Metagame NP: NU Stage 5.2 - Dancing in the Moonlight [Council Vote - Post #54]

[shooting star]

I agree with Mariannabelle that at this stage, it will be better to ban Snow Warning instead of Arctovish. While Pokeslice is not wrong to say that Arctovish makes hail HO broken, this argument goes both ways since I can also argue that Snow Warning is the culprit that pushes Arctovish over the edge. If we ban Snow Warning, we can also undo the bans of 2 other hail elements, since there is massive opportunity cost in manually setting up hail and Aurora Veil. There was actually a Policy Review thread about Drought in Lower Tiers created last year, and from that discussion there seemed to be two main points that I believe resonated with the majority.

1. Ban the primary abuser first to preserve the playstyle and prevent collateral damage.
2. If there is a need to ban multiple abusers just to preserve a single playstyle, then ban that playstyle instead.

We have already banned Aurora Veil and Arctozolt, and yet hail is still not balanced, thus condition 1 no longer applies. There is no more hail HO variants left to preserve once Arctovish or Snow Warning is banned anyway. Additionally, I believe that there will be minimal collateral damage since the usage stats for hail inducers and abusers in PU and ZU are pretty low, with the only major(?) repercussion being the inability to spam 100% accuracy Blizzards with your Vanilluxe in the lower tiers. To illustrate my point, here are the relevant 1630 February usage stats for PU and ZU respectively.

39 | Arctovish | 4.40612%
59 | Abomasnow | 2.64529%
63 | Vanilluxe | 2.51748%
65 | Aurorus | 2.37542%
122 | Beartic | 0.97058%

35 | Abomasnow | 5.62080%
82 | Vanilluxe | 2.58946%
98 | Beartic | 1.68464%
133 | Aurorus | 0.80027%

In conclusion, in light of the problem that hail continues to pose, I believe that the best course of action to take is to ban Snow Warning, and unban Aurora Veil and Arctozolt. I would even go further to argue that banning Snow Warning now is not exactly a bad move, since it is most likely that only Entei and Glastrier will drop to NU next month, the latter still getting 2HKO by Fisheous Rend anyway.

 

[Catalisador]

I just wanted to say that I agree with the ban Snow Warning movement.
#FreeZolt

 

[Expulso]

i understand and generally agree with the principle stated by Finchinator about waiting for shifts and the subsequent meta adjustment before suspecting or banning something.

however, i’m quite unsure what would possibly balance hail? if anything, we would lose gastrodon and golisopod, making fishious rend even more click-able. It’s very unlikely that we get any hail answers simply because there are very few of them. i believe that for hail/arctovish, the benefits of not having it for start of nu open would justify beginning to test it before the post shifts meta settles (or even before we get drops, though i'd favor waiting to see what we get and then testing or voting immediately).

we know what hail with arcto does and why it’s dumb. can we please ban it or nerf it by banning its greatest abuser on the exact day we get shifts unless we think they offer substantial relief against it.

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re: ban hail vs ban arctovish (Mariannabelle):
it isnt totally shocking that hail has been addressed thru multiple different bans. hail wasn't inherently broken for all of SS NU's lifespan. for instance, Beartic + Slash-Alola hail was usable yet not at all overpowered in Smogon Snake Draft (shortly after last NU open). in fact, it wasnt particularly good - i find it comparable to, say, electric terrain in this meta.

The arcto-twins getting Slush Rush was a huge factor in making it now OP, as well as NU losing Mienshao, a top-tier scarfer that outsped them under hail (unlike scarf pass/rotom-cut) and could OHKO them (unlike jolly scarf flygon).

i think choosing whether to ban snow warning or arctovish probably comes down to tiering policy, to my understanding simple bans of 1 pokemon are easier than complex bans of a weather. i'd support whichever one gets the job done fastest.

 

[Miyami~~~]

Apologies, but I legitimately don't understand how banning Snow Warning is even an option here.

Look, I get it. You're tired of losing to Arctovish because your Vaporeon died. I get it. Arctovish is frustrating. You're probably tired of seeing it, and you're willing to go to extreme lengths to make sure you never have to mentally say "Slush Rush" again. But that's just it: Arctovish. You could argue that Snow Warning enables Arctovish, which it does, but replace Arctovish with Alolan Sandslash in any of those replays and the result would be nowhere near the same.

Arctovish is very apparently the problem due to Fishious Rend hitting as hard as it does, backed up with Ice STAB for grass types and freeze-dry for the less bulky water types. This pretty much mandates a Vaporeon or several soft checks like Starmie + Rotom-Mow, as we're all aware. Scarf Fighting types also answer it, but with Mienshao gone, those are a bit of a shorter supply.

However, I would argue Arctovish is completely irreplaceable for hail if you wanted it to stay at the same level of viability it is right now. The main component that makes Arctovish broken is Fishious Rend, a move that Alolan Sandslash and Beartic do not have access to and would not get STAB on it anyways, drastically lowering their offensive output. They also don't get/can't make as effective use of Freeze-Dry, further widening the pool of things that could check them as they can not longer viably hit water-types for SE coverage. If you think Snow Warning is Broken, prove that it breaks other abusers, not just Arctovish. and no, Arctozolt doesn't count because it's not currently in the tier. If Sandslash and/or Beartic are broken without Arctovish doing most of the heavy lifting for you, then sure, we can talk about banning Snow Warning. But it's not, so we shouldn't.

Comparing Hail offense with Aurora Veil-based teams is, frankly, stupid, and more like saying apples and pineapples are the same because they both have the word "apple" in them. The only correlation at all is the need to set up Snow Warning, which Veil wasn't even built around and the only reason Snow Warning got set up was because you had to. You cannot seriously say that you think (insert veil setter) leading, setting up veil, and then dying as quickly as possible to get one of several completely unrelated to hail setup sweepers onto the field is the same as the hail we're discussing now. It's a completely different beast and should be handled differently, as it was. Or does Tyranitar being on any team in OU automatically make that a Sand Stream team, when it's clearly just being used for other things than enabling sand? The idea to "save veil" by banning snow warning is also very misguided, as not a single person is going to run manual hail + veil in any tier when they could just use screens, but if you want to save your favourite now completely useless move at the expense of an entire playstyle across three tiers, go ahead.

Go look at any decent veil team from before it was banned. Chances are you would only see Aurorus + Sandslash or Vanilluxe on it and zero slush rush abusers, making it almost completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

As the post above me says, while Arctozolt was also banned, but it a significantly different meta. That's what happens in tiering. Some things get better or worse over time. Arctovish was not a problem while Arctozolt was in the tier, and only became debatably a problem due to the ban of Mienshao. To me, the idea that banning a non-Pokemon if you've banned multiple Pokemon only applies if the non-Pokemon would break a lot of Pokemon at once - look at Drizzle in this very tier, for example, which could fill entire teams with broken abusers and win the game that way. Aurora Veil is another example due to the sheer amount of setup sweepers it broke that were completely unrelated to hail as a playstyle. Hail is obviously much different, with its power being almost entirely concentrated in a single Pokemon. Once again, Alolan Sandlash, while ranked and used on hail teams, is nowhere near broken or even on the same level as Arctovish is, but still viable enough in its own right. The problem is very evidently Arctovish, and banning hail just to save your favourite unviable Fossil only for it to fall to ZU and nobody to use it doesn't seem like a good idea. And whle you could argue that Arctozolt and Arctovish would both be broken on hail teams now, Arctozolt is banned already because it was broken before Arctovish ever became a problem.

Lastly, I want to talk about the impact a Snow Warning ban would have on the tiers below NU, as several posts in this thread have been extremely reductive about the possible impact it would have. Even without playing PU or ZU, bothering to do something as simple as looking at the viability rankings for either tier proves that the impact would extend beyond "Vanilluxe losing some power", like what this thread seems to think:

PU: Vanilluxe (A-), Aurorus, Arctovish (B+), Abomasnow, Sandslash-Alola (B)
ZU: Vanilluxe (A-), Aurorus (C+), Abomasnow (C), Beartic (C-)

While PU and ZU's prospects stand to change soon, as I think a rise for at least some component of hail to NU is quite possible this shift, and Vanilluxe is ranked highly both for its use on hail and by itself, it's very clear that Slush Rush based hail teams do exist in the lower tiers, even as far down as ZU where the only abuser is Beartic, and its lower usage compared to NU is simply a result of (likely) PU's meta being less kind to Arctovish (despite a high rank) and a lack of a comparably good abuser, respectively. Arguing that "Oh, it's not as meta defining so we can take it out of their tiers" is fine when it's one Pokemon, not an entire playstyle across two tiers who would have no say in the matter and which multiple Pokemon's viability is directly tied to. That absolutely will impact the other tiers, and pretending or simply being unaware that it won't for the sake of making a Snow Warning ban somehow look appealing doesn't make your argument look more solid.

tldr, banning Snow Warning when it's clearly a single abuser that's a problem because you're tired of fighting Arctovish Hail on the ladder is a bad idea, even a second of thought would say that hail clearly isn't broken without Arctovish and affecting multiple tiers because you want to use substitute Arctovish in NU before it drops out of viability without hail is also a really bad idea. However, Arctovish is potentially overbearing and could possibly be looked at after the tier shifts.

 

[Pokeslice]

Apologies, but I legitimately don't understand how banning Snow Warning is even an option here.

As much as I disagree with banning Snow Warning, after a long talk with Rabia earlier on the NU discord I understand the reasoning behind it. The idea is, as you stated, Hail and Veil are two different archetypes that were both considered problematic in the tier at one point. The thing is, neither of those types of teams could be viable or run at all if it was not for the ability Snow Warning. When reading through these posts, I'm almost considering it an umbrella term for teams that need or needed it to function. So, if we have to revisit things that are enabled by Snow Warning for the third time, maybe we are better off allowing back Zolt and Veil, keeping Vish, and banning the ability that seems to make it all possible. Hope that clears that up concisely.

Even though I know get it now, I still disagree with that reasoning. I believe when making these tiering decisions we should look at Snow Warning/Hail in the tier as it is, and right now, the only thing that makes it problematic is Arctovish. Every other aspect of the ability and weather currently just aren't broken. We would be better off banning the only abuser and keeping the ability in my opinion.

i think choosing whether to ban snow warning or arctovish probably comes down to tiering policy

I think that like Expulso said here whatever action we should take should come down to whatever the tiering policy is and I just want to see Hail teams disappear, but I think we're better off looking at the tier as it is right now when it comes to who to ban, not dealing with the historical problems with Snow Warning, since any action taken should be done through the lens of the current metagame that the problematic thing is in. Right now, that would make it only Vish, and if it goes, Snow Warning and Hail teams would be more than manageable and likely fringe at best.

 

[Mariannabelle]

If you think Snow Warning is Broken, prove that it breaks other abusers, not just Arctovish. and no, Arctozolt doesn't count because it's not currently in the tier.

i think choosing whether to ban snow warning or arctovish probably comes down to tiering policy, to my understanding simple bans of 1 pokemon are easier than complex bans of a weather. i'd support whichever one gets the job done fastest.

I disagree. Arctozolt doesn't count? Why wouldn't it count? No, an Arctovish ban is not a simple ban of one mon. It's simple, maybe?, but it's also the third would-be ban.

Bans aren't something that just happen once and they're suddenly history from that point on. They don't simply expire on their own. Arctozolt and Veil are not things that were banned once, they are things that are banned now. And, I don't think we should be accumulating (and it certainly is cumulative) three bans of aspects under an umbrella of something else (in this case, Veil, Arctozolt, and Arctovish are all broken only with Snow Warning in the picture). Sure, the contexts in which the three of them were addressed were different, but it doesn't matter unless you're suggesting that the meta changed to the point where we can unban Veil or unban Arctozolt.

Basically, if Arctovish gets banned now, it's not merely 'Veil was banned at some point, then Arctozolt got banned at some point, then Arctovish got banned at some point'. It would be three current bans.
---

Comparing Hail offense with Aurora Veil-based teams is, frankly, stupid, and more like saying apples and pineapples are the same because they both have the word "apple" in them. The only correlation at all is the need to set up Snow Warning, which Veil wasn't even built around and the only reason Snow Warning got set up was because you had to. You cannot seriously say that you think (insert veil setter) leading, setting up veil, and then dying as quickly as possible to get one of several completely unrelated to hail setup sweepers onto the field is the same as the hail we're discussing now. It's a completely different beast and should be handled differently, as it was. Or does Tyranitar being on any team in OU automatically make that a Sand Stream team, when it's clearly just being used for other things than enabling sand? The idea to "save veil" by banning snow warning is also very misguided, as not a single person is going to run manual hail + veil in any tier when they could just use screens, but if you want to save your favourite now completely useless move at the expense of an entire playstyle across three tiers, go ahead.

Yeah, I've seen various iterations of this point come up from various people. I'm just gonna say it.

With regards to Snow Warning? 'Veil team' vs 'Hail team' is an utterly pointless distinction. Like, splitting hairs with no objective in mind.
Tyranitar Sand Stream doesn't usually make a Sand Stream team because the rest of the team doesn't need Sand Stream to function. If anything, the rest of the team is probably annoyed by Sand chip. The sand benefits Tyranitar alone, and I guess breaks opposing Sashes or whatever.
Veil offense is a Snow Warning team because the team's primary objective requires Snow Warning. Veil sweepers cannot safely set up, be safe from priority afterwards, etc., without Snow Warning's existence.
Hail offense is a Snow Warning team because the team's primary objective requires Snow Warning. Hail sweepers cannot do their stuff without Snow Warning's existence.

---

Lastly, I want to talk about the impact a Snow Warning ban would have on the tiers below NU, as several posts in this thread have been extremely reductive about the possible impact it would have.

I was sarcastic about it before, but I honestly do not think that NU should be taking PU or ZU's meta into consideration for any of our tiering decisions.

----------------------
Oh, and speaking of 'complex bans of a weather'.
"No Veil or Arctozolt or Arctovish" as a phrase is missing some text, if you ask me, when everyone knows that the complete phrase is "No Snow Warning with Veil or Arctozolt or Arctovish". If you ask me, that's even less aesthetic than "No Drought with Charizard or Shiftry" , or "No Blaziken with Speed Boost". I.e. way more complex than just banning the weather.

I would like to thank everyone for their responses so far, and I'm glad that Snow Warning is getting some attention here.

 

[Stories]

I disagree. Arctozolt doesn't count? Why wouldn't it count? No, an Arctovish ban is not a simple ban of one mon. It's simple, maybe?, but it's also the third would-be ban.

Bans aren't something that just happen once and they're suddenly history from that point on. They don't simply expire on their own. Arctozolt and Veil are not things that were banned once, they are things that are banned now. And, I don't think we should be accumulating (and it certainly is cumulative) three bans of aspects under an umbrella of something else (in this case, Veil, Arctozolt, and Arctovish are all broken only with Snow Warning in the picture). Sure, the contexts in which the three of them were addressed were different, but it doesn't matter unless you're suggesting that the meta changed to the point where we can unban Veil or unban Arctozolt.

Basically, if Arctovish gets banned now, it's not merely 'Veil was banned at some point, then Arctozolt got banned at some point, then Arctovish got banned at some point'. It would be three current bans.
---


Yeah, I've seen various iterations of this point come up from various people. I'm just gonna say it.

With regards to Snow Warning? 'Veil team' vs 'Hail team' is an utterly pointless distinction. Like, splitting hairs with no objective in mind.
Tyranitar Sand Stream doesn't usually make a Sand Stream team because the rest of the team doesn't need Sand Stream to function. If anything, the rest of the team is probably annoyed by Sand chip. The sand benefits Tyranitar alone, and I guess breaks opposing Sashes or whatever.
Veil offense is a Snow Warning team because the team's primary objective requires Snow Warning. Veil sweepers cannot safely set up, be safe from priority afterwards, etc., without Snow Warning's existence.
Hail offense is a Snow Warning team because the team's primary objective requires Snow Warning. Hail sweepers cannot do their stuff without Snow Warning's existence.

---

I was sarcastic about it before, but I honestly do not think that NU should be taking PU or ZU's meta into consideration for any of our tiering decisions.

----------------------
Oh, and speaking of 'complex bans of a weather'.
"No Veil or Arctozolt or Arctovish" as a phrase is missing some text, if you ask me, when everyone knows that the complete phrase is "No Snow Warning with Veil or Arctozolt or Arctovish". If you ask me, that's even less aesthetic than "No Drought with Charizard or Shiftry" , or "No Blaziken with Speed Boost". I.e. way more complex than just banning the weather.

I would like to thank everyone for their responses so far, and I'm glad that Snow Warning is getting some attention here.

I think both arguments have extremely valid merit here, but I just can't disagree with Mari here;

how many things, that are only made broken due to Snow Warning, are we going to have to ban, instead of just cutting the problem at the roots

 

[Miyami~~~]

I disagree. Arctozolt doesn't count? Why wouldn't it count? No, an Arctovish ban is not a simple ban of one mon. It's simple, maybe?, but it's also the third would-be ban.

Arctozolt does not count for why hail may be broken in this metagame because it is not a part of this metagame. While it may still be banned now, bringing up a Pokemon that was banned four months ago as a reason a change should be made in a metagame that does not include it. You seem to be fixated on Arctozolt and Aurora Veil because you're arguing that we've banned too many things around hail, which I suppose is fair, but in the grand scheme of things one move and two Pokemon across two disparate playstyles isn't a lot. Compare rain, which had 4-5 broken abusers when it was banned. In that case, banning all of Kingdra, Tornadus, and the others would have a much larger impact than just banning Drizzle/Politoed.

For every ban like this, you have to consider both the context of the metagame and what component of the thing you want to ban is actually broken. You cannot seriously tell me it's Snow Warning or Slush Rush, because none of the three Snow Warning Pokemon are broken on their own, and neither Sandslash-Alola nor Beartic are broken. It's the combination of Arctovish with Slush Rush and Fishious Rend under hail, of which 3/4 of those components are restricted to one Pokemon: Arctovish. You could argue that Arctovish is fine (bad) without hail, but it goes both ways: Hail is fine without Arctovish, and banning Arctovish is both the most straightforward option to solve the problem and the least messy.

Snow Warning is not what makes hail teams broken. Arctovish's access to an insanely high-powered STAB move, backed up with excellent coverage for that STAB move and decent enough bulk to make neutral hits revenging it difficult is what makes hail teams broken. To argue otherwise would be completely false.

Yeah, I've seen various iterations of this point come up from various people. I'm just gonna say it.

With regards to Snow Warning? 'Veil team' vs 'Hail team' is an utterly pointless distinction. Like, splitting hairs with no objective in mind.
Tyranitar Sand Stream doesn't usually make a Sand Stream team because the rest of the team doesn't need Sand Stream to function. If anything, the rest of the team is probably annoyed by Sand chip. The sand benefits Tyranitar alone, and I guess breaks opposing Sashes or whatever.
Veil offense is a Snow Warning team because the team's primary objective requires Snow Warning. Veil sweepers cannot safely set up, be safe from priority afterwards, etc., without Snow Warning's existence.
Hail offense is a Snow Warning team because the team's primary objective requires Snow Warning. Hail sweepers cannot do their stuff without Snow Warning's existence.

My point wasn't that Aurora Veil isn't a Snow Warning team, it's that Aurora Veil isn't a Slush Rush team. Both require hail, but both abuse it in completely different ways with little to no overlap besides having to run one of the same pool of setters. Currently, the problem at hand is Slush Rush teams, not Aurora Veil teams, and as such the only reason to bring up Aurora Veil at all is an argument that there's a set number of bans a playstyle can have before it gets banned itself (which only seems to apply to weather-based teams, for some reason).

Aurora Veil is, in playstyle, completely different, being a condensed Screens offense team as opposed to weather-based offense. They share similar components, but function completely differently, and the only reason you can even bring them up is because all Veil teams are required to have a suicide lead that coincidentally sets hail. Go beyond the surface and look at the actual function of teams.

I was sarcastic about it before, but I honestly do not think that NU should be taking PU or ZU's meta into consideration for any of our tiering decisions.

NU absolutely should when a tiering decision will affect lower tiers. Banning a Pokemon from NU has little to no bearing on PU or ZU, and as Arctovish is possibly going to rise to NU this shift anyways, it leans into the none category. In fact, there was an Entire Policy Review Thread on the topic earlier in this generation, which is essentially the argument we're having on a tier-wide scale. UU's argument was that Drought was responsible for multiple bans across multiple tiers and should thus be banned as a whole from every tier below OU. This was despite the fact that Drought was perfectly manageable in RU at the time, and by the UUTL's own admission, the only really problematic element of Sun in UU was Venusaur. In Essence, UU Was attempting to ban sun from multiple tiers because:

1. Sun had been responsible for several bans across multiple different tiers
2. A desire to make all the lower tiers have the same bans in place for sun despite being vastly dissimilar metagames and power levels (admittedly, not relevant to our discussion)
3. A desire to "preserve" Venusaur, a Pokemon which would almost certainly have been unviable in UU without drought

Naturally, RU objected to Sun being removed from their tier without much real say in it, as sun wasn't an issue in the tier and wasn't even an issue in UU without Venusaur. This would likely be the same response PU and ZU would have to suddenly removing the viability of ~6 different Pokemon across both their tiers, 7 if you include Arctozolt, which would almost certainly drop out of NU without Slush Rush.

Points 1 and 3 are almost exactly the points you're making, just swapping "tiers" in point 1 with "metagames". Point 1 largely ignores the fact that a) multiple very different metagames create multiple very different solutions to similar problems and b) the only tier that was currently having a problem with Drought teams was UU, with RU having Drought exist and be manageable. Regardless of what you want to pretend, you're not banning Snow Warning from NU. You're banning Snow Warning from NU, PU, and ZU to solve a problem that, currently, is caused by exclusively Arctovish just because you want to use an unviable set in NU. You cannot pretend that an ability ban has no bearing on the tiers below you, unless there are no users of that ability in those lower tiers.

Oh, and speaking of 'complex bans of a weather'.
"No Veil or Arctozolt or Arctovish" as a phrase is missing some text, if you ask me, when everyone knows that the complete phrase is "No Snow Warning with Veil or Arctozolt or Arctovish". If you ask me, that's even less aesthetic than "No Drought with Charizard or Shiftry" , or "No Blaziken with Speed Boost". I.e. way more complex than just banning the weather.

This is wrong and you know it. "No Snow Warning with Veil or Arctozolt or Arctovish" is a completely different phrase than "No Veil, Arctozolt, or Arctovish" with completely different implications. The first reads that Aurora Veil, Arctozolt, or Arctovish are still legal in NU, just without a Snow Warning user on the same team, which is very obviously not the case as Veil and Arctozolt are not allowed in the tier, regardless of snow warning's presence on a team. Similarly, it was not "No Blaziken with Speed boost", it was always "No Blaziken". Period. End of sentence. There was never any period of time where Blaze Blaziken was legal in a tier while Speed Boost Blaziken wasn't. Maybe in your head they're the same, but when read by anyone that isn't you, the result will be different.

And why are we caring about "aesthetic", anyways? What does that mean? How pretty a sentence is? Why is that relevant?

As I see you've been on your hail crusade since December, I'm unlikely to change your mind at this point despite how bad your proposal is, and so I'll likely stop responding. If Snow Warning does get banned, whatever, but it's a bad decision, both on a policy level and just on the level of this tier and metagame, as everyone in this thread knows that Slush Rush teams without Arctovish wouldn't be much more than a fringe strategy.

 

[Monky25]

I don't have much to say but as an outsider I feel I should ask this question because in a sense this can be applied to all lower tiers where weather-dependent strategies can be a problem. My question is: where do we draw the line? In a more specific sense, NU has banned both aurora veil and arctozolt from NU, with there being talks to ban arctovish now. That will be 3 different things banned, and while it is enough to neuter the playstyle you have to ask "Was this necessary?" It seems that in general we have to set a standard for how many abusers of a weather will be pushed over the edge to the point where we then think that removing the ability is the best action. I personally think that if we have to ban more than 2 things about a playstyle, being veil and arctozolt in this case, and if it still is a problem than the weather setting ability should be taken action on, being snow warning right now. I'm not too well versed about this so maybe a more experienced player can offer some guidance, but it has become evidently clear we need to establish a standard of how many bans are needed before we have to accept the ability being a problem.

tl;dr: establish the limit of bans needed before we have to ban the weather since this seems to be a recurring issue for lower tiers. I think if more than 2 Pokemon/move bans have to happen to not make something broken it should be the ability instead, though as a UU main this decision doesn't really affect me too much.

 

[Mariannabelle]

You're banning Snow Warning from NU, PU, and ZU to solve a problem that, currently, is caused by exclusively Arctovish just because you want to use an unviable set in NU.

We might just have to agree to disagree, but,

The UU Drought situation is fundamentally different than the NU Snow Warning situation.
UU, when it came down to banning Drought or banning Venusaur, didn't have stuff sitting in their BL related to Drought. It wouldn't have been reasonable to ban Drought without at least one Drought aspect sitting in their BL beforehand.

NU, when it comes down to Arctovish vs Snow Warning, *does* have stuff sitting in their BL related to Snow Warning. We already made a good-faith effort to preserve Snow Warning, but there's no reason to bend over backwards for it, crossing the ban line not two but three times for its sake, even if PU or ZU want Snow Warning around.

We didn't need to care about PU or ZU losing access to Aurora Veil when we banned that, and we don't need to care about them losing access to Snow Warning right now for the same reason.
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Arctozolt does not count for why hail may be broken in this metagame because it is not a part of this metagame.

Well, yeah, but actually no.

The metagames we have are directed by usage.
Terrakion isn't a part of this metagame because its usage excludes it from this metagame. It fundamentally isn't able to affect our metagame.
Pikachu isn't a part of this metagame because Pikachu's presence or absence changes nothing. It can try, but it doesn't affect our metagame.

Arctozolt *is* a part of this metagame. Unlike Terrakion, we have to actively choose to keep Arctozolt, and everything else in NUBL, out of our games. Arctozolt being banned absolutely changes what the tier looks like. Unless somebody wants to tell me that the tier would look the same if we unbanned Arctozolt or Veil right now.

 

[shiloh]

Hey theres been a lot of great discussion in here already, which I always love to read, so I figured I would chime in with my opinion on how we should handle this as well.

Before I get into it, be sure to go fill out the Hail Survey the council current has up, as it will help us get more viewpoints on the matter.

--

Starting off I will say that I am in the camp of banning/testing Snow Warning>Arctovish, and that I agree this case is different from the UU Drought issue that was brought up earlier. A few people have made this point already, but I'll just spell it out how I see it currently.

1. NUBL pokemon/moves are still considered part of the tier, in the sense that they are NU by usage but we have removed them from the metagame ourselves. This means that while they are not usable, Arctozolt/Aurora Veil can be used as reasoning as to past issues NU has had with Hail/Snow Warning.
2. Based on point 1, this means that NU will now have dealt with Hail in 3 ways if we choose to ban Arctovish. This means that we probably are not looking at the right solution to the problem, since Snow Warning is now the common factor among all 3 bans as it is what enables all 3.

Compared to the UU Drought situation, that problem was solved for the most part with just a banning of Venusaur, the thread did bring up that if other abusers like Darm/Shiftry started becoming problematic, it would make more sense to look at Drought as it is the enabler of the problem at that point, even if the users of the ability are not the problematic part when you take it at face value. Now with NU, while Veil might be considered its own "playstyle" separate from Hail it still is enabled almost completely by Snow Warning; and while Zolt & Vish abuse mainly the broken moves that they have to be considered banworthy, Snow Warning giving them Slush Rush is the main enabler.

Mariannabelle hits the nail on the head when they say that NU has tried to keep Snow Warning in our metagame as best as possible, as we could have banned it either of the two prior times instead of Veil/Zolt, and at this point we want to go a different direction and ban Snow Warning instead. I get the arguments about banning Arctovish>Snow Warning, but at this point in time I personally want to go with Snow Warning for the reasons I outlined above. Now this is only my opinion, and even members on council are debating this issue atm.

And a quick reminder to keep things Civil in the thread, I know this is an issue some people might get worked up on, but just remember to treat others well and stay respectful for the people on the other side of the argument as well, since everyone just wants whats best for the tier.

 

[Miyami~~~]

We didn't need to care about PU or ZU losing access to Aurora Veil when we banned that, and we don't need to care about them losing access to Snow Warning right now for the same reason.

While I will cede that NU banned Aurora Veil without much fanfare from PU or ZU, I feel the need to point out the context in which it happened. At the time of Aurora Veil's ban, the only Veil setter below NU was Alolan Vulpix, an obviously terrible Pokemon nobody would consider using to set Veil when you could just set screens. Had Abomasnow, Aurorus, or Vanilluxe dropped below NU before Aurora Veil's ban from the tier, it's extremely likely Aurora Veil would have been banned from PU/ZU as well. As it stands, they never had the option.

Snow Warning is significantly different, as none of the Slush Rush team's main components are currently NU by usage until the next tier shift, and thus we have been able to see that they do impact lower tiers without breaking it, beyond simply being a power boost for Vanilluxe. As such, discretion should be taken to prevent a sweeping impact on a completely different tier without any sort of say in it.

I understand the frustration with hail, I really do. I get that Slush Rush teams and Veil teams have caused problems before. But there's a very obvious solution here with minimal collateral damage, and it pains me that it's being ignored just out of annoyance with a playstyle whose strength is solely concentrated in a single Pokemon.

As a question for the tier leaders: Would this not have to go to policy like UU's attempt at a drought ban did, due to the ban impacting one Official Tier (PU) and one Semi-Official Tier (ZU), besides the tier having the problem? If it doesn't, what's the difference?

 

[shooting star]

I would just like to add again that the collateral damage argument goes both ways. For illustration purposes, let me use Drizzle as an example.

Since the number of Pokemon bans allowed is arbitrary, let us assume that we are allowed to ban a maximum of 5 Rain abusers to preserve Drizzle, and that any more would warrant a Drizzle ban in itself. So let us say that these 5 abusers highlighted in red are banned in NU at different points in time, and then Drizzle is finally balanced. Ok sure, Kingdra is broken in PU as well, but then what are the repercussions?

1. You deny lower tiers a chance to make manual rain great again by banning the best rain abusers.
2. You deny PU Omastar, an A-rank mon, and a Shell Smash user capable of punishing opponents who mindlessly click U-turn with Weak Armor.
3. You deny ZU 3 mons residing in the B-ranks, Kabutops, Ludicolo, & Poliwrath, all of which are capable at wallbreaking even without auto-rain.

All of these collateral damage could have been avoided if Drizzle is banned in NU in the first place.

PU and ZU

I would also like to allay any worries that a Snow Warning ban will negatively impact PU and ZU. Trust me, as someone who first managed to make hail HO work during the PU Virizion suspect, I can attest that hail HO in PU is an archetype that has become inconsistent over time due to metagame trends working against it, examples being Choice Scarf Togedemaru/Heliolisk/Virizion, Gigalith, Water-immunes like Jellicient, and the presence of other Water-type wallbreakers like Kingler and Basculin that are more consistent in what they do. Here are the 1630 January PU stats, and compare with the February stats that I have posted earlier, you can see how much hail HO has fallen out of favour over time.

| 15 | Arctovish | 9.582% |
| 19 | Sandslash-Alola | 8.837% |
| 39 | Aurorus | 6.210% |
| 41 | Vanilluxe | 4.962% |

But you may ask, what about the viability of Sandslash-Alola, whose usage is still relatively high of 6.38% in February? Yes, while 1630-Elo users still use Sandslash-A primarily as a Hail abuser, with its top 4 teammates being Ice-types, Sandslash-A functions as a utility mon according to the 1760 Feb stats. Team structures are also completely different. Here is the proof.

Items
Leftovers 55.664%
Spreads
Careful:248/0/0/0/228/32 22.105%
Teammates
Druddigon +21.823%
Uxie +16.867%
Toxicroak +14.451%
Whimsicott +12.584%

And as mentioned earlier, hail HO ft. Beartic is unheard of in ZU. So really, you are not depriving PU and ZU anything significant, since hail HO is at best a niche playstyle. You are only denying them the freedom to spam 100% accuracy Blizzards and the much coveted 6% hail chip damage that can put your opponents in range of X-move. Unless you are saying that Blizzard is able to secure that few important OHKO/2HKO that Ice Beam is unable to achieve, and even so it is something minor that need not be taken into consideration.

Will Arctozolt and Arctovish fall into oblivion in PU and ZU without auto-hail? Frankly, I do not know, and it could be a shame if they do perhaps. However, that is also irrelevant to the tiering decision, where the council tries to find the most simple solution to make weathers balanced, which is to ban only 1 thing, be it ability or Pokemon.

EDIT: My apologies, I got a little too carried away there. I was just trying to explain how banning Snow Warning alone is a win-win situation for all since firstly, it is more in line with tiering policy, and secondly how this will not affect PU and ZU much. Since the latter argument is deemed moot now, I shall enclose that in hide tags should anyone wish to read something extra.

 

[poh]

Pretty much everything has been said now but I wanted to address something important. When the NU community feels like something needs to be removed from the meta to promote its general well-being, things should be seen from an NU perspective and thus we are not taking into account the possible consequences in tiers that are under NU. Again, the focus here should stay on the NU metagame when arguing these types of topics. What would happen in other tiers is not of our concern and it shouldn't be used as an argument.

 

[Ren-chon]

Finally got a little bit of time to post again. With my nu ssnl run having ended and the sheer amount of replays available bcuz of triple finals, I decided to make a post covering some trends I noticed in the later stages of the tournament (also to divert the attention from Hail a little bit)

Already a common mon before, this thing is EVERYWHERE rn. It showed up in 10/13 games on r12 and seems to be the go-to fight resist now, while also being a really good special breaker. It also helps in checking some of the other pokémon I will be mentioning later on.

On the topic of eeveelutions, Vaporeon has also seen a surge in usage likely due to how scared the whole tier is of hail teams. Other than that, though, this thing is actually surprisingly decent. Its one of the best lazzle and Dragalge checks we have, deals with SS Blastoise, and offers cleric support which is SO valuable rn where every team has like, 4 toxic users and our absorbers often lose to those anyway.

Nowhere to be seen in past metas, Diancie is slowly crawling its way up as one of the tiers premiere rocks user. Not only that, but it can actually also double down as a "sweeper" in the right situations due to the DStorm + BPress combo which is so, so hard to take on if you lack a special breaker that can hit it super effectively. Also, obligatory cleric mention here.

I have no idea what happened, no idea why, and even less idea how, but Zoroark went from barely ever seen to an actually solid usage in the last rounds, specially the scarf set. It takes advantage of some other trends like specs Sylveon and Exploud, the latter of which has been steadily becoming more common, and its ability to lure in their common switches. Also, trick scarf is still a really nice start and way to handle some annoying mons like the aforementioned Sylveon and Vaporeon, as well as Diancie, Dragalge, Talonflame, and so on. Overall, a really nice option rn thats rivaling Rotom-Mow as the scarf of choice in the current meta. Btw, ban snow warning please.

Talking about it, it unsurprisingly became the go-to speed control after Mienshao got banned. Super annoying to handle since all our electric immunes get rekt by Leaf Storm and other switches like Vileplume or Dragalge can be taken advantage of rather easily when you have the momentum, not to mention they risk being permanently crippled by having a choice scarf tricked onto them. Other than that, theres also the itemless Defog set thats still kinda neat, I guess.

One of our main hazard removal options, second only to Talonflame (which I wont talk abt because everyone knows this thing is like top 5 mons rn). SUPER hard to switch into if you dont have something like itemless Vileplume or Guzzlord, and a nice check to shit like Rotom-Mow, the ghosts (if itemless) and Vaporeon. Also, it has the surprisingly uncommon trait of being a hazard removal that actually beats rockers which is always welcome.

Shining as the main fight-type, switching into this is a PAIN. Common fight resists are either slower than it and risk being taken down by its coverage, like Vileplume, Dragalge (which actually cant really take CCs that well) and Sylveon, or really cant afford to be hit by a Knock Off, such as Talonflame, Starmie and Mantine. Its main drawbacks are, obviously, the fact its slow and doesnt have the longevity that Mienshao did so you gotta play a bit more carefully with it specially if youre the SD set.

Also receiving quite a lot of usage, although surprisingly not for its trademark scarf set. Catalisador covered it well on their post, and I want to highlight even more its defensive rocky helmet sets, which can all at once check Tyrantrum, Copperajah, Talonflame, Zoroark, Salazzle, Rotom-Mow, Drapion... And the list goes on. Toxic+Defog or Toxic+U-Turn are both incredible sets and I actually expect it to see even more usage once people catch up on it more.

Kinda surprised, but for the wrong reasons. One of the scariest mons in the tier was used a whopping amount of 5 times in the past 2 rounds, mostly I think due to the way the meta is being shaped post-cresshao. Nowadays most teams have at least one cleric (with Vaporeon and Diancie being excelent checks to it), Dragalge is considerably common, and defensive Flygon sets are receiving more and more attention which are all trends Salazzle absolutely hates. Still an annoyance to deal with, but a lot "tamer" than I expected it to be.

Talk about a disappointment. From all the hype its been getting, it saw close to no usage for the last rounds, only being used like 4 or 5 times. Way better on paper than in an actual game, where it often finds it hard to properly setup and sweep. Dont write it off just yet since the bird is still pretty decent, but it really hasnt lived up to all the hype and talk it got.

To no ones surprise, it really aint a Mienshao replacement. Was used like, twice? Pretty sure its not even among the 3 best choice scarfers rn lmao

Those are some of the mons I wanted to talk about that either have been more common, or disappointed me by seeing nowhere close to the usage they once had or were hyped up to have. Also one more point is that hail, the ladder menace, was only used once the past rounds and Im pretty sure it also hasnt been common at all this tournament. Not surprised at all though since in tournaments you can afford to prep for more specific things and you want your team to be as consistent as possible as opposed to some insta-loss matchups hail has, but still funny to highlight the disparity between hail usage on ladder VS tours.

 

[S1nn0hC0nfirm3d]

To no ones surprise, it really aint a Mienshao replacement. Was used like, twice? Pretty sure its not even among the 3 best choice scarfers rn lmao

Couldn’t agree with this more! There’s a huge problem with Pass as a scarfer when its slower than other scarfers like Rotom-C and Flygon, and it also can’t revenge kill +2 Blastoise nor hail sweepers. There’s also just the huge issue that it lacks recovery, which was such a nice asset for Mienshao. In comparison, if say scarf Pass leads against scarf Mowtom, then Pass might not be able to afford the Volt Switch damage for the slower U-turn as it’ll be so much more threatened by Mowtom for the rest of the game. The popularity of Talonflame too also really hurts it spamming / revenge killing with CC and U-turn, and locking into Rock Slide has its own slew of problems even if you get the prediction right. So at this point, you're taking advantage of what's admittedly a decent Attack and coverage for a pivot that's so much slower (and worse) than Rotom-C and Flygon, and you're forfeiting the teamspot for Sirfetch'd, Machamp, and Toxicroak; all better Fighting-types in comparison. I would not recommend Passimian on most serious teams nor as a general scarfer. I know our Choice Scarf options are really limited rn but honestly the viability gap between Rotom-C and Pass is ridiculously huge in my eyes.

- Hail has been a problem in NU since the November drops, and the tier had a hard time dealing with more Snow Warning Pokemon and Slush Rush abusers. It's funny to see that even during the Aurora Veil pre-ban posts some members brought up a Snow Warning ban instead of an Aurora Veil ban. Some doubted hail's potency post-ban, thinking that Arctovish hails wouldn't be worth another ban, and how others seemingly swapped their stance on the "ban Snow Warning or ban the abusers" debate. I bring this up because it's clear that hail has been a tricky, controversial aspect of DLC2 NU since its inception. Comparatively, weathers like like sun and rain had Drought and Drizzle banned the same day they were legal in the tier. Those weathers have had almost 0 discussion let a lone concern post the auto-setter ban. Obviously, hail was not as pressing nor apparently busted at the time, but so much time has passed with hail being at the very least a concern to the playerbase that the entire playstyle should just get the boot. This of course means I'm in favor of a Snow Warning ban rather than an Arctovish ban.

Let's face it: as long as there's autosetters and x2 Speed sweepers for Hail, it'll be uncompetitve to some degree. Yes, I am in fact saying that even Alolan Sandslash without Arctovish support will be a nuisance to the meta and teambuilding because: 1.) It outspeeds the most common and viable Choice Scarfers / resists common priority + Ninjask, 2.) more teams will (at least initially) move away from hail checks and thus be unprepared for the matchup, and 3.) Ice is still a super spammable and offensive typing in the meta. With that last point, I can't stress enough how threatening Vaniluxe can be late-game not only as a setter but also as a wallbreaker / stallbreaker. When hail sweepers wear down or remove Ice checks, Vanilla Ice over here takes bodies. And as dumb as it sounds, even Beartic could have merit. I've tested it myself the past couple days on Arctrovish-less hail teams as a secondary SD sweeper to Alolan Sandslash that baits in and breaks walls like Escavalier, Vaporean, and Talonflame. It might not OHKO some of the bulkier examples but it wears them down to the point where Alolan Sandslash and Vanilluxe are able to break better. Beartic teams are of course unviable atm due to Arctovish being legal, and they're really only working like half the time for me, but surely they could work post-Arctovish ban.

Again I don't think anyone here is arguing that hail wouldn't be nerfed with an Arctovish ban, but what I'm saying is that the said nerf is still not enough to weaken a strategy that has such a warping effect on the meta. How many more nerfs to hail do we need to show that it's not worth the hassle and that sweepers are still going to be a problem? Ban the ability and wash your hands with the mess that is hail.

 

[GoldCat]

There seems to be a lot of support for a Snow Warning ban, but I think this is the wrong way to tackle the issue. A Slush Rush ban would more than suffice. It accomplishes the exact same thing as a Snow Warning ban, but without the unnecessary collateral. Is removing all potential viability of three mons to save Aurora Veil really worth it? Just to have a single ban instead of two? I agree that normally the impact of a ban on lower tiers shouldn't be given much thought, but we've two options that do the same thing so why not choose the one that preserves the most? There's also the issue of Aurora Veil potentially still being broken. A decent amount of mons gets Hail + Aurora Veil and you can always go back to the SM days and have Alolan Sandslash be the Veil setter. I'm sure someone will find a way to break it and if no one does it'll be a matchup fish at best and utterly unviable at worst. In my opinion, NU only loses and gains nothing with a ban on Snow Warning over Slush Rush. With a Slush Rush ban, you keep Arctozolt and Arctovish, fix Hail, and get a nice bonus of having minimal impact on PU and ZU. I think a Slush Rush ban is a win-win solution for everyone.

 

[Mariannabelle]

There seems to be a lot of support for a Snow Warning ban, but I think this is the wrong way to tackle the issue. A Slush Rush ban would more than suffice. It accomplishes the exact same thing as a Snow Warning ban, but without the unnecessary collateral.

This is a fair take, but I do disagree in the sense that there’s definitely still collateral in banning Slush Rush, arguably moreso than with a Snow Warning ban.

It’s true that a Snow Warning ban damages the viability of each setter, but as far as the viability of the Hail archetype is concerned? A Slush Rush ban hurts way more. That is to say, Snow Warning mons can stand on their own, but a Hail team with no Slush Rush is limited to Snow Cloak cheese and Aurora Veil (yeah, that stays banned in this scenario).

Basically, manual Hail with Slush Rush and Aurora Veil sounds vaguely workable as an archetype, while auto-Hail with no Slush Rush and no Aurora Veil does not. That’s just setters with nothing left to abuse the weather.

——
incoming joke
If Aurorus is bummed out, send it to ZU apartment #186, where Wobbuffett lives. Aurorus will think “hey, things might be bad, but at least I’m not Wobb-with-no-Shadow-Tag levels of useless.”
Aurorus will pick up the pieces of its life and realize that Refrigerate Echoed Voice was its true calling all along.

 

[GoldCat]

This is a fair take, but I do disagree in the sense that there’s definitely still collateral in banning Slush Rush, arguably moreso than with a Snow Warning ban.

It’s true that a Snow Warning ban damages the viability of each setter, but as far as the viability of the Hail archetype is concerned? A Slush Rush ban hurts way more. That is to say, Snow Warning mons can stand on their own, but a Hail team with no Slush Rush is limited to Snow Cloak cheese and Aurora Veil (yeah, that stays banned in this scenario).

Basically, manual Hail with Slush Rush and Aurora Veil sounds vaguely workable as an archetype, while auto-Hail with no Slush Rush and no Aurora Veil does not. That’s just setters with nothing left to abuse the weather.

Any wide ban will have collateral. I think our disagreement stems from how we value the worth of individual mons vs archetypes. I don't think the absence of Hail teams will hurt the mons of said archetype nearly as much as a Snow Warning ban will have on the setters. Sure Sandslash-A will be unviable in NU but at least it keeps its main use in PU as a utility mon. Arctozolt and Arctovish will be decent breakers. Both Abomasnow and Vanilluxe were viable in past RU metas similar to the current NU so it would be a shame to rob any viability from them in future meta shifts, especially when it's easily avoidable. Also, if manual Hail teams sound workable and can still cheese wins then does the Snow Warning ban truly tackle the core issue of Hail? Arctozolt under Hail with Aurora Veil up will be dumb whether Hail was set up manually or automatically. But Drought and Drizzle were way dumber than Hail and yet manual Sun and Rain are both never seen. So is manual Hail teams really worth more than three mons when it'll either be still broken or more likely to be never-ever seen again?

 

[Aawin]

I get the arguments from those who want to ban snow warning, or those who want to ban arctovish/slush rush, but after reading this thread I've shifted my thinking towards a snow warning ban, rather than the latter. I pretty much agree with S1nn0hC0nfirm3d 's post in that hail seems to be problematic even if we did ban arctovish, in that there would still be alolaslash and even beartic to pose threats to the meta. There's quite a few methodologies to dealing with the issue of hail, but atm I'm all for anything that gets the meta to a better place in where we're not seeing the same playstyles game after game. I would like to see how manual hail plays out if snow warning is banned, and arctozolt and veil returning. I'm fine with whatever happens just bc this discussion has been drawn out and any conclusion the council comes to will be a viable solution in its own right, but there's little way to appease every nu player

 

[Luck O' the Irish]

i'd be curious to see some hail games where sandslash/other slush rusher does some work against a good team + player. in all my games i've played vs hail i cant recall sandslash being an actual threat. vish is legitimately scary if you dont have a vaporeon and to me the difference between vish and slash's threat level is substantial.

where am at, and my opinion is malleable, is vish is what makes hail what it is. manual hail with both arctos sounds way better to me than autohail with like, beartic. and i could be wrong, that might also suck ass. im not even convinced vish is broken, but i dont think anyone could argue vish is anything other than an awful presence for the tier.

i see why the arguments for snow warning and slush rush come up but re: slush rush, there's a reason why vish and slash are the only slush rushers ever used (spoiler: everything else is dogshit), and re: snow warning- this makes much more sense to me, and i get why people are saying "precedent" when it comes to this--we banned veil, hail still unhealthy, we dont continue pecking away at the problem. smogon policy regarding baton pass seems like it would apply here. i think fundamentally this feels a bit different because initially hail was used purely for the screens HO aurora veil enabled and never really to activate slush rush. here its used to facilitate vish, and i guess kinda sandslash to just outspeed and kill everything. get why the distinction wouldnt matter to some but that's how i see this.

so when i look at banning snow warning the way i see it is does hail itself, as it allows for the support of slush rush sweepers and breakers, lead to an inherently problematic playstyle, in the same way that drought did nearly a year ago? Considering veil here is moot bc right now its banned and if its allowed without snow warning its mostly just worse dual screens. as it stands im not convinced the easy facilitation of slush rushers is a problem, expect for maybe arctovish. and arctozolt? christ. i dont want that shit in this tier

as an aside, any discussion on how this would affect PU and ZU is purposeless. chairman rozes will not be considering these matters at this time.

 

[Ren-chon]

Can we please stop analyzing snow warning on a vacuum though? Honestly, a lot of the pro-arctovish ban folks here is just that "hail isnt a problem by itself we gotta ban arctovish". Yeah, so what? What exactly is it that makes arctovish even remotely broken in the first place? You are all analyzing snow warning by itself while every discussion about arctovish is exactly with snow warning in mind. Something doesnt need to be broken by itself to be banned, or to warrant discussion; something can be broken simply because it enables a lot of unhealthy gameplay interactions. Snow warning doesnt suddenly stop being a problem just because vanilluxe or aurorus suck without their partners in crime, but rather because its an enabler of potentially toxic playstyles. You dont even need to go much further to look out for examples: Arena Trap and Shadow Tag werent banned in OU (and now even Ubers, in the case of ST) because Dugtrio or Goth themselves were broken and could sweep squads silly nilly, those abilities were banned because they enabled a lot other threats to just impact the game with very little counterplay once the potential check got trapped; same case for baton pass: dry passing wasnt an issue at all, but the fact it made full baton pass chains possible is what pushed it over the edge. The exact same situation here happens with snow warning. We banned veil because of it, we banned arctozolt because of it, and now we want to ban arctovish. Do you guys not see the common factor between all those? The ability itself isnt broken on a vacuum (just like arctovish isnt either), it is broken because it allows for a multitude of broken mons or strats to shine. Arctovish, Arctozolt and Aurora Veil arent broken by themselves, its their interaction with snow warning that makes them unhealthy. Why ban every single element instead of just one ban for the thing enabling them all? Sorry if my post came out as a bit rude, but I just cant find any sense on wanting to ban vish over the thing that makes it even remotely viable in the first place thats shown to be an issue in the past as well.

 

[roxie]

Hail teams have been an issue for a while now and I made a post in the last NP thread about it. Ren-chon makes an amazing point about Hail Abusers + Aurora Veil interacting with Snow Warning. At the moment, Arctovish is key to what makes hail what it is now but if we ban that, we now have 4 things banned in the tier based on Snow Warning + Banned Pokemon. Arctovish in my eyes can also beat some of its counters like Vaporeon by 2HKOing it with Freeze Dry with prior chip and priority Pokemon like Sirfetch'd and Golisopod with Protect. Snow Warning causes Arctovish to be one of the fastest Pokemon in the metagame as showed in speed tiers by benchmarking a 502/458 Speed stat. I am interested in seeing how Hail teams perform if Snow Warning is banned as well especially with the possibility of Arctozolt and Aurora Veil returning ~

 

[Hera]

Not the best NU player, but as someone in the Ban Arctovish camp instead of the Ban Snow Warning camp, I just wanted to take my time to respond to all of the points on banning Snow Warning and why I disagree with them.

re: precedent

I think this is the only point for which banning Snow Warning makes sense. Banning multiple abusers for a single playstyle is not in line with Smogon tiering policy, and at some point the main thread must be cut. However, I disagree with comparisons made by users such as Ren-Chon that it is similar to Arena Trap and Baton Pass as moves and abilities are in separate categories. Baton Pass, compared to Snow Warning and Arena Trap, has a much wider distribution, and when combined with other widely distributed moves such as Substitute, a boosting move of sorts, and Protect, as well as every user being able to do different things or pass different boosts, created an inherently problematic issue that needed to be dealt with. By contrast, both Snow Warning and Arena Trap have a much smaller amount of users, and many of their users do the same thing (autoset Hail or trap a grounded Pokemon, respectively). As for Arena Trap, it enables a lot more than Snow Warning currently does. In past gens where it is now banned, Dugtrio alone enabled a plethora of threats compared to Snow Warning because Arena Trap does not need specific Pokemon with specific abilities to synergize with it, whereas Snow Warning does.

re: banning vish wouldn't fix the issue, or "hail would still be broken without vish"

This point makes a lot of assumptions about future metagames in a scenario where Vish is banned but now Snow Warning. It assumes that the meta would automatically resume to the point it was right before the Cress ban (minus Cress and most Hail of course), Vaporeon usage would drop off the face of a cliff, and that Sandslash-A plus maybe Beartic would be this unkillable duo that sweeps teams with ease, and this is why I don't particularly like this point. I have personally experimented with Vish-less Hail myself (replaced Vish with Beartic) and have found it to be extremely underwhelming, as even standard team builds can often play around it. The main reason why Vish is the issue is not only its interaction with Snow Warning, but also a 170Bp move not factoring STAB that it can spam against 80% of teams without any drawback, a movepool to deny any possible switch-ins such as Vaporeon, and surprising bulk that lets it live a random hit if it needs to a dish out one in return. Sandslash-A has none of these, which is why I wouldn't see Hail as broken after a Vish ban.

re: hail vs veil

My response is simple: just because something uses a factor to become problematic does not mean that it's what enabled it, not the abuser, that's the problem. Of course, this has a certain limit in many cases, but I don't feel that Hail has reached the point where it's enabling so much where it's unhealthy and constraining. This is where Veil comes in. I disagree that Hail vs Veil is a non-important distinction because Hail teams and Veil teams are two different playstyles with only one thing in common. Hail teams use Slush Rush mons to first break, then sweep the opponent, while having two Snow Warning mons and a Ghost + Poison to deal with other counterplay, while Veil teams are 1-2 Snow Warning mons with Veil and 4-5 random sweepers that have very little synergy with each other. Saying Snow Warning enables Veil just as it does standard Hail teams is like seeing an Araquanid on a team and calling it a Webs team, even if the structure is nothing like a Webs team.

re: snow warning is the one enabling vish, not vice versa

This argument can probably go both ways. I will admit that Vish's interaction with Snow Warning, which provides it with free chip and a x2 boost in Speed, is one of the factors that makes it problematic; however, as I stated above, it's not the only factor. It's also Fishous Rend, a wide movepool, and decent bulk that make Arctovish unable to be dealt with by many teams. One can say that Arctovish is what makes Hail teams problematic to begin with because of all of these qualities that are only exacerbated on Hail teams, which is what I personally believe to be true. I've said this before, but whenever I see or build with Hail, i'm not thinking that it's a Hail team, I'm thinking that it's a Vish team. Because it just so happens to use something that was problemative before doesn't mean Snow Warning should be banned, but that Vish is the issue here.

re: hail is forcing similar structures on teams in order to deal with it

I'm cheating a bit here because this is more of an anti-Hail stance than a specific anti-Snow Warning stance, but I still wanted to respond to it. As I stated on the last page, I truly do not believe Hail is broken and that people are knee-jerking to Hail being the issue when all it does is take advantage of common meta trends. In fact, if Hail wasn't such a cheesy and matchup-fishy playstyle, I would argue that a build taking advantage of common meta trends is a good thing, as it forces an otherwise stale meta to adapt. Vaporeon has already risen in usage and is a solid check to most Hail teams, while I have seen stuff such as Scarf Heliolisk and Toxicroak to outspeed/take advantage of many Hail teams. This isn't constraining, but rather different than the samey team structures I saw during the Bears suspect and right after; in fact, if given enough time, I think the meta could adapt to make Hail much less viable than it currently is right now, considering Hail has only really been popular for a bit over a month.

So that this post isn't super negative, could I recommend banning Icy Rock? Might be a bit late for that but it seems to satisfy everyone. Hail is kept in check, Snow Warning is neutered but still allowed, Vish and other Hail abusers drop in viability, while it's even possible Zolt could be unbanned (but not Veil). There's also precedent in banning specific weather items in other metas such as Monotype and PU, although the latter banned Heat Rock with Drought.

 

[Luck O' the Irish]

Can we please stop analyzing snow warning on a vacuum though? Honestly, a lot of the pro-arctovish ban folks here is just that "hail isnt a problem by itself we gotta ban arctovish". Yeah, so what? What exactly is it that makes arctovish even remotely broken in the first place? You are all analyzing snow warning by itself while every discussion about arctovish is exactly with snow warning in mind. Something doesnt need to be broken by itself to be banned, or to warrant discussion; something can be broken simply because it enables a lot of unhealthy gameplay interactions. Snow warning doesnt suddenly stop being a problem just because vanilluxe or aurorus suck without their partners in crime, but rather because its an enabler of potentially toxic playstyles. You dont even need to go much further to look out for examples: Arena Trap and Shadow Tag werent banned in OU (and now even Ubers, in the case of ST) because Dugtrio or Goth themselves were broken and could sweep squads silly nilly, those abilities were banned because they enabled a lot other threats to just impact the game with very little counterplay once the potential check got trapped; same case for baton pass: dry passing wasnt an issue at all, but the fact it made full baton pass chains possible is what pushed it over the edge. The exact same situation here happens with snow warning. We banned veil because of it, we banned arctozolt because of it, and now we want to ban arctovish. Do you guys not see the common factor between all those? The ability itself isnt broken on a vacuum (just like arctovish isnt either), it is broken because it allows for a multitude of broken mons or strats to shine. Arctovish, Arctozolt and Aurora Veil arent broken by themselves, its their interaction with snow warning that makes them unhealthy. Why ban every single element instead of just one ban for the thing enabling them all? Sorry if my post came out as a bit rude, but I just cant find any sense on wanting to ban vish over the thing that makes it even remotely viable in the first place thats shown to be an issue in the past as well.

This is a good post and helped me understand where ppl were coming from a little more.
I think the bolded part is fair to say even if I disagree with it. Bc I would argue what makes zolt and vish unhealthy is specifically speed doubling ability combined with fishous rend and bolt beak, not necessarily snow warning.

If I remember correctly, pretty sure veil was banned almost right away in gen 7. Sure enough, it’s ridiculous here again and it gets the axe. We really never looked at anything last gen after banning veil but have had to multiple times now with the Arctos. And fundamentally the difference is literally just the arctos because they effectively have a 170 bp stab in hail. Realistically, are there any other Pokémon that could fulfill the roles that the arctos do on hail? The answer is no.

Now for a policy standpoint, here is where this post has me thinking differently. What if some other, better than sandslash slush rusher were to drop to NU (Honestly do any of these even exist) or a new event comes out that somehow dumps a mon irrefutably broken under hail into NU?

I think either banning arcto or snow warning will get rid of the problem with hail either way, and I see your argument for this being better policy. I’ll admit I’m also partially biased in a results oriented way bc I truly believe this tier will be way better without the arctos. I can consider welcoming them back in the alternate world where they didn’t get speed doubling weather abilities.