Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion, Part II [CLOSED FOR DLC]

[Avira]

you mean our tiering system which for the second generation in a row is about to flop hard over itself because we are treating every DLC drop as if it's a new generation

that's slow and doesn't have a transition period, making any progress towards the end of the prior metagame worthless

what you're saying is current tiering is reactionary, while this proposed solution is proactive. we shouldn't sit on our asses waiting for the next meta, and we absolutely 1,000% should be doing things and then asking "if this is unbanned will this make the tier better" or "if this is unbanned will it actually be different" rather than reactionary "drop it again and wait and see"

I think saying that Smogon's tiering is going to flop for the second generation in a row is a gross downplaying of what a wonderful job the OU Council and Finchinator did in Gen 8. Aside from Melmetal and maybe Dragapult, I think the tiering for SS was otherwise perfect.

On another note, I believe Gen 7 OU is often mischaracterized as being broken checks broken, and I think the tier is honestly fine outside of Kartana, Mega Mawile, and Tapu Lele, which I believe should've been banned. ABR's conservative stance around bans is what kept Gen 7 from being even better, but it was far from being a Wild West situation.

 

[JunkoAJ]

you mean our tiering system which for the second generation in a row is about to flop hard over itself because we are treating every DLC drop as if it's a new generation

that's slow and doesn't have a transition period, making any progress towards the end of the prior metagame worthless

what you're saying is current tiering is reactionary, while this proposed solution is proactive. we shouldn't sit on our asses waiting for the next meta, and we absolutely 1,000% should be doing things and then asking "if this is unbanned will this make the tier better" or "if this is unbanned will it actually be different" rather than reactionary "drop it again and wait and see"

The problem with being proactive is that it doesn't give a chance for the meta to settle - you want to ban something in the midst of a chaotic period when it's way harder to unban something than it is to ban it?

Flop for the second generation in a row doesn't make sense when Gen 8 was incredibly balanced by the end DUE to the amount of action that was done by the council.

 

[ant4456]

way harder to unban something than it is to ban it?

that's the point, things that are possibly broken should be guilty before innocent, and have a high standard to be proven innocent

this makes a more stable metagame come forth way faster, and then you can try things out

DUE to the amount of action that was done by the council.

this was after all the DLC
remember when in SWSH DLC1 there was literally just not enough time to even tier it, I mean we even had fucking Urshifu with even less Pokemon to deal with it? The mon everyone knew was broken Day 1?

IMO that's unacceptable, and we're about to probably deal with that type of shit again. DLC1 should have the social expectation from the playerbase of being a good balanced metagame, and quickly.

This is imposible with the standard Smogon tiering approach which works when you have literal years to probe the metagame and see what is being an issue. Not when the metagame ends in 3 months.

 

[Bakugames]

i think if anything would """""doom""""" (the dlc2 landscape is gonna be so different that the shittyness of predlc metas is almost irrelevant in the long term) gen 9 is how the polarizing tera is.
first, you have the issue that theres always a lot of people that want action, but not enough to get a full ban. this means tera risks at being in a loop where people want it suspected, it doesnt get banned so they just keep asking and surveys back up another suspect, but it doesn't get banned etc etc. I don't agree with permanent tiering decisions, the argument that a metagame shifts and changes how broken something is is correct, but we have to be honest that tera is such a big presence a lot of people will just redo tera suspects until it gets banned, because a tera metagame is not seen as a metagame worth tiering.

this affects the banning and suspecting of mons, both in the time taken to a tera suspect but also that people arent interested in banning mons as long as tera is around.

so i think its a vicious cycle of lots of people want action on tera > tera suspect happens in the future, so people prefer to focus on that than other metagame changes > tera doesnt get banned, status quo resumes > because the status quo resumes, lots of people want action on tera

 

[1LDK]

you mean

Is nobody gonna congratulate ant for being the post 1000th on this thread? Here bro, a blobpex for you

Anyway, since this thing is going to be voted on, you guys can debate about how the vote system should work, which is something many people forget and instead go straight up to argue, idk if you guys want the tiering vote again or maybe just 2 sides or whatever

As for me, like I said a long time ago, I agree with Amaranths idea which goes likes this (if im understanding this correctly of course)

Would you rather full ban or no action?
Would you rather tera blast ban or no action?
Would you rather team preview or no action?
Would you rather (insert another idea you may have) or no action?

Every option has a fair chance against no action, whatever wins, should be decisive in theory, whatever is your instance, I think we can all agree that no one wants to do this again

If it is possible (and as a fun side note), discussing the possible song for the suspect could also be a great idea, I have a lot of ideas, ill probably show them later, and by later I mean in like 3 months lmao

 

[FCKNfuego]

It's a nonstarter, which is why it's not being discussed. Suspect tests are not conducted by banning the thing being suspected, because the question is not, "Would the meta be 'better' without it?" That question is completely irrelevant to tiering policy. The question is, "Is this thing being suspected incompatible with a healthy, competitive tier?"

Not even sure what part you're referring to is a nonstarter....and you're missing the point.

What I suggested isn't a standard "suspect test" to begin with. The purpose of the kind of test suggested would be to help inform decision making going forward as it's clear we're at an impasse and everyone is just theorymoning about solutions with no real factual evidence that these claims that are being made would even fix the metagame.

Suspect tests were initially created to help evaluate a suspects potential in a metagame to determine whether that suspect was too strong for the metagame or not. The idea that the thing being suspected should not be removed from the metagame for testing is entirely incorrect and has already been done in the past.

The purpose of testing was and should always be to get a better more informed opinion backed by actual playing.

For example the Gambit suspect should have removed Gambit from the tier to allow participants to see what the tier looks like in a Gambit less meta before anything is voted on.

that's the point, things that are possibly broken should be guilty before innocent, and have a high standard to be proven innocent

this makes a more stable metagame come forth way faster, and then you can try things out

The problem with this is that people simply don't always agree on what is "broken" so we don't really have a standard of innocence to compare that to.

 

[Stellar Flares]

Terastallization has been a major topic players discussed about since Gen 9, but there's one suggestion I have not seen submitted to solve issues around it :

Why wouldn't we ban the use of Terastallization on specific Pokemon through Suspect Tests ?

For exemple, forbidding Kingambit to Terastallize would allow players to use it for its defensive profile as a Ghost-Attacks absorber while balancing the Pokemon knowing you can still OHKO it with Fighting moves.
This would also be an interesting option for Volcarona for exemple.

This solution is applicable in the Scarlet and Violet games without breaking any mechanics.

I would like to know what you think about this idea, which comes from a friend in the French community known as Welliou.

 

[Link loyan]

Terastallization has been a major topic players discussed about since Gen 9, but there's one suggestion I have not seen submitted to solve issues around it :

Why wouldn't we ban the use of Terastallization on specific Pokemon through Suspect Tests ?

For exemple, forbidding Kingambit to Terastallize would allow players to use it for its defensive profile as a Ghost-Attacks absorber while balancing the Pokemon knowing you can still OHKO it with Fighting moves.
This would also be an interesting option for Volcarona for exemple.

This solution is applicable in the Scarlet and Violet games without breaking any mechanics.

I would like to know what you think about this idea, which comes from a friend in the French community known as Welliou.

That was discussed a few times, in the end its just the thought of: "Well if we can ban terastralization on certain pokemon, maybe we can ban something like multiscale from lugia and it would be fine in ou? and while we are there, ban flutter mane from using a booster energy and shadow ball, ban jet punch on palafin, also... is calyrex shadow without any ghost moves really broken? and arceus at level 80? Hell, why stop there, make it so dialga can be used in ou but either has to hold no item or use no stab moves at all

Its a nice thought but it is even more in a kind of complex ban territory than the "you have to have Item X on your pokemon to be able to tera" since tera is a similar case to z-moves or megas which both held that restriction and as soon as we start complex-banning stuff everything goes down the drain (see gen 5 OU)

 

[658Greninja]

Terastallization has been a major topic players discussed about since Gen 9, but there's one suggestion I have not seen submitted to solve issues around it :

Why wouldn't we ban the use of Terastallization on specific Pokemon through Suspect Tests ?

This idea was proposed when Dynamax was still in SS OU, it was even implemented in SS Ubers, but it ultimately didn’t work out. Cause there was simply too many Pokemon that were broken with it, you might as well just ban the Pokemon or the mechanic at that point. You can make anything balanced by removing anything that might make them broken. We unban Kyogre tomorrow, but it can’t use Water STAB or Tera Water Blast. Drop Miraidon into LC but it can’t use any attacking moves. How bout we allow Naga into the tier, but it can’t use Nasty Plot or Fire Type coverage? See how silly this sounds?

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Is nobody gonna congratulate ant for being the post 1000th on this thread? Here bro, a blobpex for you

Anyway, since this thing is going to be voted on, you guys can debate about how the vote system should work, which is something many people forget and instead go straight up to argue, idk if you guys want the tiering vote again or maybe just 2 sides or whatever

As for me, like I said a long time ago, I agree with Amaranths idea which goes likes this (if im understanding this correctly of course)

Would you rather full ban or no action?
Would you rather tera blast ban or no action?
Would you rather team preview or no action?
Would you rather (insert another idea you may have) or no action?

Every option has a fair chance against no action, whatever wins, should be decisive in theory, whatever is your instance, I think we can all agree that no one wants to do this again

If it is possible (and as a fun side note), discussing the possible song for the suspect could also be a great idea, I have a lot of ideas, ill probably show them later, and by later I mean in like 3 months lmao

Pretty good format overall but I believe phrasing could be simpler and a little different and the phrasing here definitely influences results. I believe a better phrasing would be "should terastalization be fully banned?" Rather than "would you rather full ban than no action" - assuming that 60% full ban on that question means full ban is implemented, this phrasing overrepresents full ban, and could lead people to vote for a full ban who don't particularly want a full ban. For example, I would certainly rather see a full ban over no action at all, but I'm not certain full ban should be implemented over a restriction (or multiple.) I still think the best way is:

Should Tera Blast be banned? Yes/No
Should Tera Types be visible at Team Preview? Yes/No
Should Terastalization be fully banned? Yes/No

That way either or both restrictions can happen, but only if people believe they specifically will improve the game, and if the much more radical and less popular full ban gets its 60%, then that's that.

Terastallization has been a major topic players discussed about since Gen 9, but there's one suggestion I have not seen submitted to solve issues around it :

Why wouldn't we ban the use of Terastallization on specific Pokemon through Suspect Tests ?

For exemple, forbidding Kingambit to Terastallize would allow players to use it for its defensive profile as a Ghost-Attacks absorber while balancing the Pokemon knowing you can still OHKO it with Fighting moves.
This would also be an interesting option for Volcarona for exemple.

This solution is applicable in the Scarlet and Violet games without breaking any mechanics.

I would like to know what you think about this idea, which comes from a friend in the French community known as Welliou.

Enough people suggested banning just Supreme Overlord in the Kingambit thread. You want to enable that line of thinking even more? You want to have to legitimately weigh "what if we just throw a dart at a board and choose just one part of the Pokémon to ban" with every single tiering decision? Why even keep it as banning certain Pokémon from Terastalizing, why not go further: Ban Kingambit from Terastalizing into just Fairy or Flying. Let's vote on each type for every Pokémon in the game. And then, for every tier, vote on what moves each Pokémon can and can't use. Why not?

That reminds me, the vote itself should NOT have a write in option. Waste of a vote, what would people even write in beyond suggestions like this? And what's the value of the suggestion getting one vote? By vote time the window to suggest a new restriction will have definitely closed.

 

[kosecant]

Enough people suggested banning just Supreme Overlord in the Kingambit thread. You want to enable that line of thinking even more? You want to have to legitimately weigh "what if we just throw a dart at a board and choose just one part of the Pokémon to ban" with every single tiering decision? Why even keep it as banning certain Pokémon from Terastalizing, why not go further: Ban Kingambit from Terastalizing into just Fairy or Flying. Let's vote on each type for every Pokémon in the game. And then, for every tier, vote on what moves each Pokémon can and can't use. Why not?

I believe this line of thinking comes from the kind of arbitrary standard for banning things like abilities and moves, and the discontent from decisions like banning houndstone over last respects. Houndstone is 100% a shitmon without last respects, but the highly rigid policy of banning things that aren’t Pokémon Leads to houndstone getting banned when it’s blatantly obvious that the move was the only thing remotely broken about it. I just think that game freak’s new design philosophy is putting a lot of strain on policies that were introduced over a decade ago, and that some tweaks need to be made

 

[G-Luke]

I believe this line of thinking comes from the kind of arbitrary standard for banning things like abilities and moves, and the discontent from decisions like banning houndstone over last respects. Houndstone is 100% a shitmon without last respects, but the highly rigid policy of banning things that aren’t Pokémon Leads to houndstone getting banned when it’s blatantly obvious that the move was the only thing remotely broken about it. I just think that game freak’s new design philosophy is putting a lot of strain on policies that were introduced over a decade ago, and that some tweaks need to be made

I'm going to be real here. What would OU actually gain from not banning Houndstone? I never understood why people were so hung up on a shitmon destined for PU and thats with Tera on the table. All of these ring around the rosies for barely anything. Almost none of the arguments ever made for mons like this ever involve Pokemon that would make a lasting impact on OU if the "problematic elements" were banned instead of the mon doing the problematic thing.

 

[Srn]

I think the old tiering philosophy made sense for a long time, but now we are getting moves like Last Respects, Population Bomb, and Salt Cure which are absurdly strong but limited to 1-2 pokemon families. In the future, we could be more lenient about banning clearly stupid moves on pokemon which would otherwise be totally fine without them. I accept that Houndstone had to be banned until we got multiple Last Respects users, but I would've also been fine with banning Last Respects even with Houndstone as its only user because I don't think we needed any evidence that Last Respects was the real problem.

However, I do not support unleashing complex bans such as "Kingambit cannot Tera" "Volcarona cannot Tera" etc. Please sack up and address the real issue or embrace your shitshow.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I think the old tiering philosophy made sense for a long time, but now we are getting moves like Last Respects, Population Bomb, and Salt Cure which are absurdly strong but limited to 1-2 pokemon families. In the future, we could be more lenient about banning clearly stupid moves on pokemon which would otherwise be totally fine without them. I accept that Houndstone had to banned until we got multiple Last Respects users, but I would've also been fine with banning Last Respects even with Houndstone as its only user because I don't think we needed any evidence that Last Respects was the real problem.

However, I do not support unleashing complex bans such as "Kingambit cannot Tera" "Volcarona cannot Tera" etc. Please sack up and address the real issue or embrace your shitshow.

Just want to say I fully agree with this - if Orthworm never got Shed Tail then Cyclizar may still be banned even though it's a very cool Pokemon to use in UU, just because of how the old tiering philosophy works. It's unnecessary at this point and pretty archaic and draconian as a whole to maintain that. Many times in the past we've changed tiering philosophy as to how we approach different situations, and this is a perfect example of something that, quite frankly, is time to go in the right direction. If GF unleashes a super stupid move like Auto-KO-Extremus on a cool new pokemon, and only that pokemon gets it, it makes perfect sense to just ban the move. It's not THAT complex of a ban, and we do complex bans anyways from time to time and the tiering philosophy does not prohibit it, just discourages it, but this should not be discouraged in these instances.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

That was discussed a few times, in the end its just the thought of: "Well if we can ban terastralization on certain pokemon, maybe we can ban something like multiscale from lugia and it would be fine in ou? and while we are there, ban flutter mane from using a booster energy and shadow ball, ban jet punch on palafin, also... is calyrex shadow without any ghost moves really broken? and arceus at level 80? Hell, why stop there, make it so dialga can be used in ou but either has to hold no item or use no stab moves at all

see, this slippery-slope argument only works if you don't actually think about it. tera is a universally accessible mechanic. it's manifestly different than abilities, moves, and items, and even mechanics like z-moves and megas, so creating a tera banlist wouldn't open some spooky scary floodgates to a host of complex bans. basically every om has some sort of restriction-list without any problems. this is a disingenuous argument. the real reason we shouldn't have a tera banlist is that it might affect usage of tera-reliant things to the point where they'd drop and fuck up other tiers

 

[ianlazerbeem]

I believe this line of thinking comes from the kind of arbitrary standard for banning things like abilities and moves, and the discontent from decisions like banning houndstone over last respects. Houndstone is 100% a shitmon without last respects, but the highly rigid policy of banning things that aren’t Pokémon Leads to houndstone getting banned when it’s blatantly obvious that the move was the only thing remotely broken about it. I just think that game freak’s new design philosophy is putting a lot of strain on policies that were introduced over a decade ago, and that some tweaks need to be made

Except it's not arbitrary, it's for the players' sake, the tiering contributors' sake, and the council's sake:

The Players - is it enjoyable for ANYONE to memorize a mile long list of what Pokémon are allowed to use their unique moves or abilities and which ones aren't? Plus what combinations of abilities are allowed to exist? Plus which Pokémon are and aren't allowed to run certain moves? We lived through this already; though I didn't get legitimately into competitve until Gen 9, I dabbled a bit as a kid in gen 4 and 6. Notice the absence of 5 - while reading the rules, I came across a mile long list, "Swift Swim may not be used on teams that have Drizzle, Damp Rock is banned on Pokémon with drizzle, only one Pokémon with Baton Pass may have a boosting move..." and said "fuck that, I'm not learning all that." This isn't a "decade old policy" it's a policy that came about a decade ago in response to what was the status quo, the "idea" you're suggesting, which frankly sucked.

Tiering Contributors - how does one pin down the exact problem of a Pokémon that should be removed? Take Kingambit for example. "I didn't vote Ban on Kingambit because I believe Supreme Overlord is the problem." "I didn't vote Ban on Kingambit because Tera + Swords Dance is the problem." "Kingambit would be balanced without Kowtow Cleave, because then it wouldn't have a Dark type stab it could use with no consequences" - who is right? How does any tiering action happen if 60% of players have to agree what the specific problematic part of a Pokémon is, and vote to get rid of it specifically?

The Council - with this in mind, how does the council decide what part of a Pokémon to suspect? And if no ban threshold is reached, why not try suspecting another part? This Kingambit suspect was a matter (relatively) settled: the players have decided Kingambit is ok in OU. If your idea was tiering policy, the "no ban" verdict would swiftly be followed by a "Tera Fairy Kingambit" suspect, a Supreme Overlord suspect, a Swords Dance on Kingambit suspect, we're looking at 2 months here to determine the Kingambit problem. Multiply this by every Mon that's banned and well we have the world's slowest tiering process and a council that can stop at nothing if they don't like a Mon's presence in the tier. Imagine if Volcarona was a suspect under this policy? How would the council decide what Tera Type to suspect, what combination of moves and teammates to suspect, etc. There's no reason they should have to deal with all that.

Why did Houndstone NEED to be a part of the game before HOME? Why even bring it up since it's not banned now? There's a much stronger case for Magearna being allowed in OU but not allowed to hold Choice Specs or use Stored Power; it was actually a very nice defensive presence in the tier that compressed roles really well and checked a lot of very problematic Pokémon with its amazing defensive and offensive profile. Without those 2 problem points it could be very balanced in today's metagame, and even prevent other bans with its presence. But when the council banned it, that was a matter settled and the tier was able to move on. Imagine if we spent 2+ months isolating the problem and finding what version of Magearna is ok before even addressing the other Pokémon like Chien Pao

 

[Sultan]

see, this slippery-slope argument only works if you don't actually think about it. tera is a universally accessible mechanic. it's manifestly different than abilities, moves, and items, and even mechanics like z-moves and megas, so creating a tera banlist wouldn't open some spooky scary floodgates to a host of complex bans. basically every om has some sort of restriction-list without any problems. this is a disingenuous argument. the real reason we shouldn't have a tera banlist is that it might affect usage of tera-reliant things to the point where they'd drop and fuck up other tiers

By that logic, a Tera banlist would be more comparable to "allow Palafin but it can only run three moves" or "allow Chien-Pao but it can't hold an item". What makes "allow Regieleki but it can't Tera" different from these?

Of course, there's the fact that it's never really clear that Tera is the only thing that makes a mon broken. Even with Volcarona, HDB removes its biggest weakness, Blissey and Tyranitar have shot down the tiers, and Heatran and Toxapex aren't the A+/S-rank threats they once were. While Tera was certainly the biggest factor in why Volcarona is banned, I'd argue that even without Tera, this would still be Volc's best generation. I'll just say that, if Spectrier was released today, people would be arguing that the problem with it is Tera.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

Is nobody gonna congratulate ant for being the post 1000th on this thread? Here bro, a blobpex for you

Anyway, since this thing is going to be voted on, you guys can debate about how the vote system should work, which is something many people forget and instead go straight up to argue, idk if you guys want the tiering vote again or maybe just 2 sides or whatever

As for me, like I said a long time ago, I agree with Amaranths idea which goes likes this (if im understanding this correctly of course)

Would you rather full ban or no action?
Would you rather tera blast ban or no action?
Would you rather team preview or no action?
Would you rather (insert another idea you may have) or no action?

Every option has a fair chance against no action, whatever wins, should be decisive in theory, whatever is your instance, I think we can all agree that no one wants to do this again

If it is possible (and as a fun side note), discussing the possible song for the suspect could also be a great idea, I have a lot of ideas, ill probably show them later, and by later I mean in like 3 months lmao

Alright I think we've had the complex ban discussion enough in this thread. I also want to point out 1LDK is a known anti tera ban or restriction player and is well aware the first half of this thread was about how the vote should be conducted, and would love for this thread to be about that rather than the big question I suggest we pivot to:

What do you DISLIKE about Terastalization? Why do you believe it should be changed or removed?

Personally I cannot stand how easily it is able to create combinations of Pokémon and types that, once the one check/counter is down, the other player is in a position where the game is over, no matter how early in the game they are or how the game was played beforehand, are unwinnable for the receiving end. The unfortunate fact is, Through Tera Blast the turn this happens can also be the turn the counter is eliminated, and through Tera type not being revealed, having to guess exactly which combination can be pretty risky. Baxcalibur and Kingambit are the main abusers of this strategy, but most offensive Pokémon can do it pretty easily, and Bax and Gambit are the main ones now because the ones before got banned in hopes it would fix the problem. But here we are. Tera also, on the defensive side, can enable these unfortunate combinations, where a defensive Pokémon is simply unwallable without the right matchup - the oft spoken about Tera Electric Garg is the most recent example. The meta is becoming a revolving door of the new Tera type of the week countering the new Tera type of the week just enabling these problematic interactions. Tera also brings offensive threats, any offensive threat, to unreasonable levels, especially with Tera Blast.

Discuss what the 30% does not want to hear. What do YOU hate about Tera?

 

[Ehmcee]

I think limiting Tera to certain users is an extremely efficient measure, while currently going somewhat against Tiering policy, I think it can solve certain issues with how Tera currently affects the metagame.

A tera clause stating "the following pokemon cannot tera" is nowhere close to being in the territory of ridiculous complex bans, is simple to understand and is a way to target the direct measure that makes certain pokemon broken (which wouldn't be otherwise).

To say this has been tried with Dynamax is ridiculous, because we all know Dynamax was 5x as broken as Terastalisation. There is one single attributable mechanic that pushes multiple pokemon over the edge, or simply breaks them by virtue of having additional coverage or a change in type.

I understand that Smogon typically tries to steer clear of complex bans, and I personally agree with it. I do think however that Terastalyzation is worthy of making an exception, this is a mechanic that a dominant portion of the playerbase wants to keep in some way.

 

[1LDK]

and is well aware the first half of this thread was about how the vote should be conducted, and would love for this thread to be about that rather than the big question I suggest we pivot to:

I actually was not aware, like at all, because I immediately put "unwatch" this thread every time after I do a post, I'm just not interested in this thread, and I'm saving most of my arguments and stories and shit for when the real suspect comes, my first post was in page 21, the second one was in page 34, and my third and fourth post are in this page

and after writing this reply I'm clicking unread again so uh, yeah

What do you DISLIKE about Terastalization? Why do you believe it should be changed or removed?

Okay. If there's something I can say that is bad about tera, it is probably tera blast, which has been considered more and more problematic because it adds coverage, Earth Power Volcarona is real now, so uh yeah (even tho I personally don't find volc broken) but I would be lying if I say that I don't have fun with it (haha tera blast grass heatran goes brrrr)

I just like the mechanic, and I have come to accept it, embrace it, and adapt in every way I can to this new environment, I can't say I'm always successful, (because I'm not) but I don't think I have fared that bad this gen

 

[Komodo_Drogo]

Just ban the mechanic tbh, the majority of people have some kind of issue with it, and this is before we even know how the new addition to it is supposed to work. Even if it's not the same issue, we shouldn't be trying to pick and choose what to change about it in the first place, that's not the job of the community or suspects. I get it's a mechanic and it needs special consideration in some form but this is getting to the point of being ridiculous. Even if it doesn't get banned, that's okay, better than trying to balance it and people keep throwing out the same faulty ideas, or even trying to add multiple restrictions just to make it bearable.

 

[Ehmcee]

Aight we banning who can hold a item

I think this is pretty disingenuous, Tiering for the entirety of SV is heavily predicated on a Pokemon's Viability, as well as their usage of Tera. Tera typically tends to be the thing that pushes a Pokemon over the edge.

Voting for if a Pokemon is broken is pretty hard this generation, because you explicitly have to decide, "Is this Pokemon broken with Tera" when considering it. Many Pokemon, while still being good would be manageable without it. This has been a noticeable complaint with the current Kingambit suspect, many users felt conflicted because they thought the mon itself is good in the current metagame without tera, but find it overbearing with tera, in face of an incoming possible Tera Suspect, multiple decided to keep it unbanned, even if they think it is broken with Tera.

- No item made Regieleki broken, it was Tera

- No item made Espathra broken, it was Tera

- Tera definitely brought Chien-Pao over the edge, there is a much larger debate towards it's brokenness without it

- Tera definitely brought Volcarona over the edge, Changing it's weaknesses at will made it extremely hard to stop a sweep, as well as the added coverage of Tera Blast beating dedicated checks.

- While certainly contentious, Tera definitely brought Annihilape over the edge, Being unable to burn it with a Fire Tera or simply gaining a crazy defensive typing in fairy made it's ability to sweep with Bulk Up + Rage Fist insane. This is the most debatable one, because obviously rage fist is a crazy stupid move, but I think the meta has a lot of tools to reliably switch into it, or revenge kill it if it didn't have access to Tera.

Examples

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

- (Encore or Flying stab)

-

-

Anyways, banning tera on specific pokemon is a lot less arbitrary than banning items on specific pokemon, banning moves on specific pokemon, or running only three moves (???). It would be a simple solution in adding a Tera banlist, could apply to multiple Pokemon and is not complicated to add to the ruleset.

I think Tera is a wonderful mechanic, it adds a ton of depth to OU and has genuinely made gen 9 one of the most fun and most creative generations in a while, however it can be isolated as being the main reason multiple pokemon get banned. I think keeping a black and white ban/no ban option is doing a disservice to a ton of other directions for this tier, there is competitive merit to keeping Tera, but sometimes tera breaks pokemon.

 

[Karxrida]

I believe this line of thinking comes from the kind of arbitrary standard for banning things like abilities and moves, and the discontent from decisions like banning houndstone over last respects. Houndstone is 100% a shitmon without last respects, but the highly rigid policy of banning things that aren’t Pokémon Leads to houndstone getting banned when it’s blatantly obvious that the move was the only thing remotely broken about it. I just think that game freak’s new design philosophy is putting a lot of strain on policies that were introduced over a decade ago, and that some tweaks need to be made

I still think Houndstone wasn't even that problematic with Last Respects (absolutely needed significant amount of team dead plus Sand to be a threat, and both Sand Stream users are ass), but eh.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

By that logic, a Tera banlist would be more comparable to "allow Palafin but it can only run three moves" or "allow Chien-Pao but it can't hold an item". What makes "allow Regieleki but it can't Tera" different from these?

the thing that makes it different is that those other ones sound really fucking stupid when you say them out loud (because they are), as opposed to the concept of "certain pokemon can't use the universal mechanic", which does have working precedent outside of ou—mix and mega, for example, has a list of mons that aren't allowed to mega evolve, and no one seems to have a problem with that over there because it works

 

[Sultan]

- No item made Regieleki broken, it was Tera

I won't argue with you there, although it would be more accurate to say Tera Blast specifically made it broken

- No item made Espathra broken, it was Tera

Was it really Tera, and not say Speed Boost or Stored Power? Banning Tera would increase the offensive counterplay a bit, but defensive counterplay would still be very limited as it can still run Fairy coverage, not to mention it can still be just as much of a matchup fish with moves like Roost and Substitute.

- Tera definitely brought Chien-Pao over the edge, there is a much larger debate towards it's brokenness without it

You're talking about a Pokémon with an absurdly high (effective) attack stat and with a very effective STAB combo, with anything that could remotely try to switch up to it (Zama-C, Magearna) being banned or, in the case of Dondozo, still being exploitable. Obviously it appreciates Tera, but if Lando-I were dropped down here, it would appreciate Tera too.

- Tera definitely brought Volcarona over the edge, Changing it's weaknesses at will made it extremely hard to stop a sweep, as well as the added coverage of Tera Blast beating dedicated checks.

Volc is probably the second most likely Pokémon to be broken due to Tera, but you can't ignore how all of its "counters" received major nerfs this generation and that Volc was always a bit of a matchup fish anyway.

- While certainly contentious, Tera definitely brought Annihilape over the edge, Being unable to burn it with a Fire Tera or simply gaining a crazy defensive typing in fairy made it's ability to sweep with Bulk Up + Rage Fist insane. This is the most debatable one, because obviously rage fist is a crazy stupid move, but I think the meta has a lot of tools to reliably switch into it, or revenge kill it if it didn't have access to Tera.

Annihilape was banned specifically due to its matchup with bulky teams; HO never really had much difficulty facing it. And I don't see how a Tera ban is supposed to help with that matter, at best they would just be relying on a Flame Body proc to deal with it.

You can't just say "Tera made X broken" like it's the most obvious thing in the world as most of these Pokémon weren't tested in a no-Tera environment. Regieleki is the only real exception, since if anything it was nerfed from last gen but coverage against grounds clearly put it over the edge. But for the others, we have Pokémon that at best would just be teetering over the edge of brokenness and at worst would be just as broken as before if not moreso.