Hey everyone, I think the tier has been developing nicely so far, despite the presence of several problematic aspects currently. The most major one that everyone is focused on is, of course, the tera issue, but the reality is that we can't do too much about the situation at the moment.
In the meantime, I'd like to bring attention to a problematic aspect of the tier that we can currently tackle:
Moody.
While this may seem strange to bring up, especially as you may not have run into it yourself yet, the reality is that
Moody is a purely uncompetitive ability that is already banned in OU and other lower tiers. If you don't know what it does, Moody randomly raises one stat by two and lowers another stat by one. Over a period this time, this will accumulate into a myriad of boosts that greatly outweigh the downsides of the random stat drop.
The fundamental nature of Moody's randomness makes it an ability that is not tied to skill at all, making it uncompetitive and just generally not fun.
The reason that Moody was not banned at the start of this gen was because, in Gen 8, Moody had very few viable abusers, with the only one being Glalie. Overall, while Glalie could occasionally sweep, the reality was that it got hard countered by a pokemon that was on nearly every team in the metagame: Necrozma-DM. It's best bet to break past it was to stall out Sunsteel Strike PP, but with the rise of popularity of Iron Head sets, Glalie had a much, much more difficult time stalling out NDM and as such it was just generally seen as gimmicky and ineffective. As a result, it was deemed as mostly harmless, and the tiering council needed to a look at other more pressing issues such as the Zacian and Shadow Tag anyway.
The difference this generation is that we have a much more viable abuser: Scovillain.
Scovillain @ Leftovers
Ability: Moody
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD (or anything you want really)
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Leech Seed
- Substitute
- Protect
While it may not seem that intimidating at first, its stats are decent enough, and having access to Leech Seed was the dream of any Moody abuser, giving it unprecedented stalling power in combination with its ability. Flamethrower gives great mono-coverage thanks to it's high PP and burn chance, being immune only by Dachsbun and Ceruledge (the latter which you can potentially stall out with Leech anyway). Another notable aspect is that the tier is currently lacking many viable phazers, with only rare options like Whirlwind Ting-Lu, Haze Pex, Perish Song Scream Tail, or Whirlwind Hippowdon being around. This gives the vast majority of teams little counterplay to Scovillain other than continually hitting it and hoping the random stat drops go their way. Not to mention, several common pokemon that are key to defensive cores such as Corviknight, Ting-Lu, Scream Tail, and Skeledirge can provide a pretty easy set-up opportunity for Scovillain. All it takes is one speed boost for Scovillain to have the ability to stall every team member through Leech Seed, Substitute, and Protect, or just sweep outright with Flamethrower given enough Special Attack boosts.
While Scovillain hasn't been used too much yet (due in part to the general distaste for such a random ability), it has notably been part of
SiTuM's run to the 1st place on the ladder at the beginning of the generation, and its already being used in some tour games such as by
Fc. It's not a threat that will win you every game, but its something that will let you win games you shouldn't have won in the first place due to the odds going in your favor.
This post was meant to spark discussion with this in mind: I think that Moody should be banned from Ubers in line with OU and the other lower tiers. What do you think?