If it's only one test, and say 60% vote to take action on terastalization, then only those 60% of voters will vote on what kind of action takes place. 40% already voted to not take action and thus get no say on what action is implemented. Now, ranked voting can take place on which of numerous options to implement, but still only a subset of that 60% of voters will have voted for the action that ultimately is implemented.
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Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion [ UPDATE POST #1293]
- Thread starter Finchinator
- Start date
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No, everyone will be prompted to vote on both initially. It is pretty straightforward and will be done via foolproof form in all likelihood, so you cannot submit just the first if you get reqs.
This kind of statement made a lot of sense for D-Max, but honestly after playing VGC, I honestly think it's stronger than in singles.
Because VGC games are rather short comparatively and individual turns matter so much, a Terastilization on an off turn can be a GG pretty easily, as without a team of 6, you're covering far less types overall.
Maybe that's a dumb statement to more experienced VGC players, but generally I feel like Terastilization is a lot easier to deal with in singles unless you risk losing a lot of momentum with Protect to scout in doubles.
It may also be that I'm just much more experienced in singles, so I find it easier... Take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I don't think "Terastilization is balanced around VGC" is necessarily true.
D-Max by comparison was super very clearly based around doubles. I mean, individual stat buffs from stuff like Max Knuckle is just less broken in VGC generally, and D-Max gave each turn a lot of weight but rarely could turn around an entire game as your checks are usually the same; D-Max just also supported teammates too of course.
oh also, stab tera typing is crazy strong in combination with multi-hit moves. Garchomp spamming Tera Ground Earthquake and Sylveon spamming Tera Fairy Sylveon give them sooo much power. In comparison, even with how huge the buffs were, D-Max still locked you into hitting only one target
i dunno where i'm going with this, just some thoughts about this sentiment i've seen
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alephgalactus
Banned deucer.
There’s no flaw in that logic because Last Respects was always the thing that should have been banned. Houndstone did nothing wrong.
I just posted this in the OU survey form, but I decided I may as well post it here. Also, based on Finch's posts I am aware that there will likely be a suspect test very soon, which is something that I don't really agree with. I want to voice my hesitancy with this decision, but I also want to state that I genuinely trust the council and the rest of the community (especially of actual tournament players) more than my own intuition in this case, so if my opinion here is pretty unpopular, I think there is a good chance I myself am wrong lol. Even so, here is my long message about why I think tera should be not be suspected for right now (and for the record, if there is a suspect now, I would probably vote no ban, with the caveat that I would want it to be retested a couple months down the line; this opinion may change of course).
Ok, I answered "no action is needed" for terastallization in the survey. That's not the full story. I do think that at some point, a vote on tera should probably occur. However (and I think this may be unpopular), I think no action should be until a major tournament (likely SPL in this case) is run with terastallization. In writing this I realize that maybe the whole point of suspecting tera ASAP may be to try to limit it before SPL starts lololol, but regardless I think this is best for such a major decision.
I personally have felt like tera has been somewhat unfair in my time playing, but while my own experience with this mechanic is rocky, two pieces of evidence have persuaded me to withhold judgement, at least for now.
1) many of the current high ladder accounts on showdown are from known high ladder players from before the generation shift, and
2) the replays I have seen from the "no johns" tournament have become more competitive than I might have expected (shoutout to advaita's post #651 in the tera discussion forum for breaking this down well and bringing it to my attention)
Both of these points show that even that despite the new greater level of uncertainty, many top players are still able to compete and succeed. Granted, it is obvious that terastallization does increase the total "variance" of a game, but this is something that will vary somewhat generation to generation anyway. At some level, pokemon will always have some amount of luck, and I think to some degree that is good, because it allows for skill expression in the form of probability management (e.g. a player with an advantage is incentivized to find endgames that minimize the chance of an unlucky reversal, and even in a losing position, a skilled player can try to find the most likely way to hax their way to victory). Obviously this can reach a point of critical mass, and I am very in favor of restricting this like king's rock cloyster and even quick claw/quick draw which really do cause many true 50/50 or 60/40 scenario's.
That said, I think it is very possible that tera isn't really comparable to these things, even though it is often criticized as a perpetual 50/50 generator. For one thing, this is a one time use ability that a player has full control over. Therefore, there is a lot of skill expression in finding the most optimal way to exploit tera in a given matchup, and there can be a significant opportunity cost in picking the inopportune moment to terastallize. Additionally, I do think that often many of these 50/50 situations can often be avoided by careful planning and positioning throughout a game . That's not to say that they will be entirely avoided, but they perhaps can be mitigated more than what appear at first glance.
I think the only way to really gauge how much tera truly reduces the skill level of games is to run a high profile tournament with the mechanic, and see how the best players in the game handle it. That will provide a real test case on this question. Right now, we only really have the high ladder, and while I exclusively play on ladder and hope to soon reach somewhat high there myself as I have in past generations (still figuring this gen out lol, I had hoped to get to top 250 for this survey but it likely won't happen at this point), the ladder is prone to more uncertainty and match-up fishing strategies than tournament play, in my opinion. Once we have those replays as data, we can try to make a proper decision.
In advocating for this, I fully admit that should tera turn out to be broken beyond repair, this may turn SPL into an disastrous uncompetitive nightmare lololol, but I think this is the only way to make an objective decision on the matter. Many are speculating on an appropriate response now, about 3 weeks past the generation's start, and even though many of their speculations will likely be correct (and are based on some good evidence), they are at best educated projections based on early results. We need a firmer are larger sample of very competitive games to accurately assess tera's impact, if we are to make such a controversial decision.
For what it's worth though, I do think that the only real options for a decision are either to keep it in full or to ban it completely. These complex bans really reek of pointless complexity (really reminds me of the drizzle+swift swim gen 5 nonsense). You either ban the mechanic or you don't, trying to have your cake and eat it too just leads to a ton of headaches down the line. Moreover, I think some of these ideas either make the mechanic more luck based than it already is, or if not tilt the mechanic further in favor of offense in a gen that currently needs to be toned down a little on that front. The only restriction that I may be able to get behind, as many others have said, is the idea to reveal the tera type of every pokemon at team preview, as it only provides information and does not place any new restrictions in the builder (And as someone who strives for cart based accuracy, I do not think it is a big deal, even if playing on cart you could easily message your opponent your tera types). Even in this case though, I am a bit hesitant.
Lastly, I do want to note that many are pointing out that there are several additional pokemon that may need to be banned only if we keep tera, and use that as evidence to support a ban. There is no right answer to this in my opinion, it is just a matter of personal preference. One could say that having tera break a large number of pokemon is evidence that is broken, but one could just as easily say it takes a very, very extreme case to say a mechanic is broken (e.g. dynamax lol). I do also think that people are very likely to more aggressive towards new mechanics, when older mechanics often are treated with more reverence for largely nostalgic purposes.
As an illustration of this (and this is a tangent), ask yourself these sample questions: 1) If tera had always been a part of the game, from gen 1, would we just bend over backwards to make complex bans to keep it around in some form, even it is were blatantly uncompetitive (and I am not saying it is)? And 2) for an example of a the reverse, consider the current sleep clause; if the sleep status had never existed in older pokemon games, and sleep moves were just introduced now, do you really think the current smogon community would land on the sleep clause as it now exists, or would they be more likely to ban it altogether?
These questions don't have a "right" answer, in the sense that there is no objective path we "ought" to follow, it is just a question of which mechanics are considered part of the core of pokemon, and thus should be protected at a greater cost, and which are extraneous to the core experience, and so should be limited if they break too many mons. As such, I strongly believe that tera should not be judged on how many additional mons it breaks, but on whether it is in and of itself uncompetitive. But even so, as I said, this is a purely subjective stance, and if the community at large disagrees with this logic, neither of us is "wrong", we just have a different perspective on the issue.
Thank you for indulging this post, and thank you to the council for you continued work to wrestle with this controversial decision. As I stated in the intro, even if your action is not what I think is best, I do trust that this is likely a more informed opinion than mine.
Ok, I answered "no action is needed" for terastallization in the survey. That's not the full story. I do think that at some point, a vote on tera should probably occur. However (and I think this may be unpopular), I think no action should be until a major tournament (likely SPL in this case) is run with terastallization. In writing this I realize that maybe the whole point of suspecting tera ASAP may be to try to limit it before SPL starts lololol, but regardless I think this is best for such a major decision.
I personally have felt like tera has been somewhat unfair in my time playing, but while my own experience with this mechanic is rocky, two pieces of evidence have persuaded me to withhold judgement, at least for now.
1) many of the current high ladder accounts on showdown are from known high ladder players from before the generation shift, and
2) the replays I have seen from the "no johns" tournament have become more competitive than I might have expected (shoutout to advaita's post #651 in the tera discussion forum for breaking this down well and bringing it to my attention)
Both of these points show that even that despite the new greater level of uncertainty, many top players are still able to compete and succeed. Granted, it is obvious that terastallization does increase the total "variance" of a game, but this is something that will vary somewhat generation to generation anyway. At some level, pokemon will always have some amount of luck, and I think to some degree that is good, because it allows for skill expression in the form of probability management (e.g. a player with an advantage is incentivized to find endgames that minimize the chance of an unlucky reversal, and even in a losing position, a skilled player can try to find the most likely way to hax their way to victory). Obviously this can reach a point of critical mass, and I am very in favor of restricting this like king's rock cloyster and even quick claw/quick draw which really do cause many true 50/50 or 60/40 scenario's.
That said, I think it is very possible that tera isn't really comparable to these things, even though it is often criticized as a perpetual 50/50 generator. For one thing, this is a one time use ability that a player has full control over. Therefore, there is a lot of skill expression in finding the most optimal way to exploit tera in a given matchup, and there can be a significant opportunity cost in picking the inopportune moment to terastallize. Additionally, I do think that often many of these 50/50 situations can often be avoided by careful planning and positioning throughout a game . That's not to say that they will be entirely avoided, but they perhaps can be mitigated more than what appear at first glance.
I think the only way to really gauge how much tera truly reduces the skill level of games is to run a high profile tournament with the mechanic, and see how the best players in the game handle it. That will provide a real test case on this question. Right now, we only really have the high ladder, and while I exclusively play on ladder and hope to soon reach somewhat high there myself as I have in past generations (still figuring this gen out lol, I had hoped to get to top 250 for this survey but it likely won't happen at this point), the ladder is prone to more uncertainty and match-up fishing strategies than tournament play, in my opinion. Once we have those replays as data, we can try to make a proper decision.
In advocating for this, I fully admit that should tera turn out to be broken beyond repair, this may turn SPL into an disastrous uncompetitive nightmare lololol, but I think this is the only way to make an objective decision on the matter. Many are speculating on an appropriate response now, about 3 weeks past the generation's start, and even though many of their speculations will likely be correct (and are based on some good evidence), they are at best educated projections based on early results. We need a firmer are larger sample of very competitive games to accurately assess tera's impact, if we are to make such a controversial decision.
For what it's worth though, I do think that the only real options for a decision are either to keep it in full or to ban it completely. These complex bans really reek of pointless complexity (really reminds me of the drizzle+swift swim gen 5 nonsense). You either ban the mechanic or you don't, trying to have your cake and eat it too just leads to a ton of headaches down the line. Moreover, I think some of these ideas either make the mechanic more luck based than it already is, or if not tilt the mechanic further in favor of offense in a gen that currently needs to be toned down a little on that front. The only restriction that I may be able to get behind, as many others have said, is the idea to reveal the tera type of every pokemon at team preview, as it only provides information and does not place any new restrictions in the builder (And as someone who strives for cart based accuracy, I do not think it is a big deal, even if playing on cart you could easily message your opponent your tera types). Even in this case though, I am a bit hesitant.
Lastly, I do want to note that many are pointing out that there are several additional pokemon that may need to be banned only if we keep tera, and use that as evidence to support a ban. There is no right answer to this in my opinion, it is just a matter of personal preference. One could say that having tera break a large number of pokemon is evidence that is broken, but one could just as easily say it takes a very, very extreme case to say a mechanic is broken (e.g. dynamax lol). I do also think that people are very likely to more aggressive towards new mechanics, when older mechanics often are treated with more reverence for largely nostalgic purposes.
As an illustration of this (and this is a tangent), ask yourself these sample questions: 1) If tera had always been a part of the game, from gen 1, would we just bend over backwards to make complex bans to keep it around in some form, even it is were blatantly uncompetitive (and I am not saying it is)? And 2) for an example of a the reverse, consider the current sleep clause; if the sleep status had never existed in older pokemon games, and sleep moves were just introduced now, do you really think the current smogon community would land on the sleep clause as it now exists, or would they be more likely to ban it altogether?
These questions don't have a "right" answer, in the sense that there is no objective path we "ought" to follow, it is just a question of which mechanics are considered part of the core of pokemon, and thus should be protected at a greater cost, and which are extraneous to the core experience, and so should be limited if they break too many mons. As such, I strongly believe that tera should not be judged on how many additional mons it breaks, but on whether it is in and of itself uncompetitive. But even so, as I said, this is a purely subjective stance, and if the community at large disagrees with this logic, neither of us is "wrong", we just have a different perspective on the issue.
Thank you for indulging this post, and thank you to the council for you continued work to wrestle with this controversial decision. As I stated in the intro, even if your action is not what I think is best, I do trust that this is likely a more informed opinion than mine.
honestly, I agree with you, but this isn't the place for that conversation, and the point is that this is a wide-reaching mechanic that can allow a small handful of things to go over the edge, rather than something specific to only one or two pokemon.
alephgalactus
Banned deucer.
This “small handful” includes at least four Pokémon that nearly everyone seems to agree on (Annihilape, Espathra, Dragapult and Dragonite) and even more in my personal opinion (Roaring Moon, Iron Valiant, Chien-Pao), and that number will only increase as Home and DLC come out. Between the Big Four and the things that are getting looked at regardless of what happens to Tera (Shed Tail, Revival Blessing, Gholdengo and Chi-Yu), we could have as many as eight suspect tests coming in the next couple months if Tera stays (and possibly more). The amount of work that has to be done can be literally cut in half by banning Tera, and if it’s not banned we’ll be having this exact same argument when Home comes out, and then again when the DLC comes out, and then again when the second DLC comes out.
I'm going to preface the rest of my post with this. I know official Pokemon rules and Smogon and our tiering and rules are very different from each other. We both have unique methods. But I wanted to highlight this for everyone's consideration.
Moments ago, Pokemon dropped the official rules for all VGC events this format. They will be using Open Team Lists, which will reveal to opponents all of the following: Pokemon species / form, abilities, items, moves, Tera Type, and level. Individual stats, while required for submission, are not revealed to opponents.
I'll say again, VGC and Smogon are very different. I'll also say I am NOT advocating for extrapolation and that we should reveal moves, abilities, and items at Team Preview. That said, there is now official precedent for revealing Tera Type at Team Preview.
Am I cherry-picking? It can be argued yes. Is it apples to oranges? Probably also yes. But something I thought might be worth mentioning in case it contributes to the discussion at some level. As I've said in my other posts here, we as a community get to make this decision together. It would be remiss if we didn't at least consider all information out there to make the best choice for us all.
Moments ago, Pokemon dropped the official rules for all VGC events this format. They will be using Open Team Lists, which will reveal to opponents all of the following: Pokemon species / form, abilities, items, moves, Tera Type, and level. Individual stats, while required for submission, are not revealed to opponents.
I'll say again, VGC and Smogon are very different. I'll also say I am NOT advocating for extrapolation and that we should reveal moves, abilities, and items at Team Preview. That said, there is now official precedent for revealing Tera Type at Team Preview.
Am I cherry-picking? It can be argued yes. Is it apples to oranges? Probably also yes. But something I thought might be worth mentioning in case it contributes to the discussion at some level. As I've said in my other posts here, we as a community get to make this decision together. It would be remiss if we didn't at least consider all information out there to make the best choice for us all.
alephgalactus
Banned deucer.
Wow, they must really hate novel strategies if they’re forcing people to reveal their entire sets beforehand. Did they sit down and go “hey, VGC isn’t boring enough, what can we do about it”? What an awful decision.
Those tend to have a poor track record in Bo3 settings anyways.
What a strange biased take from someone who doesn’t actually understand anything about vgc. How does seeing item + tera types + moves destroy novel strategies? VGC has always been bo3 focused on out-positioning the opponent. Not surprising people with some random gimmick lol as a “novel strategy”. It’s a bo3 game so that never worked in the first place.
So this isn’t off topic, it’s interesting to me that smogon is clearly operating differently from the intended way to play competitive Pokémon with Tera. This indicates that gf balanced tera around being able to see the tera types on team preview. We are currently playing the mechanic in a way that was not intended for competitive play, whatever that means for smogon I don’t know, but it is interesting.
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VGC is usually played in tournaments where you can't switch your team, so all of these Infos will be revealed at some point, not revealing them beforehand only makes the first few rounds very awkward compared to the later ones
I would also say that it's a very fun way to play. You can still use novel strategies as the conventional, often used ones are gonna be covered and you can still surprise your opponents as they won't remember every bit of your team at every point
I'll be quite honest, I am one hundred percent in favor of doing the same for smogon at this point then if even vgc is going to be using Open Team Lists, not just for Tera but all the other things too. And if the first step to testing the waters with that is to have open tera type then so be it. Again, Open Team Lists would not only go a huge ways towards being able to make proper counterplays against enemy terastalizing, but as I mentioned in an earlier post it would also go a great deal towards making things like roaring moon and iron valiant easier to deal with because you no longer have to dance around not knowing what set they're running, and the same goes for every other pokemon that could be packing 20 different movesets that you just kind of have to guess at. Both sides knowing what the other can and can't do both helps quash gimmick sets that only function in a one-round ladder environment by surprising the opponent, but also helps kill off various information-based "50/50"s that people dislike so much. Sure, you still have to guess WHICH move someone will click, but you won't have to try and guess what moves they're packing in the first place or other unknowns like if they're running choice items, something that can very much cost you the game if you guess wrong.
I think the center of the discussion in light of the VGC ruleset being revealed should not be whether or not we should be identical to VGC (we shouldn’t, apples to oranges). It should also not be focused on whether Tera team preview will solve the issues of Tera, though that should still be discussed.
The center of the discussion should be the following facts and questions:
The center of the discussion should be the following facts and questions:
- Tera as a mechanic was competitively balanced/designed around the opponent having full knowledge of a team’s tera types. This is a fact.
- Should the default OU ladder present the mechanic in the context it was balanced around? Whether it fixes the issues of Tera or not.
- Can Tera on team preview be considered a self-imposed restriction on the mechanic at this point? Or the way it was intended to be presented competitively from the get go?
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I think the reveal of this makes it much easier to justify revealing tera types on team preview. Especially since that it is highly likely that tcpi made this decision as a way to balance tera.
There's obv shit to be said about following vgc rulesets for singles (apples to oranges) and there's shit to be said about how much this would fix the problem but my opinions are:
a). If tcpi implements this as a way to balance tera, why can't we? It's not like we need to implement all of the things they are revealing at team preview (i.e movesets) and it's not like we can't copy rules made by tpci; smogon chooses which rules to follow. It's much easier to justify revealing tera types on team preview now that we have this info from tpci since we won't stretching the rules that much by implementing tera on tp if vgc is also following these rules.
b). while it obv doesn't solve all of the potential issues of tera, I think it would help amend them a lot. Let's say you used ice shard on weavile vs a dd mence and it tera steels and you get swept. If you knew beforehand with 100% certainty that the mence could tera steel, you wouldn't go for ice shard on it.
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Just hoping back in here, currently in the top 50 on the ladder.
Terra does not force as many pure 50/50's as I previously thought.
It forces some, but I'd say around 5-10%. I was thinking it was around 20-30%
It was mostly just a low/mid-ladder kinda thing where I was over predicating and, not to sound rude, giving my opps a lil more respect than deserved.
Sometimes you insta-lose to some weird terra tech, but again you see that more on low/mid-ladder.
Terra dark Pult is really random and bad, and it pissed me tf off.
I'm not known for being the most healthy player on the ladder but I've gotten better over the years lmao.
Anyway.
I was 100% wrong in some ways, is my point.
However, I do want to say: I don't think the meta is enjoyable in it's current state.
It's unbalanced, and janky, and has too many insta-win scenarios.
I think it's mostly Terra's fault, but also, some mons need to go, regardless.
We will need to wait for the survey results, but I believe the average score on "How enjoyable is the meta" will be around a 5 or 6.
"How balanced the meta" will be a lower average score, I think, at around 3 or 4.
We can blame the mons or Terra, which leads me to my next point.
The Espathra Question.
Espa is a fairly mid mon- well designed by GF to have some glaring weaknesses.
Obviously Terra makes this mon top tier.
The mons we've banned so far were broken with or without Terra, as most agree.
But now we've reached a place where we must ask: do we ban a mon that terra pushes into Uber territory?
You can make a case against the other mons in the survey, Ape, Gold, Cheese-Yu, Cyle, that they're broken with or without terra.
Sure, Terra makes them even better. (Well, not Cycle usually)
But Espa? That mon blows past it's designed checks when it Terras Fairy or Fighting.
So again, it begs the question, do we ban the mon, or the gimmick?
It's not a simple question, and why I bring it up is, are we going to set that precedent now, or not?
This one mon, and what we do with it, could determine the next 3 years of gen 9 meta.
See, if we ban Espa because Terra makes it OP, then we will do the same when Home meta arrives.
There will be many mons that would be fine w/o Terra, but with Terra they will be broken.
If we ban Espa, then we ban those mons as well, because its the same reason.
I'd rather keep mons and lose the gimmick, but I can see why some players would want to ban mons and keep the gimmick.
It's something players need to ask themselves.
Right now, I would be cool with banning all the mons in the survey even if Terra is banned or not, besides Espa.
Espa is fine w/o Terra, and a good win-con vs fat teams, but again, Terra makes it S tier.
Also, ban Revivial lmao, wtf are we doing allowing that?
Here is a replay I saved as: Absolute State of Gen 9 Meta December 2022
It is the finals of an OU room tour.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1735687850
You'll see I did that over predict thing on turn 28, and it's not really Terra's fault.
I should have just raging fist and won the game.
I thought my opp knew this, and I assume they did, but really I don't think they gave it much thought.
A lot of those 50/50's were just in my head, I guess, or I have a problem with assuming players make less safe plays.
Either way, funny replay lol, and a good example of why I was incorrect in some of my previous assumptions.
I'd like to hear thoughts on the Espa Question, and whether, as a player, you would rather ban mons, or the gimmick.
Terra does not force as many pure 50/50's as I previously thought.
It forces some, but I'd say around 5-10%. I was thinking it was around 20-30%
It was mostly just a low/mid-ladder kinda thing where I was over predicating and, not to sound rude, giving my opps a lil more respect than deserved.
Sometimes you insta-lose to some weird terra tech, but again you see that more on low/mid-ladder.
Terra dark Pult is really random and bad, and it pissed me tf off.
I'm not known for being the most healthy player on the ladder but I've gotten better over the years lmao.
Anyway.
I was 100% wrong in some ways, is my point.
However, I do want to say: I don't think the meta is enjoyable in it's current state.
It's unbalanced, and janky, and has too many insta-win scenarios.
I think it's mostly Terra's fault, but also, some mons need to go, regardless.
We will need to wait for the survey results, but I believe the average score on "How enjoyable is the meta" will be around a 5 or 6.
"How balanced the meta" will be a lower average score, I think, at around 3 or 4.
We can blame the mons or Terra, which leads me to my next point.
The Espathra Question.
Espa is a fairly mid mon- well designed by GF to have some glaring weaknesses.
Obviously Terra makes this mon top tier.
The mons we've banned so far were broken with or without Terra, as most agree.
But now we've reached a place where we must ask: do we ban a mon that terra pushes into Uber territory?
You can make a case against the other mons in the survey, Ape, Gold, Cheese-Yu, Cyle, that they're broken with or without terra.
Sure, Terra makes them even better. (Well, not Cycle usually)
But Espa? That mon blows past it's designed checks when it Terras Fairy or Fighting.
So again, it begs the question, do we ban the mon, or the gimmick?
It's not a simple question, and why I bring it up is, are we going to set that precedent now, or not?
This one mon, and what we do with it, could determine the next 3 years of gen 9 meta.
See, if we ban Espa because Terra makes it OP, then we will do the same when Home meta arrives.
There will be many mons that would be fine w/o Terra, but with Terra they will be broken.
If we ban Espa, then we ban those mons as well, because its the same reason.
I'd rather keep mons and lose the gimmick, but I can see why some players would want to ban mons and keep the gimmick.
It's something players need to ask themselves.
Right now, I would be cool with banning all the mons in the survey even if Terra is banned or not, besides Espa.
Espa is fine w/o Terra, and a good win-con vs fat teams, but again, Terra makes it S tier.
Also, ban Revivial lmao, wtf are we doing allowing that?
Here is a replay I saved as: Absolute State of Gen 9 Meta December 2022
It is the finals of an OU room tour.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1735687850
You'll see I did that over predict thing on turn 28, and it's not really Terra's fault.
I should have just raging fist and won the game.
I thought my opp knew this, and I assume they did, but really I don't think they gave it much thought.
A lot of those 50/50's were just in my head, I guess, or I have a problem with assuming players make less safe plays.
Either way, funny replay lol, and a good example of why I was incorrect in some of my previous assumptions.
I'd like to hear thoughts on the Espa Question, and whether, as a player, you would rather ban mons, or the gimmick.
If we look at some of the most notable returning mons, (namely landorus-t and the tapus), I'm not sure I can say if tera really breaks them. For Lando-t, Tera Flying gives it a reliable flying STAB which can be dangerous on offensive sets but it's giving itself a nasty weakness to Stealth Rocks in the process and it loses a lot of the defensive utility of its ground type. Tapu Koko and Lele are much more likely to be broken but honestly, I feel like if they end up broken, they would be with or without tera. With no ferrothorn around, it becomes much harder to punish koko's u-turn and lele's psychic terrain boosted psychic ends up being even more absurd. Koko was already a top 5 mon in SS and with no ferro, it's not hard to see it broken.
I think it's unfair to ban tera and keep the broken abusers, especially if said abusers would be broken with or without tera.
Regieleki is a mon ppl are assuming correctly will be broken via Terra Ice.
As we know, it's another mon with a glaring weakness that makes it just a decent mon at best vs even semi-competent teams
These weaknesses, as in it really only has electric moves, are resolved if it Terra Ice, to now hit ground/grass/dragon for SE damage.
So, should we ban the mon, which is fine w/o Terra, or ban Terra?
I know it's months away, I'm just curious what players want to do.
Vgc has just revealed that Tera types will be available on team preview. While what happens there has no bearing on other tiers, one can now certainly argue that it shows Tera was designed and balanced around it being revealed to the opponent.
Banning a Pokémon vs banning Tera is a non issue that has already been settled by Protean Greninja,Cinderace, and now Last Respects. Rules that warp the game to allow people to use balanced sets on overpowered Pokémon aren't added overnight. Hell didn't it just happen now where OU council wanted Last Respects banned, but they ended up banning Houndstone because that's what policy dictates?
I don't think we've had a single ban so far that happened due to Tera pushing something over the edge, but one will certainly come, what should be questioned is if there will be a procedure to revert or resuspect such bans if alterations are made to Tera.
Banning a Pokémon vs banning Tera is a non issue that has already been settled by Protean Greninja,Cinderace, and now Last Respects. Rules that warp the game to allow people to use balanced sets on overpowered Pokémon aren't added overnight. Hell didn't it just happen now where OU council wanted Last Respects banned, but they ended up banning Houndstone because that's what policy dictates?
I don't think we've had a single ban so far that happened due to Tera pushing something over the edge, but one will certainly come, what should be questioned is if there will be a procedure to revert or resuspect such bans if alterations are made to Tera.
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alephgalactus
Banned deucer.
I personally believe it’s far easier to just ban Tera. The number of things it breaks is so high that if we don’t ban it we’ll be in a constant state of suspect tests and arguments for the entire gen and the meta will never have time to settle.
Im not gonna make a big long post but my stance is:
- The only viable courses of action are no action, reveal tera type on preview, and ban everything. Every other suggestion for restriction is terrible and undermines the entire point of the mechanic.
- I don't personally think there are any problems with terastallisation, but I wouldn't be expressly against a team preview reveal. However, I think I'd probably prefer if there were no restrictions.
- Tera Blast should not be banned under any circumstances.
- Arguments that "we should ban tera because tera makes more stuff broken than would be otherwise" r short sighted because they fail to account for the fact that defensive tera is a big part of what makes it viable to keep a lot of these Pokemon reliably in check in the first place, with or without their offensive tera in play. This shit is a two-way street: if you ban tera to weaken offensive options, you are also significantly weakening defensive options, which are already heavily restricted compared to usual as-is.
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Regieleki and esparhra are just two examples tho, I still feel like most broken pokes (esp those that will come from home like koko and lele) are broken with or without tera.
I think if more than 50% of pokes that get banned are pokes that are otherwise fine without tera, we can look into tiering action against tera but overall, I just feel like its still unfair to ban tera when its not the cause of brokenness in most banned pokes.
This. The main thing I really like about tera is that you can use it defensively. In fact, Ill go as far as to say that tera is less broken than z-moves or even gems because defensive tera can answer offensive tera, and theres no equivelent for gems or zmoves
alephgalactus
Banned deucer.
It’s more of a one-and-a-half-way street because offensive Pokémon can also benefit defensively from Tera, while the more defensive Pokémon don’t really see any benefit offensively. If the defensive benefits from Tera were equal to the offensive ones, the meta would… well, it would still be tilted in the favor of offense because shit like Shed Tail and Chi-Yu are still running around, but it wouldn’t be so heavily tilted to the point where HO is basically the only viable playstyle right now.
I don't agree whatsoever with a preview tera, half of what gives it an identity (and not to mention makes it exciting and refreshing in a competitive and spectator setting) is never knowing who is going to tera and to which typing. If it were at all possible to make it so that you may only allow one pokemon in the team building process to tera (sorta like a checkmark) then it would be perfectly apt at maintaining balance while still retaining the competitive identity tera has. You can't dismiss the fact that OverUsed is the face of singles competitive play and I believe this will allow a generation defining mechanic to stay while also maintaining a semblance of balance. STAB tera is only exasperated by pokemon that are genuinely on the brink of being broken as is (chi yu, valiant, etc) and I think there's a much stronger competitive edge to the mechanic as a whole than dynamax ever was or could be. Especially when the positives (defensive implications, flexibility during metagame developments and shifts, etc) cannot be overstated. The honus of banning threats made broken by tera should be handled with the same mindset as pokemon pushed over the edge via mechanics like z moves which are much more applicable in a setting where tera is restricted to my proposal. It's much easier to misplay a z move but it's also just as impactful under the right circumstances, and I think tera is both lower risk and lower reward but still holds significance in a competitive setting. I personally don't think tera lowers the skill ceiling because it doesn't erase all counterplay, don't forget that swapping types presents its own shortcomings, it just encourages a more reactionary and less stall-y metagame, and there's nothing wrong with that. You can maintain balance (see: stall still finding success despite recovery nerfs) and have a diverse metagame, favoring a differently paced metagame is kind of expected anyway with dex restrictions and tweaking of mechanics, and it would suck to find ourselves in a stagnant metagame without any flavor to speak of, and it should speak to the general unpopularity of gen 8 where dynamax is just too broken no matter the given context.
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