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Leek has been a controversial item in the Neverused metagame for a number of months now. The SS NU council has been discussing taking action on it and wanted to post a PR thread in order to gauge public perception on this issue. We did not want to overhaul the current King's Rock thread, but please note that some recent discussion on "luck items" in our metagames has taken place here.
For some context, Leek boosts the chances of Sirfetch'd getting a critical hit by 2 stages, giving it a 50% chance to critical hit any given attack it lands when the item is equipped. Sirfetch'd is already an incredibly strong Pokemon in the metagame thanks to 135 base Attack, STAB Close Combat, and a number of complimentary attacks such as First Impression, Knock Off, and Brave Bird. A Choice Band Sirfetch'd is a challenging Pokemon to keep in check because of this, but with Leek as the item of choice, users of Sirfetch'd are able to switch up moves while also having a large, random chance of achieving similar damage output. This has made finding consistent counterplay to Sirfetch'd an awkward part of teambuilding while adding a large element of variance to gameplay when Leek Sirfetch'd is utilized.
The SS NU council is considering acting on Leek and discussing acting on Sirfetch'd if that is not possible, so any and all feedback from those familiar with the situation would be appreciated.
I've been using Leek Sirfetch'd since Bewear and Pangoro meta so, I have some thoughts on Leek usage.
I counted 41 critters, B- rank or higher in the VR just now. Of those, we have some fairly decent CC deterrents Leek crits or no, it is guaranteed to come in on any attack and threaten to KO or burn with Will-O-Wisp. Dies to a Leek crit Knock Off, unless Colbur. Outspeeds and near-OHKOs with Psychic. Outcome not changed much by Leek vs Band vs LO. Comes in fairly easily on Leek CC. Doesn't need much chip to die to crit Poison Jab. Highly subject to Leftovers/Protect/Stealth Rock, but outcome can be changed by Leek. Needs a double crit (CC -> Brave Bird) to break through. Subject to Leek, but LO can also blast through. Even a double crit (CC -> Brave Bird) is hardly breaking through. Also, Rocky Helmet + Aftermath hurts.
And then we have the sketchy switch-ins that can switch into CC at least once and threaten to OHKO; this is not subject to Leek crits. (specs)
That's just switch-ins. The ability to situationally check Sirfetch'd with the likes of and many, many others? Not subject to Leek crits at all. (For reference, of those 41 critters from earlier? Over half are anywhere from situational to solid checks, Leek or not).
There's a lot of Sirfetch'd counterplay out there, and of that, only a couple of select matchups have a significant chance to be affected by Leek.
I'm not convinced that Leek's input into one or two select matchups is enough to call it a breaking element on a Pokemon with a bazillion checks.
No Pokemon should ever have the privilege of a 50% chance to crit their way through the opponent's entire team. In fact, I would go further to argue that any Leek-equivalent item that gives a certain Pokemon the ability to crit at a higher frequency should be banned. Pokemon should as far as possible reward skill and not luck; a game should not boil down to a "I hope that Poison Jab will not crit my Sylveon that just took a hit from Leek CC". Sure, the Sirfetch'd user is taking a calculated risk to land a Leek Poison Jab, but more often than not the odds are almost always against the opponent, and that is not desirable.
Why look at Leek first, isn't Sirfetch'd potentially broken in itself? Firstly, I would like you all to imagine scenarios where all breakers have access to their own Leek-equivalent item. I do not think anyone will dispute that Pokemon like Salazzle, Flygon, Escavalier, Starmie etc. are broken. However, just merely having the said privilege of critting suddenly turns many 3HKO to 2HKO, and now the opponent is forced to decide if he should sack the mon or switch out to another mon and risk another crit. Furthermore, unlike Choice items, the freedom to switch moves is simply too good to pass up. Should Sirfetch'd turn out to be broken without Leek anyway, then by all means ban the mon (and unban Leek if you want to). I believe it is in Smogon's interest to tackle any uncompetitive instead of broken elements first, and Leek is one such example that enables these toxic gameplays.
How is Leek then any different from other luck-based items like King's Rock? Personally, I find all luck-based items to be kind of stupid, but most of them come with massive opportunity cost. Most mons would rather hold all-round useful items such as Heavy-Duty Boots / Choice items / Leftovers / etc. instead of an RNG-based item that only slightly increase the chance of the effect to happen, a notable example being Weavile in OU. Leek's closest counterpart, Scope Lens, only increase the critical hit ratio by 1 stage, which is a 12.5% chance. No meaningful comparison can be made, for the difference in probability (12.5% vs 50%) is too big to ignore.
I think that we should tread with caution when banning things in the name of competitiveness because the game we play is filled to the brim with RNG. We need a system in place that is able to prevent a slippery slope where people can argue banning freeze, sleep, paralysis, confusion, Effect Spore, Static, Flame Body, disabling crits altogether, always taking the median roll for damage etc. because at that point we will no longer be playing pocketo monstah. Sets focused around critical hits have been a thing for a while now, and I think that the primary focus should be whether they are genuinely overly strong or not, in order to prevent the issue I just mentioned.
As for the viability in this case, the Pokemon Sirfetch'd doesn't have a whole lot going for it aside from it's raw power. It's defenses are okay, but it's pure Fighting-type does not offer it many useful resistances, and it relies a lot on going first despite not being the fastest mon around either. Offensively, I've generally found Choice Band to be more desirable because it somewhat fixes your speed tier against more offensive teams through a powerful First Impression, while reliably giving you the highest damage. That being said, I do think that Leek can have it's place on certain teams that are already very well prepared against offensive pressure.
Unlike with King's Rock, you are still very much limited by the typing of your attacks and your stats, you merely have a 50% chance to tap into Choice Band power. Keeping all of that in mind, I do not think that Leek is any more uncompetitive than any of the other numerous, more common, more impactful elements of RNG in the game, and I do not think that it is even the best option available to Sirfetch'd, let alone overly strong for the NU tier.
I've followed this discussion a bit from the outside and frankly it is not entirely clear to me why the problem here, if there is one, is Leek rather than Sirfetch'd itself. It reminds me a bit of the "ban Gorilla Tactics" argument that some people espoused in OU back when Darmanitan-G was on the chopping block, and here it was pretty apparent that the problem really was that such a powerful ability was given to a mon with amazing Attack, decent Speed, and perfect coverage rather than that the ability an sich was too good. I don't think the situation is very different here, given that Leek happens to be given to a mon with a whopping base 135 Attack, perfect coverage, and powerful priority which allows it to abuse the item to its fullest. Of course here we are presented with a veneer of legitimacy because Leek is ostensibly "uncompetitive", but I'm really not so sure that this is a legitimate argument for the reasons presented by Charmflash. A more legitimate argument would be that the item is simply too good, but I don't believe this to be the case either. There is actually a fair tradeoff to be made when using Leek over another item because of its inconsistency. Sirfetch'd happens to bypass this inconsistency to a degree because it's already so naturally powerful that unboosted attacks still hurt a lot, but you may still find that you are for example struggling more to break through your opponent's Garbodor than if you were using a Choice Band (or Life Orb if you want to switch moves, anyone remember that item?). Moreover, if there was an item similar to Leek but usable by all Pokemon, I reckon you would find that most Pokemon simply would not use it because for most Pokemon having to rely on 50/50 odds to get boosted damage output would not be worth the tradeoff, as they would often fail to do significant damage to their checks or revenge kill the threats they're meant to revenge kill. Maybe some Pokemon would be pushed over the edge by it in their respective tiers, but I do not see this as proof that such an item is a problem as much as that some items just happen to synergize really well with particular items.
I don't think that the "ban the Pokemon before the move/ability/item" should be held as a dogma and I'm generally positive with regard to recent developments in Smogon's tiering philosophy, but I do think that banning the Pokemon before anything else is still a pretty good rule of thumb to hold on to and should only be diverged from in cases where it is very clear that the move/ability/item in question could be construed as problematic in a general sense. This simply has not been proven in the case of Leek. To me a ban on Leek does not seem like an attempt to maintain the competitive integrity of the tier, but rather like a matter of sheer convenience, a "we could keep this Pokemon in our tier by banning the item so why don't we" masked by some vague argument regarding uncompetitiveness that does not hold up under scrutiny. I'm frankly not even convinced that if this mon is broken that it would simply be fine without Leek, and in any case the problems presented here are highly dependent on the contextual factors of the mon using it and not merely dependent on the inherent potency of the item itself. Bypassing the regular tiering process by banning Leek would be completely mistaken.
I agree with the sentiments presented by termi/charm/others. I've seen as many games won as I've seen lost due to leek working or not working respectively. I see this item as a choice that people use to generate luck outside of the scope of a standard 252/252 spread. The fact that it shits on your head as often as it doesn't does not scream broken, unhealthy, or uncompetitive. To me, it feels like the Scald discussion back in XY/ORAS.
If anything should be done, it's an overall suspect of Sirfetch'd - there are reasons to use other sets over Leek, so let's examine the mon as a whole and evaluate it based on our tiering process.
termi brings up an important point - our tiering policy emphasizes focusing on the Pokemon as a whole, rather than singling out individual elements of what makes a Pokemon broken and banning those. After all, a Pokemon is tiered based on its usage with ANY item - we don't tier Alolan Marowak separately with and without Thick Club, for example, even if Thick Club dramatically changes Marowak as a 'mon.
Now, like any tiering policy, the policy should serve the playerbase and not the other way around. There HAVE been exceptions - the one that comes to mind is Mewnium Z, which was banned in SM UU Beta. I'm still not entirely sure I agree with that ban (rather than banning Mew as a whole), but if I recall correctly from council discussions at the time the argument was that Mewnium Z was a later element added to the game after Mew had already established itself in UU, and that Mew was not broken without it. Mew ended up rising to OU before we left beta and started more formal tiering processes either way, and didn't fall again until the very end of the gen, so it was never revisited.
In any case, we've been more flexible on bans that previously would have been considered complex this generation, so it's not off the table completely, but I'd like to see some real justification why the focus is on Leek and not Sirfetch'd beyond what is in the OP before this moves forward.
A critical aspect of most "luck" items is that they deny input through flinches or misses, which is why Leek might not be the best item to lump together with Bright Powder and King's Rock. Besides the fact that the latter two items influence a more RNG dependent metagame, they outright deny turns. That's always a problem competitively due to the extremely limited counterplay if the opponent simply has to rely on good luck to make progress with anything. It's why King's Rock on a sweeper like Cloyster has incredible potential, but this type of luck is different than Leek's luck.
Leek's RNG instead is only for increasing power, which is practically identical to the power of Choice Band, and the RNG-related benefits of the item only occur when Sirfetch'd has an opportunity to switch up moves AND it gets multiple critical hits. This just isn't the most common for it in play. The much more likely scenario, given that Sirfetch'd is a wallbreaker, is that Sirfetch'd gets a switch in, forces damage on a wall / snags a KO, and then is forced out by a revenge killer. This sequence also occurs when Sirfetch'd is only needed for First Impression, like for finishing off Blastoise or forcing out Starmie. Critical hits / CB damage might not even be necessary sometimes for First Impression, but in the event that the damage boost is necessary, only CB guarantees it. Already there's a huge tradeoff and concern with the item that deters a lot of teams from including Leek over CB.
The OP addresses the best case scenario for the Leek player: their Sirfetch'd lands every crit they need and enjoys the benefit of switching up moves. For example, Sirfetch'd could use Knock Off when Diancie switches in and finish it off with CC. However, Diancie are physdef and still live this combo from full, so it would only work if Diancie is already worn down. Two critical hit CCs will KO Daincie, but that's only a 25% chance compared to Choice Band doing guaranteed boosted damage. It's come to the point where Leek players miss out on consistency so much that they sometimes run Steel Wing so they only need one critical hit / CC into Steel Wing to break Diancie instead of relying on two CC crits. This is all to say that Leek's benefits are sometimes niche compared to CB and come at their own downsides.
If you compare King's Rock Cloyster's potential to Leek Sirfetch'd, Cloyster's best is that it flinches its defensive counters and sweeps a team with nothing the opponent can do about it, whereas Sirfetch'd at best snags a KO that maybe its CB set wouldn't have, but it's still just as vulnerable to revenge killers thereafter. That's my concern when lumping Leek with King's Rock as Leek's best case scenario isn't always game ending nor is it always prevalent in play.
If anything, suspect Sirfetch'd because it does have exceedingly low and inconsistent switch-ins. When Sirfetch'd players choose Leek, they still have to worry about Talonflame, Garbodor, Salazzle, Xatu, losing momentum and never finding safe switch-ins... There's still counterplay but admittedly it's limited. Regardless, I've come to the conclusion that the topic should be on the Pokemon and not the Item in this case.
Very short but excellent posts above tbh. Mine is gonna be longer but I hope it won't be too incorrect and boring.
As it was very well explained above, Leek is a signature move and the topic could be "Sirfetched in NU" instead. But I think it may not be that simple, and I'll speak as if Sirfetched were balanced but Leek could be an issue. See the above posts about the Sirfetched-and-not-Leek topic. I'll write as if the only topic were Leek. I will mostly expand on uncompetitiveness and then explain why Leek isn't uncompetitive on Sirfetched in NU.
About uncompetitiveness and luck items
First I want to say that something can't be uncompetitive if:
-it doesn't favor its user and
-isn't the best option or almost as good as the best option.
A competitive player (this is different from a good player) is a player who want to maximize their chances of winning. It is frustrating to lose to Squirtle789 1300elo 52 GXE on the ladder because of his Brightpowder Chlorophyll Venusaur dodging a move, but that doesn't make Brightpowder uncompetitive. If it doesnt turn the tables often enough and isn't the best option, there's no reason to use it. It can be used and can work. But the "natural selection of pokemon metagames" as I call it will lead to this result:
-players who win consistently won't be using it and
-players who want to win consistently wont use it either.
Only bad players will use it and sometimes beat a good player with it, but it's unlikely. In the BrightPowder Venusaur case, LifeOrb is strictly better in the long run (and when I say long run, it doesn't only mean a dozen games or more, but also just one battle, as opposed to the short-term=a couple turns in a match). It's the same for Leek. If there were nothing better than Leek, then you could potentially see many more Leek Ducks. But given ChoiceBand is excellent on it, if you see a Duck and your opponent wants to win, there's no reason the Duck wouldn't be CB, and if it's Leek and not CB, usually it will favor you and not the Duck user.
I'm not saying using Leek makes you a bad player. Leek has a 50% chance of granting your attack a critical hit boost at any given turn. It's definitely serious gambling as compared to Brightpowder or Quick Claw which are mere memeing (well maybe not on Slowbro-Galar but that's it and there's the quickdraw topic alongside it too so let's avoid this). I was just introducing an aspect of competitiveness that should be made clear. A luck item isn't uncompetitive because it turns the tables randomly. If it is too rewarding in the long run and isn't worse than other options, then it is uncompetitive. Dynamic Punch without No Guard isn't uncompetitive. Brightpower isn't uncompetitive. Even over one single battle, you lose more than you gain for using those. They are just bad, because using them increases your chances of losing in the short-term.
Leek is a bad choice on Sirfetched and thus can't be uncompetitive
If Sirfetched were a sweeper, Leek would be probably better than LifeOrb or anything else like lum berry etc. x1.5 boost every 2 turns kinda, ignores Irondefense etc and doesn't have recoil. But it's a Revengekiller and Wallbreaker. Why would you use a revengekiller that revengekills 50% of the time? Yeah maybe we don't see many sweepers in NU tournaments, but if you're using Sirfetched, it generally is your revengekiller too. And do you trust your breaker to get the needed boosted hits 50% of the time? (otherwise try Flameorb Machamp, switches moves and gets the x1.5 boost 100% guaranteed).
Switching moves is nice, but if you fail to KO something like Vaporeon because you didnt get the crit, it sucks badly. Kings rock already is a poor item that pretty much only works on Cloyster across all smogon tiers and generations (and I'd even argue Cloyster could be banned instead of Kings rock). But at least Kings Rock on Cloyster has a very high reward because it is used on a sweeper (cloyster) that only needs to flinch once to beat a check and then just win. A cloyster user just wants cloyster to crit a would-be check and then kill the rest with +2 boosted moves without needing crits (you can need more crits, but usually you just need one). You can't beat Toxapex or Ferrothorn or Urshifu-Swimmer with LO cloyster, lum cloyster etc etc. Kings Rock is by far the superior option and can only reward you greatly.
Leek on sirfetched when it's a Revengekiller and Wallbreaker and when CB is near-perfect on it? Choice band does the job perfectly, yeah CB can't switch moves and can potentially struggle vs Sylveon, but vs the rest of the tier CB all the way imo. Anyway people use BraveBird and not PoisonJab, so you're not beating Sylveon by switching moves either in that case, or you lose to Vileplume and Garbodor notably. If you believe that the combo "Switching moves+Random crits" is better than "Guaranteed destruction but choice-locked" on Sirfetched, it's fine but I strongly disagree. I might be wrong!
TL;DR:
-Sirfetched is a Revengekiller and a Wallbreaker, not a Sweeper.
-With a Leek instead of Choice band, it revengekills and breaks reliably less than 50% of the time. (Unless you just need to get one single crit in your match, then it's 50%, which remains suboptimal).
-Switching moves on a RK/Breaker is pointless if you can't KO what you need 50% of the time.
-If you want a fighting breaker that can switch moves use FlameOrb Machamp: -6% burn per turn and 100% boosted moves is better than no recoil but a x1.5 boost randomly. Similar speed, better bulk, BulletPunch Prio too.
-Kings Rock Cloyster is totally different than Leek Sirfetched. Cloyster cant sweep with any item other than KingsRock (maybe Focus Sash+removal) since most teams have a Cloyster stop that can only fail to RK cloyster if the latter has a KingsRock. The reward when it flinches is incredible, and it usually only needs one key flinch. Sirfetched is rewarded for using Leek very rarely, and the risk when using it is too high, especially when Revengekilling. And CB is better.
This is all I want to say, and if Leek is to be banned, no problem: I won't miss something I see no point in using. And I'm not trying to be provocative. But if someone has replays showing Leek to be overbearing and better than CB go ahead, I've never had problems with Leek so far. With Sirfetched itself yes maybe. But I'm open to Leek being actually problematic on Sirfetched.
I've been playing NU a fair bit lately (I'm that Butterfree person), and I just wanted to echo what the others have said in that Leek is not worth banning.
Here are the reasons why:
It isn't Fetch's best item, which in itself is evidence that Leek is not overpowering/overbearing.
Fetch is usually only getting 1-2 attacks in before the opponent just brings in the revenge killer anyway (unless you have a solid swap, such as Talonflame), and I don't think Leek affects this exchange in any way.
Leek is basically just Choice Band Fetch but able to swap moves, but Fetch is so slow that it can rarely utilize this anyway, as it's just gonna get one hit then the switch-in is gonna be faster. I feel like if First Impression could be used on more than just the first turn, this might be a different discussion, but it's not, and it's other priority alternative is Quick Attack, and I don't think I need to explain why that isn't an issue.
If Fetch is an issue, I don't see any of the evidence pointing to Leek as the culprit. Leek doesn't change how Fetch is played, and it's other item options (i.e. Choice Band) are debatably superior. Because of this, banning Leek will do nothing to change how Fetch is played in NU, and it might remain problematic for longer rather than just looking at Fetch in the first place.
Leek itself is inconsistent, and you're usually missing the value of consistent damage of CB/LO or the benefits of simply having any other item [sash/lum/whatever] for the tradeoff that you'll crit only 50% of the time. IDK about anyone else, but 50% chance is pretty terrible chance to rely on, and I'm not even sure the damage output is "broken/uncompetitive" because you should be preparing for Choice Band in mind anyway, which has the same damage output [read: the opposing player should be playing around CB damage output anyway, and it's slow speed stat makes the ability to swap moves not as relevant].
It's true that base 130 attack is incredible in a tier like NU, but Fetch is a mono-fighting type with a very small speed stat, and a priority move that is only reliable on the first turn it comes in. Fetch would need a better speed tier in order to utilize the strength of Leek, and even then, its effects are too inconsistent to be reliable.
I do think that suspecting Fetch as a whole is valid, as Fetch has a small number of switch ins, but I personally would be on the No Ban camp, since it's pretty slow & a plethora of things are able to RK it just fine, and Fetch doesnt find switch-ins super easily due to being frail and having bad defensive typing. I can totally see arguments for it swinging in the other direction though, and if the NU council feels action on Fetch is necessary, please suspect Fetch as whole, do not suspect Leek.
Lots of great feedback here, thanks so much to everyone for contributing to the discussion!
Bit of a quick turnaround, but I can say with confident that NU does not plan to act on the item Leek and I am going to close this thread now. We will continue to evaluate the megagame moving forward, especially with regards to Sirfetch'd if deemed problematic. Feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions!
and many, many others? Not subject to Leek crits at all. (For reference, of those 41 critters from earlier? Over half are anywhere from situational to solid checks, Leek or not).
