The survey results are in! As always, thank you to everyone that took time to fill our survey out.
This time, we got 80 responses, which is slightly more than we got last time. That's probably due to Google Forms being more accessible than Smogon surveys, so maybe we'll stick with Google Forms going forward? We'll see.
In another noticeable dip from before, perceived competitiveness ranks at 6.5 on average. This does make sense; people have pointed out how difficult building a consistent team can be with how many versatile offensive threats are running around. It's not exactly an unpopular opinion that matchup is a massive factor in plenty of games right now (more so than in previous iterations of the tier), at varying levels of play too.
In the "other concerns" section, Arcanine and Florges were brought up the most. These two Pokemon have been consistently excellent in the new meta, so it makes sense that people are worried they might be too good. Past that, Tornadus and Decidueye were mentioned some. We've seen Tornadus reach some really high highs with its monstrous Choice Specs set, while Decidueye's been quieter after it stopped dominating the tier but remains deadly. While none of these four Pokemon were on the council's radar for action, we'll be sure to keep an eye on them (and the other four Pokemon that got their own questions) and see how they develop in the near future.
With a lack of clear support to act on the big threats, we'd really like for people to share their thoughts on things. The council is not necessarily against suspect testing anything in the near future, but right now it's difficult to pick out just one element to look at. Even in the case of Pokemon like Zoroark and Scyther, we've only really started seeing them shine again recently. Who's to say that the tier won't adapt to them, especially with multiple ongoing tournaments that will almost certain encourage metagame development? We'll have to see going forward, but the plan for now is to let things sit.
Everyone's feedback is appreciated, have a great rest of your day
This time, we got 80 responses, which is slightly more than we got last time. That's probably due to Google Forms being more accessible than Smogon surveys, so maybe we'll stick with Google Forms going forward? We'll see.
Enjoyment and competitiveness
The average enjoyment score is 6.98, down from last time. Tier enjoyment could certainly be a lot lower with how radically things have changed, but it's clear that action could certainly be taken to get that score up. More on that later.
Pokemon and tier elements
As for the Pokemon that received substantial support for action... none of them did, really. Zoroark and Toxtricity got the most votes for action, but only 35% and 33.8% of respondents deem them an issue, respectively. Meloetta receiving the least backlash here makes sense, but Scyther ranks as the most broken Pokemon in the tier for multiple players and builders, so seeing it only hit 32.5% support is odd. In any case, there's no clear culprit we can identify this time, which makes it tricky to decide what to do going forward. Jumping straight into another suspect test doesn't seem too popular, so maybe it's time to let the tier breathe as SCL wraps up and PUWC continues?
In the "other concerns" section, Arcanine and Florges were brought up the most. These two Pokemon have been consistently excellent in the new meta, so it makes sense that people are worried they might be too good. Past that, Tornadus and Decidueye were mentioned some. We've seen Tornadus reach some really high highs with its monstrous Choice Specs set, while Decidueye's been quieter after it stopped dominating the tier but remains deadly. While none of these four Pokemon were on the council's radar for action, we'll be sure to keep an eye on them (and the other four Pokemon that got their own questions) and see how they develop in the near future.
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With a lack of clear support to act on the big threats, we'd really like for people to share their thoughts on things. The council is not necessarily against suspect testing anything in the near future, but right now it's difficult to pick out just one element to look at. Even in the case of Pokemon like Zoroark and Scyther, we've only really started seeing them shine again recently. Who's to say that the tier won't adapt to them, especially with multiple ongoing tournaments that will almost certain encourage metagame development? We'll have to see going forward, but the plan for now is to let things sit.
Everyone's feedback is appreciated, have a great rest of your day
