Lower Tiers Changes to GSC NU

[Earthworm]

​

It's been a while since the last discussion about GSC NU. GSC NU was played in NUPL for the first time this year (thanks to Eternally and rozes for making this happen), but my understanding is that based on how it panned out this year, the NU community is looking to exclude it next year. In addition, the overall sentiment towards the tier is pretty negative from what I have heard. As it is a tier not included in any official circuits, we should have the power to correct this.

So what I think is at the core of the issues the tier faces are a few things. First, the two arguably best Pokemon, Raichu and Poliwrath, both wall themselves. You can run HP Ground Raichu or a boosting Poliwrath but there are big flaws with taking that approach (namely that Poliwrath has numerous counters that aren't Poliwrath and that HP Ground Raichu is walled by Exeggcute and Dragonair). Secondly, the strength of their RestTalk sets is overwhelming, and a sub point of that is that Raichu speed ties (and sleep talk rolls) are too crucial to game outcomes. These issues pose a problem in both team building and gameplay. Raichu almost forces you to use it due to its strength, the fact it checks opposing Raichu, and the fact it checks many important Pokemon like Xatu, Golduck, and Kingler. This then leads to wanting defensive stability against Raichu for times you don't want to depend on a speed tie, which is exceedingly difficult to achieve without Exeggcute or Dragonair. Poliwrath is added for Dugtrio and Shuckle for Normal-types and general walling purposes, and you then have the "NUPL defensive core", which is very passive and proved to be nearly impenetrable as it kept adapting to ideas designed to surpass it (Haze Poliwrath to beat CurseStoss Tung, DrumTung, and BP, HP Electric Wrath for SubSD Kingler, etc).

I found playing games with and against this core to be very tedious and unrewarding personally, but I contributed to its perpetuation because I wanted to win my games. I did manage to successfully deviate entirely on occasion, but almost anything you can do can be adapted to.

Another issue is high stakes Pineco speed ties. Unfortunately, Pineco does not live an opposing Pineco's Explosion unlike Cloyster and Forretress in OU. However, Spikes are an important game element so I think we don't have much choice but to accept that for what it is.

It was enjoyable to see NU played at a high level in NUPL for me despite this, although it did highlight the problems in the metagame in a harsh light.

In terms of addressing the problem, I think the best way to approach this will be to ban one or more Pokemon. I'm aware that many players want us to ban Raichu, and that is definitely an option on the table. However, I am concerned by the high chance that simply banning Raichu will lead to a metagame dominated by bulky Water-types, Xatu, and perhaps Kingler. Therefore, another option I'd like to raise is banning Raichu, Poliwrath, and Golduck all at once. These are the other two Water-types that were introduced along with Feraligatr just over a year ago. They are both bulky and Golduck is very powerful. Right now Raichu keeps Golduck in check, but if we ban Raichu, the only somewhat reliable checks will be other Water-types. I can't see this being a desirable thing for the metagame. Poliwrath may be less oppressive offensively with Pokemon like Xatu, Fearow, and Kingler keeping it in check somewhat, but it is still a Water-type of much higher calibre than the others in the tier like Octillery, Dewgong, and Mantine. I think the overall effect of banning these Pokemon will be to make the tier less Speed tie and mirror match reliant and more offensive, which I think would be a welcome change from the current state of things. Another suggestion I've gotten is to consider dropping Vileplume into NU to add a strong Grass-type where there is currently a dearth of them. I am not sure how this would affect the metagame at this stage but I am wary of adding a Pokemon that is of similar strength to the few at the top. I do acknowledge that it would have the potential to significantly shake things up though. The last option I am currently considering is to accept the metagame for what it is and do nothing, which most people seem to find undesirable.

At this stage I just want to facilitate discussion. Anyone who has played or is interested in NU is more than welcome to participate. I'm also open to suggestions other than the four options above. Once discussion has somewhat died down then I'll figure out how to make a decision on this. Anyone is welcome to provide input on that process too. Hopefully the end of this process results in a more enjoyable GSC NU.

For easy reference, here are some links to existing NU resources:
GSC NU VR (arguably outdated since not updated post-NUPL)
NUPL Usage Stats
NUPL Replays

Tagging everyone who played at least one game of GSC NU in NUPL:
Sage -Tsunami- Watchog HSA Diophantine TonyFlygon Bouff ggggd DurzaOffTopic elodin lax Shiba Teddeh soulgazer

 

[Earthworm]

Apparently the tags didn't work so:
Sage -Tsunami- Watchog Diophantine HSA TonyFlygon Bouff ggggd DurzaOffTopic elodin lax Shiba Teddeh soulgazer

 

[Bouff]

thanks for making this thread ew, it's good to see some discussion on how this tier can be better. got some quickish thoughts here so its a bit disorganized

the most pressing matter imo is for sure raichu, it has like 10 different viable sets but there's a whole lot of benefit to stray from thunder / hp ground / resttalk, running hp ground gives you much higher chances of winning potential raichu wars considering that nothing else does as much damage to it and while surf does help out in punishing dugtrio switches + ohkoing graveler, both of them are a lot easier to cover than raichu. not that it's to the point where whoever wins the 1v1 wins the game but obviously it does give you a significant advantage. you can fit on more counterplay to it in duggy, dragonair, and exeggcute but they all have their own set of problems. duggy is kind of weak so it's kind of specialized to checking things that are weak to eq and not much else, dragonair is passive and eggy is susceptible to a lot of threats like xatu, fearow, and the fire-types (it does have boom though which is obviously always a major thing to have for any team)

if raichu is banned i can see golduck becoming problematic, poliwrath not so much for the reasons you mentioned. with a spike up hydro pump from golduck 2hkos almost everything that doesnt resist it, with the things that can reliably do so being wigglytuff, lickitung, and hitmontop. almost every grass type can say the same with ib barring sunflora, which takes 41-49.2 which isn't exactly the most comforting especially when you're also using it as a dugtrio answer. water types also have psychic / hp elec to fear, though at the very least that wasn't really common and you'd be seeing sets like resttalk instead. honestly to be fair i might just be really paranoid considering a lot of the time when golduck was used this nupl season it was resttalk variants and not just pure offensive ones. this game does come to mind though when i think of how it can be really scary, but maybe that's moreso just that baton pass can be really effective in this meta.

vileplume could be an interesting addition to the meta but i do have concerns about it. it does have a good amount of offensive checks, sharing some with poliwrath, but i can see curse or sd / sludge bomb / hp ground / moonlight sets running through teams late game, it has a lot of the benefits weezing does (obviously doesnt have boom) but it has more sustainability in the long term and there isn't a whole lot that really wants to deal with a boosted sludge bomb.

idk i feel like at the end of the day there's gonna be something that's really polarizing in this meta, if we were to go with banning all 3 i can see things like dugtrio sudowoodo graveler and rapidash all becoming much better. banning as little as possible is the most desirable thing imo, but given how games went down in nupl i would probably go with banning raichu at the very least. maaaaybe golduck but i'm not totally sure on that one and i do wanna think about it a bit more. as you said banning the three would make the meta less dependent on mirror matches, and golduck mirrors becoming more commonplace is definitely something that i can imagine happening

also ftr i didnt actually play a game this season lol since mine was dead game'd but i did spend a good amount of time theorizing and testing stuff so maybe i can speak a little on this topic idk

 

[Bughouse]

I think the single biggest problem with GSC NU is the lack of a viable Grass that can keep both Raichu and waters in check. I do believe dropping Vileplume would be centralizing in its own way but it would at least make people think twice before using a passive water or a Raichu due to how Vileplume capitalized on them. It also has plenty of natural checks that aren’t itself, such as Weezing Xatu and Fearow.

I think you’d see an awful lot of teams with the same 6 in a meta with Vileplume, but you at least wouldn’t be relying on speed ties and/or pp stalling rest wars as often.

 

[Earthworm]

Something else I want to note regarding all of these options barring "do nothing" is that they all benefit Xatu. Xatu is already a top tier Pokemon due to its high Speed and scarcely resisted STAB Psychic. Banning Raichu is removing the most common check in the tier, and adding Vileplume would add additional value to Xatu and reduce the value of one of Xatu's most prominent checks (Raichu). Xatu does have more reliable answers than Raichu due to its STAB move's lower BP, lack of useful accompanying coverage moves, and worse secondary effect chance, but it would be inaccurate to say that it has a lot of reliable and common checks. I would expect one of the most prominent checks in a Raichu-less GSC NU to be an opposing Xatu, which I expect will use HP Dark to deal with it. However, Pokemon like Mantine, Dewgong, Ninetales, Sneasel, and Magnemite (which is not seen ever in the current meta due to Raichu) should also be fairly reliable at fighting it.

Banning Raichu also significantly buffs boosting Water-types, including Kingler, Poliwrath, and Poliwhirl (and maybe even Corsola). Xatu, especially with Haze, is one of the best checks to these in a theoretical metagame without Raichu. These threats are also worth considering now in terms of how hard they will be to deal with if Raichu is banned. Kingler is already extremely dangerous, especially for more passive teams. However, its effectiveness partially depends on there being enough setup fodder for it (or enough paralysed foes). Poliwrath is very likely to be a fierce threat with the numerous options it can use alongside Belly Drum--it can use Body Slam alongside Earthquake or Surf to paralyse Haze users like opposing Poliwrath or Xatu, then Rest if necessary before setting up a drum and sweeping. It could alternatively use LK alongside either BDrum or Growth. Poliwhirl is similar to Poliwrath but a lot less bulky in exchange for having more speed. Without Raichu around, there are fewer fast Pokemon that can revenge kill a drummed up Poliwhirl.


I agree with Bughouse about the likely effects of unleashing Vileplume on the tier. I could realistically see teams all having Pineco / Raichu / Xatu / Vileplume / Water-type (Poliwrath?) / Filler (Rock-type?) and I don't expect there would be many compelling reasons to deviate from that. Vileplume itself would certainly suffer from 4MSS, struggling to fit in HP Ground alongside Sludge Bomb for coverage, a boosting move, status, and recovery, let alone a Grass-type STAB attack. For that reason I don't think it would be conventionally broken, but I also don't see its presence necessarily being an improvement. I would expect it to be an excellent Pokemon for spreading paralysis and would probably be amazing at setting up Kingler, DrumTung, or DrumWrath for success. I don't really like the idea of a set of four or five Pokemon that have significantly greater utility than the entire rest of the tier with few (or no) viable alternatives.


One potential argument against the triple simultaneous ban proposed in the OP is how it would affect Dugtrio. I am uncertain just how good Dugtrio might be in a metagame with no Raichu / Poliwrath / Golduck. Removing what is by far the best counter in the tier seems scary for such a fast and dangerous Pokemon, but if we are also removing what is easily the most common entrance point for Dugtrio (Raichu), it's possible that Dugtrio will become more manageable. Dugtrio was a huge threat in the older NU metagame with Pikachu, Mr. Mime, and Haunter, but those three Pokemon were all potential high value entry points for it, and them being common also improved its effectiveness. Dewgong being the bulkiest remaining Water-type is a concern due to the power of fast Substitute and Rock Slide flinch chance, but I expect there will be fewer opportunities for Dugtrio to take advantage of in general, despite the presence of Weezing and the numerous powerful Fire-types that will have weaker Water-types to deal with.

 

[Enigami]

Dewgong isn't the bulkiest remaining Water-type if Poliwrath is banned, Azumarill is followed very closely by Kingler (strictly on the physical side for Kingler). Dugtrio only has a ~40% chance of 4HKO on them wiht Earthquake, whereas Dewgong is a reliable 4HKO with Earthquake or Rock Slide. Octillery and Seadra also avoid the 4HKO (if spikes aren't down), and Seaking and Wartortle have shakey 3HKOs. Plenty of usable Dugtrio-checking bulky Waters to play with. There's also the issue that Dewgong doesn't resist Fire, even Kingler does a better job at answering Fire-types if the Fire-type doesn't have HP Grass/Electric.

This is before considering Flying-types like Xatu, Fearow and Pidgeot will have an easier time with Raichu gone, which also check Dugtrio.

Golduck has a pretty easy offensive Water replacement in Seadra, it has the exact same SpA and Speed stats. However, Seadra lacks Hypnosis and Psychic coverage, and is far less bulky on the special side, so it would be easier to check than Golduck.

Assuming all 3 bans go through, Elekid might be able to fill Raichu's shoes... somewhat. Base 95 Speed makes it faster than all NU Water-types and it can even take on Golduck and Poliwrath 1v1 (needs Thunder for Wrath though). With those two banned, certain alternatives like Kingler, Seadra and Poliwhirl are susceptible to being OHKO'd by Elekid despite the major drop in SpA compared to Raichu. Lack of bulk making it typically KO'd a turn faster than Raichu, reduced overall power, no Surf (can't OHKO Graveler or 2HKO Dugtrio) and being slower than Fearow is all rough for it though. Voltorb could also be a consideration. It's weaker than Elekid, but doesn't have to worry about speed ties with Xatu or Primeape, has Explosion, and has the speed to make Fearow sweat in the 1v1.

 

[Earthworm]

Dewgong isn't the bulkiest remaining Water-type if Poliwrath is banned, Azumarill is followed very closely by Kingler (strictly on the physical side for Kingler). Dugtrio only has a ~40% chance of 4HKO on them wiht Earthquake, whereas Dewgong is a reliable 4HKO with Earthquake or Rock Slide. Octillery and Seadra also avoid the 4HKO (if spikes aren't down), and Seaking and Wartortle have shakey 3HKOs. Plenty of usable Dugtrio-checking bulky Waters to play with. There's also the issue that Dewgong doesn't resist Fire, even Kingler does a better job at answering Fire-types if the Fire-type doesn't have HP Grass/Electric.

This is before considering Flying-types like Xatu, Fearow and Pidgeot will have an easier time with Raichu gone, which also check Dugtrio.

Golduck has a pretty easy offensive Water replacement in Seadra, it has the exact same SpA and Speed stats. However, Seadra lacks Hypnosis and Psychic coverage, and is far less bulky on the special side, so it would be easier to check than Golduck.

Assuming all 3 bans go through, Elekid might be able to fill Raichu's shoes... somewhat. Base 95 Speed makes it faster than all NU Water-types and it can even take on Golduck and Poliwrath 1v1 (needs Thunder for Wrath though). With those two banned, certain alternatives like Kingler, Seadra and Poliwhirl are susceptible to being OHKO'd by Elekid despite the major drop in SpA compared to Raichu. Lack of bulk making it typically KO'd a turn faster than Raichu, reduced overall power, no Surf (can't OHKO Graveler or 2HKO Dugtrio) and being slower than Fearow is all rough for it though. Voltorb could also be a consideration. It's weaker than Elekid, but doesn't have to worry about speed ties with Xatu or Primeape, has Explosion, and has the speed to make Fearow sweat in the 1v1.

Thanks for the correction regarding Dewgong, I was going off memory of what people tended to use in the old meta. Azumarill should function fine for Dugtrio and Kingler could even be used defensively with like Crabhammer Double-Edge RestTalk or something. From memory, Azumarill comes close to the bulk of Gatr/Wrath, so if it becomes popular we may end up not seeing the rise of the Fire-types after all... But I have hope that due to how weak it is, Pokemon like the Normal- and Fighting-types should be able to threaten it a lot more reasonably than they could Gatr or Poliwrath

For the other replacements, I don't see them being nearly as much of a problem. Even if they have the Speed and offensive stats, the bulk is very important since it determines what they can switch in on safely and how many times. It's certainly nice to know that alternatives exist.

 

[Bughouse]

Azumarill is an interesting thought. But at least in the current meta, afaik Dewgong and Mantine are far better, generally speaking, and Kingler certainly much better for an offensive option that happens to be a Water type.

Azumarill Double-Edge vs. Kingler: 52-62 (16.6 - 19.8%)
Azumarill would therefore likely be forced into HP Electric/Grass much like Poliwrath sometimes was running to avoid being setup fodder.

I could potentially see a Curse Rest Surf Return/Edge set working though, since in a meta without Raichu, I'm not sure too many things 3HKO Azumarill. With NU not having a Heal Bell user though outside of Snubbull, I don't think it would be too strong though, if you can force it out while resting.

 

[Enigami]

Azumarill is an interesting thought. But at least in the current meta, afaik Dewgong and Mantine are far better, generally speaking, and Kingler certainly much better for an offensive option that happens to be a Water type.

Yeah, Azumarill with its awful 50/50 offenses would be stuck as a purely defensive option (outside of Curse/Drum), but any reason Octillery wouldn't be considered? 75/75/75 Defenses is decent enough, it avoids the 3HKO from Dugtrio's Earthquake and comes with rather strong 105/105 offenses.

 

[Earthworm]

Octillery was a top-tier water-type in old GSC NU but was not a great Dugtrio answer from memory due to Spikes and not often running two coverage moves that hit it hard alongside RestTalk etc.

Discussion appears to be slowing down a bit so I am going to add a poll to the thread to see approximately where community opinion lies. This will not be used to determine which path is taken; I will set up a google form for that purpose at a later date.

 

[Earthworm]

Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll. It looks like the two main options being discussed in the thread are the ones people feel would be best. It's now time for the actual vote on the changes to the tier. The form will be open for at least a week but may be open longer depending on how quickly people vote. I intend to use an instant-runoff voting methodology to determine the winning option. As this is a public form, I may potentially decide not to count people's votes if I feel they do not have enough experience or knowledge to have a meaningful opinion, and the questions towards the beginning of the form are intended to help me with this. However, please don't be discouraged from voting, as I expect not to have to exclude many people.

Link to the form

 

[Earthworm]

Most people I expected to fill out the form have now done so. Just waiting on HSA now, since he was instrumental in the development of the metagame through his prolific and innovative team building during NUPL.

 

[Earthworm]

(sorry for the triple post...)

The results are in.

Raichu, Poliwrath, and Golduck are now banned from GSC NU.


The following users voted: Century Express, Earthworm, Bughouse, Eo Ut Mortus, Sage, Diophantine, elodin, Bouff, Watchog, TonyFlygon, Chippy2001, HSA

Of these, I initially excluded Eo Ut Mortus and Chippy2001 on the basis that Eo Ut Mortus was clearly trolling (e.g. he selected incompatible answers and one of his responses was "The ubiquity of Raichu makes it difficult to run paternal strategies") and Chippy2001 claims to have played 26-50 friendly games (which I am already quite sceptical about) and no tournament or even ladder games.

I then proceeded to evaluate the results based on the remaining 10 voters, however that ended in a tie at 5-5. You can see the evaluation in the sheets "R1", "R2", and "R3". To break this tie, I decided to include the two users who I had omitted from the previous round, and this resulted in a 7-5 victory for the "Ban Raichu, Poliwrath, and Golduck" option. You can see this in the "Redo" sheets.

The responses to the other questions are also below (in order of response):

What is your Smogon username?	Approximately how many games of GSC NU have you played?	Where have you played GSC NU?	When have you played GSC NU?	How much do you like the current GSC NU metagame?	Why do you like or dislike the current GSC NU metagame?	[Ban Raichu only]	[Ban Raichu, Poliwrath, and Golduck]	[Allow Vileplume]	[Do not change anything]	Please explain your reasoning for choosing the above order.
Century Express	26-50	Friendly games, RoA Tour Nights, Ladder, Tournaments hosted on Smogon, Other tournaments	During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame	4		Third preference	Fourth preference	First preference	Second preference	"I totally support the Vileplume drop. It should be a good metagame addition, reducing some of GSC NU's previous issues (reactive / Sleep Talk oriented / stalemates scenarios between Raichu dittos / Bulky-Waters dittos), while providing more room to build momentum with SDers and Cursers I'm not too much interested in GSC NU meta without Vileplume, though"
Earthworm	101+	Friendly games, NUPL, RoA Tour Nights, Ladder, Tournaments hosted on Smogon, Other tournaments	During the Mr. Mime and Pikachu metagame, During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame	2	The outcome of Raichu 1v1s has too much impact on game outcomes and stall is too powerful, which creates undesirable win determinants.	Second preference	First preference	Third preference	Fourth preference	With Raichu gone, the Water-types would be too powerful, so I would prefer to save time and ban them now. I believe that unbanning Vileplume would be going in the wrong direction and would lead to a metagame where teams are very similar and win determinants in games between high skill players are more likely to be luck than out-team building or outplaying, and it would also take a lot of time to come to these conclusions. Therefore, I would prefer to ban just Raichu over unbanning Vileplume. I also don't particularly like the idea of unbanning a Pokemon that was determined to be B rank in the UU VR. However, I'd still prefer to do something rather than nothing.
Bughouse	26-50	Friendly games, RoA Tour Nights, Tournaments hosted on Smogon	During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame	3		Fourth preference	Second preference	First preference	Third preference	"I'm ranking my preferences in the order of what I think will create the most stable metagames. These may also have lower teambuilding variety, but it will avoid having mons that are countered best by themselves. Allowing vileplume provides a counter to waters and electrics, while Vileplume is best countered by other mons like Flying types or Weezing. I do not like just banning Raichu, because water types may become pretty untenable and be best countered by other water types. In addition, I think in a meta with no Raichu but also the best water type being Poliwrath, Xatu will be a menace. I'd prefer doing nothing to this potentially very bad outcome. By contrast, banning the best waters, Poliwrath and Golduck, along with Raichu will prevent water types from being such an unstoppable force. Other usable water types with a wide variety of niches will still exist, including Mantine, Dewgong, Azumarill, Kingler, Octillery, and Poliwhirl. This I think would be better than the status quo, but less so than simply adding Vileplume who will centralize and stabilize the meta in imo a health way."
Eo Ut Mortus	1-25	Friendly games, RoA Tour Nights, I have never played GSC NU, Unfriendly games	During the Mr. Mime and Pikachu metagame, During the Feraligatr metagame, Never	1	The ubiquity of Raichu makes it difficult to run paternal strategies	Second preference	Third preference	Fourth preference	First preference	I think we should ban Raichu and Golduck, but not Poliwrath. I have voted based on the likelihood this outcome is eventually reached.
Sage	26-50	Friendly games, NUPL, Tournaments hosted on Smogon	During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame	2		Third preference	First preference	Second preference	Fourth preference	I think the top threats are a bit oversaturated. Vileplume feels like it has the potential to just become another high usage staple and I don't think that's the correct way to make the meta more balanced. Just getting rid of Raichu would make the best Waters even more dominant, so it makes more sense to have stuff like Octillery with more weaknesses be the best Water-types. While you might see stuff like Xatu become much better without Raichu I think the mons that benefit most from this will be more abusable, and they also aren't in the situation where they reliably check each other such as the Raichu ditto.
Diophantine	26-50	Friendly games, NUPL, RoA Tour Nights, Tournaments hosted on Smogon	During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame	2	Too centralising and a massive gap in viability between a small group of pokemon and the rest.	Second preference	First preference	Third preference	Fourth preference	Something needs to be changed. If Vileplume is allowed, it's still not a disincentive to use Raichu or the other centralising Pokemon of the metagame. If Raichu goes, I can see the bulky waters being overpowered, but I think that we should test things before we make actions.
elodin	26-50	Friendly games, NUPL	During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame	1	The best pokemon in the tier are much better than the rest and they're the only ones capable of checking themselves, which means all teams look the same unless you wanna lose to raichu / poliwrath / dugtrio.	Third preference	First preference	Second preference	Fourth preference	Not doing anything would keep this goddamn metagame the way it is and that would be just terrible if this ever made it back to nupl somehow. Banning raichu only would make water-types impossible to deal with. Allowing vileplume is a decent option, but i don't see how it helps preventing every team / game from looking the exact same. Banning raichu, poliwrath, and golduck is for sure the best option for a healthier tier with more diversity in its gameplay.
Bouff	1-25	Test games for NUPL	During the current metagame	2	feels very centralized - that's not necessarily a bad thing in itself, pretty much every old gen lower tier is heavily gravitated towards a mon or two, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to try to deviate aside from a few tried and true teams, building in the tier isn't really enjoyable after trying to scan around and mess with some different things and playing it isn't a whole lot better	First preference	Third preference	Second preference	Fourth preference	went into this in the thread but i'll reiterate a bit here. there's not really a whole lot of reason not to run thunder hp ground resttalk because thunder covers mostly everything that isn't a resist, hp ground is self explanatory and on dealing with other raichu alone it's more useful than the other options imo. grasses aren't particularly amazing and there are other options for dealing with it but none of them are super reliable, and raichu doesn't particularly need a lot of team support to cover them (and to a lesser extent the archetypes you'd find them on, but maybe that's being a bit presumptuous). after reading the posts in the thread and some thinking i've kinda come around to vileplume, though i still do stand by what i said in my post so i'm somewhat wary. in the same way i am also wary of the effects of banning all 3, and eventually something'll crop up that'll have the same effect as raichu is now, or as the waters would be if raichu were to be banned. regardless though i 100% believe something needs to be done
Watchog	26-50	Friendly games, NUPL, RoA Tour Nights, Other tournaments	During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame	2	The repetitive nature of the metagame due to the centralizing presence of Raichu and bulky Water-types. Games devolve into mirror matches rather quickly and it is hard to build outside of the current framework of Raichu - bulky Water - Xatu - Dugtrio - Grass-type - Filler.	Third preference	Second preference	First preference	Fourth preference	"I think Vileplume would introduce the strong Grass-type that the metagame needs. It checks Raichu, bulky Waters, and Dugtrio while still being checked by Xatu, Fearow and the like. It will probably be centralizing by itself, but I do believe it is the ideal fix. Would be interesting, but I don't think banning would be the best choice. Tier would devolve into Xatu vs. Xatu wars, which is undesirable. Also I don't think Golduck would be an issue, even if the other two are banned. Banning Raichu only will send the tier into Water-type vs. Water-type wars, which is undesirable. Changing nothing is probably worst case scenario."
TonyFlygon	1-25	NUPL	During the current metagame	2	Raichu is a big problem due to the lack of good defensive options in the tier	Second preference	Third preference	First preference	Fourth preference	Vileplume should help with both Raichu and Golduck, while it still has counterplay itself.
Chippy2001	26-50	Friendly games	During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame	3	I believe the format is quite unbalanced, Raichu is a big problem (namely for the reasons proposed in the forum post) but banning him opens up a can of worms as well. Xatu, Poliwrath, Golduck, Dewgong, etc. There isn't any real one-stop to them once Raichu goes. It's a very difficult to really balance it, not sure how the format could be made good going forward.	Second preference	First preference	Third preference	Fourth preference	"I believe banning Raichu, Poliwrath and Golduck would be the best choice right now, as it minimizes the potential damage. While the available Pokemon drop quite a bit, it does become substantially more balanced without going through a string of overbearing mons. Banning Raichu would be my second preference as I do believe it is the core issue, and to ban Raichu and test the others would be the """"professional"""" way to do it. Vileplume I feel would definitely help the tier, but it's a difficult one given not a whole lot of the tier is prepared for it. Magmar and Xatu would rise, and Raichu would be forced to adapt. Dewgong would also have a small niche over Poliwrath and Golduck as well to deal with it. On the flip side, Pokemon like Sudowoodo, Azumarrill and such would suffer. I can't really give too significant an opinion due to my limited experience however, so take it with a pinch of salt. Doing nothing I feel would simply let the issues fester. I don't see any reason to not do anything."
HSA	26-50	NUPL, RoA Tour Nights, Tournaments hosted on Smogon	During the Mr. Mime and Pikachu metagame, During the Feraligatr metagame, During the current metagame	2	stall is aids; screens are aids	Third preference	First preference	Second preference	Fourth preference	The issue with the current metgame is not an inability to check mons like raichu and waters but rather an inability to break the quintessential defensive core featuring resists + shuckle; i think adding a mon like vileplume doesn't add any real breaking power to the tier but instead boosts the viability of stall/defensive teams that already run the tier. i think we should err on the side of change as the current tier is frankly unfun and probably untenable in terms of attracting a playerbase and so i think banning the brokens comes first

Hopefully there will be opportunities to play the new metagame in the near future. I'll make a new thread to discuss expectations and findings with the new bans in place.