np: Intro to Ubers Testing: It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

[ntiller]

What is the exact ladder ranking you need to qualify to vote on this? Also, has there yet been a specific date as to when the testing starts? And, correct me if I misunderstood, but the Ubers ladder on Pokemon Showdown will be reset for the purposes of testing? So, current ladder rankings are meaningless as far as qualifying to vote goes? Just making sure I understand what's going on haha

[ThisMysteriousGuy]

Originally Posted by Fat ntiller

What is the exact ladder ranking you need to qualify to vote on this?

It's been stated it'll be about the same as the OU Suspect reqs: 1900 ACRE and a Glicko deviation of 65 or lower.

Originally Posted by Fat ntiller

Also, has there yet been a specific date as to when the testing starts?

It's stated testing will begin after the end of the Ubers Open in the OP. The finals just recently started, so let's say a week at most I'm guessing.

Originally Posted by Fat ntiller

And, correct me if I misunderstood, but the Ubers ladder on Pokemon Showdown will be reset for the purposes of testing? So, current ladder rankings are meaningless as far as qualifying to vote goes?

Considering Zarel says he plans to reset the ladder again shortly, ladder ranking in general are meaningless right now. Anyways, I think they'll host an Ubers suspect ladder separate from the regular one so they can test more effectively and have a separate ladder where people can play normally.

[ntiller]

Okay, thanks a lot. I suppose I should have read the whole thread before posting haha. Anyway, thanks for clearing that up.

[puregenius]

i dont have the time to ladder, but i would still like to contribute :S
is there anyway to circumvent this?

[Furai]

Originally Posted by Fat puregenius

i dont have the time to ladder, but i would still like to contribute :S
is there anyway to circumvent this?

The OP clearly says that in order to make it to the council you need to have: sub-forum activity, IRC activity, ladder ranking, and open-mindness. bojangles also clearly said that he will give sub-forum activity a higher significance than ladder ranking.

[Pocket]

Mastadi's post essentially mirrors my stance on OHKO. We're talking about a competitive community that are composed of major control freaks - even 20% sand evasion is unacceptable, because "things get out of player's hands." Enter OHKO moves, which is far less situational than Sand Veil with a much more lethal side effect. At least you can change the weather and remove the effect of evasion from Sand Veil; there's absolutely nothing you can do to prevent OHKO moves from hitting you (OK, that's an exaggeration, b/c sturdy lol, Protect-stalling, and faster Sub users work sorta). Unless the mindset of Uber players are marginally different from the rest of Smogon players, I can't imagine OHKO moves ever getting unbanned. I'd love to test them out in the Suspect Ladder, and see for myself, though.

The most "competitive" unclausing would probably be Sleep Clause, because you can actually have control over what will be your sleep switch-in. Ironically, this is the one clause towards which most people have expressed strong opposition :o

[Hugendugen]

First of all Pocket, you mention that 'even 20% sand evasion is unacceptable, because "things get out of player's hands."' That may be true in OU, but in Ubers we examined a case by case basis and concluded that for example Sub-SD Sand Veil Garchomp is a perfectly acceptable strategy. My point follows that just because something is luck-based, it's not necessarily grounds for a ban. When you consider how many random variables we're already faced with - games decided on a 30% scald burn or a crucial miss; even damage rolls and crit chances that happen practically every turn - how are we to say that suddenly the 30% chance of an OHKO move makes the game uncompetitive? This seems like an utterly arbitrary reason for a ban, based on a preconceived notion of what's "right" for the metagame.

Principally, I'm of the opinion that we should only ban what proves to be broken or significantly skews the metagame in an undesirable direction. Now I can’t tell you what the suspect tests will show us, but from what I've been able to gather so far, allowing OHKO moves does neither of these things. While they are viable choices on a couple of mons (Sheer Cold Rest Talk Ogre/Fissure Sub Gliscor/Fissure Sub Spin Excadrill) and even allow certain mons to find a previously unheard of niche in the tier (Sheer Cold Hydration Lapras/Sheer Cold Roost Aricuno), all of these are manageable in their own way.

• Kyogre can be forced out by super effective moves or powerful stabs. It can also be forced to sleep for example by protect/sub stalling with toxic or toxic spike support.
• Fissure Gliscor still faces the same issues with flying types that it did previously, particularly Skarmory and Xatu as well as Bronzong and Air Balloon steel types. It does become more dangerous to switch into, but it’s also significantly worse against Dialga, Forretress, Excadrill and Terrakion amongst others.
• Fissure Excadrill certainly is more difficult to spinblock as it can just keeping hitting even a bulky ghost with Fissure until luck plays on its side. But as it will tend to use Mold Breaker to hit Gira-o, it’s still outsped and killed by large parts of the metagame. Besides, easier spinning may very well be a healthy development for our oh so hazard-centric tier.
• Articuno has a crippling x4 Stealth Rocks weakness and will struggle to take hits from the many heavy hitters. Mind Reader isn’t very reliable either as the opponent can simply switch into something that will outspeed and kill.
• With Hydration Lapras can be a bitch to take out, especially if your team is quite dependent on residual damage, but it will still hate switching in and out of rocks/spikes. It’s also quite slow so may struggle to rest off damage before taking a hit from one of its several common weaknesses.

Overall, these are all viable and competitive Pokémon, but still definitely not broken and definitely not ban-worthy. I’m looking forward to testing OHKO moves more thoroughly and excited to see what other sets people come up with. Perhaps someone may end up stumbling upon a truly broken set, but honestly that hasn’t happened yet.

[Pocket]

Yea, Poppy told me the same thing when it first started, and I'm also excited that we're actually testing these clauses out. I probably should have re-phrased that the views posted in the previous post wasn't really my own stance, but probably the stance of the large majority of Smogon players, who like controlled, minimal-luck environments.

As far as potential broken strategy goes, I can possibly see Dual Screen be used to make these bulky mons even bulkier, allowing to throw out OHKO moves more profusely. Trick Room may also be a nice support if one can squeeze it in there.

Just a side note, but Gliscor gets Guillotine, so it can OHKO mons immune to EQ. Gliscor still does nothing to Skarmory, though.

[yee]

As someone who's views could easily be the ones Pocket is referring to, what I personally mean by 20% Sand Veil "getting out of hand" is that in OU when Garchomp gets 2 free turns with a SubSD set (this chance is not all that low), the game is over in a good team vs good team scenario unless the hardest counter Skarm is involved, Quag too if it doesn't get crit. It may seem like "let's just ban Garchomp" time but any SubSD mon with Sand Veil can do something similar.

IMO the difference maker is if the SubSD mon needs 3 or more turns (in Ubers) to completely break the game without Skarm. In that case, it's safe to just call really unreasonable hax instead of odds not too far from a crit. That's my mathematical view on weather evasion that can roughly decide where to draw the line on hax. I am curious to see the exact odds of 2 misses and 3 misses.

Edit- Got help from a few on IRC and got 20.48% of the Sand Veil mon getting 2 free turns and 5.12% for 3. For me this means the chance of Lati@s failing to revenge is the same as it getting that 2 turn hax and the chance of it getting a last pokemon sweep if it needs 3 turns is less than a crit, and we all generally deal with 93.75% win conditions anyway. I hope this is useful to someone.

Edit2- I should also clarify that I do think there is more to it than odds. Weather control is a factor that varies with the metagames and I'm not an Ubers player so I won't be the one with a full opinion on whether or not something is broken. I'm just trying to show the numbers section of the suspect game to help us achieve a good understanding of our intuition that evasion abilities may be game breaking and what we should do with it.

[Pocket]

Having numbers in your post does not make it mathematical. What Pokemon in Ubers fare better against Garchomp than what's already present in OU? Most Ubers are specially-defensive and/or weak to Garchomp's Dual STAB. There's Groudon, but it doesn't have any recovery move outside of Rest. Lugia and Arceus-Grass are the closest things, and even the latter is 2HKOed from a +2 DClaw, aka Garchomp only needs 2 misses to beat it (assuming Arceus-Grass is switching in on Garchomp as it sets up a Sub). So yea, in Ubers, Garchomp really only gains Lugia as a hard counter that can afford to miss twice without being screwed over.

What would have been more relevant is the relative power of weather shifts away from Sand towards Rain and even Sun. Sand in Ubers is equivalent to Hail in OU, it's the weaker weather, and thus any sand-dependent weather abilities would also be less effective, such as Sand Veil.

That's all I have to say about this topic, which is a bit derailing from the main focus of this thread.

[Melee Mewtwo]

I like the idea of testing clauses and would enjoy playing around with OHKO on a suspect ladder but I'm not sure if removing the clause is a good idea for Ubers, even if it isn't broken. Like Pocket brought up, most likely the majority of OU players won't like the idea of having a meta with OHKO in it. Unbanning it would just turn away even more players from getting into Ubers, which we don't have much of to begin with.

[Twin_Scimitar]

I don't really have a horse in this race and I'm just popping into this thread out of curiosity. That being said I've read the OP and many of the posts in this thread, and I'm surprised at some of the posts I've been reading recently.

As referenced in Mastadi's Post many if not all of these clauses are banned, as far as I understand, primarily because they remove the skill involved in the game not because they are overpowered. The uber metagame does not strive to minimize centralization or ban broken things as is done in OU (see drizzle swift swim ban and soul dew for non Pokemon related bans). While it's true that if a strategy is completely luck based but very bad and easily beaten there is no need for a ban, a very luck based strategy needs to merely be "good enough" to be played to make the game less competitive. In other words it shouldn't be whether it's too broken or if it can be stopped, but whether the component that is banned from the game makes it uncompetitive or less skill testing by an undesirable amount.

[TheStarRapper]

I wanted to list something in this thread that made me step back a little bit when I first saw it. I first hypothesized that out of all the tiers, maybe except LC, Ubers would be the most offensively slanted tier. Yet according to Antar's Stalliness Metrics, this is not the case, and Ubers is in fact the least offensive of all tiers. In order from Most Offensive to Least Offensive, the list goes: LC, RU, NU, OU, UU, Ubers.

While I would like to get other people's opinions on why this would be so (I have a nasty cold and my brain ain't working so good right now), I tried to come up with a couple reasons about the disparity between the high-danger feeling each turn in Ubers, versus what the mathematics indicate.

-The stalliness metric does not account for type advantages and coverage moves. Ubers having access to wide arrays of moves (as well as the common Dragon type being SE against itself) makes super effective coverage more common in the tier. SE hits are what disfavor bulk while promoting resistances, and we saw this in metagames shifts as Chansey was dropped for Pokemon who have better resistances on the pivots.

-The stalliness metric does not account for the rain boost (and this extends to other weathers) that makes Kyogre and rain attackers so damn scary.

-The stalliness metric does not account for boosting options. It does not account for Extremekiller's SD boosts and what they allow it to do, or the +2 priority of its STAB that dominates would be scarfer checks. While Extremekiller is one of the most dangerous threats in the tier, it has flat 120 stats across the board, which give it a relatively inert stalliness rating.

-There are some fat ass walls in the tier, like Lugia, Ho-Oh, Ferrothorn, and Giratina-A, which I suppose lend to the tiers stally nature.

That being said, how does a tierwide "stally" bias tie into the clauses that will be tested?

OHKO:Looking at all tiers, it is most worthwhile to spam OHKO moves in Ubers. If it takes 2 hits on average to bring a Pokemon down in LC, while taking 5 hits on average to bring down an Ubers Leviathan, the opportunity cost of using an OHKO move decreases in Ubers, considering the average damage of each move is 20% as opposed to LC's 50%. From an offensive standpoint, you figure, I might as well use Sheer Cold because it is a 30 percent accuracy move, so I'll hit one out of three attacks, while it will take me five Surfs to take down that Dialga. Note that this logic applies only to Pokemon who have the bulkiness to stay alive for ( a statistical average) of three turns to land that OHKO move.

Summary: The addition of OHKO moves selects for bulky pokemon to use it, while negating the bulk of the pokemon that the move is being used against.


Evasion: This comes down to the question of whether it is better to give a Double Team boost to a defensive (Giratina-A) or offensive (Deoxys-A) pokemon. I would say that the stronger a mon is defensively, the more worthwhile it is to set up a Double Team, considering it would be able to reap the benefits of such a move in the long run. On the other hand, Deoxys-A does not have the bulk to risk a 75% chance of still being hit when it can do much more damage per turn throwing around Psycho Boosts and Superpowers.

Another analysis of Evasion boosts is that they completely eliminate all the benefits of being an "Offensive" Pokemon. Whether Deoxys-A has attacking stats of 180 or 350 is irrelevant if it cannot land its hits, and now its defenses are the sole measure of whether can survive in a fast paced metagame. Note that moves like Thunder and Aura Sphere allow a Pokemon's offensive bias to remain useful.

Summary: Evasion boosts select for Bulky Pokemon and those that have nothing better offensively to do, while punishing those who high massive offensive bias by negating their stats if they miss attacks.


Moody: Once again, I will bring up opportunity cost in the context of stalliness to talk about Moody. I will first lead off by saying that Moody Mons (Smeargle, Octillery, and Bibarel, among others) are weak defensively, and for a large part weak offensively. They would therefore have high stalliness numbers, which indicates that the opportunity cost of using an attacking move is diminished, rewarding Protecting and Subbing until a good amount of boosts are acquired. (Smeargle is an exception considering that it has good options in the form of Spore and Shell Smash, but it could be argued in the long run that Evasion boosts outweigh Smashpassing.

Summary:Moody boosts select for pokemon that have nothing better offensively to do. Offensive pokemon are better left utilizing their stats, and have tools in Thunder and Aura Sphere and lol Frost Breath to negate Moody Boosts.


Sleep Clause: This follows the same concept as my alternate analysis of Evasion Clause. When a Pokemon is asleep and cannot attack, its defensive stats become much more important indicators of its usefulness. For example, a sleeping Deoxys-A cannot act as much more than a one time fodder, while a sleeping Arceus Grass could act as a sponge against a poisoned Kyogre's Surfs. Once again, seeing as Ubers is the most "stally" tier by the numbers, having one (or many) mons put to sleep would be less problematic than in other tiers. Note that Sleep Talk, unreliable as it is, provides a pathway for Offensive Pokemon to regain the usefulness of their offensive bias.

Summary: The fear of being asleep necessitates that offensively biased Pokemon use Sleep Talk, lest their ability (like Drought) or bulk be the indicators of their effectiveness.


Species Clause: This one is confusing, but I think that the elimination of the Species Clause shifts the metagame away from stalliness. In a metagame where not many pokemon can truly say that they check or counter Extremekiller, imagine if you had to stand up against six Extremekillers. Every Pokemon that could not stand up to a +2 Extremekiller would be dead weight. With this type of logic, the reasoning of Stathakis's quote in Pocket's sig gains new meaning. If the inability to check a threat (even though you can stand up to many others) is easily exploited by your opponent running six of that threat, there is no reason to focus on a defensive and stall based approach to winning. Much more important would be to just blast your opponent into submission before they could set up.

Summary: Inability for Defensive threats to wall every mon becomes a liablity, selects for mons with offensive bias.

Well I hope that made sense, it took me an hour to write. Comments?

[HSA]

alright I'm definitely late on this, but I'd like to get my opinion / theorymon on the clauses out now

OHKO

Opinion

OHKO clause is definitely the clause I have thought the most about in terms of testing the "standard clauses." The fact of the matter is that if its accuracy were higher, it would make checking or countering a Pokemon almost impossible. However, it doesn't have good accuracy and thus, the user has to weigh the risk vs reward of KOing something and essentially giving your opponent a free turn. I don't really think of OHKO moves as luck for this reason. There's also the fact that OHKO moves are almost entirely useless in a faster-paced game....

Theorymon

I definitely forsee the metagame going much more offensive if these were to be unbanned. The most probable user, Kyogre, will focus on sitting back and spamming Sheer Cold. Thus, most teams will probably focus on doing heavy damage to the users, essentially rendering them useless. Combine this with the fact that Kyogre with Sheer Cold has no checks and that Mold Breaker Excadrill will have no problem spinning with fissure, stall definitely seems to be disadvantaged.


Evasion Clause

Opinion

Well. <Inserts comment from above about being totally useless in a faster-pace d metagame.> Aside from that, when evaluating moves like Double Team, you have to remember that you could be using the same turn for something else (Boosting another stat and / or sweeping.) I recognize that most double teams users would be bulky sweepers though, and I feel like the best way to stop this would be to either use StrongMons (the aforementioned faster-paced metagame) or toxic spikes, as most boosters won't have the move space to include a move like refresh. If the booster does have recover and or a boosting move, ie monoattacker arceus the best way to beat it would be to set up two layers of tspike, or to set up one layer and boost along side it. (Arceus would probably run Recover / Double Team / Judgement / CM)

Theorymon

I guess i kind of overlapped majorly in the above. Anyway, if we unbanned species clause I'd definitely expect to see an increase in the aforementioned offense so yeah.. I really like the idea of monoattacker Arceus although whether Double Team is more useful than Sub / Refresh / Other attacking move is yet to be seen.

Moody

Opinion / Theorymon

I played extensively on the ladder during the moody period, thankfully I didn't see much of it until Jibaku brought up banning it. Once people started using it, me and my poorly made teams were subject to terrible losses when I had been in favorable positions. Part of this is definitely my play back then, so I'll evaluate moody as objectively as I can. I find that moody is held back by terrible mons and the gambling effect. On paper, Toxic Spikes and offensive mons (assuming no first turn speed or evasion boosts for offense) can easily destroy it. You can also bring in Mewtwo / Thunder Mon and hit it quickly. I actually found this very difficult in practice when I played back then, but I don't forsee that much trouble coming from moody as opposed to the other clauses/


Sleep Clause

Opinion / Theorymon

BW sleep mechanics scare me, and I feel like relying on multiple lum berries / sleep talkers (i am not good at luck) is not something I want to do. Paranoia aside, I definitely forsee an increase in the aforementioned sleep talkers / lum berries in order to beat the common darkrai that will be seen on every team. Specifically, hard sleep talking scarfers / hitters in general / phazers (I'm looking at you Zekrom and Kyogre) will probably see increased use, although RestTalk Kyogre is already a great mon. There is also the fact that 80% accuracy isn't 100%, even if the benefits of sleep far outwegh.


Species Clause

Opinion / Theorymon

Uh is all that can really describe how I feel when I first look at this as a player. What happens to my checks? Who needs lures anymore? My inital reaction is probably one of disdain, as I feel the effect this will have on the metagame will be even more prolific than the one the other clauses will have. We will probably see a change to something more offensive than has ever been done before, even more offensive than DPP Little Cup. BRB making my 6 Arceus Team. In my opinion, we probably shouldn't completely remove species clause at it is part of what makes a metagame a metagame in my opinion. However, I am completely open to testing other types of species clause (Forms or Limited Version IE 2 of the same mon)

[Fiction.]

Might as well give my two cents, better late than never, I suppose...

OHKO Clause: The clause I definitely wouldn't mind lifting. Sure, Excadrill, Gliscor, and Kyogre become a ton more dangerous for balance and stall (I'd maybe say a bit more Kyogre though due to the fact that it can handily beat every Sturdy Pokémon, letting it fire a Sheer Cold when it wants), but as people said, with the rise of more offensive teams that will surely happen, the high risk could be a bit unappealing to some.

Evasion Clause: I don't really have much of an opinion on this yet. I would much rather use Double Team on defensive Pokémon since I could actually live a hit that may land despite the boosts. IMO it will lead towards a more defensive metagame with Pokémon that, as I said, can live hits if need be when boosting, and those that can live hits if they miss a boosting Pokémon. Though it could be tough to find the movespace on a Pokémon, offensive or defensive, for Double Team given that the move being replaced serves its own purpose (but yay for rise in usage of Thunder and Aura Sphere)

Moody Clause: I didn't really play a lot during this time, and although I'm not fond of the idea of being in a meta where you can be swept by a Bidoof of all things if it gets the right boosts at the right time, I am definitely open to playing it to see what it is like. Again, obvious rise of Thunder / Aura Sphere usage, and maybe Perish Song Arceus too as was previously mentioned somewhere, and probably even Toxic Spikes. (Haze Tentacruel anyone??)

Sleep Clause: I probably would not have minded this so much last gen back when the mechanics weren't what they are now, but with the new mechanics, I'm really skeptical about this one. Lum / Chesto Berry, Sleep Talk are obviously going to be the ways to go, maybe Magic Coat could see a bit more usage. I guess as long as it doesn't force people to run ridiculous stuff like Sleep Talk Scarf Heracross and Primeape then it could be ok.

Species Clause: The one I'm least looking forward to. My stance on it is pretty much the same as HSA's so you might as well look at his post cause I wouldn't be explaining anything any differently than he did.

On an almost related note, nice to see that the song in the np is actually a good one.

[syrim]

Originally Posted by Fat Hugendugen

First of all Pocket, you mention that 'even 20% sand evasion is unacceptable, because "things get out of player's hands."' That may be true in OU, but in Ubers we examined a case by case basis and concluded that for example Sub-SD Sand Veil Garchomp is a perfectly acceptable strategy. My point follows that just because something is luck-based, it's not necessarily grounds for a ban. When you consider how many random variables we're already faced with - games decided on a 30% scald burn or a crucial miss; even damage rolls and crit chances that happen practically every turn - how are we to say that suddenly the 30% chance of an OHKO move makes the game uncompetitive? This seems like an utterly arbitrary reason for a ban, based on a preconceived notion of what's "right" for the metagame.

Principally, I'm of the opinion that we should only ban what proves to be broken or significantly skews the metagame in an undesirable direction. Now I can’t tell you what the suspect tests will show us, but from what I've been able to gather so far, allowing OHKO moves does neither of these things. While they are viable choices on a couple of mons (Sheer Cold Rest Talk Ogre/Fissure Sub Gliscor/Fissure Sub Spin Excadrill) and even allow certain mons to find a previously unheard of niche in the tier (Sheer Cold Hydration Lapras/Sheer Cold Roost Aricuno), all of these are manageable in their own way.

• Kyogre can be forced out by super effective moves or powerful stabs. It can also be forced to sleep for example by protect/sub stalling with toxic or toxic spike support.
• Fissure Gliscor still faces the same issues with flying types that it did previously, particularly Skarmory and Xatu as well as Bronzong and Air Balloon steel types. It does become more dangerous to switch into, but it’s also significantly worse against Dialga, Forretress, Excadrill and Terrakion amongst others.
• Fissure Excadrill certainly is more difficult to spinblock as it can just keeping hitting even a bulky ghost with Fissure until luck plays on its side. But as it will tend to use Mold Breaker to hit Gira-o, it’s still outsped and killed by large parts of the metagame. Besides, easier spinning may very well be a healthy development for our oh so hazard-centric tier.
• Articuno has a crippling x4 Stealth Rocks weakness and will struggle to take hits from the many heavy hitters. Mind Reader isn’t very reliable either as the opponent can simply switch into something that will outspeed and kill.
• With Hydration Lapras can be a bitch to take out, especially if your team is quite dependent on residual damage, but it will still hate switching in and out of rocks/spikes. It’s also quite slow so may struggle to rest off damage before taking a hit from one of its several common weaknesses.

Overall, these are all viable and competitive Pokémon, but still definitely not broken and definitely not ban-worthy. I’m looking forward to testing OHKO moves more thoroughly and excited to see what other sets people come up with. Perhaps someone may end up stumbling upon a truly broken set, but honestly that hasn’t happened yet.

While I agree with the principle of testing these clauses, and seeing the ramifications, from an ubers perspective, I think you've underestimated the
potential of some of the pokemon you listed.

The underlined portion of your post seems to epitomize this. What would be good for the metagame? While a less hazard centric metagame may be more fun for some players, it would also mean invalidating, or at least making inconsistent, one of the currently most popular strategies.

Your analysis of Kyogre claims that it can be "forced out or OHKOd by stab moves", which I accept as largely true, and it coincides with my earlier points about the rise of offense with the removal of this clause. But the portion about Kyogre being "forced to rest" and toxic/protect stalled is not viable when OHKO moves are being used, as even things like Tentacruel and other protect users resistant to water would both have to predict, and get very lucky to live. A Sleep Talk that selects Sheer Cold is just as threatening to its potential counters, and the inability of stall, and even balance, to reliably force this threat out or check it multiple times, which will be a neccestiy given its bulk and recovery option, mean that it will be able to remove at least a few crucial members of a defensive core against stall based teams that allow it into play.

This holds true for your lapras argument as well. Its true that it can be forced out, but like Kyogre it threatens Sturdy users easily. The instant recovery, status immunity and OHKO option mean it will very difficult to force out by defensive pokemon easily able to take its hits.

If you used the gliscor set I posted earlier, many of your counters actually fare similarly to how they match up against a standard set. It is exactly as much deadweight against bronzong and xatu as it was before, and taunt still allows it to beat Skarmory, as Earthquake obviously didn't threaten it. You actually are a little less reliant on outspeeding and/or outpredicting pokemon like Lugia and Ho-Oh now, a small but welcome benefit. Considering you generally 3KHO standard dialga anyways, it is a small but I guess relevant disadvantage, as you will do about as well statistically it is always great to have a guarenteed option. Excadrill is a realistic point, but you should take into account that this variant actually performs better against air balloon variants, though in general it would be better to be able to revenge LO ones.

But the one point that remained consistent throughout your post in my opinion is that offense will certainly have the upper hand in a OHKO metagame. Spinblocking becoming a dice roll that the spinner has better odds in, bulky passive damage resistant pokemon capable of removing key members, and the weakness of many of the, in my opinion, probable best users of OHKO moves to very relevant offensive threats such as Palkia and Mewtwo make it very likely that many players will decide to avoid the odds as much as possible.

I agree with Fiction and HSA on certain points, but it seems most of the content there has already been argued.

[Geodude6]

My thoughts:


OHKO Clause: I don't think removing this will really have that much of an effect in pretty much any tier, except maybe NU bc of Articuno. But with SR up, Articuno and other similarly-functioning Sheer Cold users like Walrein and Lapras can't really switch in more than once or twice, Articuno especially, with that x4 Rock weakness. Plus the high inaccuracy would be unappealing.


Evasion and Moody Clauses: NO. Just no. Moody almost made BIBAREL op'd. Do not want. Along that same line of thought, the pink blobs would become incredibly frustrating. With Evasion Clause gone, compounded with the Minimize buff in Gen. 5 and their massive SpD and HP, it would be impossible to win against either Chansey or Blissey without the hax gods taking mercy on you and giving you a crit. So, I vote to leave these alone.


Sleep Clause: I will admit to taking advantage of this clause's absence in the general game, with my Breloom against my friend's Darkrai and Salamence. This was Gen4, but my point still stands. This clause's removal would require everyone to carry Techniloom and Conkeldurr for fear of Darkrai and Smeargle. Isn't this why we banned Excadrill from OU? This would overcentralize the metagame, even more than it already is. Darkrai x Dragon Tail Giratina-O would run rampant. It doesn't seem like a good idea to repeal this.


Species Clause: The first thing that jumps to my mind when I think of a metagame with no Species Clause is a team of 6 Arceus. This makes me think of the state of Balanced Hackmons after BW2 was enabled on Showdown, where all a team needed to consist of to win was 5 Assist+Prankster Kyurem-B's and an Imposter Blissey. I once saw a team of 6 Slakings. BH isn't exactly "Balanced" and is a good example of why we need a Species Clause. What might be cool though, is a metagame where you can only use Arceus, and no 2 Arceus on the same team can have the same item. Sounds cool right? But as for Ubers, I vote yes to keep the Species Clause.

[Jibaku*]

Hey, I guess I can chime in:

OHKO Clause

tl;dr the presence of OHKO moves may favor more aggressive Spikes placement

---

- I'll be honest here and say that I have some fears in regards to OHKO clause being lifted. Maybe it's because I have a more defensive teamstyle, or because I keep getting hit by random Vanilluxe Sheer Colds on the GBU 9.9. I guess the idea of a potential instant-removal of a counter is a bit uncomfortable for me. However, bear in mind that this is not a thought I would like to conclude on without significant testing - something which I'd so gladly do for something as controversial as this (as long as I'm not busy ofc).

General thoughts on the OHKO users - some of these are repeats:
Four OHKO users have been brought up in this thread and they are Excadrill, Kyogre, Lapras, and Gliscor.
1) Excadrill will likely be the most significant one here due to its ability to destroy spinblockers, which can potentially shake the metagame.
2) Kyogre comes up second, and could potentially cause a lot of damage as it lacks counters and getting rid of one in a lucky shot can easily snowball the game. However, its base Speed will likely prevent it from sweeping a team by itself, and some teams already stack up on Kyogre checks so a single hit might not even pay off.
3) Lapras sustains well and has reasonable bulk, but its strength will most likely be held back by its rather bad typing, and can be difficult to fit on a team.
4) Gliscor has 4mss already and Guillotine isn't automatically a superior option due to its unreliability, but will probably show up once in a while, and has the potential to be devastating as it can stall for free turns pretty well.

The State of Spikes in the OHKO Metagame:
- Though Excadrill's spinning strength is amplified with the addition of Fissure, one thing to keep in mind is that the Spikers aren't exactly helpless themselves. One belief is that the usage of Spikes will decrease, and while I can not discredit it, I do believe that some Spikers could try to work around this new obstacle instead:

1) Forretress - Earthquake: Excadrill is a pretty common switch in to Forry since it can easily take advantage of its weak offense and continue to press Spins on the enemy, eventually wearing their spinblocker down through its strength and hazard resistance. With Fissure and Mold Breaker, this would seem to be worse off for Forretress. However, a highly overlooked move that Forretress possesses is Earthquake, which can destroy Excadrill pretty fast. Though it is rather hard to fit in, I can see some Forretresses using this to make Excadrill think twice before coming in and firing off pretty much free Fissures. As an added bonus, it hits Tentacruel as well ^^.

2) Deoxys-A: Yes, I do mean Spikes Deoxys-A. If the former isn't an appealing option, then some people might prefer to take a faster route to quickly minimize the opportunities in which Exca can come in. Deoxys-A can function as an unpredictable Spiker with a lot of firepower behind it, and can lay down multiple layers on common leads as well as being able to crush Excadrill with Fire Punch/Superpower if it thinks about doing anything funny. As OHKOes tend to fall in power when things are offensive, Deoxys-A takes perfect advantage of this situation. Deoxys-S can also sort of do this but it lacks the power to do much else =/.

3) Ferrothorn and Tentacruel can already severely damage Excadrill so they don't really fear it getting a free switch in

4) Skarmory: This one's a mixed bag. Skarmory itself is immune to Fissure so Excadrill can't simply spam that, and if Exca doesn't have SD Rock Slide it can't really do any damage to Skarm. On the other hand, Skarmory can't do much back and Excadrill will be getting tons of free spins on this. This match up will be determined by whichever team is less reliant on Spikes.

If Spikes does indeed fall in usage, then I'm expecting Arceus in general to become more dominant, as Spikes is currently one of the most reliable ways to wear it down. For this reason I think it is more likely that Spikes won't really fall with Fissuredrill around. I do think, however, people will put down Spikes in a more threatening manner in order to minimize Excadrill's spinning potential.

Evasion Clause
- I've already gone through this a few times in the thread and I don't think evasion is uncompetitive enough to warrant the clause being kept. It will probably cause annoyances, though. One thing to keep in mind is that OHKOes are not affected by Evasion changes so if the first clause is lifted it can definitely affect the results of this one. In 4 OHKO attempts, there is a 76% chance that one will hit, and I don't think the evasion users will enjoy this at all. Main evasion threats to worry about are Chansey and Giratina, and possibly Drifblim idk. Chansey can be counterstalled by anything with a recovery move that doesn't mind Toxic. Giratina's stuck with Double Team and it has some glaring weaknesses so setting up can be difficult. Drifblim is weak to Thunder.

Moody
- Despite my grim nightmares facing this thing, a retest should be quite interesting indeed. Moody isn't uncounterable but to reliably stop it you might have to resort to the deep ends of strategy. For those of you who haven't played against Moody much, though, don't expect your Pokemon to win as long as they have a Moodymon alive (unless you built your team to counter Moody). A single lucky dice roll (evasion/speed, mostly), can snowball the Moodymon out control. Smeargle is probably the deadliest Moody user, as it can Baton pass these boosts. Or it can sweep. Sweep really hard with Stored Power. And I mean, really, really hard.

Sleep Clause
- I just want to note that the lack of Sleep Clause -CAN- make a metagame more competitive. For example, in glitchmons/streetmons the lack of Sleep Clause makes Machoke easier to check (glitchmon Machoke is feared for its insane bulk from Eviolite combined with nevermiss Sheer Colds. Unless you're stacking Sheer Cold on your entire team Spore would be a more reliable move as a general solution to everything). I am NOT, however, implying that Ubers without Sleep Clause will be more competitive. But this is a thought - maybe Darkrai's rampant use of Dark Void can tone down the absurd strength of some other Ubers, while Sleep Talk keeps Darkrai in check. Or it could make it the single most broken Pokemon in existence because Sleep Talk is unreliable. Idk. Probably not going to be a fun test, but can certainly be interesting.

Species Clause
- There are times where I wish I have more than one Arceus. But as long as we're assuming the full lifting of Species Clause here, this test would probably cause the most chaos of all. Teams would most likely become entirely match up based as conventional tactics do not work against a..say...Normal Arceus stacking team.

[syrim]

I'm going to have to disagree with your spikes analysis Jibaku, on the basis that Excadrill is not likely to attempt to spin on any of those pokemon but Skarmory, and that Sub will be one of OHKO exca's best moves. Unless you plan to trade spins for spins, setting up on forry is a very bad idea. With Sturdy broken by mold breaker, you still have to deal with the predictions the 30% ohko chance clause creates. I understand that you can hit it on the switch with EQ, but that doesn't come close to putting exca out of the match, and you still have to have SOMETHING as a stall player to bring into it. You can try and guess around with immunities, then go to a blocker, but you incur so many 50/50s by doing so that stall loses its whole point. Consistency.

Spikes deo-a is viable I guess, but that ignores the real problem excadrill creates, as does the whole idea of "offensive spike setting." Excadrill will and always will be able to set up on prominent members of stall teams. It doesn't matter what the moveset of their forretress is if you get excadrill in on chansey, skarmory, or even the myriad of support pokemon who used to rely on WoW to threaten excadrill, which now can break spinblockers just as easily while burned, albeit on a shorter timer. Excadrill will still have a free shot at OHKOing something, likely their spin blocker, especially if their hazards are crucial to their game plan.



If you claim that stall teams will become more aggresive in general, as opposed to just laying hazards, which only affects the actual layers of Spikes as you mentioned, is that not comprimising the play style?

If stall becomes adapted to consistently threaten out excadrill, which would limit its options even more, or make it less viable, is that a characteristic of a desirable metagame?

[Jibaku*]

Unless you plan to trade spins for spins, setting up on forry is a very bad idea.

This is debatable as setting up allows Exca to simultaneously scare away Forry and the spinblocker. If calculated right it can pay off for the Rapid Spin Forretress got - if exca's team hasnt placed too many hazards down yet.

If you claim that stall teams will become more aggresive in general, as opposed to just laying hazards, which only affects the actual layers of Spikes as you mentioned, is that not comprimising the play style?

Maybe I just define stall differently. I define stall rather loosely: the main purpose would be to stall out the enemy, but as long as the purpose is kept, any aggressive additions won't change the fact that it's still stall. It's perfectly viable to run say, Fire Blast Blissey to minimize this kind of threat. I don't believe one bit that a stall team must play passively (in fact, this is how stall teams lose, because putting yourself in a position to only constantly respond to your opponent opens up exploits). The introduction of Scarf Palkia to DPP Uber stall to combat Darkrai, Rayquaza, and Specsogre did not compromise the stall playstyle at all, for instance. Since stall is defensive by nature, it places a lot of emphasis on covering threats. But there are many threats around, so stall itself must adapt to take care of the most important threats first, and as stated before, putting a more aggressive approach while maintaining the primary goal of the team is fine.

If stall becomes adapted to consistently threaten out excadrill, which would limit its options even more, or make it less viable, is that a characteristic of a desirable metagame?

And this is a good point, and is something that the suspect test can help us answer :)

[syrim]

Originally Posted by Fat Jibaku

This is debatable as setting up allows Exca to simultaneously scare away Forry and the spinblocker. If calculated right it can pay off for the Rapid Spin Forretress got - if exca's team hasnt placed too many hazards down yet.

Maybe I just define stall differently. I define stall rather loosely: the main purpose would be to stall out the enemy, but as long as the purpose is kept, any aggressive additions won't change the fact that it's still stall. It's perfectly viable to run say, Fire Blast Blissey to minimize this kind of threat. I don't believe one bit that a stall team must play passively (in fact, this is how stall teams lose, because putting yourself in a position to only constantly respond to your opponent opens up exploits). The introduction of Scarf Palkia to DPP Uber stall to combat Darkrai, Rayquaza, and Specsogre did not compromise the stall playstyle at all, for instance. Since stall is defensive by nature, it places a lot of emphasis on covering threats. But there are many threats around, so stall itself must adapt to take care of the most important threats first, and as stated before, putting a more aggressive approach while maintaining the primary goal of the team is fine.


And this is a good point, and is something that the suspect test can help us answer :)

By having to run blissey over chansey you are already conceding that stall will have to become less viable, or run sub par pokemon, as blissey is clearly inferior in ubers, to maintain some level of competitiveness, not to mention you barely scratch excadrill in the rain. Another example of this is the support arceus forms, or lugia, who will have to run ridiculous movesets that compromise their effectivness against major threats and make them less able to check them, which is surely one of the main reasons any player uses stall.

Regardless of your pressure excadrill will reduce your hazard game to a dice roll, and it seems near impossible that stall can adapt to excadrill without taking a hit to its actual ability to stall, and similar things can be said of Kyogre in particular, who I would argue is more threatening individually to stall.

And to address the first part of your response, if the stall team in question actually needs the hazards that are up, such as in the middle stages of the game, the only time you can viably eq excadrill is on the switch, even if you assume it will attack. You are once again risking a 30% chance of something being kod, either your utility hazard layer and SPINNER, spinblocker, or losing your hazards, all critical things for any stall team to have a plan to protect in nearly any circumstance, if it plans to win consistently.

[Jibaku*]

By having to run blissey over chansey you are already conceding that stall will have to become less viable, or run sub par pokemon, as blissey is clearly inferior in ubers, to maintain some level of competitiveness, not to mention you barely scratch excadrill in the rain

- I did not say that you must run Blissey over Chansey. It's an option.
- While Blissey is in general inferior to Chansey, if you don't need all that extra walling power and desire to put more pressure on the enemy then it's really not. Again, this is Ubers - you are encouraged to use whatever means necessary to stop certain threats. For stall just have to find the right balance between covering this and that while providing enough utility for the team.

But enough about stall. Note that I said in my original post that Spikes is probably just going to be placed down more aggressively, and nowhere did I mention stall. Whether stall's viability remains doesn't really matter in this context because Forretress isn't exclusively a stall pokemon.

[syrim]

If you plan to run fire blast, which was a scenario in which you described stall(or balance using the best special wall in the game) putting more pressure on excadrill, you pretty much have to use blissey, who can't switch into many threatening special attacks, like specs kyogre hydro pump, the 2hko from a nped darkrai, and many, many others. More importantly you lose the ability to come into and out heal many physical attackers, like support groudon, and can no longer take stuff like Latios psyshocks and heal up. Blissey is clearly inferior to chansey, as stall can't viably check many threats (remember gen 4 specs palkia?) without it. I don't see how you. can claim stall's viability isn't in question, when it is a hazard based playstyle, and nearly all of the "best" walls allow excadrill in to threaten the team, even more so now that it can do its job burned. Forry is also one of the most common and best pokemon present on stall teams. But I agree that it doesn't just affect stall as a playstyle.

Considering that balanced teams will be running similar walls to stall in most cases, they will be similarly affected. Granted they will probably have at least two members who put excadrill or other OHKO users under more pressure, but they are more vulernable in two sense. One, they often have no room for secondary checks to threatening pokemon like Sheer cold Kyogre or Excadrill. Two, they are often just as dependent on hazards to allow their often specialized sweepers to punch through teams.