Rejected The Tiering of Terapagos-Stellar

[lydian]

i never said it mattered? i was just correcting what ropalme said, and he kept bringing it up in his argument for keeping terapagos in ou. please dont mince my words.

thats fair. i dont know how i was supposed to know that wasnt an argument, but my bad, there wasnt an intention to mince your words or anything like that

I feel like a lot of people are ignoring the precedent of Wishiwashi? It has a really lame base form and a battle-only form that is triggered through an ability. They're tiered together. The only difference is a third form that Terapagos has access to, which is not locked behind something easily bannable (ability with Zyg-c precedent, item with mega precedent, move with ... well nothing? idk), and the argument of "Terapagos-S has different BST so it should be tiered separately" falls through when we had a Pokemon that arguably (?) could've been legal in OU in Darmanitan-Galar-Zen if we had just banned Gorilla Tactics instead of Darmanitan-Galar. The answer then was that it was pretty much a complex ban and that forming a complex ban for a Pokemon that was made broken due to something unique to them (in Gorilla Tactics) was a non-starter, and that's also the answer that's being provided now, but people don't seem to want to listen.

how is wishiwashi a precedent, was it ever banned or problematic in any format? regardless, wishiwashi like you said is a pokemon that you can't separate from its form change, same as with something aegislash, in those cases obviously there's nothing we can do. but in terapagos's case it's very easy to not allow terapagos to access its stellar form, you don't allow it to terastal the same way you don't allow mawile to hold a mawilite in oras or what have you. do you really need an item or an ability to ban a pokémon from acessing its broken form? why can't the terastal button be that tangible thing?

the galarian darmanitan situation doesn't seem comparable to me because the broken form is the base form, not the alternative form, so you can't free galarian zen darmanitan without also freeing galarian darmanitan. but you can absolutely free terapagos without freeing stellar terapagos, or freeing zygarde 50% without freeing zygarde-c.

I'm not sure why people keep trying to bring up the mega rayquaza clause as a precedent, when really it isn't. It was a complex mod (ie Sleep Clause Mod) put in place by chaos at the time for an Ubers based metagame, where it's been stated time and time again that bans in Ubers are supposed to be as minimalist as possible. Modding the way the game works is something that should be heavily frowned upon and only used in fringe cases where the metagame is truly uncompetitive/unplayable otherwise (Sleep Clause Mod [which I still disagree with], Freeze Clause Mod, RBY Desync Mod, Deoxys Camouflage Mod, etc), and modding the game just to be able to use a turtle seems very silly. A Terastallization resuspect might be feasible (idk I don't play OU), since there's arguably a handful of Pokemon in Ubers right now that probably would be fine in OU without that mechanic, but until then, I don't see the merit that this brings except bringing down the quality of competitive.

the point about ubers having a different philosophy is fair and all, but why is the mega rayquaza ban a modding of the game? genuine question. can't you just have the rules say that you cannot click the mega button with rayquaza? and same would go for terapagos and the tera button? i don't understand why this has to be a mod, you're changing nothing about the game, no?

 

[Tuthur]

Ubers Tiering Leader here: Doing anything other than banning or allowing Terapagos as a whole would be a mistake.

Fundamentally all you are arguing for is to restrict the ability of Terapagos to use Tera. This is something every tier leader wants to avoid; every tier has at least one banned mon that would be fine if its ability to tera would be restricted. While Terapagos tera'ing does give it more benefit than any other Pokemon, implementing a Tera List is something nobody with any say in tiering wants to see in any way shape or form.

Talking about Mega Ray and Megas in general

Ubers banned Mega-Ray because we were banning a Mega, we just had to implement a clause because there was no handy item that could be banned. Its also much more of an exception because it was literally the first ever pokemon ban Ubers had, and came at a time when trust in the Ubers Leaders to run suspects was at an all-time low, while something simply needed to be done. There was also precedent from OU to ban Megas instead of the outright Pokemon itself that we were following, as opposed to Tera-Banning Terapagos, and Ubers also explicitly looks to ban as few things as possible, especially at that stage when Mega Ray was what changed the philosophy of Ubers to let Pokemon be banned from it at all. The OP of this thread has even acknowledged this before, Ubers should not be used for OU precedent.

The teambuilder does not show things like the Mawilite being banned in the ORAS OU tier, but that is for simplicity of use, because when people build or look at analyses, they dont look for items, they look for Pokemon. Initially in gen6, the mega and the base form were actually tiered together but the item was suspected (see places like this where the suspect was for the Sablenite), it was separated into just tiering the Megas like a separate pokemon itself midway through the gen to avoid situations (that were happening) where fringe OU Megas (Pinsir) would drop into UU, get banned, and then regular pinsir would drop down the tiers one shift at a time until Mega-Pinsir went back to OU. It was causing disruption and annoyance in the lower tiers, and depriving them of good options in the meta. I dont think Megas are a good analogy to Terapagos, because there is not a uniquely different aspect to Terapagos that we could isolate without having it simply be "Terapagos cannot use Tera".

I am not convinced by this post or any of those which talk about how banning Mega-Rayquaza was a necessary evil because it isn't linked to an item. Mega-Rayquaza is linked to a move, that's a non Pokémon element just like items. We even got lucky with only Rayquaza being able to viably use this move in any tier.
Ubers had 2 other options, ban Rayquaza (Pokemon ban) and ban Dragon Ascent (move ban), that would follow tiering policy as you explain it. If I follow you correctly, Ubers ignored these options for something totally unorthodoxal from a tiering perspective and this doesn't deserve a mention anywhere? I only see two possible options; tiering was awful back then and people wanted to preserve Dragon Ascent Rayquaza in Ubers, or Mega-Rayquaza is its separate entity as it follows the current definition of what constitutes an alternative form. I'm fine with current leadership telling us banning Mega-Rayquaza was a mistake, but it definitely wasnt caused by the lack of other options.
Also out of curiosity, I clicked the thread you linked about how Terastal shouldnt be compared to Mega-Rayquaza and the only mention I found about it is Marty stating it is not a mod to prevent Mega-Rayquaza from Mega Evolving as it is a basic agreement to not use an option that they are never forced to use.

I feel like a lot of people are ignoring the precedent of Wishiwashi? It has a really lame base form and a battle-only form that is triggered through an ability. They're tiered together. The only difference is a third form that Terapagos has access to, which is not locked behind something easily bannable (ability with Zyg-c precedent, item with mega precedent, move with ... well nothing? idk), and the argument of "Terapagos-S has different BST so it should be tiered separately" falls through when we had a Pokemon that arguably (?) could've been legal in OU in Darmanitan-Galar-Zen if we had just banned Gorilla Tactics instead of Darmanitan-Galar. The answer then was that it was pretty much a complex ban and that forming a complex ban for a Pokemon that was made broken due to something unique to them (in Gorilla Tactics) was a non-starter, and that's also the answer that's being provided now, but people don't seem to want to listen.

No, we are not ignoring these forms. The thing is that these forms are locked behind the use of the superior form. I cannot start the battle as Darmanitan-Z or Meloetta-P. You are right though that both Wishiwashi forms could be tiered differently with the use of sub level 20 Wishiwashi which cant turn into Wishiwashi-School and would be the only mean to use Wishiwashi-Solo independly from its School form. That said I dont know if you can make a precedent of it, as I suspect that the unviability of sub level 20 Wishiwashi-Solo and the fact that it is the only form change locked behind a level threshold are the reasons why nobody ever cared about tiering them separately.
This is also funny because we have precedents of forms that were held in higher tiers by their base forms. Mega-Slowbro and Mega-Garchomp were OU by technicality in ORAS (and SM in Garchomps case). Terapagos-Stellar is similar to those, it shouldnt be able to drop lower than Terapagos-Terastal, but Terapagos-Stellar should be able to be tiered in tiers above Terapagos-Stellar.

Terapagos-Stellar is not a pokemon, it is an in-battle forme change accomplished by using Tera. If you could Tera a different pokemon on the team and still use Terapagos-Stellar, I might have a different opinion, but I see Terapagos-Stellar as being Terapagos using Tera, not as a Pokemon itself that should be tiered seperately.

Megas were a different mechanic that I do not think should be used as precedent. One of the fundamental principles behind mega evolution was that you could have one per team, whereas one of the fundamental principles behind Tera is that every pokemon can do it. I do not think that Megas are a good justification to have anything even superficially resembling a Tera-List.

The thing is you are stating your opinion that is based on basically nothing. I am not saying it in a mean way, but I do think it is irrelevant when it goes against established rules and doesn't explain why we should deviate from said rules except for your personal likings. There is a current definition of what counts as separate forms, this definition has been linked already twice in this thread and states that what constitutes a different form for tiering is different BST, typing, or dex number. There is no mention of abilities or items or anything similar. Terapagos-Stellar changes its stats upon Terastallization, it is different from Ogerpon because the latter doesnt change its stats, but it is not different from Mega-Evolution because items have never been the reasons why Mega-Evolution were tiered separately from their base forms.

 

[Aberforth]

I mean I dont think you're understanding my opinion at all. Almost none of what you've tried to rebut is an argument I've made. Mega Ray is irrelevant here, because this is not Ubers, this is OU. Even if Mega Ray was not a mega, and was in a very similar boat to Terapagos, I would still say that OU should not operate off of Uber's previous policy, especially during the particular time the Mega Ray ban happened. The thread I linked was not making a point about Tera vs Megas or anything, it was specifically to show that Ropalme has previously talked about the fact that Ubers has a much higher threshold and should not be the standard we use in OU. I've also never once talked about Ogerpon.

With a controversial few exceptions (Alderons Proposal, Baton Pass), we do not nerf things to keep something in a tier. We did not ban Libero on Cinderace, nor Gorrila Tactics on Darmanitan, nor Speed Boost on Blaziken. Megas were the exception to this rule, because we decided to treat all mega pokemon like seperate pokemon from their base forms. Our policy has been this for years, and will continue to be so. You can find Zarel spelling it out here. My point of view, and the one shared by literally everyone actively involved in tiering, is that nerfing Terapagos to keep it OU legal by restricting its ability to use Tera would be nerfing it and there is not a good reason to do so, especially because by doing so we're effectively starting a Tera-List.

 

[Tuthur]

I mean I dont think you're understanding my opinion at all. Almost none of what you've tried to rebut is an argument I've made. Mega Ray is irrelevant here, because this is not Ubers, this is OU. Even if Mega Ray was not a mega, and was in a very similar boat to Terapagos, I would still say that OU should not operate off of Uber's previous policy, especially during the particular time the Mega Ray ban happened. The thread I linked was not making a point about Tera vs Megas or anything, it was specifically to show that Ropalme has previously talked about the fact that Ubers has a much higher threshold and should not be the standard we use in OU. I've also never once talked about Ogerpon.

With a controversial few exceptions (Alderons Proposal, Baton Pass), we do not nerf things to keep something in a tier. We did not ban Libero on Cinderace, nor Gorrila Tactics on Darmanitan, nor Speed Boost on Blaziken. Megas were the exception to this rule, because we decided to treat all mega pokemon like seperate pokemon from their base forms. Our policy has been this for years, and will continue to be so. You can find Zarel spelling it out here. My point of view, and the one shared by literally everyone actively involved in tiering, is that nerfing Terapagos to keep it OU legal by restricting its ability to use Tera would be nerfing it and there is not a good reason to do so, especially because by doing so we're effectively starting a Tera-List.

Maybe I dont understand your opinion, but I am sure you dont understand mine as you keep ignoring the part about the BST change and how it is different from an ability change like you mention about Cinderace and Darmanitan. You've successfully read the part about Ogerpon-H since you mention it, so you know I'm not asking to tier Pokemon based on abilities (it is ridiculous), so why are you making it the main point of your post.
So let's actually quote Zarel on something relevant to the topic, i.e. BST form changes. I dont want to sound pety, but you even wrote a post that could be very relevant to terapagos.

 

[Aberforth]

Maybe I dont understand your opinion, but I am sure you dont understand mine as you keep ignoring the part about the BST change and how it is different from an ability change like you mention about Cinderace and Darmanitan. You've successfully read the part about Ogerpon-H since you mention it, so you know I'm not asking to tier Pokemon based on abilities (it is ridiculous), so why are you making it the main point of your post.
So let's actually quote Zarel on something relevant to the topic, i.e. BST form changes. I dont want to sound pety, but you even wrote a post that could be very relevant to terapagos.

To me, the BST change is not significant enough to warrant treating the two as seperate forms. It is as simple as that. If the method of achieving the form was not by using Tera, I would probably have a different opinion, but to me it is fundamentally "Terapagos having Tera'd" rather than "Stellar-Terapagos". This difference is crucial, as turning it into Stellar-Terapagos impacts non-Terapagos pokemon, preventing them from using Tera, and restricting it is effectively simply implementing a Tera-list. If you could achieve Stellar-Terapagos and also still turn Kingambit into a flying type later in the game, I would say that it is a seperate form and should be tiered differently.

Also 2016 me was a complete fucking idiot. I disavow 90% of the dumb shit I said back then, and the 10% is only that high because I wanted Baton Pass yeeted before most other people did.

E: To expand briefly, for me the BST change is not enough for me to consider it separate from the Tera mechanic, and I am strongly against creating Tera Lists. I consider the suggestion akin to suggesting nerfing in the same way that I would consider Gorrila-Tactic-less Darmanitan nerfing.

 

[dhelmise]

the point about ubers having a different philosophy is fair and all, but why is the mega rayquaza ban a modding of the game? genuine question. can't you just have the rules say that you cannot click the mega button with rayquaza? and same would go for terapagos and the tera button? i don't understand why this has to be a mod, you're changing nothing about the game, no?

ray needs dragon ascent to mega evolve, the non-modification route wouldve been to ban the move, but instead we're modding out the button

 

[Amaranth]

ray needs dragon ascent to mega evolve, the non-modification route wouldve been to ban the move, but instead we're modding out the button

having your rules state that something is disallowed is not a mod, it is how everything works in all of tiering ever since the dawn of time lmfao

you are not modding the game when you say "these pokemon are ubers and you cannot bring them to our game". you are just agreeing on something that cannot be done in order to make the game healthier and playable.
nobody is modding out the tera button, we are just agreeing not to use it on terapagos, the same way we agree not to bring Ubers pokemon to an OU game, or soul dew on lati@s in oldgens, or when you agree to heal your party to full before an RBY game, or any other (pokemon/move/ability/etc) ban you can think of. there is no mod required. agreeing not to do certain things is fundamentally how every tier below AG works
e: you could argue terapagos/mray are different because they're things that happen in the middle of the game rather than before, but they aren't really that different. refer to any sleep clause thread: the non-mod way to handle a sleep clause would be to agree to not click the button again if something is already asleep. this argument has been made several times over the years as a way to make sleep clause 'not a mod'. it is pretty clear that agreeing not to do something in game, while not 1:1 with teambuilder bans, is not modding anything

completely embarassing thread, if we hadn't reached peak "policy before common sense" in that dou commander thread we've reached it now

 

[Delta 2777]

ray needs dragon ascent to mega evolve, the non-modification route wouldve been to ban the move, but instead we're modding out the button

It's not a mod, it's an agreement between two players. Much like banning Dynamax in Gen 8 isn't a mod. Zarel explains this here.

For the record I support tiering Terapagos-Stellar separately from its Tarastal form.

 

[Alternator]

To me, the BST change is not significant enough to warrant treating the two as seperate forms. It is as simple as that. If the method of achieving the form was not by using Tera, I would probably have a different opinion, but to me it is fundamentally "Terapagos having Tera'd" rather than "Stellar-Terapagos". This difference is crucial, as turning it into Stellar-Terapagos impacts non-Terapagos pokemon, preventing them from using Tera, and restricting it is effectively simply implementing a Tera-list. If you could achieve Stellar-Terapagos and also still turn Kingambit into a flying type later in the game, I would say that it is a seperate form and should be tiered differently.

Also 2016 me was a complete fucking idiot. I disavow 90% of the dumb shit I said back then, and the 10% is only that high because I wanted Baton Pass yeeted before most other people did.

E: To expand briefly, for me the BST change is not enough for me to consider it separate from the Tera mechanic, and I am strongly against creating Tera Lists. I consider the suggestion akin to suggesting nerfing in the same way that I would consider Gorrila-Tactic-less Darmanitan nerfing.

If the BST change isn't enough to qualify Terapagos-Stellar as a different mon for tiering purposes, doesn't that mean we need to tighten the definition of what does qualify?

That's the crux of the argument for splitting the two forms now, that they are two forms.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

I don't really have a horse in this race (or a jockey, or a stable, or money, or...) but I believe Terapagos should be banned in its entirety precisely because of its interaction with Tera. "Terapagos Tera" is different from "Standard Tera", and unique to it. This is the same as Gorilla Tactics being unique to Darmanitan-G, as in, we evaluate the pokemon instead of its unique feature. If any other pokemon shared this mechanic with Terapagos, there would be a case in favor of normal Terapagos, but as it is, the banhammer should fall on the turtle.

"but what about Ogerpon" Ogerpon has yet another different mechanic, where it still has a new form with a locked Tera and different ability, but it has no different stats and, most importantly, does not waive any Tera rules (while Terapagos has that ridiculous permaboost). "Standard Tera" is different from "Ogerpon Tera" is different from "Terapagos Tera".

A case could be made that Ogerpon should be treated like Megas, but I'm honestly not too interested in it because Megas don't exist anymore anyway and I believe we should not consider older generational gimmicks as precedent for anything. Every generation has its idiosyncrasies, they should be the responsibility of their respective TL/Council/community.

 

[termi]

I don't really have a horse in this race (or a jockey, or a stable, or money, or...) but I believe Terapagos should be banned in its entirety precisely because of its interaction with Tera. "Terapagos Tera" is different from "Standard Tera", and unique to it. This is the same as Gorilla Tactics being unique to Darmanitan-G, as in, we evaluate the pokemon instead of its unique feature. If any other pokemon shared this mechanic with Terapagos, there would be a case in favor of normal Terapagos, but as it is, the banhammer should fall on the turtle.

the thing is, though, that gorilla tactics is a different matter in that the ability would function the same on any pokemon that could get it. one could easily imagine it on any other pokemon and assess whether or not the ability itself is the problem (and it isn't, because it is for one not even a better ability than huge/pure power, an ability that has never been banned in regular format metagames). terapagos-stellar on the other hand is a form change unique to said pokemon, and if another pokemon got a form change w/ stat changes as a result of its stellar tera type, there is no reason to assume it would get the exact same effects from said form change (i.e. which stats get boosted by how much, what its ability would change to, if it would have access to tera starstorm and its interaction effect with stellar tera).

there is no serious principial objection to be made against banning something (item, ability, move, form etc) that is unique to a pokemon if it is beyond obvious that it is said thing which breaks said pokemon. gengarite was unique to gengar and was beyond a reasonable doubt the thing that broke gengar. as has been acknowledged earlier in the thread, terapagos would not even be ou-viable without its stellar form, so from this perspective i see no reason why banning the form rather than the mon as a whole would be wrong

 

[Mario With Lasers]

the thing is, though, that gorilla tactics is a different matter in that the ability would function the same on any pokemon that could get it. one could easily imagine it on any other pokemon and assess whether or not the ability itself is the problem (and it isn't, because it is for one not even a better ability than huge/pure power, an ability that has never been banned in regular format metagames).

Isn't that just an exercise in speculation? Yes, Gorilla Tactics is worse than Huge Power and wouldn't be broken in everything, but Last Respects wouldn't be broken in Magikarp either yet it was banned.

terapagos-stellar on the other hand is a form change unique to said pokemon, and if another pokemon got a form change w/ stat changes as a result of its stellar tera type, there is no reason to assume it would get the exact same effects from said form change (i.e. which stats get boosted by how much, what its ability would change to, if it would have access to tera starstorm and its interaction effect with stellar tera).

If something else got a Stellar form with extra stats (which for lore reasons is incredibly unlikely but sure), then it wouldn't be a mechanic exclusive to Terapagos and wouldn't fit my criteria, I agree. But it is the only pokemon which does, therefore it still fits.

there is no serious principial objection to be made against banning something (item, ability, move, form etc) that is unique to a pokemon if it is beyond obvious that it is said thing which breaks said pokemon.

Again, if that were the case, Gorilla Tactics would have been banned last gen and Houndstone wouldn't have been banned in SV OU pre-Home. Has there ever been a case where something was unique to a mon and only the thing got banned? I legitimately do not recall.

gengarite was unique to gengar and was beyond a reasonable doubt the thing that broke gengar. as has been acknowledged earlier in the thread, terapagos would not even be ou-viable without its stellar form, so from this perspective i see no reason why banning the form rather than the mon as a whole would be wrong

Gengar was the only pokemon that interacted meaningfully with Gengarite but it was not the only one to Mega Evolve, so the situation is different. "but by your logic then Gengar would've been fully banned" yes. Gengar would have been Uber, Charizard would have been OU etc. In fact, I recall usage tiers followed that approach in the beginning of XY, but one day the community/Council decided to tier Megas and basemons differently, for their own reasons. I honestly see no problem with it, my actual issue is with redoing it now with Terapagos when its mechanic is exclusive to it, so it should be considered "part" of Terapagos as much as Last Respects is for Houndstone or Gorilla Tactics was for Darmanitan-G. Generational mechanics have their own quirks and community approachs, but to me being a unique mechanic/feature takes priority over being a gimmick.

 

[Marty]

I think what people on the "tier them separately" train are missing here is it's not actually possible to separate Terastal Form from Stellar Form in a way that works with usage-based tiering as it exists today. Let's ignore the fact that you can't separate Normal Form from Terastal Form either.

Usage stats only take into consideration the Pokemon on a player's team as they are before the battle starts. The reason Megas could start to be tiered separately is that a team with "Charizard @ Charizardite X" was changed to have it count as "Mega Charizard X", regardless of whether the player's Charizard actually Mega Evolved in any given battle. "Rayquaza with Dragon Ascent" is counted as "Mega Rayquaza" in formats that don't have Mega Rayquaza Clause. "Greninja with Battle Bond" was counted as "Ash-Greninja" prior to this gen. Obviously, the equivalent to this logic with Terapagos is to count every single Terapagos as Stellar Form whether or not it Terastallizes, because there is no item or move or Ability that changes its form. Which means Terapagos the Pokemon as a whole should be banned in this case.

The functionality you're looking for doesn't exist; how do you objectively count Stellar Form instances separately from Terastal Form, and would you then argue for the same thing with Darmanitan, or Meloetta, or Aegislash, or Ogerpon, or...? (This is rhetorical, I'm not really interested in engaging in a tiering and/or usage philosophy debate, or encouraging more discussion of something that evidently isn't going to happen. Just pointing these things out!)

 

[MeepBard]

"Rayquaza with Dragon Ascent" is counted as "Mega Rayquaza" in formats that don't have Mega Rayquaza Clause.

Obviously, the equivalent to this logic with Terapagos is to count every single Terapagos as Stellar Form whether or not it Terastallizes, because there is no item or move or Ability that changes its form.

couldn't this be done through a very similar "Stellar Terapagos Clause", then? in formats with the clause active, terapagos would only be considered as terapagos-terastral. per finchinator's stance on the topic, ubers decisionmaking should have no bearing on OU, but i do think it's important to note precedence regardless when we have bizarre cases like this where the only other remotely similar pokemon was mega ray. if we ignore mega rayquaza, then there simply is no precedence for a pokemon like terapagos-stellar, and i think it'd be good to see more discussion to really come to a consensus on how we should handle pokemon like this going forward.

i also think those on the "tier seperately" train are saying so because terapagos-stellar is considered a form change that is more akin to Dynamax in that players don't have to trigger it unlike, say, Forecast on Castform or Stance Change on Aegislash. if this is deemed unfeasible, i think a proper, updated definition of what constitutes a tierable form should be made to help guide PR decisions in the future when we will inevitably get plenty of formes that are similarly in discussion worthy territory, because the current definition as i understand it would consider terapagos-stellar a distinct tierable forme from terapagos-terastral

The functionality you're looking for doesn't exist; how do you objectively count Stellar Form instances separately from Terastal Form, and would you then argue for the same thing with Darmanitan, or Meloetta, or Aegislash, or Ogerpon, or...?

i know this is intended to be rhetorical but just because i find the topic interesting: if we lived in a world where zen mode darm or pirouette meloetta was broken for whatever reason, i think one could easily make the argument to ban Zen Mode or Relic Song to preserve the base form just as you would for terapagos, yeah. aegislash's formes could not be tiered differently because they're tied to aegislash's only ability. as far as i'm aware, ogerpon's terastral formes are not considered distinct formes by tiering policy as they share the same stats and typing.

 

[Celever]

I think what people on the "tier them separately" train are missing here is it's not actually possible to separate Terastal Form from Stellar Form in a way that works with usage-based tiering as it exists today. Let's ignore the fact that you can't separate Normal Form from Terastal Form either.

Usage stats only take into consideration the Pokemon on a player's team as they are before the battle starts. The reason Megas could start to be tiered separately is that a team with "Charizard @ Charizardite X" was changed to have it count as "Mega Charizard X", regardless of whether the player's Charizard actually Mega Evolved in any given battle. "Rayquaza with Dragon Ascent" is counted as "Mega Rayquaza" in formats that don't have Mega Rayquaza Clause. "Greninja with Battle Bond" was counted as "Ash-Greninja" prior to this gen. Obviously, the equivalent to this logic with Terapagos is to count every single Terapagos as Stellar Form whether or not it Terastallizes, because there is no item or move or Ability that changes its form. Which means Terapagos the Pokemon as a whole should be banned in this case.

The functionality you're looking for doesn't exist; how do you objectively count Stellar Form instances separately from Terastal Form, and would you then argue for the same thing with Darmanitan, or Meloetta, or Aegislash, or Ogerpon, or...? (This is rhetorical, I'm not really interested in engaging in a tiering and/or usage philosophy debate, or encouraging more discussion of something that evidently isn't going to happen. Just pointing these things out!)

I think this is valid from an epistemic lens but it doesn’t pay off in practice. No one is questioning that Terapagos-Stellar is much, much stronger than Terapagos-Terestal. Pretty much everyone agrees that the difference in power between the forms aligns with the difference in power between OU and Ubers, or if Terapagos-Terestal doesn’t actually find its way in OU then between Ubers and whatever lower tier it ends up in. If the broken form is universally agreed to be to a tier that doesn’t officially care about usage rates — sure Ubers UU now exists but it’s unofficial — then there is no practical harm in banning it.

There is a very good way to know whether Terapagos-Terestal has used Tera in battle or not, and that is if it’s in a format where Terapagos-Terestal isn’t allowed to Tera into anything. 100% of those Terapagos-Terestal remained in that form during the battle.

This echos the sentiment both within this thread and other threads that have alluded to it; banning Terapagos as a whole is probably fine if policy supersedes common sense, but many players are dissatisfied with that outcome. It isn’t hard for the average player to understand that Terapagos-Terastal is broken because it adds a bunch of stats when it clicks Tera, so there is no pragmatic reason to ban both. Comments that it “starts a Tera banlist and once that’s started there’s no stopping it” are strange, because the purpose of this forum is to create policy and failsafes for that can just be… written into the policy. “Tera Clause: Pokémon whose base stats change upon Tera cannot Tera” is the rule that people are seeking and it opens up no such slippery slope. That slippery slope is opt-in, and no one wants to opt-in to it, so it doesn’t matter.

The purpose of current policy is not to pre-empt precedent. Future policy uses precedent under the assumption that the last similar decision was made correctly and in good faith for the situation it was made in. Future policy also has the option to disregard said precedent if the situation is satisfactorily different. Banning Terapagos as a whole Pokémon is currently both disregarding past precedent because the situations are satisfactorily different, while the decision made is because it doesn’t want to set a precedent that may be misused in the future. These are incommensurate positions.

Sure, it’s feasible that Terapagos-Stellar will be powercrept to the point that it is OU viable. But it is not the responsibility of current individuals to plan for such an occasion, because that occasion is in the distant future if it ever occurs. The mechanics of the game change frequently and it is a fool’s errand to pre-empt them. We should be tiering based on the current situation, and the current ruling is not doing that.

 

[Lily]

This was supposed to get a final answer months ago but, as you probably expect, we will not be changing tiering policy to account for Terapagos-Stellar (and, by extension, Ogerpon-Hearthflame). Terapagos as a whole will be remaining in Ubers.