Metagame Council Minutes - NU Edition

[lax]

Hey everybody, the NU community has seemed to slow down a bit and people have many questions about what is going on. The council is planning on working on this following the current suspect. This thread will be used to explain things we talk about in order to keep the community in the loop more. The idea was taken from the UU version here and the PU one here. I'll try to update this frequently

Metagame Discussion:

&

are currently being tested.

It may seem odd to do a double test because of how uncommon it is. Usually, one suspected Pokemon's departure would lead to a complete metagame shift because they were deemed too much for the current tier to handle. Double tests are avoided because of this, and the impact the other Pokemon would have is purely theoretical. However, in NU's current situation, change needs to be more proactive, and people have been calling for straight up council voting to ban the Pokemon people see as too restrictive in the tier. Out of the 4 Pokemon (the Bear bros + Cresselia & Mienshao), Bewear and Pangoro make the most sense to be tested together. They are extremely similar in offensive prowess due to their high Attack stats and relatively low Speed, but they do vary defensively. Bewear obviously has acecss to Fluffy, letting it act as a Physical-contact sponge. Bewear is also Normal type while Pangoro is Dark type, which grants different type match-ups and affects the 1v1s they can take. But as previously stated, their offensive capabilities were considered pretty similar by the majority of council, and we decided that it was worthwhile to test them both at once. They both are insanely difficult to switch into and have set-up capabilities. We want to make it clear that they are not exactly similar, but similar enough where a suspect test on the two together could give us information, hopefully advancing the tier to a more balanced state. A ban on one would likely enable the other further.

Alright, this is a BIG one to talk about. Council members and community members have all expressed interest in having Mienshao either tested or straight banned. Luck O' the Irish mentioned things in council chat that had me considering Mienshao's current state in the meta as well. The combination of Life Orb, Regeneration, its high Speed and Attack along with solid coverage are the main reasons why Mienshao has been brought up so often. It's incredibly difficult to switch into, and SS NU has been a relatively slow, bulkier tier for a while now. This makes for the perfect tier for Mienshao, having a much higher base speed than the majority of viable Pokemon. There are counters to it in Vileplume, Neutralizing Gas Weezing and Runerigus, but it is not too difficult to overwhelm its counters or simply grant the user momentum. Many members of the council have expressed interest in looking into Mienshao more and potentially testing it. First, we would like to see what potential bans on the Bears would change in NU.

This is a very divided Pokemon in the council, but not so much in the community. A lot of us believe that Cresselia is not as restrictive as it is made out to be, and that there is sufficient counter play to it. However, poh and Davon are heavy advocates for Cresselia to be tested or banned along with many members of the NU discord and PS! room. These reasons make it so Cresselia cannot be ignored, and I would like to stress that we have not been ignoring it in the first place. Similarly to Mienshao, we plan on revisiting Cresselia's state in the tier following this suspect test. A lot would change if the Bears were banned, and a lot of teambuilding restrictions would open up. This could affect how Cresselia is, or it could not. Just know these will definitely be looked at with more detail by the council.

Forum Threads:

• The SS NU Teambuilding Lab could always use more people going over requests.
• If you have any ideas of cores and you'd like to share, the SS NU Cores thread could use some activity to help make building easier for newer players
• The SS NU Matchmaking thread is also available with a new Pokemon this week: Vileplume, post here if you have ideas for solid partners for :srank:
• Victim of the Week is live with Tyrantrum, if you have any ideas on counters or checks to the big dino, post here!
• If you have ideas for innovative or interesting sets, check out the Next Best Thing thread to post your idea!
• If you want to practice building in SS NU, check out the SS NU Teambuilding Competition thread to see how your team stacks up compared to others. The current Pokemon to build around is Golisopod!

Tournaments:

• The NU Ladder tour starts in about a week, so keep your eyes out for that
• Lower Tier Premier League is currently on week 6, so if you'd like to see some high level SS NU gameplay, check the tournament out
• The NeverUsed League is currently on its 4th round right now, so make sure to check it out as well!

 

[poh]

Hello again, after the recent double suspect test, the council has evaluated the current situation and discussed how to move forward. The general consensus seems to be that the community is relieved both suspect subjects got the boot, which is a great step in the right direction. However, there are still some elements that people want to see looked at. If you haven't already, go fill in the survey! Your input is valuable, as it gives us an idea of what the community thinks of the current meta and potential problematic elements. We're gonna decide what to suspect test/ban based on the current survey.

Metagame Discussion:

Multiple council members and other members of the community have posted their thoughts on how Mienshao is an unhealthy presence in the current meta. In short; Mienshao's power, speed and Regenerator pushes it over the edge. Life Orb sets make it a fierce wallbreaker while Choice Scarf makes it the best late-game cleaner in the tier. The reason we think it should be looked at before anything else is that the meta still hasn't/can't adapted to it despite the tier having solid answers in a vacuum. Checks and counters get circumvented too easily by both sets.

Council opinions

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ar-pangoro-banned.3677068/page-2#post-8753885
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...g-bewear-pangoro-banned.3677068/#post-8751699
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ph-banned-post-22.3675760/page-2#post-8725475

Cresselia is probably the most controversial mon in the tier and rightly so. Restrictive in the teambuilder and difficult to stop once it gets a couple Calm Minds off. With the recent bans however, Cresselia answers gained a lot more breathing room. Steel- and Dark-types have now less things to worry about thus making their role in checking Cresselia much easier. Other Fighting-types like Sirfetch'd and Machamp are now seeing more usage and Utility Cresselia (Thunder Wave/ Toxic/ Lunar Dance over Calm Mind) is a very good answer to both of them. Ghost-types like Dhelmise and Silvally-Ghost greatly benefited from the recent bans, also good Cresselia answers. Despite these meta trends, a large part of the community has been vocal for a while and this is something we can't ignore.



Hail teams went absolutely stonks during the last suspect test. Using Hyper Offense is a quicker way to achieve suspect test requirements and even though the meta has counterplay to Hail-teams, a lot of teams crumbled to Arctovish' amazing wallbreaking potential when Hail is active. However, the council doesn't seem to be too alarmed by this recent threat. Hail teams rely a lot on match-up, making it a all-or-nothing type strategy. Sandslash-A is the secondary Hail sweeper but doesn't have nowhere near the same wallbreaking qualities as Arctovish, making Arctovish the sole threat on these types of teams. For now, council won't be acting on it but it's something we'll continue to monitor.

Both Salazzle and Tyrantrum have risen in viability and are excellent mons atm. As of now, the council doesn't think they're problematic. We wanna know what the community thinks so we asked your opinion about both of them. We'll continue to keep an eye out on both Salazzle and Tyrantrum.

Forum Threads:

• The SS NU Teambuilding Lab could always use more people going over requests.
• If you have any ideas of cores and you'd like to share, the SS NU Cores thread could use some activity to help make building easier for newer players
• Victim of the Week is live with Tyrantrum, if you have any ideas on counters or checks to the big dino, post here!
• If you have ideas for innovative or interesting sets, check out the Next Best Thing thread to post your idea!
• SS NU Teambats are back! Ask one of our roomauth to host one.
• Vote for the users you want to see go head to head in SS NU Battle of the Week

Tournaments:

• The NU Ladder tour has been postponed until further notice. This because of the recent suspect tests and possible next suspect tests.
• The NeverUsed League is currently on its 8th round right now, so make sure to check it out as well!
• NU Open should start next month so stay tuned for that!

 

[Ren-chon]

Nyanpasu. After a long wait, the council has decided on bringing back Council Minutes as a way to let the community stay up-to-date with our decisions, as well as what we have planned for the near future. We are still discussing on how often we will be posting here (monthly at the very least), although since we are nearing a tier shift that will surely shake things up quite a lot, you can expect this thread to be rather active in this coming month.

Metagame Discussion:


Sirfetch'd is a Pokemon that we are still looking at as something that is potentially suspect worthy, and are looking at the possibility of action after the upcoming shifts. Due to the unpopularity of the idea of banning Leek instead of taking action on Sirfetch'd, we plan to not hold a quickban slate on the item. However, a portion of the council believes that Leek is the only problematic element with the Pokemon, as it allows Sirfetch'd to switch moves at Band strength given it gets lucky enough, and also allows it to break past the many Iron Defense or Stamina Pokemon trivially.


Blastoise is a Pokemon that keeps resurfacing on the forums, and has made its way to council chats due to this. Although all can admit that Blastoise is a potent setup sweeper, most of the council is hesitant on a suspect for the Pokemon. A large amount of the counterplay for it comes from very common Pokemon, such as the tier's Water immunes, such as Mantine, Vaporeon, Toxicroak, and Heliolisk, as well as soft checks from powerful Pokemon such as Celebi and Dragalge. Also, many of us agree that the times where Blastoise sweeps often can be attributed to misplaying around the threat, and that the biggest threat was Blastoise under screens, which are much less threatening now. The meta has undergone a lot of volatility, and there is still many developments in the tier such as the screens ban and the shift, but we will be more open to action after the meta settles.


Glastrier is another Pokemon that has been brought up, but the council is mixed on whether it is an issue and there is no public demand for a suspect, so it will remain untouched for now.


Finally, an eye will be kept on some of the tier's threats that benefit from Flygon leaving, namely Salazzle, as well as Pokemon such as Rotom-Mow. We don't expect to take action on these Pokemon, but will be discussing as the meta progresses.

Forum Threads:

• The SS NU Teambuilding Lab could still use more people going over requests, specially since we're heading to what might be a whole different metagame next month!
• Similarly, feel free to share your teams in our SS NU Bazaar! It'll greatly help both old and new players, and who knows, your team might just be the next best thing.
• ...talking about Next Best Thing, you can always share your creative or trademark sets here!
• Vote for the users you want to see go head to head in SS NU Battle of the Week.
• NU Lure That Threat is back, so come look at creative ways to deal with some of our dangerous threats.
• And as always, don't forget to check our SS NU Role Compendium if you're new to the tier or just need to check which Pokémon can fill that one specific spot in your team.

Tournaments:

• NUPL IX, our most prestigious team tournament, is in Finals right now between the Moneymaker Musharnas and The Pablostoises!
• NU Ladder Tournament 6 is in the quarterfinals stages!
• NU Homefield Advantage I, the new addition to our Circuit, is currently in round 2!
• NU Swiss will start at the conclusion of NULT 6, so look out for signups in the near future! Check out our NU Tournament Circuit for more informations!

That's all for today, folks. If you have any questions, feel free to join our Discord and ask a Council member, or make a post in Simple Questions, Simple Answers and we'll answer ASAP!

 

[S1nn0hC0nfirm3d]

Over the past couple months, the NU council debated over how to continue council minutes given the hiatus. We came to the conclusion that we’d shorten the content of the updates and have them function as “discord recaps” of sorts to push updates out more frequently. Other solutions like a public council chat channel for the NU discord were suggested, but for now we'll see if we can maintain these posts at a much more consistent rate.

After the Goodra ban, there’s still some worrying threats left in the metagame, though we’re mostly content at the state of the meta. Silvally-Ground would be the biggest threat on our radar. With the departure of Bronzong, and in the same tune as Goodra, Silvally-Ground lacks consistent counters. It’s capable of revenge killing, wallbreaking, sweeping, and even pivoting off would-be switch-ins, so this potentially is certainly noted. We’ll keep an eye out for it in recent tours and in the next shifts. Other hot topics include Blastoise, which the council never really is able to avoid in regards to tiering talks, but we consistently never feel the need to take further action with it. Again, while Blastoise absolutely warps the tier to some degree, most of us agree that there’s enough defensive counterplay for now; the flinch rate from Dark Pulse is also not excessive enough to warrant Blastoise as uncompetitive either. There also hasn’t been enough of a drive post-Goodra to retest anything in NUBL, and we instead concluded that we can wait till April to see how the tier shapes up.

We continuously review the state of the tier in regards to the community and tours. Overall, we’re happy to see a lot of dedicated players return to grow the community and perform well in the tier, and we want foster that growth any way we can. So if there’s anything we can do for the tier when it comes to checking out Silvally-Ground, Blastoise, or anything else in the near future—especially in April’s shifts—just let us know and we’re willing to act when necessary. A metagame survey can be around the corner, too. Lastly, the NU council also shared a lot of amongus memes with eachother; thank you OnArceus and Rabia , very cool!