EviGaro
RU Leader
Good morning,
Recently, we in RarelyUsed did a tiering survey to discuss the state of the tier following most of RUPL and the start of RU Open, and at the top of the playerbase’s concerns was the constraint hyper offence seemed to leave on the tier’s competitive landscape. We then submitted a variety of options to further examine what exactly caused this issue for players, and there was a clear plurality for screens being at least the most significant problem.
Tiering screens is a bit… unique, though not necessarily without precedent, albeit a far more recent one than most other debates over tiering we have had over the past decade. Usually, screens only boost offensive pokemons, and when those tend to be seen as overwhelming, they are suspected and banned on the merit that they are offensively overwhelming, not necessarily because they are supported by screens. However, gen 7 marked a turn in that history, as Aurora Veil took competitive by storm, solving what seemed to be a main issue with screens by applying both in the same turn. It was considered way too unbalanced for RU and NU, despite the lack of a natural setter, and was thus banned, while the main setter of the generation, Ninetales-Alola, was banned by UU. As such, while screens are still perfectly legal in gen 7, multiple tiers for the first time actively tiered them in response to the support it provided being considered too much for their respective metagame.
Fast forward to gen 8… And again, Aurora Veil was what lower tiers started aiming at first. Ninetales-Alola was once again banned in UU before being allowed back with the DLCs, and NU banned Veil before allowing it back after banning Snow Warning instead. However, recently it has been seen that screens are starting to pop off alarmingly in a few metagames, especially UU and RU, and Aurora Veil isn’t actually at the front of this issue. UU now favours Grimmsnarl as a setter, and its usage in Open has been I’m told a cause for concern. Also while talking to Lilburr, it became obvious that for at least some of the UU Council removing Grimmsnarl only makes the playerbase move to the next best thing, which might be a mon UU has previously banned because of screens support While RU obviously doesn’t have these two, screens have been targeted as the main issue by the survey, the Council, and discussions with the general playerbase. But it’s really hard to pinpoint one specific mon with screens, as Raikou, Xatu, Froslass, Klefki, even Virizion are generally pretty effective screeners with different qualities without going into Veil options. And it’s also really hard to pinpoint one mon being the specific issue as an abuser, as both Necrozma and Cloyster got some support but far less so, and either would hardly be considered a problem without screens for most people: Cloyster’s ability to live stuff like a Power Whip from Zarude and a First Impression from Golisopod is the kind of thing that makes it far more annoying to actually outplay in a game than its sheer offensive output, and screens are by far the cause for that here. Necrozma and most other Weakness Policy users are good on their own, but become obscenely difficult to counter when they have multiple turns to setup and also activate their item to break. Idk that many scenarios for UU as is, but I’m sure some users can think of those in the replies as well.
So, if screens provide the support that is considered at the heart of the problem, something about said support should be addressed. Unlike in gen 7, Aurora Veil isn’t the clearcut answer and thus makes this a lot more arguable than anyone would like, but the proposal we have is this: Light Clay should be tiered and allowed to be banned from RU. If UU wants to opt with that ban, they are more than welcome to but so far it’s the option we in the RU Council have formed our consensus on.
This is not even a clear precedent being established, as earlier in the generation PU decided to nerf sun’s ability to break the metagame by banning Heat Rock. Both items work in very similar ways, enabling longer support for elements that can easily get out of hand to dominate a matchup. It doesn’t mean an easy and obvious win, but it gives a lot more leverage to the user of said item to navigate a game because they have a lot more turns on hands, while the other player always has to play reactively. Without Heat Rock, sun breakers have about three turns safe to break, without light clay, a mon setting up behind both screens might have two turns of safety. All of a sudden, that Cloyster doesn’t live both hits I mentioned earlier, and now the screens user actually has a lot less leeway to act. Cloyster’s effectiveness doesn’t completely crater, but it obviously changes things and makes the matchup a lot more even.
To us, this is the most obvious attempt at solving this problem currently. Banning mons that hardly anyone strongly think would be too much without screens to salvage a playstyle that would more likely continue to cause trouble – other mons like Rhyperior, Polteageist, Slurpuff, Barbaracle are already getting success - isn’t very appealing, and we honestly don’t know where to start if we had to ban screens users. PU solved its sun issue by removing heat rock, and we do think that logically banning light clay would also solve ours.
Recently, we in RarelyUsed did a tiering survey to discuss the state of the tier following most of RUPL and the start of RU Open, and at the top of the playerbase’s concerns was the constraint hyper offence seemed to leave on the tier’s competitive landscape. We then submitted a variety of options to further examine what exactly caused this issue for players, and there was a clear plurality for screens being at least the most significant problem.
Tiering screens is a bit… unique, though not necessarily without precedent, albeit a far more recent one than most other debates over tiering we have had over the past decade. Usually, screens only boost offensive pokemons, and when those tend to be seen as overwhelming, they are suspected and banned on the merit that they are offensively overwhelming, not necessarily because they are supported by screens. However, gen 7 marked a turn in that history, as Aurora Veil took competitive by storm, solving what seemed to be a main issue with screens by applying both in the same turn. It was considered way too unbalanced for RU and NU, despite the lack of a natural setter, and was thus banned, while the main setter of the generation, Ninetales-Alola, was banned by UU. As such, while screens are still perfectly legal in gen 7, multiple tiers for the first time actively tiered them in response to the support it provided being considered too much for their respective metagame.
Fast forward to gen 8… And again, Aurora Veil was what lower tiers started aiming at first. Ninetales-Alola was once again banned in UU before being allowed back with the DLCs, and NU banned Veil before allowing it back after banning Snow Warning instead. However, recently it has been seen that screens are starting to pop off alarmingly in a few metagames, especially UU and RU, and Aurora Veil isn’t actually at the front of this issue. UU now favours Grimmsnarl as a setter, and its usage in Open has been I’m told a cause for concern. Also while talking to Lilburr, it became obvious that for at least some of the UU Council removing Grimmsnarl only makes the playerbase move to the next best thing, which might be a mon UU has previously banned because of screens support While RU obviously doesn’t have these two, screens have been targeted as the main issue by the survey, the Council, and discussions with the general playerbase. But it’s really hard to pinpoint one specific mon with screens, as Raikou, Xatu, Froslass, Klefki, even Virizion are generally pretty effective screeners with different qualities without going into Veil options. And it’s also really hard to pinpoint one mon being the specific issue as an abuser, as both Necrozma and Cloyster got some support but far less so, and either would hardly be considered a problem without screens for most people: Cloyster’s ability to live stuff like a Power Whip from Zarude and a First Impression from Golisopod is the kind of thing that makes it far more annoying to actually outplay in a game than its sheer offensive output, and screens are by far the cause for that here. Necrozma and most other Weakness Policy users are good on their own, but become obscenely difficult to counter when they have multiple turns to setup and also activate their item to break. Idk that many scenarios for UU as is, but I’m sure some users can think of those in the replies as well.
So, if screens provide the support that is considered at the heart of the problem, something about said support should be addressed. Unlike in gen 7, Aurora Veil isn’t the clearcut answer and thus makes this a lot more arguable than anyone would like, but the proposal we have is this: Light Clay should be tiered and allowed to be banned from RU. If UU wants to opt with that ban, they are more than welcome to but so far it’s the option we in the RU Council have formed our consensus on.
This is not even a clear precedent being established, as earlier in the generation PU decided to nerf sun’s ability to break the metagame by banning Heat Rock. Both items work in very similar ways, enabling longer support for elements that can easily get out of hand to dominate a matchup. It doesn’t mean an easy and obvious win, but it gives a lot more leverage to the user of said item to navigate a game because they have a lot more turns on hands, while the other player always has to play reactively. Without Heat Rock, sun breakers have about three turns safe to break, without light clay, a mon setting up behind both screens might have two turns of safety. All of a sudden, that Cloyster doesn’t live both hits I mentioned earlier, and now the screens user actually has a lot less leeway to act. Cloyster’s effectiveness doesn’t completely crater, but it obviously changes things and makes the matchup a lot more even.
To us, this is the most obvious attempt at solving this problem currently. Banning mons that hardly anyone strongly think would be too much without screens to salvage a playstyle that would more likely continue to cause trouble – other mons like Rhyperior, Polteageist, Slurpuff, Barbaracle are already getting success - isn’t very appealing, and we honestly don’t know where to start if we had to ban screens users. PU solved its sun issue by removing heat rock, and we do think that logically banning light clay would also solve ours.