I personally didnt get reqs for the
Suspect test, but I wasnt completely sure about what we should do with it either.
In one hand, keeping
would make balance become awful to play on the metagame, since
can either overwhelm it, or get past throught its checks by fishing for freezes, if you have ever run into
while having
as your switch in, you probably have at least once got frozen at any point.
On the other hand, banning
would make balance a better playstile, yes, but would very likely turn the meta into an avalanche of bans, starting with
, then following up with
, and who knows maybe also
and
added to the mix, completely killing the offensive threats that we have as options, and turn the meta into that boring
and
fest that we had some months ago.
I was aware that the
vote was very close due to a lot of people talking about that, and I wasnt still completely sure about what the correct route should have been in order to save the metagame, and then right when the votes were revealed, I made my mind, and when it was announced yesterday that
got unbanned due to the voting manipulation scandal, at first I felt annoyed but then realised that maybe this is an opportunity to take steps into a diferent direction to make the metagame better.
As you know,
got banned months ago, I personally got reqs for this suspect and voted to Ban, and I dont believe neither I or the rest of people that voted ban on that moment made a mistake, as
was clearly a broken set up sweeper with so much versatility, but now this thought came back to me and realised, maybe
wasnt the problem as a whole, but maybe is
Tera Blast.
At first I was hesitate with the idea of banning Tera Blast, since this paired with the Tera mechanic opens the door for a lot of creativity and diversity on the teambuilder, and we should only get rid of the abusers, but since a couple weeks ago I have started to see this argument as pointless, and I will explain why.
Why is Tera Blast the problem and not the abusers?
Technically speaking, every pokemon can abuse of Tera Blast, but what is the point of that, if people is playing to win and will use only the already good pokemon that the metagame offers to abuse Tera Blast instead of more niche options that are less consistent. If we ban the abusers, the metagame will evolve and try to find another abuser that tries to replicate what the previus abuser used to do (unless there is no other pokemon that can come close to do the same), because that is how metagames work, they adapt every moment. Let me put it this way.
Why would you use any offensive fire type with Tera Blast, if you have a better abuser in
and
who are more consistent.
Why would you use any offensive electric type with Blast Ice, if you have a better abuser in
who is more consistent.
Why would you use any niche Dragon Dance user with Tera Blast, if you have better abusers in
Why would you use any other Sword Dance user with Tera Blast when you have
and
as options.
If you go and ban every abuser, another one will likely come to replace that role, the easiest example is how
turned from a UU pokemon by usage, to an actual OU threat once
got banned, because guess what, it tries to replicate what
did.
By removing Tera Blast, we remove the tool that actually turns any potential offensive threat into an autowin button into the correct match up.
This of course does not apply to any pokemon, for example
imo with or without Tera Blast is a stupid cheesy mon that should never be allowed again in the meta. And also a Tera Blast ban wouldnt kill the versatility and creativity on the teambuilder, since pokemon like
and
would still be excelent Tera users, but without the extra coverage move tool.
What pokemon could we unban with a Tera Blast ban?
I believe only 2 Uber pokemon would be candidates to be released back into OU with Tera Blast being removed, those being
and
.
As I mentioned before, I believe
would still be an absurd and cheesy pokemon, that would force you to bring
or
into every game in order to not lose.
despite being an excellent abuser of Blast Fairy, has other sets and options that would just do the exact same it did before, and besides, it just got banned a like a month ago lol.
Would a Tera Blast ban solve the metagame?
Nobody can assure that, but I believe this would be the correct direction in order to get a better metagame while avoiding an avalanche of bans. Having
back in the metagame would give balance teams an actual wincon vs offense teams that heavily rely on special set up sweepers like
and
, and also have an actual good check for
. We would still need to see if
without Tera Blast keeps being a broken threat, but I dont think it would be the case, as it would limit it to only run defensive Teras, and having only Bug, Fire and Grass as offensive options, it would also become stone walled by Dragon types, Unaware users
and
, and
if it lacks Giga Drain.
This is my first time posting in this thread, and I rarely come to see it, I dont expect to make more posts in the future but I hope the idea of getting rid of Tera Blast is on the table and more people discuss about it.
: As stated earlier, tiering policy is banning mons over moves. Remember how Houndstone was banned before Basculegion? That was because it was the only thing that got Last Respects. Once Basculegion came around, Last Respects got banned not long after and Houndstone was freed. Archaludon was dumb with Electro Shot, and it was the only thing that had it so... It was banned.
: I'll be honest. These two aren't coming back, and it isn't hard to see why. I really don't know what you're trying to do with this. Please inform me.
: Stored Power... really isn't too egregious. Magearna, however, is. It has a remarkably good base typing, an awesome moveset, and a great stat spread... Magearna's got it all, and it uses the amazing toolkit it got to its fullest effect. I think we should leave both Stored Power and Magearna be.
