np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 1 - Oops!...I Did It Again

[Finchinator]

Hello everyone, the OU tiering council has decided to test Terastallization!

With the release of Scarlet and Violet, Pokemon bestowed upon us the novel mechanic of Terastallization! This core feature has defined Pokemon's ninth generation throughout its infancy, changing the type of game we play. Terastallization has simultaneously energized certain contingents of the playerbase while drawing the ire of many others, making it one of the most polarizing tiering topics in Smogon's long history. Given the gravity of the situation and the scattered assessment of Terastallization's place in a competitive environment from our constituents internally, the SV OU tiering council has taken numerous steps to gauge community-wide perspective and help progress discussions such as:

• Opening accessible discussion threads on the topic of Terastallization
  • Overused
  • Policy Review
• Conducting a community tiering survey on the topic of Terastallization
  • Survey
  • Full results
• Posting our thoughts publicly on the topic of Terastallization in the Policy Review thread
  • ima's post on November 26th
  • Ruft's post on November 26th & November 27th
  • talah's post on November 27th
  • Star's post on November 28th
  • ausma's post on December 4th
  • Finchinator's post on November 26th #1 & #2, November 28th #1, #2 & #3, November 29th, December 1st, December 7th, and December 10th (plus plenty more in OU )
• Using the data from the aforementioned threads and survey to engage in internal discussions

Ultimately, we have determined that a public suspect test with a creative voting structure would best capture the situation for our community given everything that was presented. This suspect test will help determine the best way for us to tier Terastallization in the Scarlet and Violet Overused metagame! However, it is entirely possible, but not certain, that we reevaluate whatever conclusion is drawn with another suspect in the future. Before we get into the logistics behind the vote and what you will need to do in order to qualify to vote, let's discuss Terastallization in the metagame -- why people may want to keep it, restrict it, or ban it. In addition, what possible restrictions are on the table!

Terastallization as a mechanic takes a plethora of different forms in the SV OU metagame. It is a mechanic that can be applied for both offensive and defensive purposes across the board and many different Pokemon threaten to Terastallize in our metagame! While impossible to sum up the entirety of Terastallization's place in the metagame to just a few paragraphs, we can absolutely generalize how it is used and the strategy (or lack thereof) behind it.

On many offensive Pokemon, Terastallization can be used to bolster their offensive profile in one of numerous ways. The brute force that comes with STAB Terastallization, which gives the most potent attackers in the metagame a boost akin to Adaptability for the remainder of a battle, can make already fierce presences such as Chi-Yu, Dragapult, or Chien-Pao virtually uncounterable. However, this comes alongside the drawback of not being able to use Terastallization to alter your typing drastically to refocus certain forms of counterplay, thus maintaining type-based defensive responses in some scenarios if you are not outright overpowered by the 2x boosted moves. In addition, there is some strategic value that comes alongside maximizing how you utilize this specific boosting mechanism. Many also believe there is a large component of guesswork that makes this less competitively appealing though.

Alternatively, many other offensive presences are able to use non-STAB Terastallization to shift their entire profile within the context of a game, granting them potential for free turns and additional STAB on complimentary attacks. This makes Pokemon such as Dragonite, Roaring Moon, Espathra, and Annihilape particularly menacing when you cannot be sure what to use to keep them in check as the pool of Pokemon that contain them with their original typing differs from the pool of Pokemon that may be able to keep them in check with a suddenly new typing. This dynamic is unlike anything we have seen in competitive Pokemon and some have cited increased abilities to adapt to this aspect of the mechanic with more exposure as specific Tera types become more predictable and the "Tera metagame" grows more optimized over time. Moreover, there is a timing component to this that is similar to the above with STAB Terastallization that makes enacting this strategy come with some risk and a great opportunity cost, but there is also the flip-side where bluffing or deciding to Terastallize can make singular sequences carry disproportionate amount of weight towards dictating game outcomes rather than deeper, competitive strategizing.

Shifting gears, there are also some defensively oriented applications of Terastallization that Pokemon can use as preventative measures or to increase counterplay towards some of the aforementioned dangers the metagame prevents. For example, a Pokemon can shift their typing through Terastallization to thwart sweeping or breaking attempts that the opponent tries to enact. Skeledirge oftentimes Terastallizes into a Fairy type in order neutralize Ground types or minimize Dark types while Kingambit occasionally Terastallizes into a Flying type to lure would-be super effective Fighting and Ground attacks from foes such as Great Tusk. Even things like Hatterene can threaten many teams with the option to Terastallize into a largely neutral type like Water, giving it much more room to operate. These countermeasures have not been classified as problematic relative to other examples mentioned and may constitute healthier applications of Terastallization, but also can be seen as an overexpansion of counterplay that stunts progress within the confines of the metagame.

Needless to say, there are far more applications of Terastallization that can be found within the metagame that span beyond what any singular post can possess. The ultimate thesis of the side favoring action would be that the improvements provided through use of the mechanic, which are alluded to above, provide a boost that is unreasonable to account for in the teambuilder or the battle within the context of a competitively focused metagame state. However, the conclusion drawn by the camp believing Terastallization should remain fully in-tact tends to subscribe to the narrative that any uses of the mechanic are reasonable to account for while maintaining a competitive environment that promotes strategy in the builder and game rather than overwhelming variance.

With this all in mind, let's shift to the information about this unique vote itself and other logistics pertaining to this suspect test!

***VERY IMPORTANT***

The vote will consist of two questions that all voters must answer, and we will provide a clear mechanism to do so via a response form that only accepts a response if both prompts are responded to at the time of the vote. Any misuse of the form will be punished severely!

The first question will be "Do you want tiering action on Terastallization?" with the possible responses being "Action" or "No action" (keep as is) -- if you want a ban or restriction on Terastallization to take place, vote for the former option of "Action". If you want the status quo to remain, vote for the latter option of "No Action". In order for any tiering action to occur, over 60% of responses must be in favor of tiering action! This question is incredibly straightforward, but please forum PM me or Ruft if you have any questions at any time.

The second question -- which all voters will respond to regardless of their answer to the first -- will be "What are your (ranked) preferred actions?" with the possibilities being as follows:

• Outright ban (Terastallization will no longer be usable in SV OU)
• 1 Tera user per team (Only the first member of your party will be allowed to Terastallize during the course of the battle)
• Reveal Tera type at team preview (Any Pokemon can Terastallize, but the type they would do so into is disclosed at team preview prior to a battle)
• Only STAB Tera types allowed (Any Pokemon can Terastallize, but they may only do so to types that match their initial STAB typings)

You MUST rank all 4. Any submissions that include an option multiple times will be voided, so be careful when submitting! If we hit over the 60% threshold on the first vote, then the outcome of the suspect will be determined via ranked choice vote with these four options. Ultimately, the option with the most overall support of these four will be the restriction or ban employed in SV OU after the conclusion of this suspect. Please forum PM me or Ruft if you have any questions at any time.

So again to summarize: everyone will vote on both questions, the first question needs over 60% support of action to trigger the second question, and the second question requires a ranked vote submission that will determine the verdict via ranked choice vote. We now return to your regularly scheduled suspect programming.

• The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE will suffice with 80 GXE being the minimum threshold at any point beyond this game total. Below you can see a chart that outlines the GXE needed given the amount of games you have played.

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
80	50
80.2	49
80.4	48
80.6	47
80.8	46
81	45
81.2	44
81.4	43
81.6	42
81.8	41
82	40
82.2	39
82.4	38
82.6	37
82.8	36
83	35
83.2	34
83.4	33
83.6	32
83.8	31
84	30

• You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be OUDJ. For example, I might signup with the ladder account OUDJ Finch.
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here. If there is any doubt or hesitance when making the alt, just pick another name. There are infinite possibilities and we have had trouble for this repeatedly. If you wish to participate in the suspect, you should be able to exhibit decent enough judgement here. We will not be lenient.
• We will be using the regular OU ladder for this suspect test. We will not be creating a new Suspect Ladder. At the beginning of every battle, there will be an announcement denoting the ongoing suspect with a link to this thread.
• The aspect being tested, Terastallization, will be fully allowed on the ladder.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• We will be posting the voting identification thread soon after this thread goes up. Your voting requisites will be confirmed by a Council member or OU moderator, to which we will edit in confirmation. Please avoid getting more games before getting confirmed.
• The suspect test will go on for longer than your normal suspect given the gravity of the subject, lasting until January 1st at 11:59 pm (GMT-5), and then we will put up the voting thread with the corresponding form and instructions in the Blind Voting subforum.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. However, this thread will be strictly moderated, moreso than the average OU forum thread. Our moderators will apply discretion as to what is appropriate. Please read and keep in mind the following before posting:

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects -- THIS INCLUDES NO DISCUSSION OF OTHER POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS TOWARDS TERASTALLIZATION;
• No discussion on the suspect process -- this includes Terastallization vs other potential suspects;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• You are required to read this thread before posting.
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the OU Council and the OU Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated.
  • Do not argue because it's your favorite mechanic or because of any arbitrary, personalized reasoning. This should be common sense, but please don't do this, because we will delete posts like this.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderater.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it.
  • This thread is not to voice complaints about the suspect process or decisions of the council. While we are more than open to hearing complaints that may arise, this isn't the place for it. I suggest you message the OU Council, PM our Tier Leaders, Finchinator and Ruft, or make a post in Senior Staff requests, should you have a badge.

Should you have any questions about the suspect test, feel free to message the OU Council. And if you have any questions about the moderation of this thread, feel free to message the OU Forum Leaders. Finally, if you have any questions at all about SV OU, message me and I will do everything I can to help! I hope you all have an enjoyable suspect.

 

[Finchinator]

This thread will remain locked for roughly 24h so people can collect their thoughts. Thank you!

 

[Finchinator]

When posting, please remember the following:

• This thread is not open to new suggestions on how to tier Terastallization; the ultimate vote will be between the options listed in the OP (Action vs No action -> Outright ban / 1 per team / Team preview type reveal / Ban non-STAB Tera if Action receives >60% support).
• Everyone is entitled to their opinion and personal attacks are strictly prohibited. This thread will be moderated in a tighter fashion than the general discussion threads that preceded it.
• This is a moment in competitive Pokemon history that will be remembered for a long time — put your best foot forward. Share your thoughts, try to get reqs, and have fun! It’s awesome seeing so many people invested, but let’s not ruin the experience for anyone along the way.
• All rules outlined in the OP are firm and breaking them means you are likely negatively contributing to the thread while also wasting the time of moderators — use common sense when posting and you will be fine in 99% of instances.

 

[Finchinator]

Tera Type Index: SV OU

Amoonguss Steel, Fire, Flying, Water, Fairy, Dark, Normal, Grass, Psychic
Armarouge Psychic
Azumarill Water, Fire, Fairy, Grass
Barraskewda Water
Baxcalibur Dragon, Ground, Fairy, Ice, Ghost, Fire, Flying, Normal
Blissey Fairy, Ghost, Steel, Poison
Breloom Fighting, Grass, Fire, Electric
Cinderace Fire, Poison, Flying
Ceruledge Bug, Grass, Water, Normal, Fire, Ghost
Clodsire Water, Dark, Steel, Flying, Grass, Fairy
Cloyster Fire, Ice, Ghost
Corviknight Ground, Water, Dragon, Dark, Flying, Fire, Grass
Dondozo Fairy, Grass, Steel, Dark, Dragon
Dragapult Ghost, Dragon, Fire, Fairy, Dark, Normal
Dragonite Normal, Steel, Fire, Water, Ground, Dragon, Flying
Floatzel Water
Garchomp Steel, Ghost, Fire, Dragon, Water, Fairy, Flying, Dark
Garganacl Water, Fairy, Flying, Grass, Steel, Dragon, Ground, Ghost
Gholdengo Flying, Water, Fairy, Ghost, Steel, Fire, Fighting, Normal, Dark
Glimmora Ghost, Steel, Grass, Fairy, Flying, Poison
Great Tusk Water, Steel, Fire, Fairy, Fighting, Ground, Flying, Ghost, Dark, Dragon
Grimmsnarl Ghost, Poison, Steel
Hatterene: Water, Fire, Flying, Steel, Normal, Dark
Hydreigon Steel, Fire, Dragon, Dark, Ground
Indeedee Fairy
Iron Hands Electric, Fighting, Flying, Fire, Fairy, Dark
Iron Moth Grass, Psychic, Electric, Fairy, Fire, Flying, Poison
Iron Treads Ghost, Flying, Steel, Dragon, Ground, Fire, Dark
Iron Valiant Fairy, Ghost, Water, Electric, Fighting, Psychic, Steel, Dark
Kingambit Fire, Flying, Dark, Ghost, Steel
Orthworm Ghost, Water
Masquerain Ghost
Meowscarada Grass, Ghost, Fairy, Dark
Pawmot Fighting, Electric, Grass, Fairy
Pelipper Ground, Flying, Water, Grass
Polteageist Fairy, Fighting
Quaquaval Steel, Water, Fairy, Fighting, Dark, Normal, Fire
Roaring Moon Flying, Dark, Steel, Fairy, Ground, Fire, Dragon, Bug
Rotom-Wash Steel, Ghost, Water, Dark, Normal, Electric
Sandy Shocks Fairy, Flying, Ice, Ground, Electric
Scizor Steel, Fire, Electric, Flying, Normal
Skeledirge Fairy, Water, Dark, Fire
Slither Wing Bug, Fire, Ground
Slowbro Fairy, Water, Dark, Grass
Slowking Fairy, Water
Tauros-Paldea-Aqua Fire, Flying, Fairy, Steel
Tauros-Paldea-Blaze Flying, Fairy, Grass
Ting-Lu Steel, Ghost, Water, Poison, Ground, Fairy
Toedscruel Ghost, Ground
Torkoal Flying, Steel, Ghost
Toxapex Steel, Grass, Water, Fairy, Dark
Tyranitar Steel, Ghost, Dark
Volcarona Grass, Fairy, Fire, Psychic, Bug, Steel

 

[Srn]

Hello OU,

I am here to tell you why I and many others support an outright ban on Terastallization.

Tera is unhealthy due its unpredictable nature and the string of guesswork that it forces. I'm going to use a replay from advaita's great pro-tera post to show you an ordinarily simple situation that is made very complicated only due to tera: Take a look at turn 25 of this battle, and let's breakdown everything that could have happened at this point in the lategame.

1. Chien pao clicks ice spinner as dnite remains dragon/flying and dies
2. Chien pao clicks Ice spinner as dnite tera's normal and clicks fire punch, then wins by clicking espeed
3. Chien pao clicks sacred sword as dnite remains dragon/flying and clicks fire punch, then wins with espeed
4. Chien pao clicks sacred sword as dnite tera's normal and dies
5. Swap into rotom-w and dnite remains dragon/flying and clicks fire punch, leading you back to scenarios 1-4
6. Swap into rotom-w and dnite tera's normal and clicks fire punch, allowing chien pao to safely revenge kill with sacred sword (real outcome)
7. Swap into rotom-w as dnite either remains dragon/flying or teras normal and clicks dd, killing rotom-w and killing chien pao with tera normal+fire punch, tanking potential ice shard.

This is what makes tera unhealthy. The TIMING of when tera comes out. This is worse than a 50/50. Notice how scouting (scenarios 5-7) does not necessarily help you, and in fact you can lose BECAUSE you decided to scout. This is an endgame that chien-pao should straight up win and it turns into this mess because of tera. Of course, this can get more complicated. I assumed that we knew the tera type, and only one player had tera available. However, every pokemon in the tier can viably run 3-4 tera types at minimum, and there's very little indication of what tera type a player has chosen on their mons. Until tera is used by both players, this kind of nonsense will haunt you. You don't need to navigate this kind of guesswork every single turn, but you need to do it way more often than you should. It's very difficult to create a long term gameplan when the impact and possibility of tera places far more importance on the short term.

There are many proposed restrictions but I believe all of them are ineffective:

Ban tera blast: most abusers don't need to use this move, and it does nothing to address the unpredictability of tera.
Ban same type tera: Also does not address the unpredictability of tera.
Ban different type tera: This does address some of the unpredictability of tera types but the timing is still an issue (removing weaknesses on command can achieve a similar effect to swapping types on command), you also massively favor adaptability nukes and leave defensive methods of handling them to be limited. You could argue only broken mons abuse this aspect anyway (chi-yu lol), but I think you'll be surprised at how strong even balanced mons can become once this becomes the norm.
Tera type team preview: Maybe the most popular one as VGC went this route, but this also does not address the timing. It does cut down on the unpredictability of tera types. This is my 2nd choice behind full ban.
Only a single pokemon may tera: As long as you can't tell which one this is, nothing is really solved. Most teams tera with 2-3 pokemon 90% of the time, so you're still going to deal with the worst offenders and the timing.

Here are some "Pro tera arguments that I've heard"
And my responses below

Big Box of Text

"Tera increases diversity!"

If anything, the number of threats that you have to handle in your teambuilder drastically increases more than your defensive options do. It's simple-ish math: If every threat like Roaring Moon has 3-4 viable tera types (flying, dark, steel), and your defensive options can only choose to be one tera type (I make my skeledirge tera fairy), then inevitably you can't cover every option. We see this now with huge threats abusing tera like chien pao, chi-yu, annihilape, espathra, iron valiant, roaring moon, dnite, etc the list goes on. All of these pokemon have 3-4 viable tera types and it's RESTRICTIVE to try and cover all of them in the builder. It leads to the opposite of diversity.

"Both sides can use tera! You can tera reactively to limit your opponent's tera!"

Ah yes the both sides argument. Unfortunately I see this one a lot. Well, both players could use dmax, and you could use your own dmax to limit your opponent's dmax. Did that make it ok? Hell no lmao dmax is broken and you're crazy if you think it should've stayed. But tera is meaningfully different in that you can't always tera reactively, because it depends on the type matchup. There is more depth to tera gameplay than there is to dmax gameplay, that's for sure.

"Tera has drawbacks too! You get new weaknesses! It's not OP like dynamax!"

It's true that you get new weaknesses but most of the time this isn't an issue because you get to DECIDE what new weaknesses you have and WHEN you have them. This flexibility means that you can adjust your gameplan and use your tera accordingly to minimize the impact of any new weaknesses you may get. When tera is used by competent players who can do this, this drawback of tera is really not worth mentioning. Pro-Tera people spin this as a good thing, as an example of tera rewarding skill and planning. That's not entirely wrong, I just wish there weren't so many other issues.

I hope we can all agree that tera is not as bad as dmax, but tera can still be bad enough to get banned. They share many similarities, especially the ability for any pokemon to use them at any time holding any item. That unpredictability was a huge reason why dynamax got banned.

"Stop comparing dmax to tera! This is in bad faith!"

If your argument defending tera can also be used to defend dmax, it's probably not a great one because dmax was indefensible.

"Tera is just like megas, or z-moves, or items or lure sets! If we can keep those, why can't you deal with tera?"

Tera is fundamentally different in that it has no opportunity cost and has no tell. Megas take up your item slot and are very predictable (If I see a garchomp+lopunny on my opponent's team, 99% of the time its regular chomp and mega lop). Z-moves take up your item slot and you must dedicate only one user in the teambuilder. Lure sets tend to be subpar when they're not doing their job. Weird items can be scouted, knocked off, tricked, and have obvious opportunity costs (you have to commit to the item the whole game, unlike tera). Unlike all of the above, you can choose the most advantageous tera in every game. If your tera has a bad matchup, just don't use it. Or wait until a point in the game where its matchup improves. The flexibility and low cost of tera make it far more comparable to dynamax than it does to anything else mentioned imo.

"It's just one turn! Learn to play!!!"

Every turn someone CAN tera, you have to consider it. And as I showed above, those considerations can get awfully complex. My example also assumed that you knew the tera type, and you were only dealing with tera from one player, not both. This quickly becomes far too much variance for either player to really predict.

"Pokemon has always been about prediction and hidden information! Learn to predict!!"

Not only can tera enable more options than is reasonably expected to be predictable (as I tried to show at the beginning of this post), the mechanics of tera itself are far more impactful than a resist berry or a choice scarf or something similar, and have none of the associated opportunity costs. Changing your typing/getting adaptability can swing the matchup most of the time and the outcome of the entire game sometimes.

"I just don't see how if tera is so random and inconsistent, how the top players have all managed to be consistent here. How have players been 1900-2k for a month straight in a meta that is supposedly just Yahtzee lol"

Short answer: The best ladder players were still at the top in the dmax meta. Does that mean we should've kept dmax too?

Long answer: The best players are gonna be the best no matter how healthy or unhealthy the meta is, and their AVERAGE performance shouldn't be taken as an indicator of anything. I emphasize average because even if they drop a game or two to a worse player due to an unhealthy mon/mechanic, they are still going to win more often than not and be at the top of the ladder more often than not. This is because competitive pokemon does reward skill to some degree, even in horseshit metas like dmax. However, unlike when playing ladder, the importance of SINGLE games is greatly emphasized in the tournament setting. As such, the effect of unhealthy mons/mechanics is amplified, and losing to silly bullshit is going to make the competitive scene feel much more uncompetitive. A healthy meta that upholds competitive integrity for both ladder and tour is what we should be aiming for.

"Skill issue! Skiill Issueeeee!!!"

A supermajority of the qualified playerbase (61.5%) already believes tera needs to be at least restricted if not outright banned. I'm not being facetious when I include this here; this is genuinely the most common response I hear when I try to explain my position.
Please stop pretending like you're better.

"Nobody wants another gen8!"

Things have already changed far too much for that. Toxapex sucks now, recovery only has 8 pp, slowtwins lost teleport, tons of pokemon lost defog
and knock off, and we have an abundance of new solid ghost resists like kingambit and ting-lu. This isn't a good argument to begin with, because
smogon should prioritize competitiveness over fun, but it's a misguided concern too. Which leads us to our next one...

"Tera is so fun! If you guys ban tera, I'm quitting!"

We don't cater to what people find fun because that's highly subjective. The smogon community has always tried to make this game competitive, and fun has always been secondary to that. This is because competitiveness is less subjective than fun, and has clearly identifiable parameters
that we can adhere to (for example a ban on spamming evasion moves is pretty straightforward and not hard to understand.) If we find tera to be
uncompetitive or unhealthy, then it will go, regardless of how many people find it fun.

"We can't go another generation without the core mechanic!"

Yes you can. We don't give special treatment to whatever bullshit that gamefreak cooks up. Dynamax was broken and we banned it. If we find tera to be broken then we'll ban that too. If the next 5 gens straight introduce more broken nonsense, then we'll continue to ban that shit because we do not care.

"Just get used to it! Why can't you try adapting for once!"

We got used to broken pokemon like dracovish, we carried seismitoad or another 1 of 3 physdef water resists that could maybe switch in once. It lead to the worst stretch of gen8 ou. We CAN adapt to broken bullshit, but that doesn't mean that we should. If it's obvious that we can do better, we shouldn't settle for less.

"You guys are just a vocal minority!"

According to the tiering survey results and working with just the qualified responses, we can breakdown the responses like this:
38.5% want no ban or restrictions
29.1% want a full ban
32.4% want some restriction, but opinions on which restriction are split even further
The point is this: We're all vocal minorities here. Nobody has enough support outright to pass what they want, and a good portion of this community will be upset no matter what we do. So just roll with the punches and let's do what needs to be done.

"Most people want to keep tera in some fashion!"

Well this is just up to interpretation isn't it? You can interpret the restrict crowd as "wanting to keep tera in some way" to make it seem like the pro-tera crowd has more support, or you can interpret the restrict crowd as "wanting tiering action on tera" and make it seem like the pro-ban crowd has more support. Neither of those interpretations are wrong. Either way, we have a pretty clean 3-way split and the restrict crowd will ultimately decide what happens here. I'm ignoring the general responses for reasons stated in the results post, which you can find in the OP.

"Think about what the general playerbase wants! Activity will plummet!"

I don't care about what the general playerbase wants. In this community, you earn your right to vote and shape the meta, and most of the general playerbase does not qualify. Anybody can, but most don't. It's not like there are quotas or caps to how many people can vote either, we geniunely could have thousands of voters if that many people decide to qualify. At the end of the day, we are debating a voluntary ruleset that nobody is being forced to play. I think it's perfectly fine for competitive players to be deciding what competitive ruleset to play with. The general playerbase has no obligation to join us, nor do we have any obligation to satisfy them.

"Just make a separate ladder then!"

The viability of this solution hinges on the amount of activity it can garner. If we have tons of people ready to run the tier, hold events, write up analyses and play the tier, then we can justify it. However, these are all done by volunteers to begin with, and spreading our free labor too thinly can have drawbacks. For example, the moveset analyses for each pokemon last gen were badly outdated. Slowking-galar's gen8 ou analysis doesn't even include any of the Nasty Plot sets, despite it being one of the tier's best stallbreakers. If we cannot properly take care of one OU, I'm not sure we should plan to take care of two.

"The meta needs more time to develop! We're doing this suspect test too soon!"

If we choose to keep tera, we have tons of pokemon that are borderline broken thanks to tera (or busted otherwise) that we need to take the time to suspect. Dnite, Espathra, Annihilape, Gholdengo, Cyclizar, Chi-yu, Chien-Pao come to mind, and by the time we've finished cleaning up the pre-home meta, pokemon home will likely drop and we'll start all over again. The meta will not have enough time to develop with tera in the tier, and by the time we get a fresh batch of new tera abusers (regidrago, regieleki, volcanion, urshifu-r) we will need to continue to suspect mons once again. If Tera is the clear single factor breaking so many pokemon, it makes no sense to preserve the mechanic and pretend its ok as we're in the middle of our 14th suspect test this year.

This is all just my speculation that x pokemon will be worthy of a suspect test and that we may have too many things to suspect if we decide to leave tera alone. You're free to disagree with my assessment or just embrace a suspect every month lol.

My speculation aside, the council has waited until the metagame has run out of things to quickban, and a suspect on tera has more popular support than any other individual problematic mon/move. We can also decide to retest tera should we feel differently in the future, so I would argue right now is a great time to suspect tera.

"The council is obviously biased towards pro-ban! The way the questions are asked is rigged against us!"

The Pro-Tera camp only needs 41% of votes on the first question to maintain the status-quo and allow tera to remain with no restrictions. You absolutely have a fair chance at victory so please tone down the conspiracy.

Finally, the best for last:
"There are genuine positives that Tera brings to the metagame and teambuilding! You can cover teambuilding holes with no serious opportunity cost, enhance defensive and offensive strategies, and reward smart risk-reward management and execution!"

I already addressed the "cover teambuilding holes" at the top, but let me respond to the meat and potatoes here. All of this is true, but this was not absent before. We already had a competitive-ish game that rewarded smart risk-reward management, long term planning, and creative teambuilding BEFORE tera was introduced. Tera does have positives but as I've made clear, it also comes with many negatives. The "fair and balanced" applications exist in the same metagame as the "broken" ones, and there is no way to isolate the two. We had a "fair and balanced" game before tera, and I reject the notion that we should overlook "broken" tera just because it also introduces some "fair and balanced" tera. You're asking me to use a double-edged sword when the glorious nippon steel katana single-edged sword is better.

Ultimately, tera just introduces too much variance into the game. This is a difficult concept to illustrate, so I'll try to use an analogy:
Imagine you're trying to predict the results of a tournament. Could be march madness, or EVO 2023 or whatever. Predicting who will win each
match can already be complicated, but I bet there are people out there who can accurately and reliably determine the outcome. There are only 2 possible outcomes after all. But what if you try to predict the winner of the entire tournament? There are MANY more factors involved and more outcomes possible, and making accurate predictions is much more difficult. Depending on how big the tournament is, you're basically just blindly guessing.

To me, battles without tera are like predicting the outcome of a match, and battles with tera can sometimes feel like predicting the outcome of an entire tournament. It's not impossible or random, but you're kidding yourself if you think you can do it accurately and reliably. You can say there's more layers and depth to predicting an entire tournament vs predicting a match, and you'd be right. But too many layers and too much depth can devolve into blind guessing and can destroy competitive play altogether. Of course, it's up to you to decide if my analogy is accurate and if tera is too difficult to predict. I've done my best to illustrate that it is. Either way, get out there and vote (irl too).

Thanks for reading.

 

[ironwater]

Hey, here are my thoughts on terastallization and the options we have to handle it.

Terastallization is problematic as it is, but I don’t think we should get ride of the mechanic as a whole since it still brings some interesting options and strategies.

There are several types of usage for tera, either it is on a wallbreaker like Chi yu or Choice Specs Dragapult to be even harder to switch into, on a defensive wall to check some specific threats with a new/better typing (stuff like Fairy type Skeledirge) or on a setup sweeper (either using slow setup like Bulk Up Annihilape or more offensive setup like Dragon Dance Roaring Moon) to get a better defensive type in order to ease the setup process or just to strenghten a coverage/STAB option.

The latter (using tera on a setup sweeper) is the most dangerous one, as it can grant several setup turns to already super threatening sweepers if you guess the tera type and/or activation wrong. The surprise factor that comes with the ability to chose any type you want without the opponent being able to guess, especially on Pokemon that can reliably use several tera types, is to me one of the main factors that makes this usage of tera very bordeline.

The other usages are mostly fine as purely defensive tera is less impactful on a game and terastallizing on a potent wallbreaker is often easier to guess and only push some already controversial wallbreakers (like Chi Yu) over the edge.

With this in mind and looking at the options we have, I do think that not taking any action on tera is a huge mistake as the mechanic can't stay as it is. Ranking the proposed tiering actions is harder though, as none of them offer a perfect answer, which makes sense since the issues making tera a bit too strong are not easy to adress. As of now, if I had to go with a ranking I would say:

1. Reveal tera type at team preview
My favorite option as of now, makes tera on setup sweepers less threatening since you can't get surprised and lose a turn if you make the wrong guess, but still allow some creative use of tera. May not be enough to make tera fully balancef though, it's hard to tell just with theoretical thoughts.
2. One tera user by team
Could be a solution as it is a rather heavy nerf. Though, it may makes game more matchup dependant since you have way less defensive tera option to stop an opposing offensive tera, and still let dangerous sweepers abuse tera, even if you can't chose which sweeper will be using it each game.
3. Outright ban Terastylizing
Not a fan of a full ban since I think there's better compromise to balance the mechanic. I rather see it as a last resort option if other restrictions can't balance it.
4. Ban non-stab tera
I like defensive tera and the options it brings, this solution kind of remove this, leaving only the strenghten strong breakers/sweepers part.

I know a lot has been said already on the previous tera threads, but still don't hesitate to share your view and your favorite outcome, as we are close to take a very impactful decision for Smogon competitive scene and a lot of people are likely not completely sure of what to vote.
Anyway, thanks for reading.

 

[Iodyne]

While I'm still working on getting reqs I figured I'd share my thoughts here my opinions. Getting reqs is a lot harder this time around and I think most of us can agree on that as well as why...

Once I do get reqs I will be voting the following in descending order (though I don't support ranked choice voting as a construct):
Action needed -> Outright ban > 1 per team > Team preview type reveal > Ban non-STAB Tera

I will keep my thoughts very brief but will direct you to this much larger post I made here:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...cussion-update-post-1293.3711465/post-9414803
Please read that for a much more in-depth view on my thoughts.

In short, Tera is just another one of GameFreak's thoughtlessly-created gimmicks. Of course gimmicks and powerful pokémon are fun to play with and practically everything has some sort of counterplay; however, that doesn't mean that said thing isn't broken. (The suspect thread etiquette posted here is very good.) While plenty of strategy and planning around Tera does exist (and I do think we are capable of keeping on top of all the new combinations and possibilities that inevitably arise from Tera), I don't think that it's existence is something that we should have to work around. My sentiment, along with many others' is that Tera leads to play that is ultimately unpredictable (despite the potential for counterplay I have acknowledged), to enough of a degree that it makes many games feel uncompetitive, most pokémon feel broken in one way or another, and laddering an ultimately unfun experience. I do not think that restricting Tera will be a proper solution; Finchinator himself has posited that further action will likely be needed if only a restriction is enacted first, and I wholeheartedly agree. We have plenty of new toys for this generation, probably a more diverse line-up of pokémon, moves, and abilities than ever before (save maybe the transition from gen 2 to gen 3, not that I was there); I doubt the meta will feel not fun to the majority of players if Tera was banned (not that that is an argument for a ban, but I just don't want to hear sentiment about removing Tera leading to boredom). We shouldn't try to keep Tera around just to keep the new players entertained; less dedicated players will eventually get bored and leave whether or not Tera is around. And worse, I think keeping Tera will lead to more skilled players and active members of the community wanting to leave (I know of several already who have shared that sentiment with me and are waiting until Tera sees action to return). Banning something that is fun to use is obviously a sad state but like we have banned pokémon such as Flutter Mane and Palafin, it's ultimately a question of whether or not the subject in question is broken. I believe Tera is inherently broken, with or without restriction, simply due to the nature of how it functions (STAB/Adaptability boost + typing change + double BP physical/special hidden power). If you disagree with me please feel free to respond!

Post Scriptum: I also wanted to add Fighting-Tera Chi-Yu and Dragon-Tera Dondozo to the Tera Type Index Finchinator posted.

 

[Akiak]

1 Tera user per team is the best option, and I'd like to explain why since it may not be obvious to most.

1) It nerfs Tera as a whole. When teambuilding, you have to be a lot more intentional about which Pokemon gets to abuse Tera.

2) It preserves the element of surprise. If we take the approach suggested here of limiting it to the 1st team member, then the surprise factor is greatly lessened but not entirely removed. (I think this is the correct approach)

3) It mirrors how gym leader teams work in SV. Minor point but I think it's worth mentioning. It also works better for Monotype formats, which would otherwise be completely unaffected with current rules.

 

[Local Dog]

Maybe unfitting here, but can we extend the timeframe to get the reqs by a few days? Many people are very busy until Jan 1st due to the holidays

 

[Finchinator]

Maybe unfitting here, but can we extend the timeframe to get the reqs by a few days? Many people are very busy until Jan 1st due to the holidays

Standard suspects are typically two weeks. We gave this the bulk of a third full week and made sure it was up ten days before Christmas as well. We feel this gave people ample opportunity.

Obviously it is impossible for any timeline or solution to work optimally for everyone. It is an unfortunate reality that people have conflicting agendas and schedules, but we found it best to run it now and have it longer than normal.

 

[CadmusRhodium]

I think that revealing Tera at team preview will help a lot by removing the surprise factor and I’ll rank it first if I can actually make reqs (highly doubt this) but at the same time, it only removes the surprise factor and not the brokenness. Like sure, knowing that the opposing Roaring Moon is Flying means that you don’t have to play a dangerous guessing game around it, but how much does that really help if you can’t check it anyway?

 

[LoseToRU?]

Terastallization is problematic as it is, but I don’t think we should get ride of the mechanic as a whole since it still brings some interesting options and strategies.

I agree 100% with Srn's post, however I also respect the perspective of pro-Terra players.

There are many skilled, competitive players, who want to keep Terra- some for fun, some to keep this gen's identity, some think it adds to the meta in a competitive way. I disagree with all those points, but these are subjective thoughts of players and you can't really prove opinions wrong.

However, most of these players want Terra restricted in some way, as well.

We need to face the reality that Terra will most likely never get a enough votes for a full ban.

The current restrictions we have to choose from don't really address the core issues of Terra.

Even Terra being limited to 1 mon would not have changed the scenario illustrated in Srn's post.
Nor would it address any of the other concerns player's have.

We need a restriction that answers the core issue of Terra, which is almost impossible.

I proposed an idea to force players to Terra Turn 1, I've also seen the idea that Terra mons need to hold an item.
Both of these are messy, but they address the core issues of Terra better than any of the proposed restrictions we have currently.

Any restriction would need to heavily nerf Terra to make it a competitive feature.

I know the council worked hard to come up with these proposed restrictions, and I respect the time they put in to come up with them, but Terra is so strong, none of these restrictions make Terra competitive.

I wish I had more faith in the community to vote full ban, but from what I'm seeing, I don't think we will get there.
Hopefully I'm wrong, this post is just a plan B.

What I'm worried about is:
1) "Action Needed" passes vote.
2) "No Ban" does not get a super majority.
3) "1 Terra per Team" gets the majority.
4) It doesn't solve anything
5) Months pass, Home drops
6) A total dumpster fire of OP mons due to Terra
7) Either lots of bans, or yet another Terra suspect
8) Terra full ban fails to pass yet again
9) We have to live with Terra, strangling the game we love, and we regret it years later

If you're on the fence, please vote ban

Full ban is the only way to avoid this situation.

If you love Terra, like in love with it, then I can't change your mind.
But to anyone who isn't quite sure, please consider voting a full ban.

Yes, it's a cool concept. Yes, it's novel and gives this gen an identify. But honestly ask yourself, are those concepts worth making a meta less balanced, less competitive, and forcing lots of mons out of OU once Home/DLC drops?

This is the vote that will decide the next 3 years.
If we vote full ban now, we will never have to worry about Terra again
There would be no reason to retest it post-Home.
If we don't full ban Terra now, then the above scenario I posted is highly likely.
If players somehow don't see how Terra is a huge problem now, then they won't post-Home/DLC either..
These dedicated Terra fans will never vote otherwise.
So we really need players who are on the fence to vote ban now.

Edit:
To clarify, what I'm saying is all the restrictions are doing is making players on the fence vote no on full ban...
Do NOT count on the restrictions to balance Terra, even a little bit.
I'm asking voters to pretend there are no restriction options.
If you're 60/40 in your mind about Terra being OP, but want to give it a chance- don't.
Anyone who is even 1% more sure that Terra is broken than not, vote full ban.

 

[coral fan]

Hey there, here's my current personal ranking of the options available, from best to worst.
In short, I feel that since a no-Tera ladder running parallel to the regular OU lader doesn't seem like a realistic possibility, the best course of action is to vote to restrict Terastalisation for now, and since a second future suspect isn't out of the question, we shouldn't dismiss the possibility of banning it if a restriction meta is still too uncompetitive.
This is coming from the perspective of feeling that Tera is not inherently broken or uncompetitive, but instead that the way it manifests in the current meta is too resistrictive and in the long term will be too much for the tier in its current state.

1. Tera types shown on preview
This solves the issue of the impossibilty of making certain predictions in specific 1-on-1 interactions, which to mee feels like the most "uncompetitive" aspect of Terastalisation. There is still room for skill in teambuilding around Tera both offensively and defensively, it has 0 "collateral" bans on low tiers or uncommon strategies, and plus it also has precedent in our sister format, VGC, if that matters to anyone. This is by far the best solution at the moment imo, and if it turns out not to be enough, the council has made it clear that they may decide to re-suspect Tera in the future if community opinion changes.

2. One Tera User per team
This is an attempt at reducing unpredictability in who the Tera user will be, and this is definitely a nerf, but just not the best one compared to types being shown on preview. I feel this restriction will be nearly as efective as preview types, but this will be more difficult for new players since communicating that only slot 1 can terastalise might be difficult, and it raises the skill floor by requiring the opponent to have a good sense of what your tera type will be, otherwise you'll still have to cover for 19 different types (all+original) in the mind of a new player, compared to just two (whatever is shown+original) in the case of restriction 1.

3. Outright Ban
I definitely understand this perspective, but I feel like restrictive action should be taken before completely banning it. You could argue there's a possibility of shifting back to an unban+restriction later on, but I feel like that's a lot less realistic and feels like an unnatural, illogical order to do things in. If you're a super active OU player and just want it gone, this option makes the most sense. Personally, thinking long-term, I'd rather see what a restriction meta would look like in practice and then move on to this outright ban option if it's still needed, which I'm personally not 100% convinced of yet.
I'd also like to note that I don't see this getting a majority consensus since most No-Action voters will put this at the bottom of their lists, and Action+Restriction voters like me will have it around the middle half. If pro-ban people want Tera to be banned, compromising on restrictions #1 or #2 and then supporting a retest post-HOME if it's still a problem will be your best course of action from a practical perspective.

4. Do Not Ban (or ban Tera Blast)
In my eyes, this option is basically saying "we need more time". A Tera resitriction or ban is basically inevitable, imo. I don't think it's too unreasonable to stall for time a little longer to try to gather a consensus on which restriction is best. The issue with this is that for active players like myself this option will mean we'll probably have to wait a few months until we actually get that solution which I worry might cause burnout as people drop the tier until something is done.
Banning Tera Blast is basically the same as doing nothing, imo. It's not the problem.


5. Only STAB Tera allowed
I just really dislike this option, it removes the creativity in the builder, has collateral bans on a bunch of random niche/gimmicky/unviable strategies that are just fun to use. This isn't how Smogon does things with cases like not banning Libero to allow people to meme with Raboot, or not banning Rend to let me rip up Gen 8 with Arctovish. The one upside is that it just does a worse job of what #1 does, since it restricts the number of types per mon to 2 (or 3, for dual typed mons), but does it in the worst possible way imo, that also may be difficult to communicate to new players. This is the least fun, most complex, and least effective solution imo.

I haven't even started getting reqs yet but assuming I get them, I'll be voting Action, with Preview Types at the top of my list as I feel it's the most effective solution without being overly complex, unfun, or unecessarially restrictive, whilst also being intuitive for new players and leaving room for further action later down the line.
One last note- I feel retesting Tera post-Gholdengo ban will allow for a clearer perspective since I still feel that mon is way too overcentralising and makes the strongest Tera abusers even better mostly through hazardstacking and polarising the meta into either HO or stall, which amplifies Tera's brokenness to seem worse than it might end up being. I personally hope we end up seeing Gholdengo done once a restriction is implemented, which will allow the meta to diversify and stabilise.

 

[Jimbon]

hey all, i haven't read much of the discourse surrounding terastalization but i'd like to share some thoughts after playing 100 or so games.

terastalization does draw parallels with dynamax, while not overtly overcentralizing and immediately game defining it does draw a lot of the same game states where the careful positioning and progress of 50/100 turn long games can become undone because you incorrectly guessed your opponents tera type. already in the few weeks gen 9 has been playable, most common pokemon are pigeon holed into a couple options they are likely to be using for terastalization, with each differing type needly vastly different defensive counterplay. over time i think tera type options may change according to rises and falls in tier shifts which i think is a really healthy metagame trend but i can't shake the feeling that terastalization is the common denominator that pushes those already overbearing top 4/5 pokemon in the metagame over the edge.

using terastalization offensively to gain a position to set up is infinitely more useful than defensive terastalization. during the games i've played i've found that there is a huge emphasis on that very specific period where you choose to terastalize, where a volcarona or annhilape or whatever top 10 usage mon either brute forces through your opponents team or runs out of steam and the game just kinda ends there. tera is a tool that any offensive pokemon can make use of, and i do not think there exists a metagame so settled that tera can exist, where even if you know exactly which pokemon can terastalize and type of its choosing there's an unnecessary mind game every time they switch it in.

haven't put too much stock into other solutions but some of the suggestions remind me of that ojama post about arbitrarily greying out boxes. i'd favor banning tera >>> showing tera on preview > everything else. cheers

 

[thecomputrer_sage]

I don't feel like tera needs a ban because it can change the battle in fun ways and it can help with weaker pokemon stronger or give more offense pokemon to go defense and still keep their offense while getting stab and not losing stab on their attacks when tera i disagree with the actions to ban tera and i have fun using it so i don't want to see it ban

 

[flamewizzy21]

My thoughts:

• The Reveal Tera option keeps more of the flexibility of terastalizing (you can adapt to who is your Tera candidate based on the opposing team comp and game state), but also keeps a lot of the variance of "I have no clue when my opponent will terastalize." This restriction is probably really necessary for any Tera-containing metagame. More restrictions could be added later, but this is definitely a good starting point. If we are going to ban/limit Tera, we should do so gradually, as unbanning anything is historically absurdly difficult. I expect this to be favored by the FREE camp, because it preserves Tera as much as possible.
• The Limit One Tera option really gets rid of a lot of the flexibility of Terastalizing, keeps the variance associated with "I don't necessarily know what type that Kingambit is going to turn into to counter me," also keeps the 50-50s of "I don't know when my opponent will terastalize.", but it makes Tera not a relevant factor to consider for most turns of a game. I feel like this option is just inferior to revealing tera types. You could also be bringing a tera pokemon where the Tera doesn't make any sense against the opposing team, so you would only let your ONE tera pokemon be the best and most generic Tera abuse (killing the diversity that comes with Tera). The one Tera abuser still gets to be defended by the unknown of both its tera type and timing of that tera.
• The Full Ban option just guts it entirely. This culls all the problematic abusers while also getting rid of any creativity Tera brings to team building or playing the game. The suspect test voting scheme maximizes the chance full ban is chosen by first maximizing the chance to knock out one major camp, then splitting the votes of their opposition to a full ban.
• The Ban Non-STAB option gets rid of a lot of most defensive Tera typing, removes most variance associated with guessing tera type, keeps the surprise nukes of offensive Tera, keeps variance of guessing when your opponent will tera, and removes most of the value of terastalizing for more unique sets. This option is terrible imo, because the whole point of trying to keep Tera is to keep the ability to bring in unique sets and pokemon. This option not only kills all of that, but also keeps most of the very problematic abusers who just drop giant Tera-boosted nukes.

My Prediction of How Voting Will go:
At the time of the surveys, BAN-FREE-RESTRICT camps were mostly balanced. I expect the BAN/RESTRICT camps to have grown since then. The first vote combines the BAN and RESTRICT votes of all types, which basically makes free Terastalization as likely to get ruled out as possible. For the very likely ranked choice vote, the BAN camp will definitely vote together on their first choice. The BAN camp wouldn't be able to win on their own (having like 1/3 of all votes), but the ranked choice splits the vote from the opposing camps across the most preferred restriction options.

In that ranked choice, just reading the room, the first choice to get deleted will probably be banning non-STAB Tera (as this really doesn't fix the problem, while simultaneously defeating the purpose of even trying to keep Tera in the first place). Then, between the other remaininng options, it is currently quite a toss-up.

Just looking at the voting structure, and reading the room, the Free Tera and Ban Non-STAB Tera options are extremely unlikely to win. Ban is most likely to win. My ranked choice would be (prefered to not): Reveal, Limit, Ban, Ban Non-STAB.

 

[alephgalactus]

While I’m still busy getting my reqs I’d like to give my personal thoughts as well. Here’s my thought on each of the options, ranked in order of my personal preference:

1. Outright Ban - The best option for the competitive health of the metagame. Tera elevates a lot of mons from good to broken, stifles creativity and teambuilding by forcing people to stack multiple potential answers to the same handful of Pokémon, creates unhealthy 50/50s nearly every turn until it’s used, is unpredictable in a way that I can’t fully articulate but my Game Designer Spidey Senses don’t like, and heavily shifts the meta towards offense in general and hyper offense in particular. The main downside here is that a full ban will make a lot of very vocal people upset and probably doesn’t have much chance of winning a supermajority.
2. 1 Tera user per team - This removes a lot of the unpredictability factor and encourages new strategies by forcing you to build your team around a designated Tera user instead of being able to do it just whenever, but it doesn’t really solve the other problems with Tera. The best Tera abusers—Dragonite, Annihilape, Dragapult, Espathra, Roaring Moon—will still be busted with Tera even if no one else on their team is able to use it. That said, the knowledge that a specific mon on an opponent’s team is the only one that might Tera would be a lot better for the meta, since most teams run multiple Tera abusers right now and you’re forced to guess which one they’ll Tera and when.
3. Reveal Tera type at team preview - This option removes a lot of Tera’s surprise factor, but it doesn’t address any of the major issues. Experienced players are already able to reasonably deduce what Tera types the opponent is running on the Pokémon that will most likely Tera during a match and it’s not really helping. Hell, even not-so-experienced players can do it. So what if I know my opponent’s running Normal Dragonite, Fairy Espathra, and Ghost Dragapult? I knew that already. That doesn’t help me beat them. It should be noted that this seems to be the option that Terastal was designed around—VGC plays with open team sheets now, so you can see your opponent’s Tera type before the match—but I have very little faith in GF/TPCI’s ability to create any sort of balanced competitive metagame, so I don’t think we should put much, if any, stock in that.
4. Only STAB Tera allowed - This tips the meta even further in favor of hyper offense, specifically the “unga bunga” variety seen with things like Chi-Yu (which, to be fair, needs to go either way) and Dragapult where you can just click a STAB move and delete your opponent, because now there’s no way for them to use Tera defensively to stop you. The few defensive walls this tier has will be devastated by this, especially Garganacl.
5. A host of other options - There’s a reason none of the other proposals show up on the survey. They solve even fewer problems than any of the options that are included and some of them are arbitrary (e.g. Tera banlist), downright silly (e.g. banning only STAB Tera), or would work really well as OMs but not for the main ladder (e.g. only UU mons and below can Tera).
6. No Action - If you’re at this point in the meta and you really, genuinely believe no action is needed on Tera at all, there’s nothing polite I can say to you anymore. At least you’re having a good time, I guess.
7. Ban Tera Blast - Lol. Lmao, even. Rofl, if you would be so inclined.

 

[Srn]

• The Reveal Tera option keeps more of the flexibility of terastalizing (you can adapt to who is your Tera candidate based on the opposing team comp and game state), but also keeps a lot of the variance of "I have no clue when my opponent will terastalize." I expect this to be favored by the FREE camp, because it preserves Tera as much as possible.
• The Limit One Tera option really gets rid of a lot of the flexibility of Terastalizing, keeps the variance associated with "I don't necessarily know what type that Kingambit is going to turn into to counter me," also keeps the 50-50s of "I don't know when my opponent will terastalize.", but it makes Tera not a relevant factor to consider for most turns of a game. I feel like this option is just inferior to revealing tera types. You could also be bringing a tera pokemon where the Tera doesn't make any sense against the opposing team, so you would only let your ONE tera pokemon be the best and most generic Tera abuse (killing the diversity that comes with Tera). The one Tera abuser still gets to be defended by the unknown of both its tera type and timing of that tera.
• The Full Ban option just guts it entirely. This culls all the problematic abusers while also getting rid of any creativity Tera brings to team building or playing the game. The suspect test voting scheme maximizes the chance full ban is chosen by first maximizing the chance to knock out one major camp, then splitting the votes of their opposition to a full ban.
• The Ban Non-STAB option gets rid of a lot of most defensive Tera typing, removes most variance associated with guessing tera type, keeps the surprise nukes of offensive Tera, keeps variance of guessing when your opponent will tera, and removes most of the value of terastalizing for more unique sets. This option is terrible imo, because the whole point of trying to keep Tera is to keep the ability to bring in unique sets and pokemon. This option not only kills all of that, but also keeps most of the very problematic abusers who just drop giant Tera-boosted nukes.

My Prediction of How Voting Will go:
At the time of the surveys, BAN-FREE-RESTRICT camps were mostly balanced. I expect the BAN/RESTRICT camps to have grown since then. The first vote combines the BAN and RESTRICT votes of all types, which basically makes free Terastalization as likely to get ruled out as possible. For the very likely ranked choice vote, the BAN camp will definitely vote together on their first choice. The BAN camp wouldn't be able to win on their own (having like 1/3 of all votes), but the ranked choice splits the vote from the opposing camps across the most preferred restriction options.

In that ranked choice, just reading the room, the first choice to get deleted will probably be banning non-STAB Tera (as this really doesn't fix the problem, while simultaneously defeating the purpose of even trying to keep Tera in the first place). Then, between the other remaininng options, it is currently quite a toss-up.

Just looking at the voting structure, and reading the room, the Free Tera and Ban Non-STAB Tera options are extremely unlikely to win. Ban is most likely to win. My ranked choice would be (prefered to not): Reveal, Limit, Ban, Ban Non-STAB.

I would like you to keep in mind 2 facts of the current voting structure that lower the possibility of full ban camp winning:
1) only 41% of the vote is needed for the Pro-Tera camp to win on the first question. You clear this hurdle and you win, congrats.
2) Even if the Pro-Tera camp loses the first question, they will rank "Full Ban" as their LAST preference in the ranked choice. Many in the restrict camp will also have "Full Ban" near the bottom of their preferences. This means it is unlikely for "Full Ban" to win the ranked choice 2nd question imo.

With that in mind, I disagree with your assessment that the Full Ban camp is likely to win.

 

[flamewizzy21]

I would like you to keep in mind 2 facts that the current voting structure that lower the possibility of full ban camp winning:
1) only 41% of the vote is needed for the Pro-Tera camp to win on the first question. You clear this hurdle and you win, congrats.
2) Even if the Pro-Tera camp loses the first question, they will rank "Full Ban" as their LAST preference in the ranked choice. Many in the restrict camp will also have "Full Ban" near the bottom of their preferences. This means it is unlikely for "Full Ban" to win the ranked choice 2nd question imo.

With that in mind, I disagree with your assessment that the Full Ban camp is likely to win.

It is quite likely for people to rank a full ban just after any restrictions they would be okay with (and not at the bottom). Also, some people plan to vote no-ban, then full ban because they don't want any restrictions (like pokeaim). Unless one particular restriction becomes the most popular, the unified ban vote will be up against a heavily split restrict/free vote. We'll see if revealing tera becomes a popular enough option to win as the best compromise for now. While "No action" only needs 41% to succeed, they were already on razor's edge at the time of the survey, and since then I expect even more support for ban/restrict.

Right now, it's very hard to predict because the camps are very even (by the survey) and votes are split. The most likely winners are either ban or reveal tera, depending on where the cards may fall. Any camp's victory will be by a hair, so every vote matters. This is not like suspect tests where the winner has >80% vote.

 

[PrincessGardevoir]

I want to say that I absolutely LOVE Srn's post, and even though I both won't get reqs and full ban would only be my second choice, everything there I completely understand. I'm hugely in favor of having tera be visible on preview, but if that isn't available I just absolutely despise the remaining options for reasons others have already said (STAB tera types only encourages the best adaptability mons without solving core issues, 1 tera user per team still means your opponent gets to use Dragonite or Chien-Pao or Volcarona as their wincon with a free 'fuck off' button). I look forward to reading the absolutely divisive talks here, and maybe I'll be convinced by more arguments.

 

[LoseToRU?]

With that in mind, I disagree with your assessment that the Full Ban camp is likely to win.

Yeah, I can't see a Full Ban result from this suspect.

Which is why I don't understand the restrictions in their current form.
Or why more people aren't talking about it.

Do you believe any of these restrictions will have any affect whatsoever on the issues that make Terra uncompetitive?
I don't.

1) 1 Tera user per team - Changes nothing, honestly. Most good teams now already have a dedicated Terra abuser. They may have a backup Terra, but regardless, this literally does almost nothing.
2) Reveal Tera type at team preview - Does even less than nothing. 90% of the same Terra problems exist under this "restriction"
3) Only STAB Tera allowed - Doesn't stop pushing mons into OP territory. All this does is let great mons lose a type that is holding them back defensively, and give them an incredible power boost.
4) Ban Tera Blast- Bruh....

We could add all 4 restrictions at once and Terra is still broken and uncompetitive.

Let's take X player.
X player isn't quite sure about Terra, but they have at least enough sense to know it's broken in it's current form.
If there was a Terra suspect where we had two options, Ban or No Ban, then player X would vote ban.
Now let's take a look at player X now- sure he thinks something needs to be done about it, but wait, there's some options?
"Hmmm" they think, "well, let's give this restriction thing a shot!"

This restriction suspect is problematic.
It should be Ban or No Ban, unless there's a restriction concept put forth that actually addresses Terra's main issues.

I'm very unclear on the council's decision with handling this suspect.
I mean, I know why. We want to toss the Pro-Terra camp a bone. We want to keep Terra if at all possible, I get it.
But all this is doing is giving Pro-Terra players an advantage in this suspect, and confusing those who think Terra is problematic by giving them options that aren't really going to solve the issue.

 

[Genji]

As is virtually always the case in any disagreement, most people don't wish to pick one extreme or the other and would rather find some sort of middle ground or compromise. However, there are many situations in which an attempt to satisfy all parties results in an outcome that dissatisfies everyone.

Rather than arguing whether Tera should be banned or not, I'd instead like to use this post to explain why I think that whether players vote to take action or not, the worst possible outcome is that we take one of the half-measures provided in this vote. If you really want my opinion, I'd rather it be banned; that said, I also think Z-moves should have at least been suspected, so I'm clearly more "conservative" in my views on tiering than most.

I'll get this out of the way first: frankly, I don't think the STAB-only option should even exist. It has absolutely no redeeming qualities and only serves to entirely remove any intrigue or complexity that the mechanic currently has while buffing offense significantly to the immense detriment of the metagame's health. I also find the 1 Tera user per team option bizarre. While there are some situations where a panic Tera is necessary, being able to set your Tera user after seeing your opponent's team will be functionally identical to the current situation in a vast majority of cases, because it's almost always quite clear which Tera type will be most beneficial to your team in a particular matchup.

Fundamentally, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what the most uncompetitive aspect of Tera actually is. While it is true that a Pokemon could theoretically transform into 18 different types, the reality is that there are only a handful of viable options for each mon. The possibility of a tech type does always exist, of course, and more examples of this will come to light as the metagame invariably shifts and tournaments inspire teambuilders to grow more and more creative. However, this sort of variance isn't unique to Tera. Z-moves introduced an extremely similar element of variance- though of course, they tended to have far less impact on the outcome of games than Tera does. That said, I'd argue that at worst this element of Tera has as many good as bad aspects, because it encourages creative teambuilding and rewards players for knowing the metagame and deducing their opponent's likely Tera types based on their team's structure. More to the point, this is the only arguably uncompetitive aspect of the Tera problem that the middle-ground options solve, aside from the atrocious STAB-only option.

In my view, Tera's most uncompetitive moments lie not in the teambuilder, but in the entirely prediction-reliant true 50-50s that the mechanic regularly forces on players. Traditionally, a well-built team has reliable ways of at least containing a majority of the common Pokemon in the metagame. If a Pokemon has a suite of Tera options that cannot reasonably be covered in teambuilding, then that Pokemon should be banned (see: Palafin turning into Steel). But even with all the knowledge and team analysis in the world and in a perfectly balanced tier, the correct play must be made in response to the knowledge that your opponent could Tera, for example, after their sweeper sets up. The issue is that before Tera is used, both players are equally aware of this possibility at the battle's most critical moments. Making the correct prediction of whether or not to Tera (or whether or not to predict a Tera) on any one turn when both players know it could happen has nothing to do with skill or clever building; instead, entire games are being decided entirely on what is functionally luck. These turns also existed with Z-moves, which is also why I think they are arguably problematic, but the impact of Tera on the outcome of the battle is clearly far more significant on average.

The issue is that the half-measure options either do nothing to solve this issue or exacerbate it tremendously. By revealing the Tera type at team preview, any possibility of creative teambuilding producing a surprise factor that wins the game is erased, and battles skip past any potential metagame knowledge gap that exists between the two players straight to the 50-50 guesswork. This is the most commonly suggested solution I've seen but is easily the worst in my opinion. With regards to the 1 Tera user per team option, a meta determining which Tera users are the best will inevitably develop in conjunction with the current meta of which types to use, either resulting in too much variance and matchup wins or what is functionally a wash. I will say that this at least has the upside of possibly providing more room to reward knowledgeable players, so this is the middle-ground option that I would be least unhappy with. Honestly, I think the other two would be absolutely abysmal for the competitive health of the game.

 

[Finchinator]

This thread is not open to new suggestions on how to tier Terastallization; the ultimate vote will be between the options listed in the OP (Action vs No action -> Outright ban / 1 per team / Team preview type reveal / Ban non-STAB Tera if Action receives >60% support).

A reminder that this is a firm rule. You are entitled to your own opinion, but we are working under this voting structure and this thread is absolutely not the place to question it or ask for change. It is disrespectful and counterproductive at this point after all the prior discussion to bring up moving the goalposts; this thread is specifically for discussion on the suspect presented in the OP. The same has been the case for every past suspect and will be the case for future ones as well. I hope to not have to delete more posts due to this. This is not directed at any post still up in this thread.

Even if you do not love whatever result comes, there is no perfect solution for everyone and there is likely to be another Test down the line to give everything another chance.

 

[Arkalame]

Hello OU,

I am here to tell you why I and many others support an outright ban on Terastallization.

Tera is unhealthy due its unpredictable nature and the string of guesswork that it forces. I'm going to use a replay from advaita's great pro-tera post to show you an ordinarily simple situation that is made very complicated only due to tera: Take a look at turn 25 of this battle, and let's breakdown everything that could have happened at this point in the lategame.

1. Chien pao clicks ice spinner as dnite remains dragon/flying and dies
2. Chien pao clicks Ice spinner as dnite tera's normal and clicks fire punch, then wins by clicking espeed
3. Chien pao clicks sacred sword as dnite remains dragon/flying and clicks fire punch, then wins with espeed
4. Chien pao clicks sacred sword as dnite tera's normal and dies
5. Swap into rotom-w and dnite remains dragon/flying and clicks fire punch, leading you back to scenarios 1-4
6. Swap into rotom-w and dnite tera's normal and clicks fire punch, allowing chien pao to safely revenge kill with sacred sword (real outcome)
7. Swap into rotom-w as dnite either remains dragon/flying or teras normal and clicks dd, killing rotom-w and killing chien pao with tera normal+fire punch, tanking potential ice shard.

This is what makes tera unhealthy. The TIMING of when tera comes out. This is worse than a 50/50. Notice how scouting (scenarios 5-7) does not necessarily help you, and in fact you can lose BECAUSE you decided to scout. This is an endgame that chien-pao should straight up win and it turns into this mess because of tera. Of course, this can get more complicated. I assumed that we knew the tera type, and only one player had tera available. However, every pokemon in the tier can viably run 3-4 tera types at minimum, and there's very little indication of what tera type a player has chosen on their mons. Until tera is used by both players, this kind of nonsense will haunt you. You don't need to navigate this kind of guesswork every single turn, but you need to do it way more often than you should. It's very difficult to create a long term gameplan when the impact and possibility of tera places far more importance on the short term.

There are many proposed restrictions but I believe all of them are ineffective:

Ban tera blast: most abusers don't need to use this move, and it does nothing to address the unpredictability of tera.
Ban same type tera: Also does not address the unpredictability of tera.
Ban different type tera: This does address some of the unpredictability of tera types but the timing is still an issue (removing weaknesses on command can achieve a similar effect to swapping types on command), you also massively favor adaptability nukes and leave defensive methods of handling them to be limited. You could argue only broken mons abuse this aspect anyway (chi-yu lol), but I think you'll be surprised at how strong even balanced mons can become once this becomes the norm.
Tera type team preview: Maybe the most popular one as VGC went this route, but this also does not address the timing. It does cut down on the unpredictability of tera types. This is my 2nd choice behind full ban.
Only a single pokemon may tera: As long as you can't tell which one this is, nothing is really solved. Most teams tera with 2-3 pokemon 90% of the time, so you're still going to deal with the worst offenders and the timing.

Here are some "Pro tera arguments that I've heard"
And my responses below

Big Box of Text

"Tera increases diversity!"

If anything, the number of threats that you have to handle in your teambuilder drastically increases more than your defensive options do. It's simple-ish math: If every threat like Roaring Moon has 3-4 viable tera types (flying, dark, steel), and your defensive options can only choose to be one tera type (I make my skeledirge tera fairy), then inevitably you can't cover every option. We see this now with huge threats abusing tera like chien pao, chi-yu, annihilape, espathra, iron valiant, roaring moon, dnite, etc the list goes on. All of these pokemon have 3-4 viable tera types and it's RESTRICTIVE to try and cover all of them in the builder. It leads to the opposite of diversity.

"Both sides can use tera! You can tera reactively to limit your opponent's tera!"

Ah yes the both sides argument. Unfortunately I see this one a lot. Well, both players could use dmax, and you could use your own dmax to limit your opponent's dmax. Did that make it ok? Hell no lmao dmax is broken and you're crazy if you think it should've stayed. But tera is meaningfully different in that you can't always tera reactively, because it depends on the type matchup. There is more depth to tera gameplay than there is to dmax gameplay, that's for sure.

"Tera has drawbacks too! You get new weaknesses! It's not OP like dynamax!"

It's true that you get new weaknesses but most of the time this isn't an issue because you get to DECIDE what new weaknesses you have and WHEN you have them. This flexibility means that you can adjust your gameplan and use your tera accordingly to minimize the impact of any new weaknesses you may get. When tera is used by competent players who can do this, this drawback of tera is really not worth mentioning. Pro-Tera people spin this as a good thing, as an example of tera rewarding skill and planning. That's not entirely wrong, I just wish there weren't so many other issues.

I hope we can all agree that tera is not as bad as dmax, but tera can still be bad enough to get banned. They share many similarities, especially the ability for any pokemon to use them at any time holding any item. That unpredictability was a huge reason why dynamax got banned.

"Tera is just like megas, or z-moves, or items or lure sets! If we can keep those, why can't you deal with tera?"

Tera is fundamentally different in that it has no opportunity cost and has no tell. Megas take up your item slot and are very predictable (If I see a garchomp+lopunny on my opponent's team, 99% of the time its regular chomp and mega lop). Z-moves take up your item slot and you must dedicate only one user in the teambuilder. Lure sets tend to be subpar when they're not doing their job. Weird items can be scouted, knocked off, tricked, and have obvious opportunity costs. Unlike all of the above, you can choose the most advantageous tera in every game. If your tera has
a bad matchup, just don't use it. Or wait until a point in the game where its matchup improves. The flexibility and low cost of tera make it far more comparable to dynamax than it does to anything else mentioned imo.

"It's just one turn! Learn to play!!!"

Every turn someone CAN tera, you have to consider it. And as I showed above, those considerations can get awfully complex. My example also assumed that you knew the tera type, and you were only dealing with tera from one player, not both. This quickly becomes far too much variance for either player to really predict.

"Pokemon has always been about prediction and hidden information! Learn to predict!!"

Not only can tera enable more options than is reasonably expected to be predictable (as I tried to show at the beginning of this post), the mechanics of tera itself are far more impactful than a resist berry or a choice scarf or something similar, and have none of the associated opportunity costs. Changing your typing/getting adaptability can swing the matchup most of the time and the outcome of the entire game sometimes.

"Skill issue! Skiill Issueeeee!!!"

A supermajority of the qualified playerbase (61.5%) already believes tera needs to be at least restricted if not outright banned. I'm not being facetious when I include this here; this is genuinely the most common response I hear when I try to explain my position.
Please stop pretending like you're better.

"Nobody wants another gen8!"

Things have already changed far too much for that. Toxapex sucks now, recovery only has 8 pp, slowtwins lost teleport, tons of pokemon lost defog
and knock off, and we have an abundance of new solid ghost resists like kingambit and ting-lu. This isn't a good argument to begin with, because
smogon should prioritize competitiveness over fun, but it's a misguided concern too. Which leads us to our next one...

"Tera is so fun! If you guys ban tera, I'm quitting!"

We don't cater to what people find fun because that's highly subjective. The smogon community has always tried to make this game competitive, and fun has always been secondary to that. This is because competitiveness is less subjective than fun, and has clearly identifiable parameters
that we can adhere to (for example a ban on spamming evasion moves is pretty straightforward and not hard to understand.) If we find tera to be
uncompetitive or unhealthy, then it will go, regardless of how many people find it fun.

"We can't go another generation without the core mechanic!"

Yes you can. We don't give special treatment to whatever bullshit that gamefreak cooks up. Dynamax was broken and we banned it. If we find tera to be broken then we'll ban that too. If the next 5 gens straight introduce more broken nonsense, then we'll continue to ban that shit because we do not care.

"Just get used to it! Why can't you try adapting for once!"

We got used to broken pokemon like dracovish, we carried seismitoad or another 1 of 3 physdef water resists that could maybe switch in once. It lead to the worst stretch of gen8 ou. We CAN adapt to broken bullshit, but that doesn't mean that we should. If it's obvious that we can do better, we shouldn't settle for less.

"You guys are just a vocal minority!"

According to the tiering survey results and working with just the qualified responses, we can breakdown the responses like this:
38.5% want no ban or restrictions
29.1% want a full ban
32.4% want some restriction, but opinions on which restriction are split even further
The point is this: We're all vocal minorities here. Nobody has enough support outright to pass what they want, and a good portion of this community will be upset no matter what we do. So just roll with the punches and let's do what needs to be done.

"Most people want to keep tera in some fashion!"

Well this is just up to interpretation isn't it? You can interpret the restrict crowd as "wanting to keep tera in some way" to make it seem like the pro-tera crowd has more support, or you can interpret the restrict crowd as "wanting tiering action on tera" and make it seem like the pro-ban crowd has more support. Neither of those interpretations are wrong. Either way, we have a pretty clean 3-way split and the restrict crowd will ultimately decide what happens here. I'm ignoring the general responses for reasons stated in the results post, which you can find in the OP.

"Think about what the general playerbase wants! Activity will plummet!"

I don't care about what the general playerbase wants. In this community, you earn your right to vote and shape the meta, and most of the general playerbase does not qualify. Anybody can, but most don't. It's not like there are quotas or caps to how many people can vote either, we geniunely could have thousands of voters if that many people decide to qualify. At the end of the day, we are debating a voluntary ruleset that nobody is being forced to play. I think it's perfectly fine for competitive players to be deciding what competitive ruleset to play with. The general playerbase has no obligation to join us, nor do we have any obligation to satisfy them.

"Just make a separate ladder then!"

The viability of this solution hinges on the amount of activity it can garner. If we have tons of people ready to run the tier, hold events, write up analyses and play the tier, then we can justify it. However, these are all done by volunteers to begin with, and spreading our free labor too thinly can have drawbacks. For example, the moveset analyses for each pokemon last gen were badly outdated. Slowking-galar's gen8 ou analysis doesn't even include any of the Nasty Plot sets, despite it being one of the tier's best stallbreakers. If we cannot properly take care of one OU, I'm not sure we should plan to take care of two.

"The meta needs more time to develop! We're doing this suspect test too soon!"

If we choose to keep tera, we have tons of pokemon that are borderline broken thanks to tera (or busted otherwise) that we need to take the time to suspect. Dnite, Espathra, Annihilape, Gholdengo, Cyclizar, Chi-yu, Chien-Pao come to mind, and by the time we've finished cleaning up the pre-home meta, pokemon home will likely drop and we'll start all over again. The meta will not have enough time to develop with tera in the tier, and by the time we get a fresh batch of new tera abusers (regidrago, regieleki, volcanion, urshifu-r) we will need to continue to suspect mons once again. If Tera is the clear single factor breaking so many pokemon, it makes no sense to preserve the mechanic and pretend its ok as we're in the middle of our 14th suspect test this year.

This is all just my speculation that x pokemon will be worthy of a suspect test and that we may have too many things to suspect if we decide to leave tera alone. You're free to disagree with my assessment or just embrace a suspect every month lol.

My speculation aside, the council has waited until the metagame has run out of things to quickban, and a suspect on tera has more popular support than any other individual problematic mon/move. We can also decide to retest tera should we feel differently in the future, so I would argue right now is a great time to suspect tera.

"The council is obviously biased towards pro-ban! The way the questions are asked is rigged against us!"

The Pro-Tera camp only needs 41% of votes on the first question to maintain the status-quo and allow tera to remain with no restrictions. You absolutely have a fair chance at victory so please tone down the conspiracy.

Finally, the best for last:
"There are genuine positives that Tera brings to the metagame and teambuilding! You can cover teambuilding holes with no serious opportunity cost, enhance defensive and offensive strategies, and reward smart risk-reward management and execution!"

I already addressed the "cover teambuilding holes" at the top, but let me respond to the meat and potatoes here. All of this is true, but this was not absent before. We already had a competitive-ish game that rewarded smart risk-reward management, long term planning, and creative teambuilding BEFORE tera was introduced. Tera does have positives but as I've made clear, it also comes with many negatives. The "fair and balanced" applications exist in the same metagame as the "broken" ones, and there is no way to isolate the two. We had a "fair and balanced" game before tera, and I reject the notion that we should overlook "broken" tera just because it also introduces some "fair and balanced" tera. You're asking me to use a double-edged sword when the glorious nippon steel katana single-edged sword is better.

Ultimately, tera just introduces too much variance into the game. This is a difficult concept to illustrate, so I'll try to use an analogy:
Imagine you're trying to predict the results of a tournament. Could be march madness, or EVO 2023 or whatever. Predicting who will win each
match can already be complicated, but I bet there are people out there who can accurately and reliably determine the outcome. There are only 2 possible outcomes after all. But what if you try to predict the winner of the entire tournament? There are MANY more factors involved and more outcomes possible, and making accurate predictions is much more difficult. Depending on how big the tournament is, you're basically just blindly guessing.

To me, battles without tera are like predicting the outcome of a match, and battles with tera can sometimes feel like predicting the outcome of an entire tournament. It's not impossible or random, but you're kidding yourself if you think you can do it accurately and reliably. You can say there's more layers and depth to predicting an entire tournament vs predicting a match, and you'd be right. But too many layers and too much depth can devolve into blind guessing and can destroy competitive play altogether. Of course, it's up to you to decide if my analogy is accurate and if tera is too difficult to predict. I've done my best to illustrate that it is. Either way, get out there and vote (irl too).

Thanks for reading.

I strongly agree with everything stated, Tera in it's current form is too unpredictable, which makes the metagame unhealthy.

There is no mind game involved at all. Sure, for example Annihilape usually run tera Water, but some people are also using tera Dark to bait people, so you have to cover Ghost/Fighting + Water + Dark at the same time, otherwise you have a high chance it can either setup in your face (especially if you are choice locked) or kill you with Rage Fist boosted.

Therefore, I would say showing the tera type at preview is the more healthy nerf, because it creates actual mind game = You know what tera type to expect, but the opponent can bait it as well because he's holding it.

It's clear that something needs to be done regarding tera either way.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

In the spirit of a newly released mechanic I would love to see a separate Tera ladder if it is banned. This takes me back to the days when I was trying to get Stealth Rock tested in Generation 4, but it never was.

Just remember when doing this kind of stuff we should remember what is fun for us. Otherwise, why would we play a game in the first place? I feel balance is the most fun when executed properly. I've seen my fair share of testings and bandwagoning got to the point of severe tunnel vision that made me leave Smogon for over a decade.

Please approach this with an open mind and a curious heart.