The Gigaton Ban Hammer is being dropped with 4/5 votes to quickban. The following will be banned from National Dex Monotype immediately:
-
Terastalization
- Booster Energy
Mega Lucario
Mega Metagross
Mega Salamence
Mega Blaziken
Mega Kangaskhan
Mega Blastoise
Pheromosa
Naganadel
Kartana
Dracovish
Palafin
As much as I personally wanted to see this mechanic stay, it's just too strong for a Monotype metagame even with the answers that NDM has to offer. The ability to change your type is a fundamentally powerful thing in a tier that is focused entirely on specific typing of Pokemon. The addition of a 2x STAB boost makes nearly all offensive threats able to break even resisted opponents. To preserve more diversity in NDM, it makes more sense to ban Terastalization than banning a multitude of Pokemon that abuse the mechanic, especially since that might not even solve the problem.
Surprisingly this vote was extremely one sided. Booster Energy takes Pokemon that have insanely high stats and gives them a free boost that can be manipulated with EVs and can't be Hazed or copied. Removing this item will help to bring down the power creep of all Protosynthesis and Quark Drive Pokemon so they might not need to be banned in the future.
Of the Pokemon being discussed for quick bans, these are well known threats that have been banned since the start of Gen 8 (and before in standard Monotype tiers). The one new addition to this list is Palafin, who instantly jumped to the top of the threat list with it's ability (and ease of activation), high base stats, high BP priority attack and general versatility, even moreso with Z moves. All of them can easily snowball matchups and completely skew type performances and deserve to be banned for the health of the metagame.
Below you can see a breakdown of the votes:
| style.css | Mateeus | maroon | Sunnyboi0 | Vodoom | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terastalization | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Booster Energy | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Mega Lucario | Ban | Ban | Ban | Do Not Ban | Ban |
| Mega Metagross | Ban | Ban | Ban | Do Not Ban | Ban |
| Mega Salamence | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Mega Blaziken | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Mega Kangaskhan | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Mega Blastoise | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Pheromosa | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Naganadel | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Kartana | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Dracovish | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Palafin | Do Not Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
Even with this large list of bans, they were not all that we looked at. With this initial list of bans we can better gauge the power level of the remaining things on our watchlist to decide whether they do need to be banned or not. The rest of our watchlist includes:
Mega Mawile
Mega Medicham
Kyurem-Black
Urshifu-Single-Strike
Iron Valiant
Iron Bundle
Flutter Mane
Roaring Moon
Chien-Pao
Chi-Yu
Houndstone
Cyclizar
Damp Rock
Icy Rock
Smooth Rock
We thank you again for being patient while we sort this all out and we look forward to a great generation of NDM. Let us know what you think and discuss what the metagame might start look like now in our discussion thread!
Tagging Kris for implementation