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Same deal as before, lets go through possible strategies to beat Jumpluff (leaving taunt until the end though because damn there's a lot to talk about with that).
1. Substitute: Rip, Infiltrator denies one of the best ways to beat sleep
2. Abilities: Same crew as always for this one, Mega-Sableye and Mega-Diancie with Magic Bounce and Tapu Fini with Misty Terrain. Infiltrator can break through sub but the only 2 Pokemon that can use it on the vr are Jumpluff and Whimsicott, I'm not counting Whim here, I'll do it with typing. Overcoat also blocks sleep powder so that adds Kommo-o, the rest aren't ranked. Prankster would be here too but I'm putting them in the taunt category.
Count- 4
3. Typing: Grass types are obviously immune to sleep powder so lets look at grass types on the vr. Venusaur-Mega, other Jumpluff, Ferrothorn, Kartana, Whimsicott, Tapu Bulu, Serperior, and Mega-Sceptile. They also are immune to Leech Seed so Jumpluff isn't winning even without sleep.
Count- 11
4. Outspeed and OHKO: I'm using the terrible speed tiers for this so don't judge me if I miss something (please make new ones someone). Greninja, Talonflame, Pheramosa, and Gengar-Mega.
Count- 15
5. Choice Scarf: Using the speed tiers again, no judging. Togekiss, Porygon-Z, Tapu Lele, Victini and that's all. Now I'm 100% sure I missed a few because I'm not going through all the sets with Choice Scarf that I have and seeing if they win so I'm going to just add 2 to the count to be fair for the ones I missed.
Count- 21
6. Noise Moves- Now we get to the hard part about this Pokemon. Pokemon such as Non-Scarf Porygon-Z, Gardevoir-Mega, and Meloetta should beat Jumpluff because they have sound moves that go through Jumpluff's Sub. Here is the problem with Jumpluff, sleep+protect gives Jumpluff the chance to beat all of these Pokemon with the right amount of sleep turns. They don't always beat Jumpluff so we can't add them as counters.
Count- 21
7. Taunt: The same thing applies here as with sound moves. If the Jumpluff user Protects on the correct turn then it can put the Taunter back to sleep. The only 2 who avoid this are Sableye and Whimsicott but they beat Jumpluff in other ways so they don't add to our count. Final Count- 21
So with that we have only 21 Pokemon that beat Jumpluff 100% of the time. This wouldn't be a problem if Jumpluff beat all the other Pokemon through strategy but alas it beats them through high sleep turns and lucky Protect predictions.
One more Pokemon and we can invalidate ryyjyywyy's post. Almost there.
Thanks for reading and screw Kentari for knocking me down on ladder.
So with that we have only 21 Pokemon that beat Jumpluff 100% of the time. This wouldn't be a problem if Jumpluff beat all the other Pokemon through strategy but alas it beats them through high sleep turns and lucky Protect predictions.
The problem is, 21 pokemon is a pretty large number of pokemon that reliably check jumpluff. Lets look at zard x. The main things that tend to beat zard are things that are faster and can ko, sturdy mons, or something that can live.
S Rank
Gyarados-Mega l
A+ Rank
Charizard-Mega-X
Dragonite l
Magearna w
Metagross-Mega w
Mimikyu w
A Rank
Charizard-Mega-Y w
Landorus-Therian l
Snorlax w
Tapu Lele w/l
Zygarde-Complete w
A- Rank
Aegislash w
Genesect w
Lopunny-Mega w
Magnezone w
Mawile-Mega w
Porygon-Z l/w
Slowbro-Mega l
Venusaur-Mega l
B+ Rank
Aggron-Mega w
Blaziken w
Donphan l
Gardevoir-Mega w/l
Golem l
Greninja l
Jumpluff l
Naganadel l
Pinsir-Mega w
Primarina l
Tapu Fini l B Rank
Altaria-Mega l
Chansey w
Ferrothorn w
Garchomp w
Heatran w
Heracross-Mega w
Kartana w
Meloetta w
Mew l
Necrozma w
Sableye-Mega w
Sawk w
Tyranitar-Mega l
B- Rank
Blastoise-Mega l
Blissey w
Buzzwole w
Celesteela w
Crustle l
Diancie-Mega w
Durant w
Gengar-Mega w
Hoopa-Unbound w
Kommo-o l
Swampert-Mega l
Togekiss l
Whimsicott w
In total, zard loses consistently to about 20 mons on the vr. Thats about the same amount as jumpluff. I understand that zard is seen as more competetive, but that still is insane amount of mons that it beats. Whether its rng based or not isn't the problem(regardless of the fact that we've pointed out that there are reliable way to beat sleep). And while it may not be effective in general, you can beat sleep with almost any mon by giving it a scarf or berry. Most often with other broken concepts or mons, there is no reliable way to check the problem other then specific niches. We have to ask ourselves if sleep is broken and justifiably warrants a ban, and im still not convinced that it does. Top ranked mons tend to lose to a smaller part of the vr then most. Thats what makes them so highly ranked. I agree that jumpluff doesn't require that much skill. Its a matter of subbing and sleeping. Yet that doesn't make it deserve a ban or make or sleep in general.
Finally, the biggest problem I have with these 1 mon targeted posts, is that it doesn't give reasons as to why ban sleep as whole. While they may make compelling arguments as to why to ban a certain sleep abuser, they don't justify banning the entire status. Focusing on one mon doesn't help the pro sleep ban case, but promotes the idea of banning a singular abuser. (a concept i'm not against.)
In total, zard loses consistently to about 20 mons on the vr. Thats about the same amount as jumpluff. I understand that zard is seen as more competetive, but that still is insane amount of mons that it beats.
You contradict yourself here. We don't care about how many Pokemon Charizard beats we care about how uncompetetive sleep is. The fact that it is seen as more competitive than sleep helps sleep ban's point. Also counting both zards doesn't make sense since you're only running one not 2.
And while it may not be effective in general, you can beat sleep with almost any mon by giving it a scarf or berry. Most often with other broken concepts or mons, there is no reliable way to check the problem other then specific niches.
Yet again you contradict yourself. Giving a Pokemon a berry to counter sleep is a specific niche. Also this isn't the point of a sleep ban. The point is to make the meta more competitive not to ban sleep because it beats so many things.
Finally, the biggest problem I have with these 1 mon targeted posts, is that it doesn't give reasons as to why ban sleep as whole. While they may make compelling arguments as to why to ban a certain sleep abuser, they don't justify banning the entire status. Focusing on one mon doesn't help the pro sleep ban case, but promotes the idea of banning a singular abuser. (a concept i'm not against.)
I can't speak for Gojira Poop here but I know that I did not want to go through every one of the categories I listed for 5 or 6 Pokemon. If you want I can compile all the posts about specific Pokemon and put them in one post for you?
When looking at Smogon unhealthy guidelines there's clearly rules stating that anything that takes the game out of a player's hands is deemed unhealthy and uncompetitive. It is true that 1v1 does not follow 6v6, but the exact definition of unhealthiness is universal.
It is crystal clear that sleep fits COMPLETELY in the category of unhealthiness. There's nothing competitive in sleep, there's no plays, counterplays and anything that has the term competitive in it. The user of the sleep-inducing move has to either pray for it to hit for non-100% accurate sleep moves, or pray for sleep turns, while the opponent prays the same, either a miss or a wake up. It all ends up being a gamble, worse than a card game. Luck has been something that competitivity tries to eliminate as a whole.
I do not agree with ryy's statement saying that Sleep-inducing moves are like simple win conditions just like Porygon-Z's hyper beam or so. Sleep-inducing moves have no real non-niche counters except like fast taunt lol, meanwhile moves that are called win-con or coverage moves are stopped by either bulk or typing advantage, meanwhile even if you don't have the type advantage you risk losing ex, jumpluff vs zard y, mega gengar and landorus etc...
Sleep-inducing moves not seeing much usage does not mean it's less uncompetitive. The metagame is trying to gain more credibility and we have more and more competitive tournaments so we have to reduce the uncompetitive part in such tournaments and not on ladder. Our top priority is tournament competitive plays and not ladder.
Also I don't get the people that say ban mega gengar, jumpluff and snorlax and keep other sleep users. Why would we ban 3 Pokemon instead of the only problematic object they all share together, which is the usage of sleep. Also with them gone, I'm expecting to see more sleep users being used like mega swampert and other yawn users. Unless you wanna ban all sleep users individually, I don't see a reason to keep sleep-inducing moves anymore.
Z-Conversion Curse is a set I've been working on for about 2 weeks now. Never planned on really making a detailed post about it since I didn't really know what I could beat. Sets I make often work better with my teams, due to it covering weaknesses of Pokemon that 3-0 my teams. But after a user by the name of, EliteProd, messaged me saying Magearna ALWAYS BEATS PORYGON! And a lot of other bs, I decided to make this post.
Replay of me beating EliteProd's Magearna with this set in 1700s ----> https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-753511475
I planned on making this a huge post. But after working on it for 5 days now and having to redo it each day. I'm tired of spending 2-3 hours doing the same thing. So I'll just do a quick run down on it. Z-Conversion turn 1 vs Magearna. Sub/Curse/Recover. You win...Donphan you Same thing basically. Swap Magnet Rise in if you don't like EQ. Metagross normally beats Porygon. EVs used vs Metagross here with Shadowball just KO it. But as long as they don't get procs of Meteor Mash win with Curse. You can use Curse before using Z-Move. for Def Boosts. It beats other Pokemon too. But after losing everything I work on in this post each day kinda gave up on the whole Mega-Post. Sorry.
When looking at Smogon unhealthy guidelines there's clearly rules stating that anything that takes the game out of a player's hands is deemed unhealthy and uncompetitive. It is true that 1v1 does not follow 6v6, but the exact definition of unhealthiness is universal.
It is crystal clear that sleep fits COMPLETELY in the category of unhealthiness. There's nothing competitive in sleep, there's no plays, counterplays and anything that has the term competitive in it. The user of the sleep-inducing move has to either pray for it to hit for non-100% accurate sleep moves, or pray for sleep turns, while the opponent prays the same, either a miss or a wake up. It all ends up being a gamble, worse than a card game. Luck has been something that competitivity tries to eliminate as a whole.
I do not agree with ryy's statement saying that Sleep-inducing moves are like simple win conditions just like Porygon-Z's hyper beam or so. Sleep-inducing moves have no real non-niche counters except like fast taunt lol, meanwhile moves that are called win-con or coverage moves are stopped by either bulk or typing advantage, meanwhile even if you don't have the type advantage you risk losing ex, jumpluff vs zard y, mega gengar and landorus etc...
Sleep-inducing moves not seeing much usage does not mean it's less uncompetitive. The metagame is trying to gain more credibility and we have more and more competitive tournaments so we have to reduce the uncompetitive part in such tournaments and not on ladder. Our top priority is tournament competitive plays and not ladder.
Also I don't get the people that say ban mega gengar, jumpluff and snorlax and keep other sleep users. Why would we ban 3 Pokemon instead of the only problematic object they all share together, which is the usage of sleep. Also with them gone, I'm expecting to see more sleep users being used like mega swampert and other yawn users. Unless you wanna ban all sleep users individually, I don't see a reason to keep sleep-inducing moves anymore.
Normally I don't get involved in this kind of stuff, but you're completely missing the entire point of the "out of the players hands" argument.
Moody takes the game out of the players hands; at team preview, most games between moody teams and viable teams come down to "can I get the right boosts with moody and win, or will I not get the right boosts and lose."
Evasion takes the game out of the player's hands; When an evasion user comes in, the entirety of the game comes down to "Will he hit through the evasion enough to ko me / taunt me / status me, or will I get lucky and avoid that.
These strategies aren't skillless - you can improve the moody / evasion sets, evs, know when and what to bring them in against, alter the team support - but unless they run a specific counter team such as aura sphere lucario or whatever, even a moderately skilled player will have a chance of beating an spl level player that is roughly equivalent to the rng chance of the boosts. The skill curve approaches an asymptote, which greatly harms competitive play. This doesn't just refer to rng being involved; rather, rng must instead mean that there is greatly reduced effect of increased skills. To give an extreme example, if the game comes down to coinflip rng 60% of the time, even a perfect player can only have a 70% win rate. When rng is the deciding factor more of the time, the maximum winrate decreases, while when rng matters less of the time the win rate increases and the skill ceiling increases with it. We see this the most in games like rock paper scissors, where a winrate of 50% is absurd, and the least in games like chess, where someone like Magnus Carlsen will beat a random player essentially every time.
Because of this, sleep isn't definitionally uncompetitive by itself; someone like kentari or UoP is still going to beat a ladder player almost all of the time, even in a metagame with sleep like the one we currently have. Sleep has counterplay, beginning with teambuilding, where you make sure to build in sleep answers. We have quite a few of these, as it happens; while essentially no Pokemon checks every possible sleep users, there are no checks to all Physical attackers either. We do, however, have a number of blanket checks to most of both, or cores of pokemon that collectively cover what they can't individually. This teambuilder counterplay with including answers and lures or bluffs is then followed by the chance for team preview counterplay, where you make sure to pick the correct Pokemon to use against your opponent, which is then followed by battle counterplay, where if the previous two measures fail you do your best to minimise the chance of a loss to sleep (think the defensive version of going for char y air slash crits). The rng of sleep rolls is essentially a red herring, because if you outskill your opponent you won't end up relying on them getting 1 turn sleeps to win. These only matter in the same way that Blast burn's chance to miss does; they give rng a chance to turn around a battle where you've been outplayed.
I'm seeing a big threat in crustle and I've taken a big liking to this heatran:
Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 84 HP / 232 SpA / 16 SpD / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
- Rock Tomb
- Overheat
- Flash Cannon
- Earth Power
its bulky enough to deal with timid magnezone's z-zap cannon and a few other threats. (thanks uop for the catch)
I'm seeing a big threat in crustle and I've taken a big liking to this heatran:
Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 76 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
- Rock Tomb
- Overheat
- Flash Cannon
- Earth Power
its bulky enough to deal with magnezone and a few other threats.
Moody takes the game out of the players hands; at team preview, most games between moody teams and viable teams come down to "can I get the right boosts with moody and win, or will I not get the right boosts and lose."
Evasion takes the game out of the player's hands; When an evasion user comes in, the entirety of the game comes down to "Will he hit through the evasion enough to ko me / taunt me / status me, or will I get lucky and avoid that.
These strategies aren't skillless - you can improve the moody / evasion sets, evs, know when and what to bring them in against, alter the team support - but unless they run a specific counter team such as aura sphere lucario or whatever, even a moderately skilled player will have a chance of beating an spl level player that is roughly equivalent to the rng chance of the boosts. The skill curve approaches an asymptote, which greatly harms competitive play. This doesn't just refer to rng being involved; rather, rng must instead mean that there is greatly reduced effect of increased skills. To give an extreme example, if the game comes down to coinflip rng 60% of the time, even a perfect player can only have a 70% win rate. When rng is the deciding factor more of the time, the maximum winrate decreases, while when rng matters less of the time the win rate increases and the skill ceiling increases with it. We see this the most in games like rock paper scissors, where a winrate of 50% is absurd, and the least in games like chess, where someone like Magnus Carlsen will beat a random player essentially every time.
Sleep isn't skillless - you can improve the sleep sets, evs, know when and what to bring it in against, alter the team support - but unless they run a specific counter team such as flame charge charizard or whatever, even a moderately skilled player will have a chance of beating a 1v1pl level player that is roughly equivalent to the rng chance of staying asleep.
Because of this, sleep isn't definitionally uncompetitive by itself; someone like kentari or UoP is still going to beat a ladder player almost all of the time, even in a metagame with sleep like the one we currently have. Sleep has counterplay, beginning with teambuilding, where you make sure to build in sleep answers. We have quite a few of these, as it happens; while essentially no Pokemon checks every possible sleep users, there are no checks to all Physical attackers either. We do, however, have a number of blanket checks to most of both, or cores of pokemon that collectively cover what they can't individually. This teambuilder counterplay with including answers and lures or bluffs is then followed by the chance for team preview counterplay, where you make sure to pick the correct Pokemon to use against your opponent, which is then followed by battle counterplay, where if the previous two measures fail you do your best to minimise the chance of a loss to sleep (think the defensive version of going for char y air slash crits). The rng of sleep rolls is essentially a red herring, because if you outskill your opponent you won't end up relying on them getting 1 turn sleeps to win. These only matter in the same way that Blast burn's chance to miss does; they give rng a chance to turn around a battle where you've been outplayed.
Jirachi had counterplay, plenty of the VR had advantageous typing against it and won more often than not against Jirachi. The point is that "enough" things having methods of counterplay does not validate the allowance of elements that allow lesser-skilled players to beat greater-skilled players without having to consider type matchups, damage dealt, or multiple other thought-oriented elements that pertain to smogon's own definition of Skill. Moves missing and chanced secondary effects are an unfortunate byproduct of attacks that cannot be separated without straying from ingame mechanics, but Sleep-inducing moves exist for no reason other than to cause that unwanted RNG that people want banned, like crits and Waterfall flinches.
And now for something slightly less about replying to QT
With that said, though, we have to take into account the extent in which Sleep renders battles to little more than RNG. This isn't as definitive in relation to other rng-inducing elements, such as Focus Band's 10%, Quick Claw's 20%, OHKO's 30%, etc, but is still calculable.
*Yawn still provides opponents 1 turn to do something, regardless of whether the user moves before or after the opponent; 2 turns if the Yawn user does not carry Protect. Alternatively, the Yawn user may gain an additional turn if the opponent cannot do enough/anything to hinder them on the turn of falling asleep.
**All percentage-based calculations are done with the consideration of the Sleep move successfully landing on the opponent AND gaining the user a net gain of 1 or 2 turns over the opponent.
The first question in regards to Sleep is whether or not the RNG-determined turns gained from putting opponents to sleep is uncompetitive. Battling by rendering the opponents unable to do anything is very often regarded as uncompetitive, and is either limited mechanically (Sleep Clause in 6v6, Freeze Clause in Haxmons, etc) or outright banned (Swagger, Evasion, etc). I bring these up because the entire point of Sleep-inducing moves in 1v1 is to render your opponent unable to do anything while you hopefully acquire a net gain of turns in order to get your win condition.
Next, what distinguishes Sleep from other similar RNG-inducing moves and items like Thunder Wave, Attract, Focus Band, Confuse Ray, etc, and why should they be treated differently? Sleep simply works a considerably larger amount of the time in comparison to these other moves and items. It is also for this reason that I believe they shouldn't be banned alongside Sleep, though I don't believe anyone would be opposed to getting rid of them if we had to.
Third, why ban the whole thing instead of banning the abusers? Because that's just how smogon works. Whether it's something that's limited to just about everything like Swagger and Double Team, or something that's only on a handful of mons like Drought and Soul Dew, smogon has always banned shared entities rather than individual abusers. Individuals only get banned when they, alone, present considerable issues to the metagame they're currently in. Since we are striving to be more like the official smogon metagames, we have to mold the metagame in the same ways they would, which unfortunately means preferring a "competitive" metagame over a "fun" one.
Lastly, what differentiates Sleep-inducing moves from regular attacks that can miss or have haxy secondary effects? First and foremost, Sleep-inducing moves don't have to take type effectiveness, bulk, or offensive capability into account in order to use them; the biggest things they have to worry about are Taunt, Magic Bounce, Grass types, and the surprise Lum Berry cteam. Admittedly, the turns lost by Sleep aren't all that different from hoping for a Waterfall to flinch or for a Focus Blast to miss, but I ask you, is that acceptable? Again, we can't really do anything about these attacks that are either blessed or cursed with a proclivity towards RNG, but we can do something about the moves and items that do nothing but cause RNG to have more importance in matches than it should. Please, I urge you to consider whether it's really so necessary that we keep sets like Jumpluff, Vivillon, or Cottonee in a metagame trying to be taken seriously.
Thanks for reading I'll get one of those megaposts done someday
Alright here's the math on sleep.
Tl;dr: Sleep is about 1/10 of the meta. Counter Play is available but most often it is not without their own costs. Sleep moves can be buffed by the user.
Osra did a great job explaining the probability of sleep above (and saved me a lot of time ty rosa) so look up there for the math.
As an overview: sleep gets you 1-3 of immobility. The counter strategies are the following for the important moves.
Substitute: User sets up a substitute that will prevent status to get through. This does not include sound moves or moves used by Infiltrator mons. Costs: 24-25% of the users health, a move slot. Grass Types/Safety Goggles/ Overcoat: Prevents powder moves such as Spore, sleep powder, effect spore, etc. from going through. Costs: an item slot or an ability slot respectively. Electric Terrain & Misty Terrain: Prevents sleep for grounded pokemon. Tapu Fini uses Misty Surge and sets this automatically. Costs: A moveslot. Works best for Electric types/ Surge Surfer or Pokemon susceptible to status/ weak to dragon types respectively. Uproar: Prevents both sides from sleeping. Used by special normal attackers like Meloetta and Porygon-Z. Costs: A moveslot and locked in for 3 turns. Will not activate against protected mons, ghost types. Sweet Veil, Insomnia, & Vital Spirit: Pokemon with this ability can not sleep. Costs: an ability slot, user can not rest. Comatose: The pokemon can not be put to sleep as it is already asleep. This pokemon can use attacks in addition to moves like sleep talk and snore. This ability can not be removed or copied. Costs: an ability slot, double damage from Wake-up-slap, user can not rest, affected by nightmare & dream eater. Shed Skin: User has a 30% chance of curing itself. Costs: an ability slot. Hydration: In Rain, the user gets cured by the ability at the end of the turn. This happens before burn or poison damage, but before yawn puts the user to sleep - the user will be cured at the end of the next turn. Costs: an ability slot, if the user isn't against a mon with drizzle or rain dance, then it must run rain dance - costing it a move slot. Leaf Guard: In Sun, the user can not be afflicted by status. Costs: 1.5x Fire damage because of sun & every mon with the ability is a grass type and an ability slot. The user can not rest while the sun is up. If the opponent does not have drought or sunny day, this will also cost a move slot for sunny day and a turn to set up sun. Lum Berry & Chesto Berry: User eats this berry when put to sleep but Lum berry can be activated by any status. Costs: an item slot (important for Z-move users and pokemon with mega evolutions). Single use. Can be blocked by knock off or trick. Early Bird: Sleep counter is reduced by 1 (0-2 turns). Costs: ability slot. Sleep Talk: Use a random attack while asleep. Costs: move slot, no choice in what move is selected, user is not sure when they will wake up. Marvel Scale: Not a preventative measure, but raises defense by 1.5. Costs: an ability slot. Resting before being put to sleep: The strategy is if you know you are being put to sleep this turn, you can rest. While this is the most ironic of the strategies, I have to include it. Costs: user must have less than 100% HP or a status besides sleep - please know that getting put to sleep would fail anyways. This will potentially trade a randomized 1-3 turn sleep counter for a guaranteed 2 turn sleep. Having a status ahead of time: This is self explanatory - be poisoned, burned, frozen, or paralyzed. This is only beneficial for Marvel Scale, Guts, Toxic Boost, Flare Boost, Poison Heal, Quick Feet, etc.
Dark Void: Only Darkrai can use this; Darkrai is banned.
Psycho Shift: needs Sleep Talk to use.
Rest: self inflicted sleep
Secret Power: Needs grassy terrain to use.
After a lot of Excel, the (sleep usage) * (pokemon usage) = 1v1 sleep Usage came out to be the following
1v1 as a total: 10.235% of mons run sleep (one in ten pokemon)
1500: 8.648% (About as frequent as seeing Mega Mawile (8.055%)
1630: 9.248% (About as frequent as seeing Porygon-Z in 1630 (9.264%))
1760: 8.772% (More frequent than Magnezone, less frequent than Porygon-Z in 1760 (7.696%-11.414%))
Infiltrator: Substitute can no longer block status moves.
Compound Eyes: Accuracy is 1.3x better. Note that any move higher than 77% becomes over 100% accurate.
Accuracy raising moves: Sweet scent, Hone Claws, and other accuracy raising moves will allow inaccurate sleep moves to land more often. Sweet scent is listed here for how often it appears with grass types and the chance to double accuracy in one turn and its massive 64 PP. Hone Claws boosts attack allowing the user to deal heavy damage against sleeping pokemon too.
Z-Moves: Most sleep inducing moves raise speed by 1. If the move misses, the users speed at least gets boosted and can try again.
Accuracy raising items: Wide Lens 1.1x boost, Zoom Lens 1.2x boost if the user goes second.
A: Spore, Yawn,
B: Sleep Powder, Hypnosis
C: Lovely Kiss, Grass Whistle, Sing
D: Relic Song
Spore is 100% accurate and although a powder move, it is very reliable. Yawn is 100% accuracy and reliable; when coupled with protect the user gets to play mind games.
Sleep Powder is 75% accurate and a powder move however many Sleep Powder users get sweet scent as well as other stall moves like toxic or leech seed. Hypnosis benefits a large user base, not being powder or sound, and 60% accuracy.
Lovely kiss is 75% accurate, but is only available to Jynx and Smeargle. Grass Whistle and sing are both sound moves that can pass through sub but have lower accuracy.
Relic Song has a 20% chance to put the opponent to sleep after serene grace, transforms Meloetta, and can not be taunted. As far as relying on sleep goes, this is not the most desirable choice.
Notable changes in counterplay in 1v1: no heal bell type moves, no switching, no team support.
Alright here's the math on sleep.
Tl;dr: Sleep is about 1/10 of the meta. Counter Play is available but most often it is not without their own costs. Sleep moves can be buffed by the user.
Osra did a great job explaining the probability of sleep above (and saved me a lot of time ty rosa) so look up there for the math.
As an overview: sleep gets you 1-3 of immobility. The counter strategies are the following for the important moves.
Substitute: User sets up a substitute that will prevent status to get through. This does not include sound moves or moves used by Infiltrator mons. Costs: 24-25% of the users health, a move slot. Grass Types/Safety Goggles/ Overcoat: Prevents powder moves such as Spore, sleep powder, effect spore, etc. from going through. Costs: an item slot or an ability slot respectively. Electric Terrain & Misty Terrain: Prevents sleep for grounded pokemon. Tapu Fini uses Misty Surge and sets this automatically. Costs: A moveslot. Works best for Electric types/ Surge Surfer or Pokemon susceptible to status/ weak to dragon types respectively. Uproar: Prevents both sides from sleeping. Used by special normal attackers like Meloetta and Porygon-Z. Costs: A moveslot and locked in for 3 turns. Will not activate against protected mons, ghost types. Sweet Veil, Insomnia, & Vital Spirit: Pokemon with this ability can not sleep. Costs: an ability slot, user can not rest. Comatose: The pokemon can not be put to sleep as it is already asleep. This pokemon can use attacks in addition to moves like sleep talk and snore. This ability can not be removed or copied. Costs: an ability slot, double damage from Wake-up-slap, user can not rest, affected by nightmare & dream eater. Shed Skin: User has a 30% chance of curing itself. Costs: an ability slot. Hydration: In Rain, the user gets cured by the ability at the end of the turn. This happens before burn or poison damage, but before yawn puts the user to sleep - the user will be cured at the end of the next turn. Costs: an ability slot, if the user isn't against a mon with drizzle or rain dance, then it must run rain dance - costing it a move slot. Leaf Guard: In Sun, the user can not be afflicted by status. Costs: 1.5x Fire damage because of sun & every mon with the ability is a grass type and an ability slot. The user can not rest while the sun is up. If the opponent does not have drought or sunny day, this will also cost a move slot for sunny day and a turn to set up sun. Lum Berry & Chesto Berry: User eats this berry when put to sleep but Lum berry can be activated by any status. Costs: an item slot (important for Z-move users and pokemon with mega evolutions). Single use. Can be blocked by knock off or trick. Early Bird: Sleep counter is reduced by 1 (0-2 turns). Costs: ability slot. Sleep Talk: Use a random attack while asleep. Costs: move slot, no choice in what move is selected, user is not sure when they will wake up. Marvel Scale: Not a preventative measure, but raises defense by 1.5. Costs: an ability slot. Resting before being put to sleep: The strategy is if you know you are being put to sleep this turn, you can rest. While this is the most ironic of the strategies, I have to include it. Costs: user must have less than 100% HP or a status besides sleep - please know that getting put to sleep would fail anyways. This will potentially trade a randomized 1-3 turn sleep counter for a guaranteed 2 turn sleep. Having a status ahead of time: This is self explanatory - be poisoned, burned, frozen, or paralyzed. This is only beneficial for Marvel Scale, Guts, Toxic Boost, Flare Boost, Poison Heal, Quick Feet, etc.
Sleep moves in 1v1:
Dark Void: Only Darkrai can use this; Darkrai is banned.
Psycho Shift: needs Sleep Talk to use.
Rest: self inflicted sleep
Secret Power: Needs grassy terrain to use.
After a lot of Excel, the (sleep usage) * (pokemon usage) = 1v1 sleep Usage came out to be the following
1v1 as a total: 10.235% of mons run sleep (one in ten pokemon)
1500: 8.648% (About as frequent as seeing Mega Mawile (8.055%)
1630: 9.248% (About as frequent as seeing Porygon-Z in 1630 (9.264%))
1760: 8.772% (More frequent than Magnezone, less frequent than Porygon-Z in 1760 (7.696%-11.414%))
Infiltrator: Substitute can no longer block status moves.
Compound Eyes: Accuracy is 1.3x better. Note that any move higher than 77% becomes over 100% accurate.
Accuracy raising moves: Sweet scent, Hone Claws, and other accuracy raising moves will allow inaccurate sleep moves to land more often. Sweet scent is listed here for how often it appears with grass types and the chance to double accuracy in one turn and its massive 64 PP. Hone Claws boosts attack allowing the user to deal heavy damage against sleeping pokemon too.
Z-Moves: Most sleep inducing moves raise speed by 1. If the move misses, the users speed at least gets boosted and can try again.
Accuracy raising items: Wide Lens 1.1x boost, Zoom Lens 1.2x boost if the user goes second.
A: Spore, Yawn,
B: Sleep Powder, Hypnosis
C: Lovely Kiss, Grass Whistle, Sing
D: Relic Song
Spore is 100% accurate and although a powder move, it is very reliable. Yawn is 100% accuracy and reliable; when coupled with protect the user gets to play mind games.
Sleep Powder is 75% accurate and a powder move however many Sleep Powder users get sweet scent as well as other stall moves like toxic or leech seed. Hypnosis benefits a large user base, not being powder or sound, and 60% accuracy.
Lovely kiss is 75% accurate, but is only available to Jynx and Smeargle. Grass Whistle and sing are both sound moves that can pass through sub but have lower accuracy.
Relic Song has a 20% chance to put the opponent to sleep after serene grace, transforms Meloetta, and can not be taunted. As far as relying on sleep goes, this is not the most desirable choice.
Notable changes in counterplay in 1v1: no heal bell type moves, no switching, no team support.
>repeating everything that was already said. Can we just all say sleep is uncompetitive and get along with a ban? I havent seen any counter statements.
>repeating everything that was already said. Can we just all say sleep is uncompetitive and get along with a ban? I havent seen any counter statements.
He did repeat everything that was already said, but he put in bits so we didn't have to read 5 paragraphs every post.
Also did you even see his post? He put down examples that counter sleep then he put down what sleep moves are used on what pokemon.
When looking at Smogon unhealthy guidelines there's clearly rules stating that anything that takes the game out of a player's hands is deemed unhealthy and uncompetitive. It is true that 1v1 does not follow 6v6, but the exact definition of unhealthiness is universal.
It is crystal clear that sleep fits COMPLETELY in the category of unhealthiness. There's nothing competitive in sleep, there's no plays, counterplays and anything that has the term competitive in it. The user of the sleep-inducing move has to either pray for it to hit for non-100% accurate sleep moves, or pray for sleep turns, while the opponent prays the same, either a miss or a wake up. It all ends up being a gamble, worse than a card game. Luck has been something that competitivity tries to eliminate as a whole.
Except no one has actually demonstrated that the majority of matchups that involve a sleep user are determined by its sleep turn rolls. Y'know the actual part that is randomly generated.
I do not agree with ryy's statement saying that Sleep-inducing moves are like simple win conditions just like Porygon-Z's hyper beam or so. Sleep-inducing moves have no real non-niche counters except like fast taunt lol, meanwhile moves that are called win-con or coverage moves are stopped by either bulk or typing advantage, meanwhile even if you don't have the type advantage you risk losing ex, jumpluff vs zard y, mega gengar and landorus etc...
That's not what uncompetitive means oml. Lack of counterplay (if you really want to go on that way) doesn't make it uncompetitive; the lack of ACTIVE PLAY does. And of course sleep doesn't have counterplay, because sleep isn't a strategy. That's like asking what the counterplay to Dragon Dance is. Sleep users vary in the goal and use of sleep.
Also, type advantage doesn't mean winning. For example, Mega Pinsir vs Charizard or Porygon Z vs Mega Lopunny
Sleep-inducing moves not seeing much usage does not mean it's less uncompetitive. The metagame is trying to gain more credibility and we have more and more competitive tournaments so we have to reduce the uncompetitive part in such tournaments and not on ladder. Our top priority is tournament competitive plays and not ladder.
Also I don't get the people that say ban mega gengar, jumpluff and snorlax and keep other sleep users. Why would we ban 3 Pokemon instead of the only problematic object they all share together, which is the usage of sleep. Also with them gone, I'm expecting to see more sleep users being used like mega swampert and other yawn users. Unless you wanna ban all sleep users individually, I don't see a reason to keep sleep-inducing moves anymore.
Sleep isn't skillless - you can improve the sleep sets, evs, know when and what to bring it in against, alter the team support - but unless they run a specific counter team such as flame charge charizard or whatever, even a moderately skilled player will have a chance of beating a 1v1pl level player that is roughly equivalent to the rng chance of staying asleep.
idk why u bring skill level into this since literally anyone can beat anyone in 1v1 which is why high level players lose in low ladder games and in room tours (low level players arent usually in official tours). since anyone can win any game by spamming good mons like pz zardx gyara etc, i say again, i dont realize why this is a problem with sleep and not anything else included.
Jirachi had counterplay, plenty of the VR had advantageous typing against it and won more often than not against Jirachi. The point is that "enough" things having methods of counterplay does not validate the allowance of elements that allow lesser-skilled players to beat greater-skilled players without having to consider type matchups, damage dealt, or multiple other thought-oriented elements that pertain to smogon's own definition of Skill. Moves missing and chanced secondary effects are an unfortunate byproduct of attacks that cannot be separated without straying from ingame mechanics, but Sleep-inducing moves exist for no reason other than to cause that unwanted RNG that people want banned, like crits and Waterfall flinches.
given that anyone can beat anyone in 1v1 by spamming good mons it seems like a bad argument brought up again from last paragraph. yes jirachi had counterplay, but jirachi was used solely to turn every match into that rng game (also who else thinks it was retarded that council banned only rachi and not toge/saws even though they do the same things) while sleep only does it in certain matchups where yawn or sleep powder is used to give a chance to win some matchups the user wouldnt normally win. (dont even try to bring in mons like jump here since they dont abuse turn rng one bit). Sleep may cause turn rng, but only to the point where its about a 50/50 if it even makes it to the last turn possible (approx 44-45 chance to win) which is about a normal roll in 1v1 as many team preview picks are 50/50, speed ties are a thing, missing and missing multiple tomes are a thing, etc. sleep is used in these cases (really its only yawn used for the turn rng other than powder venu) as a coverage move to fudge some extra matchups in the users favor (like using zap cannon to win off of para or focus blast for the chance to win against bad matchups). sleep is about as rng reliant as many other common things in the meta.
With that said, though, we have to take into account the extent in which Sleep renders battles to little more than RNG. This isn't as definitive in relation to other rng-inducing elements, such as Focus Band's 10%, Quick Claw's 20%, OHKO's 30%, etc, but is still calculable.
i just want to point out that every third turn statistic is incorrect as the chance is about 44 for the last sleep turn. im also confused as to why u added hit acc to the chance when the argument is SUPPOSED to be about sleep turn rng.
*Yawn still provides opponents 1 turn to do something, regardless of whether the user moves before or after the opponent; 2 turns if the Yawn user does not carry Protect. Alternatively, the Yawn user may gain an additional turn if the opponent cannot do enough/anything to hinder them on the turn of falling asleep.
**All percentage-based calculations are done with the consideration of the Sleep move successfully landing on the opponent AND gaining the user a net gain of 1 or 2 turns over the opponent.
same thing i said above. also not sure why the yawn thing is here, it does the exact same thing as every other sleep move in relation to turn rng, just lets the user do something with turn 1.
The first question in regards to Sleep is whether or not the RNG-determined turns gained from putting opponents to sleep is uncompetitive. Battling by rendering the opponents unable to do anything is very often regarded as uncompetitive, and is either limited mechanically (Sleep Clause in 6v6, Freeze Clause in Haxmons, etc) or outright banned (Swagger, Evasion, etc). I bring these up because the entire point of Sleep-inducing moves in 1v1 is to render your opponent unable to do anything while you hopefully acquire a net gain of turns in order to get your win condition.
i realize its probably unintentional, but posting about turn rng after including hit rng in statistics gives a false impression of the actual chances involved in the turns. as ive said before on the 6v6 front, sleep is limited due to it taking away the counterplay available (switching) (i know nothing about haxmons but its probably either the same or since freeze can last forever). swagger is a bad example since moves like sweet kiss and confuse ray are still allowed,(probs banned cus the +2 attack drop making foul play op and makes them hit themselves harder). The 6v6 limit shouldnt be used because, as ive said before, counterplay in 1v1 is different since u have to bring counters to things to be able to win (like any mon or strategy not only sleep), unlike 6v6 where switching out after getting slept or switching to a grass/safety goggles mon is the counter-play
Next, what distinguishes Sleep from other similar RNG-inducing moves and items like Thunder Wave, Attract, Focus Band, Confuse Ray, etc, and why should they be treated differently? Sleep simply works a considerably larger amount of the time in comparison to these other moves and items. It is also for this reason that I believe they shouldn't be banned alongside Sleep, though I don't believe anyone would be opposed to getting rid of them if we had to.
“working a larger amount of the time” usually makes something more competitive / less lucky. Saying focus band only works 10% of the time so who cares about it is a bad argument since that would make it MORE dependent on luck, so why are you ok with them staying if “sleep luck” is such a big problem. im not arguing that they should be banned or that sleep should be banned, im just pointing out the hippocrosy in being ok with more luck reliant things than sleep while arguing sleep is luck bansed and should be banned.
Third, why ban the whole thing instead of banning the abusers? Because that's just how smogon works. Whether it's something that's limited to just about everything like Swagger and Double Team, or something that's only on a handful of mons like Drought and Soul Dew, smogon has always banned shared entities rather than individual abusers. Individuals only get banned when they, alone, present considerable issues to the metagame they're currently in. Since we are striving to be more like the official smogon metagames, we have to mold the metagame in the same ways they would, which unfortunately means preferring a "competitive" metagame over a "fun" one.
double team and swagger didnt have abusers, double team turned almost every mon into “try to hit me” for the entirety of the time it was alive, and swagger was banned since it made any mon including ones that werent physical attackers hit themselves really hard (imo while also boosting the power of foul play immensely). sleep, mainly yawn, but a couple of sleep powder mons too use it to win some extra matches at the cost of running either more bulk with only half the move coverage, or half the coverage in moves. sleep with yawn (outside of lax) is not able to beat almost anything, only a few mons that the user wouldnt normally be able to beat (like any coverage move). sleep like this is a bad comparison to your examples since a mon doesnt use it to win just about any match off of rng only(double team) or as a way to make mons hitthemselves hard while also making them do nothing(swagger). other sleep moves/users use sleep to set up sub, not to abuse sleep turns (like pluff and whims and viv) so this type of argument doesnt apply to these at all. mega gengar is weird since it uses hypnosis to win a lot of its matches unlike yawn users who use it sometimes, and users to set up sub etc. if you want to argue that its uncompetitive because it relies on hypnosis id say ur dumb cus in the end it comes down to “ can i hit this move” like any coverage move. id also say that it bans shared entities that are all linear in their use like drought and soul dew, unlike sleep which has a broad use. also drought and soul dew ban were cus they made mons /strategies broken, not uncompetitive so i feel thats a bad comparison, but that may just be me.
Lastly, what differentiates Sleep-inducing moves from regular attacks that can miss or have haxy secondary effects? First and foremost, Sleep-inducing moves don't have to take type effectiveness, bulk, or offensive capability into account in order to use them; the biggest things they have to worry about are Taunt, Magic Bounce, Grass types, and the surprise Lum Berry cteam. Admittedly, the turns lost by Sleep aren't all that different from hoping for a Waterfall to flinch or for a Focus Blast to miss, but I ask you, is that acceptable? Again, we can't really do anything about these attacks that are either blessed or cursed with a proclivity towards RNG, but we can do something about the moves and items that do nothing but cause RNG to have more importance in matches than it should. Please, I urge you to consider whether it's really so necessary that we keep sets like Jumpluff, Vivillon, or Cottonee in a metagame trying to be taken seriously.
yes its acceptable. who cares if sleep doesnt do damage.
my problem here is that you are bringing up things sleep has to worry about which relates to counterplay, and you even admitted earlier in your post that sleep has plenty of counterplay. you also admit that sleep isnt much different RNG wise than focus blast missing which helps the point claiming sleep is just as conpetitive as moves that miss. the last sentence just makes it seem like u dont think these sets shouldnt be able to win. also if people think a meta is a joke cus a jumpluff can win or a cottonee can win, i dont see why they will think any more of the meta if things like aron magnemite and other fear mons can win, along with them being decent in usage stats (aron is usually top 60). this last paragraph doesnt really contribute anything to your argument tbh.
sorry if this is a not very detailed post but im
on mobile. (also may be typos cus keyboard is ass on mobile)
>repeating everything that was already said. Can we just all say sleep is uncompetitive and get along with a ban? I havent seen any counter statements.
obviously you cant read because me, lost heros, qt and others have made many posts completely arguing against the “sleep is uncompetitive” arguement. im pretty sure many would regard them as “counter statements”
Except no one has actually demonstrated that the majority of matchups that involve a sleep user are determined by its sleep turn rolls. Y'know the actual part that is randomly generated.
This statement is presented without any supporting evidence. If you read my post on Mega-Gengar, you will see that I clearly broke down how the majority of matchups are determined by sleep turn rolls. We are in agreement that these are randomly generated. Thus, the results of the majority of Mega-Gengar battle match ups are randomly determined.
obviously you cant read because me, lost heros, qt and others have made many posts completely arguing against the “sleep is uncompetitive” arguement. im pretty sure many would regard them as “counter statements”
There have been a number of posts arguing against posts that state sleep is uncompetitive. To clarify, I see you and others arguing against components of sleep ban posts. However, I have seen few arguments that sleep is competitive - which is the point I believe you are trying to make. Most often, the main focus of any post that says sleep is competitive points to Jumpluff not relying on or abusing RNG - stating that it just needs sleep powder to hit and 1 turn of sleep. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-699286555
Here is a replay of Jumpluff factually abusing sleep turn RNG.
This replay shows that your unsupported statement about Jumpluff not abusing sleep turn RNG "one bit" is false.
Also, for everyone's future reference: pointing out counters and counterplay is an argument that sleep is not broken. The accusation being made is that sleep is uncompetitive. Mega-Gengar once again is a good example here as the vast majority of its counters are mons that outspeed and OHKO, not allowing it to utilize its uncompetitive mechanic. An argument that if you kill a mon before it gets to do something uncompetitive does not indicate the mon does not have access to something uncompetitive.
When you make statements and don't present supporting evidence, you are essentially just pointing at something you don't like and assuming it's an issue. Please provide substantial evidence to clarify that sleep turns are not uncompetitive so you can indicate it is not an issue.
This post will of course come off as combative and probably personal. I don't mean it to be this way as my real issue with what I am quoting here is posts being made in the forum which are just opinions and not followed up by evidence. Posts with evidence are important as they are the main way to influence how suspect votes go now.
- I'll save the pictures I owe for my next typical Gojira sized post
When looking at Smogon unhealthy guidelines there's clearly rules stating that anything that takes the game out of a player's hands is deemed unhealthy and uncompetitive. It is true that 1v1 does not follow 6v6, but the exact definition of unhealthiness is universal.
yea they are, but you gotta actually prove that something does that in an unhealthy manner. ill respond the the take it out of a players hands in a little.
It is crystal clear that sleep fits COMPLETELY in the category of unhealthiness. There's nothing competitive in sleep, there's no plays, counterplays and anything that has the term competitive in it. The user of the sleep-inducing move has to either pray for it to hit for non-100% accurate sleep moves, or pray for sleep turns, while the opponent prays the same, either a miss or a wake up. It all ends up being a gamble, worse than a card game. Luck has been something that competitivity tries to eliminate as a whole.
saying “theres nothing competitive” doesnt make it correct. saying “theres no plays or counterplays” doesnt make that true. you have to back it up instead of saying “you both just gotta pray 100% of the time” cus that is definitely not true. its been shown that there is plenty of counterplay and thats been accepted by other proban users such as osra. the argument you are trying to make is also “uncompetitive” which has 0 to do with counterplay so idk why u mention it.
I do not agree with ryy's statement saying that Sleep-inducing moves are like simple win conditions just like Porygon-Z's hyper beam or so. Sleep-inducing moves have no real non-niche counters except like fast taunt lol, meanwhile moves that are called win-con or coverage moves are stopped by either bulk or typing advantage, meanwhile even if you don't have the type advantage you risk losing ex, jumpluff vs zard y, mega gengar and landorus etc...
first i want to ask why you disagree with it. again, unless you are arguing sleep is broken instead of sleep is uncompetitive, i still have no idea why you bring counters into the argument. but still, coverage moves are used to GET PAST type advantage, and in 1v1 this is more common than any other meta. bringing up those arguments doesnt do anything for your argument, i beat hoopa u with signal beam deo s to get past type advantage, so why cant a jumpluff use a coverage move like powder to get past a zard.
also, here’s my reasoning for the “jumpluff is like pz” argument so you are clear on why i think this when u tell me why u disagree with it.
porygonz, in battles where it can win (hyper beam beam specifically for acc comparison) clicks hyper beam to win. for jumpluff to win a matchup, it wants to hit sleep powder to win. jumpluff does not rely on sleep turns since as long as it gets up sub it wins or powders again. therefore it just wants to hit sleep powder to win, just like pz wants to hit hyper beam to win. (even if they get a turn 1 wake, jumpluff wants to just hit sleep powder to win still). the only difference is the accuracy in the moves. if you want to argue that sleep makes it to where the oppo cant counter attack, i say that hyper beam does the same thing by KOing, if i use a zard y and the hyper beam misses, ill ohko, same with jumpluff missing. i would win both if i could move. sleep is just the way jumpluff “kos” zard y before zard y kos it. you kigt say sleep doesnt actually ko it, but it essentially does since if it gets up the sleep it wins anyways. both win in the same way “hit the move and win” the how is just different “sleep or ohko”.
Sleep-inducing moves not seeing much usage does not mean it's less uncompetitive. The metagame is trying to gain more credibility and we have more and more competitive tournaments so we have to reduce the uncompetitive part in such tournaments and not on ladder. Our top priority is tournament competitive plays and not ladder.
tbh, you havent really said anything on how sleep is uncompetitive other than making unsubstantiated claims, so before saying it should be banned do that first. Having sleep doesnt make the meta less credible anyways, as sleep is allowed in every other meta there is.
Also I don't get the people that say ban mega gengar, jumpluff and snorlax and keep other sleep users. Why would we ban 3 Pokemon instead of the only problematic object they all share together, which is the usage of sleep. Also with them gone, I'm expecting to see more sleep users being used like mega swampert and other yawn users. Unless you wanna ban all sleep users individually, I don't see a reason to keep sleep-inducing moves anymore.
idk why you would ban any of those mons other than lax tbh. also, since u havent done anything other than make unsubstantiated claims on sleep, try backing up your stance before saying sleep should be banned
This statement is presented without any supporting evidence. If you read my post on Mega-Gengar, you will see that I clearly broke down how the majority of matchups are determined by sleep turn rolls. We are in agreement that these are randomly generated. Thus, the results of the majority of Mega-Gengar battle match ups are randomly determined.
There have been a number of posts arguing against posts that state sleep is uncompetitive. To clarify, I see you and others arguing against components of sleep ban posts. However, I have seen few arguments that sleep is competitive - which is the point I believe you are trying to make. Most often, the main focus of any post that says sleep is competitive points to Jumpluff not relying on or abusing RNG - stating that it just needs sleep powder to hit and 1 turn of sleep. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-699286555
arguing against posts that are proban would imply that we are antisleepban. which means we think sleep is competitive in the current meta. most dont just argue against something like jumpluff, but against prosleepban arguments.
i shouldnt of said one bit, rather “hardly at all”. Almost every matchup is going to have the few cases where it goes out of what normally happens. ex: missing, secondary effects
showing one replay of zardx vs jumpluff doesnt mean jumpluff uses sleep turns, but it only does in a couple certain matchups that have a low chance of jumpluff sinning like this, so you arent proving me wrong here.
for everyone's future reference: pointing out counters and counterplay is an argument that sleep is not broken. The accusation being made is that sleep is uncompetitive. Mega-Gengar once again is a good example here as the vast majority of its counters are mons that outspeed and OHKO, not allowing it to utilize its uncompetitive mechanic. An argument that if you kill a mon before it gets to do something uncompetitive does not indicate the mon does not have access to something uncompetitive.
idk what u mean here. you made a post about proving that sleep is uncompetitive, then ONLY talked about mgars checks and counters and not about how sleep is uncompetitive, and you did this while insinuating that sleep is uncompetitive, not showing how it is.
This post will of course come off as combative and probably personal. I don't mean it to be this way as my real issue with what I am quoting here is posts being made in the forum which are just opinions and not followed up by evidence. Posts with evidence are important as they are the main way to influence how suspect votes go now.
Lets fix that real quick. View attachment 118347
I'm just going to do the same exact thing as Gojira Poo but with Jumpluff, this one is so much easier to prove as well since it relies 100% on sleep.
Same deal as before, lets go through possible strategies to beat Jumpluff (leaving taunt until the end though because damn there's a lot to talk about with that).
1. Substitute: Rip, Infiltrator denies one of the best ways to beat sleep
2. Abilities: Same crew as always for this one, Mega-Sableye and Mega-Diancie with Magic Bounce and Tapu Fini with Misty Terrain. Infiltrator can break through sub but the only 2 Pokemon that can use it on the vr are Jumpluff and Whimsicott, I'm not counting Whim here, I'll do it with typing. Overcoat also blocks sleep powder so that adds Kommo-o, the rest aren't ranked. Prankster would be here too but I'm putting them in the taunt category.
Count- 4
3. Typing: Grass types are obviously immune to sleep powder so lets look at grass types on the vr. Venusaur-Mega, other Jumpluff, Ferrothorn, Kartana, Whimsicott, Tapu Bulu, Serperior, and Mega-Sceptile. They also are immune to Leech Seed so Jumpluff isn't winning even without sleep.
Count- 11
4. Outspeed and OHKO: I'm using the terrible speed tiers for this so don't judge me if I miss something (please make new ones someone). Greninja, Talonflame, Pheramosa, and Gengar-Mega.
Count- 15
5. Choice Scarf: Using the speed tiers again, no judging. Togekiss, Porygon-Z, Tapu Lele, Victini and that's all. Now I'm 100% sure I missed a few because I'm not going through all the sets with Choice Scarf that I have and seeing if they win so I'm going to just add 2 to the count to be fair for the ones I missed.
Count- 21
6. Noise Moves- Now we get to the hard part about this Pokemon. Pokemon such as Non-Scarf Porygon-Z, Gardevoir-Mega, and Meloetta should beat Jumpluff because they have sound moves that go through Jumpluff's Sub. Here is the problem with Jumpluff, sleep+protect gives Jumpluff the chance to beat all of these Pokemon with the right amount of sleep turns. They don't always beat Jumpluff so we can't add them as counters.
Count- 21
7. Taunt: The same thing applies here as with sound moves. If the Jumpluff user Protects on the correct turn then it can put the Taunter back to sleep. The only 2 who avoid this are Sableye and Whimsicott but they beat Jumpluff in other ways so they don't add to our count. Final Count- 21
So with that we have only 21 Pokemon that beat Jumpluff 100% of the time. This wouldn't be a problem if Jumpluff beat all the other Pokemon through strategy but alas it beats them through high sleep turns and lucky Protect predictions.
One more Pokemon and we can invalidate ryyjyywyy's post. Almost there.
Thanks for reading and screw Kentari for knocking me down on ladder.
Well, you did miss quite a few counters, but when you argue counters you are arguing that sleep is broken, not that sleep is uncompetitive which was my other big problem with gojira’s post. you guys are trying to argue that sleep is uncompetitive, then you dont do that and talk about 1 sleep users counters instead.
Z-Conversion Curse is a set I've been working on for about 2 weeks now. Never planned on really making a detailed post about it since I didn't really know what I could beat. Sets I make often work better with my teams, due to it covering weaknesses of Pokemon that 3-0 my teams. But after a user by the name of, EliteProd, messaged me saying Magearna ALWAYS BEATS PORYGON! And a lot of other bs, I decided to make this post.
Replay of me beating EliteProd's Magearna with this set in 1700s ----> https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-753511475
I planned on making this a huge post. But after working on it for 5 days now and having to redo it each day. I'm tired of spending 2-3 hours doing the same thing. So I'll just do a quick run down on it. Z-Conversion turn 1 vs Magearna. Sub/Curse/Recover. You win...Donphan you Same thing basically. Swap Magnet Rise in if you don't like EQ. Metagross normally beats Porygon. EVs used vs Metagross here with Shadowball just KO it. But as long as they don't get procs of Meteor Mash win with Curse. You can use Curse before using Z-Move. for Def Boosts. It beats other Pokemon too. But after losing everything I work on in this post each day kinda gave up on the whole Mega-Post. Sorry.
I'd love to work with this set a little bit because this looks amazing! I would definitely try seeing what conversion -> curse -> Z-Curse could beat or even just conversion -> Z-Curse. Have you also tested Pory2 with this? You'd have to switch into using speed evs to outpace threats but the bulk is a nice touch.
-edit p2 ends up being too slow in exchange for more of the other bulk. so if thats worth it then have fun. Also Curse -> conversion/ZConv -> Curse sounds like fun too
This statement is presented without any supporting evidence. If you read my post on Mega-Gengar, you will see that I clearly broke down how the majority of matchups are determined by sleep turn rolls. We are in agreement that these are randomly generated. Thus, the results of the majority of Mega-Gengar battle match ups are randomly determined.
No, because most of the time when Gengar puts you to sleep, it tries to OHKO you with Hex. Meaning sleep turns aren't important at all.
There have been a number of posts arguing against posts that state sleep is uncompetitive. To clarify, I see you and others arguing against components of sleep ban posts. However, I have seen few arguments that sleep is competitive - which is the point I believe you are trying to make. Most often, the main focus of any post that says sleep is competitive points to Jumpluff not relying on or abusing RNG - stating that it just needs sleep powder to hit and 1 turn of sleep. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen71v1-699286555
Here is a replay of Jumpluff factually abusing sleep turn RNG.
This replay shows that your unsupported statement about Jumpluff not abusing sleep turn RNG "one bit" is false.
There was also a double protect with the exact same likelihood and the exact same necessity of the 3 turn sleep to occur for Jumpluff to win the match up.
When are we banning that.
Also, for everyone's future reference: pointing out counters and counterplay is an argument that sleep is not broken. The accusation being made is that sleep is uncompetitive. Mega-Gengar once again is a good example here as the vast majority of its counters are mons that outspeed and OHKO, not allowing it to utilize its uncompetitive mechanic. An argument that if you kill a mon before it gets to do something uncompetitive does not indicate the mon does not have access to something uncompetitive.
Uncompetitive is literally all about taking play out of the player's hands. If the opponent can do something there is nothing to analyze about it being uncompetitive. If counterplay is so minimal or so niche, that's nothing to do with uncompetitive, but because something is broken.
When you make statements and don't present supporting evidence, you are essentially just pointing at something you don't like and assuming it's an issue. Please provide substantial evidence to clarify that sleep turns are not uncompetitive so you can indicate it is not an issue.
I'm not the party making the primary claim. Your party has to provide evidence that sleep is uncompetitive.
This post will of course come off as combative and probably personal. I don't mean it to be this way as my real issue with what I am quoting here is posts being made in the forum which are just opinions and not followed up by evidence. Posts with evidence are important as they are the main way to influence how suspect votes go now.
- I'll save the pictures I owe for my next typical Gojira sized post
I understand your issue. I have the same issues. But the anti-sleep proponents have been very lax on actual evidence, and rather are passing off bold claims as obvious evidence.
If you outspeed a standard attacker, you win. Even in the event of a first turn wake, they'll just hit your Substitute and you can Spore again the following turn. You aren't limited to 4 Substitutes either - with Poison Heal and Protect you have virtually unlimited chances to get your Leech Seed off from behind a Substitute. This Pokemon wins or loses based completely on matchup, not RNG.
Point is, not every sleep user is the same (obviously) but some rely on hax far less than others. I can see an argument for why M-Gengar is uncompetitive due to excessive hax dependence. I don't see the same reasoning applied to Breloom.
>repeating everything that was already said. Can we just all say sleep is uncompetitive and get along with a ban? I havent seen any counter statements.
