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DNB for me. DD Zygarde C is the only existence (or even the only set) could be considered broken with tera. Tera might not be that competitive. Because of its gambling nature, top players might win games less consistently with tera, but it's a mechanism fun to play with and it provides a ton of possibilities. It's far away from unhealthy compared to something like Gmax. I don't want to see the arrogance of 6V6 single player base goes too far. Like my account's ID suggested, I don't want to play Gen7 Ubers DLC in Gen 9.
Compared to a total ban, showing the tera type picks before the game starts would be more acceptable and more healthy.
DNB for me, this has been one of the most infuriating pushes I have ever done for any tier. This tier has a lot of problems but tera isn't one of them IMO. Id say the only broken users of tera is Zygard and maybe Arc, this is a lot different when compared to ND OU where I voted ban on for the tera suspect. ND OU has many many many mons that are broken with tera and other than the fact I find tera to be uncompetitive that is the main reason to ban tera.
Since this tier only has 1 (arguably 2) broken users of tera I will be voting DNB
the main reason is that in my 113 games in this tier I didn't find tera to be the main factor in many of my losses, so for me this seems like that tera is fine in this tier. It also didn't factor into many of my wins
Because of how suspects work nowadays there's no need to post the act of meeting reqs here, thus the purpose of this thread is to focus on discussion regarding the suspect element in question (Teras).
Also it might be B-, but Dondozo is pretty meta relevant, moreso than most things even many subranks above it. I'd be shocked if anyone thought more about how they're going to handle Arceus-Water or Mega Salamence than stall.
Pretty late here, will be voting DnB, in all the games i have played, Tera has not been an issue, atleast not more than most metas i've played, this tier actually feels pretty good with Tera, DD Zyg is the closes you can argue for it being a problem but even then it feels out momentumable a lot of the time, out of 50 games, i only really felt like 4 games were out of my control and none came down to Tera, using Tera Dark sucker punch with yvelt feels really good for RKilling, Teraing Arceus also feels fine and usually defensive, Defensive and offensive tera generally feels pretty equivalent in this tier (as it should) and while the 50 50 aspect is there at times, it is not as common as you'd think
I think I am definitely in the minority here, but I'll write out my thoughts a bit:
As of now I'm sort of on the fence but leaning towards ban. I don't think Tera should really have a place in any competitive metagame, and after having played Tera-less metagames (I started playing mons in SV), I've definitely come to appreciate them a lot more. That said, Tera did feel not that terrible in this tier compared to others. My view on Tera in ND Ubers is basically this: it's not terrible to play with/against, but there are still interactions I don't like and I think it's also fundamentally bad. Something that came up more than a few times was the Marshadow vs Ekiller interaction, where Marshadow by all accounts should 100% stop Ekiller from sweeping, yet the matchup can get flipped with Tera. I also see that the tier gets to keep more options than it loses should Tera stay, which I think is probably a positive. And lastly, the issues of the tier's identity without Tera aren't really that pressing and a lot of ppl have addressed it already.
alright just got reqs heres my thoughts on the matter:
Tera isn't broken.
the only abusers of tera that i would really call broken are zygarde and zacian-c, and even then it comes with some asterisks. zygarde is only broken with tera while running specifically 1 set - sub dd (tera coil is fine, tera defensive is fine if people still run that) and zacian-c has problems with choosing its coverage (it wants all of cc, play rough, tb ground, and wild charge with respective teras to hit various checks). all other offensive / defensive tera users like ygod etern and arc formes, while very powerful, just aren't as stupid as these guys. the fact that only 2 mons are arguably broken with tera means that these mons are the problem when combined with tera, not tera itself.
"yeah but multiple mons were broken with tera and banned before!!!!!!" yeah ok lets look at the banlist rn and see what was really broken with tera
: obvious candidate. the only mon that was broken only with tera. this is fair i guess : was broken with tera... but arguably more broken without tera since things can't just randomly tera normal or dark to stop it. yeah the calyrex isn't getting past yveltal anytime soon now without cheese strats but also it forces yveltal to be defensive (bad set) lest it just loses to something like np sash with rocks up. z-move sets are also still stupidly broken and obviously doesnt need tera. : z-move sets are still arguably broken, scale shot sets are less broken since you cant tera fire and win on the spot but still unhealthy : banned for z-moves. next : cant even tera. next : ok without tera? i still dont like how centralizing geoxern is but its way more managable when it cant just ohko your traditional checks with a button. more support sets like choice or defensive obviously are just not broken without tera. : cant even tera.
so, looking at those mons... a total of 2 mons were banned solely because of tera. when you combine them with the broken tera abusers we have right now, we would have a total of 4 tera abusers. this is far from, say, svou where a bunch of mons like eleki espathra volcarona terapagos and even more got banned because they were stupid tera abusers (and even then tera is still fundamentally broken there on multiple mons, way more than the 2 legal mons broken with tera here but im not here to argue that)
because of those reasons, i am voting do not ban on tera unless if some major meta development happens to ndubers that suddently makes like 10 more mons broken tera abusers.
Its been a while! Throughout the history of National Dex Ubers Terastallization has had a contentious presence which culminated in a suspect test last year in which Terastallization narrowly escaped the banhammer. After a recent survey to check in with the playerbase the council has voted for a new suspect, here's the results:
Therefore, the time has come for a second, and final, suspect test due to the higher score Terastallization recieved. Terastallization only received a score of 6.34 and 5.85 amongst the general and qualified playerbase respectively, clearly showing some level of polarization amongst the playerbase despite a high enough score to justify a suspect test. Please vote solely on whether or not you think Terastallization is an issue in the current metagame as no Pokémon is ensured to be released back into the tier outside of Shedinja.
Reasoning
Pro Ban
Terastallization has remained a focal point for the playerbase for some time, primarily due to the mechanic's ability to dramatically change the outcome of a game at the drop of a hat. Zygarde-C and Zacian-C are the best abusers of this mechanic, thanks to the former's high resilience and the latter's offensive presence.
Furthermore, access to multiple viable Tera Types create needlessly convoluted sequences which often still end up in a glorified coin flip. For example, Arceus commonly runs Tera Ghost and Tera Normal, the former enables Arceus to invalidate what should be rock-solid counterplay in Marshadow and Close Combat Zacian-C. The damage amplifier from Tera Normal enables Arceus to bypass bulkier Pokémon which could otherwise survive Extreme Speed such as Eternatus, Dragon Dance Zygarde, and Ho-Oh.
This extends beyond battles teambuilder as Terastallization introduces 'new' threats which teams are forced to account for to an arguably unhealthy degree. The prominent examples of this are Zacian-C and Dragon Dance Zygarde. Without Terastallization, Primal Groudon + a few softer checks would be wholly sufficient to handle Zacian-C, but Tera Blast Ground removes Primal Groudon and leads to most non-offensive structures being forced into running Primal Groudon + a Ground-immune Zacian-C check such as Giratina-O or Ho-Oh, which are both notably often required to Terastallize themselves to properly check Zacian-C.
Dragon Dance Zygarde is a slightly different beast, as Tera Ground powers up Thousand Arrows to such a degree that Zygarde is easily able to bypass otherwise solid defensive checks in Arceus formes and Yveltal. Notably, Zygarde is capable of muscling through Foul Play Arceus-Dark and Arceus-Fairy which are diluted to merely soft checks due to Terastallization. This boost also impacts checking Dragon Dance offensively as it enables Zygarde to OHKO Marshadow and Eternatus. Although these Pokémon are not the sole exploiters of Terastallization, they are amongst the most dangerous with Zygarde and Zacian-C, appearing on the survey due to the degree to which they benefit from the new generational mechanic.
Anti Ban
There are two main anti ban arguments, the first of which is that Terastallization as a whole does not present enough issues as a whole to justify tiering action, especially considering it is a generation mechanic. Only two Pokémon have been banned primarily due to Terastallization: Shedinja and Xerneas. Even in a worst case scenario where Zygarde and Zacian-C are added to that list, a total of four bans remains a reasonable price to pay for a generational mechanic for many people and the issue stems from how certain Pokémon have unhealthy interactions with the mechanic as opposed to Terastallization itself. As such, tiering action should be limited to individual Pokémon until Terastallization results in the ban of too many otherwise healthy Pokémon.
The second argument is that Terastallization, even in the current metagame with arguably banworthy abusers, is not an issue. Objectively, the current survey showed that the playerbase at large views the metagame as both healthy and competitive even with the presence of Terastallization. While some Pokémon may heavily exploit Terastallization, it isn't to an unreasonable degree and Pokémon which heavily rely on Terastallization to become threats limit their splashability due to teams having to account for such a valuable resource frequently being funneled into one Pokémon on a regular basis. Furthermore, access to Terastallization is a two way street and the heavily limited number of viable Tera Types makes defensive Tera consistent enough counterplay.
Suspect Test Information
Create a new account OR use an existing one with no National Dex Ubers games played (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played National Dex Ubers before the test, full stop). You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in National Dex Ubers before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements.
At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
If you want to double check your account eligibility after following these instructions; play at least 1 game on the account, then run the /rank command on that account. You should see a field on the far right that reads "Suspect Test Eligible?"
If this field says "No" then you have either not set up the account correctly or need to use a different/new account. You do not need to complete your entire reqs for this field to say "Yes".
After you believe that you have achieved reqs, double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, or have any questions about the new process, please contact entrocefalo or Bobsican.
Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted.
We will be using the regular National Dex Ubers ladder for this suspect test, and Terastallization will remain legal throughout the entire suspect test.
Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2980 or more. The suspect test will go on for roughly two weeks, lasting until December 4th at 11:59pm GMT-6, and then the voting will be done here. For Terastallization to be banned, a 66.6% supermajority will be required.
This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Here's a list of rules that we expect all posters to follow:
No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
No discussion on other potential suspects;
You are required to make respectful posts;
Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the National Dex Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering to these will help out the moderation team and present your arguments in a better and more educated light.
You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have an informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokémon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result of this suspect, then so be it. "I told you so" arguments on their own also contribute little to the discussion without supporting evidence and are rather unwelcomed.
This is not the place to complain about the suspect process. Please PM Bobsican or entrocefalo if you have any questions regarding this, and any broader questions about this test.
Keep in mind that the outcome of our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote and voice their opinion.
Because of how suspects work nowadays there's no need to post the act of meeting reqs here, thus the purpose of this thread is to focus on discussion regarding the suspect element in question (Teras).
After seeing that fantastic post by Sami and Bob's post I felt motivated to write my own now rather than tomorrow. Fortunately, as this is my post rather than the suspect post, I can be frank about my opinions on the matter that would not be appropriate there.
So the elephant gem in the room: Tera. I think in an attempt to present the arguments surrounding tera neutrally I subconsciously overcorrected to prevent my own perspective/opinions from leaking in as I am leaning heavily do not ban. I say leaning because there is a possibility I could be swayed by good posts in this thread. I'm not bemoaning the lack of good posts detailing the pro-ban camps arguments for why tera should stay. These tend to take some time and I'm more than content waiting. We have two weeks and it has only been a day.
To begin with, you can see the slate we voted on. As mentioned above, I have fairly strong opinions on tera and hopefully this post serves its purpose in properly laying them out. My abstain vote does not stem from indecision, but rather concern. As mentioned in the announcement, there are no plans for a future suspect on tera. Following the previous survey we had a thread for people to give more detailed thoughts on tera that a survey obviously cannot capture.
The sentiments I expressed in that thread largely remain unchanged. I did not and do not feel that tera has caused enough issues with the metagame that it is worth targeting the mechanic itself rather than mons which utilize it perhaps a bit to well. Personally, Shedinja is the only mon I'd consider to be a casualty of tera as I voted to ban Xerneas for other reasons. I voted to abstain because I do not feel confident that tera has a signifcant chance of being banned and could not in good faith be part of proceeding with a tera test when there is not going to another. Sure the survey score is 'high,' but how high is 6.34/5.85 really when you need a 2/3 supermajority?
Ended up abandoning the first run after losing to Adem in the third game and having some really bad rng losses in the next two so that alt felt a bit cursed. The second one ended up going pretty smoothly at 31-4. Prior to the suspect I privately pushed a bit for the suspect reqs to be raised a bit as the average 1550-1600ish team on this ladder is shockingly bad. I last laddered a couple of weeks before this suspect and was continually surprised at how frequently this extended into even the low to mid 1600s. I am incredibly thankful to Bobsican and Entrocefalo for being open minded and granting this request.
That being said, at least from my experience laddering for this suspect test I'm not really sure it was needed. During the last three suspects I could probably cumulatively count the number of good teams I ran into during them on a hand outside of other people getting suspect reqs. That definitely was not the case for this one. Out of the 40 games between the two accounts I reckon at least 30 of them were against solid teams and players. That was quite a pleasant surprise. Some people have said that the ladder has returned to its normal state of tomfoolery, but I don't have the desire to verify this myself.
The run did go relatively smoothly once I switched to this team. The intial one I was using was fine, but Ditto BO was not the play when running into a typical low ladder team. It was generally fine, but made things harder than it needed to be. If you prefer balance/bo and are looking for a team to get reqs with this is a team I'd recommend. It is easy to play and has a solid enough matchup into most things to where you can rely on your own skill (and the brokeness of Dragon Dance Zygarde). The NDPL and NDFL teamdump threads also have some teams that you may like.
Irritants
I'll begin by saying if you think tera is an inherently unhealthy mechanic that has no place in any competitive tier, this post is not for you. It is an opinion that I don't agree with despite empathizing with. That being said, there definitely are aspects of the mechanic I am less than fond of. Primarily surrounding type immunities. This interaction most commonly involves Arceus, but props up with other Pokemon such as Deoxys-A and Ditto as well. Attempting to decipher Arceus' tera type at preview is something I often find to be little more than a glorified guessing game. Sure it may be obvious on some teams, but pretty frequently it ends up being a pick your poison situation in the builder.
Even then, not all type immunities are created equal. For example, wallbreaker Eternatus using Tera Fairy to improof itself or guarantee an successful end-game if needed. Sami also mentioned the prevelance of Tera Dark mons to help against Ultra Necrozma. Outside of Arceus-Fairy these are relatively uncommon and even if it is the standard on Alomomola, it is rarely used outside of emergencies. Furthermore, relying on Tera Dark opens up a whole different can of worms in the teambuilder as the team is giving up a solid Zacian-C and Marshadow check in the case of Tera Dark Ho-Oh, common teammates of Ultra Necrozma.
This is the primary source of the minor objections I have with tera. Even then, not all type immunities are created equally. In his post Sami brought up a plethora of mons who run Tera Dark, ostensibly for Ultra Necrozma. Some of these do have additional benefits, such as Arceus-Fairy maintaing its ability to defensively check Life Orb Yveltal or Ho-Oh being a bit better into Pyspam. Sure Tera Dark Ho-Oh will handle Ultra Necrozma, but this comes at a pretty signifcant cost. Notably, Ho-Oh is giving up its ability to act as a solid Zacian-C check and allows Marshadow to more easily spam Low Kick. Yes you get a decent enough Ultra Necrozma check, but the additional threats that one has to account for is often more trouble than it is worth, relegating this set to niche. This is notably different from Deoxys-A deciding whether it wants to lose to Arceus or Marshadow.
Flash and Pizzaz
Pokemon is far from the only area of life where flash and pizzaz have an outsized influence on how we percieve things. Zacian-C finding a turn to Swords Dance and sweeping with Tera Blast Ground is going to leave a stronger impression than a Choice Band Marshadow systemically dismantling a balance team and keeping an otherwise dangerous Calm Mind Arceus-Fairy at bay because Tera Ghost provides enough of a damage boost to 2HKO with Spectral Thief and a safely navigate a path to victory while also allowing Marshadow to survive Judgment. We recall frustrations Zacian-C because of the minor, but important variance in its moveset as wondering which move it has is a lot more impactful than wondering if the Marshadow user will click the right move.
This extends beyond individual mons and to the mechanic as a whole. The impact of offensive tera is readily apparent to even a spectator with zero knowledge of the tier. This leads to the strength and applications of defensive tera often being overlooked or ignored because their impact in game can often be subtle or squirreled away in the teambuilder. Sami touched on this, but strength and flexibilty of defensive tera is often overlooked and grows increasingly relevant the further one deviates from extreme playstyles.
Regardless of the outcome of this suspect test, NDUbers is and will likely remain an offense leaning tier. Box legends are designed to sell games and plays a role in most mons throwing out strong moves off of an high attacking stat. This mandates that defensive mons provide immense role compression to justify their inclusion on the squad. Some mons such as Ferrothorn or Garganacl are able to carve a valuable niche for themselves despite having more limited defensive applications because they are able to handle specific threats that many defensive backbones otherwise struggle with.
While Ferrothorn may appreciate Tera Grass to beat defensive Primal Kyogre regardless of Scald burns or to break Dragon Dance Zygarde's substitute after transformation, it is far from the first mon that people associate with defensive tera. That would probably be Coil Zygarde or Ho-Oh. I'll discuss Zygarde later, so i'll focus on Ho-Oh for now. In particular I'd like to discuss offensive Tera Grass Ho-Oh.
The average mon in this tier is chucking off 100+ BP moves off of a 150 attacking stat. This mandates that defensive pieces provide immense role compression and tera plays a pivotal role in that. An example that comes to mind is a set that I've been quite enjoying recently in offensive Tera Grass Ho-Oh.
Defensive Ho-Oh is a fantastic mon, but its passivity leads to it being exploitable or burdened by quite a few mons such as some Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre, Taunt Calm Mind Arceus formes, Dragon Dance Zygarde, and defensive or wallbreaker Eternatus. The issue with many mons on this list isn't Ho-Oh struggling defensively, but being unable meaningfully threaten many of them in return.
Offensive Ho-Oh has seen a surge in use and viability over the last few months as it is a potent offensive threat while retaining much of the defensive utility expected of Ho-Oh. If you peek at the strategy dex, we recommend Tera Ground/Fire, but this set has Tera Grass. I've found it immensely more useful as Tera Grass enables Ho-Oh to more easily fill its defensive gaps against pokemon such as Zygarde and Zacian-C while retaining a signficant offensive presence.
Tera Ground and Fire (much less so) do still have their applications, but shifting offensive Ho-Oh from a mediocre to servicable Zacian-C check provides immense flexibility in the teambuilder in a way which offensive teras do not. The boost to Sacred Fire is nice, but it doesn't solve the issue of limited PP against bulkier teams. Similarly, Tera Ground is great, especially against Meteor Beam Eternatus, but I find the damage rather lacking even with the boost. Furthermore, both of these options force Ho-Oh to forgo the ability to act as a pivot against Primal Kyogre in a pinch, adding another thing to worry about.
It put on quite a display in my R1 game. The game probably could have been won by using tera on a different mon or not at all, but Ho-Oh being able to Tera Grass helped immensely with minimizing the risks in doing so such as not having to play around the possibility of Tera Blast Ground Zacian-C or providing a sturdy Arceus-Water switchin to ease the burden on Primal Groudon.
I've used this set as an example because of the flexibility it provides in dealing with many threats. This is the crux of the issue and what makes defensive tera so powerful and a counterbalance to offensive tera - flexibility. The ability to defensively tera in a pinch gives NDUbers gameplay a fluidity which is part of what makes it so much fun. It is due to interactions such as these that I don't find tera overwhelming despite its inherently offensive leaning. The role compression it provides defensively is invaluable and as impactful as offensive teras even if they don't get the spotlight nearly as often.
It also isn't as though tera is some mindless click. Risks and opportunity costs have to be evaluated. Using Ho-Oh as an example again, sure the Tera Grass is great for some mons, but you do have to address how you'll deal with what Ho-Oh no longer checks well defensively such as Overheat Primal Groudon or LO Yveltal. This is a big reason why the same defensive core of Primal Groudon / Ho-Oh / Arceus-Dark or Fairy can support such a wide variety of teams. Sure a lot of the mons are the same, but these teams aim to win in different ways. If anything I'd expect balance teams to become even more similar than they already are. The defensive cores may be similar, but tera plays a critical role in what allows these cores to support such a diversity of offensive threats. Offensive teras may be the most flashy and the most common, but I don't feel that the balance is tilted to such a degree that it is sufficient for tiering action.
Crossroads
From all of the discussion I've seen here, on discord, and privately there are two primary questions that this suspect aims to answer:
1. Is tera inherently unhealthy?
2. If so, is it unhealthy to a degree where the collateral damage crosses a threshold to where the mechanic itself should be banned?
My answer to the first question is yes, at least in a vaccuum. Devoid of context, being able to flip matchups or transform into Mr Craw is antithetical to many of the core concepts that underpin competitive pokemon. However, we don't live in a vaccuum and context is important. Tera isn't dynamax, which was broken to such a degree that it clearly had no place in any comptetive singles tier. While tera does have immense potential to cause issues, this has not translated cleanly into the game.
I would not be writing this nor would we be having this suspect test if the answer to the second question was yes. Tera would have had a second suspect and been banned quite some time ago. From my perspective the only mon I see as banned due to tera is Shedinja. I've hated and wanted Xerneas gone for well over a decade at this point, but tera was not a factor in my vote to ban it. The HP Rock Focus Blast set was the best precisely because it did not need to tera and could allow another teammate to access this valuable resource. The issue pushing Koraidon over the edge was Scale Shot as it was already facing scrutiny for its Z sets anyways. Z moves also played a role in Calyrex-S's ban.
Currently, Zygarde and Zacian-C are the two mons under scrutiny and it is purely as a result of the degree to which they exploit tera. This is a pretty important distinction as I struggle to believe anyone really thinks these two mons would be facing serious calls for tiering action in a teraless metagame. If it is an option between potentially losing these two and keeping tera, wanting to ban tera is incredibly valid.
We are tied to tering policy and are testing tera. Sure banning Tera Blast and/or Zygarde + Dragon Dance would 'solve' any potential issues, but these options are not nor should they be on the table. Even in a tera metagame, I don't view these threats as banworthy even if I do have my gripes. I wrote about Dragon Dance Zygarde extensively here.
Since that time I do think people have learned how to limit it signficantly through both teambuilding and in game play. One thing I absolutely love about Dragon Dance Zygarde is the degree to which it punishes passive play and building. It may sometimes do this a little too easily, but I'm not sure how this is dissimilar to the strength of Toxic Spikes v HO until recently or loading Choice Band Rayquaza into a fat team. If anything it encouraging fat balances to use mons such as Tera Fairy Garganacl or Ferrothorn instead of just setting some hazards and waiting around is a more interactive and enjoyable game. I don't find it punishes passivity to an unreasonable degree. A lot of these teams have similar issues with Taunt CM Arceus formes or wallbreaker Eternatus.
Furthermore, the impact to the defensive integrity of any non HO team is signifcantly felt when running Dragon Dance Zygarde. The mon doesn't switch into much of anything safely and rarely gets multiple opportunities to setup. This Game from R1 shows the dichotomy of Dragon Dance Zygarde. If GBD777 Dragon Dances again on T4 and uses Tera Ground they probably 6-0. However, they do switch out and Zygarde is unable to find another opportunity to do much and loses. Dragon Dance Zygarde lives and dies by how well its user is able to position it. It doesn't matter if it 6-0s a team if it can't find that opportunity to actually get in and get that boost. The ability to do so involves at least some skill expression when facing a good player using a good team. Outside of lead matchups positioning Zygarde to be able to put on the hurt isn't as simple as just getting it onto the field. Hell even switching into defensive Primal Groudon's Precipice Blades means it is going to heavily limit what Zygarde can do.
I'm a bit more on the fence about Zacian-C. The biggest issue I have with is that most moves used to deal with it are not consistent. Precipice Blades has a 15% chance to miss which will cost games. Sacred Fire has the miss chance and defensive Ho-Oh is often reliant on getting that burn. Eternatus relies on Fire Blast because +1 Flamethrower only has an 18.8% chance to KO. Add on that a lot of teams are fine with either Play Rough or Behemoth Blade, so Coil Zygarde has Tera mindgames, espcially if it is Tera Fairy. That being said, Zacian-C rarely has more than one opportunity to properly break as losing that boost does make a big difference. It is a great cleaner, but it isn't leagues better than other fast mons such as Eternatus or Marshadow against a heavily chipped team.
The other factor is that I'd be quite surprised if either of these mons were banned via suspect test. Zygarde frustrate a lot of people, but the defensive utility Coil sets provide in a lot of ways holds the metagame together. Tera also plays a big role in allowing it to do this without changing too much. It still hates Taunt Arceus formes. Ultra Necrozma still blows it up. Offensive Pogre still murks it ect. Sure it can invest some SpD to shore itself up against some of its checks, but it doesn't have the wiggle room to do that and check what it needs to on the physical side. 208+ is where things start to become noticable and well... concessions have to be made.
So yeah tl;dr I'm likely do vote do not ban. I don't presently consider tera nor Zygarde or Zacian-C problematic to a degree where tiering action is justified. However, I'd implore all voters to think a bit more about their stances. Voting to ban tera is valid, but doing so based on the reasoning given in some of these posts would be disappointing. Going to respond to some of the stuff in posts before mine in a spoiler b/c this is long enough already.
Either way I don't think SV NatDex Ubers is ever going to be a metagame where you come back to it for its identity when the main premise for its creation was "it's not NDAG".
This is incredibly disappointing to read. This may have been the original reason why it exists, but that is far from the case today. NDUbers has evolved into its own distinct metagame wholly disconnected from its origins, in large part thanks to the work you put in during your time as a council member. NDUbers evolved past this a long time ago.
On a side note, banning Tera means that it won't be usable in the main NDOT and ND selection of tiers, since its banned from every tier below it. Which kinda sucks.
it's the mon with the highest mixed bulk in the entire metagame (for reference, only Chansey and Blissey have more special bulk than it), it can often come in and easily get boosts once it has managed to heal off damage taken with Rest, Leftovers recovery, or Wish passing.
It might have the highest mixed bulk in the game, but this isn't much of an impediment for its special attacking checks. Zygarde has acceptable, but not obscene special bulk, even after transforming. Sure SpD investment means some stuff such as defensive Primal Kyogre is no longer going to beat it. This comes with the tradeoff of Zygarde no longer checking the physical threats it needs to. Support Arceus formes might struggle to remove SpD Zygarde, but the mon is so weak without multiple boosts that it doesn't even deplete Timid Arceus formes Recover PP before running out Thousand Arrows PP at +1.
While this can be played around by trying to assert momentum on it to prevent it from retaining the longevity and turns to do stuff (such as Toxic Spikes from Eternatus, or keeping a faster Taunt user like Yveltal or Arceus-Fairy to prevent it from using setup or Glare), one can also argue that this devalues skill as there's other Pokemon to also check around, and by extension Zygarde can enter the field while its checks are forced out by an ally, and can't often be punished properly out of its sheer bulk, or it can also just spam Glare instead to hinder any part of the metagame as nothing but Garganacl and Zekrom are immune to it, and both are weak to its Ground STAB.
I find this a bit reductive. Non-HO teams should be structured in a way which a single Glare is not ruinous. It isn't as though Glare Zygarde is some new threat. It also becomes obscenely passive the moment it is forced to rest which can be taken advantage of fairly easily. There are very few mons you can give 4 free turns to that won't become a game ending threat. There isn't much here that seems unique to Zygarde.
Ultimately this can become a matter of deciding if a regional gimmick is more relevant than multiple other Pokemon, one can make the argument that per general tiering policy, that when an element makes multiple Pokemon "broken", the element in question is generally what's banned and not the Pokemon involved, a good case can be seen in lower tiers and Last Respects, the move wasn't banned until there were multiple users with the move being inappropiate presences for their metagames.
This is not an apt comparison. The issue was very clearly Last Respects. Even the OU council at the time said they wanted to ban the move iirc. There is not a consensus on whether tera, or even Zygarde / Zacian-C themselves in a tera metagame are broken. If this was the case we would have resuspected tera or Zygarde / Zacian-C a long time ago.
Well, let's just take a deeper look in the Teambuilding Compendium (shoutouts to Bumboclaat for such exhaustive resource) for common Tera types to corroborate the above:
Thanks for the shoutout, but I've been waiting on whether or not we would move forward with a suspect test and the results of that and any dex changes before updating it. I wouldn't say that it is wholly outdated, but I have been thinking about the Zygarde section in particular as Dragon Dance Zygarde was barely a thing at that time. Should tera remain free Zygarde will definitely be split into a Coil and Dragon Dance section as there really is not much overlap in counterplay. This is part of what makes Dragon Dance Zygarde as scary as it is. I did go through and update the tera types recently though.
Man, I hate tera as a mechanic. Before grinding this ladder (thank god I'm done) I thought I'd want to ban it in every format, but it feels weirdly fair and safe to play around here, probably due to the insane power-scaling of mons in this tier to the point where changing your type doesn't really matter that much.
I don't think tera is one of the problems in this tier at all. Due to the prevalence of tera-negating items like z-crystals on arc, Primal Gdon and Kyogre, I find tera to be much less relevant here than in any other tiers I've played, natdex or gen9. For most of my games, when tera did come up, it didn't feel oppressive or unfair like it does all too often in gen 9 (With the exception of Zygarde and the odd Zacian, which I would say are more problematic than tera by a long shot). The only matchup where it definitely mattered was against stall, where it felt like I had much more agency with my tera than they did anyway.
So, will be voting DNB. I think tera is a healthy option in this tier that isn't able to be abused by (most) top tiers, and gives other mons more agency in game. Makes the stall matchup easier, which I'm always for, and feels perfectly reasonable to play around and anticipate, given the lower pool of mons that can take advantage.
Would like to give my 2 cents on tera and quickly talk about my thoughts on it.
Personally, I find tera to be an inherently unfun and uncompetitive mechanic. The pure idea of tera, outside of specific metagames has been and still is a mechanic that should not exist. It disturbs the ore mechanics of Pokemon. Fire beats grass, grass beats water and water beats fire and so on. Problem is that tera basically breaks that whole dynamic. Now the fire type can suddenly turn into another type and beat both types. This is simply just not a balanced mechanic. Now suddenly Yveltal can beat Zacian, Zacian can beat Zygarde, Zygarde can suddenly beat pogre and so on. I really don't find it fun how you can have a healthy Primal Kyogre staring down a Zygarde and only hoping it doesn't magically turn into a water type only to be flabbergasted the next turn. Both playing and building against tera is simply unpleasant. You have a marshadow, but because ekiller can tera you suddenly also need a zygarde to defend yourself. You have a pdon but now zacian can throw off ground moves so now you need your own terastallized zygarde to defend yourself. It's all building paranoia and what-ifs in the teambuilder and game. You have an arceus-dark on the team preview against a lunala, but you know that you'll need multiple layers of defense as it can simply become a fairy type to beat you. All this scrambling and juggling between off chances and tera types is simply not fun to play against. Do you keep your kyogre in hopes of the zygarde being tera fairy, do do you keep yveltal in case it is tera water. You don't know what tera it is so you either have to keep both pokemon to respond to it, or simply just try and call a 5050. I've been an advocate for banning tera for quite a while, and just wanted to throw in my opinion here. If tera stays, then its likely that people will just continue to deal with these frankly just stupid mind games and surprises that are not fun to play against or prep for in the builder. Would love to see tera banned this suspect, but yall do yall.
TERASTALIZATION??? WHO DOESNT LOVE STYLISH HATS???
tera fire floober spotted in my room at approx 23:06 CET this evening
heres my possibly coherent thoughts on the tera suspect
First of all, the unbans, if a tera ban happens
This thing is getting unbanned, no questions asked I hope this one gets unbanned, but I have seen some pushback to it, which I don't fully agree with, since most of the problematics with came from terastalization in my opinion. no longer gets blasted by +2 tera Electric/Stellar Thunder, and no longer get blasted by +2 tera Fighting Focus Blast Some people think it might get unbanned, but no way. It's most consistent would be counters get blasted by +2 Scale Shot and +2 Flare Blitz respectively. would probably become sorta kinda viable maybe again but its far too ass to be a good reason to unban lol lol lol lol
The mons that are pushed over the edge by tera maybe kinda
is probably the posterchild of this. Tera Fighting Close Combat and tera Ground Tera Blast are incredibly potent and strong, and will probably leave 1 or more mons chipped heavily to counter it and if not, tera consumed, such as tera Water or tera Grass . However in my experience, tera leaves with a much inferior defensive typing, and lets it get revenge killed more easily by or shmacked by priority from . I much more often get goobed by because of poor positioning than tera.
is probably also on the suspect list because of tera, but I disagree with the notion that this mon is broken, and by extension because of tera. I hear a lot of people complain about Coil, but that's honestly a skill issue because any half-baked special attacker like formes and can overwhelm it, it's easily phazed out by , and it's of course goobed by my man (
). Dragon Dance I can understand a bit more because it often frustrates me too but that's often because I assume it is Coil and my gets goobed, but also because the usual phazing counterplay gets counteracted by Dragon Tail. This is however scouted out by the fact that it doesn't switch in to the strong Physical hits from
grouping these together because they're all essentially here for the same reason, which is potentially toxic 50/50s against opposing priority users using tera to get an immunity and turn the table on them. and ironically can get their ass turned on them with a sneaky tera Normal or Ghost respectively for a free turn or a free KO. This is in my opinion the most frustrating part of tera.
The mons that maybe kinda will be pushed over the edge without tera
is always a difficult mon to deal with. It's no surprise it's a running joke that all my teams lose to . It's defensive counters are very restrictive and essentially boil down to and maybe . Looking at the sample teams, only 1 team lacks these mons. Without tera, I fear that will become even more restrictive on teambuilding without the ability to just slap a tera Fairy on an or others, and force an even bigger focus on than is already the case (8/13 samples have these 2 formes).
used to be easily checked by priority from , and with some chip. However, it has been running bulkier and bulkier sets to counteract this weakness and now the aforementioned mons often need to terestalize to KO from full. Also, mons like and various formes will sometimes run tera Steel or Dark to get a defensive advantage against , but without this option teambuilding is restricted to being forced to include a priority user or
The maybe kinda good parts of tera
STAB boosting tera
I already talked a bit about the priority aspect of STAB tera but in my opinion, one of the most satisfying things to do, is to weaken a team and then blow it up with a tera Dark boosted Dark Pulse with or a tera Flying boosted Choice band Dragon Ascent from . One could also argue the sole reason Trick Room teams are semi-viable at all, is because of STAB tera, with making great use of it.
Defensive tera
Adding an extra layer to defensive counterplay is in my opinion very valuable when the offensive mons like are so incredibly strong that defense can't always keep up with it, which is often the case in a tier such as Ubers. Tera brings exactly this to the tier. Aforementioned teras such as tera Steel , tera Grass and tera Water allow for extra safeguards for slower and bulkier teams and tera Poison is common to let various mons be immune to Toxic.
My final thoughts
While tera as a mechanic is sometimes frustrating, I think that the pros of being able to change your type outweigh the cons in the current context of ND Ubers. The freedom in teambuilding gained from tera and the fun of using it outweigh the slight brokenness of the mechanic.
Therefore I will be voting Do Not Ban.
Tera being banned from the tier is probably still a decent metagame but it's already fine as is with Tera to be honest.
Compared to OU the threats in Ubers are by definition more centralized and can blanket large swaths of the tier on their own with staples like Ho-oh and non-Dragon Dance Zygarde-C, Tera in their case only increases their effectiveness at checking insanely annoying threats such as Zacian-C and Deoxys-A and its banning only serves to strengthen more offensive structures as a whole. When I look at this reasoning for other tiers like the recent NDOU suspect test I tend to scoff at it since statistically it is more the offensive threats abusing Tera and getting wins over the reactionary defensive Teras that turn into detriments. But here it's more of a healthy flowchart and defensive Tera is less of a detriment: Say for instance you are staring down a +2 Tera Dark Chi-Yu vs Zygarde-C, in this scenario Zygarde-C (if it has it) can Tera-Fairy to beat Chi-Yu without sacrificing most of its matchups. This is also generally why reactionary Tera types like Tera Dark Alomomola, Tera Grass Ho-oh, Tera Fairy Arceus-Dark, etc are insanely potent in this metagame. There probably more examples of this but the point is that for every offensive Tera abuser on a team there is more often than not a defensive abuser on the opponents team that is relatively hard to bypass (Tera Grass Ho-oh shutting down a lot of Zacian-C scenarios for example).
For an offensive Tera user to go through mons like that, it requires them to partake in the process of wearing down their checks into KO range while also needing careful positioning a lot of the time to avoid being punished early on. Notably most of, if not all of, the NDPL and FL games where Tera was a deciding factor fit this bill, with a majority of the games having a relatively non-impactful use of offensive Tera to begin with (Tera Zacian getting blocked by a Pdon trade or emergency Tera Grass from Ho-oh for example). I'm sure people can just cherry-pick games of Tera abusers farming a team, hell I've done it myself on occasion, but in those scenarioes I feel as if those wins are either coming from lazy teambuilding or very unfortunate luck (re: Trick Room Melm). Something like Dragon Dance Zygarde should not be cleaving through a structure like Tera Grass Ho-oh + Tauntceus without first wearing down it's checks to a managable level. Against HO it just shouldn't have much of an in to do its job unless it gets a really tactical Tera vs a mon that doesn't shut it down in like 2 clicks or it gets a perfect lead against something like Smeargle. Regarding Zacian-C, one can also make a case for this mon being stupid but I feel as if people are disrespecting the value of defensive Tera in the builder. As said before Tera Ho-oh is an insanely good stopgap against a boosted Zacian-C, while other Teras like Tera Zygarde-C or Tera Arceus-Dark/Fairy are really good punishers. Revenge Killers like Scarf Yveltal and Ditto also need to be treated with more respect surely when talking about this mon as Zacian-C struggles to be as effecient as people make it out to be without Tera and once it does, Scarf Yveltal just comes in to snipe. Ditto is obvious tbh. Primal Groudon pigeonholing this into Tera Ground is also a detriment since that mon is omniprescent and makes it easy to bait out said Tera Ground for stuff like the aformentioned Scarf Yveltal and Deoxys-Attack.
Is Tera broken here? I don't think so. Could Tera abusers like Zygarde-C and Zacian-C be broken? Maybe, but lets see how they fair in their own suspect tests. No need to handicap the rest of the perfectly fine metagame by nuking the mechanic. My willingness to ban something in an Ubers tier tends to flip-flop a lot depending on the tier but for NatDex I typically like taking a conservative approach in more recent times. Unlike in SV OU or SS OU, we have far more options for checks and counters here and Tera makes those checks stronger compared to the offensive breakers before them since the opportunity cost of burning your Tera in this tier is far less detrimental compared to that of OU. The reason for this is because Ubers is inherently more overcentralized so it's easier to prep for threats with the tier being top-heavy, so of course the use of Tera to check threats will simply compound onto a good mon as opposed to a Tera NDOU scenario where say you Tera your Lando-T to stop the Mega Swampert and suddenly find your team struggling to handle Raging Bolt. Not every Tera tier will play Tera the same way so lets stop pretending that Tera is as volatile as it was in NDOU or something. The tier is fine as is.
This is incredibly disappointing to read. This may have been the original reason why it exists, but that is far from the case today. NDUbers has evolved into its own distinct metagame wholly disconnected from its origins, in large part thanks to the work you put in during your time as a council member. NDUbers evolved past this a long time ago.
First and foremost my interpretation of the tier's identity is tied with NDAG, ND Uber's creation and growth wouldn't have been so rapid without NDAG's downfall so it's a fair assesment to say that it's identity is rooted in NDAG's death. This has been my interpretation of things since it's creation for the most part and it only has been solidified as tiering actions happen. That is irrelevant to the main point I was attempting to make however: Concerns about identity changes in regards to tiering should't be a factor in decison making, it's ultimately on whether people belive something is or isn't balanced in the metagame. Hypothetically say Tera gets banned; Nobody should care if Tera being banned makes this Metagame more derivitive compared to SS ND Ubers or SM Ubers because the trade off is a more competitve metagame, something that is more concrete to measure, and should prioritized over a tier's identity, which is much more abstract.
Some of this might be word vomit so feel free to poke holes in my statements or ask for elaboration.
At first I rly wanted to ban tera. Tera to me has some uncompetetive feeling problems in my eyes. tera can be abused to cheese some unwinnable matchups by bringing some matches into unfavorable 50/50. will they tera or will they not. while this is something both players can do it just never feels like you truely outplayed your opponent or felt like you got outplayed.
Second problem i have (while not as major as the first one) is the ones in a while surprise tera(blast) bs that can happen. like in one of my games i had my ho-oh face genesect which it normally walls but i kid you not it just turned into a rock type and my ho-oh got send back to the lobby. while moments like that can happen and are very rare, mainly used by lower elo players its still very annoying to have to account for.
now to get to the main point. like i said in the beginning i said i wanted to ban tera. but after lots of thinking to why to ban it i coulnt rly think of anything else besides the uncompetetiveness of the mechanic and the afermentioned zyg-c and zac-c.
A more enjoyable use of the tera mechanic is for niche mons like garg to shine with its tera fairy set and allows for my fav tera turtle to become big tera turtle. me personally i love to build teams around more of those gimmick mons and tera does allow me for a bit more creativity at the cost of it being a tera sink.
in conclusion ill be voting DNB on tera tho (while its not a current option) id love to see some rule that forces players to show the teratype of each mon.
TLDR: personally hate tera as a mechanic i dont find it gamebreaking for it to be ban worthy.
First and foremost my interpretation of the tier's identity is tied with NDAG, ND Uber's creation and growth wouldn't have been so rapid without NDAG's downfall so it's a fair assesment to say that it's identity is rooted in NDAG's death. This has been my interpretation of things since it's creation for the most part and it only has been solidified as tiering actions happen. That is irrelevant to the main point I was attempting to make however: Concerns about identity changes in regards to tiering should't be a factor in decison making, it's ultimately on whether people belive something is or isn't balanced in the metagame. Hypothetically say Tera gets banned; Nobody should care if Tera being banned makes this Metagame more derivitive compared to SS ND Ubers or SM Ubers because the trade off is a more competitve metagame, something that is more concrete to measure, and should prioritized over a tier's identity, which is much more abstract.
I found this disappointing because yes, this tier only exists because AG was so dogshit that this tier was created. It is nice for something positive to come from AG for once. NDUbers may be rooted in AG, but at this point it has progressed well past those roots into its own identity. Exactly what that is I don't know. I didn't play NDAG because I find the idea of playing a metagame where tomfoolery is not only legal, but encouraged thoroughly unenjoyable. NDUbers is approaching two years and at this point its relationship to NDAG is a vestige. Upon rereading this I think I associated a lot more meaning to your original statement than you ascribed or intended.
As someone who didn't and won't play NDAG, that tiers identity are things like revivecats / BP or mons such as Mega Rayquaza / Caly-S which will not be touching this tier regardless. I'm still sad that people who do like NDAG don't have a place to play it, but that is off topic. This is a great post, but when I saw the notification I thought it would be your thoughts about NDUU post frog (your UU/RU posts are an absolute pleasure to read and some of the best on the site imo).
Something like Dragon Dance Zygarde should not be cleaving through a structure like Tera Grass Ho-oh + Tauntceus without first wearing down it's checks to a managable level.
Not going to nitpick, but this is one thing that really stood out to me. Getting past Arceus formes that should be at least decentish checks to Zygarde at +1 due to Tera Ground is definitely potential cause for concern, but Tera doesn't play nearly as much as a factor in the Ho-Oh matchup. That is purely Dragon Tail negating potential phasing from defensive sets and outdamaging Regenerator at +2. Popping tera makes at least the defensive Ho-Oh matchup slightly more annoying if done prematurely as Sacred Fire will now break the Substitute. I've been thinking about Ho-Oh itself and wondering how meaningfully different this is from say dragging in Zacian-C early game via Whirlwind and forcing it to waste its boost.
A seperate small thing about Dragon Dance Zygarde. Yeah it is silly at times. In my experience at least, people have adapted to it reasonably well. A couple of months it bowled over a huge number of teams, but I don't really feel that is currently the case so long as it is respected in the builder and in game. This isn't really different from any other good/overlooked set that bursts onto the scene. When sets such as wallbreaker Eternatus and Calm Mind Arceus Dark (and Fairy to lesser degree) started popping up earlier this year similar things happened. They were curb stomping a lot of teams and well we adapted. They are still great sets, but teams have adopted structures where it is signifcantly more difficult for these mons to just find a turn and sweep in the midgame.
These three sets all have a throughpoint of being harsh punishers to passivity. This is something that I absolutely love. While hazards are great, fat teams unable to exert a modicum pressure outside of them have largely fallen by the wayside. Hell, stall is less passive than that balances that just set hazards and wait around. Fat is still decent, it is just different. That is why a mon like Garganacl has seen a huge rise from floating around C-/UR to B. It forces progress. Its why we've seen Bob having success with his momentum based Alo/ Teleport Blissey semistalls. Those do still have a lot of issues with the mons I've mentioned, but significantly less so than the semistalls/fats that were being loaded a year ago would have.
The biggest metagame trend over the last few months isn't x mon or y set, but punishing passivity, whether this be in the builder or in game. Defensive Ho-Oh is a great mon, but it is incredibly passive and it should not be shocking that a lot of the mons that punish it and have been rising. The same applies to Coil Zygarde. Arceus formes have realized that rather than simply shut down Coil Zygarde with Taunt they can use it as setup fodder to get free Calm Minds.
Metagames are in a constant state of flux and we are seeing similar adaptations defensively. The Taunt Calm Mind Arceus formes and Dragon Dance Zygarde that love to see defensive Ho-Oh really don't like offensive Ho-Oh. Same thing with the popular Tera Fire Yveltal on Webs that stuffs defensive Ho-Oh + Tera Dark Stealth Rock Arceus-Fairy.
With DD Zygarde specifically, just smacking it works pretty well. It might beat the mons which beat the Coil set, but only if it Dragon Dances as they come in. It needs safe setup to become a threat which it cannot consistently get except against passive teams and play. Sure it can substitute and play for a Precicpice Blades miss against Primal Groudon, but that miss better come early in the sequence or else it will be at incredibly low HP with only one boost unless a lot of luck is involved. Sure that can happen, but the odds are not in its favour.
Furthermore, I doubt anyone would consider their Zygarde trading with Primal Groudon and not doing much else a win. If Zygarde switches in on Precicpices Blades it isn't even doing trading with Primal Groudon unless it uses Tera Ground. Again, rarely ever going to be worthwhile. As Runo mentioned, v HO it often struggles to do much of anything against HO outside of the lead slot because it can't switch into anything. Running Perish Song on your Smeagle solves this. You don't have to, but if Dragon Dance Zygarde otherwise 6-0s your webs team at lead, that is a concious you've made in the builder and you'll get punished for it in the same vein as ignoring stall and loading into that.
Lastly, I'd highly recommend that my fellow council members make a post detailing their views on whether tera should be banned. It doesn't need to be a novella.
anyways im ngl im kinda like 60-40 on tera (hence my abstain vote in the council voting) but I do feel like the tier would be better off without it. Let me preface this by saying that I have already qualified for the suspect, and that this is based of off both my experience laddering as well as building all of the teams for my friend shieldpoke in ndpl and helping emoxu in the playoffs as well, alongside watching and analysing all of the other pl games. This is just to say that I have experienced both ends of the spectrum and can properly come to a conclusion. Anyways, lets start!
Personally I feel that unlike other tiers like NDOU, Tera in NDUbers is a silent killer, it honestly goes by unnoticed a ton in the tier in how it warms certain matchups and interactions amongst Mons, and I feel even the people who want it banned dont really see its full potential. Lets start with an easy to see example, Hyper Offense, specifically my webs team.
(Click image for paste)
To preface, I will not include opposing Tera in my arguments as counterplay to things, as generally that is a sign that the mechanic of mon is broken anyways. Before I get attacked for this, by this same logic you can argue Dynamax is fine since a defensive Dynamax generally deals with an offensive one, and you can extend this argument to the current banned Pokemon too. If you feel this is wrong or disingenuous and disagree with this, feel free to ping me on the discord and we can discuss it, I cba making another post here.
For context, this team has been highly successful in ladder and has gotten numerous people their reqs this time around, and also won my game last round in the Money Tour, so in my opinion its a good team that represents the meta decently accurately. Anyways, this team only has four Tera users, with Smeargle being one of them, and ill go through each of them (barring Smeargle since thats relatively self wxplanatory and honestly not worth the time) thoroughly, starting with the most egregious: Yveltal. Tera Fire Yveltal is something that only recently I have tried using and it has been exceptionally powerful, borderline dishonest in some games. Ive faced quite a few decent players with this team on my reqs run and Tera Fire Yveltal has shredded through most of them, and not due to their bad play either, they just happened to be using defensive Ho-oh + Arceus Fairy as their Yveltal check, which is perfectly satisfactory in most cases, vs an untera-ed Yveltal or any other standard Tera option, this would generally beat it, but Tera Fire completely flips the matchup, allowing Yveltal to basically use both of them as healing options, and outright force out Ho-oh as it is completely walled by Yveltal with Taunt and it now resisting Sacred Fire. Now you could say, “yes but now Primal Groudon and Zygarde can beat it, why is this an issue” Well my friends, thinking in the context of the game, would you reasonably save your HP on both of them to maybe have a chance at checking Yveltal? What are you going to do now about the Primal Kyogre, the Eternatus, the Arceus Ground, the Chi Yu? You can further extend this thought problem to honestly any variation of HO, just replace any of the aforementioned threats with Zacian, Necrozma Dusk-Mane, Ultra Necrozma, EKiller, Bulk Up Marshadow, you get the point. Now if my opponents say, had a Zacian as their Yveltal check, or Eternatus moreso, they would have been completely fine! But say if I used Tera Dark or Tera Flying Yveltal, Zacian or Eternatus would not be a satisfactory check, respectively. All 3 Tera options are great and are all equally fine on HO, and that is what worries me. HO is already an extremely volatile playstyle, with Speed ties, having the correct leads into your opponent all being much more important factors for the playstyle compared to others, and Tera simply adds another layer of volatility into an already extremely volatile playstyle in a quite volatile tier already. But that is the beauty of Tera, you do not need to sacrifice something if the matchup goes the wrong way, I just wont Tera my Yveltal, and will Tera something else. That is possibly the most important distinguishing factor between stuff the more broken Generational Mechanics like Dynamax and now Tera, vs the more tamer ones like Z Moves and Mega Forms, you have the option to choose, and there is no net negative in any match, no drawback.
Anyways, lets now talk about Eternatus. Compared to Yveltal, Eternatus is an extremely fast Pokemon, one of the fastest in the tier, and can generally only be revenged by a few things, and is not easy to wall unlike Yveltal pre-tera. Generally some predictions are involved with dancing around with Primal Groudon and Ho-oh, but if your not running Ho-oh or your Ho-oh is too chipped, then generally the play is to attempt to chip it into revenge killing range, and that is what I will focus on here. Generally you can RK Etern with Ditto (arguably the best option, since it forces out Eternatus at full which means it wastes its Meteor Beam), Zacian, Sucker Punch Yveltal, Marshadow, opposing fast Eternatus and EKiller. Tera Fairy on Eternatus completely nullifies half of these; being Ditto, Sucker Punch Yveltal, and opposing Eternatus. Personally, this situation has occurred during my run with the prior Pokemon being used as a final measure against Eternatus, which leads me to another issue I have with Tera, where a lot of my HO games end up in a mini-game of who can preserve Tera the longest. While this might be an issue more faced while using HO, nontheless the unhealthy interactions this mechanic forces where an entire match of better play and positioning can be undone by a timely Tera at the end to flip a matchup, especially when you (the player facing off against HO) is not something I enjoy in the tier, and I feel it would be better off with. This example can easily be extended to EKiller too, while I did not use it in this run, I used it in my Xerneas run, as well as in numerous tour games and other ladder games, bypassing teams with Zygarde or Ho-oh as their EKiller counterplay with Tera Normal, or flipping the matchup on Marshadow and Zacian-C with Tera Ghost, and it simply just feels dishonest to punish good positioning and teambuilding so simply.
I will be rather light on Arceus Ground since honestly I did not Tera it much, but it most certainly has completely bailed me out of horrid positions multiple times in my suspect runs and it has not felt rewarding one bit. Interactions like getting up a DD unchipped vs Eternatus or Zekrom, or letting it break through DTail Zygarde variants has made a Pokemon that I felt was quite mediocre and inconsistent extremely annoying to face against and too punishing for my liking.
Now, onto the Pokemon mentioned so much in this thread and around the Discord, Zacian and Zygarde. I think while both are fully not broken and are completely fine in their current state, I do think that the interactions they cause with Tera are on a similiar level with the other Pokemon I have mentioned prior, and thus contribute to the problem. This is very short since I would probably just rehash the same point multiple people have said here thousands of times, so im not going to, but just want to emphasize that I do not think these Pokemon are any more broken than any other offensive threat. Outside of my team, and HO in general I feel Tera is fine-ish, as I said the occasional DD Zyg or Tera Blast Ground Zacian is whatever, and defensive Teras are a generally reactive force. Furthermore, I dont feel like defensive Teras add or change that much in the tier, and with Tera gone not much will change, outside of maybe NDM and UNec becoming a bit stronger. The overall meta will still be the same, minus some annoying interactions. All of my previous points are why I personally am voting to ban Tera on the basis of uncompetitiveness, rather than “broken-ness”, and I think you should think about it too.
I have seen some extremely poor arguments in this thread from both sides of the spectrum, and while I may not have replied to any specific one here, they cover a lot of the convoluted bases Ive seen here IMO, and if im not lazy ill try and reply to some I feel are really egregious.
i read requirements as 2900 lol anyways tera isn't broken i dont think many abusers of tera are broken mons at all tera blast ground zacian,tera dark yveltal,or whatever other abusers like eternatus etc that u have i do however think that tera zygarde is pretty cheap is it broken? idk im mixed on that guy but tera is definitely not broken and i like the breaking potential that it gives to pokemon like yveltal and i enjoy that aspect of tera very much
Got reqs and I will say that I thoroughly did not enjoy the experience. Teams all look the same, ladder is filled with too much cheese, hazard spam is insane, too many monstrous threats to contain like Primal Groudon, Zacian, CM Arceus forms, Zygarde, Marshadow, Ho-Oh, Necrozma DM, etc. , most of which are vulnerable to hazards making webs cheese very prominent. Games feel like it comes down to who sets up first and wins most of the time. I mostly stole teams and I feel the countermeasures to Pokemon like Zacian, Primal Groudon, etc. were all extremely flimsy. Perhaps this is because I am new to the metagame, but I do not enjoy 90% of the dynamics present currently. I will say there were a decent variety of styles present from HO to balance to stall, but eh, most of the structures looked the same with some of the same options like Eternatus, Primal Groudon, etc.
I get shit in ubers is suppose to be overpowered, but consistently dealing with shit like Marshadow that effortlessly outspeeds & 2HKOes the entire tier+ can run a ton of cheese sets like Swagger + mirror Herb, sash, Scarf, etc. makes counterplay to it feel like a crapshoot. I think regardless of whether Tera is banned or not, a lot of the top heavy shit like Necrozma-DM, Zacian-C, and Marshadow, as well as other strategies like Webs, should be looked at.
As for Tera, its hard for me to say whether it contributed to this or not. The main Pokemon I felt it made feel annoying are maybe Zygarde and Zacian. Some others mentioned Yveltal, but I feel that Pokemon is a hard sell as "OP" when its just letting Zacian set up a free Swords Dance and sweep unopposed. Maybe if it runs Tera Fire Heat Wave but none of the teams I stole ran that. Other Pokemon like Necrozma-DM I think are just stupid regardless when they can run 50 million sets, many of which don't even use tera and blow back most of its "counterplay" effortlessly. Same with Marshadow. In a lot of games I didn't feel that tera really came into play barring maybe defensively Teraing Zygarde, an Arceus-Form, or Ho-Oh. Tera'ing shit like Zacian from my perspective always came to bite me back in the ass later because it becomes more vulnerable to priority, but IDK if others feel that way.
My inital impressions of Tera atm are that its not as active of a component in this metagame as other metagames like SV OU since less Pokemon (like the ultra dominant Primal Groudon) can use it, so you have less slots to actively make use of it. On some teams, between Z-Move Ultra Necrozma and Primal Kyogre, I only had 3 Pokemon that could use it, and they mostly made use of it for defensive purposes. Is this unhealthy? Perhaps, as Zygarde can be crazy difficult to kill and sets up easily, while other like Ho-oh becomes the most infuriating defensive Pokemon imaginable. Still, it offers some temporary measures of counterplay to many of these overwhelming offensive threats.
Overall, I could see myself voting either way on the suspect. I will probably try building more of my own teams and expirementing before making a final verdict.
Just got reqs and for me it wasn't that bad since I got a bunch of noob teams until I hit like 1800-2200 COIL, so it really wasn't too bad for me.
I will personally be voting DNB, as Tera can't even be used on a lot of Pokemon, such as Pokemon like Necrozma-DM holding a Z-crystal or Groudon holding the Red Orb.
Honestly a Marshadow suspect would be kinda cool to see, that thing is BS.
Got reqs and I will say that I thoroughly did not enjoy the experience. Teams all look the same, ladder is filled with too much cheese, hazard spam is insane, too many monstrous threats to contain like Primal Groudon, Zacian, CM Arceus forms, Zygarde, Marshadow, Ho-Oh, Necrozma DM, etc. , most of which are vulnerable to hazards making webs cheese very prominent. Games feel like it comes down to who sets up first and wins most of the time. I mostly stole teams and I feel the countermeasures to Pokemon like Zacian, Primal Groudon, etc. were all extremely flimsy. Perhaps this is because I am new to the metagame, but I do not enjoy 90% of the dynamics present currently. I will say there were a decent variety of styles present from HO to balance to stall, but eh, most of the structures looked the same with some of the same options like Eternatus, Primal Groudon, etc.
The ladder definitely is not going to provide an accurate picture of the metagame. Maybe during the first couple days of the suspect when a lot of your games would be against other people doing reqs. Someone in the NDUbers cord was posting a lot of replays from their run a few days ago and it definitely looked as though the ladder had returned to its normal state of tomfoolery. If you're interested in seeing a more accurate picture of the metagame NDP/FL recently finished and you could look through those replays. We also have an ongoing tournament and while there definitely is some tomfoolery there, the teams are generally at least real.
If you don't enjoy the dynamic of the metagame that is completely fair. However, Ubers metagames tend to be incredibly centralized due to the power level. Personally I'd say that is likely to increase if tera goes, but regardless of the outcome of this suspect the tier will remain quite centralized at the top. Most balance/bo teams have 3.5 slots filled in from the get go (Primal Groudon / Defogger / Arceus forme / likely at least one of Zygarde or Eternatus. This is going to be the case regardless of whether tera stays or leaves.
Not really sure which teams you used, but inexperience seems like a factor at play. From the mons you've listed it seems like you may have been running HO? That is definitely going to be more punishing if mistakes are made.
I get shit in ubers is suppose to be overpowered, but consistently dealing with shit like Marshadow that effortlessly outspeeds & 2HKOes the entire + can run a ton of cheese sets like Swagger + mirror Herb, sash, Scarf, etc. makes counterplay to it feel like a crapshoot. I think regardless of whether Tera is banned or not, a lot of the top heavy shit like Necrozma-DM, Zacian-C, and Marshadow, as well as other strategies like Webs, should be looked at.
A lot of this is just ladder tomfoolery. I've talked a bit on discord about how I feel Marshadow is potentially the most oppresive mon in the tier (either that or Yveltal imo), but these sets are either bad cheese (swagherb) or outright bad (sash) and I'm surethere is an equivilent in the tier(s) you main. I'm a bit surprised to see Necrozma-DM mentioned here multiple times unless it is referring to Ultra Necrozma?
As for Tera, its hard for me to say whether it contributed to this or not. The main Pokemon I felt it made feel annoying are maybe Zygarde and Zacian. Some others mentioned Yveltal, but I feel that Pokemon is a hard sell as "OP" when its just letting Zacian set up a free Swords Dance and sweep unopposed. Maybe if it runs Tera Fire Heat Wave but none of the teams I stole ran that. Other Pokemon like Necrozma-DM I think are just stupid regardless when they can run 50 million sets, many of which don't even use tera and blow back most of its "counterplay" effortlessly. Same with Marshadow. In a lot of games I didn't feel that tera really came into play barring maybe defensively Teraing Zygarde, an Arceus-Form, or Ho-Oh. Tera'ing shit like Zacian from my perspective always came to bite me back in the ass later because it becomes more vulnerable to priority, but IDK if others feel that way.
Tera definitely comes with an opportunity cost and the centralized nature of the tier means most teams will have ways to punish mons pre and post tera, particularly the more common ones such as Ho-Oh and Zygarde. At least this means that tera does involve some level of skill in the builder to mitigate this as it isn't just a 'I win now' button. I.e. Tera Poison on your Calm Mind Arceus-Dark to avoid a Sludge Bomb poison or Toxic from Eternatus is great, but the ubiquity of ground-types means this should not be done haphazardly and some positioning is required to work towards that win con. Zacian-C is yeah, if you give up the best defensive typing in the game, you'll definitely feel it defensively. The Extreme Speed resist is something a lot of HO teams quite appreciate. The increased offensive pressure does make up for it, but I'm also of the opinion that Zacian-C is quite overrated.
Overall, I could see myself voting either way on the suspect. I will probably try building more of my own teams and expirementing before making a final verdict.
I'd recommend looking at the replays mentioned earlier. It sucks that you did not have a good experience with this tier, but hopefully that was due to a bad laddering experience.
: obvious candidate. the only mon that was broken only with tera. this is fair i guess
: was broken with tera... but arguably more broken without tera since things can't just randomly tera normal or dark to stop it. yeah the calyrex isn't getting past yveltal anytime soon now without cheese strats but also it forces yveltal to be defensive (bad set) lest it just loses to something like np sash with rocks up. z-move sets are also still stupidly broken and obviously doesnt need tera.
: z-move sets are still arguably broken, scale shot sets are less broken since you cant tera fire and win on the spot but still unhealthy
: banned for z-moves. next
: cant even tera. next
: ok without tera? i still dont like how centralizing geoxern is but its way more managable when it cant just ohko your traditional checks with a button. more support sets like choice or defensive obviously are just not broken without tera.
: cant even tera.
(click for paste)
Irritants
Crossroads
(Mainly Tera Fire on Webs, but Flying and Dark can also be oppressive)
no longer gets blasted by +2 tera Electric/Stellar Thunder, and 
no longer get blasted by +2 tera Fighting Focus Blast
get blasted by +2 Scale Shot and +2 Flare Blitz respectively. 
would probably become sorta kinda viable maybe again but its far too ass to be a good reason to unban 
or shmacked by priority from 
. I much more often get goobed by 
can overwhelm it, it's easily phazed out by 
(
and maybe 
or others, and force an even bigger focus on 
making great use of it.
