Lower Tiers RBY UU Hub

[Sabelette]

Begging people to stop arguing “but it will make tiers below UU worse,” this is completely irrelevant and should not remotely be used as reasoning not to ban things. The point of my argument was that accuracy-lowering moves are only really viable as a cheese strategy when specifically used by Dugtrio and Diglett due to their speed tiers relative to the tier they’re in and the fact that they remove the most effective counterplay, Thunder Wave, due to their typing, allowing them to use Substitute to compensate for their lack of bulk. “It’s nice in PU so don’t ban it in UU” is a nonsense argument nobody should be making. Any tier lower than the one being discussed is irrelevant when considering tiering action.

I believe policy would require banning Smokescreen if we ban Sand Attack. Smokescreen is a direct buff from Sand Attack is it has more PP and is also 100% accurate. We cannot ban a move and not ban a move that is a direct upgrade of it. And at that point we might well just get all of the moves.

Ban accuracy lowering moves>Do nothing>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Ban Dugtrio

Not sure why you believe this is policy (you can just go look at the tiering policy at any time and it’s a short read), there’s no such rule in Smogon’s tiering policy and we don’t have a separate RBY one, I’m just willing to use some common sense. It’s just common sense that if you ban one move you should ban clones of it, due to:

II.) Universal Applicability Across Eligible Users

• The element is not just situationally powerful on one or two Pokemon; it is universally problematic across all or most potential users.
• Example: If a move is only broken due to unique synergy with one or two specific Pokemon, then we default to banning those Pokemon rather than the move itself.

It stands to reason that if accuracy-lowering moves themselves are broken/uncompetitive conceptually, there’s no reason to allow them on anything, so just banning Sand Attack would pretty clearly be a targeted nerf at Dugtrio. Arguing that other accuracy-reducing moves should stay, especially Smokescreen, would just be pedantic and biased.

It’s very clear that the tiering-policy-correct move here is ban Dugtrio or ban nothing, personally I’m on the side of ban nothing.

 

[PKMN Master™]

Keep all accuracy reducing moves.

We shouldn’t touch accuracy reducing moves such as Flash, Smokescreen, etc.
and I 100 percent disagree with this ban.

I agree with Chungler “ Sand attack has a way worse free turn conversion rate than confuse ray so I don’t think a suspect is necessary.”

And DEFINITELY DO NOT BAN DUGTRIO.

We have MANY CHECKS AND COUNTERS to this mon.

 

[ButtGallon]

I agree that as stupid as sand attack/substitute Dugtrio can be, neither it nor accuracy lowering moves should be banned— at least not yet. If the tier converges onto more accuracy-lowerers being prominent, it may be a different story, but for now Dugtrio is pretty inarguably a net good for the tier. Dugtrio is overall healthy for the tier -> because sand attack is only broken on Dugtrio, the mon would be banned before the move -> therefore we will not ban Dugtrio. Seems like a pretty open-and-shut case to me.

Begging people to stop arguing “but it will make tiers below UU worse,” this is completely irrelevant and should not remotely be used as reasoning not to ban things... “It’s nice in PU so don’t ban it in UU” is a nonsense argument nobody should be making. Any tier lower than the one being discussed is irrelevant when considering tiering action.

I do want to push back on the idea that the impact to lower-tiers like NU/PU/ZU is irrelevant in general, though. It may be because I'm inexperienced with standard tiering-policy, or because I'm more involved in PU/ZU than in UU, but downstream impact is not a bad concern on the face of it. For example, if banning sand attack were to make UU slightly better, but NU/PU/ZU a lot worse, it's not stupid for that to sway someone's opinion on ban/DNB— in fact I'd argue it should. Transitivity in RBY is a net good for the gen and I'm glad we have it. But whether tiering policy dictates it should matter or not, if the goal is for all RBY tiers to be the best they can be, a UU ban having transitivity into 3+ lower tiers forces one of two things to be true:

1) UU is inherently more important than all its lower tiers, and if a scenario presents itself where gutting them would make UU slightly better, doing so is worth the downstream cost.

2) The impact of ban decisions in RBY should be evaluated holistically, and if a ban would cause a positive change to UU, but be outweighed by negative changes to RBY as a whole, that should affect the voters' thought process.

On the face of it, #2 seems much more sensible than #1, at least in my eyes. I think the correct outlook is somewhere in the middle, where the primary focus should be on the tier in question, and the large majority of the decision should be made on that merit. But keeping the health of RBY as a whole in mind is not absurd. If any impact on lower tiers is irrelevant when considering tiering action, my question would be: is it irrelevant because that's the policy, or is it irrelevant because it's the correct mindset?

 

[Sabelette]

It’s irrelevant for both reasons. Lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, and they should have to work in that constraint. Using the logic of #2, you could argue a tier should rig its VRs to drop Pokemon into lower tiers to give them more options and flexibility for how the tier should work. Why shouldn’t Exeggutor be allowed in UU? It probably wouldn’t be broken and could be a net positive for the tier.

Tiering should never evaluate downstream effects. It defeats the entire purpose of tiering in the first place and unfortunately I think this is how many people are voting. We are not trying to create a bunch of curated metagames where we balance them against each other, we are working with what we have in more and more limited pools, and the priority is always on the tiers above. This is what you accept when you choose to play lower and lower tiers - they are a product of what is banned and used above them and you have to accept these influences.

 

[Shellnuts]

Banning an entire category of moves because of ONE problematic user is absurd for the reasons Sabelette has already mentioned. Adding this onto transitivity means we are killing a lot of niches in the lower tiers. If we ban sand attack this will be yet another example of "we follow tiering policy unless we dont follow it".

Lower tiers shouldn't at all be considered in justifying keeping it; higher tiers make tiering decisions that affect lower tiers, that's how it works.

Also, there's already is precedent for banning stuff that is only proven to be problematic on a single user. To give one example I can think of off the top of my head; DPP banned Arena Trap without banning Dugtrio first. So I don't see the argument for not banning something because only a single user was proven to be problematic with it since we already have other examples of tiers doing that.

"But it's RNG" so what??? We play RBY, this is a probability management game. We are complaining about one particular move on a mon that already has a 23.44% critical hit rate in a tier where the 2 best mons are clicking 60% and 55% accurate sleep moves. Why is Sand Attack exclusively being looked at as problematic here

I agree that Dugtrio's crit rate and the 2 best mons flipping coins to get off sleep are both stupid, however resolving those issues through tiering would have far more wide reaching effects; which significantly complicates trying to ban them, while removing nonsense like Sand Attack or Flash have very little collateral and just removes another form of uncompetitive cheese.

Keep all accuracy reducing moves.

We shouldn’t touch accuracy reducing moves such as Flash, Smokescreen, etc.
and I 100 percent disagree with this ban.

I agree with Chungler “ Sand attack has a way worse free turn conversion rate than confuse ray so I don’t think a suspect is necessary.”

And DEFINITELY DO NOT BAN DUGTRIO.

We have MANY CHECKS AND COUNTERS to this mon.

So what if Sand Attack is worse than Confusion at giving free turns? It still generates an excessive number of them and gives excessive odds to fish for RNG against your opponent with very little benefit outside of a handful of situations where you can deny setup sweepers, which isn't enough to justify it.

Also, your Dugtrio checks only work if they can actually hit it, which Sand Attack severely puts into question. Nearly all of those checks are only 1 or 2 misses or crits from losing to something they are supposed to beat. If we can't rely on Dragonite or Gyarados to consistently check Dugtrio because of Sand Attack bullshit, then that argument goes out the window.

For the record I'm in favour of banning Accuracy Lowering moves (and prefer that significantly over the two other options); they add very little to the tier while adding a ton of variance in a tier that really needs less and the tier would be significantly better without them.

 

[ButtGallon]

It’s irrelevant for both reasons. Lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, and they should have to work in that constraint. Using the logic of #2, you could argue a tier should rig its VRs to drop Pokemon into lower tiers to give them more options and flexibility for how the tier should work. Why shouldn’t Exeggutor be allowed in UU? It probably wouldn’t be broken and could be a net positive for the tier.

Tiering should never evaluate downstream effects. It defeats the entire purpose of tiering in the first place and unfortunately I think this is how many people are voting. We are not trying to create a bunch of curated metagames where we balance them against each other, we are working with what we have in more and more limited pools, and the priority is always on the tiers above. This is what you accept when you choose to play lower and lower tiers - they are a product of what is banned and used above them and you have to accept these influences.

The Exeggutor bit is a good analogy, and it does make sense, but I don't think it holds true for downstream effects as a whole. You say the conceit of tiers in the first place is is that the lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, but that conceit is only for Pokemon themselves. Notably, moves are not tiered in the same way, and have a much higher burden to clear to take action against them. If something like the UU sleep ban vote happened with transitivity in place, people would probably go "it's debatable whether sleep is uncompetitive in UU, but banning it instead of hypno would completely destroy a bunch of healthy tiers, this obviously isn't worth it" and they'd be right to approach it from that mindset. On principle, tiering decisions should happen in a vacuum, but in practice I don't think it's always the right frame of reference for things that aren't Pokemon themselves.

 

[Sabelette]

Lower tiers shouldn't at all be considered in justifying keeping it; higher tiers make tiering decisions that affect lower tiers, that's how it works.

Also, there's already is precedent for banning stuff that is only proven to be problematic on a single user; DPP banned Arena Trap without banning Dugtrio first, so I don't see the argument for not banning something because only a single user was proven to be problematic with it since we already have other examples of tiers doing that.


I agree that Dugtrio's crit rate and the 2 best mons flipping coins to get off sleep are both stupid, however resolving those issues through tiering would have far more wide reaching effects; which significantly complicates trying to ban them, while removing nonsense like Sand Attack or Flash have very little collateral and just removes another form of uncompetitive cheese.


So what if Sand Attack is worse than Confusion at giving free turns? It still generates an excessive number of them and gives excessive odds to fish for RNG against your opponent with very little benefit outside of a handful of situations where you can deny setup sweepers, which isn't enough to justify it.

Also, your Dugtrio checks only work if they can actually hit it, which Sand Attack severely puts into question. Nearly all of those checks are only 1 or 2 misses or crits from losing to something they are supposed to beat. If we can't rely on Dragonite or Gyarados to consistently check Dugtrio because of Sand Attack bullshit, then that argument goes out the window.

For the record I'm in favour of banning Accuracy Lowering moves (and prefer that significantly over the two other options); they add very little to the tier while adding a ton of variance in a tier that really needs less and the tier would be significantly better without them.

If you read the tiering policy, which I’m increasingly convinced very few people actually have:

While Pokemon bans are the default, there may be rare instances where a non-Pokemon element is deemed so inherently broken that banning specific Pokemon cannot solve the core problem. These are Exceptional Elements, and they must meet all the criteria below to warrant a ban at the element level.

I.) Inherently Broken Nature

• The element is so powerful or disruptive that it creates a significant imbalance in the metagame, regardless of which Pokemon employs it.
• There is no reasonable context or distribution that would render the element balanced by ordinary means.

II.) Universal Applicability Across Eligible Users

• The element is not just situationally powerful on one or two Pokemon; it is universally problematic across all or most potential users.
• Example: If a move is only broken due to unique synergy with one or two specific Pokemon, then we default to banning those Pokemon rather than the move itself.

III.) No Plausible Scenario for Balance

• There is no current situation in which the element would be balanced on Pokemon that currently have it.
• If giving the element to weaker or niche Pokemon that are still recognisably viable within the tier could be balanced, then the element is not considered universally broken.

Arena Trap fits these guidelines and Shadow Tag is even used as an example in the tiering policy framework at large. This is not comparable to Sand Attack in any way nor is it just “one broken user,” it’s an element that would be broken if given to any viable Pokemon.

 

[Shellnuts]

If you read the tiering policy, which I’m increasingly convinced very few people actually have:


Arena Trap fits these guidelines and Shadow Tag is even used as an example in the tiering policy framework at large. This is not comparable to Sand Attack in any way nor is it just “one broken user,” it’s an element that would be broken if given to any viable Pokemon.

The reasoning as per the thread on suspecting Arena Trap states (source):

Also, just to clarify again, this vote will be on Arena Trap rather than just Dugtrio. With only Dugtrio gone, people would almost certainly use Diglett and maybe even Trapinch to exploit Arena Trap. While these Pokemon are terrible, they can still find ways to cheese the opponent (Diglett can still consistently trap Heatran and there is potential for gimmicky Trapinch setups via Trick Room and paraspreading). We do not want to make the same mistake that was made in BW, where Arena Trap had to be banned after only Dugtrio was banned.

I have read the tiering policy guidelines, and I am making the point that we already have precedent for suspecting elements only proven to be problematic on a single user, which were was approved under the same tiering framework you are using in your argument, from which I can only conclude that you can suspect elements only proven to be problematic on a single user in some cases (if the argument is that it was proven stupid in BW which justifies banning it in DPP then that opens up a giant can of worms about justifying bans in one tier because something happens in another tier, which isn't good policy).

 

[Sabelette]

The reasoning as per the thread on suspecting Arena Trap states (source):


I have read the tiering policy guidelines, and I am making the point that we already have precedent for suspecting elements only proven to be problematic on a single user, which were was approved under the same tiering framework you are using in your argument,

There has been a tiering policy framework update since then if you missed it, last edited 2025 in fact

from which I can only conclude that you can suspect elements only proven to be problematic on a single user in some cases (if the argument is that it was proven stupid in BW which justifies banning it in DPP then that opens up a giant can of worms about justifying bans in one tier because something happens in another tier, which isn't good policy).

And yet you keep arguing “well another gen did this about Baton Pass/Arena Trap” which take away fundamental options from the game and force you to change your entire builder for a chance at stopping them. These things are far outside the norm and fundamentally shape the entire game, Sand Attack does not

 

[Wanted in 49 States]

I am rather undecided on Dugtrio and Sand Attack as a whole but I've noticed a large amount of players below UU, notably PU players, chiming in to give their thoughts. Banning Sand Attack would change the ruleset of their tiers, and is rather important to their tier's balance, yet they have no say over it.

UU should not be the sole decider on mechanic bans. People voting on whether an entire mechanic should be banned do not have to account for the ripple effects or greater consequences that such an action will have, and that is a flaw of the system that should be changed. I do not have a concrete solution or suggestion, but allowing people of other tiers to have some influence on whether or not a mechanic will be banned seems to be reasonable, or at least it seems reasonable to the NU/PU/ZU people who will be affected but have no say in the matter.

Lower tiers shouldn't at all be considered in justifying keeping it; higher tiers make tiering decisions that affect lower tiers, that's how it works.

People are complaining about the system itself. You can't justify the system's existence by using its own rules-- people want the system, and its current rules, to change. "It's just how the system works" doesn't mean anything.

It’s irrelevant for both reasons. Lower tiers are formed from whatever is not deemed good enough in tiers above, and they should have to work in that constraint. Using the logic of #2, you could argue a tier should rig its VRs to drop Pokemon into lower tiers to give them more options and flexibility for how the tier should work. Why shouldn’t Exeggutor be allowed in UU? It probably wouldn’t be broken and could be a net positive for the tier.

I think it's important to note that entire mechanic bans are different than individual pokemon, and if they aren't different right now, they should be considered as different. Banning a mechanic changes the entire playing field, and people should have a say in whether or not the rules of the game they play change. Deleting a mon from a tier's ecosystem or dumping new mons to a tier are different, Pokemon bouncing between tiers and finding a home somewhere is necesary to what the current system's goal is.

Tiering should never evaluate downstream effects... This is what you accept when you choose to play lower and lower tiers - they are a product of what is banned and used above them and you have to accept these influences.

I disagree. It doesn't have to be this way. With tiering individual Pokemon, sure, the system is arranged to facilitate that and it's good at doing that. And sure, having a mechanic be banned should probably be applied downwards to prevent stuff like Wrap Tentacruel in NU and the like. But that doesn't mean the system can't be ammended to allow people who will be directed affected have at least some say in what goes on in the rulesets of their tier.

"But what about tiering policy or precedant set by other generations"
It doesn't matter. RBY lower tiers will never, ever be official tiers that are forced to follow tiering policy, and probably doesn't even want to because being an official tier introduces a ton of red tape. We can do something else. RBY lower tiers have only adapted the current tiering framework because parts of it are effective in creating playable metagames with a large suite of viable mons across the tiers, but we have the power to ammend the framework to better suit our needs.

"Wouldn't XYZ happen if we change the system"
You may be right. We can work on a solution to that, but the current system of a disinterested voting group affecting the ruleset without representation from the affected peoples below is not a good system. People who play the the tier below get screwed, and their concerns should be worth something.

Also I'm seeing a lot of pro-Sand Attack people posting and reacting but not filling out the survey. Please fill it out.

 

[Sabelette]

Banning Sand Attack would change the ruleset of their tiers, and is rather important to their tier's balance, yet they have no say over it.

UU should not be the sole decider on mechanic bans. People voting on whether an entire mechanic should be banned do not have to account for the ripple effects or greater consequences that such an action will have, and that is a flaw of the system that should be changed. I do not have a concrete solution or suggestion, but allowing people of other tiers to have some influence on whether or not a mechanic will be banned seems to be reasonable, or at least it seems reasonable to the NU/PU/ZU people who will be affected but have no say in the matter.

There is no reason someone playing NU/PU/ZU should be allowed to prevent UU from making a beneficial change because they don’t like it in their own tier.

People are complaining about the system itself. You can't justify the system's existence by using its own rules-- people want the system, and its current rules, to change. "It's just how the system works" doesn't mean anything.

I’m not justifying it with the system itself. We already had this discussion in the transitivity thread and people overwhelmingly supported transitivity because it is necessary for tiering to even be functional.

I think it's important to note that entire mechanic bans are different than individual pokemon, and if they aren't different right now, they should be considered as different.

Agree, there is a reason the default is banning mons and not mechanics except when egregious (such as Wrap)

Banning a mechanic changes the entire playing field, and people should have a say in whether or not the rules of the game they play change. Deleting a mon from a tier's ecosystem or dumping new mons to a tier are different, Pokemon bouncing between tiers and finding a home somewhere is necesary to what the current system's goal is.

Banning Wrap changes the entire playing field, sure. Much less convinced this is true of Sand Attack or Confuse Ray, to be honest. I still don't think lower tiers should have any say and I think it creates a perverse incentive.

I disagree. It doesn't have to be this way. With tiering individual Pokemon, sure, the system is arranged to facilitate that and it's good at doing that. And sure, having a mechanic be banned should probably be applied downwards to prevent stuff like Wrap Tentacruel in NU and the like. But that doesn't mean the system can't be ammended to allow people who will be directed affected have at least some say in what goes on in the rulesets of their tier.

They can play the tier in question then. If OU voted tomorrow to ban Body Slam, lower tiers have to cope, but thankfully people don’t usually ban moves or mechanics lightly. Banning Sand Attack would be way too liberal with ban criteria.

"But what about tiering policy or precedant set by other generations"
It doesn't matter. RBY lower tiers will never, ever be official tiers that are forced to follow tiering policy, and probably doesn't even want to because being an official tier introduces a ton of red tape. We can do something else. RBY lower tiers have only adapted the current tiering framework because parts of it are effective in creating playable metagames with a large suite of viable mons across the tiers, but we have the power to ammend the framework to better suit our needs.

Correct, sure, but we are already following all the useful parts of the framework. “Let’s make an arbitrary system where people who play lower tiers get an arbitrary degree of representation in another tier’s votes” is complete nonsense. What portion of the vote should lower tiers get? Does NU get more say than ZU? What proportion does ZU get in a PU vote? Do we give tiers less representation right after they have shifts? Do we have to up the representation if a tier is more established? Do UU players’ votes even matter if three entire other tiers’ playerbases also get a say in UU tiering? Is it fair if UU players vote 90% to ban something but 100% of NU and below players vote against it, and the UU players get vetoed by people not even playing the tier?

If you want something different, you want something fundamentally incompatible with the idea of tiering. That’s fine, but go make that thing instead of trying to bend this tier system into it, because it *cannot be that*. It is fundamentally incompatible with what arguments like this are asking for, which is essentially a series of curated metagames at different power levels that somewhat resemble tiers but make decisions in completely different ways that may as well not be linked - you may as well just pick a core set of pokemon to balance around and then select whatever moves and pokemon you want to legalize within it. If that’s what you want, fine, but it simply cannot coexist with tiering as a system. You’d have better luck making something like 35 Pokes but you choose the Pokemon in question.

 

[virae]

I fundamentally disagree with transitivity of move bans, but since we're there I hope we're careful with move bans. To prevent damaging other tiers, moves only should be banned, if they really have close to no competitive value, or are really problematic and there's no other way. Move bans to maybe marginally improve a metagame are bad in this system.

This also seems to line up with the tiering policy bit sabelette has cited and within this framework I truly see no justification to ban sand attack. I'm not that involved with UU, so I have less of a strong opinion about dugtrio, but in my experience it improves the tier and is neither oppressive nor overly uncompetitive. There's also a lot of value in letting a tier breathe and develop. Especially in UU which had so many drastic changes recently idt we are even on a level of play and tier development to assess dugs metagame impact on a level warranting a ban.

 

[hammer798]

Outside of any concerns about tiering policy or even the banworthiness of Sand Attack and/or Dugtrio, I agree with virae on his last point - give the tier some time to breathe. We have already had three significant tiering changes this year, and have barely given the tier any time to develop and change between them. April 1st - UUBLs freed. This meta saw a single serious tour (UU Open), and then went away forever when we banned Wrap on July 14. That meta saw only two tours, UU Cup and UUCL. On September 23rd, Confuse Ray got banned, and we have seen a grand total of 5 serious tournament sets since, and people are already seriously discussing more bans. If Dugtrio, or Sand Attack, is broken, we'll see it as we get more data, but right now, it feels like people are overreacting to a few silly games.

 

[WildCard782]

I'd argue keep it, all of it, for similar reasons to the ones mentioned above. We're just jumping the gun atp.