Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion [ UPDATE POST #1293]

[Lord Xen III]

You know what would be really interesting but also completely unworkable because it’s too complex and no one would want to code it? A clause saying “only Pokémon in UUBL and below can Terastallize”. I feel like that’s bordering on OM/Pet Mod territory at that point, but I’d be really interested to see a meta where everything gets the new mechanic except the things that could abuse it best.















The biggest problem with this, besides the obvious one of “we don’t do this arbitrary nonsense”, is that it might create a vicious cycle where a Pokémon from a lower tier gains enough of a niche in OU to rise into the tier proper because it can Terastallize, but it then loses the ability to Terastallize because it’s in OU, but it’s unviable in OU without Tera so it drops back down, but then it gets Tera again so it rises back up, and so on ad nauseam.

I think usage it's too volatile to use metric

 

[Cdijk16]

I'd also like to add that I'd we don't take action on Terastal, we run the risk of alienating a significant portion of the playerbase that does want it banned. If we do ban Terastal we alienate a lot of newer players and get a lot of backlash. I think that making a Tera OU side ladder is a good compromise, it pleases both camps.Note that I want this to be a side format similar to NatDex OU, No Tera OU should still be the main format if a Tera Ban is enacted .

I'm also not sold on the Tera on Team Preview suggestion. It does cut down on unpredictability, but you still don't know who they'll use Tera with and when. It's still definitely worth considering though.

Edit: I meant casual players, not newer players.

 

[Cdijk16]

So now you also want to know what your opponent will do otherwise it's not competitive? LMAO

Not what I meant. Go and read my first post.

 

[MrE]

For the record, I am not this guy and free whatever it is y'all are trying to ban.

 

[Cdijk16]

I don't think that the meta being reduced to 50-50 guessing games of Tera or not to Tera is healthy. I never claimed that not knowing your opponent's next move in uncompetitive. ExXIII

 

[BlackKnight_Gawain]

I trully hope this isn't the case kekw. Taking into account people's opinion about "Terastallization being fun or not" isn't a legit reason whatsoever to keep the mechanic around. People gonna be mad about that fact, but we're talking here about Terastallization being legit to use or not from a competitive point of view and if it's too much, how to fix the issue. Fun factor of the mechanic isn't part of the equation and should never be.

Also people need to understand that "Showing Tera type at Team Preview" isn't gonna fix the main issue we have with it which are 50/50's situations Terastallization leads to. Like I said earlier, think with you brain and not with your heart, we're not here to please people who "just" want to have fun with Terastallization. The purpose is to make a tier viable and playable with or without X/Y Pokémon or X/Y mechanic, tier being fun is a bonus.

Absolutely rhetorical statement that I need to make (and this is true irrespective of whichever side of the debate of tera we are on): why is 'fun' seen as such a harmful word in this discussion? "Competitive" and "fun" are not two things that exist in a vacuum, it's a game at the end of the day that people pick up because it's fun.

Competitive is what comes about after that and then we have a playable tier etc. IMO, while it's very correct to say pro-tera (or the rare anti-tera) argument should not be centered around 'fun' as your talking point (and thankfully that isn't the case if you read this thread), why are we looking at it with such a negative connotation?

tl;dr competitive and fun are meant to co-exist, let's please stop trying to justify these as separate things that are inherently good/bad

 

[Bold School]

tl;dr competitive and fun are meant to co-exist, let's please stop trying to justify these as separate things that are inherently good/bad

The issue with this is fun is subjective. What you find fun another might not find fun. Fun also has nothing to do with actual balance, which is the point of this discussion and Smogon in general. If Smogon just did whatever people found fun, they A. couldn't actually balance a competitive tier and B. couldn't please everyone anyway.

Fun is a poor argument for competitive balance.

 

[Moutemoute]

Absolutely rhetorical statement that I need to make (and this is true irrespective of whichever side of the debate of tera we are on): why is 'fun' seen as such a harmful word in this discussion? "Competitive" and "fun" are not two things that exist in a vacuum, it's a game at the end of the day that people pick up because it's fun.

Competitive is what comes about after that and then we have a playable tier etc. IMO, while it's very correct to say pro-tera (or the rare anti-tera) argument should not be centered around 'fun' as your talking point (and thankfully that isn't the case if you read this thread), why are we looking at it with such a negative connotation?

tl;dr competitive and fun are meant to co-exist, let's please stop trying to justify these as separate things that are inherently good/bad

Smogon is a community centered around the competitive aspect of Pokémon.

While it's true that most of the community is playing on PS! / the game in a casual way, we need to ensure that we're staying in the Smogon course of action when debating about Pokémon/mechanics ; which is making viables, playables and competitives metagames for 6v6 (and to an extent other metagames). I do understand that most people are not involved in the most "hardcore" competitive core of Smogon and it's fine, everyone should play the game like they want. However, we should focus on objective facts and not subjective thoughts when making decisions about metagames. As I said in the post you quoted, "tier bieng fun" isn't bad but it shouldn't be the prime focus of our tiering actions. I've been quite baffled by the lack of seriousness of some posts which are focusing on their resentment about the mechanic rather than factual facts.

Basically :

Is Terastallization broken or unhealthy ?
Arguments for yes :
Argument for no :

If Terastallization is broken or unhealthy, how are we managing the issue ?
Argument X :
Argument Y :
Argument Z :

Based around those arguments what do we do ?

 

[BlackKnight_Gawain]

Smogon is a community centered around the competitive aspect of Pokémon.

View attachment 468996

However, we should focus on objective facts and not subjective thoughts when making decisions about metagames. As I said in the post you quoted, "tier bieng fun" isn't bad but it shouldn't be the prime focus of our tiering actions. I've been quite baffled by the lack of seriousness of some posts which are focusing on their resentment about the mechanic rather than factual facts.

Basically :

Is Terastallization broken or unhealthy ?
Arguments for yes :
Argument for no :

If Terastallization is broken or unhealthy, how are we managing the issue ?
Argument X :
Argument Y :
Argument Z :

Based around those arguments what do we do ?

I'm in agreement with you, I'm just stating what I think is true regardless of subjectivity — fun is not a valid argument but a tier can be competitive and fun, rather it should be both ideally. If this is the case without tera than absolutely let that be the right course of action. My comment in regards to how I see things in the thread is that fun and competitive are fairly closer together than we like to admit for a healthy metagame. I'm not at all propping fun as an argument, but rather pointing out that a healthy competitive metagame is also 'fun'.

 

[Amaske]

Terastallization is a very new and exciting mechanic to have but can't ignore the fact that it is too broken
I feel like Pokemon keeping the previous stabs and having Adaptibility on the same type should be removed.
So that it becomes more of a mind play where a player will have to think twice before Terastlizing into any type and having only one stab move.

 

[The N@me User]

The argument I'm struggling a little with is the forced 50/50s argument. It's not that I disagree with the argument. To use an example I ran into, we have boosted Annihilate vs Iron Valiant. Valiant could click spirit break to KO. But it could also predict it changing to steel or normal and click close combat to KO. That is a 50/50, I'm not arguing against that.

But isn't Pokemon full of these already? Will he click sucker punch and KO me so I click substitute? Or will he predict that and attack with knock off? Will this Zard X change form so I should click earthquake? Or will it stay in Zard form and I should click an electric move? Will this Zapdos click roost so I should EQ? Or will it click hurricane and I'm left looking extremely silly? Will they switch Lando-T into my Sand Excadrill so I should click swords dance, or will this Heatran in front of me click eruption and KO me if I don't just click EQ?

I don't see how tera forcing predicts is different from these scenarios. Don't say "because you win or lose games from these predictions" because I constantly win or lose games based off sucker punch predictions. Tera forces you to make predicts, but so does every Pokemon game.

I'm not even necessarily anti-ban. But the more I think about it, the weaker I feel the 50/50 argument is.

The difference is, not every Pokémon has access to Sucker Punch, or would care to slot in Substitute.

You listed some examples of turns that could determine the game, but the difference between them and Tera types is that every Pokémon has access to Teraforming, and the button being right under your standard moves only encourages people to consider using it if they feel that turn is important for making progress, which is eerily similar to how people would use Dynamax as a panic button, and completely abolish their checks.

Even showing a team's Tera types in the team preview doesn't stop each turn from being "Alright, is he going to change types or can I just OHKO/2HKO here?" This especially gets more concerning later in the game, when an opponent hasn't Terastilized yet, because you have no reason not to use it at least once, and avoiding Super Effective damage or gaining Adaptability can be a game-changer.

The only way to balance this mechanic without banning it, is to limit it to one Pokémon per team, in my opinion, preferably with the team preview mod enabled.

This lets several Pokémon benefit from the positives of Terastalizing in general, such as Garganacl being able to be a much better type than Rock, but it stops each turn from being a match-defining guessing game.

This would make them more similar to Mega Evolutions, instead of the panic-button esque Dynamax.

Z-Moves were balanced by several Pokémon having a wasted Item slot if you used multiple Z-Moves on your team, since you can only use one per battle. But it costs nothing to set a Pokémon's Tera type, then click it whenever it allows you to successfully fork your opponent over.

 

[Cdijk16]

Name literally the "other Pokemon" that can counter everything RM can run.

You guys are STILL comparing Z-moves here when it has literal zero relevance to the discussion here.

And I'm still waiting for an actual logical arguements here from tera defenders.

Other than "you guys sux at competitive loool!"(Not an arguement)

To be specific it's a 50/50 for the player trying to predict a tera sweep here.

And it's a 75/25 for the opposing player. Because they have the luxury to just switch to a different pokemon on their team. Or just go for a 3rd tera type(you guys do realise all the top-tier pokemon have at least minimum 3 viable tera types to choose from right??). The player was forced to tera early to prevent an early sweep from happening. You guys(going to be a tad rude here but no offense here) clearly do not understand how the mindset of a high tier ladder player. They can force their opponent to play sub-optimally. All because all 6 of their pokemon are designed to play around people who are trying to play the "safer" game by not entering any risky situation.

Let me state a true and obvious fact here. There's a thing called the First-Mover's Advantage. If you want to win more and win consistently then you have to force your opponent until he has no other choices but to choose a very risky move or just lose a pokemon to his opponent. The statistics supports players who already won from Team Preview. Because the concepts of reliable checks and counters(they very core ideas of competitive pokemon itself) goes out the window. Literally because every pokemon has access to a SuperSTAB or a defensive tera to remove any possibility of countering/checking. Literally every pokemon.

Also "the better player wins" means jack diddly squat here. I can beat the majority of Showdown users when Dynamaxing was legal still. So according to this logic here we should have kept Dynamaxing in the game. Because "the better player wins."



I'm starting to wonder if players wants to play a coin flip simulator.

Because pro-tera players here are unable to distinguish a game with luck involved and actual "skill" choices.(this isn't directed at u in particular just at anyone who thinks this raises the game's skill ceiling. Because once this is thought thoroughly then the argument falls flats.)

ExXIII I think that this post addresses the argument you linked fairly well. Going to a 3rd pokemon is easily exploitable by the opponent switching out or using a 3rd Tera type. The mechanic is honestly too unpredictable to be be balanced in my opinion.

As the replays in this post show, Terastal leads to guessing games and stops reliable counterplay from existing: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ering-discussion.3711465/page-14#post-9414182

 

[malomyotismon]

It's automatically a better thought-out mechanic than dynamax ever was, breathing life into pokemon that otherwise might be redundant and opening the doors as a result to a whole lot of new possibilities both defensively and offensively. It's honestly a breath of fresh air mechanic with the fun competitive factor to come up with a unique type on the large roster of pokemon available that can help capitalize on their strengths while mitigating weaknesses like 4x weakness on pokemon like tyranitar. So as i'm reading it does leave a tad of a sour taste in the mouth the idea of banning it. Once things settle down the what type it could be factor dissipates as pokemon begin to find a couple of types that they will change into potential 99% of the time so the uncertainty factor does dissipate over time. unfortunately, this mechanic is always going to push some pokemon over the edge, which to be fair was true of both mega pokemon and pokemon in all fairness so that is something to keep in mind.

Unless a large amount of pokemon merit needing banned because they are inherently broken because of the mechanic I think it should be kept as it does add alot to the competive game otherwise with the diversityy it brings to potential plays and pokemon

 

[HawkeRoma]

Terastalize change weakness, gives another STAB (or adaptability) with the possibility to get an upgraded version of HP. All this without any drawbacks.
IMO Terastalize is even more broken than Dynamax. At least with Dynamax generally the battle were decided on a clash of Dyna, but with Terastalize a battle can flip in the matter of a second, transformig a certain lose in a win.
It's the most uncompetitve thing ever created.

 

[MrE]

Something to consider too, but didn't we ban Geninja and Cinderace in part due to Protean and Liberio? How is Tera not just a more broken version of these abilities when you consider that there's the element of surprise with it, every pokemon can run it, it can be used for a wider array of types due to not being locked to the moves used and can be used to expand coverage?

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

These scenarios of "check tanks attempt to surprise KO them" are not only not consistent, but also dependant on things like the opponent also terastilizing.

What.

I'm not sure I made myself clear, I was talking about someone using Tera to attempt to surprise KO a check, not the other way around.

Terastalize change weakness, gives another STAB (or adaptability) with the possibility to get an upgraded version of HP. All this without any drawbacks.

Sounds incredible on paper until you find out your Tera Normal Dnite is getting folded by Annihilape because it's weak to Fighting now.

And don't even get me started on mons switching to types weak to Rock.

No drawback my foot.

 

[Dhrabb]

I will start by saying that I am in the camp to leave Terastillization be and play the mechanic as intended. I have been playing competitive since generation three and have seen many changes in that time, many good, many terrible.

Before I give reasons why it should not be restricted, let me say why it should not be outright banned. Unlike any previous generational gimmick, this is a mechanic that offers far more diversity for teambuilding while also testing players knowledge of individual pokemon. Unlike something like Dynamax, there are no outright stat changes. You don't magically double your Dragonites health and proceed to fire off 3 mini Z moves that boost your speed. This is a mechanic that benefits each Pokemon uniquely based on their strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. In all my games played, Terastillization is never the win button and often times can backfire on you, unlike any other mechanic before.

Reasons I am against various forms of limitations on the mechanic.
1) Revealing Tera types not only defeats the purpose of the mechanic, but flat out often tells you what that mon wants to do. This is the equivalent of allowing your opponent to be able to check your EV/IV spread mid battle, it is almost certainly blatantly unfair to one player compared to another. In the gen 6 metagame, running two or more pokemon capable of mega evolving was a big part of the metagame, which kept the opponent guessing. Your opponent had to second guess if you were running, say, defensive Swampert vs Mega Swampert. In gen 7, any mon had the ability to hold a tactical nuke and no one batted an eye at the idea that of viewing which Pokemon had a Z Crystal because that would defeat the purpose of the set. And guess what? Players could usually figure out which mon wanted to drop a Z move and which one it was because the meta game was allowed to develop and players quickly found out what worked and what didn't.

2) The Power level is no where near the heights Dynamax could reach. Dynamax was a complete game changer if you were already ahead and could allow players to come back from defeat if you were behind. Terastilization is more like a Z Move. It gets one good surprise in, but if you don't have a good opening to use it properly than your in trouble. There are obviously pokemon that can use the mechanic better than others. Some abilities also crank up the power level far higher like Adaptability, but that says more about the performance of that Pokemon in question rather than the imbalance of the mechanic. In fact, if you were to see something that blatant on the team, many should just treat it as they did a backline Mega Pokemon, with caution and respect that it is there.

3) The removal of Tera Blast. I would go so far to say as Tera Blast is a noob trap in many ways and a worse Hidden power. On paper it's an 80 BP normal attack that matches whatever your stronger damaging stat is. But in practice, the move is inherently bad if you DON"T terrastilze that pokemon. If you don't tera that pokemon, it eats up a move slot that something better could have been. When Hidden Power was around, although only 60 BP, it was never a dead weight move on a moveset. It ALWAYS provided needed coverage, which Tera Blast does not.

4) Limiting the mechanic to STAB typing only. This actually makes the mechanic much more one sided worse to deal with. In fact, I'd say this is the least competitive argument of them all. What this is actually saying is " I want my sweepers to hit harder and I want my opponents walls to block less." I want to preface this is not a defensive dynamax arguement. There are three big reasons why. The first reason is simply that this promotes greater hyper offensive play and closely mimics the exact reason Dynamax was banned. One mon gaining far more value than others simply because it has higher attack stats or it was given premature speed/attack buffs to start steamrolling. Allowing for any type tera type to be accessable by any mon keeps more powerful sweeper abusers in check and promotes options for weaker mons with unqiue niches. Second reason: This is just blatantly unfair to mons that are already monotype. Pokemon with two types get all the weaknesses and strengths of both those types, but mono type mons are still stuck with those same strengths and weaknesses with more damage output. This drastically affects tiering as inherently there are just some tera types that are ass compared to others. Tera as a mechanic is balanced by the fact that you can shift types on the fly to another type, so ostracizing a large population of monotype pokemon to favor dual types is blatantly uncompetitive. And reason three, this turns things into a very slippery slope in terms of weather and terrain. I played all throughout the gen 5 meta game, through every ban and rule change, questionable or not. Similar to my last point, damage boosting weather/terrains would undoubtable become the meta so you can essentially get your adaptability boosted grass, water, fire, electric, or psychic move off. I can further prove this to be true given the new Paradox pokemon and their sun/electric terrain based abilities. We have already seen the ban of Iron Bundle and Flutter Mane. Many of these Paradox pokemon wouldn't be the main terastilizers for their teams, but they still would retain the option to be.

5) Limiting the amount of mons that can Terastilize per team. Honestly I find this one to just be dumb and lacks any real congruency with prior meta games. As I mentioned in my argument against revealing tera types, we had no such restriction on Mega's or Z Moves. If you wanted you could run a team of fully mega evolving pokemon, but only one could actually use it. Furthermore, I have used and fought many players on ladder that had two Z move users in their team just for the option of hitting more threats.

My conclusion: From all my games on ladder and on cart, this mechanic has been the most balanced of all 4. There isn't a surprise nuke like Z moves because it is very easy too tell 90% of the time what mons are going to use it. The mechanic isn't as centralizing as Megas because there have been many games either me or my opponent hasn't needed to use the mechanic and their team didn't rely on it to function. And it is no where near the power level of dynamax. Any changes to playstyle of the mechanic like "limiting to stab only" sways the mechanic further into unbalanced territory. Seeing an opponents teratype is equivalent to knowing what items or ev/iv's your opponent has in team preview. I Believe the mechanic is far more balanced than people believe because many have not adapted to the playstyle, especially coming off a meta where Dynamax, Z Moves, and Megas were not present. I think the biggest reason we are seeing complaints on the mechanic is simply due to many players unwillingness to shift their team building outside of their comfort zone (think the Goldengo vs Corviknight argument). Lastly, I think the one thing that many forget too look at is that this is the first mechanic with a true trade off outside of individual pokemon and that by changing your pokemons type, you are also opening it up to new weaknesses as well. In fact, I think this is the only mechanic to have actual weaknesses built into it.

It's technically correct that tera adds 108 new options for your opponent's typings, but pretending that's a real thing is dishonest: no wall is going to run Tera Ice, offensive mons are only running Tera Normal if they have Extreme Speed, Tera Fire is exclusively to cover specific counters and so isn't broadly useful, etc.

There are certainly types that you can splash wherever; Steel and Fairy have valuable resistances to common priority, for example. But once the meta settles down, tera typings will become much more predictable, as both the best types and the best mons to use it on become clearer. Unexpected types will be either lures or flatly suboptimal.

As for lure sets, we've had them forever. Surprise Hidden Powers, surprise Z moves, an unexpected resist berry, normally special attacking pokemon pulling out a surprise physical attacking set (or vice versa), or even just rare coverage to remove one specific threat. Terastallization lures are a new version of an old trick.

As to incomplete information, we have Gens 1-4, where no Team Preview meant you couldn't plan around their specific team composition *at all.* Yes, it's a very different game now - but the biggest difference is team building philosophy. Greater information allows more specific checks; if your primary way to deal with Heatran is a Glowking with Earthquake, you can know immediately whether he needs to be kept healthy. If you can't tell whether they have a Heatran, you'll need more than one solid check. This doesn't need to be defensive - making sure your revenge killer has ground coverage does the job - but it has to be there.

It's not just team preview that killed this style of team building, either - both power creep and the ever-increasing Pokedex made it harder to blanket check threats without playing stall. Snorlax used to be able to come in on most special attackers, but last gen he'd sunk to NU. Power creep is stronger than ever, but the breadth of options is cut way back, and that power creep can be used to revenge threats more effectively.

All this said, it's certainly possible that Terastalization ends up too unpredictable, or that is breaks too many mons and sends them to Ubers, and that it needs to go. For something that so deeply shakes up team building, however, we need to give it enough time to breath and should not be imposing restrictions this quickly. We've got this generation for two or three years, waiting two or three weeks before even considering action is not unreasonable.

I haven't read the entirety of this thread but I feel that these posts sum up my feelings pretty well as to why Tera is balanced.

 

[ant4456]

I'd also like to add that I'd we don't take action on Terastal, we run the risk of alienating a significant portion of the playerbase that does want it banned. If we do ban Terastal we alienate a lot of newer players and get a lot of backlash. I think that making a Tera OU side ladder is a good compromise, it pleases both camps.Note that I want this to be a side format similar to NatDex OU, No Tera OU should still be the main format if a Tera Ban is enacted .

I'm also not sold on the Tera on Team Preview suggestion. It does cut down on unpredictability, but you still don't know who they'll use Tera with and when. It's still definitely worth considering though.

I think saying that the divide is between new/old players is a mistake and disingenuous. You have people in this thread from the Gen 4 OU days saying they like it. Personally, I've been playing Smogon for 5ish years and I like it.

 

[Cdijk16]

I think saying that the divide is between new/old players is a mistake and disingenuous. You have people in this thread from the Gen 4 OU days saying they like it. Personally, I've been playing Smogon for 5ish years and I like it.

What I mean is that we might discourage casual players from joining and using PS! if we ban Terastal outright. I think the divide on Terastal is more along the lines of casual/competitive as opposed to new/old.

 

[ant4456]

What I mean is that we might discourage casual players from joining and using PS! if we ban Terastal outright. I think the divide on Terastal is more along the lines of casual/competitive as opposed to new/old.

Well no, that's not really true, either. It's rude and disingenuous to insist that the people who like/think Tera is competitive are "casual" (you and I both know that, in this thread, this is a negative characterization regarding how much someone's opinion matters) and "old" (you and I both also know this community generally takes the opinions of older, experienced players more seriously)

 

[Cdijk16]

Well no, that's not really true, either. It's rude and disingenuous to insist that the people who like/think Tera is competitive are "casual" (you and I both know that, in this thread, this is a negative characterization regarding how much someone's opinion matters) and "old" (you and I both also know this community generally takes the opinions of older, experienced players more seriously)

I'm just going off my own experience here, but in my experience if you ask a casual player what they think of the new gimmick, you're way likelier to get a positive response than if you ask a competitive player. I don't have any concrete data to back this up though, so I could be wrong on this.

 

[ant4456]

I'm just going off my own experience here, but in my experience if you ask a casual player what they think of the new gimmick, you're way likelier to get a positive response than if you ask a competitive player. I don't have any concrete data to back this up though, so I could be wrong on this.

Well, I have friends who are casual with a passive interest in competitive, and none of them really have an opinion honestly. Maybe they're just more introspective than most, but they don't really think they know enough.

Either way, it's a bit shallow to make that sort of conclusion, and we know the subtext behind what you said.

 

[Cdijk16]

Well, I have friends who are casual with a passive interest in competitive, and none of them really have an opinion honestly. Maybe they're just more introspective than most, but they don't really think they know enough.

I know, but if you bring up the idea of banning Terastal to a casual player, they're more likely to have a negative opinion in my experience. I am largely going off off my own personal experiences here though. I'm just worried about alienating casual players who just want to mess around, not demean them. I think that this discussion is kind of off topic and might be derailing the thread.

 

[Bugboy]

i argued early on in this thread that the mechanic is not uncompetitive (post #27). The current state is strongly a teambuilder’s meta and boy do I love teambuilding. My opinion has not changed on that after reading the thread, but my idea for the solution has changed.

After reading the thread, I think a separate tera OU is the only real viable solution. I have zero confidence that restrictions placed on this mechanic will be handled gracefully or with patience. I don’t see any value maintaining it in a wishy washy state where half the people playing high level hate the mechanic in the first place. I would also not be surprised if a restriction is tested only as a way to appease people so they can ban it later and say that they tried. Many players still seem to think that only “casuals” could like the mechanic and a restriction test is merely a way to reduce the amount of pitchfork wielding casuals angry at smogon (incredibly disingenuous opinion to hold by the way). I apologize for the bleak and somewhat exaggerated take on the state of things.

If we will test a restriction:
I am also a bit confused by the direction a lot of the discussion has taken. Many seem to be trying to prove that one specific restriction wouldn’t work. Isn’t that what a suspect test would prove? Isn’t it far more efficient to experience the restriction in practice and decide if it fixes the mechanic? I think eventually the discussion needs to refocus based on a decision made by the council determining whether a restriction will be tested or not. Then the discussion can focus on coming to a consensus on which restrictions are most valuable to test.

I’m a dumbass though and would never want to be in the councils shoes sorting through this trying to decide which idea is best lol. I do know however that a tera OU has many benefits and would be my pick. Players can experience the mechanic in a non-washed out state, both people who hate it and love it will be satisfied, and the council doesn’t have to sift through a thousand incredibly varied opinions to somehow choose one to represent them all lol.

For all I care, Tera OU can be a permanent OM with standard being a tera-free OU. I just would like to continue playing the metagame that I enjoy more.

 

[ant4456]

i argued early on in this thread that the mechanic is not uncompetitive. The current state is strongly a teambuilder’s meta and boy do I love teambuilding. My opinion has not changed on that after reading the thread, but my idea for the solution has changed.

After reading the thread, I think a separate tera OU is the only real viable solution. I have zero confidence that restrictions placed on this mechanic will be handled gracefully or with patience. I don’t see any value maintaining it in a wishy washy state where half the people playing high level hate the mechanic in the first place. I would also not be surprised if a restriction is tested only as a way to appease people so they can ban it later and say that they tried. Many players still seem to think that only “casuals” could like the mechanic and a restriction test is merely a way to reduce the amount of pitchfork wielding casuals angry at smogon (incredibly disingenuous opinion to hold by the way). I apologize for the bleak and somewhat exaggerated take on the state of things.

I am also a bit confused by the direction a lot of the discussion has taken. Many seem to be trying to prove that one restriction wouldn’t work. Isn’t that what a suspect test would prove? Isn’t it far more efficient to experience the restriction in practice and decide if it fixes the mechanic? I think eventually the discussion needs to refocus based on a decision made by the council determining whether a restriction will be tested or not. Then the discussion can focus on coming to a consensus on which restrictions are most valuable to test.

I’m a dumbass though and would never want to be in the councils shoes sorting through this trying to decide which idea is best lol. I do know however that a tera OU has many benefits and would be my pick. Players can experience the mechanic in a non-washed out state, both people who hate it and love it will be satisfied, and the council doesn’t have to sift through a thousand incredibly varied opinions to somehow choose one to represent them all lol.

For all I care, Tera OU can be a permanent OM with standard being a tera-free OU. I just would like to continue playing the metagame that I enjoy more.

If I'm totally honest, at this point there isn't anywhere else to really take the thread. Pretty much every solution has been brought up (from the fringe to the easy to implement), and it feels like we're at a standstill where everything after this point is a formality.

Seeing the council's posts overall, I think it's kind of clear that the council has a plan in mind, and it's not hiding the fact that a lot of this is for some vague notion of "preventing backlash". A forum thread that 99% of the playerbase likely hasn't seen, that's immediately less important than the Policy Review thread- which has had its own cycle of the same opinions and takes, in two pages rather than now nineteen.

It is genuinely questionable what this thread aims to do now, let alone at the start. There will not be much common ground, frankly, because the vast array of opinions have not reached any conclusion, nor will they.

If none of us can rally around if the mechanic is even competitive or not, or even what type of players like what, then there will not be any true progress outside vague gestures of "we tried".

However, I'll just recap some things I feel I've noticed over the course of these discussions, through an old Magic the Gathering perspective of types of players in these sorts of games.

There is the -Johnny-, someone who plays looking for the best wins, rather than the most overall wins. This is that person who runs Cloyster, Kommo-o, DD Dragapult and Blaziken on the same team because he just wants that funny funny sweep. If he wins 3/10 games, but those 3 games were 6-0s, he goes home pretty happy.

There is the -Timmy-, someone who plays looking for the coolest mechanical wins, rather than the most overall wins. This is that person that runs Shedinja even in OU, and likes Baton Pass but doesn't really know how broken it is, loves the more niche mechanics like Magic Bounce way more, even in a generation like 8 where Defog is one of the easiest moves to fit on a team structure, nor out of some deep understanding of the game. If he goes 3/10 games, but those 3 games had his super niche strategy work out as he "perfectly" planned, he goes home pretty happy.

Then we have the -Spike-. This is the tournament player. He wins 9/10 games with a pretty meta team, and if he feels he should have won that 10th game, he goes home not feeling great. Honestly, some of the funniest and most iconic forum blow-ups from salt come from people who won almost all of their games, but failed to get the gold, and feel awful despite the immense skill displayed and social achievement, albeit understandably given the goal.

This framework somewhat accurately describes the three types of players who are attracted to things like competitive Pokemon. And I fail to see how Terastilization fails any of them, in any way.

As some people on the pro-ban side have mentioned, even, the best players are still winning. While that is always true in any meta to an extent, I have not seen any evidence provided that Terastilization has had any impact on this fact, nor have I seen any proof or evidence as to Terastilization creating upsets or lost games in ways that are somewhat normal to competitive Pokemon. Not having the right set for the job, failing to account for that one niche offensive threat in the teambuilder, not playing around the opponent's options correctly, and simply having bad luck.

All I've seen is vague buzzwords and notioning to this fact, with made-up examples or rarely linked replays that really just show a lack of practice or skill in the format.

There has been no proof that "Spike" is being neglected, worse off, or that his 9/10 games has become an 8, or 7, or especially not lower. There has been no definitive proof that teambuilding and playing around this mechanic with so much depth, even just 9 or so days in, has not become much easier and skilled. I also believe that playing Terastilization well could even increase the skill gap in a positive direction, but I have no proof on that notion.

On the other end, this is, yes, a highly attractive mechanic for the other two more casual groups as well.

Timmy has an endless array of potential choices to use, and play with, tinker, teambuild and create cool ideas and test them out. And I believe that Spikes can teambuild around a middleground that still wins against the fringes, as the ladder has always had. I'll never forget that time I lost to fucking Diggersby, because I didn't know it had Fire Punch, and I immediately improved my team... Diggersby tho?

Johnny has the potential to make his funny funny Youtube Smogon Salt Compilation Magikarp 6-0 sweep as usual, with Terastilization giving more potential for funny or pub stompy Pokemon. Again, I have seen no proof that Spikes are losing due to this, and while I have no direct evidence, I think there's good reason to believe that good teambuilding can patch these holes that the potential of Johhnys and Timmies may have.

In short: I see no evidence as to why Terastilization is so negatory besides vague notions of gamefeel, "I should have won that 10th game" that will always exist in Pokemon. And as, if I recall, the beginning of the thread states:

The onus is on the people committed to getting something restricted or banned to prove their claims. Less buzzwords, less "It's broken, we all know it's broken"; less fringe exaggerations ie. "It's more broken than Dynamax".

If there is no evidence yet? Then I have a solution: let's wait for actual statistics to arrive, tournaments to run, actual data in a less-new metagame.

Please.