Hello everyone, the OU tiering council has decided to test Tera Blast!
Tera Blast has been the elephant in the room of SV OU for some time now, occasionally sticking its trunk out for a policy discussion or two before retreating. After some elapsed time, a recent tiering thread aimed towards finding consensus had players coalescing around Tera Blast. While many Tera Blast users are balanced and we must accept this premise to proceed in good faith, Tera Blast has been the common thread in multiple Pokemon bans and is a key component of controversial Pokemon in current SV OU.
Banning moves, rather than Pokemon, does not tend to be Smogon's MO unless they prove to break an overwhelming portion of users. However, a universally distributed move like Tera Blast has muddied the waters. It is true that there are a myriad of healthy users of Tera Blast within the context of OU. For example, nobody is calling Iron Moth or Enamorus problematic. There are other users of the move that regularly surface in tiering discussions such as Dragonite, Kingambit, and Kyurem though. In addition, you can point towards Tera Blast when discussing the bans of Volcarona, Regieleki, and arguably other Ubers as well. Moreover, it became clear that Tera Blast afforded certain Pokemon a disruptive offensive option that made accounting for them in teambuilding a challenge. With this link and the recent uptick in community support kept in mind, the OU council unanimously supported shifting our focus to Tera Blast. A suspect felt like the most appropriate way to proceed from there.
Many people who are in favor of acting on Tera Blast will argue that the additional coverage warps defensive counterplay. You can find examples within historic OUs with Espathra using Tera Blast Fighting or a plethora of options on Volcarona, but the best use of this suspect would be to focus on current OU! Dragonite uses Tera Blast Fly to give it powerful Flying type STAB that it otherwise lacks; this allows for Dragonite to become more immediately threatening and limits the pool of would-be checks to other variants. Tera Blast Fairy Dragonite also must be respected in-game due to occasional use. Kingambit uses Tera Blast Fairy to flip the match-up against frequently encountered Zamazenta, Great Tusk, and others. You can continue going through examples like Dragon Dance Kyurem or Swords Dance Ceruledge, who have both surfaced in tiering discussions, in the current metagame as well. The common thread between them all would be that normal switch-ins suddenly get disposed of by a timely Tera Blast, allowing for a sweep or irreperable damage to the game's state in some cases.
On the contrary, some players will note that Tera Blast comes with a large opportunity cost, can be predicted in advance given the many common uses of it, and arguably does not break many Pokemon in the tier as things stand. It is true that Tera Blast does cost both your Terastallization for the battle and a valuable moveslot on an offensive centerpiece; in the event that it does not work out, this can prove costly. Tera Blast without commitment is essentially a dead moveslot after all. On top of this, the aforementioned users of Tera Blast like Dragonite and Kingambit have been staples in the metagame for over a year, allowing for players to do their best at accounting for them in the builder and grow familiar with their lines against them in the battle. Finally, no Pokemon have stood out as undoubtedly broken, with or without Tera Blast, in recent history. Dragonite could qualify for a suspect test and potentially get banned, but nothing else in the metagame registers as particularly close despite Kingambit, Kyurem, Ceruledge, and plenty of others using Tera Blast often and effectively. You can argue this alone is enough to take away from the case that Tera Blast is the element warranting a ban.
No matter which side you stand on, Tera Blast is at the center of many strategies in our metagame. It can help circumvent counterplay for already threatening Pokemon, but it does mandate sinking your resources into executing the strategy. Multiple past Pokemon have been banned largely due to abusing Tera Blast and some argue Dragonite or others could be broken now as a result of Tera Blast. However, a vast majority of Tera Blast users are seen as balanced in the landscape of SV OU. This suspect test allows our playerbase to determine the fate of Tera Blast as we move forward with an additional year of SV OU!
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 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 OU before the test, full stop.)
- You can use /rank to check if your alt is allowed to get requirements. Whenever in doubt, type /rank and it will tell confirm if you are eligible or not
- 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 Finchinator and Ruft
- If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM Finchinator and Ruft!
- The requirement to vote in this suspect retest is a ELO of 1750 and GXE of 80! This was done after discussion in this thread. The deadline for getting requirements will be April 24th at 11 PM GMT-4. Good luck to all!
- No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
- No discussion on other potential suspects -- if you wish to discuss another Pokemon, we encourage you to do so in the metagame discussion thread, but this thread is strictly to discuss if Tera Blast is banworthy or not;
- No discussion on the suspect process -- this includes testing Tera Blast vs other potential suspects;
- You are required to make respectful posts;
- You are required to read this thread before posting;
- 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 OU Council and the OU Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated;
- Do not argue because it's your favorite Pokemon. This should be common sense, but please don't do this, because we will delete posts like this;
- 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 Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it;
- This thread is not to voice complaints about the suspect process or decisions of the council. While we are more than open to hearing complaints that may arise, this isn't the place for it. I suggest you message our Tier Leaders, Finchinator and Ruft, or make a post in Senior Staff requests, should you have a badge.
Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you.
Check your reqs here!