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Metagame SV Draft League General Discussion

I do fundamentally agree with Scribble, banning Sleep definitely does seem like the right way forward for this tier. We don’t need to rely on a simulator mod to make a mechanic playable, it’s not even comparable to Tera Preview in that sense which is just effectively a gentleman’s agreement.

There is one key issue that I do want to outline though, which is Sneasler. Sneasler without Sleep Clause is possibly the only issue I can see with this proposal. Meloetta does not see enough usage to be a genuine issue, and neither do Effect Spore users but Sneasler with Dire Claw does see enough usage to be an issue. I don’t know how we would go about dealing with that.

Scribble said:
It's not worth banning Darkrai to preserve Sleep. Darkrai is a legitimately healthy presence in the format otherwise
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I do not think is the right mindset to tier with. If Darkrai were the only Pokémon who could use Hypnosis well, it should be banned. Again minor nitpick as there are other good sleep users but we shouldn’t try and tier based off of what the mon brings outside its broken element or this very quickly can devolve into complex bans.
 
JukeInTheBox said:
Have you considered the glorious presence that is the move Yawn in the metagame? Nothing quite gets the blood pumping like switching into rocks 16 times as I desperately try to not go down a mon.
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Yawn has been used once so far in the SV DCL games; hypnosis has been used 6 times (plus I brought it once but Darkrai didn't get to use it). None of the spore users are even on drafts
 
I've gone ahead and made a poll in this thread, it will appear at the top. Sleep Moves in this case refer to all moves that solely inflict sleep (Hypnosis, Yawn, Dark Void, Spore etc.). It does not refer to moves such as Dire Claw and Relic Song which will remain legal regardless. This poll is non-binding, it's purely to see what the community thinks.
 
Scribble said:
Gm. I am back with another meta revolutionary post, although this one isn't nearly as controversial as Lugia. I know of many people in the scene who feel this way already and some talks have started happening, but I wanted to get some more discussion going in the general public too. TL;DR, Sleep moves should be banned from SV draft.

:xy/darkrai: :xy/ninetales:

We all know what Sleep does at this point. OU went through this debate already this gen (sleep clause is archaic, sleep is inherently broken/too random, etc etc). While the discussion largely originates from Darkrai, it's not the only mon that takes advantage of Sleep. We've seen several mons throw Hypnosis or Sleep Powder on to try to RNG their way through checks (Ninetales, Hisuian Lilligant). This can be game ending in SV more so than any other generation due to how high this gen's power level is.

The main argument against banning Sleep has historically been that Sleep Clause is enough to keep it in check, and inaccurate sleep moves are too unreliable to be widely used. I myself also used to think this way, but sadly people have realized the risk/reward is actually skewed heavily in the Sleep move user's favor. As a result, we've seen inaccurate sleep moves brought to DCL games multiple times. DCL is the highest level of Smogon Draft competition, so if people are willing to bring these moves to these games, that's a strong indicator that Sleep Clause is no longer enough.

An argument made during the OU discussion was that, sometimes, Sleep Clause can actually be beneficial to the Sleep move user. If the opponent picks the most expendable mon on their team as Sleep fodder and the Sleep move misses, then they're simply just down momentum. Sleep clause has never been fully cartridge accurate, so being able to benefit from it in an unintended way is very problematic. I think it's time for Draft to do away with Sleep Clause and fully ban Sleep moves just like SV OU.

It's not worth banning Darkrai to preserve Sleep. Darkrai is a legitimately healthy presence in the format otherwise, being a strong special attacker that isn't a Tera hog (surprisingly rare), and having a valuable Speed tier. Meanwhile, the benefits of keeping Sleep around mostly come from Spore and Yawn users. Since Spore isn't widely distributed, it's easy to prepare for and shut down with Safety Goggles, so Spore users are rarely ever drafted at all. Yawn obviously has the counterplay of switching out of Sleep. which definitely makes it far more balanced. I would miss Yawn, but I don't think its benefits are enough to be worth saving. Many Yawn users have other disruption/status moves they could use instead (Uxie, Galarian Slowking), or at least provide slow momentum (Blastoise, Empoleon).

There's really not much more to say. I don't really know how the possible benefits of keeping Sleep around outweigh its many cons, especially when cartridge accuracy is in the mix. I guess as a final note I'll say I'm only talking about SV Draft in this post, but if oldgen drafts also want to ban sleep...well, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. I hope SV does though!
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leave my ninetales alone :(
 
The only sleep move that is remotely actionable is Hypnosis, primarily on Valiant and Darkrai - and even that tends to be rather predictable when it comes. Considering this is a tier where things like resist berries, custap berry, rowap berry, and red card are reasonable and perhaps even expected as counterplay, I do not think a Lum Berry is too much to ask, especially as SV Draft is a tier where one turn of doing nothing can easily mean an instant loss. OU bans things when it is perceived that they warp the teambuilder and make consistent play impossible. Draft by definition is a game of playing around a warped teambuilder and all the fun and games that entails. This seems to me like taking action just for the sake of taking action.

For what it's worth, if this is seriously being considered, please at least be consistent and ban Dire Claw and Relic Song as well.
 
In hindsight, I think my original post was a bit hasty/not nearly thorough enough. Probably because most people I've talked to about this already were also against Sleep, and I wrongly assumed that the vast majority of people felt this way. Let me rectify this by building a more exhaustive case.


1. Sleep Is Uncompetitive.
This is a fact that the community has already widely agreed upon. We know this because of the existence of Sleep Clause in the first place. We play with a modified version of the game where Sleep is severely nerfed compared to its potential. Obviously, this isn't a very useful point on its own since we do play with Sleep Clause. I brought it up because it's relevant to my guiding philosophy: if issues arise with any Pokemon due to their ability to take advantage of a heavily restricted Sleep, we should look at the mechanic itself rather than the Pokemon. I've seen a couple of people say to just ban Darkrai or Iron Valiant, but I would ask: why preserve a mechanic we already bend over backwards to allow in a competitive setting instead of just getting rid of it?

With all that said, the real question to answer is: "Is Sleep with Sleep Clause active uncompetitive?" To this, I would argue a resounding yes. The amount of RNG introduced by Sleep is a detriment to the meta, both in terms of Sleep moves themselves and the accuracy of the moves. I think the best way I can explain this is by replying to this post:
idkup said:
The only sleep move that is remotely actionable is Hypnosis, primarily on Valiant and Darkrai - and even that tends to be rather predictable when it comes. Considering this is a tier where things like resist berries, custap berry, rowap berry, and red card are reasonable and perhaps even expected as counterplay, I do not think a Lum Berry is too much to ask, especially as SV Draft is a tier where one turn of doing nothing can easily mean an instant loss. OU bans things when it is perceived that they warp the teambuilder and make consistent play impossible. Draft by definition is a game of playing around a warped teambuilder and all the fun and games that entails. This seems to me like taking action just for the sake of taking action.

For what it's worth, if this is seriously being considered, please at least be consistent and ban Dire Claw and Relic Song as well.
Click to expand...
I don't mean to single idkup out in particular, but I've seen this thought process a few times and I believe it's missing the forest for the trees. It's precisely because things like resist berries, Custap Berry, Rowap Berry, and Red Card are reasonable/expected as counterplay where Sleep is too much. Let me illustrate this with an example that's very common: Iron Valiant vs Galarian Slowking. The most consistent counterplay to Valiant this generation has been a Poison-type with a resist berry, and Glowking will most commonly run Colbur vs Valiant to guard against Knock Off. To get around this, Valiants can run Ghost-moves instead. But then Glowking can also be Kasib if it wants to. Why not just dodge the mindgames entirely and put Glowking to sleep on the switch with Hypnosis, though? If you go Lum, now you're vulnerable to standard coverage. If you go Sleep Talk, that's a massive commitment for something that might not get any value at all, EVEN IF the opponent brings Hypnosis.

I don't think Sleep is healthy precisely because of this ability to bypass common draft tech through random chance. One turn of doing nothing can certainly lead to instant loss in SV. However, this is always in the Sleep move user's favor to enable. Sleep gives a guarantee of one completely free turn to do whatever you want, provided you hit. If you miss, the power swings in the opponent's direction, in theory. This swinginess determined by a Sleep move hitting or not is degenerate for a competitive meta. Also, the two most notable Hypnosis users, Darkrai and Iron Valiant, are Pokemon that force many switches, and using Hypnosis on the switch is hardly a risk at all.


2. Sleep Clause Is Not Cartridge Accurate
This part of the argument is more philosophical, but it was very relevant when OU went through this same debate a while ago. As currently implemented, Sleep Clause is unable to be replicated on cartridge. This is concerning, since the game we play is on a simulator that's meant to be accurate to cartridge gameplay. While it does originate from Pokemon Stadium, it has never been a part of the main series games. The closest you can get to Sleep Clause on cartridge is agreeing to not use a Sleep move again after putting a foe to sleep until they wake up or faint. There are a few situations where the optimal play is different depending on whether Showdown's Sleep Clause mod is enabled, or you are playing with the gentleman's agreement version. A simple example is wanting to put a foe back to sleep on the same turn that they wake up, but if your opponent switches out, you would violate "Sleep Clause" on cartridge by making this play. On Showdown, you're free to spam all the sleep moves you want and are predicted by Sleep Clause in case of any wrongdoing.

How much this matters to you is dependent on your personal philosophy of the game we play. I personally believe we should strive to be as cartridge accurate as possible, so I don't like Sleep Clause on principle. The mechanic is clearly not balanced enough to allow with no restriction, so at that point, I would rather get rid of it than play with a mod of the game.


3. Sleep Is on the Rise.
While I don't have any tangible evidence to base this on other than looking at the raw replay data of DCL and anecdotally seeing Hypnosis way more frequently than years prior, I believe the usage of Sleep moves is just going to get higher as time passes. The main idea is that you can use Sleep to try to overcome a losing matchup through RNG, or you can even bring it in a good matchup where the risk for missing is relatively low, but the reward could win you the game on the spot. When this is more understood, Sleep usage will increase, and we are already seeing it on more than just the best users Darkrai/Iron Valiant.


4. Why Bother? Is It That Big of a Deal?
Admittedly, no, Sleep is not a "major" issue concerning SV draft...right now. I believe we have the power to nip it in the bud early, though. The future doesn't even matter, however, since usage isn't inherently linked to whether something is healthy in the meta or not. On a fundamental level, Sleep is uncompetitive and requires a game mod to be usable. We have fully banned things for lesser offenses (King's Rock, Quick Claw) than Sleep. Just because something isn't overtaking the meta doesn't mean we can't remove it if it's still a net benefit. A slight improvement is still an improvement, after all.


5. But What About Yawn?
As already pointed out by scionicle , Hypnosis is significantly more common than Yawn in DCL at this point. I can contribute to this stat too since I also brought Hypnosis on Darkrai one week where I did not click it in battle. In an ideal world I would also like to preserve Yawn in some way, but I am more than willing to lose it as collateral since it does not have a very relevant impact on the meta. Almost all of the relevant Yawn users have some other form of status, disruption, or slow momentum to use instead.

-Galarian Slowking (Has Thunder Wave/Toxic/Chilly Reception)
-Slowking (has Thunder Wave/Chilly Reception)
-Uxie (Has Thunder Wave/Encore/U-turn)
-Blastoise (has Flip Turn/Roar
-Swampert (has Flip Turn/Roar)
-Empoleon (has Flip Turn/Roar
-Torkoal (would be hurt the most by it, but still has the niche of Sun and Ninetales is running Hypnosis anyway so...)

Some of the mons on this list have dubious draft viability already, so any mons not listed here are even worse. Losing Yawn hurts them, obviously, but the beautiful thing about draft is we can decrease their prices to reflect this. Since Yawn clearly isn't being used much already, this could even be a positive for some of them!


6. Sometimes the Status Quo Is Wrong
If Sleep were introduced in Gen 9, or even as far back as Gen 6, there's not a doubt in my mind that it would be banned outright. Sleep Clause is archaic and would never be created today with modern tiering philosophy. This is taken straight from the OU debate, and that's on purpose because I think we are following a very similar trajectory that OU did. Sleep was never an issue until Darkrai/Valiant came around, nothing happens at first, but then it slowly starts to become more popular and resentment grows until it finally becomes too much of an issue to ignore. I believe we are currently at that second to last stage where resentment is growing. I can offer no proof other than I feel I'm getting deja vu from the OU metagame discussion thread about Sleep.


7. "Just Ban Paralysis or Ice Moves that Freeze Too Lol"
Obviously, Pokemon is full of RNG and variance and this is unavoidable. The difference between Sleep and the other statuses is it's actually within our power to do something about it, AND WE ALREADY HAVE! By playing with Sleep Clause, we have already collectively agreed that Sleep is more uncompetitive than Paralysis, at the very least. I'm sure we'd all love to get rid of Freeze as a mechanic, but it's just not possible. We draw the line somewhere with RNG (OHKO moves, evasion, King's Rock), and I argue that Sleep, even with Sleep Clause, is past this line too.


8. Conclusion
Sleep is inherently uncompetitive and introduces unhealthy variance to a meta that is already volatile. The cherry on top is Sleep Clause, as currently implemented, isn't even cartridge accurate. I see no real merit in keeping Sleep around, especially since Yawn is basically irrelevant. What separates Sleep from other sources of RNG is our very realistic ability to take action on it.

P.S. Re: Dire Claw - I do not care one way or the other what happens to it.
 
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Scribble said:
In hindsight, I think my original post was a bit hasty/not nearly thorough enough. Probably because most people I've talked to about this already were also against Sleep, and I wrongly assumed that the vast majority of people felt this way. Let me rectify this by building a more exhaustive case.


1. Sleep Is Uncompetitive.
This is a fact that the community has already widely agreed upon. We know this because of the existence of Sleep Clause in the first place. We play with a modified version of the game where Sleep is severely nerfed compared to its potential. Obviously, this isn't a very useful point on its own since we do play with Sleep Clause. I brought it up because it's relevant to my guiding philosophy: if issues arise with any Pokemon due to their ability to take advantage of a heavily restricted Sleep, we should look at the mechanic itself rather than the Pokemon. I've seen a couple of people say to just ban Darkrai or Iron Valiant, but I would ask: why preserve a mechanic we already bend over backwards to allow in a competitive setting instead of just getting rid of it?

With all that said, the real question to answer is: "Is Sleep with Sleep Clause active uncompetitive?" To this, I would argue a resounding yes. The amount of RNG introduced by Sleep is a detriment to the meta, both in terms of Sleep moves themselves and the accuracy of the moves. I think the best way I can explain this is by replying to this post:

I don't mean to single idkup out in particular, but I've seen this thought process a few times and I believe it's missing the forest for the trees. It's precisely because things like resist berries, Custap Berry, Rowap Berry, and Red Card are reasonable/expected as counterplay where Sleep is too much. Let me illustrate this with an example that's very common: Iron Valiant vs Galarian Slowking. The most consistent counterplay to Valiant this generation has been a Poison-type with a resist berry, and Glowking will most commonly run Colbur vs Valiant to guard against Knock Off. To get around this, Valiants can run Ghost-moves instead. But then Glowking can also be Kasib if it wants to. Why not just dodge the mindgames entirely and put Glowking to sleep on the switch with Hypnosis, though? If you go Lum, now you're vulnerable to standard coverage. If you go Sleep Talk, that's a massive commitment for something that might not get any value at all, EVEN IF the opponent brings Hypnosis.

I don't think Sleep is healthy precisely because of this ability to bypass common draft tech through random chance. One turn of doing nothing can certainly lead to instant loss in SV. However, this is always in the Sleep move user's favor to enable. Sleep gives a guarantee of one completely free turn to do whatever you want, provided you hit. If you miss, the power swings in the opponent's direction, in theory. This swinginess determined by a Sleep move hitting or not is degenerate for a competitive meta. Also, the two most notable Hypnosis users, Darkrai and Iron Valiant, are Pokemon that force many switches, and using Hypnosis on the switch is hardly a risk at all.


2. Sleep Clause Is Not Cartridge Accurate
This part of the argument is more philosophical, but it was very relevant when OU went through this same debate a while ago. As currently implemented, Sleep Clause is unable to be replicated on cartridge. This is concerning, since the game we play is on a simulator that's meant to be accurate to cartridge gameplay. While it does originate from Pokemon Stadium, it has never been a part of the main series games. The closest you can get to Sleep Clause on cartridge is agreeing to not use a Sleep move again after putting a foe to sleep until they wake up or faint. There are a few situations where the optimal play is different depending on whether Showdown's Sleep Clause mod is enabled, or you are playing with the gentleman's agreement version. A simple example is wanting to put a foe back to sleep on the same turn that they wake up, but if your opponent switches out, you would violate "Sleep Clause" on cartridge by making this play. On Showdown, you're free to spam all the sleep moves you want and are predicted by Sleep Clause in case of any wrongdoing.

How much this matters to you is dependent on your personal philosophy of the game we play. I personally believe we should strive to be as cartridge accurate as possible, so I don't like Sleep Clause on principle. The mechanic is clearly not balanced enough to allow with no restriction, so at that point, I would rather get rid of it than play with a mod of the game.


3. Sleep Is on the Rise.
While I don't have any tangible evidence to base this on other than looking at the raw replay data of DCL and anecdotally seeing Hypnosis way more frequently than years prior, I believe the usage of Sleep moves is just going to get higher as time passes. The main idea is that you can use Sleep to try to overcome a losing matchup through RNG, or you can even bring it in a good matchup where the risk for missing is relatively low, but the reward could win you the game on the spot. When this is more understood, Sleep usage will increase, and we are already seeing it on more than just the best users Darkrai/Iron Valiant.


4. Why Bother? Is It That Big of a Deal?
Admittedly, no, Sleep is not a "major" issue concerning SV draft...right now. I believe we have the power to nip it in the bud early, though. The future doesn't even matter, however, since usage isn't inherently linked to whether something is healthy in the meta or not. On a fundamental level, Sleep is uncompetitive and requires a game mod to be usable. We have fully banned things for lesser offenses (King's Rock, Quick Claw) than Sleep. Just because something isn't overtaking the meta doesn't mean we can't remove it if it's still a net benefit. A slight improvement is still an improvement, after all.


5. But What About Yawn?
As already pointed out by scionicle , Hypnosis is significantly more common than Yawn in DCL at this point. I can contribute to this stat too since I also brought Hypnosis on Darkrai one week where I did not click it in battle. In an ideal world I would also like to preserve Yawn in some way, but I am more than willing to lose it as collateral since it does not have a very relevant impact on the meta. Almost all of the relevant Yawn users have some other form of status, disruption, or slow momentum to use instead.

-Galarian Slowking (Has Thunder Wave/Toxic/Chilly Reception)
-Slowking (has Thunder Wave/Chilly Reception)
-Uxie (Has Thunder Wave/Encore/U-turn)
-Blastoise (has Flip Turn/Roar
-Swampert (has Flip Turn/Roar)
-Empoleon (has Flip Turn/Roar
-Torkoal (would be hurt the most by it, but still has the niche of Sun and Ninetales is running Hypnosis anyway so...)

Some of the mons on this list have dubious draft viability already, so any mons not listed here are even worse. Losing Yawn hurts them, obviously, but the beautiful thing about draft is we can decrease their prices to reflect this. Since Yawn clearly isn't being used much already, this could even be a positive for some of them!


6. Sometimes the Status Quo Is Wrong
If Sleep were introduced in Gen 9, or even as far back as Gen 6, there's not a doubt in my mind that it would be banned outright. Sleep Clause is archaic and would never be created today with modern tiering philosophy. This is taken straight from the OU debate, and that's on purpose because I think we are following a very similar trajectory that OU did. Sleep was never an issue until Darkrai/Valiant came around, nothing happens at first, but then it slowly starts to become more popular and resentment grows until it finally becomes too much of an issue to ignore. I believe we are currently at that second to last stage where resentment is growing. I can offer no proof other than I feel I'm getting deja vu from the OU metagame discussion thread about Sleep.


7. "Just Ban Paralysis or Ice Moves that Freeze Too Lol"
Obviously, Pokemon is full of RNG and variance and this is unavoidable. The difference between Sleep and the other statuses is it's actually within our power to do something about it, AND WE ALREADY HAVE! By playing with Sleep Clause, we have already collectively agreed that Sleep is more uncompetitive than Paralysis, at the very least. I'm sure we'd all love to get rid of Freeze as a mechanic, but it's just not possible. We draw the line somewhere with RNG (OHKO moves, evasion, King's Rock), and I argue that Sleep, even with Sleep Clause, is past this line too.


8. Conclusion
Sleep is inherently uncompetitive and introduces unhealthy variance to a meta that is already volatile. The cherry on top is Sleep Clause, as currently implemented, isn't even cartridge accurate. I see no real merit in keeping Sleep around, especially since Yawn is basically irrelevant. What separates Sleep from other sources of RNG is our very realistic ability to take action on it.
Click to expand...
I would argue that with Glowking against Valiant specifically, if Glowking is your best special answer, that Hypnosis + Hex is to be expected, and preparing accordingly is not outside the typical behavior of the tier. Generally speaking, if your team in the builder has insufficient means to force Valiant onto a specific set, you are playing at much worse than a 60/40 disadvantage to start, and your opponent gambling on the Hypnosis hit may well be a blessing. Besides the point, Glowking tends to be inconsistent at everything besides bringing in a scary dragon at the expense of a team slot anyways, and being bypassed by an inconsistent "coverage" move is far from the worst of its problems. Draft is not OU - all top-tier Pokemon demand multiple forms of counterplay in this format, and we consider how easy something is to neutralize when it is respected in prep. A Trapinch can demand a Shed Shell from a Greninja or force a trade, but no one is complaining about Arena Trap - evidently, an item slot is not too much to ask. Valiant and Darkrai have Hypnosis in their kit. If that's one tool too many for Valiant, ban it. If Darkrai bringing Hypnosis makes a matchup unwinnable, there is not much to say besides user error.
 
olivia said:
Worth noting in many cases Lum Berry is not sufficient counterplay considering in a lot of cases Darkrai can just click Hypnosis again given it's faster than like 95% of mons on the board
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Also worth nothing that when you click Hypnosis twice, you have a 64% chance of doing nothing for at least one turn, followed by a 25% chance of a one turn sleep - effectively doing nothing unless you are Darkrai specifically
 
idkup said:
Also worth nothing that when you click Hypnosis twice, you have a 64% chance of doing nothing for at least one turn, followed by a 25% chance of a one turn sleep - effectively doing nothing unless you are Darkrai specifically
Click to expand...
Yeah I really don't like these high variance uncompetitive tactics. Turning games into a slot machine removing all agency from one or both players is not something I think is conducive to a healthy metagame. The variance in Hypnosis is a part of the problem. This is addressed in Scribble's prior post so I'm not going to restate what's been said there.
 
idkup said:
Also worth nothing that when you click Hypnosis twice, you have a 64% chance of doing nothing for at least one turn, followed by a 25% chance of a one turn sleep - effectively doing nothing unless you are Darkrai specifically
Click to expand...
this 64% number is true but super misleading. This is referring to the scenario where you switch out to the pokemon that has the lum berry and having to hypnosis it twice. The problem in practice is that these numbers are completely independent from eachother. If you hit the first hypnosis on the switch, and the opponent procs their lum berry to remove it, that does not make the second hypnosis less likely to hit. This leads to more intricate game states that is honestly quite hard to describe in a post. However, I think the easier way to describe it is this: the odds are much easier to manipulate in your favor if you are the one using Hypnosis or other sleep moves. It's always in your favor to judge the risk and the reward of every sleep attempt. If the punishment is losing the game for missing Hypnosis, you don't necessarily have to go for it. But if you have to land a hypnosis to win a game, the odds are still pretty good. The abusers that actively give SV players a headache with this mechanic, Darkrai and Valiant, have some of the best revenge killing in the tier. Valiant is arguably the best pokemon in the tier. They have plenty of opportunities to force good spots to click Hypnosis.

the fact that you as a player have no idea if you are dealing with a 1 or 3 turn sleep creates so much weird variance in forming counterplay in such a fast meta. That's the difference between having a valuable pokemon still alive or a pokemon that's better off being dead.

(also sidenote but I'm pretty sure the odds of a first turn wake is 33% not 25%. You're guaranteed to be asleep for the first turn, but you have an equal chance to wake up the 2nd/3rd/4th turns of sleep)
 
I've decided to run a small Draft League tournament with an interesting rule: Before drafting, each player has a 60 point budget to ban whichever Pokemon they please off of the board entirely. The format is Natdex (so that there'd actually be some Pokemon left to draft after the dust settled) and the 20- and 19-pointers were banned automatically.

After 20 players chose their bans, this is what the top of the draft board looks like now:
1736054691080.png
 
Title says it all! I've never participated in a draft league, but man do they seem fun! What's the best way to get involved as a newcomer? I've got all the switch games on cartridge, I play the ranked ladder in doubles and have dabbled with showdown (mainly for team building and testing before I invest in-game). Not the best player, but I have finally started making it to Master Ball rank in Scarlet. Any help or direction on how to get into a league would be awesome! Thanks!
 
SpoiledEGG said:
Title says it all! I've never participated in a draft league, but man do they seem fun! What's the best way to get involved as a newcomer? I've got all the switch games on cartridge, I play the ranked ladder in doubles and have dabbled with showdown (mainly for team building and testing before I invest in-game). Not the best player, but I have finally started making it to Master Ball rank in Scarlet. Any help or direction on how to get into a league would be awesome! Thanks!
Click to expand...

We currently have signups ongoing for our spring seasonal. It's likely the easiest tournament to start with. In terms of understanding draft, here's a couple articles that will get you on the right track. You can also ask in the discord with questions or ask me directly if you like.
 
SpoiledEGG said:
Title says it all! I've never participated in a draft league, but man do they seem fun! What's the best way to get involved as a newcomer? I've got all the switch games on cartridge, I play the ranked ladder in doubles and have dabbled with showdown (mainly for team building and testing before I invest in-game). Not the best player, but I have finally started making it to Master Ball rank in Scarlet. Any help or direction on how to get into a league would be awesome! Thanks!
Click to expand...
Are you interested in singles or doubles/VGC? You mention your cart VGC rank I assume, is why I ask.
 
SpoiledEGG said:
I'm down for either! I don't play singles much, but I would still enjoy trying to build a draft team for that format.
Click to expand...
Excited to have you - the Spring Seasonal is a singles format, you unfortunately missed a VGC format tour that ended about two months or so ago. Most of the tours we run here are singles formats, though if you keep an eye on the advertisement board, you'll see when leagues that offer Doubles formats are recruiting.
 
For those who may be interested in Team Tournament Data, I keep a spreadsheet that has some statistics available such as combined records for each player within some of the more respected Team Tournaments within the community. I have updates planned in future, and I have a Discord in which those updates will be posted. The Discord is also going to be where you want to go to report any possible errors or suggestions for how to improve or add new features to the document.

This is the Discord Link and the most up to date document will always be available in the #documents channel within the server.
This is a link to the Spreadsheet.
 
Hello again! I've made a couple posts about the remaining Pokemon in each seasonal alongside some stats regarding shifts in interests, and I'm doing the same thing yet again. You can find it in the "Spring Seasonal Remaining" tab.

I had prepared to do this right after seasonal started but stats just dropped and it is in Round 4 so this doc is already outdated. :blobastonished:

I'll just update for top cut as per usual.

:palafin: 55/58 > 40/64
Even in a format where some people just pick the most expensive Pokemon they can on the board, Palafin has fallen short. The fast-paced metagame has left the easily counterable Palafin behind.

:kingambit: 51/58 > 20/64
Oh how the mighty have fallen. From Tera banned to considered a top tier tera last seasonal to this.

:terapagos: 49/58 > 64/64
Being 1/2 Pokemon to get 100% pick rate, it is clear that Terapagos has cemented itself as a mainstay. I've sung its prayers enough already and nothing has changed since then.

:landorus-therian: 44/58 > 58/64
The king is back.

:rillaboom: 43/58 > 25/64
Although I think rilla/bolt/sneasler is still an fun little core if you don't get bolt/meow, apparently other people disagree and Rillaboom's stocks suffered as a result.

:sneasler: 36/58 > 27/64
See Rillaboom.

:tinkaton: 35/58 > 47/64
Even a 1 point bump can't stop SV's utility goat from scoring huge numbers.

:deoxys-speed: 31/58 > 48/64
Seems like people have caught on to the fact the Pokemon who has a billion good sets and outspeeds the entire tier is pretty good!

:darkrai: 30/58 > 50/64
Almost half the pools in summer seasonal didn't take Darkrai? Shocking.

:enamorus: 30/58 > 44/64
Freeing the genie from the Tera bottle has reflected on it nicely.

:gliscor: 30/58 > 52/64
Where's the shame? This dishonest sky scorpion should just never be drafted, but nobody can deny it's an annoying piece of work for its value.

:gouging-fire: 28/58 > 40/64
Maybe its the OU ban making people miss it, maybe it's its disgusting minmaxed stats.

:latios: 28/58 > 18/64
Underwhelming.

:jirachi: 28/58 > 55/64
This is probably the most shocking to me. Even facing the threeway competition for viable Steel/Psychic types with Crown and Metagross hasn't stopped the menace of DPP from getting picked up a disturbing amount.

:ribombee: 23/58 > 10/64
Interesting to see how OU has affected people's perceptions, as Araquanid has stolen the spotlight from our low-tier webber.

:cinderace: 22/58 > 39/64
People really feel the need for speed.

:pecharunt: 20/58 > 43/64
The dishonesty from Gliscor has spread to Pecharunt.

:tentacruel: 20/58 > 35/64
Solid mon. Even without Scald.

:roaring-moon: 19/58 > 38/64
Roaring Mid who?

:pelipper: 19/58 > 8/64
Said last time people erroneously forced Archaludon into rain teams exclusively and the people apparently listened. Archaludon left its feathered friend behind a little bit.

:ting-lu: 18/58 > 55/64
Ting-Lu 18?!?! Really not sure what happened last seasonal but glad the course has been corrected.

:fezandipiti: 17/58 > 28/64
"Probably the most draftable of the Loyal Three, but still will end up being a middling Pokemon that you only take if you're beyond desperate for a Fairy type and grounded Poison." Hey I'm right a lot but apparently not with Fezandipiti.

:iron-crown: 15/58 > 31/64
I was surprised to see Crown at 15 last seasonal, but with new Tera rules and a new vision, it is finally where it belongs.

:blastoise: 15/58 > 30/64
Can't say I understand this one. Guess people like losing to Mirror Herb?

:mesprit: 15/58 > 34/64
After almost a full decade of Uxie being on top, Mesprit, with all it provides this gen, has trumped it. Low points, high value.

:klefki: 14/58 > 24/64
Turns out Klefki is still Klefki.

:zarude: 9/58 > 62/64
It's incredibly shameful this has to be this far down the list. I truthfully have no clue why people didn't see Zarude for what it was but hey I didn't draft it either for "fun" so I'm part of the issue. From less than 10 picks to people calling for its ban is pretty incredible though.

:araquanid: 8/58 > 19/64
See Ribombee.

:keldeo: 5/58 > 18/64
Kind of expected Keldeo to be higher. Great stabs, great stats, pretty great price.

Soon!

Soon!

Soon!

Soon!
 
Last edited:
drizzle said:
Hello again! I've made a couple posts about the remaining Pokemon in each seasonal alongside some stats regarding shifts in interests, and I'm doing the same thing yet again. You can find it in the "Spring Seasonal Remaining" tab.

I had prepared to do this right after seasonal started but stats just dropped and it is in Round 4 so this doc is already outdated. :blobastonished:

I'll just update for top cut as per usual.

:palafin: 55/58 > 40/64
Even in a format where some people just pick the most expensive Pokemon they can on the board, Palafin has fallen short. The fast-paced metagame has left the easily counterable Palafin behind.

:kingambit: 51/58 > 20/64
Oh how the mighty have fallen. From Tera banned to considered a top tier tera last seasonal to this.

:terapagos: 49/58 > 64/64
Being 1/2 Pokemon to get 100% pick rate, it is clear that Terapagos has cemented itself as a mainstay. I've sung its prayers enough already and nothing has changed since then.

:landorus-therian: 44/58 > 58/64
The king is back.

:rillaboom: 43/58 > 25/64
Although I think rilla/bolt/sneasler is still an fun little core if you don't get bolt/meow, apparently other people disagree and Rillaboom's stocks suffered as a result.

:sneasler: 36/58 > 27/64
See Rillaboom.

:tinkaton: 35/58 > 47/64
Even a 1 point bump can't stop SV's utility goat from scoring huge numbers.

:deoxys-speed: 31/58 > 48/64
Seems like people have caught on to the fact the Pokemon who has a billion good sets and outspeeds the entire tier is pretty good!

:darkrai: 30/58 > 50/64
Almost half the pools in summer seasonal didn't take Darkrai? Shocking.

:enamorus: 30/58 > 44/64
Freeing the genie from the Tera bottle has reflected on it nicely.

:gliscor: 30/58 > 52/64
Where's the shame? This dishonest sky scorpion should just never be drafted, but nobody can deny it's an annoying piece of work for its value.

:gouging-fire: 28/58 > 40/64
Maybe its the OU ban making people miss it, maybe it's its disgusting minmaxed stats.

:latios: 28/58 > 18/64
Underwhelming.

:jirachi: 28/58 > 55/64
This is probably the most shocking to me. Even facing the threeway competition for viable Steel/Psychic types with Crown and Metagross hasn't stopped the menace of DPP from getting picked up a disturbing amount.

:ribombee: 23/58 > 10/64
Interesting to see how OU has affected people's perceptions, as Araquanid has stolen the spotlight from our low-tier webber.

:cinderace: 22/58 > 39/64
People really feel the need for speed.

:pecharunt: 20/58 > 43/64
The dishonesty from Gliscor has spread to Pecharunt.

:tentacruel: 20/58 > 35/64
Solid mon. Even without Scald.

:roaring-moon: 19/58 > 38/64
Roaring Mid who?

:pelipper: 19/58 > 8/64
Said last time people erroneously forced Archaludon into rain teams exclusively and the people apparently listened. Archaludon left its feathered friend behind a little bit.

:ting-lu: 18/58 > 55/64
Ting-Lu 18?!?! Really not sure what happened last seasonal but glad the course has been corrected.

:fezandipiti: 17/58 > 28/64
"Probably the most draftable of the Loyal Three, but still will end up being a middling Pokemon that you only take if you're beyond desperate for a Fairy type and grounded Poison." Hey I'm right a lot but apparently not with Fezandipiti.

:iron-crown: 15/58 > 31/64
I was surprised to see Crown at 15 last seasonal, but with new Tera rules and a new vision, it is finally where it belongs.

:blastoise: 15/58 > 30/64
Can't say I understand this one. Guess people like losing to Mirror Herb?

:mesprit: 15/58 > 34/64
After almost a full decade of Uxie being on top, Mesprit, with all it provides this gen, has trumped it. Low points, high value.

:klefki: 14/58 > 24/64
Turns out Klefki is still Klefki.

:zarude: 9/58 > 62/64
It's incredibly shameful this has to be this far down the list. I truthfully have no clue why people didn't see Zarude for what it was but hey I didn't draft it either for "fun" so I'm part of the issue. From less than 10 picks to people calling for its ban is pretty incredible though.

:araquanid: 8/58 > 19/64
See Ribombee.

:keldeo: 5/58 > 18/64
Kind of expected Keldeo to be higher. Great stabs, great stats, pretty great price.

Soon!

Soon!

Soon!

Soon!
Click to expand...
Interesting. Love this analysis. As someone who hasn’t been following SV draft for a bit, what makes Zarude so good?
 
chimp said:
Interesting. Love this analysis. As someone who hasn’t been following SV draft for a bit, what makes Zarude so good?
Click to expand...
Its bulk and tera usually give it a chance to set up with SD/BU/trailblaze, it can heal itself, jungle healing makes status unreliable against it, and it has strong STAB attacks. A lot of drafts really struggle to stop it
 
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