Metagame np: SS DOU stage 0: Begin Again | Beat Up banned

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Since Gen 7 DOU and Ubers, I always like to run a set that involves around a perish song-shadow tag combo, like Mega Gengar, or bring a team with a Shadow Tag Gothitelle and a normal gengar or other mons that can perish song, so this team that build is another Shadow Tag Gothitelle with a Perish Song Lapras.

This is a test team, but I know your creative minds can make this team better. I mean I just log on an unregistered account on pokemon showdown and got an 8 DOU winning streak until I lost to the last guy.

Gothitelle @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Fake Out
- Protect
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball

Gastrodon @ Mago Berry
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Recover
- Earth Power
- Protect

Bronzong @ Wiki Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Protect
- Gyro Ball
- Zen Headbutt

Lapras @ Figy Berry
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Perish Song
- Life Dew
- Protect
- Freeze-Dry

Torkoal @ Heat Rock
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Solar Beam
- Eruption
- Protect
- Clear Smog

Grimmsnarl-Gmax @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Spirit Break
- Drain Punch
- Protect
- False Surrender

The team will always start with Gothitelle and Lapras. And Just Perish song and stall, like the Mega Gengar strat at VGC pre Sword and Sheild. Win the early game by eliminating the opponents sweeper, tailwind setter, hazard setters, etc. And Try to sweep late game with a strong pokemon of your choice, I choose Grimmsnarl G-Max because it G-Max Snooze is really good especially when Gothi is still alive, I want Lapras better to combo with gothi than Lapras because its Grimmsnarl is slow at start and most people running that lucario-whimsicott will just dispacth it like it was nothing, Grimmsnarl will be the teams late game sweeper where the great pokemons are out of the picture. Gothi, Lapras and G-Max Grimmsnarl are the core of the team, the other 3, you can change if you wantI choose to add, Bronzong and Gastrodon because they are bulky and can take a good hit in 1 turn, recover gastrodon with scald, the classic burner and gastrodon with trick room to which I use to get rid of trick room or set it up for torkoal, Note: The Clear Smog on Torkoal is just a gimic im trying to just get rid of the boost from the dynamax incase they didn't dynamax the trap mons in a shadow tag-perish song. Anyway try it yourself and see if it might work, the only counter to it its either a guy who runs a different style of perish song, shadow still, taking down the gothi immediately or run togedemaru with eject button and lost to it, like Se Jun Park beat the hell out of a perish song-shadow tag team with it. Enjoy trying
 
Since Gen 7 DOU and Ubers, I always like to run a set that involves around a perish song-shadow tag combo, like Mega Gengar, or bring a team with a Shadow Tag Gothitelle and a normal gengar or other mons that can perish song, so this team that build is another Shadow Tag Gothitelle with a Perish Song Lapras.

This is a test team, but I know your creative minds can make this team better. I mean I just log on an unregistered account on pokemon showdown and got an 8 DOU winning streak until I lost to the last guy.

Gothitelle @ Leftovers
Ability: Shadow Tag
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Fake Out
- Protect
- Psyshock
- Shadow Ball

Gastrodon @ Mago Berry
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Recover
- Earth Power
- Protect

Bronzong @ Wiki Berry
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Trick Room
- Protect
- Gyro Ball
- Zen Headbutt

Lapras @ Figy Berry
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Perish Song
- Life Dew
- Protect
- Freeze-Dry

Torkoal @ Heat Rock
Ability: Drought
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Solar Beam
- Eruption
- Protect
- Clear Smog

Grimmsnarl-Gmax @ Focus Sash
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Spirit Break
- Drain Punch
- Protect
- False Surrender

The team will always start with Gothitelle and Lapras. And Just Perish song and stall, like the Mega Gengar strat at VGC pre Sword and Sheild. Win the early game by eliminating the opponents sweeper, tailwind setter, hazard setters, etc. And Try to sweep late game with a strong pokemon of your choice, I choose Grimmsnarl G-Max because it G-Max Snooze is really good especially when Gothi is still alive, I want Lapras better to combo with gothi than Lapras because its Grimmsnarl is slow at start and most people running that lucario-whimsicott will just dispacth it like it was nothing, Grimmsnarl will be the teams late game sweeper where the great pokemons are out of the picture. Gothi, Lapras and G-Max Grimmsnarl are the core of the team, the other 3, you can change if you wantI choose to add, Bronzong and Gastrodon because they are bulky and can take a good hit in 1 turn, recover gastrodon with scald, the classic burner and gastrodon with trick room to which I use to get rid of trick room or set it up for torkoal, Note: The Clear Smog on Torkoal is just a gimic im trying to just get rid of the boost from the dynamax incase they didn't dynamax the trap mons in a shadow tag-perish song. Anyway try it yourself and see if it might work, the only counter to it its either a guy who runs a different style of perish song, shadow still, taking down the gothi immediately or run togedemaru with eject button and lost to it, like Se Jun Park beat the hell out of a perish song-shadow tag team with it. Enjoy trying
Seriously dude, thats really annoying to face against and I've seem that before but now is more cancerous with Perish Song Lapras. I suggest replace that Torkoal with something better, I suggest replace it, since that torkoal is a gimic, try this gimic

Runerigus @ Power Herb
Ability: Wandering Spirit
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Protect
- Shadow Claw
- Earthquake
- Haze
 

Yoda2798

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Doubles Leader
There was some more discussion on Evasion recently in the DOU Discord, which I'd like to reference in addition to giving a proper reply to MajorBowman's points.

I was originally pretty against removing this clause because evasion in general is super annoying and I don't really think it has a place in our metagame. Moody was only unbanned because evasion was removed from its possible boosts, and purposefully reintroducing evasion abilities seems like a step backwards in that regard. I get the argument that most evasion ability users have better abilities or are just bad, but I'm not sure that matters philosophically. You make rules to cover for all scenarios and not just the ones that necessitate the rule, so if we think that evasion is unhealthy for the metagame then I think you just block it out in all forms, whether those forms would ever be competitively relevant or even used at all.
This seems to group all forms of Evasion as a unified aspect of the game which is and should be banned. I think the existence of independent Evasion Clauses undermines that point. Evasion Moves and Abilities are already considered to be distinct by Smogon, as can seen by OU allowing the latter but not the former. Even in doubles, as has been stated previously, Bright Powder / Lax Incense boost Evasion but are currently legal. So given this logic against Evasion, you might expect these items to have to be banned. However, this was addressed later:

To address this point specifically, the answer to the first two sentences is basically just "yes." Bright Powder and Lax Incense both have lower boosts to evasion than the abilities and losing the use of an actual item is a huge opportunity cost. There's certainly some kind of opportunity cost in using Glaceon but we already know that fringe Pokemon can do neat things, so I'd argue the opportunity cost of using Glaceon or a "suboptimal" ability on Mamoswine is lower than that of Bright Powder or Lax Incense.
Which contradicts what was said earlier. Why is Evasion bad when it comes to Abilities, but not when it comes to items? Supposedly because items have a greater opportunity cost than running these suboptimal Pokemon or these Pokemon with suboptimal Abilities. I disagree with that point fundamentally; is using a Glaceon, an unranked mon that is by admitted by all parties to not be good, really a greater opportunity cost than slapping on a Evasion item to one (or multiple) Pokemon? Surely it's much easier to fit Bright Powder or Quick Claw on to a team than hail, and it'll still be good without being reliant on hax. But never mind that, because even if it were a greater opportunity cost, Evasion is supposed to be so inherently unhealthy that Evasion being bad should trump any conditions present. Bright Powder provides Evasion, so based on the first part of MajorBowman's post, Bright Powder should be banned. Yet we don't do that, and I think it's obvious why; we don't ban everything just because it induces hax. Consider battle effects like:
  • Quick Claw
  • Attract
  • Confusion moves that do not boost stats, e.g. Confuse Ray
  • Effect Spore
These are all examples of battle effects that objectively only induce hax. They offer no "non-hax" competitive advantage to the player using them. Effects like these have both a wider distribution and a greater probability to induce bad luck, and yet they aren't banned. Now, I'm not in any way arguing for these effects to be banned; rather, it seems to me there's a certain mindset of players that Evasion is the worst thing ever and even when you offer positive reasons for Evasion Abilities to be unbanned, because of the dreaded potential hax, we just can't do anything about it.

Sand Veil and Snow Cloak (1.25x Evasion) are not remotely on the same level as Double Team / Minimize (1.33x / 1.66x Evasion repectively), which are not only stronger after just a single boost, but can also be used multiple times to boost into stupid levels of dodging. People also appear to believe that you need Dynamax to (reliably) beat Evasion, but I think they're overestimating the Evasion chance. If you compare Evasion Abilities to other elements of RNG in Pokemon, you'll see it's actually similar to effects we already deal with. If I were to use Thunder Wave on your Pokemon before you move, the chance for you to move that turn is 77.5%, if I used Swagger it would be ~71.7%, or if I used Rock Slide it would be 73% (all calculations considering accuracy without any boosts/debuffs on either end). The chance to hit an Evasion Ability mon in their respective weather with a 100% accurate move is ~80%. So in fact, you're more likely to hit through Evasion than those previous moves! Dynamax also doesn't function as a surefire counter to paralysis and confusion, but those moves aren't considered banworthy. Pokemon is a game of probability management, and Evasion (abilities) are just a form of that. Nobody's saying that Evasion abilities don't induce hax, but its impact is very low relative to other, more probable effects, both in terms of the raw numbers, and in terms of the distribution of Pokemon with Evasion abilities.

The only example of a Snow Cloak Pokemon realistically causing problems that I've seen suggested is by Human when DaWoblefet brought up this discussion on Discord. It concerns setting hail with your own Max Ice move.
[8:14 PM] Human: Mamoswine dynamaxing and setting up snow cloak for itself and glaceon would be a pain in the ass
[8:15 PM] Human: Sandaconda glare bright powder sand veil
[8:15 PM] DaWoblefet: you'd really run that over being immune to Intimidate or Thick Fat?
[8:16 PM] [free sleep clause] stax: hail is also unreliable to set
[8:16 PM] Human: You’re guaranteed to activate Snow Cloak and not guaranteed value for the others. The lines are different, but I’m saying that they are viable and it’s not that they don’t exist
[8:17 PM] Human: For these teams hail is pretty reliable imo off of Dynamax Max Ice! Im not trying to say that these will be the strats tho, mostly trying to say that the counterplay to these is hoping to get lucky or dynamaxing
[8:17 PM] Human: And dynamaxing in 6v6 isn’t particularly safe counterplay in this case imo
[8:18 PM] Human: I’d be up for suspect testing them
[8:18 PM] Human: Cause I’d love to try our Sandaconda and build hail
[8:18 PM] DaWoblefet: suspect test in VGC
[8:18 PM] DaWoblefet: see how far you get
This is probably the most realistic form of triggering Snow Cloak on a genuine team. So, to do so, you'd need to commit to Dynamaxing Mamoswine or another Pokemon on your team with a Max Ice move in teambuilder and commit to using the Max Ice move in an actual game. These two conditions must be met, otherwise Snow Cloak is just as useless as Oblivious without an opponent having Intimidate or Thick Fat if the opponent never attacks Mamoswine with a Fire- or Ice-type move. On top of that, if an opponent's moves don't actually miss, then it also held no value. Would committing to such a strategy really be a viable use of your Dynamax? Remember that you're investing a lot in this strategy for an Evasion chance less than, say, the chance to flinch from (a single) Rock Slide; which is much more easily utilised with better Pokemon like Excadrill and Tyranitar.

With respect to Glare Sand Veil Sandaconda: this seems roughly about as consequential as any Pokemon with Thunder Wave + Confuse Ray. If the goal is to hax the opponent, plenty of other more viable Pokemon can do it better. For example, T-Wave + Swagger Grimmsnarl is a better 'hax' user that doesn't necessarily need to rely on luck to be good. Using Sand Veil Sandaconda also has an opportunity cost: being an inferior Ground-type than Excadrill if used over it, and offering little reason to be used alongside the mole other than wanting RNG.

All in all, I don't think the benefits (which admittedly do exist) to removing evasion abilities clause outweighs the possible negatives. Evasion is stupid and unhealthy and I don't think it belongs in DOU.
Emphasis on 'possible' my own. If something is only 'possibly' banworthy, then we should give it a chance. Particularly in this case we can unban Evasion, then have a council vote to ban if it becomes a problem (which it almost certainly won't) as soon as that happens. Everyone agrees Evasion Abilities wouldn't be broken levels of good, while DaWoblefet and I have shown that they aren't particularly unhealthy/uncompetitive/whatever compared to other stuff that is already allowed. This is a legacy ban that people don't want to remove because they see no good reason for it, but as I said before we ban things for their negative aspect, and Evasion Abilities are clearly not banworthy. What good reason is there for unbanning HypnoGrav, from a purely competitive standpoint? I think the best positive reason for freeing Evasion Abilities is a simplified banlist, with other positive reasons just showing why it's not as broken as it's being made out to be (weather can change frequently / weather isn't permanent / Max Moves ignore evasion checks / 20% isn't even especially high relative to other common hax effects). If Evasion had been removed for the new generation (or in a previous generation, for that matter), it would not even be on the radar right now. Under the logic of arguments given, other elements such as Bright Powder / Quick Claw / Confuse Ray / Rock Slide would be more banworthy. As such, I see no unanswerable reasons why Evasion should still be banned.
 
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Kenpwnchi

formerly Pwndkthnx
Hey, DOU!!! Pwndkthnx here. So, everybody loves GMax, right? I decided to make a list for moves that are used when GMax mons use their GMax moves. I hope you all enjoy. If I made any mistakes, please let me know and I will edit my post. Thank you. :)
  • Alcremie | Life Dew
  • Appletun | Aromatherapy
  • Butterfree | Sleep Powder / Poison Powder / Stun Spore
  • Centiskorch | Fire Spin
  • Charizard | Fire Spin (w/o Trap)
  • Coalossal | Sand Tomb (w/o Trap)
  • Copperajah | Stealth Rock (Steel-type)
  • Corviknight | Defog
  • Drednaw | Stealth Rock
  • Duraludon | Spite
  • Eevee | Attract
  • Flapple | Sweet Scent
  • Garbodor | Toxic
  • Gengar | Mean Look
  • Grimmsnarl | Yawn
  • Hatterene | Confuse Ray
  • Kingler | String Shot
  • Lapras | Aurora Veil
  • Machamp | Focus Energy
  • Meowth | Confuse Ray
  • Orbeetle | Gravity
  • Pikachu | Thunder Wave
  • Sandaconda | Sand Tomb
  • Snorlax | Recycle (Berries)
  • Melmetal | Torment
  • Toxtricity | Thunder Wave / Toxic
 
Hey, DOU!!! Pwndkthnx here. So, everybody loves GMax, right? I decided to make a list for moves that are used when GMax mons use their GMax moves. I hope you all enjoy. If I made any mistakes, please let me know and I will edit my post. Thank you. :)
  • Alcremie | Life Dew
  • Appletun | Aromatherapy
  • Butterfree | Sleep Powder / Poison Powder / Stun Spore
  • Centiskorch | Fire Spin
  • Charizard | Fire Spin (w/o Trap)
  • Coalossal | Sand Tomb (Rock-type w/o Trap)
  • Copperajah | Stealth Rock (Steel-type)
  • Corviknight | Defog
  • Drednaw | Stealth Rock
  • Duraludon | Spite
  • Eevee | Attract
  • Flapple | Sweet Scent
  • Garbodor | Poison Gas
  • Gengar | Mean Look
  • Grimmsnarl | Yawn
  • Hatterene | Confuse Ray
  • Kingler | String Shot
  • Lapras | Aurora Veil
  • Machamp | Focus Energy
  • Meowth | Confuse Ray
  • Orbeetle | Gravity
  • Pikachu | Thunder Wave
  • Sandaconda | Sand Tomb
  • Snorlax | Recycle (Berries)
  • Melmetal | Torment
  • Toxtricity | Thunder Wave / Poison Gas
Just a few minor corrections so people aren’t confused.
 
I am not quite sure what the process for rebanning it would be, if a council vote could send it back to being banned quickly then even with thinking that the abilities are dumb and uncompetitive I feel as though they should be given a fair shot. These are strategies one way or another and makes using some lesser used Pokemon more interesting.
 

talkingtree

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By a council vote of 5-2, Evasion Abilities Clause will be REMOVED from SS Doubles. Evasion is inherently "hax", and in a sense "uncompetitive" with no clear competitive upside, but removing this clause is more in line with existing ruling. They may not be ideal in a vacuum, but when contextualized, are at a level that is unlikely to cause any relevant impact or "damage", per se. While it is understandable to wish to keep the clause on principle, the majority of the council believes that such a clause is ultimately unnecessary and covers scenarios that ultimately are not worth limitation.

When reviewing the banlist, those voting to remove the clause tended to ask the question 'Does this aspect still have the negative impact which originally deemed it broken/uncompetitive etc.', rather than 'Would introducing this bring a positive impact to what we currently have?'. This is similar to the question that led us to retest various banned Pokemon in generations past; XY Mega Salamence and SM Marshadow weren't retested because of the value they could add to the metagame, but because the council at the time was unsure whether they would still be problematic enough to warrant their ban.

As was stated for GravSleep, if these prove to be an issue further down the line, council will address it accordingly.
 
View attachment 218322


alright guys, fess up. Who took this little fella away from Kanto and left him in the DOU room?? Poor little guy doesn't know where he is... I came along just in time as Dracovish had just dipped him in mustard and was about to take a bite.
Same reason he’s OU in singles: it’s a temporary ranking until Showdown staff can figure out where to place him.
Granted, he’d probably be too slow to realize he’s there in the first place.
 
While we are removing clauses, perhaps we can look into OHKO Move Clause? Dynamax Pokemon are immune to OHKO moves to make 30 accuracy even shakier and because of the risk generally involved with such moves they tend to be better against stallier or slower plays. Without access to Toxic on most Pokemon either defensive positioning is pretty strong.

There are Pokemon would be using OHKO moves, such as Sheer Cold vs Freeze Dry on Lapras, Horn Drill as an option on Excadrill as a normal attack, Fissure on Hippowdon, perhaps even Fissure on Snorlax. Each of the attacks have an immunity too, so they are even less particularly spammable. This will almost definitely have an impact on the metagame to be honest, and I'm not sure how good or bad of an impact it would be.

EDIT:

Also it's 8 PP 30 accuracy move in 6v6 where Dynamax, Protect are everywhere and substitute sometimes exists. It has use cases, but it is going to be awfully difficult to spam. And as a dynamax move alternative, I believe that still eats up the PP of the attack so it gets even fewer opportunities to be pressed. It's an alternative option on a few Pokemon with some degree of counter play this gen that hadn't existed before. Without Toxic, it also provides another way to handle Pokemon that spend excessive turns setting up.
 
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While we are removing clauses, perhaps we can look into OHKO Move Clause? Dynamax Pokemon are immune to OHKO moves to make 30 accuracy even shakier and because of the risk generally involved with such moves they tend to be better against stallier or slower plays. Without access to Toxic on most Pokemon either defensive positioning is pretty strong.

There are Pokemon would be using OHKO moves, such as Sheer Cold vs Freeze Dry on Lapras, Horn Drill as an option on Excadrill as a normal attack, Fissure on Hippowdon, perhaps even Fissure on Snorlax. Each of the attacks have an immunity too, so they are even less particularly spammable. This will almost definitely have an impact on the metagame to be honest, and I'm not sure how good or bad of an impact it would be.

EDIT:

Also it's 8 PP 30 accuracy move in 6v6 where Dynamax, Protect are everywhere and substitute sometimes exists. It has use cases, but it is going to be awfully difficult to spam. And as a dynamax move alternative, I believe that still eats up the PP of the attack so it gets even fewer opportunities to be pressed. It's an alternative option on a few Pokemon with some degree of counter play this gen that hadn't existed before. Without Toxic, it also provides another way to handle Pokemon that spend excessive turns setting up.
I think you miss why the OHKO move ban exists. It has nothing to do with OHKO moves being OP, they're actually terrible (play Nat Dex AG with Sheer Cold/Fissure Primals if you don't believe me). It has everything to do with them being uncompetitive, which is not the same as broken. If you are unsure what uncompetitive means, read the following:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/tiering-faq.3644714/
TL;DR:They're banned because a game involving them has little to do with player skill and is simply Praise RNGesus.
 

Martin

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Hi, I’d like to briefly talk about something I’ve been getting quite a lot of mileage with recently.

:bw/mew:
Mew @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Synchronise
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Imprison
- Transform
- Trick Room / Beat Up / Will-O-Wisp / idk smth else valuable that you can lock with Imprison / whatever the fuck you want really
- Protect / TR / Beat Up / Will-O / whatever

Someone mentioned Imprison Mew + Gothitelle a few pages back, and while I think it’s definitely an option in team building given how Fake Out+Mew shuts down a lot of their shared answers (also lol @ Ally Switch+Imprison+Transform), I found that relying on the combo can be pretty inconsistent at times if the only real goal is to lock and trap. That said, even when Gothitelle isn’t active, I’ve actually found Imprison+Transform to be a really useful tool for just locking your opponent out of their main stops to sweepers and to help generate free turns for dangerous Pokemon like Gyarados, Dragapult etc. to set up versus Pokemon that could otherwise one-shot them or to take advantage of something which has already set up with the help of Fake Out/Follow Me/Ally Switch/whatever, and it is one that’s is only going to get better when Home is released+we get moves like TW/etc. to increase its versatility as a utility pick. It’s also kinda nice how it pretty much option selects last-mon scenarios if Mew is healthy, kinda like Perish Song except safer, and being able to shut down TR leads, lock your opponent out of Wisp for a few turns etc. is really useful.
 

Platinum God n1n1

the real n1n1
is a Tiering Contributor
Hi, I’d like to briefly talk about something I’ve been getting quite a lot of mileage with recently.

:bw/mew:
Mew @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Synchronise
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Imprison
- Transform
- Trick Room / Beat Up / Will-O-Wisp / idk smth else valuable that you can lock with Imprison / whatever the fuck you want really
- Protect / TR / Beat Up / Will-O / whatever

Someone mentioned Imprison Mew + Gothitelle a few pages back, and while I think it’s definitely an option in team building given how Fake Out+Mew shuts down a lot of their shared answers (also lol @ Ally Switch+Imprison+Transform), I found that relying on the combo can be pretty inconsistent at times if the only real goal is to lock and trap. That said, even when Gothitelle isn’t active, I’ve actually found Imprison+Transform to be a really useful tool for just locking your opponent out of their main stops to sweepers and to help generate free turns for dangerous Pokemon like Gyarados, Dragapult etc. to set up versus Pokemon that could otherwise one-shot them or to take advantage of something which has already set up with the help of Fake Out/Follow Me/Ally Switch/whatever, and it is one that’s is only going to get better when Home is released+we get moves like TW/etc. to increase its versatility as a utility pick. It’s also kinda nice how it pretty much option selects last-mon scenarios if Mew is healthy, kinda like Perish Song except safer, and being able to shut down TR leads, lock your opponent out of Wisp for a few turns etc. is really useful.
I hate this crap. It should be banned
 
unbanning hypnograv before a major tournament was probably a mistake.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-472231
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-472394
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1045912613-xaiyfy1218n9c9c0a2dy9j9dce5mvvvpw

there's not much to say about the issue. we thought that the abusers like whimsicott / mega gengar being gone would be significant enough to nerf the strategy. however, it clearly isn't. it's relatively easy to fit gravity onto a team and from there, the hypnosis users aren't too bad. specifically, guaranteed sleep + trap on one pokemon with gothitelle has little to no counterplay (you just sit there and get slept once trick room is up or another pokemon begins to use sleep). while fullroom is the most obvious place to slot this in, as seen in the top two SPL replays, i have no doubt that this will expand if left unchecked and should really be dealt with soon.
 
These are my views alone and don't reflect discussions we've had or the opinions of other council members.

unbanning hypnograv before a major tournament was probably a mistake.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-472231
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-472394
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1045912613-xaiyfy1218n9c9c0a2dy9j9dce5mvvvpw

there's not much to say about the issue. we thought that the abusers like whimsicott / mega gengar being gone would be significant enough to nerf the strategy. however, it clearly isn't. it's relatively easy to fit gravity onto a team and from there, the hypnosis users aren't too bad. specifically, guaranteed sleep + trap on one pokemon with gothitelle has little to no counterplay (you just sit there and get slept once trick room is up or another pokemon begins to use sleep). while fullroom is the most obvious place to slot this in, as seen in the top two SPL replays, i have no doubt that this will expand if left unchecked and should really be dealt with soon.
I think this talk of rebanning hypnograv is far too hasty and is just a knee-jerk reaction to no one liking the idea of it being legal. From my experiences, I am still not convinced that the mechanic is broken and the replays posted here actually make me even more sure that we should be giving it more time, which i will go into later. My main gripe is that while everyone has been quite obviously exploring ways to abuse gravsleep, almost no one has been considering counterplay to it, which there is more than enough of. It feels to me like most are scrambling to get examples of why it should be rebanned and are looking at the issue with a lot of bias. The council has been getting a lot of shit and i dont think its warranted, especially when I have still not seen any real proof that gravsleep needs rebanning. I will now analyse the replays and explain why these are quite poor examples of your point:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-472231
It is clear to me that kaori has not considered how to play vs this, and he definitely had the options to do so.
  • First of all, he has a rotom mow. Using max lightning would not only start pressuring the gothitelle but also protects his whole team from gravsleep for the duration of trick room (rotom mow/corviknight get grounded by gravity). now this obviously suggests that indeedee should come in, to disrupt the electric terrain and get hypnosis back online. But i dont think it is too hard to see how this doesnt quite work just by thinking through the next couple of turns (T1: TR fake out, T2: gravity + brick break??, T3: switch indeedee + hypnosis). This series of plays, which is the most efficient way to setup the hypnograv against opposing terrain, not only loses 4 turns of trick room to get your sleeps off and get a pokemon in with any offensive presence, but also leaves gothitelle open to 2 max moves from rotom and an attack from the partner.
  • Even if you dont want to dynamax rotom in this matchup (which i dont think is unreasonable), and you have your dedicated lead of mew lapras to answer TR, a lot of things still werent done well. Why was lapras dynamaxed turn 2 if a gravnosis was coming? it set kaori even further back by simply not getting anything out of his dynamax, when a dynamax later in the game would have actually been really useful (in particular on turn 6, when he got a turn to really get some damage on the board).
  • EVEN further to this, if lapras mew and setting screens was the TR counterplay to weakening goth dusclops's brick breaks, then why was there no thunderbolt? If you have really thought through the matchup, then max lightning lapras would have worked just fine, AND you get to set screens still. it was WP lapras, so thunderbolt is most definitely not a stretch, but this all just feeds into my point of not considering counterplay or how to play vs it.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-472394
  • ezrael actually did a far better job of using the sleep turns to push his advantage. However, once again, i just dont think tman really thought about gravnosis in his TR matchup. honestly, i dont see how it could have gone much differently had there been a butterfree on jons team. The mew lapras lead seems even worse to me here, because light clay lapras doesnt even have the damage threat that kaoris wp set had. i dont think theres much more i need to say on this, it was just a simple case of not looking at solid counterplay. also jon got a little fortunate in winning a speed tie to hypno tmans goth, and hitting a blind one but that happens.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1045912613-xaiyfy1218n9c9c0a2dy9j9dce5mvvvpw
  • this is the worst of the lot, nido had good counterplay in rotom mow and i have genuinely no idea why it wasnt lead. yobuddy is forced to lead a very average mon in sigilyph to even consider getting the strategy going, and rotom pressures milotic while goth has barely any offense itself. he just let the gravsleep happen and was anyone surprised at what ended up occurring? he even got 2 1 turn wake ups and still decided the sigilyph wasnt a threat and that he wanted to activate rhyperiors weakness policy ._.
I wont accept any argument that the gravnosis wasnt telegraphed in any of these replays. Goth dusclops was very recently mentioned in the DOU discord when it top cut the first VGC regional of sword and shield, and what else is sigilyph doing if its not gravsleeping stuff. everyone in these replays is smart enough to see it coming. you yourself qsns have seen how far a max lightning can set you back with subpar mons solely for the purpose of spamming gravnosis.

I think the argument of the pokemon being bad still stands. sigilyph with milotic or goth is just not that good, and i expect it will stop seeing use quite soon once the initial outrage over gravnosis dies down. Dusclops goth is the exception to the rule, this much i will concede. being able to fit goth almost seamlessly onto TR is frustrating for sure. However, by setting up this strategy, you are limiting your TR turns massively to actually get damage off. the earliest you can get a sweeper in safely is turn 3 (assuming you set gravnosis and put both mons to sleep), but this is 3 turns of 0 offensive presence, and leaves you very vulnerable to a turn 1 wake. if you have to bring in indeedee to cover a max lightning play, this number only gets smaller. with only 2 turns of TR left to actually do damage, i dont think the strategy is really as dangerous as its being made out to be on TR.

I dont think such counterplay is just limited to rotoms or lapras using max lightning too. I will list a couple of things that are quite easily able to deal with gravnosis:
  • Duraludon. AV sets are already tailored to dealing with TR by using dragon tail, thunderbolt is a standard as well for coverage, but makes gravnosis really tough to set up well.
  • Corviknight. A lot of people have established that lum berry is one of the best items on corviknight, as an answer to being burnt and losing your damage output. it is not a stretch to fit taunt onto these sets for a multitude of pokemon, but gravnosis suffers massively, this is a sample set i have, which i fit a lot onto most balance cores:
    • Corviknight @ Lum Berry
      Ability: Mirror Armor
      EVs: 248 HP / 92 Atk / 168 Spe
      Adamant Nature
      - Brave Bird
      - Iron Head
      - Taunt
      - Tailwind / Roost
  • dark/ghost types. offensive pressure on the gothitelle really goes a long way to stopping your whole team gets slept. further than this, you could even use helping hand mons and start threatening ohkos on the dusclops. mons like hydregion and dragapult are really problematic in this case because dynamaxing them stops fake out pressure.

I just want to bring attention to the fact that actually gravnosis isnt as bad as its being made out to be, most teams have checks already its just a case of making use of them
 

DaWoblefet

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Is the Gravnosis part really the problem here? It seems to me that Gothitelle is far and away the most relevant abuser of this. Shadow Tag + Hypnosis forces counterplay to include both anti-trapping and anti-sleep measures, which is much harder to pull off. I don't think Gravnosis is going to be incredibly relevant outside of Trick Room. The only setters of Gravity are Clefable, Gigalith, Dusclops, Ferrothorn, Gmax Orbeetle, Sigilyph, Stonjourner. Of these, only the latter 3 have workable non-TR speeds and are probably not good. I think it makes the most sense to assume that Gothitelle is going to be the most relevant abuser, which seems to imply this will stay TR-heavy. If you want to blame either SPL loss on Gravnosis, I think the impact of sleep + trapping needs to be considered heavily before doing so.

Think of it this way: suppose you gave Gothitelle Hypnosis in Generation 7. I guarantee that Z-Trick Room into Hypnosis spam would be a very, very good set on it. You have the ability to control the board with Hypnosis + switch into Tapu to dunk on Koko or Fini, and unlike vs Bronzong, you can't preemptively switch to guarantee you'll maintain sleep immunity. With Fake Out to aid the setup of a fellow Dusclops' Trick Room, I think it's even easier to pull something like this off in Generation 8. Bad sleep rolls will just instantly set you behind if the Torkoal can come in and Eruption. But it doesn't seem to me like this would necessarily be the case if you had alternative switching options. Sure, I might get put to sleep, but at least I can go into Tyranitar on the Torkoal + Musharna or whatever and not lose my Pokemon.

^The above two paragraphs are assuming AuraRayquaza is wrong about sufficient counterplay being present to Gravnosis, such as setting Electric Terrain with a Max Move (since Gravity will ground even Pokemon like Rotom formes). I think AuraRayquaza's right, but even if you think he's wrong, it seems to me that it's Shadow Tag + Hypnosis causing the problem here, not Gravity + Hypnosis by itself.

*******************
On the topic of OHKO moves:
While we are removing clauses, perhaps we can look into OHKO Move Clause? Dynamax Pokemon are immune to OHKO moves to make 30 accuracy even shakier and because of the risk generally involved with such moves they tend to be better against stallier or slower plays. Without access to Toxic on most Pokemon either defensive positioning is pretty strong.

There are Pokemon would be using OHKO moves, such as Sheer Cold vs Freeze Dry on Lapras, Horn Drill as an option on Excadrill as a normal attack, Fissure on Hippowdon, perhaps even Fissure on Snorlax. Each of the attacks have an immunity too, so they are even less particularly spammable. This will almost definitely have an impact on the metagame to be honest, and I'm not sure how good or bad of an impact it would be.

EDIT:

Also it's 8 PP 30 accuracy move in 6v6 where Dynamax, Protect are everywhere and substitute sometimes exists. It has use cases, but it is going to be awfully difficult to spam. And as a dynamax move alternative, I believe that still eats up the PP of the attack so it gets even fewer opportunities to be pressed. It's an alternative option on a few Pokemon with some degree of counter play this gen that hadn't existed before. Without Toxic, it also provides another way to handle Pokemon that spend excessive turns setting up.
I am strongly opposed to freeing OHKO moves. I disagree with the idea that freeing OHKO moves to provide additional options against defensive sets is a good thing. To me, I don't see why it would be valuable for an Excadrill with Horn Drill to be able to OHKO a Corviknight after it has accumulated several Bulk Up boosts. It seems like Corviknight there is supposed to win that interaction, and having a 30% chance to lose it outright appears utterly bizarre at face value to me. Why should the player who uses a defensive Pokemon, team, or playstyle have to worry about getting OHKOed 30% of the time? I think that the player who sets up an "unkillable" Pokemon should be the one who wins far more often than not. Sure, crits or successive flinches could happen that ruin a strategy like that, but that's nothing on the level of being able to use potentially multiple Horn Drills or Fissures into some target.

I think the fact that many Pokemon could viably use OHKO moves as regular Max Moves is also not a strong reason to free them. The example of Excadrill is great; Horn Drill is almost certainly the best Max Normal move on Excadrill if it wants the Speed lowering effect. The additional utility of having a move that will delete potential slower counters 30% of the time is what makes it a good option, though. Or again, the fact that G-Max Lapras could opt to run Sheer Cold > Freeze-Dry for 10 extra BP means that when its Dynamax is over, it will have the opportunity to ignore its average Sp. Atk and abuse its additional bulk from Aurora Veil to fish for KOs on Pokemon that wouldn't otherwise be threatened by Lapras. If anything, the fact that Dynamaxed Pokemon would use base OHKO moves I think is a powerful reason against freeing them, because it would inflate the usage of OHKO moves where they may otherwise be more niche.

OHKO moves have 3 immunities that I know of: Sturdy, natural type immunities, and Dynamax. Dynamax is the newest flavor of the bunch, and I think it's worth comparing it to the interactions Max Moves have with Snow Cloak. I think the primary difference is that Dynamax vs. OHKO moves is reactive, while Dynamax vs. evasion abilities is proactive. If I'm attacking a Glaceon with my Dynamax to set another weather with certainty or hit it really hard, I can opt to do so on my own terms - I choose when to do that, it's proactive. But I can't choose when my opponent is going to use an OHKO move on me. I'm Dynamaxing to avoid the OHKO move; it's reactive. Moreover, it's not like I've really delayed the OHKO move potential by more than a turn; unless my other slot is also an OHKO move immunity, they can just OHKO move my other slot. Plus, if I don't know whether or not my opponent has an OHKO move, I think it would be unreasonable to say to Dynamax preemptively to stop an unrevealed OHKO move. I can see a Snow Cloak Glaceon from Team Preview; I can't do the same for, say, Guillotine Bisharp.

I also don't think OHKO moves having limited PP is really anything of relevance either to the discussion here. Even if you use Max Sheer Cold three times as Lapras, that's still 5 shots at OHKOing some opposing Pokemon if we're assuming Lapras is sticking around long enough to see its Sheer Cold PP reduced to 0. How often do regular 8 PP moves actually get used up down to 0 in a game of Doubles OU? I seriously doubt that "PP stall the OHKO move" is going to be a serious option entertained by the average DOU player as a means of counterplay any more than "PP stall Photon Geyser" would be entertained as advice for beating Necrozma in Gen 7 DOU.

It might help to list the fully evolved Pokemon that get OHKO moves:
  • Sheer Cold: Abomasnow, Beartic, Glalie, Lapras, Vanilluxe
  • Fissure: Copperajah, Dugtrio, Excadrill, Flygon, Hippowdon, Lapras, Mamoswine, Mudsdale, Snorlax, Stunfisk-Galar, Torkoal, Wailord, Whiscash (honorary mention of Trapinch as well)
  • Horn Drill: Excadrill, Lapras, Rapidash-Galar, Rhyperior, Seaking
  • Guillotine: Bisharp, Crawdaunt, Durant, Haxorus, Kingler, Vikavolt
Pokemon names in bold are listed on the viability rankings as of 1/19/20. I think there's several Pokemon, like Vanilluxe or Durant, that are independently viable and could also likely run an OHKO move either in and of itself or as a Dynamax option. When you compare the distribution of OHKO moves against, say, the list of Pokemon with Sand Veil or Snow Cloak, I think the difference is obvious. Plenty of viable Pokemon have access to moves that can get you out of a tough situation 30% of the time. Unlike Sand Veil / Snow Cloak, I guarantee OHKO moves would see usage in the Doubles OU metagame both as a serious option in tournaments and casually on the ladder.

I know people are kind of like "well if Evasion Abilities aren't so bad, then why aren't OHKO moves so bad either?". I think that the wider distribution, the greater percent chance of the hax effect to trigger (30%), and the greater average impact of the hax effect (I'd say OHKOing a Pokemon tends to be more impactful than missing a move) all are positive arguments not to unban OHKO moves. Dynamaxing does increase the counterplay to OHKO moves, but simultaneously brings about a wide number of Pokemon who would use the OHKO move as their base for their Max Move, increasing the number of times OHKO moves would see usage. So Dynamax hurts, rather than helps the case for OHKO moves. For those reasons, I don't think OHKO moves have a place in any DOU metagame, much less our current one.
 
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marilli

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I will also try to handle this ridiculous notion that OHKO moves are somehow "worse" than the things that we have currently unbanned so far:

I am strongly opposed to freeing OHKO moves. I disagree with the idea that freeing OHKO moves to provide additional options against defensive sets is a good thing. To me, I don't see why it would be valuable for an Excadrill with Horn Drill to be able to OHKO a Corviknight after it has accumulated several Bulk Up boosts. It seems like Corviknight there is supposed to win that interaction, and having a 30% chance to lose it outright appears utterly bizarre at face value to me. Why should the player who uses a defensive Pokemon, team, or playstyle have to worry about getting OHKOed 30% of the time? I think that the player who sets up an "unkillable" Pokemon should be the one who wins far more often than not. Sure, crits or successive flinches could happen that ruin a strategy like that, but that's nothing on the level of being able to use potentially multiple Horn Drills or Fissures into some target.
If you're going to say that "hax bad, we ban hax", then I see this as a slippery slope argument that ultimately collapses.

OHKO moves have 3 immunities that I know of: Sturdy, natural type immunities, and Dynamax. Dynamax is the newest flavor of the bunch, and I think it's worth comparing it to the interactions Max Moves have with Snow Cloak. I think the primary difference is that Dynamax vs. OHKO moves is reactive, while Dynamax vs. evasion abilities is proactive. If I'm attacking a Glaceon with my Dynamax to set another weather with certainty or hit it really hard, I can opt to do so on my own terms - I choose when to do that, it's proactive. But I can't choose when my opponent is going to use an OHKO move on me. I'm Dynamaxing to avoid the OHKO move; it's reactive. Moreover, it's not like I've really delayed the OHKO move potential by more than a turn; unless my other slot is also an OHKO move immunity, they can just OHKO move my other slot. Plus, if I don't know whether or not my opponent has an OHKO move, I think it would be unreasonable to say to Dynamax preemptively to stop an unrevealed OHKO move. I can see a Snow Cloak Glaceon from Team Preview; I can't do the same for, say, Guillotine Bisharp.
I think AuraRayquaza's right (about reactively setting Electric Terrain with a Max Move being a sufficient counterplay)
:pikuh:

I also don't think OHKO moves having limited PP is really anything of relevance either to the discussion here. Even if you use Max Sheer Cold three times as Lapras, that's still 5 shots at OHKOing some opposing Pokemon if we're assuming Lapras is sticking around long enough to see its Sheer Cold PP reduced to 0. How often do regular 8 PP moves actually get used up down to 0 in a game of Doubles OU? I seriously doubt that "PP stall the OHKO move" is going to be a serious option entertained by the average DOU player as a means of counterplay any more than "PP stall Photon Geyser" would be entertained as advice for beating Necrozma in Gen 7 DOU.
Yeah, the PP argument is horrible. Would have never personally brought it up.

And that is not getting to the meat of the argument. You say things can just randomly use OHKO moves but they actually can't. They are forced to give up critical moves that are essential to how the set functions, and on top of that they need to ACTUALLY SPEND A TURN to get the hax. If you understand the difference between Intimidate and Growl - one is the best ability in the game, and the other is a useless move that never sees competitive play - you may understand why use of turns is a far more valuable resource in the game than say, wasted item slot or ability slot. This is why I believe that "hax moves" that waste turns in many instances is simply detrimental to overall win percentages and basically a crutch for bads to try to compete in a matchup they feel is basically hopeless. And in many ways this holds true for Hypnograv teams as well, except in this case it's not detrimental to your win percentage at all. That is what makes Hypnograv teams far more uncompetitive than OHKO moves. When you just start landing Raw hypnosis into 3 turn sleeps, there's just basically not much you can do about it as the better player. Setting Terrain can be overwritten with your own, and it can also just mean you switch out to your TR attackers like Lax instead of wasting turn on Gravity'ing because you would have used Trick Room on the turn they set the Terrain, so they are not at all committed to staying in and using Hypnograv.

The timing of this unban is absurd, too. Sleep is so strong with the Dynamax mechanics that people are unironically using Yawn, a move that was previously thought to be about as strong as Growl. You may be able to delude yourself into saying '60% to land Hypnosis yeah, but thats not 60% to win the game' but if you think about getting Hypnosis'd on your Dynamax sweeper, the reward is so valuable that I would gladly spend the valuable turn on Goth (something that doesn't generate too much pressure otherwise) for a 60% chance of winning the game with no recourse. It's like you guys still think Tapu Fini and Tapu Koko are in the game. I may or may not have been fine removing this clause in Gen 7. I may or may not be fine removing this clause when the Tapus get freed in the expansion. But I am not fine with removing this right now when none of those options are available. By now you may have realized I don't really think freeing OHKO moves is necessarily a great idea at all - merely reasoning that OHKO moves and Minimize are weaker moves compared to what we have unleashed upon our metagame with 0 discussion aside from a tl;dr post.

The fundamental difference in using Dynamax to protect your win condition from OHKO moves and using Dynamax to protect your win condition from Raw Hypno is that the former is only 30% odds, and involves Dynamaxing your win condition (now your opponent wasted a turn and you are in a dominant position). The latter is 60% odds and involves Dynamaxing your supportive Rotom and throws your game in the bin, yet they can just adjust, throw out a Raw Hypno instead on the levitating Rotom and switch to their Trick Room attacker instead of setting Hypnograv.


Your argument is full of holes and mental gymnastics that I was fortunately able to counter your own argument with your literal own words.
In fact, your arguments are so all over the place and self-contradictory it crumbles at any serious attempt at dissecting it. I know you are a smart man, Dawoblefet, and this makes me think you are being intellectually dishonest in order to suit your preferred playstyles and your own odds over true competitive discussion.

I know people are kind of like "well if Evasion Abilities aren't so bad, then why aren't OHKO moves so bad either?". I think that the wider distribution, the greater percent chance of the hax effect to trigger (30%), and the greater average impact of the hax effect (I'd say OHKOing a Pokemon tends to be more impactful than missing a move) all are positive arguments not to unban OHKO moves. Dynamaxing does increase the counterplay to OHKO moves, but simultaneously brings about a wide number of Pokemon who would use the OHKO move as their base for their Max Move, increasing the number of times OHKO moves would see usage. So Dynamax hurts, rather than helps the case for OHKO moves. For those reasons, I don't think OHKO moves have a place in any DOU metagame, much less our current one.
I know this may be a shock to some of you but there are worse things in the game than having your Pokemon faint and be able to bring in the next threat - exerting no pressure letting your opponent divide and conquer your team. As a consequence, getting one of your pieces randomly OHKOed is a far weaker effect than being locked up for multiple turns with both of your active Pokemon in the bigger scheme of things, with both offensive and defensive teams considered. When terrain was around, there's counterplay. When Amoonguss was the only relevant Sleep user, there's counterplay. When that's neither the case, the counterplay argument falls apart. In a Pokemon game that only lasts ~10 turns give or take, each turn is an indispensable resource. You do not deviate from defensive stragies, so you aren't fine when a weaker strategy like OHKO moves hurts your favorite playstyle, but you are fine with freeing Hypnosis for your ability to luck people who aren't bad enough to fold over and donate free wins to your favorite durdling strategies.

It might help to list the fully evolved Pokemon that get OHKO moves:
  • Sheer Cold: Abomasnow, Beartic, Glalie, Lapras, Vanilluxe
  • Fissure: Copperajah, Dugtrio, Excadrill, Flygon, Hippowdon, Lapras, Mamoswine, Mudsdale, Snorlax, Stunfisk-Galar, Torkoal, Wailord, Whiscash (honorary mention of Trapinch as well)
  • Horn Drill: Excadrill, Lapras, Rapidash-Galar, Rhyperior, Seaking
  • Guillotine: Bisharp, Crawdaunt, Durant, Haxorus, Kingler, Vikavolt
The intellectual dishonestly argument gets stronger when you consider you basically bolded Same Pokemon multiple times to make it seem like over a dozen Pokemon would abuse OHKO moves when it was just 1 Pokemon getting Multiple OHKO moves. Realistically, only Excadrill and Lapras can fit OHKO moves without completely ruining their purpose. Yeah Rhyperior and Torkoal and Snorlax are relevant but they are just gonna one-shot things without the 30% accuracy lol. Using OHKO moves on them either nullify their main purpose, or is superfluous, or just plain bad Pokemon that you would not bother with for the most part.

In fact I doubt any of you who actually think setting ELECTRIC TERRAIN with LEVITATING ROTOM is a good Hypnosis counterplay has literally never played vs a competent Hypnograv user. I understand this may be a tough experience to get, but the bad players forgetting what Gravity does and making your Rotom immune to Sleep is not a factor. At that point we might as well free Mega Rayquaza cuz I saw one guy on the ladder use Return Fly Mega Rayquaza and lost once vs a DOU team.

Is the Gravnosis part really the problem here? It seems to me that Gothitelle is far and away the most relevant abuser of this. Shadow Tag + Hypnosis forces counterplay to include both anti-trapping and anti-sleep measures, which is much harder to pull off. I don't think Gravnosis is going to be incredibly relevant outside of Trick Room.
Now this is an interesting notion. While it is an interesting proposal I think it would require some testing. And you are basically admitting that Hypnosis Gothitelle is degenerate enough to consider banning. Then why is it that you just unilaterally freed a potentially controversial unban? This is a clearly degenerate unban that fell through the cracks because the Council was literally unaware of the Gothitelle + Dusclops Trick Room team, an existing team in the VGC ladder that you clearly already knew was a very strong strategy.

Or you can have plausible deniability that you "didn't know about this team" but it merely adds to the argument that this unban was too hastily done at a time SPL is starting with a group of people who were clearly unaware of the metagame.

Also this argument basically attempts to gloss over the other viable Hypnosis users of SS DOU metagame, including Gengar, Sigilyph, Bronzong, and Milotic which are all incredibly relevant Pokemon right now with the Hypnograv clause removed. Either we can ban Gothitelle, Bronzong, Milotic, Dusclops, Sigilyph, Musharna, Gengar, and Malamar, or we can ban Hypnograv. Up to you basically.
 
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marilli

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I have to admit I really haven't been up-to-date with the DOU metagame, for many IRL reasons, until I learned that I would actually be starting in SPL, not as a back-up. In fact you can see me making last minute edits to my SPL Signup post because it seemed so obvious that I would be a bench support, not a starter. Despite their trust in me, I was admittedly not very up-to-date with the metagame until recently. However, when I started playing (with Hypnograv unbanned) after the holidays, it became very apparent that Hypnosis + Gravity Gothitelle + Dusclops fullroom was obnoxiously strong the more I played the ladder.

I was instantly reminded of my experiences on the Battle Stadium Doubles ladder, which was the little Doubles experience for Sword and Shield I had thus far before I started grinding the DOU ladder. There, Trick Room teams were very rampant. In fact these formulaic Full Trick Room teams were always present since Week 1 of the Doubles Ladder there, not when whichever famous youtuber stole this and pretended this was "their unique idea" a week ago or some BS. I apologize for not being able to give proper credit to where this is due because of my inability to read Chinese Characters, but several notable Chinese Doubles players have shared strong Trick Room Battle Stadium Doubles rental codes of the formulaic Gothitelle + Dusclops + Rhyperior + Torkoal full Trick Room setup, and while there were many variants the most obnoxiously threatening one was the HypnoGrav version. With this, I was absolutely shocked as to why this was unbanned the first place at all!

All the VGC players, including Dawoblefet, must have been aware of the HypnoGrav from how much it was spammed on the ladder, and HypnoGrav has always been leagues stronger in DOU than in VGC for obvious reasons I will not delve into much for the sake of brevity. But anyways, with me being shocked there was literally no posts about justifying this unban at all. In fact I was not even aware of the fact that it was even unbanned at all until very recently, which is when I exactly started whining about it until I was literally silenced for my opinions.

And not to mention, in the post announcing its unban there was no commentary on why they thought it was worth unbanning at all, clearly unaware of the fact that Gothitelle gets Hypnosis. Here, I wanted to break down the points given in the unban post, but I literally cannot since there were actually no justification given. Furthermore, there is no post bringing up the potential removal of this clause. It is alarmingly clear that this was just brought up inbetween the friend groups and the tier leadership just pushed it to council vote because of peer pressure while being ignorant of the metagame.

I always am weary of pretending to know more about the game than I actually do. Unfortunately, I cannot force others to do the same.

"If in the future this proves to be an issue again, the council will act swiftly in restoring this clause and possibly figuring out how to handle Orbeetle, but for now we're expecting this change to have minimal impact on the metagame."
Despite this already ruining a full week of SPL already, unfortunately, this hasn't happened at all. In fact, unbanning it at all seems very unlikely to happen in the current tournament cycle. I guess it's just very competitive to use Imprison Hypnosis and Safeguard and Double Taunt leads.

I know that there hasn't been any backlash from the Tournament Community to ban this ASAP. But this isn't just saying you Tier Leadership can do whatever you want. When you think about this, when ultimatums have been given out that means that the trust between the tournament community in our tier leadership has eroded to the point that they don't deem us capable of making correct decisions about our own tier.

Being able to play in SPL is a privilege. And at the same time it comes with obligations: to ban unhealthy gameplay in spite of potential backlash from your friends who think otherwise. If you are a proponent of "keeping banlists simple" over fulfilling this obligation, I suggest you drop out of SPL to give your team some extra credits they direly need over you. We have built this trust with other communities in Smogon over several years. If your real-life relationships are more important than this, I respect your opinion genuinely. It just means that you are no longer fit to be in the said leadership position and compromise this privilege for the rest of the players of the community who aren't interested in your personal relationships.

I really think this is a lapse in judgment of the DOU Council. I truly believe that this will be hotfixed as soon as possible. It is not so hard to admit you're wrong.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
I think at this point it's pretty clear that what should be done is we reverse the council vote and then (if we care) have a full vote for unban. The original announcement said the following:

The vast majority of the dangerous abusers of this mechanic in the past like Shaymin-S, Darkrai, Landorus-I, and Mega Gengar have been snapped, so it seems unlikely to still be an issue. This also means that G-Max Orbeetle will no longer be bending any clauses, and can be allowed to do what it pleases.

If in the future this proves to be an issue again, the council will act swiftly in restoring this clause and possibly figuring out how to handle Orbeetle, but for now we're expecting this change to have minimal impact on the metagame.
Paraphrased: "Nobody really likes playing with this shit, but it's irrelevant and clutters up our ruleset, so may as well unban it." Well as wk2 of SPL has showed, that logic is not correct. It's still relevant. Whether you think it's broken or not (I probably think it isn't broken), I hope we can agree that a council vote is not right for a controversial unban like this.

I'd like to stress that I'm not blaming the council for their decision. At the time, I supported the decision for a council vote and the unban, because I thought that gravsleep would be useless with Roro's entire original team snapped. But now the situation has changed, and we should react accordingly.
 
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