The Terastallize mechanic: A case for a Complex Ban / Tera Clause
(terrastallizing is a long word, so I'll just be using Tera for this)
Tera is the cornerstone mechanic of generation 9, following previous mechanics of Dynamax and Z-moves (and to an extent megas).
While Tera proves to be extremely effective in this metagame, it is in my opinion less of an uncompetitive mechanic than both the banned Dynamax and Z-Moves. Most of you should know by now what Tera does, and it's implications aren't that difficult to understand. You can mainly use the Tera phenomenon for A) offensive purposes, by either boosting your stab, or gaining stab on a coverage move, or even gaining a new form of coverage with Tera blast, or B) defensive purposes, usually trying to overturn your weaknesses on either a sweeper, or a defensive pokemon.
A lot of pokemon that do well in the current meta and that abuse Tera to great effect will fulfill these two purposes, think Dragonite, Palafin, Iron Valiant and obviously a lot more.
I think this creates a really interesting dynamic that is unique to generation 9, figuring out which pokemon you should Tera in a given matchup and when you should Tera it, creates a very interesting addition that makes generation 9 distinct from generations before it.
However, the most polarizing aspect of Tera lies in it's unpredictability. One simply cannot guess at team preview what tera type a pokemon will be, and both offensive and defensive counterplay to them will almost entirely depend on what type that pokemon ends up Teraing into.
For example, an Annihilape comes in against my Tyranitar, I now have to prepare adequate counterplay to it's switchin. As a typical setup sweeper, I have to both account for it's current type, as well as a potential new tera type. There simply isn't any way to do this reliably, when most setup sweepers can viably run several different tera types all with different counterplay. I don't necessarely think this is an issue with specifically Annihilape, or specifically Palafin, or specifically Dragonite. Any pokemon that can setup it's own stats to prepare for a sweep and unpredictably alter it's own weaknesses destroys 80% of offensive counterplay, which currently often leads to people searching for purely defensive answers to common meta threats.
This creates a meta that eventually becomes a lot more stall / bulky offense based then offensively based, while it may seem that this isn't the case with all the crazy offensive threats roaming around. Higher rated matches will often display that 2-3 bulky pokemon that can cover a large majority of offensive pokemon are required to be successful in the current metageame. While promoting more bulky playstyles isn't necessarily a bad thing, having no guaranteed offensive counterplay to a pokemon in team preview in my opinion leads to a worse metagame overall.
Now what's the solution to this? Banning Tera?
I think that the Tera mechanic is a) extremely important to developing gen 9's identity, b) has one main competitive flaw around it and c) has a large playerbase that wants Tera to remain in the tier in some capacity.
Other people have talked about this in length, but I genuinely believe a Tera Clause would cause a genuinely positive impact on the metagame, mitigate it's main competitive flaw and satisfy most of the playerbase. The Tera Clause in particular would involve revealing the Tera Types of the opposing team's pokemon during team preview and battle, effectively acting as a gentleman's agreement to both players to reveal their Tera Types orally.
While some would argue that adding arbitrary restrictions to mechanics overall over complicates metagames, and wouldn't be entirely wrong in saying so, the OU metagame currently implements a similar clause already.
Sleep Clause has been a contentious issue for over a decade, and is arguably worse than a simple gentleman's agreement because it fundamentally changes the game mechanics from the cartridge game. One cannot simply play with sleep clause the same way on cartridge and on pokemon showdown, because they are fundamentally coded differently. I think almost everyone would agree that unrestricted sleep is broken, probably more broken than the Tera mechanic, and while I understand that there exists some nuance in the comparison, such as sleep being a fundamentally RNG based mechanic, Sleep as a mechanic was "nerfed" to make it not as overbearing.
I believe we could use a similar argument to make a Tera Clause, I and probably many others would believe that the unpredictability factor is one of if not the main reason Tera is overbearing / broken, while arbitrary, this clause would allow the mechanic to become much more healthy for the tier, allow new and diverse strategies with multiple forms of counterplay and boost the viability of otherwise unused pokemon.
I understand the argument of "we did x thing once already, but that doesn't mean we should do x again", but I truly believe this would be a beneficial and welcome change to the way we currently all play with Tera. I and many others would hate to see this unique mechanic go, simply because of an aspect that we can directly alter with a non cartridge-deviating clause.
I sincerely hope that adding a Tera clause plays a big part in the Tera discussion, instead of just Ban or No Ban suspect vote.
(terrastallizing is a long word, so I'll just be using Tera for this)
Tera is the cornerstone mechanic of generation 9, following previous mechanics of Dynamax and Z-moves (and to an extent megas).
While Tera proves to be extremely effective in this metagame, it is in my opinion less of an uncompetitive mechanic than both the banned Dynamax and Z-Moves. Most of you should know by now what Tera does, and it's implications aren't that difficult to understand. You can mainly use the Tera phenomenon for A) offensive purposes, by either boosting your stab, or gaining stab on a coverage move, or even gaining a new form of coverage with Tera blast, or B) defensive purposes, usually trying to overturn your weaknesses on either a sweeper, or a defensive pokemon.
A lot of pokemon that do well in the current meta and that abuse Tera to great effect will fulfill these two purposes, think Dragonite, Palafin, Iron Valiant and obviously a lot more.
I think this creates a really interesting dynamic that is unique to generation 9, figuring out which pokemon you should Tera in a given matchup and when you should Tera it, creates a very interesting addition that makes generation 9 distinct from generations before it.
However, the most polarizing aspect of Tera lies in it's unpredictability. One simply cannot guess at team preview what tera type a pokemon will be, and both offensive and defensive counterplay to them will almost entirely depend on what type that pokemon ends up Teraing into.
For example, an Annihilape comes in against my Tyranitar, I now have to prepare adequate counterplay to it's switchin. As a typical setup sweeper, I have to both account for it's current type, as well as a potential new tera type. There simply isn't any way to do this reliably, when most setup sweepers can viably run several different tera types all with different counterplay. I don't necessarely think this is an issue with specifically Annihilape, or specifically Palafin, or specifically Dragonite. Any pokemon that can setup it's own stats to prepare for a sweep and unpredictably alter it's own weaknesses destroys 80% of offensive counterplay, which currently often leads to people searching for purely defensive answers to common meta threats.
This creates a meta that eventually becomes a lot more stall / bulky offense based then offensively based, while it may seem that this isn't the case with all the crazy offensive threats roaming around. Higher rated matches will often display that 2-3 bulky pokemon that can cover a large majority of offensive pokemon are required to be successful in the current metageame. While promoting more bulky playstyles isn't necessarily a bad thing, having no guaranteed offensive counterplay to a pokemon in team preview in my opinion leads to a worse metagame overall.
Now what's the solution to this? Banning Tera?
I think that the Tera mechanic is a) extremely important to developing gen 9's identity, b) has one main competitive flaw around it and c) has a large playerbase that wants Tera to remain in the tier in some capacity.
Other people have talked about this in length, but I genuinely believe a Tera Clause would cause a genuinely positive impact on the metagame, mitigate it's main competitive flaw and satisfy most of the playerbase. The Tera Clause in particular would involve revealing the Tera Types of the opposing team's pokemon during team preview and battle, effectively acting as a gentleman's agreement to both players to reveal their Tera Types orally.
While some would argue that adding arbitrary restrictions to mechanics overall over complicates metagames, and wouldn't be entirely wrong in saying so, the OU metagame currently implements a similar clause already.
Sleep Clause has been a contentious issue for over a decade, and is arguably worse than a simple gentleman's agreement because it fundamentally changes the game mechanics from the cartridge game. One cannot simply play with sleep clause the same way on cartridge and on pokemon showdown, because they are fundamentally coded differently. I think almost everyone would agree that unrestricted sleep is broken, probably more broken than the Tera mechanic, and while I understand that there exists some nuance in the comparison, such as sleep being a fundamentally RNG based mechanic, Sleep as a mechanic was "nerfed" to make it not as overbearing.
I believe we could use a similar argument to make a Tera Clause, I and probably many others would believe that the unpredictability factor is one of if not the main reason Tera is overbearing / broken, while arbitrary, this clause would allow the mechanic to become much more healthy for the tier, allow new and diverse strategies with multiple forms of counterplay and boost the viability of otherwise unused pokemon.
I understand the argument of "we did x thing once already, but that doesn't mean we should do x again", but I truly believe this would be a beneficial and welcome change to the way we currently all play with Tera. I and many others would hate to see this unique mechanic go, simply because of an aspect that we can directly alter with a non cartridge-deviating clause.
I sincerely hope that adding a Tera clause plays a big part in the Tera discussion, instead of just Ban or No Ban suspect vote.
