Metagame np: SM UU Stage 10.5 - Water Me (weather test)

[Freeroamer]

I think pif’s comment about lack of engagement holds some validity, whether you consider it disrespectful or not with the way it’s been presented (and I might even agree with you there!!). It would’ve been nice to see some reasoning from the guys who didn’t think stall was an issue especially as it turned out to be the majority, which we only really got after the fact and with a fair amount of prompting from pif.

There were some excellent messages from Pearl and Kink in the discord, and while I wouldn’t say I’ve been fully converted they’ve definitely given me a broader outlook on the subject and moved me more into the middle than being on any one side. I definitely don’t expect to know about it every time one of you brings something up in the council chat, or for every individual on the council to post especially if their thoughts are similar, but a post or two about why you disagree with a seemingly popular public opinion seems fair I think. I don’t wanna keep on at it because I think by and large tiering has been handled very well this gen, but outside of the disrespect stuff I think there is a point there.

 

[Hogg]

Yeah, we definitely dropped the ball with not making our discussion and decision process more public. While a few folks have given some more expansion on their thought process via Discord, I still encourage council members to post their reasoning here, especially those who agreed with the majority opinion.

Also I've been thinking about how to make this better for next gen. I do think that early on in a gen we typically tend to be better about providing more public input, but one thing I'm also considering is making the council discord viewable to all, so we aren't making these decisions in a black box and people can see that we are being active and discussing things even when we are quiet on the forums. It's not a perfect solution, and it might lead to other problems, but I think it can be a start.

 

[Sickist]

I think I speak for a lot of us players when I say that it means a lot that you're going to try and let us see Council discussions. I think it would be very beneficial to not only see whats going on, but the view-able reasonings would be helpful for newer players to understand certain decisions. Like you said, maybe it's not a perfect solution, but I personally think it's a great start.

 

[vivalospride]

My main thing has been that in the majority of tiers stall can be considered fishing for mu. In this tier, (definitely no disrespect by this, if anything I'm saying this b/c his caliber as a player backs up my point) but this dude Pearl brought stall almost every open round LOL. Someone of Pearl's caliber should never be fishing for matchup so consistently, because he wasn't. Stall being as safe as it is feels kinda unhealthy even if I definitely don't think it falls under the "broken" umbrella.

I think a test would've been a worthwhile investment but that's out the window, I'm just making my once-every-np thread appearance with my two cents that're irrelevant .

Another thing, Pif is truly one of the most wholesome individuals in the community and just wants what's best for the community he's put so much time into, I can't blame him for being frustrated when he takes this super seriously and is met with a vote on whether his opinion is even valid or not w/ no explanations after all the discussion that's happened. I look forward to seeing if any of you hooligans give us your insight on why you voted whatever you voted. This was no slight to anyone on how this was handled btw I honestly couldn't give less of a fuck.

I'll see you all for majors , whenever tf that is

 

[Corazan]

Yo, before anything I would like to thanks the council for invinting as a temp member. Im aware that there are many UU players being around for years now with a ton of knowledges in contrary to a new face like me and probably deserves more the spot than I do. That being said they did invite me so I had no other choices than being involved as much as possible in order to try helping to solve this issue. Also thanks a lot to the community to keep this thread active as you do I had a lot of funs reading interesting stuff here so yea keep going guys :D and like hogg said I encourage council members to post their reasoning here too. So here are my answers to the two questions that we had to answer, I had only 2 days to do this + read the whole thread and was a bit busy these days so I probably coulda argued more than that, concerning the results I gotta say that I expected more Blissey, I knew that Alom would have the majority but I didnt expect such a huge margin like that.




Yes, we should hold a suspect test regarding stall, and when I'll talk about suspect testing stall I obviously mean nerf it by suspect testing a mon that wouldve make stall easier to deal with without this mon in question. Stall is indeed busted and for now I think its not too late to do something, as we know the next generation is coming closer and closer. In front of this issue there are 2 solutions in my opinion, either unban some UUBL mons or suspect testing stall. For the first solution, Im assuming the council already thought about this but for for understandable reasons they didn't go for that, the only solution left is doing a suspect test. First and big point, we should consider this as a big test for the next generations. Wanting to nerf a whole playstyle by doing a suspect test is something ive never ever seen (even if im kinda new, there may be some in the past i dont know) and obviously its not easy as doing a regular suspect test. So doing a stall suspect test isnt a bad idea as it will allow us to be more prepared to solve this kind of issue in the future if that happens again. I think suspect testing stall now can be everything but negative ? The majority of the community is complaining about it for obvious reasons we all know, as i said stall is absolutlely insane in this tier and by far the most powerfull playstyle in SM UU at the moment, you can just look at Pearl's UU open run stalling everyone (im not complaining about it, the tier is giving you powerfull tools, why won't you use them?) and even if the opponent think hes prepared, I saw some games when hes still not favored, crazy. And im pretty sure the only reason Pearl didnt use stall in finals was just to give a decent show to the spectators other than that he coulda easily made another crazy new stall and give a hard time to Adaam and myself.



I'd say blissey BUT in my opinion we could do something better : suspect unaware. At first I thought about suspect testing quagsire but i forgot about pyukumuku. The fact that hes bulky enough and has a nice moveset allowing him to heal himself decently well (rest, recover) and having move like block make him a very good unaware user. I strongly think that banning unaware would make things way easier but for now the question is either alom or blissey. So I said blissey because I feel like Alomomola could be replaced by another mon in contrary to blissey even if Alom does have the insane regenerator ability and has access to wish and is bulky enough on both physical and special sides. I also saw some stall without Alomomola but never saw one without Blissey. Stall relies heavily on blissey as hes the special sponge making you switchin safely against almost every special attacker mons (bar some like celebi, np azelf ect.. but again you're supposed to have other ways to deal with these). And Im 100% sure that hes the reason why is stall so powerfull right now not mentioning the fact that he can do some huge wishpass to the team if needed.

 

[Pak]

Yo, I want to start off this post by saying that a big reason for my own personal inactivity within the subforum is just a general lack of interest in the tier for a pretty much since UUPL, where I ended up getting burnt out as hell. Even with these last couple suspects tests, which without a doubt had huge implications on SM UU as a tier, I did take the time to get reqs and vote but ultimately I kept my opinions to myself out of laziness/lack of motivation. I can't speak for other council members or shed light on their personal reasoning, but I'll be the first to admit my own contributions haven't been sufficient as of late for someone who is meant to take part in guiding the tier in a positive direction, and I hope to put somewhat of an end to that with this post.

As for the topic at hand, stall, I obviously voted not to take action on it, as shown above. For me, this ultimately stems from stall seeming to have become a perfect storm of sorts. It is undoubtedly a strong playstyle, and that comes mostly as a result of the combination of various factors: Regenerator (most notably found in Alomomola ofc, hence its focus), Unaware, and Blissey itself. If we were to take action, I would have much preferred to target one of the two abilities, but as its been touched on earlier, that simply isn't feasible given our current set up and the general framework of Smogon tiering. Both do nothing but promote passive and lazy play, and the Alomomola Quagsire core puts that on full display. It is ridiculous how little progress those two abilities can prevent in tandem with each other, and hitting either one would prove to be a huge downgrade for future stall teams. However, since these two elements could not be touched in any meaningful way, that only left the individual Pokemon of Blissey and Alomomola.

I'll start with Blissey since my reasoning is ridiculously cut and dry.

However we vote, we are not going to consider complex bans or ability bans (which are outside the scope of what we can address as council), nor should the aim be to demolish stall as an archetype. Any end-goal would NOT be to make stall unplayable or bad. If we do act, we will hold a full suspect test for one of two elements: either Alomomola or Blissey. Yes, I’m aware that there are excellent stall teams lacking one or both elements, and I’m aware that non-stall playstyles use these elements as well. Again, we’re not trying to nerf stall into oblivion, even if we do decide that something needs to be done. Also, even if there is full consensus that we should move forward, the end result will be a public test, not a council ban.

I simply believe stall becomes borderline unviable without Blissey in the mix. Have there been generally fat teams lacking Blissey that have done well in a particular tournament game or a similar setting? Yes. However, it doesn't take much detective work to see just how important Blissey is to these types of teams. It is a fixture on 95% of stall teams for a reason. Its obvious special bulk and added Heal Bell, Wish, Stealth Rock, etc. utility is to me, beyond invaluable for these passive piles of defense EVs to muster anything resembling true consistency as a playstyle. Its rising popularity on other, less passive, archetypes speaks to its unmatched defensive value within the tier, effectively shutting down the CM Latias, Specs Primarina, Hydreigon, Moltres, etc. and significantly opening up the viable possibilities in the other team slots.

As for Alomomola, this is where it ties back to that perfect storm statement. In a vacuum, I don't think Alomomola is anywhere near deserving of a ban on its own. While it does offer notable defensive utility and in-game flexibility to the stall user (shoutouts broken Regenerator), Alomomola pretty much epitomizes over-reliance on status (Scald burns more often it would prefer, if it even has it due to decent 4MSS) and pure passiveness as a result. See: Mega Sharpedo needing one Crunch Defense drop with some hazards down to completely break open a game vs stall, due to Alomomola being caught in a WishTect loop, failing to do anything meaningful in return despite being the catch-all physical wall. See: anything like Celebi, Mega Altaria, Heal Bell Togekiss, or any basically any sub mon that doesn't care about its status moves or SD Bisharp or Scizor that take advantage if it cant fit Scald. There is more than enough counterplay and then some to this singular Pokemon to justify banning it itself. The tools it does offer stall teams is undeniable, but we have seen many successful fat/stall teams lacking the fish. On top of it not being overwhelming on its own, it is by no means necessary for bulky teams to thrive. Would they appreciate having it around? Absolutely, but they could just as easily adapt to its absence and find new potent combinations, as shown in the past. Its removal would drop the overall consistency of stall to an extent, due to the autopilot nature it enables, but I'm simply not convinced Alomomola's ban is 1) even justified (or would actually happen in the first place) or 2) effective enough in the long haul to make a truly meaningful difference.

Whether you agree or not, that's up to you, but these are my basic 3 am jumbled thoughts on the subject so ye. Hopefully that sheds some light on my vote and I'll try to be more transparent in the future.

 

[Hogg]

Like Corazan I was in the minority with my vote, so I’ve avoided posting so it doesn’t seem like sour grapes or that I’m trying to undermine the results of the council vote, but since we’re talking about transparency and more council engagement, here’s my reasoning for my own vote.

I was initially pretty leery of a stall-based test. Like Pak I find it difficult to envision an “appropriate” option for dealing with it. All of the best solutions would require complex bans, which are generally only reserved for really extreme issues (see: Baton Pass, Arena Trap, Shadow Tag). Anything less than a complex ban would have heavy ripple effects beyond just stall.

I also think that stall isn’t the unstoppable monster many have been making it out to be. It’s definitely one of the most consistent playstyles in UU, but there are enough ways to break and pressure it that it is far from something you can play on autopilot and just claim a win off of matchup. A lot of focus ends up going on stallbreakers that can sweep through stall, but often stall can be broken over a longer game by consistently applying pressure to key elements. I’ve seen stall teams lose games against teams with no dedicated stallbreaker because, for example, they let Blissey accumulate just a little too much chip and ended up being unable to check a strong special breaker like Primarina. Sure, you can chalk that up to a misplay on the stall player’s part, but the onus ends up being on the defensive team to get all of those plays right again and again.

So what made me change my mind? Well, I started thinking about why stall in UU was more consistent than in any other tier (with the possible exception of OU), despite the fact that we have so many strong breakers. On both the ladder and in tournament play, stall rears its head far more in UU than in any other lower tier. So what makes it so consistent? Well, part of it is likely not so much that stall itself is good, but rather that with so many powerful threats in UU it is difficult to make a defensive team without veering toward full stall. But turn that around a bit, and you get the other side of the coin: far from being the matchup-heavy choice it used to be, in the hands of a sufficiently competent player stall provides one of the safest metagame choices you can make in this tier. Safe doesn’t necessarily mean broken, but the prevalence of stall in the current meta really does feel excessive.

What shifted my opinion the most, though, was when we started discussing potential options and we hit on looking at Alomomola. While it’s really hard to call Mola broken in a vacuum, I find that it is often the safety net that keeps stall players from crashing and burning when they make mistakes. Wish + Regen + fantastic natural bulk makes it a no-drawback pivot into a huge chunk of the tier, especially when combined with Blissey and an Unaware ‘mon to minimize most things that might take advantage of it. The other nice thing is that it would be a relatively low impact ban if the community deemed it unhealthy. Only a handful of non-stall teams would be affected, stall itself would continue to be viable as a playstyle (as evidenced by some of the non-Mola teams pif posted here) and no other lower tiers would get caught in the thresher of a reckless tiering decision from the tier above them. In the end, I decided that Alomomola represented the safest possible way to address the stall issue, and it was worth seeing if the rest of the community agreed.

I still maintain that the stall issue is being overstated a bit, so I’m not upset that the majority of the council didn’t agree with me. Just wanted to provide my own reasoning for why I voted the way I did.

 

[Dolphine]

Hello UU, I wanted to get my point across regarding the current Metagame state of stall in SMUU. As we are in the final months of this generation, there have been quite some discussion composing of what we should suspect in the closing days of this tier, and one that popped out was mentioned by pokeisfun (my tutor <3), about stall. I would like to share my thoughts and let other people hear my voice on this issue.

First off, I would like to say that I am by no means disrespecting or being rude to the judgement of the council. I totally respect their decision with this and the amount of pondering and considering they did to make this tier more playable. I respect their hard work, dedication, and time spent into this tier, and this is just me trying to get my opinion across and share my thoughts into this wonderful community.

Stall has always been a consistent archetype throughout its lifespan in Gen 7 UU. Stall brings to the table frustration like nothing else, boredom like nothing else, yet it is so effective and slowly killing off and holding against the other team. This has led to the majority of ladder players to think that "stall is cancer," "I am not fighting this shit" or "No skill haha." I'd like to address these comments because quite frankly, this is what I thought when I was learning the game and various archetypes. However, these comments are wrong. These players are not comprehensive about the mechanics of stall, they simply know that Blissey sponges all special hits and Alomomola has a crazy ability in Regenerator and just can keep spamming wish pass. They do not understand how to break stall, they do not know how to apply pressure to wish to support, use momentum, bringing in Pokemon at the most vulnerable times, and the most important one: considering stall into teambuilding. I cannot stress enough how much players fault the stall user when they are the one that didn't even make a proper team for this competitive tier.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-973463717

This is an example of an unprepared, misbuilt team. These are the type of players trashing the people that use an archetype that is part of the game. There wasn't anything in this that was reliably effective against stall, a special Zeraora and a Banded Infernape, will NOT get past stall, let alone a standard build having Alomomola + Blissey + Pyukyumuku + something that will easily check Infernape and Zeraora like Mega - Altaria and Alolan Muk. Another point I want to address is shared among many players in this tier, but it should be that tier changes and metagame shifts are not intended to make this game fun. If you cannot handle playing UU that is not fun, you are obviously in the wrong place. Tier changes and metagame shifts/discussions are meant to promote a playable a tier.

As some of you may know by now, I am tutored under Pif, who is teaching me stall, which is an archetype that I never played with in my years of play. Experience is one thing, but stall has undeniably brought a sort of comfort, or consistency that I never felt while playing. Even popular stall breakers like NP Infernape fail to break against Defensive Mega Altaria and Stealth Rocks support from Blissey. I know ladder isn't all that important, but it still helps me give general ideas. And with ladder, I started climbing up like I've never seen it, from 1500 --> 1740 in 2 days (23-5). Players that I faced had teams with consideration to stall, at a high level, yet they could not break stall. You can try to use Sub Feraligatr to beat Alomomola and Toxic, but that just doesn't work, because of stall's natural tendency to be able to cover such "threat"

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-973646235

Am I saying these type of players are bad? No, they play fine and build with consideration and have a thought process. My point is, you can be experienced and good in the tier, and not trash talk stall for no good reason, use classic "stall breakers," can still end up losing, but that was against this particular team. Sub DD Feraligatr could have swept another variation of a stall team. And vice versa, my team could could lose to Pokemon X but another team could easily deal with Pokemon X. Thus, the amount of variation in stall is unpredictable, which means that no "stall breaker" will be guaranteed to break through a random (a viable) stall team. A stall team could have a Pyukumuku, making NP Infernape nearly useless. They could have a Mantine, making (most) Mamoswine be able to do nothing. This was the similar case for Scizor. You do not know what set Scizor is. You could have a rotom heat prepared to take on the SD Roost set, but what if Life Orb Quick Attack comes out? You know longer have a check to Scizor and depending on the team, you could be in serious trouble. This brings me up to my next point, which was mentioned by warzoid which was basically questioning: "How viable is a Pokemon that is specifically geared to break stall outside of stall?" This means that Pokemon built to beat stall and stall only, like Virizion, HP Grass Scizor, even Z - Superpower Hydreigon. Virizion and HP Grass Scizor are clearly seeing nearly 0 usage, I have never seen more than 5 of each in my 1000 games of play. The case with Superpower Hydreigon is that it is a last resort for teams that are struggling to break stall and have no other alternative to change into a stall breaker. Thus, Superpower Hydreigon is barely used much either, and it struggles to compete with other sets like Taunt Hydreigon, which is still a bit iffy because stalls with Mega - Altaria force it out anyway. But this is just bringing me to the previous point that Pokemon are using completely never seen sets might see more success vs stall, but not as much as other Pokemon like Taunt Hydreigon which can find some use in other cases.

If I could hold a suspect test to nerf stall, I would choose Alomomola. I know this was mentioned before, but I can't stress enough of how important Alomomola job in holding stall teams together is. First off, Alomomola gets access to wish on a huge HP base stat, which a loss of Alomomola would seriously hurt the longevity of stall Pokemon without reliably recovery such as Mega Steelix, Mega Aggron, Nihilego, and Muk - Alola. Also, Alomomola gets access to arguably one of the best abilities in the game: Regenerator. Being able to swap out and gain 33% of your HP is honestly just stupid, as Scizor is just wasting its U-Turns and possibly health if Alomomola is carrying Rocky Helmet. The ban of Alomomola would surely negate the amount of productivity within the stall mons, but I think it would be a ban worth considering. [ Or free clanger :) ]

Thanks for reading, have a wonderful day.

 

[N_Mareanie]

Am I the only one who thinks that it’s kinda confusing that most of the community does want a suspect (well, a large number at least) and a reasonable amount of the council wants a suspect as well. Why don’t just give the suspect? If in the end the majority of people who are classified as good enough to vote choose to not ban it, it stays unbanned and vice versa. Best course of action would be Alo ofc, since it’s the one most requested/the one with the smallest backlash. I think a suspect should def happen, and would be very confused (and pretty disappointed) if it wouldn’t happen.

 

[Kink]

Am I the only one who thinks that it’s kinda confusing that most of the community does want a suspect (well, a large number at least) and a reasonable amount of the council wants a suspect as well. Why don’t just give the suspect? If in the end the majority of people who are classified as good enough to vote choose to not ban it, it stays unbanned and vice versa. Best course of action would be Alo ofc, since it’s the one most requested/the one with the smallest backlash. I think a suspect should def happen, and would be very confused (and pretty disappointed) if it wouldn’t happen.

Because we held a vote and the motion was defeated 7-6. If you are in disagreement with what steps are available to you after a vote happens, you can make a post in Policy Review stating your case.

 

[Mysil]

Because we held a vote and the motion was defeated 7-6. If you are in disagreement with what steps are available to you after a vote happens, you can make a post in Policy Review stating your case.

Has there been a council vote on all the other suspects? And if that isnt the case, why do you choose to sometimes hold a vote and sometimes not?

 

[Jaajgko]

Am I the only one who thinks that it’s kinda confusing that most of the community does want a suspect (well, a large number at least) and a reasonable amount of the council wants a suspect as well. Why don’t just give the suspect? If in the end the majority of people who are classified as good enough to vote choose to not ban it, it stays unbanned and vice versa. Best course of action would be Alo ofc, since it’s the one most requested/the one with the smallest backlash. I think a suspect should def happen, and would be very confused (and pretty disappointed) if it wouldn’t happen.

I think what you and some people aren't totally understanding is that the vote was just about holding a suspect test, not directly about banning Stall. The question behind the vote wasn't "do you think stall is broken and should be suspect tested ?", but "do you think holding a stall suspect would be relevant ?". The majority of the council thought not holding a stall suspect was the better move, so I don't see why there should be a problem with it. It's not just that they think stall isn't broken and doesn't deserve a ban, they think stall doesn't meet the requirements for a suspect test and that suspect testing it would be bad for the tier. And I agree with the majority, I don't think Stall is currently making the tier worse and doesn't have broken elements that make counterplay futile. Stall is and will always be a flawed playstyle in that it has a way harder time winning a bad match-up than Offense does. Also, Stall teams have very limited option, teams that don't follow the Blissey Alomomola Quagsire path are usually flawed in some way and the same teams get most of the time spammed so it makes preparing against stall way easier than preparing against bulky offense for exemple. However, although it isn't complicated to prepare a team that can break stall players tend to not spend much effort in preparing their teams against stall and opt for lazier approaches like adding a strong wallbreaker to their team without thinking much of a gameplan. But it should be the other way around, if stall is so good then prepare your offensive core to be able to break past stall teams. The point of offensive teams should focus is to be able to break past most of the defensive combinations of the tier, so a well-built offense should always have a solid win condition against stall. It is also important to note that stall teams are only prepared to handle the most common sets in the metagame, and are therefore particularly weak to any unexpected set like Focus Punch Nidoking, Grass Knot Bisharp or Taunt Swords Dance Cobalion. Lastly, instead of always trying to fit a stallbreaker that can single-handedly 6-0 stall teams, think about some combinations. For exemple, SD U-Turn Scizor + SD SR Terrakion is very strong against stall teams, because when Quagsire takes a 252+ Atk U-Turn, it is then in range of 2 Close Combats from Terrakiona after Rocks. And if the Alomomola doesn't run Scald, Scizor can wait until Alom switches or passes a Wish into Quagsire to click U-Turn, and Quagsire can't even Recover because U-Turn has 2 times more PP than Recover.

About transparency, I think Hogg's idea is great. I think that suspect discussions have been pretty lacking, and sometimes went in weird directions. Having the council giving out their thoughts would make the suspect discussions livelier, more interesting and more accurate. You could add a chatroom on the UU discord where only the council members can talk and debate on it for every suspect discussion, that way council members don't have to write an elaborate post on the suspect thread if they don't have enough time for it.

 

[Kink]

Has there been a council vote on all the other suspects? And if that isnt the case, why do you choose to sometimes hold a vote and sometimes not?

I don’t make the choice, the tier leaders make their assessments and depending on how clear cut an issue is, provide options that attempt (in my view) to reflect what’s happening in the tier. Given how divided the community is, a council vote on whether or not we should suspect stall took place. The vote was very close, and ended up in a 7-6 result that indicates that the majority of the council does not (at the time of the vote) think that suspecting stall is relevant to our tiering efforts in making UU the most competitive tier it can be. You may disagree with that and the level of “power” TLs and Councils have to influence a tier, and that’s where your thoughtfully constructed PR post would come in.

 

[Charmflash]

A bit late to the party but I figured better late than never.

I have to admit, I am a bit confused about what exactly sparked the full speed bandwagon on nerfing UU stall. The most common thing I see referenced in this thread is Pearl bringing stall repeatedly in UU cup. Unfortunately I fail to see how him beating Kingofcrimea, Xiri, Flawless Nazgul, Freeroamer, Raiza, Alpha Rabbit and Hassin627, a list of a total of zero SSD UU starters* is proof of a playstyles dominance. Perhaps this notion is closely tied to the misconception that stall is a brainless playstyle, which is causing people to overlook that Pearl was beating them. This is rather hilarious from my point of view, as it is the one playstyle players tend to ask to avoid in team tournaments, since it requires very careful resource management and consistent good levels of play (unless your opponent has absolutely nothing to make progress, but whos fault is that?).

I believe that people in general focus too much on using a specific Pokemon to beat stall 6-0, rather than forming a game plan in the teambuilder that leads to eventual victory using your entire team. Things like Taunt (you dont even have to worry about Mega-Sableye), smart users of Stealth Rock, Knock Off, Trick, VoltTurn, smart users of (Toxic) Spikes, Regenerator, Block, Pursuit, Magic Guard, Toxic, Choice Band / Specs ... are just some examples of how to make progress against stall teams. At this point I'd like to remind everybody that in SSD, stall has a total of three showings, two of which are losses with the only 'upsetting' result (Misa vs Adaam) being in stalls disfavor.

Personally, right now I believe stall in UU to be viable as a relatively consistent playstyle rather than broken. I'd like to urge everyone to at least think about why stall must be unviable as such in their opinion before jumping on the nerf train and I'm glad to see the council going through the process in a proper manner rather than giving in to the hivermind. Let's keep observing the developments in SSD and if I happen to be incorrect, by all means, correct the tier in the best way possible.

*No offense ofc, some of these players are very capable in other tiers, however, I question their ability to deconstruct stall against one of UU's greatest

 

[Mysil]

A bit late to the party but I figured better late than never.

I have to admit, I am a bit confused about what exactly sparked the full speed bandwagon on nerfing UU stall. The most common thing I see referenced in this thread is Pearl bringing stall repeatedly in UU cup. Unfortunately I fail to see how him beating Kingofcrimea, Xiri, Flawless Nazgul, Freeroamer, Raiza, Alpha Rabbit and Hassin627, a list of a total of zero SSD UU starters* is proof of a playstyles dominance. Perhaps this notion is closely tied to the misconception that stall is a brainless playstyle, which is causing people to overlook that Pearl was beating them. This is rather hilarious from my point of view, as it is the one playstyle players tend to ask to avoid in team tournaments, since it requires very careful resource management and consistent good levels of play (unless your opponent has absolutely nothing to make progress, but whos fault is that?).

I believe that people in general focus too much on using a specific Pokemon to beat stall 6-0, rather than forming a game plan in the teambuilder that leads to eventual victory using your entire team. Things like Taunt (you dont even have to worry about Mega-Sableye), smart users of Stealth Rock, Knock Off, Trick, VoltTurn, smart users of (Toxic) Spikes, Regenerator, Block, Pursuit, Magic Guard, Toxic, Choice Band / Specs ... are just some examples of how to make progress against stall teams. At this point I'd like to remind everybody that in SSD, stall has a total of three showings, two of which are losses with the only 'upsetting' result (Misa vs Adaam) being in stalls disfavor.

Personally, right now I believe stall in UU to be viable as a relatively consistent playstyle rather than broken. I'd like to urge everyone to at least think about why stall must be unviable as such in their opinion before jumping on the nerf train and I'm glad to see the council going through the process in a proper manner rather than giving in to the hivermind. Let's keep observing the developments in SSD and if I happen to be incorrect, by all means, correct the tier in the best way possible.

*No offense ofc, some of these players are very capable in other tiers, however, I question their ability to deconstruct stall against one of UU's greatest

Looking at your match vs accelgor I see eq Malt which loses to toxic and is walled by alo and gligar. Sd lefties sciz, gets scald burned by alo and sd bewear (the Rest of your mons dont pressure Stall) . Hypothetically if you opponent using Stall was terrible he would Switch in quag twice on sciz uturn and let it die to a breakneck Blitz later but realistically that's not gonna happen. So my question is, if having a good stall mu is so easy, why did you bring a moderately Stall weak Team?

 

[Kink]

Looking at your match vs accelgor I see eq Malt which loses to toxic and is walled by alo and gligar. Sd lefties sciz, gets scald burned by alo and sd bewear (the Rest of your mons dont pressure Stall) . Hypothetically if you opponent using Stall was terrible he would Switch in quag twice on sciz uturn and let it die to a breakneck Blitz later but realistically that's not gonna happen. So my question is, if having a good stall mu is so easy, why did you bring a moderately Stall weak Team?

Yeah cause Accelgor would be scum enough to bring stall vs charm.

Guy, you prepare for snake differently than your average ladder game.

 

[Charmflash]

Yeah cause Accelgor would be scum enough to bring stall vs charm.

Guy, you prepare for snake differently than your average ladder game.

Not only did we not expect stall, but there are all of these things we had on the off-chance it does happen.

Bewear v Quagsire

252 Atk Bewear Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 153-181 (38.8 - 45.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Bewear Breakneck Blitz (190 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 241-285 (61.1 - 72.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
(this is jolly)

 

[Mysil]

Yeah cause Accelgor would be scum enough to bring stall vs charm.

Guy, you prepare for snake differently than your average ladder game.

Haha this excactly the point tho. Why should Stall be any different than lets say HO? Look at it this way:"I didnt expect HO so all my mons are either 2hkoed or ohkoed by sharpedo". It shouldn't be that way. A seasoned Player should be able to make teams with outs vs everything without too much effort. Anything else is uncompetitive. We want the better Player to win, not the one Who gambled with matchup.

Whether accel is douchy enough to bring Stall or not is completely besides the point

 

[Moutemoute]

Haha this excactly the point tho. Why should Stall be any different than lets say HO? Look at it this way:"I didnt expect HO so all my mons are either 2hkoed or ohkoed by sharpedo". It shouldn't be that way. A seasoned Player should be able to make teams with outs vs everything without too much effort. Anything else is uncompetitive. We want the better Player to win, not the one Who gambled with matchup.

Whether accel is douchy enough to bring Stall or not is completely besides the point

It doesn't work like that in tournaments because most of the time, you look at opponent's replay to see and understand how (s)he makes her/his teams and what kind of Pokemon (s)he often brings or not etc.. You can't compare tournament games and ladder games, they are two different things.

The goal on tournament is to win vs a specific player and depending of that opponent, you're not going to build the same team neither a team which can handle everything, it would be a waste of time and energy.

Example Player A vs Player B :
Player A look at player B's replays and he sees that player B almost never played Volcanion + Player A's teams are most of the time not weak to Volcanion which means he has little chance to face Volcanion during his match vs player B because the oppo will also look at his replays and see he's not weak to Volcanion so it's not the best idea to bring this Pokemon.

Mindgame in tournaments and in ladder are not close at all because you don't want your team to beat any kind of dude on the ladder but a specific one.

 

[Mysil]

I have 0 understanding of how u guys think tbh. I realize u have a better Chance of guessing what type of Team your opponent will bring in a Team tournament than if youre clicking find battle on PS. My point is regardless of that fact, in a perfect world you would want battles as often as possible to be decided by Player Ability and not MU. Im Just striving to achieve that.

 

[Kink]

Haha this excactly the point tho. Why should Stall be any different than lets say HO? Look at it this way:"I didnt expect HO so all my mons are either 2hkoed or ohkoed by sharpedo". It shouldn't be that way. A seasoned Player should be able to make teams with outs vs everything without too much effort. Anything else is uncompetitive. We want the better Player to win, not the one Who gambled with matchup.

Whether accel is douchy enough to bring Stall or not is completely besides the point

I have 0 understanding of how u guys think tbh. I realize u have a better Chance of guessing what type of Team your opponent will bring in a Team tournament than if youre clicking find battle on PS. My point is regardless of that fact, in a perfect world you would want battles as often as possible to be decided by Player Ability and not MU. Im Just striving to achieve that.

You missed the point. Accelgor is not traditionally known for bringing Stall, and on top of that Charmflash had outs in the off chance Accelgor did bring it. Top-level best-of-one games rely on a lot of preparation and observation. If Accelgor did in fact bring stall that game, most of us would've been surprised (hint hint accel, bring stall w3 honhonhon).

Preperation for a battle and knowing the stuff your opponent uses is part of what it means to "be good" - our 'skill' metric takes prep. and meta knowledge (including its players) into account when we make tiering decisions. The goal for tiering is to make 'skill' decide outcomes far more often than 'matchup', and I personally believe we currently have that when we take into account all of the mediums upon which UU games are played.

 

[Jaajgko]

Haha this excactly the point tho. Why should Stall be any different than lets say HO? Look at it this way:"I didnt expect HO so all my mons are either 2hkoed or ohkoed by sharpedo". It shouldn't be that way. A seasoned Player should be able to make teams with outs vs everything without too much effort. Anything else is uncompetitive. We want the better Player to win, not the one Who gambled with matchup.

Whether accel is douchy enough to bring Stall or not is completely besides the point

What you are saying is true. A good team will have weaknesses but should not have impossible or near-impossible match-ups. That's also the case in tournament. You take your opponent's usages and weaknesses into account while still not having a bad team that loses to Volcanion on the spot. But Charmflash's team here clearly has good tools against stall, even if the stall player succesfully "wastes" the z-move from Bewear, Facade Altaria can still do the job if burnt.

 

[vivalospride]

I have to admit, I am a bit confused about what exactly sparked the full speed bandwagon on nerfing UU stall. The most common thing I see referenced in this thread is Pearl bringing stall repeatedly in UU cup. Unfortunately I fail to see how him beating Kingofcrimea, Xiri, Flawless Nazgul, Freeroamer, Raiza, Alpha Rabbit and Hassin627, a list of a total of zero SSD UU starters* is proof of a playstyles dominance.

Not really adding much to any argument or discussion with this response, and I agree with most of your post. Just wanted to note that this isn't really the direction people are going with when they bring that up. I mentioned Pearl's run in open b/c stall is generally seen as matchup fishing in most other tiers. Someone of Pearl's caliber using this playstyle so consistently in this setting just vouches for how safe it is of a pick, is all.

Also, ik you're not someone that's spent a lot of time in the UU community but there're a lot of solid players that aren't starting in SSD, Freeroamer def being one of them, brushing that point off b/c all of those players fall under that category of people who don't start in SSD isn't the move imo. Like I said I generally agree with your post tho, it gets a thumbs up from me.

 

[Amane Misa]

I wanted to share a discussion that occurred in the council chat a few days ago. Its topic was banning Pyukumuku.

These following arguments rose up among those who supported further action on Pyukumuku:

1. Stall wasn't annoying until we had to deal with two separate Unaware users.
2. A stall team that doesn't have Pyukumuku has more things that they lose to on preview, just like how stall has always been.
3. Stall teams should stay intact; if we ban Pyukumuku over Alomomola stall wouldn't be much different than what it was in ORAS.
4. Banning Pyukumuku is the small nerf stall needs; banning either Alomomola or Blissey will make stall near unviable. On top of that, if the community thinks stall is overpowered and the majority of the community doesn't, a small nerf suffices both interests. No other ban would constitute a small nerf, and Pyukumuku is the distinguishing Pokemon from other generations of UU stall. We should not change how UU stall looks now by banning its key components.

The following arguments rose up among those who did not support further action on Pyukumuku:

1. If stall teams did not have Alomomola they could be beaten with decent breakers and outplaying; no Pyukumuku stall just brings it back to swinger matchups.
2. Alomomola is a no-drawback pivot into almost everything and the vast majority of the Pokemon that take advantage of an Alomomola pivot loses to Blissey + Unaware, which makes stall way more brainless.
3. Winning with a team like pif's no-Alomomola double-Unaware stall requires way more talent than winning with any of the Alomomola + Blissey + Unaware stalls does.
4. It feels like a Pyukumuku ban won't change much beyond making semi-decent stallbreakers like Calm Mind Chandelure half-viable again.
5. Most stall teams still stay intact, they just have more things that they flat lose to on preview.
6. Banning Pyukumuku will heavily affect lower tiers.

To sum it up, the idea of banning Pyukumuku rose up because it's clearly the new element in stall teams that distinguishes stall teams in UU from throughout the whole generation and from further back, and there's no doubt that the new-star on stall teams, SpD Pyukumuku, is making preparation for stall much harder than it used to be.

Here are some examples that support what has been said above:

Example 1: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-965399680:

This is a random replay I found of pif using a stall team with SpD Pyukumuku against a team that supposedly has a good matchup vs stall. His opponent had Substitute + Calm Mind Chandelure, Swords Dance + Flame Orb Heracross, Taunt + Roost Hydreigon, and a cleric Sylveon.

Hypothetically, if pif's team didn't have SpD Pyukumuku, his team should've lost to Chandelure after Heracross softened up checks like Gligar and the Unaware wall. Even if Chandelure didn't end up sweeping, Taunt + Roost Hydreigon should've cleaned up.

Unfortunately for pif's opponent, Pyukumuku completely invalidated Chandelure even after it got a burn and a SpD drop. While I believe that pif's opponent could've played the game better, it still shows how painful preparing for stall actually is. Even if it weren't Chandelure but it was Infernape - while switching out on a SpD drop or a burn would have been harder, Pyukumuku still invalidated it because it could take every hit and Toxic it.

Example 2: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-939027110:

I did not use a stall team but that might as well have been a stall team that I used with a SpD Pyukumuku. On paper, yeezyknows should've had a good matchup vs my team (whether it was the team I actually used or a stall team with Pyukumuku) but Pyukumuku invalidated his Nasty Plot Infernape, and most ironically, his Nasty Plot Celebi.

I would like to hear more thoughts on this from the community as an alternative to an Alomomola or a Blissey ban.

Credits to Christo and to Hogg for the majority of the arguments.

 

[Charmflash]

Not really adding much to any argument or discussion with this response, and I agree with most of your post. Just wanted to note that this isn't really the direction people are going with when they bring that up. I mentioned Pearl's run in open b/c stall is generally seen as matchup fishing in most other tiers. Someone of Pearl's caliber using this playstyle so consistently in this setting just vouches for how safe it is of a pick, is all.

Also, ik you're not someone that's spent a lot of time in the UU community but there're a lot of solid players that aren't starting in SSD, Freeroamer def being one of them, brushing that point off b/c all of those players fall under that category of people who don't start in SSD isn't the move imo. Like I said I generally agree with your post tho, it gets a thumbs up from me.

I didnt make this point to discredit anybody on this list & while I did give credit to some of these players in other tiers I should have also adressed the fact that some of them are pretty decent at UU which was poor wording on my part. However, the point still stands, Pearl beating some pretty decent people with stall x7 doesnt mean stall is broken. The reason I brought up snake is because we didnt even get a chance to see people like TDK, Christo or even 'lower end' snake starters play against him so it seems a bit weird to me that the main incentive for such huge change is a top 3 (arguably 1) player beating people who are probably not top 10 and most of which rank even way lower than that in UU.