Metagame np: SV Ubers Stage 0 - Your Wildest Dreams

[Levant Mir Celestia]

well, then you are telling me that the goofy aah ability is as uncompetitive as mega raykuaza?

Dude. Those don't even compare. Moody relies squarely on luck. Mega Rayquaza was broken as fuck. For starters, the latter was not bound by the normal rules for Mega Evolution; unlike other megas, it only needed to know a certain move, this being Dragon Ascent. This means it was free to hold another item and take its already obscene power to another level or boost its survivability. Because of all this, peeps had to run gimmicky sets just to beat it. That being said, they are both uncompetitive, albeit for different reasons.

like i see some checks, haze dondozo, skeledirge, any roar user, taunt users.

Dondozo lacks recovery except the very exploitable Rest, which is already problematic, but Rest fails completely when Electric Terrain is active. That's an issue when Miraidon is the best mon in the tier. Also, what are you gonna give up for Haze (putting aside the fact that if I have to actually consider running Haze on an Unaware mon, something is wrong)? One of the Moody abusers having a move that is super effective vs it is also something to consider (also, the other abuser has Leech Seed)...

252 SpA Glalie Freeze-Dry vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Dondozo: 236-278 (46.8 - 55.1%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
That's already not looking good...

Roar works... unless you happen to be stuck with Scovillain or Glalie as the last mon standing. Well, other than the part where they get a chance to hit and possibly KO you before that, as Roar and Whirlwind are forced to go last.

TL;DR Moody can only really be consistently dealt with by going out of your way to counter it (and getting lucky)... which puts you at a disadvantage against the rest of the tier.

 

[Hera]

Been reading along this thread and while I don't particularly care about Moody, I feel like more than a few arguments on this thread are a bit lacking. My biggest issues with these arguments is that they frame Moody as uncompetitive (which is true, you shouldn't be able to fish for boosts with little drawback and win because you got a good sequence), but then say that it should be banned solely on its competitiveness, which is not true imo if you look at past generations of Ubers and how they have conducted tiering. Moody is obviously uncompetitive, but what matters more is whether it's good or not. We can see this process happening last gen: Moody was unbanned because the only mons that got it were Glalie and Snorut, and both of them were so bad as to not even appear on the final VR of the gen. Assuming a Scovillian ban isn't on the table whatsoever, I feel like these arguments should be less a judge of Moody as an uncompetitive mechanic since that much is obvious, and more a judge of whether or not Moody counterplay is so constrained that it's only prevalent on a select few mons or teambuilding decisions that are otherwise completely unviable.

This post wasn't made to call out anyone in particular and there have been many articulate pro-ban posts, and if the Ubers community as a whole decides to be more aggressive and take a different approach when tiering aspects deemed as uncompetitive rather than things like Zacian-H and Zacian-C last gen which were more traditionally broken, then who am I to stand in the way of that? This is just how I personally feel about the Ubers tiering mentality and how it should be applied to Moody.

 

[Manaphy]

Hey guys, as a Council Member who pushed hard for this suspect to happen, I want to give my two cents on why Moody should be banned. I've already made a detailed post about it here, so please read that if you haven't already!

Here, I want to reply to Fc's points about Moody:

When it comes to luck based strategies, the natural response is to want to just be rid of them because it takes away some player interaction, but personally I like to draw a line somewhere that there's reasonable counterplay to something luck based, or something luck based just being kinda bad.

I have a different view of this. Personally, I want to minimize the amount of luck in the game as much as possible without detracting key game elements (i.e. banning all Ice moves to stop Freeze changes the game intrinsically way too much). This is because we play a competitive format and as such, we should want to have the better player win the game as much as possible. Moody clearly is not a key game element, being a niche ability on a few mons, and it definitely is viable enough to steal games away undeserved.

Again, I want to mention my tournament game vs Exiline here, since it's a great example of how Moody can snowball in such a way that counterplay is nearly impossible, or the lead given by a snowballing Moody user is too great to deal with even if the Moody user is defeated. I personally went for Moody here because I know Exiline is a highly intelligent player who could likely counter my normal strategies, so I purposefully went for luck in a gamble that happened to work out for me. I don't think there's any element of me outplaying Exiline in this replay, and keeping Moody legal would just allow more games like this to be stolen in the future.

Scovillain is a step up definitely, but it's still a mon with middling stats and a bad typing that has a lot of roadblocks to success. Hazards are everywhere, the power level of the tier is so high, and offensive teams are as strong as ever, so setting up against anything that isn't super defensive can be quite difficult if it's even possible at all.

From my experience this is simply not true. All Scovillain needs is one turn to Leech Seed and/or Protect and it can quickly snowball from there with the right boosts. I want to point out the variance in Scovillain sets - many are probably familiar with Speed invested sets, but I've actually run physically defensive Scovillain on ladder because it allows Scovillain to stay in on mons such as Koraidon and Leech Seed/Protect stall enough to get going. Outside of maybe pure HO teams, extremely common defensive pokemon such as Corviknight, Ting-Lu, Treads, Defensive Tusk, and Clodsire can all be possible set-up targets for Scovillain.

If it can set up, a lot of defensive teams are prepared for it as well, with common picks like Toxapex, Skeledirge, and Unaware Pokemon + pivots like Clodsire + Alomomola all being fairly present on the fatter teams this tier has to offer.

A lot of these Pokemon don't actually deal with Scovillain though. Sure, Pex can Haze it, but if Scovillain is sitting there spamming Flamethrower to get burns and Leech Seed to chip teammates, you are still making progress. Clodsire doesn't actually do anything to Scovillain, Substitute blocks Toxic and Scovillain can once again spam Flamethrower for burns and Leech Seed stall (and many Clodsire run Water Absorb nowadays anyway). Alomomola just sits there and does nothing while Scovillain stalls for Moody boosts. Skeledirge can be problematic since Torch Song bypasses Substitute, but I've beaten it back before by using Tera Fire + Leech Seed stall.

The real way to deal with Scovillain defensively is to force it out through something like Whirlwind Ting-Lu, although even this is still problematic as Ting-Lu (especially Whirlwind Ting) is something that wants to minimize chip as much as possible so it doesn't drop to Miraidon. I think an underrated aspect of Moody is that trying to deal with it can cause significant damage to many teammates which can allow your sweepers in the back to clean up. It doesn't have to always be the Moody user itself sweeping (although that happens quite often).

My philosophy is to vote to minimize bans where possible

My personal view is that we should try to ban as many luck-based elements of the game as possible in order to maintain a healthy and balanced metagame. I think mechanics like this are best saved for AG. Also, I think your personal take on Ubers tiering is quite flexible, more so than the average Ubers player, as I remember you were one of the only people to not want Zacian-Hero banned in SS (one of the worst Ubers metagames I've ever played)

 

[Aberforth]

The suspect is coming to a close soon, and I will personally be voting ban. While I understand the reason behind wanting to avoid banning anything from Ubers unless it is absurdly powerful, which Moody does not reach, I am personally of the opinion that holding onto such high standards for non-pokemon bans is doing the player base a disservice. As with basically all of my votes, I'll be voting on what I personally find fun or not fun in a given meta, and I have never played with or against Moody in a way that ever resulted in skillful, engaging gameplay. As such, I do not find it fun to keep in the tier, and will be voting accordingly.

 

[awaterbucketonlava]

in fact moody is like fear mons will we ban aron to ag? no, so don't ban moody

 

[Siddakid]

in fact moody is like fear mons will we ban aron to ag? no, so don't ban moody

Unlike the fear mons which have distinct ways to be beaten (namely multi-hit moves and Ghost type mons) Moody doesn’t have that kind of answer that Fear has. For the offensively inclined metagame which I believe SV Ubers has tried to implement, you’re essentially forced into running Clodsire, Dondozo, or Skeledirge, all of whom provide negative opportunity cost, unless you’re running an anti-meta teams. The way to beat moody isn’t even game to game like other things but it’s turn to turn and one lucky turn and you’ve already lost. And it is there, in the lottery of Moodys stat boosts, where Moody as a whole becomes uncompetitive. It’s not like other RNG based things like a missed move where it either hits or it doesn’t and the odds reset next turn. In Moody’s case, a stat boost can be forced by spamming protect and substitute until it’s too late.

 

[OreoSpeedruns]

As the suspect comes to a close, I would like to present a short poem I've wrote summarizing why I and many others who've attained reqs will be voting to ban Moody.

*clears throat*

Since the start this ability has been quite the mood,
And I've been engaged against it in a feud.

It takes literally zero skill to use,
And yet, against it, anyone can lose.
There is no way to know who will;
It's just a slot machine without the owed bill.
The reward can be disproportionately great,
And that's why, for this ability, there exists great hate.

Yes, counterplay certainly exists for it,
But not every team will have room for the counterplay to fit.
A new abuser has also been released
And since this one is actually decent, the competitiveness of the tier is automatically decreased.
Mainly for these reasons, Moody is not something for which I shall stand
And thus, I have decided to vote for Moody to be banned.


Thank you for reading.

 

[Stallion]

I didn't bother getting reqs because I assume that most people will do the right thing and vote ban lol. Don't let me down everyone.