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Posting to address only shiloh's point about glalie being a recent trend:
I first heard calls of Glalie being broken when I managed ArcticBreeze in NUSD II ("NUSD 2021" on your graph) which ended in January 2022, over 2.5 years ago. At that time, he innovated or popularized Soft Sand EQ Glalie to OHKO Flareon. This made counterplay more passive, making it easier to spike and at least partially leading to the rise in usage on your graph. You can see him in NU Discord calling for a ban of Glalie in June 2022, where another ADV player from the tour (JabbaTheGriffin) seemed to agree. I think it's fair to be hesitant about old gen lower tier bans, but Glalie has been on people's minds as a potentially overbearing threat for about 2 years now.
To update, I would not agree with the statement that Glalie is "broken". As I stated, I think it's unhealthy. I don't think ADV NU is a particularly bad tier in its current state. But it is one dimensional. While you technically can drop Glalie, the other playstyles that can choose to drop it are not very good. Therefore, while possible, it's not advised.
For the record; Centralization isn't a bad thing. I'll give a positive example from a tier I play, ADV PU, a tier where Minun is pretty similar in how "mandatory" it is. In my opinion, determining whether a centralising Pokemon is unhealthy or healthy should depend on how the Pokemon in question affects said metagame; Is it positive or negative? This is subjective, but I would define it in this case on if it limits the diversity of teamstyles in a tier majorly.
For Minun's case, it helps you in your teambuilding since similarly to Glalie, Minun does blanket check a good majority of the tier. This is a positive aspect of Glalie in the tier as well, but I feel as if the difference is how they use their defensive utility and how that generally affects diversity. Minun uses this offensive momentum generally to spread paralysis or pivot to breakers using Baton Pass. Paralysis is strong, but ADV PU has ways of handling Paralysis through Shed Skin users, Heal Bell users, or general status absorbers. As a result, diversity is not affected negatively and is generally positively affected by Minun's existance through its affect on teambuilding.
Glalie spreads Spikes and forces trades using Explosion after it's done to create offensive momentum. ADV NU does not have a good way of handling Spikes. It's best Rapid Spin user is Hitmonchan, and that Pokemon either skips the move entirely and has only an okay match up into Glalie teams since while it does threaten Glalie and beat Haunter 1v1, switching into Glalie is risky due to Explosion while Haunter denies it from spinning, meaning it has to find the opportunity twice which isn't that common in a fast momentum based tier.
This leaves ADV NU with a few ways of dealing Spikes. Ignoring them, which for general bulky teams, is not possible, or going offensive yourself to limit the effect that Spikes has on your team. If you remove Glalie, all other Spikers have pretty significant flaws which I feel is necessary in a tier where hazard removal itself is also flawed. Therefore, it will open up more options for general teams, and I feel like this was true in the Glalieless tour.
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 don't think retroactively looking at ADV NU means we need to look at other tiers at all, especially since there is no logical implication (moving a mon to BL doesn't really change anything for anyone else). Unfortunately, nuking ADV UU was already determined not to be the course of action though it has been getting there....The risk with drastic change is if we have sufficient player base/usage to make those changes. Banning one mon is not really a "big deal" in my opinion and there are numerous examples of these sort of tweaks happening in old gens.
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
The first point is a blatant strawman but I will address it anyway. Most people (I guess you included?) are saying that Glalie is too strong because it gets up at least one layer and then trades exceptionally most of the time (whether that means explosion, chipping flareon/haunter down to negligible HP, etc.) and it can very easily do this while switching into any of those mons you mentioned. It is in fact so good at this that it is an A ranked mon in UU which has Arcanine on 50%+ of the teams.
Beyond that point, I'm having difficulty following the logic here. I'm not sure "the best spiker is also the best check for 95% of special attackers in the meta" has the effect you're going for.
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.
I think I speak for most people here when I say the fact that you need to prepare for lead bot glalie (which, by the way, can be EV'd to live almost everything based on the specific need) and mid-game Glalie is one of the main reasons it's a problem. If it held teams together and kept momentum (idk like Wailord or Octillery etc.) that would be one thing but it checks, spikes and then trades. The meta without Glalie was more about building and playing smart as opposed to who clicks right or guesses the right Glalie set.
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.
Similar to the point I made replying to Stories' post...I don't know if explaining how much better Glalie is than every other Pokemon is as good of an argument against keeping it in the tier as you may think it is.
Playing offensively to limit spiking opportunities in ADV NU makes for a more skill based metagame with more room to build rather than having to cover off the numerous chances for Glalie coming in and creating the insane number of coinflip turns.
I can't see how it is preferred to have a game which comes down to repeated random clicks / sets over a game that requires sounds building and playing to cover off threats and play the hazard game.
I do also think you're ignoring other potential spikers that are less used but I definitely used them in the tour.
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.
This is a good analysis and helpful to provide some context. However, there is more context that needs to be added:
1. There was a metagame shift when the sleep talk/rest mechanics were fixed on simulator.
2. There was a metagame shift when Adv NU started getting played in more tours (ADVPL etc.)
3. It took a while for NFEs to truly enter mainstream and adapting to Haunter was one of the main reasons why mid-game Glalie actually became one of the staple sets whereas before it didn't.
4. I know you mentioned this, but I don't think it could be emphasized enough that most people just replaced Glalie with other spikers (ie. I did that for a few weeks).
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.
Grouping these together to reply to the same point.
I don't see how years of the tour player base complaining and then 2 months of us bitching in this thread plus having a decently sized tournament to see what the meta looks like post-ban is a "rush vote". I don't really know where that argument came from but it is complete nonsense. I mean, wouldn't the appropriate time for the vote be whenever we have discussed all of the points and made our opinions? A vote doesn't mean ban it means we just express our opinions officially.
I don't think retroactively looking at ADV NU means we need to look at other tiers at all, especially since there is no logical implication (moving a mon to BL doesn't really change anything for anyone else). Unfortunately, nuking ADV UU was already determined not to be the course of action though it has been getting there....The risk with drastic change is if we have sufficient player base/usage to make those changes. Banning one mon is not really a "big deal" in my opinion and there are numerous examples of these sort of tweaks happening in old gens.
The first point is a blatant strawman but I will address it anyway. Most people (I guess you included?) are saying that Glalie is too strong because it gets up at least one layer and then trades exceptionally most of the time (whether that means explosion, chipping flareon/haunter down to negligible HP, etc.) and it can very easily do this while switching into any of those mons you mentioned. It is in fact so good at this that it is an A ranked mon in UU which has Arcanine on 50%+ of the teams.
Beyond that point, I'm having difficulty following the logic here. I'm not sure "the best spiker is also the best check for 95% of special attackers in the meta" has the effect you're going for.
I think I speak for most people here when I say the fact that you need to prepare for lead bot glalie (which, by the way, can be EV'd to live almost everything based on the specific need) and mid-game Glalie is one of the main reasons it's a problem. If it held teams together and kept momentum (idk like Wailord or Octillery etc.) that would be one thing but it checks, spikes and then trades. The meta without Glalie was more about building and playing smart as opposed to who clicks right or guesses the right Glalie set.
Similar to the point I made replying to Stories' post...I don't know if explaining how much better Glalie is than every other Pokemon is as good of an argument against keeping it in the tier as you may think it is.
Playing offensively to limit spiking opportunities in ADV NU makes for a more skill based metagame with more room to build rather than having to cover off the numerous chances for Glalie coming in and creating the insane number of coinflip turns.
I can't see how it is preferred to have a game which comes down to repeated random clicks / sets over a game that requires sounds building and playing to cover off threats and play the hazard game.
I do also think you're ignoring other potential spikers that are less used but I definitely used them in the tour.
This is a good analysis and helpful to provide some context. However, there is more context that needs to be added:
1. There was a metagame shift when the sleep talk/rest mechanics were fixed on simulator.
2. There was a metagame shift when Adv NU started getting played in more tours (ADVPL etc.)
3. It took a while for NFEs to truly enter mainstream and adapting to Haunter was one of the main reasons why mid-game Glalie actually became one of the staple sets whereas before it didn't.
4. I know you mentioned this, but I don't think it could be emphasized enough that most people just replaced Glalie with other spikers (ie. I did that for a few weeks).
Grouping these together to reply to the same point.
I don't see how years of the tour player base complaining and then 2 months of us bitching in this thread plus having a decently sized tournament to see what the meta looks like post-ban is a "rush vote". I don't really know where that argument came from but it is complete nonsense. I mean, wouldn't the appropriate time for the vote be whenever we have discussed all of the points and made our opinions? A vote doesn't mean ban it means we just express our opinions officially.
Great post, but I thought that I'd clarify that I just mean that I personally think you should be more cautious about making changes to the majority of old gen lower tiers and more testing should be done. The No Glalie tour and the personal testimonies definitely prove that a vote should take place and ideally somewhat soon at that, but I'd be lying if I thought basing a vote on what is essentially a for fun single elimination tournament is the safest option.
Ideally we'd use ADV Slam with NU Cup and slam poffs to test it and have a vote immediately after, but if this is unreasonable there is also NUCL that could be used to test this if this option isn't reasonable given how short notice of a change it would be.
There's a very good chance the position I'm taking is overly cautious, but I'd personally rather be safe than sorry given that this is the type of vote that is highly unlikely to be overturned.
Ideally we'd use ADV Slam with NU Cup and slam poffs to test it and have a vote immediately after, but if this is unreasonable there is also NUCL that could be used to test this if this option isn't reasonable given how short notice of a change it would be.
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.
Just want to reiterate that Slam will not be testing anything, as it's just the pure meta as is. That being said, I don't know when NUCL is, but ALT PL signups go up in December, and we are open to testing no-Glalie in ALT PL for ADV NU.
I'll go a step further, I think it is an extremely bad and extremely easy tier with very little skill expression, and I think Glalie is a large driving force behind this. If you want an actual reasonable matchup spread, there's legitimately no reason to not load the exact same Glalie offense structures with the same like 10 Pokemon every single game. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with a centralized tier, there's such a small amount of skill in the Glalie offense mirror games: it's basically just a few coinflips, rolling some dice for an unrevealed, or who EVd their Pokemon slightly better. I fed my ADVPL players basically the exact same Glalie offense structures every single game (and we won a LOT) because there's no reasonable counterplay in the tier for it. The Glalie teams are fun, but the tier is far from competitive and especially when the majority of games played for this tier are in Best of 1, having such a small amount of real agency is awful.
Bump, we doing a vote or not? I still see no reason not to at least vote and I think the arguments have pretty much been said at this point hence the inactivity. Pinging etern and Rabia just in case.
NUCL is starting in November, so we'll be returning to this topic after the fact so we can have a more formal setting with Glalie actually in the metagame. This also allows more users to potentially get voting requirements for playing ADV in the tournament.
ALT PL III will be starting soon (signups probably around the time NUCL starts). Given that NUCL will have standard ADV games (albeit somewhat smaller sample probably due to the format), I’d like some input from tier leaders and players on whether or not a formal no-Glalie suspect should occur for ADV NU in ALT PL, to see what the tier games and prep would be like in a team setting without Glalie. eternRabia
ALT PL III will be starting soon (signups probably around the time NUCL starts). Given that NUCL will have standard ADV games (albeit somewhat smaller sample probably due to the format), I’d like some input from tier leaders and players on whether or not a formal no-Glalie suspect should occur for ADV NU in ALT PL, to see what the tier games and prep would be like in a team setting without Glalie. eternRabia
Sounds fine, if someone wants to post relevant stats / replays from the Glalie-less meta after the tour is over that would be interesting to see. NUCL is an 8 team tour now, so we should get a good sample of high level gameplay with him as well. Let's come back to this after they both end and see where everyone stands / decide on the next move to make.
The sample size is fairly small, only 16 games, but there are some trends here. Spikes are not actually universal, and in fact only on about half of teams, with spikeless teams like this one used by mad dawg in finals finding success. Overall, I counted 17 teams that did not bring a Spikes setter, although 4 of those did not reveal their entire team. Overall, spikeless teams went 10-7. Disregarding three spikeless mirrors, that record becomes 7-4. Broadly, Poison-types seemed to do well in this meta to answer the virtually universal Hitmonchan, with Arbok, Swalot, and Golbat finding high winrates. Arbok may simply have been previously underrated, as it has found similar success in NUCL this season. Cacturne found its niche as the primary spiker in the tier, but did not actually find much success, although there were (occasionally successful) attempts at using options like Roselia, Pineco, and Omanyte. While there were attempts at bulkier structures, such as Oathkeeper's team here vs THE_CHUNGLER, the meta continued to favor more offensive teams.
The lead metagame was, to say the least, very Hitmonchan focused. I imagine given some time we'd see a bit more development here, primarily in anti-leads like Arbok or Swalot, or even maybe Pineco as a Spikes setter.
I'm also going to shoutout Django's post here in the ADVPL discussion thread tracking the prevalence of Spikes in NUCL. To sum it up, in the average NUCL game there were 2.11 spikes on the field at the end of each game, so roughly 1 on each side. The average ALTPL game? 1.06 spikes at the end of the game. This makes sense, as half as many teams brought Spikes at all, suggesting that setters are equally as effective in either metagame. I'll also note, somewhat oddly, that Rapid Spin was not clicked once this entire tour.
I'm planning on making another data post like this once NUCL has concluded so that we can hopefully view the two metas side-by-side.
So yeah, I'm sure we're all shocked and amazed by #1 in usage. There were 28 ADV NU matches in NUCL this season, with 1 tie. There were only 5 teams that tried a non-Glalie spikes setter, and the only one that won was in a Roselia mirror. Hitmonchan is slightly less prominent here than in the Glalie-less metagame, with Metang and Haunter appearing more often. Sableye and Arbok achieved some modest success in this tour, both appearing ~16% of the time and achieving a ~55% winrate. Other common Pokemon ended up doing quite poorly, with Octillery, Chimecho, and Torkoal winning less than 40% of the time. Of the 56 teams brought to this tour, 5 did not carry spikes, and those teams went 2-3. Of those teams, 2 were full Baton Pass (NU has unrestricted BP btw), going 1-1, so of more standard teams, spikeless builds went 1-2, with the only win being this one by Heysup against Xrn. I'll reference again Django's post calculating the number of spikes left on the field at the end of each game. Updating for the rest of the tour, there were on average 2.29 spikes remaining at the end of each game, slightly more than one on each side. In terms of individual data points, 5 games ended with no spikes, 3 with 1 spike, 8 with 2 spikes, 7 with 3 spikes, 3 with 4 spikes, 0 with 5 spikes, and only 2 games ended with 6 spikes on the field.
Like ALTPL, Hitmonchan was the most common lead in the tier, with Glalie coming up behind it. The lead meta was broadly centered around these two, with some anti-leads like Torkoal, Octillery, Arbok, and Seadra seeing play. Several surprise one-off leads found some success, such as Heysup's Raticate.
If we're going to talk about Glalie, it's worth talking about what Glalie actually accomplishes in each game. The big points: it can always get up at least one spike, and it only gets to boom ~1/3 of the time.
There were a couple players who participated in both tours, as an active player or as support - it would be great to hear from any of those and get their perspective on the differences.
So, my good friend goldmason asked me the other night something along the lines of “do you think Hitmonchan is broken?” and I had to give it a good thought. I think I’ve come to a conclusion, and I hope it will help illustrate the implicit effects Glalie actually has on this tier.
In the current state of the tier, I think Hitmonchan is actually pretty broken, but the reason is entirely because of Glalie. The reason for that being fairly simple: most of the best Hitmonchan answers we have available get stuffed by Glalie (or Golbat by Metang lol). The ones that come to mind for me are Pokémon like Arbok, Golbat, Chimecho, Swalot, Sableye, Roselia, and Pelipper. Outside of literally CB Golbat, all of these mons struggle heavily either with Glalie itself or with the pace of Glalie teams. Pelipper, Swalot, Chimecho, and Sableye all in particular give Glalie a ton of free layers if they want to enter, which is what makes them a lot harder to use. Sableye stall is frankly pretty awful because Glalie offense can just roll it over, Swalot is forced to boom to prevent layers, Chimecho (which frankly doesn’t really beat hitmonchan anyway but can force a ton of damage on it) lets Glalie set up spikes and get a boom off, and Pelipper is forced to be a lategame Pokemon solely due to its terrible Glalie (and waters, but they let in your own Glalie xd) matchup.
Something I noticed while building for mayo, mad dawg, and partially goldmason in ALTPL was how much easier it was to run checks to Hitmonchan. You can run Pokémon like Arbok and Swalot who threaten the alternative spikers pretty well and provide really strong anti-Hitmonchan counterplay. Pelipper threatens the new spikers really well, making it a good choice to throw into Hitmonchan. Golbat doesn’t have to worry about Metang coming in to stuff it nearly as much because games aren’t played at such a brisk pace anymore. You can even turn Hitmonchan into Spikes now if you want to run Roselia. These kinds of things are the effects of Glalie that aren’t really seen except in the teambuilder: how harshly it restricts your Pokemon selection. Grass types are awful because you just let in Flareon to claim 2 free kills, and you can’t do anything about it because of how harshly Glalie impacted the Pokémon on your team. Grass types are also, conveniently, extreme Glalie food. Viable Grass types means you have much more counterplay to Waters, and it creates a much more balanced metagame with existent defensive pieces as opposed to the HO fest we have now. By being able to run real defensive pieces, Hitmonchan goes from centralizing (stupid) to centralizing (good). Its our best form of priority, one of our strongest special checks, and a good progress maker, but it is truly only stupid because of the way Glalie forces you to put teams together.
...and yet Chan had a vastly higher usage in ALTPL (~90%) than NUCL (or any other prior ADV NU tour with glalie legal) and the meta totally centralized around it.
when a tier has a "big 3/4/5" or whatever, banning any one of that almost without fail makes the remaining "big 2/3/4" better, and sometimes a new mon also rises to join and recentralize. It's pretty rare to say that banning X S rank mon would make Y S rank mon more manageable. They're both S already. Hitmonchan is an amazing pokemon regardless of Rapid Spin already.
All it really did in ALPTL was mean that many fewer Chans would even opt to run Rapid Spin. Instead you saw way more CB or Bulk Up, etc., whereas in NUCL many, maybe even most, were dedicating a slot to Spin. And in fact, while a standard Rapid Spin Chan with Sky Uppercut, HP Ghost, Rapid Spin, and Toxic might struggle into a Swalot or Golbat for example, Bulk Up or CB Chan will run EQ and/or Rock Slide and now Swalot is toast and Golbat is at least way more threatened. The lack of Glalie spikes freeing up moveslots on Chan is actually BAD for most of Chan's best checks.
Hitmonchan will be good either way, it's just a matter of do you want to deal with Spikes or do you want to have more window to creativity and explore more options to deal with Hitmonchan and other threats that nowadays are basically threated by sending in Glalie to Spike up. We can still try to be creative in the tier (I'm probably one that uses the most different stuff), but in the end it's just way more simple to put a Glalie and Spike through all the problems because it's basically a really good mon with decent stats that can freely get layers and boom safely. The thing about banning Glalie is having more window to explore other options. A mon like Hitmonchan will have a free slot without Spin yes, but the dynamic of every team will change and give you space to try out other possibilities, it's not a matter so simple as "it has better coverage now your check SUCKS". Glalie is something that changes the entire way the tier works.
Also wtf about the Grassmons, SEA, they are all bad water checks with or without Glalie LOL, Roselia and Cacturne take 2HKO from Ice Beams and Bellosom has to choose between Status or Synthesis (since your damage output SUCKS) and it can get fucked up badly if you pick it wrong/RNG doesn't go your way. They will keep being bad with or without Glalie :risitas: Watermons are just too strong in both ADV NU and PU because those tiers lack more resources than others. They basically are their own checks unless you use Glalie some super passive wall.
Back to the point: Glalie is not exactly BROKEN (I mean broken to me is something REALLY strong like DP Chomp, I have a pretty high bar for this definition), it's just too good to not use in this tier. People have to decide if they like a meta with or without Spikes wars at 95% of the games basically. The centralizing factor in Glalie is Spikes and it makes you play with two things in mind: if your team is letting it get layers or not and if you are putting your own layers or not. Spikes is part of almost all tiers since GSC and it's not something people will try to ban, then just pick if you like the centralizing Spikes wars of ADV NU or not. Honestly, stats from random sidetours don't mean too much and this thread has been up for far too long when this is a matter mostly of do you like Spikes as a centralizing factor or would you prefer it to just be a possible tool in other worse Spikers? Make a vote and if people want a change, let them have it alas
...and yet Chan had a vastly higher usage in ALTPL (~90%) than NUCL (or any other prior ADV NU tour with glalie legal) and the meta totally centralized around it.
So, I was curious about this as well. I decided to go back and watch every NUCL replay for my own purposes, and look at all the teams that decided to drop Hitmonchan. They basically fell into 3 categories:
The Huntail offenses, I actually understand. Something like this really isn't bad, but the lead Torkoal could literally just be a Hitmonchan and the team would be just as good if not better.
Then you have teams like this, which falls into the "I Decided To Put A Random Octillery Here" category. This is a pretty solid 5 with a random Octillery (who is extremely mid, especially @ back). This can just be Hitmonchan and this team is better.
Then you have teams like this one, which are just horrible. What are we doing. Stop.
So, it begs the question: why are so many people not using Hitmonchan in Glalie NU? My only answer is boredom. I can't come up with a better reason. In ALTPL, I guess people just stopped deluding themselves like there was a reason to NOT run Hitmonchan, when believe it or not, it fits on literally everything.
All it really did in ALPTL was mean that many fewer Chans would even opt to run Rapid Spin. Instead you saw way more CB or Bulk Up, etc., whereas in NUCL many, maybe even most, were dedicating a slot to Spin.
So I also decided to check this, because I think Spin Hitmonchan is legitimately unviable, and I wanted to see what the people who were playing this tier in NUCL up to. I saw Hitmonchan click Spin 5 times, and another one that looked like it would go for an attempted Spin but clicked HP Ghost instead. So, 6/29. I'm not really sure where you're getting this from. The Bulk Up and CB sets are 10x better anyway, and if people are finally just now realizing that then I don't really know what to tell them.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3nu-816559
one chan is spin revealed, the other chan is most likely spin, but it faced what looks like spikesless (unrevealed mon is a spiker, don't ask me why it never came out lol), so can't be too certain about how it was played
so... NUCL had
29 total uses (52%)
8 used rapid spin confirmed
8 were CB, i.e. definitely not spin
3 were BU, i.e. definitely not spin
that leaves 10 remaining that weren't super clear to me what exactly the full moveset would be
6 looked pretty strongly like spin to me based on team comp and how they were played, but never actually clicked spin. can't be certain. certainly at least a few of these were.
4 I was very on the fence about. 2 I leaned yes, 2 I leaned no, but I didn't want to predict for these.
I would pretty confidently guess at least 3 of these 10 were spin.
Unless people want to reveal their teams, among the ones that we can very definitively call their set based on move clicked or damage revealed to be CB, 8 of these 19 clear ones (42%) were definitely spin. If I pessimistically say only 3/10 of the remaining were spin, then it's 11/29 (38%).
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3nu-815212
either chan could be spin, but spikes never went up so it's tough to tell from how they were played. I would heavily lean yes for Oath given lickitung and bulky bell, and probably no for Elian. I could count this a no or just not count either way.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3nu-817430
one chan is CB, the other is most likely CB (but if so, kinda confusing why they didn't mach at the end... but it also can't be like a chestorest bc it slept turn 1... only item that makes sense is CB but no mach punch or bad play giving up the chance to crit murkrow with mach and outrun opposing chan for the win)
so... ALTPL had
27 total uses (84%)
0 used rapid spin confirmed
9 were CB, i.e. definitely not spin
7 were BU, i.e. definitely not spin
that leaves 11 remaining that weren't super clear to me what exactly the full moveset would be
4 looked pretty strongly like spin to me based on team comp and how they were played, but never actually clicked spin. at least a few played spikesless which makes it hard to be certain. but likely at least one of these could be spin.
4 I was quite certain were not spin based on how they were played and the team comps (and the fact that spin is just way less beneficial in glalieless meta, see the 0 confirmed spins)
3 I was very on the fence about. I leaned no on all 3 but I didn't want to predict for these.
I would pretty confidently guess no more than 3 of these 11 were spin, given 0/16 of the confirmed ones were ever spin.
Unless people want to reveal their teams, among the ones that we can very definitively call their set based on move clicked or damage revealed to be CB, 0 of these 16 clear ones (0%) were definitely spin. If I say only 3/11 of the remaining were spin, then it's 3/27 (11%).
So likely somewhere around 40% of Chans in NUCL were spin and at most maybe 11% of the Chans in ALTPL were spin. My guess of "whereas in NUCL many, maybe even most, were dedicating a slot to Spin." is... basically right. Shocking, I know. Glalieless meta frees up Chan to never need spin and basically all comps are Bulk Up or CB, which as you yourself agree are much harder to handle. Hence Chan gets better in Glalieless meta, and hence the nearly 90% usage rate in ALTPL.
Yes, and if you read my post, you'd see that I am confused why people are even running Rapid Spin. You have literally never needed to spin, it's just turn inefficiency. It's weird how when you stop deluding yourself into using the bad set and finally just use the good set, you run the Pokemon more. I don't even agree that Hitmonchan is better in Glalieless meta, that's not an argument I made, they just run the really good set on the really good Pokemon in Glalieless instead of self-sabotage.
just a few corrections to my esteemed colleagues (though the posts are too disorganized for me to understand what either of you are even arguing about):
1. CB Chan does run spin on occasion so I would definitely not discount that when going into stats. You do not click it that often, but that does not mean it is not there. I use it pretty frequently as a 4th, though not every time (ie. maybe quake when high arbok usage). I definitely used it in that Shiloh game. Depending on the team, I would use it more than I would another 4th (fighting moves or ghost coverage are clicked 95% of the time). It is useful both for finishing off a weakened mon + spinning, threatening spin so that the arbok/peli can't come in for free, and for longer stall type games to keep mons healthy (less frequent recently).
2. I would agree with SEA's sentiment here that pressing spin is usually not a great play in these circumstances. However, to not run spin is a complete match up fish (though in ADV NU I suppose that's not so bad) that you won't run into a defensive team or end up in a stall war. I would go further to say, to not run spin is pure greed. I am sure it works out a lot given the shitty state of the metagame where you are just coinflipping glalie boom fighting/ghost coverage 50/50% etc. It is complete fallacy to say that spin is never needed. It is clear that, if Chan never ran spin, the counter play to Chan would be way easier.
I think declaring that Chan gets better or worse in a Glalieless meta is at best an oversimplification. Chan is one of the best mons in the tier (with or without spin equipped). With the best mon gone, naturally usage of the next mon goes up. The sample size is still small, even with the glalieless tournament included. The lack of rapid spin uses and clicks show that it is hard to justify spinning when it is no longer automatic spikes + trade like you get with glalie and that it is usually easier to get momentum.
I do think Chan is broken in ADV NU. I think it is less broken than Glalie, but together with Haunter all 3 are nonsensically in NU and are toxic to the metagame and I've been saying this for years.
Update: currently in the early process of setting up a vote for Glalie, just waiting on some answers from shiloh about a few questions I have + getting together preliminary voter list.
As a general comment, I think the past several comments in this thread are quite illuminating wrt just how different people perceive many aspects of this tier, from playability to creative potential. I'm glad people feel comfortable giving their takes despite how turbulent of a thread this has been + the discussion in the NU Discord.
