SV UU Suspect Process Round 12 - 7 Rings

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vivalospride

vivalospride

WHAT MANEUVER COULD POSSIBLY BE SMOOVER
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hoopa-unbound.gif

Welcome back :)

After the results of the latest tiering survey and internal council discussion, the UU council has decided to finally suspect test Hoopa-Unbound!
Hoopa-Unbound has been a subject of tiering action for about 4 months now, and between Weavile staying legal and the ban of Okidogi, there is no bigger fish than Hoopa right now, getting 3.72/5 support for action on the tiering survey.

What Hoopa does is no secret. With a Choice Scarf, it outspeeds the entire tier barring other Choice Scarf users, even with an Adamant nature, and fires off nuclear Dark-type attacks in Hyperspace Fury and Knock Off off of a 460 attack stat, proving to be extremely troublesome to handle without a bulky Dark-type resist. This is where the controversy regarding Hoopa begins; in-game the Dark resists can keep it in line, but in the builder is where the complaints about it begin, with there just being very little reliable answers to it. Weavile, Quaquaval, and Lokix are too frail, while Tyranitar has exclusively shown to be on sand teams, leaving only Cobalion, Tinkaton, Zarude, Enamorus-T, and Mandibuzz as the mainstream Dark-type resists, ultimately meaning players have to select between just a few Pokemon to answer Hoopa, otherwise it terrorizes the team. The issue about Hoopa is how extreme it can be, as if you aren’t one of these Dark-type resists, you basically die and can be exploited by the Hoopa user. Hoopa’s expansive movepool also lets it nail these answers, with Drain Punch for Cobalion and Zarude, Gunk Shot for Enamorus, and Thunderbolt for Mandibuzz all being prevalent, allowing Hoopa to pick and choose what to beat as one simple prediction can put an answer out of commission. Hoopa is also a deadly abuser of hazard stack teams and can even overwhelm these answers over time with Knock Off + hazards, not to mention they have to be fully devoted to checking Hoopa. All in all, Hoopa makes building bulkier teams extremely difficult, forcing players into just a small amount of Pokémon to really stop it. Because of the restrictions it places on the teambuilder, many players have desired a suspect test.

However, Hoopa isn’t perfect. It does take time to overwhelm the Dark-type resists, even with hazard support, so in the short-term players will struggle to get value out of it, and clicking the coverage move is easier said than done. Reactive Tera Fairy options on many Pokémon like Tornadus, Slowking, Hydrapple, and Skeledirge have shown to keep Hoopa in line, and its poor physical defensive leaves it very vulnerable to priority from Scizor, Weavile, and Lokix. It’s also prone to being worn down by hazards over time as it comes in. While other sets have seen some usage, the only really controversial set is Choice Scarf, which has to deal with the effects of a Choice lock.

To conclude, Hoopa is an extremely potent offensive threat, however can lack sufficient breathing room due to priority, poor bulk, and/or hazards. With everything in mind, it’s up to the playerbase to evaluate if Hoopa places too much of a strain on the builder to where its removal is best for the health of the tier.

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NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING THE NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!

The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:

  • Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in UU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played UU before the test, full stop.)
  • At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
  • Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself, Lily, or a member of staff.
  • If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me/Lily or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2900. The deadline for getting requirements will be Sunday, December 8th. GLHF chaps
 
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"In-game the Dark resists can keep it in line, but in the builder is where the complaints about it begin" | "While other sets have seen some usage, the only really controversial set is Choice Scarf, which has to deal with the effects of a Choice lock."

Pretty much sums up how I feel about hoopa.

I used a fat sand team for reqs, with the dark resists being tera fairy pex, bu conk and non tera ttar.

Gonna be voting do not ban. Mainly just because of how linear the main set tends to be on paper and in practice, while very good, I don't think is broken. Some qualities I think it adds to the tier is being a good offence punisher as a scarfer, soft checking stuff like non tfairy polt, gren etc. It's strong enough to not let mindless pivoting happen. And what is clearly its best set I think once it gets a kill leaves the opposing team vulnerable to some of the tiers most dangerous dark resist sweepers like quaq / lokix among others. and until then I think teams can naturally fit some good dark resists or fat phys def mons that can keep it at bay until you flip the match up around.

I don't know why it's meta to act like an edgy kid and rubbish or shit on someone's personal experiences with or against a particular pokemon. But it's so arrogant lol. I saw some of that in the weavile test and see some of it here. disagreements on tiering philosophy, brokenness or whatever else are tackled with 'dumb, stupid' etc. The aggregate gets what the community wants anyway. Trusting your own experiences is fine. Even if it goes against what the so called 'top players' have to say.

So this is mainly for anyone undecided / in the non vocal minority. If you voice how you feel and it gets rubbished because it doesn't match x tour's / x player's beliefs

you're not tiering to make the perfect metagame for the x tour players, tier to max your enjoyment
their experience doesn't match yours
they don't know everything

Vote your experience. And for those that try to bully people into thinking like them, just...lol.
 
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Got my reqs and I will be voting to Ban Hoopa-Unbound.

I just wanna preface this by saying that I don't think Hoopa is broken, as you can definitely prepare for it, but is incredibly unhealthy in the preparations that are necessary for it. Additionally, the fact that its "linear" kinda contributes to the problem as it just means it's stupidly uninteractive.

For preparations, a team that I consider to be "safe" into it has at least 2 nonpassive dark resists with a good level of bulk, as frail ones get bowled over easily, passive ones either aren't great into much else and usually cant do much about hoopa just switching, and only having one can lead to the resist being prone to being overwhelmed or put into range of Hoopa's attacks by either Hoopa's teammates or hazards. This creates a pretty big strain on the builder where you need to focus on checking one mon a pretty good bit leading to you just sacking matchups and hoping they dont show up, which I find to be a pretty large negative to the tier.

Fat is also pretty much unviable right now because to me it lacks sufficient counterplay to hoopa in the fact that your options are pretty much Mandibuzz (who despises knock) and Umbreon (who is something ive tried in the past and it just feels awful outside of being a cope hoopa check), these checks are also rather passive and while Mandibuzz can U-turn as Hoopa switches, its usually getting knocked as it comes in on Hoopa so you take rocks damage the next time you come in. Additionally, if the Hoopa ends up being the boots set (or just non scarf usually), you kinda just get eaten as it isn't locked into a move so the option of dancing around it goes out the window. Why do I find this important? Because i think increasing the viability of fatter styles will help to bring some stability to the tier in the fact that it can help to answer or at the very least limit some HO threats that are considered pretty borderline by some such as quaquaval or those SD Lokixes that have been popping up. Thats not to say fat will become meta or anything but its presence alone would still be nice, just as stall's presence has kinda been. (Also more playstyles being viable is just good in general.)

As for Hoopa being uninteractive, well when it gets in on say, Torn, you're kinda obligated to assume its clicking its dark stab as that shit is a nuke and thus you will switch into a resist accordingly. There really isnt much else to it, thats how interactions with it will go most times. However, theres also always the chance that it clicks a coverage move is the second part of why I feel you need multiple resists. An example of why I find this to be an issue is if your Cobalion gets nailed with a Psychic, its not going to function very well as a check anymore. One could argue this is kinda getting into hypotheticals, but to me the issue with hoopa is always going to be in the builder, so the use of hypotheticals isnt the worst because you do want to be prepared for scenarios that could very well happen with a pretty common mon. One also cant really "outplay" Hoopa, you're kinda just playing 50/50's so I find that loading multiple resists is the only safe way to about it unless you just wanna hope the opponent doesnt bring Hoopa or doesnt get the read.

There is also the option of never giving it opportunities or winning before it does, but the former gets back into the builder issues while the ladder to me has always felt like just using HO (or Bulk Up Trailblaze Zarude that mon is the devil, definitely recommend trying it out).

TLDR: Hoopa is massive pain to prep for due to the fact it requires multiple dark resists that need multiple traits to actually work well into Hoopa while not being bad into the rest of the meta. This leads to a strain in the builder while Hoopa itself provides the tier with few positives to make up for the negatives it brings, especially since Hoopa interactions pretty much boil down to throwing your dark resist at what you hope is its nuclear stab instead of coverage as sending a non-dark resist into it is just dumb. I believe, banning Hoopa will improve the viability of styles that can help to limit HO so i will be voting BAN.

May edit this later or make another post if I feel like I have something to add or feel i need to fix/address but for now I feel this expresses how I feel.
 
I feel like I've talked a fair amount about my stance on Hoopa in UU Discord, but mostly at a superficial level because sometimes i realize it wouldn't gonna end up being super productive.

From what I've seen from discussions people are perhaps slowly realizing that, at least in SV, something being banworthy or not might differ a lot depending on how you view tiering and thus there are more nuances when evaluating a poke brokeness than just saying ''X should be banned or not''. For me, when we talk about Hoopa, we should ask ourselves if Hoopa is fundamentaly broken or is it one of the many threats that overload teambuilding.

I think Hoopa fails to be considered broken via the first criteria, since the allegadly broken Scarf set being able to nuke through everything while being fast has happened in like maybe 1 game out of the scl games played and even on ladder, which many people just disconsider because quality is bad yada yada (which btw doesn't make sense because then what's the point of we playing ladder to get reqs), i didn't find myself in a position where i was like ''ok Hoopa will sweep me and there's nothing i can do'' and when i used Hoopa myself a fair amount of players would have fine enough answers to the point where maybe Hoopa wouldn't run away with the game easily smashing Hyperspaces.

However, the second part is where I evaluated a bit more my opinions as a whole + reading other peoples experiences/views, and while i don't think Hoopa is exactly the root of all the problems, i feel like when you have to account for very dangerous viable (that's subjective, but those are the ones i think should be respected at some degree on builder) pokes/team structures like Excadrill, Lokix, Weavile, Heatran, Hydrapple, Quaquaval, Scizor, Thundurus-T, Zarude, Latios, Ogerpons, Skeledirge, eapot (both KMpot and psyterrain ones), Clod and Skarm spikestacks, Hawlucha, Keldeo, NP Pecha (which is very good btw but for some reason people has some insane hate towards it), stall and phys overload HO, then taking one of the ''big ones'' should help the tier towards a better direction.

One interesting counterpoint to this is that Hoopa getting banned would just make other threat(s), that were pushed away from the meta because of Hoopa's presence, pop up and not solve the teambuilder pressure we have at the moment, but that's something i'm willing to take a risk on and as a council member take actions on stuff that still prove to make teambuilding overly restricted.

Seconding Cynde, don't be afraid or pushed away from voting/having your own opinions, but be respectful towards others with different opinions and try to be open minded to hear both sides, maybe you can re-evaluate stuff you didn't consider before.
 
will be voting ban

I also don’t think Hoopa is outright broken, but has a presence in game and in the builder that isn’t specifically healthy while offering not much in return.

I feel like this mon has been discussed to death and nobody will be blown away by my take on it so I will keep it short and end it there pretty much.

I do want to talk about meta discussion though. I agree with cynde and whoever else that you should vote based off your own experiences. Part of your own experiences is the discussions you choose to have with your peers on the matter, especially in this thread (that is literally what it exists for).

Passionate debate is encouraged by vivalospride here, there is a line obviously but if a line is crossed that’s our job to step in and figure out. Ultimately this is the internet, if we care at all about this tier and this suspect we will simply vote w the info we have and leave it at that. I trust everyone’s intentions in these threads are generally always good.

I also wanna say the whole tour plays vs ladder thing is something I always hate when either side talks about it. Tournaments are supposed to be the highest form of competition in the tier, it matters, and is usually most telling of the state of the meta. The ladder is still competitive and is primarily how a large majority of the userbase experiences the tier, it also matters. Which matters more depends on your own interpretation of it.

Mine is that the people want a fun and balanced metagame and I am a man of the people. The best players tend to have the best understanding of meta dynamics, but regardless the wider playerbase’s opinion rightfully takes priority due to the nature of tiering and suspect tests being a matter of numbers …but also yeah I’m listening to Pearl over charizardlover12.
 
I think Hoopa is borderline, but if I get reqs I'll vote ban. Scarf is the best set for it, and it strongly encourages or forces multiple dark resists on most team structures. This isn't just hoopa; dark spam with partners such as weavile, lokix, or zarude is incredible. Hoopa is the hardest hitting of the 4, so even if it doesn't land its excellent coverage it can still soften almost any resist or clean the easiest without setup or sack wars. Boots or av Hoopa are definitely more specific, but they invalidate most slow balances and stalls if they fit the correct coverage.

I'm not sure if Hoopa is broken by itself, but dark type offense as a whole is the most difficult thing to build against for me. Hoopa is probably the least compromising, as you will almost always lose if your dark resists die too early, while you may be able to still defend against the other dark types, and they have a slower speed tier as well. Weavile is also very demanding, but it didn't get banned in the previous suspect and has also shown less success in recent tournament play I've watched than other dark types
 
A month ago I voted ban on Weavile based on 2 points:
1. (At that time) I think abusing Weavile would squeeze the survival space of balance teams, thereby leading to an increase in HO teams.
2. Weavile offers no assistance to a team's defensive core but is a good tool in ho teams.

My stance on tiering policies has always been conservative because banning a Pokemon is irreversible. Banning a particular Pokemon might make the entire metagame worse — since no one can accurately predict the butterfly effects that follow once the balance is disrupted, and you won't even have the opportunity to rollback the decision.

I believe Hoopa-Unbound is on the borderline between being banned and not, but I don't think banning it would significantly improve the overall health of the metagame. At least at the current point in time, the preference for using HO is not due to the threat of Weavile/Hoopa, but rather because each tool within HO (Quaquaval, Polteageist, Greninja, and so on) is so powerful that they can be abused. They not only dominate the ladder but also have seen a remarkably high usage rate in the SCL over the past few weeks, even worse after okidogi banned.

From my personal experience, banning Hoopa would make my counterplay against HO teams even worse. Unlike Weavile, Hoopa in balanced teams serves as an excellent emergency check against Pokemon like Greninja, Thundurus, and non-Tera Polteageist (What a beast) due to its outstanding special defense. Moreover, Hoopa itself rarely appears in HO besides few Psychic Terrain teams. The only reason I see for banning Hoopa is that it might lead to a significant reduction in powerful HO teams in the future, but I don't see that happening currently. On the contrary, the situation might become worse. In my real-life job as a programmer, I believe in don't changing the code as long as there are no major issues with it.

I think Hoopa is a pretty excellent Pokemon, but I don't believe now is the right time to take action against it, as I see more pressing issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that we will have the chance to reconsider Hoopa, and if I must make a decision right now, it would be not to ban it.
 
yes ho is hell in uu rn
no hoopa is not broken in a vacuum (scarf sets have to deal with choicelocks and there are mons that deal with every move they want to lock into, av/etc sets are slow and can bluff a scarf like once at most)
however, the builder in UU is so oversaturated with threats ie teapot, cpon, exca, quav, hoopa, and its not reasonable to deal with all of them on a team, so taking anything out would be great, especially if it doesnt provide other utility to the tier (as exca and quav do)
691 said:
From my personal experience, banning Hoopa would make my counterplay against HO teams even worse. Unlike Weavile, Hoopa in balanced teams serves as an excellent emergency check against Pokemon like Greninja, Thundurus, and non-Tera Polteageist (What a beast) due to its outstanding special defense. Moreover, Hoopa itself rarely appears in HO besides few Psychic Terrain teams. The only reason I see for banning Hoopa is that it might lead to a significant reduction in powerful HO teams in the future, but I don't see that happening currently. On the contrary, the situation might become worse. In my real-life job as a programmer, I believe in don't changing the code as long as there are no major issues with it.
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hoopa is not a great check vs HO at all, tera bond gren outspeeds and OHKOs scarf hoopa and teapot can easily tera sap (or not tera sap if u like risking rolls) to goob hoopa, while locking into a move to kill a threat can also allow room for the other ho threats such as quav to set up
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Tera Water Greninja Surf vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Hoopa-Unbound: 260-307 (86.3 - 101.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
-1 252+ Atk Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 248 HP / 184+ Def Polteageist: 284-336 (87.9 - 104%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
banning hoopa definitely wont solve our HO problem but it will free up the builder to deal with HO more easily and then we can ban CPon/Teapot soon. if we want to say dont ban anything that isnt broken then UU will just be stuck in this hellhole of a state forever (tinkaton and sinistcha being due to leave soon definitely doesnt help balance), so we have to do whats best for the health of the tier long term and ban these threats

TL;DR ban hoopa to free up builder
ban teapot ban cpon ban car ban whatever else so we can have passion uu (peak)
 
Hey, after playing UU for 7 weeks in french community league and getting picked for UUWC, I figured out I should try to get reqs for UU.

I got reqs fairly easily recreating and editing one of Kenix' team from SCL, and tbh ladder didn't provide a great experience on why Hoopa is suspect tested. Most Hoopa I faced were Assault Vest or Nasty Plot, which are mediocre sets, and I probably faced more Smeargle than Weavile. Anyway, here is how I feel about this suspect test after over 40 games to get reqs and going 7-0 in FCL.

Choice Scarf Hoopa does be a real threat to bulky offense and balance teams, with a phenomal late game cleaning potential. Something that other Choice Scarf users such as Latios and Keldeo quite struggle to do. You gotta need a sturdy Dark resist as tera boosted Knock Off and Hyper Space Furry do nuke anything that doesn't resist it, and even some frailer resists if they've taken some damage. But Hoopa can also prove to be useful in early and mid game as a potent revenge killer and progress maker as none of its checks appreciates taking a powerful Knock Off and lose its item. Hoopa's raw offensive stats and colorful movepool also mean you can seriously dent a check / counter with a coverage move whether its a STAB Psychic move, Drain Punch, Fire Punch, or Gunk Shot. If I wanna be honnest, this just makes Hoopa a great Pokémon, but that doesn't sound overbearing. Without even considering tera or strong priority moves like Scizor's Bullet Punch and Lokix's First Impression, there is a huge diversity of Dark-resists that can stop Hoopa and aren't completely useless if they get caught off guard by a predict. Some of these are quite nicher picks from RU / RUBL, but I do believe counterplay is sufficient to not call Hoopa broken.

However, I do believe that UU has an offensive Dark-type problem. There are many of them; Hoopa, Greninja, Weavile, Zarude, Tyranitar and Lokix just to name the most common ones. I'd argue that at least 2 of them are as threatening as Hoopa and able to easily pull off a clean if you're not prepared enough, and their checks don't overlap that much (beside Lokix's First Impression). Cobalion is usually fine to handle Hoopa but is setup fodder for tera Zarude and gets owned by Low Kick Weavile. Tera Fairy Hydrapple is really good at covering Zarude, Weavile, and Hoopa, but is terrible into Greninja. Fezandipi handle Zarude and Greninja fine, but Hoopa and Weavile can easily dismantle it. Dark-resists aren't uncommon, but I do feel teambuilding is too clustered because of the huge amount of threats in the tier to be able to be preppared to all the Dark-types, with most Dark-type resists not feeling truelly like A mon threats and rather B to C, as Pokemon which do struggle to make significant progress against the rest of the tier or are really passive like Cobalion and Mandibuzz. I do believe Hoopa's restriction on the teambuilder is unhealthy and therefore, I'll be voting ban.
 
Got reqs. Frankly, I am not terribly impressed with Hoopa-U.

In judging what Pokémon are too powerful, I think the best angles for evaluation are the simple ones: does this Pokémon take undo effort to contain? Is there enough counterplay present in the metagame to take it into account without using otherwise low-viability Pokémon or sets? Does it heavily warp the metagame around its presence? Does it maintain high effectiveness even into the teeth of a metagame prepared for it? Do I feel a sense of missing out if I build without it?

Hoopa-U doesn't appear broken to me through the lens of any one of those questions. As Tuthur mentioned UU is loaded to the gills with powerful Dark types, and it is hardly rare to see multiple Dark resists on the same team, the more so because of the popularity of Polteageist (in my opinion the most building-restrictive Pokémon in UU), which makes either a Dark type or Ogerpon more or less a must anyway. Hoopa-U does have options for dealing with some of its popular counters (Focus Blast for Cobalion, etc), but it suffers a bit in that the Scarf set is pretty clearly its best set--Scarf Hoopa-U is indeed a good and threatening cleaner against balance, but it never seemed to have the unpredictability and game breaking ability of, say, Lokix; an enemy Lokix could threaten First Impression only to Swords Dance and present a great deal more threat than expected, etc. Hoopa-U is not the same sort of threat as Lokix or Greninja are in my opinion; it felt roughly on par with Weavile in that you knew clearly where you stood with it from team preview until the end of the game and you could manage its impact.

Moreover, Hoopa-U isn't a Pokémon you can just throw on a team. Using a base 80 Scarf Pokémon comes with inherent team building challenges: Hoopa-U is exploitable while locked into a move, but it is not a reliable revenge killer. For instance, Scarf Hoopa-U can't reliably kill Polteageist if the teapot has Tera available, meaning that a team with Hoopa-U needs another Pokémon to serve this purpose.

Hoopa-U can be a threat, but it definitely isn't as decisively powerful as Okidogi or even as metagame warping as fellow Dark type Lokix. It is reasonably easy to plan against and relatively challenging to build with. I do not see any reason not to vote do not ban.
 
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Hoopa-Unbound's only problematic set is its Choice Scarf set and it's so problematic that it's worth banning based on the set alone. The Choice Scarf has always been a problematic item to deal with, but Hoopa-Unbound puts its brokenness on full display. The raw attacking power, bulk, and reliable recovery in Drain Punch make it a viable strategy to just hard switch in a Pokemon after each time Hoopa attacks, sack it, and send Hoopa back in to finish off what's in front of it with a coverage move. In order to beat its Choice Scarf set, you need to either have a physical Scarf attacker of your own, predict correctly with Tera or an SE move, or somehow manage to survive Hyperspace Fury and KO back after the defense drop. The only thing that can be reliably considered a counter to Hoopa is Lokix's First Impression which can be circumvented with an (albeit rare) Tera Poison/Fire. Drain Punchers in general have rarely been good for the tier, as Okidogi shows us.

Hoopa-Unbound is otherwise fine, with its mediocre speed and typing allowing it to be reasonably traded with in spite of its powerful coverage and stats. But since we don't ban items outside of extenuating circumstances, we need to flush the Poopa down the toilet.
 
Hello, I'm here to say I'll vote DNB on Hoopa despite the post I made a few months ago in favor of testing it. I think most people will agree Hoopa is extremely underwhelming in-game as unless it rolls a particularly good matchup, most teams will have proper Dark-resists, ways to prevent it from hitting the field often and the ability to pressure it with hazards. It's worth noting that, while I do understand that fitting proper Dark-resists for Hoopa can be a bit of a pain due to how hard it can hit (meaning some of the frail stuff just gets blown up), I'd say Dark and Fighting are some of the best types in the format right now with double Darks not even being particularly rare, meaning this both limits Hoopa's entry points and makes getting in a position to spam Hyperspace Fury much more difficult. Anyway, I'll go over some points that I originally disliked about Hoopa that I've changed my mind on.

Anti-Offense
Hoopa definitely still shuts down a lot of offensive threats, however, right now, I'd prefer to argue towards that being fine. The main mons it shuts down are Latios, Thundy-T and Serperior which would all appreciate it being gone, but it's worth noting even if it goes, Weavile will still be a major obstacle standing in their way. On the other hand, I'd say offensive threats have adapted in such a way that they aren't bothered too much by Hoopa anymore. A lot of them like Zarude, Weavile and Lokix are Dark-types which can force it to lock into a poor move unless they're chipped. Hydrapple and Offensive Heatran are also generally bulky enough that it can't carelessly go up against them. Speed tiers have also adapted a bit to Hoopa's presence which makes it harder for it to force those fast threats out. We've got fairly recent developments when it comes to Scarfers with Gardevoir, Quaquaval and Zapdos-G and, since Hoopa really likes its +Attack, you can usually outspeed it with Gardevoir. Anyway those Scarfers are more offensive threats that Hoopa struggles to force out, with another fast mon that's starting to see higher usage being Ogerpon which can't be revenge-killed thanks to Tera. Hoopa still shuts down threats, but not only do those still have issues with Weavile even if we ban it, but threats are also overall less bothered by it, to the point that it shouldn't be as big of an issue as it previously was.

Spikes
The Spikes game in previous metagames was very strong with Gligar and Gastrodon both being common and excellent mons setting up Spikes very easily on mons like Okidogi and Zapdos. To an extent, Spikes helped hold off Hoopa, but most importantly, it helped it break through grounded checks like Cobalion much more easily and it paired up extremely well with Gligar as a result. However, with Okidogi and Zapdos gone, the Spikes game has moved towards Clodsire and Skarmory which aren't terrible, but I'd say are generally worse at supporting Hoopa, especially compared to Gligar, as they take much more time to set them up and are much less active mons. I'd say a worse Spikes game is overall worse for Hoopa as, even if you were able to setup Spikes before, it still wouldn't completely prevent it from coming in a few times, it just allowed its entries to be much more threatening if you had Spikes to chip its counters.

One last note on its in-game performance and usage, Scarf sets are generally struggling right now in part due to the somewhat skewed risk-reward related to it. Hoopa is not a mon that significantly strengthens your defensive core unlike many other offensive threats you can decide to use such as Zarude or Quaquaval and locking into its best moves, Hyperspace Fury and Knock Off, can get it heavily punished by some of the biggest current setup threats. Quaquaval is the most extreme one, threatening to sweep right away if you don't have a good answer which can happen rather frequently (as seen here and here) though Zarude and SD Lokix are just as capable of abusing an unfortunate lock. The difficulty of choosing what move to lock into, especially against Fighting-types like Cobalion has also made it very capable of flopping into teams using it simply due to it using the wrong move. In part due to those reasons, all-out attacking sets using items like Heavy-Duty Boots or Life Orb and even options like Trick Room have seen more play and arguably more success than Scarf has. Scarf is the only set that has been brought up as problematic and I'd agree slower sets are not an issue as of now.

To sum it up, Hoopa's gotten somewhat worse in recent months due to certain meta shifts and regardless of if we were to keep it in the tier or not, I don't think building would change significantly. Mons held back by a fast Dark-type would still struggle with Weavile and most Dark and Fighting types that are so popular right now will remain popular whether Hoopa stays or leaves. Counterplay is decently varied, you have some mons that have very strong matchups against it like Cobalion or Mandibuzz, but you can also focus on somewhat frailer Dark-resists like Enamorus or Lokix, try to find punishes with mons like Quaquaval or make it hard for it to hit the field in the first place with the greater variety or fast attackers and priority users compared to previous metagames.

It's underwhelming in game and teambuilding will not change significantly with it leaving. We should not be looking to ban a mon if it won't significantly affect these spheres.
 
Been flipflopping between both choices because my thoughts on it were always "it's easy to handle but that could be because the tier is loaded with dark resists" and the question was whether Hoopa was responsible enough for skewing the builder
By now, I've come to the conclusion of voting DNB because I don't think Hoopa contributes sufficiently towards making dark resists mandatory on the builder.
I did believe that getting rid of it might help the other dark types be easier to handle, but at the moment I cannot see that happening, while building it is the fifth offensive dark type I think about [after weavile, gren, zarude and lokix], and it is still the one I'm the joint most confident at beating[with kix].
In addition to this, I do see it's value as a possible offensive check to [no u-turn]gren/latios with AV quite valuable and in fact more valuable than it's breaking .
Overall, I do not find it broken enough to warrant a ban from this tier at the moment.
 
ThatOneApple said:
May edit this later or make another post if I feel like I have something to add or feel i need to fix/address but for now I feel this expresses how I feel.
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My feelings for Hoopa are still the same as they were when i made this initial post but i've had some more thoughts that I wanted to add on after the past 2 weeks. Starting with why it has seemed underwhelming recently.

As mentioned in my previous post (and various other posts in this thread), Hoopa is not a broken mon and teams can prepare for it. However, these preparations have lead to the meta kind of just using 3 styles for the most part, them being HO, Sand, and some sort of Zarude BO. This is not to say that these styles are entirely dependent on the meta Hoopa forces, however it is incredibly difficult to branch out from these without lacking consistency. One could argue that this is being impatient, but i simply do not think other styles have solid tools to matchup well into Hoopa without conceding matchups into other styles or threats. As for the "underwhelming" part of Hoopa, remember how pretty much everyone who has argued for its ban in this thread has pointed out that its not broken and is simply a builder issue, and the reason teams seem to be so naturally able to account for it is because most teams are one of the 3 aforementioned styles, none of which have major Hoopa issues (though sand kinda can depending on what you run on it). I feel an issue with Hoopa is that it encourages a rather samey meta as other styles don't really have solid tools to answer it alongside the rest of the meta, leading to things getting stale.

Tree69420 said:
banning hoopa definitely wont solve our HO problem but it will free up the builder to deal with HO more easily and then we can ban CPon/Teapot soon. if we want to say dont ban anything that isnt broken then UU will just be stuck in this hellhole of a state forever (tinkaton and sinistcha being due to leave soon definitely doesnt help balance), so we have to do whats best for the health of the tier long term and ban these threats
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Additionally, I have to agree with tree here in the fact that yes, banning Hoopa alone will not solve all of our problems. However, banning Hoopa would put us on the right track and (in my opinion) open up more avenues to addressing HO. Gonna get a little off topic here but, for example, there is some sentiment that Quaquaval is rather ridiculous, however if you remove that, you make the dark type issue even worse by removing one of the better answers/punishes to them and we just kind of end up back here. (In fact, that might even encourage more HO as that can just slot a different dark punish, whereas those Zarude teams lose their best second dark resist and lose viability as a result.) Overall what Tree says here kinda summarizes what I think the plan should be, leaving the meta as is is bound to get stale, but just banning one thing isnt going to solve everything, so I wouldn't recommend viewing things that way. I believe removing Hoopa would make it easier to address the issues with the tier without it backfiring.

There has also been some sentiment in the discord that we need to be more careful with what we remove from the tier, to which I agree as we recently lost 2 very big parts of our meta in Zapdos and Okidogi. However, the counterpoint to that is that Hoopa is a more careful ban, because as mentioned by both myself and various other people already, it offers very little positive to the tier and the positives it does have are all done by other mons. To sort of demonstrate this, I'll list the primary 3 mons Hoopa "keeps in check" and summarize why they aren't something to worry about.

:Tornadus-Therian: : Has been here for like ages now and has never been broken even before Hoopa rose to prominence, a little annoying at times but never something we would ever remove. Plus it's still kept in check by Weavile and the less common Specs Greninja given that AV torn has taken a massive tumble.

:Latios: : Kept in check by similar stuff that offensively threatens Torn as well as the various steels of the tier. Also the only set that was ever "broken" was cm and that died long before Hoopa rose to prominence so i think we're safe on this front

:Serperior: : This thing kinda sucks lmao. Needs like 6 move slots and 2 different teras and even then its probably not gonna sweep.

So generally speaking the things Hoopa holds back are not going to be issues without it here so removing Hoopa won't have much in terms of negative repercussions, especially since its not particularly good into HO either. In general, if we're looking for safer bans, Hoopa is definitely a good target as its positives are minimal and mostly done by other mons, while losing its negatives would be nice.

Overall, while Hoopa may seem underwhelming, thats mostly because of the meta that formed as a result of people trying to account for both it and HO. Teams may have "adapted" but its created a rather samey meta that I fear won't develop much due to many styles not really having options to account for Hoopa and HO at the same time without sacking matchups into other mons. Of course, one ban will not solve everything, but booting Hoopa gives us more avenues to address other threats like Quaquaval (or maybe even drill given how broken that guy has seemed recently) without it backfiring as Hoopa has very little positives to the meta. My final thoughts on Hoopa is that it limits creativity while providing very little to the tier, so we should ban it to free up both the builder as well as our options for addressing other issues in the tier.
 
I originally thought this test would be relatively cut and dry but the posts in the thread make me believe that isn’t the case so I will be expanding upon my reasonings as to voting ban here briefly as I can only poop for so long and hopefully I finish this post before I finish.

I will be voting ban on Hoopa like I said, and I don’t specifically disagree that at face value hoopa hasn’t smashed games by itself or looked like the most broken thing ever. But it has still looked quite good individually and the face value isn’t the entire picture when it comes to this mon.

The meta has adapted indeed, I’d say it’s unfair to deem it a healthy adaptation though, as mentioned in prior posts above, there are so many dark resists and dark types on teams right now. I wonder why?

It’s because we have a really absurd amount of dark type offensive threats in the tier, with the king and queen of the bunch being Weavile and Hoopa. It doesn’t help that most of these threats don’t share defensive checks, at least not thoroughly. Keldeo and Quaquaval usage has risen massively due to Heatran and Weavile meta, but using these things to check Hoopa long or even short-term is trolling for sure (especially when you consider the fact that there are 5 other pokemon to worry about).

I actually agree quite a bit with ThatOneApple‘s post on the matter. The meta has shaped around hamfisting dark resists due to the excess of them, with Hoopa (and Weavile) at the forefront.

I do not believe banning Hoopa will make some great change in the meta but I think it’s a nudge in the right direction, and it will as apple said open up doors to further investigating other aspects of the tier.

Another thing talked about in this thread and in general is voting based on their own experiences with the mon. I think this is fair and more than correct, but there is also critical thinking that is necessary. I am guilty of sometimes in the past laddering for a reqs run, shitting on the suspected mon a few times, and running with a dnb vote. I am not saying that’s what people are doing, but tier dynamics go deeper than what you see with your eyeballs in a handful of games, whether you are the pilot or the spectator.

tldr; hoopa impacts tier negatively and the recent “woah this guy didn’t kill anything in these games maybe it sucks” vibe im getting from some posts and chatting I think isn’t an accurate representation of hoopa’s impact and shaping of the tier. (Just look at Scizor in SM UU, you don’t see SD BP into victory very often these days bc every team has 2 1/2 hard scizor answers, doesn’t make it “underwhelming”, if anything only further proves the respect it demands).

Also calling all UU knowledgeable humans to post here, past two suspect threads have been pretty dead imo and it is a SHAME bc ik plenty of people have plenty of complaints about the meta
 
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My first perfect suspect run!

I will be voting DNB because Hoopa was never a problem while I was laddering. It's very vulnerable to passive damage in the form of hazards/sand and it has plenty of answers in the form of priority users, faster Scarfers, mons that can take advantage of it locking itself into one move, correctly timed Teras, contact move punishers (Rocky Helmet and Flame Body). etc. I also think its revenge killing capabilities are very valuable to the tier.

Polteageist needs to go instead.
 
I bet that when viv was asking for the UU knowledgeable people to post here, he was thinking more about folks like Lily, Lyssa and Umbry rather than me, so joke's on you there brother. I'm kinda late to the party here, but since I'm a fan of good discussion and I asked Mossy to post about his renewed stance on hoopa, the least I can do is post a few of my thoughts as well.
First off, I will start by saying that I'm not a fan of what UU has spiralled into, after our lord and saviour zapdos left us, in order to go and start spreading its static in the overused tier. Zapdos used to hold this tier together and provide some amazing defensive backbone for a lot of balance/bo teams, making that sort of playstyle fairly good. Traits such as pivot moves, roost, great offensive and defensive typing are valuable after all. Maybe even as valuable as those nice static procs... And I'm saying that because static and roost made that mon such a good check for a bunch of the physical HO spam that's become so prevalent today. Using a bunch of mons like lokix, zarude and quaquaval had the risk of your sweeper getting ruined by paralysis, or being forced to tera electric and hope that there wasn't a skeledirge in the back, ready to use its own tera and stop you. That's the point of the meta that, in my eyes, made hoopa an excellent mon to use, to try and take advantage of those slower paced teams, maybe with some spikes support. In all fairness, a ban after a suspect test at that point would have been much more justified than nowadays.
Shortly after zapdos left, and after weavile survived a suspect test, the community (myself included!) decided to vote ban on okidogi and throw it out of the tier. Okidogi was another one of those glue mons that was also quite good at stopping the physical HO guys mentioned above, and give some fair fighting chances to slower paced teams. That's not to say that HO was bad during the zapdos and/or okidogi phase, but it felt more fair than it does after those two pokes left us. Something that's become very apparent at the time of this post, from the sheer amount of sand teams we've been seeing in UUWC. Sand provides great speed control, and excardill can run both of its powerful stabs, making the playstyle good into opposing HO. A hoopa that has to lock itself into a move isn't a sufficient answer to most well structured HO teams. Neither it is a great mon against sand rush excadrill.
So why the hoopa suspect test at this particular timing? The answers one will get to this question are along the lines of "hoopa had it coming for a while now". And that's true, just a bit after the recent tier shifts happened, the council decided to suspect test all three of weavile, okidogi and hoopa. The hoopa suspect didn't happen immediately after the other two, because the council thought that the new state of the meta warranted a bit more time to be evaluated by the community. That was a good thing, because after those events I spoke about above (zapdos and okidogi leaving, weavile being established in UU) the meta did indeed shift a good amount. Games are much more fast paced now, and if you try to build fatter, slower paced teams, chances are you're going to be overwhelmed by some combination of the many HO threats of the tier, such as quaquaval, sd lokix, zarude, weavile, revavroom, salamence, ogerpon (ogerpons maybe?), comfey, greninja, polteageist, manaphy, np tornadus. The fact that there's a plethora of support mons to enhance these sweepers doesn't help at all. Mew, heatran, serperior, latios, grimmsnarl, alolatales, excadrill, araquanid, ribombee, to name most of them. Hence the absurd amount of sand teams I mentioned above: "If you can't defensively account for them, best have some way to try and revenge them".
To conclude my rambling here, I think that we (the UU community) failed to understand what happened between the time of dogi's departure from our tier, and the timing of suspecting hoopa. I think that what pushed more to the builder adaptations nowadays is the playstyle of HO, rather than hoopa, something that's also happened to make most teams fairly resistant to hoopa, as a consequence. The issue that has to be addressed before hoopa is how powerful HO has become, of course by suspect testing some of its most threatening and restrictive mons (I would start by quaquaval, cornerpon and polteageist, but I'm sure a lot of other people will have their own lists of culprits).
So unfortunately I didn't make time to get reqs this time, but if I had done so I would vote do not ban on hoopa just yet, but I would be down to re examine it down the line if it ends up being too much after the HO problem has been looked at, much like weavile. Trying to be a prophet and thinking that a ban vote now might be good to save some time later and not have to retest the mon, might prove to be unwise. The fact of the matter is that we can't be sure how things will look like after however many bans it takes for HO to be a bit more contained. Thanks to everyone who took a bit of their time to read my post, I sincerely appreciate it even if you're disagreeing with my POV. Like viv said, I'd like to see some posts from the relevant UU people who aren't as vocal, because that's what y'all have to do in order to push things to the direction you'd like to see them going towards.
 
I heard monky say that no one is against hoopa and its a clear cut ban vote.... i guess not.

Personally it is still an easy ban vote for me

1. hoopa does not add much to the tier aside from being a scarfer who clicks buttons

2. we lost dogi, a pretty good dark resist and we see from replays how often people stack dark resists to avoid getting swept up by hoopa, weavile, and zarude as well

3. the pokemon which are used to combat hoopa

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-808865 This replay knida shows how even with a keldeo and ttar, hoopa put in a lot of work, and every time it was brought in it kinda shat out a lot of damage especially since one god read against shiloh can just make them lose their ttar via drain punch

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-809026 hoopa uses its mixed attacking set to pressure tree's team, and while it may be more obvious "well obv that hoopa isnt scarfed lol, look there is a sand + sand rush drill very likely" it was prob very hard to tell and you certainly did not want to just gamble on "well it obviously isnt scarfed" just to lose ur barraskewda to it

I am not a fan of the ways people are combating hoopa by stacking multiple resists and calling it healthy or slapping on like very fat mons like phys def coba + smth like keldeo, quaq, enam-t, and other dark resists which are only one prediction away on their coba from eating a 170 sp. atk psychic who will pretty much make it so ur coba is likely not gonna answer hoopa ever again. All it takes is one right turn for the opponent to turn ur coba into one of the best dark resists into smth that likely does not want to come in.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-809278 hoopa also did an absurd amount of work here, by calling out the stealth rocks moute disabled lily's sand rush exca from being as useful after turn 11. Hoopa put in way more work than what it should have, esp with forcing the tera fairy from dirge as well

Coba's sp def isnt that high, and I feel many teams kinda just lose to it if it calls it out with a psychic. That is not smth that is very healthy in a tier and signs to me that if coba is the leading answer to hoopa with pretty much either frailer answers around it or no resists at all

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9uu-809542 for ex. despite no hoopa being in the replay. One side has coba while the other one has BU conk who are both one read from psychic to just dropping and allowing hoopa free rain against the teams they are playing against. I think hoopa just has such a free time clicking buttons that its still top tier clicking dark moves into resists because it can risk free force progress that way.

I think the tier will be better off without hoopa. there is no way this thing should be allowed when its dynamic is just "dark moves go brr" and either clapping teams or is one read away from just slapping their check
 
I qualified for this and the last two UU suspects, so I wanted to contribute to the discussion. I'll be voting to ban Hoopa-U. I'm not involved in the UU tournament scene beyond spectating or viewing replays, but I'd still like to share some of my experiences having laddered, watching games, and reading others' posts in this thread.

I generally agree with the thoughts already shared by ThatOneApple and vivalospride above: Hoopa-U isn't so overpowered against teams that can out-offense it or have multiple Dark-resistant Pokemon, but it's overbearing on the types of Pokemon and teams you can run. Yes, good Pokemon drive adaptations to themselves, but Hoopa-U is a step above anything else in the metagame that's forcing adaptation in the builder. Not only is Hoopa-U's Hyperspace Fury extremely strong, but its coverage and mixed offenses makes wrong predictions stupidly punishing, so running multiple checks to it is often necessary just to not lose. Hoopa-U then makes teams like Dark spam really tough to deal with, and it's a sign to me that the metagame has become unhealthy when people are having to bring multiple Dark-resistant Pokemon just to not get blown back by Hoopa-U and friends. I don't fault people for adapting to Hoopa-U in their builders and coming forward to discuss why they don't find it as overbearing, but I disagree with keeping around a presence that can take out a check like Quaquaval with just one correct prediction.

Other sentiments about HO being really good also resonate with me. I can't really say for certain whether that's because of specific presences or just because there's been an increase in the realization of options in terms of the threats you can stack on a team, including rising stars like Polteageist (probably the most egregious of any I'll mention), Hawlucha, Revavroom, Salamence, and so on. I know it's a bit off-color to discuss action on other elements that aren't the focus of the suspect thread, but I'm in agreement that Quaquaval deserves a suspect test once Hoopa-U's concludes. None of that is reasoning though for voting against Hoopa-U's removal. I'd like to look forward to playing UU where I'm not a 50-50 away from my Cobalion no longer being able to answer the onslaught of other offensive Dark-types in the tier.
 
 
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