Below you will find each council member's reasoning:
You can find my reasoning here.
Garganacl - Ban: It has continued to feel oppressive in every game that I’ve used it, I don’t think it brings any positives to the tier. Places unhealthy restrictions in the builder that although can be solved, I firmly believe we would be better without.
Heatran - DNB: Same reasoning as before really, has felt good but not unbearable. It might be unhealthy once the meta settles but hasn’t felt like too much yet and I don’t see an immediate reason to ban it.
Iron Hands - DNB: Good mon, but the tier has a lot of good Fighting-types. Struggles to do significant immediate damage without an SD and has to respect chip from things like WoW Rotom, Hippo, Scald, Motcha, etc. Sub can be scary but it means dropping another move and it kinda has wanted all of SD / 3 atks from my experience.
Heatran - DNB: Same reasoning as before really, has felt good but not unbearable. It might be unhealthy once the meta settles but hasn’t felt like too much yet and I don’t see an immediate reason to ban it.
Iron Hands - DNB: Good mon, but the tier has a lot of good Fighting-types. Struggles to do significant immediate damage without an SD and has to respect chip from things like WoW Rotom, Hippo, Scald, Motcha, etc. Sub can be scary but it means dropping another move and it kinda has wanted all of SD / 3 atks from my experience.
You can find Misa's thoughts here.
Garg - BAN - Salt Cure is just op on top of its great bulk and ability to boost defenses.
Iron Hands - DNB - Iron Hands is super good when built around properly but I think it’s still fine in the tier. It has great coverage and scary bulk though.
Heatran - BAN - My position hasn’t really changed from the last vote, tier doesn’t have much to deal with Magma Storm and its great typing.
Iron Hands - DNB - Iron Hands is super good when built around properly but I think it’s still fine in the tier. It has great coverage and scary bulk though.
Heatran - BAN - My position hasn’t really changed from the last vote, tier doesn’t have much to deal with Magma Storm and its great typing.
Garganacl – Ban, Unless you are using very specific sets like covert cloak Sinistcha, which still gets hit by every hazard, garg can overwhelm almost everything long term. Even things like covert cloak gastrodon or amoonguss can get beaten in 1v1 scenarios by iron def garg unless they are using both the aforementioned item and clear smog. Overall garganacl just has too few options to consistently deal with it, and even has the capabilities to outlast those handful of mons through hazards.
Heatran – DNB, the combination of having to invest tera to hit waters, having a shabby speed stat, and needing to rely on magma storm to get the most out of it’s offensive presence, heatran is pretty manageable.
Iron Hands – DNB, My opinion since the last ban slate has changed a bit, as I realized that hands often finds itself lacking either the coverage or power to cleave through teams like I thought it did. Mons like g-weezing, sinistcha, and rotom all annoy hands enough that it is fearful enough of getting burned, and if you use things like lum berry you’ll find yourself missing the passive lefties recovery.
Heatran – DNB, the combination of having to invest tera to hit waters, having a shabby speed stat, and needing to rely on magma storm to get the most out of it’s offensive presence, heatran is pretty manageable.
Iron Hands – DNB, My opinion since the last ban slate has changed a bit, as I realized that hands often finds itself lacking either the coverage or power to cleave through teams like I thought it did. Mons like g-weezing, sinistcha, and rotom all annoy hands enough that it is fearful enough of getting burned, and if you use things like lum berry you’ll find yourself missing the passive lefties recovery.
Garganacl: Ban. Unhealthy as frick and just unreasonable to deal with unless you're going out of the way huge times, more often than not requires multiple slots just to be relatively safe against too. I think not only it slows down the development of our tier but also has all the tools to adapt itself so it's just an endless rabbithole not worth dealing with.
Iron Hands: Ban. Too little and kinda niche safe counterplay, sub sets are able to take over games from nowhere and we're probably losing the most reasonably splashable answer in Garganacl. Offensively checking the mon is not possible as it wins every trade it takes and often doesn't even come off too badly from those.
Heatran: Ban. In a much friendlier environment we've seen how unhealthy this mon is and how polarizing it can be, it's really hard for non-offense to fit counterplay as the only way to consistently deal with it is offensively checking or outpositioning it, I think the mon has much more to offer that hasn't been explored yet, and Garganacl most likely leaving the tier helps it a ton too.
Iron Hands: Ban. Too little and kinda niche safe counterplay, sub sets are able to take over games from nowhere and we're probably losing the most reasonably splashable answer in Garganacl. Offensively checking the mon is not possible as it wins every trade it takes and often doesn't even come off too badly from those.
Heatran: Ban. In a much friendlier environment we've seen how unhealthy this mon is and how polarizing it can be, it's really hard for non-offense to fit counterplay as the only way to consistently deal with it is offensively checking or outpositioning it, I think the mon has much more to offer that hasn't been explored yet, and Garganacl most likely leaving the tier helps it a ton too.
Garganacl: Ban. I wanted to give Garg more time and we did and I now believe keeping Garg in the metagame is a detriment to its growth and development. Garg is a Pokémon unlike we’ve ever seen, having an irritating move in conjunction with Tera and it’s defensive profile to be very difficult to break while wearing the team down with Salt Cure. Garg’s performance this week in tours was nothing of note really, which made me unsure if I wanted to ban it, but it didn’t perform well because of the amount of covert cloak users and substitute Pokémon used on a lot of team, which highlights its restrictive presence. I get cloak has other uses but I still can’t shake the fact I wouldn’t run it on most of the Pokémon that are using it now. It’s not outright broken but it’s very unhealthy. Iron Defense sets with Tera Ghost have grown to prominence and are nearly unkillable by themselves, but factor in other options and it’s just too much. Garg’s limited performance in tours is ultimately a reflection of how prepped for it is which shows the unhealthy impact it has on the metagame, and I believe removing it will allow more room for experimentation and growth in the tier as players do not have to worry about being run over by Salt Cure spam. Ban and good riddance.
Iron Hands: Do not Ban. This was a surprisingly easy Do not Ban for me as well, especially compared to how torn I was on it last week. Hands is a good Pokémon but it’s got really notable flaws I feel a lot of people ignore or aren’t aware of. It’s a great trade Pokémon but it goes 1 for 1 most of the time which is just fine. Yes, it beats treads and Sandy 1v1 but by then it’s left at like 30 at most and gets taken out easily by anything else. It’s vulnerable to stats and the base typing is not really good. No matter what move combo it chooses it’s also missing out on relevant threats. The Tera Type versatility argument is also pretty bad considering it’s got like 2 viable tera types at most. Fire is not great because there’s just way too many Water-types and in general you want hands to lose it’s ground weakness when clicking the tera button. Tera Fairy is a meme in a meta run by Okidogi and other Poison and Steel types being prominent. Flying is only good on hyper offense because giving yourself a rocks weakness is awful long term, making Ghost the only real option for hands on BO teams which ultimately makes it more predictable than what it’s seen to be. Lastly the lack of attack investment on hands means it’s not immediately strong which also leads to more trade sequences. If you think I’m full of shit that’s fine, just go watch all the replays featuring Iron Hands this week in snake and SCL where it will show Iron Hands is clearly a balanced Pokémon. It’s not clicking SD and just running through teams. It’s weird to type this considering how I didn’t even want hands unbanned this DLC at first but it’s impact on the tier from these last 2 chances it had had stuck in a lot of player’s heads and I encourage them to really analyze hand’s game to game presence as well as tournament games before dismissing it as broken. This is kinda all over the place but hand’s reliance on Tera to be effective, inability to immediately hit hard off the bat thus making it vulnerable to trades, and the fact it’s tera type options are not even that good to begin with combined with its lack of noteworthy performance in snake has made me vote Do not Ban on Iron Hands
Heatran: Do not Ban. I was partly hesitant to include this on the slate even because of the lack of general support across the entire community and only a small number of council members wanting action on it as well. Regardless, with something featured on the radar previously that ended up losing two major checks last week, we felt there was no harm in voting and this result would set heatran’s path in SV UU. My reasoning has not really changed from last week at all. Heatran is a great Pokémon, top 5 even and a contender for S tier, but it’s just that. This week has really not shown anything problematic from Heatran and the same threats to it all still exist in the metagame with new Pokémon like Sub NP Hydreigon and Slow pivot moltes to bring in an offensive check being explored. I really don’t want to type out my vote from last time so refer to that but easy Do not Ban from me
Iron Hands: Do not Ban. This was a surprisingly easy Do not Ban for me as well, especially compared to how torn I was on it last week. Hands is a good Pokémon but it’s got really notable flaws I feel a lot of people ignore or aren’t aware of. It’s a great trade Pokémon but it goes 1 for 1 most of the time which is just fine. Yes, it beats treads and Sandy 1v1 but by then it’s left at like 30 at most and gets taken out easily by anything else. It’s vulnerable to stats and the base typing is not really good. No matter what move combo it chooses it’s also missing out on relevant threats. The Tera Type versatility argument is also pretty bad considering it’s got like 2 viable tera types at most. Fire is not great because there’s just way too many Water-types and in general you want hands to lose it’s ground weakness when clicking the tera button. Tera Fairy is a meme in a meta run by Okidogi and other Poison and Steel types being prominent. Flying is only good on hyper offense because giving yourself a rocks weakness is awful long term, making Ghost the only real option for hands on BO teams which ultimately makes it more predictable than what it’s seen to be. Lastly the lack of attack investment on hands means it’s not immediately strong which also leads to more trade sequences. If you think I’m full of shit that’s fine, just go watch all the replays featuring Iron Hands this week in snake and SCL where it will show Iron Hands is clearly a balanced Pokémon. It’s not clicking SD and just running through teams. It’s weird to type this considering how I didn’t even want hands unbanned this DLC at first but it’s impact on the tier from these last 2 chances it had had stuck in a lot of player’s heads and I encourage them to really analyze hand’s game to game presence as well as tournament games before dismissing it as broken. This is kinda all over the place but hand’s reliance on Tera to be effective, inability to immediately hit hard off the bat thus making it vulnerable to trades, and the fact it’s tera type options are not even that good to begin with combined with its lack of noteworthy performance in snake has made me vote Do not Ban on Iron Hands
Heatran: Do not Ban. I was partly hesitant to include this on the slate even because of the lack of general support across the entire community and only a small number of council members wanting action on it as well. Regardless, with something featured on the radar previously that ended up losing two major checks last week, we felt there was no harm in voting and this result would set heatran’s path in SV UU. My reasoning has not really changed from last week at all. Heatran is a great Pokémon, top 5 even and a contender for S tier, but it’s just that. This week has really not shown anything problematic from Heatran and the same threats to it all still exist in the metagame with new Pokémon like Sub NP Hydreigon and Slow pivot moltes to bring in an offensive check being explored. I really don’t want to type out my vote from last time so refer to that but easy Do not Ban from me
Garganacl : BAN
I've been a hater of that block of rock since the beginning. Just fuck that thing. Salt Cure is the cringiest move ever and forces people to run either Covert Cloak or Substitute on basically a Pokémon by team. How is this a good thing for the tier ? Spoiler, it's not. The worst with this Pokémon is that it's not that passive due to its access to both Curse and Iron Defense which allows it to break a shit ton of things and handle so much hits. Its bulk is insane, it's one of the best user of Tera types and it's able to effectively use so many differents types (Dragon, Water, Ghost, Electric, Fairy)..which leads people to try go guess what Tera types they're supposed to face. Outside of setup Garg, this Pokémon can run Stealth Rock variants which are all really nasty due to Salt Cure chipping our remover in the long run and the fact it can adapt its filler slot for things such as Protect or Block. tl;dr : this Pokémon never dies, allows shenanigans because of Tera + setup moves and has access to an attack which is able to chip opponent's Pokémon effectively. Bruh.. send it to UUBL already.
Iron Hands : BAN
I still believe Iron Hands is too beefy for the tier. It trades vs way too much foes and can adapt its coverage. I feel like Sub SD (Drain Punch + Thunder Punch) variants are really deadly. They do lack some coverage vs specific matchups (like Sinistcha) but outside of those scenarios they're frankly unhealthy. Nothing has changed since the last time I voted, this Pokémon is still a nuisance.
Heatran : DNB
Even tho two great checks to Heatran have been banned, I still feel like this Pokémon is healthy for the tier. It's a good pivot to many threats and forces the like of Tornadus-T to run dedicated coverage if they want to bypass it. It's overall a good Pokémon and I don't see any reason to ban it right now.
I've been a hater of that block of rock since the beginning. Just fuck that thing. Salt Cure is the cringiest move ever and forces people to run either Covert Cloak or Substitute on basically a Pokémon by team. How is this a good thing for the tier ? Spoiler, it's not. The worst with this Pokémon is that it's not that passive due to its access to both Curse and Iron Defense which allows it to break a shit ton of things and handle so much hits. Its bulk is insane, it's one of the best user of Tera types and it's able to effectively use so many differents types (Dragon, Water, Ghost, Electric, Fairy)..which leads people to try go guess what Tera types they're supposed to face. Outside of setup Garg, this Pokémon can run Stealth Rock variants which are all really nasty due to Salt Cure chipping our remover in the long run and the fact it can adapt its filler slot for things such as Protect or Block. tl;dr : this Pokémon never dies, allows shenanigans because of Tera + setup moves and has access to an attack which is able to chip opponent's Pokémon effectively. Bruh.. send it to UUBL already.
Iron Hands : BAN
I still believe Iron Hands is too beefy for the tier. It trades vs way too much foes and can adapt its coverage. I feel like Sub SD (Drain Punch + Thunder Punch) variants are really deadly. They do lack some coverage vs specific matchups (like Sinistcha) but outside of those scenarios they're frankly unhealthy. Nothing has changed since the last time I voted, this Pokémon is still a nuisance.
Heatran : DNB
Even tho two great checks to Heatran have been banned, I still feel like this Pokémon is healthy for the tier. It's a good pivot to many threats and forces the like of Tornadus-T to run dedicated coverage if they want to bypass it. It's overall a good Pokémon and I don't see any reason to ban it right now.
Garganacl: Ban, I wanted this gone in the last slate, and its only gotten better since the last round of breakers left the tier. There are multiple sets with different counterplays in Curse, Iron Defense, and Protect sets with a huge amount of options for Tera. It has consistently shown its centralizing nature through the first week of UUSD and the past couple weeks of SCL.
Iron Hands: Ban. I wanted this gone in the last slate as well, and as with Garganacl, it has only gotten better in the new meta. It has incredible bulk, a plethora of tera options, and multiple set options that make it versatile. I believe that this Pokemon is still quite underexplored in the meta and has the chance to be even better, but with interactions like 1v1ing Iron Treads and ending up near full health.
Heatran: Ban, mainly agreeing with my fellow council members in that the counterplay to this Pokemon is quite restricting, interactions often going on whether Magma Storm hits or not. Garganacl and Iron Hands were two of the best switch-ins. Heatran has the ability to pick and choose which checks and "counters" it would like to beat through its fantastic support movepool and Tera options. It also has other more offensive sets that have yet to see a ton of usage, but this Pokemon is extremely hard to deal with defensively.
Iron Hands: Ban. I wanted this gone in the last slate as well, and as with Garganacl, it has only gotten better in the new meta. It has incredible bulk, a plethora of tera options, and multiple set options that make it versatile. I believe that this Pokemon is still quite underexplored in the meta and has the chance to be even better, but with interactions like 1v1ing Iron Treads and ending up near full health.
Heatran: Ban, mainly agreeing with my fellow council members in that the counterplay to this Pokemon is quite restricting, interactions often going on whether Magma Storm hits or not. Garganacl and Iron Hands were two of the best switch-ins. Heatran has the ability to pick and choose which checks and "counters" it would like to beat through its fantastic support movepool and Tera options. It also has other more offensive sets that have yet to see a ton of usage, but this Pokemon is extremely hard to deal with defensively.
Sage did not have the time for reasonings as she has stepped down from council :(
TSR has not voted yet but I will edit this once he does.
umbry has opted to refer to her previous reasoning for the most part but did give some more here.
garg: ban. too restrictive, meta becomes a shitshow as we have seen in the past couple days.
hands: ban. it can break through its checks which it shouldnt if it were a healthy mon.
heatran: ban. my reasoning is even if i dont find it 100% broken rnrn its that for me im voting ban on everything i find reasonable counterplay, without those mons there is too little counterplay left. the aforementioned counterplay thats left relies too much on outside factors than the 1v1 you play vs your "supposed" heatran check, its too random.
garg: ban. too restrictive, meta becomes a shitshow as we have seen in the past couple days.
hands: ban. it can break through its checks which it shouldnt if it were a healthy mon.
heatran: ban. my reasoning is even if i dont find it 100% broken rnrn its that for me im voting ban on everything i find reasonable counterplay, without those mons there is too little counterplay left. the aforementioned counterplay thats left relies too much on outside factors than the 1v1 you play vs your "supposed" heatran check, its too random.
garg: ban - more bad than good imo, definitely on the fence abt it still but this is where i’ve ended up. counterplay exists but it’s uncomfortable at best both in the builder and in practice, there’s so many threats in the tier still that are under the radar it would be unfortunate to keep this thing around. with tera it is extremely difficult to answer consistently and happily, and it encourages building patterns that can be depressing and suboptimal in non garg mus, with knock available as fuck to a lot of different pokemon right now, cloak isn’t even very consistent as counterplay either.
tran: dnb - nothing broken about this mon yet, if there is something broken about it, it will probably show after this series of bans but at the moment i enjoy having it in the tier as a rocker and available steel type.
hands: ban - on the fence for this one as well but it adds almost nothing all that exciting to the tier and adds a lot of bullshit in return. hands mus are at the bare minimum not specifically healthy for the meta game and we could easily and happily do without them, i see no world where the tier doesn’t become better without hands in it. I think whether it’s broken or not is still up in the air for me but whether i think it should be in the tier or not is not. I would be interested as the tier continues to develop to see it tested again in the future for sure though.
tran: dnb - nothing broken about this mon yet, if there is something broken about it, it will probably show after this series of bans but at the moment i enjoy having it in the tier as a rocker and available steel type.
hands: ban - on the fence for this one as well but it adds almost nothing all that exciting to the tier and adds a lot of bullshit in return. hands mus are at the bare minimum not specifically healthy for the meta game and we could easily and happily do without them, i see no world where the tier doesn’t become better without hands in it. I think whether it’s broken or not is still up in the air for me but whether i think it should be in the tier or not is not. I would be interested as the tier continues to develop to see it tested again in the future for sure though.
You may notice some council members opted for shorter reasoning this time around; the reality is just that there are only so many ways you can repeat yourself and writing a lot is pretty tiring week after week. With that said, if you have any questions about anyone's reasoning or anything else, you can send me or another council member a DM and we'll be happy to answer. Thank you o7