been reading a lot of what you and supaG have said in stall cord and voiced my own opinions there so I wont yap too much here. I have to agree with it all. I heavily am in agreement with a tera blast ban and volc being freed, and am very very willing to try more "complex" bans like e shot and stored power to free some more mons. Really good post, and as you said glad to see the quality in this thread massively improve.Hey i know i swore i wasn't gonna post again, but after seeing the arguments from prominent players such as finch, and my homies lax, blunder, captainking06 and ctc, i finally saw an improvement in the quality of the thread, thanks to all these guys, but now im starting to realise how big this suspect can be for the tier, and i would like to address some things.
First and foremost, Finch, blunder, y'all absolutely right, we need more posts from council members, Lily, ur one of my favorite players and honestly ur my third favorite person on this site right behind crying and vert, y'all know i love Lily, ive had rarely any interactions with Lily but when i did, theyre always so nice and respectful, i feel like everybody should be like them, but i need to say something so please try to listen, you cannot agree to join a council with such a responsibility to tier a metagame that literal tens of thousands of people play just because you think it would be too stressful, you sometimes give off the vibe that you dont take some things seriously, whether its reasonable criticism or not, whether it seems futile or not, and whether it feels like people just dont see your perspective because theyre outright ignorant, you NEED to start taking it more seriously, making it a PRIORITY, and you NEED to be EXTREMELY mentally strong(this should be a pre-requisite for joining any tiering council imo so be careful what you agree to sign up for) when it comes to people coming at your arguments, you AGREED to join the council for a reason, it was your consent, you have a voice that is respected, you need to start using it, and engaging more with the players in the threads, and this goes for all councilmen, Finch, xavgb and Ausma feel like the only two players on the council, and if im being honest if the reason that the rest of you on the council don't post is the reason Lily stated, i just outright think you should step down and allow someone who is willing to put in the effort to properly steer this tier in the right direction. And if you AGREED to join the ou council, then don't be thin skinned, GET in the threads and make posts, start NOW, you being busy is ZERO excuse as finch is actively working through his BUSY schedule to make posts and put in a strong effort to work on the tier and smogon in general tbh, and its starting to piss me off that his hard work sometimes go un-noticed, sorry to put other council members on blast like this but my sentiment for blunder's post goes deeper than just a suspect test, TL;DR, another apology to Lily here for my tone the point im tryna make is dont agree/consent to do voluntary work for something this important and then not take it super seriously thats just outright lame. Yes i 100% agree we need a separate thread for the more qualified players but that doesnt mean you shouldn't atleast make an attempt to try to educate the lesser experienced players you're tiering for them too after all. And this is exactly why when my homie ima asked if i was interested in being on council awhile back i flat out said no, felt like i couldnt put in as much effort as finch, yes im interested obviously, but its a big commitment, so i put my own personal feelings aside and turned it down, if ur gonna commit u should go all the way.
This next paragraph is a response to shaymin sky/slainey, imma try to make this as short as possible because this is not the place to discuss high variance where anything can win, and a constantly fresh metagame is extremely healthy for any metagame, being able to flip matchups is also extremely healthy because during the past gens, impossible mus on preview, was an incredibly lame aspect of competitive mons, always hated it, everybody should have a fair chance in any matchup, and everyone should be ACTIVE in a metagame as a player AND a teambuilder if theyre gonna play it at a competent level, so if anything, an ever changing metagame is healthy in my eyes.
Now lets get back to Kyurem, i already listed very strong arguments for both sides, ban and dnb, but the thread still feels divided, first thing's first, this is my definition of broken checks broken: When an broken/unhealthy mon checks another broken/unhealthy mon. BOTH parties have to be broken for this to apply.
That being said, i still somewhat have a strong dnb sentiment for kyurem given the unique premise at hand here, say it like you want to, without Tera blast, I think volcarona is completely fine and healthy(i will argue with people who try to argue against this in the eventual retest, this is not the place). This will be important for what im about to say so keep this volcarona paragraph in mind.
The less offensive options we have to break these strong defensive mons/cores, which leads to centralization to the remaining offensive mons/cores, gen 9 has been the gen with the most offense thus far, but we just cannot ignore that its been the gen with the most defense as well, just take a look at the amount of defensive(some can even be offensive) mons this gen has: gliscor, ting lu, clodsire, skeledirge, toxapex, alomomola, skarmory, corviknight, garganacl, dondozo, zapdos, glowking, gweezing, moltres, amoonguss, blissey, clefable, now at the start, we had enough offensive options to handle all these, but when you eliminate nearly all the prominent breakers, we have: ogerpon, raging bolt, kingambit, roaring moon, kyurem, gholdengo, darkrai, Primarina.
And Yes, i know there are niche breakers that can be explored, but we cant possibly not account for the fact that nobody wants to innovate due to some of these breakers being banned, and less options to break these defensive cores, which directly leads to centralization on these remaining COMMON mons, which honestly, theres a survey every 2 weeks, fast tiering action, its gonna hit a point where we end up in a metagame of few offensive options, and the world of defensive options and people will call it balanced in a tera metagame, i believe that all playstyles should be thriving, balance or Fat should NEVER be on top, and this lead me to realizing that the problem with this tier might be the faulty tiering policy, where you cant ban moves to save pokemon, which would be fair if game freak didnt introduce like 50 new broken moves each gen, for example, this tier would be solved if we had:
Magearna without stored power, archaludon without electro shot, palafin without jet punch, volcarona without TERA BLAST, annihilape without rage fist etc.
Now ik i probably shouldnt bring this up but you CANNOT ignore that testing kyurem in the tier with these, and testing kyurem in the tier without these are two completely different things, they are completely healthy mons without these insane moves, and they would be enough for kyurem to remain in the tier, remember, its not broken checks broken if these mons are healthy, and they are healthy without these moves, so these solid and healthy answers would be viable options to check kyurem, and remove the fact that each set has different counters, volcarona covers the subtect set and any set that isnt scale shot, magearna with av covers all sets barring terablast(another broken move) cheese which is easy to revenge, av arch, great sponge to its hits, not a counter but a check, arch without eshot also restores usage to rain by replacing eshot with thunder which is a net positive because only eshot breaks it, ape also takes it on and acts as a unique spinblocker, and a unique lead, gear is a staple on so many unique comps too, palafin with cb acts as a check to kyu and alot of stuff, note im listing the many many positives of these being in the tier without their broken move, but also im listing how these would derain kyurem's impact on the tier massively.
A metagame where arch rain(without eshot) has good usage, other gear comps, loads of volcarona comps, and limited kyu usage, where all playstyles flourish cuz lets be honest fat and balance love gear and they love volc too, is a net positive for the tier as all playstyles have abundant resources which prevents centralization, and gives a fair chance for all styles to win rather than over centralizing with just offense to win every game or just balance to win every game when all the offense gets banned. Every playstyle should be on an even playing field.
The main point im trying to make is, we are assessing kyurem in a flawed metagame because of the many options getting banned due to their broken moves, multiple mons have to be broken with the move for it to go? why? thats is so obviously bad as electro shot wouldnt be broken on a lv1 rattata, therefore its not the move, im pretty sure last respects is fine on like half the shit mons we have available right now(and of course it breaks houndstone it has sand rush and stab LR) , it wouldnt break something like hippo or skarmory, and this statement alone nullifies the entire argument that "it needs to be broken on multiple pokemon to get banned".
Im just pointing out the DIFFERENCE between testing kyurem in a metagame where these are allowed, and testing kyurem in a metagame where theyre not, its not broken checks broken, the broken moves are what breaks them, the mons arent broken themselves, hypothetically, thats like saying , oh okay litten, gholdengo and pult gets astral barrage lets ban those two instead cuz its not broken on litten in LC, now theyre gone, oop zama is broken now, yea no shit, you banned its healthy answers because a broken move broke them, the mons themselves arent broken its the move, and we need to start acknowledging this, because it seems like every new gen, game freak released insane moves that somehow top the previous one.
Which now brings me to my main point which has to do with this suspect, i was pushing for a ban on terablast first as there are multiple users that are broken with the move, i.e. volcarona, gambit, eleki. If we had volcarona in the tier, the sentiment for kyurem would NEVER be this strong in the first place, it does not feel fair, and the sentiment for a terablast ban was the strongest, but then theres videos on youtube like the pinkacross one with strong influence on the active smogon playerbase, which directly shifted the sentiment from tera blast to kyurem, RESULTING in a sentimental shift from terablast to kyurem, and i have a solution for this, in the future , just hand out 1 infraction point for everyone in the thread that tries to persuade or encourage people to vote for something, and hand out TWO for youtubers with >10000 subscribers that try to make a video persuading the viewers. Finch i apologise for the rant but the persuasion feels unfair, everyone should just state their reasoning and opinion without persuasion, that pinkacross video is just flat out persuasive, let it be a fair ground, because if we wouldve gone for tera blast first, and we wouldve had volcarona, i bet there would be a stronger dnb sentiment for kyurem than there is now, and dont say we can retest kyurem in the future, because it would be too late by the time that happens and we would be tiering a past gen, do it now while the gen is still here, we should be voting under the consensus that volcarona will be back and healthy, because itd be a healthy presence that curbs special threats from snowballing, like kyurem, darkrai, without the unhealthy aspect, aka the free coverage for every typing, tera is part of the issue here, but its just terablast, so without that, we would have not only a viable spinner in eleki, but a fully healthy mon like volcarona which hard stops all kyurem sets except shit specs draco, or scale shot dice WITH the right tera, and those two sets are curbed easily by other healthy mons, i dont see it as moving backwards as some have stated, its more fixing past mistakes like testing volc before assessing the over centralizing move terablast, and efficiently improving the metagame by doing it right the second time.
With both volcarona and kyurem in the tier we are one step closer to a balance, we should focus on regaining some offensive options to combat the very high level of defensive options without these broken moves(especially terablast as ausma stated) causing these offensive options to snowball, finch, even ausma said it herself word for word in stallcord: "magearna without stored power would actually solve this tier id be super down" , so you know its not just me.
And if we dont start looking into this, and acting fast, rather than just mindlessly banning offensive mons, we will never arrive at the so called "ideal metagame" until there are almost no offensive options and the world of defensive options, because lets face it, theres a survey every 1-2 weeks, it should be every 2-3 months, give people time to adapt and think, the only 3 month delay between surveys happened after volcarona got banned, then it was back to every 2 weeks. I would rather have a metagame where every style has high variance and viability, rather than a metagame where fat balance rules all, arch with rain(without eshot), gear with BO/Stall/rain/balance(without stored) ape with BO/HO(without rage fist) , volc with all styles(without terablast), etc, no style is snowballing, because every style has abundant options without these broken moves, given all the premises, kyurem was never broken to begin with, just collateral to the actual issue at hand, ill just outright say it, we should NOT have tested it this early without RE ASSESSING the situation at hand and the actual problem with the tier and why everybody isnt happy with it rn. I will be making a thread or a post in policy review i know theres gonna be alot of people that will support this, we need to change this policy immediately, the collateral is starting to show and its negatively affecting the tier, and people in this thread wonder why theres such a strong dnb sentiment.
Thats about all i wanted to address, and if people really dont see eye to eye with me on this stuff and want to discuss 1v1 rather than responding here, my discord tag is stormzone , or Storm Zone#0778 , feel free to message me there if you took anything personally , id love to talk with you about it and get on the same page.
Thank you all for reading if you got this far into the post really means alot.
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Announcement np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 14 - Hazy Shade of Winter
- Thread starter Finchinator
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been reading a lot of what you and supaG have said in stall cord and voiced my own opinions there so I wont yap too much here. I have to agree with it all. I heavily am in agreement with a tera blast ban and volc being freed, and am very very willing to try more "complex" bans like e shot and stored power to free some more mons. Really good post, and as you said glad to see the quality in this thread massively improve.
Kinda crazy that Top Players are disrespecting lower skilled players to a point where they want to further isolate tournament players from the majority, but they then make nothing arguments built around hypotheticals. Only real DNB arguement I've seen is the fact that Kyurem is hazard weak + item dependent which really restricts what it can do in any given game. For the love of God stop trying to argue about the meta after, or the hypothetical perfect meta with Tera Blast banned when you need to be focusing on what's on hand. Though I'm not gonna be talking about Kyurem because admittedly I'm disconnected from the game right now.
People can't be calling for council members to participate more in the general forums when they themselves barely interact, if at all, with the masses. Yeah, it is annoying to have people dissect what you say, take things out of context, and just completely ignore what you're saying. Conversely it's also annoying when people act holier than thou treating other people as if they're lower than dirt. If you really wanna change peoples opinion on the game, and lead it into the direction you want; get off your high horse, disconnect from your private Pokemon Discord, and get on your DaddyBuzzwole arc, and actually try to engage and teach lesser skilled players.
People can't be calling for council members to participate more in the general forums when they themselves barely interact, if at all, with the masses. Yeah, it is annoying to have people dissect what you say, take things out of context, and just completely ignore what you're saying. Conversely it's also annoying when people act holier than thou treating other people as if they're lower than dirt. If you really wanna change peoples opinion on the game, and lead it into the direction you want; get off your high horse, disconnect from your private Pokemon Discord, and get on your DaddyBuzzwole arc, and actually try to engage and teach lesser skilled players.
For me and a lot of the council, we are sometimes quiet because we will see others post arguments similar to what we would have said, and then after a few days, we might feel that there's nothing new for us to add. If we come up with something new that hasn't been shared before, or if we end up feeling strong after seeing some discussion, then we'll definitely post something. This isn't an excuse to remain silent, and it's something council has discussed and for future tests we'll try and be more active about posting whatever. We just believe that if we have nothing new to add, then there's not that much reason to post. If it's our opinions on the suspected mon, then I think that's fine to encourage posts on and as mentioned before, we'll be better about that in the future.
That being said, as someone that is an OU Forum mod as well, I and Finch and Ausma and some of Senior Staff literally have to deal with dozens of reports coming from this thread on a daily basis because everyone constantly argues and derails this thread and refuses to behave. It's extremely tiring and it makes it a little harder to sit down and write a well thought out post knowing there's some nonsense to deal with several times a day. We tend to be pretty lenient for moderating these threads, but it eats up a lot of lot of our time that could go towards something else, like posting our opinions on Kyurem here.
Anyways, since we haven't formally mentioned it before, the council has been discussing a lot of things for the near future, including:
- 2 suspect threads, one for the general public and the other for qualified people
- Rediscussing voting requirements
- Council posting more often in these threads
We've been pretty active discussing stuff for the future to improve the suspect/voting process and will continue to do so.
Tiering wise, I have mentioned it before, but I personally support a Tera Blast ban and fully agree with Storm Zone that Kyurem would probably be "do not ban" to me if it lacked the option to run Tera Blast. Kyurem to me nowadays I'm kind of in the middle where I just see it as Threat #100 I need to watch out for in-game, but can't prep too much for in the builder, which is where I find it more troubling. On paper at least it lacks answers and that's frustrating, and sometimes it ends up impossible in-game, but I think in Gen 9 that's a common occurrence unfortunately. Sometimes it has the right set into your team and sometimes it doesn't, which CTC mentioned before with Sub Tect being bad into Moltres/Glowking, while being nicer into other team structures. I wouldn't mind a ban either because I understand how annoying it can be to deal with at times, especially the DD variants when they catch you off guard and steam roll quickly. Either way I understand both sides and think the answer being unclear for some people is why this thread is an important test.
I hit post instead of preview accidentally, but that's more or less what I had to share. Have a nice day and here's to hoping the future suspect tests go better in every way.
That being said, as someone that is an OU Forum mod as well, I and Finch and Ausma and some of Senior Staff literally have to deal with dozens of reports coming from this thread on a daily basis because everyone constantly argues and derails this thread and refuses to behave. It's extremely tiring and it makes it a little harder to sit down and write a well thought out post knowing there's some nonsense to deal with several times a day. We tend to be pretty lenient for moderating these threads, but it eats up a lot of lot of our time that could go towards something else, like posting our opinions on Kyurem here.
Anyways, since we haven't formally mentioned it before, the council has been discussing a lot of things for the near future, including:
- 2 suspect threads, one for the general public and the other for qualified people
- Rediscussing voting requirements
- Council posting more often in these threads
We've been pretty active discussing stuff for the future to improve the suspect/voting process and will continue to do so.
Tiering wise, I have mentioned it before, but I personally support a Tera Blast ban and fully agree with Storm Zone that Kyurem would probably be "do not ban" to me if it lacked the option to run Tera Blast. Kyurem to me nowadays I'm kind of in the middle where I just see it as Threat #100 I need to watch out for in-game, but can't prep too much for in the builder, which is where I find it more troubling. On paper at least it lacks answers and that's frustrating, and sometimes it ends up impossible in-game, but I think in Gen 9 that's a common occurrence unfortunately. Sometimes it has the right set into your team and sometimes it doesn't, which CTC mentioned before with Sub Tect being bad into Moltres/Glowking, while being nicer into other team structures. I wouldn't mind a ban either because I understand how annoying it can be to deal with at times, especially the DD variants when they catch you off guard and steam roll quickly. Either way I understand both sides and think the answer being unclear for some people is why this thread is an important test.
I hit post instead of preview accidentally, but that's more or less what I had to share. Have a nice day and here's to hoping the future suspect tests go better in every way.
The last thing I personally have to say about this matter and the general circumstances of this suspect is that I think Storm Zone's latest post is founded upon very fair points, as have many people's in this thread in general regarding concerns of council transparency. Regarding the state of tiering, I personally have mentioned wanting to open up a policy review thread for Tera Blast sometime after this suspect elapses, but I am also very open to taking a more whole approach given the unique circumstances we've faced this generation. I think there's a dialogue to be had about the future of tiering for this format and it's clear to me that a much deeper conversation needs to be had than is realistic within the scope of this thread.
However, please remember that this is a Kyurem suspect thread first and foremost, and that if you have general thoughts on the state of the metagame and tiering that most of that should be posted in our metagame discussion thread for the time being. This isn't me attempting to silence people, as I want people to make themselves heard -- please do not be afraid to reach out to me or anybody else in the council if you have something you need/want to say to us. That's what we're here for ultimately, and we are open to listening to anybody so long as you treat us the way you would like to be treated. I'm going to hugely endorse TPP's above post regarding the humanity involved behind tiering and staffing positions. We are not perfect, but we are always open to learning and listening so long as people are open-minded, respectful, and courteous toward one another.
Given how this thread has escalated quite a bit in the past 12 hours or so, the moderation team is going to be temporarily locking this thread until tomorrow morning so everybody can settle down and get their thoughts in order. Thanks all.
However, please remember that this is a Kyurem suspect thread first and foremost, and that if you have general thoughts on the state of the metagame and tiering that most of that should be posted in our metagame discussion thread for the time being. This isn't me attempting to silence people, as I want people to make themselves heard -- please do not be afraid to reach out to me or anybody else in the council if you have something you need/want to say to us. That's what we're here for ultimately, and we are open to listening to anybody so long as you treat us the way you would like to be treated. I'm going to hugely endorse TPP's above post regarding the humanity involved behind tiering and staffing positions. We are not perfect, but we are always open to learning and listening so long as people are open-minded, respectful, and courteous toward one another.
Given how this thread has escalated quite a bit in the past 12 hours or so, the moderation team is going to be temporarily locking this thread until tomorrow morning so everybody can settle down and get their thoughts in order. Thanks all.
Storm Zone (idk why quoting isn't working) I think you misunderstood the point of what I was trying to say. I don't fear nor really care about what anyone has to say about my opinions on anything here; they are ultimately backed by my own playing & building experience and that's only going to change through open discussion, not arguments being criticised or picked apart by people who, respectfully, don't know nearly as much about the topic at hand. That's why I'm more interested in trying the qualified thread - it's not really about elitism as getting suspect reqs is just... not difficult, but it does show that the person I'm talking to has passed the baseline competence test and that I'm not necessarily arguing with a brick wall. It's not about being busy or thin skinned or anything of the sort - I've been leading tiering related things on this site for the guts of 4 years now, I wouldn't have survived if those were issues lol - it's just that I don't think these threads should be echo chambers and me regurgitating the exact talking points made by other folks I agree with up till now (blunder, lax) is just not super productive imo. Maybe I have this wrong though, and instead of a large number of new points being made, the thread just needs more top players agreeing with each other. I'm open to hearing perspectives on this bit
I understand frustration that it seems we aren't taking things seriously though. Personally I attempt to take part in every single discussion we have at council level, and usually end up bringing things up of my own accord as well (much to the dismay of the rest of the council who never agree with me...), but obviously that's pretty invisible to an outsider. I think rather than long-form posts being a necessity there should be a system in place for archiving and sharing what goes on in council discord; last gen in UU I spent a lot of time on council minutes which were very well-received and to this day people ask me to bring them back. Unfortunately I don't have the time to write them the same way I used to but if it's something that would help with connection here then I'd be happy to do a more condensed version for OU. The discussions here tend to get less off-topic than UU did anyway so it should be a bit easier. If this is something that would be appreciated for OU then lmk; maybe it'll help bridge the gap between the council and the rest of the playerbase.
But ya I mean I still stand by what I said yesterday and agree with you that council isn't doing enough publicly; it's being talked about in council discord rn and isn't falling on deaf ears. I've brought up a suggestion that council members could post in the 24 hours before the thread gets opened as a way to lead discussion and hopefully prevent the thread from getting too off topic and turning into a page 1 free-for-all, but it doesn't seem super popular as of yet. Open to more ofc but ultimately final call is Finch/Ruft's. I don't have issue w/ your tone at all and completely understand the frustration but I think it's probably a bit much to be calling for the head of council members that haven't spoken up in a while, we are still just people at the end of the day. Like you say we have a job to do but mistakes and shit do happen so give us a little time to fix up our processes and we'll hopefully do better for y'all in the coming tests.
No idea is flawless and we are a small group (especially with the recent departures of Vert/NJNP who we haven't had the opportunity to find replacements for yet), so coming up with all the solutions on our own is tough. Would be very happy to hear out whatever suggestions you or others have whether it's here or in DM or whatever else (or in Finch's DMs more likely lol). Feel free to hmu if anything's unclear.
I understand frustration that it seems we aren't taking things seriously though. Personally I attempt to take part in every single discussion we have at council level, and usually end up bringing things up of my own accord as well (much to the dismay of the rest of the council who never agree with me...), but obviously that's pretty invisible to an outsider. I think rather than long-form posts being a necessity there should be a system in place for archiving and sharing what goes on in council discord; last gen in UU I spent a lot of time on council minutes which were very well-received and to this day people ask me to bring them back. Unfortunately I don't have the time to write them the same way I used to but if it's something that would help with connection here then I'd be happy to do a more condensed version for OU. The discussions here tend to get less off-topic than UU did anyway so it should be a bit easier. If this is something that would be appreciated for OU then lmk; maybe it'll help bridge the gap between the council and the rest of the playerbase.
But ya I mean I still stand by what I said yesterday and agree with you that council isn't doing enough publicly; it's being talked about in council discord rn and isn't falling on deaf ears. I've brought up a suggestion that council members could post in the 24 hours before the thread gets opened as a way to lead discussion and hopefully prevent the thread from getting too off topic and turning into a page 1 free-for-all, but it doesn't seem super popular as of yet. Open to more ofc but ultimately final call is Finch/Ruft's. I don't have issue w/ your tone at all and completely understand the frustration but I think it's probably a bit much to be calling for the head of council members that haven't spoken up in a while, we are still just people at the end of the day. Like you say we have a job to do but mistakes and shit do happen so give us a little time to fix up our processes and we'll hopefully do better for y'all in the coming tests.
No idea is flawless and we are a small group (especially with the recent departures of Vert/NJNP who we haven't had the opportunity to find replacements for yet), so coming up with all the solutions on our own is tough. Would be very happy to hear out whatever suggestions you or others have whether it's here or in DM or whatever else (or in Finch's DMs more likely lol). Feel free to hmu if anything's unclear.
Beyond simply understanding how the council thinks, simply seeing how widespread certain opinions are has value for both weaker players trying to better understand the metagame, as well as undecided voters.
Also, count me as one whod like to see the thread moderated a bit more tightly with regards to the bickering. I don't mind abrasive posts that make a point, but as one example, patronizing "good job buddy" comments just fan the flames without contributing anything.
I think you need to understand that there is such a thing as an informed opinion. Not every opinion is worth equally as not everybody has the same amount of knowledge of the metagame.
You wouldn't trust someone that doesn't have a medical degree to treat your disease, just as you wouldn't trust somebody that isn't a lawyer to defend you in a court case. While yes, it's important that some place exists where every voice can be heard, we've recently seen the suspect thread be bombarded with frankly, unsubstantiated and unknowledgeable posts.
There are people that have been playing the tier for years, as well as people that have sunk in a large amount of time into the meta in order to get reqs, it's in my opinion quite important to differentiate these posts and have a place to host higher quality posts / experiences.
And yeah, the council should be put to a higher standard than the average player / smogonite, because it's their responsibility. They're leading one of the most played metas on Showdown, and it's important to know that they're participating.
i like this a lot, actually, for a number of reasons:
- transparency. it lets everyone know the thoughts of each of the council members as individuals on the current suspect and the meta as a whole, in a public and easily accessible space. having a council member's post being buried in the middle of page 10 between little timmy going "ban all legendaries and boots and switching" and tourguy mcsweatlord going "lmao l2p everyone except me sucks at the game unban everything" can result in a lot of people skipping over it and disincentivizes council members from posting in general
- increased discussion quality. having council members post first will ensure that proven top players with good reasoning skills, knowledge of the meta, and knowledge of how tiering is supposed to work will get in on the ground floor of the discussion and guide it from the get-go. that way we can start with arguments like "here are the features of the mon that makes it broken" and "here are the checks to this mon and the ways to play around it" instead of having to coax it out of people after weathering a storm of "this mon should go because it doesn't bring value to the tier, whatever that means" and "this mon should stay because it checks some other thing i think is broken or boring"
- efficiency. since council members know a suspect is happening before everyone else, they can get to work on writing out their posts before the thread is even up, so we can hopefully avoid scenarios where people are trying to work 9-5 and be in a tour and get reqs and write their post all at the same time. this isn't caused by the proposal, but it makes implementing it easier
I agree with this. I haven't read every post but I can still tell there was a lot of shit flinging from both sides Ban and DnB, some ppl always haha reacting whenever someone disagreed with their opinion and both parties being so weirdly antagonistic to each other with some of them not even getting reqs. It would be nice if mods would be more stern with both the quality of the posts(lots of useless one-liners and uber-drop derailment) and the tone too.
When some top players are condescending and insulting to lower skilled players, those lower skilled aren't likely to learn anything from you because they don't need to put up with your shit. You can say that it is not your responsiblity but it still actively hurts the communities growth. It is not just the general playerbase but the outsiders too that view the guys here as elitist. It is Pokemon at the end of the day, no need to make such a big deal.
At the same time some loud lower skilled players really need to appreciate top players input more even if you disagree. No need to worship them like gods but if all you do is sit back, "haha" that person and dismiss them as them having sh!t opinion, it is no wonder so many top players choose to not engage with the general playerbase. Heck I would go "why bother too. They are top players for a reason and you will find that some are pretty open to engage with the general community . As Ehmcee has already said, some opinion just have more weight since they have experience and are proven in their field. I have learned a lot from better players sharing teams with me. Right now I am just 1800s ladder regular so not that high but I wouldn't have gotten better at all if those ppl wouldnt be nice enough to help.
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This doesn't illustrate that Kyurem is annoying, this illustrates that the move Protect is annoying. You could easily switch out Kyurem here for G*rganacl or Gl*scor.
A middling speed tier, weakness to hazards and common types plus an high necessity to keep its item makes kyurem, at least to me, a great mon with high potential but severe drawbacks which makes its life not easy if the opponent plays proactively.
Fast fairy/fight/steel/dragon types such as Valiant, Enam, Zama and scraf gold and fast knock users like DeoS, Weav and Moon pivoted in by mons like AV prima, Gking, Scizor, Corv or Moltres (just a few examples, there are already well written post with a full list of checks) can all force kyurem out, risking more damage taken at the next switch in (boots doesn’t but lack in firepower) or loosing its item, nerfing its damage output.
On top of that, I think having a strong ice stab in the tier is great to keep in check Lando/Gliscor/Dnite, as without Kyurem, the only option left in OU is Weavile and its sometimes unreliable triple axel, plus mixing capabilities pressures the (imho) most reliable and easiest to use mon in the tier, Ting Lu
For future options, I’m in favor of the CTC and Storm zone proposal of a Tera blast suspect and a new tiering policy to free volc, arch without eshot and then a goug unban, bringing back a proactive special check and weather elements. Weather which at least around the 1700s where I sit is at his lowest (I have found 1 rain team in the last 100 matches and that’s it for weather usage lmao)
All in all, I stand with the “free things to bring more diversity” side and I hope that this will be the last suspect test for banning a mon for a while.
I Hope the post is not grammatically atrocious lol.
I will be voting Do Not Ban
Peace
Fast fairy/fight/steel/dragon types such as Valiant, Enam, Zama and scraf gold and fast knock users like DeoS, Weav and Moon pivoted in by mons like AV prima, Gking, Scizor, Corv or Moltres (just a few examples, there are already well written post with a full list of checks) can all force kyurem out, risking more damage taken at the next switch in (boots doesn’t but lack in firepower) or loosing its item, nerfing its damage output.
On top of that, I think having a strong ice stab in the tier is great to keep in check Lando/Gliscor/Dnite, as without Kyurem, the only option left in OU is Weavile and its sometimes unreliable triple axel, plus mixing capabilities pressures the (imho) most reliable and easiest to use mon in the tier, Ting Lu
For future options, I’m in favor of the CTC and Storm zone proposal of a Tera blast suspect and a new tiering policy to free volc, arch without eshot and then a goug unban, bringing back a proactive special check and weather elements. Weather which at least around the 1700s where I sit is at his lowest (I have found 1 rain team in the last 100 matches and that’s it for weather usage lmao)
All in all, I stand with the “free things to bring more diversity” side and I hope that this will be the last suspect test for banning a mon for a while.
I Hope the post is not grammatically atrocious lol.
I will be voting Do Not Ban
Peace
Also you guys keep listing hazards as foolproof counterplay despite that fact that kyurem scares almost every hazard setter out, lmao
what makes you think volc and gfire will get unbanned right after they got banned by a huge majority, tera blast being gone doesn’t suddenly make them fine
I fully understand this perspective but the point i was trying to make was it didnt come across like you just explained it, your post gave the vibe that u didnt really care that much about it and thats all i was calling out.
But remember even what you said here in this post comes off as insulting to every player thats inexperienced or not knowing as much about the topic at hand, it makes them feel like ur putting urself above them, you said this, "I don't fear nor really care about what anyone has to say about my opinions on anything here", and this tells people that you don't care to engage with the lesser experienced players aswell, you said this "they are ultimately backed by my own playing & building experience and that's only going to change through open discussion, not arguments being criticised or picked apart by people who, respectfully, don't know nearly as much about the topic at hand" , you could try to explain your perspective atleast in 1 post if you believe that they don't know, u dont have to post numerous times, just once, your opinion may be respected more than other top players given your position and experience, as a player myself, i sometimes feel that way too but the difference is im not on the council so im not responsible for tiering, but still i try to make atleast 1 post for each suspect. You said this "That's why I'm more interested in trying the qualified thread - it's not really about elitism as getting suspect reqs is just... not difficult, but it does show that the person I'm talking to has passed the baseline competence test and that I'm not necessarily arguing with a brick wall" , you probably shouldnt call them a brick wall if theyre 1000s ladder and ignorant, even if you explain it in just 1 post, on some level theyll understand your reasoning, its not about competence really its you disconnecting yourself from inexperienced(and some ignorant) players. Oh and you said this "it's just that I don't think these threads should be echo chambers and me regurgitating the exact talking points made by other folks I agree with up till now (blunder, lax) is just not super productive imo" this is not true as some top players disagree with each other in most cases, and i think that these threads should be echo chambers, the more people see top players agreeing with each other, the more they believe its the right stance to take or decision to make, as much as some council members or some people may hate ctc, he cares to post alot in each important suspect regardless of whos in it, despite all the criticism he gets from lesser known/experienced players he still posts alot and thats super respectable.
My point is, im just telling you that atleast 1 post is fine for each suspect thread, its the transparency that counts, if i see atleast 1 post from all members on council in each suspect thread, it'll atleast show everyone that you're all transparent and you care enough to post, i was just trying to show u how u came off/how ur coming off with what you're saying, because back in 2012 before i even considered starting tournaments and was just a ladder player, or even considered making a smogon account, i was very shy and scared to register an account and post my opinion on the forums because i saw posts like these and it made me feel really stupid and it made me never want to play this game again i really hated how they came off because i had little to no experience and it almost felt like the top players at the time were saying "hey you never went above 1500 therefore i dont care to talk to you" im like hey man i wanna learn about these things too you know, just remember these lesser experienced players that you feel are "brick walls" wanna learn too, and eventually wanna get better, and this is really the reason why i never went at players like heatranator or other posters that dont agree with my opinions, rather try to explain my reasoning as clearly as possible, its like you said we're just people at the end of the day, remember these "brick walls" that dont pass the baseline competence test are people too so try to be more mindful of that in the future.
I wont be sharing this post anywhere else on my discord like i do with my others, because this is specifically just for you to read
Hey guys, i saw this debate about Kyurem and felt like spreading my thoughts on it like a lot of you all have been doing, although i am not the best player in the world, i feel like my opinion might be useful for someone out there. Unlike most of the Ban crowd, i think Sub/tect is perfectly fine and really don't care much about it when i face it.
I agree with the DNB crowd that Kyurem is not a Pokemon that can simply destroy a team by itself, if u correctly predict his set (thanks to supag for sharing that tip, helped a lot) there will most likely be a Pokemon on your team to stop it in its tracks, however, Kyurem's sheer number of sets make this harder than it should be.
You might correctly predict the Kyurem's set based on the team hes in, but it may not be enough as Kyurem could still run different moves and offensive teras to destroy your counter-play, you could anticipate it being dragon dance, but if its NMI mixed DD you could still lose your Pokemon to it, it's speed might seem middling to some, but after a dragon dance/scale shot he can out speed most of the metagame and after 2, your speedy booster Pokemon like Valiant and Moth will get out sped too and killed.
The bulk makes the situation even worse, as it makes clicking dragon dance not nearly as difficult as it would be since Kyurem will rarely get one hit ko'd by any pokemon on the meta, especially if it decides to terastilize, and that's not even mentioning the fact it can terastal into 4 viable different types and that makes revenge killing the dragon dance set even harder.
I see Kyurem as the usual tera abuser, a pokemon that can choose between 4 (viable) tera types in fire, electric and ground, and the rare but sometimes seen ice type, and aside from the fact it can run mixed, its also capable of utilizing tera blast in a way no inferior to that of Volcarona's, Gouging fire's and Iron moth's.
Tera blast ban would obviously alleviate my problems with the pokemon, but unfortunately the council decided upon suspecting Kyurem first, and since tera blast is still in the tier and it definitely will take time before any action against tera blast is taken, i lean on Banning Kyurem from OU.
I agree with the DNB crowd that Kyurem is not a Pokemon that can simply destroy a team by itself, if u correctly predict his set (thanks to supag for sharing that tip, helped a lot) there will most likely be a Pokemon on your team to stop it in its tracks, however, Kyurem's sheer number of sets make this harder than it should be.
You might correctly predict the Kyurem's set based on the team hes in, but it may not be enough as Kyurem could still run different moves and offensive teras to destroy your counter-play, you could anticipate it being dragon dance, but if its NMI mixed DD you could still lose your Pokemon to it, it's speed might seem middling to some, but after a dragon dance/scale shot he can out speed most of the metagame and after 2, your speedy booster Pokemon like Valiant and Moth will get out sped too and killed.
The bulk makes the situation even worse, as it makes clicking dragon dance not nearly as difficult as it would be since Kyurem will rarely get one hit ko'd by any pokemon on the meta, especially if it decides to terastilize, and that's not even mentioning the fact it can terastal into 4 viable different types and that makes revenge killing the dragon dance set even harder.
I see Kyurem as the usual tera abuser, a pokemon that can choose between 4 (viable) tera types in fire, electric and ground, and the rare but sometimes seen ice type, and aside from the fact it can run mixed, its also capable of utilizing tera blast in a way no inferior to that of Volcarona's, Gouging fire's and Iron moth's.
Tera blast ban would obviously alleviate my problems with the pokemon, but unfortunately the council decided upon suspecting Kyurem first, and since tera blast is still in the tier and it definitely will take time before any action against tera blast is taken, i lean on Banning Kyurem from OU.
Kyurem being banned or not will not solve most of SV's issues. I think a lot of knowledgeable people here can unfortunately agree with this statement. We have some of the coolest new mons, moves, items, great QoL improvements and a generational gimmick that adds another dimension to play- yet here we are.
We could have suspected Darkrai, Ogerpon-W, Gambit, etc. and these same sentiments about council involvement, a TB suspect, community health, and the overall state of SV meta would have arose. There have been things boiling under the surface for a long time now and it's frustrating to a lot of players. Almost everyone has their own ideas on what needs to be done- leading to either "nothing" getting done or the "wrong" things getting implemented.
I truly think the council should make these next few months a time of novel tiering experiments. Break some Smogon dogma. Lighten things up.
Breathe some life into SV.
We don't need a 2 month process to suspect TB- just toss up another ladder called "SV Experiments"
Use it to retest Volc w/o TB, Ban Ghold for a week, ban BE for another, ban Supreme Overlord, unban stupid ass Fin for awhile, ban SP and free Mage, unban Rage Fist man idk, these are silly ideas off the top of my head, half which I'm not serious about. Afterwards, we can take this data and then start a deeper conversation about the info we've gathered from these fun experiments. Council can put up a survey and ask the community what things they would like to see experimented with first, or ask them weekly, or rank the results, etc.
However, this idea would require a significant increase in engagement from the SV OU council. It would take a level of time and effort that only a council filled with active, passionate, and open-minded members could accomplish.
We could have suspected Darkrai, Ogerpon-W, Gambit, etc. and these same sentiments about council involvement, a TB suspect, community health, and the overall state of SV meta would have arose. There have been things boiling under the surface for a long time now and it's frustrating to a lot of players. Almost everyone has their own ideas on what needs to be done- leading to either "nothing" getting done or the "wrong" things getting implemented.
I truly think the council should make these next few months a time of novel tiering experiments. Break some Smogon dogma. Lighten things up.
Breathe some life into SV.
We don't need a 2 month process to suspect TB- just toss up another ladder called "SV Experiments"
Use it to retest Volc w/o TB, Ban Ghold for a week, ban BE for another, ban Supreme Overlord, unban stupid ass Fin for awhile, ban SP and free Mage, unban Rage Fist man idk, these are silly ideas off the top of my head, half which I'm not serious about. Afterwards, we can take this data and then start a deeper conversation about the info we've gathered from these fun experiments. Council can put up a survey and ask the community what things they would like to see experimented with first, or ask them weekly, or rank the results, etc.
However, this idea would require a significant increase in engagement from the SV OU council. It would take a level of time and effort that only a council filled with active, passionate, and open-minded members could accomplish.
Gouging Fire was extremely broken with Tera Dragon Outrage and Tera Blast and would be weaker with Tera Blast banned but probably still broken due to its ridiculous bulk and stupid breaking power with Booster Energy. It was horribly designed from a competitive standpoint in a Tera meta but really well-designed aesthetically.
Volcarona, on the other hand, was very dependent on sniping checks with Tera Blast, and I believe it'd be fine with Tera Blast gone. Without Tera Blast allowing Volc to pick and choose its checks, it'd be much less effective. It'd have a number of hard counters without Tera Blast such as Skeledirge, Blissey, Clodsire, and Goodra-Hisui as well as numerous checks.
To be on topic, Kyurem would probably be completely fine in OU without the mixed sets as the option to go mixed is why it is constraining in the builder. Much like with Volcarona, I can see it settling in OU nicely with Tera Blast banned since going mixed would have a very high opportunity cost if it doesn't have access to Tera Blast.
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if we're worried about the workload this would add for the council, why not just make a different council specifically for this experimental ladder? maybe some of the top players who break with the community on how we should go about tiering sv could stand to benefit from having their own meta to run where they don't have to adhere to policy or tiering philosophy. i really like the idea of having a separate meta to tinker around with tiering-wise
…oh yeah, kyurem. that's what this thread is about. please, readers, if you're on the fence, at least vote ban on it so we don't ever have to consider the possibility of a third suspect and another thread like this. i'm exhausted. do you know how emotionally draining it is to be out-forumshittered by a dozen people at once?
In all seriousness, I feel like this is a topic that pertains more to Policy Review than anything, especially since it would require active server changes and maintenance and fundamentally altering how tiering action works in Gen 9 OU. I don't necessarily think that it's a bad idea, but also not necessarily one that should be brought up in the thread designed to pertain to the status of Kyurem.
Oh you're 100% right, but the thread has definitely turned into a de facto "Wtf is actually going on with SV" thread. I waited until I saw like a dozen posts break the rules of a conventional suspect thread before I shared my thoughts. That said, this really is my last post on forums for awhile lol, I don't seriously think anything of note will change with SV.
To throw my hat into the bucket as well, this seems like the perfect time to bring back the views from the council thread. Even if it did devolve into more general metagame discussion towards the end, more discussion on future tiering action and the overall direction the tier needs to be sent with both council and public input would be huge given how sentiment around kyurem has shaped up to be.
Bringing it back on topic, since the suspect will be over in ~24h and the test seems like it will be close, what do pro-ban people think are the benefits of keeping the icy husk in OU and what do DNB people think the positives of it potentially leaving the tier?
While I don't think it will be particularly good, if kyurem leaves, hydreigon has the movepool to pull off a Walmart dice kyurem larp and can be a pretty effective specs pokemon too without any competition as a breaker from the other gen 5 dragon. Mamoswine also becomes better by virtue of not having another pokemon with ice/ground coverage in the tier to compete with. I don't think either of these will be top tier or even mid-B tier by any stretch but losing a pokemon that compresses a lot of desirable qualities opens up lesser used pokemon that may share a trait or two with kyurem.
Bringing it back on topic, since the suspect will be over in ~24h and the test seems like it will be close, what do pro-ban people think are the benefits of keeping the icy husk in OU and what do DNB people think the positives of it potentially leaving the tier?
While I don't think it will be particularly good, if kyurem leaves, hydreigon has the movepool to pull off a Walmart dice kyurem larp and can be a pretty effective specs pokemon too without any competition as a breaker from the other gen 5 dragon. Mamoswine also becomes better by virtue of not having another pokemon with ice/ground coverage in the tier to compete with. I don't think either of these will be top tier or even mid-B tier by any stretch but losing a pokemon that compresses a lot of desirable qualities opens up lesser used pokemon that may share a trait or two with kyurem.
Positive is that there are likely no more suspect test for the rest of the generation aside from gliscor if Kyurem is banned. Out of the 3 wallbreakers gamers complain about - Darkrai, Ogerpon-W, and Kyurem, Kyurem is the one that would cause the least amount of damage removing because its not splashable, nor does it have the valuable traits of the others have, like Darkrai's good speed or Ogerpon-W's water immunity (critical to contain mola). IDK how others feel, but its also been feeling like gamers aren't really complaining about Darkrai or Ogerpon-W as much these days, so it is likely the tier will mostly stabalize after a Kyu+Gliscor ban perhaps.. I also think a good number of Kyurem teams will adapt by swapping over to Hydrapple as their breaker, which might be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask. I also think Ogerpon-W will be hurt more by a Kyurem ban than helped by it because it will be a little bit easier to slot in a grass type like Amoonguss to contain it just a bit.
all right, since the topic has come up, here's a list of benefits to kyurem staying:
- gliscor remains only the second-biggest problem in ou
I don't know about Ogerpon-Wellspring being hurt by a Kyurem ban more than helped by it. Amoonguss would still be a free switch-in to Gholdengo. Other non-passive Grass-types such as Hydrapple and Sinistcha should enjoy Kyurem being gone though.
I also believe the tier isn't in as bad of a condition many players do, and I do believe after a couple more bans that the tier might be in good shape regardless of whether Kyurem stays or goes (I predict a DNB verdict).
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We should have honestly called this the Kyurem SubTect Test because of how much people are complaining about it. Wow, it’s almost as if Protect is one of the cheapest moves in the game.
A lot of mons will become more splashable if Kyurem gets banned. Some of them desperately need it, like Glimmora, Heatran (I personally hate Heatran because I run Iron Moth, but it undeniably would love for Kyurem to go), Primarina, and Samurott. However, all of the most asinine Pokemon in the tier such as Al*momola, G*rganacl, and C*ldsire will also benefit a lot from it. So, in a weird way, offense would be both harmed and helped by a Kyurem ban.
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