np: UU Stage 6 - No Surprises

kokoloko said:

So you're asking me if we can use Sand in a Sandless meta? No, no you cannot.

However, the only thing that was typically found in Sand that is no longer usable in a sandless metagame is Stoutland, for obvious reasons. Everything that was actually used (so not Cradily) is still usable or would be unusable if we chose to ban solely Sand Veil anyway (Cacturne). The hippos are still usable with Sand Force (no Stealth Rock though :( ), and as for Gligar and Empoleon, they're just as good as they are without Sand.

Also, there's no such thing as Sand offense really, it's just Stoutland.

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No I meant why is it worth getting rid of an entire playstyle to work in minor things like Morning Sun or LO Azelf? Gligar and Empoleon might be useful still without sand but Azelf and Morning Sun are still usabale too even with sand because its not common enough to really consistently hamper them.

@Ginku, I have to dissagree with you there. All slowking and empoleon do is move the problem to later. I've been in many situations where either I or my opponent has a healthy chestoresto kingdra as last mon and it's honestly crazy how easily that thing can bag the game for you. With nice bulk and one weakness, revenge killing a healthy kingdra is actually much easier said than done. Flygon is pretty much the only thing that can revenge kill a healthy kingdra at +1 and he dies to rain dance and can't switch in safely.

Choice scarf flygon is good, but changing to a CB isn't just losing a lot of objectives, but trading them off for other ones. In this case, it becomes a very dangerous physical wall breaker/sweeper which has a good chance of 2hkoing everything in the tier with SR and a layer of spikes and appropriate move while still getting a solid scouting move if you don't fancy predicting all while being virtually immune to hazards.

hilarious said:

No I meant why is it worth getting rid of an entire playstyle to work in minor things like Morning Sun or LO Azelf? Gligar and Empoleon might be useful still without sand but Azelf and Morning Sun are still usabale too even with sand because its not common enough to really consistently hamper them.

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You'd really need to actually play a Sandless meta to make that judgement. It's not exactly quantifiable, so it will always come down to "which meta do I prefer". Although suspecting in general is subjective and at the root level it's always about metagame preferences, so yeah. The point I'm trying to make, which people seem to miss every time I talk about this, is that there actually are multiple benefits to a Sandless metagame.

@Flygon bit in earlier posts:

You both agree, you just said it different ways. Essentially, Scarf Flygon is a utility mon while CB Flygon is a wallbreaker. I consider CB Flygon a huge offensive threat--not the case with Scarf, it's just too weak, as evidenced by not needing a Steel-type to stop it.

spuds4ever said:

@Ginku, I have to dissagree with you there. All slowking and empoleon do is move the problem to later. I've been in many situations where either I or my opponent has a healthy chestoresto kingdra as last mon and it's honestly crazy how easily that thing can bag the game for you. With nice bulk and one weakness, revenge killing a healthy kingdra is actually much easier said than done. Flygon is pretty much the only thing that can revenge kill a healthy kingdra at +1 and he dies to rain dance and can't switch in safely.

Choice scarf flygon is good, but changing to a CB isn't just losing a lot of objectives, but trading them off for other ones. In this case, it becomes a very dangerous physical wall breaker/sweeper which has a good chance of 2hkoing everything in the tier with SR and a layer of spikes and appropriate move while still getting a solid scouting move if you don't fancy predicting all while being virtually immune to hazards.

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Well, if your opponent leaves Kingdra as his last mon he has to use his other 5 to force a sitation in which it can then set up and sweep, which is easier said than done. If he sets it up once and gets forced out/phazed, it's also not too easy to do it again, especially with the set revealed. About the revenge killing, yeah, I mentioned that it's not that easy with kingdra's bulk, but other than flygon it's also beaten by Escavalier and Cobalion (This one will take quite a bit of damage, but gets an SD boost in exchange) and takes a decent amount of damage from Heracross and Chandelure. Looking back now I guess it's harder to revenge than I thought, but from my experience it hasn't been that hard to stop, and setting up a sweep wasn't all that easy from my perspective either. Don't get me wrong, DD Kingdra is not to be taken lightly, but I think the RD set is a bit more threatening.

About Flygon it's what koko said, I never said that CB is bad or anything close to it, just that it has to give up some important qualities of scarf, and that it doesn't get enough in exchange to be broken.

Smeargle isn't BL material IMO so long as we crack down on this smashpass crap.

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Not to slight the guys over at PO, but most of the SmashPass teams I've seen pre- and post-Espeon didn't work. The second they're up against something that can take a hit and Roar, the strategy is ruined. I faced one just yesterday, and the match went just about as expected:

- Lead Smeargle, I lead Blastoise

- Spore as I Roar, Blastoise uses a Sleep turn

- Smeargle passes, Blastoise uses a Sleep turn

- Heracross fails to OHKO with a +2 CC, Blastoise wakes up and Roars

Sometimes, step four doesn't happen due to Blastoise waking up and Roaring a turn earlier. Sometimes Step 1 doesn't happen because the leading Pokemon can Taunt. Gorebyss and Huntail only get to Turn 2 because anything they do results in a Roar.

There's probably a perfected formula somewhere I haven't seen, but without an effective safeguard like Espeon, SmashPass really isn't easy at all. Maybe it's because of the fact that there aren't any good Pokemon capable of doing it, and it won't work without seamless team structure.

Smeargle is not BL worthy, it's barely UU worthy. And the Smeargle set I enjoy the most right now is the Hazard Setter, as it's the closest thing to Deoxys-D that exists in UU right now. Of course Deoxys-D was leagues better, but Smeargle's decent Speed (enough to outspeed many UU threats that neglect to use Speed-boosting natures) can put them to sleep and then usually get up a guaranteed layer; two if the opponent screws up and lets Smeargle go to town on them. What sets Smeargle apart from many UU leads is Magic Coat. I find Magic Coat to be more useful than Taunt, as most set-up sweepers can't run through a team with only one turn of setup.

The only thing that really cockblocks Smeargle is Xatu, who can be trolled to an extent with Magic Coat. Even in the post-Deoxys metagame, it's still nice to have two layers up, even if it means going down 6-5. Though I haven't tested it yet, I bet Double Electric+Smeargle would be devastating...

Any thoughts?

To shift topics a bit, I want to talk about Trick Room.

I've been playing with a Trick Room team just for fun, and I have been very very pleased with the results. TR NP Cofagrigus is monstrous, and SD Escavalier can easily switch in on the dark / ghost attacks aimed at your Psychic / Ghost-type TR set up mons and obliterate things with a Swords Dance. The best part is that TR mons have a ton of bulk almost by definition, meaning you can often take a hit and set up TR again without dying. It's been a very interesting playstyle, and I want to explore it further

Trick Room Cofagrigus is crazy, just ask anyone who ladders in RU. Basically any serious RU team has an answer for it, usually specially defensive Drapion. Trick Room can be really tough to beat as there are so many abusers in UU. Bronzong, Escavalier, Rhyperior, and to an extent Machamp, off the top of my head.

As there seems to me to be a big emphasis on speed, Trick Room renders a lot of teams completely helpless for the duration. Also as previously mentioned, the setup-mons are generally extremely bulky (looking at 'Zong and P2).

However, Trick Room itself doesn't last very long, so it can be played around by switching. I would like to note, that that is easier said than done. Strong priority moves also bypass Trick Rooms effects as well. After the duration expires however it leaves a window for the non-Trick Room player to strike back. This can lead to pressure that can prevent another Trick Room from being setup.

Although Trick Room Victini never gets old. After setup he has 4 turns to jack up everyone with V-create. Just my 2 cents. It's been a long time since I've used or fought a TR team. It just turns into a revenge killing slug fest a lot of the time.

I'm not sure how original I am but I've been using these two Pokemon together and it's been working great through the few games I've played:

Flygon @ Life Orb
EVs: 80 Atk / 176 SpA / 252 Spe (can probably find a better spread)
Nature: Naive
- Draco Meteor
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch (if I hit Bronzong with Draco Meteor I don't need to switch out....though Fire Blast is probably better)
- U-turn (I guess Outrage could go here?)

+

Kingdra @ Life Orb
blah blah Rain Dance / Hydro Pump / Dragon Pulse / etc

They both break down walls really good for each other, specifically Flygon dealing with Empoleon and Kingdra just generally breaking down Pokemon that are "too bulky" for Flygon to take out alone. "Double Dragon"

Obviously I gotta carry a Steel to deal with Scarf Flygons and shit but it seems really effective.

Read this, it's important.

The senate has entered into talks regarding sand veil. As a subset of these talks, we are interested in the community's opinion on sandstream as a whole. If you have an informed opinion about sand and its role in the metagame, please post it. You may talk about whether it's broken or not, and you may also feel free to talk about whether you would find a metagame without it more enjoyable or not (i.e. you can say "i don't think sand is broken but it's kinda gay" except definitely don't say just that because your post will be deleted and probably infracted).

The council seeks to respect your opinions in its decisions, so make them known.

This is especially important because with something so subjective such as this (banning something simply because people don't "like it") we absolutely need some sort of community consensus otherwise we're just a couple people voting and that's too small a sample size to take into account the whole communities opinion on an issue that we aren't necessarily "more qualified" to make due to the lack of reasoning.

If it was a competitive ban, it's also important to know what the community thinks, but that's more to here the reasoning and logic behind it. This may or may not have logic...(as you can tell I'm a little skeptical of this idea).

I am known for being pretty anti-sand. i think that stoutland may be on the cusp of broken-ness, since it does so well vs offensive mons. however, there are HARD counters for it. I'm looking at cobalion, bronzong, rhyperior, regirock, etc. if there was a stoutland vote, i would vote UU, but it's skating on some pretty thin ice.

stoutland is a super revenge killer and sweeper, but not broken. however, sand veil is. sand veil is entirely uncompetitive, and i don't know why anyone would be for pushing more luck into the game. i use surf over hydro pump because i don't like missing. sand veil says to me, "ha, fuck you, you will miss anyway". how is this competitive at all?

if i had the chance to vote, i'd ban hippopotas / sand stream. UU without sand is, on the whole, a LOT more fun. and i, for one, don't want to spend all day arguing semantics of what BL is, i just want to have a fun metagame, and i feel that banning sand is the easiest way to do that.

I agree with Bad Ass. Having to deal with Stoutland and the 6% recoil damage per turn is already annoying (but it's at least something you can handle and prepare for), but Sand Veil is simply bullshit. Is not something you can prepare for, as it's just hax, fishing for misses is uncompetitive and just makes the game even less skill based, something I don't think anybody wants.

You guys know how I feel about this. I have probably been the biggest advocate of "lets try to make the metagame better instead of getting caught up in semantics" ever since I got involved in Pokemon tiering.

With that said, I personally believe a Sandless UU is the way to go. Not only is it a lot more fun, but it also brings benefits on the competitive level (which have been discussed earlier in the thread).

I feel I should add that it's important to distinguish between whether you dislike SS as an entire playstyle or just Sand Veil (if anything at all). Bad Ass did, but just for the future.

I am probably one of a few people who likes Sand by itself. No, I'm not that asshole who spams it and drowns the ladder with the same team, actually I've only played it a few times. But I like perma weather (that isn't broken), just as an option to have. I think people get stuck in a Roserade/Empoleon/Stoutland/Hippo/Gligar/whatever rut, but there could be much more to explore in playing with sand. There has to be more Pokemon able to utilize sand effectively than those few. However, I hate Sand Veil with a passion. I know that we can only judge a Pokemon for its UU effectiveness, but I have recently taken to using Cacturn in OU, and I just shake my head if I see Tyranitar in team preview. I have swept several times with a standard Sub SD Cacturn, through OU teams. While yes, there is something you can do to prepare for Sand Veil, you can only temporarily fix the problem, and sometimes you can't fix it at all.

tl;dr Keep sand please, get rid of Sand Veil.

Well, it seems for saving Sand it's "speak now or forever hold your peace"...


Okay, a lot has been said about Sand's purpose in UU, and in the end, it's obviously a question of banning philosophy. Proponents of banning Sand in some way believe that a Sandless metagame is somehow better than a Sand metagame. Opponents of a Sand ban cite how banning something just because it makes the metagame "worse" is not acceptable and that a Sandless metagame is not necessarily better than a Sand metagame.

To begin, it should be known that nearly every piece of Smogon policy relevant to this situation advocates that Sand should remain in UU. I understand that some members of the UU community believe that the current situation requires that that policy be ignored, but it's important to understand that Smogon policy would recommend Sand not be banned in any way, shape, or form. I assume that few people are actually going to propose that Sand is actually broken, as it's 6.1% usage and overall mediocrity in UU demonstrate sufficiently that Sand is not a dominating force in UU. It is certainly a powerful playstyle, but it does not unbalance the metagame.

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that Sand is not explicitly "broken" is sufficient to discredit any argument for banning Sand, but obviously, Sand still remains a hot-button issue.

Now, it's important to note that when the Senators decide whether or not to ban Sand that this decision will set an important precedent. This decision will serve as an answer to what should constitute a ban in general, not just in UU. Therefore, the Sand decision might be one of the most important decisions made so far because it's really an update on Smogon's banning philosophy. In essence, this decision affects much more than just the UU tier.

The argument that all bans are subjective seems to float around a lot, especially in the pro-ban side of the argument. Since Sand is not objectively broken (the playstyle as a whole has numerous hard counters, so Sand teams have to resort to auxiliary, non Sand-abusing Pokemon to win games.), those wishing to ban Sand have to resort to subjective arguments in order to justify their opinion. This leads to the opinion that if all bans are subjective at root, then it is acceptable for ban decisions to be subjective.

That is faulty reasoning.

The fact of the matter is that just because bans are subjective at root, it is not acceptable to deliberately ban something that is not objectively broken. The purpose of a tiering council is to remove as much subjectivity from the tiering process as possible. Pokemon and other metagame aspects must be looked at objectively as possible, or else our tiering process has absolutely no merit. (more on that in the next paragraph) Terms like "more fun" and "better metagame" in a subjective sense should not exist in this kind of discussion because they are impossible to prove. How do you know that a metagame without Sand will be better than one with Sand? Some people might think that a Sandless metagame is better than one with Sand, but in the end, there is no way to prove this. First, how do you define a "better" metagame? One that's more fun? Then how do you define "more fun"? You might substitute the term "better" with "more desirable" and turn to the Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame, but then you have to justify that a Sandless metagame is absolutely better than one with Sand using those Characteristics. Before I move on to analyzing Sand using those Characteristics, allow me to explain why subjectivity is an outright flaw in the Suspect process.

Smogon is the best competitive Pokemon site in the world. Tiers decided by Smogon are used throughout the world as the last word on a Pokemon's placement. The reason Smogon is regarded so highly is because Smogon has the best tiering system in the world. Tiers are decided by usage statistics, and bans within those tiers are decided by a select group of experts qualified to decide on these matters. Furthermore, the reasoning that these experts use is released to the public to demonstrate why certain decisions were made. The high degree of transparency when it comes to tiering policy provides credibility to Smogon's tiers. Now, imagine if Sand were to be banned because four Senators didn't like it while admitting that it was not broken. That is contrary to Smogon's Philosophy, and adds not just inconsistency but hypocrisy to Smogon's tiering process. Almost instantly, the decisions made by the Senate will lose a lot of credibility. On the front page of Smogon is a link to Smogon's Philosophy, which states:

SP said:

only when it becomes very apparent that a Pokémon is far too powerful to be in line with a balanced metagame is it banished permanently from the standard arena.

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Now, what kind of example would the Senate set if Sand were to be banned because of personal preference? It would undoubtedly lower the credibility of Smogon's tiering policy.

Moving forward, let's perform a cursory analysis of Sand in the context of the Characteristics.

1. Competitive- Sand does not discourage players from playing to win. In fact, if you look at the definition of competitiveness that Doug posted in that thread, you could discredit those wishing to ban Sand Veil because

CDPM said:

While some players may...carry personal opinions about "winning the right way" -- these ideals should not be a focal point of the metagame.

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. Therefore, those who believe that winning through Sand Veil is a "lesser" or "undeserved" win do not understand how Smogon, or at least the Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame, defines competitiveness. I understand that this argument does not entirely discredit the ban-Sand argument, but it does severely weaken the argument that Sand Veil should be banned. Likewise, it weakens the argument that Sand Veil is the reason that Sand should be banned.

Variety- There is no proof that removing Sand from the game would better promote variety. Some may argue that PO's UU tier is a "better" version of Smogon's UU because of the lack of Sand, but the two tiers are very, very different. Virizion, Scrafty, and Mienshao are UU. Kingdra, Roserade, and Smeargle are not. It's comparing apples to oranges. Also, look at PO's UU Stats. (a test ban was placed on Sand). Note that both tiers have the exact same number of Pokemon at above 3.41% usage AND the exact number of Pokemon above 4% usage (PO's cutoff).

Balance-Sand's not unbalanced. It's an effective, but beatable playstyle. I have not heard many complaints that Sand is unbalanced, so I will not analyze Sand in this context.

Stability- Obviously, banning Sand reduces the amount of stability in the UU tier as a whole. Stability is defined as the degree to which the metagame changes over a period of time. One must also note that the ban of anything in any tier artificially destabilizes that metagame. If someone wants to ban Sand to any degree, they must justify that Sand's presence in UU is so terrible that it's worth temporarily destabilizing the metagame.

Adherence- No problems here on either side.

Skill- No problems here, really.

Luck- Sand Veil is a reasonable degree of chance. Look at the usage stats if you don't believe me. Sand Veil is not that big a deal in UU, and it's not like Sand Veil often decides games.

Efficiency-No problems here.

As strictly, i.e., objectively, defined by Smogon's policy, the removal of Sand will not make UU a "better" metagame. If you want to argue that Sand makes UU a subjectively worse metagame, well, go ahead. However, a personal hatred of Sand is not a sufficient degree of proof to justify banning Sand. More on that later.

We entrust seven (or is it eight now?) people to decide the fate of every Suspect in UU. Now, I'm not going to argue against the council system (as it has far exceeded my expectations in efficiently dealing with potentially overpowering threats), but I do disagree with the mindset some members of the council have taken. Since when has personal preference been sufficient reasoning to ban a Suspect?? Since when has subjectivity ever been allowed to enter serious tiering discussion (okay maybe it's been around for a while but to this extent?)? At least with previous discussions, by previous councils, the Pokemon in question was broken to some degree! Take Gen IV UU Heracross as an example. Sure, there was some subjectivity in that ban, but there was objectivity as well. Some councilmen hinged their opinions on which metagame they preferred, but the only reason Heracross even entered the Suspect discussion was because there was concern that it was objectively broken. To decide a Pokemon no longer belongs in a metagame because of personal preference seems like an extreme abuse of power.

A Sandless metagame is not objectively better than a Sand metagame, so Sand should not be removed from the current metagame. Subjectivity will of course exist in this decision, but that does not make it acceptable to hinge an argument on subjectivity. The question to ask when deciding if Sand should stay in UU is: "Is Sand too powerful to exist in UU?"

If the answer is yes, then ban it. If the answer is no, then don't. It's that simple.


In conclusion, it's important to remain consistent with official Smogon policy when deciding if Sand has overstayed its welcome. I do not intend for this post to be an indictment against the Senate or any specific members of the Senate but rather a warning that banning Sand because of personal preference might have unexpected consequences. I have nothing but respect towards the members of the community entrusted with the future of the tier, and I'm making this post because I fear that this decision will jeopardize Smogon's credibility if not handled carefully. Feel free to disagree with me, as this post will probably generate some controversy. Thank you for reading.

DetroitLolcat said:

Solid post

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Hey, thanks for taking the time to write this. It was well-reasoned and brought up concerns that, while we'd already considered, nevertheless bear addressing.

I'm not going to respond to all of your points piecemeal because...well, that would make this really long, and I mostly just want to address the fundamental principle of what you wrote.

Before that, let me copy / paste part of my PM to the other senators on this issue:

"I suppose, ultimately, we need to think back to why we want to change things in this metagame. It's because the metagame isn't as fun as it could be. Now, that's a pretty inflammatory sentence and it could be strawmanned with rebuttals like "well I think togekiss makes the metagame less fun so let's ban that", but ultimately that's the reason we're even having this conversation - we want to make things more fun for our playerbase. Given that, this is what we need to decide: Will our playerbase have more fun with sand stream in the metagame but with sand veil gone, or will it have more fun with the playstyle as a whole gone?

We know that quite a few players enjoy using sand stream, so we know that banning it will have an immediate negative impact on them. At the same time, we know that the viability of sand as a playstyle causes less diversity in the metagame, and limits the viability of fast, frail sweepers that are vulnerable to residual damage (like Azelf, Weavile, etc). Note that this was one of the reasons we banned Hail. And finally, we know that the missing a key move against Gligar due to factors entirely outside a player's control (i.e. missing a 100% accuracy move chosen specifically for its reliability) is uncompetitive and has no place in this (or any, honestly) metagame, so we can't exactly do nothing either.

With all that said...I mentioned earlier that removing sand as a whole from the metagame would make me, as a player, happier. As a senate member, I can't come up with a reason for why it's "broken" or "imbalanced" or "whatever"; I don't think it's any of those things simply because I tend to win against sand teams. But I do know that building my team such that it can win against sand teams prevents me from exploring options that I would otherwise be interested in exploring, such Simipour (don't laugh)."

The reason I just pasted this is because I anticipated that this viewpoint would be strawmanned as "well you don't think this is fun so you want to get rid of it". It's not that at all, as that message outlines. It's not like we got together and said "man, permaweather is a bummer, let's get rid of it". Every senate member in support of eliminating sand stream have greater reasons for doing so than personal preference (although, as a player, I do acknowledge that my personal preference is consistent with my policy proposal, although I will also say that this isn't always the case [staraptor :( ]).

Let me start by saying that banning something simply because it would have a positive impact on the metagame is not uncompetitive. "Uncompetitive" would be banning Togekiss because it's annoying. Banning sand because it limits the viability of several other playstyles and encourages the prevalence of luck is more akin to banning Snow Warning (which we did, if you remember). I was one of the people who had little issue handling hail teams, just as I have little issue handling sand teams; and yet I recognized that hail teams, by their very nature, caused enough specialization and centralization in the metagame that, without hail, the metagame would simply be more fun to play. A lot of the points against hail also count against sand, although less severely as a whole (which is why we tried banning big hippo first). Ultimately, though, hail was removed because good players felt the metagame would be better without it, and this principle was then justified with competitive reasoning (primarily relating to hail's residual damage, blizzard's freeze rate, and snow cloak).

As I mention in my post, the only reason the "characteristics of a desirable metagame" exist is to prevent the metagame from becoming stale, boring, pointless, and...not fun. Any attempt to tinker with the metagame is, fundamentally, done for this purpose. A "balanced" metagame is just one aspect of a fun metagame, and expecting every ban to be justified under that banner ignores quite a few policies we have that wouldn't be justified under it. Take some of our clauses, for example. Do you really think that a team of 6 salamences, a scarfed sheer cold user, or a double team user is broken? They wouldn't be - but they are really stupid to play against, because the game comes down to luck in all of those scenarios. For an even more relevant example, look at Sleep Clause. Sleep Clause doesn't really do anything to improve balance; all it does is prevent the game from centralizing a bit too heavily around sleep moves. These don't exist for metagame balance, they exist to keep the metagame fun.

So what is the reasoning for banning sand as a whole? Sand stream causes residual damage, activates sand veil, and activates Sand Rush. Does this mean it's imbalanced? Not really - Sand Veil isn't broken as much as it is uncompetitive, and Stoutland certainly isn't broken (although Sand Rush Sandslash, when it's released...). However, what it does mean is that every team I use has at least one ghost and one rock / steel type, and it also means that I have lost games I should have won to uncontrollable misshax bullshit. This, in turn, limits the viability of alternate team styles, it increases the prevalence of luck-based outcomes, both of which result in the metagame being "less fun".

I think it's important not to allow a knee jerk reaction like "hey you can't change tiering status based on fun!" to distract from the underlying, objective, and competitively-relevant reasons for why "fun" is an important factor to cultivate in the metagame. All we're doing here is making explicit something that has been implicitly codified in policy for all this time - our responsibility as tiering leaders is to guide the metagame and have it be the best one for our community.

However, what it does mean is that every team I use has at least one ghost and one rock / steel type,

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And I have to use a stallbreaker or setup sweeper like SD Heracross or NP Togekiss on every team just for the odd stall team, like pokemon is fun's team. So, if enough players were unhappy with stall, we would also be considering a ban on stall? Just because there are stall teams with SDef Snorlax and SDef Milotic on them, I can't use certain all-special teams. Certainly this is just as limiting as Stoutland is.

While I don't really like sand teams, I think banning sand stream is laughable. And indeed that was my reaction when I heard of it being discussed. I mean, I won't really care if you do ban it (I don't use sand teams myself as it requires using a certain otherwise-worthless hippo); I just don't think it's worthy of a ban.

Sand VEIL, however... By all means, please do ban that. The one thing I hate about this game is the enormous luck factor, and sand veil makes it many times worse.

SStats said:

And I have to use a stallbreaker or setup sweeper like SD Heracross or NP Togekiss on every team just for the odd stall team, like pokemon is fun's team.

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No you don't.

SStats said:

So, if enough players were unhappy with stall, we would also be considering a ban on stall? Just because there are stall teams with SDef Snorlax and SDef Milotic on them, I can't use certain all-special teams. Certainly this is just as limiting as Stoutland is.

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The idea of over-centralization by its very nature operates along the far end of a spectrum of centralization (hence the "over"). The inability to run all special attackers, or the inability to run an offensive core consisting of luvdisc / ledian / farfetch'd, doesn't mean that council intervention is required. And hell, even the idea of having to run a ghost and rock / steel type per team barely counts, as those are good types in general - that's why I'm not claiming that sandstream is unbalanced. Merely that the level of centralization it does cause is a bit too high for me to be entirely comfortable. If you disagree, there's nothing wrong with that! We want to get the general feel of the community in this thread, so your post is very welcome, and I hope I addressed your point adequately.

No you don't.

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In the same vein, you don't absolutely need to run a Ghost and Rock/Steel (certainly not in tandem) to handle Stoutland. Priority, Rain Dance/Sunny Day, or something bulky like Porygon2 (it has TWave, too) can all beat it. But running a Ghost and/or Rock/Steel is one of the most effective ways of beating it, just like one of the most effective ways to beat stall is indeed by using a stallbreaker. You can play around both sand and stall by making smart switches.

For a more direct comparison to Stoutland, see Scarf Darm. I have to run a bulky water, Rhyperior, or a Flash Fire Pokemon to counter it directly. But then of course there is priority, Scarfgon, etc.

The idea of over-centralization by its very nature operates along the far end of a spectrum of centralization (hence the "over"). The inability to run all special attackers, or the inability to run an offensive core consisting of luvdisc / ledian / farfetch'd, doesn't mean that council intervention is required. And hell, even the idea of having to run a ghost and rock / steel type per team barely counts, as those are good types in general - that's why I'm not claiming that sandstream is unbalanced. Merely that the level of centralization it does cause is a bit too high for me to be entirely comfortable. If you disagree, there's nothing wrong with that! We want to get the general feel of the community in this thread, so your post is very welcome, and I hope I addressed your point adequately.

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My point is that you have to be running a very specific type of team to have an extreme issue with Stoutland--you have to run all frail Pokemon (because Stoutland only has 100 Atk) that lack priority (because Stoutland doesn't get that) on a team without weather moves of its own (because those exist and are viable on many Pokemon that don't need the coverage/can actually use those weathers).

As to whether or not Sand Stream is imbalanced, I know you're not making any claims there. I'm talking strictly about centralization, as you are, and saying that I don't see any centralization going on here. I have never made a team for which I have explicitly prepared for Sand teams. I see no harm in running LO Azelf, for instance. In the event that I face the 94% of teams that don't have Sand Stream, I'm fine. In the event that I'm facing a Sand team, I'm already essentially up half a Pokemon--Hippopotas has 42 SDef, mediocre typing for a wall, and a terrible Atk stat with mono STAB. My LO Azelf team isn't at a significant disadvantage.

SStats said:

In the same vein, you don't absolutely need to run a Ghost and Rock/Steel (certainly not in tandem) to handle Stoutland. Priority, Rain Dance/Sunny Day, or something bulky like Porygon2 (it has TWave, too) can all beat it. But running a Ghost and/or Rock/Steel is one of the most effective ways of beating it, just like one of the most effective ways to beat stall is indeed by using a stallbreaker. You can play around both sand and stall by making smart switches.

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LO Techtop's Mach Punch v. Stoutland: 76.6% - 90.3%
Stoutland's Return v. Techtop: 78.3% - 92.8%

That's the strongest priority move that Stoutland is going to get hit by, and its response is a flat ohko. Priority is not useful against Stoutland unless you have multiple very strong priority users.

252/176 Porygon2 takes 37.2% - 44.1% from Stoutland's Return which, combined with SR and sand damage, is enough for a solid 2hko. Running a more physically defensive spread does make it a solid counter, but it also means it now loses to Chandy with HP Fighting. Not to mention all the other residual damage P2 takes...

Rain Dance / Sunny Day is only valid if little hippo is not still alive. Otherwise it just has to switch in to ruin your fun and then switch right back out to [designated water / grass counter].

Anyway, this is not even about Stoutland. It's about sand. Stoutland is a part of sand that is somewhat difficult to handle, but my comment about rocks / steels / ghosts applied to sand as a whole - you need Pokemon that are immune to residual damage and threaten its common members.

I'm not saying that sand is broken, but that if you want to effectively and consistently handle it, you do need one or two of a relatively small list of Pokemon on your team. There are ways to wear the team down and double switch around, but these just involve outpredicting your opponent. This constitutes a noticeable degree of overcentralization, but not enough to make the playstyle broken, because none of the Pokemon that handle it are particularly bad.

SStats said:

My point is that you have to be running a very specific type of team to have an extreme issue with Stoutland--you have to run all frail Pokemon (because Stoutland only has 100 Atk) that lack priority (because Stoutland doesn't get that) on a team without weather moves of its own (because those exist and are viable on many Pokemon that don't need the coverage/can actually use those weathers).

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Not at all. You could be running a pretty standard offensive team and still have major issue with the thing. One of the old offensive teams I built was very sand weak - it was Swampert / Flygon / Shaymin / Zapdos / Heracross / Chandelure. You could not accurately call any of these "frail", and yet they all face swift ohkos from Stoutland's Return except for Chandelure (which falls to a well-timed Pursuit or Crunch), Swampert (which can't switch in on Return and fails to ohko back) and Shaymin (same deal, except takes much more damage, and is ohko'd after SR + LO + one turn of sand).

But again, this isn't about Stoutland. This is about sand as a whole, of which Stoutland is a substantial part...but not the whole part. Sand lends itself best to semi-stall teams, which love the extra residual damage and the free, fantastic revenge killer. The only thing that makes it balanced is little hippo's obligatory existence (which is why we banned big hippo), but even "balanced", it tends to pretty heavily skew the metagame away from threats like those above. Edit: At least, as far as being near the top of the ladder goes. I understand that sand is less common the lower you go, but I simply can't make teams like the above anymore, even though it was very successful against non-sand teams.

This may have been mentioned before, I haven't bothered to read through the whole NP yet, but I will. quite interested with what's going on here.

Simple answer to Sandstorm teams outside banning them would be Sunny Day / Rain Dance teams. The weather cancels out the effects of sandstorm, and there are plenty of abusers for each weather in the lower tiers, so why not bring them up on a Rain Dance team or Sunny Day team? Hippopotas isn't the easiest Pokemon to switch in especially if hazards such as the two forms of Spikes are up, and predicting a switch to Hippopotas because you eliminated Sand isn't hard either. It's common sense. It's fairly easy to revenge-kill too, so I don't exactly see what the issue is. Removing sand leaves Sand Veil Pokemon, especially culprits such as Gligar, as dead weight on a team. Rain Dance Kingdra should be a godsend if you have issues with Sandstorm. If you have one active, nobody in their right mind would switch a Hippopotas out in front of it, and upon using Rain Dance, you temporarily, and potentially permanently remove the issue of Sandstorm.

Just a list of viable abusers of Sun and Rain in UU and below:

Rain:
-Kingdra
-Ludicolo
-Omastar
-Kabutops
-Floatzel
-Feraligatr (To an extent)

Sun:
-Victreebel
-Sawsbuck
-Charizard
-Exeggutor
-Tangrowth
-Shiftry

Like, don't get me wrong, these Pokemon have reasons for not being in UU, but with the proper support on a Sunny Day / Rain Dance team, they can easily work in UU. Just because they have an RU or NU stapled beside their name on their respective analyses, doesn't mean they can't work to help solve the problem that is sand.

EDIT: To add on to my point, as I've now read a few of the above posts, All these mentioned Pokemon can and normally will beat Hippopotas in a one-on-one situation, and again, in the case of Ludicolo and rain, you're obviously going to use Surf / Hydro Pump unless you're 100% certain they're going to switch into their Hard-Water counter, in that case, you'd simply Giga Drain / Energy Ball, and any four of those moves, Hippopotas is not going to appreciate switching into. Let-alone the coverage move in Ice Beam if one is carrying it. one should not simply switch a Hippopotas into a Rain / Sun abuser, because there will be consequences if one does that, proving that bringing Hippo back in after a Rain Dance / Sunny Day, unless you have mad prediction skills and double switch if the weather setter is something like Bronzong, really doesn't nerf the idea of using manually set weather teams.

EDIT 2: In the response to the above reply by FlareBlitz, switching in Hippopotas after someone has used Rain Dance or Sunny day doesn't exactly ruin the strategy. It's not going to be this way every time, but the use of Rain Dance or Sunny Day can be used as a lure, as it gives the user momentum, and the idea of any team is to have momentum, not lose it. It should, on paper, draw Hippopotas in, potentially inadvertently setting the Rain / Sun team up for an OHKO / 2HKO, and a bigger advantage over the course of the game. Just a crazy idea that on paper, works. However, real-time battling doesn't always work that way.

I have always found it funny that we change the conditions of being able to beat a Pokemon / team whenever it comes to Stoutland as well as changing the effects and limitations of items.

It's kind of strange how all of the sudden we're bringing up offensive Pokemon that are 2HKOed by Stoutland when really they only need to be 2HKOed to be a check. And offensive team that has a counter is great, but all offensive teams need are checks because you're going to have a shit load of trouble switching into something like Sub Chandelure or Shaymin with your sand team consisting of Pokemon generally unable to take 1-2 hits from these beasts.

The other strange thing is that Stoutland seems to have the power / bulk of choice band with all of the move-choosing capabilities of Life Orb when discussing it.

If you use a CB Stoutland, you aren't getting the KOes you want because KO because he's simply checked (and even countered) by any one Ghost (especially with Substitute) on the opposing team; if you Pursuit on the switch-in (as in, hit the other Pokemon switching out, lots of Ghosts can take the hit and OHKO you back. This is in addition to CB Pursuit being one of the easiest things to set up against in Pokemon. And this is all completely disregarding the straight up counters in the Rock, Steel-, and "bulky" offensive / defensive Pokemon that Stoutland can't beat.

If you use LO Stoutland, you're missing a lot of those OHKOes and 2HKOes (such as the ones FlareBlikz was talking about). In addition to this, those "almost KOing" priority moves now straight up KO you because if you attack twice (not even necessarily getting any kills because of the ease in which Stoutland is checked / walled) all of the sudden Mach Punches and Sucker Punches start OHKOing you.

If we ban anything, it needs to be Sand Veil because that's the only thing that makes sense as a ban. Competitively, Sand is perfectly fine. It's more of "do you want to have the option to use Sand or not", not really a competitive discussion but I guess it's the one we're having....