Announcement SV National Dex UU Stage 4.1: Unstoppable

[Iride]

To summarize around 80% of people’s thoughts right now…​

Terastalization has been cited as the hallmark of the generation, and quite possibly the most defining trait in our metagame to date, both for better or for worse. On one hand, Terastalization’s defensive attributes are known to be beneficial for their ability to reinvigorate the defensive roles of several Pokemon to combat the slew of offensive exchanges defined by a power level as high as the current generation, being reinforced by the tier’s ongoing struggles in accompanying for solid utility options, and allowing for highly unprecedented forms of role compression in the teambuilder. Examples among these can be seen in ordinary defensive Pokemon such as Unaware Skeledirge and Ting-Lu with Tera Water, extending themselves to checking threats such as Excadrill and Gyarados in pinch situations otherwise barred off by their weaknesses, or Galarian Slowking using these benefits to escape trouble against Dark and Ground-types that would limit its pivoting capabilities long-term, albeit not without the cost of utility in other areas upon transitioning which can force serious considerations, like when acting as a team’s check to Enamorus.

For all the positives Terastalization brings to the tier, there has also been a significant number of negatives brought upon by the grievances of the playerbase, as Terastalization’s offensive potential is not to be understated in the slightest. Mostly seen in the Adaptability-like boost it provides to several offensive Pokemon, wallbreakers such as Enamorus, Aegislash, and Latios are pushed into territories of being nigh-impossible to withstand, while said examples and more are made no easier to deal with through the ability to manipulate their resistances to attacks at a whim, thus becoming much better equipped to survive interactions normally planned out against them. As a result, many of the best defensive Pokemon in the tier are also seen as highly inconsistent at handling most of these threats throughout the game, often by folding to the sheer power of boosted attacks outright, or being easily picked off by a surprise option allowing them to bypass this, being forced to act in a barrier of respect that consists of far greater boundaries. This overpowering dynamic can be further reflected in how it affected previously banned Pokemon as well, notably Kommo-o, Garganacl, and Baxcalibur, all of which had their offensive capabilities put several steps forward from being able to rewrite their defensive integrity to a major degree.

Examples of Terastalization on Common Pokemon in detail - and what they do

Enamorus
Tera Fairy - Heightens STAB Moonblast on Specs and Scarf sets, allowing the former to more easily muscle past Pokemon such as Gastrodon, while making the latter far more effective at cleaning offensive teams that rely on outspeeding it in a vacuum.
Tera Ground - Boosts the power of Earth Power significantly, allowing it to easily muscle its way past checks like Skeledirge and Assault Vest Galarian Slowking, additionally turning Enamorus’ Stealth Rock Weakness into a resistance.
Tera Ghost - Provides a complete immunity to Seismic Tosses from Blissey, as well as resistances to Pokemon like non-AV Galarian Slowking, which is especially notable for turning them into complete fodder with Sub CM.

Latios
Tera Dragon - Allows Draco Meteor to pummel neutral walls like Slowking and Tyranitar with ease on Life Orb or Specs sets, can also remove weaknesses to types like Dark and Bug in a pinch.
Tera Electric - Provides great neutral coverage in conjunction with STABs against targets like Aegislash and Clefable, while tearing through defensive Celesteela and Tapu Fini.
Tera Steel - Provides a poison immune on Calm Mind + Stored Power sets, while also giving resistances to Fairy, Steel, and Dragon to limit revenge killing attempts.

Scizor
Tera Fire - Sheds the Fire weakness by turning it into a resist against revenge killers like Cinderace, while also providing a burn immunity against Mega Sableye and Skeledirge. Fire STAB in Tera Blast also most notably eviscerates Buzzwole and Skarmory at +2.
Tera Electric - Outside of 2HKOing the previously banned Dondozo, Tera Electric also easily breaks walls like Slowbro or Alomomola at +2, while retaining coverage for Flying answers and even providing extra resistances against them.
Tera Steel - Makes Bullet Punch significantly stronger on Swords Dance and Choice Band sets, allowing the former to reach absurd feats like OHKOing Blaziken at +2 after slight chip, as well as revenge kill threats like Moltres-Galar more effectively with the latter.

There are examples of more precise interactions which can be made further down the VR, but I believe said point is made adequately as it is.

Defensive aspects of Terastalization, while less appealing at first glance, are also worth a mention as part of an offensive weapon in its own right, and can indeed serve as the main selling point for several Pokemon on the other side of the tiering coin too, this ranges from niche, albeit underexplored examples in Ceruledge, being given an arguable breath of fresh air for the take of a classic defensive setup sweeper with Bulk Up - types such Grass giving it a new lease of life against common roadblocks like against Water and Ground-types, to more extreme and centralizing examples in base Latias, a prime example of a Pokemon almost entirely bent on the viability of Terastalization, yet made into one of the most threatening Calm Mind sweepers alongside its Mega Counterpart, with types such as Poison and Steel being prime examples to negate common weaknesses while minimizing would-be downsides in tandem with its natural traits.

Overall, Terastalization remains an incredibly contentious topic in competitive play, while our metagame and its given context remains no exception to this. Followed by the results from our recent community survey, events leading up have laid the groundwork for a rather unexpected turn of events, albeit one with potential to shift tiering premises immensely. With this in mind, the council has ultimately decided to first put the Terastalization dispute in UU to rest once and for all.


Suspect Test Information

• The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 79 with at least 40 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 79 GXE, down to a minimum of 20 games at a GXE of 83. Also, needing more than 40 games to reach 79 GXE will suffice.

Minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
79	40
79.2	39
79.4	38
79.6	37
79.8	36
80	35
80.2	34
80.4	33
80.6	32
80.8	31
81	30
81.2	29
81.4	28
81.6	27
81.8	26
82	25
82.2	24
82.4	23
82.6	22
82.8	21
83	20

You must use a fresh account that begins with the given prefix for this suspect test. That prefix is NDUU9TERA. For example, I could signup and qualify with the name NDUU9TERA Arishem.

• You may not impersonate or mock another user with your account name. If there is any slight hesitation, you're probably better off picking a different name. We reserve the right to null your voting requisites if you are found impersonating or mocking another user with your account name. Moderator discretion will be applied.
• If you are found trying to manipulate voting requisites in any way, you will be met with a harsh infraction. Manipulating voting requisites ranges from faking your screenshot to asking another user to forfeit.
• The aspect that's being suspect tested, Terastalization, will be allowed on the National Dex UU ladder for 2 weeks so that we can properly assess its position in the metagame.

The voting period will consist of a straightforward ban or no ban outcome - any posts attempting to advocate for alternative solutions or restrictions will be marked as off-topic and deleted.

 

[R8]

The announced schedule for suspect room tournaments is currently suspended - no room tournament will grant suspect reqs until further notice, including the suspect room tournament that started before this announcement.

 

[Iride]

The announced schedule for suspect room tournaments is currently suspended - no room tournament will grant suspect reqs until further notice, including the suspect room tournament that started before this announcement.

Following up on what was said, my own disarray and oversight has stemed from my inability to take care of my personal well-being and addressing myself when needed, as is following an extremely tight irl schedule.

That said, none of these excuses here justify how this may have upset people who were otherwise invested - if I had any sense of uncertainty while preparing this important suspect test, I should have attempted to reach out to more people inside my group of support for help, not doing so in such a time of importance caused me to let you all down on the full extent of my initial predicament. This is ultimately a mistake that I allowed to happen in my own haste.

I offer my sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused and will continue to give everything possible to ensure the full validity of the outcome.

 

[Iride]

I ultimately believe Terastalization is broken, and will be voting to remove it.

The ability to Terastalize provides a premium of offensive benefits that is unmatched in the current metagame, with many of its so-called ‘downsides’ being negligible in return.

In terms of the former, its no surprise that it also remains the main contribution to the very restrictive space in our teambuilding environment, especially when complemented by the lack of variety in role compression and defensive options, to which we also have no way of predicting around, thus benefiting the opportunities of most Tera abusers by shortening our window to deal with the main source of momentum and offensive pressure even more than is justified.

Concisely, the most common examples of Tera combinations are also those that can both remain more consistent than others in their main role outside of it, and can employ options that cover the most common answers against them, but that doesn’t make counterplay impossible in those circumstances. I think it’s also worth looking into the effects of Tera on lesser-known Pokemon to fully grasp the extent of its impact on the metagame in practice, by extension, this can also be applied to offensive threats that aren’t normally overeliant on Tera - we’ve seen numerous Stored Power abusers, Galarian Moltres, Iron Hands, and Ceruledge begin to fall under this, with pre-existing aspects such as Screens already being used to limit much of what consistently answers them, and different elements from Tera itself are a big part of enabling that process right now.

You can argue that being able to scout for common options is a quintessential skill to have in gameplay, especially when complemented by one's own defensive Tera, but the fact remains that having to account for the sheer number of them is also a testament to the momentum a single Tera can swing into the user's favor, not at least because the power boost on STAB types also has the potential to outright brutalize whatever switches in, like in this tour game against Latios, which effectively used Tera Dragon to bypass the SpAtk drop commonly used to outlast it, and negate an otherwise solid overall check in SpDef Mandibuzz through an OHKO. Said mindgames aren't devoid of long-term value either, as they can always be maximized through pivoting from the likes of Galarian Slowking, Cinderace, Scizor and more, the limitations applied to deal with even the most common options alone stay a big part of why Tera is broken.

So yeah, vote Ban, take your chance at life, and stay living in the Gangsta Spongebob's Paradise.

 

[TBIC106]

I've not put anything here up to now mainly because I feel everything that has to be said about Terastalization has already been said in the many suspects it has already received. That being said, as a soon to be DNB voter, I figured with a pro ban post now up I should at least voice the counter points to a Ban vote.

Terastalisation, as a mechanic, is not as much of a cut and dry, no downsides buff as many seem to believe. As I see it, there are very few pokemon in the current meta that gain no additional weaknesses after using the mechanic. Even monotype threats can gain some notable detriments, such as Cinderace losing the ability to change its type via Libero, while others can lose out on the defensive benefits their secondary typings may provide, such as Enamorus losing its earthquake immunity with Tera Fairy or Aegislash losing its Dragon and Fairy resistances with Tera Ghost. Additionally, in my experience very few mons actually Terastalise offensively, instead opting to change to a Defensive type, prominent examples being Tera Poison Hydreigon and Tera Grass Iron Moth. While this presents a problem of many pokemon having various different strong options to utilise for tera types, some of which boosting the power of coverage moves like the aforementioned Tera Grass Iron Moth, it also means the mon cannot boost its STAB options to force kills against neutral targets.

This leads to the next point against a ban, which is that the mechanic is not as versatile as it presents. While an individual mon could, in theory, Terastalise into 18 separate types, realistically many will have a maximum of three viable options, or four in extreme cases of versatility. Take, for example, Enamorus, which should only ever be Tera Fairy or Ground, with other options such as Ghost and Fighting being significantly more niche in their application. Any other Tera types not in that list are simply inferior to the options presented. As such, there will likely be options you can exploit to play around these Tera types, while accounting for them in the teambuilder becomes significantly more palatable when you view it as just trying to be able to hit every type for super effective damage in some way with your team.

That being said, the means by which a mon can be countered or checked are significantly decreased by the additional options Terastalisation gives. Inherently this will increase variation in any given match, which should be reduced as much as possible when considering tiering action. However, the main aspect limiting Terastalisation in this aspect is the fact that it can only be used once each match. This leads to a mind game each match of trying to decide when your opponent will Terastalise, and when using your own Terastalisation would be most effective. This is possibly the most contentious element of Terastalisation, as at any given time your opponent could pull out a completely unforseen Tera type that screws you over in the one specific situation you have found yourself in. I've been the recipient of this many times, and each time my reaction has been the same. "Well, looks like they've been beaten by that sequence before, so they probably used Tera to give themselves an out." This particular use of Terastalisation becomes less common the higher you reach on ladder, with the best teams almost never using these random tera types due to the increased benefit in most situations of the more common Tera types. This is not something that happens because of random chance, or because something was broken and therefore could get away with sub par options; it's because of a deliberate choice made in teambuilding that happened to have the situation it was prepared for come up, the same as with any gimmick on a team.

With this all being said, the mindgame of knowing when your opponent will Terastalise has only ever presented me an issue on rare occasions. Most of the time, it's incredibly obvious when your opponent will Terastalise, and what weakness will be removed when your opponent does Terastalise, such as in this game where I barely had to think to call a Terastalisation from Skarmory and predict appropriately, regardless of me not winning the game afterwards. Conversely, often midground plays exist that allow you to account for various tera types at the same time. While I don't have the replay saved, I still remember a game from a long while ago where a game was lost by a Meowscarada clicking knock off into a Horoark as it Terastalised into a Fighting type. While this does demonstrate the ability of Terastalisation to completely reverse type match ups, it also shows that midgrounds exist where you can always account for most tera types, as in this case a Flower Trick was always the play due to rocks chip making it a guaranteed kill regardless of almost any Tera Type. This creates an undeniable skill factor that was absent in previous brokens, such as Dondozo setting up on the entire physical side of the tier or Garganacl clicking salt cure and never dying.

Despite all this, I hold by what I said at the beginning of this post. There isn't really much to be said anymore, everything I've voiced here has been said a hundred times and everyone will have formulated opinions on whether they think the mechanic is balanced or broken long before this suspect happened. For those who haven't already gotten reqs, good luck!

 

[about15gals]

I'd just like to bring a few points of issue up I have with this post (regardless, I still think it's a great addition to the discussion, hearing differing opinions is very important to having a healthy argument)

Terastalisation, as a mechanic, is not as much of a cut and dry, no downsides buff as many seem to believe. As I see it, there are very few pokemon in the current meta that gain no additional weaknesses after using the mechanic. Even monotype threats can gain some notable detriments, such as Cinderace losing the ability to change its type via Libero, while others can lose out on the defensive benefits their secondary typings may provide, such as Enamorus losing its earthquake immunity with Tera Fairy or Aegislash losing its Dragon and Fairy resistances with Tera Ghost. Additionally, in my experience very few mons actually Terastalise offensively, instead opting to change to a Defensive type, prominent examples being Tera Poison Hydreigon and Tera Grass Iron Moth. While this presents a problem of many pokemon having various different strong options to utilise for tera types, some of which boosting the power of coverage moves like the aforementioned Tera Grass Iron Moth, it also means the mon cannot boost its STAB options to force kills against neutral targets.

My main issues with the points brought up in this post, or rather more specifically, the points about tera having downsides, are mainly theoretical, since tera isn't some thing that happens automatically, it's player controlled. While yes, enamorus (I'm talking about specs, here) using tera fairy to boost moonblast removes its flying type, allowing it to be hit by ground moves, when is that ever really relevant? what ground in the tier right now is capable of switching into enamorus's tera fairy specs moonblast in order to hit it? I also feel like bringing up ciderace is somewhat of a moot point, as utilizing tera on it feels like a poor use of resources, as the benefits it gain seem unimportant compared to what it loses out on by using it and the inability to tera another pokemon

That being said, the means by which a mon can be countered or checked are significantly decreased by the additional options Terastalisation gives. Inherently this will increase variation in any given match, which should be reduced as much as possible when considering tiering action. However, the main aspect limiting Terastalisation in this aspect is the fact that it can only be used once each match. This leads to a mind game each match of trying to decide when your opponent will Terastalise, and when using your own Terastalisation would be most effective. This is possibly the most contentious element of Terastalisation, as at any given time your opponent could pull out a completely unforseen Tera type that screws you over in the one specific situation you have found yourself in. I've been the recipient of this many times, and each time my reaction has been the same. "Well, looks like they've been beaten by that sequence before, so they probably used Tera to give themselves an out." This particular use of Terastalisation becomes less common the higher you reach on ladder, with the best teams almost never using these random tera types due to the increased benefit in most situations of the more common Tera types. This is not something that happens because of random chance, or because something was broken and therefore could get away with sub par options; it's because of a deliberate choice made in teambuilding that happened to have the situation it was prepared for come up, the same as with any gimmick on a team.

Oftentimes one pokemon is all you really need to win a match, grimm screens ho works because you just overwhelm your opponent with the sheer amounts of offense you have, oftentimes with 5 pokemon that are each capable of sweeping teams solo, using tera on one pokemon isn't that much of a cost, since you only ever really need one pokemon to win a match, also with the gimmick argument, the main downside of using a gimmick on a team is oftentimes dedicating a moveslot or teamslot to running said gimmick, while with tera the oppurtunity cost is significantly lower, only requiring one tera slot, of which you have 6, of which you can only ever use one a game

With this all being said, the mindgame of knowing when your opponent will Terastalise has only ever presented me an issue on rare occasions. Most of the time, it's incredibly obvious when your opponent will Terastalise, and what weakness will be removed when your opponent does Terastalise, such as in this game where I barely had to think to call a Terastalisation from Skarmory and predict appropriately, regardless of me not winning the game afterwards. Conversely, often midground plays exist that allow you to account for various tera types at the same time. While I don't have the replay saved, I still remember a game from a long while ago where a game was lost by a Meowscarada clicking knock off into a Horoark as it Terastalised into a Fighting type. While this does demonstrate the ability of Terastalisation to completely reverse type match ups, it also shows that midgrounds exist where you can always account for most tera types, as in this case a Flower Trick was always the play due to rocks chip making it a guaranteed kill regardless of almost any Tera Type. This creates an undeniable skill factor that was absent in previous brokens, such as Dondozo setting up on the entire physical side of the tier or Garganacl clicking salt cure and never dying.

I don't have any issues with this paragraph other than I just feel the example of horoark is a poor choice, since horoark often just dies to most neutral hits regardless of tera, and in reality I feel like it's much more nuanced than just picking the move that kills regardless of tera

I'd love to get more into this topic however, I'm still somewhat new to the nduu metagame, but I've been enjoying it a lot so far and I'd be glad to discuss it some more given the chance

 

[Runo]

Even monotype threats can gain some notable detriments, such as Cinderace losing the ability to change its type via Libero, while others can lose out on the defensive benefits their secondary typings may provide, such as Enamorus losing its earthquake immunity with Tera Fairy or Aegislash losing its Dragon and Fairy resistances with Tera Ghost.

You get more breaking power and limit your switchins even further, all for the low cost of sacrificing a bit of your defensive profile? Most of the offensive Tera abusers aren't exactly the paragons of defensive utility anyways so why are they going to care if they lose out on defensive benefits when they can just nuke shit off the map? "Oh golly my Enamorus can get hit by Ground-types now", what Ground-type is switching into Tera Fairy Specs Moonblast in the first place? Nobody was ever arguing that Tera didn't have drawbacks, but oftentimes the drawbacks are worth it since the benefits you get from Tera FAR outweigh the downsides.

Additionally, in my experience very few mons actually Terastalise offensively, instead opting to change to a Defensive type, prominent examples being Tera Poison Hydreigon and Tera Grass Iron Moth. While this presents a problem of many pokemon having various different strong options to utilise for tera types, some of which boosting the power of coverage moves like the aforementioned Tera Grass Iron Moth, it also means the mon cannot boost its STAB options to force kills against neutral targets.

This conveniently ignores Aegislash, Specs Latios, Specs Enamorus, Cinderace, Serperior, Meowscarada, Scizor, Choice Band Iron Hands, and many more mons in the meta that like to use offensive Teras to deal a gross amount of damage in order to nuke shit. I guess you give yourself an out by saying "in my experience", but your experiences are not universal and these mons are more than common enough to warrant a mention. Leaving them out and then saying that "very few mons actually Terastalise offensively" is just wrong.

Additionally, are defensive Tera types any more manageable than offensive ones? Tera setup sweepers are probably one of the most annoying things to handle in the metagame. Seeing something like Tera Steel CM Latios on preview is a nightmare since its pool of counterplay is super limited once it Teras. And that's not even the only case of it either. How does one reliably handle Tera CM Clefable on every team? What about Latias? What about Gyarados? or Iron Hands, or Skeledirge, or Galarian Moltres? The list goes on for far more than a typical team can handle, which makes building a pain because the concept of checks and counters become a lot less solid with Tera in the picture. Regardless of if it's an offensive or defensive Tera.

realistically many will have a maximum of three viable options, or four in extreme cases of versatility.

While its true that a mon's max amount of viable Tera types are basically known at this point, knowing doesn't really mean anything since it doesn't solve any of the issues that people have with Tera, which is mainly the way you can effectively flip games in your favor without significant drawback. Wow you correctly deduced that Latios is Tera Steel on preview! How does that information stop it from sweeping your team? Same thing with other Tera abusers such as Enamorus, or Galarian Moltres, or Iron Hands, or Latias, or literally any setup sweeper in this tier. Unless you have very specific counterplay to specific Tera types then the matchup is as a whole is still compromised.

This leads to a mind game each match of trying to decide when your opponent will Terastalise, and when using your own Terastalisation would be most effective. This is possibly the most contentious element of Terastalisation, as at any given time your opponent could pull out a completely unforseen Tera type that screws you over in the one specific situation you have found yourself in. I've been the recipient of this many times, and each time my reaction has been the same. "Well, looks like they've been beaten by that sequence before, so they probably used Tera to give themselves an out." This particular use of Terastalisation becomes less common the higher you reach on ladder, with the best teams almost never using these random tera types due to the increased benefit in most situations of the more common Tera types.

basically re-read what I said in the previous paragraph (I feel like a broken record because all of these statements can be debunked in the same way).
Regarding the highlighted statement, do you not see any issue with that at all? The fact that that you played the correct sequences and positioned well, only to get fucked by some random tera? I don't know about you but surely that has to be frustrating on some level. I can't imagine trying to build a solid team Tera metagame knowing I could get my day ruined by some random tera that just so happens to cteam everything. No way am I hopping on ladder expecting that to happen, and god forbid I lose a major tournament because of it.

Most of the time, it's incredibly obvious when your opponent will Terastalise, and what weakness will be removed when your opponent does Terastalise, such as in this game where I barely had to think to call a Terastalisation from Skarmory and predict appropriately, regardless of me not winning the game afterwards. Conversely, often midground plays exist that allow you to account for various tera types at the same time.

Two gripes about the replay you linked: First is that, from the looks of it, you lost the interaction vs Skarmory (a mon that Iron Hands should typically be able to beat) because of Tera. And since that was your only fat breaker, you practically lost the entire game because of Skarmory Terastallizing. Which brings me to my second issue, clicking Drain Punch instead of Thunder Punch (I assume) is not the game changing prediction you think it is since a boosted Drain Punch 2HKOs his entire team so Drain Punch was always going to be the correct play.

+2 252+ Atk Quark Drive Iron Hands Drain Punch vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Hippowdon: 319-376 (75.9 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ Atk Quark Drive Iron Hands Drain Punch vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Latias-Mega: 156-185 (42.9 - 50.9%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO
+2 252+ Atk Quark Drive Iron Hands Drain Punch vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Slowking: 220-259 (55.9 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

So Skarmory had no choice but to Tera in order to prevent a loss on preview, which is one of the main issues that I have with Tera. Tera kinda invalidates good teambuilding since every mon more or less has an out against their checks and counters, so it makes prepping against threats such a chore in the builder and this can translate into actual gameplay where it also can just punish good positioning because every mon can potentially just invalidate their checks and counters (as you saw in the Skarmory vs Iron Hands replay) and ruin all of the progress you painstakingly worked for.


TLDR: Tera both invalidates good teambuilding and positioning by giving every mon an out against their checks and counters. The mechanic is just way too much of a matchup flipper since it has barely any downsides to using it.

Also there was an DNB stance that got mentioned on the Discord that basically said that they would not be banning Tera because it was a "fundamental mechanic" and that banning it be akin to banning the item slot. They also insisted that a Tera ban would result in NDUU "no longer be the Meta I love". First of all, if you truly believe that the identity of NDUU is tied to Tera then I strongly encourage you to try playing in the Teraless Room Tours, since virtually nothing changes about the current metagame and it actually frees up teambuilding a lot more. Me personally, I have more confidence knowing that my teams are more sturdy than before since I can actually check things without getting my progress thrown out by Tera. Second of all, what does a "fundamental mechanic" even mean? Does it mean whatever GameFreak added in SV? Does that mean we should unban Dondozo as well because GameFreak made it? Oh just game mechanics then? Does that mean we should remove Sleep Clause? Species Clause too? It's what the creators intended us to play with after all. What is the threshold for something to be considered a fundamental mechanic in your eyes? Because to the rest of the world it just seems like an arbitrary excuse to keep Tera in a tier that would arguably be better off without it.

 

[Gangsta Spongebob]

I will be voting Ban on Terastalization. It needs to go, as while I like its concept, it puts the metagame in a fundamentally unbalanced state. Here I'll go over various anti-ban arguments and assert that they hold no water. Note that what I say here isn't directed at any specific individual, I've heard each these arguments from multiple people.

"But Tera is a Generational Mechanic"/"We shouldn't ban things period": To start off, it is important to assert that the ability for the community to suspect Tera is something it absolutely needs. It might sound obvious to some, I've seen some people claim that we shouldn't suspect Tera for philosophical reasons, such as "Thats how Game Freak intended" or "This is the generational mechanic, we need to keep things unique". The issue is, Game Freak blatantly does not balance their games around 6v6 singles, much less the UU tier in a format using cut Pokemon and moves. We cannot expect things to just to fall into balance, as the powers which designed this generation added this mechanic for a completely different metagame.

To arbitrarily prevent ourselves from banning something would be risking the future Nat Dex UU for no reason. Tiers that have been designed with the inability to ban things, like SV Nat Dex AG and SS Pure Hackmons, have crashed and burned as a result of this sort of philosophy. I don't think any element in Nat Dex UU would make it as bad as them, but again, arbitrarily restricting our ability to ban something is a completely unnecessary and dangerous move. Plus, we already have precedent with generational mechanics being banned with Gen 8. Tera isn't as broken Dynamax, but Dynamax, being arguably the singular most broken thing ever in Pokemon, is not the minimum something needs to be to get banned. I'll get into it, but Tera is extremely problematic in its own right.

As for arguments hinging on the tier needing to be "unique" or "not like Gen 8", even with no Tera Nat Dex UU is completely different from its Gen 8 incarnation. For arguments about the metagame possibly becoming stale without Tera, its centralization issues will cause the tier to become infinitely staler with it.

"Tera helps less viable Pokemon find niches": Tera just doesn't do this. The fact of the matter is that a dedicated Tera slot goes against Tera's greatest strength: the lack of commitment needed to have it at your disposal. Unlike Z moves, there is no downside to having the ability to Tera. Thus, a bad Pokemon that can become decent with Tera is strictly inferior to a good Pokemon that can become even better with Tera. If you Tera another Pokemon you risk playing 5v6 when playing like this.

Looking at the Nat Dex UU VR, I don't think there's a single Pokemon that's managed to become viable as a result of Tera. Maybe Wo-Chien, but it's still stuck in C Rank. Cresselia, if it gets ranked, will probably be the exception, but 1-2 Pokemon gaining niches as a result of Tera is not remotely enough to say it helps less viable Pokemon on average, or enough to justify its continued presence.

Tera creates the exact opposite situation. The ability for offensive threats to Tera means that traditional counterplay to them is way more limited. All of a sudden Tapu Fini struggles to beat Latios when it can just Tera Steel and win one-on-one. Aegislash can just Tera Water to beat Cinderance. And this isn't talking about same-type Tera, which lets so many offensive threats like Choice Specs Enamorus or Swords Dance Excadrill to be checked offensively without something extremely specific like Blissey or Skarmory, respectively. Tera doesn't create a more diverse metagame, as while it makes bad Pokemon slightly less bad, it makes good Pokemon much better. Thus, bad Pokemon are even less worth using, while otherwise decent Pokemon are outcompeted.

"Tera has downsides": Yes every Tera type has weaknesses, but that doesn't solve its centralization issues. A Pokemon generally doesn't need to instantly Tera, so you need to build accounting for every one of every Pokemon's Tera types. Pokemon like Aegislash and Iron Hands can have very different counterplay between their original typing and their chosen Tera types. Other Pokemon like Iron Moth and Enamorus might not change their answers as radically, but they still seriously cut down on counterplay, forcing teams to run an answer to each Tera type or run something that can check all of the available Tera types. Plus, like Runo said, most offensive threats don't care about losing defensive utility if they just kill everything anyways. This segways into the next point:

"Defensive Teras exist": Tera changing type is actually a massive downside to defensive Pokemon, but that makes Tera more problematic. A defensive Pokemon is usually used for its ability to defensively check things, which usually changes if it Teras. For example, your Clefable can't exactly Tera Steel if there's something like Buzzwole on the opposing team and you have no other check to it. Offensive threats have this issue somewhat, but offensive threats are rarely defined by their resistances and often only need an extra turn to overpower their checks. There are also setup sweepers using defensive Tera, but they are among the most problematic abusers of it. Pokemon like Skeledirge and Iron Hands can flip counterplay almost completely. The fact that walls using defensive Tera are so much worse than offensive Pokemon using Tera means the tier is heavily skewed towards extreme playstyles.

"The majority of Pokemon have no more than 3 viable Tera types": That is indeed true, as while you can always run some weird Tera type to catch someone off-guard, most of the time Pokemon have 1-3 viables ones. However, that still forces an excessive amount of counterplay needed to check all three types. How much overlapping counterplay is between Tera Ghost, Water, and Fighting Aegislash? You can scout sets to narrow the list, but how do you safely scout dangerous offensive threats without using a very tiny list of super bulky and passive Pokemon? And you generally can't fit enough of those Pokemon without running cookie-cutter Stall builds. Even just 3 viable Tera types on so many of the tier's offensive threats is way too much to handle.

"We need to keep Tera to beat Stall": Indeed, in a match Tera does help fight Stall by powering up offensive threats. However, for one, broken beating broken isn't healthy for the metagame at all. If stall needs a nerf, it should get a nerf, regardless of if Tera is broken or not.

More importantly, I'd argue that Tera actually encourages Stall. Don't get me wrong—Tera without a doubt benefits Hyper Offense (HO) first and foremost. But out of the team styles it hurts, it harms Balance and Bulky Offense (BO) infinitely more than Stall. Stall can afford extremely bulky but passive and exploitable Pokemon like Alomomola and Chansey that other teamstyles simply cannot afford. It can also afford to stack multiple of these Pokemon to counter the various Tera types of HO's sweepers.

Balance and BO simply don't have this option. Their defensive cores have to cover so many threats with fewer Pokemon, which massively centralizes the tier around a few Pokemon that can somewhat hold these balanced playstyles together, though even now you can't really make a team that can have a fighting chance against every viable threat. This often leads use players use extreme playstyles. This is the biggest problem Nat Dex UU has had since the start of Gen 9—its skew to HO—and Tera is the primary factor for that.

Tera, as a result, makes Stall more viable than it would seem. The team style that traditionally beat Stall is BO. BO has the power to overpower stall and doesn't have to rely on constant momentum to do. With Tera making HO dominant, it significantly reduces the viability of BO.

Meanwhile, HO tends to rely on very samey builds that are the first things Stall teams prepare against. They rely on constant momentum to break through opposing teams, which Stall can often deny. HO doesn't match up poorly against Stall, it actually has a good matchup against it, but with the tier being so centralized around extreme playstyles we can easily turn games into matchup fishes where the HO or Stall instantly wins based on which player got lucky in the builder.

"Tera is often telegraphed": To be honest this argument is subjective, and depends on the individual experiences of each player, so it's extremely hard to refute, but more importantly argue for. Either way, even if this was the case it does not stop the Tera's massive centralization issues, as you still need counterplay to it even if you see it coming in a game. It doesn't matter if I predict that Iron Hands will Tera Water when I never had counterplay to that on my team.

Anyways, from my experience, against a competent player the threat of Tera is often just as problematic as the mechanic itself. While there is genuine skill involved with predicting Tera, more often than not it's just a 50/50 unless I'm running Stall. This is just what I've seen, but whether or not Tera's 50/50s are actively a problem is too subjective.

Ultimately, Tera simply has to go. Beyond the problematic 50/50s, it makes so many offensive threats, from Latios to Iron Hands, some level of overpowered, and makes it impossible to build a team that can feasibly challenge everything. Most of the arguments for keeping Tera have been either wrong or based on philosophy that is simply not interested in keeping a balanced and diverse metagame. As I said I will be voting Ban, and I implore other voters to do the same.

 

[Iride]

Tera :pray: has been banned!