- Why isn't Sand Veil allowed the premiums of being a weather ability, despite Snow Cloak being allowed, AND other Weather abilities and effects being several times more powerful than Sand Veil on a fundamental scale?
- Why is Rough Skin completely overlooked when thinking about the power of Sand Veil Garchomp, as it's a more consistent ability that's better to use for 4/5 weather types (including weatherless)? What actually makes Sand Veil Garchomp "so much better"?
i couldn't tell if you were challenging detractors to answer these questions, or if you yourself were asking them, but i will go ahead and answer them anyway
as for #1, let us first make it clear that the council has, REPEATEDLY, indicated that snow cloak is not an acceptable topic for discussion in this thread. so we will ignore that altogether.
next, if we compare sand veil to other weather abilities like sand rush, it's obvious sand veil is inferior. the thing is that we aren't banning it because it's too strong. it so happens that garchomp becomes extraordinarily strong while it's active, but that's not the real problem. the problem is that sand veil is an ability that functions on hax where as no other weather abilities are (bar snow cloak, which is not up for discussion here). swift swim and sand rush were very powerful, and on some mons they were overpowered, but without a doubt, successful abuse of those abilities is almost entirely due to good play. sand veil, on the other hand, can only be abused by playing for luck. we can argue all day about players being superior or deserving to win, but the fact of sand veil is that a game already won can be turned against you instantly on a 20% roll. checking garchomp intelligently and properly can still be punished when your hidden power ice misses. other weather abilities like sand rush, chlorophyll and rain dish are not fundamentally luck based. perhaps your weather starter got critted and as a result those abilities rule the remainder of your game, but that luck was external to the abilities themselves.
you can argue that other abilities are also luck based, and some would agree with you (not saying i agree or disagree), but the council has made two things clear: that right now, sand veil and garchomp, and NOTHING ELSE, are up for discussion, and two, that not all forms of hax are created equal. right now sand veil is on the block, and without a doubt, it is an ability that centers on luck. thus it doesn't matter that other weather abilities are stronger than sand veil, or more powerful or game-defining than sand veil. they are not as luck based as sand veil, and that is the real metric of discussion here. (of course there are still arguments being had about whether garchomp, not veil, is the real problem, or whether veil is a problem at all, etc etc. i don't really get into those ones too much but they are also present)
next, #2: there are two reasons to run sand veil garchomp. one is to abuse the hax yourself, and the other is because you believe you can turn it against your enemy. any garchomp can abuse it, but the only one that can claim to abuse it safely and consistently is the infamous subsd chomp.
when you bring the sand yourself, subsd veil chomp is generally the best set. we can talk about how it is luck driven and it will not always pay off, but people are right in observing that you have roughly a one in three chance to break all five of garchomp's substitutes with a 100% accuracy move, assuming each hit you land will break a sub (0.8^5=0.32768 chance of hitting all 5 subs). garchomp runs out of subs after the fifth one at which point it is open to destruction, but if you miss even one sub, garchomp sds, you may or may not break it next turn, and the game may well be over. those odds are pretty damn good when even a single swords dance from garchomp will end the game, and god forbid it gets a second sub up before sweeping in which case it is now also revenge proof (bar multihits like cloyster icicle spear). this set has performed at the top in every meta in which sand veil chomp was legal and although the odds are not always in its favor, its history speaks for itself. in sand, it sweeps and wallbreaks incredibly reliably. this is why sand veil chomp is "so much better". rough skin can still attempt to subsd, but its subs will be broken much much more consistently. statistically, it will never pull off as many subsd sweeps as veil chomp will.
i frankly agree with you that rough skin is the more reliable ability when you don't bring the sand. the problem is that on the suspect ladder, sand usage percentage is unrealistically inflated. EVERYONE wants to run sand veil chomp and that leads to like a third of the teams carrying sand stream, which is double what it is in standard OU. suddenly the chances of you bumping into sand are a hell of a lot higher. and if you're running your own sand veil chomp, you now have roughly a 2 in 9 chance that on any battle you go into, you'll score a sand veil miss as you go through your five subs, and suddenly countersweep someone's sand team (1/3 chance of running into sand, and 1/3 chance of all five subs being broken meaning a 2/3 chance of retaining at least one along the way). 2/9 is not a great chance, eh? hardly as good as 2/3 chance of holding a sub when you bring the sand yourself, but it's still enough to convince people, and at the very least, it gives sand veil a fighting chance against rough skin in the ability arena.
the bottom line is that as long as sand exists in OU, and garchomp is allowed to run sand veil in some way, shape or form, there is always a possibility that garchomp will find itself in sand, sub up and sweep someone. the chances get lower if sand usage falls or if you can't bring the sand yourself, but they still exist. what is the point where we can say that rough skin outclasses sand veil? it's arguable. i myself argued that the point was as high as the 16% usage in OU, but there will always be someone running sand veil, fishing for that chance. that's a chance they'll never get if they have rough skin. do they know what they're missing by sacrificing rough skin? maybe, maybe not, but obviously if they thought rough skin was more useful, they'd be running it right? that's why people run veil chomp on non-sand teams.
