I am quite happy that mushamu has opened the gates of the sleep discussion in this tier, I feel like someone who's generally regarded as one of the best mono players will ignite discussion and people will at least give sleep a critical thought for the first time rather than pokemonmastertrevor9 saying sleep should be banned. In any case...
I myself have stated on some occasions that I think sleep should be banned. I won't go as far to say it should be banned in every Mono gen. That's moving the cart too fast and there's really only incentive to ban it in SV. I've either been rebutted with "nah sleep is fine" or "para is worse", both of which are frankly weak arguments (the latter is even worse but I'll get onto that later). My main reasoning for sleep is simple, it's not particularly competitive and creates probability management issues, "emphasising the result of RNG more often than not". The pokemon playerbase over the generations, I'd say since gen 6, have been on a quest to limit the effect RNG has on the game. We cannot do it fully, not like we can get rid of critical hits and even damage calculation has RNG elements, but we try to reduce it to the best of our ability. Hence, we ban Razor Claw, King's Rock, Bright Powder, XY Swagger, the list has gotten longer and goes on. My question to you all reading this, and really apply critical thinking here. What makes sleep different from all of these? You get put to sleep, and the game basically tells you "First you must burn 1 turn, then either you wake up the following turn, or you take another 3 turns to actually move or wake up in between." No one knows when you'll wake up. The player who has used sleep has quite the advantage. They are able to take risks with their setup sweepers because they can believe "oh if my opponent gets 3 sleeping turns then I win from here" and you can say "they can swap out the sleeping pokemon" but that mon is still asleep until you unfortunately have to bring it out at some point and just pray you can wake up so you don't end up losing. I do not really see any skill involved with this.
I am also able to acknowledge that sleep has its own risks, mainly with the moves that of course induce the status condition. The current status moves that induce sleep are: Dark Void, Hypnosis, Sing, Sleep Powder, Spore, and Yawn. All of these moves bar Spore and Yawn have god awful accuracy. Sing with the second worst accuracy of them all also has a miniscule pool of mons that learn it, Dark Void is only Darkrai and it also just uses Hypnosis. It's considered a huge risk to click these moves because you lose a whole turn if you miss, giving your opponent an advantage. But if it lands, it's a massive reward and your opponent is at war with RNG. Isn't this the reason why we literally see Darkrai lead on Dark (which I've run numerous times) because sleep is that devastating? The high risk generally is something players do not mind actually doing because they are aware the payout is good. It's also in your favour overall to land these attacks, with even pokemon like
due to what it runs even boosting Sleep Powder's accuracy thanks to Wide Lens. I cannot not compare this to literally running any of the RNG items to get an "unfair" advantage?
I will quickly address some points I've read so far since mushamu posted and respond to my thoughts regarding them.
Saying paralysis is more broken than sleep isn't the argument you think it is unfortunately. As I alluded to in my first paragraph, paralysis is not more "broken" or "uncompetitive" than sleep. Paralysis is 1, only a 25% chance of completely making you unable to move, meaning you have a 75% chance of still moving. You would be "statistically unlucky" if you got get para'd consecutively. 2, if you think of game state, you can still utilise your plan of using that pokemon because you're aware it can still move 75% of the time. With sleep, you don't know when you'll wake up, and that's the problem. Also stating only "Breloom, Darkrai and Amoonguss" are the main sleep users is also false. Fair you mention Lilligant Hisui but frankly, it's not massive 4mss for it if it runs Powder, dropping Leaf Blade is not that important imo, especially for Grass. If you want me to name good mons, Iron Valiant can perfectly run sleep if it really wanted to. Heck, Vivillon on bug basically has a near accurate chance of landing Sleep Powder. We have established that not every user of an element in this game has to be used to be considered broken or we would keep Booster Energy in the format and ban
etc
Also, I don't understand how we can view deciding which one of your 6 is taking the sleep move "as easily playing around sleep" when you eventually has to risk turns trying to get it up in the first place, especially if you don't burn that first initial turn early on in the game.
Sleep is not this oppressive force that has pokemon actually running Safety Goggles or Chesto Berries. We didn't prep for the Acupressure learned by 11 FEs and no one builds to take sleep into account. It has the most "counterplay" of all the RNG elements since there is some sort of control in your hands (Grass types immune to Powder moves, abilities) but we cannot act like these counterplay options are even good nor spammable.
Only 12 FEs get the combination of Vital Spirit/Insomnia. 1 is banned and the rest are unmons. Garganacl, Komala, and Gholdengo are immune to sleep but only 4/18 types have access to these mons. Grass types may be immune to Spore and Sleep Powder but they are still at the mercy of Hypnosis.
Overall, I've said my piece on sleep. I probably won't have any time to respond to any posts replying to my own. I'll be responding on the monotype Discord if anyone wants to discuss this or if you see me in the showdown room. Sleep may not be the top priority since there are still dumb mons in this tier but this should be considered at one point or another imo. Note that I didn't even bring up the inconsistent tiering of Sleep Clause Mod which sasha brought up, and there isn't really any argument to rebut that. Look at OU.
I myself have stated on some occasions that I think sleep should be banned. I won't go as far to say it should be banned in every Mono gen. That's moving the cart too fast and there's really only incentive to ban it in SV. I've either been rebutted with "nah sleep is fine" or "para is worse", both of which are frankly weak arguments (the latter is even worse but I'll get onto that later). My main reasoning for sleep is simple, it's not particularly competitive and creates probability management issues, "emphasising the result of RNG more often than not". The pokemon playerbase over the generations, I'd say since gen 6, have been on a quest to limit the effect RNG has on the game. We cannot do it fully, not like we can get rid of critical hits and even damage calculation has RNG elements, but we try to reduce it to the best of our ability. Hence, we ban Razor Claw, King's Rock, Bright Powder, XY Swagger, the list has gotten longer and goes on. My question to you all reading this, and really apply critical thinking here. What makes sleep different from all of these? You get put to sleep, and the game basically tells you "First you must burn 1 turn, then either you wake up the following turn, or you take another 3 turns to actually move or wake up in between." No one knows when you'll wake up. The player who has used sleep has quite the advantage. They are able to take risks with their setup sweepers because they can believe "oh if my opponent gets 3 sleeping turns then I win from here" and you can say "they can swap out the sleeping pokemon" but that mon is still asleep until you unfortunately have to bring it out at some point and just pray you can wake up so you don't end up losing. I do not really see any skill involved with this.
I am also able to acknowledge that sleep has its own risks, mainly with the moves that of course induce the status condition. The current status moves that induce sleep are: Dark Void, Hypnosis, Sing, Sleep Powder, Spore, and Yawn. All of these moves bar Spore and Yawn have god awful accuracy. Sing with the second worst accuracy of them all also has a miniscule pool of mons that learn it, Dark Void is only Darkrai and it also just uses Hypnosis. It's considered a huge risk to click these moves because you lose a whole turn if you miss, giving your opponent an advantage. But if it lands, it's a massive reward and your opponent is at war with RNG. Isn't this the reason why we literally see Darkrai lead on Dark (which I've run numerous times) because sleep is that devastating? The high risk generally is something players do not mind actually doing because they are aware the payout is good. It's also in your favour overall to land these attacks, with even pokemon like
due to what it runs even boosting Sleep Powder's accuracy thanks to Wide Lens. I cannot not compare this to literally running any of the RNG items to get an "unfair" advantage?I will quickly address some points I've read so far since mushamu posted and respond to my thoughts regarding them.
Saying paralysis is more broken than sleep isn't the argument you think it is unfortunately. As I alluded to in my first paragraph, paralysis is not more "broken" or "uncompetitive" than sleep. Paralysis is 1, only a 25% chance of completely making you unable to move, meaning you have a 75% chance of still moving. You would be "statistically unlucky" if you got get para'd consecutively. 2, if you think of game state, you can still utilise your plan of using that pokemon because you're aware it can still move 75% of the time. With sleep, you don't know when you'll wake up, and that's the problem. Also stating only "Breloom, Darkrai and Amoonguss" are the main sleep users is also false. Fair you mention Lilligant Hisui but frankly, it's not massive 4mss for it if it runs Powder, dropping Leaf Blade is not that important imo, especially for Grass. If you want me to name good mons, Iron Valiant can perfectly run sleep if it really wanted to. Heck, Vivillon on bug basically has a near accurate chance of landing Sleep Powder. We have established that not every user of an element in this game has to be used to be considered broken or we would keep Booster Energy in the format and ban
etcAlso, I don't understand how we can view deciding which one of your 6 is taking the sleep move "as easily playing around sleep" when you eventually has to risk turns trying to get it up in the first place, especially if you don't burn that first initial turn early on in the game.
Sleep is not this oppressive force that has pokemon actually running Safety Goggles or Chesto Berries. We didn't prep for the Acupressure learned by 11 FEs and no one builds to take sleep into account. It has the most "counterplay" of all the RNG elements since there is some sort of control in your hands (Grass types immune to Powder moves, abilities) but we cannot act like these counterplay options are even good nor spammable.
Only 12 FEs get the combination of Vital Spirit/Insomnia. 1 is banned and the rest are unmons. Garganacl, Komala, and Gholdengo are immune to sleep but only 4/18 types have access to these mons. Grass types may be immune to Spore and Sleep Powder but they are still at the mercy of Hypnosis.
Overall, I've said my piece on sleep. I probably won't have any time to respond to any posts replying to my own. I'll be responding on the monotype Discord if anyone wants to discuss this or if you see me in the showdown room. Sleep may not be the top priority since there are still dumb mons in this tier but this should be considered at one point or another imo. Note that I didn't even bring up the inconsistent tiering of Sleep Clause Mod which sasha brought up, and there isn't really any argument to rebut that. Look at OU.
and 
are probably the two mons I see talked about the most at least from my perspective so far. That being said there's still a decent amount of talk on 
and 
and 
are pointed out for their one sided matchups. 
and 
. We don’t see Breloom often enough on both its types but it’s there. The second most prevalent move that causes sleep is Dire Claw which wouldn’t be affected by a sleep moves ban at all. Sure, there’s Yawn from Torkoal, too.
