Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 ( NEW SURVEY UP, POST 20,700 )

[AquiIo]

And as an aside, it’s not possible to argue Tera Blast as unhealthy without taking major characteristics of its most prominent abusers into account. Tera Blast is not unhealthy on Enamorus, Iron Moth, Serperior, Zapdos, etc. — the vast majority of users are well within acceptable confines.

Can we stop acting like in order for a move to be broken all potential users of that move would abuse it? This is a widely agreed on negative metagame component and acting like policy is an end all be all when policy is a system constructed by we the players of the game to make said game healthier seems like a mindset terribly prone to fencing off change. Why should our policy dictate us more than the overwhelming consensus of the tier's best players?

How you define “health” or how I define “skill” or how the next person defines “reasonable” and so on are largely arbitrary, falling within the confines of individual opinion. This is why we work within more proven, defined terminology and we do not play the “but why not” game.

The "proven, defined terminology" is still to a large extent arbitrary. Tiering to non-linear gameplay like mons is inherently going to be arbitrary, and acting otherwise restricts how the tier can be improved. Nor is this in the confines of "individual opinion", admittedly a tiering survey would help with this but everything I hear from trophy-level players recently has been adamantly opposed to the policy keeping Tera Blast in the tier.

 

[Finchinator]

Can we stop acting like in order for a move to be broken all potential users of that move would abuse it? This is a widely agreed on negative metagame component and acting like policy is an end all be all when policy is a system constructed by we the players of the game to make said game healthier seems like a mindset terribly prone to fencing off change. Why should our policy dictate us more than the overwhelming consensus of the tier's best players?

Not sure what you mean by “acting like” — this is quite literally the most recent amendment to site wide tiering policy — you cannot in good faith say Tera Blast is actionable given the below, especially including the bold.

I.) Inherently Broken Nature

• The element is so powerful or disruptive that it creates a significant imbalance in the metagame, regardless of which Pokemon employs it.
• There is no reasonable context or distribution that would render the element balanced by ordinary means.

II.) Universal Applicability Across Eligible Users

• The element is not just situationally powerful on one or two Pokemon; it is universally problematic across all or most potential users.
• Example: If a move is only broken due to unique synergy with one or two specific Pokemon, then we default to banning those Pokemon rather than the move itself.

III.) No Plausible Scenario for Balance

• There is no current situation in which the element would be balanced on Pokemon that currently have it.
• If giving the element to weaker or niche Pokemon that are still recognisably viable within the tier could be balanced, then the element is not considered universally broken.

It is my job to enforce tiering policy as tier leader. This is not an “act” — it is quite literally things working as they are designed.

Notice how I have repeatedly said that if people have an issue, it is with the policy and they should take it up in that arena.

Finally, what do you even mean “widely agreed”??? We have a handful of posters in this thread. Tera Blast was surveyed repeatedly and never once hit close to where it would need for a suspect. We have never had more than 2-3 members of the council supporting action, and we have even fewer now. The PR thread specifically devoted to it didn’t even have majority support. Are you just making up data as we go or are you honing in on just page 827-828 of metagame discussion rather than a full generation of discussion? This isn’t even to mention how outraged people were at the lack of clarity in policy on this topic earlier in the generation with Last Respects and Shed Tail — implying this is some forgone conclusion when all of the numerical and forum data points to the contrary is nothing short of a conspiracy theory.

 

[Finchinator]

The "proven, defined terminology" is still to a large extent arbitrary. Tiering to non-linear gameplay like mons is inherently going to be arbitrary, and acting otherwise restricts how the tier can be improved. Nor is this in the confines of "individual opinion", admittedly a tiering survey would help with this but everything I hear from trophy-level players recently has been adamantly opposed to the policy keeping Tera Blast in the tier.

There are literal definitions in tiering policy for the terms I allude to though. I said what I did purposefully.

And I’m not sure what you mean by “trophy-level players”, but again I think you’re just really misled. Tera Blast has never had the support for action. It wasn’t even close and only got a tiering policy thread because we were tired of it lingering. Look at every survey, every formal discussion, every council post on it, and so on. You cannot manufacture your own narrative and reality when there is actual evidence directly disproving it. That’s not how anything works in life ever.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Can we stop acting like in order for a move to be broken all potential users of that move would abuse it? This is a widely agreed on negative metagame component and acting like policy is an end all be all when policy is a system constructed by we the players of the game to make said game healthier seems like a mindset terribly prone to fencing off change. Why should our policy dictate us more than the overwhelming consensus of the tier's best players?

i feel like this is getting beyond the scope of ou discussion and would be much more effective as a policy review thread, since any policy change that would allow for tiering action on tera blast would also have much further-reaching effects on both ou and lower tiers. it would also allow for opportunities to bring up other moves that have been large factors in previous bans and are sticking points with some members of the community, such as rage fist, electro shot, and stored power, as well as abilities such as speed boost, which has caused bans of literally all of its fully evolved users this gen in their respective tiers. i could go either way on tera blast, and i'm ambivalent on this policy in general—i think it's possible to build a good and healthy meta with our current policy on moves and abilities, but also definitely possible to build one with a different policy—but i don't think this is a discussion that's meant for this thread in particular

 

[AquiIo]

Not sure what you mean by “acting like” — this is quite literally the most recent amendment to site wide tiering policy — you cannot in good faith say Tera Blast is actionable given the below, especially including the bold.

Line II.) is extremely nonspecific. Tera Blast is neither broken on solely one, two, or even three users, nor most of them - it lies at an awkward in between (somewhere between 5 and 10 mons could be argued as having been banned or as being presently problematic due to the move), but given this acting on it would not be outside of policy, at least the policy you supplied.

Tera Blast was surveyed repeatedly and never once hit close to where it would need for a suspect.

We've been going on nearing 4 months without a survey, I may be assuming too much but I also think it's hard to argue the contrary when we've gone so long without concrete data, I'm just relaying an increasingly annoyed trend I've seen when talking with people over the past several months.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

i don't think this conversation is going to go anywhere productive. let's leave policy for policy review and talk about the meta as it is right now to see if we can identify any other potential problems besides the usual suspects before the survey drops

what, in your opinion, is the most bullshit mon in the tier that hasn't been on a survey/gotten recent support? do you think said mon is worthy of a suspect or ban, a necessary evil, or just a personal annoyance? discuss

 

[FayaWizard]

We've been going on nearing 4 months without a survey, I may be assuming too much but I also think it's hard to argue the contrary when we've gone so long without concrete data, I'm just relaying an increasingly annoyed trend I've seen when talking with people over the past several months.

The Tera Blast PR thread was from July-August, so we've been at most, 1 and a half months without "concrete data". And the response to that thread was so lacking (little to no high-level tournament player input besides the council themself) that I severely doubt Ban Tera Blast support has somehow skyrocketed secretly in the past 6-8 weeks.

 

[Hon07rial]

i don't think this conversation is going to go anywhere productive. let's leave policy for policy review and talk about the meta as it is right now to see if we can identify any other potential problems besides the usual suspects before the survey drops

what, in your opinion, is the most bullshit mon in the tier that hasn't been on a survey/gotten recent support? do you think said mon is worthy of a suspect or ban, a necessary evil, or just a personal annoyance? discuss

I don't have anything to add beyond what you all already know and have heard dozens of times, this might be the most discussed ban in this metagame since its inception and I am not feeling satisfied with there being no real action on it.

but to make this more interesting, here is an insane pokemon I think not many people are paying attention to rn and might become a problem in the future:

Deoxys-Speed @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Psycho Boost
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball / Recover

Recover is a niche but interesting alternative i found about recently that's surprisingly effective at allowing it to not be revenge killed as easily.

 

[Finchinator]

We've been going on nearing 4 months without a survey, I may be assuming too much but I also think it's hard to argue the contrary when we've gone so long without concrete data, I'm just relaying an increasingly annoyed trend I've seen when talking with people over the past several months.

In an ideal world, there was a survey a few weeks ago. I will be the first to admit this. We had some turnover on the council and it got pushed from late September to mid October. This isn’t fair to our playerbase who deserves the best and most prompt handling of the metagame. I apologize for that. Sometimes unpredictable stuff happens.

The first half of this “four month” period is knocked out by the existing PR thread and the fact that OLT qualifiers were ongoing. I was never going to double dip at these points. If we get a lot of written in data on Tera Blast or people want to discuss larger tiering ripples (that go beyond OU), then we can reassess. For now, we are where we are and I am working to do my best present circumstances accepted.

You are entitled to be annoyed or disagree with anything I write of course. It’s a free forum and you’re a free person who can feel however you wish. Trust me: I read every post in here, I talk to a large handful of people every day on the tier, and I play 50-100 games of OU every single week while building plenty. I’m not going to go out here and pretend things are perfect. But I am also not going to fearmonger and pretend they’re bad either. I’m just doing my best to make the metagame enjoyable and competitive for those who wish to play it.

We are in a pretty good spot relative to prior points in the generation, in my opinion (and based on prior data points). With that said, this generation has prompted the most diverse reaction to hot-button tiering issues ever. There is a faction of people who still want Tera banned, there is a faction of people who want Tera Blast acted on, there is a faction of people who want multiple abusers banned, there is a faction of people who want recent bans undone, and there is a faction of people who want no chance. There is no reality where everyone is pleased and I understand that. My job is to enact the policy as it exists, engage with the players to find the best feasible outcomes for the metagame, keep up with the tier firsthand, and find the best balance of competitiveness moving forward. Obviously it’s a juggle and it will inevitably lead to clashes, but that’s what I signed up for.

 

[duckycrater]

Does Baton Pass even fit the criteria for a broken move according to the tiering policy? In no world can you argue that baton pass on like Cinderace or Latios(both OU viable pokemon) is broken, I admit I’m not entirely sure what the second point for reason I means but for all the other reasons(which to me feel a bit redundant since they all seem to say “is it broken among multiple/all potential users”) scenarios exist where currently OU viable pokemon with boosting moves(Alomomola, Dragapult, etc) could use baton pass and not be broken. Obviously I’m not saying to unban baton pass(unless?) but the tiering policy seems to suggest it’s not banworthy.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Does Baton Pass even fit the criteria for a broken move according to the tiering policy? In no world can you argue that baton pass on like Cinderace or Latios(both OU viable pokemon) is broken, I admit I’m not entirely sure what the second point for reason I means but for all the other reasons(which to me feel a bit redundant since they all seem to say “is it broken among multiple/all potential users”) scenarios exist where currently OU viable pokemon with boosting moves(Alomomola, Dragapult, etc) could use baton pass and not be broken. Obviously I’m not saying to unban baton pass(unless?) but the tiering policy seems to suggest it’s not banworthy.

baton pass is a weird case because by current policy it isn't banworthy, and it arguably wasn't banworthy under purely policy terms at the time either, but in practice every time they try to tier it in some way beyond "ban baton pass" it didn't work. sometimes you just gotta go fuck it and take out the whole thing. is this the proper procedure for tera blast? probably not. should it be? that's a matter for policy review. i think the previous policy review thread being exclusively for tera blast wasn't good for the discussion because it limited the general case of "should we focus a little less on mon bans in the case of moves/abilities breaking several mons" to the specific case of "what do we do about tera blast". a more general thread over there would probably be the best option to continue this discussion, rather than rehashing a topic that's been done to death and will probably not produce fruitful results in this thread

to be clear, i think this discussion is worth having. it's just not worth having here

 

[rinagram]

I.] Inherently Broken Nature
- is only viable on 50% of mons that use it, rather than a majority

II.] Universal Applicability Across Eligible Users
- see above, only banned due to mons with passive healing abilities

III.] No Plausible Scenario for Balance
- sceptile and smeargle are fake

Due to meeting none of the current criteria, I move that we unban Shed Tail.

I think it's easy enough to see how tiering policy is constantly bent in some ways in order to maintain a healthy metagame. Why should Tera Blast be any different in discussion? The framework for tiering is just that- a framework. Not an end-all be-all, and for good reason.

To shut down discussion due to not meeting a literal reading of the policy is a poor choice. I'm not your mother, I don't want to lecture people on healthy debate.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Finally, I want to make a separate post on this logic — we do not tier this way. The onus is always on the side opposite the status quo to prove their point. “Why is Tera Blast broken?” would be the probing question, not “What do we even gain by keeping Tera Blast?” and so on. [/spoiler]

But if something can be discussed as broken but be sidelined, then there is clearly a benefit to holding onto it and prioritizing elements besides it. What makes tera blast a positive addition to the tier? Even outside of suspect context... does it improve pokemon, make teambuilding easier, or does it create of a web of possibilities difficult to account for in every matchup and obviously the strongest are going to cannibalize the weaker versions of the problem... we've already seen that with roaring moon then dragonite, and we may get to a point where nothing broken sticks out eventually but that does not answer the question if tera blast is healthy and definitely not broken. Hidden power doesn't compare mainly cause 1: the variance is halved by being a special move, 2: it was so weak it basically only was useful specifically for 4x weaknesses meaning a random 'hidden power flying' wasn't going to be egregious and half the time a 120BP stab not very effective would create better calcs.

Like I said, you could hash it out entirely with a single test, instead of digging a hole deeper if it happens to get banned, or creating weird biases off a survey where the community is not going to vote with the understanding of tiering policy but what most recently pisses them off. Dragonite is going to take more skew then tera blast yea... cause tera blast itself is being gatekept anyways and removing dragonite effectively nerfs the reasoning tera blast is so egregious to begin with, dragonite is a faster reaction cause again its been 4 years of the echo chamber. I'm sure if you put on the survey "you can keep dragonite+volc+eleki+roaringmoon+espathra or keep tera blast" you'd see a wildly different result from "vote 1-5 on dragonite, now vote 1-5 on tera blast".

How you define “health” or how I define “skill” or how the next person defines “reasonable” and so on are largely arbitrary, falling within the confines of individual opinion. This is why we work within more proven, defined terminology and we do not play the “but why not” game.

Yet this are terms directly sourced from the tiering framework. Its not arbitrary at all to identify unhealthy/uncompetitive elements and evaluate why they may be negatively impacting the game. That's the goal of a test to put that on trial but we've spent the past 4 years doing that in a general OU thread where mods can cut off the discussion cause 'its not relevant, come to DMs and convince one of us to make a PR thread'.

Tera blast has reasons its negatively impacting the game; too much variance on every pokemon in a way that it can flip games in ways they normally should not be allowed to accomplish (tera fairy volcarona, tera fire kingambit when at its prime), precedent that fine pokemon in ou would be far less egregious and either healthy, weak, or a lot more debatable to keep in the tier without the guaranteed coverage option and added frustration of guessing which type of tera blast it may wield,

Otherwise, we would litter the banlist with undesirable Pokemon. Toxapex and Clefable would’ve been banned from prior generations, the crusade against Booster Energy from earlier this generation may have come to fruition, and so on. It’s not a popularity contest or a “I dislike this so we can do without it” game so much as it’s an assessment of what is or isn’t banworthy.

Except you can make argument why those were healthy... ok pluck out pex and clefable; all hell breaks loose, stall and balance sucks over hyper offense. Energy booster might've been a discussion but players know who and what can use energy booster. Would iron bundle/flutter mane/roaring moon be in the tier? Probably not they're just broken even without energy boost... roaring moon was fine with energy booster - until tera blast optimizations.

And as an aside, it’s not possible to argue Tera Blast as unhealthy without taking major characteristics of its most prominent abusers into account. Tera Blast is not unhealthy on Enamorus, Iron Moth, Serperior, Zapdos, etc. — the vast majority of users are well within acceptable confines.

Baton pass isn't unhealthy on ariados, swagger isn't unhealthy on furret, but we know those moves on optimized pokemon for them are cancerous and removed them. You're trying to see tera blast as arena trap/shadow tag/moody and that's just not the case, its going to be power neutral on weak mons yeah... tera serperior isn't going to go nuts when tera dragonite sits infront of it and tera serperior has to leaf storm for 3 turns, iron moth is well above its real tier without it and has teetered being a top ou threat and falling UU depending on how the current environment looks. This does not make serperior any less frustrating, this just makes it not the spotlight of the problem.

You can't tunnel vision on it being specifically 1 mon at a time or "it has to break magikarp too", it is an unhealthy element and deserves the test.

A Tera Blast suspect is not currently on the table per the PR thread above

Rejected Thread 'Tera Blast in SV OU'

Jul 21, 2025

The SV OU tiering council recently discussed Tera Blast's place in our flagship metagame. While we are not close to a suspect, three members of the council -- leng loi, ausma, and TPP -- are in favor of tiering action while some others wish to see how the informed community feels. This post will outline Tera Blast's history in tiering discussions, place in the metagame, and potential for future tiering action. The hope of this thread is for active SV OU players to comment their thoughts on the move in the metagame.

Please note that this does not mean other potential...

• Finchinator
• Replies: 28
• Forum: Policy Review Archive

• 
• 
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Why. Which post suggest its not on the table. This is at worse a 50-50 on whether its worth testing and half the anti-test is split between "it may not be legal to test" and arguments why it should stay (which is usually "its uncompetitive but skillful at the same time"). The closing post by you even said the door isn't shut... so why does it feel shut?

 

[Finchinator]

Does Baton Pass even fit the criteria for a broken move according to the tiering policy?

Baton Pass is uncompetitive, not broken. Apples and oranges

 

[Finchinator]

I.] Inherently Broken Nature
- is only viable on 50% of mons that use it, rather than a majority

II.] Universal Applicability Across Eligible Users
- see above, only banned due to mons with passive healing abilities

III.] No Plausible Scenario for Balance
- sceptile and smeargle are fake

Due to meeting none of the current criteria, I move that we unban Shed Tail.

I think it's easy enough to see how tiering policy is constantly bent in some ways in order to maintain a healthy metagame. Why should Tera Blast be any different in discussion? The framework for tiering is just that- a framework. Not an end-all be-all, and for good reason.

To shut down discussion due to not meeting a literal reading of the policy is a poor choice. I'm not your mother, I don't want to lecture people on healthy debate.

Shed Tail was broken on 2 of 2 users of the move when it was banned. Last Respects was broken on every fully evolved user when it was banned. Arena Trap was broken on every fully evolved user and Diglett when it was banned. Same with Shadow Tag. You can find other non-Pokemon elements as well. Some straddle the line to uncompetitive, but that’s a whole other discussion.

You not knowing the history of Shed Tail or blindly assuming it would be balanced on other Pokemon is not my problem. You moving the goalposts most certainly isn’t either.

As I have said repeatedly in a public sphere, I was not even allowed to have a Tera Blast discussion in PR without including the section on parameters of tiering framework we are discussing. I fought for the discussion to happen for months to begin with — I spend dozens of hours behind the scenes making that discussion happen despite bad survey numbers and little council support. Then, it happened and there was very far from a clear majority with most arguments ignoring tiering logic altogether. Sometimes you just have to accept it for what it is rather than trying to paint volunteers in bad faith.

 

[Finchinator]

What makes tera blast a positive addition to the tier?

It adds a whole layer of skill and risk assessment to gameplay and teambuilding. This is similar to the premise of Tera as a whole. Implying it’s wholly negative just shows you’re either not engaging with the metagame fully or looking at it with an already predetermined agenda.

Tera Blast gives you totally different ways to make structures work or fit counterplay on. You can say that losing Zamazenta to Tera Blast Fairy from Dragonite or Kingambit is unfair, but it’s just as easy to say that I evaluated my resources and determined it was worth blowing my Tera on that. Now you are out a Zamazenta, I am out a Tera, and you can take advantage of that while I take advantage of the lack of a Zamazenta.

This trade-off runs parallel to so many other parts of the game and other, non-TB applications of Tera or even non-Tera applications of move or item choices. You can see certain berries or choice items or niche moves flipping matchups as well at the expensive of other resources.

Tera Blast may be disproportionate in how extreme this trade-off as at times, but that’s why we ban the Pokemon that highlight this abuse too well — it’s a small handful of Pokemon, not even making up 3 or 5% of total users.

To say there is no skill or competitive merit to Tera Blast is crazy to me. It’s the same premise as Tera as a whole and a similar concept to risk-reward that is applied to virtually every other creative avenue in this game. Playerbase expression is at an all time high and that’s what makes this generation so appealing after all.

 

[duckycrater]

Shed Tail was broken on 2 of 2 users of the move when it was banned. Last Respects was broken on every fully evolved user when it was banned. Arena Trap was broken on every fully evolved user and Diglett when it was banned. Same with Shadow Tag. You can find other non-Pokemon elements as well. Some straddle the line to uncompetitive, but that’s a whole other discussion.

You not knowing the history of Shed Tail or blindly assuming it would be balanced on other Pokemon is not my problem. You moving the goalposts most certainly isn’t either.

This just misses rinagram's whole point though? No matter how much Shed Tail met the ban requirements at the time of the ban, currently it very much does not meet the requirements (or if it does you haven't pointed out any refutations to rinagram's points to how it doesn't), and if it no longer meets the requirements for a ban, then how can we justify Shed Tail being banned while still keeping a dogmatic adherence to policy? To be clear I'm not advocating for a Shed Tail unban (and I doubt rinagram was either), but the point is that we already have bans that are in place that do not adhere completely to tiering policy, and we can see how they do improve the metagame, so shutting down discussion of any future bans that may not completely align with tiering policy feels odd.

 

[Finchinator]

This just misses rinagram's whole point though? No matter how much Shed Tail met the ban requirements at the time of the ban, currently it very much does not meet the requirements (or if it does you haven't pointed out any refutations to rinagram's points to how it doesn't), and if it no longer meets the requirements for a ban, then how can we justify Shed Tail being banned while still keeping a dogmatic adherence to policy?

When Shed Tail was banned, both users of it were broken. There is no debate here I hope. People were mad it didn’t happen sooner even, which in hindsight I respect and kind of agree with.

Shed Tail now has multiple more fully evolved users, yes, but it was already banned. In the same vein, DLC and Home released innumerable more Pokemon, moves, items, combinations, etc. — we cannot re-litigate every single ban. Shed Tail was unanimous. Nobody arguing in good faith wants us to use a month of the tiering calendar to re-test it, which causes the ladder metagame to be different than the official one and people to play with this awful move once more + potentially re-ban two Pokemon (Orthworm and Cyclizar) if it’s somehow not broken on the others.

It is up to council judgement to determine when to re-test things seeing as it is impossible to re-test every single Pokemon or move or ability after every release. We clearly did not want it to be re-tested.

There is no good faith equivalency for Shed Tail and Tera Blast. This is a non-starter.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

wow! what a fantastic discussion that should have been had somewhere else. now let's go back to talking about uh

skeledirge! yeah. let's talk about that. i've been seeing it a bit more on ladder recently and i wanted to know what y'all think of it. does it have ou potential? any sets floating around that have yet to be discovered?

 

[Dreadfury]

skeledirge! yeah. let's talk about that.

I don't know if I like Skeledirge or not, honestly.

It fits on VERY specific structures and even on those structures I sometimes have a hard time justifying it. Dirge is a bit of a Tera hog at times (Fire/Ghost is great, but when it's not great it's really not great) and sometimes I wish I was running PhysDef some games and SpDef other games, because it can really only do one or the other super well. It's also absolute dogwater into these trendy Heatran squads.

That said, I like that it's not passive in the slightest. Torch Song is a wild move, Skeledirge in general forces Rillaboom to think carefully about what it clicks (although Dirge HATES Knock), and it does have an unexplored movepool with some tech like Scorching Sands that I think could be utilized if Heatran continues to be a staple.

It's got potential. You'll never hear me call Skeledirge bad, and I don't think anyone else that plays the tier thinks Dirge is actually bad (it's B- on the VR for a reason; it's specific, but it's good at that specific thing it does), but it can be a proper nightmare to build with. But even in that vein, it's also sometimes a nightmare to see pop up since there are those occasions where you're just getting your ass completely walled by a crocodile that proceeds to start snowballing out of control. There are some trends that do and don't work for it right now, so one or two metagame shifts and it could very well bounce back.

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

This just misses rinagram's whole point though? No matter how much Shed Tail met the ban requirements at the time of the ban, currently it very much does not meet the requirements (or if it does you haven't pointed out any refutations to rinagram's points to how it doesn't), and if it no longer meets the requirements for a ban, then how can we justify Shed Tail being banned while still keeping a dogmatic adherence to policy? To be clear I'm not advocating for a Shed Tail unban (and I doubt rinagram was either), but the point is that we already have bans that are in place that do not adhere completely to tiering policy, and we can see how they do improve the metagame, so shutting down discussion of any future bans that may not completely align with tiering policy feels odd.

Shed tail is not a fundamental component of gen 9 competitive pokemon, but tera blast is. Tera Blast is part of Tera, the gimmick that defines this generation. Shed Tail is a gimmick used by a few pokemon with big tails which has been proven to be broken in singles.

Shed Tail in my opinion enabled cheese in a toxic, uncompetitive, and frankly disgusting manner. Tera Blast is a coverage move that's basically a stronger Hidden Power. The way the two moves work is fundamentally different, and the ban side failed to provide enough evidence that it's broken, so based on this it looks like the council has decided it's gonna stay in SV OU while cg.

Also, Tera Blast goes well with setup sweepers, and in SV, people are trembling when they hear the words Dragon Dance, Quiver Dance, or Shell Smash. But imo you need to prove tera blast is broken in multiple other scenarios.

 

[rinagram]

I wasn't going to look at this thread much more but I got shown this and had to respond:

You not knowing the history of Shed Tail or blindly assuming it would be balanced on other Pokemon is not my problem. You moving the goalposts most certainly isn’t either.

I made a point of finding the dumbest possible strawman here. I assumed it would be fairly obvious that my point is not to unban Shed Tail, given that it's a ridiculous proposition.

The status quo is to avoid banning moves except in special circumstances like listed above. And yet Shed Tail remained banned moving into DLC2 despite no longer fulfilling the requirements needed. The reason for this is because the majority of the qualified playerbase [and frankly, the majority of the remainder] see it for what it is: an uncompetitive mess that enables already strong pokemon to have free switchins and block status. It's a rich get richer type of move, so it doesn't provide any real flavor to the meta either. It was a sensible decision to leave it banned despite the circumstances surrounding it changing drastically. Would it be broken on Sceptile and Smeargle? Who cares?

My point is that an exact reading of the framework isn't helpful to anyone. This is, frankly, the generation of exceptions. Time after time I see SCL, OLT, WCoP players going to the groupchats after matches to say "Ough, that Dragonite" or "Ough, that Kingambit" or "Ough, that Moon" or "Ough, that Kyurem" or... you get the idea. I've seen this across the entire generation, as I'm sure many have. The fact of the matter is that so many pokemon have been banned for Tera Blast that it feels like no matter how many of its abusers you ban, one more will simply come around the corner.

I don't think Tera Blast is broken. I don't! However, you begin to question how healthy it is to have people build teams around their TB user to go all in on that one mon using tera the more that time goes on. And to be blunt it feels even worse to be on the recieving end of some random TB Ice Moth during an important match. It's an overblown form of matchup fishing at worst, and at best, a rich get richer situation allowing some of the already strongest mons in the tier to have extra coverage.

I agree that the concept of competitiveness or meta health is entirely subjective. But I feel that it remains an incredibly important component of balance discussion. The tiering framework is intentionally vague to leave room to bend it as needed. The only people "moving the goalposts" are the ones pretending that the tiering framework must be followed to the letter when it comes down to grey-area discussion like this.

So the real question is what the point is in shutting this type of ban discussion down, given that both "[un]healthy" and "broken" are equally subjective words.

 

[olamomalo]

I wasn't going to look at this thread much more but I got shown this and had to respond:

I made a point of finding the dumbest possible strawman here. I assumed it would be fairly obvious that my point is not to unban Shed Tail, given that it's a ridiculous proposition.

The status quo is to avoid banning moves except in special circumstances like listed above. And yet Shed Tail remained banned moving into DLC2 despite no longer fulfilling the requirements needed. The reason for this is because the majority of the qualified playerbase [and frankly, the majority of the remainder] see it for what it is: an uncompetitive mess that enables already strong pokemon to have free switchins and block status. It's a rich get richer type of move, so it doesn't provide any real flavor to the meta either. It was a sensible decision to leave it banned despite the circumstances surrounding it changing drastically. Would it be broken on Sceptile and Smeargle? Who cares?

My point is that an exact reading of the framework isn't helpful to anyone. This is, frankly, the generation of exceptions. Time after time I see SCL, OLT, WCoP players going to the groupchats after matches to say "Ough, that Dragonite" or "Ough, that Kingambit" or "Ough, that Moon" or "Ough, that Kyurem" or... you get the idea. I've seen this across the entire generation, as I'm sure many have. The fact of the matter is that so many pokemon have been banned for Tera Blast that it feels like no matter how many of its abusers you ban, one more will simply come around the corner.

I don't think Tera Blast is broken. I don't! However, you begin to question how healthy it is to have people build teams around their TB user to go all in on that one mon using tera the more that time goes on. And to be blunt it feels even worse to be on the recieving end of some random TB Ice Moth during an important match. It's an overblown form of matchup fishing at worst, and at best, a rich get richer situation allowing some of the already strongest mons in the tier to have extra coverage.

I agree that the concept of competitiveness or meta health is entirely subjective. But I feel that it remains an incredibly important component of balance discussion. The tiering framework is intentionally vague to leave room to bend it as needed. The only people "moving the goalposts" are the ones pretending that the tiering framework must be followed to the letter when it comes down to grey-area discussion like this.

So the real question is what the point is in shutting this type of ban discussion down, given that both "[un]healthy" and "broken" are equally subjective words.

I don’t think anyone is trying to shutdown discussion as you’re suggesting. There already was a policy review thread where there was not any kind of consensus supporting further examination of Tera blast in OU. In this forum, there has been open discussion of the topic every day that ends in “Y”. The debate on Tera blast has been had and has continued to been held without further consensus for tiering action. I don’t think we should operate on unpopular and nebulous concepts of “unhealthy matchup fishing” to define what warrants exceptions. I think it’s just as matchup fishy to bring some reactive team bound by rigid concepts of checks and counters and that gets blown up by a single 80 BP stab move. But it’s not like slowing G or tingly is going to get support for a ban any time soon.

If you mean limiting discussion of Shed Tail or arena trap, then yes, I would agree that tiering policy was applied in a murky or inconsistent fashion in the past; I think it’s a good thing that stronger definition was provided for those policies in recent times. Whether it’s worth re-examining the Sceptiles and Diggletts of the tier isn’t very high priority, in my personal opinion.

And DaddyBuzzwole i am annoyed by alomamola and would ban the crap out of that if I had the power. Cheapo no skill fish with assault vest that gets to exist because smogon loves stall.

 

[Finchinator]

SV OU Tiering Survey is now live: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-tiering-surveys.3711911/page-2#post-10739727 -- thanks for your patience, please fill it out!

 

[Archer Kirby]

I feel like people have either forgot or not been a part of past metas seeing certain posts. Like Arena Trap was handled in a murky or inconsistent fashion? Do people not remember how Duggy got banned in Gen7 because it trapped things, then Diglett basically replaced it and those teams were still a menace and even Trapinch put in work since it could actually tank things like offensive Heatran Magma Storm after rocks and kill it even if it was a slower and worse Diglett because that wasn't banned at the time. Literally all users of Arena Trap that have ever existed put in work, and the fact that we banned Dugtrio first just makes me annoyed that some people view it being handled in a murky fashion. Of course you could be considering Gen9 but like I don't think it changes anything, in fact Arena Trap would have been even more of a menace due to Tera allowing you to change type and trap even more.

Shed Tail was the sole factor in Orthworm and Cyclizar's viability, see how fast they dropped out of OU, the move itself is clearly an issue for the reasons already stated and a move not being broken on Smeargle is like, whatever lmao. Not sure anyone is ever gonna argue a move is fine because Smeargle gets it and is fine or we'd never be banning moves (and by this logic Pro-Tera Banners, Tera Blast isn't broken because Smeargle gets it). Sure Sceptile gets it but even if it was fine with the move the majority of its users would still be broken and given the inherently unhealthy nature of the move in general, this is why no-one is fighting to unban the move.

Tera Blast is fine on more mons then it's not fine on, and I'm talking the mons that use it frequently, not ones like Dondozo or something. I don't agree with the framework being intentionally vague because then its not doing its job well and that's how we get moving goalposts imo. I'm not really hearing anything that screams TB itself is a problem mor than the specific users that action should be taken against. But it doesn't seem like anything will happen unless there's really strong support with the very recent survey, so guess we'll wait and see.