Metagame USUM Monotype Council Vote A1

[Eien]

As the thread title states, welcome to the first USUM Monotype council tiering decision. Ever since Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, the council has been considering past tiering decisions. While discussion primarily focused on our quickbans from early Sun and Moon, we felt it'd be better to revisit more recent tiering first, as their effects on the metagame were more current.

Why Review Magearna?
Per requests to review old decisions, we had already been debating Magearna's ban. Magearna had always been a controversial Pokemon ever since it was released. The council was very reluctant to even suspect it in spite of nearly six months of discussion and requests. This was partially because we felt the community simply hadn't explored all of the options available to them at the time. Throughout the early tiering process of SM Monotype, parts of the community were convinced the council was intentionally not banning Steel-type Pokemon that their teams were weak to, notably Kartana and Mega Metagross. This sentiment bled into Magearna, and while we had believed in "mustn't be too hasty", it was difficult to continue to refuse at least suspecting it to properly gauge whether it was legal.

Rereading the discussions held in the SM Metagame discussion and the Magearna suspect threads, though, we came to the conclusion that many votes were biased when cast. Most voters had already gone into the suspect with their minds made up. This was a red flag to us, as in our tiering philosophy, the second rule is: Do not favor any one type. This goes the other way as well, and we should not tier to specifically hinder any one type either. Considering that Steel had once been a top type with Magearna and has since tumbled down to barely even mid tier, it was clear that the community's grudge against the Steel type had affected their votes. However, users who earn the right to vote in a suspect may vote in any way they wish. As a result, the council chose not to overrule the decision without further consideration.

Instead, to ensure the tier is as balanced as possible, the council decided to formally review the community's suspect decision to ban Magearna.

Why Unban Magearna?
Last year, when Magearna had been banned, USUM had not been released. With its release, though, it's clear Magearna is not at all overpowered anymore. Consider what came with USUM: Fire Punch Alolan Muk, Fire Punch Alolan Golem, Sticky Web Fairy, Sticky Web Water, and Stakataka. These Pokemon all make it very easy to punish teams for trying to use Magearna, as the new Fire Punch users all deal significant damage to Assault Vest Magearna. Sticky Web usage on Fairy and Water can make prevent the supposedly strong Shift Gear set from sweeping, and Sticky Web also makes Trick Room Magearna less appealing to Fairy teams. Speaking of Trick Room, Stakataka is even slower than Magearna and easily takes advantage of Trick Room Magearna trying to sweep its team after KOing it with Earthquake. That makes seven types that are more capable than ever of checking Magearna.

For Steel teams, this means that Magearna is not nearly as threatening as it had been before USUM dropped. Magearna doesn't really fit on the new Steel teams that are used in the metagame. With Celesteela / Skarmory, Heatran, Mega Scizor, and Excadrill being absolutely necessary along with a Poison check, there just isn't much room for a sweeper that is so easily checked in the current metagame. Just like how Stakataka was overhyped but has since disappeared from most Steel teams, we feel that Magearna was severely overhyped. As previously discussed, its AV, TR, and Shift Gear sets are much easier to check than they already were.

On the matter of Fairy teams, we feel they are also unlikely to be able to abuse Magearna. Fairy is a type that is extremely weak to Fire-type attacks, with the use of Klefki and Tapu Bulu on all viable teams. Adding a third Fire-weak Pokemon is a risky decision in a metagame where powerful Fire-type Pokemon such as Mega Charizard Y, Blacephalon, Victini, and Heatran are so common, not even to mention how every team carries powerful Fire-type coverage anyway. The other problem for Fairy is that Magearna simply doesn't build into the team properly. Sticky Web reduces the opposing team's Speed, making using Trick Room Magearna risky, as more of the opponent's Pokemon will be slower than it. Magearna also doesn't even help it beat common anti-Fairy threats. Mega Scizor is still capable of OHKOing it with +4 Bullet Punch, Volcarona easily sets up Quiver Dance on it, and it's so easily trapped by Dugtrio. Because Magearna wouldn't be broken on either Steel or Fairy teams, unbanning it in total was the final decision.

Why Not Resuspect?
Overturning a prior public suspect is certainly not common, but the council came to the conclusion that a resuspect would not properly address the problems that had arisen in the first suspect. Because people are unlikely to want to unban a Steel-type, we feared a do not unban vote would be the probable result. Part of the problem is that it would require a 60% vote to unban, unlike normally the mere 40% to keep a Pokemon unbanned. If we ran the public suspect and the vote ended in not unbanning it, immediately overturning that suspect vote is not something we feel is ethical, as it undermines the foundation of the suspect process and the trust the council is given. However, overturning a public suspect from over two-thirds of a year ago with multiple metagame shifts is a different story. Just like we justifiably overturned two Hoopa-U do not ban votes with proper reasoning, we feel this is more than enough reasoning to quick unban Magearna.

Looking to the future, we will of course still be hosting public suspects for most tiering decisions. The council reserved the right to use quickbans in the tiering philosophy, and with them come quick unbans. With a unanimous vote, we are exercising that right in order to bring Magearna back into the metagame. We may consider another suspect test to ban Magearna, but such a suspect will require the traditional 60% vote to ban, as the status quo is now that it is legal in Monotype.

So, feel free to use this thread to discuss this decision. This thread is not for tiering philosophy discussion. Tagging The Immortal and Kris to implement. Thank you!

 

[Azelea]

I think we can all agree that this descicion was long overdue to happen. The clearly biased psychic council wanted to remove more power from the fairy and steel players when the suspect happened and as evidence has shown, clearly rigged the initial suspect voting. God bless our saviors wanka and thethorn, who replaced the corrupt acast and rnbs. We should all thank them for their relentlessness to undo the workings off the former corrupt council and get this done. I still think that part of the council is corrupt, especially the kingpin eien.

While this is the right move to establish trust with the community, i ask.. no demand for the council to unban Kartana and Mega-Metagross immediately. If this doesn’t happen, i will make sure that we, the steel players, will move to pokemon online and play under their rules.

-sincerely yours, azelea

 

[Moosical]

In contrast to what Azelea said, we all know that the council, throughout the entire Sun & Moon generation, has been a Steel Council. This is blatantly obvious by the council's hesitation in the beginning of the generation shift to ban overwhelming Steel-types like Kartana and Mega Metagross while being more than happy to ban the things that stood in its way such as Zygarde 10% and 50% (with scpinion being the only member holding them back) as well as Steel-killer Hoopa-U. This was further seen by the prompt suspect of Mega Medicham upon its release around the first two weeks of MPL as well as the quickban of Marshadow on its release. Giving no ample time for the Pokemon to be tested to see if they were ban worthy. Even moreso, Steel council is supported by the suspect of Shadow Tag, threatening to remove Heatran for Victini, as well as Naganadel, who cleanly swept through Steel once Heatran was KO'd. Finally, this was seen by their reluctance to suspect Magearna after months of community complaints, only to now have it unbanned without a suspect! This is obviously a result of the only remaining non-Steel council memeber Acast resigning, giving the remaining members free reign to do what they want. I am appalled by this decision and am calling for an immediate impeachment of all council members!

 

[Jahkem]

I foresee this as a bright future for many well-thought out decisions to be made in due time. With this first unban, the council has begun their cleansing of corruption to become a more structured and honesty society of good Monotype players. Cheers to Eien for leading this tier in its journey to potential the best meta Monotype has ever seen. I'm pretty sure I speak for myself, as well as the community, when I say thank you for this generous and legitimate decision made. We know the council can do no wrong from hear on out.

 

[Dharma]

as much as i like how thicc mag is, i dont think it should be unbanned. its defensive shuca berry set with trick room, eball, and ice beam beats ground, which is supposed to be a type that beats steel. if mag is unbanned, steel wont lose to ground any more, which shows how biased the council is towards steel. therefore, i second torkool's appeal to impeach all council members and replace them with a coalition of karma and imp.

 

[CrazyClown94]

I don't know what the meta is like. I don't know how it was. What I do know is I have an open mind and a unique ability to see what's going with fresh eyes but with clear knowledge of how the game works. With that out of the way, I have noticed that Eien is respected by nearly everyone which I have never seen before in a monotype leader. This meta has been brought down by the omnipresent memes that corrode us all. We must take things seriously if we wish to grow. We could become more prevalent then OU one day. There cannot be suggestions of impeaching all council members. Do not hold us back. For now we must use and deal with magearna in a slightly more expansive metagame. If it truly is broken in time, it will be banned again. The only issue I forsee is someone using shorthand mag and confusing magnezone and magearna. Everyone who reads this can make the choice to grow or succumb to themselves.

 

[Wanka]

To reiterate, please do go into this with an open mind. During the first mag suspect I was as pro ban as a lot of people, but I can guarantee you a lot of thought was put into a decision like this so just aware of the type of thought process you need when playing a new meta like this. And use it as sort of an unintentional spark plug to be creative and think of some new ways to break down the meta and build new teams. There isn’t a better time to do something like that. A previously stable and at times bland meta game has just been rattled, enjoy the newfound creativity and run with it and if we need to resuspect then we can. It’s a win win so just keep that in mind.

 

[AV8]

now all we need is aegislash mega mawile genesect mega metagross :D

 

[edudittA]

DON'T LOOK AT THE STARTING LETTERS OF EACH PARAGRAPH

EIEN IS WOULD NEVER TROLLING Y'ALL

Eien definitely wasn't here. P.S : Attidude is not editing a peep in this post, everything is Eien's

 

[RealShady]

When thinking about a Magearna unban from monotype, I look at it as a new opportunity and refreshing to the meta. Let's be honest, the meta has not had a major change since Naganadel was banned from the tier and a lot has changed since Magearna was banned in S/M. In USUM, there are more ways to check it and a lot more innovation, along with understanding of the meta. It is obvious that magearna is an amazing pokemon that has the capability to check whatever the builder wants it to, but Magearna is not the only versatile mon in the game, and has solid counters/checks just like any other mon. I may have been a person to vote for the Magearna ban months ago, but it was over saturated and unhealthy in the past meta game, for anyone to say nothing has changed then that would be ignorant. While it may come to bite us in the long run (who knows whats gonna happen since this just got unbanned), I think that bringing this mon back is the best idea the mono council has had in a while. April fools m8s, happy jesus day!!

 

[Jahkem]

now all we need is aegislash mega mawile genesect mega metagross :D

Just Aegislash is fine. :)

 

[Havens]

As someone that was not available to participate in Magearna's suspect test due to timing restrictions, I'd just like to give my two cents on the matter.

Some would say that Magearna had an unhealthy presence on the metagame due to its powerful dual-typing combination with the flexibility to fulfill many roles, being a defensive wall, TR sweeper, dual-dance w/ BoltBeam, etc.

Some of those same people would probably say that it would still have an overwhelming presence in the meta, even more than now with Stakataka being a new component that makes Trick Room Steel on its own a very solid HO archetype.

Me, personally, I would have understood these kinds of sentiments in SM, and would have voted to ban it as well. Also, if there ever was an open suspect test to re-allow Magearna again, I would do the same thing to prevent it from happening.

Granted, I wouldn't know how to approach Magearna initially; I could go the TR Steel route, since that seems like an optimal choice of play, though I wouldn't know what set to use on Fairy, since the inclusion of Mega Diancie would probably force me to not use Clefable or Klefki, neither of which I like to lose.

Good thing is, there is better counterplay to Magearna than SM where every single team had to devote a single unmon or Choice Scarfer just to revenge kill this thing, notably Stakataka and Blacephalon.

Otherwise, the council wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place, though I don't find that unbanning this mon first was the correct move, and think that a resuspect with very high standards for a vote should be in place instead.

Though, I'm not a council member, and obviously this move is for the better of the metagame.

So, until we have better results with how Magearna would be run, I guess we'll just have to deal with it. :(

 

[Magii]

I personally wanted to point something else out, as food for thought. I wont be going into full details right now but I plan on returning to this thread. Please note that I got into this meta between Gen 7 release and Mono becoming official.

Besides C9 who just posted, no one has pointed out what could be a new dangerous tool for Steel; Stakacuckata.

With Stakacuckata, Steel (WITH MAGEARNA) gains a dangerous new tool. It has the most powerful Gyro Ball in the game, coming off of abysmal base speed. Coupled with sky-high Defense and a decent move pool, Cuckata is a threat assuming Magearna is banned.

Staka hasn’t been a meta influencing tool like Celesteela (Different Roles but still), but with a second Trick Room able pokemon in store, it could shake up the meta. (bye fairy)

Magearna obviously has other great sets, (CM+Shift Gear lmao) and fantastic attributes. Thus, at this point, (not even discussing what this may mean for fairy [not that large an impact, might outclass Koko because it gets Beam), I am in favor of keeping Magearna banned.

 

[Haaku.]

For the record, I am against a Magearna unban. I think a much better Pokemon to unban would be something like Hoopa-Unbound. Plagued with controversy ever since its creation, Hoopa-U has quickly been a necessary asset on Psychic teams. Eien, your last RMT was a Psychic-type team, and your obvious bias towards Psychic as a type is needed not to be hidden. The ONLY reason your foolish parade to unban Magearna was a realistic outlook was merely because of Psychic (the best type)’s ability to check it. Don’t hide you and the council’s aversion towards Psychic.

Unlike Magearna, Hoopa-U is actually pretty bad in the current metagame. Psychic has to replace a crucial Pokemon on its standard HO build, so you’re actually losing out on many important matchups by including it. On Dark, I can see Hoopa having a slight niche because of its above-average special bulk and ability to be a good wallbreaker, but let’s face reality. Why would anyone ever use Hoopa-U when they’re not even using Malamar, a Pokemon with far fewer switch-ins thanks to its brainless ability to spam Superpower? This only helps my case.

Contrary to popular belief, Hoopa-U isn’t actually a controversial Pokemon. It was suspect tested TWICE and both times voted as a “no ban.” The council made a completely totalitarian and even dictatorial decision by banning Hoopa-U at the beginning of the generation a couple of months later. Should there have been a third suspect test, I can guarantee that the community, once more, would have voted no ban.

Keeping Magearna in the metagame is a bad idea because it limits team options. For example, Excadrill could run either Rapid Spin or Toxic in the last slot, but now it can only run Rapid Spin. This is detrimental to aspiring Monotype builders, and is just one of many examples of the constant pressure Magearna places on both the builder and the enemy alike.

Woes from the community should be enough to keep it banned because of this; but the same woes againt Hoopa-U should be noted and held highly in a council whose focus should be to please the community. Looking at the council, I agree with everyone’s notion to impeach Eien and his comrades. I most specifically agree with HNBL and his idea to form a community coalition of B-side clans and formally take over Monotype as a collective. No longer should the council favor any one type (as the tiering philosophy says).

On a side note, if you don’t want to un-favor any other type as well, I’d like a formal explanation as to why Pokemon like Kyurem-W and Shaymin-Sky remain banned. The council’s clear bias against types like Ice and Grass have not gone unnoticed. You’ve made people like Real Shady and Cloud9 NxtLvl actually give out their real thoughts on a post that is merely fake; and just like the transparency of the esteemed council, this is all fake as well.

As this post was made on such a questionable date, it was immediately doubted by many. And like the first post, the first letter of each paragraph (a super played-out charade) was an immediate giveaway to the falsification of this “council vote.”

 

[Jahkem]

Anyone who thought this post was true, bless your heart.

 

[Eien]

The real April Fools prank was making you all think it's all a joke so that you would forget to revolt against the corrupt democratically elected council...