np: BW Ubers Suspect Round 4 - When You Sleep

I don't think you understood us (I'll admit I worded my post poorly), he was asking if he had to maintain the reqs throughout the entire suspect testing process and I was telling him that no, once you have the screenshot of reqs for this round you are good to go.
 

Legitimate Username

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Finally made reqs! #77 on the ladder.


Although I'm going to vote to keep the Sleep Clause, I'll have to admit, I had a lot of fun with this metagame. Here's the team I used.
Deoxys (Deoxys-Speed) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 SAtk
- Stealth Rock
- Spikes
- Magic Coat
- Taunt

Darkrai @ Leftovers
Trait: Bad Dreams
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Void
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse

Genesect @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Download
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 SAtk
- U-turn
- Iron Head
- Sleep Talk

Mewtwo @ Life Orb
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psystrike
- Aura Sphere
- Ice Beam
- Calm Mind

Rayquaza @ Lum Berry
Trait: Air Lock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 SAtk
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- Dragon Claw
- V-Create

Arceus @ Lum Berry
Trait: Multitype
EVs: 80 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 172 Spd
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 SAtk
- Swords Dance
- ExtremeSpeed
- Shadow Claw
- Earthquake


This was almost the exact same as my standard Hyper Offense team that I use. The changes I made were that Darkrai has Nasty Plot instead of Focus Blast, Genesect was a Sleep Talk abuser instead of Physical Scarf, Rayquaza is Swords Dance instead of Dragon Dance, and both Rayquaza and Arceus have Lum Berries instead of Life Orb and Silk Scarf.

I realized about halfway through my laddering that I'd do better if Genesect had the standard U-Turn/Iron Head/Ice Beam/Flamethrower instead of Sleep Talk. While it did save me from a Darkrai or Liepard once or twice, it would have been overall better if I had the coverage to take on more threats. I didn't actually bother changing it, mostly out of laziness. Mostly out of coincidence, just about every Pokémon on my team could handle Darkrai pretty well.

Just about everything has already been said about why Sleep Clause should stay, but I'll give the best barely-coherent rant that I can nonetheless. Darkrai, instead of getting one turn of free setup, gets several since the opponent can't afford to switch out after being slept. Almost all things that can check a Darkrai on a rampage can be played around with only minimal prediction. For example, if a Giratina comes in, then it's pretty obvious it'll use Sleep Talk, giving another free turn to use Substitute or Nasty Plot without putting it to sleep.

About half of my sweeps were with Darkrai, and the other half were by using a Lum Berry to get a free turn of setup and then spamming ExtremeSpeed. I think I might keep on using Lum Berry even if Sleep Clause stays, since it helped with Thunder Waves and Toxics a lot more than with Dark Voids.

The biggest reason as to why Sleep Clause should stay is that all of the luck involved with the sleep timers and sleep talk just makes the game too uncompetitive. It's not as bad as something like Moody, but it overcentralizes the metagame on waiting for your freaking Pokémon to just wake up already.
 

Blue Jay

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^ absolutely NOT. Sorry Blue Jay, but that is not acceptable. You need to get requirements DURING the suspect round so we would know you have knowledge of the metagame. Otherwise, I could just post a peak repeatedly over and over again.
Melee Mewtwo got it right, I got the reqs during this suspect test and then stopped playing for a good week or so, due to not enjoying the metagame with the absence of sleep clause. Today I was bored so I started experimenting a bit, which resulted in me losing the rating.

I found a version of that screenshot with the date visible, hope that clears things up.

 


Finally made the requirements. I don't have too much to add to the discussion, but fully support keeping Sleep Clause.

I did find many games quite interesting, because it was almost as if there were a few different subgames going on. Darkrai added a whole new complexity to the hazards game because spamming sleep was so effective with hazards down, and it owned Ghosts trying to block spin. Trying to keep Darkrai in control while handling the other massive threats in Ubers was very difficult but pretty fun.
 



Definitely going to retain Sleep Clause. Darkrai, especially SubSalac varients, and SmashPass Smeargle (or even hazards..) are too broken. Keep in mind that with BW mechanics that Dark Void and Spore basically are OHKO moves..
 


Made it. I'd add my opinion but the consensus already seems to be that a lack of sleep clause takes away from the metagame at both the peak of play and for newbies.
 

Pocket

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Keep in mind that with BW mechanics that Dark Void and Spore basically are OHKO moves..
Except my sleep talk Dialga just took out 2 Pokemon in a span of one game while being asleep (or knocked out?).

The new sleep mechanics isn't really that worse compared to older sleep mechanics - the chance of waking up after one turn of sleep is much higher than before iirc / there's no more 5 or 6 turn sleep like back in ADV. The new sleep mechanic only made RestTalk a lot more shitty, but otherwise it's perfectly manageable by tactical play. If it was indeed instant death, I have seen many occasions where Pokmon has risen from the dead!
 
Nah, I prefer even RBY sleep over Gen V because I know that any amount of free turns I spend asleep is getting me closer to waking up (and thus having full control of my Pokemon). Gen 5 is a huge gamble for low sleep turns since nobody good is going to give you 2 or more consecutive free turns without significant drawbacks. (but yes, those random one turn sleeps get really annoying) It's virtually a OHKO move if you don't happen to have Sleep Talk (which is still random and eats up slots, only worth it in a sleep clause-less metagame).
 

Focus

Ubers Tester Extraordinaire
It baffles me that retaining Sleep Clause seems to have so much support at this point, especially with so many players getting voting reqs this round. I'm not sure whether it's just that people are starting to have more free time around this time of the year or what, but it wasn't hard to get reqs (compared to the other rounds). It was much easier to exploit this metagame than previous ones in my experience; lack of Sleep Clause did not make the metagame significantly more luck-based. With all the Darkrai spam lately you would think that if this metagame were more luck-based, then only the persistent few would make reqs at all. Instead, at least 47 different alts in the top 100 have an expected win percentage of over 90%. Compare this to only 10 different alts with GXE over 90 for the Evasion Clause test, and Evasion moves were considered so much of a non-factor that Evasion Clause was removed. It just boggles my mind that the argument is being made that Sleep Clause is necessary for the metagame when it just seems so obvious to me that it isn't.

The other main concern is that no Sleep Clause means a worse metagame. Remember that this is the Ubers, not OU. In principle, it should not matter how centralized a new threat makes the metagame. That is not a valid reason for retaining a ban in Ubers, especially one as awkward as the Sleep Clause. The threat of Sleep moves are already shown to be mitigated by means other than a clause, so that's why it looks like people just don't want to deal with Darkrai, et al. However, the beauty of Ubers to me is that there can still be perfectly competitive with complete disregard to how threats can dominate the metagame.

I realize that the purpose of these suspect tests is to try to be as objective as possible to determine something as subjective as whether a clause needs to stay or go. All I want is that you, the voters, try to rationalize why objectively you think Sleep Clause should or shouldn't stay. If you haven't done so already, I urge you to try laddering with both a Sleep-abuse team and also a team that is well-prepared (heck, maybe even overly-prepared) to handle Sleep. I'm just worried that most voters that vote to retain Sleep Clause will do so just because, well, "No Sleep Clause is dumb."
 
The reasoning is similar to why we voted to maintain OHKO clause.

poppy said:
This just brings us back to the point many have raised throughout the thread - do we go for a metagame wherein we attempt to unban anything that is 'not broken'? Or a metagame which we find to be enjoyable and diverse (without modifying it too heavily, as we are metagaming, not creating a new game). You will find that a lot of people enjoy the current diversity of Ubers so making it into such a narrow tier might not be the best of ideas, regardless of how philosphically sound it is.
 
Nah, I prefer even RBY sleep over Gen V because I know that any amount of free turns I spend asleep is getting me closer to waking up (and thus having full control of my Pokemon). Gen 5 is a huge gamble for low sleep turns since nobody good is going to give you 2 or more consecutive free turns without significant drawbacks.
So in RBY they give away free turns. Good to know.

I'm actually enjoying this suspect test. Sleep is not more infuriating than regular hax (i.e. Dragon Tail missing 3 times in a row). It's also not the luckfest some people seem to think. I use one Sleep Talker and Lum Extremekiller, and that's more than enough to take care not only of Darkrai, but also random WoWs and whatnot.

@Focus, "No Sleep Clause is dumb." is a poor argument, lol, but I'd rather have that than several 1000-words posts which basically amount to the same. There are people here who seem to hate Sleep with a passion.
 
The reasoning is similar to why we voted to maintain OHKO clause.
The reason for keeping the clauses may be the same, but it's apples and oranges after that. OHKO was maintained because it was an extremely uncompetitive method of play, which took away from the fun and skill involved in the game.

The same cannot be said for sleep clause. From what I've seen on the ladder so far, in the hands of an newbie, sleep abusers were essentially thrown away in hasty attempts to put a team to sleep, or held in hand since one was too scared to lose their pokemon. More experienced players use their brains to make the most out of their sleep abuser. There's still skill involved in playing with sleep asopposed to mindless spamming and hoping for a win off of that.

As for the fun and diversity of the game, I don't recall sleep taking away from diversity. I've said it before that the metagame will adapt to deal with it and as Focus pointed out overcentralization is no means for a ban in Ubers. If you're worried about the game becoming less enjoyable, that argument was not taken into account when Evasion was lifted either and nobody seems to even remember that evasion moves are allowed now. Why do you think that is? Is the luck involved with evasion simply more fun to deal with? Or is it the lack thereof that makes it forgettable?

And this

@Focus, "No Sleep Clause is dumb." is a poor argument, lol, but I'd rather have that than several 1000-words posts which basically amount to the same. There are people here who seem to hate Sleep with a passion.
 
It baffles me that retaining Sleep Clause seems to have so much support at this point, especially with so many players getting voting reqs this round. I'm not sure whether it's just that people are starting to have more free time around this time of the year or what, but it wasn't hard to get reqs (compared to the other rounds). It was much easier to exploit this metagame than previous ones in my experience; lack of Sleep Clause did not make the metagame significantly more luck-based. With all the Darkrai spam lately you would think that if this metagame were more luck-based, then only the persistent few would make reqs at all. Instead, at least 47 different alts in the top 100 have an expected win percentage of over 90%. Compare this to only 10 different alts with GXE over 90 for the Evasion Clause test, and Evasion moves were considered so much of a non-factor that Evasion Clause was removed. It just boggles my mind that the argument is being made that Sleep Clause is necessary for the metagame when it just seems so obvious to me that it isn't.

The other main concern is that no Sleep Clause means a worse metagame. Remember that this is the Ubers, not OU. In principle, it should not matter how centralized a new threat makes the metagame. That is not a valid reason for retaining a ban in Ubers, especially one as awkward as the Sleep Clause. The threat of Sleep moves are already shown to be mitigated by means other than a clause, so that's why it looks like people just don't want to deal with Darkrai, et al. However, the beauty of Ubers to me is that there can still be perfectly competitive with complete disregard to how threats can dominate the metagame.

I realize that the purpose of these suspect tests is to try to be as objective as possible to determine something as subjective as whether a clause needs to stay or go. All I want is that you, the voters, try to rationalize why objectively you think Sleep Clause should or shouldn't stay. If you haven't done so already, I urge you to try laddering with both a Sleep-abuse team and also a team that is well-prepared (heck, maybe even overly-prepared) to handle Sleep. I'm just worried that most voters that vote to retain Sleep Clause will do so just because, well, "No Sleep Clause is dumb."
There are a lot of counterpoints to be made here.

First, you cite the huge number of alts being able to reach the top ladder, and as such verifies that the metagame is not luck based and clearly more enjoyable than before, when very few alts were past the cut off in the previous suspect test. That can be easily explained by an influx in players, for any variety of reasons (it's now summer?). Additionally, the metagame IS luck based, because common sense tells me that. Relying on sleep talk (and what if darkrai dark pulses instead of the assumed dark void), or getting nailed by 3 turn sleeps. Even the darkrai abuser has to deal with 1 turn sleeps, which can screw up an entire game. Just because more people were able to make it passed the req (again can be explained by other factors) does not trump common sense and experience, which tells me that this metagame is luck based. And it's not that it's luck based that is the true criticism. It's a terrible motherf-ing metagame as well, which is the REAL issue, luck being part of the reason.

This leads to the second point, which you talk about how the the ubers tier is *simply* an OU banlist. This is one of the most god forsaken arguments of all time, and is *incredibly* misled. We have an Ubers tier, ubers tournaments, and an ubers ladder. We have suspect discussions, and a dedicated forum. Not to mention, it has historically been the most balanced tier of all. No matter how you look at it, Ubers is a tier. We don't call it BL 0, also because it has 26 pokemon - check how many the other "banlists" have. With 26 plus some 10-15 viable lower tier pokemon, what do you have? A tier. If we unbanned them all, the new metagame wouldn't be broken because the metagame would basically be Ubers, which isn't broken. This is not the case with unbanning all the pokemon from BL to UU, which would fuck some serious shit up.

If it were really *just* a banlist, then we should also take away species clause, OHKO clause, bring back moody... etc. And guess what, people would STILL find counters and it would STILL be a metagame - so your argument about how "people have adapted and therefore sleep clause is not necessary" is trash. Because hackmons is a metagame, and works. Note: check your definition of a metagame. Then check your definition of what makes a good metagame.

As for finding an objective reason to get rid of sleep, there are too many and they are obvious. I'd say it's completely appropriate to end at "it's just dumb" - cause it is. Ubers is a tier and a banlist, but first and foremost a tier. You may argue it's more of a banlist than a tier (and I'll be your opponent), but in the end, it is still a tier and you can't argue it's only a banlist. Like, that's ridiculous and that sort of misled thinking will lead to a terrible policy like attempting to remove sleep clause.
 
So in RBY they give away free turns. Good to know.
No you create them. A Chansey/Gengar can't do much against even a sleeping Zam so if you are smart with your double switches you might just be able to wake him up.

The reason for keeping the clauses may be the same, but it's apples and oranges after that.
I've already argued the details, I was trying to respond to his question about the fundamentals for the reasoning behind the ban. These are the same between the two suspect tests so they are justified. (and I would never vote to ban anything for centralization, I didn't even do that when I voted ban for Genesect in OU)

@Focus, "No Sleep Clause is dumb." is a poor argument, lol, but I'd rather have that than several 1000-words posts which basically amount to the same. There are people here who seem to hate Sleep with a passion.
People don't have to publicly justify the reasoning for their vote in the first place. (and I strongly doubt that was his only line of thought)

Edit:
This leads to the second point, which you talk about how the the ubers tier is *simply* an OU banlist. This is one of the most god forsaken arguments of all time, and is *incredibly* misled. We have an Ubers tier, ubers tournaments, and an ubers ladder. We have suspect discussions, and a dedicated forum. Not to mention, it has historically been the most balanced tier of all. No matter how you look at it, Ubers is a tier. We don't call it BL 0, also because it has 26 pokemon - check how many the other "banlists" have. With 26 plus some 10-15 viable lower tier pokemon, what do you have? A tier. If we unbanned them all, the new metagame wouldn't be broken because the metagame would basically be Ubers, which isn't broken. This is not the case with unbanning all the pokemon from BL to UU, which would fuck some serious shit up.
I don't like this argument much because it distracts from the current discussion. I'd rather substitute it with this post here.
 
Well I have no knowledge of higher physics or mathematics but I believe that even the chaos (not the user :p) theory has its rules. Ubers is a metagame where by its nature everything goes as far pokemon species are concerned. That being said, as a metagame, it has to be defined by some rules and it would be a mistake to try and negate every rule in existence because this tier is actually very open and not so strict like OU and UU. I started playing ubers (and pokemon in general) around three weeks or a month ago, while in the past, around 3-4 years ago, I had been playing Dpp ubers on shoddy. I actually found that the negation of evasion and freeze clause shocking since I don't recall for the time I had been around any clauses being ever tested.

I didn't have the chance to test moody, but I was able to qualify in this suspect test. To be honest I find the testing of sleep clause to be a very bold move from the team that moderates the ubers metagame (I don't really know how the decisions for ubers suspects are made) as the tests before had to do with luck reliant moves and abilities and not a general rule that changes strategicaly team-building and play-style all together. What I'me trying to say the potential ability of sleep inducing moves to hit more than one member of the enemy team and therefore make more enemy pokemon "useless" has a huge impact on how a player deals with sleep in general. In the past you could let your sleep absorber or the least useful member in general take the sleep and then switch to a counter. Now one must have a direct counter to sleep, like a sleep talker who can not only take sleep but also pose an imidiate threat on the enemy sleep inducer and another one (most of the time with lum berry) to check said sleep inducer in case, the not so trustwothy, sleep talk failed. The lack of SC has also affected team building a lot and a proof of that would be the lack of arceus formes who cant take another item other than their plate. Arceus-Ghost for example, a very potent threat, who was also voted S-Rank by the community, while is still extremely good is not the preferable choice at the moment since it screams for Darkrai to set up on it. The same can be said for many other Arceus-Forms.

While playing, I decided to not abuse sleep, but to try and make teams that would be effective in a normal (with SC) metagame while being able to deal with sleep effectively. I believe I was successful and to be honest I found that the new metagame, which took a greater amount of thought to deal with sleep, was both interesting and fun and not as broken as I thought it would be. However the effect that it had in the teambuilding process was not suited for a "healthy" metagame (despite popular belief I have always found the ubers metagame to be actually balanced) because it killed the tiers diversity. And i don't mean that it hindered the popularity of secondary-class threats that could potentialy and in a specific way be effective in ubers. We are talking about Arceus-Formes being hit, which are some of the most threatening mons out there.

Choosing between rataind and not retaining the clause is kinda hard for the above reasons for me. I am leaning towards retaining the clause though.

I apologise in advance in advance if my points are not understandable because of bad phrasing. I am not a native english speaker and it has been a lot of time since I wrote something that long in english lol.
 
made reqs despite not playing ubers
I'm pretty sure I lost 3 games to a Butterfree with Sleep Powder / Sub / Whirlwind / QD lol...also Sub Dark Void Darkrai is insane. Retain pl0x.
 
The biggest complaint I have with Focus' post is the challenge to "rationalise objectively" why sleep clause should remain.

That is impossible. There is no objective reason whatsoever as to why sleep clause should remain in effect. Likewise, there is no objective reason whatsoever as to why we should ban or unban anything. Ultimately what we are pursuing is a desirable metagame, which cannot be objectively explained or justified. What we're really doing, is trying to attain the metagame which is most desirable for the most people, which is a completely subjective ideal. It's entirely true that it's logically fallacious to ban without an objective justification, but a fallacious decision is not necessarily a wrong decision. Smogon's entire testing policy is based on two fallacies (ad pop and appeal to authority), yet I'd say it's a fairly efficient system.

The point is that there is no logical, objective reason as to why sleep clause should be retained; however, there doesn't need to be. All that matters is that most players find the metagame less competitive, enjoyable, etc, without a sleep clause. That is justification enough.
 

Manaphy

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I'll keep this quick and simple. I was going to get reqs for this, but I think at this point it's safe to say that Sleep Clause will be maintained. After playing about 40 battles with several teams in this meta, I had to completely trash one of my teams I recently just made because Darkrai could literally just sleep everything (and I had a Lum Berry user too). With Dark Void's 80% accuracy, Sleep Talk misses, and Black and White's new sleep mechanics it adds a unessecary amount of luck into the metagame which I really can't support at the moment.
 

Corporal Levi

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This does count as meeting the requirements, right?

I think not having sleep clause is fine because a lack of balance is what makes the uber metagame unique in my opinion, and there are still counters to darkrai/smeargle in their current states.
 
Please, I get that it's not NEEDED to keep the sleep clause, but what would we gain from removing it? Do we WANT this sleep fest? Making varioius play styles unviable, like stall? I don't have reqs (couldn't be bothered to) but please, explain to me why you prefer a meta like this over our standard Ubers meta?
 

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