Just gonna make some points here that I already discussed a bit with some council members. I think too many people here are, as of now, throwing opinions into the arena without keeping any sort of general tiering philosophy in mind. The way I see it, the upcoming ban (assuming something will be banned) simply has to solve one single issue: preventing sun from becoming an unhealthy playstyle in PU. We are under no obligation to keep sun as a viable playstyle (considering it's a very niche playstyle, the "if sun is nerfed too much the meta will lose a lot of variety"-argument is a moot point), nor are we under any obligation to keep any Pokemon (in this case Victreebel) because it's not broken outside of sun (Smogon has never refrained from banning something because one set wasn't broken, and we never will).
First things first, though: should sun be nerfed? This is probably the easiest part of the suspect test. Sun is hard to prepare for, and because it's such a niche playstyle most people wouldn't consciously prepare for it, which leads to an uphill battle for the person who isn't using sun most of the time. Sun is matchup reliant to such a degree that it can't be considered healthy in this meta, and therefore, a nerf is justified.
The optimal way to nerf sun is, in my opinion, to ban Victreebel. The reason why sun is so hard to prepare for as of now is because Victreebel's combination of great power, amazing coverage, high speed in sun, and access to a sleep inducing move to get past its checks make it way too much of a threat. The other sun sweepers, while good, have more defined counters (Sawsbuck and Leafeon struggle vs Tangela, Torterra, Pawniard, Fire-type sun sweepers are troubles by bulky Waters) and as a result, these threats are much easier to prepare for without having to make an otherwise suboptimal choice for your team. Sun becomes way less threatening without Victreebel, and keeping the Smogon tiering philosophy in mind, this means that we should prefer to ban a Pokemon rather than an item/move/ability, and thus we should prefer to ban Victreebel. Victreebel causes sun to be as unhealthy as it is, and not only does that give us a more formally correct reason for banning it rather than any of the other options listed, but it also causes very little collateral damage. Banning any of the other things that were listed would lead sun to be completely garbage (sun without Heat Rock might still be usable, but probably not), whereas banning Victreebel won't make sun bad, but it will make building for sun and using it harder and therefore healthier. The only other collateral damage we experience is that we lose Victreebel, which honestly isn't a considerable threat outside of sun anyway, so the meta is hardly reshaped if we do end up banning Vic. Like I said, we are under no obligation to prevent sun from becoming unviable, but even if we were, I still think banning Victreebel would be the best solution.
If you agree with me that
First things first, though: should sun be nerfed? This is probably the easiest part of the suspect test. Sun is hard to prepare for, and because it's such a niche playstyle most people wouldn't consciously prepare for it, which leads to an uphill battle for the person who isn't using sun most of the time. Sun is matchup reliant to such a degree that it can't be considered healthy in this meta, and therefore, a nerf is justified.
The optimal way to nerf sun is, in my opinion, to ban Victreebel. The reason why sun is so hard to prepare for as of now is because Victreebel's combination of great power, amazing coverage, high speed in sun, and access to a sleep inducing move to get past its checks make it way too much of a threat. The other sun sweepers, while good, have more defined counters (Sawsbuck and Leafeon struggle vs Tangela, Torterra, Pawniard, Fire-type sun sweepers are troubles by bulky Waters) and as a result, these threats are much easier to prepare for without having to make an otherwise suboptimal choice for your team. Sun becomes way less threatening without Victreebel, and keeping the Smogon tiering philosophy in mind, this means that we should prefer to ban a Pokemon rather than an item/move/ability, and thus we should prefer to ban Victreebel. Victreebel causes sun to be as unhealthy as it is, and not only does that give us a more formally correct reason for banning it rather than any of the other options listed, but it also causes very little collateral damage. Banning any of the other things that were listed would lead sun to be completely garbage (sun without Heat Rock might still be usable, but probably not), whereas banning Victreebel won't make sun bad, but it will make building for sun and using it harder and therefore healthier. The only other collateral damage we experience is that we lose Victreebel, which honestly isn't a considerable threat outside of sun anyway, so the meta is hardly reshaped if we do end up banning Vic. Like I said, we are under no obligation to prevent sun from becoming unviable, but even if we were, I still think banning Victreebel would be the best solution.
If you agree with me that
- Victreebel is the only thing that makes sun worthy of a nerf
- We should prefer to ban Pokemon rather than items/abilities
- "Collateral damage" should be kept to a minimum