ADV Sand Veil

[undisputed]

The ADV Council is planning to test or council-ban Sand Veil soon. The purpose of this thread is to solicit community and ADV-stakeholder feedback before we take any further steps. Specifically, we are seeking posts on these two discussion points:

1. Please post with a short explanation if you strongly oppose the council taking action.

2. If we take action, would a test or council-ban be preferable to you?

The way forward depends on this thread.

To avoid any action on Sand Veil, we are looking for substantial opposition. We will consider factors like the quantity and quality of posts and the poster's involvement within the ADV community. Please note that you may (and likely should) keep your post short - the ADV Council is already familiar with most of the arguments for and against Sand Veil. We estimate that the majority of the community supports taking action against Sand Veil, but we want to double check that assumption and allow anyone to speak up.

If we take action, the presumption is that we will run a standard suspect test. As in the past, we will offer both tournament and ladder qualifications. However, we recognize that suspect tests take time and can be stressful affairs. If there is substantial support for a council-ban in this thread, the ADV Council is willing to do so. Like above, we will consider factors like quantity of posts, quality of reasoning, and the poster's involvement within the ADV community.

The ADV Council's and each member's position on Sand Veil will be discussed at a later date depending on how this thread develops. Right now all members are willing to proceed with a test. Our timeline is to complete any activity before the start of the next Smogon Premier League.

Thank you for reading and contributing. We are looking forward to resolving Sand Veil soon.

 

[undisputed]

If you cannot post in PR and do not want to proxy post, please use this thread in Ruins of Alph. The ADV Council will be monitoring both threads. Thanks.

 

[watermess]

Nobody has said anything all day so maybe I can help kick things off with some of my thoughts, I don't oppose a sand veil ban but I also don't think sand veil is very unhealthy, cacturne in particular I believe to be a very valid way of taking advantage of players who consistently spam passive teams without being a broken pokemon in itself - being an extremely mediocre Pokémon Vs most offense teams.

Cacturne is not really on my radar, I find gligar to be far more frustrating to deal with since it really can win any game with just a few untimely misses - i can remember losing to it once by missing 2 roars in a row for example. I don't think that is particularly fun to play against at all

Using these thoughts as my reasoning I would suggest a suspect test with potential complex ban options as suggested by hclat - would be great to hear him elaborate on this - possibly no boosting + sand veil could be an appropriate complex ban.

Hope this helps get things rolling, sand veil is really interesting to suspect because it's not at all meta defining yet it leaves quite an impression on those who play the tier, I look forward to hearing what other people have to say.

 

[eden]

Cacturne at least adds something to the tier in abusing fat cune dol lax style teams; gligar provides nothing. It adds relatively limited defensive value, and essentially needs a miss or two to snowball. My issue is that said miss isn't that hard to come by.

The argument that missing a move v say dd tar etc can break the game for you as well, doesn't hold much weight to me when gligar comes by those said game breaking misses more consistently in game. It's rolling the dice yes, but if you roll a loaded die often enough, eventually stuff's gonna be in your favor.

 

[ABR]

Before delving into metagame implications I wanna touch on the tiering mechanisms at work here.

If an item/ability is unanimously deemed uncompetitive by a council, that council should be able to swiftly take action in the form of a quickban. Related examples include baton pass and swagger, where there was no formal suspect test.

Regarding what should actually be voted on, I think sand veil or gligar are the only realistic options. A complex ban on setup + veil is entirely avoidable given the alternatives above while also preserving nothing of value in the tier. Based on community opinion, maybe a quickban on gligar and a larger community vote on veil as a whole (cacturne) is the most accurate way forward.

Gligar’s potency is fairly well established at this point, relatively high base speed + swords dance snowballs fast. It is way in the gligar user’s favor to get a dodge after repeated tries, and this is often all that’s needed to sweep.

Regarding cacturne, it’s evidently not as potent as gligar. Nonetheless, it still operates in the same manner and relies on dodges to function. It may not fully sweep your team, but it forces your opponent into the hitting game and leech + spikes residual adds up fast. It only really needs that first dodge to get the ball rolling and force more switches with leech.

For anyone who asks why we’d ban sand veil and not bright powder, I’d say the answer is to just ban both then. They can very reasonably fall under evasion clause, metagame presence aside.

 

[Valentine]

In a tier run by Tyranitar, and with permanent weather (Sand), it’s hard to argue for Sand Veil.

Sand Veil cuts the opponents accuracy by 20%. +1 Evasion cuts accuracy by 25%. I hope it isn’t the 5% difference that has kept Veil around for so long.

I don’t see how you could leave Cacturne alone. There are pros and cons to using it — just like any other mon — but it still morphs a game of skill into a game of chance with it’s ability. What logic is there keeping it around and not Gligar? Sand Veil either creates luck based turns or it doesn’t.

I agree with ABR’s note on tiering philosophy, in that the council should feel comfortable making a decision without a community suspect. But I don’t agree that one should be quickbanned and not the other, reasoning above.

 

[Lily]

I have no stake in ADV OU banning Sand Veil but I was mostly curious about how this would impact Gligar's place ADV UU since I play that tier from time to time and it's one of the best Pokemon in that tier. Obviously if Sand Veil were to be banned it wouldn't really impact ADV UU at all given that a) the tier is locked and b) there are no automatic sand inducers, but from reading this thread and the RoA thread I've seen people arguing for a ban on Gligar itself. As far as I'm aware this is an unprecedented situation - I don't think a Pokemon has ever been banned from an oldgen tier other than the tier it actually resided in, closest thing that's happened is the ongoing Arena Trap vote in DPP OU - but I don't think Gligar could reside in both UU and Ubers at the same time. Sorry if this is an inappropriate place for this or just a question with a simple (and obvious) answer, couldn't find anything so I figured it'd be worth asking; if Gligar was to be banned from ADV OU, would it remain legal in UU? How would that work? Thank you in advance!

 

[Hogg]

Lower tiers in old gens are locked per a policy from a couple of years ago (I'll link when not on mobile), so they would not be impacted by this decision. Gligar and Sandslash would remain legal in UU, as would Cacturne in NU if this moved forward.