Shed Tail is now banned and Cyclizar is now unbanned from SV OU as the result of a council vote. It’s a rare case when banning a Pokémon doesn’t take care of the problem. The banning of Cyclizar was believed to be the best path to improving the metagame and containing Shed Tail without taking away a new move completely from the metagame. Unfortunately, after the dust settled and the metagame progressed it has become clear that the move itself is too much for the OU tier. Generally, we would prefer to hold a suspect test rather than quick ban so the community has more input. However, we felt holding a council vote on Shed Tail instead of a suspect test was justified in this case, for the following reasons:
Without further ado, here are the results of the council vote:
For something to be quickbanned at this stage of the metagame so close to the release of HOME, we require a supermajority of over 2/3 votes. With our current 11 members, at least 8 out of 11 votes need to be ban votes. We believe this process leads to only the most definitively ban-worthy presences of the metagame being removed, but please message Finchinator or Ruft if you have any further questions on the process. Do note that it is possible we may reevaluate Shed Tail once Pokemon Scarlet and Violet become Pokemon HOME compatible later this year. With the council vote being 10 out of 11 votes being quick ban, Shed Tail is now banned from SV OU, effective immediately. Now that Shed Tail the move itself is banned, we also will be Unbanning Cyclizar as we believe it will be a balanced Pokemon in the metagame without Shed Tail (tagging Marty and Kris to implement).
Shed Tail is a game-changing move that is very similar to Baton Pass, pivoting but also providing a free substitute for the recipient. Shed Tail takes advantage of passive Pokemon or even how you can Tera type to take advantage of the substitute, seen by the rise of encore Pokemon like Iron Valiant & Dragonite lacking the countermeasure into a previously super effective mon and then resisting. This move is providing not only a free entry to a Pokemon but potentially multiple free turns and so a 'wrong' turn can set you back heavily. With such tremendous threats in the metagame like Roaring Moon & Iron Valiant, there are Pokémon such as Toxapex & Garganacl that are popular to attempt to check these Pokémon. While normally these Pokemon can check the aforementioned threats, Orthworm can take advantage of them to set up a Shed Tail. Once the Shed Tail is activated, it is far harder for these normal defensive answers to respond effectively. This allows most Shed Tail based offenses to overwhelm the opponent's checks and measures as these powerful breakers are able to get boosts attached to their already boosted Attack, Special Attack, or Speed thanks to Booster Energy, which just aids the ability to overwhelm checks. Orthworm itself has a good set of tools for offensive teams to use. A Steel-type with Ground immunity fills many important roles for offense, checking and taking advantage of some annoying Pokemon like Baxcalibur and Dragonite that usually usually respond to sweepers. Stealth Rock, Spikes, and Shed Tail allow it to avoid being passive while allowing Orthworm to get value against pokemon like Ting Lu, Toxapex, and Clodsire. Shed Tail has become a centralizing offensive play style that has eclipsed many other viable forms of offense, due to Orthworm's relatively low opportunity cost. In early SV Cyclizar was often ran on Hyper Offensive teams with Screens (usually through Grimmsnarl), making Shed Tail substitutes significantly harder to deal with even for non-passive Pokemon, especially with it able to heal off Shed Tail damage with Regenerator. In current SV play we see Shed Tail paired with abusers such as Iron Valiant (Calm Mind & SD), Roaring Moon (DD Taunt, DD Roost, DD 3 Atk), Iron Moth (Spa Booster & Speed Booster), Kingambit, Volcarona (Quiver Dance 3 Atk & Bulky Quiver Dance) & many more. Giving such potent sweepers a free turn it is not a surprise how Shed Tail has become such a centralizing move.
Some view phasing options such as Red Card & Whirlwind/Roar as a fair countermeasure to Shed Tail. The main issue with those options are they can’t be consistent and they aren’t a sure thing. Red Card depends on the Pokémon under Shed Tail to attack and survive the attack to phase the Pokémon out and it only activates once. If the opponent is able to position for another Shed Tail you’ve lost your general countermeasure to the style. Whirlwind/Roar has limited distribution with only Ting Lu using it consistently. Ting Lu and overall most phasers can be worn down easily throughout the match. Ting Lu is one of the few that’s extremely complicated to take down and even then if the Shed Tail abuser has Taunt (I.E. Roaring Moon, Iron Valiant) you’re unable to phase out the opponent's Shed Tail. There also is the issue that Shed Tail offense caused the rise in usage of an item such as Red Card showing how centralizing the move has become in the metagame, along with the reality that most Red Card users have to be regenerated Pokemon who can afford the not only the loss of an item slot but can also recover off the damage to be still relevant in the match.
It’s the Council's opinion and furthered backed by the surveyed Smogon community, that a proper Shed Tail mitigates many risks for your preferred win condition. There is limited counterplay and constrained methods to outplay a free Substitute for the player using Shed Tail. The metagame has started to revolve around this singularity, and that has been reflective on the metagame from ladder to tour play that either you use Shed Tail based teams or teams built to outlast Shed Tail and the abusers it compliments. We find this move unhealthy and have thus majority decided to vote to ban Shed Tail from SV OU.
- There has been just reason to ban Shed Tail over the course of this generation; in fact, it was the main reason Cyclizar was banned. However, the most recent tiering survey showed an unprecedented overwhelming amount of support to take tiering action on Shed Tail even eclipsing Espathra both from the qualified and the global community (these survey results will be publicized soon).
- The Smogon Premier League and the Official Smogon Tournament, two of Smogon's flagship OU tournaments both having come to a close, have showcased have showcased how much of a game-changing move it truly is. This fully stood out during the final weeks of both tournaments with games and trophies being decided by this move.
- We understand that HOME is very near but with the continued vagueness on a date, we don’t want to be beholden and stall out our continued goal for a balanced metagame.
- Cyclizar was previously quickbanned because of Shed Tail single-handedly propelling it to brokenness. Amending this to Shed Tail as a whole was considered by the council and tiering administration as an extension of that initial ban.
Without further ado, here are the results of the council vote:
Shed Tail Vote
Finchinator - Ban
Ruft - Ban
Star - Ban
njnp - Ban
ausma - Ban
xavgb - Ban
mind gaming - Ban
ima - Ban
TPP - Ban
FlamingVictini - Ban
Ox the Fox - Did Not Vote
Finchinator - Ban
Ruft - Ban
Star - Ban
njnp - Ban
ausma - Ban
xavgb - Ban
mind gaming - Ban
ima - Ban
TPP - Ban
FlamingVictini - Ban
Ox the Fox - Did Not Vote
For something to be quickbanned at this stage of the metagame so close to the release of HOME, we require a supermajority of over 2/3 votes. With our current 11 members, at least 8 out of 11 votes need to be ban votes. We believe this process leads to only the most definitively ban-worthy presences of the metagame being removed, but please message Finchinator or Ruft if you have any further questions on the process. Do note that it is possible we may reevaluate Shed Tail once Pokemon Scarlet and Violet become Pokemon HOME compatible later this year. With the council vote being 10 out of 11 votes being quick ban, Shed Tail is now banned from SV OU, effective immediately. Now that Shed Tail the move itself is banned, we also will be Unbanning Cyclizar as we believe it will be a balanced Pokemon in the metagame without Shed Tail (tagging Marty and Kris to implement).
Shed Tail is a game-changing move that is very similar to Baton Pass, pivoting but also providing a free substitute for the recipient. Shed Tail takes advantage of passive Pokemon or even how you can Tera type to take advantage of the substitute, seen by the rise of encore Pokemon like Iron Valiant & Dragonite lacking the countermeasure into a previously super effective mon and then resisting. This move is providing not only a free entry to a Pokemon but potentially multiple free turns and so a 'wrong' turn can set you back heavily. With such tremendous threats in the metagame like Roaring Moon & Iron Valiant, there are Pokémon such as Toxapex & Garganacl that are popular to attempt to check these Pokémon. While normally these Pokemon can check the aforementioned threats, Orthworm can take advantage of them to set up a Shed Tail. Once the Shed Tail is activated, it is far harder for these normal defensive answers to respond effectively. This allows most Shed Tail based offenses to overwhelm the opponent's checks and measures as these powerful breakers are able to get boosts attached to their already boosted Attack, Special Attack, or Speed thanks to Booster Energy, which just aids the ability to overwhelm checks. Orthworm itself has a good set of tools for offensive teams to use. A Steel-type with Ground immunity fills many important roles for offense, checking and taking advantage of some annoying Pokemon like Baxcalibur and Dragonite that usually usually respond to sweepers. Stealth Rock, Spikes, and Shed Tail allow it to avoid being passive while allowing Orthworm to get value against pokemon like Ting Lu, Toxapex, and Clodsire. Shed Tail has become a centralizing offensive play style that has eclipsed many other viable forms of offense, due to Orthworm's relatively low opportunity cost. In early SV Cyclizar was often ran on Hyper Offensive teams with Screens (usually through Grimmsnarl), making Shed Tail substitutes significantly harder to deal with even for non-passive Pokemon, especially with it able to heal off Shed Tail damage with Regenerator. In current SV play we see Shed Tail paired with abusers such as Iron Valiant (Calm Mind & SD), Roaring Moon (DD Taunt, DD Roost, DD 3 Atk), Iron Moth (Spa Booster & Speed Booster), Kingambit, Volcarona (Quiver Dance 3 Atk & Bulky Quiver Dance) & many more. Giving such potent sweepers a free turn it is not a surprise how Shed Tail has become such a centralizing move.
Some view phasing options such as Red Card & Whirlwind/Roar as a fair countermeasure to Shed Tail. The main issue with those options are they can’t be consistent and they aren’t a sure thing. Red Card depends on the Pokémon under Shed Tail to attack and survive the attack to phase the Pokémon out and it only activates once. If the opponent is able to position for another Shed Tail you’ve lost your general countermeasure to the style. Whirlwind/Roar has limited distribution with only Ting Lu using it consistently. Ting Lu and overall most phasers can be worn down easily throughout the match. Ting Lu is one of the few that’s extremely complicated to take down and even then if the Shed Tail abuser has Taunt (I.E. Roaring Moon, Iron Valiant) you’re unable to phase out the opponent's Shed Tail. There also is the issue that Shed Tail offense caused the rise in usage of an item such as Red Card showing how centralizing the move has become in the metagame, along with the reality that most Red Card users have to be regenerated Pokemon who can afford the not only the loss of an item slot but can also recover off the damage to be still relevant in the match.
It’s the Council's opinion and furthered backed by the surveyed Smogon community, that a proper Shed Tail mitigates many risks for your preferred win condition. There is limited counterplay and constrained methods to outplay a free Substitute for the player using Shed Tail. The metagame has started to revolve around this singularity, and that has been reflective on the metagame from ladder to tour play that either you use Shed Tail based teams or teams built to outlast Shed Tail and the abusers it compliments. We find this move unhealthy and have thus majority decided to vote to ban Shed Tail from SV OU.