Am I the only one who thinks this is a glorified complex ban/test just to avoid testing dragonite because of its many positive traits within the tier? Lets look at what pokemon use tera blast and what it does for their viability or overall presence in the tier.
Ubers: Former OU pokemon that have been banned that had tera blast as part of the reasoning behind the test
-Espathra: fundamentally fishy or degenerate pokemon that absolutely needs to respected and forces you to keep you dark types healthy so you aren't losing to dgleam + stored power in the endgame. Tblast realistically sped up this process but was not at the core of its degeneracy
-Regieleki: This guy just isn't great either way, if you run water blast for treads other grounds give you more issues and dragons now click vs you for free. Also a massive tera hog for an ok payoff. No one bothered to really test this guy because he doesn't really do anything.
-Volcarona: Does not matter if it has tera blast or not, if it has the right set it wins. Tera turns this up to 11, tblast to 12. It will do exactly what it has been doing for 15 years and 5 generations no matter what. Biggest change here is ensuring that dirge always beats it which is cool I guess.
-Roaring Moon: Leaving out personal thoughts on how this guy fixes the meta, fairy blast was one of the notable sets brought up during the suspect. However, like every other tblast pokemon, the opportunity cost is still glaringly there and bigger problems were just how strong it was after 1 dragon dance along with bulkier sets shifting how you may have to approach it. Something that exemplifies this is the corviknight interaction vs +1 moon where there is a 50/50 created between clicking idef or roost as the corviknight depending on if the moon clicks dragon dance or knock off, respectively.
-Gouging Fire: Tera blast fairy is the most notable tblast set, just like moon. However, the sheer bulk it had made dd sets very hard to shut down and banded sets in sun were pretty much impossible to switch into, with the afforementioned bulk making it hard to stop. Its stats seem alright but nothing stand-out on paper but it happened to be the perfect amalgamation of numbers to be too much. Tera blast or not, it had the tools to beat what it wanted to.
Poster children: OU pokemon that are leading the charge behind the current suspect
-Dragonite: This is public enemy #1 at the moment. The set variety that tera blast allows is beyond any pokemon we have seen bar volcarona. This pokemon can already use the majority of tera types reliably and tera blast increases the variety of these sets, with flying, fairy and ghost being used with tera blast. Its also bulky like 3 of the banned set-up pokemon. So why not just test this pokemon? Extreme speed sets keep a lot of other threatening pokemon in check like ogerpon, kingambit after tera, sun as an archetype, valiant, etc. It faces a very similar issue to volcarona where it offers very real benefits to the tier but also has a very degenerate aspect that is enabled by the exact same tool kit.
-Kingambit: Tera blast fairy, sometimes fly are what are used on this pokemon most frequently if its tblast. But there is such a big opportunity cost not having iron head or low kick paired up with kowtow as the 2nd attack. Instead of having potential opportunities to chip tusk/zama down with this midgame, you are now relying on using these pokemon as fodder and blowing them up in the endgame. There is a very clear give & take here and, ultimately gambit can do this regardless of tera blast since tera inherently allows it to do this.
-Dragapult: Banded dragapult is very honest and frankly if this was brought up by anyone as a reason to ban tera blast I could not take thier opinion seriously. The other set it runs with tera blast is dragon dance, usually fire. Dragapult is far frailer than all of the other dd abusers though, and is usually easier to navigate becuase of the inherent drawbacks + the set pulling away from its normal utility, which the banned pokemon, barring eleki, dragonite, and kingambit don't suffer, limits the usage of it.
-Kyurem: Ground, electric, fire are the most common ones used, specifically on DD sets. However the opportunity cost does become pretty glaring when the tera blast isn't the one needed or is otherwise dead weight in that match-up. At the moment we are seeing a lot more AV kyurems, leftovers, never-melt ice, choice specs, non-dd dice along with moves that don't need an additional cost because it is threatening as is thanks to 130 in both offenses and great coverage that can be slotted together easily.
-Enamorus: Scarf tera stellar, only tblast set it runs and is a reliable cleaner. Very frail and not super strong until 2 or 3 boosts so ample opportunities to stop it. I think it has a cool dynamic which isn't super unlike serperior in older generations but it trades some of the more dishonest bits (glare, subseed) and stab here for an unresisted attack that denies tera. Pretty neat addition to the tier.
Niche blasters: Pokemon that use tera blast occasionally but usually have more consistent or reliable tools to use
Note: I won't elaborate as much here since none of these pokemon are contentious at all
-Alomomola: Poison for ogerpon
-Ceruledge: Fairy for bypassing zama/tusk while resisting sucker
-Darkrai: Fairy on rest, sub plot
-Gliscor: Fairy on SD sets on occasion
-Iron Crown: Ground on sub cm to compress coverage, fblast is used over it as well
-Iron Moth: Ground for heatran and other fires, Dark to beat gking + resist sucker
-Iron Valiant: Ground in conjunction with tbolt or vacuum wave
-Landorus-Therian: Flying on scarf
-Pecharunt: Fighting on nasty plot on very specific HOs
-Raging Bolt: Ice to beat grounds or Fairy to beat lu, tusk, zama
-Rillaboom: Electric, Fire to beat through birds of different varieties, Fairy for dragons, all on SD sets
-Tornadus-Therian: Fairy on some teams on AV to beat bolt
-Zapdos: Ice to hit scor, lando
-Blaziken: Fairy to beat tusk, zama
-Iron Boulder: Fairy to beat tusk, zama
-Kommo-O: Fairy on certain rest clang sets
-Moltres-Galar: Fairy over hurricane on some sets
-Polteageist: Fighting to hit gambit & other darks
-Excadrill: Ice, Electric, Fire, Fairy for various targets
-Sandy Shocks: Ice or Fairy for grounds, dragons
-Serperior: Fire, Rock but these are ass don't run tblast
-Thundurus-Therian: Ice to hit grounds, Fly for stab
Going through all of the listed pokemon we see 3 important things, 1) Fairy blast (or ice in some cases) are the most commonly used additional coverage, often to bypass the fightings and grounds that keep these pokemon in check at the cost of losing a moveslot and having to either burn tera early or hold off on it until late game to ensure the intended payoff is there 2) Stabs for pokemon that lack a reliable stab of that type, pretty much all flying types 3) Set-up sweepers using tblast to beat typical answers. #2 is healthy and fine, everyone could probably agree.
#1 & #3 tie together directly largely. The pokemon that only gain coverage with no set-up that use tera blast are not dissimilar to hidden power users of the past but with a far greater opportunity cost, so these are non-issues. Getting back to the set-up pokemon, as previously mentioned in the blurb about kyurem and kingambit, there is still a glaring opportunity cost which prevents you from wearing down or breaking certain pokemon that normally check you but can be punished with standard coverage, and in the case of kingambit specifically it is the tera flip itself that is the most dangerous aspect not the tera blast. Obviously if you get the snipe you needed you are put in a great position to win the game however, is this really so different from teching weakness berries to flip interactions or getting hit by a surprise Z-move? It is harder to scout but often times with these pokemon, barring kingambit sometimes, will only ever get one opportunity to set-up and it is realistically very possible to force this tera out earlier than late game because of the constrained coverage without it. Once it is forced early, not only do you know the surprise/set, you are firmly placed in control since that team will often rely on that unexpected mu flip to win or they tera something else & lose that flip entirely.
This leaves just dragonite. Dragonite, more than any pokemon legal in SV OU ever, besides volcarona, abuses tera blast in a very unpredictable way. Its movepool is extremely deep and colorful due to being a gen 1 pokemon, multiscale bolsters its bulk, and its great special attack even lets it run sets like edgequake hurricane in the past to bypass tusk. This ability to mix and match arguably gives it the largest range of viable teras with the 2nd most types of usable, common tera blasts besides excadrill which is far more limited in scope. However, I think there is one big reasons why dnite is still kept around & tera blast is being tested instead of just dnite here. Lopping tera blast off of its toolkit limits some of the crazier sets (bulky fairy to beat pech, fly for high damage output on dd sets) while keeping the extreme speed sets. The amount of strong offensive pokemon with crazy speed tiers is obviously very high, no need to elaborate here but, besides gambit, which every mon techs for, there isn't another reliable option to shut down these threats. Bulky dd and dtail sets also work as fantastic options to curb ogerpon and sun in one slot. But since dnite clearly is the actual problem child here, why wasn't this addressed directly and then tier things as needed later down the line? Why neuter every other user which has extremely defined constraints when there is only 1 glaringly variance heavy abuser?
In defense of dragonite however, the sets, not unlike roaring moon, can be roughly deduced. Bulky offense? Espeed. HO? Tblast. Aggressive hazard control? It lacks boots and will be a greedier (lefties, bulky cloak etc.) set. There is also generally pretty limited overlap between movesets, with dragon dance being the move that is overlapped 99% of the time, with earthquake, roost and encore carrying some overlap. Even then, the structure will give away if that earthquake dragonite is tblast or espeed often enough and roost, encore can be estimated from the item as well. Compare this to the two pokemon who are banned and had said ban attributed to tera blast to an extent as well, Volcarona & Roaring Moon. Both of these have 2 guarenteed moves rather than 1, with quiver dance + fire move or dragon dance + knock off. They diverge from here. Moon has a far more limited movepool, with 2 of acro, taunt, eq, tblast, roost rounding off the set more often than not. This limited pool + team structure usually makes it pretty predictable. Volcarona, like dragonite, has a deeper pool to pull from including sub, wisp, secondary stab, morning sun, giga drain and 4 different viable tera blasts. Because of the high variance of its last 2 slots which flip games way beyond anything else ever legal in the tier could do, being able to reveal 2 moves without unveiling any information on the set and, unlike dragonite in most instances, volcarona does not need to have its tera align with a tera blast or move in its movepool. In practice, it ends up ok enough to manage just because of how much information the item, attack clicked transmits compared to even non-problematic tera blasters and its raw power is good but not great, often needing +2 to kill with super effective moves on bulkier pokemon, barring fly blast, which gives reasonable opportunity to navigate it. There is also the fact that it is slower than many scarfers at +1, and slower than booster pokemon, some scarfers at +2 if you don't give up much needed power for jolly.
At the moment I am Do Not Ban because it feels largely managable but, I can't say I would lament it getting cut.
