Future Pokemon Suspects.

[gengod]

There has been a lot of controversy recently about Mew, Ho-oh and Deoxys-D with regards to them being actual suspects or not or remaining a suspect in Mew's case. There has also been some mention of testing Lati@s with Soul Dew.

My question is, which of these Pokemon are actually going to be listed as future suspects and are we simply going to test them after Manaphy or are we going to follow the current order in the OoO threadvand test them afterwards?

 

[Tleilax]

I think we should get any other tests we want done first. While I think that they can be open to testing in the future, I doubt many realistically doubt how they will fare in the OU environment. I would rather try testing things that are less clear in their execution first before testing things simply to make people happy, which I feel a test of Ho-oh or Mew would be.

 

[Stallion]

Lati@s with Soul Dew is ridiculous. I'd honestly list them as such

Ho-Oh
Deoxys-D
Mew (maybe not even a suspect)

Ho-Oh is the most likely to be OU out of the three, but we do not know how much Sacred Fire and the SR weakness will impact it, so it is my highest priority as of a suspect test. Deoxys-D is second most-likely for reasons mentioned in that massive thread in Stark (low offenses, 4 moveslot syndrome, Pursuit weak. Ridiculous movepool to counteract that however etc etc).

Mew probably shouldn't be tested imo due to its ridiculous options both as a Baton Passer and as an offensive threat. That movepool at the very least makes it the least of my priorities.

 

[Jumpman16]

Yeah, Mew's stil on the list because I never got around to taking it off, mainly because the order of operations we voted on in the thread dictated it didn't really matter.

Ho-oh's a more interesting case because we don't plan on testing Stealth Rock. If I had to guess, I would think that the commonness of SR will keep this thing from being "uber".

Deoxys-D seems to me like it's pretty clearly going to easily rape Standard on either the Defense Characteristic or Support Characteristic or both (mainly the latter, probably).

Lati@s will Soul Dew has been "my" intention since the beginning, as you will notice from my first two posts in the np: - Latias thread. I'm aware of what these pokemon are capable of in Standard with Soul Dew.

The real issue is what I mentioning in passing in one of the more recent IS threads:


[16:59] <Jumpman16> at what point do we start caring about time out loud
[16:59] <Jumpman16> like, we cant take "forever"


This is about time now, whether or not we want to acknowledge the elephant in the room (no, not Earth Plate Arceus, we're not acknowledging that or any Arceus until Nintendo does). Not retesting Skymin for a Stage 2 tag is in the interests of time more than anything. If you say that you think Lati@s is obviously uber with Soul Dew, I could say that besides the fact that we don't know this for sure, I have no problem curtailing a test after a week or so if a Suspect is obvious uber in line with existing experience we have to back that suspicion up. So I think that everyone weighing in on this topic also has to address how long our current Suspect List will take to be addressed. Currently:

1. Garchomp (75)
2. Lati@s (116)
3. Evasion Clause (126)
4. Manaphy (127)
5. Species Clause (136)
6. OHKO Clause (150)
7. UU Tiers (158)
8. Mew (159)
9. Arceus (172)

Obviously Garchomp's done. UU Tiers are being worked on right now. And Arceus was more of a "should we acknowledge this pokemon" more than "should this pokemon be banned from ubers". And I'm pretty sure the consensus now is that Mew shouldn't be a Suspect. So:

2. Lati@s (116)
3. Evasion Clause (126)
4. Manaphy (127)
5. Species Clause (136)
6. OHKO Clause (150)

We realize that Lati@s is potentially four tests, now three with Latias without Soul Dew having been tested. And now we are considering adding Ho-oh, and Deoxys-D. So, current potential Suspects:

Latias without Soul Dew
Latios without Soul Dew
Latias with Soul Dew
Latios with Soul Dew
Evasion Clause
Manaphy
Species Clause
OHKO Clause

So, now, please weigh in on which of thiese you still feel are legitimate Suspects (given that I have no problem, as stated, curtailing an "out of hand test"). The order probably shouldn't change much besides bumping Manaphy before Evasion Clause so that we address clauses after we're done handling pokemon. (How we're gong to address clauses in practice is a different topic altogether.)

 

[Bologo]

From the Wynaut thread, have we decided whether we're going to try and test Wynaut in OU, or are we going to leave it in ubers since it plays similarly to Wobbuffet?

 

[Caelum]

If Stealth Rock were banned, I would've said there is no chance in hell of Ho-oh being OU; but it still might "possibly" be acceptable in standard if it was. While I still highly doubt with its impeccable move pool and stats that it would be acceptable in standard play, even with Stealth Rock, the fact I have a bit of doubt at all to its uber status leads me to believe we should give it an opportunity as a suspect.

My feelings on Deoxys-D are similar, while I suspect it would likely be qualified as an uber (although I feel it would be one of the more borderline cases) I think the fact I have a bit of doubt (and others do) is reason enough to test it.

Also, I absolutely believe we first need to figure out the tiering status of Pokemon before we begin exploring clauses since elimination of a clause prior to all the Pokemon going through the process could be an issue for a variety of reasons (I can list them if people want but I think it's obvious? I could be wrong, if you disagree I'll give my reasons).

I would like to see the remaining order be:

Latios w/o Soul Dew
Latias w/ Soul Dew
Latios w/ Soul Dew (although if Latias w/ Soul Dew is voted uber I think it would be pointless to test Latios w/ Soul Dew)
Manaphy
Ho-oh
Deoxys-D
Species Clause
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause

That is what I would generally like to see. I also support any administrative call if something is "so obviously uber" for a test to be cut short. I don't have a problem with that.

(How we're gong to address clauses in practice is a different topic altogether.)

I actually had an interesting idea on how to go about testing the clauses. I was planning to make a PR thread in a bit, I can PM my intended OP to you if you want first Jump since I believe I have it saved somewhere.

 

[gengod]

Ho-oh's a more interesting case because we don't plan on testing Stealth Rock. If I had to guess, I would think that the commonness of SR will keep this thing from being "uber".

SR to some extent "may" keep this from being "Uber" but I don't like considering Ho-oh a suspect simply because it means your team must have Stealth Rock or you're going to be at a enormous disadvantage to any team that has Ho-oh. There is not much that can stop Ho-oh in OU and we all know it wouldn't even be considered for a suspect test if SR didn't exist.

We shouldn't have to be "forced" to use SR in every team we make just so we can stop one Pokemon.

Deoxys-D seems to me like it's pretty clearly going to easily rape Standard on either the Defense Characteristic or Support Characteristic or both (mainly the latter, probably).

Dxs-D easily seems like the most likely to become OU. If you look at the Support Characteristic what is it really doing that could possibly justifiy it be Uber based on that category? Dual Screen is better left to Pokemon like Azelf and Jirachi, Knock Off isn't going to be that significant and the only threat really left is Spikes and I doubt Dxs-D setting up Spikes somewhat easily is enough of a push to make it Uber based on the Support Characteristic.

As far as the Defense Characteristic is concerned, It would be more likely for it to remain Uber with this. But with Dxs-D having to deal with Pokemon like Scizor, Gengar, Tyranitar and Lucario just to name a few, in collaboration with SR, Spikes and the multitude of Pokemon that have Toxic I don't think it is going to fare as well as people think.

If you say that you think Lati@s is obviously uber with Soul Dew, I could say that besides the fact that we don't know this for sure, I have no problem curtailing a test after a week or so if a Suspect is obvious uber in line with existing experience we have to back that suspicion up. So I think that everyone weighing in on this topic also has to address how long our current Suspect List will take to be addressed.

So, now, please weigh in on which of thiese you still feel are legitimate Suspects (given that I have no problem, as stated, curtailing an "out of hand test").

I don't think Lati@s with Soul Dew should even be considered a suspect but if you honestly think you must test this, my suggestion is to only run each of their tests for about a week. It should become quite apparent after only a few days why Lati@s with Soul Dew shouldn't be allowed in OU.

 

[RBG]

Latias without Soul Dew
Latios without Soul Dew
Manaphy
Deoxys-D
Evasion Clause
Species Clause
OHKO Clause

That is the order I believe we should tackle the rest. I don't think either Soul Dew or Ho-oh can really be any good for the standard metagame.

 

[lilyhollow]

Latias without Soul Dew
Latios without Soul Dew
Latias with Soul Dew
Latios with Soul Dew
Manaphy
Deoxys-D
Ho-oh
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause
Species Clause

I don't think there's any need to schedule shorter tests for any of these, and for more "questionable" things like Soul Dew we can always just cut the tests short if need be. For that reason I'd honestly still like to see Mew tested somewhat.

Species Clause I no longer think we should test at all (but it's still listed for the reasons above). It's the only thing listed that's really a "rule" and not really a ban, and I really would compare it more to Sleep Clause than anything. I feel that, to get rid of Species Clause, we'd either need to rework the entire metagame by banning a number of Pokemon (which would not only never happen, but would take absolutely forever to slog through, and maybe literally so, because I'm not even sure if there would end up being a balanced metagame at the end of that rainbow), or the Clause would have to be almost entirely irrelevant in that doubling/tripling up on Pokemon ended up too risky in the long run a good majority of the time.

Either way, the test is going to involve people abusing the hell out of it; even if spamming Lucario happens to suck at "peak play," it would take many weeks, if not months to reach the point where even high level players realize that. And even then, they'd still have to deal with it; I'd compare it to the Evasion argument in that "sure it might suck and no good players will use it, but those random matches against scrubs who get lucky matter to me!" except I'd consider this way way worse, as it arguably takes little to no work to handle random Double Teams, whereas team matchups can get so one-sided without Species Clause that the "luck factor" would be really really huge. As for tournaments, just forget about it.


Species Clauseless Pokemon would almost assuredly end up being nothing more than "a different game," and that game either completely sucks or would take months to actually sort out (and would still probably be worse than the one we have right now). I'm just not seeing how it's worth it, especially considering that, come on, who really expects people to vote to get rid of this regardless of test results?

 

[Articanus]

I'm still up for the notion of forgetting all of this and going for a big "clusterfuck" of suspects: isn't that precisely what we're doing with the "New UU", with all of BL being "suspects"?

I'm sure me bringing up this point won't change the fact of what's about to happen, but really something like the clauses can be tested along with suspects since they really won't conflict with each other(what does OHKOs being allowed have to do with Latios being uber?). Or maybe I'm wrong, but I guess that's why I put my opinion here: to either be agreed on or completely shot down.

By the way, if Latios is proved uber do we skip the test with Latias using Soul Dew, or do we go through that as well and just skip the Latios @ Soul Dew test?

 

[Tleilax]

Latias with Soul Dew
Latios with Soul Dew
Manaphy
Deoxys-D
Ho-oh
Mew
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause
Species Clause

Regardless of how I may personally feel about some of the suspects and their chances, I believe this to be the ideal order. Pokemon should come first before clauses. Adding new Pokemon has great potential to change the metagame, and getting the Pokemon sorted out should be done before we go about changing the rules in case of the off chance that later Pokemon tests throw things out of whack.

The Soul Dew test should be kept shorter. There will be plenty of experience in dealing with Latios and Latias that we should know about what to expect. If they are shown early on to be too much with Soul Dew, then we should move on.

Like Blame Game, I find a test for the species clause completely unnecessary. It would throw the metagame totally out of whack. Even simply checking Pokemon would be rougher. A Salamence with a single set-up can tear holes in teams. How about two? Can a switch-in handle something like that? It's already hard enough to cover everything, much less potentially more than one of them, and games might be more likely to be decided before they start by team composition. It would take way too much time to sort out, and I doubt many would stick with it for that long. And even if the test goes through, I really don't anybody would vote it off. We already have the option to casual play with it off. Something like that simply doesn't belong in league game.

 

[lilyhollow]

I'm still up for the notion of forgetting all of this and going for a big "clusterfuck" of suspects: isn't that precisely what we're doing with the "New UU", with all of BL being "suspects"?

I'm just going to throw out the fact that "I'd agree with this if it was posted several months ago," which I'm fairly certain it was, by Aldaron. We definitely do need to be thinking about the issue of time though, so in my opinion all the talk of "just starting over" is utterly ridiculous, especially when we have Stage 3 to mostly handle that part anyway.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

I would only keep Latios and Manaphy as Suspects yet to be tested.

In regards to Species Clause it wouldn't take that long for people to realize something doesn't work, but yeah that would take a lot of work and really I don't think Smogon is ready to dedicate years to figuring out bans with Species Clause off.

Evasion and OHKO have that luck factor that just really doesn't reflect skill that's been beaten to death, so I won't go into it more...

I don't think Ho-Oh or Deoxys-D should be suspects at all.

In 3rd gen Ubers Deoxys-D was an excellent Spiker and Taunter and I think that'll stay true if it becomes a Suspect. Coupled with a base 90 Speed and not having to worry about getting trapped as much as Skarm or Forry it will be able to be an excellent Support poké. With such a diverse movepool too you wouldn't know what to exactly expect from it. Unlike Skarm and Forry it would be able to Spike and wall both sides of the spectrum.

I don't expect Iron Defense to be used much, but that would pretty much stop Ttar, Physical Mence, and Gyarados in their tracks. In regards to Defense and Support I think it might fit the Uber bill quite nicely.

Ho-Oh has a huge movepool too. If the player is smart Ho-Oh can Roost off SR damage when it gets in and common phazers are not safe against it. Not to mention with a base 106 HP and a base 154 SDef Ho-Oh can theoretically run the Sub Roost set theoretically much better than Moltres.

If people are paranoid enough about trying to avoid getting hit by SR they could use Ho-Oh as a lead that can hit Azelf with a Sacred Fire for a 47.5% burn. Heatran cannot switch into that Ho-Oh to take the Scared Fire unless they know Ho-Oh is Choiced because of Earthquake (unless it plans on a Choice Scarf Explosion or Shuca Berry with Rock move). Physical Dragon and Rock types couldn't switch in without worrying about a high probability of a Burn either. I think Ho-Oh might fit the Offensive definition of an Uber then.

With Soul Dew Lati@s basically takes roughly a base 100-180 increase in stats, which can be bolstered even more with Calm Mind. There's really no doubt in my mind Lati@s will be Uber.

 

[lilyhollow]

Evasion and OHKO have that luck factor that just really doesn't reflect skill that's been beaten to death, so I won't go into it more...

It's been beaten to death both ways though, so I see no reason not to test them. I'm just going to reiterate that if we have any luck-based complaints regarding 4th gen pokemon, they should be with our current standard tournament ruleset.

 

[Syberia]

I think the vast majority of the community can agree that Soul Dew does not need to be tested; Lati@s are already suspects by themselves, I don't know what the point would be of allowing them basically a free Calm Mind.

Also, I wonder what will happen if Latios becomes OU as well, and you end up with teams consisting of pretty much "two of the same pokemon." I have a feeling that allowing both of them together may end up to be dramatically overcentralizing, with every team potentially containing the two Latis and a bunch of Lati counters, but I suppose that will be dealt with when (if) it comes up.

 

[Tleilax]

Perhaps a closed door test for Soul Dew? Whether it be badge holders, the people who qualified for the votes, or whatever. Regardless, a full blown suspect test for Soul Dew would not be worth the effort, and would likely be decided very quickly.

I personally don't think it warrants testing, along with Ho-Oh or Mew. My list was under the assumption that they would be tested. I don't believe we should test everything simply to make people happy.

 

[Cynthia]

I think testing Ho-Oh as a suspect is not a bad idea. The fact is that SR is a large part of the metagme and severely limits Ho-Oh's usefulness, despite its great strengths. Also, bulky waters and Rhyperior can stop it fairly easily, it isn't uncounterable IMO. I'm not saying it's a definite OU, but since SR exists and is being kept in the metagame for now it should e considered for all suspects, including Ho-Oh.

 

[reachzero]

Latios (without Soul Dew)
Manaphy
Ho-oh
Deoxys-D
OHKO Clause
Latias (with Soul Dew)
Latios (with Soul Dew)

I think it is incredibly important for the Suspect test to build and maintain momentum, much of which has been lost as a result of the introduction of the "new" UU. I think it is very important, then, for us to reach new Suspects as quickly as is practically possible. I would prefer to get the "important" Suspects out of the way first, then deal with the questionable ones near the end. I put Ho-oh before Deoxys-D because there are two possible endings for the Ho-oh test: it proves to be "obviously" Uber, and gets a quick hook, or all of its critics are proven right and it becomes OU. If it becomes Uber very quickly, no problem. If it becomes OU, taking the whole month, then that is such a drastic change from how Ho-oh is presently perceived that the month was worth it. Perhaps most importantly, testing Ho-oh would certainly give the Suspect process some "juice". I'm a little concerned that testing Soul Dew so soon after testing the Lati@s twins without it will lose the interest of our community, as we all get a little sick of Lati@s. Why not test Soul Dew at the end, when all the others are settled? It also makes sense because in that time span, a killer Latias set could be discovered that might convince us all that we were wrong. If that happens, then another whole month could be wasted.

 

[Hipmonlee]

I am curious about the Soul Dew test. I dont think it is necessary, I think most people think it isn't necessary. It seems to me like a faster Specsmence that isnt locked into an attack is just too strong for OU.

If anyone really supports Latias with Soul Dew, perhaps they should make a thread where we can discuss this. But tbh, I am working from the assumption that this has sort of been included just because it was always included, and not because people really think a Soul Dew test is important.

Have a nice day.

 

[imperfectluck]

I'd like to see Salamence tested based on the "offensive characteristic"

 

[gengod]

I think testing Ho-Oh as a suspect is not a bad idea. The fact is that SR is a large part of the metagme and severely limits Ho-Oh's usefulness, despite its great strengths. Also, bulky waters and Rhyperior can stop it fairly easily, it isn't uncounterable IMO. I'm not saying it's a definite OU, but since SR exists and is being kept in the metagame for now it should e considered for all suspects, including Ho-Oh.

No Bulky Water or Rhyperior stops Ho-oh. Also what happens to the team that doesn't have SR?

 

[Colonel M]

Ho-oh is a menace. Despite Stealth Rock, it can be a Pokemon that tears even through Ubers provided the team has a little support.

One of the sets I've attempted to experiment with was Roost / Thunder / Sacred Fire / Earthquake @ Life Orb. Believe it or not it was quite successful. Obviously things such as Giratina and Lati@s could stop it, but it's not like any of them like a 50% chance of taking a burn or 30% chance of paralysis (provided the rain is out under this condition).

My opinion is neither Deoxys-D nor Ho-oh should be added. The former I can foresee being a menace support-wise. I know that Dual Screen has been tossed out, but think about it: access to Taunt and Recover is hard to pass up. It's able to learn Toxic and Thunder Wave: two status moves that help benefit a team one way or another. Access to Spikes and Stealth Rock are also a big plus for Deoxys-D, primarily because it carries the bulk to do so.

But enough of my (probably) useless rambling. My personal preference:

Latias without Soul Dew
Latios without Soul Dew
Manaphy
Species Clause
OHKO Clause
Evasion Clase

At least there was an agreement on removing Mew from the suspect test.

 

[ToF]

Latios w/o Soul Dew
Manaphy
Ho-oh
Deoxys-D
Latias w/ Soul Dew
Latios w/ Soul Dew (although if Latias w/ Soul Dew is voted uber I think it would be pointless to test Latios w/ Soul Dew)
Species Clause
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause

As reachzero said, its important to solidify the grounds of Pokemon suspects before we get to the clauses. Once all the Pokemon are out of the way, we can finally achieve the balanced metagame that the community has worked hard to achieve, so why not get those suspects out of the way before the clauses, which IMO are less important.

 

[Aeolus]

I'll quibble about the individual pokemon with Jumpman when the time comes to set up the next test. This isn't the sort of thing we have to lay out all at once. Maintaining flexibility of what we want to test is important to me so I'm not willing to commit to any definite order right now. It simply isn't necessary. What I will say is that I want all Pokemon tests done before we start testing Evasion, OHKO, etc. in the interest of wrapping up stage 3 as quickly as possible. Once that is over, people can feel more comfortable about testing moves with a stable metagame. Unless someone has a compelling reason to do it otherwise, I'm going to be inflexible about this.

 

[lilyhollow]

I know there were some people who were confused as to whether or not Stage 3 would include Evasion/OHKO clauses and such, so that certainly clears some things up.