Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[Ctann]

At face value, sleep had legitimate competitive use. For some Pokémon’s like amoonguss and torkoal, it could be used defensively.

for others like breloom, it could be used offensively.

this isn’t a replica of minimise/moody, which was pure cheese. It was possible to sack something to sleep, you can get immunity to powder moves, items like safety goggles exist, etc. in VGC there are clear examples of safety goggles/tera grass being used to deal with the prevalence of 75%+ accurate sleep.

any pokemon that ran sleep had to deal with only 3 remaining slots, and the counter play that existed.

Recently, something dark happened. Darkrai was introduced to OU as the 7th best dark type. People mocked darkrai, until it was discovered that darkrai could play slots at the casino, and could uniquely turn its 60% sleep into cheese and cause upsets. With a focus sash, it could fish for 2 for 1 trades.. or better!

-

There is an important distinction about sleep, when compared to other thi. At a policy level, we had sleep clause to reign in the “power of sleep”.

In the infinite wisdom of the council, they assumed after many generations of sleep clause, it was time to retire it, and simply ban sleep. Because sleep became cheese on darkrai.

Therefore sleep was inherently broken on all pokemon. And sleep received the same ban hammer that other moves received.

there was no acknowledgement that we had no modern meta to test unrestricted sleep.

it would be fair to go from sleep clause to complete ban of sleep with actual evidence to support sleep being inherently uncompetitive without restriction.

however you were comparing restricted sleep.

restricted sleep only broke darkrai.

the decision to ban sleep completely, when the alternative was restricted sleep, therefore contradicted smogon general approach to banning things only if they’re broken on the majority of pokemon that access it.

this was reiterated numerous times before. But in this case it was ignored.

not arguing right or wrong here. You could have banned darkrai and potentially valiant if they were truly uncompetitive. Breloom, amoonguss, torkoal, etc are not uncompetitive with sleep clause.

 

[gregdawiz]

I mean, you made serious arguments trying to say the act of banning a Pokemon from being used in OU is the same as directly modifying a game carts mechanics, so trying to call other stuff iffy feels just a wee bit hypocritical, just saying

To be fair i didnt really understand the idea of cartridge accuracy at the time was a gentleman's agreement. In my mind at the time everything we were doing here was removed from cartridge. That was wrong though and I realize that now. Either way its not like Im on council rn writing up a post saying we are unbanning everything from ubers. Council should have strong justifications for their decisions.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Again, another frankly immature or naive argument. I get it, some of us (including me) aren't "the best" like you guys but c'mon, acting like opinions only matter before they're made or other people high ladder or not can't speak their mind is exactly why people here complain about lack of representation.

But moving aside to the main point, the argument and topic of debate going on right now is how the ban was processed. Pro sleep ban people can be and are arguing that this was the wrong step, it's not a matter of if sleep should go but how it was handled that people are annoyed at. Understand that beforehand

i'm not discounting the opinions of new people or people who don't meet survey qualifications or whatever. i'm not even good, for crying out loud. but this was an open discussion for weeks. you could have chimed in at any time and made an argument then, when it mattered. you can't complain that your voice wasn't heard when you didn't say anything

 

[ant4456]

At face value, sleep had legitimate competitive use. For some Pokémon’s like amoonguss and torkoal, it could be used defensively.

for others like breloom, it could be used offensively.

this isn’t a replica of minimise/moody, which was pure cheese. It was possible to sack something to sleep, you can get immunity to powder moves, items like safety goggles exist, etc. in VGC there are clear examples of safety goggles/tera grass being used to deal with the prevalence of 75%+ accurate sleep.

any pokemon that ran sleep had to deal with only 3 remaining slots, and the counter play that existed.

Recently, something dark happened. Darkrai was introduced to OU as the 7th best dark type. People mocked darkrai, until it was discovered that darkrai could play slots at the casino, and could uniquely turn its 60% sleep into cheese and cause upsets. With a focus sash, it could fish for 2 for 1 trades.. or better!

-

There is an important distinction about sleep, when compared to other thi. At a policy level, we had sleep clause to reign in the “power of sleep”.

In the infinite wisdom of the council, they assumed after many generations of sleep clause, it was time to retire it, and simply ban sleep. Because sleep became cheese on darkrai.

Therefore sleep was inherently broken on all pokemon. And sleep received the same ban hammer that other moves received.

there was no acknowledgement that we had no modern meta to test unrestricted sleep.

it would be fair to go from sleep clause to complete ban of sleep with actual evidence to support sleep being inherently uncompetitive without restriction.

however you were comparing restricted sleep.

restricted sleep only broke darkrai.

the decision to ban sleep completely, when the alternative was restricted sleep, therefore contradicted smogon general approach to banning things only if they’re broken on the majority of pokemon that access it.

this was reiterated numerous times before. But in this case it was ignored.

sleep mod clause is a policy issue and any argument that stems from "sleep was fine (with a mod that shouldn't exist)" is inherently invalid, goodnight

 

[SittinGamer]

there was no acknowledgement that we had no modern meta to test unrestricted sleep.

it would be fair to go from sleep clause to complete ban of sleep with actual evidence to support sleep being inherently uncompetitive without restriction.

however you were comparing restricted sleep.

Am I reading this right? Did we finally go to the argument of "b-but if this was policy related we needed a meta of UNRESTRICTED sleep to prove thats broken too!" despite acknowledging we have an abuser even in the context of a restricted sleep? I think I'm going insane.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

goodnight

why are you saying good night? no one can sleep anymore

 

[June Heat]

Yeah it was pretty much a foregone conclusion before the survey was even posted. Honestly I don’t even know why my opinion was asked given the fact that it probably didn’t even matter. Sleep was gone pretty much no matter what. Oh well, I had “fun” trying to make arguments for sleep. It is what it is.

 

[Axiemeister]

In the infinite wisdom of the council, they assumed after many generations of sleep clause, it was time to retire it, and simply ban sleep. Because sleep became cheese on darkrai

it was actually because the restriction was against the principle of not modifying the game, which was only accepted for so long because it worked well enough. why continue keeping this glaring exception if it wasn't even working anymore?

also this post is way too dramatic. it's just online discourse on a game. hakuna matata

 

[Ctann]

Am I reading this right? Did we finally go to the argument of "b-but if this was policy related we needed a meta of UNRESTRICTED sleep to prove thats broken too!" despite acknowledging we have an abuser even in the context of a restricted sleep? I think I'm going insane.

mate I’m saying if there was consistency, that’s the only fair way to go from sleep clause to outright ban. I’m not supporting unrestricted sleep. This is another example of breaking consistency, when the intent is to streamline processes and make things more consistent.

I copy pasted the edit to the post below:


not arguing right or wrong here. You could have banned darkrai and potentially valiant if they were truly uncompetitive. Breloom, amoonguss, torkoal, etc are not uncompetitive with sleep clause.

it was actually because the restriction was against the principle of not modifying the game, which was only accepted for so long because it worked well enough. why continue keeping this glaring exception if it wasn't even working anymore?

also this post is way too dramatic. it's just online discourse on a game. hakuna matata

I agree with your overall sentiment. Just pointing out why things aren’t as “consistent” as they’re made out to be.

 

[mayisthebestfr]

i like yawn in sleep clause so im a bit bummed about the sleep ban but tbh im convinced all the people who are actually outraged about this ban r people who just spammed it on the ladder or people who just haven't played the generation and wanna complain about smogon cuz there is 0 way people were having fun gambling their elo vs darkrai

 

[Pokenar]

A suspect test, as mentioned prior, would have been an unrestricted sleep meta.


I *guess* we could have spent a week or two with 6 mons that either have spore, sleep talk, or both. but I'm not going to mourn the loss of that experience.

 

[SittinGamer]

mate I’m saying if there was consistency, that’s the only fair way to go from sleep clause to outright ban. I’m not supporting unrestricted sleep. This is another example of breaking consistency, when the intent is to streamline processes and make things more consistent.

I copy pasted the edit to the post below:


not arguing right or wrong here. You could have banned darkrai and potentially valiant if they were truly uncompetitive. Breloom, amoonguss, torkoal, etc are not uncompetitive with sleep.

Unrestricted Sleep would be immediately voted for a quickban.

 

[TheNewGuyM8]

i'm not discounting the opinions of new people or people who don't meet survey qualifications or whatever. i'm not even good, for crying out loud. but this was an open discussion for weeks. you could have chimed in at any time and made an argument then, when it mattered. you can't complain that your voice wasn't heard when you didn't say anything

Again, I personally don't see a lot of people here complaining about the sleep ban as much as the steps taken towards it being weak, that's all. You keep bringing up people complaining about sleep being banned but this thread is focusing around the process mainly right now, you're taking away from the larger point.

But I digress, it's not really something we can change like you said and you're right, what's done is done

 

[Finchinator]

I am going to put everything into one post for the sake of it not being split across many threads for those struggling to keep up!

First thing: tiering of many Pokemon is split into broken vs. balanced. Tiering of some other elements -- such as Sleep or Evasion -- does not follow this, but instead competitive vs. uncompetitive.

Suspect tests do a great job at testing the competency of players, allowing for those qualified to vote on broken vs. balanced to do so. However, they do not move the needle for the latter. There is no policy component to suspect tests, so many people who qualify are not versed in the depths of tiering policy (hell, it took me years to and to this day I am still working to improve everyday).

So a 3.7 out of 5 is normally borderline between a suspect and a council vote, so we elected to have a council vote that included the option to ban, suspect, or not act -- this resulted in a ban. This is fairly standard procedure and was agreed upon by myself, Ruft (co-tier leader), and shiloh (tiering admin) as well as numerous councilmen. We also foreshadowed this and posted tentative plans/thoughts on how we were proceeding multiple times, giving people ample opportunity to object both within this forum and policy review, which is a forum used for policy discussions like this.

The plan is to include a question on sleep with the upcoming tiering survey, which will take place later this week as we see how the start of SPL goes. I am willing to discuss how anything pertaining to this will be worded and other related topics here in the interim as well if people have suggestions.

Given this: the sentiment of qualified players (including those playing SV OU in SPL) will help dictate the direction of our metagame as it previously has.

I wanted to do a council vote last weekend on sleep before SPL and OST, but some people in the room, who had very valid and understandable points, noted that this wouldn’t be the best look PR wise as it was only brought up a few days prior. While I would’ve liked to handle it internally, this is still possible with a council vote after the survey if that is the conclusion we reach.

We intended to have a survey on various Pokemon this weekend regardless, so including it from there seemed like it could only help. We are also being very particular about how it will be framed on the survey.

The fact of the matter is that informed and active players have a major stake in our tiering, so we have shifted to a model that involves them more with community surveys, council members posting, and having a more active presence within the community. I think that even though this isn’t a normal occurrence, it doesn’t hurt to get community data on something like sleep. With this in mind, the council still holds active decision making powers and intends to use them when appropriate, which could very well be here.

Given this, I still hope that this can be resolved internally post-survey and not with a public suspect test as I don’t really view suspect reqs as a good qualifier for policy decisions like I do normal tiering decisions. We will cross that bridge when we get there though.

I hope this clears up the topic of why this was a vote (that included an option for a suspect) internally first-and-foremost.

 

[TPP]

I appreciate the extremely high activity in the thread tonight, but I am going to lock it to let people cool off for a little bit because there's too many 1 liners, a lot of posts that lack substance, and a bit too much hostility. This is not me saying people are prevented from posting their opinions because of their view on the Sleep Moves Ban, but rather that I think a little bit of time to cool off and give people time to write more meaningful posts would help at this time. The mods have had to delete 50+ posts tonight, and that's pushing it way too far. If you plan on posting after I unlock the thread, then please consider the following:

• DO NOT post a 1 liner post. If you want to share your opinion, write something with a little more substance.
• Please read posts in the previous pages so that Finch and others don't have to repeat the same thing over and over again.
• Please tone down the hostility and regardless of how you view the Sleep Moves ban, please do not disrespect nor insult each other.
• Please do not harass anyone for their opinion on the Sleep Moves ban.

 

[Finchinator]

SV OU Tiering Survey results ar now live: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-tiering-surveys.3711911/page-2#post-9947296

Enjoy discussion of these results and the larger metagame while adhering to the parameters mentioned in TPP's post above. Thanks

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

No surprise seeing the enjoyment factor take a sharp decline, this meta been so offensive, just like Gen 5 OU lol

 

[Eeveeto]

Well, at least my favorite Ice dragon is not that much above Roaring Moon and Gambit

 

[NotDaProGamer]

DO NOT post a 1 liner post. If you want to share your opinion, write something with a little more substance.

Bro, we just got it closed and the first two are 1 liners. What's your opinion on mons that should have been mentioned more in the other notes, and do you think Bolt is a concern or not? Also how's TR doing.

 

[JunkoAJ]

Do you feel that any tiering action at all (ban or restriction) is needed on the topic of Terastallization?

• Qualified: 72 said Yes, 82 said No -- 46.8% support for tiering action on Terastallization

Do you feel that an outright ban of Terastallization is needed in SV OU?

• Qualified: 39 said Yes, 115 said No -- 25.3% support for an outright ban of Terastallization

Yeah you Tera haters are COOKED, it's fucking over lmfao

• Qualified: 3.6 / 5
• General: 3.3 / 5

Kyurem got a lot of support and could be considered for a suspect in the immediate future.

This is about what I thought would happen but I'm still unsure as to whether Kyurem is actually unhealthy or is just very good - I'm curious as to why people think it's too good? Not just good but TOO good.

 

[Welcome to mars]

sleep deprivation is at an all time high post rest ban, big offense strikes again

welcome, welcome to earth NU amoonguss, i expect you and glowing bro to get along very well, don’t think of running effect spore

 

[peepeepoopoo722]

>significant enough amount of people to mention suggested lugia retest

Of all the things that could possibly retest

Come on guys.

But I do agree with stored power I think we could eventually see it suspected if not until next gen.

 

[MaahirMomtaz12]

This is about what I thought would happen but I'm still unsure as to whether Kyurem is actually unhealthy or is just very good - I'm curious as to why people think it's too good? Not just good but TOO good.

Kyurem is like Baxcalibur all over again, except it's more versatile because it can go mixed. It has everything Baxcalibur used

 

[NotDaProGamer]

So, sleep deprivation is at an all time high post rest ban, big offense strikes again
View attachment 595738
welcome, welcome to earth NU amoonguss, i expect you and glowing bro to get along very well

 

[JunkoAJ]

Kyurem is like Baxcalibur all over again, except it's more versatile because it can go mixed. It has everything Baxcalibur used

I'm not sure how much mileage out of mixed though because it means either of the attacking options has to be weaker as a result; neither option is as strong as Bax anyway and if it's physical it can actually be burned.