Announcement DPP OU Sleep Suspect Test

[Excal]

*Make sure to read the ground rules before posting!*

Hi all,

Recently, a survey went out to qualified participants which asked if they would support a sleep ban. The criteria for who was surveyed was as follows:

1. Those who are a member of the DPP Council
2. Those who qualify to vote for a suspect based on 2025 requirements
3. Those who laddered for the Machamp suspect last year and qualified for requirements
4. Those who participated in the main event of DPP Revival

46/52 people responded to the survey and the results were as follows:

67.4% of participants supported a Sleep ban, while 69.2% of participants who already qualify to vote supported a Sleep ban.

This survey occurred due to voiced concerns from several SPL players as well as the DPP community from both previous surveys, discussion in the DPP discord server, as well as discussion in the DPP Council channel. While the council is divided on whether Sleep should be banned or not, we nearly unanimously agree that elements of Sleep (especially Spore) are problematic/suspect worthy.

Most people who supported a Sleep ban in the survey felt that the mechanic is fundamentally unhealthy due to the RNG associated with it and that DPP lacks the resources to compensate for it. The main offender is Spore Breloom, which has a 100% accurate Sleep move, 130 base Attack, and limited switchins that, besides Gliscor and physically defensive Jirachi, are weak to Stealth Rock and/or trappable by Tyranitar (and in Jirachi's case, trappable by Magnezone). The overall sentiment is that every style is limited by Sleep, although some argue whether Offense or Balance/Stall is more limited.

Others who oppose the Sleep ban feel that Sleep is an important piece to help break more balanced and defensive structures, or that it is not broken enough to warrant a ban. Some also feel that other less relevant users of Sleep, like Sleep Powder Roserade, Hypnosis Bronzong, and Sing Clefable are worth preserving.

SOME GROUND RULES FOR POSTING IN THIS THREAD: Failure to follow these rules will result in an infraction.
1. Trolling will be zero tolerance.
2. Keep the focus strictly on Sleep. Do not complain with bad faith that other aspects of DPP are not being looked into. Do not derail this thread by discussing other aspects of DPP unrelated to Sleep.
3. This will not result in an immediate infraction, but posts that imply that Breloom will be banned or that we will be losing Breloom will be deleted. This has been a misconception in the DPP discord and we do not wish for misinformation to be spread in this thread. Breloom is still very much usable in a metagame without Sleep.
4. Do not mention the issue of complex bans nor suggest that we should only ban Spore. The DPP Council is not allowed to act on Spore alone due to tiering policy issues. If you wish to advocate for a change in policy, do so in Policy Review, not here.

Anyone who has met any of the below thresholds is automatically qualified to vote from tournament placements.

1) 6+ games or 3+ wins in SPL XVI
2) DPP Cup XI top 8
3) Finals of DPP Seasonals/Globals this year
4) Overall 2025 DPP Circuit top 16

A list of qualified voters can be seen below:

Spoiler

Void, BKC, Groudon, Christos, Lady Bug, Laurel, Pkel SweeTforU, crucify, We Three Kings, Dridri457, ABR, Tenebricite, PDC, OU Analysis, harshest, Dababy2, elodin, pixie909, Airi, Marshall.Law, Tizio Potente Ao, Pideous, Kristyl, monchooo, Sossa, 199 Lives, SFG, mien, Track

We will be offering a ladder component for community members to have a chance to vote who do not immediately qualify. Here's how to qualify for ladder requirements:

• Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in DPP OU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played DPP OU before the test, full stop.)
• 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.
• You must have a minimum ELO of 1600, with a minimum GXE of 85
• This suspect test will last 9 days, concluding on Sunday, January 4th at 11:59 PM GMT-5, after which a voting thread will be created. This thread will remain open for discussion about this suspect ONLY, not other potential bans.
• Check here to see if you have reqs.
• If you have any questions about this process, feel free to PM me or post here!

 

[steve22]

I’ve been a vocal opponent of this ban in Discord, and I want to clearly lay out my perspective. Before starting, I want to acknowledge an obvious point: Breloom usage would almost certainly decline if Sleep were banned. I’ll also be focusing exclusively on Breloom, as other Sleep users are not meaningfully relevant to this discussion.

1. The metagame is currently in a very good place

Since the Machamp ban, the general sentiment among active DPP players has been that the metagame is healthy, expressive, and as enjoyable as it has been in years. Balance, bulky offense, and semi-stall are common and effective, while both hard stall and HO remain viable. Overall, there are no clearly dominant structures or broken team cores.

Given this context, removing the primary defining tool of an S-tier Pokémon would be a very significant change. The ripple effects of a Sleep ban are difficult to fully predict and would likely take a long time to stabilize. In a metagame that many players already enjoy, I think it’s worth asking whether such a major intervention is truly necessary.

2. Stall will be too good if sleep is banned

Breloom functions as the primary offensive engine for many balance builds. If Sleep-reliant sets are removed, Pokémon like Clefable gain substantial leverage against common Zapdos / Heatran / Starmie cores and FWG-based structures, which would meaningfully strengthen stall across the board.

I am not arguing that Breloom would disappear entirely, rather its role would change. What I expect is a shift toward defensive Breloom on stall, paired with Hippo and the other stall staples. However, Breloom would not be able to carry balance in the stall matchup anymore. It would be completely walled by mons like defensive lati.

It is hard for me to envision a meta where balance can meaningfully compete with stall as a dominant style without sleep.

3. Sleep on Breloom is well-designed and healthy

Breloom is clearly designed around access to Sleep. It is slow and frail, but powerful enough to punish passive play and force meaningful interaction. In the DPP meta, it does what it was intended to do.

While Sleep does introduce variance, wake-up differences are not unusually disruptive relative to other accepted mechanics in the tier. The level of randomness involved is comparable to common moves like Fire Blast or Hydro Pump and fits within the odds-based nature of Pokémon as a game. Importantly, Breloom is not the best Pokémon in the metagame, nor is it overwhelmingly dominant in all matchups.

Addressing two common arguments

“Sleep is just as limiting to offense as it is to stall.”
In practice, Breloom struggles much more against offensive teams. It is frail, slow, and has few safe entry points against aggressive structures. These limitations are a core part of its design and matchup spread.

“Breloom is too difficult to build against.”
If this were the central issue, a Breloom suspect would make more sense than a mechanic-wide ban. Breloom isn't out of line with the amount of prep any top-tier threat demands in any metagame. Preparing for major threats is an expected part of pokemon.

If this were a good argument, we would be doing a Breloom suspect, not a sleep suspect. Latias is equally hard to build against, if not harder, but there’s no demand to suspect it. It is the top threat in the metagame. Literally just learn to build against it.

I will admit my bias here
Like half my teams have Breloom and I don't want to chuck half of my builder in the garbage. I know I don't wanna use that shit without sleep.

 

[Incognition]

I'm mixed about this one - whilst the combination of Breloom + Spore is incredibly strong and undeniably buffs Breloom as an A+/S tier mon in the meta, I don't feel like we should punish every Pokemon with access to a sleep move purely because of Breloom.

As far as I'm aware, the only generation where sleep was banned was BW (e.g. BW OU), primarily because sleep turns would reset when you switched out, which was far more justifiable for a ban.

While I agree about the main checks to Breloom being vulnerable to being trapped by Tyranitar (e.g. Latias/Gengar/Rotom) - I believe there are ways around it (e.g. Sleep Talk/Lum Berry/Taunt) while also having teams that apply enough pressure so Breloom is unable to utilise Spore freely (usually against far slower teams etc).

Personally, I'm not a fan of Spore and can see why it's really strong, but I wouldn't ban the whole sleep mechanic, especially since there won't be any complex bans.

My opinion: Do not ban.

 

[Pideous]

I don't want to get bogged down in arguments about why the meta after this ban and any other necessary bans would be good or bad. No one really knows and it doesn't really matter. The main issue I have with a sleep ban is that it is a huge overhaul to the tier, regardless of if it ends up as a positive or negative change.

If the tier is balanced and fun (and long established) then there should be real hesitation about pushing for a drastic change to the metagame, which a sleep ban objectively is.

If you think the tier is good, and I do, then a sleep ban is a terrible idea. You can dislike sleep, but if you like the tier overall it's not worth banning.

If you are ok with a complete meta shift because you think the tier is bad, fair enough.

If you're just bored, play a different tier.

 

[Loven]

The sleep clause balances out the effectiveness of moves like sleep powder, spore, and hypnosis, making playing against them challenging but not impossible. A balanced team is usually not terribly troubled by the likes of these moves. While spore's 100% accuracy can sometimes shift the game. I dont think it is broken to where it should shift the entire tier.

 

[monchooo]

Will be voting to Ban sleep.

I see it as a stupid rng mechanic in every tier. Sleep talk mechanics being ass in dpp make it even dumber to handle.

Have seen a lot of discussion on Breloom’s viability without spore and how that will affect the metagame. I don’t really care about that when discussing the uncompetitive and unhealthy elements of sleep. If the argument was purely that spore Breloom is overpowered we wouldn't be grouping a Spore ban with garbage like Grass Whistle. It would probably be just a Breloom suspect.

While I like the current spread of viable team styles I don’t think any one of them is magically gate kept by sleep and will become overbearing if it does. I do agree that stall benefits a bit more than the others, mostly because it’s the one that abuses sleep the least. Personally, I doubt it will have that big of an effect, but if stall does become overpowered you can just ban the overpowered aspects(ban clef).

I do sympathize with people who enjoy the current metagame and think the possibility of ending up with a worse meta after a Sleep ban is not worth the risk, but I think sleep is rng garbage that warrants it and also that the risk isn't that big to consider it.

Spore Breloom is obviously the main abuser but Sing, Hypnosis, Grass Whistle, Lovely Kiss and Sleep Powder are all coinflip garbage that make the tier worse than Spore does in my eyes, happy to get rid of them.

gl to all the soldiers going for ladder reqs, hope council considers upping elo and removing GXE requirements for future suspects

 

[Track]

Voted to ban sleep in survey, some of my thoughts:

I think (Breloom's) sleep limits team building in annoying ways. You pretty much have to prepare for it, but there is not lot of options to really fight against it. You can not have taunt in every team, sleep talk kinda sucks even if you have it and lum berry Jirachi is pretty much the only thing that can switch into sleep and threaten sleep users at the same time.

Another reason why I don't like sleep, is that it is pretty much a free KO button to click. Because of the limited tools against sleep, you can pretty much be sure that you don't go wrong when clicking a sleep move. I think that we should get rid of (extremely powerful) no-brainer moves from the game. (which is also the reason I don't like iron head and thunder wave.) Sleep lasting for 1-4 turns is also unhealthy, the game does not in my opinion need any more rng than it already has.

I agree with some people's thought that sleep is actually more threat to an offense than what it is against stall. Breloom gets opportunities against both of them and Breloom most of the time needs only one entrance point to be effective (use spore). I do not think stall gets out of control if sleep gets banned. Or if it does, I'd say that we need to look at stall's tools next, if we really need sleep to keep it in check.

Also, if sleeps gets banned and we figure out later that it actually made the tier better, I hope it would not be much of a problem to bring it back, as we are already familiar with the sleep meta.

I hope I didn't forget anything, will be reading messages from this thread to learn more though. (and gl to everyone who has to suffer on ladder)

 

[BKC]

"Stall / fat becomes too powerful without Breloom's Spore. "
1. If the only thing keeping such teams in check is Breloom's Spore, these strategies are already too powerful and need to be addressed. This is not an argument to preserve Spore.
2. Stall regularly runs ResTalk Jirachi, which is the one Pokemon consistently capable of switching into Breloom's Spore and Breloom itself. If you rely on Breloom's Spore to break stall teams, you are inviting yourself to get walled, hard.

"Breloom becomes much less viable!" / "I've built so many teams with / accounting for Spore Breloom!"
1. No, it doesn't. Breloom is a great sleep user because it is a great Pokemon, not the other way around. It remains a great Pokemon without sleep: it hits incredibly hard and has great switch-in opportunities not just through (excellent) resists but longevity as it heals in sand AND is immune to status / Knock Off. This is evidenced not only by the many superb Spore-less Breloom sets out there, but by how post-sleep clause Loom functionally has three moves and yet continues to be incredibly threatening in and of itself.

As one example, see Swords Dance Breloom's long history on paraspam teams, including what was for a long time the most definitive variant. Nobody facing this team expected Loom to have Spore, yet it was incredibly dangerous anyway. Loom naturally pairs so well with paralysis users that it can often interfere with Spore, which provides even more incentive to drop the move.

Will Loom be a little worse than it was? Sure. Is this a bad thing, or, is it made worse to the point of some significant negative metagame effect? No. It's still going to consistently switch in and be incredibly valuable for the same reasons that let it fire off Spores in the first place.

2. Almost any* team you have with Spore Breloom can be updated by simply using another one of its excellent options instead of Spore. It's that easy. As for building against Breloom, congratulations, you no longer need to fit awful Sleep Talkers on on your team. (The Lum Berries will remain useful with the tier's abundance of paralysis, of course, but are less forced.)

*the exceptions are Scarf and Sash lead Breloom, which not only bring out the worst of sleep RNG (duration and lead matchup alike, hoping the other lead isn't Lum lol), but are completely useless at doing what Loom is most valued for, dealing with bulky teams.

"The metagame is in a good place."
It could be better! Removing sleep allows for more skill in the teambuilder and the battle, since you are no longer scrambling to fit largely terrible anti-sleep options on your team and no longer have to contend with an RNG-heavy near-KO move. If the metagame somehow falls apart without Breloom's Spore, we can always bring it back.

"Without Spore, Breloom answers like Latias will be able to switch directly into it!"
What a concept, not getting a free pseudo-KO before a counter can actually switch in. This is an especially degenerate dynamic considering how famously Loom's answers themselves are tooled by SR/Sand/Pursuit. (Imagine your sleep sac gets attacked instead!)

Accounting for Spore in the teambuilder is nightmarish, as there are no reliable (meaning "good, and can consistently switch into Loom") sleep absorbers in this tier besides RT Rachi. (RT Rotom and Gyarados come close, but Rotom can't actually stand up to Loom itself, and Gyara can't even hurt it lol, to say nothing of the SR problem.)

"It's slow and frail, just use offense bro!"
This is not just a ridiculous scrub mentality worthy of the wifi era, it's also an oversimplification that doesn't even work considering that Loom regularly switches into common offensive Pokemon like Tyranitar and Swampert as well as common choiced moves like Earthquake and Thunderbolt, so it will hit the field reliably, and then you have the same Spore dilemma, except with a team that's even less equipped to try and ride out a sleep thanks to lower bulk and quicker games, so you're left with offensive Sleep Talkers (horribly bad, not just in general but absurdly exploitable for Loom itself), or Lum Berry, except the only good Lum user that can actually decently switch into Loom without getting blown up by an attack or ruined by SR/sand/Pursuit is, again, Rachi.

 

[steve22]

Yooo! First off love your vids and your play BKC. You’re the goat. Happy to be the annoying player you are arguing with in Smogon threads.

If you rely on Breloom's Spore to break stall teams, you are inviting yourself to get walled, hard.

This is an argument that Breloom’s spore is balanced, not the reverse. Of course stall/semi stall is good in DPP. It can deal with Breloom. If you aren’t a skilled player, Breloom won’t save you against stall.

"Breloom becomes much less viable!" / "I've built so many teams

2. Almost any* team you have with Spore Breloom can be updated by simply using another one of its excellent options instead of Spore. It's that easy.

I’m sorry, but does anyone really believe this? If this were true, people would be using Breloom’s other “excellent sets” like swords dance on balance all the time. They aren’t. I know I won’t be updating my balance teams if/when spore is banned.

"The metagame is in a good place."
It could be better!

This is why I think it matters to think about what will happen in the metagame rather than just saying I don’t want a change because I’m happy the way things are. I do think there’s an argument that the meta will be more skill based without loom. I mean, I think stall will become dominant. I love playing stall, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But I’d also like dpp to keep its style expressive nature, and I think it won’t if sleep is banned. That’s what I have an issue with.

"It's slow and frail, just use offense bro!”

This is just a strawman. Nobody is making this argument. I essentially don’t use any HO right now. The argument is that Breloom is currently keeping stall in check, and it needs spore to do so. It’s impossible to know exactly what will happen, but it seems to me that the meta will become more polarized between adv like fishy HO teams and stall without spore. I personally don’t like adv, that’s why I mostly play dpp.

Also, in general, it’s strange that you point out how broken putting Lati to sleep then pursuiting it is, and right after say loom doesn’t need spore. Like, you recognize spore is a huge part of the gameplan, to the extent you think it’s broken, then say it doesn’t need it. As if lati won’t just click reflect on SD loom, cover the ttar switch, threaten to KO it and laugh in its face if it attacks.

Love your videos and happy to hear why I’m wrong.

 

[mongibongi]

I’m sorry, but does anyone really believe this? If this were true, people would be using Breloom’s other “excellent sets” like swords dance on balance all the time. They aren’t. I know I won’t be updating my balance teams if/when spore is banned.

I personally mostly agree with that sentiment, breloom has a lot of good movepool options that would see use on most sets but some sets can't keep up. The thing right now is spore is so incredibly strong there isn't much reason to run these other options. Also, wouldn't this be an argument for sleep being too strong? Breloom has so many good movepool options, but none of them are worth running cause of how game warping sleep is.

For specific sets, standard offensive should be fine. We'll probably see more stone edge since its nice coverage into a lot of common switchins, but facade could also be a good option. Defensive leech seed sets are fine too, they already drop spore sometimes for stuff like seed bomb. Scarf lead is dead but also scarf lead is cringe so it's a win for me. I do wonder if we might see non lead scarf now, it could be a nice cleaner and dd tar check. Subpunch will probably be a lot rarer, but it still could fit well on paraspam and can run stun spore itself. Swords dance sets already rarely run spore so they're good.

 

[dk]

sleep is stupid and contributes to ridiculous amounts of variance. sleep is even more stupid in formats without preview. sleep clause is a nonsense contrivance that completely contradicts the site's tiering framework. remove sleep.

a website full of competitive strategy game enthusiasts that hate variance (allegedly---i'm convinced this site is infinitely more about cliques, clout, and the gambling rush that matchup fishing and getting lucky gives people) should be unanimously opposed to high-variance elements that can be cleanly banned. there is clearly enough variance in the game with crits, damage rolls, and low% secondary effects on staple moves like ice beam. you're frankly just a sociopath if you crave more when the bedrock variance is already frustrating. go waste your time on gacha games or other forms of gambling if you crave RNG so intensely.

pokemon metagames aren't jenga towers or patients full of shrapnel---they don't instantly irreparably collapse or die from hemorrhages if a specific piece is removed. if sleep makes other things unreasonable to manage, then take tiering action towards the newly unmanageable thing. if the metagame is only decent because its glued together by insufferable variance, then it's not actually that decent.

as for why it's especially stupid in non-preview formats---you cannot make informed decisions about what to sleep fodder earlygame. when 4/6 (or 5/6 in the case of lead loom/rose) are unrevealed, guessing wrong when you're dealing with a power level as high DPP's influences the outcome of the game far too much. it's true that you can have strong deductive teambuilding skills to circumvent the fog of non-preview, but tragically there's no guarantee your opponent understands how to teambuild---you can't deduce what the other guy's team looks like if he just can't teambuild for shit (or is deliberately praying to never face some major things). dpp is too diverse and too high-power to accommodate sleep.