Metagame 1v1 Metagame Discussion

[Tol]

Is level 1 Nosepass with Berry Juice, Toxic, and Pain Split going to be an actual thing?

What they said also probopass is a straight upgrade cause steel typing

 

[superstrike66]

Is level 1 Nosepass with Berry Juice, Toxic, and Pain Split going to be an actual thing?

Honestly, if you really want use FEAR, just use Togedemaru, since it gets access to spiky shield. Here's the set I'd use.

 

[Author_Pendragon]

Sleep is so common that I often run a lum berry on my Hoopa U

 

[blondesasukeuchiha]

Sleep is so common that I often run a lum berry on my Hoopa U

Don’t do that, anything that uses sleep scarf hoopa can beat anyway, now that snorlax is banned anyway. Unless you’re worried about camerupt, which is bad anyway

 

[The Immortal]

PSA: The 1v1 Council has decided to add a 6th member; congratulations Osra!

 

[dom]

hey hey hey its your favorite snorlax banner dom here with the proposal to make votes public again.

i have a problem with the action of closed "suspect" votes. i think we all do. i think there really wasn't too much of a problem beforehand when zygod wasn't banned, kyubrachi wasn't banned, etc. i think that closing off the public vote was quite frankly disrespectful and insulting to the playerbase. there was no problem with the voter pool at all, with votes from 1v1 players and non players alike.

someone like deg, or glyx maybe would say "people voted to ban this or not to ban this because they dislike deg" or "they used !pick to vote" or maybe even a "they got told what to vote by someone else", as if these are actually relevant number of people and not an extreme minority (no proof of this other than word has been shown btw). i'd dare even say that people being told what to vote is actually a bigger problem in legitimate tiers like ru where people don't care about the tier, only a tc badge.

re: the point that the council is only breaking a tie on a 53 or 59% vote -
how exactly is there a tie. there was a close vote. it was completely legitimate. close but legitimate. maybe the community is divided but this isn't the end of the world.

Last time we had a public suspect test, Power Construct ended up being 1 vote away from a ban despite literally (and I really do mean literally, go and check for yourself) nobody making any kind of post or sentiment that it should be banned. If that doesn't seem fishy to you, I don't know what would.

(first off i did in fact make a post saying it should be banned, xd)
this brings me to my next point. people are not obligated to post about their vote. 1v1 is a tier where the playerbase is a bit more casual than pretty much any other tier, and we need to accept that. notice how there really only was 1 notable ban snorlax post, which was mine. had my parents not been away in hawaii leaving me with a bit of down time, that post would not be made and snorlax would not be banned. posting about banning this or that is pretty time consuming, effortful, and generally risky. you don't know that your opinion is agreed upon by other people, much less the council. maybe you put a ton of effort into a sleep post like someone like tda has, and it gets nowhere. you should not HAVE to post. i mean of course ideally people do, but it's not the end of the world if not.

Additionally, with COIL gone, the suspect system has to be remade. You'd think it would be as easy as making gxe requirements with battle count limitations, but we're not 6v6. We would need much steeper battle count restrictions, and to set a somewhat reliable point of gxe to determine whether or not someone is worthy of voting, something with such a high minimum battle count that it wouldn't be possible, or at least very unlikely, for someone to get reqs on a mere lucky streak of battles.
That said, I do still believe that public suspect tests were taken away because of the abuse of the privilege of voting, rather than COIL being removed. possibly both, but who knows/cares. At the end of the day, I believe the council acted in the better interest of keeping the meta healthy, over the irrational demands of the community who would literally rather discuss unbanning Zekrom than participate in a suspect test.

fair.
here's my proposal: 70+ gxe, 100 battles. 250 game battle limit.
done. this seems fair, i think. 70 gxe isn't too easy to get i think. and if you want a higher game count, go ahead. if you want a higher gxe, go ahead. i just think this is a good starting point. sorting the current top 500, 139/500 have a 70+ gxe. ~= 28%. 72 is fine too, i guess. it wouldn't be a problem that the voter pool would be low (i found it ironic that ti pointed out a low voter pool in february when he made the voter pool like 8 people lmao) because the council vote is a small pool.

...well if it's a small voter pool then why is the council vote a problem. i'll tell you why! they don't play the tier, mostly. the addition of glyx, despite me not being the #1 glyx fan is good because she plays 1v1, lol.

breakdown

ti - does not play publiclly. claims to play on "alts" in the 1500s. does not play in tournaments. not a high level player in any sense of the imagination.
deg - plays a decent, but not great, amount on ladder. pretty much 0 tour results in sm despite a little bit of participation.
uc (ahah im the reason he's tl, throwback) - pretty much 0 tournament participation, much less results. ladders fairly casually and uses bullshit sometimes.
uop - played a ton last year, cool. little to no 2018 tour results, or really any results. i think he did ok in a seasonal.
mace - plays ladder & tours. good for him.
glyx - plays tours and snipes on ladder. good enough i guess? good and undeniable tour results though.

so that's 2/6.1/3 of the council plays at a decently high level in 2018 tournaments, of that 2/3 majority really don't have great results in general. = i don't trust them.

the 1v1 suspects currently are a joke. this maximum circlejerky bullshit of an oligarchy needs to change.

tldr free public suspects, at this point i've given up on kyubrachi, i just want public suspects back lol.

 

[The Official Glyx]

someone like deg, or glyx maybe would say "people voted to ban this or not to ban this because they dislike deg" or "they used !pick to vote" or maybe even a "they got told what to vote by someone else", as if these are actually relevant number of people and not an extreme minority (no proof of this other than word has been shown btw). i'd dare even say that people being told what to vote is actually a bigger problem in legitimate tiers like ru where people don't care about the tier, only a tc badge.

At this point, I forfeit. They were in fact presented as proper suspects, and in the case of proper suspects, a vote is a vote, regardless of whether someone treated their vote with proper respect or if they wiped their ass with it.

re: the point that the council is only breaking a tie on a 53 or 59% vote -
how exactly is there a tie. there was a close vote. it was completely legitimate. close but legitimate. maybe the community is divided but this isn't the end of the world.

I forfeit this point as well. The questioned suspects were explicitly given the "60% = ban" format, and did not reach that %.

I can, at least, offer the suggestion that suspects (if we bring them back) could, and should, be changed to a simple majority vote, much like the recent Pyroar suspect test PU had (which is a point simply to say that simple majority suspects are not unheard of). In the event of a perfect tie, any council members that did not partake in the suspect test may add their own votes, and if that ends in a tie, then it all comes down to The Immortal, I guess. I bring up this compromise due to the fact that almost all prior public suspect tests had ended up being very close in results to such an extent that I believe enforcing the 60% supermajority ruling would be unfair to the side in favor of the change.

(first off i did in fact make a post saying it should be banned, xd)

and what a great post it was

this brings me to my next point. people are not obligated to post about their vote. 1v1 is a tier where the playerbase is a bit more casual than pretty much any other tier, and we need to accept that. notice how there really only was 1 notable ban snorlax post, which was mine. had my parents not been away in hawaii leaving me with a bit of down time, that post would not be made and snorlax would not be banned. posting about banning this or that is pretty time consuming, effortful, and generally risky. you don't know that your opinion is agreed upon by other people, much less the council. maybe you put a ton of effort into a sleep post like someone like tda has, and it gets nowhere. you should not HAVE to post. i mean of course ideally people do, but it's not the end of the world if not.

In the current suspect system we have, pretty much all discussion is driven by posts on smogon, due to the fact that discussion in the room or on discord can vary depending on whoever's active at the time, thus making those outlets less reliable for viable discussion, whereas smogon is something that displays all posts for all to see, at any time of day, which is why this is where all the bans, unbans, tournaments, etc happen.

At this point, it's a bit of a battle to see who's willing to budge first between the community accepting that they have to post on smogon for changes to happen and the council accepting that the community doesn't want to post on smogon.

the 1v1 suspects currently are a joke. this maximum circlejerky bullshit of an oligarchy needs to change.

tldr free public suspects, at this point i've given up on kyubrachi, i just want public suspects back lol.

Ultimately, I can't really defend the actions that occurred a few months back. I can only provide guesses as to what their rationale was for doing what they did (as a brand new smogon conversation was created when I became council, so I don't have access to the old one ;<).

The best possible explanation I can think of is that 1v1 (especially back when the change was first implemented) is/was in a bit of an unstable state. Such an unstable state that I believe it would be reckless to allow just anyone to vote. While it may come off as elitist, the ultimate point is that the council (I believe) prefers for people who truly care about 1v1 to be the ones who influence it, for the time being. Once everything has been stabilized out with the council establishing a reliable system for tournaments (both official room tours AND smogon tours) as well as an improved outlook on how suspect tests should be held and how the general metagame should be molded, in addition to the community (and some council) learning that we have to start with small steps before we can go to big leaps, then I believe it would be fine to bring back public suspect tests.

 

[The Immortal]

hey hey hey its your favorite snorlax banner dom here with the proposal to make votes public again.

i have a problem with the action of closed "suspect" votes. i think we all do. i think there really wasn't too much of a problem beforehand when zygod wasn't banned, kyubrachi wasn't banned, etc. i think that closing off the public vote was quite frankly disrespectful and insulting to the playerbase. there was no problem with the voter pool at all, with votes from 1v1 players and non players alike.

someone like deg, or glyx maybe would say "people voted to ban this or not to ban this because they dislike deg" or "they used !pick to vote" or maybe even a "they got told what to vote by someone else", as if these are actually relevant number of people and not an extreme minority (no proof of this other than word has been shown btw). i'd dare even say that people being told what to vote is actually a bigger problem in legitimate tiers like ru where people don't care about the tier, only a tc badge.

re: the point that the council is only breaking a tie on a 53 or 59% vote -
how exactly is there a tie. there was a close vote. it was completely legitimate. close but legitimate. maybe the community is divided but this isn't the end of the world.


(first off i did in fact make a post saying it should be banned, xd)
this brings me to my next point. people are not obligated to post about their vote. 1v1 is a tier where the playerbase is a bit more casual than pretty much any other tier, and we need to accept that. notice how there really only was 1 notable ban snorlax post, which was mine. had my parents not been away in hawaii leaving me with a bit of down time, that post would not be made and snorlax would not be banned. posting about banning this or that is pretty time consuming, effortful, and generally risky. you don't know that your opinion is agreed upon by other people, much less the council. maybe you put a ton of effort into a sleep post like someone like tda has, and it gets nowhere. you should not HAVE to post. i mean of course ideally people do, but it's not the end of the world if not.

fair.
here's my proposal: 70+ gxe, 100 battles. 250 game battle limit.
done. this seems fair, i think. 70 gxe isn't too easy to get i think. and if you want a higher game count, go ahead. if you want a higher gxe, go ahead. i just think this is a good starting point. sorting the current top 500, 139/500 have a 70+ gxe. ~= 28%. 72 is fine too, i guess. it wouldn't be a problem that the voter pool would be low (i found it ironic that ti pointed out a low voter pool in february when he made the voter pool like 8 people lmao) because the council vote is a small pool.

...well if it's a small voter pool then why is the council vote a problem. i'll tell you why! they don't play the tier, mostly. the addition of glyx, despite me not being the #1 glyx fan is good because she plays 1v1, lol.

breakdown

ti - does not play publiclly. claims to play on "alts" in the 1500s. does not play in tournaments. not a high level player in any sense of the imagination.
deg - plays a decent, but not great, amount on ladder. pretty much 0 tour results in sm despite a little bit of participation.
uc (ahah im the reason he's tl, throwback) - pretty much 0 tournament participation, much less results. ladders fairly casually and uses bullshit sometimes.
uop - played a ton last year, cool. little to no 2018 tour results, or really any results. i think he did ok in a seasonal.
mace - plays ladder & tours. good for him.
glyx - plays tours and snipes on ladder. good enough i guess? good and undeniable tour results though.

so that's 2/6.1/3 of the council plays at a decently high level in 2018 tournaments, of that 2/3 majority really don't have great results in general. = i don't trust them.

the 1v1 suspects currently are a joke. this maximum circlejerky bullshit of an oligarchy needs to change.

tldr free public suspects, at this point i've given up on kyubrachi, i just want public suspects back lol.

Nobody is saying that closing public tests is a good thing, not even me. But it was a necessary evil to balance the metagame. I won’t talk about the past or that Tapu Koko and Snorlax probably wouldn’t have been banned with public tests. However, I want to let it be known that I intend to free public suspect tests in the near future.

Regarding the rotational council, while it does look the way it does, the intention was to pick the best of the best active players that are not questionable users. And it was picked before we posted the test, so we legitimately didn’t factor in which way they lean towards. However, I can understand the doubts. So, for the next test, we will be picking from the LT qualifiers. Either random four from everyone, or if we can wait long enough, the four semifinalists. I hope that is an objective enough selection.

 

[Yung Dramps]

However, I want to let it be known that I intend to free public suspect tests in the near future.

So, for the next test, we will be picking from the LT qualifiers. Either random four from everyone, or if we can wait long enough, the four semifinalists. I hope that is an objective enough selection.

???

I don't have the time to make a long post, but I really think for the next test we should allow public voting. I can sort of understand the rationale behind what was done for Koko and Lax, super unhealthy elements that needed emergency handling. But the meta isn't in as volatile of a state, so it should be safe now, right?

Also, how do you know that Koko and Lax wouldn't have been banned with public tests? That's just complete speculation, and speculation is not an argument.

 

[Chloe]

Nobody is saying that closing public tests is a good thing, not even me. But it was a necessary evil to balance the metagame. I won’t talk about the past or that Tapu Koko and Snorlax probably wouldn’t have been banned with public tests. However, I want to let it be known that I intend to free public suspect tests in the near future.

I fundamentally disagree with this logic as closing public tests was never the right solution. If you believe the majority of people had misinformed opinions you could always just make the reqs harder. Your subjective opinions disallow people who actually care about and play the meta from having a say, regardless of how competent they are in said meta. Your only counter-arguments revolve around a completely theoretical basis of Snorlax or Tapu Koko remaining unbanned if they went to a public test, but you fail to see the majority of players posting in support of these two bans within the thread. I could also argue that the majority of users who post in this thread know more about the metagame than half the council but that point has been driven into the ground.

Regarding the rotational council, while it does look the way it does, the intention was to pick the best of the best active players that are not questionable users. And it was picked before we posted the test, so we legitimately didn’t factor in which way they lean towards. However, I can understand the doubts. So, for the next test, we will be picking from the LT qualifiers. Either random four from everyone, or if we can wait long enough, the four semifinalists. I hope that is an objective enough selection.

Picking from LT qualifiers doesn't solve the issue here, especially if you go along the route of randomisation. Public suspect tests are the only logical answer here, and it's somewhat concerning that despite the amount of pushback you're getting for what is objectively a bad move on the part of the council, that you decide to do nothing and instead double down. Please bring back public suspect tests before any more decisions are made.

 

[dom]

Nobody is saying that closing public tests is a good thing, not even me. But it was a necessary evil to balance the metagame. I won’t talk about the past or that Tapu Koko and Snorlax probably wouldn’t have been banned with public tests. However, I want to let it be known that I intend to free public suspect tests in the near future.

good for you "intending" to free them, despite there being a literal suspect a week ago with a closed, and even circlejerkier vote than the koko one. i find it funny how you say it's a necessary evil when my entire post was telling you why it was pointless and arbitrary with the tier worse off in the hands of people who don't play the meta.

Regarding the rotational council, while it does look the way it does, the intention was to pick the best of the best active players that are not questionable users. And it was picked before we posted the test, so we legitimately didn’t factor in which way they lean towards. However, I can understand the doubts. So, for the next test, we will be picking from the LT qualifiers. Either random four from everyone, or if we can wait long enough, the four semifinalists. I hope that is an objective enough selection.

what????? okay, so instead of having a public but difficult vote where you get roughly 10 people to vote (ideally more, but you seem to have 0 problem with small voter pools) who are motivated, proven, and have had enough time to carefully think out their vote, you'd rather have a council vote where again 60% of the people haven't proven themselves in sm + a completely random and arbitrary pool of people who didn't even sign up to vote and who probably won't care too much. but ignoring that, i find it fucking hilarious how you choose a ladder tournament to (arbitrarily) represent the 1v1 tournament community's vote when you could just make a difficult ladder instead.

ti, it comes across to me that you want to have power and vote in these 1v1 suspects ( hence the low pool and it being a council vote) without actually playing it or proving yourself in any way at all. but i think for the tier to be better off, we need to have a meta where people who have shown they actually play the meta vote. you have not gotten reqs in sm at all.

the lt picking nonsense is quite laughable, just make reqs hard, dude.

 

[The Immortal]

good for you "intending" to free them, despite there being a literal suspect a week ago with a closed, and even circlejerkier vote than the koko one. i find it funny how you say it's a necessary evil when my entire post was telling you why it was pointless and arbitrary with the tier worse off in the hands of people who don't play the meta.


what????? okay, so instead of having a public but difficult vote where you get roughly 10 people to vote (ideally more, but you seem to have 0 problem with small voter pools) who are motivated, proven, and have had enough time to carefully think out their vote, you'd rather have a council vote where again 60% of the people haven't proven themselves in sm + a completely random and arbitrary pool of people who didn't even sign up to vote and who probably won't care too much. but ignoring that, i find it fucking hilarious how you choose a ladder tournament to (arbitrarily) represent the 1v1 tournament community's vote when you could just make a difficult ladder instead.

ti, it comes across to me that you want to have power and vote in these 1v1 suspects ( hence the low pool and it being a council vote) without actually playing it or proving yourself in any way at all. but i think for the tier to be better off, we need to have a meta where people who have shown they actually play the meta vote. you have not gotten reqs in sm at all.

the lt picking nonsense is quite laughable, just make reqs hard, dude.

I will discuss your suggestions with the council.

Side note: Don't use "council don't play 1v1" as an argument ever. It just diminishes anything you say. These are my alts from this week alone. I have a dozen of these. Same for DEG, who is another council member that's attacked.

Side note 2: First, it's not about power. I would give my council vote to TDA easily. Second, 1v1 is not some random OM; it matters. If 1v1 became official, hypothetically, I would step down, because it wouldn't need me anymore. It would have SS and others guiding it.

Side note 3: I'd appreciate not to derail this thread any more than it already has. If you want to respond to my side notes then you can post on my wall.

 

[DEG]

I've already posted what I want to see in 1v1 but I really haven't developed my idea last time plus the Snorlax ban overshadowed my topics.

Firstly, I'd like to bring the attention to Mimikyu. I'm positive everyone knows about that Pokemon and knows how restricting it is. Mimikyu boasted a high 17.5% usage stats which puts it above everything else, separating it from Charizard by a margin of 2%. Secondly, Mimikyu is easily built around and can be slapped around some teams to fix a lot of weaknesses. Mimikium-Z + Curse or SD/Bulk Up are all equally viable and corners most threats in the metagame. Running a set over another doesn't come with a huge opportunity loss which means that Mimikyu can easily adapt to metagame trends and fit many teams easily. Both of these points goes with the suspect philosophy. This is just looking at this from the outside. Examining Mimikyu's in game play shows that the opponent is restricted both in teambuilding and in-game play. While 1v1 is all played in teambuilding and your first pick means that being restricted in, not one but both of them, is unhealthy for the metagame.
Curse Mimikyu acts similarly to Perish Song. It passively kills you without even acting, as the opponent hides behind Protect and Substitute, and in Mimikyu's case Disguise which allows it to easily set up curse without fearing taking damage turn 1. This means that being slower than Mimikyu, and not having Mold Breaker clones, result into an autoloss if not carrying recovery. Even then, Let's Snuggle Forever can just deal high damage which pushes your Pokemon to the edge. While Curse might lose to bulky threats with recovery sometimes, SD/BU Mimikyu is just the opposite. Mimikyu uses Diguise to easily set up and deal with your bulky Pokemon with a +2 attack. Sweet and short, Mimikyu deserves to be banned.

Secondly, I'd like to bring up Normalium-Z. Now people will start complaining and saying why Normalium-Z and not Z-moves as a whole. For one simple reason, Z-moves aren't broken in general as they don't push everything to the edge meanwhile Normalium-Z pushes over 3 users to the edge. I really do believe that Snorlax was broken due to Sleep AND Normalium-Z, without one or other Snorlax wouldn't be banned. Porygon-Z, and Meloetta are other examples of Pokemon that Normalium-Z push over the line. Both aren't your typically broken Pokemon, specially Meloetta, but they can be much more threatening than other Pokemon in the metagame, looking at you PZ, which restricts a big part of teambuilding. In no way, Porygon-Z and Meloetta are broken now but they are close, and with Snorlax being banned this puts up 3 Pokemon that are powerful only due to Normalium-Z. Meanwhile Z-moves in general do not break anything, most Z-move users like Dragonite, Magearna and Landorus-T have fair counters and aren't a pain to deal with.

Thirdly, sleep. Yes we're back here again. I played a while with Snorlax banned with and against Sleep and I still see sleep moves being a huge problem in today's metagame. By calling an element healthy or not in the metagame you have to look and ask yourself if the negatives outweight the positives or vice-versa. In sleep case, the negative parts clearly outweight the positive parts. Sleep moves just force the game to be nothing but a coinflip. The opponent has no room to think, or to outplay the sleep abuser as his moves are rendered completely useless which leaves him praying to wake up. I don't want to see arguments about "uh! Focus Blast is also a gamble". There's a difference between putting YOURSELF in a situation where you can lose to hax and where you're FORCING hax into your opponent. In Focus blast case, whether you hit or miss the opponent can create counter plays in a lot of cases, but sleep doesn't allow him to outplay you and just leaves him trapped in sleep turns. Won't add more cause this subject has been milked so much, pro-sleep ban provided so much replays and arguments and I'm waiting for anti-sleep ban to do the same as their counter arguments so far only relies on theories.

Fourth, unban Kyurem-Black. This is probably the unban that I dislike the most till now as no real reason was provided and I still believe that Kyurem-Black isn't broken at all. Kyurem-Black got mostly banned for theorically being able to beat all the metagame. Sorry to burst your bubble but Kyurem-Black cannot beat the whole metagame and specially cannot afford carrying sets like Electrium-Z and Groundium-Z most of the time. Both of these sets come with a huge opportunity loss and are rarely run as an emergency button when Kyurem-Black is the last Pokemon to be added. Icium-Z is as good as Choice Scarf in generation 6 and never pushed Kyurem-Black over the edge. It has a selection of counters such as most Steel-types, a good portion of Fighting-, and Dragon-type Pokemon. Plus the metagame has definitely evolved since the last time Kyurem-Black was unbanned so I'm positive that the new discovered sets and such nerfed Kyurem-Black, if not a lot, by a bit.

 

[Rei]

To go along with the above with my own thoughts...

1. Mimikyu. Yes I agree this needs to go. I abused its twave curse set so much, its disgusting, and if the opp isnt running taunt, Mimikyu can beat just about any mon w/o a recover move if mimi gets a para off with Thunder Wave, unless its well...a Ground-type or a fast Mold Breaker mon lol. Disguise also gives Mimi a free set up with Swords Dance and fire off its mimi z, which can cause massive damage to the point of KOing moves even with a recover move. This thing needs to go because as Deg said it restricts building, and stuff.

2. Normalium-Z I am not for or against it rn.

3.Sleep. Yes lets ban it all together. When I was a noob in 1v1 I abused sleep like LOL. Jumpluff, Mega Gengar you name it. While acc does play a part in some of this, it makes it into a game of luck, and takes the skill part out of the game which is since the opp cannot do anything unless its Sleep Talk. It makes you wanna throw your keyboard when you face Sleep and cannot wake up even if you have the right Pokemon out to beat it.

4. KYUREM-B Bring it back. While it has lures with its different Z sets, some of these are solely matchup based. The main two sets Choice Scarf and Icium-Z were countered easily by the likes of Garchomp, Haxorus, Naga, Excadrill, Ferrothorn, Terrakion, Mega Sableye, Chansey, Mega Slowbro, Mega Mawile, and Magearna. And remember that Kyurem-B usually wont carry both Iron Head and Earth Power as its gonna be one or the other on Choice Scarf and the same with Icium-Z set. Banning this mon was a mistake in my book.

 

[dom]

ohboi

I've already posted what I want to see in 1v1 but I really haven't developed my idea last time plus the Snorlax ban overshadowed my topics.

Firstly, I'd like to bring the attention to Mimikyu. I'm positive everyone knows about that Pokemon and knows how restricting it is. Mimikyu boasted a high 17.5% usage stats which puts it above everything else, separating it from Charizard by a margin of 2%. Secondly, Mimikyu is easily built around and can be slapped around some teams to fix a lot of weaknesses. Mimikium-Z + Curse or SD/Bulk Up are all equally viable and corners most threats in the metagame. Running a set over another doesn't come with a huge opportunity loss which means that Mimikyu can easily adapt to metagame trends and fit many teams easily. Both of these points goes with the suspect philosophy. This is just looking at this from the outside. Examining Mimikyu's in game play shows that the opponent is restricted both in teambuilding and in-game play. While 1v1 is all played in teambuilding and your first pick means that being restricted in, not one but both of them, is unhealthy for the metagame.
Curse Mimikyu acts similarly to Perish Song. It passively kills you without even acting, as the opponent hides behind Protect and Substitute, and in Mimikyu's case Disguise which allows it to easily set up curse without fearing taking damage turn 1. This means that being slower than Mimikyu, and not having Mold Breaker clones, result into an autoloss if not carrying recovery. Even then, Let's Snuggle Forever can just deal high damage which pushes your Pokemon to the edge. While Curse might lose to bulky threats with recovery sometimes, SD/BU Mimikyu is just the opposite. Mimikyu uses Diguise to easily set up and deal with your bulky Pokemon with a +2 attack. Sweet and short, Mimikyu deserves to be banned.

it'll be banned eventually. someone needs to make a lenghty ban mimikyu post, or you should expand on yours. curse is just an imo worse jumpluff, but the thing about curse is it takes advantage of the possibility of being sd, which is neat. i think its versatility pushes it over the edge. ban, i guess? not too passionate.

Secondly, I'd like to bring up Normalium-Z. Now people will start complaining and saying why Normalium-Z and not Z-moves as a whole. For one simple reason, Z-moves aren't broken in general as they don't push everything to the edge meanwhile Normalium-Z pushes over 3 users to the edge. I really do believe that Snorlax was broken due to Sleep AND Normalium-Z, without one or other Snorlax wouldn't be banned. Porygon-Z, and Meloetta are other examples of Pokemon that Normalium-Z push over the line. Both aren't your typically broken Pokemon, specially Meloetta, but they can be much more threatening than other Pokemon in the metagame, looking at you PZ, which restricts a big part of teambuilding. In no way, Porygon-Z and Meloetta are broken now but they are close, and with Snorlax being banned this puts up 3 Pokemon that are powerful only due to Normalium-Z. Meanwhile Z-moves in general do not break anything, most Z-move users like Dragonite, Magearna and Landorus-T have fair counters and aren't a pain to deal with.

i'm all for banning zmoves in any way, shape, or form. but chief, i might agree with you in a snorlax meta. maybe. but at this point i don't think pz + melo are broken. snorlax i think is the best way to argue that normalium is busted, but thats banned, yeet. i also don't think banning 1 zmove actually solves anything. melo + pz aren't broken so this is kind of a stupid ban post-snorlax. i wouldn't /mind/ a zmove ban but it seems very pointless and does nothing to solve the incredibly unhealthy state of a completely zmove meta. if you think 1v1 is healthy right now you're insane (or you never played oras, prolly both actually)

also btw side note dnite is an absurd mon in today's metagame, it's literally more versatile than kyub. half the time it will be flyium, but half of the time it will use some random bullshit (groundium, firium, icium, shit that got kyub banned). speaking of kyub, banning an a+ mon's second best counter is not exactly something that would make the meta healthier. dnite needs to be banned. i thought motogp's post right after kyub's ban was pretty retarded, won't lie, but i think multiscale is one of the best abilities in 1v1 and on one of the most versatile mons dnite is p broken imo. here's a tour replay showing how dumb this mon is.

Thirdly, sleep. Yes we're back here again. I played a while with Snorlax banned with and against Sleep and I still see sleep moves being a huge problem in today's metagame. By calling an element healthy or not in the metagame you have to look and ask yourself if the negatives outweight the positives or vice-versa. In sleep case, the negative parts clearly outweight the positive parts. Sleep moves just force the game to be nothing but a coinflip. The opponent has no room to think, or to outplay the sleep abuser as his moves are rendered completely useless which leaves him praying to wake up. I don't want to see arguments about "uh! Focus Blast is also a gamble". There's a difference between putting YOURSELF in a situation where you can lose to hax and where you're FORCING hax into your opponent. In Focus blast case, whether you hit or miss the opponent can create counter plays in a lot of cases, but sleep doesn't allow him to outplay you and just leaves him trapped in sleep turns. Won't add more cause this subject has been milked so much, pro-sleep ban provided so much replays and arguments and I'm waiting for anti-sleep ban to do the same as their counter arguments so far only relies on theories.

vro can you give it up? think about it from the perspective as someone who isn't a moron. sleep was not banned with snorlax, an incredibly unhealthy mon that got 0 objections from the council vote, so why would it be banned without the only real mon that pushed it over the edge? there will be cheese in 1v1. hypnogar, yawnpert, or whatever the fuck. but i think in a sub spamming zmove metagame these mons aren't great (jumpluff doesn't care about sub but it has other problems, namely being the easiest mon to build around in 1v1 period). hypnogar beats pretty much nothing without using hypnosis. it hasn't been used in tournament matches because it doesn't actually beat anything in particular. my point is that if sleep isn't banned in a meta with snorlax then it won't be banned in a meta without it. i legit do not understand the thought process of someone who still wants sleep banned with its best abuser being jumpluff.

Fourth, unban Kyurem-Black. This is probably the unban that I dislike the most till now as no real reason was provided and I still believe that Kyurem-Black isn't broken at all. Kyurem-Black got mostly banned for theorically being able to beat all the metagame. Sorry to burst your bubble but Kyurem-Black cannot beat the whole metagame and specially cannot afford carrying sets like Electrium-Z and Groundium-Z most of the time. Both of these sets come with a huge opportunity loss and are rarely run as an emergency button when Kyurem-Black is the last Pokemon to be added. Icium-Z is as good as Choice Scarf in generation 6 and never pushed Kyurem-Black over the edge. It has a selection of counters such as most Steel-types, a good portion of Fighting-, and Dragon-type Pokemon. Plus the metagame has definitely evolved since the last time Kyurem-Black was unbanned so I'm positive that the new discovered sets and such nerfed Kyurem-Black, if not a lot, by a bit.

free kyubrachi etc etc etc. i don't see this happening in a private council vote as deg you're the only one who voted dnb, i think. either take dragonite or free kyubrachi (which absolutely would balance the meta out). i'm for unbanning kyubrachi but the thing is that the council won't do it, and ti despite taking a sizable amount of Ls when talking about a council vs public vote probably wouldn't have a public kyubrachi vote. i think the idea about freeing kyub shouldn't be that it wasn't broken (this will get us nowhere), instead that the council vote was absurd, and wouldn't happen in any actual tier that isn't an om. the only reason smogon smods haven't stepped in and btfo'd ti is because they don't really care about "just an om". example: doubles council rachi vote.

side note why the fuck is rachi banned but not togekiss or even sawsbuck are free bullshitting the world?

side side note, remember when we said banning kyub would make shit like sturdies better? lol

 

[The Official Glyx]

Guess it's time for some good old-fashioned VR matchups.

W = Win
L = Lose
U = Uncertain
V = Varies by set

Kyurem-Black

Charizard-Mega-X -> V 1

Charizard-Mega-Y -> V 2

Gyarados-Mega -> Majority L 1 (requires a shitton of bulk)

Mimikyu -> V 2.5 / Majority L 1.5 (it can bulk lsf + sneak, but sacrifices a lot in beating specifically Mimikyu ||| battling for speed)


A+ Rank

Dragonite -> W 1

Magearna -> L 2.5

Metagross-Mega -> L 3.5

A Rank

Landorus-Therian -> W 2

Porygon-Z -> V 3.5 (battling for speed)

Tapu Lele -> V 4.5 (battling for speed)

Zygarde-Complete -> W 3

A- Rank

Greninja -> W 4

Lopunny-Mega -> L 4.5

Magnezone -> W 5

Slowbro-Mega -> L 5.5 (L stands for Laser Focus ;)

Venusaur-Mega -> W 6

B+ Rank

Aegislash -> L 5.5

Altaria-Mega -> W 7

Donphan -> W 8

Gardevoir-Mega -> L 6.5

Genesect -> L 7.5

Golem -> W 9

Jumpluff -> W 9.5 / L 8 (Scarf / Non)

Meloetta -> W 10.5

Mew -> W 11 / L 8.5 (Mewnium / Kee with Amnesia)

Naganadel -> W 11.5 / L 9 (Scarf / Non)

Primarina -> L 10 (Specs / Fairium only)

Tapu Fini -> L 11 (Specs / Fairium only)

B Rank

Aggron-Mega -> W 12.5

Blaziken -> L 12

Chansey -> V 5.5

Ferrothorn -> V (Specs and Substitute exist)

Garchomp -> W 13 / L 12.5 (Scarf / Non)

Heatran -> V 6.5 (It can legitimately tank Rock Tomb + Flash Cannon with just max HP)

Heracross-Mega -> V 7.5 (Eaten alive by Band/Icium/Fly???)

Kartana -> Majority W 14 (Either bulks and kills or Scarf and Beam)

Kommo-o -> W 15 (speed battles)

Mawile-Mega -> L 13.5

Necrozma -> V 8.5

Pinsir-Mega -> W 16

Sableye-Mega -> V 9.5

Sawk -> W 17 (speed battles)

Tyranitar-Mega -> L 14.5

Zeraora -> W 18

B- Rank

Blastoise-Mega -> W 19 (lol Counter)

Blissey -> W 20 (Band / Z-Freeze Shock)

Celesteela -> V 10.5 (252+ SpA Choice Specs Celesteela Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kyurem-Black: 410-486 (90.3 - 107%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO)

Crustle -> W 21

Diancie-Mega -> L 15.5 (just pretend Iron Head doesn't exist ((regular Diancie only)))

Durant -> L 16.5

Gengar-Mega -> W 21.5 / V 11 (Scarf / Non)

Hoopa-Unbound -> W 22.5

Swampert-Mega -> W 23.5 (needs some damn good sleep rolls if it even lives Icium)

Togekiss -> W 24.5 (Loses to Scarf / Needs to flinch for dear life / speed battles with Fairium)

Victini -> W 25.5 (Needs to sacrifice a lot to even have a chance and still ends up not beating all of them)

Volcarona -> W 26 / L 17 (Scarf / Non)

Whimsicott -> V 12 (Predict the Z-move / Lose to Specs)

C+ Rank

Archeops -> L 18 (Everyone's favorite awful set Scarf Archeops)

Avalugg -> W 27

Buzzwole -> V 13 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

Carracosta -> V 14 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

Deoxys-S -> L 19 (Loses to Band, beats everything else if you know the set)

Excadrill -> L 20 (Steelium)

Gallade-Mega -> L 21

Incineroar -> V 15 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

Kyurem -> W 28

Latios -> W 28.5 / L 21.5 (Scarf / Non)

Marowak-Alola -> W 29.5 (any kind of bulk)

Medicham-Mega -> W 30 / L 22 (Scarf / Non)

Pheromosa -> W 30.5 / L 22.5 (Scarf / Non)

Porygon2 -> Majority L 23.5 (Requires lotsa bulk)

Scizor-Mega -> Majority L 24.5 (Specs HP Fire where)

Tapu Bulu -> W 31.5

Terrakion -> L 25.5

Umbreon -> L 26.5

Vivillon -> V 16 (Speed battles / Scarf)

C Rank

Blacephalon -> Majority W 32.5 (Specs vs Non Scarf)

Camerupt-Mega -> V 17 (lol sleep)

Entei -> Majority L 27.5 (Rockium)

Garchomp-Mega -> W 33.5

Haxorus -> Majority L 28.5

Hydreigon -> L 29.5 (Scarf)

Infernape -> W 34 / L 30 (Scarf / Non)

Keldeo -> L 31 (Bulky Specs / Fightinium)

Krookodile -> W 35

Landorus -> W 36

Latias-Mega -> Majority W 37

Meowstic-M -> V 18 (Has to guess between Physical or Special)

Nihilego -> L 32 (requires absurd bulk for Scarf)

Pidgeot-Mega -> W 38

Skarmory -> W 39

Relicanth -> V 19 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

Thundurus-Therian -> W 40

Type: Null -> L 33

C- Rank

Cloyster -> V 20 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

Lucario-Mega -> L 34

Manaphy -> V 21

Ninetales-Alola -> L 35 (Fairium)

Pyukumuku -> W 41 (Counter doesn't kill)

Quagsire -> V 22

Rhyperior -> V 23

Serperior -> W 42

Salazzle -> W 43

Suicune -> W 44

D Rank

Abomasnow-Mega -> W 45

Alakazam-Mega -> W 46

Aron -> W 47

Azumarill -> L 36 (Band / Fairium)

Barbaracle -> L 37 (Band / Rockium)

Breloom -> W 48

Clefable -> Majority L 38 (Needs Fairium, still obliterated by Icium)

Dusclops -> Majority L 39 (Shredded by Band)

Magneton -> W 49

Manectric-Mega -> W 50

Sceptile -> W 51

Slaking -> V 23.5 / L 39.5 (bulk / damage rolls)

Smeargle -> W 52

Stunfisk -> W 53

Talonflame -> W 54

Volcanion -> W 55

Totals:
55 out of 119 favorable matchups
39.5 out of 119 unfavorable matchups
23.5 out 119 variable matchups

Kyub wins

This category is for things that Kyurem-Black beats almost guaranteeably.

A+ Rank

Dragonite -> W 1

A Rank

Landorus-Therian -> W 2

Zygarde-Complete -> W 3

A- Rank

Greninja -> W 4

Magnezone -> W 5

Venusaur-Mega -> W 6

B+ Rank

Altaria-Mega -> W 7

Donphan -> W 8

Golem -> W 9

Meloetta -> W 10.5

B Rank

Aggron-Mega -> W 12.5

Kartana -> Majority W 14 (Either bulks and kills or Scarf and Beam)

Kommo-o -> W 15 (speed battles)

Pinsir-Mega -> W 16

Sawk -> W 17 (speed battles)

Zeraora -> W 18

B- Rank

Blastoise-Mega -> W 19 (lol Counter)

Crustle -> W 21

Hoopa-Unbound -> W 22.5

Swampert-Mega -> W 23.5 (needs some damn good sleep rolls if it even lives Icium)

Togekiss -> W 24.5 (Loses to Scarf / Needs to flinch for dear life / speed battles with Fairium)

Victini -> W 25.5 (Needs to sacrifice a lot to even have a chance and still ends up not beating all of them)

C+ Rank

Avalugg -> W 27

Kyurem -> W 28

Marowak-Alola -> W 29.5 (any kind of bulk)

Tapu Bulu -> W 31.5

Vivillon -> V 16 (Speed battles / Scarf)

C Rank

Garchomp-Mega -> W 33.5

Krookodile -> W 35

Landorus -> W 36

Latias-Mega -> Majority W 37

Pidgeot-Mega -> W 38

Skarmory -> W 39

Thundurus-Therian -> W 40

C- Rank

Pyukumuku -> W 41 (Counter doesn't kill)

Serperior -> W 42

Salazzle -> W 43

Suicune -> W 44

D Rank

Abomasnow-Mega -> W 45

Alakazam-Mega -> W 46

Aron -> W 47

Breloom -> W 48

Magneton -> W 49

Manectric-Mega -> W 50

Sceptile -> W 51

Smeargle -> W 52

Stunfisk -> W 53

Talonflame -> W 54

Volcanion -> W 55

Kyub losses

This category is for things that almost always beat Kyurem-Black, regardless of sets.

Gyarados-Mega -> Majority L 1 (requires a shitton of bulk)

A+ Rank

Magearna -> L 2.5

Metagross-Mega -> L 3.5

A Rank

A- Rank

Lopunny-Mega -> L 4.5

Slowbro-Mega -> L 5.5 (L stands for Laser Focus ;)

B+ Rank

Aegislash -> L 5.5

Gardevoir-Mega -> L 6.5

Genesect -> L 7.5

B Rank

Blaziken -> L 12

Mawile-Mega -> L 13.5

Tyranitar-Mega -> L 14.5

B- Rank

Durant -> L 16.5

C+ Rank

Gallade-Mega -> L 21

Porygon2 -> Majority L 23.5 (Requires lotsa bulk)

Scizor-Mega -> Majority L 24.5 (Specs HP Fire where)

Terrakion -> L 25.5

Umbreon -> L 26.5

C Rank

Entei -> Majority L 27.5 (Rockium)

Keldeo -> L 31 (Bulky Specs / Fightinium)

Type: Null -> L 33

C- Rank

Lucario-Mega -> L 34

Ninetales-Alola -> L 35 (Fairium)

D Rank

Azumarill -> L 36 (Band / Fairium)

Barbaracle -> L 37 (Band / Rockium)

Clefable -> Majority L 38 (Needs Fairium, still obliterated by Icium)

Dusclops -> Majority L 39 (Shredded by Band)

Variable

This category is for matchups that can vary for either side, depending upon the sets of each player's Pokemon or specifically just Kyurem-Black.

Charizard-Mega-X -> V 1

Charizard-Mega-Y -> V 2

Mimikyu -> V 2.5 / Majority L 1.5 (it can bulk lsf + sneak, but sacrifices a lot in beating specifically Mimikyu ||| battling for speed)

A+ Rank

A Rank

Porygon-Z -> V 3.5 (battling for speed)

Tapu Lele -> V 4.5 (battling for speed)

A- Rank

B+ Rank

Jumpluff -> W 9.5 / L 8 (Scarf / Non)

Mew -> W 11 / L 8.5 (Mewnium / Kee with Amnesia)

Naganadel -> W 11.5 / L 9 (Scarf / Non)

B Rank

Chansey -> V 5.5

Ferrothorn -> V (Specs and Substitute exist)

Garchomp -> W 13 / L 12.5 (Scarf / Non)

Heatran -> V 6.5 (It can legitimately tank Rock Tomb + Flash Cannon with just max HP)

Heracross-Mega -> V 7.5 (Eaten alive by Band/Icium/Fly???)

Necrozma -> V 8.5

Sableye-Mega -> V 9.5

B- Rank

Celesteela -> V 10.5 (252+ SpA Choice Specs Celesteela Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kyurem-Black: 410-486 (90.3 - 107%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO)

Gengar-Mega -> W 21.5 / V 11 (Scarf / Non)

Volcarona -> W 26 / L 17 (Scarf / Non)

Whimsicott -> V 12 (Predict the Z-move / Lose to Specs)

C+ Rank

Buzzwole -> V 13 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

Carracosta -> V 14 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

Incineroar -> V 15 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

Latios -> W 28.5 / L 21.5 (Scarf / Non)

Medicham-Mega -> W 30 / L 22 (Scarf / Non)

Pheromosa -> W 30.5 / L 22.5 (Scarf / Non)

Vivillon -> V 16 (Speed battles / Scarf)

C Rank

Camerupt-Mega -> V 17 (lol sleep)

Infernape -> W 34 / L 30 (Scarf / Non)

Meowstic-M -> V 18 (Has to guess between Physical or Special)

Relicanth -> V 19 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

C- Rank

Cloyster -> V 20 (Beats Physical, eh vs Special)

Manaphy -> V 21

Quagsire -> V 22

Rhyperior -> V 23

D Rank

Slaking -> V 23.5 / L 39.5 (bulk / damage rolls)

Kyub losses that require particular sets

This category is for things that mostly reliably beat Kyurem-Black, but are forced to bend over backwards in order to do so.

Gyarados-Mega -> Majority L 1 (requires a shitton of bulk + Outrage)

A+ Rank

A Rank

A- Rank

B+ Rank

Primarina -> L 10 (Specs / Fairium only)

Tapu Fini -> L 11 (Specs / Fairium only)

B Rank

B- Rank

Celesteela -> V 10.5
252+ SpA Choice Specs Celesteela Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kyurem-Black: 410-486 (90.3 - 107%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

Diancie-Mega -> L 15.5 (just pretend Iron Head doesn't exist ((regular Diancie only)))
252 SpA Diancie-Mega Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kyurem-Black: 396-468 (87.2 - 103%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Teravolt Kyurem-Black Subzero Slammer (200 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Diancie: 280-330 (92.1 - 108.5%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Diancie Twinkle Tackle (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kyurem-Black: 522-614 (114.9 - 135.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

C+ Rank

Archeops -> L 18 (Everyone's favorite awful set Scarf Archeops) Choice Band 68.547% | Choice Scarf 25.202%

Excadrill -> L 20 (Steelium)
Groundium Z 76.545% | Choice Scarf 10.989% | Steelium Z 8.800%

C Rank

Blacephalon -> Majority W 32.5 (ONLY Specs vs Non Scarf) Choice Scarf 42.269% | Choice Specs 18.036%

Hydreigon -> L 29.5 (Scarf)

Nihilego -> L 32 (requires absurd bulk + Rockium for Scarf)
252+ Atk Teravolt Kyurem-Black Outrage vs. 84 HP / 252 Def Nihilego: 322-379 (84.7 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Choice Specs Nihilego Power Gem vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kyurem-Black: 348-410 (76.6 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Nihilego Continental Crush (160 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Kyurem-Black: 462-546 (101.7 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

C- Rank

D Rank

Clefable -> Majority L 38 (Needs Fairium, still obliterated by Icium) *TIBot: Leftovers 51.439% | Fairium Z 15.828%

In conclusion, you basically auto-beat a big fat chunk of the metagame already, and leave the remaining big fat chunk of the metagame guessing as to which of just the common sets you could possibly be, let alone the uncommon ones, and a small sliver of mons that reliably beat it, most of which being in the lower ends of viability, in addition to being forced to run really bad particular sets in order to do so.

It would be one thing if it had a lot of reliable counters like Zygarde does, but the fact that many of them are reliant on guessing sets, as well as being forced into using otherwise unoptimal sets, pushes Kyurem-Black way over the edge, in my opinion.

 

[blondesasukeuchiha]

Shouldn't really be writing a post rn because I have a shit ton of homework I have to do but I can't help myself so here we go.
Mimikyu:
This thing needs to be discussed/banned first and there are a few reasons for this:
1. Before we add Pokemon to the metagame that have been previously banned we first need to balance the meta so that we can see how the new Pokemon would fit in. These Pokemon being Kyurem Black and possibly (I'm against this one) Jirachi.
2. Adding Kyurem Black before banning Mimikyu would create an even more centralized metagame as this new A+ to S- rank Pokemon can be hard countered by Mimikyu.
3. Its an immediate ban that most people in the community can agree on unlike sleep or Z-Moves which require much further debate, their individual debates should not slow down progress on a Mimikyu ban and should therefore be put on the back-burner as a background debate or put on hold indefinitely. This is not to
The versatility of Mimikyu and its variable playstyles make it broken enough to ban in my opinion. Its two main sets, Curse-LSF and Willo-SD/Bulk Up, along with less viable sets, Ghostium and Twave-Curse (which I would argue is its best and most broken set but thats a topic for another day), are almost indistinguishable from each other at team preview and have vastly different counter-play. Bulky steel type? Curse or Ghostium. Stall mon? SD/Bulk up. The problem is that no set is a "non-set" and each one can be run to beat vast, different, portions of the vr. Mimikyu is certainly busted in my opinion and I therefore believe it is ban worthy.

The rest of these don't seem that important to me at the moment, Z-Moves don't seem broken to me, maybe its because I've never played seriously in a meta without them but they just don't, specific Z-Moves certainly are not broken, sleep seems to be okay now, its at least not as broken as it seemed to be with Snorlax around.
Here's the one thing I will say, unbanning Pokemon to an unstable metagame is a terrible idea. Until we decide on Mimikyu, and possibly the other topics, Kyurem-Black should not be unbanned as it adds another element of uncertainty to an already uncertain metagame.
Thanks for reading
Central is going to win WC

 

[Gojira Poo]

Quick-bans:

For a long time, I was going to list out all the Mega-Gengar match ups that are dependent upon the RNG of sleep. Thankfully, MaceMaster did that and more in his sheet here.

Here's the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AT2fBkSCJiw6-yeajf4dX9W69FCgQQ43LUzPZkGc6vY/edit?usp=sharing

Turns out Mace may have edited his sheet but I happen to have a copy open prior to and copy/pasted it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fvx2n1haX3BgBu4pU7h3dZB7D4rSibzWUc0p4hhxiSw/edit?usp=sharing

I will bring in the Smogon tiering policy and the extended version (which is mentioned on the first thread, so I consider this applicable beyond just OU) once again to examine what the spreadsheet reveals to us.

Hide

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.

Based on the bold portion of the definition of uncompetitive, Mega-Gengar and 6 other mons fit the exact definition of Uncompetitive as over 50% of their match ups emphasize the result of RNG.

Hide

IV.) Probability management is a part of the game.

A.) This means we have to accept that moves have secondary effects, that moves can miss, that moves can critical hit, and that managing all these potential probability points is a part of skill.
B.) This does NOT mean that we will accept every probability factor introduced to the game. Evasion, OHKO, and Moody all affected the outcome "too much" and we removed them.
C.) "Too much" is if a particular factor has the more skilled player at a disadvantage a considerable amount of the time against a less skilled player, regardless of what he does. In relation to the latter part, "too much" also refers to factors that nearly completely take a game out of the player's hands and turn the PRIMARY point of the game to wait for the RNG.
1.) OHKO moves are an example of the "too much" portion. With a 30% success rate, the other player will be put in an immediate disadvantage by the OHKO move user a considerable amount of the time no matter what he does.
2.) Moody and SwagPlay are examples of the "taking the game out of a player's hands". Both turn the PRIMARY point of the game waiting to see what the RNG spits out.

Based on the bold portion regarding probability management, sleep abusers do exactly what Moody & Swagger (both banned in 1v1) do in having the players wait to see what RNG occurs.


If someone has a counter-argument stating why sleep inducing moves do not fit these definitions of banable mechanics, I have not yet seen it. I am also unclear as to why we have been told before that banning Sleep in general is not an acceptable solution in 1v1.

Assuming we cannot ban Sleep, then at least these 7 mons need to be removed from the metagame by Smogon definition. If we continue allowing these mons - then it opens discussion for what rules we should follow in the meta (OHKO clause, species clause, Moody clause, etc.), why we follow them, who gets to decide what we follow, and why they get to decide....

- Mimikyu is also a problem

 

[OldM8]

Accuracy reducing moves shouldn't be banned. "They're luck based" is a totally flawed argument to use in a metagame where luck is almost everything by design. What sets 1v1 apart from all the other metagames and what makes it so interesting is that the "skill" is entirely in the teambuilding, not in the playing. After you've made a team, winning a game all comes down to predicting/guessing what mon your opponent is going to send out, and countering it. If you designed a set that your opponent can't answer at all, you auto-win, and vice-versa. Anyone who has played this meta for more than a few minutes can tell you that nearly every match is a game of rock-paper-scissors when you're facing someone with a well made team.

When you ban entire strategies like accuracy reduction, it hugely reduces the skill needed to build a well-rounded team. This isn't even taking into account that accuracy reduction is a pretty poor strategy anyhow, because it's inherently unreliable and the odds are stacked well against you in getting your opponent to miss a Z-move for example, which are most likely going to just KO you. It also doesn't differ much in practice from defence boosting, aside from being more unreliable, having arguably fewer viable users and having more counterplay (such as subs). All banning it does is reduce the number of gimmick strategies that are available, and that just leads to a stale meta dominated by Z-moves and megas.

 

[Freddy Kyogre]

Accuracy reducing moves shouldn't be banned. "They're luck based" is a totally flawed argument to use in a metagame where luck is almost everything by design. What sets 1v1 apart from all the other metagames and what makes it so interesting is that the "skill" is entirely in the teambuilding, not in the playing. After you've made a team, winning a game all comes down to predicting/guessing what mon your opponent is going to send out, and countering it. If you designed a set that your opponent can't answer at all, you auto-win, and vice-versa. Anyone who has played this meta for more than a few minutes can tell you that nearly every match is a game of rock-paper-scissors when you're facing someone with a well made team.

When you ban entire strategies like accuracy reduction, it hugely reduces the skill needed to build a well-rounded team. This isn't even taking into account that accuracy reduction is a pretty poor strategy anyhow, because it's inherently unreliable and the odds are stacked well against you in getting your opponent to miss a Z-move for example, which are most likely going to just KO you. It also doesn't differ much in practice from defence boosting, aside from being more unreliable, having arguably fewer viable users and having more counterplay (such as subs). All banning it does is reduce the number of gimmick strategies that are available, and that just leads to a stale meta dominated by Z-moves and megas.

I don't know about you, but this was extremely contradictory.

What sets 1v1 apart from all the other metagames and what makes it so interesting is that the "skill" is entirely in the teambuilding, not in the playing. After you've made a team, winning a game all comes down to predicting/guessing what mon your opponent is going to send out, and countering it. If you designed a set that your opponent can't answer at all, you auto-win, and vice-versa. Anyone who has played this meta for more than a few minutes can tell you that nearly every match is a game of rock-paper-scissors when you're facing someone with a well made team.

This statement I agree with about 80%. 1v1 is about the teambuilding mostly, and about 20% about your skill, like how to play some matchups, and what to do in certain others. For the most part though, you're right on.

All banning it does is reduce the number of gimmick strategies that are available,

This goes exactly against what you've said before. With having accuracy reducing moves, you change matchups that used to be rock-paper-scissors like you said they were into "oh can I hit him or not." Yes it's un reliable, but that doesn't make it so that it shoudl be there. There's a reason OHKO moves are banned. They are extremely un-reliable with a 30% hit rate max, but can one-shot pokemon. It's another gimmick that isn't allowed in the tier as of right now, and no one's arguing them back in. There plainly just is no reason for them to be in the tier. They take away fun and skill from the game, since with both, it can just not matter if you win the rock-paper-scissors, but only if you get lucky that they either miss, or you hit your OHKO move. There's no fun in cheating someone out of a win they should've had because they picked Hoopa-U vs your Deoxys-Speed. They won the RPS fair and square, except when you have sand attack on your Deoxys. Then they don't win when they should, and that's entirely based on luck, not skill.

 

[The Official Glyx]

Accuracy reducing moves shouldn't be banned. "They're luck based" is a totally flawed argument to use in a metagame where luck is almost everything by design. What sets 1v1 apart from all the other metagames and what makes it so interesting is that the "skill" is entirely in the teambuilding, not in the playing. After you've made a team, winning a game all comes down to predicting/guessing what mon your opponent is going to send out, and countering it. If you designed a set that your opponent can't answer at all, you auto-win, and vice-versa. Anyone who has played this meta for more than a few minutes can tell you that nearly every match is a game of rock-paper-scissors when you're facing someone with a well made team.

When you ban entire strategies like accuracy reduction, it hugely reduces the skill needed to build a well-rounded team. This isn't even taking into account that accuracy reduction is a pretty poor strategy anyhow, because it's inherently unreliable and the odds are stacked well against you in getting your opponent to miss a Z-move for example, which are most likely going to just KO you. It also doesn't differ much in practice from defence boosting, aside from being more unreliable, having arguably fewer viable users and having more counterplay (such as subs). All banning it does is reduce the number of gimmick strategies that are available, and that just leads to a stale meta dominated by Z-moves and megas.

Accuracy reducing moves are banned from 1v1 for the same reason Evasion increasing moves are. It creates scenarios in which either one of or both players are unable to do anything besides wait to see the results of RNG as to whether or not a move directed at the abuser of the strategy connects. This is inherently uncompetitive by design, and should only be brought up to discussion if you're willing to make a case for freeing both Accuracy dropping AND Evasion increasing, as they both perform the same role with very few slight differences.

Just because the natural format of the metagame is inherently less competitive than other formats doesn't mean we shouldn't be pursuing the ideal of being as competitive as we can be, else we would just be something like AG with no bans at all, which technically welcomes the most "gimmick strategies" of any metagame.

Lastly, we do not, and should not, have bans and unbans for just the simple reason of keeping the meta from becoming stale. Staleness is an interpretation that can vary from person to person that nobody can really control, and trying to combat the notion would just lead to more and more unhealthy decisions in attempts to "stir up" the metagame. Please consider all this and try to make an argument with more valid reasoning that shows why and how the addition of Accuracy dropping and Evasion increasing would help towards balancing the metagame, as balance is the ultimate goal that we are trying to achieve when undergoing any kind of metagame change.

 

[Foxxeyy]

I’m sorry, but are we arguing over whether a game is luck based or not, and how much it matters. A skilful player can win very bad matchups, eg, I once faced this Kartana with a Mega Charizard X and he won by spamming substitute then pressing Return after all the Flare Blitz recoil (I didn’t have Flame Charge). That’s a bad example of skill but I couldn’t think of any others, so..... Anyway, I still do believe that teambuilding skill is everything. Heck, when I played 1v1, I reached very high ladder by stealing teams and having crazy good luck (like that Kommo-o Flamethrower crit against a Mawile-Mega sigh).

On to the subject of those Pokemon that we wanna suspect, I never played in a meta with Kyurem Black, so I don’t know how would it play out. The only difference I can see happening is a bunch of fightinium Zeraora around XD I think scarf is bad. Oh and I rely on Snorlax Hax (hey it rhymes I’m a genius) to win so don’t ban.

Even though I’ve never played with Kyurem-Black, I’m gonna try and say why it should be unbanned. It has enough checks, in my opinion. In the form of scarf Dragonite (checks Mega Lopunny as well don’t say it’s bad), scarf Garchomp (ok, maybe not so much), or basically scarf anything that can outspeed scarf Kyub and can KO. I think Mega Lopunny lives and Outrage from scarf anyway, and can KO. Hax Lax can generally beat it as well, so I’ll be fine with it being unbanned so long as Hax Lax doesn’t get banned. I feel like there will Ben one heck of a lot of scarves around if it gets unbanned, (scarf Naganadel Xd) but I like surprising foes and think this would be OK. Quick question, I’m pretty sure that Gyarados beats Kyub, but I’m not sure how much it takes from -1 Fusion Bolt, and I’m too lazy to calc for a meta that I don’t even like.

Oh, I think you all know what I’m gonna say about evasion z-moves, after totally bossing VG Jungle in a Mono Dendenne.

Another edit: WTH SNORLAX IS BANNED FREE!!!!! tbh is Snorlax is freed and Kyub is freed the next I will play this meta again.

 

[Nalei]

"They're luck based" is a totally flawed argument to use in a metagame where luck is almost everything by design

Everything has some element of RNG but not to the extent of accuracy reducing moves. Maybe every 1/10 times your Volcarona misses an Overheat or gets a SpD drop, but these are uncommon and more importantly, not the primary purpose of the set. Maybe the odds go up - we're talking about Iron Head flinches now, but again, you're probably not running Iron Head with the intention of flinching. Even sleep has redeeming factors against accuracy reducing moves with their high (66%) odds of success, so even though it was RNG, it wasn't hax most of the time.

What sets 1v1 apart from all the other metagames and what makes it so interesting is that the "skill" is entirely in the teambuilding, not in the playing.

Agreed

Anyone who has played this meta for more than a few minutes can tell you that nearly every match is a game of rock-paper-scissors when you're facing someone with a well made team.

Disagreed. More often than not, by quite a large margin, it's not. You're going to have ambiguous matchups almost always, sometimes a mon won't beat anything and/or a mon beats multiple things. RPS is a gross oversimplification

When you ban entire strategies like accuracy reduction, it hugely reduces the skill needed to build a well-rounded team.

Any team that is any good at all would NOT have accuracy reducing moves with very few exceptions (ie PP stallers trying not to get critted, Pokemon with an extra moveslot going for some cheese wins). Additionally, low usage turns "hugely" into "almost unnoticeably."

It also doesn't differ much in practice from defence boosting, aside from being more unreliable, having arguably fewer viable users and having more counterplay (such as subs). All banning it does is reduce the number of gimmick strategies that are available, and that just leads to a stale meta dominated by Z-moves and megas.

Defense boosting doesn't involve (or rely upon) RNG. Gimmicks are not strategies. Z moves and Megas make up barely half of the meta.

 

[OldM8]

Accuracy reducing moves are banned from 1v1 for the same reason Evasion increasing moves are. It creates scenarios in which either one of or both players are unable to do anything besides wait to see the results of RNG as to whether or not a move directed at the abuser of the strategy connects. This is inherently uncompetitive by design, and should only be brought up to discussion if you're willing to make a case for freeing both Accuracy dropping AND Evasion increasing, as they both perform the same role with very few slight differences.

This isn't true at all. Accuracy drops are far less efffective than evasion boosting. 1) there's no move which drops accuracy by 2 stages, unlike evasion. 2) accuracy drops don't work against sub users, whereas evasions works regardless. 3) there are many relevant abilities like clear body which completely shut down accuracy dropping (eg, metagross could stay in pre-mega form to keep clear body and spam meteor mash until the opponent dies). 4) There are moves like mud-slap which have type-immunities. And there are probably others I'm missing too.

For the record, I'm supportive of evasion boosting too since it doesn't take much effort to counter or even beat without even needing to change your team at all, and would introduce some desperately-needed alternative strategies into the game. Legalizing accuracy dropping before moving on to a discussion about the decidedly more powerful evasion boosting is a no-brainer because it's a mere gimmick which is only banned out of fear-mongering about RNG.

Just because the natural format of the metagame is inherently less competitive than other formats doesn't mean we shouldn't be pursuing the ideal of being as competitive as we can be, else we would just be something like AG with no bans at all, which technically welcomes the most "gimmick strategies" of any metagame.

Interest in AG as a metagame has been rapidly growing, and in my opinion it is just as if not more skillful than Ubers, owing to the much wider variety of ways to build a team. Things like sleep spam, evasion, baton pass, etc, despite being called "uncompetitive", are not top-tier because the metagame easily adapts to them.

Lastly, we do not, and should not, have bans and unbans for just the simple reason of keeping the meta from becoming stale. Staleness is an interpretation that can vary from person to person that nobody can really control, and trying to combat the notion would just lead to more and more unhealthy decisions in attempts to "stir up" the metagame. Please consider all this and try to make an argument with more valid reasoning that shows why and how the addition of Accuracy dropping and Evasion increasing would help towards balancing the metagame, as balance is the ultimate goal that we are trying to achieve when undergoing any kind of metagame change.

The pursuit of "balance" is harming this meta. It's a nebulous idea which attempts to kill off strategies instead of allowing the metagame to evolve and adapt to them. Balance =/= skill, especially in this metagame where the skill is in 1-upping your opponents in the teambuilding phase, and to be able to do that sustainably, we need more tools to work with.

This goes exactly against what you've said before. With having accuracy reducing moves, you change matchups that used to be rock-paper-scissors like you said they were into "oh can I hit him or not." Yes it's un reliable, but that doesn't make it so that it shoudl be there. There's a reason OHKO moves are banned. They are extremely un-reliable with a 30% hit rate max, but can one-shot pokemon. It's another gimmick that isn't allowed in the tier as of right now, and no one's arguing them back in. There plainly just is no reason for them to be in the tier. They take away fun and skill from the game, since with both, it can just not matter if you win the rock-paper-scissors, but only if you get lucky that they either miss, or you hit your OHKO move. There's no fun in cheating someone out of a win they should've had because they picked Hoopa-U vs your Deoxys-Speed. They won the RPS fair and square, except when you have sand attack on your Deoxys. Then they don't win when they should, and that's entirely based on luck, not skill.

How is going from a pure 50/50 to a scenario that is more favorable for you than your opponent a bad thing? If something isn't successful/relevant enough in the metgame to warrant a ban, then it shouldn't be, simple as that. Bans should be based on practice, not principal. Also, your Deoxys example is rather poor because Hoopa-U can use its signature move which bypasses accuracy checks and would OHKO Deoxys regardless of what it tries to do.

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

This isn't true at all. Accuracy drops are far less efffective than evasion boosting. 1) there's no move which drops accuracy by 2 stages, unlike evasion. 2) accuracy drops don't work against sub users, whereas evasions works regardless. 3) there are many relevant abilities like clear body which completely shut down accuracy dropping (eg, metagross could stay in pre-mega form to keep clear body and spam meteor mash until the opponent dies). 4) There are moves like mud-slap which have type-immunities. And there are probably others I'm missing too.

For the record, I'm supportive of evasion boosting too since it doesn't take much effort to counter or even beat without even needing to change your team at all, and would introduce some desperately-needed alternative strategies into the game. Legalizing accuracy dropping before moving on to a discussion about the decidedly more powerful evasion boosting is a no-brainer because it's a mere gimmick which is only banned out of fear-mongering about RNG.


Interest in AG as a metagame has been rapidly growing, and in my opinion it is just as if not more skillful than Ubers, owing to the much wider variety of ways to build a team. Things like sleep spam, evasion, baton pass, etc, despite being called "uncompetitive", are not top-tier because the metagame easily adapts to them.


The pursuit of "balance" is harming this meta. It's a nebulous idea which attempts to kill off strategies instead of allowing the metagame to evolve and adapt to them. Balance =/= skill, especially in this metagame where the skill is in 1-upping your opponents in the teambuilding phase, and to be able to do that sustainably, we need more tools to work with.


How is going from a pure 50/50 to a scenario that is more favorable for you than your opponent a bad thing? If something isn't successful/relevant enough in the metgame to warrant a ban, then it shouldn't be, simple as that. Bans should be based on practice, not principal. Also, your Deoxys example is rather poor because Hoopa-U can use its signature move which bypasses accuracy checks and would OHKO Deoxys regardless of what it tries to do.

Sleep spam is totally top tier in AG, via darkrai in gens 4-6 and vivillon in gen 7; similarly, Baton Pass is banned from ubers for good reason. AG’s popularity vs. ubers largely stems from the fact that ubers is just a shitty metagame. In principle, I do agree that not everything that’s uncompetative is unfun -I’ve had a lot of fun playing AG, and BH and some of the more broken AAA and 1v1 ladders - but these uncompetative bans are, in fact, a generally good thing that 1v1 has for a reason.