Okay I am curious.
This doesn't really completely pertain to the OU game specifically "More like every teir, I just think this is the best place to ask" and I am probably brain storming a bit, but here goes.
I am growing more and more frustrated with competitive pokemon, especially with the prominence of fighting, steel and rock type pokemon. Who all resist dark, bug, normal and poison type pokemon. "Many of which tend to dwell in lower tiers" It feels overly centralized.
One thing I don't and probably never will understand is why put restrictions on sleep inducers? Originally when 5'th generation was released the reasoning was that there shouldn't be moves that force you to set your pokemon a certain way. The sleep inducers would simply force players to have to play a certain way and that that isn't fair.
I point at stealth rock. Now don't get me wrong guys I'm not trying to pick on the meta game. But it basically forces you to have a rapid spin user or suffer extreme consequences. I understand that this move helps deal with focus sash and sturdy and that's all well and good, but there's no denying that stealth rock DOMINATES this game.
I got to thinking, because I play NU quite a bit, that there simply isn't that many ways to deal with stealth rock users. There's hardly any rapid spinners left "Not that many to begin with" and only armaldo, torkoal and wartortle are even viable. I tend to lead with electrode, because he can drop a really fast taunt and then help me set up but I digress. That eventually those rocks will go down and I will have to spin them or suffer the consequences.
One way I thought of dealing with stealth rock "Just casually one time" was maybe I can punish them by putting them to sleep. Then I realized just how bad sleep inducing moves really are. Because of the prominence of T-Wave and Toxic, lum berry and heal bell are pretty common place. I found it really restricted the usefulness of sleep inducing moves. Sleep only lasts for a randomly chosen duration of 1 to 3 turns, often I found that actually using my sleep inducer to set up was extremely difficult against players who are experienced.
The reason I mentioned dark, bug, normal and poison type pokemon earlier, is because these pokemon tend to be the sleep inducers "Obviously psychic pokemon can do it too, but they've always kicked ass." Pokemon like butterfree would actually get a chance to shine should the sleep clause be absconded with. Which could be neat considering that sleep inducing is obviously what game freak set it up to do. I think that returning the ability to effectively induce sleep would give a lot of these pokemon a fighting chance against the overly popular pokemon who simply dominate them.
And like I said, the only reason I was given was that it would force players to use certain sets and pokemon "Which is unfair they say.". To which I can only respond "Like stealth rocks?"
They say that sleep "Takes one pokemon out of the game" I think that's an extreme overestimation. Stealth rock is a move that essentially renders many pokemon unusable. And before you disagree please realize that the BST 580 Legendary Articuno is NU and one of the reasons given is "but it's utterly crippled by Stealth Rock".
I could be completely full of shit and have no idea what I am talking about here, but this is where the actual question comes in.
If people are forced to find a way around stealth rock why can't we find a way around sleep inducing "Besides crippling it". Just like with rapid spinners and stealth rock users, lum berry and heal bell is already common place. You can just as easily taunt a sleep inducer as a stealth rock user. And many sleep inducers are weak to scarf users "Mega common" and stealth rock "Also mega common and renders focus sash useless, also makes them easier to be killed by scarf users" I mean come on.
I was thinking about gathering about 16 or so players just for fun. Then they all build teams for various tiers "To give a better spectrum of sleep inducers". The difference is there is no sleep clause and everyone would be informed as much.
What do you think would happen?
I wonder what you guys think, you're the experts.