien Pao is still here
4. KIngambit is still here
5. Chien Pao is still here

NUmber three I was talking about Ursaluna-Bloodmoon's desgin being good but okay.
I want to know how many people are currently running BUg on the ladder right now.

 

[Day Healer]

Chien Pao is a mon that could be suspected ages ago, but it didnt happen because council was lazy at the time, sorry but is like that (friendly reminder that performance of a type in a tour where everyone overprepares for 2-3 types =/= the meta in itself).
Seriously, I have lost half my faith in this gen for the lack of action on that mon all these months. Is a shame Ice will lose more usage if Pao gets banned, but a broken mon is a broken mon so weh..

About Ursaluna, curiously I find it more oppresing on mononormal than monoground, that with normal finally now having an ok defensive core, is no wonder normal is like top 6 type in the meta right now, like Ursa carries the type with Terapagos. In ground it needs to fight for a spot on sand ground teams (hippo/exca/clod/landorus are fixed), so you pick 2 of 3 between ursa, mamos or great tusk. On sandless it have more space on teams I guess.
Anyway a good ursa always preys on passive mons, and takes one foe + weaken another, or even 2 foes before going down due to its super bulk, making lot of progress.
Im still unsure about the mon in itself, but I couldnt mind it being suspected either.

 

[Aschmaros]

Seriously, I have lost half my faith in this gen for the lack of action on that mon all these months. Is a shame Ice will lose more usage if Pao gets banned, but a broken mon is a broken mon so weh..

Maybe this is copium, but I don't think Ice will lose that much usage, considering we do have weavile back at full power. Some MU's won't be as easy sure, but nothing too major imo. Ice will still be a good type; it just won't have its broken toys that the "Better types" will still retain access too.

 

[TheMaverrick]

I still don't can't understand why gambit isn't mentioned as much as pao as a problem or more. It's so unique.

While normal is def not bottom 5, it's also not top 5(really predictable). While people like to yell at the clouds and not provide any real thoughts, it seems the biggest issue with bm atm is that on ground its able to drop its earth power and use calm mind which make it a bigger sweeper. Any other sets aren't that optimal, so please ask away other questions you have regarding the bear.

 

[Time Waster]

I still don't can't understand why gambit isn't mentioned as much as pao as a problem or more. It's so unique.

While normal is def not bottom 5, it's also not top 5(really predictable). While people like to yell at the clouds and not provide any real thoughts, it seems the biggest issue with bm atm is that on ground its able to drop its earth power and use calm mind which make it a bigger sweeper. Any other sets aren't that optimal, so please ask away other questions you have regarding the bear.

In my experience Bloodmoon doesn't sweep much, it's a trade machine more than anything else. And for the calm mind sets, moonlight has bad synergy with sand. Not great when you want sand up all the time as ground for the chip and to enable Drill. Better on sandless teams sure but those aren't great in the first place. The best thing about Bloodmoon is the dark matchup but ground has Tusk for that as well.

Overall I don't see what makes it deserve mandatory status on ground teams vs Drill or Lando. Ground can lose it and not suffer much but normal would take a big hit. I don't mind if it gets suspected alongside the other problematic mons in the tier like Pao.

 

[juleocesar]

I still don't can't understand why gambit isn't mentioned as much as pao as a problem or more. It's so unique.

While normal is def not bottom 5, it's also not top 5(really predictable). While people like to yell at the clouds and not provide any real thoughts, it seems the biggest issue with bm atm is that on ground its able to drop its earth power and use calm mind which make it a bigger sweeper. Any other sets aren't that optimal, so please ask away other questions you have regarding the bear.

I believe many players who struggle against Kingambit are just not building properly to be honest. It has affordable counterplay to many types (Substitute, Will-o-wisp, thunderwave, screens, etc), because it is slow and often has to rely on Sucker Punch to actually clean teams. Especially in ladder play, most teams utilized heavily emphasize on attacking moves and not status moves which can contribute to Kingambit performing better than it actually is. Most Pokémon can speedcreep into 200 speed to outspeed base 50s and this ends up being useful for other few threats (such as Azumarill) other than Gambit. Finally Ice + Dark STABs are generally more threatening than Steel + Dark STABs (when u account what it hits and what types are most used), Chien Pao has more consistent priority move in Ice Shard and much higher base speed, which makes it slightly harder to account on the builder and play against. Not defending a Pao suspect exactly, just showing why players seem to be more concerned about it than Gambit in general.

As for Ursaluna-BM, its bulk is what seems to be problematic and the fact that it can be paired with weakberries (Yache or Passho Berry are the ones I've seen but I am sure it could work with other ones as well) or bulkier spreads just make it difficult to plan for trades. Blood Moon is a busted move which is always going to hit you like a truck no matter what. Very slow but has access to Vacuum Wave which is a consistent priority move able to punish certain threats, even when it is weakened (it can be made to outspeed Kingambit and prevent its sucker punch, for example). There are a few replays of Ursaluna-BM (both Ground and Normal teams) performing very well in the ongoing Monotype seasonals tournament (rounds 7~9) so I definitely recommend those who are not familiar with it to take a look at those.

Just because it doesn't sweep as much as other Pokemon like kingambit or chien pao (which is coeherent given Ursaluna-BM role is NOT a sweeper), it does not mean it is a lighter problem and I believe the community often emphasizes on what has cleaning potential to a bigger problem than what it is. Therefore Ursaluna-BM would be my next candidate for a suspect (if any is about to happen). Anyways just some of my thoughts, feel free to reply or share your own.

 

[Pengairxan]

In my experience Bloodmoon doesn't sweep much, it's a trade machine more than anything else. And for the calm mind sets, moonlight has bad synergy with sand. Not great when you want sand up all the time as ground for the chip and to enable Drill. Better on sandless teams sure but those aren't great in the first place. The best thing about Bloodmoon is the dark matchup but ground has Tusk for that as well.

Overall I don't see what makes it deserve mandatory status on ground teams vs Drill or Lando. Ground can lose it and not suffer much but normal would take a big hit. I don't mind if it gets suspected alongside the other problematic mons in the tier like Pao.

Its more so nothing really wants to switch into it. On Paper most flying-types shouldn't be scared of Ursaluna-Bloodmoon but due to how slow it is, they have to eat the Bloodmoon and then watch it click Calm Mind or Moonlight on the recharge turn unless they want to risk taking an Earthpower as they try to roost. And thats implying they want to eat Bloodmoon itself, Only Skarmory, Corviknight and Minior resist Ursaluna-Bloodmoon's STAB Combo. And while yes there are specially bulky Flying-types like Articuno, they still don't like taking a Bloodmoon as it still hurts (The offensive set doing 50% in total).

And trading with Ursaluna-Bloodmoon isn't the worst, a lot of times Ursaluna-Bloodmoon once it finds it way in, it will be claiming a kill or opening up a defensive hole as they try to go to their special attacker to actually remove this thing thanks to how physically bulky it is. Notably even without investment, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon can survive a Great Tusk Close Combat. And once the special attacker gets in, Hello Clodsire, more Hazards and Toxic? Or Hello Hippo, coming in to get Excadrill more sand (or first sand) with that sack/eject button so Excadrill can revenge and OKHO the special attacker.

Later addition, some of the Flying and Levitate mons that cannot survive offensive Bloodmoon include the following: Talonflame, Enamorus, Hydreigon (after Stealth Rock), Galarian-Weezing, Rotom-Wash (50% chance on physically defensive electric after rocks, other two are OKHOs after rocks) and Pelipper. These are all mons ranked B or higher on at least one type.

 

[Time Waster]

Its more so nothing really wants to switch into it. On Paper most flying-types shouldn't be scared of Bloodmoon but due to how slow it is, they have to eat the Bloodmoon and then watch it click Calm Mind or Moonlight on the recharge turn less they eat an Earthpower as they try to roost. And thats implying they want to eat Bloodmoon itself, Only Skarmory, Corviknight and Minior resist Bloodmoon's STAB Combo. And while yes there are specially bulky Flying-types like Articuno, they still don't like taking a Bloodmoon as it still hurts.

And trading with Bloodmoon isn't the worst, a lot of times Bloodmoon once it finds it way in, it will be claiming a kill or opening up a defensive hole as they try to go to their special attacker to actually remove this thing thanks to how physically bulky it is being able to survive Great Tusk's Close Combat even without investment from Bloodmoon. And once the special attakcer gets in, Hello Clodsire, more Hazards and Toxic? Or Hello Hippo, coming in to get Exca more sand (or first sand) with that sack/eject button so Exca can revenge and OKHO the special attacker?

Later addition, some of the Flying and Levitate mons that cannot survive offensive Bloodmoon include the following: Talonflame, Enamorus, Hydreigon (after Stealth Rock), Galarian-Weezing, Rotom-Wash (50% chance on physically defensive electric after rocks, other two are OKHOs after rocks) and Pelipper. These are all mons ranked B or higher on at least one type.

Not a lot of things like switching into Lando either on top of bringing good speed control for ground outside of sand. Gravity is invaluable for the metal birds and the flying matchup, saves the type from just clicking x. Most of those mons are rock weak or also get bodied by gravity. Lando's also crucial for ID Press Zama which annihilates Bloodmoon. The overall combination of utility, power, and speed make Lando a more mandatory bring for ground. Band Sand is by far the best way to build ground so you need Drill/Hippo. Mamo/Tusk also have advantages over Bloodmoon and that's been brought up in this thread a few times already. It's incredibly good but no way is it mandatory like Clod/Hippo/Drill/Lando are. If sandless was good, I'd feel differently about its role on ground.

Back to the overall discussion, still think it's pretty busted but not more so than other things in this tier, especially Pao. The chance to one shot Pao with vacuum wave is the main reason I'll use Bloodmoon over Mamo/Tusk but that thing needs to be banned anyway lol. Effective 177 base attack with its ability, incredible speed, swords dance, plus strong STABS with great coverage and priority. Pao's not as strong as wallbreakers like Gambit or Bloodmoon but it's way closer than it should be when you consider how fast it is. Another thing I don't see mentioned much, a defense drop or flinch can destroy even would be counters like Skarmory. Although both types can run band effectively since they have good removal so you can 2hko Skarm anyway after rocks. The only thing it can't get through is full phys def. Dozo.

 

[Dragapult]

Banning sleep is a reactionary take that has little to do at all with the realities of this tier and has only generated the level of discussion it has because of who suggested it. Just drop the next survey and let's suspect Bloodmoon already.

 

[DaRotomMachine]

I think Pao should be the next pokemon suspected instead of Bloodmoon simply bcause it has more offensive pressure even before seting up, while having strong prioity. Also it usually ruins HDB and it ruins a Sticky Web sweep.

 

[Vlarcheops]

I have some questions: what is Gallade in Mono-Fighting Even used for? What stats, moves and item does it use? Which advantages does it have?