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With the support around a Glalieless tour being discussed in this thread, I would like to announce that it is now being held in the NU forum right here!! This will help us with viewing the tier without Glalie and for people to gather more thoughts! Thank you to everyone who helped contribute to the thread so far again, if you feel inclined to join I would recommend doing so! Hopefully after the tour we can recoup and give our thoughts on the Glalieless meta.
Opening up discussion again in this thread to talk about any views on Glalieless ADV NU for the people who played in the tour. BughouseHeysupplznostepColteorTHE_CHUNGLERBP @ anyone else that played
For personal thoughts building/playing, I felt like this version of ADV NU was more stable. Spikes aren't as automatic and at the forefront of every single game as some structures can just be spikes offense, spikes balance, or even spikeless offense where the main sources of offense come from setup sweepers and subpass, as opposed to just spikes offense every game. Some games I watched had grass spikers on both sides but both werent able to obtain them. This isn't a statement on games being hard to progress, but offense tends to progress in a different way without the inherent Spikes need, which makes me certain that Glalie's removal won't break the meta. To address the concerns about Glalie being a Water, Plusle, and Haunter soft check, I would argue that without Glalie you can still parse out your slots to adequately handle them without worrying about opposing Glalie ruining your defensive pivot on its entry. I also feel like the negative thoughts regarding boom spam seem to dissipate within this environment. While big whale is still big whale, I feel like Dewgong is better than it in this meta due to grasses being more in vogue and Encore being a powerful stopgap to cm chime and subpass etc without nuking your water slot. I felt this was a common theme in the games I've watched, preserving your slots has more value than clicking boom thrice in a row, which makes me think Glalie is the root cause of why boomspam is so powerful in current NU. This meta seems more balanced and less autopilot than the current iteration of NU, I would be happy to continue playing this meta and not the Glalie-fest we find ourselves playing in team tours. I would support action being taken against it, we can probably hold a vote with enough voices against it (if not already).
Hi I won the glalie-less tour, so that means my opinion matters the most or something. Anyway don't ban Glalie even though it seems you all will. This meta is worse. Glalie may be centralizing but it also means you shouldn't be losing to matchup. It's very hard to cover the meta without Glalie being a bot. You should pretty much always bring Glalie unless you've got a good read on your opponent, since any other team is going to be in general inferior and more likely to get a bad matchup. Well, as expected way more games I had in this tour felt decided by matchup.
I think that if we ban Glalie we're inevitably gonna be coming back here eventually to talk about Chimecho or something. This meta is not stable.
From playing the tour, I would say I like this meta better. In the previous meta, Glalie is practically mandatory, if not heavily recommended, which isn't bad, but I feel like from playing this metagame, it has an unhealthy effect on the metagame since Glalie is too good at what it does.
Glalie is superb at getting Spikes on the field, boasting amazing bulk alongside great speed allowing entry on most Pokemon in tier while easily gaining multiple layers that are difficult to clear as removal is almost strictly Hitmonchan, who doesn't always run the move and can be stopped by Haunter. Explosion also definitely makes Glalie a bigger threat as all Pokemon besides Ghost-types must be careful of it at all times and Glalie's great speed means once again it will usually be able to get a boom off.
While these traits don't make Glalie broken per say, I feel as if this negatively impacted the metagame making diversity stagnant, as Spikes Offense is clearly above every other archetype like Bulky Offense/Balance builds that rely on Sableye and Stall, so much so that its almost pointless to run anything else. Games feel swingy sometimes as well since if Glalie gets a few good turns, it is so hard to get back your momentum as not only have you lost a very brutal trade for a 1v1 + Spikes, they now also get a free switch. This results in the metagame today, where I feel like Glalie's influence has made the tier one dimensional with Spikes spam around every corner, and most games playing out the same due to how easy it is for Glalie to set up Spikes to support cleaners such as Pupitar, Bellossom, and Huntail.
Without Glalie, I feel like this has changed. The tier is still offensive in nature, but I feel like there is more diversity in what people can run. Teambuilding feels more fresh as we've seen more bulky offense/balance builds that feature Pokemon such as Kecleon and Sableye in the tour. These Pokemon can finally breathe a bit more with Spikes not being so easy to get, as while the tiers current Spikers are decent, they have pretty significant flaws like underwhelming stats, particularly in Speed. Spikes are still good, but they don't influence games as heavily anymore.
I support a Glalie ban after playing in the Glalieless tour myself.
Building for this tour was a far more pleasant experience than building with Glalie and the games are way less randomly decided by Glalie turns and way less centralized around Glalie and dealing with glalie. Frankly, NU with Glalie has become almost unplayable for me especially after playing this meta.
This tour has made me even more convinced Glalie has to go tbh. I don't think Glalie is banworthy because it's a near auto include, it's just insanely hard to handle and serves to make boom offense an absolutely suffocating style.
Hi I won the glalie-less tour, so that means my opinion matters the most or something. Anyway don't ban Glalie even though it seems you all will. This meta is worse. Glalie may be centralizing but it also means you shouldn't be losing to matchup. It's very hard to cover the meta without Glalie being a bot. You should pretty much always bring Glalie unless you've got a good read on your opponent, since any other team is going to be in general inferior and more likely to get a bad matchup. Well, as expected way more games I had in this tour felt decided by matchup.
I think that if we ban Glalie we're inevitably gonna be coming back here eventually to talk about Chimecho or something. This meta is not stable.
I have the opposite conclusion reviewing (mostly my own) games from the tour. I think matchup plays less of a factor and building is easier with more tools that don't have to worry about Glalie spiking up and booming with ease. Obviously building being easier is partly due to NU without Glalie being a much less optimized tier than Glalie NU, but I think the point still stands. It definitely felt like most of my games were won or lost by my own decisions in game more so than just matchup or rng, which are the two biggest things I usually felt like decided games with Glalie.
Also even if we have to ban Chime or Haunter or whatever in a year, that's fine? I would rather ban two or three mons to have a better tier than be stuck with a worse one, even in an old gen lower tier.
I haven't posted here yet because I haven't been able to figure out what to say. I have no opinion on the meta with Glalie in it since I never played it. What I can say after watching replays and playing in the tour is that the metagame feels diverse and dynamic.
I think Colt sums up the diverse and dynamic feeling pretty easily with this:
Obviously building being easier is partly due to NU without Glalie being a much less optimized tier than Glalie NU, but I think the point still stands. It definitely felt like most of my games were won or lost by my own decisions in game more so than just matchup or rng, which are the two biggest things I usually felt like decided games with Glalie.
The metagame is "new" so therefore it's going to feel diverse and dynamic. However, the fact Glalie is required on every team is frankly ridiculous. Forgive me if my philosophy on tiering is wrong but if you're at a genuine disadvantage for not running a specific utility Pokemon then the utility it provides is most likely unhealthy and detrimental to the longevity of the metagame. Because of this reasoning, I feel that Glalie should go to UU.
I find it strange to retrospectively attempt to tier ADV NU, without looking at ADV lower tiers in general. I agree Glalie is probably centralising and potentially problematic, but I struggle to agree that it reaches a bar high enough to justify retrospective tiering action on a tier that has been the same for years, especially when the opinions on said action are not unanimous.
If the goal here is to properly address ADV lower tiers then doing that and starting with UUBL, trickling the changes all the way down to PU, then would make sense to me. But specifically trying to target ADV NU with modern tiering standards strikes me as odd at best. Talk of a vote also feel premature given there has been a grand total of one subforum tour played in the non Glalie format. Of course it's going to feel easier to build and fresh to play, that doesn't mean there's enough evidence to say it's a good decision.
I find it strange to retrospectively attempt to tier ADV NU, without looking at ADV lower tiers in general. I agree Glalie is probably centralising and potentially problematic, but I struggle to agree that it reaches a bar high enough to justify retrospective tiering action on a tier that has been the same for years, especially when the opinions on said action are not unanimous.
If the goal here is to properly address ADV lower tiers then doing that and starting with UUBL, trickling the changes all the way down to PU, then would make sense to me. But specifically trying to target ADV NU with modern tiering standards strikes me as odd at best. Talk of a vote also feel premature given there has been a grand total of one subforum tour played in the non Glalie format. Of course it's going to feel easier to build and fresh to play, that doesn't mean there's enough evidence to say it's a good decision.
FWIW ADV Tiers are being looked at as UU has banned and unbanned like 4 mons to/from BL in the past couple years. It's a slow process though and I really don't think we need to wait for UU to test every BL so we can ban a mon from NU (for all I know UU might have tested everything they want by now anyway, I'm not really invested in the topic). Modern tiers like RU PU and ZU are obviously going to use modern standards so I don't think they're relevant at all here.
As for a vote being premature, it'd be a 60% vote to ban iirc so it's not like change would happen without a sizable majority being in favor anyway. The way I see it NU with Glalie has been played for long enough people we don't need 5 suspect tours to see if something is banworthy. That said I also see literally no harm in waiting when the next team tour with NU seems to be a few months off. I think the only upcoming NU tour is ADV Grand Slam, and either testing no Glalie in that or running another no Glalie tour alongside it seems fine to me. I do think a vote 100% should be held before the next team tour, and my personal vote is it may as well be now, but I understand if people want to test the format more.
FWIW ADV Tiers are being looked at as UU has banned and unbanned like 4 mons to/from BL in the past couple years. It's a slow process though and I really don't think we need to wait for UU to test every BL so we can ban a mon from NU (for all I know UU might have tested everything they want by now anyway, I'm not really invested in the topic). Modern tiers like RU PU and ZU are obviously going to use modern standards so I don't think they're relevant at all here.
As for a vote being premature, it'd be a 60% vote to ban iirc so it's not like change would happen without a sizable majority being in favor anyway. The way I see it NU with Glalie has been played for long enough people we don't need 5 suspect tours to see if something is banworthy. That said I also see literally no harm in waiting when the next team tour with NU seems to be a few months off. I think the only upcoming NU tour is ADV Grand Slam, and either testing no Glalie in that or running another no Glalie tour alongside it seems fine to me. I do think a vote 100% should be held before the next team tour, and my personal vote is it may as well be now, but I understand if people want to test the format more.
I don’t really play much ADV NU. I am, however, hosting ADV Grand Slam, and will probably be hosting ALT PL, both of which will have ADV NU. Doing a sort of suspect (I.e. no Glalie) in Slam isn’t really an option, as Slam will just be what the current meta is. If there’s enough support though, we are open to having No Glalie ADV NU for ALT PL.
Glalie might as well be required, you’re either running stall (bad and can/should fit Glalie anyway) or you’re dropping Glalie because you’re genuinely just bored of using it.
Having built a few teams for people involved in the tour, removing the massive constraint Glalie places on the first like 15 turns of every single game is absolutely liberating. It is just way too good. If needed, making additional changes to the tier is absolutely not a problem either. Having a full season of no Glalie in ALTPL sounds like a really good idea IF we want to delay the vote, but I also don’t know why we would.
Glalie might as well be required, you’re either running stall (bad and can/should fit Glalie anyway) or you’re dropping Glalie because you’re genuinely just bored of using it.
Having built a few teams for people involved in the tour, removing the massive constraint Glalie places on the first like 15 turns of every single game is absolutely liberating. It is just way too good. If needed, making additional changes to the tier is absolutely not a problem either. Having a full season of no Glalie in ALTPL sounds like a really good idea IF we want to delay the vote, but I also don’t know why we would.
sorry i just don’t see the restraint this pokemon puts on the tier. You guys are acting like 3 layers go up as soon as Glalie comes out of its Pokeball and it 1v1’s literally everything in the tier when that’s just not true. Glalie to me is a malleable check to annoying pokemon in the tier like wail, chime, and haunter that isn’t just a Twaving do-nothing burger like Kecleon or whatever other shitmons were mentioned in the thread.
edit: i think everyone has the same idea of what glalie does but i think the things it does are good for the tier while others think differently. I just don't see an issue with a centralized well-rounded pokemon that enables progress and checks contentious threats
Addressing some things in here bc I feel like initiative pushes things.
Re: Moving forward with vote
We are at a point where the only ADV NU tour I can think of is ADV Slam, which is very far away (ADV NU Slam will start in November) and honestly might end whenever ALTPL goes up. I see two paths to go down, get reqs now for voting and put up a blind voting slate within the next couple weeks, or wait until both tours are over before that happens. My issue with the latter option is that I don't want to start a cycle of saying "well we're going to wait until this tour's over" when we have ample time now to just throw up a vote, we would just be complacent with having Glalie "looked at" while no action is taken. I don't want the filibuster to happen which is why I vouch for a vote asap. Tagging etern and Rabia for visibility on this topic
Re: ADV TIering on the whole
To make myself transparent I would like for ADV lower tiers to be completely nuked and we restart from scratch with RU being a more official tier. HOWEVER I believe the scope of this thread is to look at change of the current iteration of ADV NU, even though this tier is inherently another flawed product of old ADV tiering. Changing what we can for the better is valuable. I wouldn't be making this thread if the active players of this tier with great records think that the tier in its current state is fine, ideally we do something about that negative aura and make action, even if it goes nowhere its still action.
Re: Glalie centralization
I agree with SEAs sentiments on Glalie and how a meta without it would make the meta more diverse and competitive. I would argue that the contentious threats Glalie is meant to "keep in check" are contentious because of Glalie. If we need further action on the tier, I still think thats fine as long as the general sentiment of the tier is more positive, which right now with Glalie.... its not.
Yes Spikes makes Chimecho and Haunter and flyers really good because they don't take damage and their checks typically do. Sure. And yes Glalie is the best spiker. That's a very 101 analysis.
But mons like Chimecho and Haunter and Wailord and heck Flareon are better in a meta where one of their best checks doesn't exist, regardless of the impact removing that Pokemon would have on spikes. Glalie can do so much in one slot due to its speed tier and easily customizable bulk/coverage and of course Boom. IMO this helps make the tier more diverse in some ways. I understand if you only ever think of Glalie as a bot lead who sets spikes and booms then you wouldn't really think about its midgame utility holding teams together, but that's just very shortsighted imo.
Roselia and Cacturne both have pretty notable weaknesses (Flareon -and a bit less so Torkoal-, Dewgong, Flyers for both, Haunter/Chimecho for Rose, Hitmonchan for Cacturne). This makes it really hard to build with certain mons. For the most extreme example, I'm almost never going to have Bellossom on a team with Rose or Cac because stacking the Fire/Ice/Flying weak is really dangerous. And this isn't even a problem for offense only, since defensive Bellossom is a much better grass mon for a bulky team than Rose or Cac, if you don't need the slot for spikes. Bellossom is 75/85/100, much better than Rose's 50/45/80. It also comes without an undesirable secondary weaknesses to Psychic and an actual Ground resistance. This is now a really hard mon to fit on a bulky team, which means that offensive waters and electrics and Haunter get better vs fat by a lot. But it's not even just the most obvious example of Bell. Roselia is the bigger offender for this than Cacturne, but for example the vast majority of my Roselia teams end up being filled out with 5 out of ~9 pokemon. Rose+ (Hitmonchan, Sableye, Chimecho, one of Metang/Mawile, one of Wailord/Dewgong, one of Torkoal/Flareon. Leave one of these 6 categories at home.) When they deviate from this pattern, it's generally to go even more degenerately in the stall direction with wish, etc. I don't for example currently have a single team with Roselia+Pikachu or Raticate or Pupitar, etc. nor do I think I'd likely build one. Rose just doesn't typically work on a team that is "offensive".
By contrast Glalie is somewhat immune to these concerns about stacking weaknesses due to its high utility and customizability, meaning mons that type stack weaknesses can still be used amply well with Glalie i.e. Glalie+Dewgong or Glalie+Raticate teams are plenty good, despite problems with Hitmonchan or Rocks. There really isn't a mon that you "can't" use because of Glalie's presence in the meta or because it pairs poorly with Glalie.
I don’t understand why we have to view ADV NU through the lens of modern generations. We're talking about ADV, a generation where the only reason not to use Latias in Ubers, Tyranitar in OU, or Kangaskhan in UU is purely due to boredom—nothing more. So why is Glalie suddenly a problem for the same reason?
If what Glalie brings to the tier is keeping special attackers in check and making no-win-condition stall teams and shitmons Twave bots like Kecleon worse, then it’s more than welcome to stay and shouldn’t be removed.
I don’t understand why we have to view ADV NU through the lens of modern generations. We're talking about ADV, a generation where the only reason not to use Latias in Ubers, Tyranitar in OU, or Kangaskhan in UU is purely due to boredom—nothing more. So why is Glalie suddenly a problem for the same reason?
If what Glalie brings to the tier is keeping special attackers in check and making no-win-condition stall teams and shitmons Twave bots like Kecleon worse, then it’s more than welcome to stay and shouldn’t be removed.
You fail to understand the point, people arent just arguing that Glalie is bad for the tier bc its a mandatory teamslot bc believe me I know what it's like to play ADV metas where you only have 5 or 4 flexible slots, people are arguing for Glalie's ban because its broken.
You fail to understand the point, people arent just arguing that Glalie is a mandatory stay bc believe me I know what it's like to play ADV metas where you only have 5 or 4 flexible slots, people are arguing for Glalie's ban because its broken.
more than half of the post are about that they have to auto-include glalie in the team and have to take enemy spikes into consideration and they dont want , not if it is broken or not (which it isnt true, while is splashable and the best option in most of the teams, is not a 100% inclusion)
Again I haven't seen any reasoning for how this Pokemon is broken. It fails to 2HKO many metagame staples even if it makes hard reads for switchins, it has a shit typing, and genuinely the most dangerous thing it can do is literally kys (explosion). Glalie is an important and beneficial part of the metagame
Glalie is not broken in any sort of wincon or sweeper way like a GSC OU Lax or something. Even assuming Glalie is "broken" it would be broken under a support condition for how easily it sets spikes and how easily it can check numerous mons of all types with good enough bulk to switch in and a faster-than-most-of-the-meta boom.
I don't mean to say that Pokemon can't be questioned under the support condition - It's rarer, but they certainly can. Like at the start of BW OU Deoxys was legal and eventually all forms got banned, Defense and Speed under a support condition for being effortless hazard bots. Defense and Speed were then tried again in XY OU and again eventually banned.
But even if the support condition is a thing, typically you would need a bit more than that to ban a Pokemon who has been legal in a metagame for over a decade. Modern ADV NU was launched in 2014(?). pre-2014 is a long, long time ago and I didn't really play that meta, but I believe Glalie was always NU pre-2014 too and the changes in 2014 only included other drops most notably Sableye and Huntail. There's a reason I can't really think of other examples of a mon getting banned from an old gen ou or lower tier over a support condition besides the absolutely most blatant ones (i.e. arena trap/shadow tag, which aside from being much more clearly "broken" removing those elements also aligned those tiers to modern sensibilities.) You should need really strong arguments to overcome this sort of inertia for an old gen. I have not seen those in this thread.
Hi, as someone thats played this tier on and off since ~2016 figure I'd chime in before a decision is made because my personal viewpoint is that it should be staying.
With a tier as old as ADV that hasn't seen any changes since I started playing it back in 2016, this Glalie wave has been a much more recent trend. With older generations in particular, we should be wary when acting based on these recent trends, as tiers like this generally do take longer to adapt to metagame changes.
If we take a look at usage stats (using only NUPL / NU Snake since those are usually have the best players), Glalie's usage has only recently begun to peak, with prior to 2022 it didn't have more than 50% usage. Win Rate has also stayed pretty much the same over time, with the most recent NUPL being the only real indicator towards Glalies "dominance" over the tier, and even then it had 65% usage, while Haunter had 53% and Metang/Chan had 50%.
Bringing in the Glalie-Less tour into account, we can look at usage stats from that and the most recent ADV Cup(only including top 15)
On spikes alone, Roselia had a 17% Usage Increase / Cacturne had a 14% Usage increase. Combined they made up 58.51% of Usage, which is roughly equivalent to where Glalie was in ADV Cup. This does mean spikes overall were seen less, since even with Glalie around Rose / Cac had an additional 28% usage.
This was the first tournament without Glalie though, and I'm sure some people just recycled teams w/o spikes since thats what they had in the builder. I'm sure that would change with time, but for a first tour I don't see Glalies ban having that large of an effect on diversity. Aside from Wailord (Which dropped 9.6%) and Chimecho (Which rose 11%), there wasnt any large fluctuation in usage for any other of the metagame staples, showing that the teams were largely made up of similar structures. Part of this is as mentioned before with people recycling old teams, but overall theres no strong indicator one way or another in my opinion.
Overall I do think the player testimonials in this thread are important, and there is quite a few calling for Glalie to be banned (and quite a few players calling for it to stay). I think rushing a vote now would be a mistake, as I mentioned at the start. In a tier that hasn't seen any change in legal mons in almost a decade (or more?), rushing a test and potential ban just based on the trends of maybe a year~year and a half would be rushing it. I would be much more interested to come back to this discussion after another few tournaments, and seeing if there has been able to be any adaptation to the rise in Glalie that we've seen.
Hi, as someone thats played this tier on and off since ~2016 figure I'd chime in before a decision is made because my personal viewpoint is that it should be staying.
With a tier as old as ADV that hasn't seen any changes since I started playing it back in 2016, this Glalie wave has been a much more recent trend. With older generations in particular, we should be wary when acting based on these recent trends, as tiers like this generally do take longer to adapt to metagame changes.
If we take a look at usage stats (using only NUPL / NU Snake since those are usually have the best players), Glalie's usage has only recently begun to peak, with prior to 2022 it didn't have more than 50% usage. Win Rate has also stayed pretty much the same over time, with the most recent NUPL being the only real indicator towards Glalies "dominance" over the tier, and even then it had 65% usage, while Haunter had 53% and Metang/Chan had 50%.
Bringing in the Glalie-Less tour into account, we can look at usage stats from that and the most recent ADV Cup(only including top 15)
On spikes alone, Roselia had a 17% Usage Increase / Cacturne had a 14% Usage increase. Combined they made up 58.51% of Usage, which is roughly equivalent to where Glalie was in ADV Cup. This does mean spikes overall were seen less, since even with Glalie around Rose / Cac had an additional 28% usage.
This was the first tournament without Glalie though, and I'm sure some people just recycled teams w/o spikes since thats what they had in the builder. I'm sure that would change with time, but for a first tour I don't see Glalies ban having that large of an effect on diversity. Aside from Wailord (Which dropped 9.6%) and Chimecho (Which rose 11%), there wasnt any large fluctuation in usage for any other of the metagame staples, showing that the teams were largely made up of similar structures. Part of this is as mentioned before with people recycling old teams, but overall theres no strong indicator one way or another in my opinion.
Overall I do think the player testimonials in this thread are important, and there is quite a few calling for Glalie to be banned (and quite a few players calling for it to stay). I think rushing a vote now would be a mistake, as I mentioned at the start. In a tier that hasn't seen any change in legal mons in almost a decade (or more?), rushing a test and potential ban just based on the trends of maybe a year~year and a half would be rushing it. I would be much more interested to come back to this discussion after another few tournaments, and seeing if there has been able to be any adaptation to the rise in Glalie that we've seen.
Going to preface this by saying that I do not have a huge stake in the ban, as I like the meta both with and without it. However that being said, I do think the fact that the variety of mons and usage statistics do not change drastically without Glalie is actually in favor of banning it.
The goal with retroactively tiering pre existing old gen tiers, especially lower tiers with drastically lower player counts should always be to preserve the tier as much as possible while rooting out the core issue. The testimonies about how much less restricted the builder feels vs boomspam and how little of the meta outside of that changes is the ideal change one could make, if you want to see any kind of change in ADV NU that is. I do agree that we shouldn't rush into any vote with a meta that has been untouched for so long, but the desire is entirely understandable given how limited it feels in the builder at times.
