The council has spoken, and the bans are here!
After these results, we did a quick emergency vote on the item Heat Rock, and the results are:
Walking Wake needs no introduction, gaining Nasty Plot and Rapid Spin from Tatsugiri makes it an even more ludicrous wallbreaker and sweeper than it is in standard play, leading most offensive teams left in he dust in regards to how to properly deal with it. Under Sun, its power was devastating, and it could sweep offensive squads whole after a single Nast Plot and even outside of the weather, it had the option to just Nasty Plot and punch holes into fat teams. It was deemed too much for the metagame to handle and was thus banned.
Somehow, Ogepon-Hearthflame is even more of a headache to face in Convergence than it is in OU, mainly because ofnits access to Chlorophyll on sun teams, making it even more of a problem for teams to properly handle, since they can't revenge kill it without priority anymore. Its standard SD 3A set still bullies fat teams since many rely on Fur Coat Umbreon as their chief means of walling physical attackers, which Mold Breaker folds. Not to memtion, the ability to Terastilize giving it Gen 8 Intrepid Sword is borderlime stupid, and allowed it to end games on its own very comfortably. For these reasons Firepon was deemed too unhealthy for the tier.
Urshifu Rapid Strike was already mighty stupid in standard, but the additions of Aqua Step + Moxie and more importantly Swift Swim, have catapulted it into stardom level, with many teams facing rain scrambling to find answers, resorting to Dry Skin Okidogi and Tera Fairy Water immunities littering teams. Its sky high attack !eant you could reasonably spam Flip Turn and do massive damage in the early game and get ready to sweep later on with either Surging Strikes or Wave Crash for bigger tankier threats. Aqua Step variants were less straight forward but were still extremely problematic due to how easily they can snow ball if they are allowed to, and Ursh could make that happen. This was demed too overwhelming to bear forthe meta, and thud Ursh was banned.
Rain has a very complex history in Convergence. It was deemed broken early on, but tge councik at the time decided that banning Palafin, Iron Bundle (the major abusers at the time) and Damp Rock would serve as a suitable enough nerf, as Rain had only one real abuser, and once you had t force the team structure around mutiple Rocks weak setters it would be too much for just 5 turns. Fast forward to DLC era, and not only has Rain gotten multiple new abusers such as Thundurus-Therian / Zapdos, Urshifu, Adaptability Greninja, Tornadus-Therian, Ogerpon-Wellspring and most importantly a new way of setting the weather wit Pure Water types, the playstyle has essentially overcome all of its shortcoming and become the dominant offensive playstyle once again. Water resists are simply not enough to handle the onslaught of rain abusers anymore and forcing Water Absorb / Storm Drain on every team is stupidly restricting. Thus, Drizzle was deemed too powerful to stauy and was banned.
The council deliberated for sometime, and ultimately came to the conclusion that Sun may be much easier to handle in a world were its best abusers were gone, thus Drought was allowed to stay. Even still, some shared concerns with Heat Rock propelling the play style to the sky, and after we did our initial vote, decided to do an emergency tally on Heat Rock, and the majority agreed to ax the item to balance the playstyle while still leaving players with options. Even so, we will be closely monitoring how Sun functions without its best aspects at the forefront.
Some honourable mentions and aspects that the council will be keeping an eye on
The biggest eye raiser, as it was the only Pokemon listed for a QB that survived the purge. Make no mistake, Ogerpon is an incredible offensive presence with access to many potent options, chied of which is the infamous Contrary set, which snowballs with Superpower and then proceeds to Tera and get a speed bost and sweep. Enough of the council believes that it is not as overwhelming of a threat as its compatriots, so it has narrowly survived judgement. But we will be keeping our eye on ut asbthe highest priority.
Big Lando has stolen the valor of Gliscor and has become a menace for teams to face offensively and defensively alike. Posion Heal is a massive boon for Landorus, eliminating all of its biggest issues in standard all at once (easily crippled by Knock Off, prone to Status and lack of any recovery) and making it much more resilient of a threat to take down. Whether it uses Bulk Uo to sweep or just exercises uts infinite utility optiins, Landorus-Therian makes progress. Adding Spikes, Toxic and Knock Off back to its repertoire cements Lando as a certified threat, and is one that should be prepped for.
Fur Coat Umbreon is the defacto defensive physical wall in the tier, and its hard to see why. 95/110/130 bulk bacjed by Fur Coat and reliabke recovery is short of insane, and being abke to quickly Tera Poison oyt of its weakness to Fighting and crippling Toxic weakness further strengthens it as a wall. Its filed wuth utility as well with Knock Turn + Toxic, our Foul Play for set up sweepers, making it even fit on more offensively geared teams and making it very hard to take advantage of by any physicak attacker. The death of big weather spam and Mold Breaker Firepon may bring these issues to light even more, so expect councik to keep an eye on him.
The utility god himself. Scream Tail has been spreading status and preventing hazards from going up since the metagame's inception. An extremely fast Encore, stellar defensive profile and perhaps the most amount of utility moves ever (including but not limited to Teleport, Nuzze, Knock Off, Encore, Will-O-Wisp, Stealth Rock), Scream Tail sorta has it all. Combine that with Magic Bounce shutting down most means of cfippling an otherwise passive bulky wall, and you've got yourself a potential S Tier suport Poksmon. It's abysmal special attack has been an issue for it in the past, but how much it can stop progress in its tracks has started to get the attention of the council, and we will keep an eye on how it develops the metagame and how it responds to set development.
Victory Dance is something that has seen some success in the past, but with many if its roadblocks finally biting the dust, we believe that it has the chance to go haywite if left to it's own devices. This ofc is not proven so we cannot act on the move, but rest assured, if Victory Dance shows even the slightest chamce of being problematic we will take it down.
And finally Terastilization. The council is well aware of how potent this issue is and how it warps the tier. Tera makes alot of offensive Pokémon impossible to answer both offensively and defensively, and is even starting to make defensive Pokemon too much to eliminate. Many of the listed threats are excellent Tera abusers, and many unlisted threats are also very prominent on Tera. We decided to elimiate the main domnating factors in the meta first before even touching Tera, but we are definitely having major talks in regards to how we handle Tera moving forward.
And thats it! Tagging Kris to please ban Walking Wake, Ogerpon-Hearthflame, Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Heat Rock and Drizzle from the ladder. And to also unban Damp Rock, as its now a non factor.
Thanks for tuning in, see you next week!
Walking Wake, Ogerpon-Heartflame, Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Drizzle and Heat Rock are banned from Convergence!
| G-Luke | Tapler | Clas | Zach Parrot | Beaf Cultist | |
| Walking Wake | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Ogerpon-Hearthflame | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Ogerpon | Ban | DNB | DNB | Ban | DNB |
| Urshifu-Rapid-Strike | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban | Ban |
| Drizzle | Ban | DNB | Ban | Ban | DNB |
| Drought | DNB | DNB | DNB | Ban | DNB |
After these results, we did a quick emergency vote on the item Heat Rock, and the results are:
| G-Luke | Tapler | Clas | Zach Parrot | Beaf Cultist |
| Ban | N/A | Ban | Ban | DNB |
Walking Wake needs no introduction, gaining Nasty Plot and Rapid Spin from Tatsugiri makes it an even more ludicrous wallbreaker and sweeper than it is in standard play, leading most offensive teams left in he dust in regards to how to properly deal with it. Under Sun, its power was devastating, and it could sweep offensive squads whole after a single Nast Plot and even outside of the weather, it had the option to just Nasty Plot and punch holes into fat teams. It was deemed too much for the metagame to handle and was thus banned.
Somehow, Ogepon-Hearthflame is even more of a headache to face in Convergence than it is in OU, mainly because ofnits access to Chlorophyll on sun teams, making it even more of a problem for teams to properly handle, since they can't revenge kill it without priority anymore. Its standard SD 3A set still bullies fat teams since many rely on Fur Coat Umbreon as their chief means of walling physical attackers, which Mold Breaker folds. Not to memtion, the ability to Terastilize giving it Gen 8 Intrepid Sword is borderlime stupid, and allowed it to end games on its own very comfortably. For these reasons Firepon was deemed too unhealthy for the tier.
Urshifu Rapid Strike was already mighty stupid in standard, but the additions of Aqua Step + Moxie and more importantly Swift Swim, have catapulted it into stardom level, with many teams facing rain scrambling to find answers, resorting to Dry Skin Okidogi and Tera Fairy Water immunities littering teams. Its sky high attack !eant you could reasonably spam Flip Turn and do massive damage in the early game and get ready to sweep later on with either Surging Strikes or Wave Crash for bigger tankier threats. Aqua Step variants were less straight forward but were still extremely problematic due to how easily they can snow ball if they are allowed to, and Ursh could make that happen. This was demed too overwhelming to bear forthe meta, and thud Ursh was banned.
Rain has a very complex history in Convergence. It was deemed broken early on, but tge councik at the time decided that banning Palafin, Iron Bundle (the major abusers at the time) and Damp Rock would serve as a suitable enough nerf, as Rain had only one real abuser, and once you had t force the team structure around mutiple Rocks weak setters it would be too much for just 5 turns. Fast forward to DLC era, and not only has Rain gotten multiple new abusers such as Thundurus-Therian / Zapdos, Urshifu, Adaptability Greninja, Tornadus-Therian, Ogerpon-Wellspring and most importantly a new way of setting the weather wit Pure Water types, the playstyle has essentially overcome all of its shortcoming and become the dominant offensive playstyle once again. Water resists are simply not enough to handle the onslaught of rain abusers anymore and forcing Water Absorb / Storm Drain on every team is stupidly restricting. Thus, Drizzle was deemed too powerful to stauy and was banned.
The council deliberated for sometime, and ultimately came to the conclusion that Sun may be much easier to handle in a world were its best abusers were gone, thus Drought was allowed to stay. Even still, some shared concerns with Heat Rock propelling the play style to the sky, and after we did our initial vote, decided to do an emergency tally on Heat Rock, and the majority agreed to ax the item to balance the playstyle while still leaving players with options. Even so, we will be closely monitoring how Sun functions without its best aspects at the forefront.
Some honourable mentions and aspects that the council will be keeping an eye on
The biggest eye raiser, as it was the only Pokemon listed for a QB that survived the purge. Make no mistake, Ogerpon is an incredible offensive presence with access to many potent options, chied of which is the infamous Contrary set, which snowballs with Superpower and then proceeds to Tera and get a speed bost and sweep. Enough of the council believes that it is not as overwhelming of a threat as its compatriots, so it has narrowly survived judgement. But we will be keeping our eye on ut asbthe highest priority. Big Lando has stolen the valor of Gliscor and has become a menace for teams to face offensively and defensively alike. Posion Heal is a massive boon for Landorus, eliminating all of its biggest issues in standard all at once (easily crippled by Knock Off, prone to Status and lack of any recovery) and making it much more resilient of a threat to take down. Whether it uses Bulk Uo to sweep or just exercises uts infinite utility optiins, Landorus-Therian makes progress. Adding Spikes, Toxic and Knock Off back to its repertoire cements Lando as a certified threat, and is one that should be prepped for. Fur Coat Umbreon is the defacto defensive physical wall in the tier, and its hard to see why. 95/110/130 bulk bacjed by Fur Coat and reliabke recovery is short of insane, and being abke to quickly Tera Poison oyt of its weakness to Fighting and crippling Toxic weakness further strengthens it as a wall. Its filed wuth utility as well with Knock Turn + Toxic, our Foul Play for set up sweepers, making it even fit on more offensively geared teams and making it very hard to take advantage of by any physicak attacker. The death of big weather spam and Mold Breaker Firepon may bring these issues to light even more, so expect councik to keep an eye on him. The utility god himself. Scream Tail has been spreading status and preventing hazards from going up since the metagame's inception. An extremely fast Encore, stellar defensive profile and perhaps the most amount of utility moves ever (including but not limited to Teleport, Nuzze, Knock Off, Encore, Will-O-Wisp, Stealth Rock), Scream Tail sorta has it all. Combine that with Magic Bounce shutting down most means of cfippling an otherwise passive bulky wall, and you've got yourself a potential S Tier suport Poksmon. It's abysmal special attack has been an issue for it in the past, but how much it can stop progress in its tracks has started to get the attention of the council, and we will keep an eye on how it develops the metagame and how it responds to set development.Victory Dance is something that has seen some success in the past, but with many if its roadblocks finally biting the dust, we believe that it has the chance to go haywite if left to it's own devices. This ofc is not proven so we cannot act on the move, but rest assured, if Victory Dance shows even the slightest chamce of being problematic we will take it down.
And finally Terastilization. The council is well aware of how potent this issue is and how it warps the tier. Tera makes alot of offensive Pokémon impossible to answer both offensively and defensively, and is even starting to make defensive Pokemon too much to eliminate. Many of the listed threats are excellent Tera abusers, and many unlisted threats are also very prominent on Tera. We decided to elimiate the main domnating factors in the meta first before even touching Tera, but we are definitely having major talks in regards to how we handle Tera moving forward.
And thats it! Tagging Kris to please ban Walking Wake, Ogerpon-Hearthflame, Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Heat Rock and Drizzle from the ladder. And to also unban Damp Rock, as its now a non factor.
Thanks for tuning in, see you next week!
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Chansey/Blissey
Greninja
). It also steals Slack Off from the same source. This allows it to be a pretty good cleric and defensive or offensive pivot with U-Turn from Es(psycho)pathra (thank god speed boost was banned and not espathra itself.)
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