Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

[kosecant]

Sigh

Ok. You've failed to answer the question 2 times now, I won't ask you a 3rd time. Just tryna have a discussion on this metagame discussion thread.
Please try not to insult other people's opinions, ok? Have a nice day.


That's fair, I should've been using the word "randomness" rather than unpredictability.


1) We've already set the precedent of banning secondary effects of moves. Dire Claw/Relic Song already cannot put multiple foes to sleep under the current Sleep Clause. Freeze Clause also established this precedent.
2) Freeze is far more devastating than every other secondary effect you've described, and it's more powerful than sleep too.
3) Sleep clause already mods the game "beyond recognition," Freeze clause did the same, and we largely accept these as good things. Smogon should be much more liberal in banning purely random elements imo. There is no reason to keep stuff like quick claw, focus band, etc.

I think I didn’t clarify my stance well enough. I, personally, am against modding the game. I think sleep clause is bad, and that sleep as a status should be banned (with the exception of rest) over keeping in this legacy game mod.

freeze is much trickier to deal with in my mind, because I want to avoid arbitrary modifications of things we don’t like. If we can’t mod freeze out, then the only other option is to ban a majority of ice type moves, which is also bad.

I just feel that banning things for the sake of removing RNG is not feasible without modding the game, and I ere on the side of doing that as little as possible

 

[Magcargo]

Covert Cloak Clause: All moves with secondary effects will have secondary effects negated against opposing Pokemon.

There will be no more Hurricane confusion antics. No more random freezes. Scald will be out of a job. And most importantly, SALT CURE WILL FINALLY BE BALANCED

Someone should make an OM for this.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Covert Cloak Clause: All moves with secondary effects will have secondary effects negated against opposing Pokemon.

There will be no more Hurricane confusion antics. No more random freezes. Scald will be out of a job. And most importantly, SALT CURE WILL FINALLY BE BALANCED

Someone should make an OM for this.

of course the guy with the gholdengo profile pic is looking for a covert cloak meta

it's an interesting idea, but i'm pretty sure it's in the "list of commonly rejected oms". there are a lot of solid ideas there that would probably work as oms and be both popular and successful, but they can only keep track of so many at a time i suppose

 

[Blaze_101392]

We should get rid of Sleep Clause, I'm not even kidding. We're not able to play OU on cartridge and that's an issue

You totally can. The odds that sleep or freeze clause would be broken on cart isn't that high. The random ways to cause sleep in the history of the game are Dire Claw, 2 Max moves, Relic Song, Secret Power, Wicked Torque, and Effect Spore. Three of those aren't in the game, the only Pokemon that would probably use Effect Spore isn't in the game, Torque isn't legal for competitive play, and Power is a essentially a none issue given the set up and that it sucks. Realistically the only real chance you can have sleep clause broken on cart is Dire Claw, and while it certainly will happen some amount of the the time I wouldn't call the odds SUPER high given it's spreading other status as well. It's about as deal breaking as freeze clause which has worse odds but is on MUCH more commonly used moves.

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

I dont think this is an argument of people wanting a "less competitive game" but a more "pokemon" one. Banning tera wont make the game less pokemon, its just an optional gimmick thats not foundational to this game and will be replaced next game, but stuff like freezing, rng etc are part of what makes pokemon the game it is. We ban uncounterable, unreactable rng, like freeze in rby for being the same as an early kill unless youre a fire type, moody etc. but the rng imbued in the game is just as important as the typing chart is.

Yeah. Something which has been a kinda foundational issue with Pokemon as a whole is that the battle system has heavily stagnated since Gen IV. There was the introduction of Fairy-type and Terrain in Gen VI, but outside of that it's been either very minor mechanical changes, or generational gimmicks which are abandoned once the generation is done. And of those gimmicks, we had to ban about a quarter to a third of the Megas, annihilated Dynamax, and are now suffering through Tera.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

You totally can. The odds that sleep or freeze clause would be broken on cart isn't that high. The random ways to cause sleep in the history of the game are Dire Claw, 2 Max moves, Relic Song, Secret Power, Wicked Torque, and Effect Spore. Three of those aren't in the game, the only Pokemon that would probably use Effect Spore isn't in the game, Torque isn't legal for competitive play, and Power is a essentially a none issue given the set up and that it sucks. Realistically the only real chance you can have sleep clause broken on cart is Dire Claw, and while it certainly will happen some amount of the the time I wouldn't call the odds SUPER high given it's spreading other status as well. It's about as deal breaking as freeze clause which has worse odds but is on MUCH more commonly used moves.

yeah, i did a fair bit of cartridge play back in gens 6 and 7 and i never saw sleep clause being violated unintentionally except for in a couple cases where players were unaware of it, forgot about it, or misclicked. the difference is small enough to be negligible if both players are aware of sleep clause. the mod is really just a quality-of-life thing so people don't instalose the game by forgetting the rules

 

[Ehmcee]

You totally can. The odds that sleep or freeze clause would be broken on cart isn't that high. The random ways to cause sleep in the history of the game are Dire Claw, 2 Max moves, Relic Song, Secret Power, Wicked Torque, and Effect Spore. Three of those aren't in the game, the only Pokemon that would probably use Effect Spore isn't in the game, Torque isn't legal for competitive play, and Power is a essentially a none issue given the set up and that it sucks. Realistically the only real chance you can have sleep clause broken on cart is Dire Claw, and while it certainly will happen some amount of the the time I wouldn't call the odds SUPER high given it's spreading other status as well. It's about as deal breaking as freeze clause which has worse odds but is on MUCH more commonly used moves.

You functionally cannot, the interaction between spore on cart and showdown is entirely different.
On showdown you're able to spam spore on a sleeping mon to reset it's sleep counter, on cartridge you cannot due to the risk of the opponent switching out.

What happens if you do get a double dire claw sleep proc? You just redo the battle?

On cartridge you currently have to implement some kind of rule, along the lines of "you cannot put two opponents to sleep" which translates to "you cannot use a move that puts an opponent to sleep or has a chance to put an opponent to sleep if one of your opponent has a pokemon that is asleep (Unless it was self-inflicted)."

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

What happens if you do get a double dire claw sleep proc? You just redo the battle?

what happens is you play showdown instead of cart because cart play sucks since they made 6v6 singles basically impossible to finish a game in

 

[Ehmcee]

what happens is you play showdown instead of cart because cart play sucks since they made 6v6 singles basically impossible to finish a game in

This is the problem, current Showdown implantations isn't reproduceable on cart, we're no longer actually playing pokemon.

6v6 is entirely playable on cart? Unsure why you believe it's "impossible" to play in.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

we're no longer actually playing pokemon.

this is actually a good thing

 

[Blaze_101392]

yeah, i did a fair bit of cartridge play back in gens 6 and 7 and i never saw sleep clause being violated unintentionally except for in a couple cases where players were unaware of it, forgot about it, or misclicked. the difference is small enough to be negligible if both players are aware of sleep clause. the mod is really just a quality-of-life thing so people don't instalose the game by forgetting the rules

In fairness that is a result of Gen 6 and 7 not having any real random way to break sleep clause. Breaking sleep clause is only a problem now because of Claw.

You functionally cannot, the interaction between spore on cart and showdown is entirely different.
On showdown you're able to spam spore on a sleeping mon to reset it's sleep counter, on cartridge you cannot due to the risk of the opponent switching out.

What happens if you do get a double dire claw sleep proc? You just redo the battle?

I'd argue that breaks the spirit of sleep clause. Sleep clause is, first and foremost in my mind, a gentlemen's agreement that acknowledges that sleep is a fundamentally broken status and that you won't try to sleep something while another of your opponent's Pokemon are asleep. That's how I'd play it on cart which is the same way it is played on showdown.

No, you accept the fact that you aren't playing with actual sleep clause and roll with it. Again, it can happen, but it will be very rare that it does. And as said, this is much less of an issue than randomly breaking freeze clause given the number of games where a move with a freeze chance is being used eclipses the number with Dire Claw being used. The VAST majority of games played on cart will not break either sleep or freeze clause, so while it can happen it isn't enough of an issue that I'd characterize playing competitive singles on cart as "impossible."

 

[Ehmcee]

I'd argue that breaks the spirit of sleep clause. Sleep clause is, first and foremost in my mind, a gentlemen's agreement that acknowledges that sleep is a fundamentally broken status and that you won't try to sleep something while another of your opponent's Pokemon are asleep. That's how I'd play it on cart which is the same way it is played on showdown.

No, you accept the fact that you aren't playing with actual sleep clause and roll with it. Again, it can happen, but it will be very rare that it does. And as said, this is much less of an issue than randomly breaking freeze clause given the number of games where a move with a freeze chance is being used eclipses the number with Dire Claw being used. The VAST majority of games played on cart will not break either sleep or freeze clause, so while it can happen it isn't enough of an issue that I'd characterize playing competitive singles on cart as "impossible."

The current implementation of Sleep Clause is fundamentally not a gentleman's agreement, because it requires a mod in the game to alter events that happen. I'd certainly prefer Sleep Clause to become a gentleman's agreement, because then it'd be reproducible on cart, but it isn't currently.

It isn't the same way it's played on showdown, that's the issue, you'd have to follow that rule I mentioned before which completely changes the dynamics in terms of how you can use sleep and sleep-inducing moves.

I'm saying we shouldn't accept it, an instance being rare doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. Under your assumption, an endgame involving a fairy type and sneasler with a pokemon already asleep would mean either

a) Sneasler cannot use Dire Claw, since it would break Sleep Clause

b) Sneasler can use Dire Claw, but if it puts the foe asleep, the Sneasler player loses because they violated Sleep Clause

This creates an entirely different dynamic that doesn't happen on Showdown at all.

Edit: You also seem to ignore the fairly common scenario of an Amoonguss player deciding to use Spore on an already sleeping foe, this is an entire scenario that is unable to be replicated on cart.

 

[Captain Marshadow]

You totally can. The odds that sleep or freeze clause would be broken on cart isn't that high. The random ways to cause sleep in the history of the game are Dire Claw, 2 Max moves, Relic Song, Secret Power, Wicked Torque, and Effect Spore. Three of those aren't in the game, the only Pokemon that would probably use Effect Spore isn't in the game, Torque isn't legal for competitive play, and Power is a essentially a none issue given the set up and that it sucks. Realistically the only real chance you can have sleep clause broken on cart is Dire Claw, and while it certainly will happen some amount of the the time I wouldn't call the odds SUPER high given it's spreading other status as well. It's about as deal breaking as freeze clause which has worse odds but is on MUCH more commonly used moves.

Relic Song is in the game too dude, Meloetta is transferable.

 

[Return to Zero]

This is the problem, current Showdown implantations isn't reproduceable on cart, we're no longer actually playing pokemon.

This feels like taking a mile from an inch to me. "Because we have this modded rule (One that has an in-game precedent, albeit a very shaky one) that everyone agrees is better to have than not, we're already so far from the intended spirit of Pokemon that we might as well start modding everything else." Where does it stop? Iron Head's chance to flinch? That's a popular move that can win games if the secondary effect procs. Crits? It's a 4% chance to extra damage and ignore defensive buffs, is it banworthy just because no one can control it outside of moves with boosted crit rates?

I know you're not arguing for all of these to be banned, and in fact you're saying the opposite. I want to highlight that saying accuracy to cart is all or nothing, isn't a good way to look at things, and saying "we're no longer playing Pokemon" is hyperbolic at best. As was linked a page ago, the rules in tiering policy roughly state that 1) changes like Sleep Clause should be avoided as much as possible but aren't off the table, and 2) changes to the status quo must justify themselves when presented rather than the other way around.

So, justify it. It's a precedent that Sleep Clause exists and enough people like it to keep it around, and we all agree the rule doesnt break anything or make the game unrecognizable. Tell us why removing Sleep Clause would improve Smogon singles and having it makes it worse. You should probably have a reason other than "It's not on cart" though since that doesn't seem to be working.

Edit: Using that Sneasler example of yours, absolutely nothing would change about that if we went with the idea of removing Sleep Clause and banning Sleep as a whole. Unless we mod Dire Claw to not inflict Sleep, but you already said no mods.

 

[Blaze_101392]

The current implementation of Sleep Clause is fundamentally not a gentleman's agreement, because it requires a mod in the game to alter events that happen. I'd certainly prefer Sleep Clause to become a gentleman's agreement, because then it'd be reproducible on cart, but it isn't currently.

It isn't the same way it's played on showdown, that's the issue, you'd have to follow that rule I mentioned before which completely changes the dynamics in terms of how you can use sleep and sleep-inducing moves.

I'm saying we shouldn't accept it, an instance being rare doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. Under your assumption, an endgame involving a fairy type and sneasler with a pokemon already asleep would mean either

a) Sneasler cannot use Dire Claw, since it would break Sleep Clause

b) Sneasler can use Dire Claw, but if it puts the foe asleep, the Sneasler player loses because they violated Sleep Clause

This creates an entirely different dynamic that doesn't happen on Showdown at all.

Edit: You also seem to ignore the fairly common scenario of an Amoonguss player deciding to use Spore on an already sleeping foe, this is an entire scenario that is unable to be replicated on cart.

I didn't ignore the person spamming spore. Maybe my experience is old or maybe I just never ran into people that do it, but I've never seen someone keep using spore after something is asleep. I'm not saying it won't happen, but I never found it to be common. It also can't be made into a handshake given the nature of playing with random people.

I think it's totally valid that you question it. Questioning long standing beliefs is how we get change. Aside from the fact I'm not sure why you're focusing on sleep clause and not both sleep and freeze clause since accidentally breaking freeze clause is much easier on cart, the question is do we have a better play experience that keeps less with cart play or a do we ban sleep moves (IMO without sleep clause sleep moves should be banned). Given that we try to have as much legal as possible sleep clause has been chosen and since it was a nonissue to accidentally break it until a few months ago it's remained. I also think it's fine if showdown and cart play isn't 1 for 1 so long as it is extremely close and I believe it still is. Though for that your milage will vary.

As for your example Claw will probably kill the Fairy type so I wouldn't be concerned with it accidentally breaking sleep clause and I do not believe that if you're playing on cart that accidentally doing so should result in losing. If it breaks, which is only a 16.7% of happening, as I said you just role with it. You play as if sleep clause exists to the best of your abilities.

Relic Song is in the game too dude, Meloetta is transferable.

Legit did not realize this. Also not much of an issue for the discussion though given that it is not a move used on her and it has very bad odds of triggering sleep to begin with, but good to know.

 

[Empress Mobile]

3) Sleep clause already mods the game "beyond recognition," Freeze clause did the same, and we largely accept these as good things. Smogon should be much more liberal in banning purely random elements imo. There is no reason to keep stuff like quick claw, focus band, etc.

I don't have any issue with banning QC or similar items, but I would hardly call the Sleep/Freeze mods settled discourse. They are a sticking point for many people, myself included. I really hope they are seriously revisited. That being said, I don't have an issue with banning elements that randomly reward bad gameplay from RNG alone. That doesn't require alteration.

This feels like taking a mile from an inch to me. "Because we have this modded rule (One that has an in-game precedent, albeit a very shaky one) that everyone agrees is better to have than not, we're already so far from the intended spirit of Pokemon that we might as well start modding everything else." Where does it stop? Iron Head's chance to flinch? That's a popular move that can win games if the secondary effect procs. Crits? It's a 4% chance to extra damage and ignore defensive buffs, is it banworthy just because no one can control it outside of moves with boosted crit rates?



So, justify it. It's a precedent that Sleep Clause exists and enough people like it to keep it around, and we all agree the rule doesnt break anything or make the game unrecognizable. Tell us why removing Sleep Clause would improve Smogon singles and having it makes it worse. You should probably have a reason other than "It's not on cart" though since that doesn't seem to be working.

Not everyone agrees that it's better to have than not. It has been a source of controversy for a while now. There is no reason needed beyond "It's not on cart". You haven't refuted this (because you can't) nor even addressed this. One solution could be to ban sleep moves and deal with freezes as we do with other rare RNG based events - just deal with them. Stating your opinion as universally accepted is shortsighted and inaccurate.

 

[veti]

I didn't ignore the person spamming spore. Maybe my experience is old or maybe I just never ran into people that do it, but I've never seen someone keep using spore after something is asleep. I'm not saying it won't happen, but I never found it to be common. It also can't be made into a handshake given the nature of playing with random people.

There are turns where the best play is to spore a pokemon that's already sleeping to put it back to sleep.

 

[Blaze_101392]

Since we're on the subject of sleep/freeze clause, my defense for freeze, other than the difference it creates being within what I believe to be the acceptable difference between cart and showdown, is what they're doing is largely invisible.

If on cart you would have had a second Pokemon freeze to an Ice Beam but freeze clause prevents it you, the player, are none the wiser. Ice Beam just didn't freeze, which happens the vast majority of the time you use the move and even without the clause stopping it you weren't expecting it to happen anyway. Even Dire Claw not having a secondary effect three times in a row, while unusual, is still well within the margins of error. That happens 12.5% of the time the move is used 3 times in a row and that is only slightly worse odds than even getting sleep in the first place, a 16.7% chance of happening. Player perception is king here and when playing a lot of the work the two clauses are doing doesn't really impact the feel of how the game is being played.

Sleep clause has only entered this space with the advent of Dire Claw, but it largely played the same as a gentlemen's agreement to not use a sleep inducing move after you've put another Pokemon to sleep which sleep clause captures mostly capture. Yes, you certainly have times where it is strategically correct to use Spore to try and resleep a Pokemon you're expecting to stay in and attempt to wake up and on cart that wouldn't be an option you can take, but I also think it's better that you can't. Putting a Pokemon back to sleep the turn it wakes up is simply a miserable play experience and the worse thing when trying to play any game is not being able to actually play.

There are turns where the best play is to spore a pokemon that's already sleeping to put it back to sleep.

For sure that can happen, but I'm honestly unsure how common that is.

 

[Ehmcee]

For sure that can happen, but I'm honestly unsure how common that is.

It is very common, if your opponent is on it's third turn of sleep, you should use Spore again.

 

[njnp]

We talkin about sleep clause while Gliscor is ruining this tier

 

[Ibaragi]

honestly, I feel like the Roaring Moon suspect is wasting time. I understand why it's done given the survey results and I don't mean this as an attack on the council by any means, but I think there's enough consensus both within and outside the council that Hazards are the main problem to have tackled it already.
The problem as far as survey results go, though, is that there's not a clear image on which of Gliscor or Gholdengo (or even Spikes itself/Samurott-H/Webs...) is the source of the problem, making the votings be shared by the two instead of focused on either.
If we're having another survey after this one before we suspect either of them, I'd like to propose a formula like "do you wish to see tiering action on Hazards", then "and if so, which of the following do you think is the bigger problem" instead of just pointing at singular mons; something closer to how we did with Tera.

 

[Return to Zero]

Not everyone agrees that it's better to have than not. It has been a source of controversy for a while now. There is no reason needed beyond "It's not on cart". You haven't refuted this (because you can't) nor even addressed this. One solution could be to ban sleep moves and deal with freezes as we do with other rare RNG based events - just deal with them. Stating your opinion as universally accepted is shortsighted and inaccurate.

Whether it's on cart or not is irrelevant. As I said in the post you're quoting, Smogon's tiering policy states that the goal is to remain as close to cart as possible, and while Sleep Clause and similar are last resorts that should be implemented when there's just nothing better to do, they are still on the table as viable options. Everyone is aware that Sleep Clause is not accurate to cart. That's not an argument because its implementation is knowingly in spite of this fact. You must put forth a reason for how a lack of Sleep Clause would create a more competitive and enjoyable metagame.

I will amend my phrasing for you though so you can feel more comfortable doing so. It's a precedent that Sleep Clause exists and enough people like it to keep it around, and a minimum number of people needed to establish the rule agree the rule doesnt break anything or make the game unrecognizable. Tell us why removing Sleep Clause would improve Smogon singles and having it makes it worse.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Smogon should be much more liberal in banning purely random elements imo. There is no reason to keep stuff like quick claw, focus band, etc.

there doesn't have to be a reason to keep them, there has to be a compelling reason to ban them (per tiering policy), and there isn't one ("le rng bad" is not a compelling reason, also per tiering policy). none of those random elements are widespread enough, frequent enough, or useful enough to be actual problems. sure, quick claw had a brief moment in the spotlight because someone made a meme team that was hard carried by screens, but focus band? really? this is the hill you're gonna die on? we can't even ban all the enormous looming problem mons that are actively ruining the meta without going through miles of red tape and you want to focus on an item that no one even remembers exists?

 

[Return to Zero]

focus band? really? this is the hill you're gonna die on? we can't even ban all the enormous looming problem mons that are actively ruining the meta without going through miles of red tape and you want to focus on an item that no one even remembers exists?

They're focused on the wrong band.

Please laugh.

 

[Srn]

there doesn't have to be a reason to keep them, there has to be a compelling reason to ban them (per tiering policy), and there isn't one ("le rng bad" is not a compelling reason, also per tiering policy). none of those random elements are widespread enough, frequent enough, or useful enough to be actual problems. sure, quick claw had a brief moment in the spotlight because someone made a meme team that was hard carried by screens, but focus band? really? this is the hill you're gonna die on? we can't even ban all the enormous looming problem mons that are actively ruining the meta without going through miles of red tape and you want to focus on an item that no one even remembers exists?

That's why I said "Smogon should be more liberal in banning purely random elements." I know what current tiering policy is.

I would ask you "What is the competitive value in keeping focus band?" But I already tried something similar, we know how that went.

I have been voting in every suspect test to get rid of all the enormous looming problem mons btw, have you? Dunno why getting rid of rng nonsense would get in the way of that.