Announcement Terastallization in National Dex Ubers (Round 2)

[adem]

post format stolen from Jho
Hello all, here we are again with another look at Terastallization!

With Xerneas leaving the tier more than a month ago, the tier has begun to settle down and innovate in the post-Xerneas meta. With both the trios tour and seasonals come to an end leading to a wide range of new discoveries and structures being used, the council has decided to release a community survey to gauge the player base's thoughts on the current metagame, and if there are any specific issues. Terastallization notably stood out in the responses in the survey reaching the highest at 6, with a large amount of people having voted a "10" as well in the survey.

If you all remember, Terastallization has been tested almost a year ago now, but with the surge of metagame development since then with the Xerneas ban and the numerous tours going on, we have decided to revisit the potential of a second suspect test, due to the community having stronger feelings towards it the most compared to other threats mentioned (Zygarde, Zacian-C, Shadow Tag)

Since this is a relatively new situation for this tier, and for tiering as a whole, we are making this thread for the community to voice their thoughts on Terastallization in the format provided below for clarity.

What is your stance on Terastallization in the metagame?

Do you think Terastallization should be retested? Why?

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Terastallization?

These are the main questions that we want you to answer, but feel free to add things on if you feel they are relevant or necessary to be stated. Please keep on topic in this discussion, as it is solely for Terastallization, and not discussing testing anything else for the time being. While we have discussed having a Terastallization list akin to the Dynamax list utilised by Gen 8 Ubers last gen or restrictions in the past, but this was eventually shot down as it would be impractical and against the tiering spirit.

Your responses in this thread will directly correlate to whether there is a Terastallization retest, so if you are pro or anti-ban, this is the place to voice your opinions. And just as a reminder:

There will be no restrictions, it's full or no Terastallization. Any posts suggesting or advocating for restrictions will be deleted as off topic.

 

[bumboclaat]

What is your stance on Terastallization in the metagame?

Currently I think tera is in a healthy spot. If you've played the meta for a week or two an unexpected tera type is not something that will frequently catch you off guard. If you see a Ho-Oh it is probably going to be Tera Grass, if you see a Zygarde it is probably going to be Tera Water or Fairy. For the most part Pokemon don't have a bunch of different tera types where they are all feasible options, it is generally one or two. Accounting for this is arguably an experssion of teambuilding skill and in game skill. i.e. Whether or not Ho-Oh tera grasses it won't matter because it is either going to die to this Zacian-C Wild Charge or the Meteor Beam Eternatus in the back.

Tera isn't something I find to be inherently problematic in the current metagame. I've lost a lot more games due to Precipice Blades missing twice, a burn coinflip from Sacred Fire, crits, or Dark Pulse Flinches than an unexcepted tera. The only mon I find potentially problematic because Tera is Zacian-C, which I do not think I'd vote to ban. Honourable mentions go to Deoxys-A and Ditto.

Tera is also a generational mechanic which does have a higher bar to ban than anything else. Tera is not dynamax and isn't stupidly broken. Despite personally preferring that Tera remain in the tier I wouldn't be heartbroken if it went. I do currently enjoy Tera and its impact on the meta, but at the same time the tier would be more competitive without it. Where I struggle a bit is that I view the tier as competitive with Tera in it and find that the better player wins far more often than not and Tera is seldom a factor.

All in all, I do enjoy the impact that Tera has on the metagame even if it can sometimes feel like bullshit. I do understand why people have their issues with tera even if I am not one of them. I find currently find tera to be an enjoyable mechanic and the odd time I get frustrated by it doesn't really stand out to me from others reasons I get frustrated with mons such as the ones listed above. I've specifically said currently because my opinion could certainly change in the future. When we had the first tera suspect I voted to ban it. Big props to the council for having a continued public discussion on this topic and moving forward with a straight yes or no on tera. Anything else ala the dynamax list in SS Ubers would be the wrong path to take.


Do you think Terastallization should be retested? Why?

My gut response is I'm not sure. I'm not opposed to a tera suspect at all. I asked Adem and was told that if a Tera suspect were to fail there would not be another one for quite some time if at all. This means that we should only proceed with a Tera suspect if the council is incredibly confident that it would result in Tera being banned. Tera is obviously a contentious topic and I would not want to see those who are strongly in favour of a tera ban have to spend the remainder of the generation either aliented from or stuck with a metagame they do not enjoy because we were too impatient and prematurely tested Tera when the support to ban it isn't there. The threshold to ban is very high and every vote matters.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit since the survey and as I continue to think about it I grow more skeptical that there is enough support to proceed with a test. I voted to ban Tera the first time around and at that time there was substantially more support for banning Tera than there is presently. I was shocked when it wasn't banned the first time around as I knew very few people who wanted it to remain in the tier.

There are undoubtedly quite a few people who will obtain reqs for the second tera test that for one reason or another do not participate in the surveys. 39 people responded to the last survey and should we proceed with a second tera suspect there will almost certainly be considerably more 39 people who obtain reqs. It is foolish to assume that this pool of voters will overwhelmingly vote to ban tera, especially when the people who did respond to the survey only gave it a 6. I won't pretend to know what the magic number should be to proceed with a tera suspect, but proceeding with it now seems doomed to failure.

Regardless of whether I personally think tera should be banned it clearly should receive another suspect at some point. The question is when? I think the next planned tour is NDUbers Open in June which isn't too far away. My proposal would be a survey following the conclusion of that tournament with the council determining whether or not the results of that survey merit proceeding with a Tera suspect.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Terastallization?

Frankly, from the way this question is worded, at least on the surface, nothing has changed which would justify restesting Tera. If memory serves, the survey preceding the original test had a higher score than the recent one. The outcry for a test was certainly higher in the NDUbers discord than it is currently. However, context is key.

At the time the options were either retaining Tera in the metagame or the high likelihood that Koraidon, Xerneas, and Zygarde would be suspected and potentially banned. The former two came to pass. However, the dlcs the came out in the meantime did have an impact. Koraidon received Scale Shot and was subsequently banned. I would be shocked if Koraidon were to return even if tera was banned. Xerneas obviously did not receive anything in the dlcs and was deemed banworthy. Though I would perfer that Xerneas remain banned even in the absence of tera, that opinion is clearly not the norm and it likely would return via a suspect vote.

Nothing really has changed that would justify retesting Tera. I also don't view that as a requirement or impediment for doing so. If the support to retest tera is high enough it should receive a second test. That threshold is up to the council to decide. If we don't trust the council to make a judgement call on this we would need a new council as it means we don't trust council to run the tier. I would be quite surprised if tera did not receive a second test by the end of the generation. The question is when?

 

[Anchor9]

What is your stance on Terastallization in the metagame?

I believe Terastillization is an extremely healthy mechanic, as nothing in this tier can Tera and run with the game (while probably not completely accurate since I did record manually, Zacian-C had a 13.33% win rate in the Trio Tournament. Tera doesn’t break this at all and Zacian-C doesn’t run with games with 4MSS and just a bunch of checks in general). Tera really doesn’t have a negative effect on this tier. It allows stuff like Ho-Oh and Giratina-O fill their roles with greater efficiency and blanket check more Mons while still being extremely predictable and killable.

Tera also helps make this tier more diverse and bulkier, thanks to the fact the vast majority of Teras are defensive. There’s more HO Glimmora Toxic Spikes answers besides Eternatus like Tera Poison Arceus-Fairy and Yveltal (Also both great checks to Zacian-C). Tera Grass Ho-Oh provides a splashable Primal Kyogre switch-in throughout the game that isn’t Primal Groudon. The great thing about it is that these defensive Tera’s don’t turn the Mon into a huge offensive threat. No one is afraid of Tera Grass Ho-Oh sweeping their team. In fact, these Teras come with opportunity costs. Tera Poison Yveltal? There goes your consistent Marshadow switch-in. Tera Grass Ho-Oh? You can’t check Primal Groudon anymore.

The main thing I would worry about Tera is the fact it can remove priority answers to dangerousness breakers such as Doexys-A or Dragon Dance Arceus-Ground. Pull out a Tera Ghost and your Extreme Killer Arceus backup answer is now useless, maybe even now just free setup. But I believe the good outweighs the negative and would definitely vote DNB for a future suspect.


Can’t really speak about points 2 & 3 because I wasn’t really around then and am not familiar with how Tera was during the Koraidon / Miraidon Meta.

EDIT: Wanted to add something that makes Tera a whole lot less broken here then in something such as regular Ubers. That is the limited mons that learn Tera Blast. Access to Tera Blast would arguably break Mons such as Yveltal and Marshadow. Yveltal could then Tera Blast Poison its most reliable check in Arceus Fairy. Marshadow could Tera Blast Fairy Yveltal. Just another thing that keeps Tera in check.

 

[BananaTimeZ]

What is your stance on Terastallization in the metagame?

Tera currently feels like its in a good spot in the meta. There's a few mons that can be annoying with it, and the whole swing the match because you clicked the hat button is frustrating. But currently Tera is more used as a defensive tool, to let Ho-Oh live a Wild Charge or Thunder, to make Deo-A immune to a priority of their choosing, and really only Zacian, Yveltal, Marshadow and Arceus use it to boost their damage, and only 1 of those can be considered "broken" with it. Though I also wouldn't mind it being gone, as I don't think Tera in its current form adds a ton to NDUbers.

Do you think Terastallization should be retested? Why?

I would not mind a test on Tera, but also realize that this means that a large part of the current NDUbers players would vote DNB, myself included, and we wont get another Tera suspect for a while. A lot has changed in NDUbers, Xern and Korai got banned, and the Primals can no longer Tera. These were arguably the most bs Tera users and Tera being unbanned just means Xern and Shed can get retested for NDUbers, since Korai is broken because of Scale Shot and Horse I don't see coming back. I agree with grand cayman that we should wait for when Tera really becomes problematic, as opposed to suspecting it now when it is in this weird limbo state.

 

[R8]

What is your stance on Terastallization in the metagame?

I don't have much time to make a very in-depth post but in a nutshell: i think tera in its current state is fine. There are some very scary offensive abusers (Mostly thinking about Zygarde, Yveltal, E-Killer, Marsh and Zacian but there are a lot of more specific abusers like Deo-A and trick room Melmetal) but honestly i don't feel like any of them are broken-levels of overbearing. There is some controversy around Zygarde and Zacian, which tbh i get (mostly Zyg, i think Zacian isn't remotely broken still), but i think Arceus normal definitively has the potential to be much more annoying in my opinion: i think tera fairy in particular can be very threatening considering how many defensive cores depend on a dark (Yveltal or Darkceus) to check it, but this is still something that needs to be tested out/used more before being seen as a problem in any sort of capacity.

In any cases, Tera is mostly used for defensive purposes atm and helps patching up lot of annoying matchup - granted, u sometimes use tera to deal with opposing teras (ex: tera water Zygarde vs tera steel Melm/tera ice Caly-i on trick room, tera fairy Eternatus vs tera dark Yveltal) but this is not always the case (ex: tera grass Ho-Oh vs Zacian).

Tldr: i believe Tera is fine right now, but it's not impossible for it to be a problem again in the future.


Do you think Terastallization should be retested? Why?

I am not opposed to the idea of resuspecting Tera in general but i don't think it would address any issues right now. Is anything really broken because of Tera right now? Like yeah okay, i will not deny that Xern, Koraidon and Shedinja all are AG right now because of Tera, but that's kind of it. Zygarde would definitively not be as controversial as it is if tera did not exist, that's for sure, but for example rest sets sometimes take a long while to get going and tend to sometimes to struggle to make consistent progress when they are forced to click rest after getting toxic'd or pressured by what it attempts to check, when they get phazed around (even by non-tera Ho-Oh sometimes) or sometimes just threatened by very strong wallbreakers like LO Yveltal, offensive Eternatus and Primal Kyogre. Yes, it has ways around all of these problems, but it never automatically wins the game on matchup vs a well built team in my opinion, and i believe it generally comes down to who build and play better.

In a nutshell: i think it's not unreasonable to keep the possibility of a tera suspect in mind, however i don't think it makes sense to do it right now.

 

[Zrp200]

What is your stance on Terastallization in the metagame?

At this point it feels like Tera is an essential part of the metagame in terms of enjoyability and building. Ubers historically is a very centralized meta where almost all teams look the same, but thanks to the mechanic—and the fact that Primals, Megas (imagine Tera Psychic ), and Z move users can't use it—we are able to deviate from that pretty easily, which is refreshing. The best Pokemon in the tier cannot Tera, which makes things feel more consistent overall. With this, Tera can unironically be used creatively to play around these threats, unlike in SV where all the best Pokemon can also Tera.

Tera's never going to be quite healthy, but it's surely not overbearing in this metagame, outside of a few bad apples . Even then, they are not nearly as bad as were (good riddance), even if would surely vote ban on a suspect due to Tera Ground. Even then, that's more of a mon issue rather than Tera itself; I already hated it from the start.

Additionally, while offensive Tera can be annoying from , it does help them give some serious well-needed niches against the historically common bulkier teams. Rayquaza hasn't been this good in a long time.

Defensive Tera basically allows bulkier teams to work consistently thanks to the natural defensive power of titans like once their 4x weaknesses are removed. Zygarde-C is the defensive bulwark of this tier, able to stand against Trick Room shenanigans as well as like every physical attacker that isn't , which is just so insanely role compressing, while Ho-Oh can be opened up to check Zygarde-Complete: more easily now while also being able to shed its 4x rocks weakness regardless of type.
I hope I see more exploration of offensive Ho-Oh; it just looks so good on paper.

Stall is helped too. Tera Fairy on stall really does help against so much stuff, and Tera Grass on Chansey is really annoying.

I know some people were upset by the Xerneas ban, and it in fact it's entirely due to Tera, but I have some words of wisdom for them: cope.

I don't believe that is a tera issue really and I'm totally not saying this through any kind of bias, though it obviously really really enjoys having it for its Life Orb sets. It can't escape both Extreme Speed and Shadow Sneak with just Tera, and Marshadow is very good right now. It's kinda like a chill, ability-less, Calyrex-S.

I love deo a

Do you think Terastallization should be retested? Why?

Doing it now (and possibly at all, at this point) would be a mistake. I'm personally leaning strong no-ban, and I voted ban in the last test.

The consequences of not banning it before have already been addressed. That said, however, if people really want back ( is probably still broken but could be suspect dropped imo), then I could be convinced to abstain.

But if I'm in doubt, surely others are as well, which is just a no-go when the ban threshold is 66%. It's just a waste of time, I fear, outside of giving me TC.

On Tera-Less Calyrex-S

And no, I will never support Calyrex-Shadow in National Dex Ubers.
Tera being banned doesn't make it magically okay. It's still innately absurd and would drive every psychic type out of the meta.
Z-Moves have proven repeatedly to be amazing with Moxie-like abilities. I don't want to deal with BS like Ghostium Z OHKOing every offensive Pokemon in existence, Buginium Z swatting like bugs underfoot, or Fairum Z being used to hit Yveltal.

That's not to mention the strong psychic terrain presence here to allow Calyrex-S to hide from Sucker Punch and Shadow Sneak and easily sweep with Expanding Force + Astral Barrage

 

[Bobsican]

What is your stance on Terastallization in the metagame?

Besides a few bad apples such as , , and arguably and , I think that Terastallizing in general is healthy for the metagame, besides the before-mentioned Pokemon, all others are more limited by coverage (or coverage to hit them --- looking at you, ), thus causing the main use of Terastallizing to be defensively unless you're running hyper offense, and seeing balance as relatively the most viable team structure in the current metagame as explained in this nice post by bumboclaat leads me to believe that the metagame is going into the right direction.

Do you think Terastallization should be retested? Why?

Short answer: No, because it'd suck.

Long answer: As explained previously, Terastallizing has considerably raised the variety of teambuilding of the tier, unlike the typical Ubers tier, currently you aren't obligated to fit a certain species in virtually every single team (cough Gen 8 and being everywhere for ), and without it I fear that team structures such as Psyspam and Trick Room potentially becoming difficult to consistently check without restraining teambuilding.

Closest to a species that's often spammed on teams currently would be , which is mainly out of opportunity costs, and its centralization if anything has been of the healthy kind, compressing a ton of roles and being capable to fill most roles itself, which is really helpful with the ever-growing National Dex.
Uber tiers are obligated to have *some* centralization by nature, as if we removed all of it with the more strict tiering policies of lower tiers, we'd end up with just NDOU, of course, if you dislike that you're free to play another metagame, Pokemon as a whole is like a deck of cards and can be played in countless ways.

Also, will just quickly note what'd likely get quick-unbanned if Teras are banned:

: Simple yes, although Shed Tail + Wonder Guard still sounds annoying.

: A bit more controversial, but yes, basically all the reasoning for its ban involves Terastallizing.

Now will comment on why the other stuff that can Terastallize (thus won't talk about or , lol) that would require a suspect to unban at best:

: Scale Shot with those stats and net 19X Atk by Orichalcum Pulse is still ridiculous, the fact it would now consistently overwhelm checks like and as they can't pull a mind game by Terastallizing ironically limits its counterplay further.

: 252 SpA Choice Specs Hadron Engine Miraidon Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 192 SpD Groudon-Primal: 390-460 (96.7 - 114.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

This has no legitimate checks, and just look at SV Ubers being blatantly centralized by this and , let alone sets here involving Z-Moves letting it overwhelm any so-called checks here too.

: It's just with actual bulk and a nuclear Ghost STAB that can even snowball too, I'd rather not force all non-HO teams to run , and/or with Pursuit. In fact there was some talk in the server on Pursuit users in the tier, but none of them bar very dedicated teams can viably afford it, so this'd be blatant unhealthy centralization, it even goes beyond "broken checking broken" to "unmon checking broken".

 

[Bobsican]

Okay, sufficient time has passed.

Given the overwhelming support by those that bothered to post their thoughts on the Terastallizing mechanic, a suspect test for it won't happen anytime soon, and Terastallizing remains in the current metagame!

My apologies for those that wanted to see tiering action for it regardless.