Metagame The State of National Dex

[Jordy]

Hey everyone,

As always, the council has been paying very close attention to the state of the metagame as a whole, and it has become increasingly clear that the metagame as it is right now is not in a healthy state. There are far too many powerful Pokemon to take into account when building teams, this makes it so that you have to sacrifice sufficient counterplay to something and hope you don't run into it, or to give up important options such as Speed control or entry hazard removal, which will also leave you weaker to certain Pokemon. This is a clear symptom of an unhealthy metagame; National Dex is quite matchup dependant as of right now, with people just hoping that they don't run into the common threat they were forced to have mediocre counterplay to due to teambuilding restraints.

We, the National Dex council, have been discussing potential approaches that we could take to deal with this issue. It is at the very least clear that something drastic needs to be done. We have discussed things at length and there is one option that we believe to be the best way to approach this issue.

We believe that the best way to approach this issue is to instigate a wave of bans, followed by individual retests at a later date. With this approach, we would attempt to lower the overall power level of the National Dex metagame. It is currently very difficult to pinpoint where the specific issue within National Dex lies, but this approach would make that much easier, as a lot of the issues arise with two of our top threats overwhelming eachother's checks. That can be ruled out with this approach of individual retests.

This thread will serve as a place to discuss this approach together with the community. Once we decide whether this is the approach we want to take or not, we, the National Dex council, together with the community, can look into the Pokemon that may be victims to it. Please do not discuss potential targets right now, we are just looking at whether this is the approach to take or not.

We do want to keep this moving at a fast pace, so the current deadline to discuss this approach will be the 30th of June, but if there is an overwhelming consensus one way or the other, it may be sooner.

 

[LORD SAGIS]

This is the best approach in my opinion. The fact that Stall of all things is the most consistent play-style should be pretty telling for how bad things have gotten here. In fact I've barely played much Natdex because of how boring most games become with stall mirrors happen all the time. I'm pretty sure this SSNL round is gonna have a lot of these match ups and those are not gonna be fun watches. (Luckly I'm pretty sure I heard Faded and Sevelon both agreed to not bring Mega Metagross and Urshifu so at least finals will be a fun watch).

When building teams, these are the pokemon I have to choose between beating or losing to. Can someone like try to make a team that can beat all of these at once? I not gonna name the ones I think are the worst (although if you been on the discord you would know) but my point is building a consistent team with all of these guys around is insane. I've named 9 pokemon that cause massive issues in teambuilding, how can suspects help with this issue when they have 1 month gaps between all of them. I'm not saying there all broken (some of them are just exploiting the holes in the metagame) but QBing some of the more nasty ones then retesting them seems like the best choice to narrow down the biggest offenders.

 

[War Incarnate]

I like the current approach of making NatDex OU less of a trainwreck of stupid strong pokemon that end up being unbalanced. Though I do not play NatDex OU much, from the amount I've played, I can say that the meta focuses less on skill and more on matchups, something that should clearly not be allowed. When a playstyle (stall, why must you do this?) ends up being the most dominant, that's not good. When you have 9 stupid strong pokemon that end up being too good at their jobs, that's not good. Combine both of these two and you have an unbalanced metagame. Furthermore, it's near impossible to build a team that can even check some of the 9 most dominant threats (with MMeta being the worst of all, followed by Urushifu-SS, Tornadus-Therian, Ash-Greninja, GDarm, Manaphy, Kyurem, Heatran, and Gliscor - credit to Sagisolar for the inspiration to make this post). For instance, you build a team that does a good job at checking Ash-Greninja, Kyurem, and Heatran. But then, you end up being weak to MMeta and Urushifu. It's that bad.

So what is my detailed opinion on this current approach the NatDex Council has bought up? Although I praised it initially, it carries massive flaws. For one, how will the council know which pokemon are broken and which are not? Because there are some like MMeta and Urushifu, not to mention Ash-Greninja and GDarm that are outright unhealthy for the metagame, but then there are others that have serious flaws that make them not as broken as they seem on face value. So how are you (the council) going to distinguish what's unhealthy and what's not (excluding the blatantly obvious (MMeta)) without damaging the meta more than it is? I like the proposal, but I'm curious for a more clear explanation to how it'll work.

 

[Jho]

Gonna be entirely honest here: I'm not a NatDex player in any capacity. There's no use in trying to cover that up, and so you may all happily disregard what I'm about to say, I completely and totally understand if you do that or even if you proceed to clown on me after.

That said, I have been lurking quite a bit on discussions about the less than desirable state of affairs and have come to a conclusion on what needs to be done: Before all else, Z-Moves must go. They were already very controversial in Gen 7 but now it has become blatantly obvious that they turn multiple offensive threats from tolerable to "oh god why" tier broken. The big culprit of this has to be Single Strike Urshifu IMO. Now I am fully aware that for the large part this meta and standard SWSH OU are totally different ballparks where any comparisons typically fall apart, but it's incredibly suspect to me that while Urshifu can hang around as a super strong but healthy part of the significantly lower power SWSH OU it's in this meta where crazy shit like Tornadus-Therian exists that it's considered one of the big overbearing monsters that constrains teambuilding to such an absurd degree. And what would ya know, a lot of that is because of Bulk Up Z-Move sets that can nuke shit with little effort. Manaphy is just as if not more egregious: How is it possible that a Pokemon that hasn't been in Ubers since Gen 5 is now suddenly this devastating near auto-lose for bulkier builds despite getting no significant movepool additions? Once again, Z-Moves are what allot it this absurd breaking power. There's even more stuff that benefits to varying degrees of unhealthyness from Cinderace to Dragapult to Ash-Greninja, but my point is that Z-Moves just give way too much nuking potential to already very rough-to-handle threats. That's not even going into the absurd technical stuff like how they can't be used with new moves at all, which just leads to discrepancies and disadvantages for the Gen 8 cast. Really, I don't see how this meta would be worse off without them. It wouldn't be a silver bullet solution as there'd still be things like Mega Metagross and Darmanitan-Galar to worry about but those can be handled via rapidfire bans from the council.

I don’t want to dive into your argument and derail the thread even further but by your own admission you don’t play natdex and this really shows it as Z move Urshifu single strike doesn’t really exist at all outside of niche experimentation. The set that is popular and has been deemed problematic by many people is the same Choice Band set that Galar dex OU is having problems with, as we don’t really have any additional defensive counterplay outside of a few niche picks. There isn’t really any reason to bring up “it was borderline broken in gen 7 as well” as an argument because it’s not really relevant to tiering here. I don’t mean to come off rude but please do not make posts in threads like this when you don’t have the experience in the metagame to make an informed statement as it’s incredibly unhelpful.

 

[Solaros & Lunaris]

Hi guys its the guy with two names. Anyways, I agree that this should be the method for dealing with these threats. For a bit of time now, the meta has started to shift to more passive cores who can try and outlast their competition. A prime example of this was the popularity of HippoPex + Dark resist (usually Hydre or CMSplit Mage) cores that strove to check the big 5 offensive threats in the tier (MMeta, GDarm, AshGren, TornT and Hydre). In truth, I thought this would lead to a more passive meta as time went on, but it wouldn’t be until like early August that passive mons would become dominant. Enter Urshifu. Blackbear immediately kicked most of the meta to the curb with its dominant Choice Band set, and alongside Mega Metagross, only has two ”answers”, Babiri Berry Counter Clefable and Iron Defense Mega Slowbro. The metagame has since become extremely unhealthy, as HO and stall are the most successful playstyled, with balance being unable to fit answers to these Pokemon in 3/4 slots. Sagisolar mentioned these Pokemon above. Overall, I think the council is making the correct decision by using the kokoloko method, and I’m glad they’re trying to push the metagame in a positive direction as quickly as possible.

Edit: In the Discord, Chazm has brought up the idea that we should aim for a smaller blanket ban (whereas kokoloko method bans are often quite large, see PU’s recent ban). I agree with this: since we are a tier that doesnt get drops, we can be a bit slow with our bans. However, I still think suspect testing should be off the table, just because there are several Pokemon that one can consider broken.

 

[Lameflame]

It’s somewhat challenging to come up with a response to this proposal without fully understanding what I am actually agreeing to, or disagreeing with. I do understand why the OP was left purposely ambiguous to not focus on “potential targets”, but a “wave of bans” leaves a lot to the imagination.

There is certainly an issue right now with teambuilding in this tier. There is no denying that building balance teams with a defensive backbone of two, three, or even four defensive checks to common threats in the meta is not sufficient to cover them all. No one who has played this tier in the last few weeks should dispute this. I also agree that some of the more prominent threats to balance do force teambuilding in such a way that other mons, such as Kyurem or Manaphy, are more effective than they might otherwise be as anti-meta picks. Defensive cores in any tier will always be inherently reactionary to the offensive threats a tier needs to manage, but in 2-4 slots with a tier this populated, teams can only be stretched so thin.

What I am less certain about is a blanket ban on a few or several pokemon all at the same time in order to “lower the power level” of the tier. Putting aside that it is highly subjective to determine what power level is acceptable for a tier with Megas, Z-moves and literally every pokemon, I’m not sure it’s helpful to lobotomize a tier, only to individually test mons one by one over an inevitably long period of time. If you look at Sagisolar’s post and just cut out the first 4-5 mons from the tier, you are playing a completely different metagame after those cuts alone. This would not even include the removal of other highly constraining and arguably more powerful forces, e.g. Dracovish, Z-move Dragapult/Kart/volcarona, etc. that already have very limited counterplay as is. Now, that “new” metagame may be desirable to a majority of the community, and it might even be healthier than what we have now. If the goal is ultimately to nuke the current meta and replace it with something salvageable then I guess in that way, this makes sense. I don’t personally share that opinion and I’m not sure if that’s what is actually being proposed, but again, I don’t really understand the full extent of what is being proposed.

I genuinely believe that the culprit of this problem is the identity of the tier itself. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the tier a lot and the direction chosen for it as an extension of Gen 7 with Gen 8 mechanics, but everything has a trade-off and matchup issues are one of them in a tier trying to balance as many old and new mechanics as it is. However, since this is unlikely to change, I would focus on eliminating and then retesting mons that force specific defensive answers on teams. I don’t think it’s a requirement of a healthy metagame that balance teams need to cover almost every offensive threat in a couple slots. Rather, I think it is healthy if a team can use a generic defensive backbone with the top tier threats in mind, and still have enough breathing room to pivot/outplay other mons that don’t invalidate the team for not running the 1 thing you needed to stop it. I would consider achieving this state a “success”, regardless of how you choose to get there. I personally think Urshifu-SS and Dracovish are examples of this, since we’re only discussing teambuilding and not “brokenness”, but the proposal is more important than the specifics right now.

I know some will take this post as an attempt to be unnecessarily contrarian instead of just saying “yes I agree”, but I have honest doubts about whether the kokoloko method or whatever is in the works is likely to fix the issue that everyone agrees exists. Not sure whether anyone will read this or care since I did vote for Metagross to stay but alas, here you go.

 

[Of Shade]

This is my first post so please be gentle, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

I think that a wave of bans across problem threats is a good way to go about things for the time being. DLC just dropped and it made checks to already strong threats get even more pressured as new things were introduced. While I do not think that this should be the best way to handle things, it seems like the only way to do things somewhat effectively without waiting weeks to come to a conclusion via Suspect Testing. Getting rid of a handful of problem 'mons and then letting the meta stabilize sounds fine, especially if the intention is to later test out some of the banned and see if they have a healthy place among the tier.

I do think that some 'mons are not problematic themselves, but more of a byproduct of the meta. Being forced on a team because they have to be to answer real problems seems to be the case for a few of them at least.

In conclusion, I think that this is an unfortunate, but necessary, way to go about handling the current state of the meta game.

 

[CinnaToast]

I feel like this is a good way to handle the current metagame.

After banning all of these threats it may be difficult to pick what order they get retested in as some of these mons are definitely better with another, but if they are tested in the correct order the meta will definitely be a lot healthier, with balance definitely becoming a more viable play style.

I feel it’s better to have all plays styles be as viable as the other. So overall I like the meta this wave of bans will lead to.

 

[N_Mareanie]

As someone who plays NatDex OU occasionally, and as someone who is very familiar with the Kokoloko system, I can definitely say that this would be the right choice to make at this current point in time. NatDex OU is just in a state right now where it's near, if not, just entirely impossible to build for every threat there. Most of the time it's not even one, maybe even two or more. Point is, it is unreasonable to expect us to properly build in this meta and I'm glad action will be taken. I do 100% think the Kokoloko system is the right approach to take in this situation, given this problem will undoubtedly not be fixed with a single suspect or ban. However, I would like to note that I do not think only one quickvote will be enough as we are looking right now. This may end up not being the case, but as of right now I think the case could very well be that some Pokemon will end up not getting banned just because of the fact that the other Pokemon are that much better, and are not deemed banworthy, while this may be the case in a meta were the broken Pokemon is gone. If this is indeed the case, I think the council should be open for maybe 2 or 3 quickvotes, depending on how the meta develops of course. I think that in the long run this is a better approach for reaching a healthier tier, gets rid of the most problematic stuff quicker while still being able to focus on less broken Pokemon more actively after the first round of quickbans.

Now if we would were to go with multiple slates, I would want to see these four on the first one...

Darmanitan-Galar, Greninja-Ash, Metagross-Mega, Urshifu-Single-Strike

​

I'm not even going to explain why these Pokemon should be voted on because everyone reading this and playing the metagame should 100% know why these Pokemon in particular restrain teambuilding to an unreasonable extent. The most 'balanced' out of these is still probably Ash Greninja but I think that just moreso goes to show how high the current power level is and that is basically unacceptable lol.

That's all I had to say really. Glad the council took quick action of this problem in the tier and excited to see what changes will be made in the future.

 

[Some God Plays]

As someone who has had a great grasp on teambuilding in NatDex Ou.

The metagame has come to a point where we need some bans in this tier and to restest some of the mons in the nearby future.

With the addition of Urshifu Single Strike to the tier the metagame was completely flipped. Urshifu Single Strike mandated the need of phys def Clef, Buzzwole, and Mega Altaria to find a nice niche in a tier where they would have never been niche picks. Urshifu Single Strike complicated the everpresent problem of that the tier needed 2 or 3 mon cores to making a team have pratically the entire team being a core with the win con still giving defensive value.

Right now balance is dead and is really struggling to be alive.

In a metagame like this your always going to have anti meta picks but the Pokemon at the top are just so strong and devasting without great counterplay for teams to handle right now.

The council is taking right the steps to hopefully allow the metagame to become stable at a certain point.

 

[AnimaticLunatic]

Honestly, from my time playing the tire, the biggest two offenders for the state of the are Darmanitan-Galar And MMetagros. Now with added baggage of Urushima-SS, it feels like you can run any combination of these 3 pokemon (sometimes even all three) and have great offensive backbone that is hard to play around. But if I could pick one of these to ban in near future it would be MMetagros. Other 2, while strong, can have somewhat consistant check and counters. I feel like MMetagros, especially with a lot of them running toxic these days, can beat its checks in prolong game. Second one would be Urushima. I feel like that its stab combination, especially with wicked blow ignoring stat changes and being second strongest dark move (behind knock off), makes it really punishing if you do not have a fairy on your team. Both bulk up and choice band set can dismantal anything that is not Clefable (unaware especially).
Still, I am a masochist and I like playing against them and abusing them (honestly the pokemon I hate the most is still dracovish) but even I have to admit that these mons are low risk high reward.

 

[Zed Thom]

I will say it as it is when it comes to the way I see. I play National Dex on a daily basis because I love the the concept of this metagame. However, I canot ignore the state of the metagame because I will be honest. Its completely out of wack and it can get seriously sweaty and nobody wants to play a sweaty metagame. Jay and Sevelon can tell you that and I dislike sweaty metagames too. Even though we all want to be number one. As for what the National Dex Council approach to the problem. Its a smart way of doing it since the metagame is very power oriented. If you don't have one of the major mons that are good with choice items or can set up and win. you will struggle. But lets get down to the mons that was brought up by other people here and here is my new rule. I am not going to say what needs to be ban or anything. Lets just state the facts.

Pokemon

Mega Metagross: This boy is good! He is the mascot of this tier and there is no argument when it comes to using it and not using it! If you are using it, you got a major advantage. If you are not using it, you got a disadvantage unless you have at least two checks against it. At the same time, it has so many options in which it can deal with its own checks through either hacks or by having the right moves against it. It's even a threat to Galarian Darmanitian, another mon that is constantly being discussed when it comes to this tier. Mega Metagross on its own is a good mon but the major problem that comes with this mon is that the team that its usually in makes it's job easier. Hacks can happen but this is pokemon we are talking about. It can happen.



Urshifu-Single-Strike: This mon... Its pretty nice. If a team doesn't have a dark resist, its free Wicked Blow city. Give this mon a choice band and with a base 97 speed and a base 130 attack. This boy will do some good damage. I have only faced it at least once so far and if you don't have a strong physically defensive mon or a physically defensive fairy, you will struggle and you will likely lose to it. When it comes to my experience though, this mon can do some good but its a mon you are either prepared for or not. I can't say much when it comes to this mon, it just does what it does. Actually.. Changed that. As of 6/24/2020, now I see why Urshifu-Single Strike Style is scary as fuck. Against even a physical defensive tangrowth, it does over 50%. Which is insane... Yeah.. This mon is a problem in a way i never saw before

G-Darm- After some time using this mon, I can see why people would want to ban it. Its a free choice band as an ability while being able to use items such as Choice Scarf and Choice Band. Choice Band brings this pokemon's attack level to just nasty levels and something either dies or gets hit hard from it. Give this mon a choice scarf and he's just good. Hits hard and its fast. Not bulky but hey. G-darm is good but its an offensive ice type. stealth rocks will slow it down and we have scarfers faster then this mon. We even got good walls against this mon. Unless G-darm is banded. One issue I found on it is that even with Gorrilla Tactics being active, a person can switch up moves by using a Z-move. That is something that does break a mechanic. something in a metagame that shouldn't happen.



Ash-Greninja: This mon is either a bane to your team or another mon you can deal with Ash-gren as an offensive mon will hurt and do some serious damage if you are not careful. With spamable moves such as Dark Pulse with a choice specs will hurt and with a chance to flinch, it can be annoying and that flinch chance can win you games you could have easily lost. With spikes support and stealth rocks on the field, ash gren will clean teams ups and do some major damage. It can be easily beaten though but if its with a partner mon such as Mega Metagross, you are in a heap of trouble because of the two mons breaking and offensive presence while being able to sweep.





As for other mons... I don't have much of an issue except for a few but that is more of a personal issue instead of a issue with the state of the metagame.

 

[Sputnik]

Quality of the arguments notwithstanding, this is not the place to discuss the merits of banning individual Pokemon as of right now. Rather, this is to discuss the proposed method of tiering. Please try to stay on topic.

 

[pulsar512b]

I think the proposed system is good. QB the biggest offenders until we reach a healthy meta, and then test each in and go back. This will keep a healthy metagame present.

 

[Bobsican]

Anyways, back on topic, the proposed system is pretty viable, so I support it. A wait of multiple months to reach a healthy metagame being removed is pretty good to avoid the meta just rotting away in the meantime.

 

[Avery]

I would like to see a list of proposed solutions rather than just one, so we can have some sort of idea which system could suit the metagame the best. I have no major issues with the proposed system though, as long as it is well communicated and the intentions behind each action are clear, I am on board with the banwave now + retest later combination.

 

[Finchinator]

I understand your sentiment but I refuse to "faint" to your argument I have much to say, and btw Kappa thanks for reminding me that Mega Slowbro walls this supercomputer spider but according to the know it alls they stated "MeGA ScIzOR was its only counter" back in gen 7 so please
Excuse my arrogance im just tired of hiveminded pokemon players and the toxic metagame..

My point was a mix of Gen 7 when refering to Mega Metagross's ban back then and now it is National dex and when you look at national dex it should simply be a rehash of gen 7 cause most of the gen 8 mons are honestly hogwash except Urushifu and the signature cover legends and eternatus and noone can deny this...

There are barely any decent pokemon in this gen and they decided to buff older pokemon to make up for that Hydreigon, Gengar and Blastoise's Buffs are a huge example of that even so that didn't make things right no new good non recoil physical stab for Flying types so Gyarados and other Physical flying types still suffer but back to the main point I suggest you settle down and leave mega metagross out of this cause like I said before this could easily turn into gen 7 meta if people feel like it the only thing keeping them from doing so is just having fun doing mix and match with team building.

Posts like this probably do not have a place in this thread. They do not contribute to the goal outlined in the OP for this discussion and they ignore pieces of relevant information in their core. For example, Pokemon such as Darmanitan-Galar, Cinderace, Urshifu, Melmetal, Dracovish, and Grimmsnarl all got introduced this generation and are all viable to above average options in the National Dex metagame given my understanding. I'm not going to nitpick your logic further as I wish to circle back to the underlying point.

I think it is a really promising step that the council is reaching out in this fashion and trying to use community input to help shape the future of the community's metagame. This level of transparency and communication is seldom displayed from tier leadership to the subforum level and I think it would be best if we at the very least paid their initiative enough respect as to follow the OP and basic forum etiquette.

 

[Latioswr]

Honestly there shouldn't be any bans the meta will be so diferent and diverse (and way more complicated) when the next dlc come around that this bans won't prevent the power creep we are going to get in some months, just to mention some threats that are going to be so fucking annoying to deal with like mystical fire aura sphere life orb latios (finally the buffs this monster needed but was so weak for gen 8 standars), mystical fire diancie (good bye ferro and corvig), hurricane zapdos (2kos dragons lando hippo and grass types), koko and bulu get play rough and CC leaving previous counters obsolete, lets not forget sand rush dracovish and sand rush dracozolt oh Yeah I also forgot fucking tornadus t gets nasty plot thank you gamefreak!

+2 252 SpA Tornadus-Therian Inferno Overdrive (175 BP) vs. 248 HP / 4 SpD Zapdos: 368-434 (96 - 113.3%)

Just a bit of chip damage and even specially defensive zapdos will not be able to counter torn, but are we going to ban torn in that future meta..?
Of course not because even its fast as fuck there are plenty of offensive checks and even some defensive checks like av magearna or heatran.

Also talking about mega metagross I don't think it deserves a suspect test it may be annoying but honestly the metagame has so much power creep and too many threats that why are we even going to try to ban mega meta if people really wanted to ban him then the players would have banned him the last time around. Also if you want mega meta gone, now you open the pandora box and people will want more bans removing the uniqueness of national dex. Let me be clear I know this is not an argument to not ban something but if mega meta gets banned some shit will be worse and suddenly people will realize there is a lot of broken shit that get checked by metagross but aren't so popular like stored power magearna.

Lets say you people ban mega meta and then the next dlc comes around suddenly shit like diancie and latias or bulu become too much to deal with.
252 SpA Diancie-Mega Mystical Fire vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Corviknight: 218-258 (54.5 - 64.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Diancie-Mega Mystical Fire vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Ferrothorn: 340-400 (96.5 - 113.6%) -

at least mega metagross offers some defensive value while also being an offensive threat to the tier and i think people misscalculate how broken the next dlc will be I am sure koko will get rising Voltage, grassy glide bulu and expanding force lele.

252 SpA Choice Specs Tapu Koko Rising Voltage (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heatran in Electric Terrain: 340-402 (105.2 - 124.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Expanding Force (160 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 266-313 (82.3 - 96.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Mega metagross offers utility for the tier no other steel is capable of being fast as him and while he is powerfull I don't think his presence on the tier is so unhealthy compared to anything else.

I think smogon should adopt a utilitarian mindset personally i think this tier would benefit from an ash gren ban at least metagross offer utility and shit like slowbro rocky helmet tang or rocky helmet chomp/hippo can easily check/pivot into him and they also help the tier with other mons while ash gren forces every team to run literally at least 2 or 3 checks and even later you need to have a scarfer to beat ash gren after your checks are weakened like let me tell you ash gren and mega meta are diferent monsters teleport slowbro is normally good enough to check metagross while for ash gren shit like av tang and tapu fini/mantine are sometimes not enough to check him because between spikes, dark pulse flinches and other physical wallbreakers ash gren will simply get too much value every single match and later you also need to keep your scarfer healthy so you don't get revenge swept by that shit because even at 1 hp that monster can still revenge sweep teams. I am sure if national dex leaders suspected ash gren for 2 or 3 days it would be way easyer to team build because you wouldn't need 2 slots for ash gren. Also if ash gren goes, checking mega meta becomes way easyer I would rather have a meta where my tang is able to switch into urshifu mega meta and rockium chomp than being flinched to death by ash gren.

At least if you are going to do the uu approach then ban ash gren mega meta and galar darmanitan, then slowly bring them back I am sure people will want ash gren and darm banned but mega meta will stay because he is simply too usefull for the tier to just leave him banned. I did agree with his ban last gen (only because electric terrain thunder punch was so fucking busted) but now I don't simply agree anymore there is plenty of shit that checks mega meta like rocky helmet users cinderace ghostium dragapult etc

 

[Jordy]

Hey everyone,

We have noticed that there's still some things left out of the OP that need to be cleared up. We are going to do that in this post. We would like to thank everyone that's stuck to the very few, simplistic rules outlined in the OP for their input!

Anyways, so what we are suggesting, is to instigate a wave of bans, as is stated in the OP. However, this is not entirely accurate. Instead of instigating a wave of bans, the council would be voting on a slate of Pokemon, not necessarily every one or any of the Pokemon that make it onto that slate would be banned (the latter is obviously unrealistic). This slate of Pokemon will consist of Pokemon based on the consensus among ourselves and within this thread; it will be ironed out in the future as it is subject to a discussion at a later date. A 67% majority will be needed to ban anything from this slate. I also want it to be known that we have looked into the option of a rotating council, as we want to make sure that the community is involved in a bigger capacity than just this.

What exactly does a rotating council entail?

A rotating council ultimately looks to expand the official council. It is made up of notable users within the community; people who actively engage and innovate within the tier. Rotating council members will generally only be part of it for one round, but it may open up the opportunity for them to join the official council. If you wish to join the rotating council, feel free to PM either me or Jho and we can look into it further.

There were also some questions regarding approaches other than this. The main other approach that could be taken would be to just continue with suspect tests. However, as has been pointed out, this would be a very lengthy, time consuming approach that we hardly have the room for. In our eyes, this is not desireable.

Approaches that aim to alter the way the game is played such as 7 v 7 or exposing sets on team preview are not up for consideration. Our tiering system has proven time and time again to work and despite the fact that National Dex does not confer with the game's view at all, that is still something we would like to maintain. National Dex is not a sandbox where you can do whatever; it is a Smogon metagame in which every Pokemon that was introduced in SS is available combined with the mechanics and Pokemon from SM.

And no, tiering is not going to stop because of the upcoming DLC, and that's that.

 

[lepton]

my very short two cents: I love this approach. It is something I have campaigned for multiple times for multiple different metas, and I believe it is definitely the right decision to make here. there are just too many things to account for in the builder, all of which have minimal counters. this means that you have to choose a matchup or two that you just lose to at preview. i wont get into specific mons, but i would say i would rather ban too much than too little.

 

[theotherguytm]

Sorry I'm late to the party, didn't see this thread until now.

Firstly, yes I completely agree with that idea and the slate above. I think that Mega Gross returning DNB combined with Urshifu's arrival has blown the idea of suspecting any individual threat out of the water. What do you suspect when there's so many broken threats, and another top threat has just survived a suspect? Any suspect on one of them will just be derailed by "X should be suspected instead!" This is by far the best method for at least the short-term, possibly longer if it turns out Gen 7 has left us any more nasty suprises that need to be dealt with.

Secondly, on a related note, I would like to discuss what I think has been the root cause of our issues.
At the start of the gen, the following elements were unbanned:
Aegislash
Arena Trap
Deoxys-Defense
Genesect
Mega Metagross
Zygarde 50%
Out of these 6, 2 have been quickbanned, one was suspected then banned, one survived a suspect and is on the chopping block again, and the other two are UUBL by usage. I fully appreciate the fact they were unbanned in a very different metagame, where Dynamax was expected to play a major role going forward. However, Dynamax did not stay around. And as a result, we spent 3 months after that dealing with Arena Trap, Genesect and Zygarde before we could take action against the first "new" broken threat in Mega Blastiose (bar KB since that was a pre-Dyna ban and an obvious ban, possibly Moody too but I don't remember that). We have been constantly on the back foot with tiering, with broken threats popping up like whack-a-moles. I question why time was invested in a Genesect suspect at all, which ended in an landslide 21-6 (7 no-shows), and took up a month. I am at the least very thankful that time wasn't wasted on Shadow Tag, and the leadership resisted calls to unban Blaziken and Landorus! The result is we are now almost 6 months from the Dynamax ban, and we have not once in that time got a grip on the broken threats running around. We are in a metagame where a team that "only" loses to Lando-T or Kartana is a good team!
So to get to the point, I would like to suggest that the bar for quick-unbanning at the start of a Gen should be much higher, and the bar for rebanning them should be lower. Unbans at the start of this gen have massively disrupted tiering, preventing us taking action against Darmanitan-Galar, Ash-Greninja and other potentially broken threats earlier in the gen. Of the two unbans that have been healthy, Deoxys-D is outclassed by Mew in every relevant way, and Aegislash is a decent pick for teams in need of a breaker that this gen usually forgoes King's Shield. So one of the six unbans has contributed to the metagame being more healthy. The rest have just disrupted tiering. So for Gen 9, I would strongly urge whoever is leading the tier to reconsider the "give things a second chance" approach. Unbans from Ubers should be by suspect test unless it is obvious due to a significant metagame change that they will not have a major impact on OU. And the start of a Gen should be no different.

 

[tiasu]

Just my honest thoughts; As someone who's been almost exclusively playing NatDexOU for a while now, I agree with the changes suggested. The current metagame is extremely restrictive on teambuilding, and while I enjoy this metagame the most out of all the metagames I've played, it's gotten quite annoying recently. To the point before DLC, Megagross, Ash-Gren, and G-Darm was at least manageable. But with the introduction of Single-Strike Urshifu, I do believe that it's extremely unfun to try to build or play the metagame right now.

Again, I love the way the council is trying to tackle this issue, and feel that it's the best way to deal with the metagame in the state it's in right now.

 

[Voltencity]

Instigating a "wave of bans" as I interpret it, means banning several pokemon at once. I don't think the metagame is at a stage where such a drastic and hasty approach needs to be taken in order to stabilize the tier.

Banning several pokemon at the same time from the tier may or may not benefit the tier as a whole, its hard to predict the state of the meta after such a big change. Several of the mons listed by many to be broken or centralizing should not be pooled together as, in my viewpoint are all on different levels as to the impact they have on the metagame.

By far the most overbearing I believe is Urshifu Single Strike, which combined with wicked blow, is certainly centralizing in the metagame by essentially requiring a dark resist on balance type teams, most of which are fairies, and few of which are viable such as Clefable, Tapu Fini, Altaria-Mega, where Fini gets easily chipped down without reliable recovery and Altaria-Mega is a niche pick that isn't really quite on the level of other pokemon on the tier.

Metagross-Mega, arguably the best mega in the tier, while it fits many roles due to its high natural bulk, decent speed and strong attack stat is not without suitable counterplay in a general sense where Zapdos, Gliscor, Ferrothorn, Tangrowth can all check Metagross quite decently and are all very viable pokemon in the tier. While the use of Toxic on Metagross can wear down some of these checks, that in it self is not enough to warrant it quickbanned in a wave of bans and in my opinion is not close to the level of centralization that Urshifu Single Strike has on the tier.

Ash-Greninja doesn't even deserve to be mentioned among the other two as it has a wide variety of checks: Chansey, Toxapex, Mantine, Magearna, AV Tangrowth, SpDef Ferrothorn, Tapu Fini, combined with its mediocre SpAtk stat before its transformation, which is by no means necessarily an easy task, does not really make it centralizing or really that threatening as a whole as even after transformation it doesn't simply violate its former checks without support.

I would like to see a slower approach taken, such as suspect tests applied to the NatDex Tier, probably starting with Urshifu, for reasons stated above, but also because banning several pokemon at once, and then trying to retest them later individually, would be much harder to test accurately since the other pokemon also banned in the wave wouldn't be in the tier making it harder to judge whether it would be healthy for the newly formed metagame. As stated in the OP, it is difficult to pinpoint the issue in NatDex right now and as such taking it step by step, in my opinion, would be the best approach.

 

[WolfishOne]

Instigating a "wave of bans" as I interpret it, means banning several pokemon at once. I don't think the metagame is at a stage where such a drastic and hasty approach needs to be taken in order to stabilize the tier.

Banning several pokemon at the same time from the tier may or may not benefit the tier as a whole, its hard to predict the state of the meta after such a big change. Several of the mons listed by many to be broken or centralizing should not be pooled together as, in my viewpoint are all on different levels as to the impact they have on the metagame.

By far the most overbearing I believe is Urshifu Single Strike, which combined with wicked blow, is certainly centralizing in the metagame by essentially requiring a dark resist on balance type teams, most of which are fairies, and few of which are viable such as Clefable, Tapu Fini, Altaria-Mega, where Fini gets easily chipped down without reliable recovery and Altaria-Mega is a niche pick that isn't really quite on the level of other pokemon on the tier.

Metagross-Mega, arguably the best mega in the tier, while it fits many roles due to its high natural bulk, decent speed and strong attack stat is not without suitable counterplay in a general sense where Zapdos, Gliscor, Ferrothorn, Tangrowth can all check Metagross quite decently and are all very viable pokemon in the tier. While the use of Toxic on Metagross can wear down some of these checks, that in it self is not enough to warrant it quickbanned in a wave of bans and in my opinion is not close to the level of centralization that Urshifu Single Strike has on the tier.

Ash-Greninja doesn't even deserve to be mentioned among the other two as it has a wide variety of checks: Chansey, Toxapex, Mantine, Magearna, AV Tangrowth, SpDef Ferrothorn, Tapu Fini, combined with its mediocre SpAtk stat before its transformation, which is by no means necessarily an easy task, does not really make it centralizing or really that threatening as a whole as even after transformation it doesn't simply violate its former checks without support.

I would like to see a slower approach taken, such as suspect tests applied to the NatDex Tier, probably starting with Urshifu, for reasons stated above, but also because banning several pokemon at once, and then trying to retest them later individually, would be much harder to test accurately since the other pokemon also banned in the wave wouldn't be in the tier making it harder to judge whether it would be healthy for the newly formed metagame. As stated in the OP, it is difficult to pinpoint the issue in NatDex right now and as such taking it step by step, in my opinion, would be the best approach.

The issue isn't the mons individually it's that to beat them all you end up having a team that loses to some other threat. I think somebody used a great analogy above "You would have a team that only loses to kartana or garchomp"

 

[Fatty Rabbit]

As some others mentioned, I agree it would be good to just go slowly with the old school method- suspect test a mon at a time. The goal is not to ban every good mon, but to take action if something is overbearing in the tier. By banning a mon at once, we can probably more clearly speculate the specific impact of that mon on the tier, by observing the difference of team builds pre and post ban.

From my observation, I think the main issue with the national dex ou tier started off with the prevalence of blazing fast sweepers (notably ddance dragapult), which are supported by powerful wallbreakers with considerable bulkiness( choice banded urshifu and dracovish as well as mega metagross). This has forced most players to run centralizing, very bulky walls to counter these mons(tangrowth, the pex, clefable). Then this happened... as the fat mons mentioned above are able to cover each other's weaknesses so well, players have started to use them together, embracing the much digusted stall playstyle.

This is pretty complicated as we all know there is a possibility that the walls could become even more unbreakable if there is a ban of multiple sweepers/walbreakers at once. So maybe we should just go a step at a time and see how it goes.