Metagame RU Stage 11 | Triple Threat Suspect Test (April Fool's Day)

[Feliburn]

Following the Hoopa-Unbound ban, the RU council has decided to take action regarding 3 of the most controversial Pokémon around.

The entire metagame felt all over the place, so we've decided to add a spin to this upcoming suspect test.

You may only vote for ONLY ONE of these Pokémon to be banned, but only the Pokémon with the most "Ban" votes will be banned, while the others will remain in the RU tier.

To go a bit more in detail about the suspect tested elements:


Iron Leaves is currently a potent set-up sweeper thanks to Booster Energy + Swords Dance and a nearly unresisted coverage in Psyblade, Leaf Blade and Close Combat. It's able to boost its Speed stat while running less Attack EVs, while still keeping a respectable damage output after a Swords Dance. It can run Tera Fire to better handle Moltres, one of its better checks, or Tera Fight, for more powerful Close Combat and better priority resistance overall. We've also seen max Attack sets with Trailblaze, which means you'll have harder hitting Psyblades at the cost of running a less powerful Grass Stab, while having to click it to earn the Speed boost you really need. Faster Choice Scarf users, such as Infernape and Gengar, are able to hit this Pokémon for super effective damage prior to a Tera. Defensively, your best bet is to run a Foul Play Pokémon as it sets up, something like Amoonguss with a good Tera that can resist the coverage it runs.


Thundurus-Therian is naturally a great breaker to use thanks to the colorful coverage coming from such a high Special Attack stat. It's best check has always been Cyclizar, but even then it's able to break past it thanks to either Knock Off + Focus Blast, or Nasty Plot + Tera Fly Tera Blast. This coverage is also the main reason why handling Thundurus-Therian is such a pain, as it can run Grass Knot for stuff like Rhyperior or Gastrodon, and Psychic for something like Amoonguss (this one gets bopped by Tera Fly Tera Blast anyway). Offensive pressure has always been the best way of handling Thundurus. So fast hitting mons like Zoroark-Hisui, Gengar, Stone Edge Cobalion, etc., are usually the better and more reliable ways to KO a Thundurus-Therian.


Enamorus-Therian has a spot on this list due to how hard it is to wall strong hitting Moonblasts, but also due to how difficult it can be to KO an Enamorus that has set up. Being so naturally bulky makes for easy Calm Mind opportunities. It has coverage to hit Steel types in Earth Power or Mystical Fire, and it also has Draining Kiss to recover health easily. If we add Tera on top of it, then it's a big question mark on how you should be handling this Pokémon. Moltres has started to use Brave Bird to get past Calm Mind boosted Enamorus, as it resists every move Enamorus has. Empoleon is also a Steel type that has picked up more recently, and it can hit Enamorus really hard with Ice Beam. Empoleon also punishes Mystical Fire & Earth Power drops thanks to Competitive. Rhyperior is an option that has been seeing more usage lately. It can hit Enamorus hard thanks to its Rock type STAB, but it can also hit it post Tera, as Enamorus usually defaults to Poison or Steel for defensive options.

With that being said, it's up to the community to see which of these Pokémon will be sent to the RUBL, and which will stay in the tier roaming free. Tagging dhelmise and Marty to announce it on the RU ladder, thank you both.

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
78	50
78.2	49
78.4	48
78.6	47
78.8	46
79	45
79.2	44
79.4	43
79.6	42
79.8	41
80	40
80.2	39
80.4	38
80.6	37
80.8	36
81	35
81.2	34
81.4	33
81.6	32
81.8	31
82	30

Suspect information:

• There will be no draws allowed for any potential qualifiers. If you qualify with draws, your suspect requirements will not count, and you will not be allowed to vote. There is no way to actively enforce ties to prevent abuse, so they will be disallowed. Use stall at your own risk.
• All games must be played on the Pokémon Showdown! RU ladder on a new alt with the following format: "RUAF (nickname)”. For example, RUAF ROFLL or RUAF LMAOO.
• Do NOT impersonate other people in your ladder alt, do NOT use any usernames which are offensive, flame-baiting, or targeting specific users, and do NOT use usernames which could be interpreted as breaking any of the username rules on Pokémon Showdown! Failure to abide to this will result in you being barred from voting in this suspect, and potential infractions.
• The suspect test will last for two weekends, ending on Sunday, April 7th. 9:59pm - 4

/!\ NOTICE /!\ RU will not be tolerating any form of voting manipulation. Any attempt to manipulate votes can result in an infraction, loss of eligibility to vote in the current test, and loss of the Tiering Contributor badge. While we won't necessarily enforce super strict punishment, this won't be tolerated and will be handled accordingly. Voting manipulation can simply be described as attempting to get people to vote a way on the test in inappropriate manners. Bribing with teams to vote a certain way, directly messaging people to vote a certain way, publicly announcing "vote this way" all fall under voting manipulation. For more query, feel free to PM me or EviGaro.

 

[atomicllamas]

So, I love the idea to throw shaping the meta more into the hands of the players, but can I suggest the vote format be different? The way this is set up it isn't possible for someone to vote No Ban if they don't think any of them are broken. Additionally, it is possible under these conditions for something to get banned that only 35% of the participants think is a problem.

I think the right move if you want to run a suspect test like this is an Instant Run Off Vote with 4 Options, Ban Iron Leaves, Ban Enamorus-T, Ban Thundurus-T, and Ban Nothing.

instant run off voting explained

People order these 4 options from most desired to least, then each "round" the lowest number vote receiver is removed and the next vote for those voters becomes their highest vote.

For example if I ordered:

Ban Thundurus-T
Ban Enamorus-T
Ban Nothing
Ban Iron Leaves

My vote in the first round would be Ban Thundurus-T, if something else recieves the least votes, my vote for round 2 remains Ban Thundurus-T, if Thundurus-T has the least votes, my vote becomes Ban Enamorus-T, the process continues until something reaches 50% ban, or until the third round (in this case, cause something will automatically be over 50%).

So that would be my proposal

-FRUTL

 

[Master Chief]

So, I love the idea to throw shaping the meta more into the hands of the players, but can I suggest the vote format be different? The way this is set up it isn't possible for someone to vote No Ban if they don't think any of them are broken. Additionally, it is possible under these conditions for something to get banned that only 35% of the participants think is a problem.

I think the right move if you want to run a suspect test like this is an Instant Run Off Vote with 4 Options, Ban Iron Leaves, Ban Enamorus-T, Ban Thundurus-T, and Ban Nothing.

instant run off voting explained

People order these 4 options from most desired to least, then each "round" the lowest number vote receiver is removed and the next vote for those voters becomes their highest vote.

For example if I ordered:

Ban Thundurus-T
Ban Enamorus-T
Ban Nothing
Ban Iron Leaves

My vote in the first round would be Ban Thundurus-T, if something else recieves the least votes, my vote for round 2 remains Ban Thundurus-T, if Thundurus-T has the least votes, my vote becomes Ban Enamorus-T, the process continues until something reaches 50% ban, or until the third round (in this case, cause something will automatically be over 50%).

So that would be my proposal

-FRUTL

I kinda agree but I think Feliburn went full tyrant mode here because he lost the last round of RULT. He's basically pulling a finchinator right now, banning something after he loses to it. He really wanted to ban leaves but this was the only way the council could get him to not do something by the whim because idk feel like if we voted on leaves it goes too but like, wait a bit bro. Anyway from this ramble RU is gonna be in a bit of a mess for RUPL but like if this is too shitty then we will just figure out what to do after

 

[Stories]

Most subtle April Fool's joke

 

[Gimmicky]

DISCLAIMER: I'm not an RU player by any means, so take what I'm saying here with as much salt as you need, but I find this is an incredibly underthought way to shake things up.

I appreciate and respect the idea of trying to improve upon or otherwise diversify the way we do suspects as a community, but this method in particular is simply not ideal and, at best, questionably democratic. Allowing players to only vote for one option, no matter how many of the metagame threats they might think are banworthy, is not a good or efficient voting system. This system, as currently stated, is more comparable to a 3-way Election. Allowing users to only vote for one candidate mathematically almost guarantees a minority or even a superminority of under 40% to "win", while also completely ignoring other options that the RU playerbase may very well find equally or nearly equally as broken.

Nobody wins. More people get a result that they don't want, and many of the people who do get the result they want are still unhappy because they thought one or both of the other options to be banworthy as well. Nobody is happy with the results, and nobody will be happy to have to get a second suspect run completed to vote on the same Pokemon. Suspect tests have been intentionally designed to be as uncontroversial and to please as much of the playerbase as is reasonable-- this accomplishes the opposite, guaranteeing more people will be unhappy than happy.

Atomicllamas has detailed a perfect alternative to this vote, an Instant Run Off is not only more democratic, but guarantees to please as many people as is possible.

So, I love the idea to throw shaping the meta more into the hands of the players, but can I suggest the vote format be different? The way this is set up it isn't possible for someone to vote No Ban if they don't think any of them are broken. Additionally, it is possible under these conditions for something to get banned that only 35% of the participants think is a problem.

I think the right move if you want to run a suspect test like this is an Instant Run Off Vote with 4 Options, Ban Iron Leaves, Ban Enamorus-T, Ban Thundurus-T, and Ban Nothing.

instant run off voting explained

People order these 4 options from most desired to least, then each "round" the lowest number vote receiver is removed and the next vote for those voters becomes their highest vote.

For example if I ordered:

Ban Thundurus-T
Ban Enamorus-T
Ban Nothing
Ban Iron Leaves

My vote in the first round would be Ban Thundurus-T, if something else recieves the least votes, my vote for round 2 remains Ban Thundurus-T, if Thundurus-T has the least votes, my vote becomes Ban Enamorus-T, the process continues until something reaches 50% ban, or until the third round (in this case, cause something will automatically be over 50%).

So that would be my proposal

-FRUTL

Again, I love the idea here and not accusing anyone of anything, I just think this is a much better way of implementing a similar idea while maintaining the democratic and competitive spirit of the suspect test.

 

[adem]

just curious why a discussion thread / pr thread whatever wasnt done before this? al and gimmicky articulated the numerous issues well and i have nothing much more to add, but i feel like something like this should have gone through some form of community discussion first lol

going thru straight with a test is really rushed and a bit of poor decision making

 

[sojukirin]

is this an april fools joke surely ru tl wouldn't put up a suspect thread as an april fools joke right haha...

 

[Danny]

Honestly this is abhorrent. I hate how Tier Leaders like Feliburn take the power into their own hands and decide to shake things up to such a degree. Look man, I get it. I got smoked in RULT asw. I feel your pain. BUT there are rules man. Rules even tier leaders are held to. Have we no respect for precedent? Have we no shame? Too long have we stood by and allowed tier leaders like Feliburn, etern and Rabia to rampage the metagames with their abhorrent takes. Some of us on the forums are starting to question the motives behind this latest suspect test. Sure, maintaining a healthy metagame is crucial, but there's a sense that this test might be taking things a step too far. 3 MONS AT ONCE? THe humanity man. Like how can we have proper tiering when I can only ban oneAT A TIME. I demand immediate action against this oppression.

 

[Feliburn]

So, I love the idea to throw shaping the meta more into the hands of the players, but can I suggest the vote format be different? The way this is set up it isn't possible for someone to vote No Ban if they don't think any of them are broken. Additionally, it is possible under these conditions for something to get banned that only 35% of the participants think is a problem.

I think the right move if you want to run a suspect test like this is an Instant Run Off Vote with 4 Options, Ban Iron Leaves, Ban Enamorus-T, Ban Thundurus-T, and Ban Nothing.

instant run off voting explained

People order these 4 options from most desired to least, then each "round" the lowest number vote receiver is removed and the next vote for those voters becomes their highest vote.

For example if I ordered:

Ban Thundurus-T
Ban Enamorus-T
Ban Nothing
Ban Iron Leaves

My vote in the first round would be Ban Thundurus-T, if something else recieves the least votes, my vote for round 2 remains Ban Thundurus-T, if Thundurus-T has the least votes, my vote becomes Ban Enamorus-T, the process continues until something reaches 50% ban, or until the third round (in this case, cause something will automatically be over 50%).

So that would be my proposal

-FRUTL

This is an amazing suggestion and something I'll bring up with the council to actually solidify the new tiering system. I'm not sure about the elimination rounds as that might be too complicated for the community, but it's still something to keep in mind.

I kinda agree but I think Feliburn went full tyrant mode here because he lost the last round of RULT. He's basically pulling a finchinator right now, banning something after he loses to it. He really wanted to ban leaves but this was the only way the council could get him to not do something by the whim because idk feel like if we voted on leaves it goes too but like, wait a bit bro. Anyway from this ramble RU is gonna be in a bit of a mess for RUPL but like if this is too shitty then we will just figure out what to do after

Very funny when u were the one boasting about beating me with it, but each person celebrates their highs in their own way I guess. I'm not sure why this post is being made to clown on the suspect when it was a council agreement which you happen to be in, but if you had these concerns you should have voiced them earlier.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not an RU player by any means, so take what I'm saying here with as much salt as you need, but I find this is an incredibly underthought way to shake things up.

I appreciate and respect the idea of trying to improve upon or otherwise diversify the way we do suspects as a community, but this method in particular is simply not ideal and, at best, questionably democratic. Allowing players to only vote for one option, no matter how many of the metagame threats they might think are banworthy, is not a good or efficient voting system. This system, as currently stated, is more comparable to a 3-way Election. Allowing users to only vote for one candidate mathematically almost guarantees a minority or even a superminority of under 40% to "win", while also completely ignoring other options that the RU playerbase may very well find equally or nearly equally as broken.

Nobody wins. More people get a result that they don't want, and many of the people who do get the result they want are still unhappy because they thought one or both of the other options to be banworthy as well. Nobody is happy with the results, and nobody will be happy to have to get a second suspect run completed to vote on the same Pokemon. Suspect tests have been intentionally designed to be as uncontroversial and to please as much of the playerbase as is reasonable-- this accomplishes the opposite, guaranteeing more people will be unhappy than happy.

Atomicllamas has detailed a perfect alternative to this vote, an Instant Run Off is not only more democratic, but guarantees to please as many people as is possible.



Again, I love the idea here and not accusing anyone of anything, I just think this is a much better way of implementing a similar idea while maintaining the democratic and competitive spirit of the suspect test.

While I do agree that llamas' post highlights a lot of improvement on the idea, I just want to mention that the notion that nobody wins off this suspect is not accurate, as we manage to target the majority agreed banworthy mon, and then we can take a look at the remaining options based on the vote percentage each got. I think the right way to see it would be like a mix between an election and a race, in which places are gauged by the community vote, but the places themselves just mean the level of priority in which we are potentially banning them.

just curious why a discussion thread / pr thread whatever wasnt done before this? al and gimmicky articulated the numerous issues well and i have nothing much more to add, but i feel like something like this should have gone through some form of community discussion first lol

going thru straight with a test is really rushed and a bit of poor decision making

I don't know what you are on about, us actual tier leaders share a channel where we can discuss these ideas. There's no reason to make a PR thread for non leadership people to get involved. Not everything needs the "community's input".

The other posts are just joke and troll posts.

 

[feen]

Maybe some actual post regarding the mons:

Enamorus therian is arguably the most broken out of all the suspect mons, it literally has about 3 switch ins being Moltres, Rotom Heat and Talonflame, 2/3 of these lose to cm enam and even specs can 2hko with some chip damage, and it's easy for tres and talon to gain chip due to hippo walling it and you take helmet chip from it.
Do note that Milotic also kinda counts but it is too passive to run on any teams other than full fat, and running it on a more bo oriented teams mean its hindering over helping stuff.
The main takeaway for enam is that thundy and leaves NEED tera to be truly over the edge, which they are excellent in doing but teraing early can lead to the opponent retaliating with a defensive tera or just being able to deal with them and the game becomes much easier to plan.
The existence of cyclizar being super common is also key in enam being stupid, it comes in for free vs common metagame mons like hippo (good luck hitting edges), cyclizar, bulky waters like slowbro as well to an extent, which leaves and thundy have a relatively harder time.
Due to these reasons, I believe people should do this volatile tier a favour and ban enamorus-therian.

 

[fluff!!]

I will go against the masses and state that it is the perfect time for trying out this suspect format. All 3 of these mons will get banned eventually anyway looking at the recent survey so no harm is done. I just don't think that this format does anything to fix the issues with normal suspecting, it is taking just as long to ban 3 mons with this format than with the normal format. Nothing changes for the player, and the council risks a pr disaster. lose/lose scenario. I just wish we could get rid of these obviously banworthy mons quickly.

 

[etern]

Honestly this is abhorrent. I hate how Tier Leaders like Feliburn take the power into their own hands and decide to shake things up to such a degree. Look man, I get it. I got smoked in RULT asw. I feel your pain. BUT there are rules man. Rules even tier leaders are held to. Have we no respect for precedent? Have we no shame? Too long have we stood by and allowed tier leaders like Feliburn, etern and Rabia to rampage the metagames with their abhorrent takes. Some of us on the forums are starting to question the motives behind this latest suspect test. Sure, maintaining a healthy metagame is crucial, but there's a sense that this test might be taking things a step too far. 3 MONS AT ONCE? THe humanity man. Like how can we have proper tiering when I can only ban oneAT A TIME. I demand immediate action against this oppression.

 

[Dorron]

And what would happen if there's a tie on the voting, wether it be between two or all of the options?

 

[PewPewYoureDead]

i would like to see both enam and thund-T gone but in all honesty if one of the two has to go I would say it's Thunderous at this stage.

if a mon receives 34% of the vote (and therefore is presumably banned with only 34% of the tier saying "ban") will there be a chance to re-suspect in the future soon / do a run off between the top two most voted? i think people would be sad if a mon got banned with 34% ban vote.

 

[Bebo]

why are we not suspecting maushold????

 

[adem]

ok dude ITS NOT EVEN APRIL how would i know this was for af holy :sob:

this was genius tho, well done

 

[veti]

AzelF should've been quickbanned instead of this triple suspect imo.

 

[Gimmicky]

DISCLAIMER: I'm not an RU player by any means, so take what I'm saying here with as much salt as you need, but I find this is an incredibly underthought way to shake things up.

I appreciate and respect the idea of trying to improve upon or otherwise diversify the way we do suspects as a community, but this method in particular is simply not ideal and, at best, questionably democratic. Allowing players to only vote for one option, no matter how many of the metagame threats they might think are banworthy, is not a good or efficient voting system. This system, as currently stated, is more comparable to a 3-way Election. Allowing users to only vote for one candidate mathematically almost guarantees a minority or even a superminority of under 40% to "win", while also completely ignoring other options that the RU playerbase may very well find equally or nearly equally as broken.

Nobody wins. More people get a result that they don't want, and many of the people who do get the result they want are still unhappy because they thought one or both of the other options to be banworthy as well. Nobody is happy with the results, and nobody will be happy to have to get a second suspect run completed to vote on the same Pokemon. Suspect tests have been intentionally designed to be as uncontroversial and to please as much of the playerbase as is reasonable-- this accomplishes the opposite, guaranteeing more people will be unhappy than happy.

Atomicllamas has detailed a perfect alternative to this vote, an Instant Run Off is not only more democratic, but guarantees to please as many people as is possible.



Again, I love the idea here and not accusing anyone of anything, I just think this is a much better way of implementing a similar idea while maintaining the democratic and competitive spirit of the suspect test.

 

[Feliburn]

I'm gonna start deleting these one-liners that add NOTHING to the suspect test itself. Not sure why people are so in disbelief of this being an actual tiering path we are taking to handle RU's current situation.

And what would happen if there's a tie on the voting, wether it be between two or all of the options?

i would like to see both enam and thund-T gone but in all honesty if one of the two has to go I would say it's Thunderous at this stage.

if a mon receives 34% of the vote (and therefore is presumably banned with only 34% of the tier saying "ban") will there be a chance to re-suspect in the future soon / do a run off between the top two most voted? i think people would be sad if a mon got banned with 34% ban vote.

We'd do a run-off with the top 2 mons that tied in the voting phase. And yes, taking a look at the RUBLs once the tier settles down is something we have plan for the future, similarly to how we handled the RUBLs unbans back in USM RU.

why are we not suspecting maushold????

I'm addressing this since I've seen comments like this in the discord. You might not be that in touch with current RU if you think something like Maushold deserves to be looked at right now. However, I'll say that once this suspect test is over, we will hold another community survey on what other mon could join the 3 way suspect test alongside the other 2 mons that were not banned, and we'll see which one gets banned then.

 

[angelthesaucegod]

Quite honestly, this is by far one of the suspect tests that RU has done, Feli is doing something very interesting here by suspect testing 3 pokemon at a time (3 is more than one, fun fact.) This begs the question however, has Feli gotten too old to be a leader and something almost unheard of such as suspecting this many pokemon at a time a sign that he may be going insane? Maybe. He is 26 after all (basically 30, which is the new 40 and 40 is basically 50 and 50 is half way to 100 so you might as well round up) yup. Feli is 100 years old, insane, right? Anyways, these 3 pokemon are not even the most problematic in RU at the moment as the patented Angel Threat Scale (TM) has ruled that Tera Rock Samurott with tera blast is far more suppressive than these 3 washed pokemon, I'll get into why that is now


Iron Leaves is basically the Ryan Leaf of pokemon, passes the eye test but was a straight up bust that ended up in RU instead of being the OU threat that people thought it would be how can such a FRAUD be considered ban worthy?


All Enamorus wants to do is spread love, spring is coming up pretty soon in the northern hemisphere (where Feli resides) and Enamorus represents spring, wanting to ban this pokemon basically means you hate spring and love climate change by wanting to have an eternal winter (makes sense since Feli has a cold, 100 year old heart)

that is all i have to say on this suspect test those are my thoughts, thank you! love you!

 

[Master Chief]

I'm gonna start deleting these one-liners that add NOTHING to the suspect test itself. Not sure why people are so in disbelief of this being an actual tiering path we are taking to handle RU's current situation.



We'd do a run-off with the top 2 mons that tied in the voting phase. And yes, taking a look at the RUBLs once the tier settles down is something we have plan for the future, similarly to how we handled the RUBLs unbans back in USM RU.


I'm addressing this since I've seen comments like this in the discord. You might not be that in touch with current RU if you think something like Maushold deserves to be looked at right now. However, I'll say that once this suspect test is over, we will hold another community survey on what other mon could join the 3 way suspect test alongside the other 2 mons that were not banned, and we'll see which one gets banned then.

Yea and what happened to talon. That shit is definitely balanced but still RUBL in USM RU. Thank god I'm in the council now so that this is actually reviewed and not just looked over like talon was in USM RU. Did I forget to mention we should free talon? cyanize back me up on this

 

[cyanize]

free talon Feliburn

 

[Stories]

Honestly really disappointed in this approach to the tier. Limiting the suspect test to only 3 Pokemon is simply a waste of time in a metagame equally dominated by threats like Revavroom, Maushold, Yanmega, and others. I propose to scrap this suspect test altogether and allow qualified voters to ban whatever Pokemon they want, in any number. This will allow for better community expression and should be a much less controversial suspect test concept.

 

[eifo]

talonflame did nothing wrong whatsoever and should certainly be free in smru. we did a whole tour with a suspect slot for talon in which it proved to be a perfectly healthy element. thankfully i strategically gathered council members over the past couple of years to push the pro-talon agenda. we are now in the majority.

power to the people, free talon!

 

[Feliburn]

I'm not sure why I'm on the receiving end of the USM RU Talonflame situation when this is the vote that happened years ago:

If you want to blame anyone, blame the tyrannic savant you used to call your tier leader back then for voting to ban Talonflame, as well as for picking feen as his co tier leader (who also voted to ban Talonflame btw). Seeing how I'm always on the right side of the situations, there's no longer doubt in my mind that this is the right step to take for the current SV RU metagame, and I hope every post following this can be like llamas', and help nurture this new way of tiering we've come up with.