Metagame 1v1 Metagame Discussion

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Okay, I think there is a fundamental flaw in this argument in that while Pokemon which abuse sleep may not be that popular, the popularity in usage of the moveset of the abuser definitely is, like YawnLax vs CurseLax, SleepPowder MegaVenusaur vs non-SleepPowder ones, Yawn CameruptMega vs non-Yawn variants ones, to give a few examples on where I am getting with this.... So, to show you the sleep usage on popular sleep users (Though I feel this again does not tackle the main issue at hand, I'll just play ball to this logic) :

  • .usage1630 Snorlax moves 1v1
*TIBot: Belly Drum 74.807% | Yawn 73.014% | Protect 66.268% | Double-Edge 62.297% | Recycle 23.320% | Curse 22.812% | Earthquake 16.286% | Chip Away 14.718% | Amnesia 11.783% | Rest 5.801% | Return 5.254% | Facade 4.062% | Other 19.579%

  • .usage1630 Jumpluff moves 1v1
*TIBot: Leech Seed 99.918% | Sleep Powder 98.223% | Substitute 97.745% | Protect 86.967% | Other 17.147%

  • .usage1630 Gengar-Mega moves 1v1
*TIBot: Shadow Ball 66.243% | Will-O-Wisp 56.419% | Counter 42.765% | Sludge Wave 38.822% | Hex 29.275% | Hypnosis 27.848% | Taunt 27.116% | Sludge Bomb 20.949% | Dazzling Gleam 16.813% | Focus Blast 11.279% | Thunderbolt 10.266% | Haze 7.745% | Substitute 6.828% | Protect 5.685% | E...

  • .usage1630 Venusaur-Mega moves 1v1
*TIBot: Sludge Bomb 85.104% | Synthesis 78.298% | Leech Seed 72.792% | Charm 51.448% | Giga Drain 31.178% | Sleep Powder 22.434% | Hidden Power Fire 21.098% | Amnesia 7.942% | Protect 6.530% | Earthquake 3.820% | Other 19.355%

  • .usage1630 smeargle moves 1v1
*TIBot: Transform 93.750% | Imprison 93.181% | Spore 92.131% | Protect 12.895% | Lovely Kiss 10.710% | King's Shield 9.941% | Dream Eater 7.828% | Substitute 7.139% | Nothing 6.442% | Taunt 5.734% | Shore Up 5.271% | Endure 4.819% | Swords Dance 3.733% | Fake Out 3.626% | Present 3.4...


  • .usage1630 Whimsicott moves 1v1
*TIBot: Leech Seed 97.785% | Substitute 96.293% | Protect 91.686% | Moonblast 66.764% | Encore 13.464% | Taunt 9.210% | Toxic 9.103% | Other 15.695%
[doesn't use sleep, contrary to popular notion]
  • .usage1630 Camerupt-Mega moves 1v1
*TIBot: Fire Blast 95.836% | Yawn 82.424% | Earth Power 71.316% | Protect 58.532% | Ancient Power 42.687% | Rock Slide 24.365% | Flash Cannon 7.071% | Other 17.770%

  • .usage1630 Togekiss moves 1v1
*TIBot: Air Slash 98.143% | Dazzling Gleam 71.673% | Roost 42.338% | Trick 37.139% | Thunder Wave 35.814% | Flamethrower 33.636% | Aura Sphere 15.246% | Ancient Power 12.094% | Fire Blast 8.128% | Charm 8.035% | Shadow Ball 4.978% | Hidden Power Fire 3.307% | Extrasensory 2.985% | Pr...

[learns Yawn, but doesn't use it]

.usage1630 Swampert-Mega moves 1v1
*TIBot: Earthquake 93.262% | Protect 53.047% | Yawn 51.506% | Ice Beam 37.732% | Waterfall 37.395% | Outrage 20.146% | Ice Punch 18.189% | Curse 13.992% | Rain Dance 9.097% | Superpower 8.919% | Counter 7.923% | Mirror Coat 7.775% | Hydro Cannon 6.634% | Rock Tomb 5.830% | Icy Wind 4...

The list by usage gets weird but I'll include more Pokemon which uses sleep, but mind you, these Pokemon aren't (or weren't seen) very commonly seen on the ladder
  • .usage1630 Ursaring moves 1v1
*TIBot: Protect 98.650% | Yawn 92.147% | Belly Drum 81.905% | Double-Edge 58.972% | Facade 14.837% | Play Rough 14.567% | Close Combat 12.918% | Chip Away 6.771% | Other 19.234%

  • .usage1630 Empoleon moves 1v1
*TIBot: Icy Wind 67.322% | Hydro Cannon 66.463% | Aqua Jet 60.966% | Grass Knot 51.753% | Flash Cannon 31.507% | Scald 27.520% | Ice Beam 25.574% | Surf 24.306% | Hydro Pump 10.347% | Signal Beam 5.208% | Endure 4.131% | Yawn 3.974% | Drill Peck 2.403% | Other 18.528%

  • .usage1630 Vivillon moves 1v1
*TIBot: Sleep Powder 99.771% | Substitute 97.193% | Quiver Dance 96.406% | Hurricane 69.873% | Bug Buzz 32.096% | Other 4.660%

  • .usage1630 Relicanth moves 1v1
*TIBot: Protect 91.804% | Yawn 91.658% | Head Smash 66.665% | Waterfall 55.994% | Earthquake 35.011% | Flail 20.761% | Aqua Tail 12.255% | Stone Edge 11.356% | Other 14.497%

  • .usage1630 Yanma moves 1v1 (really, though? YANMA?? PLEASE.....)
*TIBot: Hypnosis 100.000% | Substitute 100.000% | Defog 90.041% | Shadow Ball 85.907% | Air Slash 14.093% | Other 9.959%

Okay, so , what was I trying to achieve by displaying these stats? I wanted to just show that the move usage by Pokemon would be a better yardstick to compare between the various sleep users/abusers than the raw usage of the Pokemon because the Pokemon in question can run multiple sets, which may or may not include sleep-inducing moves, but what the relevant information to this argument would be is how popular the sleep-inducing sets of a Pokemon are with respect to the non-sleep inducing sets of it. It is noteworthy that sleep-inducing strats are very, very popular among the Pokemon using it, save for a few.


Having said that, why do I say usage stats aren't the way to go?

  1. Simply because no other mechanic in 1v1's history was banned because of their usage. It would make sense if you use usage stats to defend banning a Pokemon, but banning a mechanic based on usage is not the same as banning a Pokemon, and therefore the parameters used to defend banning/unbanning a Pokemon should not be applied to defend banning/unbanning a mechanic.
  2. There is also the fact that usage stats change, but the underlying principles don't. So, banning a mechanic based on principle brings out more consistency than banning a mechanic based on usage of Pokemon based on it.
So, we don't suck. Maybe our arguments lack clarity coz of language issues or coz of posting at odd times, but certainly not for lack of brains (well, at least mine xd)....
Ah, I see what you're saying, but you still have to consider that moveset usage is still a percentage of total usage - thus, Yawnlax has a usage rate of 3.78875%*73.014%=2.766317925%. That's a lot of Yawnlaxes, but very few Snorlaxes period - you'll see a Yawnlax a little more often than once every 40 battles on average. It seems common, which makes it feel annoying, but it really isn't.
Just as a note to those who try to mark up how banworthy something is in relation to how much usage it gets:

| 43 | Deoxys-Defense | 1.61755% | 4698 | 1.618% | 1773 | 3.751% | 2017-06/gen71v1-0
| 33 | Deoxys-Defense | 2.14306% | 4698 | 1.618% | 1773 | 3.751% | 2017-06/gen71v1-1500
| 30 | Deoxys-Defense | 2.62946% | 4698 | 1.618% | 1773 | 3.751% | 2017-06/gen71v1-1630
| 36 | Deoxys-Defense | 1.82586% | 4698 | 1.618% | 1773 | 3.751% | 2017-06/gen71v1-1760
| 37 | Deoxys-Defense | 1.66519% | 4598 | 1.665% | 1716 | 3.816% | 2017-07/gen71v1-0
| 29 | Deoxys-Defense | 2.10182% | 4598 | 1.665% | 1716 | 3.816% | 2017-07/gen71v1-1500
| 33 | Deoxys-Defense | 2.12491% | 4598 | 1.665% | 1716 | 3.816% | 2017-07/gen71v1-1630
| 34 | Deoxys-Defense | 1.39848% | 4598 | 1.665% | 1716 | 3.816% | 2017-07/gen71v1-1760
| 12 | Deoxys-Defense | 4.50710% | 8471 | 4.507% | 3149 | 10.239% | 2017-07/gen71v1suspecttest-0
| 17 | Deoxys-Defense | 4.32594% | 8471 | 4.507% | 3149 | 10.239% | 2017-07/gen71v1suspecttest-1500
| 16 | Deoxys-Defense | 4.79346% | 8471 | 4.507% | 3149 | 10.239% | 2017-07/gen71v1suspecttest-1630
| 16 | Deoxys-Defense | 5.17970% | 8471 | 4.507% | 3149 | 10.239% | 2017-07/gen71v1suspecttest-1760

Taken from the last two months just before being banned, the highest usage rank Deoxys-Defense has ever been in was 12, which happened during its own suspect test, at the lowest possible range of glicko-1. I want to make it very clear that usage alone is not the reason we ban things, nor is it even a significant reason for things to be banned at all.
Have a nice day. megapost on Sleep coming soon to a thread near you
This is a much better line of argument given our previous ban history and philosophy. However, we have always banned because whatever we banned was so broken that it was impossible to play against without significant workarounds. I find it incredibly difficult to believe that sleep as a mechanic fits that definition - 17% of mons in the meta has any combat capability with it, and of those less than half are any good at all regardless of whether they run a sleep move. Is it gimmicky and frustrating? Yes, but so what? Should we ban Leech seed+Protect+Substitute, or flinch as a mechanic? (Already did away with Jirachi, but scarf was really the only thing making it banworthy.) Should we find a way to remove stall from 1v1? Do we ban Z-moves* and Hyper Beam/Giga Impact because they're too strong? There are a lot of bullshit strategies in this game. Taking out sleep seems like the most arbitrary place to start getting rid of them.

*For the record, I think we should've banned Z-moves, but that was a different argument and it's over now.
 
This is a much better line of argument given our previous ban history and philosophy. However, we have always banned because whatever we banned was so broken that it was impossible to play against without significant workarounds. I find it incredibly difficult to believe that sleep as a mechanic fits that definition - 17% of mons in the meta has any combat capability with it, and of those less than half are any good at all regardless of whether they run a sleep move. Is it gimmicky and frustrating? Yes, but so what? Should we ban Leech seed+Protect+Substitute, or flinch as a mechanic? (Already did away with Jirachi, but scarf was really the only thing making it banworthy.) Should we find a way to remove stall from 1v1? Do we ban Z-moves* and Hyper Beam/Giga Impact because they're too strong? There are a lot of bullshit strategies in this game. Taking out sleep seems like the most arbitrary place to start getting rid of them.
Being broken is not the only reason things get banned. https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/tiering-policy-framework.3628026/ This link will take you to the tiering policy framework across basically all tiers and metagames.
The key section that the ongoing Sleep discussion is about is whether or not Sleep is uncompetitive, not broken, as well as whether or not it is uncompetitive enough to warrant a ban, as there are other objectively uncompetitive elements in the game that simply don't work often enough to be relevant or problematic, such as the Focus Band, Quick Claw, Brightpowder, etc.
II.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

  • This can be matchup related; think the determination that Baton Pass took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team matchup issue, where even the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
  • This can be external factors; think Endless Battle Clause, where the determining factor became internet connection over playing skill.
  • This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, evasion, or Moody, all of which turned the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
Being uncompetitive means that either using and/or playing against Sleep takes skill away from the players involved, forcing the battle to become less about being able to outplay your opponents in battle, and instead relying more on RNG or just being faster in order to win.
I.) Skill - the subjective metric we use to judge player worth in competitive Pokemon.
  • Team Building Skill - the part of skill that is involved in the preparation for a battle
    • Assessing and Dealing with Threats
    • Building Towards a Strategy (or Strategies)
    • Creativity
    • Catering to Metagame / Opponents
  • Battling Skill - the part of skill involved in actually battling
    • Picking the Right Lead
    • Recognizing the Win Condition
    • Picking the Right Move
    • Smart Switching
    • Gathering Information and Making Assumptions
    • Long-term vs. Short-term Goals
    • Assessing Risk
    • Probability Management
    • Prediction
 
Being broken is not the only reason things get banned. https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/tiering-policy-framework.3628026/ This link will take you to the tiering policy framework across basically all tiers and metagames.
The key section that the ongoing Sleep discussion is about is whether or not Sleep is uncompetitive, not broken, as well as whether or not it is uncompetitive enough to warrant a ban, as there are other objectively uncompetitive elements in the game that simply don't work often enough to be relevant or problematic, such as the Focus Band, Quick Claw, Brightpowder, etc.
II.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

  • This can be matchup related; think the determination that Baton Pass took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team matchup issue, where even the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
  • This can be external factors; think Endless Battle Clause, where the determining factor became internet connection over playing skill.
  • This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, evasion, or Moody, all of which turned the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
Being uncompetitive means that either using and/or playing against Sleep takes skill away from the players involved, forcing the battle to become less about being able to outplay your opponents in battle, and instead relying more on RNG or just being faster in order to win.
I.) Skill - the subjective metric we use to judge player worth in competitive Pokemon.
  • Team Building Skill - the part of skill that is involved in the preparation for a battle
    • Assessing and Dealing with Threats
    • Building Towards a Strategy (or Strategies)
    • Creativity
    • Catering to Metagame / Opponents
  • Battling Skill - the part of skill involved in actually battling
    • Picking the Right Lead
    • Recognizing the Win Condition
    • Picking the Right Move
    • Smart Switching
    • Gathering Information and Making Assumptions
    • Long-term vs. Short-term Goals
    • Assessing Risk
    • Probability Management
    • Prediction
By that definition of uncompetitive, shouldn't we also ban Z-moves, nuke moves like Hyper Beam/Giga Impact, and choice items? After all, they generally require equal or less skill to play as sleep and other gimmicks - predict, hit one or two buttons, win. (Or lose if you've grossly miscalculated.) Also by that dint, banning Jirachi outright, while easier than banning Jirachi holding scarf, actually goes against this philosophy - it's really not strong enough to warrant a ban without the extra speed, and can't abuse flinch either. We have made every ban because the Pokemon or function in question was absolutely problematic - accuracy lowering moves, KyuB, Perish Song, etc. Sleep is not even close to the same problem that these bans fixed - where the power level of the banlist covers S and A rank problems, Sleep is a B- at best. Yes, it's annoying and requires preparation to avoid losing, but using that line of thinking to justify a ban means we should basically stop playing, because we have to prepare for every other annoying function in the game, like Leech Seed, flinch, other players... We have better things to deal with than a problem that literally shows up less than 8% of the time. Let's go do those things instead.
 
sleep related post

I dont feel sleep is uncompetitive (other than maybe yawn lax). Sleep is used a majority of the time as a move you need to hit to win (sleep powder, hypnosis, grasswhistle, etc). Take a mon like Jumpluff and a mon like Porygon Z. In a match up where porygon z is favored, most all of the time you just need to hit hyper beam to win. The case is the same with jumpluff (or gengar, or whimsi grasswhistle, or vivillon, etc), you just need to hit sleep powder so you can win. The method they use to win is different (sleep or a move that ohkos), but how they win is overall the same (hitting a move that allows them to win). Some might try to argue that sleep in this case is unfair since it doesnt allow the opponent to move, but. it would be the same as if you killed the mon. If you kill the mon, it cant move, or use a super effective move it has to kill back. In cases with sleep moves like these, it would be the exact same as just using a coverage move with lowish accuracy to ohko for the win. (this sort of sleep also has lots of counter play in moves like taunt, typing, speed boosting moves like flame charge, outspeeding and koing (which is fairly common with scarf mons and fast mons that are on most teams already), and in a lot of cases this is true with current mons in the meta that dont run sleep. you beat mega gyara or zards or deo s or any strong mon with type resistances, bulk, outspeeding and ohkoing, and more. This sort of sleep most of the time relies on leech seed stall too, which is easily beatable with many common playstyles in the format including rest, moves like recover (to out pp stall the opponent or at least their subs/protects), sound moves, and type coverage moves in general (not to mention z moves ohkoing everything and being able to break through protect). These types of sleep moves just become another sort of coverage move needed to win matchups you wouldnt normally with without it, (such as signal beam on deoxys speed to beat hoopa u which should always beat deo s), and end up being something you need to counter just like any other mon or strategy in the meta.

Yawn Lax
Lax is really the only user of yawn that is good and widely used, and I do think that it may be unhealthy to the meta just because of its ability to use belly drum, z belly drum, protect, z yawn, yawn, z double edge, or double edge in whatever way it needs to beat almost anything bar ghost types, and the main reason i think it might be a problem is its massive amount of bulk allowing it to live almost any attack, even z attacks, get yawn off, protect, then z belly drum into a win against, again, almost anything. I'm pretty sure this mon is really where the hate for sleep comes from, and I think it would be better to ban this rather than sleep as a whole.

Yawn (counting out lax) is a little different from the previously mentioned sleep moves as it is 100% accurate and hits all mons (not counting insomnia and magic bounce), but I feel that it comes down to being another coverage move to help the user win some extra matchups that it wouldnt normally win, just like any other coverage move. Using Yawn pretty much requires you to run protect (or endure, as seen on stunfisk) as to avoid 2hkos from mons that you want to beat. This will, at the minimum, eat up one moveslot, or most always, eat up 2 to run. Running this means you have to run less coverage that would normally be important in beating a wider variety of matches. That coverage you lose is replaced by new coverage in yawn tect that allows you to beat several other mons you wouldnt normally beat otherwise, except instead of extra attacks for type coverage, you use sleep turns to give you the time needed to ko it with the move pool you have available. People might say this is uncompetitive due to sleep turns RNG, but its really just as competitive as any coverage move that say has a chance to miss. If you bring focus blast on a psychic type to deal with steel types, you winning is going to be RNG based, since you have a chance for it to not land. This is the same with sleep turns, when you yawn you need RNG to work in your favor so they dont wake up and finish you off.
To try and make this make a little more sense, ill provide an example.
if said psychic type brings focus blast and needs to hit it once to win, then there is a 70% chance you will win. If you need to hit it twice to win and you can live a hit, you'll have a 49% chance to win as that is the chance of hitting focus blast twice in a row. Your chances will be less and less as more turns are needed to win, but they will still happen. Winning will be very RNG based in a scenario like this. The sleep turns are very closely related to this scenario. after the first sleep turn, the opponent has a 33% chance to wake up, and if that is the turn you cant have them wake up since you need to be able to kill them, you have a 66% chance to win. If you need them to stay asleep on their 3rd turn to be able to win, you have approximately a 43-44% chance to win. As you need more sleep turns to win, your chances of winning become smaller, but they will still happen.
While the sleep turns may sometimes create a sort of RNG scenario in some matchups where sleep is absolutely needed for a mon like camerupt to win, it acts the same as a coverage move with less then perfect accuracy to win (which is quite common, especially in 1v1).
Overall point: sleep moves act as coverage moves that allow you to win in a different method, but similar manner as any move needed to win against certain mons.

I do want to quickly address Osra's mentions of skill and uncompetitive.
II.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.

  • This can be matchup related; think the determination that Baton Pass took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team matchup issue, where even the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
  • This can be external factors; think Endless Battle Clause, where the determining factor became internet connection over playing skill.
  • This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, evasion, or Moody, all of which turned the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
Being uncompetitive means that either using and/or playing against Sleep takes skill away from the players involved, forcing the battle to become less about being able to outplay your opponents in battle, and instead relying more on RNG or just being faster in order to win.
I.) Skill - the subjective metric we use to judge player worth in competitive Pokemon.
  • Team Building Skill - the part of skill that is involved in the preparation for a battle
    • Assessing and Dealing with Threats
    • Building Towards a Strategy (or Strategies)
    • Creativity
    • Catering to Metagame / Opponents
  • Battling Skill - the part of skill involved in actually battling
    • Picking the Right Lead
    • Recognizing the Win Condition
    • Picking the Right Move
    • Smart Switching
    • Gathering Information and Making Assumptions
    • Long-term vs. Short-term Goals
    • Assessing Risk
    • Probability Management
    • Prediction
In 1v1, relying on being faster or RNG is the main way to win other than spamming z moves. This is why people run scarf PZ hyper beam, mega lop with giga and hjk, specs psycho boost deo s, high jump kick pheromosa, hydro cannon specs greninja, and many more. I do not think relying on being faster, or RNG should be used as an argument to ban sleep, as all of these mons depend on both (every move mentioned is below 100 accuracy, and therefore relies solely on RNG to hit and win). The Skill definition mentioned DOES apply to sleep. more skillful play in the 1v1 tier is going to depend on choosing/guessing the right mon to beat whatever the opponent sends out, and using the move that will win. If you guess a mon like charizard to beat a mon like jumpluff, that would normally be correct in a 6v6 tier, but the same cant be said in 1v1 where jumpluff's set will most likely beat zard. Saying zard should automatically beat jumpluff because it has type advantage or something of the like, and claiming there is no skill involved since jumpluff can use sleep powder to win isnt true, especially when you realize that sleep powder is acting as a coverage move that allows luff to beat more mons than it should when based solely on typing. Teambuilding skill and battling skill are involved with sleep too. First you have to assess it as a threat, and build accordingly just like with any other threat in the meta. If you dont have answers on one team, then have teams that are able to deal with it as backup or cteams just like normal threats that some teams you run will struggle with. Battling skill goes along with how you need to be able to predict the mon your opponent will choose, and picking accordingly, and if your team is well built to handle this threat, then you will be able to win.
One last thing, sleep is limited in 6v6 since after sacking a mon, or switching a mon in, you can set up and take a hit or have the opponent switch, then you can proceed to set up, sleep, and nearly ohko anything without them being able to answer. In 1v1, this isnt a problem as you will either be able to deal with it before or after it sleeps you, or its just another threat that your mon / team isnt prepared for, like normal


If anything isnt very coherent sicne i wrote this at 4am, say so and ill try to elaborate, hmu with some debates / discussion too
 
By that definition of uncompetitive, shouldn't we also ban Z-moves, nuke moves like Hyper Beam/Giga Impact, and choice items? After all, they generally require equal or less skill to play as sleep and other gimmicks - predict, hit one or two buttons, win. (Or lose if you've grossly miscalculated.) Also by that dint, banning Jirachi outright, while easier than banning Jirachi holding scarf, actually goes against this philosophy - it's really not strong enough to warrant a ban without the extra speed, and can't abuse flinch either. We have made every ban because the Pokemon or function in question was absolutely problematic - accuracy lowering moves, KyuB, Perish Song, etc. Sleep is not even close to the same problem that these bans fixed - where the power level of the banlist covers S and A rank problems, Sleep is a B- at best. Yes, it's annoying and requires preparation to avoid losing, but using that line of thinking to justify a ban means we should basically stop playing, because we have to prepare for every other annoying function in the game, like Leech Seed, flinch, other players... We have better things to deal with than a problem that literally shows up less than 8% of the time. Let's go do those things instead.
Z moves, imo, actually allow for greater skill than a choice item. After team preview is over, and you have a choice item, you pretty much click a move and click it for the rest of the battle. With Z moves as a viable alternative for non-Mega offensive mons, battles can have actual content and plays after team preview ends. As far as Jirachi goes, A) Jirachi without a Choice Scarf is still more than capable of flinching you, and B) we don't really do complex bans so banning Choice Scarf+Jirachi wouldn't be a viable option. On sleep, you can't really rank it as a whole. It always has to be individual users. YawnLax is A, Sleep Powder Mega Venusaur is B+, Jumpluff is B+, YawnPert is B-, Yawn Mega Camerupt is C+, etc. Additionally, low usage can't justify it being a non-issue. Look at the Deoxys-D example above. It peaked at only 5% usage and was still broken.
 
Okay, so I haven’t responded in this thread in forever. Since I’ve been getting back into 1v1 recently, I’ll attempt to respond some arguments that I don’t agree with.

So I’m not going to respond to a specific post for this one but any argument about usage is completely irrelevant. Usage literally has nothing to do with if something is uncompetitive or not, so saying something is not used much is not an argument against banning something. I’ve been lurking in this thread for forever and that always annoys me to no end when someone uses usage as an argument, especially as their main/only argument. So stop. Please.
By that definition of uncompetitive, shouldn't we also ban Z-moves, nuke moves like Hyper Beam/Giga Impact, and choice items? After all, they generally require equal or less skill to play as sleep and other gimmicks - predict, hit one or two buttons, win. (Or lose if you've grossly miscalculated.) Also by that dint, banning Jirachi outright, while easier than banning Jirachi holding scarf, actually goes against this philosophy - it's really not strong enough to warrant a ban without the extra speed, and can't abuse flinch either. We have made every ban because the Pokemon or function in question was absolutely problematic - accuracy lowering moves, KyuB, Perish Song, etc. Sleep is not even close to the same problem that these bans fixed - where the power level of the banlist covers S and A rank problems, Sleep is a B- at best. Yes, it's annoying and requires preparation to avoid losing, but using that line of thinking to justify a ban means we should basically stop playing, because we have to prepare for every other annoying function in the game, like Leech Seed, flinch, other players... We have better things to deal with than a problem that literally shows up less than 8% of the time. Let's go do those things instead.
There’s a couple arguments to unpack here, so let’s go by each argument.
By that definition of uncompetitive, shouldn't we also ban Z-moves, nuke moves like Hyper Beam/Giga Impact, and choice items? After all, they generally require equal or less skill to play as sleep and other gimmicks - predict, hit one or two buttons, win. (Or lose if you've grossly miscalculated.)
I think your misunderstanding the reason people think sleep is uncompetitive. It’s because it takes the game out of the players’ hands and puts it in the hands of the rng gods. All of those things do not take the game out of the players’ hands, but instead is a strategy that relies on prediction. Both players have complete agency in using those.
Also by that dint, banning Jirachi outright, while easier than banning Jirachi holding scarf, actually goes against this philosophy - it's really not strong enough to warrant a ban without the extra speed, and can't abuse flinch either.
No? Jirachi can still flinch things slower than it, and it still has a decent speed tier without scarf. The uncompetitive aspect is still there. Plus, complex bans like that one go against Smogon philosophy as a whole, especially one as ridiculous as x mon can’t hold x item.
We have made every ban because the Pokemon or function in question was absolutely problematic - accuracy lowering moves, KyuB, Perish Song, etc. Sleep is not even close to the same problem that these bans fixed - where the power level of the banlist covers S and A rank problems, Sleep is a B- at best.
I find this quoted portion funny, since accuracy-lowering moves were banned for the exact same reason people are arguing to ban sleep: It takes the game out of the players’ hands. Accuracy-lowering moves has the exact same counterplay as sleep in fact. Abusers of accuracy-lowering moves have never been high on the vr, unlike sleep. Yet, they’re uncompetitive and sleep isn’t? Also Kyurem-B and Perish Song has nothing to do with sleep or uncompetitiveness, so I don’t know what the point of bringing them up is. Sleep is B- at best? Snorlax, Mega Venusaur, and Jumpluff laugh at you.
Yes, it's annoying and requires preparation to avoid losing, but using that line of thinking to justify a ban means we should basically stop playing, because we have to prepare for every other annoying function in the game, like Leech Seed, flinch, other players...
The problem with this is that is, like I’ve said many times in this post, sleep takes the game out of the players’ hands unlike leech seed or whatever. Also, I find it interesting how you mention flinch, yet Jirachi has already been banned for abusing flinches.
We have better things to deal with than a problem that literally shows up less than 8% of the time. Let's go do those things instead.
See earlier in this post for why usage is not an argument. Snipes by mace on some points, but I was already typing this out so whatever.
sleep related post

I dont feel sleep is uncompetitive (other than maybe yawn lax). Sleep is used a majority of the time as a move you need to hit to win (sleep powder, hypnosis, grasswhistle, etc). Take a mon like Jumpluff and a mon like Porygon Z. In a match up where porygon z is favored, most all of the time you just need to hit hyper beam to win. The case is the same with jumpluff (or gengar, or whimsi grasswhistle, or vivillon, etc), you just need to hit sleep powder so you can win. The method they use to win is different (sleep or a move that ohkos), but how they win is overall the same (hitting a move that allows them to win). Some might try to argue that sleep in this case is unfair since it doesnt allow the opponent to move, but. it would be the same as if you killed the mon. If you kill the mon, it cant move, or use a super effective move it has to kill back. In cases with sleep moves like these, it would be the exact same as just using a coverage move with lowish accuracy to ohko for the win. (this sort of sleep also has lots of counter play in moves like taunt, typing, speed boosting moves like flame charge, outspeeding and koing (which is fairly common with scarf mons and fast mons that are on most teams already), and in a lot of cases this is true with current mons in the meta that dont run sleep. you beat mega gyara or zards or deo s or any strong mon with type resistances, bulk, outspeeding and ohkoing, and more. This sort of sleep most of the time relies on leech seed stall too, which is easily beatable with many common playstyles in the format including rest, moves like recover (to out pp stall the opponent or at least their subs/protects), sound moves, and type coverage moves in general (not to mention z moves ohkoing everything and being able to break through protect). These types of sleep moves just become another sort of coverage move needed to win matchups you wouldnt normally with without it, (such as signal beam on deoxys speed to beat hoopa u which should always beat deo s), and end up being something you need to counter just like any other mon or strategy in the meta.

Yawn Lax
Lax is really the only user of yawn that is good and widely used, and I do think that it may be unhealthy to the meta just because of its ability to use belly drum, z belly drum, protect, z yawn, yawn, z double edge, or double edge in whatever way it needs to beat almost anything bar ghost types, and the main reason i think it might be a problem is its massive amount of bulk allowing it to live almost any attack, even z attacks, get yawn off, protect, then z belly drum into a win against, again, almost anything. I'm pretty sure this mon is really where the hate for sleep comes from, and I think it would be better to ban this rather than sleep as a whole.

Yawn (counting out lax) is a little different from the previously mentioned sleep moves as it is 100% accurate and hits all mons (not counting insomnia and magic bounce), but I feel that it comes down to being another coverage move to help the user win some extra matchups that it wouldnt normally win, just like any other coverage move. Using Yawn pretty much requires you to run protect (or endure, as seen on stunfisk) as to avoid 2hkos from mons that you want to beat. This will, at the minimum, eat up one moveslot, or most always, eat up 2 to run. Running this means you have to run less coverage that would normally be important in beating a wider variety of matches. That coverage you lose is replaced by new coverage in yawn tect that allows you to beat several other mons you wouldnt normally beat otherwise, except instead of extra attacks for type coverage, you use sleep turns to give you the time needed to ko it with the move pool you have available. People might say this is uncompetitive due to sleep turns RNG, but its really just as competitive as any coverage move that say has a chance to miss. If you bring focus blast on a psychic type to deal with steel types, you winning is going to be RNG based, since you have a chance for it to not land. This is the same with sleep turns, when you yawn you need RNG to work in your favor so they dont wake up and finish you off.
To try and make this make a little more sense, ill provide an example.
if said psychic type brings focus blast and needs to hit it once to win, then there is a 70% chance you will win. If you need to hit it twice to win and you can live a hit, you'll have a 49% chance to win as that is the chance of hitting focus blast twice in a row. Your chances will be less and less as more turns are needed to win, but they will still happen. Winning will be very RNG based in a scenario like this. The sleep turns are very closely related to this scenario. after the first sleep turn, the opponent has a 33% chance to wake up, and if that is the turn you cant have them wake up since you need to be able to kill them, you have a 66% chance to win. If you need them to stay asleep on their 3rd turn to be able to win, you have approximately a 43-44% chance to win. As you need more sleep turns to win, your chances of winning become smaller, but they will still happen.
While the sleep turns may sometimes create a sort of RNG scenario in some matchups where sleep is absolutely needed for a mon like camerupt to win, it acts the same as a coverage move with less then perfect accuracy to win (which is quite common, especially in 1v1).
Overall point: sleep moves act as coverage moves that allow you to win in a different method, but similar manner as any move needed to win against certain mons.

I do want to quickly address Osra's mentions of skill and uncompetitive.

In 1v1, relying on being faster or RNG is the main way to win other than spamming z moves. This is why people run scarf PZ hyper beam, mega lop with giga and hjk, specs psycho boost deo s, high jump kick pheromosa, hydro cannon specs greninja, and many more. I do not think relying on being faster, or RNG should be used as an argument to ban sleep, as all of these mons depend on both (every move mentioned is below 100 accuracy, and therefore relies solely on RNG to hit and win). The Skill definition mentioned DOES apply to sleep. more skillful play in the 1v1 tier is going to depend on choosing/guessing the right mon to beat whatever the opponent sends out, and using the move that will win. If you guess a mon like charizard to beat a mon like jumpluff, that would normally be correct in a 6v6 tier, but the same cant be said in 1v1 where jumpluff's set will most likely beat zard. Saying zard should automatically beat jumpluff because it has type advantage or something of the like, and claiming there is no skill involved since jumpluff can use sleep powder to win isnt true, especially when you realize that sleep powder is acting as a coverage move that allows luff to beat more mons than it should when based solely on typing. Teambuilding skill and battling skill are involved with sleep too. First you have to assess it as a threat, and build accordingly just like with any other threat in the meta. If you dont have answers on one team, then have teams that are able to deal with it as backup or cteams just like normal threats that some teams you run will struggle with. Battling skill goes along with how you need to be able to predict the mon your opponent will choose, and picking accordingly, and if your team is well built to handle this threat, then you will be able to win.
One last thing, sleep is limited in 6v6 since after sacking a mon, or switching a mon in, you can set up and take a hit or have the opponent switch, then you can proceed to set up, sleep, and nearly ohko anything without them being able to answer. In 1v1, this isnt a problem as you will either be able to deal with it before or after it sleeps you, or its just another threat that your mon / team isnt prepared for, like normal


If anything isnt very coherent sicne i wrote this at 4am, say so and ill try to elaborate, hmu with some debates / discussion too
I’m not going to go point by point for this one, but the sleep as coverage argument doesn’t really work because unlike coverage moves, sleep reduces the game to the game of rng rather than the game of mons. You could apply your arguments to accuracy-reducing moves too, do you want those unbanned?
 
Take a mon like Jumpluff and a mon like Porygon Z. In a match up where porygon z is favored, most all of the time you just need to hit hyper beam to win. The case is the same with jumpluff (or gengar, or whimsi grasswhistle, or vivillon, etc), you just need to hit sleep powder so you can win. The method they use to win is different (sleep or a move that ohkos), but how they win is overall the same (hitting a move that allows them to win). Some might try to argue that sleep in this case is unfair since it doesnt allow the opponent to move, but. it would be the same as if you killed the mon. If you kill the mon, it cant move, or use a super effective move it has to kill back. In cases with sleep moves like these, it would be the exact same as just using a coverage move with lowish accuracy to ohko for the win. (this sort of sleep also has lots of counter play in moves like taunt, typing, speed boosting moves like flame charge, outspeeding and koing (which is fairly common with scarf mons and fast mons that are on most teams already), and in a lot of cases this is true with current mons in the meta that dont run sleep. you beat mega gyara or zards or deo s or any strong mon with type resistances, bulk, outspeeding and ohkoing, and more. This sort of sleep most of the time relies on leech seed stall too, which is easily beatable with many common playstyles in the format including rest, moves like recover (to out pp stall the opponent or at least their subs/protects), sound moves, and type coverage moves in general (not to mention z moves ohkoing everything and being able to break through protect). These types of sleep moves just become another sort of coverage move needed to win matchups you wouldnt normally with without it, (such as signal beam on deoxys speed to beat hoopa u which should always beat deo s), and end up being something you need to counter just like any other mon or strategy in the meta.
The distinct difference between Jumpluff and Porygon-Z is that Jumpluff requires type matchups as simple as something that just isn't Grass type or Magic Bounce or w/e to win, while Porygon-Z needs the type advantage in order to win, as it only OHKO's mons that are neutral to Hyper Beam and/or are too frail to withstand it. Jumpluff just wins regardless of any statistic besides Speed, and maybe a little bulk for tanking Ice Shard and stuff, and that is what I have issue with, as Jumpluff forces the game-deciding element to not be how smart the players are, but instead how fast the Jumpluff user and their opponent are, as well as whether or not the Jumpluff user lands Sleep Powder. For that reason, I believe that Jumpluff and many other Sleep abusers impede on the ideas of Skill, as defined in the tiering framework.

Yawn Lax
Lax is really the only user of yawn that is good and widely used, and I do think that it may be unhealthy to the meta just because of its ability to use belly drum, z belly drum, protect, z yawn, yawn, z double edge, or double edge in whatever way it needs to beat almost anything bar ghost types, and the main reason i think it might be a problem is its massive amount of bulk allowing it to live almost any attack, even z attacks, get yawn off, protect, then z belly drum into a win against, again, almost anything. I'm pretty sure this mon is really where the hate for sleep comes from, and I think it would be better to ban this rather than sleep as a whole.
Don't worry, proposing a Snorlax ban for being broken is the backup plan in case Sleep doesn't get banned ;U

Yawn (counting out lax) is a little different from the previously mentioned sleep moves as it is 100% accurate and hits all mons (not counting insomnia and magic bounce), but I feel that it comes down to being another coverage move to help the user win some extra matchups that it wouldnt normally win, just like any other coverage move. Using Yawn pretty much requires you to run protect (or endure, as seen on stunfisk) as to avoid 2hkos from mons that you want to beat. This will, at the minimum, eat up one moveslot, or most always, eat up 2 to run. Running this means you have to run less coverage that would normally be important in beating a wider variety of matches. That coverage you lose is replaced by new coverage in yawn tect that allows you to beat several other mons you wouldnt normally beat otherwise, except instead of extra attacks for type coverage, you use sleep turns to give you the time needed to ko it with the move pool you have available. People might say this is uncompetitive due to sleep turns RNG, but its really just as competitive as any coverage move that say has a chance to miss. If you bring focus blast on a psychic type to deal with steel types, you winning is going to be RNG based, since you have a chance for it to not land. This is the same with sleep turns, when you yawn you need RNG to work in your favor so they dont wake up and finish you off.
To try and make this make a little more sense, ill provide an example.
if said psychic type brings focus blast and needs to hit it once to win, then there is a 70% chance you will win. If you need to hit it twice to win and you can live a hit, you'll have a 49% chance to win as that is the chance of hitting focus blast twice in a row. Your chances will be less and less as more turns are needed to win, but they will still happen. Winning will be very RNG based in a scenario like this. The sleep turns are very closely related to this scenario. after the first sleep turn, the opponent has a 33% chance to wake up, and if that is the turn you cant have them wake up since you need to be able to kill them, you have a 66% chance to win. If you need them to stay asleep on their 3rd turn to be able to win, you have approximately a 43-44% chance to win. As you need more sleep turns to win, your chances of winning become smaller, but they will still happen.
While the sleep turns may sometimes create a sort of RNG scenario in some matchups where sleep is absolutely needed for a mon like camerupt to win, it acts the same as a coverage move with less then perfect accuracy to win (which is quite common, especially in 1v1).
Overall point: sleep moves act as coverage moves that allow you to win in a different method, but similar manner as any move needed to win against certain mons.
You may not be wrong, but the difference here is that Focus Blast is a coverage move for beating Steel/Dark/Normal/etc, while Sleep is a coverage for beating just about anything. This line of thought puts Sleep more on the track of being broken, rather than uncompetitive, but either way, still towards a ban. There are at least still uncompetitive elements in what you say, as the Sleep moves instead become an emergency RNG button that you need in order to at least have a chance in matchups that you would otherwise lose without Sleep, which goes against the portion of Skill that pertains to predictions and making the right picks, as you've essentially sentenced both you and your opponent to an awkward purgatory where you're both just waiting for the Sleeping mon to wake up. While there is maneuverability to get around Sleep in the form of Taunt, Substitute, Lum Berry, Sleep Talk, etc, I believe that it's irrational to require players to use these things, specifically for Sleep abusers, ESPECIALLY with how little usage the Sleep abusers have, which makes the opportunity cost of not autogambling vs those abusers much too high when against the entire rest of the metagame.

In 1v1, relying on being faster or RNG is the main way to win other than spamming z moves. This is why people run scarf PZ hyper beam, mega lop with giga and hjk, specs psycho boost deo s, high jump kick pheromosa, hydro cannon specs greninja, and many more. I do not think relying on being faster, or RNG should be used as an argument to ban sleep, as all of these mons depend on both (every move mentioned is below 100 accuracy, and therefore relies solely on RNG to hit and win). The Skill definition mentioned DOES apply to sleep. more skillful play in the 1v1 tier is going to depend on choosing/guessing the right mon to beat whatever the opponent sends out, and using the move that will win. If you guess a mon like charizard to beat a mon like jumpluff, that would normally be correct in a 6v6 tier, but the same cant be said in 1v1 where jumpluff's set will most likely beat zard. Saying zard should automatically beat jumpluff because it has type advantage or something of the like, and claiming there is no skill involved since jumpluff can use sleep powder to win isnt true, especially when you realize that sleep powder is acting as a coverage move that allows luff to beat more mons than it should when based solely on typing. Teambuilding skill and battling skill are involved with sleep too. First you have to assess it as a threat, and build accordingly just like with any other threat in the meta. If you dont have answers on one team, then have teams that are able to deal with it as backup or cteams just like normal threats that some teams you run will struggle with. Battling skill goes along with how you need to be able to predict the mon your opponent will choose, and picking accordingly, and if your team is well built to handle this threat, then you will be able to win.
When things are faster than you, you can instead bulk for them. You cannot bulk for Sleep. The reliance on RNG is one of the biggest reasons that anything uncompetitive gets banned, see: Evasion boosting, Accuracy dropping, OHKO, Moody, Swagger, etc. Reliance on being faster is a case that applies to a separate subgroup of pokemon that are considered more "reliable" than the average Sleep abuser, namely: Jumpluff, Curse Mimikyu, Smeargle, Vivillon, Breloom, Yanma, etc. All of these pokemon rely almost solely on being faster than the opponent in order to win matchups, regardless of types and any stats besides Speed. If Sleep as a whole does not get banned, then looking into these mons would be the next step down, and as such, I retract my point about being faster in regards to overall Sleep.

Predicting picks at preview is a separate matter from when the mons are already set down. In all proper tiers and most metagames, a match is almost never decided, or even predictable, at Turn 1. Now I know 1v1 is much more susceptible to that, due to the format itself, but we should at least strive to make the metagame under the same light as the tiers in order to make it as competitive of a metagame as possible. Sleep is a huge element that takes away from players' capability to play around matchups, either in the form of automatically winning with the Speed-based abusers mentioned above, or in the form of forcing matchups down to RNG, which takes away the user interactivity with battles that pertains to skill.

One last thing, sleep is limited in 6v6 since after sacking a mon, or switching a mon in, you can set up and take a hit or have the opponent switch, then you can proceed to set up, sleep, and nearly ohko anything without them being able to answer. In 1v1, this isnt a problem as you will either be able to deal with it before or after it sleeps you, or its just another threat that your mon / team isnt prepared for, like normal
I don't think anyone was trying to argue that Sleep is better in 6v6 or 1v1- 6v6 has limitations on Sleep that prevent it from being any better than it already is, while 1v1 has no such limitations.

My own personal metric for determining whether or not something is uncompetitive is through how capable random new players are at succeeding with them. If a totally random new player who knows nothing about 1v1 receives these sets without knowing anything about them and somehow experiences success in the metagame with them, then I believe that those sets are uncompetitive. The way to quantify just how uncompetitive something is, in that scenario, is through looking at how much thought is necessary to win with the set. In the case of Jirachi, next to no thought was necessary for the use of Jirachi, all you need is the mon, a Scarf, flinching moves, and someone to press the button to use them. Sleep, however, is a bit more complex of a case, as there is some logic necessary to use them; players have to recognize when to use which move in order to win, this isn't to say that Sleep is totally competitive, just more competitive than Jirachi. Lastly, for the sake of comparison, a traditional attacking Pokemon like Charizard-X requires even more thought than Sleep, as you have to factor in the damage you're dealing, the right move to use, AND actually using the move.

My ultimate conclusion in all this is that Sleep is a middleground between things that are 100% uncompetitive (Jirachi/OHKO/etc) and things that are 100% competitive. It is simply my belief, based on my interpretation of the tiering framework, that the way Sleep works falls too much in line with other RNG-reliant factors that have been banned in the past (Evasion boosting/Accuracy dropping/OHKO/etc).

All that said, though, have a couple of new Sleep users-
venonat.gif
venonat.gif

Venonat @ Black Sludge
Ability: Compound Eyes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Infestation
- Disable

Venonat @ Black Sludge
Ability: Compound Eyes
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Sleep Powder
- Substitute
- Screech
- Leech Life
 
So just going back and reading this forum I see a lot of garbage ideas being thrown around, and it has given me enough of a headache that I feel like posting in this thread.

Firstly with regards to where mons are on the VR: It doesn't mean a thing in this discussion. Yes mons like Snorlax (A) M-Venu (A-) and Jumpluff (B+) have been on the rise in terms of the VR recently, but a large proportion of the community choose to disregard an RNG win in terms of placement on the VR. Back when Jirachi was allowed I made a post on it rising from B-, but for the most part it was pushed aside since people refused to rank flinches higher on the VR. That same principal remains that people refuse to acknowledge haxy pokemon for how great they really are. With this in mind look at the mechanic, and not VR placement since the VR for this tier has a history of being horrid at placing mons that have any sort of hax basing in their strategy.

Next let's look at what's really being discussed here: sleep turns. The issue with sleep as a strategy is whether or not the RNG based wake up system is competitive or not. No one should be giving a flying fadoodle if it's broken or not at this point. This matter solely boils down to whether or not a strategy predicated upon RNG based turn immobility should be allowed in a meta like 1v1. There are several angles to look at this from, and I feel that's what should be discussed - not whether using a grass type to counter sleep powder is a feasible means to stop sleep. Better examples of arguments imo would be: The person not using the sleep mon has to simply hope for good turns, The builder knows they are playing the odds (which can be encouraged) the second they throw a sleep move on one of their mons, Sleep is just people hoping to get something synonymous to a roll in most matchups which is normally acceptable if it's for damage so why not sleep?, and others in a similar vein.

That is going to wrap up my little rant on the subject. I'm just tired of seeing the discussions take place that I feel are just not worth having. On a personal note I'm not the biggest fan of sleep in the 1v1 meta in terms of competitiveness, but I don't find it remotely broken (as they are two different things). Hopefully this post helps the thread a little bit.
 
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SLEEP AIN'T BROKEN
and I don't think it's uncompetitive either
here's why


As of late, there has been a lot of discussion about sleep, and I personally have participated in it to a degree. The notion that sleep is "broken" is completely absurd, as it is not a definitive strategy that beats far too much of the meta, as Kyurem-Black and Tapu Koko were. There is plenty of counterplay to sleep, for example grass types to block the various powders such as Spore and Sleep Powder, Magic Bouncers, and simply things that can take down a sleep user before or after they set up, like Charizard for the grass sleepers and Metagross or Sawk for Snorlax. The fact is, the discussion should not be about whether sleep is "broke af xdd" or not and rather be about if it is uncompetitive, and if so, uncompetitive enough to be banned. I personally do not think it is, and I will try to convince the reader to listen to me because that went so well last time.
One of the common arguments against sleep is that it is "too RNG based" and as such it is uncompetitive. This is simply not true, as sleep is much more likely to be reliable than certain other strategies. For example, let's take one of the most popular Pokemon in 1v1 currently
charizard.gif
(x or y) and look at its matchups versus a sleep user
jumpluff.gif
(wide lens) and a non-sleep user
rampardos.gif
(scarf). So which matchup is more RNG and luck based? The answer, by statistics, would be the Rampardos matchup, with an 80% hit chance for Head Smash as compared to a 82% hit chance for a widelens boosted Sleep Powder. In the Charizard matchup, Jumpluff does not have to hit Sleep Powder more than once, and neither does Rampardos have to hit multiple Head Smashes. So really, Rampardos is RNG based and should be banned as uncompetitive because it takes skill out of the hands of the Charizard players of the world. How many of you agreed with that last sentence? Nobody, right? And yet we are so quick to label a more reliable strategy "uncompetitive" for no real reason.

To quote the official Glyx, "The reliance on RNG is one of the biggest reasons that anything uncompetitive gets banned, see: Evasion boosting, Accuracy dropping, OHKO, Moody, Swagger, etc. " Hell,
durant.gif
has less of a chance to land Stone Edge than Sleep Powder does to hit on things not running Wide Lens. Does this mean a potential ban for everyone's second favorite ant? I don't know what the council will decide, although if Sleep does somehow get the axe I propose an immediate suspect test, with UnleashOurPassion being removed from the council temporarily, as a biased juryman. Sleep is far more reliable as a strategy than those other things Glyx mentioned, such as Accuracy drop (doesn't affect accuracy enough the first couple of turns to matter), OHKO (will only ever hit against FEARmons, which are Sturdy anyway), Moody (not even a win condition at all), and Swagger (apparently the tactic of confusement isn't good enough for a ban, with Flatter staying in the meta). How can a 30% accuracy move that only works against some things be compared to a 75% accuracy (in the case of Sleep Powder) 100% (for Spore) or always hit (Yawn) move that only works against some things? It can't, at all. To quote Fanyfan: "I find this quoted portion funny, since accuracy-lowering moves were banned for the exact same reason people are arguing to ban sleep: It takes the game out of the players’ hands. Accuracy-lowering moves has the exact same counterplay as sleep in fact. Abusers of accuracy-lowering moves have never been high on the vr, unlike sleep. Yet, they’re uncompetitive and sleep isn’t? Also Kyurem-B and Perish Song has nothing to do with sleep or uncompetitiveness, so I don’t know what the point of bringing them up is. Sleep is B- at best? Snorlax, Mega Venusaur, and Jumpluff laugh at you." As far as I know, accuracy drop was banned in keeping with the Evasion Clause, as it has a similar effect. Sleep does not take the match out of the players hands any more than getting OHKOed by a faster mon does.

Another talking point is that it takes "skill" away from players by preventing them from moving, and therefore winning the match. Why is this even a criterion for banning? Yes,
charizard-megax.gif
does manage to prevent
magearna.gif
(and many other steel and grass and bug and ice types) from moving by OHKOing with Flare Blitz before Magearna can move and win with Twinkle Tackle, hence Charizard X takes skill away from the things it kills, because it prevents them from moving and hence is uncompetitive and should be banned. Oh, and so is Porygon Z, Mega Lopunny, Sceptile, Mega Gyarados, Greninja, and a whole lot of other Pokemon. Really, "skill" is not something that should be an issue of banworthiness in this metagame. There is no switching, no skillful U-Turns, Defogging, Spikestacking, none of that. Another quote from Osra: "My own personal metric for determining whether or not something is uncompetitive is through how capable random new players are at succeeding with them. If a totally random new player who knows nothing about 1v1 receives these sets without knowing anything about them and somehow experiences success in the metagame with them, then I believe that those sets are uncompetitive." Really, this is not a metric that should be used. When I was a new player, I experienced a degree of success with Scarf Landorus-Therian, Mega Gyarados, and Scarf Genesect. Are any of these really that uncompetitive? I personally don't think so. A totally new player would probably find more success, especially at low ladder, with more straightfoward beat-em-up mons like Mega Gyarados or Charizard or Sturdies. This is merely my personal experience, though, I wasn't around for gen6. No doubt the low ladder godsquad consisted of Venonat and Defog Yanma and Yawn Kingdra back in the day.
yeah that's it
 
When determining whether a mon deserves to be banned, we have to ask our selves if uncompetitiveness justifies a ban. In the case of sleep, I don't believe so. I believe while sleep is without a doubt uncompetitive, it doesn't define the meta or restrict team building in a way that is detrimental to the tier.
While there is maneuverability to get around Sleep in the form of Taunt, Substitute, Lum Berry, Sleep Talk, etc, I believe that it's irrational to require players to use these things, specifically for Sleep abusers
Yes, you have to account for sleep. It's simply too good to disregard it. But saying that needing counter measures on every team makes it bannable is a flawed argument. There are so many mons and set archetypes in 1v1 that require you to have certain counter measures that using sleep as a catylyst for this idea just doesn't make sense. If requiring players to use specific set archetypes is irrational, then ban zards. After all, the most reliable zard counters are either very fat (ie chansey) or require an ability such as sturdy. Implying that sleep is the only thing that forces counter measures on every team is incorrect.
based on my interpretation of the tiering framework, that the way Sleep works falls too much in line with other RNG-reliant factors that have been banned in the past (Evasion boosting/Accuracy dropping/OHKO/etc).
The problem I have with this is that there are already established sleep counters. Mons such as fini, greninja, and lopunny beat a vast majority of sleep abusers with next to no rng required. There are also priority moves, abilities, items (berries and scarfs) that beat sleep reliably. Accuracy and ohko moves were entirely luck based and no reliable or constant way to beat them aside from hoping to hit or for them to miss. That being said, I don't believe them to be in the same realm as sleep at all.
In conclusion, while sleep may be uncompetitive, I don't believe that it's broken or warrants a ban.
 
The distinct difference between Jumpluff and Porygon-Z is that Jumpluff requires type matchups as simple as something that just isn't Grass type or Magic Bounce or w/e to win, while Porygon-Z needs the type advantage in order to win, as it only OHKO's mons that are neutral to Hyper Beam and/or are too frail to withstand it. Jumpluff just wins regardless of any statistic besides Speed, and maybe a little bulk for tanking Ice Shard and stuff, and that is what I have issue with, as Jumpluff forces the game-deciding element to not be how smart the players are, but instead how fast the Jumpluff user and their opponent are, as well as whether or not the Jumpluff user lands Sleep Powder. For that reason, I believe that Jumpluff and many other Sleep abusers impede on the ideas of Skill, as defined in the tiering framework.
Sleep, including jumpluff has lots of other counterplay that isnt speed reliant or grass type reliant.
taunt, rest, recovery, priority, abilities and other types of counterplay all allow mons to beat jumpluff (and other sleep powder users), along with scarf mons, fast mons, and grass types. Many of the top mons on the VR and in usage are able to run these strategies or simply outspeed and win.
to name some counters to jumpluf (and really any other sleep powder/spore user): gyarados, metagross, flame charge zard x, mimikyu, scarf lando t, scarf lele, zygod, lopunny, pz, mega bro, venusaur, deo s, naganadel, rest/taunt aggron, blaziken, gardevoir, greninja, pinsir mega, and tapu fini. All in B+ and up. It doesnt take only speed to decide these matchups, and making it seem like it is disregards many other options. (especially substitue when you're not against pluff, as this beats any sleep user)

You may not be wrong, but the difference here is that Focus Blast is a coverage move for beating Steel/Dark/Normal/etc, while Sleep is a coverage for beating just about anything. This line of thought puts Sleep more on the track of being broken, rather than uncompetitive, but either way, still towards a ban. There are at least still uncompetitive elements in what you say, as the Sleep moves instead become an emergency RNG button that you need in order to at least have a chance in matchups that you would otherwise lose without Sleep, which goes against the portion of Skill that pertains to predictions and making the right picks, as you've essentially sentenced both you and your opponent to an awkward purgatory where you're both just waiting for the Sleeping mon to wake up. While there is maneuverability to get around Sleep in the form of Taunt, Substitute, Lum Berry, Sleep Talk, etc, I believe that it's irrational to require players to use these things, specifically for Sleep abusers, ESPECIALLY with how little usage the Sleep abusers have, which makes the opportunity cost of not autogambling vs those abusers much too high when against the entire rest of the metagame.
Sleep wont beat just about anything unless you are talking about lax. sleep is used as a coverage to beat different mons it may struggle with without it, but it does not allow mons that use yawn like mega swampert or mega came to beat about anything, rather, beat a few extra mons that they wouldnt normally beat. such as came against venu, or swampert against zard x. Yes they become sort of "emergency RNG buttons" to win, but its no different than any mon running other coverage moves as an emergency button to win matches it shouldnt normally win, just like psychic's running focus blast, or steels running rock coverage for fire, as focus blast and moves like stone edge or head smash (on mons like aggron or donphan for zards), as they are not guaranteed to hit, and will only win if the RNG favors them. Sleep is just as competitive as any other coverage move. Also, as you and many others have said before, usage shouldnt be taken into account in this argument, just because they dont have much usage, doesnt mean you shouldnt run teams or mons on your teams made to beat or cteam teams with sleep users. this usage argument also applies to many other mons in the tier, Deo S does not have a large amount of usage, but that doesnt mean you shouldn't have to bring something like taunt or strong dark types to be able to live a hit from it or beat its stall set. The counter play that goes into countering sleep does help against the rest of the meta in most cases too, as sub, taunt, and outspeeding/koing are important in beating stall, stally mons, bulky set up mons, and other threats in general. Also, yawn mons are at even more of a disadvantage as they have to run bulk over attack to even survive many Zmoves or strong moves like giga impact, giving them even less of an edge against beating "almost anything", and only helping against mons they would have favorable matchups in from sleep

When things are faster than you, you can instead bulk for them. You cannot bulk for Sleep. The reliance on RNG is one of the biggest reasons that anything uncompetitive gets banned, see: Evasion boosting, Accuracy dropping, OHKO, Moody, Swagger, etc. Reliance on being faster is a case that applies to a separate subgroup of pokemon that are considered more "reliable" than the average Sleep abuser, namely: Jumpluff, Curse Mimikyu, Smeargle, Vivillon, Breloom, Yanma, etc. All of these pokemon rely almost solely on being faster than the opponent in order to win matchups, regardless of types and any stats besides Speed. If Sleep as a whole does not get banned, then looking into these mons would be the next step down, and as such, I retract my point about being faster in regards to overall Sleep.

I had a little trouble trying to understand what your point was here other than saying you can't bulk for sleep, so I'll try to argue against that point, if you meant something else let me know.
While you may not be able to bulk for sleep, you should treat it as the coverage move it is and prepare accordingly, just like if you needed to prepare for a fast, strong mon. Needing to prepare movesets, types, abilities, mons, or moves to be able to beat sleep is little different than needing to change EVs, mons, or moves to beat faster, stronger mons that you need to bulk. Its just a different thing to prepare for. Just like preparing for HO, bulky offense and stall is necessary in 1v1. To be able to beat these different strategies, it REQUIRES you to run certain movesets, mons, or EVs. such as against stall you need taunt, setup, or type advantage, or against fast mons you NEED to run bulk or type advantage (and in mega lopunny's case, bulk only as its type coverage STAB is impeccable, or protect is NEEDED to be put on sturdy mons.) for many mons, you are required to run certain types, mons, or moves to cover them, so, whats the problem with doing that for sleep? you might say that it makes a "subpar" moveset, but that is just a copout since many would conider needing to run protect on magnezone is subpar, and also since counters to sleep also make excellent counters to stall and bulky/setup offense. (taunt, sub, and more)

Predicting picks at preview is a separate matter from when the mons are already set down. In all proper tiers and most metagames, a match is almost never decided, or even predictable, at Turn 1. Now I know 1v1 is much more susceptible to that, due to the format itself, but we should at least strive to make the metagame under the same light as the tiers in order to make it as competitive of a metagame as possible. Sleep is a huge element that takes away from players' capability to play around matchups, either in the form of automatically winning with the Speed-based abusers mentioned above, or in the form of forcing matchups down to RNG, which takes away the user interactivity with battles that pertains to skill.

i dont think you should be comparing preview picks for turn 1, or matches being decided on turn 1 to any other meta. In 1v1, the matches are entirely decided on your turn 1 pick. whichever mon you pick decides whether you win or not, and just because you may not know what the other person runs (and vice versa) doesnt mean the match isn't decided turn one. Either your stats or movepool will allow you to win, or they will allow you to lose (unless you are talking about cases where crits, misses, moves like confuse ray or attract, or secondary effects hax happen). Sleep goes along with this, you are either able to beat the sleep user with the mon they chose or you arent, and then you have the normal cases of hax (like mentioned above) of missing, or sleep turns not going your way in the matches where those matter. These matches are usually pretty reliable wins too, as seen in matchups like i mentioned earlier: mega swampert vs zard x, camerupt vs venusar, and any other matchup where sleep turns will matter. the only time they dont matter is if you have a solid counter (such as z moves, hard hitting mons, taunt, sub, type advantage etc), which are all very viable strategies to run outside of countering sleep. sleep turns in most of these matchups will only matter if the opponent wakes up on turn 2 or three, giving you a 66% chance to win, or a 43-44% chance to win respectively, which will depend entirely on the bulk you need to run, and how much damage your leftover attack EVs allow for. These chances to win, are, as i said in my last post, just as competitive / reliable as any other coverage move that has outside of 100% accuracy that allows you to beat things you shouldnt normally beat. this doesnt take away skill, it makes it depend on the mon you choose or the mons you bring to a match, as any other normal matchup in 1v1 will.

I don't think anyone was trying to argue that Sleep is better in 6v6 or 1v1- 6v6 has limitations on Sleep that prevent it from being any better than it already is, while 1v1 has no such limitations.

My own personal metric for determining whether or not something is uncompetitive is through how capable random new players are at succeeding with them. If a totally random new player who knows nothing about 1v1 receives these sets without knowing anything about them and somehow experiences success in the metagame with them, then I believe that those sets are uncompetitive. The way to quantify just how uncompetitive something is, in that scenario, is through looking at how much thought is necessary to win with the set. In the case of Jirachi, next to no thought was necessary for the use of Jirachi, all you need is the mon, a Scarf, flinching moves, and someone to press the button to use them. Sleep, however, is a bit more complex of a case, as there is some logic necessary to use them; players have to recognize when to use which move in order to win, this isn't to say that Sleep is totally competitive, just more competitive than Jirachi. Lastly, for the sake of comparison, a traditional attacking Pokemon like Charizard-X requires even more thought than Sleep, as you have to factor in the damage you're dealing, the right move to use, AND actually using the move.

Your first 2 sentences mention a very bad metric to judge this, as many fairly new players to 1v1 are able to reach 1600s and up on the ladder using things like Gyarados, zards, lopunny, mawile, and any other strong mon/strategy in the format. This case was true in gen6 and now, and it is arguable that new players experience MORE success using strong straight forward mons like zards, gyara, or lopunny, than sleep mons. (im with TGC's argument against this statement too). Very little thought is needed to run a mon like zard y blast burn or gyara ddance ohko or even z move users like psychium lele. Subjectively, more thought could be used in either someone knowing how a sleep mon needs live a move and/or use certain moves to win, or how a strong mon that ohkos lots of things needs to win, depending on how you look at it. Either way, its easy to learn the necessary moves to use through trial and error.

My ultimate conclusion in all this is that Sleep is a middleground between things that are 100% uncompetitive (Jirachi/OHKO/etc) and things that are 100% competitive. It is simply my belief, based on my interpretation of the tiering framework, that the way Sleep works falls too much in line with other RNG-reliant factors that have been banned in the past (Evasion boosting/Accuracy dropping/OHKO/etc).

I hope that this rebuttal helped sway you more towards seeing how sleep is just as competitive as any other coverage move in 1v1. And for your comparison to the RNG reliant factors of evasion and ohko, i do not think this is a fair comparison. Sleep and ohko/evasion are in completely different realms and it is very hard to compare the two to each other.

Aside from that, you mentioned my statement on the difference between sleep in 6v6 and sleep in 1v1. I mentioned this since many people try to argue that "since sleep is restricted in 6v6, it shouldnt be allowed in 1v1", when the reason for restriction in 6v6 is entirely different than the reason people want to ban it in 1v1.

I do want to agree with TGC's last statement on sleep taking away skill because it immobilizes the opponent. killing a mon, and putting it to sleep work the same. If you kill a mon that has the potential to kill you back, they are rendered immobilized because they are dead and cant use a move back. sleep works the same, only the 'how' of killing is different.
 
(Lmao fyi he also wants accuracy reducing moves to be unbanned as well)
I think the reason behind why they were banned is dumb, they weren't used to win matches with rng, they were used to keep you from losing to rng (crits). thats why the mons that ran acc drop ran defense boosting moves or attack dropping moves, and not "dragon dance, outrage, mudslap"
 
I've been relatively quiet on this discussion as I've not been active and might not know all the recent nuance of this discussion. However, given that this conversation was happening before my absence, and that it hasn't changed literally at all, I think my viewpoints still hold at least some merit. '

That being said not meaning to call out Gross Sweep, just using his post as a spring board.
The issue with sleep as a strategy is whether or not the RNG based wake up system is competitive or not. No one should be giving a flying fadoodle if it's broken or not at this point. This matter solely boils down to whether or not a strategy predicated upon RNG based turn immobility should be allowed in a meta like 1v1..
My main issue with all these anti-sleep arguments is that the claim in bold, despite being constantly referenced as why sleep should be banned as an uncompetitive, has yet to be actually shown.

"Lost heros what do you mean? Sleep take away your capability to do things for an RNG based amount of time!" Well, imaginary person that I'm using to help my argument flow more naturally, the majority of sleep users don't need and don't rely on an RNG based amount of turns!
Take Jumpluff or Vivillion for example. A good Jumpluff user, has a pretty methodic gameplay, sleep powder, substitute, if opponent is still asleep then leech seed, if not asleep start over. Now before you say, "Lost Heros look Jumpluff wins based on if they roll the sleep being more than 1 turn!" No, the Jumpluff wins based on if they roll the sleep being more than 1 turn 4 times, a meager 1/81, 1.2% chance. Hardly a random roll. Vivillion also does something similar to this utilizing Quiver Dance and Hurricane on it's free turn behind a substitute. What does this mean for the use of sleep? Sleep is used not to generate a random number of free turns where a favorable outcome wins and an unfavorable loses, but rather Sleep is used to generate A SINGLE FREE TURN. This means Sleep Powder is more similar to Multiscale, Sturdy, or Disguise, which I'm fairly certain no one would argue were uncompetitive.

Now, of course I'm only using two examples to illustrate my point, there are several more sleep users. However, this concept of using Sleep turns to generate a random number of turns has yet to be shown for any sleep user. And not only should it be shown to be used, but it should be demonstrated to be used as the standard use for sleep moves. If anyone wants to claim that sleep users are uncompetitive, you must prove this fact.

Some other points: The accuracy and coverage of sleep moves has no relevance to the uncompetitive nature of sleep strategies. Any arguments that cover this are inherently focused on the power of sleep strategies meaning banning based on brokenness or being overpowered. In this case, arguments must be made where sleep strategies (a broad category in of itself), are demonstrated to be in some nature unhealthy for the metagame or being broken and overpowered.

Anti-sleep people: Know your targets. Do you honestly think ALL sleep users are uncompetitive? Or is it one/a small subset of them? Sleep strategies are very different. Snorlax, Vivillion, and Gengar all use sleep very differently. This is what gives me the most trouble with your broad argument. These pokemon aren't the same, and are INCREDIBLY different. Are you targeting one pokemon? One move? One use? Please think about this.

(also 1v1 in OMPL get hyped!)
 
Okay, so I haven’t responded in this thread in forever. Since I’ve been getting back into 1v1 recently, I’ll attempt to respond some arguments that I don’t agree with.



I’m not going to go point by point for this one, but the sleep as coverage argument doesn’t really work because unlike coverage moves, sleep reduces the game to the game of rng rather than the game of mons. You could apply your arguments to accuracy-reducing moves too, do you want those unbanned?
sleep doesnt reduce the game to RNG more than any other coverage move that has a chance to miss, see the focus blast example. any coverage move with a chance to miss (or even moves with chances to flinch or confuse) turn the game into RNG too. Acc drops are completely unrelated to this argument as they are not coverage, rather something that is there to make the opponent miss.
 
I will attempt to address sleep in 1v1 from a different angle - sleep is already banned by Smogon in 1v1 due to Sleep Clause.

The primary reason accuracy lowering is a banned mechanic in 1v1 is that this mechanic violates Evasion Clause in the context of 1v1. Therefore, we have established that standard Smogon clauses can & will be viewed through a 1v1 lens. A major assumption I am making here is that Sleep Clause exists in 1v1. I assume it exists despite the literal inability to put more than 1 Pokemon to sleep because I assume we keep all standard clauses. In the event this is untrue, that opens up another can of worms regarding things like Species Clause and Moody Clause.

Now let's review why Sleep Clause exists at all. The clause is meant to prevent people from putting multiple mons asleep in 6v6 battles. This is because sleep is viewed as too powerful/haxy to be allowed beyond 1 mon at a time. In 6v6, you have even greater access to building a team with sleep counters, like mons with certain abilities, than we have in 1v1 team building. However, sleep remains limited to 1 Pokemon at a time with the primary counter-play being the ability to switch.

What happens when you take away the this primary counter-play to sleep? https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sleeptrapping-in-sm-ubers-a-proposal.3587879/ Here is the Ubers thread that bans hypnosis on Mega-Gengar for violating sleep clause. Part of this thread includes the establishment of the Sleep Clause caveat as "sleep trapping" is deemed an illegal circumvention to the letter of the Sleep Clause law. Additionally in the thread are good points regarding the tangible gain and limited loss in banning sleep when switching is prevented. In 1v1, we also have the main counter-play to sleep removed, therefore making sleep inducing in this meta a violation to Sleep Clause.

I understand 1v1 is not Ubers, or any 6v6 tier. However, my belief is that 1v1 is trying to follow the course of official tiers in suspect/ban philosophy so utilizing precedence set (like all the clauses in 1v1 and the entire initial ban list) seems logical.

Here I will cherry pick some arguments from recent posts to argue against:
sleep doesnt reduce the game to RNG more than any other coverage move that has a chance to miss
A move with a chance to miss has 1 turn of RNG impact. Sleep can have up to 3 turns of RNG impact at the cost of 1 turn. This also means sleep has potentially greater RNG impact than a Jirachi flinch move.

However, this concept of using Sleep turns to generate a random number of turns has yet to be shown for any sleep user. And not only should it be shown to be used, but it should be demonstrated to be used as the standard use for sleep moves. If anyone wants to claim that sleep users are uncompetitive, you must prove this fact.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-699286555
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-751403330
Here are two replays of sleep being used to generate a random number of turns. I cannot imagine people don't believe Snorlax can utilize a random number of turns to win several matchups, specifically against Steel types. Also, potential yawn users such as Mega-Swampert & Mega-Camerupt will beat almost all the meta given a sufficient amount of sleep turns. Mega-Gengar will also kill almost the entire meta given enough sleep turns.
A Jumpluff replay is in there too, showing what happens when Jumpluff has the correct random number of turns vs a mon that was built to counter it. To me, this is analogous to running a OHKO move to bail your mon out of a bad match up a small % of the time.
If the argument is winning with a random number of sleep turns is not "standard", then I would say winning with a OHKO move would not be standard either nor winning with Moody.

Many of the top mons on the VR and in usage are able to run these strategies or simply outspeed and win.
to name some counters to jumpluf (and really any other sleep powder/spore user): gyarados, metagross, flame charge zard x, mimikyu, scarf lando t, scarf lele, zygod, lopunny, pz, mega bro, venusaur, deo s, naganadel, rest/taunt aggron, blaziken, gardevoir, greninja, pinsir mega, and tapu fini.
Flame charge Zard X is not a counter - see second replay above.
Mega-Pinsir could run into similar issues as Zard X: 252+ Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Quick Attack vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Jumpluff: 264-312 (90.7 - 107.2%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO. Perhaps a combination of Quick Attack & Feint could work...
Tapu Fini needs a scarf or z Rain Dance to counter Jumpluff
A couple of those others look questionable to me (Gyarados, Mimikyu, Slowbro, Zygod) but I have not played those match ups or seen a replay so I will not debate these.
 
I understand 1v1 is not Ubers, or any 6v6 tier. However, my belief is that 1v1 is trying to follow the course of official tiers in suspect/ban philosophy so utilizing precedence set (like all the clauses in 1v1 and the entire initial ban list) seems logical.
1v1 is an om. Oms by definition are meant to be deviations from standard play. If an om attempts to entirely follow all the 6v6 precedents, it would play entirely different and likely wouldn't be as enjoyable. While 1v1 does follow a few pretty basic conventions, that does not imply we should follow all (or even) of them. We use them as guidelines to attempt to create a balanced tier so that the tier is enjoyable to play. 6v6 precedents shouldn't determine how we make and play our tier.

A move with a chance to miss has 1 turn of RNG impact. Sleep can have up to 3 turns of RNG impact at the cost of 1 turn. This also means sleep has potentially greater RNG impact than a Jirachi flinch move.
The problem is that we have posted clear counter measures to sleep. There are so many ways to counter sleep with taunt, uproar, speed, abilities, etc. While things like flinching and missing are uncontrollable and truly up to rng, there are so many reliable sleep counters. Sleep mons simply can't afford to run items like scarfs as counter measures.

My problem with the pro sleep arguments are that they make comparisons to 6v6 and other precedents that don't have anything to do with 1v1. The point about sleep being as rng based as accuracy or ohko doesn't make sense. As many users have pointed out, there are reliable, consistent sleep counters that do not rely on rng. I've yet to see a post that convinces me that sleep is too strong and meta defining that makes it worthy of even a suspect.
 
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I will attempt to address sleep in 1v1 from a different angle - sleep is already banned by Smogon in 1v1 due to Sleep Clause.

The primary reason accuracy lowering is a banned mechanic in 1v1 is that this mechanic violates Evasion Clause in the context of 1v1. Therefore, we have established that standard Smogon clauses can & will be viewed through a 1v1 lens. A major assumption I am making here is that Sleep Clause exists in 1v1. I assume it exists despite the literal inability to put more than 1 Pokemon to sleep because I assume we keep all standard clauses. In the event this is untrue, that opens up another can of worms regarding things like Species Clause and Moody Clause.

Now let's review why Sleep Clause exists at all. The clause is meant to prevent people from putting multiple mons asleep in 6v6 battles. This is because sleep is viewed as too powerful/haxy to be allowed beyond 1 mon at a time. In 6v6, you have even greater access to building a team with sleep counters, like mons with certain abilities, than we have in 1v1 team building. However, sleep remains limited to 1 Pokemon at a time with the primary counter-play being the ability to switch.

1) Sleep clause exists in 1v1 since the way it is programmed in PS makes it apply to every meta there is, except for tiers that specifically unban it to allow any number of mons to be put to sleep (like Ag or bh). 2) sleep in 6v6 metas allow you to sack, or switch mons that have sleep into favorable matchups, then sleep a mon, and while they switch, set up, then after you are set up, mons like vivillon or venomoth are able to outspeed anything and put counters to sleep after the switch. Without the sleep clause in 6v6, it would no longer allow switching into mons to counter a set up mon that has sleep, and the sleep mon would be able to sweep just because it came in on a favorable matchup (which in the ubers post you mentioned, it says sleep clause exists because it takes away counter play, while its been shown many times that there is lots of counter play yo it in 1v1). In 1v1 this isnt a problem as the match will most always be decided turn 1 anyways except in certain situations like the jumpluff replay you posted, and you either chose the counter, or you didn't. This is why 1v1 shouldn't be compared to 6v6 metas as the meta is completely different to them, and many bans that happen in 6v6 dont really work for 1v1 (like all of the ubers allowed).

What happens when you take away the this primary counter-play to sleep? https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sleeptrapping-in-sm-ubers-a-proposal.3587879/ Here is the Ubers thread that bans hypnosis on Mega-Gengar for violating sleep clause. Part of this thread includes the establishment of the Sleep Clause caveat as "sleep trapping" is deemed an illegal circumvention to the letter of the Sleep Clause law. Additionally in the thread are good points regarding the tangible gain and limited loss in banning sleep when switching is prevented. In 1v1, we also have the main counter-play to sleep removed, therefore making sleep inducing in this meta a violation to Sleep Clause.

Sleep trapping in ubers was not banned because it acts like sleep in 1v1, but it was banned since it allowed gengar to come in, and abuse shadow tag to trap certain mons in, then use sleep to allow it to win. This was banned since it also takes away the counter play used in 6v6: switching, which again, 1v1 has different counter play.

I understand 1v1 is not Ubers, or any 6v6 tier. However, my belief is that 1v1 is trying to follow the course of official tiers in suspect/ban philosophy so utilizing precedence set (like all the clauses in 1v1 and the entire initial ban list) seems logical.
while 1v1 is trying to ban based on the same philosophy as 6v6 tiers, the bans are going to be different from 6v6 tiers just because of how 1v1 play is styled, and the differences in counterplay, so you shouldn't try to argue that things banned from 6v6 tiers should apply in 1v1, as the metas counter play, play style, and strategies are completely different from each other.

Here I will cherry pick some arguments from recent posts to argue against:

A move with a chance to miss has 1 turn of RNG impact. Sleep can have up to 3 turns of RNG impact at the cost of 1 turn. This also means sleep has potentially greater RNG impact than a Jirachi flinch move.
I want to say that sleep does not have 3 turns of RNG impact, only 2 as the first turn is guaranteed and not RNG based, so this is incorrect. I also want to say that move's with a chance to miss do not have 1 turn of RNG impact as many can use that move 2 or 3 times by living a hit or two from the mon they are trying to beat. Even then, most sleep matchups are dependent on the second turn sleep (not counting the first guaranteed turn) to win.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-699286555
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-751403330
Here are two replays of sleep being used to generate a random number of turns. I cannot imagine people don't believe Snorlax can utilize a random number of turns to win several matchups, specifically against Steel types. Also, potential yawn users such as Mega-Swampert & Mega-Camerupt will beat almost all the meta given a sufficient amount of sleep turns. Mega-Gengar will also kill almost the entire meta given enough sleep turns.
A Jumpluff replay is in there too, showing what happens when Jumpluff has the correct random number of turns vs a mon that was built to counter it. To me, this is analogous to running a OHKO move to bail your mon out of a bad match up a small % of the time.
If the argument is winning with a random number of sleep turns is not "standard", then I would say winning with a OHKO move would not be standard either nor winning with Moody.
with the jumpluff replay, this only happens in certain cases like the zard x matchup (which i should've said was a check and not a counter). This kind of match is most certainly not the main way that jumpluff wins. This works like how many mons use the secondary effects of things like confusion, para, flinch, freeze, etc. to win matchups they shouldnt. Some examples of when this happens are megagross flinches, gyarados flinches, mega lopunny freezes, greninja freezes, special dnite hurricane confusion (which has been on the rise recently fsr), zap cannon, thunderbolt, thunder, and many other moves that can hax a match to win. Saying "sleep in some cases can be RNG dependent against stuff that normally beats it" is a bad argument as this type of thing happens all the time with other moves on a much more common basis.

Flame charge Zard X is not a counter - see second replay above.
Mega-Pinsir could run into similar issues as Zard X: 252+ Atk Aerilate Pinsir-Mega Quick Attack vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Jumpluff: 264-312 (90.7 - 107.2%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO. Perhaps a combination of Quick Attack & Feint could work...
Tapu Fini needs a scarf or z Rain Dance to counter Jumpluff
A couple of those others look questionable to me (Gyarados, Mimikyu, Slowbro, Zygod) but I have not played those match ups or seen a replay so I will not debate these.
many of these mons win with the counterplay i mentioned earlier, zygod runs rest, fini wins with terrain not allowing sleep and most of the time running taunt, or z rain dance 50/50s, mimi runs curse to win, gyara runs taunt, and mega bro's recovery out stalls. (and with pinsir, jump with that low of amount of hp will not be able to get up sub, and jump will only be able to win getting very lucky on protect turns).
 
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Ok, so with all these sleep disccusions, I decided to post another sleep beater.
latest.gif

Lum Berry Haxorus

Haxorus @ Lum Berry
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake/ Superpower
- Poison Jab

The idea is pretty simple. Lum berry allows for you to have atleast 1 Dragon Dance without sleeping (2 if you're facing a yawn user), and then retaliate next turn with outrage/poison jab. For Jumpluff, Dragon Dance turn 1, then OHKO with poison jab. When facing snorlax, Dragon dance on the first 2 turns, then outrage (Lax may go for breakneck blitz on turn 2, but most people will protect/ belly drum then). Venusaur, on the other hand, is much more difficult to deal with, as you need the opponent to not use sleep powder twice in a row (or miss sleep powder once). However, If you can get 2 Dragon Dances off without sleeping, you will win.

Now for the set, which is its common uu sweeper set, with a few changes. Adamant Nature is used, as it gives a little boost in power needed to OHKO the 3 sleep users mentioned above At +2 (or +1 in Jumpluff's case). The extra speed of Jolly isn't that important, as the speed boost won't let it outspeed things like scarf 'Zard x anyway. Lum Berry is used, since it cures Haxorus of status once, helpful for getting to +2 boosts.

Replays (will post more when I get them):
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-752316806
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-752841402

Calcs:
+1 252+ Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. 48 HP / 208 Def Jumpluff: 326-384 (107.5 - 126.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 48 HP / 208 Def Jumpluff: 366-432 (120.7 - 142.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Snorlax: 486-573 (105.4 - 124.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 216 HP / 0 Def Venusaur-Mega: 394-465 (110.9 - 130.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO (this will only happen if the opponent misses or doesn't use sleep powder on turn 1)
this is the problem with venu
+1 252+ Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 216 HP / 0 Def Venusaur-Mega: 297-349 (83.6 - 98.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 
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One post, two topics, lets begin.
1. Sleep, nothing more to add to the actual discussion just a quick suggestion. It might not be my place to say this and I know the council members have lives outside of 1v1 but I feel as if decisions happen too slowly. There were weeks of talk of Koko before it was announced the council was discussing it and I feel as if this removed the community from the discussion since we had already voiced all of our opinions weeks before we were supposed to convince the council. This is even more pertinent during this sleep discussion as talk of banning sleep was happening even before koko was banned and, yet again, no council discussion on the topic. We've voiced our opinions and now people want to know what the council thinks about this. These long stretches between discussion and action also kill discussion both in the room and especially on the forum. I don't know if anything can be done about this but I personally would like quicker action.

2. Mimikyu, specifically Curse/Thunder Wave Mimikyu I feel is even more uncompetitive than sleep. If people are saying that sleep is uncompetitive because of how much rng is involved in sleep turns, lets talk about how C/TW Mimikyu's entire purpose is to hax you so it can bs a win over even faster Pokemon. The only guaranteed win vs this set is Mold Breaker Pokemon that outspeed and OHKO, or faster pokemon with taunt. Even slower taunt users can lose to Mimikyu with enough full paralyzations. I just don't see how anyone could see this Pokemon as competitive. Kentari already proposed a way to ban just ban Curse Mimikyu by banning Mimi and keeping Totem Mimi which I totally agree with, you can read him post here:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/1v1-metagame-discussion.3587523/page-50#post-7769387

Sorry for taking the focus away from sleep but as the first part implied I'm bored with it after weeks of discussion so I moved on.
Thanks for reading and can someone please knock Landon from the top of the ladder, I want #1
 
It might not be my place to say this and I know the council members have lives outside of 1v1 but I feel as if decisions happen too slowly. There were weeks of talk of Koko before it was announced the council was discussing it and I feel as if this removed the community from the discussion since we had already voiced all of our opinions weeks before we were supposed to convince the council. This is even more pertinent during this sleep discussion as talk of banning sleep was happening even before koko was banned and, yet again, no council discussion on the topic. We've voiced our opinions and now people want to know what the council thinks about this. These long stretches between discussion and action also kill discussion both in the room and especially on the forum. I don't know if anything can be done about this but I personally would like quicker action.

It's not about having lives, most council members like UOP and I have already posted our own thoughts on the thread and we're discussing it in the council chat, and we still are. But we can't just throw up suspects and bans like this, we're waiting for the metagame to adapt to Koko ban before thinking of banning another thing. You can't know if an element is truly broken if you don't isolate both the metagames. Additionally, the sleep discussion isn't as easy we still do not know and are torn between banning the abuser or the sleep-move. We cannot just ban then say no, that is wrong and unban, we need to take our time and decide correctly. Council is talking about the matter, expect a decision soon.
 
It's not about having lives, most council members like UOP and I have already posted our own thoughts on the thread and we're discussing it in the council chat, and we still are. But we can't just throw up suspects and bans like this, we're waiting for the metagame to adapt to Koko ban before thinking of banning another thing. You can't know if an element is truly broken if you don't isolate both the metagames. Additionally, the sleep discussion isn't as easy we still do not know and are torn between banning the abuser or the sleep-move. We cannot just ban then say no, that is wrong and unban, we need to take our time and decide correctly. Council is talking about the matter, expect a decision soon.
I would like to add to this that I personally don't want to make a council decision until people feel like the discussion has gotten to a point where it's finished or gotten stale.

Look at it this way: If council votes now and sleep isn't banned, then people (Osra is a good example) will say "I was writing a sleep megapost that was supposed to convince you, couldn't you have waited for that?" That's why I want to avoid voting until everyone feels like they've had a chance to sufficiently voice their opinions, partially to give everyone an equal say in this discussion, and partially so we can take our time to know for sure we're making the right decision.


This is also a good chance to put forward my exact stance in the sleep discussion

https://pastebin.com/mGYBcvfE - Sleep move usage statistics (drawn and manipulated from https://www.smogon.com/stats/2018-04/chaos/gen71v1-0.json, checked for errors multiple times and I promise there are none).

Looking at usage alone, there are only 3 Mon/Move combinations that are used more than 1%:

Code:
Pokemon: Snorlax - Move: Yawn
    Mon Usage: 2.4866%
    Move Usage: 55.51657952213912%
    Combined Usage: 1.3804752663975113%
 
Pokemon: Smeargle - Move: Spore
    Mon Usage: 2.35823%
    Move Usage: 88.81289692232535%
    Combined Usage: 2.094412379091353%
 
Pokemon: Jumpluff - Move: Sleep Powder
    Mon Usage: 1.40977%
    Move Usage: 97.16320336212935%
    Combined Usage: 1.369777692038291%

idk if this information is relevant at this specific time, but given my initial stance and my findings after running this, I don't think banning sleep as a whole is good, unless someone comes up with some convincing and undeniable evidence that there is a large amount of problematic (and viable) users.
I initially put that someplace else that's why the wording might seem a little weird.
Note that when I say "viable" I mean viable outside of theorymonning, I want to see results in either usage statistics or VR that prove that these "new" sleep abusers are actually viable, and not just memes.
Example: Just the fact that MaceMaster wins with Vigoroth doesn't make it viable imotbhsmh
 
It's not about having lives, most council members like UOP and I have already posted our own thoughts on the thread and we're discussing it in the council chat, and we still are. But we can't just throw up suspects and bans like this, we're waiting for the metagame to adapt to Koko ban before thinking of banning another thing. You can't know if an element is truly broken if you don't isolate both the metagames. Additionally, the sleep discussion isn't as easy we still do not know and are torn between banning the abuser or the sleep-move. We cannot just ban then say no, that is wrong and unban, we need to take our time and decide correctly. Council is talking about the matter, expect a decision soon.
I would like to add to this that I personally don't want to make a council decision until people feel like the discussion has gotten to a point where it's finished or gotten stale.

Look at it this way: If council votes now and sleep isn't banned, then people (Osra is a good example) will say "I was writing a sleep megapost that was supposed to convince you, couldn't you have waited for that?" That's why I want to avoid voting until everyone feels like they've had a chance to sufficiently voice their opinions, partially to give everyone an equal say in this discussion, and partially so we can take our time to know for sure we're making the right decision.
That makes sense now that you say it, thanks for answering my concern so quick and sorry for having an incorrect assumption.
 
Thank you to UOP & QT and others for contributing to a recent room conversation about sleep. From what I gleaned in the discussion, we established that a powerful argument - if not the direct criteria - for banning a mechanic instead of banning an individual abuser is if the mechanic makes a Pokemon uncompetitive that would not be uncompetitive otherwise. This makes sense to me as it falls under similar logic to the accuracy lowering ban in relation to Deo-D and Moody on Smeargle which I often mention. Therefore, if a Pokemon is uncompetitive solely because of sleep, then there is justification for a ban to the sleep inducing mechanic (not including Rest).

Here is the Smogon definition for Uncompetitive:
II.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant

A.) This can be match up related; think the determination that BP took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team match up issue, where even with the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
B.) This can be external factors; think endless battle clause, where the determining factor becomes internet connection over playing skill.
C.) This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, SwagPlay, Evasion, or Moody, all of which turn the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
D.) Note uncompetitive elements are almost always present in the battling skill aspect; they will, however, be present in the team building aspect should we allow them in the sense of having to rely on excessively specific counters (such as loading teams with Sturdy or Keen Eye Pokemon and the like).
This statement is the most applicable here:
C.) This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, SwagPlay, Evasion, or Moody, all of which turn the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.

And here is my example: Gengar-Mega is not uncompetitive without sleep. However, with sleep it has limited counters or match ups that depend on battling skill. Thus, MGengar battles emphasize the results of RNG more often than not due to its access to sleep.

gengar-mega.gif


So let's look at the potential counters & skill match ups vs MGengar with Hypnosis:
1) Taunt - In order to reliably Taunt MGengar, one has to be faster than 130 Base Speed. The list includes MAerodactyl, MAlakazam, & Deo-S. MAero is not on the VR and not really regarded as viable. MAlakazam & Deo-S can also reliably outspeed and OHKO MGengar (more on this to come) so Taunting is not really necessary.

Prankster/Taunt is also in consideration. Amazingly, only MSableye appears on the VR with this option. Thundurus, Tornadus, Whimsicott, & Murkrow(?) have an argument to be on the VR as well, but 3 of these 5 - Thundurus, Tornadus, & Whimsicott - do not tank 2 hits from MGengar so utilizing taunt does not make them a reliable counter. Funny enough, Whimsicott would rather utilize its own sleep move to win. The other 2 match ups are skill based, but I will show that skill match ups are exceptions to the rule for MGengar.

2) Substitute - Again, one has to be faster than 130 Base Speed to reliably sub on MGengar. This list includes MSceptile, Pheromosa, & MManectric (and MLopunny to be discussed later) from the VR. MGengar reliably tanks and OHKOs MSceptile & Pheromosa so these are not counters. MManectric is a skill match up.

Prankster/Sub once again creates skill match ups vs the same mons listed with Prankster/Taunt.

3) Abilities - While Insomnia & Vital Spirit exist, none of these mons are on the VR or widely considered viable. The 2 abilities that do appear in the Meta are Tapu Fini's Misty Surge and Magic Bouncers MSableye & MDiancie.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Fini Hydro Pump vs. 136 HP / 0 SpD Gengar-Mega: 249-294 (84.4 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Gengar-Mega Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tapu Fini: 198-234 (57.5 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
With a bit of bulk, Tapu Fini is shown not to be a counter..
MSableye is a still a problem, but already included in 1. MDiancie has to be properly invested to beat MGengar along with having Rock Tomb, but this should be a move in your set anyway so we can count MDiancie as a definitive counter.

4) Items - Often brought up is the concept of adapting to the Meta. Sleep has existed in this generation from the beginning, and at no point have I seen Lum or Chesto Berry as a meta item - making them "excessively specific counters" as mentioned in the definition of Uncompetitive.

Choice Scarf will be best suited item for countering MGengar. However, a Pokemon still needs a base speed of 71 or above to reliably outspeed MGengar. I counted about 15 VR mons that utilize Scarf over 10% of the time (based on 1500 usage) who can also reliably OHKO MGengar. These sets can be considered counters.

5) Speed - Outspeeding and OHKOing MGengar prior to Hypnosis is a reliable counter. MLopunny, MAlakazam, Deo-S, Pheromosa, & MManectric are the only mons on the VR that outspeed MGengar with MLopunny being the only one that hasn't been mentioned earlier this post that can reliably OHKO.

OHKOing with priority is theoretically an option, but I could not find a mon capable of doing this except Choice Band Aegislash.

Conclusion - The counters of MGengar are limited to 5 mons on the VR plus 1 item (for the about 15 specific mons that can viably utilized it and counter MGengar). To me, this is a limited set of options; especially when considering only 2 pokemon - MSableye and MDiancie - are slower than MGengar. Additionally, I found about 3 other skill match ups that MGengar has to face. This all adds up to about 23 mons (assuming correct item) that MGengar does not utilize the RNG of sleep for. Furthermore, we should add any match ups MGengar can win without sleep - like vs Tapu Fini. I count about 10 more of these. All together that includes approximately 33 mons that MGengar does not have a battle involving sleep with. There are over 100 mons on the VR so we can say over 2/3 of MGengar's match ups in the Meta involve Hypnosis.

Bringing back in the definition of Uncompetitive, that means MGengar's battles are typically decided by if Hypnosis hits and how many turns of sleep occur, which are all RNG elements. To rephrase - this turns the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.

With this example, inducing sleep is a mechanic that makes MGengar uncompetitive which is grounds for banning the entire mechanic - unless you think MGengar is uncompetitive for other reasons... (or you think it should be banned for being the only uncompetitive abuser, in which case Moody should be unbanned with the exception of Smeargle)

- Every like will result in consideration of a 1 picture in my next post
 
Thank you to UOP & QT and others for contributing to a recent room conversation about sleep. From what I gleaned in the discussion, we established that a powerful argument - if not the direct criteria - for banning a mechanic instead of banning an individual abuser is if the mechanic makes a Pokemon uncompetitive that would not be uncompetitive otherwise. This makes sense to me as it falls under similar logic to the accuracy lowering ban in relation to Deo-D and Moody on Smeargle which I often mention. Therefore, if a Pokemon is uncompetitive solely because of sleep, then there is justification for a ban to the sleep inducing mechanic (not including Rest).
Quick thing, Deo D was banned a full month after acc drop moves so idk what you're talking about in relation to acc drop. And the "ban the mechanic not the individual abuser" doesn't make sense at all. Im pretty sure the moody ban happened only becuase it can allow random raises that will allow you to live a hit, or outspeed an opponent (with smeargle) depending on the mon using it, making it 100% a random win, while sleep is not 100% random like this.
Here is the Smogon definition for Uncompetitive:
II.) Uncompetitive - elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant

A.) This can be match up related; think the determination that BP took the battling skill aspect out of the player's hands and made it overwhelmingly a team match up issue, where even with the best moves made each time by a standard team often were not enough.
B.) This can be external factors; think endless battle clause, where the determining factor becomes internet connection over playing skill.
C.) This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, SwagPlay, Evasion, or Moody, all of which turn the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.
D.) Note uncompetitive elements are almost always present in the battling skill aspect; they will, however, be present in the team building aspect should we allow them in the sense of having to rely on excessively specific counters (such as loading teams with Sturdy or Keen Eye Pokemon and the like).
This statement is the most applicable here:
C.) This can be probability management issues; think OHKOs, SwagPlay, Evasion, or Moody, all of which turn the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.

And here is my example: Gengar-Mega is not uncompetitive without sleep. However, with sleep it has limited counters or match ups that depend on battling skill. Thus, MGengar battles emphasize the results of RNG more often than not due to its access to sleep.

gengar-mega.gif
Here is my biggest problem with this argument: it only looks at one mon, mega gar. Looking only at mega gar discounts all other sleep users, and a large amount of the way sleep is used. My other problem with this arguement is that gengar wins a majority of the matchups from a hex OHKO, meaning that it relies mainly on hitting hypnosis, as you mentioned. If relying on the RNG of hitting moves makes a mon uncompetitive, or a strategy uncompetitive, then why not just ban all moves that can miss? I know i have won/lost many games because of missing where its considered "bad luck with rngsus" or something of the like, so why is that inherently bad here where gar relies on hitting hypnosis. (Many games are also decided on the RNG of getting secondary effects, or getting the effects of secondary effects (like para), so again i dont see how having a 66% chance to win on the second sleep turn is so uncompetitive when people will rely on something zap cannon hitting, or zap cannon hitting and also getting the para hax the same turn (approx 1/2 and 1/8 chance respectively), flinches off of zard y, gyara, megagross, and secondary effects to win battles that they SHOULDNT normally win. Some might say "they arent strategies built to win off of it", but they are. Why run waterfall over aqua tail on gyara? douesnt aqua tail has more power? it has a chance to miss yes, but people run hjk over close combat on lucario, or giga impact over return on lopunny, or overheat over flamethrower on heatran. There are many more examples but the point is, people opt to run power over accuracy a majority of the time. The chance to hax wins that you wouldnt normally win in this case come in favor of running more power, and it works like this in many other cases like running air slash on zard y, so the argument that "running a stategy meant to sleep your opponent relies on hax" is a bad arguement. Overall, this post discounts almost every other mon that uses sleep, as most all sleepers run it differently than gengar, and it makes the point that you need to rely on hypnosis to hit for the win, which is the case with many mons using coverage moves that can miss.
So let's look at the potential counters & skill match ups vs MGengar with Hypnosis:
1) Taunt - In order to reliably Taunt MGengar, one has to be faster than 130 Base Speed. The list includes MAerodactyl, MAlakazam, & Deo-S. MAero is not on the VR and not really regarded as viable. MAlakazam & Deo-S can also reliably outspeed and OHKO MGengar (more on this to come) so Taunting is not really necessary.

Prankster/Taunt is also in consideration. Amazingly, only MSableye appears on the VR with this option. Thundurus, Tornadus, Whimsicott, & Murkrow(?) have an argument to be on the VR as well, but 3 of these 5 - Thundurus, Tornadus, & Whimsicott - do not tank 2 hits from MGengar so utilizing taunt does not make them a reliable counter. Funny enough, Whimsicott would rather utilize its own sleep move to win. The other 2 match ups are skill based, but I will show that skill match ups are exceptions to the rule for MGengar.

2) Substitute - Again, one has to be faster than 130 Base Speed to reliably sub on MGengar. This list includes MSceptile, Pheromosa, & MManectric (and MLopunny to be discussed later) from the VR. MGengar reliably tanks and OHKOs MSceptile & Pheromosa so these are not counters. MManectric is a skill match up.

Prankster/Sub once again creates skill match ups vs the same mons listed with Prankster/Taunt.

3) Abilities - While Insomnia & Vital Spirit exist, none of these mons are on the VR or widely considered viable. The 2 abilities that do appear in the Meta are Tapu Fini's Misty Surge and Magic Bouncers MSableye & MDiancie.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Fini Hydro Pump vs. 136 HP / 0 SpD Gengar-Mega: 249-294 (84.4 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Gengar-Mega Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tapu Fini: 198-234 (57.5 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
With a bit of bulk, Tapu Fini is shown not to be a counter..
MSableye is a still a problem, but already included in 1. MDiancie has to be properly invested to beat MGengar along with having Rock Tomb, but this should be a move in your set anyway so we can count MDiancie as a definitive counter.

4) Items - Often brought up is the concept of adapting to the Meta. Sleep has existed in this generation from the beginning, and at no point have I seen Lum or Chesto Berry as a meta item - making them "excessively specific counters" as mentioned in the definition of Uncompetitive.

Choice Scarf will be best suited item for countering MGengar. However, a Pokemon still needs a base speed of 71 or above to reliably outspeed MGengar. I counted about 15 VR mons that utilize Scarf over 10% of the time (based on 1500 usage) who can also reliably OHKO MGengar. These sets can be considered counters.

5) Speed - Outspeeding and OHKOing MGengar prior to Hypnosis is a reliable counter. MLopunny, MAlakazam, Deo-S, Pheromosa, & MManectric are the only mons on the VR that outspeed MGengar with MLopunny being the only one that hasn't been mentioned earlier this post that can reliably OHKO.

OHKOing with priority is theoretically an option, but I could not find a mon capable of doing this except Choice Band Aegislash.

Conclusion - The counters of MGengar are limited to 5 mons on the VR plus 1 item (for the about 15 specific mons that can viably utilized it and counter MGengar). To me, this is a limited set of options; especially when considering only 2 pokemon - MSableye and MDiancie - are slower than MGengar. Additionally, I found about 3 other skill match ups that MGengar has to face. This all adds up to about 23 mons (assuming correct item) that MGengar does not utilize the RNG of sleep for. Furthermore, we should add any match ups MGengar can win without sleep - like vs Tapu Fini. I count about 10 more of these. All together that includes approximately 33 mons that MGengar does not have a battle involving sleep with. There are over 100 mons on the VR so we can say over 2/3 of MGengar's match ups in the Meta involve Hypnosis.

Bringing back in the definition of Uncompetitive, that means MGengar's battles are typically decided by if Hypnosis hits and how many turns of sleep occur, which are all RNG elements. To rephrase - this turns the battle from emphasizing battling skill to emphasizing the result of the RNG more often than not.

With this example, inducing sleep is a mechanic that makes MGengar uncompetitive which is grounds for banning the entire mechanic - unless you think MGengar is uncompetitive for other reasons... (or you think it should be banned for being the only uncompetitive abuser, in which case Moody should be unbanned with the exception of Smeargle)
The problem with the rest of this post is fairly easy to notice. It tries to prove the "fact" that "sleep is uncompetitive" while it does nothing of the sort. It instead talks about the checks/counters to mega gengar specifically, while insinuating that sleep is uncompetitive. It also makes you think that most, if not all of gengars wins on the VR come from sleep turns, when gengar can reliably ohko many of these mons with one boosted hex (making it a battle of "can i hit this coverage move"), not even utilizing the "uncompetitive rng" in sleep turns. I would also like to say that while a mon may have limited checks or counters, that does not make it uncompetitive (see zards, gyara, and almost any other top ranked mon as they will usually have less counters than mentioned here against gengar).
 
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