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

[Just A Shroom God]

View attachment 545462
the best thing you can do for our position right now is to just stop. you're making us look bad

That was a silly example to show the extremes this could be taken to, but what about something like Tera Dark CP (hehe), where it's really debatable whether Tera is the problem or the pokemon is the problem? With Tera Dark, it can break past Dozo and generally do more damage, but without it it's still got 135* speed and 175 attack. Do we want to go through a suspect test for Tera for it, fail, find out the pokemon is still broken, and then go through with ANOTHER suspect test? Do we want to do this with every single pokemon that Tera could be argued to have broken?

aight bet
mons that should be allowed in ou but not allowed to tera:

• regieleki
• volcarona
• iron valiant
• baxcalibur
• possibly enamorus

mons that should just be/stay banned:

• kingambit
• chien-pao
• espathra
• annihilape
• both urshifu forms
• palafin, chi-yu, and all of the other obviously broken bullshit

this would vastly improve the meta if implemented

The point is some of these are VERY debatable, and you end up with even more a divided playerbase than we have now over just banning Tera once and for all.

 

[Bakugames]

Love me a goofy haha too but I think if all you can contribute to a convo is making fun of it just drop one post for ur haha reacts and move on. Do one joke per 5 pages instead

My issue with banning specific mons teras is the accessibility of the tier. I think its important for the ruleset of the most important tier to be accessible for a new player, at least as much as we can. Having specific tera bans is very confusing and not intuitive, at least not with how the current showdown ui and smogon rules are laid down

also stop abbreviating chien pao as cp its not funny you guys are just cringe

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

That was a silly example to show the extremes this could be taken to, but what about something like Tera Dark CP (hehe), where it's really debatable whether Tera is the problem or the pokemon is the problem? With Tera Dark, it can break past Dozo and generally do more damage, but without it it's still got 175 speed and attack. Do we want to go through a suspect test for Tera for it, fail, find out the pokemon is still broken, and then go through with ANOTHER suspect test? Do we want to do this with every single pokemon that Tera could be argued to have broken?


The point is some of these are VERY debatable, and you end up with even more a divided playerbase than we have now over just banning Tera once and for all.

Love me a goofy haha too but I think if all you can contribute to a convo is making fun of it just drop one post for ur haha reacts and move on. Do one joke per 5 pages instead

My issue with banning specific mons teras is the accessibility of the tier. I think its important for the ruleset of the most important tier to be accessible for a new player, at least as much as we can. Having specific tera bans is very confusing and not intuitive, at least not with how the current showdown ui and smogon rules are laid down

also stop abbreviating chien pao as cp its not funny you guys are just cringe

see, these are actual arguments against the concept that work. inefficiency. inaccessibility to new players. the divisiveness of it. this is what i was looking for. i have no idea why i had to wring it out of people like this

 

[ianlazerbeem]

aight bet
mons that should be allowed in ou but not allowed to tera:

• regieleki
• volcarona
• iron valiant
• baxcalibur
• possibly enamorus

mons that should just be/stay banned:

• kingambit
• chien-pao
• espathra
• annihilape
• both urshifu forms
• palafin, chi-yu, and all of the other obviously broken bullshit

this would vastly improve the meta if implemented

100% arbitrary, chosen by dart board. No Kingambit and Espathra even without Tera? Enamorus? This meta you're proposing will be dominated by Tera Dragapult and Tera Booster/3 attacks Tusk, and if not them then whatever the strongest thing allowed to Tera is. This is a joke. This suggestion is not real

see, these are actual arguments against the concept that work. inefficiency. inaccessibility to new players. the divisiveness of it. this is what i was looking for. i have no idea why i had to wring it out of people like this

have you tried NOT clogging up this thread by arguing for ideas you know are very flawed? Are you a 30%er intentionally trying to prevent legitimate discussion in this thread?

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

100% arbitrary, chosen by dart board. No Kingambit and Espathra even without Tera? Enamorus? This meta you're proposing will be dominated by Tera Dragapult and Tera Booster/3 attacks Tusk, and if not them then whatever the strongest thing allowed to Tera is. This is a joke. This suggestion is not real

i actually did totally forget about dragapult and would have put it on the list if i'd remembered, so thanks for reminding me. i think gambit and espathra are way too easy to turn into bullshit setup wincons even without tera, and supreme overlord is uncompetitive because it rewards playing badly and punishes playing well. great tusk will dominate the meta no matter what happens, just by its nature

have you tried NOT clogging up this thread by arguing for ideas you know are very flawed? Are you a 30%er intentionally trying to prevent legitimate discussion in this thread?

when i know an idea is flawed but i can't craft a convincing argument to refute it, i argue for it. people naturally hate me, so they'll work really hard to defeat any position they think i support, and if i can cut through the storm of venom people spit at me whenever i post anything i'll eventually get the refutation i'm looking for

 

[ianlazerbeem]

i actually did totally forget about dragapult and would have put it on the list if i'd remembered, so thanks for reminding me. i think gambit and espathra are way too easy to turn into bullshit setup wincons even without tera, and supreme overlord is uncompetitive because it rewards playing badly and punishes playing well. great tusk will dominate the meta no matter what happens, just by its nature

that's all very interesting. What do you believe is problematic or uncompetitive about Tera and why do you believe it should be changed or removed?

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

that's all very interesting. What do you believe is problematic or uncompetitive about Tera and why do you believe it should be changed or removed?

i think the main problematic element is the unpredictability—even with extensive meta knowledge, you can still be completely blindsided by a surprise tera type and that free turn your opponent gets can cost you the game. i think tera preview alleviates this issue by reducing the probability space to "tera or no tera" instead of "tera or tera normal or tera fire or etc", but everyone else seems to despise the idea now. i also think that several mons are broken in large part (or entirely) because of their ability to abuse tera, but i believe the mechanic itself is worth keeping because it makes the meta a lot more diverse by giving lower-tier mons niches they would never otherwise have (for example, galarian articuno), so i would rather ban the mons than the mechanic (my phone keeps trying to autocorrect "mechanic" to the ‍mechanic emoji, why is that even a thing)

 

[JunkoAJ]

see, these are actual arguments against the concept that work. inefficiency. inaccessibility to new players. the divisiveness of it. this is what i was looking for. i have no idea why i had to wring it out of people like this

You know the discussion about complex bans is inherently related to it being unintuitive and inaccessible for newer players right?

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

You know the discussion about complex bans is inherently related to it being unintuitive and inaccessible for newer players right?

no one ever actually says that, though. in fact, this is the first time on this forum, including in official tiering policy, that i've seen someone actually explain why complex bans are bad besides "they are complex bans"

 

[Biannual Run]

I want to take a look at one additional reason why we don’t use complex bans - they often don’t actually accomplish the desired results.

We tried to limit weather in Gen 5 OU by restricting combinations of abilities. It is looked back upon as something that we should not have done, because it didn’t solve the problem in the metagame.

We tried to restrict the number of Pokémon that could use the move “Baton Pass.” It is looked back upon as something we should not have done, because it didn’t solve the problem in the metagame.

We tried in Gen 8 Ubers to restrict which Pokémon could Dynamax. It is looked back upon as something we shouldn’t have done, because it didn’t solve the problem in the metagame.

Complex bans don’t work. If we try to apply this to the current metagame, and write rules like “Regieleki should not be able to Tera,” we need to seriously reevaluate what we are trying to do: either Regieleki is too powerful in the current ruleset (in which case tiering action is needed), or that the current ruleset is creating an environment that is not hospitable to a good metagame (in which case, we should look at the ruleset).

Generally, if you were to do a complex ban, one of these would remain unresolved - people either find a way to make this Pokémon work outside of that strategy, or they will deviate to a different strategy that abuses the same unhealthy mechanic. For the former, it would have just made sense to ban the Pokémon. For the latter, restricting the Pokémon doesn’t actually accomplish much, and the council will be playing a game of whack-a-mole to try to add more complex bans. (“Let’s suspect Tera on Bax! Let’s suspect Tera on Valiant! Let’s suspect Tera on Moon! Oh wait, Gambit was broken even without Tera - let’s do another test on it to ban it for real!”) If this happens, the meta will be slower to approach stability, and there is no guarantee that the end result will be any better of a metagame than had we just either banned the Pokémon or changed the rules.

You can hear arguments that complex bans are not worth the overhead cost - accessibility, suspect timing, etc. - but I argue that, even accounting for these costs, the benefits just aren’t there. Do we really think that a metagame where Gambit, Volcarona, Espathra, and the like are legal but can’t Tera and everything else can is actually going to be a better metagame than if we just do something about the Pokémon or do something about Tera? Maybe it might be better than the status quo, but I don’t see the reasons why this route would make any sense when there are other clear paths to take.

 

[ant4456]

It is looked back upon as something we should not have done, because it didn’t solve the problem in the metagame.

this is completely metagame dependent

complex bans on baton pass have worked in the past in some tiers and in others not, and in the tiers where it has worked? the only controversy is really "well complex bans suck lol!" rather than anything needing to change

drypass bringing more pivoting to some tiers has been a blessing. in general, baton pass isn't even applicable here because baton pass complex bans aren't "x pokemon cannot use baton pass", it's generally something like drypass, or combinations of moves.

We tried in Gen 8 Ubers to restrict which Pokémon could Dynamax.

this is a complex ban that is appropriate to compare this suggestion to, because it is also very arbitrary and only serves to preserve an uncompetitive unhealthy mechanic

We tried to limit weather in Gen 5 OU by restricting combinations of abilities

this wasn't bad because complex bans by their nature can't solve issues, but because these changes widely had no benefit in general, such as the Sand Rush + Sand Stream ban not actually being a thing other than to nerf something, that ultimately is arguably not healthy (the weather war, permanent weather with other abilities to boost effects with it).

something like keeping BP can actually be a massive benefit to a metagame like Gen 3 OU, bringing safe pivoting to a lot of key Pokemon, and has not been seriously seen as broken ever since complex bans.

Complex bans don’t work

complex bans do work if they're good and done intelligently

if your argument against "Tera Ban on Specific Pokemon" is just a stupid old "complex ban = bad", honestly I don't think you are the right person to argue against it

it's bad because you have to keep an ever updating list of what Pokemon can tera and which can't, and it's only trying to nerf something to preserve other mechanics that are very easily argued to be unhealthy

the end

 

[awyp]

Okay I haven't posted in minute but I have some thoughts and I want to put a disclaimer that the council is not at fault because DLC is coming out in 3 weeks. (We the people vote and we the people need to speak up)

This meta is absolute dogshit. If we rated it out competitiveness in my opinion it might be like a 5/10 (probably me being nice tbh), if we rated for fun I would it's about the same.

Why? You see the same thing on the high ladder, it's a combination of Dondozo for all of the physically (attacking) insane mons we have like (Kingambit or Baxcalibur). You put in a water absorb for all the Rain cheese teams and Walking Wake. Then you have to add everyone's favorite Pokemon (usually) Ting Lu [broken af], for all the spike stacking since Zapdos can't really touch it (who also loves spamming static across the oppositions field). Ting Lus sheer bulk is hard to beat down so it'll get a bunch of layers, oh you want to rapid spin because you don't have an all boots team? oh well don't mind if I do I'll go to my 252 HP / 252 DEF Bold Gholdengo on an Air-Balloon to take your Rapid Spin, EQ, and Knock Off from Great Tusk. The best way to combat all the spike stacking spam? Either you carry an all boots team or you have Cinderace as your best entry hazard (switcher not remover) LOL. It's just all fishing for status, let me make sure that I can setup my family of entry hazard, who gets para haxed more, oh you're running a whole HO team? let me Flame Body all your physical attackers and if that doesn't work let me wisp everybody (Shoutout to Moltres). Oh you don't want to use Ting Lu? that's totally fine if you want to have a more offensive approach just use Samurott-Hisui! Ceaseless Edge all day until you get killed and make sure that it's impossible for the opposition to remove your spikes!

Oh both teams have Booster Energy Valiant as their fastest mons? lets see who wins the speed tie :D

All I'm getting at is when DLC comes out we have a decent amount of work to do as a community to voice our disinterest because, I've said this before and I'll say it again. Last month of pre-HOME was probably the best that this meta felt, I can absolutely truly call it balanced even with Volc running everywhere. We need to get back there.

I've spoken to many of my friends who play the tier, and 90% of them do not have fun with building at all, because it's almost impossible to prepare for everything especially if you take in account with all the other teras people are running. I think there's literally no one on this site that will say that the meta the way it currently is has no room for improvement.

 

[Finchinator]

This meta is absolute dogshit. If we rated it out competitiveness in my opinion it might be like a 5/10 (probably me being nice tbh), if we rated for fun I would it's about the same.

Ngl I disagree. I played a few hundred games this week between OLT ladder and other tournaments, and I found the metagame to be good aside from a few interactions with Tera Fairy Kingambit and SD Bax.

Yea, those can and should go had we had more time perhaps. But relatively speaking, this is by far the least problematic metagame we have had since HOME has dropped. It was better a bit beforehand after Shed Tail got banned, but when the deck is reshuffled, restoring order naturally takes time.

I find Dondozo to be very abusable and honestly healthy as a means of forcing deviation and creativity within the confines of offense. I find Ting Lu stack management to be an interesting feature of the metagame and it makes finding openings and generating momentum to force switches an important skill akin to BW spikes patterns. I don’t think any of that is an imminent issue.

 

[Napoli Burns]

i was having fun last day reading the threads for policy reviews and i see so much similarities on why people didn't like sm ou https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/state-of-sun-moon-ou.3654499/, a gen i totally skipped

i can be wrong but a lot of problems came out for never banning the G E N E R A T I O N A L M E C H A N I C, people where forced to run torna-t because was one of the few thing able to check kartana (like tusk for gambit), strong bulky waters hard to kill if u don't go prepared, accepting to autolose against some threats because is impossible cover everything and so on.

But SV is by far even worst than SM if u add the huge hazard control problem because u can't defog and spin is so hard. Never taking in consideration gold and samurott for a suspect was a huge huge mistake for me, ting lu is also giratina-level.

 

[Karxrida]

complex bans do work if they're good and done intelligently

Got any good examples, then? Because I can't think of any.

btw I lived through the Baton Pass BS so good luck convincing me it's a good idea to ever try it. Waste of like half a year of our time there.

 

[Finchinator]

i was having fun last day reading the threads for policy reviews and i see so much similarities on why people didn't like sm ou https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/state-of-sun-moon-ou.3654499/, a gen i totally skipped

i can be wrong but a lot of problems came out for never banning the G E N E R A T I O N A L M E C H A N I C, people where forced to run torna-t because was one of the few thing able to check kartana (like tusk for gambit), strong bulky waters hard to kill if u don't go prepared, accepting to autolose against some threats because is impossible cover everything and so on.

But SV is by far even worst than SM if u add the huge hazard control problem because u can't defog and spin is so hard. Never taking in consideration gold and samurott for a suspect was a huge huge mistake for me, ting lu is also giratina-level.

So you want us to suspect Tera, Ting Lu, Samurott-H, Gholdengo, and Gambit is what I’m getting at from this one post.

If we were to line those suspects up back-to-back without any other considerations — which is not how it works, we still couldn’t fit them between the HOME and DLC release.

Regardless of agreement of opinion, surely you can see why this isn’t feasible.

 

[Karxrida]

So you want us to suspect Tera, Ting Lu, Samurott-H, Gholdengo, and Gambit is what I’m getting at from this one post.

If we were to line those suspects up back-to-back without any other considerations — which is not how it works, we still couldn’t fit them between the HOME and DLC release.

Regardless of agreement of opinion, surely you can see why this isn’t feasible.

To play devil's advocate, a Ghlodengo ban might open up hazard clearing options a bit such that Ting Lu and Samurott-H wouldn't necessarily need to be looked at. But this is purely hypothetical and dependent on what the DLC gives us.

 

[Finchinator]

To play devil's advocate, a Ghlodengo ban might open up hazard clearing options a bit such that Ting Lu and Samurott-H wouldn't necessarily need to be looked at. But this is purely hypothetical and dependent on what the DLC gives us.

Even then, there was minimal playerbase support and you’d be running suspect after suspect with no time in between for surveys, letting the metagame settle, etc.

It’s not realistic.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

and I found the metagame to be good aside from a few interactions with Tera Fairy Kingambit and SD Bax.

listen, i respect your efforts and the efforts of the council to balance a meta that was this horrifically unbalanced since day 1. i recognize that we've made tremendous progress. i especially appreciate the transparency, swiftness and community outreach that this iteration of the council has shown. i agree that the council doesn't have the time to fix things right now. i even agree with most of your post—ting-lu and dondozo are healthy additions to the meta. but i straight-up do not believe that you can possibly consider this meta mostly good. at minimum, iron valiant should also be included on this list, and possibly dragapult as well. lack of proper hazard control, which would persist even in the theoretical absence of gholdengo, is also a major issue, but even tiering action can't solve that one (outside of banning spikes, which seems too absurd to even consider). i'm not criticizing the actions of the council or you when i say that the current meta is bad, nor is anyone else (hopefully), because it isn't your fault—precisely the opposite, in fact; the council is responsible for preventing the meta from being even worse. i'm just pointing out that, as far up the septic-tank ladder we've climbed, we're still in a septic tank

 

[Finchinator]

at minimum, iron valiant should also be included on this list, and possibly dragapult as well.

I can absolutely see Iron Valiant as a suspect candidate had we had months of open time to tier. I do not think it’s clear-cut broken, but the divide between sets isn’t friendly to builders to say the very least. I do not think it is quite as blatant as Tera Gambit or SD Bax though

I think Dragapult is multiple tiers below the others in terms of brokenness and the epitome of a great Pokémon that can serve many roles and shred unprepared teams. It can be prepared for with a sufficient pool of Pokemon though.

The thing is that virtually every metagame in existence has a few things that can be pointed to as potential Ubers. We have a ton of uproar about SS still, SM has Kartana / AshGren / MMaw, ORAS and BW even have a couple many years after the fact. Are they all broken? Not necessarily and we see the community split with things like Gambit falling just short of a ban. The people who like Gambit or the status quo aren’t inclined to speak up as much since there’s less they want changed while the people opposed are incentivized to be vocal to prompt that change.

At the end of the day, this metagame is par for the course. It is pretty good, but in no way perfect or great. It is somewhat competitive, but riddled with little interactions that even the best players can get tripped-up on. It is flawed, but largely playable. It’s a 6.5 or a 7 on the survey, which is where we were prior to HOME and most of last generation.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

when i know an idea is flawed but i can't craft a convincing argument to refute it, i argue for it. people naturally hate me, so they'll work really hard to defeat any position they think i support, and if i can cut through the storm of venom people spit at me whenever i post anything i'll eventually get the refutation i'm looking for

Do you understand what position we are in right now? The council has NO INTEREST in suspecting Tera because this thread is 43 pages of back and forth about stupid bullshit, people like you making bad arguments and doubling down on them until the topic has run its course and we move onto the next stupid unrelated topic. If we want any chance of being listened to AT ALL we need to be seriously discussing this mechanic and its impacts on the metagame. Before i Attempted to pivot back to Tera a page or two ago, the only person talking about their issues with the mechanic and why it should be addressed for the last 20+ pages has been Srn, it's otherwise been just dumb arguing about the definition of a complex ban and why joke suggestions like Tera Orb Hold Item are infeasible. Unless we want to be in broken HO hell until gen 10 we need to improve the quality of posting we do in this thread and not allow the 30% to derail legitimate discussion. How do you feel about Tera in the current metagame?

 

[Magcargo]

Yeah, honestly, this meta isn't in the worst state imo. Maybe this take will age badly years into the future when tourney players make YT bids about how SV is the worst meta ever. However currently, I am seeing a decent variety of teams on the ladder with multiple viable picks from screens, hazard stack, stall, etc. Hazards might be a bit OP, but Running boots on every Pokrmon is infinitely better than running rando shitmon 72 on every team because hazards are insanely broken like you had to in several BW lower tiers lmao. This tier isn't perfect, but it's not that bad either. Only misteps was the Volc QB (only for PR reasons, I don't mind the decision itself) and maybe Gambit not getting banned.

 

[Finchinator]

Do you understand what position we are in right now? The council has NO INTEREST in suspecting Tera because this thread is 43 pages of back and forth about stupid bullshit, people like you making bad arguments and doubling down on them until the topic has run its course and we move onto the next stupid unrelated topic.

Speaking as someone on the council, the lack of current interest has far more to do with people like you pairing posts with disrespect like this. Grow up. Be the change you want to see rather than going down to a far lower level than those you’re calling out in the process of calling them out.

Tera will continue to be discussed as the generation goes and we have more information.

 

[Bakugames]

honest question: do you guys think the power and issues of tera are related to the metagame?

if yes, do you think the power is more likely to go down, up, stay the same?

if no, do you think that this means tera will always be balanced or always unbalanced?

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

and not allow the 30% to derail legitimate discussion.

genuine question: what does this even mean? 30% of what? please define the pejoratives you create so the rest of us understand who you're hating on

If we want any chance of being listened to AT ALL we need to be seriously discussing this mechanic and its impacts on the metagame.

we've done that. at this point, just about every person on earth with access to a keyboard has voiced their opinion on tera in excruciating detail. between that and the current meta having approximately two weeks to live, we really don't have anything left to talk about

and why joke suggestions like Tera Orb Hold Item are infeasible.

this isn't really a "joke suggestion"; it's following the precedent of megas and z-moves by making the mons need to hold an item to access the mechanic. i could see it working, but there's currently no item that is both completely non-functional and completely unremovable, which would be necessary for the concept to work. if mail still existed, it would be a perfect candidate