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With 1v1WC concluded, it's time to see where everyone stands on the metagame, which means it's time for another tiering survey. The survey will remain open until Thursday January 9th, 09:59AM UTC. If anything is unclear or you have further questions, feel free to any 1v1 council member on discord or smogon.
Thank you to RADU for writing a large portion of this post because I'm not in the best health to do so.
Good morning 1v1, as everyone slowly wakes up I'll be going over all the survey responses. This time we've had 47 responders, a bit less than last time but still thank you to everyone who sent their feedback our way! Out of the various responders, 10 were qualified from ladder requirements, while 13 were qualified from tournaments, for a total of 23 qualified.
Let's get this started then
General 1v1 questions
How much do you enjoy SV 1v1 right now (with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best)?
The responses to this answer have been pretty much stable compared to last time, with a solid 6.94 average and 7 median for the average playerbase and 7 average and 8 median for the qualified responders. Seeing 8 as the median makes me quite happy, but it shows that there are still things we can do to make 1v1 better, and that the metagame action we have taken in the past has been positive.
How competitive do you find SV 1v1 to be right now (with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best)?
The numbers are a tad worse than the responses we had last time, with a 6.4 average and 6 median from the average playerbase, and a 6.39 average and 7 median from the qualified responders. The council has been going through quite a bit of discussion as of lately so we will be sure to initiate the metagame action that we deem appropriate.
Specific Pokemon questions
General
Qualified
Pokémon
Average
Median
Qualified
Median
Action
Hoopa-Unbound
2.36
2
2.35
2
7
Iron Crown
2.96
3
3.09
3
22
Pecharunt
2.36
2
2.3
2
10
Ranked Choice
General
Qualified
Pokémon
First
Second
Third
First
Second
Third
Hoopa-Unbound
14
20
12
7
10
6
Iron Crown
18
15
13
10
8
5
Pecharunt
14
11
21
6
5
12
These survey answers are more contained than what we've seen in the past, but they still highlight that all of these mons are problematic to some extent, with Iron Crown being perceived as slightly more problematic than the others.
Open questions
Hoopa-Unbound
Lots of mentions of it forcing teams to run Bug moves, it is certainly a point that we will bring up in future council discussions and that I encourage everybody else to analyze in their metagame discussion posts. Other than that it's perceived viability does not seem to spark much concern, so the focus is mostly on the builder restrictions to be sure to beat it.
Iron Crown
The responses mainly mentioned the amount of sets that this mon can viably run to cover a lot of its counters, and also the fact that Weakness Policy on its own requires quite specific counterplay. Other than that, responses were generally mixed about whether it truly is banworthy or not.
Pecharunt
Mostly focused on the RNG aspect, with some mentions about its potential. The luck nature should of this Pokemon should be properly analzyed and compared to other similar Pokemon in metagame discussion posts in the future if any action is desired.
the part written by RADU ends here. I'm having health issues so pardon me that this section isn't as extensive or up to the usual quality you're used to from me Other mons and comments
Hi, Felucia here to write the last section of the post. Thank you to everyone who took genuine time to write good feedback. I'll cut to the chase, we consciously did not include Regidrago on the survey not. This isn't because action on it is off the table (more on that in a bit) but because after a vote just resulted in DNS, we wanted to give special attention to other things, and were afraid that the inclusion of regidrago would muddy the picture on other things that might take priority (more on that later). This decision was primarily mine, you can yell at me for that, but don't think this means I'm robbing you of drago action that you want.
So about that drago action, I think I can speak for all of council when I say this was not the last opportunity we're going to get to look at Regidrago. We voted "Do Not Suspect," we did not vote "Never Suspect." We got a lot of survey responses that said regidrago should be looked at, and I assure you that you are being heard. I think those of you who said a survey on regidrago is warranted before making that decision make a very good point as well, as it's just getting too complicated to judge where everyone stands based on discussion alone. For now though, based on these survey responses council held a vote on Iron Crown. The community's responses are varied, and with the average response landing on a 3 (potentially banworthy) there's there seems to be plenty of backing.
We heard your feedback about publishing votes and reasonings, so we'll be bringing those back. The votes as given by council were as follows:
bern
delemon
lost heros
Murm
neomon
RADU
Suspect
Suspect
Do Not Suspect
Suspect
Suspect
Suspect
due to being busy irl, lost heros and delemon were exempt from writing reasoning
This Pokemon has been mentioned by several people and it was on the top of the list on the survey, and even though that survey didn't include the big dragon in the room, i still think it's a fair assertion that many people find this Pokemon as broken or overpowered, and i also believe it's a perfect time for a suspect right now.
Iron Crown has been fairly contentious for a while, and while if I had reqs and stuff and the vote was right now, I would personally vote DNB, I do believe that this is the perfect time to hold a suspect test. Both sides have presented valid arguments. On one hand, Iron Crown can definitely tech to beat almost everything, though I do believe it can be stretched a bit too thin sometimes, and booster revealing its set on preview can allow you to go for plays you couldn't go for against WP.
Since the emergence of sets other than weakness policy (especially in tournament play) Iron Crown has become a mon that is hard to setguess and about as customizable as a mon can be. Beating it reliably is very hard (as seen in my OTR post, about 8 reliable winners only with specific sets)
Iron Crown was "theorized" as broken before it really picked up popularity, with a few select players realizing its potential and finding out how much it was really capable of. Fast WP and SpA Booster Energy were the only two sets really seeing use, with the same or similar EVs/moves between everyone, but as time went on more varied moves were used and more ev/set variations appeared reducing the amount of reliable counters not only to a select few mons, but forcing them into specific sets too (Life Orb Flame Charge Volcanion, Assault Vest Moltres-Galar, Swords Dance Flame Orb Ursaluna etc.). While it is yet to reach its peak potential as people are still in the experimenting phase, I do not think it is worthwhile to wait for it to become even more unbearable. Despite everything it's not as outrageously and obviously broken as other mons we've seen in the past, so I am still not entirely certain what I'll be voting, and I would love to read some community feedback and discussion about Crown in the following days.
Following this vote, with a 5/6 majority, Iron Crown will be suspect tested. The suspect will go up early tomorrow morning (Friday) and run for 2 weeks.
