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Metagame 1v1 Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter The Immortal
- Start date
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If its 3 bs why is ur name ThatCaBBageGuy(2 Bs) hrmmmm
Thank you all for the votes and the overwhelming support! I can't wait to continue representing this tier in 2019.
Tol
Retirement house
Lol dark mode smogon amirite
Well Hello. Mubs here with a new series on the banlist series, in which I will explain to the best of my ability why the pokemon on the banlist of 1v1 is broken/uncompetitive. I will be starting with the most broken ‘mon of all of them, which I believe to be Arceus:
What makes Arceus broken?:
Well, There are a few things that make Arceus broken, one thing is its stats. 120 in every stat is absolutely amazing, being able to outspeed most of the unboosted metagame, and allows Arceus to tank extremely powerful moves. For example:
Mega Lopunny, one of the premier fighting types in 1v1, fails to KO Arceus with a Stab, Super-Effective move.
Another trait that Arceus has, that many of you know of, is the fact that it has 18 forms, for every type in the game. That coupled with its diverse moveset and the fact that you cannot discern the Arceus you are Facing in team preview, make the pokemon almost impossible to counter, constraining on building, and too good for the metagame.
These reasons and many more, are why I believe Arceus is banned from 1v1.
Thank you for reading the first addition to my banlist series. I hope that I am able to give you a good enough reasoning for why Arceus is banned from 1v1. As I go further into the pokemon banlist, I will be more descriptive as the pokemon need more explaining. The next addition will be Rayquaza-Mega. I hope you all have a nice day and a happy new year. Mubs out.
Also, quick thanks to UnleashOurPassion for helping me out.
What makes Arceus broken?:
Well, There are a few things that make Arceus broken, one thing is its stats. 120 in every stat is absolutely amazing, being able to outspeed most of the unboosted metagame, and allows Arceus to tank extremely powerful moves. For example:
252 Atk Lopunny-Mega High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 12 Def Arceus: 372-440 (83.7 - 99%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Mega Lopunny, one of the premier fighting types in 1v1, fails to KO Arceus with a Stab, Super-Effective move.
Another trait that Arceus has, that many of you know of, is the fact that it has 18 forms, for every type in the game. That coupled with its diverse moveset and the fact that you cannot discern the Arceus you are Facing in team preview, make the pokemon almost impossible to counter, constraining on building, and too good for the metagame.
These reasons and many more, are why I believe Arceus is banned from 1v1.
Thank you for reading the first addition to my banlist series. I hope that I am able to give you a good enough reasoning for why Arceus is banned from 1v1. As I go further into the pokemon banlist, I will be more descriptive as the pokemon need more explaining. The next addition will be Rayquaza-Mega. I hope you all have a nice day and a happy new year. Mubs out.
Also, quick thanks to UnleashOurPassion for helping me out.
Sorry, remind me why Koko was banned again? Or will it take 30 years to get that far?
how did i not win most attractive am i the only one that voted for myself
Hey guys, time for something you've never seen before:
The Principles:
Sleep as a status in Pokemon takes away control from the entirety of a team, in a 1v1 situation. This pretty much goes against the standards of sleep clause in a metagame. Despite the fact that 1v1 does not yet enforce such a clause, Sleep Clauses are seen in many official tiers as a balancing measure to ensure that teams don't need to predominantly worry about the RNG associated with being hit by Sleep-inducing moves and waking up. In essence, Sleep Clause exists in 6v6 because excess Sleep is uncompetitive/unhealthy.
This is probably due to the fact that, while asleep, Pokemon cannot perform the basic tasks they have been set out to do, and opens the door for less skilled players to gain an advantage over more skilled players, exasperated by the randomness of when a Pokemon wakes up and when a sleep move actually hits. Referencing the tiering policy of Smogon, "The majority of our potential suspect discussion will center around the defined versions of uncompetitive, broken, and unhealthy and how a particular suspect element lowers some component of player skill within those three constructs", with skill being defined as:
I.) Skill - the subjective metric we use to judge player worth in competitive Pokemon.
That being said, 1v1 isn't a 6v6, and 1v1 has core values that separate itself from any 6v6. While sleep still inhibits many of the aforementioned qualities of skill, any good 1v1 team is built to beat almost everything and anything that it comes across; in theory, that should include sleep and sleep users. This then deviates to a conversation on whether or not sleep strategies limit teambuilding significantly, which then ties into more of the facts rather than principles.
Some users may bring up that having the ability to remove choice and skill from an opponent through sleep is no different from KOing your opponent. The problem with that argument is that KOing your opponent is the objective of competitive Pokemon, and is directly related to your skill in a Pokemon game. Putting an opponent to sleep is not the objective of competitive Pokemon, and thus removing the possibility of knocking out your opponent through sleep is not only not a measure of skill from the sleep user, but also serves the role in removing skill from the afflicted player, as I have already stated.
The takeaways from this section should be: When you are asleep, a player cannot move, thus negatively affecting the traditional core tenants of skill-based gameplay in Smogon; however, these tenants may be subtly different in 1v1 compared to other metagames. Sleep Clause or other effective measures to limit the effectiveness of sleep should only be put in place if and when sleep has proven to significantly prevent skill based gameplay.
The Facts:
Sleep in 1v1 is utilized by several Pokemon, including Jumpluff, Vivillon, Mega Venusaur, and Mega Gengar, among others. Their sleep strategies, in one way or another, involve taking advantage of a Pokemon while they are immobilized by Sleep, whether it be through damage or stall. The undisputed best sleep abuser is currently Jumpluff; it can essentially automatically win after hitting Sleep Powder and Leech Seed, has an amazing Speed Tier, and possesses ways to mitigate Sleep Powder's mediocre accuracy, Substitute users, and a weakness to Taunt. Other Pokemon either rely on less accurate sleep-inducing moves, are not as fast as Jumpluff, or both.
However, looking past Jumpluff, several other Pokemon utilize sleep in a less-than-honest way in order to turn unwinnable matchups into 50/50s, based on uncontrollable RNG. Mega Gengar, with its absurd 394 max speed, can easily cheese a win from almost anything that Ghost hits neutrally about 50% of the time, thanks to Hypnosis and Hex. Whimsicott can utilize Grass Whistle to win against Pokemon such as Mega Charizard Y and Naganadel, which it would otherwise be incapable of beating reliably, about 50% of the time. These strategies highlight the dangers Sleep poses to a healthy metagame more so than anything else.
But, besides those, sleep-inducing moves breaking a Pokemon is not necessarily the rule; rather, a sleep move works in tandem with a Pokemon's pre-existing tools to sweeten the deal. Pokemon like Hypnosis Rapidash and Grass Whistle Cacturne are never going to be incredibly viable or threatening thanks to their respective sleep moves, but the moves do allow each user to gain possibly unwarranted advantages against any Pokemon by removing their ability to actually do anything.
Lastly, sleep users are naturally restrictive on teambuilding; any viable 1v1 team must run at least a reliable Jumpluff answer, if not the hardest sleep counter they can muster, or else risk being 3-0ed simply because they are put to sleep before they can do anything, and cannot wake up before it is too late.
The takeaways from this section should be: Sleep-inducing moves have allowed Pokemon such as Jumpluff and Vivillon to rise up the ranks, as well as provide others a way to cheese out wins that neither side can control, but sleep-inducing moves by themselves don't practically break any Pokemon that can use them, even though they promote unhealthy strategies, rather they must be used in conjunction with individual complimentary strategies.
I hope I have been able present the information above in a coherent and unbiased manner; I am hoping that by separating these points like this, people can see more eye to eye when discussing sleep in 1v1.
My own personal thoughts: Sleep is both principally and practically flawed in the 1v1 metagame, allowing sleep users to remove elements of skill from their opponent, with no viable counterplay options available after an opponent is put to sleep. This has led to several sets to either win consistently simply by being faster or beat matchups in essential RNG 50/50s, which I do not approve of in a competitive environment.
This brings me to my final point
After discussing with a few of my contemporaries, we have narrowed down a few of the 'problem children' of sleep moves in 1v1. I am personally curious to hear what the community thinks about these specific moves:
Dark Void, Grass Whistle, Hypnosis, Lovely Kiss, Sing, Sleep Powder, Spore
These are all of the moves that activate sleep on the turn when the move is used. They prevent an opponent from doing anything at all during that turn and a random amount of following turns.
The reason why Yawn wasn't included in this is because a Pokemon can always act during a turn of Yawn, regardless of whether or not the Yawn user is faster than the Pokemon being afflicted, preserving a semblance of skill and strategy, as well as forcing a Yawn user to waste a moveslot running Protect, or else be hit twice before sleep activates, which can be fatal in 1v1.
I and others I know believe being put to sleep immediately is a significant detriment to skill in 1v1, as defined by the tiering policy of Smogon.
What are your thoughts on the healthiness of those moves in the 1v1 metagame?
A Post on Sleep in 1v1!
or, Sleep and the role it plays in the 1v1 Metagame
Sleep, as I am sure everyone who is reading this already knows, is a mechanic in Pokemon wherein an affected Pokemon is unable to perform an action for 1-3 turns. There are some exceptions to this, primarily when Sleep Talk is performed, but for the most part it is very cut and dry. In a regular 6v6 format, the status of Sleep is balanced through the enforcement of a Sleep Clause, stating that no more than one Pokemon on an opposing team can be afflicted by Sleep from an opponent at a time. This works fine in 6v6, as the other 5 members of the team can account for this, but in 1v1, the ongoing debate is and always has been, is Sleep a problem?or, Sleep and the role it plays in the 1v1 Metagame
The Principles:
Sleep as a status in Pokemon takes away control from the entirety of a team, in a 1v1 situation. This pretty much goes against the standards of sleep clause in a metagame. Despite the fact that 1v1 does not yet enforce such a clause, Sleep Clauses are seen in many official tiers as a balancing measure to ensure that teams don't need to predominantly worry about the RNG associated with being hit by Sleep-inducing moves and waking up. In essence, Sleep Clause exists in 6v6 because excess Sleep is uncompetitive/unhealthy.
This is probably due to the fact that, while asleep, Pokemon cannot perform the basic tasks they have been set out to do, and opens the door for less skilled players to gain an advantage over more skilled players, exasperated by the randomness of when a Pokemon wakes up and when a sleep move actually hits. Referencing the tiering policy of Smogon, "The majority of our potential suspect discussion will center around the defined versions of uncompetitive, broken, and unhealthy and how a particular suspect element lowers some component of player skill within those three constructs", with skill being defined as:
I.) Skill - the subjective metric we use to judge player worth in competitive Pokemon.
- Team Building Skill - the part of skill that is involved in the preparation for a battle
- Assessing and Dealing with Threats
- Building Towards a Strategy (or Strategies)
- Creativity
- Catering to Metagame / Opponents
- Battling Skill - the part of skill involved in actually battling
- Picking the Right Lead
- Recognizing the Win Condition
- Picking the Right Move
Smart Switching(Not relevant in 1v1)- Gathering Information and Making Assumptions
- Long-term vs. Short-term Goals
- Assessing Risk
- Probability Management
- Prediction
That being said, 1v1 isn't a 6v6, and 1v1 has core values that separate itself from any 6v6. While sleep still inhibits many of the aforementioned qualities of skill, any good 1v1 team is built to beat almost everything and anything that it comes across; in theory, that should include sleep and sleep users. This then deviates to a conversation on whether or not sleep strategies limit teambuilding significantly, which then ties into more of the facts rather than principles.
Some users may bring up that having the ability to remove choice and skill from an opponent through sleep is no different from KOing your opponent. The problem with that argument is that KOing your opponent is the objective of competitive Pokemon, and is directly related to your skill in a Pokemon game. Putting an opponent to sleep is not the objective of competitive Pokemon, and thus removing the possibility of knocking out your opponent through sleep is not only not a measure of skill from the sleep user, but also serves the role in removing skill from the afflicted player, as I have already stated.
The takeaways from this section should be: When you are asleep, a player cannot move, thus negatively affecting the traditional core tenants of skill-based gameplay in Smogon; however, these tenants may be subtly different in 1v1 compared to other metagames. Sleep Clause or other effective measures to limit the effectiveness of sleep should only be put in place if and when sleep has proven to significantly prevent skill based gameplay.
The Facts:
Sleep in 1v1 is utilized by several Pokemon, including Jumpluff, Vivillon, Mega Venusaur, and Mega Gengar, among others. Their sleep strategies, in one way or another, involve taking advantage of a Pokemon while they are immobilized by Sleep, whether it be through damage or stall. The undisputed best sleep abuser is currently Jumpluff; it can essentially automatically win after hitting Sleep Powder and Leech Seed, has an amazing Speed Tier, and possesses ways to mitigate Sleep Powder's mediocre accuracy, Substitute users, and a weakness to Taunt. Other Pokemon either rely on less accurate sleep-inducing moves, are not as fast as Jumpluff, or both.
However, looking past Jumpluff, several other Pokemon utilize sleep in a less-than-honest way in order to turn unwinnable matchups into 50/50s, based on uncontrollable RNG. Mega Gengar, with its absurd 394 max speed, can easily cheese a win from almost anything that Ghost hits neutrally about 50% of the time, thanks to Hypnosis and Hex. Whimsicott can utilize Grass Whistle to win against Pokemon such as Mega Charizard Y and Naganadel, which it would otherwise be incapable of beating reliably, about 50% of the time. These strategies highlight the dangers Sleep poses to a healthy metagame more so than anything else.
But, besides those, sleep-inducing moves breaking a Pokemon is not necessarily the rule; rather, a sleep move works in tandem with a Pokemon's pre-existing tools to sweeten the deal. Pokemon like Hypnosis Rapidash and Grass Whistle Cacturne are never going to be incredibly viable or threatening thanks to their respective sleep moves, but the moves do allow each user to gain possibly unwarranted advantages against any Pokemon by removing their ability to actually do anything.
Lastly, sleep users are naturally restrictive on teambuilding; any viable 1v1 team must run at least a reliable Jumpluff answer, if not the hardest sleep counter they can muster, or else risk being 3-0ed simply because they are put to sleep before they can do anything, and cannot wake up before it is too late.
The takeaways from this section should be: Sleep-inducing moves have allowed Pokemon such as Jumpluff and Vivillon to rise up the ranks, as well as provide others a way to cheese out wins that neither side can control, but sleep-inducing moves by themselves don't practically break any Pokemon that can use them, even though they promote unhealthy strategies, rather they must be used in conjunction with individual complimentary strategies.
I hope I have been able present the information above in a coherent and unbiased manner; I am hoping that by separating these points like this, people can see more eye to eye when discussing sleep in 1v1.
My own personal thoughts: Sleep is both principally and practically flawed in the 1v1 metagame, allowing sleep users to remove elements of skill from their opponent, with no viable counterplay options available after an opponent is put to sleep. This has led to several sets to either win consistently simply by being faster or beat matchups in essential RNG 50/50s, which I do not approve of in a competitive environment.
This brings me to my final point
After discussing with a few of my contemporaries, we have narrowed down a few of the 'problem children' of sleep moves in 1v1. I am personally curious to hear what the community thinks about these specific moves:
Dark Void, Grass Whistle, Hypnosis, Lovely Kiss, Sing, Sleep Powder, Spore
These are all of the moves that activate sleep on the turn when the move is used. They prevent an opponent from doing anything at all during that turn and a random amount of following turns.
The reason why Yawn wasn't included in this is because a Pokemon can always act during a turn of Yawn, regardless of whether or not the Yawn user is faster than the Pokemon being afflicted, preserving a semblance of skill and strategy, as well as forcing a Yawn user to waste a moveslot running Protect, or else be hit twice before sleep activates, which can be fatal in 1v1.
I and others I know believe being put to sleep immediately is a significant detriment to skill in 1v1, as defined by the tiering policy of Smogon.
What are your thoughts on the healthiness of those moves in the 1v1 metagame?
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I'm serious about this i want to hear community discussion, no more z detect shenanigans
ok tyvm :D
ok tyvm :D
1v1 is unique, since after choosing a Pokémon, you are basically trapped. Just like Mimikyu’s Disguise, a free turns can be very decisive in this format since battles are basically the same length as the “sleep window” (Except those 60 turn Pyuk battles lol).
Do not forget that we banned accuracy moves, a.k.a. Mud Slap, Octazooka, etc. They are RNG based, which can buy you free turns, but which sounds worse to you...?
I don’t ladder as much as I used to, nor do I play tours anymore. However, I ladder occasionally, and I am starting to see the rise of stuff like Mega Diancie, which has magic bounce to stop the sleep moves. Every time I build a team, “Does it beat Jumpluff/Whimsicott/etc?”
There is some wise-ass argument to stop this, I guarantee it, but just keep in mind that a decent chunk of the VR is invalidated by sleep stall/hypno-hex/other sleep strategies. I mean, it’s not like some players are constantly complaining about sleep every day, right? (“ohh rwts should we ban complainers then?” No lol) If it wasn’t problematic, then this discussion wouldn’t even exist to begin with.
Thank you, and have a good day.
PS: Use Gog because it beats Pluff/Cott/Venusaur
Tol
Retirement house
Ah yes, the time-honored tactic of comparing sleep in 1v1 to sleep in 6v6. Why do people keep doing this? It makes no sense to me. This is akin to saying, “accuracy drop is not ban worthy in 1v1 because well it’s not in 6v6.” Or, perhaps, “lol your team sucks because you only have 3 mons and not 6.” (Actually, is there a reason 1v1 teams only have 3 mons? I haven’t ever seen one.) Yes, there is a sleep clause in 6v6. This is because it ivalidates the idea of a reactive, tactical game that most of smogon’s metas try to have. Does it really make sense in that context for Vivillon to sweep a whole team? 1v1, as I really should not have to say, is not 6v6. Yes, you can put your opponent’s whole team to sleep with one move. You can also, believe it or not, oneshot your opponent’s team with one move. You can heal 50% of the health of your whole team with one move too. Wouldn’t that also be banned in 6v6? Therefore, I expect a recover/softboiled ban any day now with this logic. 1v1 is a game of matchups. Jumpluff has winning matchups and losing matchups, like literally everything else in the meta. Also like everything else, these matchups can occasionally be circumvented by adding different moves to your counters (ex. Tpunch mmeta for gyara or fcharge zard for pluff). Honestly, I feel like Jumpluff is a perfectly fine pokemon to have in the meta. Just like everything else, you do need to have a counter to it on every team. Why is everyone so up in arms about this when the same is true for charizard, gyarados, golem, etc.? I do feel like gengar is a bit cheap, however. I prefer losing to a 85% chance (more than Stone Edge) than to a 60% chance (shades of Jirachi). Anyway, that’s my thoughts on the matter TDA. Don’t drag sleep clause into this. Also, dark void is hard coded to Darkrai and if your team doesn’t have an answer to Jumpluff, get a better team. That’s what people would say if your team got 3-0d by gyarados, so why is it any different here?
Ban this move, too OP
Spore seems to be fair, as Breloom and Smeargle tend to run Substitute, which removes the RNG of turn 1 wakes
Hypnosis and Grass Whistle/Sing are more often than not RNG Based
Sleep Powder/Lovely Kiss are interesting. One is run by Jumpluff, Vivilon [or however its spelled], and Venusaur. As you mentioned, Jumpluff has ways to get around sleep powder's accuracy problems (ie wide lens/sweet scent), and runs substitute to mitigate the effects of turn 1 wakes. Vivilon is basically Breloom with a 97% accuracy sleep powder, and also uses substitute to mitigate turn 1 wakes. Venusaur is some sauce, needs the RNG.
In Conclusion: Vivilame is breloom 2, Dan Vark Boid, Uh some of this is RNG, You get to choose your facts cuz there are so many facts, suspect hypnosis and sing/grass whistle and/or suspect jumpluff, sleep powder/lovely kiss/spore/yawn are alrighty-o, Sleep is banned in Lets Go 1v1, Dark Void is Busted, Use gog, Free ZD so we can reban ez money, play more LG 1v1 its good for your bones, ILY all <6 ggwp drink some milk
So I am not a massivley experience 1v1 player. I have achieved 1700 elo so done well on the ladder, but only recently. I believe my team building and knowledge of the meta game still has lots of room to improve. With that said, here is my take on sleep and TDA previous post.
So, firstly I disagree with the idea that there is a difference between K.Oing your opponent and putting them to sleep. TDA stated that putting your opponent to sleep is not the objective of a pokemon battle, but if by putting your opponent to sleep you win there is no difference. The skill in pokemon is achieving a KO and I dont think it is fair to say winning by sleep -> KO is less valuable than just a KO. At the end of the day, they had a pokemon that beat yours in the same way a pokemon may win by using hyper beam with an 80% chance to kill. Mechanically there is no difference (more on this later), and there is RNG in many moves as damage is variable.
The next section focuses on specific pokemon and here they fall into 2 categories. The powerful pokemon like jumpluff/ M-gengar, and the niche such as rapidash. There is a shared arguement for both that these pokemon are somehow unfairly beating pokemon they have right to beat..... why shouldnt whimsicott beat charizard? It doenst have any less right to beat it than a pokemon that might OHKO Charizard 80% of the time but lose if it doesn't. It is still decided by RNG. This is most strongly mentioned with regards to rapidash and cacturne, that they might "gain possibly unwarranted advantages". A pokemon has no right to beat another. The pokemon it can beat and lose to change as you change E.Vs and move set.
This leads onto the more powerful pokemon, and the arguement that having access to sleep allows it to beat an unfairly large amount of other pokemon. I do not think this is a problem for the more niche pokemon. Sleep may allow them to beat a suprising number of other pokemon, but as long as they are not a dominant force in the meta then it may allow pokemon to see play that otherwise would be unusable if sleep was banned. When these pokemon are not very high tieired pokemon I believe this increases the diversity of useable pokemon, which is a positive.
However for jumpluff and gengar this is more problematic. WHen looking at M-gengar, having sleep allows it to beat nearly all pokemon that it is faster than. I dont think this should be treated differently from a pokemon with high attack that could OHKO most slower pokemon. If we accept that winning is the same no matter the path then the issue then becomes: does m-gengar beat too many pokemon? The same can apply to jumpluff. The arguement is put forth that all teams need to consider a way to beat jumpluff or lose to it, but all teams need a way to counter any pokemon or they will lose to it. The fact it uses sleep changes nothing. Both instead can be reframed as: does this pokemon beat too many other pokemon? The arguement that it restricts team building as teams need to beat these pokemon does not change if you substitute the pokemon for Charizard/Gyarados/Magearna.
One could argue that Gengar restricts team building more as the pokemon that it beats are all slower than it. Therefore slower pokemon are less viable but I feel this boils down to that pokemon that match up badly against popular/high powered pokemon are restricted. There will always be more popular and more poweful "meta" pokemon, and other pokemon will be unplayed because they match up badly. Remove certain pokemon and the meta will shift, but there will always be winners and losers.
Now... all I have said above argues for keeping sleep, but all hinges on my assertion that there is no difference in the way you KO your opponent. While I stand by my first paragraph saying it is unfair to call sleep less skillful (you still won by using moves that worked against your opponent) there is a difference. That difference is that it feels less fun to lose to (and probably less fun to beat). A loss against a OHKO Z move feels fair but losing to a sleep turn makes you feel that you could have won if only you were a bit luckier. Now, the Z move may have only have OHKO 65% of the time, so it could be equally as chance based but the game does not feel like that. Combine that with humans being better at remembering negative times then sleep losses are all the more annoying. I believe the arguement for banning sleep does not lie in it being more destructive than other mores (a win is a win mechanically) but in the idea that it makes games less fun.
So... do I feel sleep should be banned? No. I don't. Flinch locks from serene grace also feel like a very unfun way to lose but I do not see nearly the same hatred for flinch. WHy? Jirachi is banned. Sure you lose to the occasional Togekiss, but not often. Togekiss is not (frequently) argued to be worth banning and I bet noone campaigns to ban dunsparce. These pokemon might end up being unfun to lose to but are not banned as they do not shape the meta. I think the same holds with sleep. Jumpluff and M-gengar may well match up too well against too many pokemon, but I think the solution lies in looking at the strong examples. I would expect that the need to ban sleep would seem a lot less pressing if the strongest pokemon are banned, in much the same way that ban flinch doesnt exist without Jirachi.
TLDR? If you wanted to change the meta around this issue, I feel that looking at individual pokemon is more consistant than banning sleep outright, and the fact sleep feels unfun to lose to causes a lot of people to unfairly view it when arguing.
So, firstly I disagree with the idea that there is a difference between K.Oing your opponent and putting them to sleep. TDA stated that putting your opponent to sleep is not the objective of a pokemon battle, but if by putting your opponent to sleep you win there is no difference. The skill in pokemon is achieving a KO and I dont think it is fair to say winning by sleep -> KO is less valuable than just a KO. At the end of the day, they had a pokemon that beat yours in the same way a pokemon may win by using hyper beam with an 80% chance to kill. Mechanically there is no difference (more on this later), and there is RNG in many moves as damage is variable.
The next section focuses on specific pokemon and here they fall into 2 categories. The powerful pokemon like jumpluff/ M-gengar, and the niche such as rapidash. There is a shared arguement for both that these pokemon are somehow unfairly beating pokemon they have right to beat..... why shouldnt whimsicott beat charizard? It doenst have any less right to beat it than a pokemon that might OHKO Charizard 80% of the time but lose if it doesn't. It is still decided by RNG. This is most strongly mentioned with regards to rapidash and cacturne, that they might "gain possibly unwarranted advantages". A pokemon has no right to beat another. The pokemon it can beat and lose to change as you change E.Vs and move set.
This leads onto the more powerful pokemon, and the arguement that having access to sleep allows it to beat an unfairly large amount of other pokemon. I do not think this is a problem for the more niche pokemon. Sleep may allow them to beat a suprising number of other pokemon, but as long as they are not a dominant force in the meta then it may allow pokemon to see play that otherwise would be unusable if sleep was banned. When these pokemon are not very high tieired pokemon I believe this increases the diversity of useable pokemon, which is a positive.
However for jumpluff and gengar this is more problematic. WHen looking at M-gengar, having sleep allows it to beat nearly all pokemon that it is faster than. I dont think this should be treated differently from a pokemon with high attack that could OHKO most slower pokemon. If we accept that winning is the same no matter the path then the issue then becomes: does m-gengar beat too many pokemon? The same can apply to jumpluff. The arguement is put forth that all teams need to consider a way to beat jumpluff or lose to it, but all teams need a way to counter any pokemon or they will lose to it. The fact it uses sleep changes nothing. Both instead can be reframed as: does this pokemon beat too many other pokemon? The arguement that it restricts team building as teams need to beat these pokemon does not change if you substitute the pokemon for Charizard/Gyarados/Magearna.
One could argue that Gengar restricts team building more as the pokemon that it beats are all slower than it. Therefore slower pokemon are less viable but I feel this boils down to that pokemon that match up badly against popular/high powered pokemon are restricted. There will always be more popular and more poweful "meta" pokemon, and other pokemon will be unplayed because they match up badly. Remove certain pokemon and the meta will shift, but there will always be winners and losers.
Now... all I have said above argues for keeping sleep, but all hinges on my assertion that there is no difference in the way you KO your opponent. While I stand by my first paragraph saying it is unfair to call sleep less skillful (you still won by using moves that worked against your opponent) there is a difference. That difference is that it feels less fun to lose to (and probably less fun to beat). A loss against a OHKO Z move feels fair but losing to a sleep turn makes you feel that you could have won if only you were a bit luckier. Now, the Z move may have only have OHKO 65% of the time, so it could be equally as chance based but the game does not feel like that. Combine that with humans being better at remembering negative times then sleep losses are all the more annoying. I believe the arguement for banning sleep does not lie in it being more destructive than other mores (a win is a win mechanically) but in the idea that it makes games less fun.
So... do I feel sleep should be banned? No. I don't. Flinch locks from serene grace also feel like a very unfun way to lose but I do not see nearly the same hatred for flinch. WHy? Jirachi is banned. Sure you lose to the occasional Togekiss, but not often. Togekiss is not (frequently) argued to be worth banning and I bet noone campaigns to ban dunsparce. These pokemon might end up being unfun to lose to but are not banned as they do not shape the meta. I think the same holds with sleep. Jumpluff and M-gengar may well match up too well against too many pokemon, but I think the solution lies in looking at the strong examples. I would expect that the need to ban sleep would seem a lot less pressing if the strongest pokemon are banned, in much the same way that ban flinch doesnt exist without Jirachi.
TLDR? If you wanted to change the meta around this issue, I feel that looking at individual pokemon is more consistant than banning sleep outright, and the fact sleep feels unfun to lose to causes a lot of people to unfairly view it when arguing.
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I have to agree with runwiththescissors here, the 1v1 room literally consists of terrible memes, people asking for tours, people making jokes about uop, dom yelling for jirachi/kyub/koko/other broken mon, and people asking for sleep ban, and for something to be brought up that often the community obviously has some problem with it and it should at the least be looked at and maybe suspected if not to ban then to see public opinion on it
Edit: Read other posts and have more thoughts:
Banning individual abusers is completely stupid. Jumpluff is not broken, sleep pushes it towards broken, not its stats. Vivilon (no clue how to spell) is not broken, sleep pushes it towards broken, not it’s stats. The same goes for venusaur and gengar mega, sleep is the factor that pushes all of them towards broken. Now I don’t think speed traps in general are broken, I think they force people to run more variable mons on their team to deal with threats like breloom and smeargle. But a 350 speed speed trap or a 394 one, are broken.
I have more to add but I’m tired, maybe I’ll do it in the morning if I remember
Edit: Read other posts and have more thoughts:
Banning individual abusers is completely stupid. Jumpluff is not broken, sleep pushes it towards broken, not its stats. Vivilon (no clue how to spell) is not broken, sleep pushes it towards broken, not it’s stats. The same goes for venusaur and gengar mega, sleep is the factor that pushes all of them towards broken. Now I don’t think speed traps in general are broken, I think they force people to run more variable mons on their team to deal with threats like breloom and smeargle. But a 350 speed speed trap or a 394 one, are broken.
I have more to add but I’m tired, maybe I’ll do it in the morning if I remember
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ryyjyywyy
Banned deucer.
see TGC's post about this.
yea 6v6 isnt 1v1. counterplay to things are different in each tier, 6v6 is reactive based counterplay which stuff like vivillon can make impossible, but 1v1 is a matchup based meta, not reactive one.
no, sleep clause exists in 6v6 tiers since it can destroy any counterplay available in those tiers as they are not matchup based
e.g: sack a mon, bring vivillon in vs the opponent if they have a bad matchup vs it, theyll have to switch and you can get a free quiver dance. after this you should outspeed almost anything,, sleep the mon they switched in, use sub, if they wake up you can sleep and sub again, and if they switch you can just sleep that mon. You can take away any reactive counterplay because you got your vivillon in when the opponent had a bad matchup out against it.
the skill in battling in 1v1 is picking the right move for your matchup, if you can only win that matchup by using spore, then clicking spore is the skillful move, it doesnt undermine skill to pick the correct move that gives you the best chance to win. people playing mons like jumpluff do have to consider things like probability management and have a goal on how to win.
again, 1v1 is not 6v6, and in 6v6, sleep clause was enacted due to extremely limited counterplay once a sleep mon came in on a good matchup, mons like vivillon and venomoth set up a quiver dance and there wasnt any counterplay after that. (taking away all counterplay by finding one good matchup in a switch based counterplay tier is what made sleep uncompetitive).
how does it inhibit skill in 1v1? this is a matchup based tier, the only real skill in this when it comes to battling is choosing the right mon, and the right moves. if choosing to use a sleep move is the right move, you are making a skillful play.
If KOing is the objective of competitive pokemon, and sleep is banworthy because it doesnt do that, shouldn't toxic, leech seed, and pp stall all be considered banworthy too? Why not throw strategies that win with stuff like confuse ray or burn damage in there too (such as kee mew).
the objective of competitive pokemon is WINNING, and if you can find a way to win, then that is actually skilled play.
this: "Putting an opponent to sleep is not the objective of competitive Pokemon, and thus removing the possibility of knocking out your opponent through sleep is not only not a measure of skill from the sleep user, but also serves the role in removing skill from the afflicted player, as I have already stated." is completely incorrect.
again, a skilled play is making the best moves possible to allow you a win.
252 Atk Lopunny-Mega Giga Impact vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Tapu Lele: 322-379 (93.8 - 110.4%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
If you are OHKOd, you cannot move, thus negatively affecting your ability to react and ko this fighting type with your fairy / psychic type, even tho it was luck based!
using sleep in 1v1 is a matchup based thing, same as any other matchup in 1v1. if you are winning by using jumpluff vs a magearna, it is actually skill. knowing when to use what moves, and actually doing it, even when you are using a sleep move. 1v1 is hardly skill based when it is compared to other metas, since in 1v1 the person who picks right at preview (which is most of the time a GUESS), is most likely going to win. There are plenty of variables, 50/50s between stuff like haxorus and zardx, will they mega or no, winning with crits, flinches, or the opponent missing. 50/50s. These are arguably bigger problems as mons in the top 10 of usage stats are things like gyara, zardy, zardx, and more. Most of the time at team preview, you are forced to guess whether the opponent is zard x or y, or maybe youll have to guess if zardx will mega or not when the battle starts, gyara runs waterfall which can indeed flinch out a lot of matches for it. Zardy usually runs air slash and can beat any sturdy mon by flinching it then using blast burn.
You may say, "oh but these arent that common". Gyara and magearna are 2 of the most used mons in 1v1, and gyara relies on flinches to win vs it. gyara relies on flinches to win vs zardy, or vs tpunch megagross, or vs gardevoir, lele, and many more. Keep in mind these are all mons that are in the top 15- top 10 of usage, with gardevoir being at like 17.
contrary to that, jumpluff is at 70 in usage, smeargle is at 96, gengar 62, breloom 66, and vivillon 85. None of these sleep mons are very used, and you are much more likely to get matchups with zardy needing to flinch sturdy mons, gyara needing flinch wins, or matchups where you need to guess what the opponent will do in order to win.
These are much less skillful than sleep, especially matchups where you need to guess a lot, like with zards, since guessing is much less skillful than making correct plays with sleep mons.
this is true, but if you are arguing that jumpluff is broken, i would argue against that. zards, gyara, magearna, dnite, and many other mons are much more versatile than jumpluff, more unpredictable, and beat a lot more mons than it. jumpluff, while being good, still has a large list of solid counters, and you should consider it when teambuilding just like you should consider any other good mon when teambuilding.
are these unhealthy only because of their accuracy? If so, why are things like thunder, zap cannon, hurricane, focus blast, hydro pump, etc not under talks for being banned?
I realize these arent as necessary for as many matchups as a gengar hypnosis, but it seems like a giant double standard to bans some moves for their accuracy and not others.
Whimsicott rarely ever uses grasswhistle and doesnt eend it for most of its matchups, so this seems like it should go in the zap cannon category where it can cheese some matchups while being a 50/50.
yea, zmoves can do this too. Illumise can abuse zcharm to make unwinnable matchups winnable, such as zardx, darmanitan, crustle, golem, aggron, and flyinium dnite amonth others. random mons that would normally be bad being able to win normally unfavorable matchups isnt a thing only sleep can do.
NEWS FLASH: ANY GOOD MON IS RESTRICTIVE ON TEAMBUILDING.
any viable 1v1 team needs a magearna answer, zard answer, gyara answer, lele answer, pz answer, zygod answer, slowbro answer, etc. Are we going to be banning these anytime soon because of this?
Zmoves have allowed mons like Magearna, dnite, lele, pz, and lando t to rise up the ranks too, and zmoves also led to the ban of mons like mimikyu, snorlax, koko, and (unjustly) kyub. Zmoves make bad pokemon usable, usuable pokemon great, and amazing pokemon top tier / broken.
Zmoves make the meta more unpredictable and less skill based in many ways too. if pokemon like jumpluff and vivillon can rise up the ranks because they have good tools to work with sleep powder, are zmoves bannable for doing the same thing but to a much greater extent (in making most any mon better just by using it)
sleep, for the most part, you can control, since most sleep in the meta has a sleep move combined with substitute, meaning you really only worry about hitting your move.
as I've posted earlier, with 4 subs and 5 chances to use sleep total, considering the possibility of the opponent waking up on T1 each time, there is about a .4% for that to happen.
the only rng you cant control in this strategy is the accuracy of hitting your move, and accuracy should not make something bannable unless we are looking to ban all moves with subpar accuracy.
yes there are matchups such as jumpluff beating zard (which is about a 12% chance to happen), or jumpluff vs other flame charge mons, but how is having a chance at sleep rolls deciding a battle in limited matchups like this any different than gyara or zardy needing to flinch a win?
in the case of mons like gengar, I can see how it is problematic, but it uses sleep differently than any other mon does in 1v1, and shouldnt be a reason to ball all sleep strategies, instead discussion over banning gengar should be had.
The counterplay to any sleep mon, as is the counterplay to any other mon in 1v1, is to pick the correct mon at team preview and make sure you teambuild considering it, you wouldnt want something to be banned because it KOed you with a move thats a roll, even though getting KOed by that RNG is uncompetitive and takes away your counterplay, would you?
Many mons do only win by being faster than other mons, such as mega lopunny, zeraora, kartana, and naganadel. why is winning because you outspeed things banworthy again?
if you have a problem with rng and 50/50s, why are you not wanting things like zap cannon, commonly used moves with high chance of secondary effects, team preview with 3 mons, or other moves with low accuracy banned, or removing the need to guess which zard it is, will they mega or not.
- Picking the Right Lead
- Recognizing the Win Condition
- Picking the Right Move
- Gathering Information and Making Assumptions
- Long-term vs. Short-term Goals
- Assessing Risk
- Probability Management
- Prediction
How does sleep not meet the teambuilding requirements of assessing the risk of using a sleep mon, and having good probability management between using your sleep move and substitute or minimizing sleep turns on gengar with hex?
grasswhistle is hardly used in 1v1, even on whimsicott, and at best it is used to cheese a few normally unwinnable matchups like magnezone using zap cannon.
spore, sleep powder, and lovely kiss (and sometimes hypno gengar) are the only relevant sleep moves on your list in 1v1, and are almost always used in conjuction with other tools to minimize your need to win with any RNG from sleep turns, and meet each of the skill requirements you listed[/QUOTE]
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I generally agree with this post. Looking at specific mons is important. In my personal experience, I find that Smeargle and Vivillon are all good mons for the meta, since they offer a reliable win condition that is not hard to prepare for and encourage good teambuilding and preparation.
Similarly, I find that Jumpluff is also reliable enough to be a valid threat in the metagame, and while it's speed makes it a bit more annoying it still has huge weaknesses in mons common in the meta and preparing your team for it is healthy.
I don't want to restate stuff that was already said, in particular about MGengar, and I don't feel like other mons that sometimes use (instant) sleep are worth discussing except maybe whimsicott.
I don't feel like sleep should be banned either, and I can see where people that want to ban it are coming from. So, if anything is to be suspected, I'd like for it to be either sleep moves below 60% acc if you really want a blanket ban, or the combination of MGengar and Hypnosis.
Z-Detect was a ban of rng, and as I said then I was wondering what the road ahead would be. Z-Detect I could see why it shouldve been banned, but Sleep? So we going the way of banning all possible rng, like Freeze and Parahax? All I see in the room is "Ban Sleep" "Sleep should be banned" and other various ways of saying it. Do I see their point? yes I think so. Do I agree? no.
Upfront Sleepers: Vivillon, Gengar-M, Jumpluff. Those mons are the ones who use sleep much with Pluff beating Sub users thanks to Infiltrator. Gengar is the only one who beats Overcoat and Vivillon is just a big tech as its only purpose with sleep is setting up Quiver Dances to hit Hurricanes or Bug Buzzes with a substitute as last move. Is there something common with these mons like a counter or something? Yes, the Lopunny that carries Ice Punch Fake Out HJK Giga Impact (yes old set but imo better than flail set) can beat them reliably unless you play the Gengar-M set Mace has in the sets with WoW and Hypnosis, where it becomes a roll from fake out + giga impact. BROKEN! MUST BAN! OMG! (people on sleep).
Now is there positive sleep? yes in Rest but since we want to focus on the putting opponent to sleep moves Im not going to pull this up that much except adding a note that not all sleep is bad.
Anyways back to topic at hand.
Other mons that isnt as much used but still uses sleep as their niche: Butterfree, MVenu line, Cottonee and whimsi. Now why are these not in "Upfront sleepers"? Butterfree: not used that much, MVenu and its line: also has a Charm set and offensive way. Cottonee and whimsi: not really used that much, more than butterfree but not really highly used either. Can other mons beat the upfront sleepers? Well Mega Blaziken is 1 BUT thats a set v set matchup as Grassium Pluff (base at 350 speed) uses Z-Sleep Powder turn 1 into protect (Set of Blaziken: Blaziken-Mega @ Blazikenite
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Reversal
- Substitute
- Protect
- Blaze Kick )
then you are basically out of the game if it hits sleep powder turn 2. Can also lose if Vivillon reads protect turn 1 and subs or quivers. With that said Whimsi also beats it long term with the prankster. (Replay of the Blazi set beating a MGengar) now whilst the gengar wasnt full speed, my Blazi hit 400+ in speed which always beats the gengars speed. With that said, Im going echo what some ryy said,
Also is this really the road we want to take? Or should we find a better out than starting to ban rng?
NOTE: #StopWithTheBanSleepAlts they wont work to help the cause unless you actually go to smogon.
Upfront Sleepers: Vivillon, Gengar-M, Jumpluff. Those mons are the ones who use sleep much with Pluff beating Sub users thanks to Infiltrator. Gengar is the only one who beats Overcoat and Vivillon is just a big tech as its only purpose with sleep is setting up Quiver Dances to hit Hurricanes or Bug Buzzes with a substitute as last move. Is there something common with these mons like a counter or something? Yes, the Lopunny that carries Ice Punch Fake Out HJK Giga Impact (yes old set but imo better than flail set) can beat them reliably unless you play the Gengar-M set Mace has in the sets with WoW and Hypnosis, where it becomes a roll from fake out + giga impact. BROKEN! MUST BAN! OMG! (people on sleep).
Now is there positive sleep? yes in Rest but since we want to focus on the putting opponent to sleep moves Im not going to pull this up that much except adding a note that not all sleep is bad.
Anyways back to topic at hand.
Other mons that isnt as much used but still uses sleep as their niche: Butterfree, MVenu line, Cottonee and whimsi. Now why are these not in "Upfront sleepers"? Butterfree: not used that much, MVenu and its line: also has a Charm set and offensive way. Cottonee and whimsi: not really used that much, more than butterfree but not really highly used either. Can other mons beat the upfront sleepers? Well Mega Blaziken is 1 BUT thats a set v set matchup as Grassium Pluff (base at 350 speed) uses Z-Sleep Powder turn 1 into protect (Set of Blaziken: Blaziken-Mega @ Blazikenite
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Reversal
- Substitute
- Protect
- Blaze Kick )
then you are basically out of the game if it hits sleep powder turn 2. Can also lose if Vivillon reads protect turn 1 and subs or quivers. With that said Whimsi also beats it long term with the prankster. (Replay of the Blazi set beating a MGengar) now whilst the gengar wasnt full speed, my Blazi hit 400+ in speed which always beats the gengars speed. With that said, Im going echo what some ryy said,
Is there really any upfront issues right now? Is sleep really that powerful? Is rng banworthy if it can stop you up to 3 turns?My answer on these are no, just prepare your team.
Also is this really the road we want to take? Or should we find a better out than starting to ban rng?
NOTE: #StopWithTheBanSleepAlts they wont work to help the cause unless you actually go to smogon.
if we banned z-detect, we should ban sing/hypnosis/grass whistle and whatever else is that low accuracy. at that point, bringing a pokemon that relies on that move is functionally the same as flipping a coin to win, which isn't nearly as common in damage rolls as it's been implied.
one other factor that nobody cares about (for good reason) is how it feels to be put to sleep. that's why this is even a debate, because people feel like they're being cheated when they're hit with sleep. damage rolls are less noticeable, and if you die to a roll, you may be able to ev your set to live it. getting hit with sleep powder, an 85% accuracy move, and sitting there while the opponent takes their sweet time to set up there defenses is infuriating. it's like you're being taunted, and it causes tilt way quicker than, say, getting ohko'd by hyperbeam. tilt is a relevant factor in a competitive environment, since it's going to affect your decision making. in my mind, if you want someone off the ladder, you beat them with jumpluff a few times and then they log off.
in my opinion, sleep isn't overcentralizing enough to ban it for that reason, but it's luck based enough to be. strategies that require winning a coin toss to win a game are entirely luck based and shouldn't have a place in a competitive environment.
one other factor that nobody cares about (for good reason) is how it feels to be put to sleep. that's why this is even a debate, because people feel like they're being cheated when they're hit with sleep. damage rolls are less noticeable, and if you die to a roll, you may be able to ev your set to live it. getting hit with sleep powder, an 85% accuracy move, and sitting there while the opponent takes their sweet time to set up there defenses is infuriating. it's like you're being taunted, and it causes tilt way quicker than, say, getting ohko'd by hyperbeam. tilt is a relevant factor in a competitive environment, since it's going to affect your decision making. in my mind, if you want someone off the ladder, you beat them with jumpluff a few times and then they log off.
in my opinion, sleep isn't overcentralizing enough to ban it for that reason, but it's luck based enough to be. strategies that require winning a coin toss to win a game are entirely luck based and shouldn't have a place in a competitive environment.
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