Metagame 1v1 Metagame Discussion

[Yung Dramps]

So it's time to express some more opinions about the whole Z-move debacle and explain what I think should be done about the matter.

"Banning Z-Moves will lower diversity"
This is honestly debateable. Sure, some stuff like Entei, Kommo-o and Primarina, threats that rely on z-moves to succeed, will likely face huge repercussions from a z-move ban. But I recently took a look at the ORAS 1v1 Viability Rankings, and I've seen that the meta was still pretty diverse even without z-moves. If they were banned, while some stuff would fall, bulky threats like Porygon2, Slowbro, Type: Null and Chansey would all rise up, while choiced attackers like Kartana, Genesect and Garchomp will also rise. The diversity argument is super dumb, and it should be dropped by both sides.

"The meta will pretty much have to be re-built from the ground up, therefore it is not worth it"
I have seen some people say/imply this as a deterrent, and it is complete bull. They're right, a Z-move ban will completely warp and change the meta, making it borderline unrecognizable from its current state. A good chunk of our current analyses will probably have to be re-written, with some having to be outright scrapped due to the mons in them losing all viability with the loss of Z-moves. But y'know what? As a person who has written some of these analyses and has many teams with Z-move users on them, I can say that it is fully worth it. If it means making a healthier, more fun metagame, then the sacrifice is worth it. It'll be hard work re-making all the sample teams, sample sets and more, but if Z-moves really are such a bad influence, then we need to bite the bullet and get rid of the ulcer so the "bleeding" part can get overwith. But this should only happen if z-moves are unhealthy, or if their loss makes the meta better. Which leads into my next point...

The Z-Move Suspect cannot be half-assed: it must be handled with care and patience
The Dark Alakazam touched upon this already, but a z-move ban's effect on 1v1 will surely huge, but it's also completely ungaugeable. We need to give a z-move-less meta lots of time to develop. I believe that your standard 2-week suspect affair will simply not be enough to properly guage and analyze a z-move-less meta. Here's what we need to do:

We need a period of time where z-moves are not allowed, but no suspect rules apply.
If we want to make an educated decision on whether to dispose of the z-move menace, this phase is required. No suspects, no tours, just a simple ladder where z-moves are banned. This will allow people to really see how good the new meta is, and since there's no pressure to reach a game limit and get requirements and shit, players will be encouraged to play as much as possible to learn and analyze the new meta. As for how long this should last? I personally think that at the bare minimum it should last 1 month. And that's just if you wanna be cheap and shave time: If I was running things, it would last 2-3 months. During this time, we should also encourage and start many discussions on the forums about the new meta.

Once all of this is done, THEN we would start a suspect ladder. Should be fine, right?

 

[Nalei]

"Banning Z-Moves will lower diversity"
This is honestly debateable. Sure, some stuff like Entei, Kommo-o and Primarina, threats that rely on z-moves to succeed, will likely face huge repercussions from a z-move ban. But I recently took a look at the ORAS 1v1 Viability Rankings, and I've seen that the meta was still pretty diverse even without z-moves. If they were banned, while some stuff would fall, bulky threats like Porygon2, Slowbro, Type: Null and Chansey would all rise up, while choiced attackers like Kartana, Genesect and Garchomp will also rise. The diversity argument is super dumb, and it should be dropped by both sides.

I can guarantee that banning Z moves would lower diversity. Salazzle, Zygarde-10%, Clefable, Barbaracle, Thundurus-T, Ninetales-A, Keldeo, Entei, Volcarona, Umbreon, Carracosta and Blissey would all be unranked without Z moves. Every example that you gave was just Pokemon that are already viable, but would simply become more viable. My biggest complaint isn't necessarily in the amount of viable Pokemon, but rather about the number of viable sets. Kyurem-B, Primarina and Mimikyu would lose three sets, Tapu Koko, Dragonite, Landorus-T, Zygarde, Donphan, Golem and Tapu Fini would lose two sets, and Tapu Lele, Magearna, Porygon-Z, Aegislash, Snorlax, Blaziken, Garchomp and Greninja would lose one set, and this is just counting the S through B+ ranks. I don't like the idea of a one-dimensional meta. Note that I'm not strongly in favor of either banning or not banning yet.

The Z-Move Suspect cannot be half-assed: it must be handled with care and patience
The Dark Alakazam touched upon this already, but a z-move ban's effect on 1v1 will surely huge, but it's also completely ungaugeable. We need to give a z-move-less meta lots of time to develop. I believe that your standard 2-week suspect affair will simply not be enough to properly guage and analyze a z-move-less meta. Here's what we need to do:

We need a period of time where z-moves are not allowed, but no suspect rules apply.
If we want to make an educated decision on whether to dispose of the z-move menace, this phase is required. No suspects, no tours, just a simple ladder where z-moves are banned. This will allow people to really see how good the new meta is, and since there's no pressure to reach a game limit and get requirements and shit, players will be encouraged to play as much as possible to learn and analyze the new meta. As for how long this should last? I personally think that at the bare minimum it should last 1 month. And that's just if you wanna be cheap and shave time: If I was running things, it would last 2-3 months. During this time, we should also encourage and start many discussions on the forums about the new meta.

Once all of this is done, THEN we would start a suspect ladder. Should be fine, right?

Absolutely! We can all agree that a longer and more carefully crafted suspect is in order here. I hadn't thought about having a no-Z ladder outside of the suspect, but come to think of it, I really do like the idea.

 

[DEG]

There seems to be a somewhat misunderstanding while discussing Z-moves. People tend to label them as broken, but in fact they aren't broken. They are unhealthy. They overcentralize the metagame around them in an unhealthy way which is way they are in the unhealthy box and not broken. Now there are different possibilities about what we should do and lot more scenarios and could happen. Also do not worry, the council is fully aware about Z-crystals and how they shape the metagame so a simple Suspect Test won't be the option here.

Anyways there seem to be a lot of opinions and two sides, I'll go on and create a third side and you can put yourself wherever you want. As I said Z-moves aren't "Broken" to say the least but are subject to unhealthy overcentralization, but why? Have we seen lower ranked Pokemon running the Z-move and say that it should be banned? No, I don't think so. The problem comes with high ranked / overused Pokemon that have access to such moves. So instead of banning the whole mechanic or doing nothing at all, there's an overlooked option that seems to mitigate the issue. Now people may say we are running away from the problem instead of facing it, but in fact it is the way of facing the problem without receiving a lot of damage. There's a policy in my head which says; "If the Z-Crystal makes multiple Pokemon broken, the Z-Crystal should be banned, and if isn't the case, the abuser should be banned". By saying that we have classified our current metagames into Pokemon that use Z-Crystals but aren't broken as they have lot of checks and others that abuse Z-Crystals and with that can take on pretty much a big portion of the metagame.

By segregating such Pokemon we now have on our hit list; Groundium-Z, Rockium-Z, Fairium-Z, and Mimikium-Z. These Z-crystals are usable on a lot of abusers (bar Mimikium, but why remove Fairy-Z and leave Mimikyu with its own crystal), and are proof of metagame overcentralizing. The main abusers of Rockium-Z and Groundium-Z are Golem and Donphan but aren't limited to such option, since a lot of Pokemon are slapping these Z-crystals to defeat other Pokemon such as other Sturdy users which become only relevant due to these options like Gigalith and Onix. Meanwhile Fairium-Z have scary threats in the form of Mimikyu and Magearna while other Pokemon such as Primarina and Tapu Koko can abuse it too. These Z-crystals define overused crystals which are unhealthy as their users are either too common or too many.

On another side we have two Pokemon that are broken due to their Z-moves abuse; Kyurem-Black and Tapu Koko. Banning Icium-Z and Electrium-Z is useless as the main abusers are broken. Yes, you heard me right, Tapu Koko is broken. I won't go across Kyurem-Black since everybody gets the idea now but man Tapu Koko has never been brought up before. Tapu Koko is one of the Pokemon that deserves to be banned, only a few selected Pokemon lives Electrium-Z Wild Charge / Thunder and Sturdy abusers are one of them, and this is where Tapu Koko shenanigans comes into play. Iron Defense / Reflect Tapu Koko allows it to easily beat its Ground-type checks (I don't use Koko but that's what I heard, correct me if I'm wrong). And even if we ban both Groundium-Z and Rockium-Z, Tapu Koko will be allowed to run other moves and not fear such Pokemon. Also, even bulky Pokemon cannot easily defeat Tapu Koko as its other set have both Taunt and Substitute and most of its regular sets have Charge with allows it to fire off a more powerful GigaVH. It also have a great speed tier and its sheer power can defeat even Pokemon that resists Electric just like Charizard-X, and it can't be put to sleep due to the terrain effect. I don't know how people never discussed Tapu Koko before.

Note that; the council are reading your posts daily and we will be putting everything on a voting slate when we gather enough informations so keep posting!

 

[dom]

so apparently the council will discuss tapu koko. literally why? i guess it's the flagship z-move user, but as deg himself already mentioned, zmoves arent going to be treated as "broken", just unhealthy to the point where they should be banned, which i agree with. tapu koko is not broken. annoying? sure. makes you tilt? sure. i could see it being suspect worthy or something if fairium was used to the point of electrium, but even then i wouldnt vote ban. unfortunately, fairium has less usage than specs, which is a meme set. i really feel like looking at koko is a way to beat around the bush with zmoves, the problem is zmoves consuming the entire meta, not the individual users being broken.

 

[QuagsireBiscuit]

Mega Gyarados is Busted here are 4 reasons why
1. Intimidate stops threats like Charizard X, Mega Pinsir, and other physical attackers.
2. Move Pool is amazing getting moves from every type but Fairy and Grass
3. Dragon dance.
4. Great stats all around even its special is somewhat usable at 70.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Warning: A N G E R Y post incoming

Correct me if I'm wrong, but last time I checked, the whole point of a tiering council was to act in the best interest of the playerbase, and make decisions based on what's going on in the tier and the opinions of the tier's players.

So what the fuck is up with this stupid-ass Tapu Koko thing that just came out of nowhere? Nobody was asking for this. NOBODY. It would've been one thing if DEG laid out his arguments, and then people discussed it and slowly said "Oh yeah, maybe he's got a point". But that's not what happened. What instead happened was that we tried to talk about and nip z-moves in the bud, and then DEG just swooped in and said "koko's broken" and then went ahead and did his own thing. No good TL should do that. If anything, this sort of behavior just alienates people and makes it more likely they'll say no to a ban.

Now, why we're focusing on Tapu Koko and not Z-moves as a whole, it's just to avoid controversy for the time being. We need more opinions and more posts and a suspect might and will take over a month to be accomplished to get the best results and it might not end up with the ban of z-moves and we can't take this risk being close to 1v1PL. The best the council can do to avoid a lot of controversy and backlash is to look at individual crystals and abusers at the time being.

BS, pure BS. What controversy is there? From what I've seen on the forums and the Discord, people arguing for keeping z-moves around in their current state at this point are a minority. Almost everyone agrees that some kind of restriction is needed. Remember, compared to other formats, 1v1 is a pretty small community, and considering our size, I'd say that the discussion surrounding z-moves has been more than substantial. We don't "need more opinions and more posts" because pretty much every major member of the community at this point has laid down their opinions on z-moves in some shape, form or matter, and woopedy freaking doo, a large majority of them are, at the bare minimum, pro-suspect. It's funny how you say we need to wait for more discussion on z-moves before doing something, yet you decide to go ahead with a Tapu Koko "look-at", despite zero discussion having taken place on that so far. And even if we assume that the fight over z-moves was a 50/50 kinda like Kyu-B was, this is still dumb. The council is supposed to face with and discuss about controversy, not try desperately to avoid it, only making more people mad in the process. I mean, for god's sake, if 1v1PL is that much of a big deal, just postpone it! If it means taking the time to sort out the problems of 1v1 beforehand, it's more than worth it to have a better tourney.

In short, if the 1v1 leadership truly cares about what's best for 1v1 as a whole, I would highly encourage them to take the obvious hint from dom's post to stop beating around the bush, drop the Tapu Koko discussion (or at least wait for more opinions from the community before continuing), and focus on z-moves.

 

[DEG]

Warning: A N G E R Y post incoming

Correct me if I'm wrong, but last time I checked, the whole point of a tiering council was to act in the best interest of the playerbase, and make decisions based on what's going on in the tier and the opinions of the tier's players.

So what the fuck is up with this stupid-ass Tapu Koko thing that just came out of nowhere? Nobody was asking for this. NOBODY. It would've been one thing if DEG laid out his arguments, and then people discussed it and slowly said "Oh yeah, maybe he's got a point". But that's not what happened. What instead happened was that we tried to talk about and nip z-moves in the bud, and then DEG just swooped in and said "koko's broken" and then went ahead and did his own thing. No good TL should do that. If anything, this sort of behavior just alienates people and makes it more likely they'll say no to a ban.



BS, pure BS. What controversy is there? From what I've seen on the forums and the Discord, people arguing for keeping z-moves around in their current state at this point are a minority. Almost everyone agrees that some kind of restriction is needed. Remember, compared to other formats, 1v1 is a pretty small community, and considering our size, I'd say that the discussion surrounding z-moves has been more than substantial. We don't "need more opinions and more posts" because pretty much every major member of the community at this point has laid down their opinions on z-moves in some shape, form or matter, and woopedy freaking doo, a large majority of them are, at the bare minimum, pro-suspect. It's funny how you say we need to wait for more discussion on z-moves before doing something, yet you decide to go ahead with a Tapu Koko "look-at", despite zero discussion having taken place on that so far. And even if we assume that the fight over z-moves was a 50/50 kinda like Kyu-B was, this is still dumb. The council is supposed to face with and discuss about controversy, not try desperately to avoid it, only making more people mad in the process. I mean, for god's sake, if 1v1PL is that much of a big deal, just postpone it! If it means taking the time to sort out the problems of 1v1 beforehand, it's more than worth it to have a better tourney.

In short, if the 1v1 leadership truly cares about what's best for 1v1 as a whole, I would highly encourage them to take the obvious hint from dom's post to stop beating around the bush, drop the Tapu Koko discussion (or at least wait for more opinions from the community before continuing), and focus on z-moves.

Before insulting the whole leadership know that this is my damn opinion and I'm allowed to have one. If I'm a council member, can't I post about something. No where we said the council is looking to ban Tapu Koko.

Also before saying banning Z-moves isn't controversial you're clearly not reading the room and discord, we're the ones that get the PMs and debate not you.

 

[The Immortal]

Warning: A N G E R Y post incoming

Last I checked this was a discussion thread for the 1v1 metagame. DEG wanted to talk about Tapu Koko and so he has the right to, just like any user can discuss any Pokemon. Do not attack someone for their opinion. DEG already clarified but for the record Tapu Koko isn't even something being discussed by the council. Not yet anyway. Perhaps if the community brings up reasons to suspect it then it will. Anyway, point is you do not have the right to tell anyone in this thread what to discuss and what not to discuss. Kindly refrain from attacking people and minimodding. Thanks.

 

[ayedan]

Well... I heard this is where you post about a mon that u would like to get suspected so... why not give it a try...
E̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶o̶p̶i̶n̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶n̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶

I want to bring up a mon that is brought up sometimes in the 1v1 room and whether it should be in the tier or banned. I am talking about Tapu Koko. Tapu Koko has been a premier mon in 1v1 ever since SM. This is mainly because of Z moves and the Z moves most commonly used on Koko, Electrium Z and Fairium Z. These contribute to the reason why Koko is so high in usage and...well...so good in 1v1. Electrium Z, the most commonly used one out of the two, nukes mons and can OHKO mons or severely damage them. This includes chansey, blissey, or any special wall as Electrium can be physical or special. This also can cause a confusion between whether to run a physically defensive wall (like aggron) or a special wall (like chansey) for koko. Also Electrium Z is boosted by the electric terrain and STAB further increasing the damage. Fairium Z, the lesser used z move out of the two, is also a nuke which reaches the base power of 160 and blast electric resisters out of the water (most of them). As electrium is much more power than fairium, fairium hits the opposing mon that resist the electric typing (grass, dragon, electric) for neutral or super effective damage. This includes mons like Kyurem-Black, Mega Altaria, Mega Ampharos, Mega and regular Garchomp, opposing Kokos, and Zygarde-C. This can also apply the element of suprise as both Electrium (65.549%) and Specs (13.652%)(meme set) have higher usage than Fairium (12.233%). These two items have helped koko out so much in viability, it's not funny.
Mons That Beat Koko
Mega Venusuar has been a great check to Koko due to its typing and overall bulk. Since grass resist electric and poison resisted fairium, Koko has a hard time with Mega Venusuar and most of the time loses to it. You say, "Most of the time? I thought it always walls it?!" Well, with around 2.5%, we have flyium z koko. Paired with brave bird, flyium z can do tons of damage to venusuar.

Excadrill- Excadrill, like venusuar, resist both STABS and is immune to Electric. One of the mons that actually wall Koko fully and is somewhat viable.

Kartana-same thing basically, resist both STABS except doesnt wall koko fully bcz Kartana has paper-thin sp def (see what i did there ;D) in 40 and if spA nature In koko, can be OHKO'd with thunder electrium z + electric terrain.
Im too lazy and too busy to list them all but, you basically get the point.
-Needs good defenses and somewhat good hp, has to resist both STABS and brave bird.

I AM NOT WRITING THIS AS A POINT TO SUSPECT KOKO, I AM WRITING THIS TO SHOW HOW KOKO COULD BE OVERWHELMING TO THE META. THIS COULD BE USED AS A WAY TO SHOW WHY IT SHOULD BE SUSPECTED.
I hope this shows you how koko fairs in the meta and how people could see it as overwhelming like me. I wouldn't mind a suspect as I could see koko as a threat to the meta itself as a full on z move abuser.

I hope u read all of this and somehow enjoyed it ;-;.
Love you guys,
LucarioAidan

 

[Pride Killer]

Couldn't agree more tbh. Z moves have given every pokemon the potential to be there own mini-kyub, which limits the already selective metagame. However, if we do ban Z-moves, we would absolutely need to resuspect certzygodain pokemon, as the whole reason others, including myself, did not consider zygod to be extraordinarily unhealthy for the metagame was that you could rely on a z move to off it before it became an issue. Without Z-Moves, it's disgusting bulk would become unmanageable if you couldn't predict properly, or if you made your team specifically for zygod.

Couldnt say it better myself. We can all agree that the 1v1 meta is usually revolved around brute force of mons alone such as kyub and zard X. Adding Z moves to the mix really diminishes any defensive and tactical strategies that could be used in the meta. There needs to be a balance to how much power you can truly allow in a 1v1 situation, just as we banned a majority of ubers mons and Marshadow-- whos Z move also made it rather broken.

 

[Garou]

It is my personal belief that in a tier like this, Z-Moves are unhealthy. I believe this because they are really annoying to play against and one shot so many things and most importantly promote counter teaming even further than usual as you can have sets like bloom doom donphan just to counter one specific team on the ladder, and this is not usually a viable set at all and as far as promoting competitive tournament play it is not what I think anyone envisions as having the most competitive space for the current metagame filled with, to be frank, utterly retarded counter team Z-Move sets like the aforementioned donphan set is just not what I, and I hope other people want.

 

[Nalei]

The Future of 1v1

The council has decided to halt public suspects tests for the foreseeable future. The first reason being the low outcome of voters in the previous suspect tests. The second is that we feel that the public of 1v1 at large doesn't know what's best for itself. The last few suspects had results in which the majority wanted change, but due to a 60% supermajority being required to ban, nothing happened. We are therefor taking matters into our own hands and voting on past suspects. Note that this does not mean that you, the player, are powerless. We want to hear what you have to say!

What does this mean in regards to Z moves? While we won't be having public suspect tests anymore, suspect tests will still exist, albeit in a different form. While the specifics are a tad fuzzy, our current intention is to host a Z move suspect test. In it, we'll let the meta develop, people share their opinions, and build our own opinions. At the conclusion of the suspect, the council will take a vote. All feedback is greatly appreciated.

As mentioned above, the first order of business by the council was to revisit the last several suspects.

Jirachi: Jirachi's purpose has always been one-fold: to flinch the opponent with its Serene Grace Iron Heads and Heart Stamps. Because of this, paired with its insane 100 base+Choice Scarf speed tier, it is neigh impossible to reliably beat bar the few things that are capable of outspeeding it. Because an entirely hax-reliant niche has no place in a competitive metagame, Jirachi was deemed to be uncompetitive.

Kyurem-Black: Since the beginning of the generation, Kyurem-B has been the best Pokemon in the meta. All it takes to understand why Kyurem-B was banned is to take a glace at the sets VR; Kyurem-B has 15 viable sets, which is three times more than its runner-ups. Additionally, its different sets have radically different checks and counters and are indistinguishable at team preview, meaning that it is almost impossible to reliably beat. The number of Pokemon that can hard counter Kyurem-B numbers in at around three, as well. For these reasons, Kyurem-B was deemed to be broken.

Jirachi and Kyurem-Black are now banned from 1v1.

If you have any questions about the process of the planned suspect on Z moves or anything else, feel free to shoot the council members a PM.

 

[ayedan]

OML, JIRACHI IS BANNED?!?!?!? YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

 

[Ginger Princess]

I can run ice fang gyara again :D

edit: ok deg

 

[DEG]

This is not a reason to post one liners, please avoid doing so.

This is what my votes were based on;

Kyurem-Black: No ban. Idk, I still don't see Kyurem-Black as broken and I don't know what pushes it over the edge. It's one of the Pokemon I rarely prepare for and still manage to beat. It might have great defensive and offensive capabilities but that feels like most Z-abusers nowadays. Yea it might be unpredictable but its checks aren't that rare, Steel-type Pokemon are abundant, so are Fairy-type Pokemon and these Pokemon aren't even bad and are on every team. Yes, every team has a Kyurem-Black counter without even trying, not counting your average meme teams.

Jirachi: Ban. Not even going to discuss this, it has no use other than haxing and if someone tells you otherwise they are lying.

Zygarde-C: Ban.
Zygarde-Complete is a different story it's not broken because it's unpredictable, but it's typing is amazing and help it a lot in its role at being a defensive behemoth. Zygarde-Complete is hard to kill to the point where only a handful of Pokemon can threatens it. Zygarde-C also has access to Coil and other moves which allows it to defeat its opponent. Substitute can defeat stall users by blocking Charm or Toxic. Thousand Arrows is also a really good move which hits Pokemon immune to Ground-type moves while Outrage help it capitalize on a lot of Pokemon. It also isn't hard getting in the Complete form since it's also bulky pre-complete form and Coil helps it transform into Complete without dying against offensive Pokemon. Zygarde-Complete's overall defensive and offensive capabilities sends it over the border.

Sleep: Ban. I don't know how we can ban Jirachi but keep sleep unbanned. Both have the same role which is fishing for wins with luck. While using Jirachi you're not guaranteed a win same as sleep and that's why both are incompetitive. You're throwing the whole game on luck. Just click Yawn or sleep Powder and may the luckiest player win, this is a flawed concept in 1v1. Regular tiers have sleep clause cause putting everything to sleep gives you free turns while in 1v1 that 1 pokemon in your whole team. There's literally NO USE for sleep except fishing wins against pokemon you don't beat.

 

[Uselesscrab]

deg ninja'd me but here is what I wrote

Hide

Kyurem-Black: Ban. My vote doesn't actually matter at this point since there are already three ban votes, but I'll post my reasoning anyway, because I gave this one a lot of thought and went back and forth a few times. For one, the mere presence of this Pokemon and its Scarf set is the primary reason why anything remotely frail has to run amounts of bulk that would be ludicrously impractical in other tiers — and those frail things aren't even guaranteed victory, because if they aren't quite powerful enough (in the context of our current meta, i.e., use a super effective Z-move or Band/Specs) they still run the risk of losing to bulky Icium or WP or whatever set is the flavor of the month. This Pokemon is the face of the ultra-fat offense that has been the heart and soul of 1v1 for as long as I can remember: it's everywhere, Mega Metagross is everywhere because of it (yes, I know it counters other stuff too, but its #1 selling point is being a top-tier Kyurem-B check), Mega Gyarados is probably its best viable counter, and so on. At a certain point one wonders if that's too much of a constraining effect to have on teambuilding.

Jirachi: Do not ban. I know I'm going against the grain here, and thus my vote is completely symbolic, but I've often found that in order to actually get meaningful amounts of hax and create the uncompetitive situations that people are so concerned about, Jirachi has to reach such statistically improbable levels of hax that it doesn't substantially differ from, for example, getting a low roll or missing a high-accuracy move.

Power Construct: Do not ban. Maybe it's just me, but on top of rarely if ever encountering this Pokemon on the ladder, I never find myself at a loss when I do. Yes, it simply stonewalls a wide variety of attackers. But Fairy- and, to a lesser extent, Ice-type moves are so widespread — and Zygarde so rarely outspeeds the users of these moves (and even when it does, it doesn't necessarily OHKO them, especially without Groundium Z) that it just flat-out dies in countless matchups. I know that as DEG pointed out, it has the ability to shield itself from many stall strategies with Substitute or Toxic, but the fact is that Will-o-Wisp and Charm are in no way restricted to slow and passive Pokemon. I have simply never seen this Pokemon as banworthy.

Sleep: Abstain. I was inclined to vote no ban here, but then I realized that any argument I would use contradicts my views on either Z-moves or Jirachi, so I need to wait until I actually have an eloquent and well-reasoned viewpoint about sleep before making any drastic decisions one way or another.

 

[Garou]

I might as well post my thoughts though I am not an esteemed council member. Warning: these will probably be short since I am not a fan of long posts but oh well.

Kyurem Black: Ban

Kyurem-Black is an incredibly meta defining force, one which has shaped the meta for a long time. The reason behind why I think it should be banned is because it can run so many sets well, which I think makes it unable to be prepared for efficiently. It is a top abuser of Z-Moves, another hotly debated topic right now as far as I can see, and its also very strong with choice items, such as choice band and choice scarf. It has solid anti meta options and stuff to push past would be checks, and the only true checks it has are very limited in number, to things like Magearna and Mega Metagross, which can be played around and defeated with certain sets and moveslot options. Thus I believe its extreme viability while remaining versatile is banworthy, as well as it being incredibly overcentralizing.

Jirachi: Ban

I have pure hatred for this godawfully annoying fucking pokemon. GOOD FUCKING BYE.

Zygarde-Complete: Do Not Ban

I do not think this pokemon is broken, its bad speed tier, in conjunction with limited moveslot options makes it very predictable, and I rarely have any trouble with it when I encounter it, without needing any extra preparation for it. It has a solid boosting option in Coil, however needing to drop below 50% before activating Power Construct leaves it susceptible to threats like Charizard-X and Taunt Mega Gyarados, the latter I feel will be more common now due to the neccesity of outrage for Kyurem-black no longer being a thing since Kyurem-Black is banned.

Sleep: Do Not Ban

I can not really put into words how I feel about this one but banning a whole status mechanic, one that is not used an incredible amount, just does not sit with me very well, idk.

thats about it I guess, go easy on me please :[

 

[ayedan]

I'm going to post something about these OMG bans, its going to be small but, informational. The KYU-B BAN-with this ban, sturdies are amazing even with mega gyarados still swimming aroun. Zygod is now even better with this ban as it just lost its best counter in the metagame and is arguably, the best dragon in 1v1. Mimikyu is still going to be cancerous and with kyu-b now gone, its going to be an even better top tier mon (maybe be suspected even with sleep and zygod.) This ban has changed the entire metagame in a whole. The JIRACHI BAN- ahhh, finally, this cancerous, piece of shit mon, is now gone. With this ban, sturdies like sawk, are much better and can be flinched to death. Mimikyu (this thing needs to be suspected now) is even better as one of its checks, is now gone. Mons like Blacephalon, have less of a niche as a mon it beats, is now gone. Sleep doesnt have to worry about flinch hax and is now even more broken. Lopunny is a little bit more viable as it cant be outspeed and flinched to death by heart stamp.
Overall, I like these bans as a whole. I would honestly like to see sleep tested and maybe even zygod and mimikyu with the new bans. Thx for reading this,
Love you guys (and osra),
Lucarioaidan

 

[DurzaOffTopic]

Disclaimer: a lot of this was taken from other people / reworded from other people since, to be frank, it couldn't be said any better.
Please read this. It's important.

This is purely about the council decision that I so heavily disagree with. This is insanity - not only is it taking away our say in things, its reversing things you already let us have a say in. I'm outraged, and I didn't even have the time to vote in these suspects.

Just because people the 1v1 council deems marginally worse than them have different opinions doesn't mean that those opinions are inherently wrong. You have to have a decent level of competence to obtain reqs, and if you're actually voting then you're both knowledgeable and care about the state of the metagame.

A strong argument doesn't correlate with how the meta feels when something is broken. A guy could say "yes focus sash was broken because it was strong." and you would call him an idiot even though he is correct and then disenfranchise him. At the end of the day, it's not opinions that get things banned, it's how people feel when they play against it. People who get reqs go through 70 games against something and can obviously tell its broken, they just can't put it into words.

One thing you have to understand that Smogon and the whole tiering system is built around community contribution, and eschewing the community in such tiering decisions is antithetical. Although suspect testing does take a lot of time, many suspect tests enforce strict requirements that guarantee that the top players will be voting, not just some randoms. Although though bigger tiers have council changes pretty often, they never go "ok we have a new council, time to break the way we've been handling it forever and now approach things way differently".

No matter how the council tries to dress it up now, it's pretty much obvious they just took the "masses" (as if x or so votes out of hundreds of players is a mass anyways) voting away because they disagreed with the Jirachi or Kyurem non-ban. If the reasoning was so obvious to them, obviously they shouldn't have let it go to a public test and just council ban before.

It's also extremely ironic that in most of the last suspect tests, a significant amount of the council didn't even bother to get reqs.

Instead, the council decided to directly contradict the tiering you guys outlined for 1v1, for the sake of having a "better tier." I wanted to keep Kyurem and I still think that was a right decision. So why don't you explain to me why my opinion was wrong and why that means people like me should have even less influence than we already do?

Except this isn't possible, because you don't even know my own personal opinion on why Kyurem-B should not be banned since I never put my full opinion out. I didn't get the reqs either but that was because of personal time issues. It was never a requirement that the other voters post their opinion and now you're saying they can't vote because their opinions weren't good enough? What? You're saying they failed in a requirement that didn't even exist.

So what is it? Am I not good enough at 1v1 yet to have an opinion? Just because some of the council and maybe 10 or 20 max other players (I say max because not even 20 voted ban) disagreed with one decision doesn't mean torpedo the system, it means it's possible that you just got fairly outvoted and people thoughtfully and legitimately actually disagreed with you. Is that so hard to believe?

I think this is kind of unfair considering a fair few of them are also playing in major 1v1 tours and, rightly so, their priorities are towards building for that and helping their teammates as best they can. This will happen with other tournaments throughout the year. We want to keep top players engaged with the tier, not drive them away and I feel something like this has the potential to do the latter.

Even if I don’t accept that the public system is as flawed as it’s made out to be I’m glad there is an ongoing consideration towards reaching the best solution for everyone. Mace is completely right about producing the best tier being the most important factor here, even if it is subjective I would much rather play a fun and balanced metagame and not be able to vote than the other way round.

While I agree that there is for sure several voters which probably don't know enough the 1v1 metagame and get reqs just because someone passes them a good team to easily get them, I think that "Public Suspect Tests" are required because it allows some players who like being involved in 1v1 to give our opinion otherwise than by words.

If you don't want several people which probably don't know enough the 1v1 metagame and get reqs because someone gave them a good team you can follow what others councils have done. For example, the RU council during ORAS made two suspect tests where you have to reach 2900 reqs twice, I mean there were two laddering process. In the end, only like 15 people managed to vote, so it was a good suspect in my opinion, as only players that were really interest in the tier voted. So, I think that something like that can happen here, and in that way the council doesn't have to read people complaining, and in the end few people will vote, but this process is very long, so that is a problem.

What I am trying to say is: The council is not a group of PU players, they play and know 1v1 probably more that anyone, but there are people that also know this tier, that also care about it, because we spend time playing this game, and they should be able to vote if they really show that they care about 1v1 development.

I just don't see how not sticking to the public suspect for now is not satisfactory right now. I understand if Council Votes are needed to decide on broken things after a Generation shift or something, but for stuff that's been in the tier for roughly two months already. To design a public system of tiering is to acknowledge the innate flaws a public voting system has (even with GXE-COIL requirements). There will always be information bias, and people will listen to those that they relate to more.

Members that post more in the metagame thread that facilitate discussion here like Gross Sweep or Kentari will have a greater influence than either DEG or The Immortal, both of which post infrequently. Strong leadership that wants the public to agree with their views focuses on engaging with their members more.

You may ask, "Why should a person w/o 1v1 knowledge, a person that started playing the tier yesterday have a saying to whether or not a Pokemon gets banned or not?". Perfectly valid question. However, my question is what stops that person from logging on smogon, reading the arguments posted on the suspect discussion thread and form an actual opinion based on what people that play 1v1 more consistently say?
And as utopian as that scenario sounds like, we all the know the answer to that is ''absolutely nothing''.

What makes a vote unhealthy and toxic for the community and the meta is personal bias. Because at the end of the day, the council does consist of people that know 1v1 very well, but they are just people and people do have bias (some more, some less). And yes the 1v1 council might know today whats best. Who or what guarantees that they will know tomorrow? What guarantees that the new members that will eventually get added will always know what is best for the tier? Nothing can possibly guarantee that.

If you really want to move to a more well defined, objectively healthier suspecting process you need to accept that every vote carries some sort of bias whether it comes from a council member, myself, a guy that started playing yesterday etc. If you are willing to work on that and eliminate the bias from the votes, that will lead you to a clear, beneficial result, whether the people that are voting are 6 or 3006.

I doubt anybody would be upset with harder reqs or a higher bar to reach, I know I wouldn't have been. But instead, you post this drivel about council, and heavily insinuate people who voted differently with Kyurem-B were wrong. What's sad is that the system isn't even changing that much, but by only critiquing the public system and making it seem like only top player's have relevant opinions, you're making an unnecessary divide between the PS 1v1 community and the more Smogonish/tournament 1v1 community. While these two have a lot of overlap there are definitely things that distinguish both of them.

So why do you feel the need to insist that 'top players' have some type of knowledge unavailable to the rest of us? We all play the same metagame with the same rules. A lot of this tiering just comes down to opinions and preferences. I'm glad you know a divide exists between the best and the rest so to speak. I'm just saying I think you're needlessly reinforcing it with your words.

I know you guys actually deliberate and am confident in your decisions. Can't you give your user base, the ones who are just decent in laddering and make the effort to post here that same respect?

 

[edudittA]

OKAY FOLKS, IT'S TIME TO GET THIS META BACK TO SUNNY CLIMES

On KyuB:

Since it was introduced in gen5, Kyurem-Black has been a total monster. And ever since 1v1 become existent in gen6, it was clear that KyuB is gonna drive the meta, owing its insane viability to its superb stat distribution coupled with a decent movepool. It could run Choice items which, with the right EVs, forced teams to run a dedicated counter to KyuB. If Choice Scarf got walled by MGyarados and MCharX, bulky Choice Band didn't; if Relicanth could tank Physical KyuB, there was a possibility of special KyuB bopping it; and special KyuB counters couldn't tank physical counters. The advent of gen7 brought a far deadlier weapon into its grasp: ZMoves. It got its number of viable movesets doubled nearly with Icium Z, Dragonium Z, and the lesser frequently used Groundium Z and Electrium Z. This absolutely shook the meta, and this was the point when KyuB became inexcusably broken beyond measure. So, I feel that KyuB ban is totally justified. Thank you Council for it.


On Jirachi

This has been an even controversial topic of discussion, but what pushes it over the edge is not its ability to cheese out wins against would-be checks, but the uncompetitive factor introduced in every game Jirachi( Iron Head, Heart Stamp Choice Scarf is what I'm meaning here) plays, coupled with a fantastic typing makes it not a broken Pokemon, but an uncompetitive one. So, yet again, thanks to the Council for banning Jirachi.

 

[Ginger Princess]

I agree with all of these decisions except DNB sleep. I am shocked that the council could think that flinching someone to death is unbalanced, but winning if your opponent doesn't wake up turn one is perfectly fine. Any player well versed in the current metagame should know that previous statement is not an exaggeration.

Banning Kyurem-Black is the most drastic (but required) ban that will definitely lead to the additional suspect tests for mons that were countered by Kyub, specifically Zygarde-Complete and Mimikyu. However, just because banning Kyurem-Black opens the door for other potentially broken Pokemon doesn't mean that Kyurem-Black did not deserve to be banned. I am reminded of Landorus-Therian in OU, except Landorus-Therian is competitive and balanced, as it cannot simply on the fly make a set that beats any one of it counters, and in a 6v6 meta such as OU, Landorus-Therian cannot easily overpower entire teams, unlike Kyurem-Black. I would describe Kyurem-Black as 1v1's poisonous glue; it checks many powerful mons, but also has the potential to beat almost every Pokemon in the meta, given enough creativity with setbuilding. It needed to go.

People are also concerned with the Council's bypass of the last 3 suspect test's results. I believe that while this is indeed concerning, and could set a dangerous precedent if not properly checked, I believe there is a simple solution that can satisfy everyone. Only allow the council to bypass suspect decision in cases where voting resulted in a 50-59% ban vote. The Kyurem-Black, Jirachi, and Zygod suspect tests all fall under this category, and each of these tests were controversial and undeniably involved people voting for their own benefit, rather than voting with the metagame in mind. If a suspect result comes in with a supermajority, it is clear that the Pokemon or mechanic in question is banworthy; if the result comes in with a minority ban vote, it is clear that the Pokemon or mechanic is fine in the metagame. Only in these cases of "majority but not supermajority" should the council intervene. To be clear, I disagree with the decision to completely halt public suspect tests, but I do agree with the choice to override the previous 3 suspect decisions. Public suspects should be the basis of what should or should not be banned in any meta, but at the same time, any suspect test where a majority is met, but not a supermajority, should be reviewed.

Council, I implore that you reimplement public suspect testing with this "50-59%" clause in effect. I think this is a balanced way to continue suspecting without letting personal biases rule the metagame.

 

[The Official Glyx]

Disclaimer: a lot of this was taken from other people / reworded from other people since, to be frank, it couldn't be said any better.
Please read this. It's important.

This is purely about the council decision that I so heavily disagree with. This is insanity - not only is it taking away our say in things, its reversing things you already let us have a say in. I'm outraged, and I didn't even have the time to vote in these suspects.

Just because people the 1v1 council deems marginally worse than them have different opinions doesn't mean that those opinions are inherently wrong. You have to have a decent level of competence to obtain reqs, and if you're actually voting then you're both knowledgeable and care about the state of the metagame.

A strong argument doesn't correlate with how the meta feels when something is broken. A guy could say "yes focus sash was broken because it was strong." and you would call him an idiot even though he is correct and then disenfranchise him. At the end of the day, it's not opinions that get things banned, it's how people feel when they play against it. People who get reqs go through 70 games against something and can obviously tell its broken, they just can't put it into words.

One thing you have to understand that Smogon and the whole tiering system is built around community contribution, and eschewing the community in such tiering decisions is antithetical. Although suspect testing does take a lot of time, many suspect tests enforce strict requirements that guarantee that the top players will be voting, not just some randoms. Although though bigger tiers have council changes pretty often, they never go "ok we have a new council, time to break the way we've been handling it forever and now approach things way differently".

No matter how the council tries to dress it up now, it's pretty much obvious they just took the "masses" (as if x or so votes out of hundreds of players is a mass anyways) voting away because they disagreed with the Jirachi or Kyurem non-ban. If the reasoning was so obvious to them, obviously they shouldn't have let it go to a public test and just council ban before.

It's also extremely ironic that in most of the last suspect tests, a significant amount of the council didn't even bother to get reqs.

Instead, the council decided to directly contradict the tiering you guys outlined for 1v1, for the sake of having a "better tier." I wanted to keep Kyurem and I still think that was a right decision. So why don't you explain to me why my opinion was wrong and why that means people like me should have even less influence than we already do?

Except this isn't possible, because you don't even know my own personal opinion on why Kyurem-B should not be banned since I never put my full opinion out. I didn't get the reqs either but that was because of personal time issues. It was never a requirement that the other voters post their opinion and now you're saying they can't vote because their opinions weren't good enough? What? You're saying they failed in a requirement that didn't even exist.

So what is it? Am I not good enough at 1v1 yet to have an opinion? Just because some of the council and maybe 10 or 20 max other players (I say max because not even 20 voted ban) disagreed with one decision doesn't mean torpedo the system, it means it's possible that you just got fairly outvoted and people thoughtfully and legitimately actually disagreed with you. Is that so hard to believe?

I think this is kind of unfair considering a fair few of them are also playing in major 1v1 tours and, rightly so, their priorities are towards building for that and helping their teammates as best they can. This will happen with other tournaments throughout the year. We want to keep top players engaged with the tier, not drive them away and I feel something like this has the potential to do the latter.

Even if I don’t accept that the public system is as flawed as it’s made out to be I’m glad there is an ongoing consideration towards reaching the best solution for everyone. Mace is completely right about producing the best tier being the most important factor here, even if it is subjective I would much rather play a fun and balanced metagame and not be able to vote than the other way round.

While I agree that there is for sure several voters which probably don't know enough the 1v1 metagame and get reqs just because someone passes them a good team to easily get them, I think that "Public Suspect Tests" are required because it allows some players who like being involved in 1v1 to give our opinion otherwise than by words.

If you don't want several people which probably don't know enough the 1v1 metagame and get reqs because someone gave them a good team you can follow what others councils have done. For example, the RU council during ORAS made two suspect tests where you have to reach 2900 reqs twice, I mean there were two laddering process. In the end, only like 15 people managed to vote, so it was a good suspect in my opinion, as only players that were really interest in the tier voted. So, I think that something like that can happen here, and in that way the council doesn't have to read people complaining, and in the end few people will vote, but this process is very long, so that is a problem.

What I am trying to say is: The council is not a group of PU players, they play and know 1v1 probably more that anyone, but there are people that also know this tier, that also care about it, because we spend time playing this game, and they should be able to vote if they really show that they care about 1v1 development.

I just don't see how not sticking to the public suspect for now is not satisfactory right now. I understand if Council Votes are needed to decide on broken things after a Generation shift or something, but for stuff that's been in the tier for roughly two months already. To design a public system of tiering is to acknowledge the innate flaws a public voting system has (even with GXE-COIL requirements). There will always be information bias, and people will listen to those that they relate to more.

Members that post more in the metagame thread that facilitate discussion here like Gross Sweep or Kentari will have a greater influence than either DEG or The Immortal, both of which post infrequently. Strong leadership that wants the public to agree with their views focuses on engaging with their members more.

You may ask, "Why should a person w/o 1v1 knowledge, a person that started playing the tier yesterday have a saying to whether or not a Pokemon gets banned or not?". Perfectly valid question. However, my question is what stops that person from logging on smogon, reading the arguments posted on the suspect discussion thread and form an actual opinion based on what people that play 1v1 more consistently say?
And as utopian as that scenario sounds like, we all the know the answer to that is ''absolutely nothing''.

What makes a vote unhealthy and toxic for the community and the meta is personal bias. Because at the end of the day, the council does consist of people that know 1v1 very well, but they are just people and people do have bias (some more, some less). And yes the 1v1 council might know today whats best. Who or what guarantees that they will know tomorrow? What guarantees that the new members that will eventually get added will always know what is best for the tier? Nothing can possibly guarantee that.

If you really want to move to a more well defined, objectively healthier suspecting process you need to accept that every vote carries some sort of bias whether it comes from a council member, myself, a guy that started playing yesterday etc. If you are willing to work on that and eliminate the bias from the votes, that will lead you to a clear, beneficial result, whether the people that are voting are 6 or 3006.

I doubt anybody would be upset with harder reqs or a higher bar to reach, I know I wouldn't have been. But instead, you post this drivel about council, and heavily insinuate people who voted differently with Kyurem-B were wrong. What's sad is that the system isn't even changing that much, but by only critiquing the public system and making it seem like only top player's have relevant opinions, you're making an unnecessary divide between the PS 1v1 community and the more Smogonish/tournament 1v1 community. While these two have a lot of overlap there are definitely things that distinguish both of them.

So why do you feel the need to insist that 'top players' have some type of knowledge unavailable to the rest of us? We all play the same metagame with the same rules. A lot of this tiering just comes down to opinions and preferences. I'm glad you know a divide exists between the best and the rest so to speak. I'm just saying I think you're needlessly reinforcing it with your words.

I know you guys actually deliberate and am confident in your decisions. Can't you give your user base, the ones who are just decent in laddering and make the effort to post here that same respect?

This is an excellent example of someone trying to look into the metagame from the outside.

You failed to acknowledge the fact that recent suspects have had absolutely abysmal discussion while the suspect was going on, and that almost all votes that weren't made because X mon did or didn't beat their teams were made either because someone else told them to or because they literally did /pick for it.

Most importantly, I'm seeing far too many people who just skimmed the post rather than taking their time, and as a result, skipping past this portion

What does this mean in regards to Z moves? While we won't be having public suspect tests anymore, suspect tests will still exist, albeit in a different form. While the specifics are a tad fuzzy, our current intention is to host a Z move suspect test. In it, we'll let the meta develop, people share their opinions, and build our own opinions. At the conclusion of the suspect, the council will take a vote. All feedback is greatly appreciated.

This statement literally means that suspects will be handled mostly, if not completely through discussion, which means that your voices now matter more than ever before, since there can't possibly be some random voter or spiteful Ferrothorn lover to cancel out your vote without valid reasoning.

There is a massive downside to this, however, and that is the fact that we now have to convince the Tier Leaders to act with consideration to what we say, rather than just getting a certain rank on a ladder and forcing them to listen to us, however, with that said, I think I'd rather trust Tier Leaders with that kind of power than a growing community of shitposters, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

As much as it pains me to say this, and believe me, it does, I have to agree with DurzaOffTopic. This should never have happened, and while I respect you guys a lot you’ve just disappointed me as leaders.

When a public suspect is held, it’s to decide what will happen with a Pokemon in the tier. While not unheard of, resuspects are a near-to-last resort, only to be used in the case of a near vote and continuing issues or major metagame changes. Overriding a suspect vote with a council vote? Hell no. It’s dishonest, insulting to your playerbase, and incredibly rude to everyone who put in the time to weigh in - especially given that not all of the council even bothered to make those reqs, and is made even more of a kick in the d*ck by the fact that you continue to talk about community input. By doing this, you as a council are making it clear that when you say community input, you mean rubberstamp. If you’re going to be outright ignoring the communities decision, why the hell would they expect to be listened to just by posting? If banning Kyurem-B is so important that it couldn’t be allowed to remain no matter what, it should never have been suspected, ditto for Jirachi. Once you went that step, however, its out of your hands. As an OM and with TI’s approval, 1v1 can do this where official tiers can’t*, but this is a major step in the wrong direction if we want to be taken seriously any time in the next century.

As a player, this won’t stop me from playing, but I’ll be damned if this hasn’t just made me not want to have a thing to do with the 1v1 tiering in the future - and made me not want to even keep defending it. How can I argue that 1v1 isn't a joke and that it should have more inclusion and respect if I’m going to be proven wrong without warning? The decisions themselves aren't exactly an issue, and it would have been fine if they had been council voted from the start or reached by suspect - but with this as the source?

*See the DOU drama with AzuRachi last gen for more info

 

[Chloe]

Can you all actually offer valid criticism like Durza and Quantum did, instead of repeating the same "the TLs don't care" bs over and over again?

 

[PenguinKnees]

Ever since the early days when there was barely even a discord server for the tier, 1v1 has had a very open minded group of players . Often respecting players views and making decisions together as a community. However, I feel like the council betrayed the trust of the community. The councils decision to review past suspects and making the decisions themselves (without asking the community if they felt a resuspect was needed) was inherently a flawed one. The council basically deemed what the community thought was irrelevant due to the low voter turn out. However, it often seems that the voters are the (generally) ranked higher members of the community. The reason we have suspect reqs is so that only players who care enough and are skilled enough are allowed to influence the meta. I think the action of the council was an act of frustration. They were frustrated with the players of the meta they love and their inability to act on something. And though its understandable, I feel like this act of withholding suspect will do far more harm to the player base than it will good for the meta. If I had to offer a solution for this problem, it would be this. If the council wants to keep on with holding suspects, they should at least allow the community to influence what is suspected. In conclusion, I think many players (myself included) trust and respect the council but feel wronged by their lack of community outreach.