Sleep Clause in Generation 8

power

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Generation 8 is just around the corner, and I wanted to bring up a complex ban that, in my opinion, shouldn't exist in modern generations and should be changed to a simple ban for Generation 8.

I.) We play, to the best of our simulator's capabilities, with the mechanics given to us on the cartridge.
  • Some exceptions exist, such as Sleep Clause...
Why does Sleep Clause get to be an exception? Sleep Clause is widespread across Smogon Metagames for mostly historical reasons, even though it no longer is an option on cartridge and is the only Smogon clause that cannot be enforced on cartridge. This is a proposal for future generations, and for all Smogon Tiers; I'm not interested in affecting Sleep Clause in Generation 7 or any past generations and this proposal is for any tier that is currently on track to have Sleep Clause for Gen 8.

The closest parallels to Sleep Clause were the former "Baton Pass Clauses" that were removed in favor of a blanket ban on Baton Pass. Banning Baton Pass was an excellent decision that vastly simplified the banlist; even if there existed clauses that could keep a neutered version of Baton Pass around, we chose a blanket ban on Baton Pass because it was simple and easy to enforce. To paraphrase a quote from the Baton Pass thread, just because Sleep is not currently broken as claused doesn't mean that we shouldn't aim to simplify the banlist for future generations.

(Please refrain from derailing this thread with Relic Song / HP Percentage Clause; this is not the thread to discuss either of these. Relic Song is no different from Ice Beam and is almost certainly not broken, even without sleep clause, in any Smogon Tier, and can always be dealt with later if it is. HP Percentage Clause is a convenience clause that cannot be replaced with a simple ban.)

TL;DR: Unrestricted Sleep is broken; we currently enforce a complex clause that breaks cartridge mechanics. I don't see the downsides of simplifying this to a simple ban on all sleep-inducing moves but I'd be interested in hearing the objections if there are any.
 
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there's even a tl;dr for you my guy
That wasn't there as far as I know in the original post, it was edited in.

But then, if necessary, to elaborate more: I don't think sleep is necessarily detrimental to a metagame, but more than 1 sleep per match is probably broken, so instead of banning sleep powder/spore/etc. I think it's fine that we keep it as is, and to be fully frank, I have absolutely no interest in cartridge accuracy or anything like that and could not care less if we create modifications to the games as they are on the cart.
 

Finchinator

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Not stating an opinion on the matter of Sleep Clause vs Sleep "Ban" yet as I am still undecided, but if we were to hypothetically go through with this, then the following should be discussed at length between relevant parties:
I don't see the downsides of simplifying this to a simple ban on all sleep-inducing moves
How do we define a "sleep-inducing move" in this context then? Given the current phrasing, moves such as Rest, which induces sleep on yourself, would be included. Obviously, this is not intended and we can change it to "non-self sleep inducing moves" or "opponent/target pokemon sleep-inducing moves". From there, moves such as Relic Song, which has a 10% chance to induce sleep that gets boosted to 20% with Serene Grace from Meloetta, can potentially be problematic. On top of that, moves such as Psycho Shift, when paired with Rest and Sleep Talk, or even Secret Power, when paired with the appropriate terrain, can induce sleep. Given this, I assume you would want to take it a step further and define it as "moves that induce sleep on the opponent and nothing else", which lets you cover Sleep Powder, Hypnosis, Spore, Grass Whistle, Dark Void, Lovely Kiss, etc., but not the aforementioned fringe cases. This does leave abilities such as Effect Spore in play still, but I am not sure if we will widen our scope to that or just focus solely on move bans, potentially letting multiple Pokemon fall asleep from Effect Spore much like we then would with Relic Song or Secret Power. Regardless of what the consensus on this topic is, I feel that if we are reaching a point in which a formal proposal is made down the line, then this should be ironed out and agreed upon in order to be a part of that proposal so the tier leaders can formally discuss and vote come the appropriate time. So I'd say this is not necessarily urgent/pressing, but it is an important part of the discussion.
 

Colonel M

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I'm not really here to chime in either way as of yet, but I felt some past context on the history of Sleep Clause was something to bring up to perhaps give some information on what happened and what was discussed. Bear in mind a lot of this was during Gen 5 when the Sleep mechanics were first introduced. Maybe it can help to persuade either way on why we should or should not allow Sleep. These topics also touch (albeit briefly) on cartridge vs past simulations (like Stadium Sleep Clause) as otherwise Gen 4 gets really messy with Acid Rain as an example.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cartridge-sleep-clause-mechanics.62701
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/5th-gen-sleep-clause-implementation.81185/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/banning-sleep-moves-in-gen-5.83853/
I think, regardless, it's a very rickety bridge to cross and I think that taking extra caution and time with this is for the best.
 

PDC

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you're forgetting the tiering history of baton pass included incredibly complex bans until its final complete banning. usually i'm the 'no fun allowed on precedent and principles' tiering guy, but i think sleep clause should be upheld. i'd hesitate to even call this a traditional complex ban issue; this is an outright edit of in-game mechanics than a prohibition of "x w/ move y is banned."

because i don't identify this as a comparable complex ban issue, i don't think it should be compared to baton pass. instead, this should be filed under tiering philosophy geared towards the extent at which we want to edit cartridge mechanics....which is another discussion entirely.
 

Oglemi

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In its implemented form, sleep clause "breaks" game mechanics, but what it really boils down to is that it's really a forced gentlemen's agreement to not sleep more than 1 mon a match using the technology available to us. Sleep clause is possible in in-game mechanics if both players follow the gentleman's agreement. But because you can't trust trolls on the Internet our gentleman's agreement is forced.
 

DaWoblefet

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While I do think that there are some problems with the current implementation of Sleep Clause, I don't think that adjusting the clause to mean "all moves which induce sleep on some opposing target are banned" is helpful.

As stated earlier, Sleep Clause to me feels like a gentleman's clause on cartridge; while there's no specific in-game clause to prevent some opponent from clicking Spore on every Pokemon that's awake, both parties agree to not to put more than one Pokemon to sleep. In a comparable way, the OU banlist is not implemented on cartridge, so if I opt to use Gengarite or Pheromosa, I wouldn't be breaking any cartridge rules, but I would be breaking the gentleman's agreement between both parties. So let's examine what differences that an automatic enforcement of Sleep Clause does compared to a manual enforcement:
  1. If a Pokemon has already used three turns of sleep, I might want to Spore that target to put it back to sleep this turn. But suppose rather than choosing to wake up, the opponent switches out their sleeping Pokemon into another non-Spore-immune target. On cartridge, this Pokemon would be put to sleep, but on Showdown, this would simply activate Sleep Clause. This pressures the cartridge player against attempting to resleep an already sleeping Pokemon so Sleep Clause isn't accidentally broken.
  2. If a Pokemon has Safety Goggles, Overcoat, is ambiguously protected by Electric/Misty Terrain (e.g. Bronzong), etc. and a Spore is attempted when another Pokemon is already asleep, on cart these effects would activate. My understanding is that on Showdown, Sleep Clause mod will activate first, so that no information is revealed.
  3. Moves/Abilities that could potentially induce sleep (Effect Spore, Relic Song, Secret Power in Grassy Terrain) could accidentally "violate" Sleep Clause by putting another Pokemon to sleep on cartridge; on Showdown, all of these effects would be stopped via Sleep Clause mod.
  4. I'm not sure of Showdown's interaction between Sleep Clause mod and the doubling effect of Stomping Tantrum, but I guess there's that too since I would count Sleep Clause as a failed move in most circumstances.
I can't think of anything more than these 4 differences between automatic and manual enforcement (this is assuming both players understand what Sleep Clause means). I don't know the standard "punishment" given to players who break Sleep Clause intentionally on cart: maybe losing the game? Replay same actions? (this isn't always possible). Regardless, I think 2-4 can be resolved more easily than 1:
  • In response to 2: reveal the Sleep prevention effect, not Sleep Clause mod. It would have been impossible to put that Pokemon to sleep. Things like Lum Berry/Chesto Berry/Hydration/other methods of healing sleep should not reach those points (because the sleep went through successfully) and instead trigger Sleep Clause. On cart, the player intentionally Sporing twice and hitting Insomnia should not be punished as violating Sleep Clause, but the player Sporing into a Lum Berry should.
  • In response to 3: I say let Effect Spore/Relic Song/Secret Power in Grassy Terrain completely ignore Sleep Clause altogether on Showdown and be a non-violation on Showdown. This is an accidental double Sleep, and does not fall under the category of being intentional, which seems to be the point of Sleep Clause. Would making these effects immune to Sleep Clause result in degenerate strategies? Maybe for Grassy Terrain Secret Power? Not sure.
  • In response to 4: Don't let Stomping Tantrum double on Sleep Clause mod. That seems to be an abuse of Sleep Clause, and on cart doing something like that obviously wouldn't work.
So my response to 3) is probably the most controversial (but not too bad imo), but I have an even more controversial solution for 1). On cart, I would argue that you are not allowed to click Spore when the opponent already has turns of sleep, because they could potentially switch out, forcing you to accidentally break Sleep Clause. So then for Sleep Clause, I would argue that you should make the Sleep move unselectable / grayed out, in a similar way to when you're Choice locked and can't select another move after being locked into the first one. When an opponent is asleep and you clicking Spore could trigger Sleep Clause, you instead can't click Spore at all. This would resolve the difficulty of 1) while being true to a gentleman's agreement on cart. It also makes the solutions to 2) and 4) unneeded.

But besides all this, I would argue that discussing Sleep Clause's implementation right now is all that matters.
  1. You don't know if there are any mechanics changes to Sleep of which we're unaware. Suppose Game Freak nerfs sleep by subtracting a sleep turn if that Pokemon switches out, or you can only sleep for 2 turns max, or whatever. Just because Game Freak didn't change sleep from 6 -> 7 doesn't imply they wouldn't change it from 7 -> 8, which could impact our analysis of the clause.
  2. You don't know that there might not be a Sleep Clause mod built-in to the game as an option in battles! Perhaps you can make a custom ruleset that allows Sleep Clause. In this case, the community would be justified in implementing Sleep Clause in Gen VIII formats.
tl;dr Arguing for a Sleep Clause redefinition in Generation 8 is premature, but I think you can change it subtly enough now to make it more accurate with respect to cartridge mechanics while retaining the intent and purpose of Sleep Clause. My proposed model would exempt percentage-based sleep from Sleep Clause mod (i.e. Effect Spore/Relic Song/Secret Power in Grassy Terrain) to remain more accurate to cartridge mechanics. Additionally, rather than prevent sleep when the move lands on its target, instead Sleep moves like Spore, etc. are made grayed out/unselectable until not triggering Sleep Clause is possible again.
 
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i agree with dawoblefet on the fact that, if we do keep sleep clause, moves that induce sleep should be greyed out instead, mostly for the implications stated on their post. however, there's only one issue that arises with this problem. what if the sleep inducer runs out of pp on their other moves? should the sleep inducer be forced out? should the opponent be forced to stay in until the sleep moves' pp runs out? should sleep clause not apply if a pokemon only has sleeping moves with pp left? there should probably be an exception for this case and that's exactly the issue with sleep clause, i feel: exceptions.

the current format of sleep clause is not only impossible on cartridge but also has a handful of exceptions (i.e. relic song, rest, secret power, etc). but even the gentle(wo)men's agreement format has its flaws such as the pp example and the aforementioned exceptions still apply and arise questions (can i put an opponent to sleep with spore if relic song / effect spore activated sleep?).

so yeah, if the status quo of sleep remains in the next generation i'd completely support a ban to sleep moves as a whole. this clause feels a lot like a complex ban, in which we ban a portion of the problem, instead of the whole, and i don't think this is a smart philosophy as it just overcomplicates what could otherwise be a simple ban.
 

Merritt

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1). On cart, I would argue that you are not allowed to click Spore when the opponent already has turns of sleep, because they could potentially switch out, forcing you to accidentally break Sleep Clause. So then for Sleep Clause, I would argue that you should make the Sleep move unselectable / grayed out, in a similar way to when you're Choice locked and can't select another move after being locked into the first one. When an opponent is asleep and you clicking Spore could trigger Sleep Clause, you instead can't click Spore at all. This would resolve the difficulty of 1) while being true to a gentleman's agreement on cart. It also makes the solutions to 2) and 4) unneeded.
How would this interact with Encore? Will Encore fail (certainly not accurate to cart mechanics)? Will the opponent be forced to switch out? What if they're unable to due to being the last Pokemon or being trapped by Mean Look? Will they instead be using Struggle (not accurate to cart mechanics)?

Similarly, how would this interact with Choice items? If an Amoongus is tricked a Choice Scarf and is locked into Spore, will they be forced to switch? What if they're unable to - for example a scenario where Bronzong is choicelocked into Hypnosis against a Magnet Pull Pokemon?

If the opponent has only a Tangrowth, Tapu Bulu, and a sleeping Heatran still unfainted, would a Venusaur be able to use Sleep Powder freely for the purposes of PP stalling or be unable to? What if the opponent has a sleeping Togekiss and a completely unrevealed Espeon (unknown if Magic Bounce or not)? Will you be unable to click Hypnosis again until Espeon is revealed to be Magic Bounce?

Going into more out there scenarios, if a Pokemon has Assist and the only valid move to be called remaining is Spore will Assist be greyed out? What if Assist has a 50% chance to call Spore due to teammate moves? A 5% chance? An 80% chance?

There's a lot of scenarios to make this accurate to a gentleman's agreement on cart and a lot of potential exceptions.

Personally I think that as long as the Sleep Clause Mod is expressly laid out as an exception that should never be used for precedent with regards to implementing sim mods or any other future bans, it's worthwhile to have in order to remain somewhat close to cartridge play in the sense of not removing a status condition from play pretty much entirely.

Also, if the goal here is ultimately cart accuracy over absolutely everything then the HP % mod should definitely be on the table as in a real sense it is an information leak.
 

DaWoblefet

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I think your objections are good, Merritt, but they are not dependent on my model of Sleep Clause. So when you say, for example
How would this interact with Encore? Will Encore fail (certainly not accurate to cart mechanics)? Will the opponent be forced to switch out? What if they're unable to due to being the last Pokemon or being trapped by Mean Look? Will they instead be using Struggle (not accurate to cart mechanics)?

Similarly, how would this interact with Choice items? If an Amoongus is tricked a Choice Scarf and is locked into Spore, will they be forced to switch? What if they're unable to - for example a scenario where Bronzong is choicelocked into Hypnosis against a Magnet Pull Pokemon?
then you'd be forced to break Sleep Clause on cartridge anyway. I would argue that attempting to resleep an already sleeping Pokemon is a more common situation than the opponent intentionally trying to get you to break Sleep Clause, so my model considers that to be more important.

I do think that being unable to use Spore for purposes of PP scenarios, like you and locri both addressed, is probably the worst implication of my model. In either implementation though, you can't avoid these scenarios on cart. If I have a Choice Scarf Breloom and lock into Spore against a Shadow Tag Pokemon, couldn't the opponent just force me to break Sleep Clause by switching out their Shadow Tag Pokemon? Of course! Is the alternative then to use Struggle? I think my model would imply the answer is yes, which ultimately ends up breaking game mechanics again. I still think that this is preferable to the current implementation, as I find these other scenarios to be more niche and contrived. While not the most compelling supporting argument, singles games on cart will hardly ever go to PP, because of the unavoidable 60-minute timer that comes with each battle. So for all practical purposes PP is less likely to come up on a cart match, and I think breaking game mechanics to force Struggle in those situations on Showdown, while not ideal, is better than before.

So to respond to each point directly,
what if the sleep inducer runs out of pp on their other moves? should the sleep inducer be forced out? should the opponent be forced to stay in until the sleep moves' pp runs out? should sleep clause not apply if a pokemon only has sleeping moves with pp left?
The Pokemon would be forced to either use Struggle or switch.
How would this interact with Encore? Will Encore fail (certainly not accurate to cart mechanics)? Will the opponent be forced to switch out? What if they're unable to due to being the last Pokemon or being trapped by Mean Look? Will they instead be using Struggle (not accurate to cart mechanics)?
RE: first: Some sort of generic "but it failed!" message, more akin to attempting to use a move you were not Choice locked into during Magic Room and Magic Room being reversed on that turn. RE: second: they would Struggle.
Similarly, how would this interact with Choice items? If an Amoongus is tricked a Choice Scarf and is locked into Spore, will they be forced to switch? What if they're unable to - for example a scenario where Bronzong is choicelocked into Hypnosis against a Magnet Pull Pokemon?
The Pokemon would be forced to either use Struggle or switch.
If the opponent has only a Tangrowth, Tapu Bulu, and a sleeping Heatran still unfainted, would a Venusaur be able to use Sleep Powder freely for the purposes of PP stalling or be unable to? What if the opponent has a sleeping Togekiss and a completely unrevealed Espeon (unknown if Magic Bounce or not)? Will you be unable to click Hypnosis again until Espeon is revealed to be Magic Bounce?
RE: first: it would be unable to use Sleep Powder. RE: second: it would be unable to use Hypnosis. As an aside, does that mean that right now Magic Bounce activates prior to Sleep Clause mod? Because that doesn't seem right to me either; I would think Sleep Clause mod should trigger sooner than that.
Going into more out there scenarios, if a Pokemon has Assist and the only valid move to be called remaining is Spore will Assist be greyed out? What if Assist has a 50% chance to call Spore due to teammate moves? A 5% chance? An 80% chance?
I can think of two solutions: either make it so moves that call other moves would not include Spore in their pool of available moves to choose, or else execute Spore then display "but it failed!".

Because every single one of these scenarios can equally occur on either model, whether or not you determine my model superior to the current model is independent of whether or not you think all Sleep moves should be axed. However, if you do think that there's a good reason to modify Sleep Clause, I don't think you should wait until Generation 8; do it now and apply the change retroactively, there really isn't a good reason not to do so. The implications of that are huge, of course; you completely destroy Amoonguss in BW Doubles OU, for example, which otherwise seems to be a healthy component of that metagame. I really don't know what the implications of "ban all sleep" are outside of BW DOU, though, so I'll leave that to more experienced players who have played in multiple tiers with Sleep Clause.
 

Martin

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While I do agree that this may be a solution looking for a problem, I think discussions about stuff like this are important for reaching the correct solution after years of iffy compromises.

That said, the issue with greying it out is that it provides an un-nuanced response to a nuanced problem; on cart it discourages you from using it without actually preventing it, with discourage being very heavily italicised.

As a player, you still have the option to use the sleep move while also understanding the risks involved with doing so. It adds a layer to the mindgames that both sides play:
  1. If you stay in and they use Spore, your Pokemon goes back to sleep.
  2. If you switch and your opponent attacks, you take damage and potentially lose momentum depending on what move was used.
  3. If you stay in and your opponent attacks, you have a woken Pokemon.
  4. If you switch and your opponent uses Spore, you win the game.
What sleep clause does on cart is it provides weaponry for both sides; your Pokemon is neutered, but you have a game ending switch that you can use versus a particularly bold opponent—a switch that they can also condition into backfiring. It also attaches a certain level of risk to things like Relic Song and Effect Spore, but whether they deserve to be encompassed under Sleep Clause is really up in the air and is probably enforced on a case by case basis on cart.

My issue with modifying game mechanics is that it alters the thought processes associated with certain decisions that players make, and I don’t think the strong-arm methods of outright preventing something are good solutions to the problem of multiple sleeps.

My proposal:
The generally aggreed upon method of enforcing this gentleman’s rule on cart is to have the rule breaker forfeit in the event of Sleep Clause being broken. Therefore, the solution to enforcing it on sim is to have it force a forfeit upon being broken in formats where Sleep Clause is active.

One of the main counter-arguments to this method of enforcement is that people would complain about losing games if they didn’t know about Sleep Clause. The solution to this is to provide an explicit notification that outlines the risk when using the move. If you’re worried about it getting annoying seeing that every time you try to re-sleep something, simply limit it to appearing once per play session.

As for how you’d integrate this in code, it’s as simple as splitting moves into the three categories that have been outlined already itt:
  1. Deliberate (Spore, Hypnosis, Yawn etc.—any move or ability with a 100% sleep rate on hit)
  2. Coincidental (Relic Song, Effect Spore etc.—any method of sleeping that requires a dice roll)
  3. Self (Rest, Comatose etc.—any move or ability that forces its user to sleep.
Moves in category 1 count towards a sleep clause counter; moves in category 3 do not. As for category 2, this comes down to whether we deem the risk of abusing the possibility of a second sleep to be great enough to blanket ban them.

My opinion on this is that they shouldn’t count towards sleep clause at all, and if at any point a strategy of abusing a specific sleep move to multi-sleep stuff proves to be problematic, there are enough precedents in place to justify banning individual moves. I simply don’t think it would be fair to force a forfeit over Effect Spore’s 10% rate.

I believe that the above proposal provides a solution to the problem that allows for as competitive and fair of a metagame possible without altering game mechanics, and I believe that it is the option that is most in line with Smogon’s ideal philosophy of metagame design as you can get within the realms of “complex” clausing (in quotes because it’s not really comparable to the other complex clauses from this site’s history).
 

p2

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dont get the point of this thread, sleep clause has been fine for the past 384 years why does it need to change? if your argument boils down to "its a complex ban" you should probably stop right there because tiering is riddled with random complex (yet necessary) bans/clauses, you aren't achieving anything of value by trying to eliminate sleep clause for the sake of removing complex bans


i feel people are just going around trying to do something for the sake of doing something, i don't think anything should be handled like that.. wait for it to become a legitimate problem before doing anything
 

elodin

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When I glanced at the title of this thread I was 100% sure the OP would suggest a retest on Sleep Clause come Gen 8, which is something I'd be completely in favor of. After finally having the time to read it and realizing this thread actually took the complete opposite direction from my initial thoughts I decided to make a post.

I do think Sleep Clause needs to be looked at again. Sleep Clause works the exact same way across all 7 Gens and all formats when sleep itself (both mechanics and metagame influence) works completely differently across all these tiers. From my perspective, this is quite an indicator of lazy tiering. Instead of properly addressing sleep across every Gen we decided to make 1 supreme clause which ends up taking away a lot of potential from developing our metagames.

What I mean by that is that it is absolutely ridiculous that sleep is treated the exact same way in RBY (where your Pokémon can sleep from 1-7 turns and your sleep counter doesn't reset when switched out) to BW (where your Pokémon can sleep from 1-3 turns and your sleep counter resets when switched out). That's also just addressing the mechanical differences between both Gens, but when we stop to consider metagame differences this problem only gets worse. While in RBY people usually play around sleep by burning turns with their designed absorbers, in BW people usually carry Sleep Talk users or sacrifice the most useless Pokémon in a particular matchup to sleep throughout the game. RBY lacks 100% accurate Spore but has more creative sleep inducers (Sing Chansey / Sing Lapras). I obviously could go more in-depth on this but I think I made my point already.

As you see, sleep functions completely differently in these 2 Gens both mechanically and metagame-wise. This comparison can be made across all Gens, and it's baffling to me that this issue was never addressed before, especially after the huge amounts of nerfs sleep as a status received after Gen 5. While sleep is almost a mandatory status to carry on your team in most Old Gens, you hardly ever see it be used in SM. This is because Grass-types are now immune to powder and spore moves, sleep counter again doesn't reset when your asleep Pokémon is switched out, Electric Terrain is a lot more common now with the introduction of Tapu Koko, and sleep still only lasts to a maximum of 3 turns (if you get unlucky) if none of these factors are in play and you do end up getting 1 Pokémon slept. Despite all these nerfs, Sleep Clause is still the exact same as it is in BW for no clear reason. Is it really the most popular opinion that we still don't have enough ways to play around sleep even if Sleep Clause isn't in play? It's so funny to me that sleep is by far the worst status in the game right now and people are genuinely arguing for a ban on sleep moves altogether. We literally see every other status used a lot more often across all CG tiers yet sleep is the main one we're looking at?

In my opinion, this thread took a completely unjustified direction when it comes to analyzing Sleep Clause and the influence of sleep moves in CG tiers in general. It's a status people nowadays almost never resort to due to the multiple nerfs it has received and I genuinely believe this clause should be retested and potentially removed in Gen 8 (and even Gen 7) in order to follow our tiering guidelines and improve our metagames.
 
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There was some internal discussion on this so I'll try to sum up where things are at in terms of options, and also my own opinion on the matter.

For one, I appreciate the OP's attempt to remove unnecessary clauses. It isn't "looking for problems"; it comes from a place of wanting to simplify where simplifying is possible, always a noble task. If it's deemed not "possible" then no harm no foul but a discussion on it can't hurt.

In terms of how shifting from current sleep clause to banning all sleep moves would impact relevant OU metagames, I'd probably sum it up as:
SM - no significant change
ORAS - no significant change
BW - probably positive change (current sleep is still kinda stupid)
DPP - probably negative change (sleep does actual good beyond just being tolerable)
ADV - nothing super significant but more significant than sm/oras probably
GSC - massively impactful
RBY - even more impactful

With this in mind, I suspect many people oppose making changes to the first 4 generations, and I can sympathize with that. On the other hand, we'd be doing a net positive to gens 5 and up most likely, which leaves us with a very important question: Can we justify changing the clause in just those generations but not the former ones? This isn't something I'm decided on myself but it is definitely something people should explore going forward on this topic.

If we are to just keep sleep clause as not being able to sleep more than 1 pokemon, I'd be interested in the greying out option instead of the current move failing. It's objectively closer to cart mechanics in the "gentleman's agreement" sense because you can say "don't click a sleep move when something is already put to sleep." The status quo is physically altering the mechanic of sleep upon being clicked, so this is definitely something to be considered. I am very strongly against autolosses or anything of the sort as a result of 2nd sleep being clicked. I also don't think we lose much by disallowing people from spamming sleep on a pokemon about to wake. It would also be easier for newer players to see that they can't click a move prior instead of finding out afterwards that it didn't work. As of now I can probably say I prefer greying out.
 

Ren

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In terms of how shifting from current sleep clause to banning all sleep moves would impact relevant OU metagames, I'd probably sum it up as:
SM - no significant change
ORAS - no significant change
BW - probably positive change (current sleep is still kinda stupid)
DPP - probably negative change (sleep does actual good beyond just being tolerable)
ADV - nothing super significant but more significant than sm/oras probably
GSC - massively impactful
RBY - even more impactful

With this in mind, I suspect many people oppose making changes to the first 4 generations, and I can sympathize with that. On the other hand, we'd be doing a net positive to gens 5 and up most likely, which leaves us with a very important question: Can we justify changing the clause in just those generations but not the former ones? This isn't something I'm decided on myself but it is definitely something people should explore going forward on this topic.

If we are to just keep sleep clause as not being able to sleep more than 1 pokemon, I'd be interested in the greying out option instead of the current move failing. It's objectively closer to cart mechanics in the "gentleman's agreement" sense because you can say "don't click a sleep move when something is already put to sleep." The status quo is physically altering the mechanic of sleep upon being clicked, so this is definitely something to be considered. I am very strongly against autolosses or anything of the sort as a result of 2nd sleep being clicked. I also don't think we lose much by disallowing people from spamming sleep on a pokemon about to wake. It would also be easier for newer players to see that they can't click a move prior instead of finding out afterwards that it didn't work. As of now I can probably say I prefer greying out.
I think this is a really good post and honestly I wanted to address this portion as I feel there's a lot to be discussed here.

I think that if we're going to redefine the way sleep is handled in Smogon metagames and change it from a clause to a ban, it should start (and maybe end, maybe not) at just Gen 8. After that, if old gen councils want to look at the way sleep is handled in that respective generation then they can do that, but I think it should be left up to them. As you mentioned, it'd make sense for people who would be negatively impacted by this change to be opposed to it. I think the best way for them to decide if this change is applied to their generation is for them to have a discussion between the metagame's players, because in the end, this is a change impacting the people who play the tier and it should be in their hands to decide what happens to it. And as for the metagames and players banning sleep would impact positively, I think that they should consider banning sleep, but I still think it's a discussion for them to have on their own since the tier should ultimately be in their hands. We could talk about shifting the clause to a ban on sleep moves globally, but I doubt that'd go over well hence why I feel it's best for each meta to decide for themselves.

The greying out option does seem like the best option, but as Finch said the issue is where do we stop? Stuff like Relic Song, Effect Spore, Psycho Shift etc. can still sleep. In my opinion, though these ways of sleeping the opponent don't really matter; As long as the move/ability in question does things other than sleep the opponent (In Effect Spore's case it can inflict a multitude of other statuses; Relic Song deals damage, bypasses sub and changes forme; Nature Power [i think thats the move anyway] can inflict other statuses and deals damage), it should be fine, because we can't grey out abilities and stuff and we shouldn't grey out moves just because they have a chance to sleep. If it winds up being a problem, the outliers can be banned, but I think the greying out option is a good way to cover almost every possible case of Sleep being problematic.

edit: I also agree with elodin that it's worth reconsidering the inclusion of sleep clause in our tiers in general. I think that if you automatically apply sleep clause to every gen, the players will never see if sleep is actually okay in that gen or not because they've never had the opportunity to play with it in an unrestricted environment. I also think that starting fresh would probably result in a more open minded outlook by the playerbase in regards to potentially banning sleep as opposed to clausing it.
 

Mario With Lasers

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If the issue is not being able to enforce it on cartridge, just change it to "You cannot put more than one pokémon to sleep".

"oh what about Encore or Effect Spore or fringe cases no one really cares about" how would you solve such a scenario playing on cartridge with a friend? You'd just not bother and keep playing because 1) if they're using Effect Spore they're already at a disadvantage, and 2) lmao are you seriously going to Encore Hypnosis just to get _two_ pokémon fast asleep? What are you gonna do then, OHKO them with Specs Snore?
 
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DoW

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If the issue is not being able to enforce it on cartridge, just change it to "You cannot put more than one pokémon to sleep".

"oh what about Encore or Effect Spore or fringe cases no one really cares about" how would you solve such a scenario playing on cartridge with a friend? You'd just not bother and keep playing because 1) if they're using Effect Spore they're already at a disadvantage, and 2) lmao are you seriously going to Encore Hypnosis just to get _two_ pokémon fast asleep? What are you gonna do then, OHKO them with Specs Snore?
There are legitimate times when you'd want sleep clause rather than "just don't put a second Pokémon to sleep", though. The main one I can think of is if a Pokémon that may or may not have natural cure has switched out.
If, for example, we agreed that whoever put a second Mon to sleep auto-lost (the way that playing on cart, if you use an OHKO move you auto-lose), then someone could win by letting a non-natural cure chansey be put to sleep, switch, and then claim they win when you put another Pokémon to sleep, of course assuming that the chansey would have the best ability.

The cost of increased complexity seems like a far better option than having to deal with weird effects of other potential versions of the rule like this one.
 

Merritt

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The main one I can think of is if a Pokémon that may or may not have natural cure has switched out.
If, for example, we agreed that whoever put a second Mon to sleep auto-lost (the way that playing on cart, if you use an OHKO move you auto-lose), then someone could win by letting a non-natural cure chansey be put to sleep, switch, and then claim they win when you put another Pokémon to sleep, of course assuming that the chansey would have the best ability.
This thankfully isn't an issue since you can figure out if the opponent has Natural Cure or not on cart since the opponent's team Pokeball icons will change color (separate from fainting) to indicate if they're affected by a status condition. As long as you're keeping track, you can know for sure if the opponent has Natural Cure - this is also why Natural Cure is announced on PS, it's knowable information.

Mario With Lasers yeah "only one Pokemon can be put to sleep" is sleep clause, what people are disagreeing about is how to implement it on PS in a way that isn't exploitable, such that we're not introducing a win condition that shouldn't exist of "force the opponent put two of your Pokemon to sleep" while also not stopping situations where on cart it would be perfectly legal to use a sleep move (for example, Hypnosis on a currently sleeping Pokemon when the opponent is unable to switch to a non-sleeping Pokemon).
 

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