Implemented SM UU Stall 2: The Quaggening

Lily · Dec 13, 2021

In June of this year, Quagsire was banned from SM UU after a lengthy thread about SM UU Stall. Since then, we have seen a reasonable amount of tournament games played where Quagsire is not legal, and we feel this is enough of a baseline for those actively playing SM UU to discuss their interpretations of the meta without Quagsire's presence. We promised to revisit this decision after about 6 months, so here it is.

This thread exists so that players may discuss their thoughts on Quagsire / stall as a whole. Here are the main questions I would like to see answered:

- Do you feel stall was appropriately cut back? Is it still too strong, has it been rendered too weak, or is it in a fine spot now?
- If you agree that stall should've been nerfed in the first place, do you think Quagsire was the correct targeting point? Is there a tiering change you would prefer that accomplishes the same/a similar goal?
- Has Quagsire's ban negatively impacted SM UU in other ways by making other playstyles too strong?

This thread will be open for at minimum 2 weeks (whenever playoffs of UUSD start) before a revote begins. If there is no consensus / this thread is still active when this point comes, we can extend the discussion further; I understand that this is also a time where a lot of people aren't logging in a whole lot over the holidays, and we're not in any rush here anyway.

Tagging all the previous voters to give their thoughts:

If you aren't on this list but still have strong thoughts about this topic then feel free to make a post here, all opinions will be considered.

A reminder that you can request posting access here if you don't already have it.

Adaam · Jan 1, 2022

Do you feel stall was appropriately cut back? Is it still too strong, has it been rendered too weak, or is it in a fine spot now?

Stall is definitely weaker without Quagsire, but it is surely not unviable as some feared in the previous thread. Pyukumuku has served as the immediate replacement, and while it is objectively worse than Quagsire, it still handles most of the setup Pokemon Quagsire did. Since the ban, we had SM UU games from SM Cup, UUWC, and UUSD to look at, but it seems not many people used stall besides pokemonisfun and myself. I will not speculate as to why.

pif vs Pak (SM Cup) - This stall has a Nidoqueen to serve as a Ground-type, which is a nice adaptation to handle Manectric since Gligar is obviously no good check. Pif wins this game by a decent margin, and Pyuk shows that it does hold niches over Quag in countering Togekiss.

Adaam vs Xiri (UUWC) - I used an old RMT from Amane Misa and drew a good mu, although Specs Moltres was always a looming threat with the risk of confusion on Blissey. SD Sciz + Alt could overwhelm Pyuk as well, but they didn't have setup. Blissey was in crit range a couple times later in the game too. In any case, stall with Pyuk is still strong.

Adaam vs scorbunny (UUWC) - Not the highest quality replay, but there aren't many to choose from. An easy win with stall, granted I did face an Araquanid...

Adaam vs pif (SM Cup) - I face pif using Muk stall with potential breakers in CB Sciz, CM Latias, and Trick Scarf Togekiss. I have outs, but the point is, pif using Pyuk > Quag did not cripple him. In fact, Pyuk came in clutch by walling NP Houndoom and taking Draco Meteor from Latias.

Speaking from my own perspective, I have found it easier to handle stall in the builder with Quag's absence. Manectric is now viable and not total dead weight in the stall MU. Doublade is actually hilariously good against Stall since Pyuk is helpless against it. The lack of attack moves makes PP stalling Pyuk's recovers a more realistic task than Quagsire. Pyuk has its flaws that are exploitable, but they're not nearly big enough for stall to lose its viability. Stall is still a consistently good style, it's just not autopilot anymore.

If you agree that stall should've been nerfed in the first place, do you think Quagsire was the correct targeting point? Is there a tiering change you would prefer that accomplishes the same/a similar goal?

In an ideal world we test Blissey, but only after Sciz and Latias as outlined by TDK in the old thread. This is obviously a pipe dream though. The SM playerbase is dwindling by the month, and changes like these should have been done while it was CG. That said, Quagsire's ban made stall weaker and more manageable without destroying its viability. The change itself was minimal with respect to the overall metagame. This was the correct choice.

Has Quagsire's ban negatively impacted SM UU in other ways by making other playstyles too strong?

No, it hasn't.

pokemonisfun · Jan 1, 2022

Substantively, I largely agree with Adaam's post above. Sorry for not adding anything besides "I agree." If (or when) someone raises a more specific discussion point more thoughts can be posted in response.

In terms of process, one important question that was a sticking point last time: who gets to vote? I suggest that someone draft a voter list this time with the criteria explained, the voters tagged, and going from there.

In advance, I have to say I'm against people voting who didn't participate in the "usual" opportunities - if you didn't put in the effort to play in gen7uu cup 2021 or gen7uu in the 2021 UU Snake Draft, when you knew there was going to be an upcoming Quagsire vote, I don't think you should vote.

pokemonisfun · Jan 4, 2022

Adaam said:
Do you feel stall was appropriately cut back? Is it still too strong, has it been rendered too weak, or is it in a fine spot now?

Stall is definitely weaker without Quagsire, but it is surely not unviable as some feared in the previous thread. Pyukumuku has served as the immediate replacement, and while it is objectively worse than Quagsire, it still handles most of the setup Pokemon Quagsire did. Since the ban, we had SM UU games from SM Cup, UUWC, and UUSD to look at, but it seems not many people used stall besides pokemonisfun and myself. I will not speculate as to why.

pif vs Pak (SM Cup) - This stall has a Nidoqueen to serve as a Ground-type, which is a nice adaptation to handle Manectric since Gligar is obviously no good check. Pif wins this game by a decent margin, and Pyuk shows that it does hold niches over Quag in countering Togekiss.

Adaam vs Xiri (UUWC) - I used an old RMT from Amane Misa and drew a good mu, although Specs Moltres was always a looming threat with the risk of confusion on Blissey. SD Sciz + Alt could overwhelm Pyuk as well, but they didn't have setup. Blissey was in crit range a couple times later in the game too. In any case, stall with Pyuk is still strong.

Adaam vs scorbunny (UUWC) - Not the highest quality replay, but there aren't many to choose from. An easy win with stall, granted I did face an Araquanid...

Adaam vs pif (SM Cup) - I face pif using Muk stall with potential breakers in CB Sciz, CM Latias, and Trick Scarf Togekiss. I have outs, but the point is, pif using Pyuk > Quag did not cripple him. In fact, Pyuk came in clutch by walling NP Houndoom and taking Draco Meteor from Latias.

Speaking from my own perspective, I have found it easier to handle stall in the builder with Quag's absence. Manectric is now viable and not total dead weight in the stall MU. Doublade is actually hilariously good against Stall since Pyuk is helpless against it. The lack of attack moves makes PP stalling Pyuk's recovers a more realistic task than Quagsire. Pyuk has its flaws that are exploitable, but they're not nearly big enough for stall to lose its viability. Stall is still a consistently good style, it's just not autopilot anymore.

If you agree that stall should've been nerfed in the first place, do you think Quagsire was the correct targeting point? Is there a tiering change you would prefer that accomplishes the same/a similar goal?

In an ideal world we test Blissey, but only after Sciz and Latias as outlined by TDK in the old thread. This is obviously a pipe dream though. The SM playerbase is dwindling by the month, and changes like these should have been done while it was CG. That said, Quagsire's ban made stall weaker and more manageable without destroying its viability. The change itself was minimal with respect to the overall metagame. This was the correct choice.

Has Quagsire's ban negatively impacted SM UU in other ways by making other playstyles too strong?

No, it hasn't.

Here's another replay of stall I just remembered, round 3 of SM UU cup 2021 which I played against Chaos23333 https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-1392545045-hwu0m3j1zkaxe7e1ytlamrjn1lxn99jpw

The stall player gets predicted by Crawdaunt which opens up a big hole as early as turn 6 and Chaos continues accurately when Rotom-H creates a vortex against Pyukumuku that Quagsire would have been able to stop. Notice how Pyukumuku is also less effective vs Scizor because of the inability to really harm it. Clearly even if I had Quagsire, after Chaos' nice prediction on turn 6 they wouldhave an advantage still. But also clearly given the lack of Quagsire, we have one less stall option to deal with a common Volt-Turn strategy and stall is at least somewhat weaker, which should make building somewhat easier.

avarice · Jan 4, 2022

Do you feel stall was appropriately cut back? Is it still too strong, has it been rendered too weak, or is it in a fine spot now?

It's obviously still usable in tournaments but I think this is just due to how frequently teams are recycled. To me it's too weak without Quagsire since you're relying on someone to bring something old that took Quagsire into account in the first place -> wasn't as focused on Pyukumuku or Alolan Muk structures. For example, Nasty Plot Togekiss is significantly worse as a stallbreaker now with Quagsire out of the picture but it sees usage anyway since not using it would mean reworking a team entirely.

Has Quagsire's ban negatively impacted SM UU in other ways by making other playstyles too strong?

While it hasn't been too obvious during Snake, Manectric and Mimikyu on the rise is just not good. Neither of them are totally busted without Quagsire but there is significantly less consequences to using them. I'm certainly in the minority here anyway but I dislike how much stronger Volt-Turn has gotten as it is only being held back by being old teams. It is also worth noting how no Quagsire has killed builds like Corazan's weirdly effective Mismagius team by removing one of the best Scizor answers. At risk of getting hit w "just don't fish XD" I think removing Quagsire just promoted laziness to innovate/prep.

pokemonisfun · Feb 18, 2022

I’m sorry but things die in this forum if they aren’t bumped consistently.

what’s the status of this vote?

I don’t know who to ping because Lily made very clear last year she was giving up on this vote but I see her as the OP again now.

if help is needed, I can assemble and ping a voter list if directed by the proper authorities of who should be on the list, given this post https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/voting-lists-for-old-gens.3686600/#post-9110306

I am not particularly in favor of having this vote but acknowledge the processes in place says we must have it and I believe we must follow the rules.

pokemonisfun · Feb 26, 2022

Tagging Lily Indigo Plateau as the two TLs and shiloh as the admin in this PR forum.

Can we please have an update on what is going on with this vote? The vote is already long overdue if there was to be one, and if for whatever reason there isn't, I truly think it is improper to let it die like this. The proper authorities should make an announcement.

I do not know who the proper authority is so I tagged the UU tier leaders and the PR admin.

One update that might be helpful:

I attach here the voters from last time (they are not tagged, you would need to tag them again prior to the vote):

Adaam
Adrift and Alone
agenS
Amukamara
avarice
basaninho
bugzinator
Bushtush
Cam
CBU
Christo
Corazan
Dlanyer
Empo
Eternally
Finchinator
Finding True Love
Floss
Gondra
GotCookies
Highways
HT
Indigo Plateau
itsjustdrew
Jaajgko
Kink
Lilburr
Marshall.Law
mncmt
Ninjadog
Pak
PinkDragonTamer
Pyroshi
robjr
rylon
Sacri'
Santu
Shiba
shiloh
SPACE FORCE meeps
Spl4sh
suapah
TDK
Thiago Nunes
vivalospride
Xiri

And I attach here the new voters potentially from UUSD, those who had at least 1 win and played 3+ games, according to the rule Shiloh created here (UUSD II spreadsheet here):

odr
pokemonisfun
ark

And I attach here new voters potentially from gen7uu cup, those who reached semis, according to Sihloh's rules again, (semis round here)

zben
askov
esche
LpZ

Those were the only two tournaments with new voters as far as I know.

Even if we accept this voter list above (and please double check before you do), there are still two outstanding issues from the previous thread and shiloh's rules:

1) What about players like Pearl, who TonyFlygon said should vote because they were very knowledgeable about UU when they were active? Should they be given votes, if so who should get them, and if so what's the specific criteria?

2) The voter list from last time included people who reached round 4 of gen7uu cup, not just semifinals. Should we eliminate voters who voted last time based on this Shiloh's new rules, which allows for exceptions but they have to be at least announced and acknowledged first. The key point I'd add here is semis for gen7uu is harder than semis for a smaller cup, which seems at least inconsistent.

I hope this post is productive and I hope we can properly resolve this issue instead of letting it sit.

Best,
pif

Berks · Feb 26, 2022

pokemonisfun said:
Tagging Lily Indigo Plateau as the two TLs and shiloh as the admin in this PR forum.

Can we please have an update on what is going on with this vote? The vote is already long overdue if there was to be one, and if for whatever reason there isn't, I truly think it is improper to let it die like this. The proper authorities should make an announcement.

I do not know who the proper authority is so I tagged the UU tier leaders and the PR admin.

One update that might be helpful:

I attach here the voters from last time (they are not tagged, you would need to tag them again prior to the vote):

Adaam
Adrift and Alone
agenS
Amukamara
avarice
basaninho
bugzinator
Bushtush
Cam
CBU
Christo
Corazan
Dlanyer
Empo
Eternally
Finchinator
Finding True Love
Floss
Gondra
GotCookies
Highways
HT
Indigo Plateau
itsjustdrew
Jaajgko
Kink
Lilburr
Marshall.Law
mncmt
Ninjadog
Pak
PinkDragonTamer
Pyroshi
robjr
rylon
Sacri'
Santu
Shiba
shiloh
SPACE FORCE meeps
Spl4sh
suapah
TDK
Thiago Nunes
vivalospride
Xiri

And I attach here the new voters potentially from UUSD, those who had at least 1 win and played 3+ games, according to the rule Shiloh created here (UUSD II spreadsheet here):

odr
pokemonisfun

And I attach here new voters potentially from gen7uu cup, those who reached semis, according to Sihloh's rules again, (semis round here)

zben
askov
esche
LpZ

Those were the only two tournaments with new voters as far as I know.

Even if we accept this voter list above (and please double check before you do), there are still two outstanding issues from the previous thread and shiloh's rules:

1) What about players like Pearl, who TonyFlygon said should vote because they were very knowledgeable about UU when they were active? Should they be given votes, if so who should get them, and if so what's the specific criteria?

2) The voter list from last time included people who reached round 4 of gen7uu cup, not just semifinals. Should we eliminate voters who voted last time based on this Shiloh's new rules, which allows for exceptions but they have to be at least announced and acknowledged first. The key point I'd add here is semis for gen7uu is harder than semis for a smaller cup, which seems at least inconsistent.

I hope this post is productive and I hope we can properly resolve this issue instead of letting it sit.

Best,
pif

I’m not into UU at all, but one way you could extend that voter list is to look at maybe giving votes to people that were awarded one of the three contributor badges for their work in that gen and tier when it was current? Or those who got their badge for work in that tier in a past gen and were active during it? You could even just look at teardrop and tree if you want to avoid messy TC stuff.

Hope this vote happens cause you know I love me some good PR threads

pokemonisfun · Feb 26, 2022

San Tomas said:
I’m not into UU at all, but one way you could extend that voter list is to look at maybe giving votes to people that were awarded one of the three contributor badges for their work in that gen and tier when it was current? Or those who got their badge for work in that tier in a past gen and were active during it? You could even just look at teardrop and tree if you want to avoid messy TC stuff.

Hope this vote happens cause you know I love me some good PR threads

Thanks. I think the main issue is we don't know what's going on with this vote, it was supposed to be 2-3 months ago.

The voting list is something to determine after our leaders make a decision on what to do with the vote.

Honestly I don't know what teardrop and tree mean or what the three contributor badges you talk about refers to, but I think it's probably all secondary to our leaders making a decision.

Also I'm not sure if you're aware of this post based on what you typed here, flagging it in case https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/voting-lists-for-old-gens.3686600/#post-9110306

Lily · Mar 6, 2022

had/have way too much on my plate here but i've reviewed pif's post and agree with the voter list he's created. I do not intend to remove any voters so regardless of the new rules shiloh has put in, the voters from last time will stay, even if they wouldn't qualify when making the list today. that makes the tag list:

I took a reasonably thorough check and I do not believe anyone is missed here, but if you think someone who should be on the list isn't here, please let me know. I don't really know what to do about situations like Pearl (who I entirely agree deserves a vote) without getting subjective, though.

Consider this your formal warning that I'll be putting up a second vote for Quagsire within a week or so. Please use this thread to voice any concerns you may have.

Cam · Mar 6, 2022

Lily said:
I don't really know what to do about situations like Pearl (who I entirely agree deserves a vote) without getting subjective, though.

If you think they deserve a vote why not put them in the list, I don't think its that deep, don't think there's reasonable argument for someone like Pearl not to have a vote (whether he cares or not). If there's other cases like that then I think its better they have the vote rather than not

pokemonisfun · Mar 6, 2022

Lily said:
Consider this your formal warning that I'll be putting up a second vote for Quagsire within a week or so. Please use this thread to voice any concerns you may have.

Once concern i have is that shiloh's post said you had to give two weeks warning after posting voting list, not one week. It's kind of minor since this is drawn out anyways but if there are rules to be followed, I think we should follow them.

Indigo Plateau · Mar 6, 2022

I would say just about everyone here would say that Pearl deserves a vote despite not being around for the first two or whatever years of SS. Coming up with a voter list based on the last two years of tournaments is subjective anyway, especially in a decision for 1) a tier that he was the TL of for quite a while and 2) a playstyle he had a huge impact on. Subjective or not I say let him vote

Corazan · Mar 7, 2022

Unban my man please !!

Lily · May 31, 2022

been far, far too long, but let's get this finished up.

As promised (and yes, this should've done been nearly a year ago...) we're doing a revote for this. The final voting list will be:

- Everyone who was qualified last time
- Anyone who played >50% of regular season games in UUSD, UUPL, or UUWC with at least 1 win in this tier. Bo3 players are included, naturally.
- Anyone who made semifinals of the most recent SM UU Cup.

This adds:

pokemonisfun
Leo
odr
ramolost
Star
EternalSnowman
Ark
Punny
Alpha Rabbit
Pohjis
guangguang
Saurav the great
esche
zben
Askov
LpZ

For a final voter list of:

I'll leave this open for another 48 hours or so before conducting a vote in case anyone has anything to say. There have been uh, many months to do that, but I'd like to hear what people think of the current SM UU where stall is clearly much less prevalent. As always, if you don't have posting access and need it, feel free to request it here.

justdrew · May 31, 2022

Hello! I appreciate all the work that’s been done on this. Even though it was kinda dropped and forgotten about, that’s likely as a result of the mods working on this being busy running other things on the site.

It’s an honor to be among such an esteemed group of voters. I stand firm on thinking Quag should stay banned, but I have no issues with their being a revote so opinions can be shared. During both UUPL and UUFPL, I can only remember two instances of stall being used, which was by Dillon and Theo.

In my opinion, two things are clear: 1) Stall is more balanced with the absence of Quagsire and 2) Stall is still a viable play style with the absence of Quagsire.

And while I hate stall about as much as anyone could and dedicated much of my SM career to cooking up wack counters, I am in full support of what the community chooses, regardless of the outcome, and offer my permission for this retest to run or not run based on what the majority wishes. That was very likely a run-on sentence but it’s nearly midnight and I’ve had a beer.

See you when the vote goes up (if it does). Thanks all and have a good night!

vivalospride · Jun 1, 2022

don’t have the time atm to make some long winded post but at this point I feel the tier has aged better than anyone really expected it to with at least slightly more freedom and playability. keep quag gone pls, thank you :) hope ur all having a great day

Kink · Jun 3, 2022

My name is Kink, formerly known as King UU, and I do not like Quagsire even though it’s cuter than half of us (but not me of course, and certainly not any UUer except for IP).

lax · Jun 5, 2022

Thanks for the tag I always enjoy voting on uu related stuff

My vote is No Ban

Take care and make sure to wear sunscreen

Lily · Jul 19, 2022

Another thing I forgot to lock and finish up but, as most of you have probably seen, Quagsire remains banned from SM UU.

Implemented SM UU Stall 2: The Quaggening

Lily

did you get your wish?

Adaam

إسمي جف

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.

avarice

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.

Berks

has a Calm Mind

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.

Lily

did you get your wish?

Cam

You just got Litt up

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.

Indigo Plateau

Corazan

Crystal

Lily

did you get your wish?

justdrew

beauty in the struggle

vivalospride

WHAT MANEUVER COULD POSSIBLY BE SMOOVER

Kink

it's a thug life ¨̮

lax

cloutimus maximus

Lily

did you get your wish?