With the release of SS, Moody Clause was removed due to it no longer boosting Evasion. A new generation is oftentimes used as an opportunity to see if things that were previously banned to Ubers are now acceptable in the OU metagame or not, especially if they were nerfed like Moody was. Despite it being nerfed and granted this opportunity, the OU council has determined that Moody is uncompetitive and minimizes the concept of "player skill" determining the result of a match.
Moody has found ways to be an issue within the metagame despite its limited distribution. While Glalie and Octillery may not be the most reliable picks, over the last couple of weeks they have emerged as a viable options in the metagame, specifically when paired with screens support from Grimmsnarl or Toxic Spikes support from Toxapex. Through utilizing a moveset with Protect, Substitute, Disable, and Freeze Dry, Glalie in particular is able to take advantage of Moody to the best of its abilities; it abuses the sheer amount of turns it can generate through Protect + Substitute shenanigans to stack boosts, and with enough boosts, it can potentially snowball into a sweep with Freeze Dry. Moody does not just earn wins due to unfamiliarity; the correct combination of random boosts will nullify most common counterplay.
For example, Disable gives Glalie a multitude of opportunities to further pad its stat boosts, either by disabling choiced Pokemon, Pokemon with one attacking move, or Pokemon that cannot break Glalie's substitute after an attack was disabled. A common instance of this would be Choice Scarf Rotom-Heat and Galarian Darmitan coming in to attempt to break Glalie's substitute and thwart a sweep. Another example is Choice Specs Dragapult, which typically has Infiltrator for Substitute users, running into trouble against Glalie. Should Glalie get a timely speed boost, it will only continue to snowball and pad its boosts simply by using Protect -> disabling whatever move Dragapult decided to click as it used Protect. Dragapult also has to worry about Glalie getting special attack boosts at the same time as speed boosts, or simply clicking Freeze Dry as it tries to switch in. Additionally, bulkier Pokemon will also struggle to get past Glalie. Typical bulky Pokemon aren't able to break Glalie's Substitutes after a Disable, and the vast majority of others aren't able to after a defense boost. Pokemon such as Toxapex, despite having Haze, do not beat Glalie in the slightest, as Glalie can wait for when it gets a special attack boost and Disable Toxapex from either using Haze or Scald, depending upon the situation, and then continue to defeat it.
Switching gears, Octillery is capable of similar performances due to Moody, even if it is not quite as potent as Glalie is. The lack of disable as well as being unable to get past Haze Toxapex leaves Octillery paling in comparison to Glalie in some matchups, but Octillery is still capable of sweeping the same way Glalie does despite this. Without getting drops in its defense stats, Octillery's bulk is sufficient enough to allow it to get chances to stack boosts against bulkier Pokemon. Octillery is also able to fire off threatening Scalds and Ice Beams to threaten the more offensive Pokemon immediately, making counterplay more complicated. Alternatively, Octillery can also use Thunder Wave to increase odds of cheesing through the opposition. With appropriate boosts, Octillery can tear through many common defensive cores while being challenging to revenge kill.
While we are hesitant to label Moody as "broken" per our tiering policy framework, we believe it satisfies the criteria set forth for declaring strategies "uncompetitive." Its inherent reliance on chance coupled with its rising prominence within the metagame compels us to act upon it now. It is true that there are other aspects of the game that rely on chance such as move accuracy and secondary effect chances, but none of them compare to Moody in this regard and they also tend to require thoughtful play to integrate successfully into gameplay, thus at least incorporating a certain element of "player skill" into the result of a match. While we are not saying that using teams revolving around Moody involves absolutely no skillful play, it does require significantly less skill than normal teams. The presence of Glalie and Octillery reduces the effect of player's choices throughout the course of a game; even if alternatives are far more consistent in effectiveness, it still holds true that Glalie and Octillery can take very winnable game-states for any other Pokemon and make them snowball out of the control of even the best of players if it gets the right boosts at the right time. The element of randomness being applied to multiple stat boosts each turn does not lead to a competitive and skillful environment that we wish to promote within the SS OU metagame.
With all things considered, both Glalie and Octillery prove to be problematic in the current metagame thanks to Moody, with the former being especially troublesome due to it having access to Disable. There is precedent behind banning the ability through Moody Clause and we have also applied this same logic to other ability bans in recent history, so we will be taking tiering action on Moody as a whole ability. For the reason listed above, the OU council has decided that Moody is now banned from the SS OU metagame.
Tagging The Immortal so this can be implemented. Thank you!
Moody has found ways to be an issue within the metagame despite its limited distribution. While Glalie and Octillery may not be the most reliable picks, over the last couple of weeks they have emerged as a viable options in the metagame, specifically when paired with screens support from Grimmsnarl or Toxic Spikes support from Toxapex. Through utilizing a moveset with Protect, Substitute, Disable, and Freeze Dry, Glalie in particular is able to take advantage of Moody to the best of its abilities; it abuses the sheer amount of turns it can generate through Protect + Substitute shenanigans to stack boosts, and with enough boosts, it can potentially snowball into a sweep with Freeze Dry. Moody does not just earn wins due to unfamiliarity; the correct combination of random boosts will nullify most common counterplay.
For example, Disable gives Glalie a multitude of opportunities to further pad its stat boosts, either by disabling choiced Pokemon, Pokemon with one attacking move, or Pokemon that cannot break Glalie's substitute after an attack was disabled. A common instance of this would be Choice Scarf Rotom-Heat and Galarian Darmitan coming in to attempt to break Glalie's substitute and thwart a sweep. Another example is Choice Specs Dragapult, which typically has Infiltrator for Substitute users, running into trouble against Glalie. Should Glalie get a timely speed boost, it will only continue to snowball and pad its boosts simply by using Protect -> disabling whatever move Dragapult decided to click as it used Protect. Dragapult also has to worry about Glalie getting special attack boosts at the same time as speed boosts, or simply clicking Freeze Dry as it tries to switch in. Additionally, bulkier Pokemon will also struggle to get past Glalie. Typical bulky Pokemon aren't able to break Glalie's Substitutes after a Disable, and the vast majority of others aren't able to after a defense boost. Pokemon such as Toxapex, despite having Haze, do not beat Glalie in the slightest, as Glalie can wait for when it gets a special attack boost and Disable Toxapex from either using Haze or Scald, depending upon the situation, and then continue to defeat it.
Switching gears, Octillery is capable of similar performances due to Moody, even if it is not quite as potent as Glalie is. The lack of disable as well as being unable to get past Haze Toxapex leaves Octillery paling in comparison to Glalie in some matchups, but Octillery is still capable of sweeping the same way Glalie does despite this. Without getting drops in its defense stats, Octillery's bulk is sufficient enough to allow it to get chances to stack boosts against bulkier Pokemon. Octillery is also able to fire off threatening Scalds and Ice Beams to threaten the more offensive Pokemon immediately, making counterplay more complicated. Alternatively, Octillery can also use Thunder Wave to increase odds of cheesing through the opposition. With appropriate boosts, Octillery can tear through many common defensive cores while being challenging to revenge kill.
While we are hesitant to label Moody as "broken" per our tiering policy framework, we believe it satisfies the criteria set forth for declaring strategies "uncompetitive." Its inherent reliance on chance coupled with its rising prominence within the metagame compels us to act upon it now. It is true that there are other aspects of the game that rely on chance such as move accuracy and secondary effect chances, but none of them compare to Moody in this regard and they also tend to require thoughtful play to integrate successfully into gameplay, thus at least incorporating a certain element of "player skill" into the result of a match. While we are not saying that using teams revolving around Moody involves absolutely no skillful play, it does require significantly less skill than normal teams. The presence of Glalie and Octillery reduces the effect of player's choices throughout the course of a game; even if alternatives are far more consistent in effectiveness, it still holds true that Glalie and Octillery can take very winnable game-states for any other Pokemon and make them snowball out of the control of even the best of players if it gets the right boosts at the right time. The element of randomness being applied to multiple stat boosts each turn does not lead to a competitive and skillful environment that we wish to promote within the SS OU metagame.
With all things considered, both Glalie and Octillery prove to be problematic in the current metagame thanks to Moody, with the former being especially troublesome due to it having access to Disable. There is precedent behind banning the ability through Moody Clause and we have also applied this same logic to other ability bans in recent history, so we will be taking tiering action on Moody as a whole ability. For the reason listed above, the OU council has decided that Moody is now banned from the SS OU metagame.
Tagging The Immortal so this can be implemented. Thank you!