Rejected Terastallization in SV Ubers

[Aberforth]

With the release of Scarlet and Violet, we were given the new generational mechanic of Terastallization. This thread will be discussing ideas on how to deal with it within the Ubers metagame.

I will preface this by saying that this will not effect any tier other than Ubers. Tiering policy for Ubers is independent of that of all other tiers. No matter how we proceed, it will not effect OU, UU or any other tier on this website.

Ever since the start of the generation, there has been internal discussion amongst the Ubers community about Terastallization as a mechanic and how it influences our tier. For example, in the pre-HOME metagame, Miraidon in conjunction with Terastallization was most likely too much for the tier and had HOME not arrived, Miraidon would have been suspected and likely banned. With the release of HOME, Calyrex-Shadow was released into the tier and there was internal discussion amongst the tiering council where there was a sizeable number that believed that Terastallization was the more pressing issue. We took advice from the tiering admin and decided to suspect Calyrex-Shadow first since it was the Pokémon that was most clearly broken in conjunction with Terastallization. There were several members of the ubers council who wanted to suspect test Terastallization as a mechanic first.

Terastallization plays a major part of the dynamic of the current metagame, obscuring counterplay in both the builder and during play, reducing the consistency in answering the powerful threats that roam the Ubers metagame. In the metagame since the Calyrex-S ban, Terastallization has been a fundamental part of the tier that affects almost every interaction in a match until both teams have used theirs. Combined with this, multiple strong metagame threats have very different Tera Type possibilities with varying counterplays. An example of this is Arceus-Ground, which viably runs Tera Fairy, Fire, Ghost, Ground, Poison and Water, and you cannot confidently determine its Tera Type off lead, or even once it's revealed parts of its moveset. It can be tailormade to be immune to Miraidon's Draco Meteor; be immune to burn from opposing Arceus, Giratina-O, Mewtwo and Skeledirge; ignore Extreme Speed from EKiller; have extra power to OHKO Skeledirge with Earthquake or Clodsire with Judgment; be immune to Toxic to allow setup opportunities or to be able to turn the tables on Kyogre and Zacian-C. These are the possible situations for a singular top level threat in the tier, and many other top tier threats also have a similar potential for a wide variety of ways of bypassing their regular counterplay.

In spite of this, Terastallization is different to other aspects of Ubers tiering as it is a generational mechanic and a defining trait of the generation. Any action taken on it will have to be done slowly and with careful consideration at each step. In the pre-HOME metagame, Terastallization was likely too much for the tier unless Ubers fundamentally compromised a large part of its identity by banning the two natural Ubers of Gen 9 (Koraidon and Miraidon) which then would result in day one OU, and we all saw how unbalanced that metagame was. Nobody was, nor is, willing to consider this as an option. This topic has been discussed internally within Ubers for a good while, but we decided to wait until after Home came out, to see if the mechanic would play out differently with more natural Ubers, especially after the tiering decision in OU to keep the mechanic as is.

We are unwilling to consider a Terastallization list for reasons I outlined in the thread that was proposed for NatDex Ubers here, suggesting that as an option in this thread is a waste of time as it will not be considered and thus your post will be deleted. Maintaining a tier list for Pokemon that can and can't Tera was attempted in Gen 8 with Dynamax and that the list is simultaneously too much legwork to maintain as well as too unintuitive for people new or unfamiar with Ubers. Fundamentally I do not believe that a list should be Ubers' way of tiering, it would frequent testing and updates, and is too prone to bias and trends. Ubers aims to tier as infrequently as possible. We do not want to keep suspecting Pokémon that are broken by a mechanic rather than an element of the Pokémon itself. I believe this to be a fundamental part of Ubers tiering policy, having the most Pokémon available while having a stable metagame. This is fundamentally different to all other tiers. They aim to create stable metagames by banning Pokémon, whereas in Ubers that is an absolute last resort and almost antithetical to Ubers' ethos. As such any tiering action we take does not aim to create a precedent for tiers below Ubers, as they operate under different philosophies.

Below are the opinions of three of the current members of the SV Ubers Tiering Council. The others will be replying to this thread to give their opinions in due course, but we wanted to get the opinions of some of the council members in the thread to paint a picture of why we have made this thread and want to discuss what our options are.

My Opinion

I am going to use an example from a recent game I played in the Ubers Open, where tera had a significant effect on the gameplay choices made by both me and my opponent in a way that I believe was detrimental to the game. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ubers-700021 - As you can see here, I Close Combat a Giratina-O instead of clicking Play Rough (which would have killed the Giratina-O in nearly all scenarios, at worst being a roll in my favour) since I anticipated him to Terastallize into a Steel type, since Giratina-O commonly do as counterplay to Zacian-C and I believed this would be Icemaster’s best play. This put me in a significantly worse position for the remainder of the game (even though I did win) because Zacian-C was a key element of my counterplay to his threats (Kyogre and Koraidon). While getting individual turns wrong is a part of Pokémon, I believe that due to Terastallization entire games can be decided upon individual turns, at a far more frequent rate than I believe is healthy for the metagame.

This is just one example, and does not account for the many examples that can be found where a Pokemon like Miraidon or Koraidon simply blow past their counterplay by gaining additional power on their moves (Dragon with Specs Miraidon, Fire with Scarf/Band Koraidon), nor does it cover examples where an offensive threat completely changes its defensive profile to be immune or resistant to the opponents forms of counterplay. The significant increase in tools for avoiding counterplay available to the offensive powerhouses of the tier is something that I do not believe can be made up by the defensively minded uses of Tera, either in the builder or in the game.

I also believe that, should Tera remain unrestricted, Ubers would have to fundamentally compromise its identity by banning multiple Pokémon, to the extent that we would have the largest banlist in Ubers history, and we would probably have to take action on both Koraidon and Miraidon, which is something I want to avoid if at all possible, given they are the biggest additions to Ubers in gen9.

Manaphy's Opinion

It's of my opinion that Tera, while not initially as broken as I thought it would have been before launch, is a fundamentally broken game mechanic. There's a couple of factors at play here. The most problematic one in my opinion is just the inherent unpredictability of the mechanic; any Pokemon at any time can turn into any type, and while some tera types will clearly be better than others, ultimately the mechanic is completely unpredictable. As such, the most broken aspect of the mechanic is simply that it adds more guessing games to pokemon than there already is.

Let's take the common case of Miraidon, probably the best breaker in the whole game currently. The only somewhat reliable check to it is Ting-Lu, as it's the only mon who can take Specs Draco Meteors or Calm Mind-boosted attacks. A common scenario is this; Miraidon comes in and gets a Calm Mind up while the opponent switches to Ting-Lu. Now there is the following dilemma; if Miraidon uses Tera Dragon, it can more than likely one-shot the Ting-Lu with a Draco Meteor, so should the Ting-Lu use Tera Steel to tank the Draco and take out Miraidon? Or should Miraidon switch out to bait the Tera Steel and break it later? Perhaps both Pokemon are actually Tera Fairy and the whole interaction above is moot? While all of these above questions are in the realm of normal gameplay decisions, I feel that Tera adds both more guessing to the game and makes it even more critical, as often times a wrong decision against a Terastallized Pokemon can easily mean a lost game. In the above scenario, the wrong decision by either player will more than likely mean the loss of the game outright.

Another point I want to address about Tera is that it inherently benefits offense more than defense. It's safe to say this only gets magnified in Ubers, where the added STAB options or boosted STAB of tera can absolutely go wild in a tier when Miraidon, Koraidon, Kyogre, and others can break through all of their supposed checks with ease. While tera can be used defensively, such as to add a resist on a pokemon who wouldn't resist otherwise, this tends to be not as advantageous as offensive teras can gain an insane amount of momentum. Not to mention, often times the added resist is not enough in Ubers where boosted STAB options can simply overwhelm most checks. This part of the mechanic is problematic as I see it, as it often means the winner of the games simply comes down to who can get their offensive tera completed successfully first, putting much more emphasize on who just happened to chose the right lead and thus can get momentum quickly. This also has the effect of making Pokemon like Specs Miraidon or Band Koraidon nearly impossible to properly check, which thus makes the tier more match-up dependent as a result. As an example, I've literally lost games in pre-home due to choosing the wrong lead against a Chien-Pao, it using Tera Ice turn 1 to 2HKO my Corviknight, and then winning the game. Furthermore, as Tera usage is so flexible, it provides more ways than ever for people to counter-team each other, which again makes the tier less fun and more match-up fishy than it has to be.

Additionally, I think that some may worry that the lose of tera would slow down the tier significantly. While this is not a good or bad thing per say, I'd also like to point out that many Pokemon in Ubers are barely being checked as is, and this both 1.) means that pokemon such as Miraidon, Koraidon, Arceus, Zacian, and Kyogre are significantly harder to check, and 2.) this necessitates having additional checks as back-up which may not be necessary otherwise. Take the case of Zacian-C, who can at any time use Tera Ground on a predicted switch to take out its best check in Skeledirge, which would necessitate you to have some back-up options which you may have otherwise been able to use for more offensive pressure. Let's look at a less obvious offensive example in Calm Mind Arceus forms, who can use Tera Poison or Tera Steel to avoid having to take Toxic from Clodsire, Eternatus, or Toxapex, turning these otherwise safe checks into set-up fodder and making CM Arceus one of the hardest things to deal with in the game as a result. Again, whether this is a good or bad thing is up to each person, but I'd just like to dispel to notion that a loss of tera would 100% create a overtly defensive metagame.

As I currently see it, while the mechanic is not as overwhelming broken as Dynamax was, Tera ultimately makes it less likely for the more skilled player to win, which is definitely a problem that should be addressed. The reasons it decreases the skill of the game is as follows:
1.) It adds more critical guessing to the game than there has to be, often deciding games as a result.
2.) It creates more Pokemon that are nearly impossible to check, which in turn makes the tier more match-up dependent; and
3.) The mechanic can be used to counter team and fish for match-up incredibly hard.

I believe that there are only two viable solutions that could work; the first is a clause where Tera Types are revealed on each Pokemon beforehand. This takes out some of the guessing game that the mechanic brings which definitely helps a bit, and this method is also less intrusive, making it ideal for those who want to preserve the generational mechanic as well as the current interactions in Ubers. The other option is an outright ban, which while it seems the harshest option, at the end of the day it would do the most to get rid of the problematic aspects of the mechanic which makes it the most ideal approach in my eyes. After all, revealing the Tera Type ultimately only does so much to stop the massively strong pokemon of Ubers from breaking your team outright.

Minority's Opinion

Terastallization is a game mechanic in the flavor of Game Freak's newest generational gimmick, the decision on which will define the tiering policy of this generation. Since it is a mechanic and not a Pokemon, ability, or move, it informs all gameplay that occurs, thus a decision on Terastallization must occur before any other tiering can occur as to not cause backtracking. Terastallization allows Pokemon to spontaneously change their type with limited telegraphing. The implications of this are obvious: Pokemon can now change their type to circumvent what would otherwise be a check, either by adding an option to KO that check or negating their weakness to that check's attacks. As with Dynamax, Terastallization is inherently biased to offensive use, putting into question if the mechanic invalidates too much player forethought in both the builder and during the battle. An argument can be made that Terastallization is what currently enables all of the top offensive threats to exist in a state of having precarious counterplay. Ultimately Ubers players must decide if preserving this generational gimmick is worth the increased emphasis on offensive playstyles and the overall decrease in the stability of checks.

We are opening up this thread to evaluate the options available to us as a tiering body. We will listen to feedback from this thread and an upcoming survey before taking any action, and aim to be as transparent and communicative as possible going forward with Terastallization. We are willing to consider all suggestions that are not in the form of a Tera-List, for the reasons outlined above.

 

[Kate]

It is my belief that Terastallization is wholly unbalanced in SV Ubers. I have been very vocal on this, and I am also vocal that if a suspect test were to occur, we should aim to only have the options to ban or keep tera. Tera is a far more toxic element in Ubers than in most any other of the official Smogon tiers in part due to the vastly superior power level. Simply put, Ubers is usually a tier sitting on the precipice of complete chaos. There are so many threats with absurd damage output that make balance a fine tightrope. Tera breaks all of this easily, and any attempts at restriction are both foolish and in vain. No, I don't think knowing the Koraidon is Tera Fire on preview is going to help my team not get 2hkoed by flare blitz the second it clicks Tera. These are not intuitive interactions like many would argue, they are dumb 50/50s that flip games in an instant.

It is almost impossible to tell what is actually broken and what is not in Ubers because of the vast warping Terastallization has on the entire tier. Is Miraidon broken because of its natural abilities or because tera dragon draco meteor kills absolutely everything? I find the tier in its current state a hodgepodge of breakers and walls, all in an attempt to play around the big threats while also having to pray they don't have the right tera set that auto wins on preview. This isn't healthy, intuitive, or sustainable, and something has to change.

 

[ox04]

I believe Terastallization is simply another layer of teambuilding and gameplay added to the game. Of course the "better player" has worse odds of against the "worse player" if Terastallization is allowed because it's a skill that is yet to be mastered. Pokemon is already a very complex game and adding another mechanic can make it harder to navigate.

Tera might sometimes turn into a guessing game, but that is not a reason to ban it. It's not like you never know what can Tera and what can Tera into what. It might have some uncompetitive characteristics, but those can be played around, and it is mostly competitive. You know what else has some uncompetitive elements while being mostly competitive? Any generation of Ubers. Hopefully I don't have to provide examples (crits).

Tera can be defeated without Tera and matches can be won without even using it, it's not making the game revolve around it like Dynamax did, it is a mostly competitive mechanic, it's still abstract and new, the metagame itself is still fairly new. That's why I believe no tiering action is needed (at least for now).

 

[LBN]

Tera is the type of mechanic that can be combatted on paper only. Of course, it's very easy to say "just call the tera" and Close Combat the Giratina-Origin, or expect them not to tera on turn 3 and tera fire their Miraidon on a flutter mane for a complete momentum shift through one gotcha. I've had people say I overextended clicking Moonblast on a Miraidon turn 3 which is possibly the most insane thing to think about.

Do you guys remember Kings Shield Aegislash in Gen 6? Do you remember when people never wanted to use contact moves vs it because it was an inherent risk via kings shields existence? Imagine that applied to every Pokemon, in a tier where Balance is held together by 3 staples and a Twinkie. Tera itself invites even more ways for mostly uncounterable Pokemon to cheat past the single digit list of checks the game already has, and I don't think that's a good thing for any metagame to have.

There's already a chunk of sets that exist for huge threats to cheat past their reliable checks, like T-Blast Ground Zacian-Crowned, DD Tera Fire Ekiller, and other goofy sets like that, adding onto the fact that a Pokemon like Arceus can tera which is frankly fairly self explanatory. Additionally, dittoing Mana's opinion, Tera absolutely benefits for offensively oriented play. Sure, there are setup sets on defensive Pokemon like CM Arceus fairy, CM Giratina ala DPP, and technically Skeledirge falls into this category. But for every defensive bent tera abuser there is like 3 offensive ones, and that isn't even allowing repeat offenders, like how Miraidon has a batch of Teras it call use to be more broken than it already arguably is.

While my post is mostly scrambled, I'd like to finish my post with this. Take notice of anti-ban arguments, and see how flimsy their arguments often are. Oftentimes in suspect-like discussions you'll be able to tell when someone's arguments are poor based on both wording and what the meat of what they have to say is, aswell as past details they've shown in the past. My personal favorite is Natdex's current Tera suspect where an account who's only ever posted to defend generation gimmicks and talks like sephiroth while posting nothing sandwiches, but Ox's provides a more realistic example to tackle. Despite being an anti-ban post, Ox's post admits the following:

Turns the game into a guessing game
"Has uncompetitive characteristics, but-but ADV has thunder paras and critical hits!!"
The Better player wins less

Do i need to elaborate why these are an issue? I don't think I do. Alot of the wording here is a lot of "ok this looks bad, but" or "just outplay and call the tera, if you're the better player you'll be able to do that!" I'd like to mention how the OP has an example of Aberforth, one of the tier's best players around, get sent on the backfoot for calling tera wrong, and there's multiple examples of this outside of our tier's leader. I'd also like to mention the complete contradiction that tera "is a skill yet to be mastered" and "Tera sometimes turns into a guessing game" Let me know when we have a world class coinflip champion, you can't master guessing games that's an oxymoron. Tera is a broken mechanic, and while I could mention other tidbits about Ox's post above, that's a waste of my time when I think my post has made my thoughts clear.

TLDR: Tera is a broken, uncompetitive mechanic, and watch for what anti-ban posts have to say and see just how poor their arguments often are

 

[Edgar]

I want to preface this post by saying that I'll try to talk more about terastalization in the general sense rather than addressing the OP. This is mostly because I think tera should be spoken of in the grand scheme of things and, thinking that tera is a toxic element in Ubers specifically is a very simplistic way of looking at the mechanic, but that is just my opinion.

As someone who has followed the different generations of Ubers for more than 12 years, I can safely say that in every generation there has been some form of extensive power creep. In XY we had Xerneas and Mega Gengar, in ORAS Mega Rayquaza, Mega Salamence and Primal Groudon, in USUM Z-Moves were added, in SS, Zacian and Dynamax (both proven too powerful) and now, in SV, two cover legends that are seemingly stronger than everything else, only for that to be enhanced by the generation's mechanic.

I have been playing post-home Ubers ever since release and I can confirm that the power creep that gen 9 offers is recognizable but, not so vastly different to the point where we should theorize anything being banned or suspect tested as of right now or, that this generation is anything special in that regard. With the exception of Calyrex-S (who has been banned), there are many ways to play around the seemingly overpowered threats such as Koraidon and Miraidon. While I know this isn't the topic of discussion, I think it is necessary to mention it because, as "unbearable" as they are being able to terastatilze and all, thay are also manageable because of the possibility that other mons can tera. But as I said, that is a topic for another day.

With all of this being said, I want to share my opinions on tera overall.

First of all, tera adds so much depth to teambuilding in the sense that you also have to consider your tera type. This allows you to come up with viable strategies to check on-paper powerful threats. It rewards the player for using the 6 slots on their team effectively and also encourages creativity and proper game plan strategizing, something I've always found to be so essential in Pokemon.

In battle, tera offers a great variety of options to adapt to the threats at hand. It follows up and doubles down on the principles and gameplan theorized in building. Tera is also a nice tool for positioning your team into a scenario where there is a clearer win-path in matchups that are on paper not good for the team in question, terastalization offers creative avenues and win paths and rewards mid-game adaptation by using it effectiively and, at the right time.

In my opinion, there hasn't been as good as a mechanic as tera when it comes to rewarding knowledge of the metagame. I believe the common argument of "every mon can tera into anything" is a fallacy. For starters, there are tera types that are numerically used less than others for reasons that inherently have to do with the type itself. Secondly, a tera typing is determined mostly by team composition and hardly lacks logic. If you hold at the back of your head that a certain pokemon will tera into 2 or 3 types because statisticaly it does so, then chances are it will be one of those. There are, of course, tera types that are matchup specific and could be even considered fish or cheese. Nevertheless, such things have always existed in pokemon since the beginning of time so, I very much don't think this is specific to tera but more so on how somebody approaches the game. If you know what tera types are commonly used on certain mons you can account for them and formulate a general game plan in which you can deal with them regardless of their tera type (you can use tera yourself for that as well).

This leads to something else I want to address. I've found that the "negative" aspects of tera are often exaggerated. Not to say that no one is entitled to their opinion but, simplifying tera interactions to mere 50/50s is a vast overstatement. From what I can gather, a lot of arguments behind action on tera seem to rely on this concept but, the nature of what really is a 50/50 is both circumstancial and specific at best and again, it is not something that you will find only in tera interactions but it is an inherent aspect of Pokemon as a whole.

Lastly, I want to say that, the way you think about tera probably has to do more on how you approach the game. Personally, I think tera promotes a deeper understanding of Pokemon fundamentals and rewards players who take the time to learn metagames on a more conscious level. Even if the tera issue were specific to Ubers, it would be too early to do something about it, we are barely 6 weeks into post-home meta and as such it is still unexplored so, personally, I see very little point on addressing it or taking action on it right now.

 

[Fc]

I held off on making a post here because I wanted to be sure I was able to formulate my opinion as best as possible, but I'll try to make it as clear as I can. Also to be clear since it may not have been exactly stated in the OP, the main goal of this thread is to find the best course of action going forward and also to provide discussion that can lead into our tiering surveys, which typically are what precede full tiering action.

Currently, I think terastallization could very easily be argued to both sides of the broken spectrum, and truthfully don't know if the tier would be better off with or without it. When the thread first went up I started writing an anti-tera post and was almost ready to post it, but I thought about it a lot and wasn't sure if what I came up with was my full opinion. From my perspective, tera has a few issues right now. Miraidon already has a super limited pool of walls, and being able to tera through that small list to just beat them outright is quite a strain in game and in the builder. Similarly, Zacian would have fairly concrete answers without tera, but it can bypass a lot of those depending on what its team needs by using sets like tera flying / water for lando, ground for skeledirge / toxapex, or fire for wisp supportceus and other mons like scarf koraidon / skeledirge. Koraidon also doesn't really have answers clicking Choice Band Flare Blitz, but that one takes a ton of recoil and is weather dependent so it's a bit more manageable. On one side, these examples and a bunch of others could be used to say that terastallization is broken, that the power level of ubers is simply too high to allow for it to boost the already high BST pokemon even further. But there's still another side to this argument that I think is completely reasonable as well.

Terastallization allows for some interesting mixups in the tier, and is one of the main ways some of these threats can be dealt with strategically. Tera defensive Arceus forms, for example, can shore up shaky mu's vs things like Koraidon, Miraidon, or Zacian just by picking the right type. When threats are so strong they can OHKO almost everything after setup, being able to give yourself outs in the builder at the cost of burning a valuable resource in game can lead to more unique interactions and thought out gameplans. This point is also where some would argue the broken aspect of tera is, being unable to tell what a pokemon can possibly do and having 50/50's against tera's deciding games. I think both outlooks are valid, but as a builder I think being able to throw tera on defensive mons and Arceus in particular is really big, with others like Skeledirge and Groudon also having handy teras for dealing with pressure. Offensive play is also rewarded more, so you can use powerful Pokemon to outplay your opponent with positioning and smart tera usage. Sometimes this can be a little much like when Miraidon just ignores the only "checks" it has, but also when you use it to chip through a poor matchup it can be rewarding of skillful use and timing.

After looking at both sides a lot and playing / building the tier a ton, I've still found it hard to pick a side completely on the issue, but my preferred course of action would begin with tiering surveys naturally. From there if there's significant support I would support a suspect test either in this metagame, the final DLC 2 metagame, or even both, if it means the playerbase gets enough time and mediums to form and share opinions. Personally, if it came down to it right now I'd probably vote do not ban on tera, but I could be easily convinced of either side and this may change just as time goes by. Prepping can feel like a pain a lot of the time trying to deal with Pokemon like Miraidon, but also being able to react to it in game does feel good as a player in some cases and actually gives more options. Losing to tera sucks but that's the game we play right now, and I think it's a really big part of the tier everyone still has to get used to, so I'd love to see more innovation as well as discussion in weeks going forward, and some tiering action if needed.

 

[Taka]

Just to start off, I feel much less strongly about Tera than I used to. I was previously incredibly anti-Tera and quite vocal about it too. As UPL has gone on though and the post-HOME meta progresses, I'm starting to come around to Tera, and although I'm not entirely in support of it, I see the value it holds and what it does for the metagame. I'm still not in support of any particular side, but I definitely support a suspect test.

Although I'm not a fan of Tera as a whole, I do think it varies in extent depending on the metagame. Tera definitely favors offensive play, and so a metagame must have solid defensive options in order to overcome this preference to offense. During pre-home, it felt incredibly difficult to play around the box legends being able to tear through their incredibly limited (and passive) checks with Tera, but it made sense especially given there were only two real Ubers in the tier anyways. I think Post-HOME has especially made Tera a bit less volatile. Although there are more offensive threats to deal with in the builder, there are a lot more defensive options that we can use to overcome this. Landorus-T, Skeledirge, Ting-Lu, support Arceus formes, Eternatus, and more are common defensive utility Pokemon that can blanket a large portion of the metagame regardless of Tera. Koraidon, Miraidon, and E-Killer are also pretty solid revenge killers / breakers that can usually power through random Tera regardless, and are generally anti-cheese. A lot of these Tera abusers seem to have multiple forms of counterplay regardless. Zacian has issues with a lot of neutral targets like wispceus formes, defensive ogre, defensive lando / dirge, and Scarf Koraidon / Miraidon in particular, but it can power through specific targets with its colorful coverage and Tera options. However, a lot of teams pack neutral targets for it that can force it out / force chip on it. Miraidon and Koraidon are obscenely powerful wallbreakers while using Tera, but they both have their own issues even with Tera (Koraidon's awful longevity and Miraidon's difficulty with Ground/Fairy cores). My point of this is just that we have plenty of defensive options, and it isn't unreasonable to be able to check Tera breakers / abusers with standard defensive cores. I would also say that Tera helps this metagame especially because of how obscenely strong some of the best mons are. There is very little counterplay to Miraidon and Koraidon already, and having the ability to flip those MUs on defensive / offensive Pokemon to take them out is incredibly useful in the builder.

I also do see the other side of the issue, and how difficult it can be to play while making midgrounds to avoid being thrown around by Tera. I think as players, we are definitely getting much more used to sequencing in such a metagame, but it still has its flaws. In particular, the timing of Tera, random Teras that can matchup fish, and obscene Tera breakers that obliterate some defensive counterplay. Tera does make games less consistent, but I'm not 100% convinced this is entirely bad yet, as it gives teams some leeway to play around bad MUs. Ultimately though, I think as the metagame progresses, this opinion may change and offensive cores may become more optimized. Even besides these issues, I think just as a fundamental idea, I'm not a fan of Terastallization and how it shapes the metagame around more offensive builds, even if I generally prefer using offense. However, at least in UPL I can probably count the number of times on my hands that Tera has caused an entirely unplayable MU or something far too skewed in one player's favor. Even if on paper, Tera makes some MUs seem insurmountable, solid teambuilding can be done. It might be a bit more difficult, but the current metagame still seems relatively skill-based and the better player generally comes out on top.

It's still relatively early in this metagame anyways, and I haven't formed a clear opinion yet. I keep rocketing between DNB and Ban, but in this current state I wholeheartedly support a suspect test and potential tours with Tera Preview. Theres definitely a lot more innovation to be done, and I think our current Ubers metagame has a lot of room for exploration both with Tera and without. If I had to make a choice right now, I'd go Do Not Ban, but I urge you all to build a lot more and push the metagame forward so we can have a clearer understanding on this issue.