Announcement NP: Stage 22 - Banana Man (Thwackey Suspect)

[etern]

Grassy Terrain has been a highly controversial topic in NU for the majority of generation 9, with many bans being at least partially influenced by it's presence, for example Oricorio-Pom-Pom, Oricorio-Sensu, Necrozma, Iron Thorns, and Cresselia. Despite the countless tier shifts and tiering changes which have occured throughout the generation, Grassy Terrain has managed to remain as a dominant and highly influential playstyle which has reinvented itself to invalidate traditional methods of counterplay. The difference between Grassy Terrain and other team compositions is the way in which it is able to invalidate almost all methods of counterplay and gameplay interaction, creating many scenarios where certain matchups are decided at turn one due to the nature of terrain sweepers and the limited defensive options available in the tier.
Unburden sweepers like Grafaiai, Drifblim, and to a lesser extent Hitmonlee are able to tailor their sets to beat specific checks and would-be-counters while also outspeeding the entiremetagame after Grassy Seed activates, which places immense pressure on teams to be able to cover them while still being viable into the rest of the meta. We've seen sets such as Throat Chop Grafaiai be created to stop Roar Vaporeon from phasing, Taunt to shut down Whirlwind, and Facade to setup on Wisp / Scald users. Drifblim has evolved constantly, with both Strength Sap and Substitute sets being able to shut down eachothers checks, and the invention of Tera Electric Thunder to OHKO Vaporeon at +1 before it gets a chance to Roar, or forcing it to Tera, opening the path for the rest of the terrain sweepers to win. Espeon is another Pokemon that has surged in popularity after a year+ of irrelevance, this is because it can completely ignore any phasing attempts from Whirlwind Copperajah, Roar Houndstone, and Roar Vaporeon, as well as Toxic from Gligar and Bellibolt thanks to Magic Bounce. Espeon also takes advantage of the Grassy Seed defense boost to break through teams with powerful Stored Power boosts which can even tear through Chansey and Bronzong after enough Calm Minds.

Perhaps the toughest part about dealing with Terrain is that these classic terrain abusers can be partnered with a myriad of unpredictable Pokemon like Scrafty, Drednaw, Decidueye, Reuniclus, Raikou, Chandelure, and Articuno-Galar, depending on team composition. While it can be argued that nothing on Grassy Terrain is individually broken or lacking in checks, what cannot be argued is the immense strain it places on team building by being malleable and dynamic. The level of constraint terrain places on teambuilding is viewed by many as unhealthy, oppressive, and ultimately a negative influence on the metagame as a whole. Gameplay loops forced by Grassy Terrain can often become extremely uninteractive, which is a clear sign that it inhibits skillful play and is an uncompetitive element of the tier.

After much discussion and deliberation amongst the community, internal discussion with the NU Council, and conversations with the Tiering Admin team, we have settled on Thwackey as the suspect target, as it is the only consistent terrain setter that sees 100% usage on terrain teams at this point in time. However, if Thwackey is banned and terrain is still deemed to be an issue down the line with people resorting to Grookey or Arboliva, then we will re-assess whether further action needs to be taken. For the time being, please only discuss Thwackey, as that is what this specific suspect is centered around.​

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The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:

• 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 NU 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 NU 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.
• Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself, Rabia, or a member of staff.
• If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me.

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2800. The deadline for getting requirements will be Thursday, April 16th at 7pm GMT+11.

 

[Diamonds_realm]

Terrain as a playstyle has been quite a controversial presence in tours for years now, but this past year has seen by far the most innovations to the archetype and has led to terrain sticking around for much longer than its past nature of taking over tours for 2-4 weeks and disappearing. While terrain isn't strictly broken and nothing it can run is truly unbeatable, it's important to remind ourselves that there are other reasons something can be considered bannable. In terrain's case (or thwackey for suspect purposes) the sheer variety of threats that it can enable and the ways they can beat their checks put immense strain on the builder limiting creativity in order avoid losing to terrain and promoting an unhealthy, uncompetitive form of matchup fishing because the immense capacity of potential threats outweigh what a team can reasonably prep for in the builder, meaning that in games where despite you prepping quite well for terrain on paper, terrain simply packs on a threat that beats your counterplay options and wins the game at team preview, taking away all agency from the player to outplay terrain and making even high level games look like jokes at times. Now matchup fishing is a pretty common thing for HO across various styles, however other styles, like weather for example, lack the diversity in their list of threats that terrain has making for far less auto win matchups and less prep required to leave room for outplay potential, making other styles feel more like good prep when they find those good matchups and otherwise have competitive games far more often rather than blind fishing with terrain. So overall I am heavily PRO BAN on thwackey for the pressure terrain exerts on teambuilding and the nature of which it tends to eliminate competitivity from matches.

 

[Shengineer]

Just completed my reqs run with "The Most Anti-Terrain Team Ever" and terrain really wasn't that hard to beat. Literally just use Whirlwind Copperajah and get good guys (I didn't even use this mon on my climb). Here are some assorted ramblings of an insane man:

​

All jokes aside, this suspect did prompt me to think a bit deeper on what a Terrainless (Thwackeyless) world would look like, and whether I would enjoy it more than the current meta. This process has been a more difficult deliberation than previous suspect tests, as I believe many of the arguments from the pro-ban side are legitimate, and yet in spite of this I'm not totally convinced on banning Thwackey.

I enjoy building and using terrain for one of the same reasons it may be unhealthy: the sheer diversity of threats that are viable on the style. Many pokemon that would otherwise have no place in NU are given viability through the magical power of Grassy Seed. Building terrain offers a high degree of creativity that I find appealing.

There are a multitude of ways to ensure your team is equipped to beat terrain. It's not realistic for me to list all of them here, but common and powerful pokemon like Copperajah, Duraludon, Incineroar, (Scarf) Munkidori, Klefki, Vaporeon, and more are all able to disrupt terrain's spam of setup sweepers, and phasing in particular is particularly devastating considering an early use of Grassy Seed on a key pokemon can ruin its chances of sweeping. Grassy Seed does make it hard for you to brute force your way through setup threats with physical breakers, but many of the pokemon on terrain are frail by nature and will still take considerable damage. Special breakers in particular are hard for terrain to set up on, though we did just lose one of the strongest in Toxtricity.

I'd say the pokemon on terrain that skirts most common counterplay is Espeon, and it's definitely the most prone to matchup fishing (doing nothing or 6-0'ing). I'm not really sure what to do about it. In theory it's nice to have another hazard control option around, but it only gets seriously used as a fishy wincon. On the topic of matchup fishing, stall is now a viable archetype, and can easily fit the tools to defeat terrain. Terrain teams will have to invest resources into stallbreaking that they previously did not have to, which could take down their overall power a slight bit, but I honestly don't believe most players will do this. They will just hope they don't load into stall. I'm not sure what to make of this either.

Would NU be a better tier without terrain? Maybe. I really don't know. Is the tier enjoyable with terrain present? Yes. Will it still be enjoyable in terrain's absence? Also yes. In the end I trust the collective mind of the community to figure out what is right.

 

[Bernardo]

I will be voting DNB and first I will complain about the suspect choice and than reasons of why i don't think its ban worthy at all.

OK lets start with the obvious.

Banning Thwackey doesn't change anything.

No one ever considered not banning drought over 9-tails because everyone knew that we just would have Vulpix sun.
This is a super old discussion. https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/drought-in-sv-nu.3743362/
We will have Grookey terrain.

Second point is timing. Terrain is a source of mixed feelings for ages. The first team I have on my builder post DLC terrain is this from like 2 years ago +-

Literally the only 2 legal mons of those are Lee and Thwackey.

So choosing to possibly make a change that if it works as intended (I don't think it will) literally concurring with NU Open start and a month from PL I don't agree with that decision.

Now on the reason i don't think terrain is broken and why I will be voting DNB and even if the suspect was Grassy Surge I still would be voting DNB.

Terrain has as many auto wins and auto loss MUs as any other HO. The biggest difference is that Terrain also has MUs where it can be a game decided on skill and good reads.

Personally I like that you can have skill expression with HO and think that's something heathy. So balance wise I don't think Terrain is problematic.

The other argument for terrain ban is that is has too many different threats that way putting a big pressure in the builder. That's just partially true and I'd say that people try to make it a bigger issue than what truly is.

Terrain builds are optimized with

The last 2 slots can be a lot of different things. Lee, Keys, Kou, Dudun, Pa'u , Drednaw... The lists indeed goes on.

But lets be real what makes terrain that strong is Grafaiai and Espeon.

And finally if you guys trully want to make terrain more fun to play against Ban Espeon.

Tera Abuser
Promotes uninteractive gameplay
Puts pressure on the builder that you cant just run phasing as the counter to fat setup you NEED to have choice trick.


EDIT: thanks for answering Django and addressing my points.

Banning Thwackey will reduce terrain’s win rate and usage , I can’t in good faith deny that , so yes, Grookey terrain isn’t the same thing. The issue is that the “frustrating” experiences people complain about in the terrain matchup will largely remain intact. I don’t think terrain is a balance problem to begin with, so I double down on DNB.

I still think this should have been done earlier so that, if it goes through, the meta could be more established for upcoming tours, allowing for more innovation rather than just figuring things out. But it happens , no worries.

 

[Django]

I'm about halfway through my reqs run but wanted to share some initial thoughts. I am still undecided on what to vote so going to go through reasoning on both sides.

I don't think anyone will contest that terrain as a whole is outright Broken / Uncompetitive (as per the tiering framework) or that no counterplay exists. Individually the threats can be dealt with, and there are several catch all checks who will have decent to good matchups against Terrain as a whole. These include: Parting Shot Incin, Roar Scream Tail / Houndstone, Whirlwind Copperajah, Munkidori (especially with Trick Scarf), Haze or Roar Vaporeon, Dragon Tail Duraludon, Switcheroo Lagging Tail Klefki. All of this stuff is top tier and should be finding its way onto many teams. This is before we begin to mention offensive pressure from mons like Flygon or Tauros, or more niche options like Prankster Encore Whimsicott.

Given it's not Uncompetitive or Broken, we are looking at something potentially Unhealthy. To be defined as unhealthy, we need to look at the effect Terrain has on team building and battling skill. Terrain definitely has some insane matchups, which are often decided before turn 1 even happens. It also has some absolutely horrendous matchups in the other direction. This type of polarisation definitely limits battling skill, as there is very little you can do to influence the outcome once the game starts. The huge variety mentioned above is another point which makes Terrain potentially unhealthy - this amount of variety can limit teambuilding skill as you cannot cover all of them feasibly. We've seen more experimentation on Terrain teams to beat the usual checks as well - Thunder Drifblim, Throat Chop Grafaiai, and just the huge amount of pokemon Shen listed above. Based on all of that, I could definitely be convinced Terrain is unhealthy.

However.

If all of that was true, Terrain would represent a fantastic option for tournament play, especially if you think you are not as good as your opponent. In theory it gives you a shot at winning without having to play well at all. What we actually see though is Terrain remaining a niche option with an underwhelming winrate (stats taken from the most recent Seasonal):

| 40   | Thwackey             |   45 |   5.21% |  48.89% |

We see a very similar story repeated through all of 2025 circuit play as well:

| 39   | Thwackey             |  162 |   5.17% |  48.15% |

The story in SCL is even worse (where you would think bo1 fishing would take place even more):
Thwackey was used 7 times, 2 of which were mirror matches. In the three non mirrors, Thwackey won once.

So - we don't see any consistent or particularly notable usage of Thwackey in tournaments. It sits at a similar usage on the ladder as well. This points to Terrain having similar traits to regular HOs - polarising matchups, somewhat linear games, but nothing completely terrorising to the metagame. I'm not entirely convinced of this argument, and probably what I will do next is check some recent Terrain replays to see just how polarising the matchups are. If we see repeated games decided on preview with very little skill expression, then yeah this will be unhealthy. If we see games where plays heavily influence the outcome then...maybe we need to accept this playstyle is valid and stop crying about it like Oath cries about stall.

Side note about Thwackey ban doing nothing and people will just use Grookey: this isn't cut and dry. Some people have laddered with Grookey before and yes, you win some games, but winrates are definitely lower. If we see Grookey begin to terrorise the metagame then fine, we can ban him too. But voting DNB if you think Terrain is a problem, simply. because you think Thwackey is the wrong target, is nonsensical.

The intention behind the timing here is also deliberately targeted at NU Open and NUPL. We've seen time and again Terrain cause issues in big tournaments and people complaining about it spiking hugely in those tournaments. We would much rather make a change now (if it is necessary) before those flagship tournaments rather than in the middle of them. Tiering policy dictates that this is the right target to focus on for now, so that is what we are doing. The appropriate place to discuss a Grassy Surge suspect without due process on Thwackey first is the Policy Review forum.

 

[Midwest Emo Band]

Got reqs with Trick room

Agree with Django, preparing for Grassy terrain isn't unlike preparing for HO in general. Main gripe I have with terrain is the infinite variations it has.

Preparation is an arms race and common terrain abusers like Grafaiai can play around with a few utility options that severly cripple answers (taunt/t-chop/encore/tera blast ground/fairy/fighting)

I feel like g-terrain might have too many options like that and making it play a mon down for terrain instead of .5 (Thwacky is worth atleast that much unlike Grookey) is a healthy compromise...

 

[Rabia]

I want to emphasize part of Django's post: if you think Grassy Terrain is broken but that an abuser should've been tested instead, you should still be voting to ban Thwackey. Any type of protest voting has never been taken seriously and the results are always what we'll go off of when determining future action. We specifically chose Thwackey as the suspect test candidate because it best follows the tiering framework and is the most logical Pokemon to suspect test given the vast amount of setup Pokemon Grassy Terrain teams have to work with.

I also want to contest part of Bernardo's post:

I will be voting DNB and first I will complain about the suspect choice and than reasons of why i don't think its ban worthy at all.

OK lets start with the obvious.

Banning Thwackey doesn't change anything.

This is basically what I just pushed back against, but making a claim that a Thwackey ban changes nothing is 1) impossible to argue and 2) bad logic to approach tiering with. In particular, the comparison to sun teams is pretty bad because it's a very apples-to-oranges situation and we never even saw Vulpix sun pop off in the Ninetales metagame. That was an instance entirely made up of theorymonning and a tiering decision--to ban Drought instead of Ninetales--that I still disagree with wholeheartedly. But to expand on what I mean by the archetypes not being comparable: sun is just way too fundamentally different than Grassy Terrain. Sun sweepers get insane power boosts from the weather, some of them get a substantial speed boost, and they are not limited to a single setup opportunity like the Seed sweepers (mostly) are. Sun offense is comprised much more of immediate wallbreaking, whereas Grassy Terrain sweepers require multiple turns of setup to really get going. Beyond the argument of "the enabler doesn't matter" (which I don't think is a good one), there's nothing to compare between the two styles.

---

With regards to Grassy Terrain's brokenness, I find myself agreeing with Django that it really isn't a broken style. There's no evidence through tournament or ladder play really to successfully argue this. Rather, I think the strongest case towards action here is one regarding the metagame and generation at large. Not many people will disagree that offense styles have dominated lower tiers this generation far more than past ones, and Grassy Terrain is set another style that feeds into this. I think in many ways it's a far greater offender than say, setup spam, weather, or Sticky Web because the pool of quite viable options to put on the style is much larger. Therefore, it's just not nearly as easy to adequately teambuild with in mind beyond your general anti-setup tools. In addition to this, though, we've seen those tools get denied by adaptations the style has made. Throat Chop + Taunt Scrafty and Grafaiai, Tera Fairy Espeon, and Tera Electric Drifblim all exist to punish some of the common counterplay, and yeah I think this shows that selecting any one abuser to ban instead would fail as a method.

All in all, I find this type of suspect test to mostly be reflective of one's general sentiment towards tiering--i.e., do you only want to ban what is truly broken, or do you want to ban based on what gives the tier more room to breathe.

 

[Regiboob]

Got reqs while tryina get my boy Cluelessmagnet to lock in.

Frankly, most of what can be said has already been said, especially Rabia's conclusion that this comes down to individuals' general sentiments towards tiering. This is my humble contribution to the discussion: Terrain teams are just kinda fun. I think it inspires a good bit of creativity in the builder, beyond just the standard unburden sweepers and Espeon (which is another conversation entirely; I don't think it's Grassy Seed specifically that makes that mon... Interesting), and it's also good fun to pilot. On the opposing side, I think losing terrain teams is about as fun as losing to any other structure. Obviously, this is an entirely subjective thing, but I do think that fun is something that we should never lose sight of. It shouldn't be the main criterion for tiering action by any means, but I think it deserves this brief, humble mention.

My very brief two cents on everything else that has been discussed above: I don't think terrain is a broken style; I don't think it's stifling or unhealthy for the metagame; Grookey would tuff but we are not banning Thwackey just to push an LC-mon-in-NU agenda.

Probably voting DNB, but will continue to read replies to this thread with an open mind and open heart x

 

[Diamonds_realm]

The other argument for terrain ban is that is has too many different threats that way putting a big pressure in the builder. That's just partially true and I'd say that people try to make it a bigger issue than what truly is.

Terrain builds are optimized with View attachment 821732

I just wanted to say this feels slightly disingenuous, I've largely been a believer that terrain can get away with not having a hazard setter with the right builds. But more importantly while yes, most terrain teams will use grafaiai as it's kind of the best unburden user in the tier, grafaiai itself is also the most versatile mon on grassy terrain with the most variety in its movepool giving it many ways to either pick it's checks or find set up opportunities
A grafaiai moveset can generally look something like this:

Swords dance
Gunk shot
Knock off/throat chop
Encore/taunt/low kick/tera blast(ground or grass)/facade/acrobatics

As seen grafaiai's 4th moveslot has many options to pick from, acrobatics and tera blast grass are certainly less common these days but aren't totally useless as both with be able to hit aqua-tauros who can usually trade with a +1 graf otherwise, as well as tera blast grass will also land KOs into rhyperior, swampert, and vapoeon who can also potentially check boosted graf by means of trading/phasing/haze/scald burns. So while yes, you CAN usually expect to see grafaiai on terrain teams, you still won't know what exactly it's running until it reveals it and shouldn't be a knock against terrains versatility.

 

[milliongatejumpguy]

My stance on terrain is the same as always. I see it as a standard form of hyper offense, sharing many of the similar checks.
There are a couple stances I disagree with.

1) In regards to terrain inhibiting skillful play and being an uncompetitive archetype.
I believe terrain does expose questionable teambuilding on either side, but the tools presented in the thread by Etern for the terrain side, and by Shengineer for the defending side, are often enough to create an equal matchup with chances for both sides. Any experienced player should be able to tell the difference between a terrain pilot who can use these tools to win, versus one who cannot. This very suspect, where dozens of people have dived into ladder with terrain teams and achieved wildly different results against the same ladder players, should be a good enough indicator.


2) In regards to terrain greatly limiting teambuilding, moreso than standard hyper offense,
I flat out fail to see how that would be the case, when standard anti-offense tools are consistently shown to be enough to deal with terrain. Even if you don't want to run phasing, surely you can afford to bring a Grafaiai check, some special wallbreakers, a trick user or mr. Parting Shot Incineroar for Espeon. Terrain has enough weaknesses that a standard good team will often have good chances against a standard terrain team. More than that, if you neglect such tools from your teambuilding, chances are your team is weak to more than just terrain.

The impact of terrain tech is also being a bit overblown in my opinion. Yes, Grafaiai can throat chop the Vaporeon. I'm still scalding it. Even if I don't get a burn, I get enough chip for my priority user in the back. Maybe the Grafaiai is throat chop facade, but surely I have a normal-type resist to trade with, if my opponent still hasn't brought out their Grafaiai? Yes, Scrafty can tera fairy on my dragon tail, but now it's weak to flash cannon and hopefully I still have a Munkidori in the back. You can't tech for all anti-offense tools at the same time unless you're an Espeon (hint hint).

That is to say, even if you don't specifically teambuild for terrain, you can often answer its surprises on-the-fly. Tournament play will often show that to be the case, and this suspect has only reinforced my stance on this. If you fail to do so, honestly, just chalk it up to better prep from your opponent. If people are coming up with facade tera grass tera blast Grafaiai under veil, surely you can afford to give them some cookies for teambuilding. It's no different from losing to a Combusken.



3) A note on the great versatility of terrain teambuilding,
but the population of players who do bother with bringing tera blast Grafaiai, terrain Drednaw and so on, is rather small, when compared to those who just use Bernardo's template. I firmly believe the "great versatility for terrain" is an overly preemptive argument with too few examples of success so far (see terrain win rates).
That and, to reiterate, even these innovations, while giving an edge, do not guarantee a win for the terrain builder against generic mcsample 101.





Long story short, terrain is standard hyper offense. Good hyper offense, sure, but far from broken or uncompetitive, and I believe it to not be unhealthy either. Will be happy to revisit this subject if terrain sees a resurgence during Slam or NUPL or whenever. So far, this is an easy dnb for me.

 

[bungeegum_420]

I've not played nu for a while and i got reqs with this(31-7)

https://pokepast.es/5d89067925aa420b

It's the shengineer sample with alcremie instead of dudunsparce

I do consider gterrain broken but not because someone who hasn't been playing has easily got reqs.

But while laddering , i did feel it quite easy to apply pressure with any mon then chain it with the next and then go on to win, and it did not feel too difficult.
The main reason i do consider gterrain unhealthy is because i do not believe that such a playstyle should be so rewarding in a competitive metagame, even if it's just ladder.

And because thwackey is the mon suspected rather than anything else on gterrain, I'm invlined to voting BAN

 

[Zangoose360]

Got reqs using Grassy Terrain. To be honest, I am unsure what I'll end up voting, was leaning towards ban, but after thinking about it and reading some of these posts on here, I'm back to being unsure on what I'll vote. I've decided to post my thoughts about Grassy Terrain and the Thwackey suspect test.

As a HO user, I do like how versatile Grassy Terrain teams can be and different techs that can be used to deal with the usual counterplay. Because of how versatile these teams can be, it makes sense for one to argue how it can be limiting on the teambuilder since you can't account for all of the different sweepers and techs Grassy Terrain teams can use. However, I also find myself agreeing with Django and Rabia that Grassy Terrain isn't a broken teamstyle.

Grassy Terrain at the end of the day is just another form of Hyper Offense, so just like other types of HO, it has its matchups where it wins and ones it loses to. Grassy Terrain, just like other HO, often lacks a defensive backbone due to the nature of the style, the only defensive Pokemon on Grassy Terrain teams really being Duraludon, and that's if you have Duraludon on your Grassy Terrain team.

The impact of terrain tech is also being a bit overblown in my opinion. Yes, Grafaiai can throat chop the Vaporeon. I'm still scalding it. Even if I don't get a burn, I get enough chip for my priority user in the back. Maybe the Grafaiai is throat chop facade, but surely I have a normal-type resist to trade with, if my opponent still hasn't brought out their Grafaiai?

Funnily enough I was running Throat Chop + Facade Grafaiai during my run, and reading this has made me think about Grassy Terrain techs. While you can tech different mons and sets on Grassy Terrain sweepers, just like with other types of HO, you still eventually have to pick which techs you want to use beat specific checks and what checks you end up losing to, as you can't fit all of the different techs a Pokemon can possibly use into one set. Basically, while one can't account for the different techs a Grassy Terrain team could use, Grassy Terrain teams at the same time have to end up choosing which techs they want to use to bypass specific checks.

Regarding Thwackey being suspect tested, it makes sense to suspect test it, as it what enables the teams to begin with. There isn't one specific Terrain sweeper that pushes these teams too far. The closet one that could be seen as pushing Terrain too far is Tera Fairy Espeon because of Magic Bounce, but it is also the most matchup fishy Terrain sweeper. Like Shengineer said, it either ends up doing nothing or being able to 6-0 teams. Even with the defense boost from Grassy Seed, Espeon's defense stat still isn't the greatest, so it is still prone to physical attacks. If Thwackey does end up getting banned, I'm not really moved by the idea of Grassy Terrain with Grookey or Aboliva as the setter, would have to see tournament success for me to be convinced.

And these are my thoughts about Grassy Terrain and this suspect. While Grassy Terrain teams can feel like too much due to the versatility, it is at the end of the day just another form of HO, and it has to pick and choose what techs to use on specific mons to deal with specific checks, essentially meaning you're also choosing which checks you lose to. Typing out my thoughts probably now has me leaning towards DNB on Thwackey as of now, but I'm still open minded and will continue to read the posts on this thread.

 

[APOGRAPHA]

​

Hi, Paladin here i mean... grookey gaming 67 here.

I had the bright idea to do most of my reqs with a Terrain Team ft. Grookey, and I am adamantly clicking the DNB button when the time comes. I am always fervently against outright banning Pokemon, and Thwackey alone is far from a problem. He simply enables Grassy Seed, which is clearly the culprit. Pokemon that usually have zero meaningful usage in NU, like Espeon, Drednaw, Hitmonlee, etc. suddenly have a life raft keeping them afloat in a usage-based system. Without Grassy Seed, we would outright not see Espeon or Lee outside of <1300 ladder. Grassy Seed enables random Stored Power sweeps, gives quality Unburden procs, and the defense raise of course helps a ton.

Banning Thwackey would just bring Grookey into the same slot.

You would think it's a massive downgrade, and honestly, it's really not. Grassy Glide still OHKOs SpD Swampert. It's fast enough to U-turn and Taunt on everything slow and/or fat, and I've picked up massive KOs thanks to my Endeavor technology. My % record in one game from Grookey is 206.

If Thwackster gets banned, and we have to do this all over again, I mean I'll take the free suspect test under my belt. Need a badge eventually. Regardless, it doesn't address the problem. Grassy Seed enables the extremely polarizing teambuilding experience everyone agrees on in the thread. My Hoopa 6-0ing is the same as Falinks 6-0ing is the same as Espeon 6-0ing is the same as Graf 6-0ing. More fish than an aquarium.

I don't see why we need to nuke Thwackey just to run into the same issues. It's a random ladder match at 2PM, Grookey clicks U-turn on the switch. Thirty minutes ago, you get your Grassy Glide chip either way. In a parallel universe, Grookey + Friends team will sweep Brick in Seasonal. You don't need to be Dr. Manhattan to see the tier from the fourth dimension and tell me there's much tangible difference between Grookey and Thwackey in most matches.

I understand it's "tiering policy", but it seems like an abject waste of time to suspect a Pokemon that is, in a vaccuum, not particularly strong and is clearly the biggest enabler since Henry Kissinger. If Terrain is really as broken as some people think, then Grookey will gladly slot in, and then what? We just ban terrain/seed anyways?

Therefore: If you think Terrain is a problem, Thwackey ban is pointless.
If you think Terrain isn't a problem, Thwackey ban is pointless.

I don't think terrain is inherently a problem. It's annoying, but so is every HO build ever if you don't happen to have the right tools. All terrain builds struggle with Dragon Tail, priority, Sash, defensive teras, Red Card, bulky Steels, and I'm sure there's a few more generic checks and balances against it. Unsurprisingly, HO as an archetype struggles with those exact same things. Huh!

If Terrain/Seed were suspected, I am unsure if I would ban. I don't feel like I'm piloting some monstrous HO archetype, just in a nationwide fishing competition, and some of us are trying some real crazy lures. But as the great, wise, Linux-master JensenDale once said:

"If you don't want to fish, stop bringing your boat in the water."

​

 

[Django]

​

Hi, Paladin here i mean... grookey gaming 67 here.

I had the bright idea to do most of my reqs with a Terrain Team ft. Grookey, and I am adamantly clicking the DNB button when the time comes. I am always fervently against outright banning Pokemon, and Thwackey alone is far from a problem. He simply enables Grassy Seed, which is clearly the culprit. Pokemon that usually have zero meaningful usage in NU, like Espeon, Drednaw, Hitmonlee, etc. suddenly have a life raft keeping them afloat in a usage-based system. Without Grassy Seed, we would outright not see Espeon or Lee outside of <1300 ladder. Grassy Seed enables random Stored Power sweeps, gives quality Unburden procs, and the defense raise of course helps a ton.

Banning Thwackey would just bring Grookey into the same slot.

You would think it's a massive downgrade, and honestly, it's really not. Grassy Glide still OHKOs SpD Swampert. It's fast enough to U-turn and Taunt on everything slow and/or fat, and I've picked up massive KOs thanks to my Endeavor technology. My % record in one game from Grookey is 206.

If Thwackster gets banned, and we have to do this all over again, I mean I'll take the free suspect test under my belt. Need a badge eventually. Regardless, it doesn't address the problem. Grassy Seed enables the extremely polarizing teambuilding experience everyone agrees on in the thread. My Hoopa 6-0ing is the same as Falinks 6-0ing is the same as Espeon 6-0ing is the same as Graf 6-0ing. More fish than an aquarium.

I don't see why we need to nuke Thwackey just to run into the same issues. It's a random ladder match at 2PM, Grookey clicks U-turn on the switch. Thirty minutes ago, you get your Grassy Glide chip either way. In a parallel universe, Grookey + Friends team will sweep Brick in Seasonal. You don't need to be Dr. Manhattan to see the tier from the fourth dimension and tell me there's much tangible difference between Grookey and Thwackey in most matches.

I understand it's "tiering policy", but it seems like an abject waste of time to suspect a Pokemon that is, in a vaccuum, not particularly strong and is clearly the biggest enabler since Henry Kissinger. If Terrain is really as broken as some people think, then Grookey will gladly slot in, and then what? We just ban terrain/seed anyways?

Therefore: If you think Terrain is a problem, Thwackey ban is pointless.
If you think Terrain isn't a problem, Thwackey ban is pointless.

I don't think terrain is inherently a problem. It's annoying, but so is every HO build ever if you don't happen to have the right tools. All terrain builds struggle with Dragon Tail, priority, Sash, defensive teras, Red Card, bulky Steels, and I'm sure there's a few more generic checks and balances against it. Unsurprisingly, HO as an archetype struggles with those exact same things. Huh!

If Terrain/Seed were suspected, I am unsure if I would ban. I don't feel like I'm piloting some monstrous HO archetype, just in a nationwide fishing competition, and some of us are trying some real crazy lures. But as the great, wise, Linux-master JensenDale once said:

"If you don't want to fish, stop bringing your boat in the water."

​

Just to reiterate Rabias point above, this is completely and utterly the wrong way to be thinking about the suspect.

If you think Terrain is a problem, Thwackey ban moves us one step closer to determining if the problem is deeper than Thwackey. In that case, vote ban.
If you think Terrain isn't a problem, Thwackey ban is pointless. Vote DNB.

You've used a lot of words here to add very little of value to the thread. As noted above, the right place to post this sort of argument about Thwackey vs Grassy Seed is the Policy Review forum. If you have an issue with it, please feel free to make a thread there.

Tiering policy attempts to give us (more) objective ways to think about tiering across the board, rather than all suspect discussions devolving into "It's broken" "no it's not" ad infinitum. "If you don't want to fish, stop bringing your boat in the water" is an extreme oversimplification of the ideal state of a metagame we aim for when bothering to create tiers in competitive pokemon. Being "fervently against outright banning Pokemon" is completely opposite to the Tiering Policy which makes Pokemon the primary target of bans. I'd suggest reading this and reflecting on it before engaging further in the topic, and I'd suggest others reading the above post to take it with a pinch of salt as it's completely in opposition to the overall goals we're working towards as a community.

 

[APOGRAPHA]

Just to reiterate Rabias point above, this is completely and utterly the wrong way to be thinking about the suspect.

If you think Terrain is a problem, Thwackey ban moves us one step closer to determining if the problem is deeper than Thwackey. In that case, vote ban.
If you think Terrain isn't a problem, Thwackey ban is pointless. Vote DNB.

You've used a lot of words here to add very little of value to the thread. As noted above, the right place to post this sort of argument about Thwackey vs Grassy Seed is the Policy Review forum. If you have an issue with it, please feel free to make a thread there.

Tiering policy attempts to give us (more) objective ways to think about tiering across the board, rather than all suspect discussions devolving into "It's broken" "no it's not" ad infinitum. "If you don't want to fish, stop bringing your boat in the water" is an extreme oversimplification of the ideal state of a metagame we aim for when bothering to create tiers in competitive pokemon. Being "fervently against outright banning Pokemon" is completely opposite to the Tiering Policy which makes Pokemon the primary target of bans. I'd suggest reading this and reflecting on it before engaging further in the topic, and I'd suggest others reading the above post to take it with a pinch of salt as it's completely in opposition to the overall goals we're working towards as a community.

Good to know, next suspect test I'll make sure to only type 3 letters (Ban/DNB/idk) to not possibly repeat anything already stated in the thread, which famously never happens.

I will also make sure to only have opinions that completely line up with the Tiering Policy.

Sarcasm aside, this is the suspect test thread, and so I am monologuing about my thoughts and experiences while doing the thing you're asking us to do and discuss. If everyone thought the same way, and/or a council member was magically always right, we wouldn't need to do suspects, so why am I being made an example out of?

If you don't like what I said, fine, if you wanted to reiterate the Tiering Policy, fine, but "You've used a lot of words here to add very little of value to the thread."? Really? You can say that about half the website. You gonna say the same to every 500-word fence-sitter or just because I annoyed you in some way? Just seems rude and unnecessary and not encouraging discussion.

My only real takeaway here is some of my words weren't clear enough, and I'll do better next time with regards to structure and intent. I'll make sure to check out the Policy Review forum as well.

 

[Django]

Good to know, next suspect test I'll make sure to only type 3 letters (Ban/DNB/idk) to not possibly repeat anything already stated in the thread, which famously never happens.

I will also make sure to only have opinions that completely line up with the Tiering Policy.

Sarcasm aside, this is the suspect test thread, and so I am monologuing about my thoughts and experiences while doing the thing you're asking us to do and discuss. If everyone thought the same way, and/or a council member was magically always right, we wouldn't need to do suspects, so why am I being made an example out of?

If you don't like what I said, fine, if you wanted to reiterate the Tiering Policy, fine, but "You've used a lot of words here to add very little of value to the thread."? Really? You can say that about half the website. You gonna say the same to every 500-word fence-sitter or just because I annoyed you in some way? Just seems rude and unnecessary and not encouraging discussion.

My only real takeaway here is some of my words weren't clear enough, and I'll do better next time with regards to structure and intent. I'll make sure to check out the Policy Review forum as well.

You used 3/4 of your post to discuss a topic (banning seed instead of Thwackey) which has been explicitly asked not to do both in the OP and twice more in the thread. You then effectively encouraged others to protest vote against this by calling banning Thwackey pointless. Yes that is annoying.

The 1/4 of your post that is on topic and talking about the suspect at hand is fine - the rest of it is not.

 

[Bernardo]

I just wanted to say this feels slightly disingenuous, I've largely been a believer that terrain can get away with not having a hazard setter with the right builds. But more importantly while yes, most terrain teams will use grafaiai as it's kind of the best unburden user in the tier, grafaiai itself is also the most versatile mon on grassy terrain with the most variety in its movepool giving it many ways to either pick it's checks or find set up opportunities
A grafaiai moveset can generally look something like this:

Swords dance
Gunk shot
Knock off/throat chop
Encore/taunt/low kick/tera blast(ground or grass)/facade/acrobatics

As seen grafaiai's 4th moveslot has many options to pick from, acrobatics and tera blast grass are certainly less common these days but aren't totally useless as both with be able to hit aqua-tauros who can usually trade with a +1 graf otherwise, as well as tera blast grass will also land KOs into rhyperior, swampert, and vapoeon who can also potentially check boosted graf by means of trading/phasing/haze/scald burns. So while yes, you CAN usually expect to see grafaiai on terrain teams, you still won't know what exactly it's running until it reveals it and shouldn't be a knock against terrains versatility.

Contrary of what you saying I'm being very honest and my argument even is backed up by stats. This are all terrain replays form SSNL.

Like I said the core is .

Thwackey+Grafaiai+Espeon+ Dural +Sweeper 3 + Sweeper 4/ Tech choice

As for Grafaiai move pool you ended up being the disingenuous. Yes it can have a customizable move set. But the numbers do not lie . The vast majority of the time the forth slot isn't even clicked and when it is very likely it will be encore.

Yeah I understand that it CAN have different moves but the truth is that you don't play around that until proven wrong.

So I'd even go in a opposite direction seeing the numbers.

Graf is predictable and you will face it likely has.

SD
Koff
Gunk
Encore

Tera: Dark


One * : This

was played 10 fucking times. So Espeon usage would be 30/35 and Dural would hit almost 50%, Drifblim would be much lower and Ape and Qwill would be at 0 lol.

 

[I hate fissure]

Hello, this is the opinion of a very new, 1300 elo player who will never get reqs.
I find myself having a relatively easy time when playing grassy seed HO, especially that sample team.
Is this because my opponents and I are not very good? Probably, but from my limited experience, while it does allow some pokemon that would not see much play to shine, it does seem to me, a little too strong.
I'm sure all of you more experienced players will come to an informed decision, whatever that may be.
Attached is my rendition of what playing with thwackey feels like.

 

[Diamonds_realm]

Contrary of what you saying I'm being very honest and my argument even is backed up by stats. This are all terrain replays form SSNL.

View attachment 822566

So I'll admit I'm mildly confused at why you're using these stats as a argument against my statement, if anything duraludon's usage and win rates on terrain compared to terrain as a whole seems to support my argument of it not being a requirement for terrain and even suggesting that terrain is actually better off without the hazard setter and instead leaning fully into more threat diversity with an additional sweeper instead.

As for Grafaiai move pool you ended up being the disingenuous. Yes it can have a customizable move set. But the numbers do not lie . The vast majority of the time the forth slot isn't even clicked and when it is very likely it will be encore.

View attachment 822576

Yeah I understand that it CAN have different moves but the truth is that you don't play around that until proven wrong.

So I'd even go in a opposite direction seeing the numbers.

Graf is predictable and you will face it likely has.

SD
Koff
Gunk
Encore

Tera: Dark

On the subject of grafaiai, throat chop was a bit more of a recent adaptation as well as having more specific targets to hit rather than an initially stronger and more spamable knock off so I won't argue against knock off being the much more common option. As for the 4th move, we definitely do see encore more commonly, however the stats show the usage rate is still only about ~50% meaning there's still about another 50% chance it's not encore, and looking at the win rates for the alternative options of a 4th move they average higher than encore as well. That means while encore does have a notably higher usage rate when talking about individual moves, it's not high enough to reasonably just assume outright the grafaiai will be encore without a considerable chance of being wrong and getting punished for it.