Ready for chaos?
Welcome to the start of the Crown Tundra metagame! Hope everyone's safe out there.
If you missed the council notice a couple weeks ago going over the details behind how we are going to handle the Crown Tundra (and why) then it's a good idea to read it - I'll quote it below:
The Crown Tundra is coming in 2 weeks! Let's talk how things have been and what the council is thinking regarding the new metagame.
At the end of UPL we lost Hack, Reje, and Cynara and added Icemaster, TrueNora, Skysolo and TonyFlygon. Once they were added we started to discuss plans for the remainder of this DLC and figured that we should poll the tournament playerbase using a survey asking about their opinion on the meta and how they felt about Dynamax, with our primary thought being a full Dynamax test. The day that we finalized this survey... the Crown Tundra was announced for October 22nd, a month earlier than we expected. We suddenly didn't have the time to hold any sort of test or discussion and our Isle of Armor plans were effectively cancelled and all discussion was focused on the fast approaching DLC 2 metagame.
I want to go over the Dynamax Clause and how I felt it did. We knew from day 1 of implementing the clause that it was a temporary solution and would require different measures in DLC 2 when a massive amount of Ubers return to the metagame. Up to this point I think the idea was worth the attempt. The metagame has some very strong Dynamax users that could have been considered for action but the timing just didn't pan out, yet the metagame is still competitively playable and was enjoyed in UPL. I don't regret taking the higher risk higher reward option - reward being that more elements remained in the metagame. You are welcome to disagree with the results.
The problem with the Dynamax Clause is now going to be very apparent in DLC 2 - maintaining it. As it stands, a small number of Pokemon are on the list, some of which are comparatively weak and in a perfect world would have been tested for removal like Solgaleo. It doesn't include the new Dynamax terrors we are confirmed to get such as Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde.
The first thought may be to just get the council to agree on adding all the probable Dynamax nightmares to the clause immediately and work from there, but there are numerous issues with this.
Firstly, by automatically adding threats to the Dynamax Clause we are banning things without even seeing them in the metagame, which is poor tiering. Even Mega Rayquaza and the post-Home Dynamax Ubers had time in the metagame before action was taken because we had strong evidence and the community experienced it for themselves and overwhelmingly agreed. It might be fairly obvious that the new additions will cause problems, but drawing the line is impossible without seeing for ourselves. The other factor in this line of thinking is that if we waited and watched how the new additions fared in the metagame first while keeping the clause intact, we would have Yveltal and Xerneas free to use Dynamax but Solgaleo couldn't do it. It doesn't take much thinking to see how silly that is.
Secondly, there are so many potential threats that Dynamax can turn into terrors even outside of Ubers. Dynamax on some returning lower tier threats could be just as threatening - Landorus-T for example. Even now we wondered if the common Dynamax users deserved action, and that would have to be considered in a theoretical DLC 2 clause sweep as well. There are too many threats in theory to be sure, and any that escape the initial wave would likely need suspect tests to be added meaning a massive number of suspect tests. Ubers shouldn't be the metagame that does non stop testing. It's a sign of an administrative mistake if Ubers is doing more suspect tests than any other Smogon tier for the sake of competitive integrity. It would be better to do a "big" test than lots of small ones, which is to say, it would be better to test Dynamax entirely than constantly iterate on an idea that is no longer fit for purpose.
We considered clearing the clause of mons and making another list of mons as a council after some time into DLC 2 similarly to the Home strategy, but when the above arguments are all considered and the community restlessness about the Dynamax Clause leading up to this point, we decided it isn't the best play.
What I'm getting at here is that at the start of the Crown Tundra metagame, we will be disabling the Dynamax Clause and suspect testing Dynamax as a whole soon after. This cuts all the questions down into one - is Dynamax too much for Ubers as a mechanic given the strength of so many different users? We are about to reach the point where we are bending too much for the sake of a mechanic that causes us no end of headaches. DLC 2 is the perfect opportunity to put all the cards on the table and decisively figure out if Dynamax is worth keeping in the tier.
At the end of UPL we lost Hack, Reje, and Cynara and added Icemaster, TrueNora, Skysolo and TonyFlygon. Once they were added we started to discuss plans for the remainder of this DLC and figured that we should poll the tournament playerbase using a survey asking about their opinion on the meta and how they felt about Dynamax, with our primary thought being a full Dynamax test. The day that we finalized this survey... the Crown Tundra was announced for October 22nd, a month earlier than we expected. We suddenly didn't have the time to hold any sort of test or discussion and our Isle of Armor plans were effectively cancelled and all discussion was focused on the fast approaching DLC 2 metagame.
I want to go over the Dynamax Clause and how I felt it did. We knew from day 1 of implementing the clause that it was a temporary solution and would require different measures in DLC 2 when a massive amount of Ubers return to the metagame. Up to this point I think the idea was worth the attempt. The metagame has some very strong Dynamax users that could have been considered for action but the timing just didn't pan out, yet the metagame is still competitively playable and was enjoyed in UPL. I don't regret taking the higher risk higher reward option - reward being that more elements remained in the metagame. You are welcome to disagree with the results.
The problem with the Dynamax Clause is now going to be very apparent in DLC 2 - maintaining it. As it stands, a small number of Pokemon are on the list, some of which are comparatively weak and in a perfect world would have been tested for removal like Solgaleo. It doesn't include the new Dynamax terrors we are confirmed to get such as Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde.
The first thought may be to just get the council to agree on adding all the probable Dynamax nightmares to the clause immediately and work from there, but there are numerous issues with this.
Firstly, by automatically adding threats to the Dynamax Clause we are banning things without even seeing them in the metagame, which is poor tiering. Even Mega Rayquaza and the post-Home Dynamax Ubers had time in the metagame before action was taken because we had strong evidence and the community experienced it for themselves and overwhelmingly agreed. It might be fairly obvious that the new additions will cause problems, but drawing the line is impossible without seeing for ourselves. The other factor in this line of thinking is that if we waited and watched how the new additions fared in the metagame first while keeping the clause intact, we would have Yveltal and Xerneas free to use Dynamax but Solgaleo couldn't do it. It doesn't take much thinking to see how silly that is.
Secondly, there are so many potential threats that Dynamax can turn into terrors even outside of Ubers. Dynamax on some returning lower tier threats could be just as threatening - Landorus-T for example. Even now we wondered if the common Dynamax users deserved action, and that would have to be considered in a theoretical DLC 2 clause sweep as well. There are too many threats in theory to be sure, and any that escape the initial wave would likely need suspect tests to be added meaning a massive number of suspect tests. Ubers shouldn't be the metagame that does non stop testing. It's a sign of an administrative mistake if Ubers is doing more suspect tests than any other Smogon tier for the sake of competitive integrity. It would be better to do a "big" test than lots of small ones, which is to say, it would be better to test Dynamax entirely than constantly iterate on an idea that is no longer fit for purpose.
We considered clearing the clause of mons and making another list of mons as a council after some time into DLC 2 similarly to the Home strategy, but when the above arguments are all considered and the community restlessness about the Dynamax Clause leading up to this point, we decided it isn't the best play.
What I'm getting at here is that at the start of the Crown Tundra metagame, we will be disabling the Dynamax Clause and suspect testing Dynamax as a whole soon after. This cuts all the questions down into one - is Dynamax too much for Ubers as a mechanic given the strength of so many different users? We are about to reach the point where we are bending too much for the sake of a mechanic that causes us no end of headaches. DLC 2 is the perfect opportunity to put all the cards on the table and decisively figure out if Dynamax is worth keeping in the tier.
Here's the short version - we are starting the Crown Tundra metagame with the Dynamax Clause disabled and will suspect test Dynamax itself in the near future. That means this thread will be fairly short lived, but it will make for a good accounting of how the community feels about the very start of what is going to be a chaotic period for the metagame.
Once PS is stable and the meta/ladder has been given a bit of room to... develop... then we can start the suspect test. Expected timeline is 1-2 weeks from now, but no guarantees. Remember that the simulator might take some time to be fully up to speed.
Our push for resources and tournaments will be on hold until the Dynamax test concludes, with the exception of a subforum kickoff tour (fast deadlines) which will more or less serve as metagame preparation for the suspect ladder - stay tuned for that.
In the meantime, if you got any thoughts on the new metagame feel free to post it here! Note: This thread should be for tangible metagame experiences. Theorymon/speculation should still go into the speculation thread.
