Ubers National Dex Ubers Stage 4 - The Rhythm Changes [Terastal Suspect Test]

[Bobsican]

Its been a while! Throughout the history of National Dex Ubers Terastallization has had a contentious presence which culminated in a suspect test last year in which Terastallization narrowly escaped the banhammer. After a recent survey to check in with the playerbase the council has voted for a new suspect, here's the results:

Therefore, the time has come for a second, and final, suspect test due to the higher score Terastallization recieved. Terastallization only received a score of 6.34 and 5.85 amongst the general and qualified playerbase respectively, clearly showing some level of polarization amongst the playerbase despite a high enough score to justify a suspect test. Please vote solely on whether or not you think Terastallization is an issue in the current metagame as no Pokémon is ensured to be released back into the tier outside of Shedinja.

Reasoning

Pro Ban

Terastallization has remained a focal point for the playerbase for some time, primarily due to the mechanic's ability to dramatically change the outcome of a game at the drop of a hat. Zygarde-C and Zacian-C are the best abusers of this mechanic, thanks to the former's high resilience and the latter's offensive presence.
Furthermore, access to multiple viable Tera Types create needlessly convoluted sequences which often still end up in a glorified coin flip. For example, Arceus commonly runs Tera Ghost and Tera Normal, the former enables Arceus to invalidate what should be rock-solid counterplay in Marshadow and Close Combat Zacian-C. The damage amplifier from Tera Normal enables Arceus to bypass bulkier Pokémon which could otherwise survive Extreme Speed such as Eternatus, Dragon Dance Zygarde, and Ho-Oh.

This extends beyond battles teambuilder as Terastallization introduces 'new' threats which teams are forced to account for to an arguably unhealthy degree. The prominent examples of this are Zacian-C and Dragon Dance Zygarde. Without Terastallization, Primal Groudon + a few softer checks would be wholly sufficient to handle Zacian-C, but Tera Blast Ground removes Primal Groudon and leads to most non-offensive structures being forced into running Primal Groudon + a Ground-immune Zacian-C check such as Giratina-O or Ho-Oh, which are both notably often required to Terastallize themselves to properly check Zacian-C.

Dragon Dance Zygarde is a slightly different beast, as Tera Ground powers up Thousand Arrows to such a degree that Zygarde is easily able to bypass otherwise solid defensive checks in Arceus formes and Yveltal. Notably, Zygarde is capable of muscling through Foul Play Arceus-Dark and Arceus-Fairy which are diluted to merely soft checks due to Terastallization. This boost also impacts checking Dragon Dance offensively as it enables Zygarde to OHKO Marshadow and Eternatus. Although these Pokémon are not the sole exploiters of Terastallization, they are amongst the most dangerous with Zygarde and Zacian-C, appearing on the survey due to the degree to which they benefit from the new generational mechanic.


Anti Ban

There are two main anti ban arguments, the first of which is that Terastallization as a whole does not present enough issues as a whole to justify tiering action, especially considering it is a generation mechanic. Only two Pokémon have been banned primarily due to Terastallization: Shedinja and Xerneas. Even in a worst case scenario where Zygarde and Zacian-C are added to that list, a total of four bans remains a reasonable price to pay for a generational mechanic for many people and the issue stems from how certain Pokémon have unhealthy interactions with the mechanic as opposed to Terastallization itself. As such, tiering action should be limited to individual Pokémon until Terastallization results in the ban of too many otherwise healthy Pokémon.

The second argument is that Terastallization, even in the current metagame with arguably banworthy abusers, is not an issue. Objectively, the current survey showed that the playerbase at large views the metagame as both healthy and competitive even with the presence of Terastallization. While some Pokémon may heavily exploit Terastallization, it isn't to an unreasonable degree and Pokémon which heavily rely on Terastallization to become threats limit their splashability due to teams having to account for such a valuable resource frequently being funneled into one Pokémon on a regular basis. Furthermore, access to Terastallization is a two way street and the heavily limited number of viable Tera Types makes defensive Tera consistent enough counterplay.

Suspect Test Information

• Create a new account OR use an existing one with no National Dex Ubers games played (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played National Dex Ubers before the test, full stop). You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in National Dex Ubers before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements.
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
• If you want to double check your account eligibility after following these instructions; play at least 1 game on the account, then run the /rank command on that account. You should see a field on the far right that reads "Suspect Test Eligible?"

Example

• If this field says "No" then you have either not set up the account correctly or need to use a different/new account. You do not need to complete your entire reqs for this field to say "Yes".
• After you believe that you have achieved reqs, double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, or have any questions about the new process, please contact entrocefalo or Bobsican.
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted.
• We will be using the regular National Dex Ubers ladder for this suspect test, and Terastallization will remain legal throughout the entire suspect test.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2980 or more. The suspect test will go on for roughly two weeks, lasting until December 4th at 11:59pm GMT-6, and then the voting will be done here. For Terastallization to be banned, a 66.6% supermajority will be required.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Here's a list of rules that we expect all posters to follow:

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the National Dex Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering to these will help out the moderation team and present your arguments in a better and more educated light.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have an informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokémon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result of this suspect, then so be it. "I told you so" arguments on their own also contribute little to the discussion without supporting evidence and are rather unwelcomed.
  • This is not the place to complain about the suspect process. Please PM Bobsican or entrocefalo if you have any questions regarding this, and any broader questions about this test.

Keep in mind that the outcome of our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote and voice their opinion.

 

[JackRG]

Going to be voting ban on tera because its a fundamentally unhealthy mechanic that has no place in any tier that aims to be even remotely competitive. This should be obvious, but pokemon shouldn’t just have the ability to mindlessly blast past their checks. We’ve already seen the immensely positive effect banning tera from the lower tiers has had, so lets get rid of this filth once and for all

 

[Cancel cult]

Let me ask you this. If we ban Tera, literally what distinguishes this tier from Gen 8 Natdex Ubers? We already banned the bikes, and Terapagos isn't good. The highest Gen 9 pokemon in the tier is fucking Garganacl. I guess Arceus did get DD and Taunt, but those are the most relevant changes by far not counting Tera. When Gen 10 is released, will anyone return to this tier if we ban Tera?

 

[Yupa]

A creature fierce, it stands alone,
Its mighty strength is widely known.
In battle's heat, just one move shown,
Across 34 games, a legacy grown.

With every click, a legend it weaves,
Opponents baffled, none believes.
Guess its name—can you perceive?
The one-move wonder, hard to achieve.
--Written by ChatGPT

Yes, I brought a Pokémon with which I clicked only one move across all 34 games. Care to guess?

Okay, jokes aside, this might be because I was too early, but I felt like getting reqs didn’t provide a good demonstration of why Tera is good. In most of my games, the opponent either forgot to Tera or used it poorly. Although I don’t really play this tier much, my limited experience of games around 1700 ELO pre-suspect gave me the feeling that Zygarde is definitely the most broken mon with Tera, whether it’s Tera Water Coil or Tera Ground DD. People have already provided solid analyses of why this is the case.

I haven’t played Tera Fighting Zacian, but I have played Tera Ground. In my opinion, it’s pretty common but just not as good as Zygarde. Losing 20 Attack and Intrepid Sword upon switching out means that, unlike in Gen 8 AG and Gen 8 NDAG, Zacian needs to run SD if it wants to do anything. On top of that, it really needs to be at +3 instead of +2 to break through. Sure, Tera Ground helps Zacian break through Pdon or NDM, but +1 Tera Ground Tera Blast never kills either of them. So you either need to be at +3 or SD on them, which costs 80% of your health and your Tera to survive PBlades—or 100% of your health and probably the game if you guess wrong and they’re DD Ultra Necrozma. Additionally, running Behemoth Blade leaves you walled by defensive Zygarde if your last move is Wild Charge, or walled by Ho-Oh if it’s Play Rough. And of course, you’re generally fucked by Dondozo no matter what you run.

TL;DR: Do Not Ban (DNB). I think Zygarde is the real problem and the only truly unbalanced mon, not Tera itself.

On a side note, I feel like some people take the “balance” of their ladder in a fan-made tier of an unofficial community—played on an online, unofficial simulator of a children’s game—way too seriously. (At least I hope so.) Most people probably spend their time playing the tier they find the most fun (I know I do). Several people have mentioned that banning Tera would make this tier too similar to Gen 8 NDUB, Gen 7 Ubers, or w/e. To dismiss that point because it’s “not the purpose of the suspect” or “not related to tier balance” feels laughable to me. I don't actually believe that tier would be too similar to Gen 8 NDUB (because fuck Taunt Arceus), but I believe the real point in discussing the identity of the tier is that banning everything puts players off playing a tier. If balance and “the better player winning most of the time” were really the only factors in suspect tests, I’d vote to ban everything and go play chess. To make it clear, in now way am I claiming that banning things is inherently bad. Dynamax was banned in Gen 8 because the overwhelming majority felt it was broken. Given that we’re nearing the end of Gen 9 and still don’t have a consensus, it’s clear that Tera as a mechanic in Gen 9 NDUB is not as broken as Dynamax was in Gen 8 OU or Ubers. With that in mind, does the current meta truly warrant banning the generational gimmick again?

 

[MC Squared]

Let me ask you this. If we ban Tera, literally what distinguishes this tier from Gen 8 Natdex Ubers? We already banned the bikes, and Terapagos isn't good. The highest Gen 9 pokemon in the tier is fucking Garganacl. I guess Arceus did get DD and Taunt, but those are the most relevant changes by far not counting Tera. When Gen 10 is released, will anyone return to this tier if we ban Tera?

This is a good question

 

[Cancel cult]

????

 

[Runo]

Let me ask you this. If we ban Tera, literally what distinguishes this tier from Gen 8 Natdex Ubers? We already banned the bikes, and Terapagos isn't good. The highest Gen 9 pokemon in the tier is fucking Garganacl. I guess Arceus did get DD and Taunt, but those are the most relevant changes by far not counting Tera. When Gen 10 is released, will anyone return to this tier if we ban Tera?

It's a lose-lose situation because Tera staying will probably result in a Zygarde-C and Zacian-C needing to leave the tier as well which also creates an identity crisis. Tera getting banned frees Xerneas and keeps Zacian-C managable but losing the generational mechanic is also a big hit. Either way I don't think SV NatDex Ubers is ever going to be a metagame where you come back to it for its identity when the main premise for its creation was "it's not NDAG".

Arguments that use future metagames as a basis ("How will this tier be unique from Gen 8/10 ND Ubers without X", "If you ban Y then Z becomes unmanageable") are to be discouraged as the real question should be asking is "In its current state, do you belive that Tera is a balanced/healthy mechanic for the metagame".

View attachment 689741
????

This merely indicates that the account is elligable to ladder for the suspect, it does not mean you've qualified.

 

[Rei]

Let me ask you this. If we ban Tera, literally what distinguishes this tier from Gen 8 Natdex Ubers? We already banned the bikes, and Terapagos isn't good. The highest Gen 9 pokemon in the tier is fucking Garganacl. I guess Arceus did get DD and Taunt, but those are the most relevant changes by far not counting Tera. When Gen 10 is released, will anyone return to this tier if we ban Tera?

This is not the concern that anyone should be having. The suspect is about tera, not about what would the difference be if tera got banned from Gen 9 Natdex Ubers from Gen 8 Natdex Ubers. There is a lot of differences between gen 9 Natdex Ubers and Gen 8 Natdex Ubers that is more than Arceus movepool, which you can read for yourself in this thread. Tera in my opinion is unhealthy for the metagame due to unpredictably and can completely flip a game on its head late game, make a pokemon sweep its checks, or defensively check something it could not before with its base typing. I really don't like playing mindgames with tera as feels like a coinflip for me to call the right tera on threatening pokemon like Zacian-C or Arceus or lose the game. Zygarde-C, Deoxys-A, Zacian-C, and Arceus are the main tera abusers that come to mind. I believe banning tera is the right step towards a healthy metagame and that Zygarde-C and Zacian-C will be less broken without Tera. I also believe it would make playing and building Gen 9 Natdex Ubers more fun and possibly unban some of the banned Pokemon that were banned from being good Tera abusers.

 

[TBIC106]

So, I'm not an Ubers main at all, but I've seen a lot of high level Ubers games during PL and helped build for the tier a lot during FL. Tera is not the issue here.

For Tera to be the issue, it would have to be a common factor across many viable threats in the metagame that they consistently blow past would be checks. The examples provided in the OP are Zacian-C and Zygarde, which can both potentially bypass certain checks with the right Terastalisation, particularly on the count of Tera Ground Zacian-C destroying PDon. As a singular instance, this is Tera making a particular threat unhealthy, and the same can be suggested of Zygarde.

However, I do not believe these two instances to be anywhere near bad enough to justify saying that Terastalisation is the issue. Having now played the tier a good amount, Zygarde doesn't even seem to fit the bill for Terastalisation being the root of the issue. I've seen more games where the only difference a Zygarde Terastalisation made was ending the game more quickly than games where it was the deciding factor, that mon is broken on its own regardless. The only thing a Terastalisation ban would do here is make counterplay a little more consistent and potentially free up an extra check in Xerneas. I would also make note of a similar point related to Arceus forms. While strong, even after a Terastalisation these threats are usually still perfectly manageable, even the infamous EKiller I always found struggles to really do anything beyond get out an extra couple hits, which this metagame is so strong that those hits can usually be stomached fine.

This then leaves the only actual Tera abuser left in the tier as Zacian-C. Which is absolutely an issue in the tier, but that highlights the issue I have with banning Terastalisation as a whole. Why are we banning the entire generational gimmick rather than just nuking Zacian? It's the only thing left where Tera is causing an issue, everything else is more than fine except for Zygarde, and as already said that's not a Tera issue.

As I mentioned, I'm not an Ubers main, I don't play this tier consistently, so I don't really mind which way this goes. If Terastalisation does get banned and Xerneas is freed, I imagine the tier will probably settle into a healthy state. Tera, on its own, is an uncompetitive mechanic that inherently increases variance, but here it doesn't have nearly enough impact to justify a ban. I don't know if I'll get reqs since that would require suffering through low ladder, but if I do I'll be voting Do Not Ban.

 

[Sami]

Tried going for first but School got in the way and that slowed me down... third is still cool right?

Anyways, I'll probably be voting Do Not Ban for Terastalization in NDUbers, until I see some better Ban arguments, because this tier isn't in an emergency state like NDOU was, and the ones abusing Terastalization are... mid? They're not that strong.

Starting with the "emergency state" idea, simply put, this tier is pretty stable right now. There's no major dominances in the tier beside the usual Primal Groudon + Arceus forme which isn't unhealthy by any means. There is a lot of repeating Pokemon, like Zygarde or Eternatus, the former I'll get to, but none of these Pokemon are forcing the tier into a specific playstyle or forcing niche Pokemon to rise just to check stuff. If anything, banning Terastalization will make this issue WORSE. Let's take a popular threat for example, Ultra Necrozma. This Pokemon is ordinarilly checked by Arceus-Dark, Yveltal, Choice Band Marshadow and Chien Pao. Now not every team can afford one of these guys, for example, the team could be HO where Choice-locked Pokemon are less than ideal, or there could already be an Arceus-Fairy on the team. Additionally, Yveltal has to be Sucker Punch to really check Ultra Necrozma in a reliable way, otherwise it loses to boosted Stone Edge. This is where Terastalization comes in. With this mechanic, we can increase the number of checks by including things like Tera Steel Giratina-O, Tera Dark/Steel Yveltal, Tera Dark Arceus-Fairy, Tera Dark Alomomola etc etc. This makes fighting Ultra Necrozma significantly less straining on teambuilding as a whole; you could argue that the original four listed are meta already, but there are teams that use none of them or subpar versions of them, which still beat Ultra Necrozma decently well with the help of Terastalization. This same logic applies to other threats, such as Dragon Dance Arceus-Ground, Extreme Killer Arceus, Zacian-C (who I'll get to), Eternatus and many more with their unresisted coverage options. If we were to ban Terastalization, I believe the tier will skew towards offense more, since checking these Pokemon becomes significantly harder without dedicated checks or extremely good positioning, both of which can be abusable in the right circumstances or for certain HO builds to abuse.

Next, let's get into the two Pokemon that people are complaining about the most about Terastalization... Zygarde and Zacian-C:

+ / /
Zygarde, more notably Dragon Dance Zygarde, has seen a huge surge in popularity recently, winning games on the spot thanks to its potent sets that abuse Terastalization. But does this make Zygarde broken? In my opinion, no. Regardless of how disastrous a Power Costruct ban would be for the tier defensively, Zygarde has very abusable issues against many threats. The first issue, focusing around Dragon Dance, is its heavy focus on both Tera and setting up at least once. Believe me when I say if Zygarde lacks either of these things, it's pretty mediocre in terms of damage output, even if Thousand Arrows is a heavily spammable move. The consequence of the former should be obvious, no more Terastalization for the team makes it less flexible into offensive teams, especially those with a wide variety of threats; for example, Dragon Dance Zygarde teams often have no way of reliably dealing with Choice Band Calyrex-I or Chien Pao, since they would ordinarilly rely on Tera Water Coil Zygarde to answer that, which Dragon Dance doesn't (even Tera Water DD doesn't check them properly). This limits the team as a whole, opening a backdoor for them to get swept by something the team could've checked, if Zygarde be Coil or if the team used Tera on something else (i.e Tera Steel Giratina-O).

Secondly, Zygarde's poor speed, even for Dragon Dance, means its very weak to Taunt, which I feel like every team should include. Zygarde feasts off of passive Pokemon like Alomomola, Ferrothorn and even Blissey, all of which let it get that free boost it needs to clean. It doesn't do that much against a HO team that's well-piloted since they can Taunt it and prevent it from doing much besides chipping something else down with Thousand Arrows. You're probably thinking, this just means Zygarde skews the tier towards offense to try and out-offense it. But it doesn't really, and the term "offense" could mean a lot of things, not just generic HO builds. A lot of teams have means of offensively pressure Zygarde into submission, such as with focusing more on pivoting with Alomomola rather than Wish-Protecting as often, or simply double switching more, it can be possible for Balance teams that Zygarde supposedly clears through to stuff its attempts to win.

There are also still quite a decent chunk of DD Zygarde checks out there. Tera Fairy Coil Zygarde is a good example, shutting down the whole Dragon Tail strategy. Healthy Giratina-O, defensive Yveltal, Arceus-Dark and Arceus-Fairy can all tank at least one hit and break through Zygarde, or even just breaking its Substitute, making it more vulnerable to Chien Pao's Ice Shard or any strong attacks from a bulky foe like Lunala, Calyrex-I or Mega Salamence. Another check for balance teams is Pheromosa, who is able to kill Zygarde even behind a Substitute with Triple Axel, even if it has a Dragon Dance boost, it still outspeeds. Tera Grass Ferrothorn always breaks Zygarde's Substitute with Power Whip and can tank any attack from it, while Zygarde takes Iron Barbs damage from Dragon Tail. Finally, Tera Fairy Ditto and Dondozo can both shut down boosted Zygarde pretty quickly, especially if it hasn't transformed for the former.

You could probably argue these excuses are very... wishy-washy, and I can see why, but I think the absolute best way to beat DD Zygarde is good positioning, and simply scaring it out of being an offensive threat, while punishing it for not being Coil instead - speaking of which, just load a Special attacker like Yveltal, that usually beats Coil Zygarde until right at the end game. As for Trapper Zygarde, firstly, this thing barely traps anything, secondly, almost same logic applies to DD Zygarde. You could argue a lot of the checks said above aren't good as checks, to that I say they aren't even proper Zygarde checks outside of a few - a hard check to Zygarde would be Arceus-Grass or Tapu Bulu or something - but just pushing Zygarde into killing range for an offensive attacker is usually worth it considering this thing has to burn Tera, while you hopefully don't,

+ /
This is arguably weaker than DD Zygarde IMO. Firstly, correct me if I'm wrong, but Tera Blast Ground Zacian-C appeared much less and had a much lower winrate than standard Zacian-C in NDPL/FL. And the reason why is kinda similar to Zygarde, just for more offensive teams (which makes it worse ngl), it's a Tera Hog. Granted, a Tera Hog that can beat two of its main checks, NDM and Primal Groudon, but a Tera Hog is a Tera Hog, and out-offensing Zacian-C is much easier than it looks. Extreme Killer Arceus, Chien Pao, Scarf Yveltal, Deoxys-A and even Pheromosa, they all punish Zacian-C after it has burned Tera, while without Tera, it isn't gonna sweep anything. All of these can fit on different teams as well, so its not impossible for an archetype to at the very least punish Zacian-C after it has burned Tera.

You're probably thinking that all of these guys (barring maybe EKiller and Scarf Yveltal if you're good at predicts) have to come in after a kill, which isn't worth it, but again, forcing a Pokemon to Tera, just to get a 1:1 trade is more beneficial for you, than it is for them, in majority of situations. The worst part about Zacian-C is it in the late-game, but you can say this about literally any Pokemon since obviously defensive cores are prone to falling apart, like with Ultra Necrozma and Rayquaza late-game. This is another reason why Tera should stay, it provides you with more than one oppurtunity to check a threat. If you lose Primal Groudon in a metagame without Tera, then there's a good chance that was your only check to +3 Zacian-C; but with Tera, you have Tera Grass Ho-Oh, Tera Steel Giratina-O and Tera Poison NDM that can help versus it, again, making teambuilding less stressful and making preserving your team less of a chore in general.

Conclusion

Terastalization has more benefits than it does downsides. Using two Pokemon as a reason to why an entire mechanic should be gone isn't a good idea in my opinion, when both of these two have counterplay sufficient enough to keep the tier stable. This contrasts to NDOU, which has its tier have multiple Terastalization abusing threats like Raging Bolt, Ogerpon-W, Dragonite, Iron Crown, Iron Valiant, Iron Moth, etc etc, with a higher chance for these guys to be running Z-Moves as well, which is much less common and more obvious in this tier (since Z-Move users are usually dedicated, like Chi-Yu or Zekrom). Terastalization's ability to make teambuilding easier, playing around threats easier and finding oppurtunities to win from unwinnable situations against HO and offense makes the tier much more dynamic, flexible and fun, encouraging more bulky offense and balance builds as opposed to offense teams abusing the lack of good switch-ins to Ultra Necrozma, Eternatus and Mega Salamence. I'm still open to change, but at least for now, I don't think Terastalization is broken enough in NDUbers for it to be banned. Do Not Ban.

On a side note, banning Tera means that it won't be usable in the main NDOT and ND selection of tiers, since its banned from every tier below it. Which kinda sucks. Additionally, while banning Shedinja is definitely likely, banning Xerneas isn't a guarantee, and it could be suspected back into the tier -- however, I've seen people hate on this idea since Xerneas isn't super healthy with Geomancy bullshitting through Primal Groudon (while simultaneously forcing it to always run SpD), and this could encourage the "skew to offense teams" even more.

 

[Dahness]

Let me ask you this. If we ban Tera, literally what distinguishes this tier from Gen 8 Natdex Ubers? We already banned the bikes, and Terapagos isn't good. The highest Gen 9 pokemon in the tier is fucking Garganacl. I guess Arceus did get DD and Taunt, but those are the most relevant changes by far not counting Tera. When Gen 10 is released, will anyone return to this tier if we ban Tera?

idk, maybe all the new mons that have been added? these 2 tiers aren't all bout who was tera and who doesn't, i can't believe someone is asking this question seriously

 

[Bobsican]

So, I'm not an Ubers main at all, but I've seen a lot of high level Ubers games during PL and helped build for the tier a lot during FL. Tera is not the issue here.

For Tera to be the issue, it would have to be a common factor across many viable threats in the metagame that they consistently blow past would be checks. The examples provided in the OP are Zacian-C and Zygarde, which can both potentially bypass certain checks with the right Terastalisation, particularly on the count of Tera Ground Zacian-C destroying PDon. As a singular instance, this is Tera making a particular threat unhealthy, and the same can be suggested of Zygarde.

Well, let's just take a deeper look in the Teambuilding Compendium (shoutouts to Bumboclaat for such exhaustive resource) for common Tera types to corroborate the above:

Terastallizes to circumvent defensive weaknesses for a Tera mind game that can cost the match:
,,

Terastallizes to overwhelm foes offensively:
(offensive),(offensive),,,,,,,,,,,

Terastallizes for both of the above at once:
,(offensive),,,,

Terastallizes for role compression at checking certain foes better:
(defensive),(defensive),(defensive),,,,,,,,,,,

Terastallizes for more situational gimmicks:
,,,,,,,,

Can't Terastallize to begin with (ignore these):
,,(,),,(),(),,(),(),,,

Given the above it's undeniable that Teras have impacted the metagame a lot, outside Pokemon that simply can't Terastallize out of National Dex policy (which is separate from tiering policy by nature), a good portion of the metagame benefits from Teras to turn 2HKOs into OHKOs, and overall benefit more the offensive spectrum of the metagame than the defensive one, especially as defensive Teras, contrary to what the above may imply, is way more niche and situational than one would think, they just are more realistical to come in actual use in situational matchups compared to almost wasting it for a suicide lead.

However, I do not believe these two instances to be anywhere near bad enough to justify saying that Terastalisation is the issue. Having now played the tier a good amount, Zygarde doesn't even seem to fit the bill for Terastalisation being the root of the issue. I've seen more games where the only difference a Zygarde Terastalisation made was ending the game more quickly than games where it was the deciding factor, that mon is broken on its own regardless. The only thing a Terastalisation ban would do here is make counterplay a little more consistent and potentially free up an extra check in Xerneas. I would also make note of a similar point related to Arceus forms. While strong, even after a Terastalisation these threats are usually still perfectly manageable, even the infamous EKiller I always found struggles to really do anything beyond get out an extra couple hits, which this metagame is so strong that those hits can usually be stomached fine.

This then leaves the only actual Tera abuser left in the tier as Zacian-C. Which is absolutely an issue in the tier, but that highlights the issue I have with banning Terastalisation as a whole. Why are we banning the entire generational gimmick rather than just nuking Zacian? It's the only thing left where Tera is causing an issue, everything else is more than fine except for Zygarde, and as already said that's not a Tera issue.

As I mentioned, I'm not an Ubers main, I don't play this tier consistently, so I don't really mind which way this goes. If Terastalisation does get banned and Xerneas is freed, I imagine the tier will probably settle into a healthy state. Tera, on its own, is an uncompetitive mechanic that inherently increases variance, but here it doesn't have nearly enough impact to justify a ban. I don't know if I'll get reqs since that would require suffering through low ladder, but if I do I'll be voting Do Not Ban.

You're yourself admitting that Tera is uncompetitive here, then go claiming the gimmick doesn't impact the metagame sufficiently, when the above shows that's not the case, please try to make a more informed and elaborate opinion when you manage to meet voting requirements as this currently makes notable claims with no solid substance behind them.

View attachment 689782
Tried going for first but School got in the way and that slowed me down... third is still cool right?

Anyways, I'll probably be voting Do Not Ban for Terastalization in NDUbers, until I see some better Ban arguments, because this tier isn't in an emergency state like NDOU was, and the ones abusing Terastalization are... mid? They're not that strong.

Starting with the "emergency state" idea, simply put, this tier is pretty stable right now. There's no major dominances in the tier beside the usual Primal Groudon + Arceus forme which isn't unhealthy by any means. There is a lot of repeating Pokemon, like Zygarde or Eternatus, the former I'll get to, but none of these Pokemon are forcing the tier into a specific playstyle or forcing niche Pokemon to rise just to check stuff. If anything, banning Terastalization will make this issue WORSE. Let's take a popular threat for example, Ultra Necrozma. This Pokemon is ordinarilly checked by Arceus-Dark, Yveltal, Choice Band Marshadow and Chien Pao. Now not every team can afford one of these guys, for example, the team could be HO where Choice-locked Pokemon are less than ideal, or there could already be an Arceus-Fairy on the team. Additionally, Yveltal has to be Sucker Punch to really check Ultra Necrozma in a reliable way, otherwise it loses to boosted Stone Edge. This is where Terastalization comes in. With this mechanic, we can increase the number of checks by including things like Tera Steel Giratina-O, Tera Dark/Steel Yveltal, Tera Dark Arceus-Fairy, Tera Dark Alomomola etc etc. This makes fighting Ultra Necrozma significantly less straining on teambuilding as a whole; you could argue that the original four listed are meta already, but there are teams that use none of them or subpar versions of them, which still beat Ultra Necrozma decently well with the help of Terastalization. This same logic applies to other threats, such as Dragon Dance Arceus-Ground, Extreme Killer Arceus, Zacian-C (who I'll get to), Eternatus and many more with their unresisted coverage options. If we were to ban Terastalization, I believe the tier will skew towards offense more, since checking these Pokemon becomes significantly harder without dedicated checks or extremely good positioning, both of which can be abusable in the right circumstances or for certain HO builds to abuse.

• Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokémon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result of this suspect, then so be it. "I told you so" arguments on their own also contribute little to the discussion without supporting evidence and are rather unwelcomed.

Next, let's get into the two Pokemon that people are complaining about the most about Terastalization... Zygarde and Zacian-C:

+ / /
Zygarde, more notably Dragon Dance Zygarde, has seen a huge surge in popularity recently, winning games on the spot thanks to its potent sets that abuse Terastalization. But does this make Zygarde broken? In my opinion, no. Regardless of how disastrous a Power Costruct ban would be for the tier defensively, Zygarde has very abusable issues against many threats. The first issue, focusing around Dragon Dance, is its heavy focus on both Tera and setting up at least once. Believe me when I say if Zygarde lacks either of these things, it's pretty mediocre in terms of damage output, even if Thousand Arrows is a heavily spammable move. The consequence of the former should be obvious, no more Terastalization for the team makes it less flexible into offensive teams, especially those with a wide variety of threats; for example, Dragon Dance Zygarde teams often have no way of reliably dealing with Choice Band Calyrex-I or Chien Pao, since they would ordinarilly rely on Tera Water Coil Zygarde to answer that, which Dragon Dance doesn't (even Tera Water DD doesn't check them properly). This limits the team as a whole, opening a backdoor for them to get swept by something the team could've checked, if Zygarde be Coil or if the team used Tera on something else (i.e Tera Steel Giratina-O).

Secondly, Zygarde's poor speed, even for Dragon Dance, means its very weak to Taunt, which I feel like every team should include. Zygarde feasts off of passive Pokemon like Alomomola, Ferrothorn and even Blissey, all of which let it get that free boost it needs to clean. It doesn't do that much against a HO team that's well-piloted since they can Taunt it and prevent it from doing much besides chipping something else down with Thousand Arrows. You're probably thinking, this just means Zygarde skews the tier towards offense to try and out-offense it. But it doesn't really, and the term "offense" could mean a lot of things, not just generic HO builds. A lot of teams have means of offensively pressure Zygarde into submission, such as with focusing more on pivoting with Alomomola rather than Wish-Protecting as often, or simply double switching more, it can be possible for Balance teams that Zygarde supposedly clears through to stuff its attempts to win.

There are also still quite a decent chunk of DD Zygarde checks out there. Tera Fairy Coil Zygarde is a good example, shutting down the whole Dragon Tail strategy. Healthy Giratina-O, defensive Yveltal, Arceus-Dark and Arceus-Fairy can all tank at least one hit and break through Zygarde, or even just breaking its Substitute, making it more vulnerable to Chien Pao's Ice Shard or any strong attacks from a bulky foe like Lunala, Calyrex-I or Mega Salamence. Another check for balance teams is Pheromosa, who is able to kill Zygarde even behind a Substitute with Triple Axel, even if it has a Dragon Dance boost, it still outspeeds. Tera Grass Ferrothorn always breaks Zygarde's Substitute with Power Whip and can tank any attack from it, while Zygarde takes Iron Barbs damage from Dragon Tail. Finally, Tera Fairy Ditto and Dondozo can both shut down boosted Zygarde pretty quickly, especially if it hasn't transformed for the former.

You could probably argue these excuses are very... wishy-washy, and I can see why, but I think the absolute best way to beat DD Zygarde is good positioning, and simply scaring it out of being an offensive threat, while punishing it for not being Coil instead - speaking of which, just load a Special attacker like Yveltal, that usually beats Coil Zygarde until right at the end game. As for Trapper Zygarde, firstly, this thing barely traps anything, secondly, almost same logic applies to DD Zygarde. You could argue a lot of the checks said above aren't good as checks, to that I say they aren't even proper Zygarde checks outside of a few - a hard check to Zygarde would be Arceus-Grass or Tapu Bulu or something - but just pushing Zygarde into killing range for an offensive attacker is usually worth it considering this thing has to burn Tera, while you hopefully don't,

This whole argument relies on the Zygarde opponent knowning the exact set Zygarde is using without having to scout it first, which in itself can be dangerous to do out of potentialy giving it free turns to setup or use Glare. Pheromosa is also an inconsistent answer as Triple Axel fails to OHKO defensive base Zygarde, and it can often be difficult to bring a Taunt user into the field without being limited by Glare or Dragon Tail, ultimately Zygarde can easily pick what it loses to, and in turn each set has quite specific counterplay, and even if one could make the argument that teams can afford checks for all sets, the issue still lies on Zygarde's versatility combined with Tera punishing a wrong guess, with it being actively on Zygarde's advantage.

+ /
This is arguably weaker than DD Zygarde IMO. Firstly, correct me if I'm wrong, but Tera Blast Ground Zacian-C appeared much less and had a much lower winrate than standard Zacian-C in NDPL/FL. And the reason why is kinda similar to Zygarde, just for more offensive teams (which makes it worse ngl), it's a Tera Hog. Granted, a Tera Hog that can beat two of its main checks, NDM and Primal Groudon, but a Tera Hog is a Tera Hog, and out-offensing Zacian-C is much easier than it looks. Extreme Killer Arceus, Chien Pao, Scarf Yveltal, Deoxys-A and even Pheromosa, they all punish Zacian-C after it has burned Tera, while without Tera, it isn't gonna sweep anything. All of these can fit on different teams as well, so its not impossible for an archetype to at the very least punish Zacian-C after it has burned Tera.

You're probably thinking that all of these guys (barring maybe EKiller and Scarf Yveltal if you're good at predicts) have to come in after a kill, which isn't worth it, but again, forcing a Pokemon to Tera, just to get a 1:1 trade is more beneficial for you, than it is for them, in majority of situations. The worst part about Zacian-C is it in the late-game, but you can say this about literally any Pokemon since obviously defensive cores are prone to falling apart, like with Ultra Necrozma and Rayquaza late-game. This is another reason why Tera should stay, it provides you with more than one oppurtunity to check a threat. If you lose Primal Groudon in a metagame without Tera, then there's a good chance that was your only check to +3 Zacian-C; but with Tera, you have Tera Grass Ho-Oh, Tera Steel Giratina-O and Tera Poison NDM that can help versus it, again, making teambuilding less stressful and making preserving your team less of a chore in general.

Those checks are just mind-games on which coverage Zacian-C runs, and are actively on Zacian-C's advantage as it's basically a 50/50 of stopping a threat or being swept, for example, Zacian-C has the coverage to break past all the brought up checks (namely Tera Blast Ground, Behemoth Blade, Play Rough, Close Combat, and Wild Charge), and while it can't fit all of these at once, similarly to Zygarde, the consistency ends up as a guessing game with Zacian-C being actively the one with the advantage, as it can pick what it loses to while punishing easily more likely misguessed Tera mind-games, and that's ignoring the fact Tera Poison NDM is rather niche as that implies using defensive NDM, but the point doesn't change anyways if this was a Tera Poison Arceus forme (which are more common).

Conclusion

Terastalization has more benefits than it does downsides. Using two Pokemon as a reason to why an entire mechanic should be gone isn't a good idea in my opinion, when both of these two have counterplay sufficient enough to keep the tier stable. This contrasts to NDOU, which has its tier have multiple Terastalization abusing threats like Raging Bolt, Ogerpon-W, Dragonite, Iron Crown, Iron Valiant, Iron Moth, etc etc, with a higher chance for these guys to be running Z-Moves as well, which is much less common and more obvious in this tier (since Z-Move users are usually dedicated, like Chi-Yu or Zekrom). Terastalization's ability to make teambuilding easier, playing around threats easier and finding oppurtunities to win from unwinnable situations against HO and offense makes the tier much more dynamic, flexible and fun, encouraging more bulky offense and balance builds as opposed to offense teams abusing the lack of good switch-ins to Ultra Necrozma, Eternatus and Mega Salamence. I'm still open to change, but at least for now, I don't think Terastalization is broken enough in NDUbers for it to be banned. Do Not Ban.

On a side note, banning Tera means that it won't be usable in the main NDOT and ND selection of tiers, since its banned from every tier below it. Which kinda sucks. Additionally, while banning Shedinja is definitely likely, banning Xerneas isn't a guarantee, and it could be suspected back into the tier -- however, I've seen people hate on this idea since Xerneas isn't super healthy with Geomancy bullshitting through Primal Groudon (while simultaneously forcing it to always run SpD), and this could encourage the "skew to offense teams" even more.

As explained above, a good portion of the metagame uses Tera for arguably unhealthy interactions, namely forcing 50/50s with the user actively on the advantage, as losing a mon on the user's side isn't equivalent to the potential of the opponent losing the game, there being healthy uses for the mechanic aren't a good argument based on the general policy of "broken checking broken" not being a good base as covered above too.

Technically, even in the scenario Tera gets banned from ND Ubers, it'd still be usable in ND Ubers UU, the same way NDUU could ban Tera independently of NDOU. Users asking for NDAG battles with any gentlemanning one could want in the NDOT PS! room aren't unheard of either, but in any case that kind of concerns go beyond competitive tiering policy and just come off as general preference of a format.

 

[Runo]

Technically, even in the scenario Tera gets banned from ND Ubers, it'd still be usable in ND Ubers UU, the same way NDUU could ban Tera independently of NDOU.

No it won't, Ubers UU tiering is transitive with Ubers OU tiering.

cc: KineSquared to confirm

 

[KineSquared]

No it won't, Ubers UU tiering is transitive with Ubers OU tiering.

cc: KineSquared to confirm

SV Ubers UU would lose tera if SV Ubers banned it, just like last respects, evasion, or whatever. By that logic (not my tier tho, you can make different decisions from me) a tera ban in natdex ubers would also ban it from natdex ubers uu. You can restrict more than a tier above you, but you can't allow more than a tier above you.

 

[TBIC106]

Terastallizes to circumvent defensive weaknesses for a Tera mind game that can cost the match:
,,

Terastallizes to overwhelm foes offensively:
(offensive),(offensive),,,,,,,,,,,

Terastallizes for both of the above at once:
,(offensive),,,,

Terastallizes for role compression at checking certain foes better:
(defensive),(defensive),(defensive),,,,,,,,,,,

Terastallizes for more situational gimmicks:
,,,,,,,,

Can't Terastallize to begin with (ignore these):
,,(,),,(),(),,(),(),,,

Given the above it's undeniable that Teras have impacted the metagame a lot, outside Pokemon that simply can't Terastallize out of National Dex policy (which is separate from tiering policy by nature), a good portion of the metagame benefits from Teras to turn 2HKOs into OHKOs, and overall benefit more the offensive spectrum of the metagame than the defensive one, especially as defensive Teras, contrary to what the above may imply, is way more niche and situational than one would think, they just are more realistical to come in actual use in situational matchups compared to almost wasting it for a suicide lead.

So this is a list of mons that are able to Terastalise, or not in the case of that last line. While my post was based on anecdotal evidence from my experience in the tier which, in and of itself, isn't the most reliable of evidence, it's a lot more relevant to any point you've made in this section beyond just pasting the Compendium. While I'm sure your points are reasonable based on your own experience, the premise of this suspect is to disrupt the status quo by banning Terastalisation. As such, the burden of evidence is on the Pro-Ban side to explain why any of these are unreasonable to manage with Tera, which this does not do. You will need to provide something else to back up the ending statement of this beyond what you have before I can consider it a relevant point as my experience would suggest, as said in my own post, that the only unmanageable one of these is Zacian-C, something you did not address in this post at all as you did not provide any evidence for any other threats within the metagame that can contend it.

You're yourself admitting that Tera is uncompetitive here, then go claiming the gimmick doesn't impact the metagame sufficiently, when the above shows that's not the case, please try to make a more informed and elaborate opinion when you manage to meet voting requirements as this currently makes notable claims with no solid substance behind them.

As I mentioned, I'm not an Ubers main, I don't play this tier consistently, so I don't really mind which way this goes. If Terastalisation does get banned and Xerneas is freed, I imagine the tier will probably settle into a healthy state. Tera, on its own, is an uncompetitive mechanic that inherently increases variance, but here it doesn't have nearly enough impact to justify a ban.

The point of this comment was to consider Terastalisation completely on its own. Irrelevant of any metagame, any context, or any practical application. Purely on paper, in a complete vacuum, not at all related to the National Dex Ubers metagame. That's why it is a throwaway comment in the wrap up of the post rather than it's own separate point, because to make a statement like that relevant to the metagame would require an entire paragraph, or potentially separate post given it would run contrary to my Anti-Ban stance.

To further elaborate on the point I was trying to make, in a vacuum, yes Terastalisation is inherently uncompetitive. The ability to completely invert your own type match ups allows for a level of in-game dynamism that will inherently increase variance, as there is no way to know reliably when your opponent will Terastalise or what they will Terastalise into. However, when applied to the context of NDUbers, it fails to be as overbearing here as it is in NDOU or any other tier where it is legal short of SVUbers. While it can be used to gain an important edge, particularly in the case of Zacian-C, in my experience it fails to have true game changing impact like I have come to expect in other tiers. While a tera water coil Zygarde causes large issues for offence if it can't set up fast enough to boost through Zygarde's defences, the omnipresence of tera grass Ho-oh as a Zacian/Zygarde counter allows most teams to have a reliable answer even if somehow that specific instance of Terastalisation allowed the Zygarde to reach +6/+6/+6, which in any other tier would end the game on the spot if you got even half of that on any threat. While this is a bad example, considering it involves a necessary element of centralisation relevant to Zygarde, it serves to demonstrate that even in the usual worst case scenario there is usually a way for teams to find an out, an element that isn't present in many other tiers. The increased power level of the tier, while you would theoretically expect the opposite, makes Terastalisation much more manageable. To use a quote, I forget who I got it from; "Who cares if your game ending threat ends the game 2 turns earlier because it Teraed?"

I'm not well versed enough in BB codes to import a reply within a reply, so this is in response to the reply to Sami of not using a "Broken checks broken" argument. I fully agree with this; while the state of a metagame after a ban should be considered, it shouldn't be a major point as any issues with a subsequent metagame will be addressed by future tiering action.

This whole argument relies on the Zygarde opponent knowning the exact set Zygarde is using without having to scout it first, which in itself can be dangerous to do out of potentialy giving it free turns to setup or use Glare. Pheromosa is also an inconsistent answer as Triple Axel fails to OHKO defensive base Zygarde, and it can often be difficult to bring a Taunt user into the field without being limited by Glare or Dragon Tail, ultimately Zygarde can easily pick what it loses to, and in turn each set has quite specific counterplay, and even if one could make the argument that teams can afford checks for all sets, the issue still lies on Zygarde's versatility combined with Tera punishing a wrong guess, with it being actively on Zygarde's advantage.

Determining what Zygarde set is present on a team is not nearly as difficult as you make it out to be here, with limited knowledge of the tier I am often able to accurately assess, based predominantly on team structure, which set is being used on a majority of teams. Additionally, while you are correct that Zygarde can mostly select which counterplay it wants to bypass, it cannot bypass all of its checks on any set, and there are hard counters within the tier or mons that can prevent Zygarde from setting up excessively and allow it to be reliably revenge killed. Notably, Dondozo, Tera Grass Ho-oh, physically defensive Arceus-Fairy, to name a couple. I am sure with wider tier knowledge it would be possible to name others, but those are the few I can bring up off the top of my head. You also make note of the specific Pheromosa example, which runs contrary to your wider point of Terastalisation being the root cause of the issue as it points out that Zygarde is able to bypass it regardless of tera by simply being the wrong set if you missed your assessment on team preview. This, therefore, is not a Terastalisation issue, but a Zygarde issue and exactly why I say that Zygarde and Zacian are the problem rather than Terastalisation.

Those checks are just mind-games on which coverage Zacian-C runs, and are actively on Zacian-C's advantage as it's basically a 50/50 of stopping a threat or being swept, for example, Zacian-C has the coverage to break past all the brought up checks (namely Tera Blast Ground, Behemoth Blade, Play Rough, Close Combat, and Wild Charge), and while it can't fit all of these at once, similarly to Zygarde, the consistency ends up as a guessing game with Zacian-C being actively the one with the advantage, as it can pick what it loses to while punishing easily more likely misguessed Tera mind-games, and that's ignoring the fact Tera Poison NDM is rather niche as that implies using defensive NDM, but the point doesn't change anyways if this was a Tera Poison Arceus forme (which are more common).

This is a correct assessment, I agree with the points made here. The only reasons I have responded to this section, as with the "Broken checks Broken" section, is so it doesn't appear that I'm ignoring valid arguments made with proper evidence, and also to again note that Zacian-C is the only instance of this being present in the tier, thereby bringing back up the point that this is an issue of Zacian-C being the only unbalanced Tera abuser left, so we're better off banning that than Terastalisation itself.

As explained above, a good portion of the metagame uses Tera for arguably unhealthy interactions, namely forcing 50/50s with the user actively on the advantage, as losing a mon on the user's side isn't equivalent to the potential of the opponent losing the game, there being healthy uses for the mechanic aren't a good argument based on the general policy of "broken checking broken" not being a good base as covered above too.

As with before, this requires evidence before I can consider it a relevant point as, from my perspective, there are no forces in the tier beyond Zacian-C that force such an extreme 50/50 of you losing a mon/your opponent losing the game.

Rather than my usual wrap ups, I instead would like to ask you to avoid the condescending tone you've used throughout your post. I was not intending on returning to this thread outside of if/when I achieved reqs; the only reason I did so is because of how annoyed this post made me by feeling like you were talking down to me and expecting me to just accept your word on all of these points. Hopefully this was not an intended tone for your response, but even so it was not appreciated.

 

[Anchor9]

Tera can seem pretty oppressing in the meta if there is a lot of variance in it that can be used to pick and choose checks, but there just isn’t. These are the three Pokemon I would consider broken because of Tera in order, with only Zygarde I find actually broken:
1.
2. (Mainly Tera Fire on Webs, but Flying and Dark can also be oppressive)
3.

Zygarde:
Zygarde is the only one I consider actually broken, as the Dragon Dance set is oppressive into pretty much any playstyle besides stall (Yes, Zygarde can easily cheese HO leads). There are plenty of ways for Zygarde to get the first Dragon Dance / all important Substitute off, by threatening out stuff like Primal Groudon and Marshadow with a possible Glare or being in against passive mons like Alomomola and Ferrothorn. Behind a Substitute, Zygarde is able to fish out the Mon it wants with Dragon Tail to get the Dragon Dances it needs. Even worse is when Zygarde is also at +1 if you unfortunately tried to status it on the Substitute turn. Then it deals a decent amount of damage and can easily punish any Arceus forme attempting to Taunt it. At +2 Zygarde outspeeds Choice Scarf Yveltal and 2HKOs defensive Arceus formes with Tera Ground Thousand Arrows and it’s pretty much over. Possibly counterplay such as defensive Zygarde, Tera Grass Ho-Oh, and Giratina-O are easily dealt with by Dragon Tail. This means Zygarde has to be dealt with with Tera Fairy. To be honest, I think Dragon Dance is broken even without Tera Ground.

This is definitely broken

List of Hard offensive counters in worst case scenario (+2 Sub):
Literally nothing.

List of Hard defensive counters:
Tera Fairy defensive , Tera Fairy defensive , Tera Fairy IronPress , Toxic Spikes beforehand.

Yveltal:

Yveltal is an extremely fearsome force on Sticky Web teams and I always have struggles trying to account for this in the builder. It’s best offensive check, Zacian-C, is blown to shreds by Tera Fire Heat Wave. Tera Dark has existed forever and still hits like a freight train. Tera Flying is newer and heavily punishes teams relying on Arceus-Fairy to handle Yveltal. Yveltal has the most offensive Tera variety of the threats I’m mentioning. On top of extreme Tera diversity, it also has the fourth moveslot of power (Sucker Punch / Knock Off / Heat Wave), allowing it to fair much better against whatever it is needed for (HO / stall / or Zacian-C [Sticky Web exclusive though]). The thing that possibly breaks this mon is not really Tera, but Webs support. Outspeeding checks such as Arceus formes, Zacian-C, and Eternatus is a major advantage and severely cuts into Yveltal's counterplay. However, Yveltal has severe 4MMS with that last move slot and NEEDS Web support to reach broken levels. Yveltal also has offensive and defensive counterplay that deals with every Tera pretty well (Arceus, Eternatus, CM Arceus formes with Taunt, Mega Tyranitar). The only form of Yveltal I find problematic needs loads of defensive support.

Tera does not break this Pokemon

List of offensive counters:
,

List of Hard offensive counters for every Tera and set:
Tera Normal ,

List of Hard defensive counters:
, CM Taunt and ,

Zacian-C:

This mon is still overrated in my eyes. It’s a Tera hog of Tera hogs if it wants a chance to beat Primal Groudon and Necrozma-DM. Adem has said this a lot and it makes sense. The way to beat it is to phase / status it. You don’t need to immediately kill it. But how do you phase status? Defensive Tera. Tera Poison / Steel Giratina-O and Tera Grass Ho-Oh. There’s no reason to sack your Primal Groudon to this Mon. Just status it with the Tera that allows you to live any hit. Offensive counterplay is also insane, from Deoxys-A, Arceus Ground, to one of the most splashable forms of Speed control in Choice Scarf Yveltal. It is true that with Tera, Zacian-C has no REAL full-on defensive answers, but you have Tera too, and a Zacian-C that’s burned / parad or at +0 is no threat. Really, to beat this Mon all that I think is really necessary is Primal Groudon + Giratina-O, Ho-Oh OR just slap on a Scarf Yveltal and you should be fine.

Tera definitely does not break this Pokemon

List of offensive checks:


List of Hard offensive counters for every Tera and set:
Choice Scarf

List of defensive checks
,

List of defensive answers that do the job against every Tera and set:
Tera Poison/Steel , Tera Grass , Tera Water defensive

Now, you may be wondering why I mentioned all of this. Doesn’t my argument pretty much end up as “Tera is problematic but not that broken”, which the response might be, “So? Tera may not be completely broken but it turns the tier into a matchup fish of 50/50s no one wants to deal with. It doesn’t add anything and so getting rid of it is good.” The point of part 1 was indeed to show that Tera is not that much of a problem and that there are Pokemon that counter every viable Tera. Now for part 2, where I’m going to show Tera indeed adds a lot of good to the tier. NDUbers has been the only format I’ve played where Tera indeed benefits defensive teams more than offensive teams, mostly because of the bulk of these walls and a lot of the biggest offensive threats like Ultra Necrozma and Primal Kyogre can’t Tera.

Why Tera being banned is bad;

1: Hurts two of the three big revenge killers big time and the third one a bit.

The three big revenge killers that keeps the offense in this tier in check are Choice Band Marshadow, Choice Scarf Yveltal, and Choice Scarf Ditto. Out of these three, Choice Scarf Yveltal has the most to lose with a Tera ban. Without Tera Dark, Yveltal cannot OHKO +3 Zacian-C or use Tera Steel to resist Play Rough, meaning that it actually loses to the Mon it checks the best. Losing Tera Steel also means +2 Arceus now 2HKOs you with Extreme Speed, making you much shakier into it. Tera Ghost Choice Band Marshadow is one of the most spammable mons into offense. Without Tera Ghost, the thresholds in order to revenge kill go up, making this mon worse at its job. I don’t have any really relevant calcs but you no longer OHKO Mewtwo, so there’s that. Point is, revenge killing is harder, meaning killing Zacian-C is harder. Ditto doesn’t suffer nearly as much as the other two, but it’s can’t Tera Ghost to avoid Extreme Speed from Arceus, so it loses that mirror.

2. No more Tera, status/phase, kill later:

Adem, I guess you were right about this one…. Defensive Pokemon in this tier don’t need to Tera often because their typing is already very good. But when they Tera, they make the most of it. The two main ones I want to focus on are Giratina-O and Ho-Oh. Giratina-O nearly exclusively uses Tera to survive a hit from Zacian-C or Eternatus so that it can click Thunder Wave in return. Ho-Oh also uses Tera to Whirlwind these foes away. A very important interaction is Ho-Oh using Tera Grass to survive Meteor Beam from Eternatus, as the Pokemon that can switch into Eternatus's STABs AND take a Meteor Beam AND phase it out afterwards are rare (no Lugia fans, no. Don’t even mention it). With Tera Grass, Ho-Oh can do just that. After the Whirlwind, Eternatus is no longer a threat. Same with Zacian-C.

3. The bad Ripple Effects of a Tera Ban:

Yes, I’m fearmongering. Now join me. Two things stand to quickly become oppressive after a Tera ban, Ultra Necrozma and Eternatus. No longer can you slap on that Tera Dark Arceus Fairy or Alomomola or even a Tera Steel Giratina-O to have a Photon Geyser switch-in. Teams without an Arceus Dark will literally get blown to the ground by Ultra Necrozma. Even with a Marshadow on your team, Ultra Necrozma can easily claim a kill with Light That Burns the Sky before Marshadow can come in. Ultra Necrozma will have very few switch-ins in a teraless meta. Second is Eternatus. Two sets are my main concern, AOA Meteor Beam and Toxic Spikes. AOA Meteor Beam Eternatus already has very few switch-ins and usually very few offensive answers because this is mainly used on Sticky Web teams, but without Tera Giratina-O and Ho-Oh, Eternatus can easily position itself where it takes these walls out. Only Arceus Ground and Dark can easily switch into this set on balance, unless you want to beat it with… Eternatus (Speed-tie jumscare). Toxic Spikes also becomes noticeable better. The entry hazard is already really strong, but without Tera Poison Alomomola and Arceus-Fairy, it becomes extremely hard to remove without your own Eternatus.

TLDR:

- Only Zygarde is really broken with Tera. Yveltal requires tons of support and Zacian-C can simply be handled with Tera phasers or Choice Scarf Yveltal. Other abusers that seem like a coin flip such as Arceus have answers for every Tera, such as Choice Scarf Tera Steel Yveltal for Arceus.

- Tera’s benefits outweigh its drawbacks, such as strengthening revenge-killers and allowing Giratina-O and Ho-Oh to burn Tera to status or phase out threats.

- A Tera Ban will make Ultra Necrozma and Eternatus more restricting.

Hope you enjoyed reading and DNB Tera.

 

[Bobsican]

So this is a list of mons that are able to Terastalise, or not in the case of that last line. While my post was based on anecdotal evidence from my experience in the tier which, in and of itself, isn't the most reliable of evidence, it's a lot more relevant to any point you've made in this section beyond just pasting the Compendium. While I'm sure your points are reasonable based on your own experience, the premise of this suspect is to disrupt the status quo by banning Terastalisation. As such, the burden of evidence is on the Pro-Ban side to explain why any of these are unreasonable to manage with Tera, which this does not do. You will need to provide something else to back up the ending statement of this beyond what you have before I can consider it a relevant point as my experience would suggest, as said in my own post, that the only unmanageable one of these is Zacian-C, something you did not address in this post at all as you did not provide any evidence for any other threats within the metagame that can contend it.

I didn't really just paste the Compendium, that only just lists the common/niche Tera types of mons in the tier, and isn't currently exhaustive to count Z-move users outside Ultra Necrozma as the exception, nor goes in detail of the roles the Tera types are for, more specifically I wanted to make a point regarding on how Teras are used overall in the metagame, with the list overall showing a trend for Teras being used more notably for the purposes of overwhelming foes with stronger moves, or to play a mind game to circumvent a revenge kill and snowball further (and sometimes both), with the decentralizing usage of it (aka, broadening the amount of stuff a Pokemon in question can check) being more limited, in particular half of such uses being limited to stall teams and otherwise niche species in general.

In any case, as your concern is more so on how any of the above are unreasonable to manage with Tera, I think it'd be worthwhile to similarly first clarify the desired benchmarks for this (including precedents on other tiers that suspect tested Tera, for example), as well on how they'd fit on general tiering policy.

For starters, to try to give further food for thought, one can make the argument that Tera often enables 50/50s, more specifically as an example there's Arceus to Marshadow, in a vacuum Marshadow generally beats Arceus, but Arceus can try to use Tera Ghost to invert its defensive profile and OHKO Marshadow with Shadow Claw, while also becoming immune to a faster Low Kick that would OHKO it otherwise, the Marshadow player can predict this and use Poltergeist instead to OHKO Arceus, but the Arceus user can also simply not Terastallize and still punish Marshadow as much, so this reduces the value of skill in a match and leaves it basically to a coinflip in this kind of scenarios.

Trying to merely scout a lured Terastallization of the opponent by doing a safer play by bringing a check on such turn also actively has the one Terastallizing with the advantage, as in such move there's actively no downside if they didn't decide to Tera in the first place, while the opponent risks wasting momentum for something that didn't happen, ultimately an argument can be made for Terastallization reducing the skill aspect of the metagame.

The point of this comment was to consider Terastalisation completely on its own. Irrelevant of any metagame, any context, or any practical application. Purely on paper, in a complete vacuum, not at all related to the National Dex Ubers metagame. That's why it is a throwaway comment in the wrap up of the post rather than it's own separate point, because to make a statement like that relevant to the metagame would require an entire paragraph, or potentially separate post given it would run contrary to my Anti-Ban stance.

To further elaborate on the point I was trying to make, in a vacuum, yes Terastalisation is inherently uncompetitive. The ability to completely invert your own type match ups allows for a level of in-game dynamism that will inherently increase variance, as there is no way to know reliably when your opponent will Terastalise or what they will Terastalise into. However, when applied to the context of NDUbers, it fails to be as overbearing here as it is in NDOU or any other tier where it is legal short of SVUbers. While it can be used to gain an important edge, particularly in the case of Zacian-C, in my experience it fails to have true game changing impact like I have come to expect in other tiers. While a tera water coil Zygarde causes large issues for offence if it can't set up fast enough to boost through Zygarde's defences, the omnipresence of tera grass Ho-oh as a Zacian/Zygarde counter allows most teams to have a reliable answer even if somehow that specific instance of Terastalisation allowed the Zygarde to reach +6/+6/+6, which in any other tier would end the game on the spot if you got even half of that on any threat. While this is a bad example, considering it involves a necessary element of centralisation relevant to Zygarde, it serves to demonstrate that even in the usual worst case scenario there is usually a way for teams to find an out, an element that isn't present in many other tiers. The increased power level of the tier, while you would theoretically expect the opposite, makes Terastalisation much more manageable. To use a quote, I forget who I got it from; "Who cares if your game ending threat ends the game 2 turns earlier because it Teraed?"

One can make the argument that the more centralized nature of the metagame per general Uber tiering philosophy in turn has limited Tera, and by extension preventing the extreme unpredictability Terastallization has in other tiers, more specifically as the tier focuses on certain threats, such as Primal Groudon being found in nearly every viable team in the metagame that isn't stall, but at the same time this is also the generation that had the most bans in the tier, and may not necessarily be a coincidence.

Things often aren't black and white, and valid arguments can be made both in favor and against Tera for the metagame, and while there is a needed degree of subjectivity on what action taken is best, I appreciate the thoughts given to expand the view of the matter.

Determining what Zygarde set is present on a team is not nearly as difficult as you make it out to be here, with limited knowledge of the tier I am often able to accurately assess, based predominantly on team structure, which set is being used on a majority of teams. Additionally, while you are correct that Zygarde can mostly select which counterplay it wants to bypass, it cannot bypass all of its checks on any set, and there are hard counters within the tier or mons that can prevent Zygarde from setting up excessively and allow it to be reliably revenge killed. Notably, Dondozo, Tera Grass Ho-oh, physically defensive Arceus-Fairy, to name a couple. I am sure with wider tier knowledge it would be possible to name others, but those are the few I can bring up off the top of my head. You also make note of the specific Pheromosa example, which runs contrary to your wider point of Terastalisation being the root cause of the issue as it points out that Zygarde is able to bypass it regardless of tera by simply being the wrong set if you missed your assessment on team preview. This, therefore, is not a Terastalisation issue, but a Zygarde issue and exactly why I say that Zygarde and Zacian are the problem rather than Terastalisation.

Pheromosa generally is relegated into a Zygarde soft-check anyways even in tiers without Tera and is a rather niche pick in general, with its main niche being a fast Choice Band offensive pivot that can revenge kill some worn down or frail treats while also wearing down foes with U-turn chip, so it doesn't really impact the metagame (nor is a common pick to "check" Zygarde) to particularly be a focus point-wise.

In any case, while Zygarde is indeed strong, the lack of complaints of it in Gen 8 ND Ubers, a metagame with a lower power level by the more limited pool of options, overall implies that Teras have at least played a factor, and it's easy to see why, what would normally OHKO base Zygarde can be turned into a 2HKO (a good example happens here in NDPL Week 5, where MMY's Ice Beam fails to OHKO Tera Ground Zygarde) to let it transform into its Complete forme and then become far more threatening in the mid-game, more specifically as it's the mon with the highest mixed bulk in the entire metagame (for reference, only Chansey and Blissey have more special bulk than it), it can often come in and easily get boosts once it has managed to heal off damage taken with Rest, Leftovers recovery, or Wish passing.

While this can be played around by trying to assert momentum on it to prevent it from retaining the longevity and turns to do stuff (such as Toxic Spikes from Eternatus, or keeping a faster Taunt user like Yveltal or Arceus-Fairy to prevent it from using setup or Glare), one can also argue that this devalues skill as there's other Pokemon to also check around, and by extension Zygarde can enter the field while its checks are forced out by an ally, and can't often be punished properly out of its sheer bulk, or it can also just spam Glare instead to hinder any part of the metagame as nothing but Garganacl and Zekrom are immune to it, and both are weak to its Ground STAB.

This is a correct assessment, I agree with the points made here. The only reasons I have responded to this section, as with the "Broken checks Broken" section, is so it doesn't appear that I'm ignoring valid arguments made with proper evidence, and also to again note that Zacian-C is the only instance of this being present in the tier, thereby bringing back up the point that this is an issue of Zacian-C being the only unbalanced Tera abuser left, so we're better off banning that than Terastalisation itself.

Ultimately this can become a matter of deciding if a regional gimmick is more relevant than multiple other Pokemon, one can make the argument that per general tiering policy, that when an element makes multiple Pokemon "broken", the element in question is generally what's banned and not the Pokemon involved, a good case can be seen in lower tiers and Last Respects, the move wasn't banned until there were multiple users with the move being inappropiate presences for their metagames.

That said, there is generally an higher bar on this for regional gimmicks, especially as their controversial nature on this kind of stuff has been very well documented, and this is still the generation of ND Ubers with the most bans, and while not all of the bans can be fully cited to Terastallization as the cause besides Shedinja, it does still give food for thought for both sides of the argument.

Rather than my usual wrap ups, I instead would like to ask you to avoid the condescending tone you've used throughout your post. I was not intending on returning to this thread outside of if/when I achieved reqs; the only reason I did so is because of how annoyed this post made me by feeling like you were talking down to me and expecting me to just accept your word on all of these points. Hopefully this was not an intended tone for your response, but even so it was not appreciated.

Oh, I apologize, in fact I generally expect the ideas I bring up to be challenged, and I welcome your response as a result, in any case I appreciate your opinion as it helps expanding in an interesting manner the side for not banning Terastallization from the metagame.

 

[Cancel cult]

idk, maybe all the new mons that have been added? these 2 tiers aren't all bout who was tera and who doesn't, i can't believe someone is asking this question seriously

alright, lets look at all the gen 9 Mon on the viability rankings:
B+:
Chien-Pao (how did I miss this in my first post lmao)
B:
Garganacl
Glimmora
Palkia-Origin
B-
Basculegion
Dondozo
C+
Chi-yu
C
Flutter Mane
Iron Treads
C-
Gholdengo
Ursaluna-Blood-Moon
Combined, these pokemon have a total of 26.96% usage in high ladder, which means that at least 3/4 of high ladder games in this format do not include a gen 9 pokemon.

 

[emoxu9]

do not ban，prefer unlist some pokemon tera like zac and zyg，whatever 9nd is a tier of sv

 

[Cancel cult]

This is not the concern that anyone should be having. The suspect is about tera, not about what would the difference be if tera got banned from Gen 9 Natdex Ubers from Gen 8 Natdex Ubers. There is a lot of differences between gen 9 Natdex Ubers and Gen 8 Natdex Ubers that is more than Arceus movepool, which you can read for yourself in this thread. Tera in my opinion is unhealthy for the metagame due to unpredictably and can completely flip a game on its head late game, make a pokemon sweep its checks, or defensively check something it could not before with its base typing. I really don't like playing mindgames with tera as feels like a coinflip for me to call the right tera on threatening pokemon like Zacian-C or Arceus or lose the game. Zygarde-C, Deoxys-A, Zacian-C, and Arceus are the main tera abusers that come to mind. I believe banning tera is the right step towards a healthy metagame and that Zygarde-C and Zacian-C will be less broken without Tera. I also believe it would make playing and building Gen 9 Natdex Ubers more fun and possibly unban some of the banned Pokemon that were banned from being good Tera abusers.

Now, lets look at the most important changes between SV and ss
Zacian
Ultra Necrozma
Arceus gets new moves
Alomamola
I have seen the argument that zac actually doesnt do that much for the tier. Alomamola has shown to be a suprisingly relevant pokemon. And Arceus has some new moves. Ultra Necrozma, while badass, I don't think draws too many to the tier. Zac and to some extent unecro arguably scare more people away than bring people towards, which leaves Alomomola and Arceuses movepool as essentially the only reasons someone would play this format specifically. These aren't that big of things, especially compared to what each generation prior has added. imo, the one that added the least was SS, but that still brought etern, who's impact cannot be understated. Now, why is it important to have a unique tier? well, simply put, if a tier isnt unique, no one will want to play it. Now, the same goes for if it is balanced or not, and the former is more important than the latter, but both are invaluable. If a tier does not have its own identity, no one will seek it out when it ceases to be a ladder. and what is the point of a tier that no one plays?

To be clear, I do think tera is balanced. I think the tier as a whole is very balanced. But this has been said by others much better than I could hope to. but I havent seen anyone bring up this perspective, and I feel it is worth bringing up. Tera is a really fun mechanic, and in my opinion, it takes a lot to justify it being banned, which this tier hasn't come close to.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

You can restrict more than a tier above you, but you can't allow more than a tier above you.

this is one of the main reasons i'm supporting a tera ban in this meta. we currently have a very icky situation where shedinja is allowed in natdex ou but not in natdex ubers. it's true that the divide between ou and ubers is different from the divide between any two usage-based tiers, and it makes complete sense to do this with the way things are right now—shedinja with the ability to turn into whatever type it wants is just plain stupid, but without the ability to tera its counterplay is perfectly reasonable—but i find this situation too weird and gross to be comfortable with it. having a mon banned from a tier but legal in the tier below it just feels wrong, and the only viable solution is banning tera from ndubers. this of course isn't the only reason i support a tera ban here—a lot of it has to do with standardizing mechanics across the entire format (barring ag) like what was done with dynamax—but it's definitely something to consider

 

[AM]

I don't think tera is balanced or is a fun mechanic fundamentally. It makes a lot of things that would otherwise be manageable feel really stupid (Etern, Zac, Marsh, Arc, Yve) because the offensive merits of Tera outweigh the defensive ones imo. With that said, granted it would be nice to ban Tera and bring Xern back, I think the order of what to look at it feels wrong and I would've preferred to look at Zygarde-C before anything else because it's by far the cheapest mon in the format but lot of this has to do with Glare. Tera mechanically is stupid but it only breaks a few of the top heavy stuff like those Anchor mentioned in this format.

 

[Cancel cult]

this is one of the main reasons i'm supporting a tera ban in this meta. we currently have a very icky situation where shedinja is allowed in natdex ou but not in natdex ubers. it's true that the divide between ou and ubers is different from the divide between any two usage-based tiers, and it makes complete sense to do this with the way things are right now—shedinja with the ability to turn into whatever type it wants is just plain stupid, but without the ability to tera its counterplay is perfectly reasonable—but i find this situation too weird and gross to be comfortable with it. having a mon banned from a tier but legal in the tier below it just feels wrong, and the only viable solution is banning tera from ndubers. this of course isn't the only reason i support a tera ban here—a lot of it has to do with standardizing mechanics across the entire format (barring ag) like what was done with dynamax—but it's definitely something to cons

I am someone who has their fair share of bad ideas. so know that it is nothing personal and not an assessment of your intelligence when I say that this is by far the stupidest argument for a ban on tera. something "not feeling right" will NEVER be grounds for a ban. this isn't interior decorating, this is a metagame. we do what makes the game better, not what "feels right".

 

[bumboclaat]

I'll have a proper post up tonight or tomorrow, but felt like addressing some of the stuff brought up in recent posts. I'll have some comments on Bob's and Sami's posts when I do the proper one. I'm heavily leaning do not ban at the moment, but could be swayed by decent posts.

Now, lets look at the most important changes between SV and ss
Zacian
Ultra Necrozma
Arceus gets new moves
Alomamola
I have seen the argument that zac actually doesnt do that much for the tier. Alomamola has shown to be a suprisingly relevant pokemon. And Arceus has some new moves. Ultra Necrozma, while badass, I don't think draws too many to the tier. Zac and to some extent unecro arguably scare more people away than bring people towards, which leaves Alomomola and Arceuses movepool as essentially the only reasons someone would play this format specifically. These aren't that big of things, especially compared to what each generation prior has added. imo, the one that added the least was SS, but that still brought etern, who's impact cannot be understated. Now, why is it important to have a unique tier? well, simply put, if a tier isnt unique, no one will want to play it. Now, the same goes for if it is balanced or not, and the former is more important than the latter, but both are invaluable. If a tier does not have its own identity, no one will seek it out when it ceases to be a ladder. and what is the point of a tier that no one plays?

To be clear, I do think tera is balanced. I think the tier as a whole is very balanced. But this has been said by others much better than I could hope to. but I havent seen anyone bring up this perspective, and I feel it is worth bringing up. Tera is a really fun mechanic, and in my opinion, it takes a lot to justify it being banned, which this tier hasn't come close to.

The degree to which you are continually handwaving away Arceus getting Taunt is rather surprising. Outside of Zacian-C being legal this is the most impactful change from previous Ubers generations. I'm half awake at the moment, but one could make an argument that Arceus getting Taunt has a similar impact on the metagame as Zacian-C itself. Also it might be B-, but Dondozo is pretty meta relevant, moreso than most things even many subranks above it. I'd be shocked if anyone thought more about how they're going to handle Arceus-Water or Mega Salamence than stall. As has been mentioned, differentiating this tier from SSNDUbers is irrelevant.

this is one of the main reasons i'm supporting a tera ban in this meta. we currently have a very icky situation where shedinja is allowed in natdex ou but not in natdex ubers. it's true that the divide between ou and ubers is different from the divide between any two usage-based tiers, and it makes complete sense to do this with the way things are right now—shedinja with the ability to turn into whatever type it wants is just plain stupid, but without the ability to tera its counterplay is perfectly reasonable—but i find this situation too weird and gross to be comfortable with it. having a mon banned from a tier but legal in the tier below it just feels wrong, and the only viable solution is banning tera from ndubers. this of course isn't the only reason i support a tera ban here—a lot of it has to do with standardizing mechanics across the entire format (barring ag) like what was done with dynamax—but it's definitely something to consider

We are always happy when new people come across and enjoy the tier, but the point of the test is whether tera is an issue or not. Anyone who gets reqs is free to vote whatever they want for any reason, but it would be incredibly disappointing for this reasoning to contribute to the future identity of the tier. Dynamax was considered broken in every tier and tera for all its complaints generally isn't. If you decide to get requirements I'd focus on whether you think tera is a healthy presence in this metagame. If you hate tera and think it has no place in any tier that is something I can understand. I'm not really sure how tera being legal here but not in NDOU is different from damp/heat rock or drizzle/drought being banned in lower tiers because weather was too strong.

I don't think tera is balanced or is a fun mechanic fundamentally. It makes a lot of things that would otherwise be manageable feel really stupid (Etern, Zac, Marsh, Arc, Yve) because the offensive merits of Tera outweigh the defensive ones imo. With that said, granted it would be nice to ban Tera and bring Xern back, I think the order of what to look at it feels wrong and I would've preferred to look at Zygarde-C before anything else because it's by far the cheapest mon in the format but lot of this has to do with Glare. Tera mechanically is stupid but it only breaks a few of the top heavy stuff like those Anchor mentioned in this format.

The general point about offensive v defensive tera is something I'll go into in a bit of depth in my proper post for the suspect. Part of the reason why we moved forward with a tera suspect (aside from the survey scores) is that it is the primary reason why many of the people who consider Zygarde and Zacian-C banworthy have that stance to begin with. Also the issues with Zygarde primarily stem from the Dragon Dance set. While Glare can be annoying, Coil Zygarde is generally considered an essential and healthy part of the metagame. Silly things do happen on occasion, but they are generally not that common. While Coil Zygarde remains a fantastic set, it is at an all time low in part due to being complete setup fodder for Dragon Dance Zygarde if it doesn't run Tera Fairy in addition to Taunt Calm Mind Arceus formes (they handle it just as well w/o CM, but Zygarde is setup fodder). Made a post in the meta discussion thread a little bit ago discussing it.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I am someone who has their fair share of bad ideas. so know that it is nothing personal and not an assessment of your intelligence when I say that this is by far the stupidest argument for a ban on tera. something "not feeling right" will NEVER be grounds for a ban. this isn't interior decorating, this is a metagame. we do what makes the game better, not what "feels right".

all right, let me clarify then: i don't believe it's in line with tiering policy for a pokemon to be legal in ou but illegal in ubers. my understanding of it is that when something is banned in a tier—a pokemon, or an item, or an ability, or whatever—it's also banned from all tiers below that. as far as i'm aware, there's no special exception made for things that get banned from ubers. so having shedinja legal in ou doesn't really gel with the rules of tiering as i understand them, but extending the tera ban to ubers would rectify that. banning shedinja from ou again would also rectify that, or changing policy to create an exception for cases like this, but i don't think either one is likely to happen in the immediate future

If you decide to get requirements I'd focus on whether you think tera is a healthy presence in this metagame.

well, shedinja isn't the be-all and end-all of why i'm supporting a ban, nor is the desire to standardize what mechanics aren't legal across the format. those are, ultimately, secondary concerns. i've definitely started to sour a bit on tera as a mechanic in natdex after seeing immediate improvements to the lower tiers post-ban, and i'm even starting to consider it less healthy than i thought in the main tiers. i could end up changing my view after a bit more experience with this tier, but from my initial impression it seems like tera is especially unhealthy here