Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

1. Too many influential people afraid of being "wrong".
2. Unbanning Tera would undo months if not years of tiering and we would basically be starting over again not too long before a new generation is released. The problem was not having a tera suspect at the correct time.

I share your opinion but I wouldn't hold my breath...
Natdex did it, and they undid a lot of tiering but it ended up being a good thing

Point being we don't know if we don't try and if enjoyment scores are still low its at the very least worth giving a shot
 
I am fairly sure this is a post comparing trying to get Swords Dance banned to trying to get Tera Blast banned, not a legitimate appeal to get Swords Dance banned.
considering my post about why a SD ban is a stupid idea wound up being like. word for word the main argument for keeping tera blast makes me legitimately believe this could be the case. (even still the only 2 proper abusers of SD are gliscor and gambit which is a lot less than there are abusers of TB lol)
although some people in this thread do genuinely have takes this bad (me included sometimes. im willing to admit i say stupid stuff) so you can never be too sure and imo it's important to make it clear when you think someone is wrong. if they're joking/making a different point/wording their post poorly, that can be dealt with 1 post later with some clear communication.
 
Natdex did it, and they undid a lot of tiering but it ended up being a good thing

Point being we don't know if we don't try and if enjoyment scores are still low its at the very least worth giving a shot
Natdex also had significantly more support for Tera ban and significantly worse survey results on the balance and enjoyment of the metagame. While the last survey results are quite dated now, we’re still no where near the doom and gloom that was present in Natdex post NDPL which led to the Tera ban.

People looking at Tera ban like it’ll solve everything are also missing the underlying factors that affected Natdex which aren’t present here: the ban and subsequent unban of many staples like Kingambit, Melmetal, and Zamazenta. While they are all potent threats offensively, they also contributed greatly to check other threats in the tier, and thus unbanning them helped the tier stabilize greatly.

We don’t have that same kind of situation here in OU: any mons freed by a Tera ban, with the exception of Volcarona and maybe Terapagos and Magearna, would be overwhelming negative to the tier, as they were all offensive behemoths that would likely commit similar antics once unbanned.

The path forward for SVOU isn’t a Tera ban, as much as I personally dislike the mechanic.
 
The path forward for SVOU isn’t a Tera ban, as much as I personally dislike the mechanic.
I've been rather staunchly a believer in the fact that I think Tera wouldn't be an issue if we didn't have such absurd cannons that blow holes in teams with it. Lower tiers Tera feels great, the top tiers use it but it allows lower tiers to stay competitive and variety usually feels better.

In OU though... I really dislike playing the "guess the Kyu tera" and "is Gambit going to Terablast me or just start flying" as both can utterly frustrated even if prepared for. I think Tera by itself is fun to play with, but I really dislike the mons who have access to it lol.
 
I am fairly sure this is a post comparing trying to get Swords Dance banned to trying to get Tera Blast banned, not a legitimate appeal to get Swords Dance banned.
To which I stand by the response I made because the comparison is flimsy and surface level beyond being moves used by controversial Pokemon. Poe's Law, satirical response, or otherwise, the statement doesn't illuminate anything about the "Ban Tera Blast" conversation so it's a fruitless addition as is.
 
Two 55%+ pro ban suspect tests that left a bad taste in peoples' mouths and reinforced the divisions in the community.
I do think there needs to be serious talk about changing the ban requirement to a flat 50%. Even if it's only for gen 9, I believe the last few suspects prove we REALLY need it right now. If not that, honestly just go full dictator mode at this point and have just the council decide on bans, the ridiculous DNB arguments on the kyurem suspect that revolved around a core that hasn't been relevant since dlc1 and absurdly specific counterplay like tera ice (yes as crazy as it sounds, people good enough to get reqs genuinely listed this as counterplay). Speaking of, that's another thing that's been made abundantly clear this gen. A player can be very good and still have no clue on what needs to be done to make a healthier metagame. I'm not trying to say this to be mean or elitist or whatever, but as someone who genuinely wants the metagame to improve.
 
There's been something in the back of my mind for a while, which crossed my mind weeks after the Gliscor test.

A lot of players in the Gliscor & Kyurem tests stated that the Dragon was a presence the tier sorely needed because it can help beat Gliscor. At the time, I thought this was weird, since from what i've seen, Kyurem hates the hazards Gliscor sets almost as much as Gliscor hates the Ice STAB Kyurem chucks out. However, the more I think about it, the more the whole "Kyurem keeps Gliscor at bay, so it should stay in the tier" sounds more and more like a different form of "Broken checks Broken", or, I guess in this case, "Controversial checks Controversial". Broken checks Broken is typically seen as a flimsy argument to defend a pokemon, so how come this hasn't been questioned? (Or maybe it has and i've missed that discussion).

Let me ask another question on the topic of Kyurem; It's a Stealth Rock weak pokemon with potent offensive prowess and a good boosting move with good coverage and respectable set variety, but has limited entry points. Hence, Kyurem stayed in the tier for that reason. Now answer me this; How is that different from Gouging Fire? Gouge had a ban ratio well over 80% (I think it was in the low 90s, but I can't remember at the moment), and that's a pokemon who can pick and choose what it loses to, abuses Tera to great effect, and is also constraining on the teambuilder. So how is Gouging Fire so significantly better than Kyurem that it has one of the highest ban ratios of suspected pokemon ever, yet when Kyurem does similar things, it's not that bad, and people are just exaggerating.

Maybe Gouging Fire was even worse than Kyurem, which I can understand, but I don't see how it and Kyurem are so significantly different that one is objectively seen as too much, while the other is actually fine, and if you hate it, that's just a skill issue. Maybe someone can help point me in the right direction and help me see things more clearly, in which case i'd be open to hearing you out, but this whole thing has had me perplexed for almost two weeks
 
Gouger had a much better defensive profile than Kyurem and also recovery, it could damage something early game, heal, escape and come back. It also benefited from Sun (from his team or from opponent's one). Those things alone made Gouger much stronger than Kyurem ever was, but there were more atributes.

Also, Kyurem's presence in the Tier to check Gliscor, isn,t "needed". I doubt it avoided Ban due to the fear of Gliscor, it avoided Ban because not enough people thought it was broken. Another reason for which Kyurem avoided Ban is because some people thought there were things more broken than it. Even I, while thinking Kyurem is certainly broken/unhealthy and should be banned, have 3 (4 with Gholdengo, but that one has been a lost cause since long ago, so it doesn,t count) Mons that deserve to be banned even more than it (Waterpon, Gliscor and Raging Bolt). Other people might have some Mons in their priority bracket above Kyurem too or they don,t think Kyurem is broken to begin with.
 
Natdex also had significantly more support for Tera ban and significantly worse survey results on the balance and enjoyment of the metagame. While the last survey results are quite dated now, we’re still no where near the doom and gloom that was present in Natdex post NDPL which led to the Tera ban.

People looking at Tera ban like it’ll solve everything are also missing the underlying factors that affected Natdex which aren’t present here: the ban and subsequent unban of many staples like Kingambit, Melmetal, and Zamazenta. While they are all potent threats offensively, they also contributed greatly to check other threats in the tier, and thus unbanning them helped the tier stabilize greatly.

We don’t have that same kind of situation here in OU: any mons freed by a Tera ban, with the exception of Volcarona and maybe Terapagos and Magearna, would be overwhelming negative to the tier, as they were all offensive behemoths that would likely commit similar antics once unbanned.

The path forward for SVOU isn’t a Tera ban, as much as I personally dislike the mechanic.
Volc and terapagos without tera would actually help the tier to be honest, bring more defensive counterplay where its lacking, and without tera they would be fine. Also borderline presences like gliscor become easier to handle and potentially become positive, gliscor sd sets without tera become far easier to deal with. So for where we are there is a valid argument for tera action where the tier is now and if scores end up being low. Because be honest, this is a similar situation to natdex pre tera ban where the path forward is unclear and enjoyment is still low next survey. If that is the case I would not oppose action on tera as a whole as I have stated before.

Mag isn’t even a valid point though, no one wants it back and that mon has no chance of being healthy at all.
 
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I feel like discussing whether Kyurem is broken or not at this point is kinda useless given that the community had 2 separate chances to vote to ban it and it ended up staying anyway, being quite close in both occasions, mainly because I can't see another suspect for it happening in a time frame smaller than at least a couple of months, and even then it would defeat the entire point of voting for a Poke to stay unbanned if they're going to keep trying to ban it until it finally goes.

Don't misunderstand me, I dislike Kyurem, but I don't think there's much to gain anymore out of suggesting another suspect for Kyurem to happen this soon, I wouldn't be on board with that for the moment. What I'm actually on board with is a potential Tera Blast suspect test, as far as I am concerned, it is the most likely subject to be suspected and consequently banned, and from my perspective it may actually be a good thing to reduce the amount of unpredictability and sweepers just getting out of hand because they have coverage they were clearly not meant to have in the first place, I don't really believe in the "barely anyone uses it" argument considering King's Rock, a good example of an item/mechanic creating a broken interaction, got banned despite having very few, if any, real uses outside of making Cloyster just win against its counterplay sometimes.

Also not supporting something like Volcarona to drop if this ever proceeds but I won't get too ahead of myself.
 
I feel like discussing whether Kyurem is broken or not at this point is kinda useless given that the community had 2 separate chances to vote to ban it and it ended up staying anyway, being quite close in both occasions, mainly because I can't see another suspect for it happening in a time frame smaller than at least a couple of months, and even then it would defeat the entire point of voting for a Poke to stay unbanned if they're going to keep trying to ban it until it finally goes.

Don't misunderstand me, I dislike Kyurem, but I don't think there's much to gain anymore out of suggesting another suspect for Kyurem to happen this soon, I wouldn't be on board with that for the moment. What I'm actually on board with is a potential Tera Blast suspect test, as far as I am concerned, it is the most likely subject to be suspected and consequently banned, and from my perspective it may actually be a good thing to reduce the amount of unpredictability and sweepers just getting out of hand because they have coverage they were clearly not meant to have in the first place, I don't really believe in the "barely anyone uses it" argument considering King's Rock, a good example of an item/mechanic creating a broken interaction, got banned despite having very few, if any, real uses outside of making Cloyster just win against its counterplay sometimes.

Also not supporting something like Volcarona to drop if this ever proceeds but I won't get too ahead of myself.
I'm not saying we should resuspect it. What am I suggesting is that the voting requirements get changed to a flat 50%, thus automatically banning it via the results of the last test. A vote of 74-51 is a pretty strong indication the general public thinks it is banworthy, after all.
 
I'm not saying we should resuspect it. What am I suggesting is that the voting requirements get changed to a flat 50%, thus automatically banning it via the results of the last test. A vote of 74-51 is a pretty strong indication the general public thinks it is banworthy, after all.
Even if we do change the voting requirements to be only 50% to ban something (very unlikely, and I'm pretty sure it was already discussed why this isn't the case plenty before), it should by no means affect the outcome of a voting that has already happened, especially if the main reason it's even being proposed is so that the outcome changes, that would just be unfair to those that did vote for it to stay, whether you agree with them or not, therefore there would be no point in doing this and Kyurem would remain legal either way.
 
I'm not saying we should resuspect it. What am I suggesting is that the voting requirements get changed to a flat 50%, thus automatically banning it via the results of the last test. A vote of 74-51 is a pretty strong indication the general public thinks it is banworthy, after all.
Flat 50% or 50%+1 (as I assume you want) aren’t big enough margins to potentially fundamentally change a tier. Perhaps the ban side should have argued better, or hey! Maybe they could’ve gotten more people with legitimate requirements to not have their vote discounted.

Please, don’t start with this discussion again.
 
Even if we do change the voting requirements to be only 50% to ban something (very unlikely, and I'm pretty sure it was already discussed why this isn't the case plenty before), it should by no means affect the outcome of a voting that has already happened, especially if the main reason it's even being proposed is so that the outcome changes, that would just be unfair to those that did vote for it to stay, whether you agree with them or not, therefore there would be no point in doing this and Kyurem would remain legal either way.
why are we catering to something that the minority wants when the vast majority of players want it banned? It literally makes 0 sense, especially considering the two week period when it was banned resulted in a much healthier metagame. All I am suggesting is that the outcome of these recent suspects doesn't reflect what most people want, and prehaps a change in the voting precentage is necessary.
Flat 50% or 50%+1 (as I assume you want) aren’t big enough margins to potentially fundamentally change a tier.
why is 51% "not big enough" lmao? For that matter, why is even 60% "big enough"? It's ridiculous that we are going off of a arbitrary number that has screwed us over more times than not instead of going with the percentage that is most intuitive and fair, and most importantly, actually reflects the opinions of the playerbase.
Perhaps the ban side should have argued better, or hey! Maybe they could’ve gotten more people with legitimate requirements to not have their vote discounted.

Please, don’t start with this discussion again.
This is hilarious considering the DNB side for kyurem had some of the worst arguments arguably in any suspect test ever. All of your arguments were fear mongering zapkinglu or telling people to use tera ice LMAO
 
Flat 50% or 50%+1 (as I assume you want) aren’t big enough margins to potentially fundamentally change a tier. Perhaps the ban side should have argued better, or hey! Maybe they could’ve gotten more people with legitimate requirements to not have their vote discounted.

Please, don’t start with this discussion again.
Considering that in the case of the Kyurem suspect, the ban side literally got the exact suspect outside of one dude literally doing a joke vote, this argument doesn't hold that much water, especially in considering that flat 50% is enough to change the makeup of any non-ubers/ou tier. As much as I am not invested in the solution of changing voting thresholds or even a resuspect of Kyu (as nice as it would be, not something I'm gonna bet on), the call to 'argue better' in the face of what actually would've been a flat 60% outside of some dude being silly seems vaguely wrong. Argue whatever about the Gliscor suspect because idc and i would've voted dnb, but this argument doesn't fit for the kyurem test.
 
For the Kyurem test, sure - that’s just a one-off, however, and reactionarily moving the suspect threshold when, as you pointed out, one user voting as a joke swayed the entire result just destabilizes the process. Campaign for a re-suspect, sure, but don’t try to radically change the suspect process when it has and continues to work fine.
especially in considering that flat 50% is enough to change the makeup of any non-ubers/ou tier.
This is also just false? Every tier that holds suspects follows the 60% rule to my knowledge. If there is a subforum that is not a pet mod that wants a 50% majority then I’d definitely stand this point down, but to my knowledge there isn’t one.
why is 51% "not big enough" lmao? For that matter, why is even 60% "big enough"? It's ridiculous that we are going off of a arbitrary number that has screwed us over more times than not instead of going with the percentage that is most intuitive and fair, and most importantly, actually reflects the opinions of the playerbase.

This is hilarious considering the DNB side for kyurem had some of the worst arguments arguably in any suspect test ever. All of your arguments were fear mongering zapkinglu or telling people to use tera ice LMAO
50%+1 is not big enough because while it is a “majority”, the onus is on the pro-ban side to gather enough votes to convince a supermajority of the tier to vote. And this process has worked for many years - no, Kyurem not getting banned does not mean that it “screwed us over more times than not”. Do you throw away a Ferrari when it breaks a headlight, and replace it with a 2004 Corolla?
 
This is also just false? Every tier that holds suspects follows the 60% rule to my knowledge. If there is a subforum that is not a pet mod that wants a 50% majority then I’d definitely stand this point down, but to my knowledge there isn’t one.
Every tier UU and below uses 50%.
50%+1 is not big enough because while it is a “majority”, the onus is on the pro-ban side to gather enough votes to
Why is the onus on the pro ban side???? That literally makes 0 sense, please elaborate on this point.
 
The onus is always on the side opposing the status quo, not the status quo itself. You can argue a supermajority different than 60% — Ubers uses 2/3, quickbans use 70%, and so on. A lot of people have asked about 55% and that’s a good topic for between generations, but going to straight majority isn’t deemed sufficient for overturning the status quo
 
For the Kyurem test, sure - that’s just a one-off, however, and reactionarily moving the suspect threshold when, as you pointed out, one user voting as a joke swayed the entire result just destabilizes the process. Campaign for a re-suspect, sure, but don’t try to radically change the suspect process when it has and continues to work fine.

This is also just false? Every tier that holds suspects follows the 60% rule to my knowledge. If there is a subforum that is not a pet mod that wants a 50% majority then I’d definitely stand this point down, but to my knowledge there isn’t one.

50%+1 is not big enough because while it is a “majority”, the onus is on the pro-ban side to gather enough votes to convince a supermajority of the tier to vote. And this process has worked for many years - no, Kyurem not getting banned does not mean that it “screwed us over more times than not”. Do you throw away a Ferrari when it breaks a headlight, and replace it with a 2004 Corolla?
Don't want to get into a big argument here because I'm sure you're a cool person and you're entitled to your viewpoint, one that I don't entirely disagree with. However, I can assure you, any not OU/Ubers tier uses the 50% threshold and I would encourage you to doublecheck this. It's not just pet mods, it's any tier UU below.

As well, I understand the logic for a supermajority, but I disagree with the idea out of principle. I'll quote Finch's post here:
The onus is always on the side opposing the status quo, not the status quo itself. You can argue a supermajority different than 60% — Ubers uses 2/3, quickbans use 70%, and so on. A lot of people have asked about 55% and that’s a good topic for between generations, but going to straight majority isn’t deemed sufficient for overturning the status quo

I don't actually think this is good or fair, and I think arguments that this should be the case 'because it's the way it's always been' are bad arguments. The status quo is not a magically good thing that should take effort to overturn, it's something that should be easily changeable if people don't like it. I see no compelling reason why it's the case other then 'to make sure it's the right choice', but then we get into cases where there has been a clear majority of folks who wanted something gone that didn't leave. I would've voted Gliscor DNB, but it stands that the difference in pro-ban to dnb voters was ~55-45%, which isn't a small margin. This is especially true in the Kyurem suspect, with a margin of 59-41%. There were clear majorities here, and that they didn't get the win over the minority (even in cases where I'd be in the minority) because of the supermajority rule seems to prioritize the status quo unfairly. I don't really expect change on this issue or care, and I don't think I'll post anymore on this topic, but I want to point out that this line of reasoning seems pretty faulty at best, no matter how long OU as a tier has stuck with it.
 
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Don't want to get into big argument here because I'm sure you're a cool person and you're entitled to your viewpoint, one that I don't entirely disagree with. However, I can assure you, any not OU/Ubers tier uses the 50% threshold and I would encourage you to doublecheck this. It's not just pet mods, it's any tier UU below.
My apologies - I just doublechecked, seems like they’re using 50% + 1 now. Thanks for the reality check. I come from 60% majority tiers (NatDex & Mono) so that was where the confusion came from. Cheers.
 
The status quo is not a magically good thing that should take effort to overturn, it's something that should be easily changeable if people don't like it.
I think it should be changeable, but not easily, and I think the argument about specifics boils down to semantics and opinions. Which is good — everyone should be able to argue their side. Personally, I’m fine with 55 or 60, but I think 50 would be too extreme and lead to too much volatility.
 
now call me crazy but instead of blindly yelling at finch about your dissatisfaction with the tier, maybe take some time to consider that the playerbase might be to blame for their failure to collectively agree and/or act upon any course of action that would benefit the tier? for one it isn't even his fault, both kyurem and gliscor were suspect tested since that's about as much support they recieved in terms of tiering action. not like the council could hold a quickban vote on kyurem, gliscor, etc. given that the former barely got banned initially and the latter survived its suspect test. and for another, gliscor was tested based on a tiering survey conducted after OLT qualifiers i believe? bear in mind that OLT qualifiers had ended about a month or two before gliscor's suspect test, so it shouldn't at all be a surprise that people might have started to adapt to gliscor sometime before it got tested. another thing i've also noticed a lot of the people complaining about the tier haven't actually voted on either of the most recent suspect tests; this by itself isn't anything to be ashamed about, but with all this recent discourse i can't help but wonder where some of you guys have been if y'all find this to be so damning. if everyone complaining about the suspect threshold being too high or whatever the fuck had gotten reqs for kyurem and gliscor i assure you they would've been banned. so really what gives?
 
I have never looked at total battle count as a metric that was relevant to tiering. The council for the years before I was leader did not either. NU did not when I was leader, nor when I was on the council before I was leader. BW, SM, and SS have not when I was on their respectove Old Generation Councils over the years as well.

It is a cool stat overall and people like Freezai have done awesome jobs contextualizing it through media and conducting root cause analysis, but the question "am I going to play this metagame in my spare time?" has minimal overlap with the qualified question "is this metagame competitively balanced?" as anyone can answer the former, but only a fraction are capable of answering the latter.

There are also outliers. People play a metagame frequently during its infancy as it is new. New things are appealing while old things lose appeal to some. Metagames are least balanced and most volatile in their infancy due to lack of regulation, but they are always most popular. Things like this make it so that battle count is not something I have ever tracked or cared for. In addition, I woud rather people try new formats like National Dex or VGC than just play OU -- I run OU, but I frequent BW and SS. Our hobbies are what we make of it and there is no binding allegiance.

It is a bit sad this has to be expanded on and the false correlation in this thread has been repeated so many times, but I hope this clears things up for a final time.
 
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