Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread

I think we ought to have a discussion about manual sun and whether it's a healthy presence in the metagame. While neither me nor my opponent brought to our LCPL game, there is absolutely nothing as constraining in builder as sun, and with a little bit of help Bulbasaur can get to +2 and steamroll through its nominal checks, as only a slate of mostly unviable pokemon reliably take any hits at that point. We've also seen even more aggressive variants including Charmander and Cherubi which are even more matchup-fishy and uncompetitive. Diglett's ability to trap and set sun on stuff like Mare that gives Bulbasaur a free growth is also important.

I don't know if the answer is banning heat rock or bulbasaur, and I know many of you may not agree about sun, but I think it's the most pressing subject we have right now.
I agree with that post. The SS LC is already extremely match-up based, and it is very complicated to build a strong team that covers the majority of threats. In the case of the Manual Sun, there is absolutely nothing to do most of the time if the sun is well built. It's about the 50/50, which is quite often, in my opinion, in favor of the sun player. There is very little viable counterplay against this playstyle. Snover, maybe Wynaut and Hippo, and that's probably all. Nevertheless, I don't know if the problem is directly related to the Suns themselves, or to the state of the metagame more generally, which largely favors offensive pokémons and makes it difficult to back-up the slightest mistake. One of the best examples is Nasty Plot Vullaby, which is a pokémon that I find frankly unhealthy in the current metagame, since most of what can technically handle it after a Nasty Plot is never sure it can be handled in practice because of the Air Slash flinches (spritzee, marea, shellos are good examples). In addition, I find that Vullaby in general is a pokémon which poses a real problem at the moment, it limits a lot the build (in particular the Nasty Plot), the core it forms with the trappers is simply too powerful since its counter / checks (depending on the version) can easily be eliminated, there is almost no reason not to play it at the moment. Not to mention that when Vullaby first comes on the field, an error of assumption on the set (physical or nasty plot) can have very big immediate consequences. The next June extension - at least I hope so - will maybe allow a slight rebalancing of the metagame, for example with a possible return of mienfoo.

For the problem mentioned, I think that banning Heat Rock wouldn't solve the problem, since it will still be a matter of winning 50/50 to resist the sun, but for a little less time. It will also give sun setters the opportunity to wear other items. I also think that banning Bulbasaur doesn't really make sense since Cherubi is almost as boring and can totally play sets with Growth, minus the Poison STAB. Moreover, if ever a pokémon like Bellsprout were to come back with the extensions, it would necessarily follow the same path as Bulbasaur to the LC Uber. As a result, it would seem simpler to me to ban the use of Chlorophyll talent in LC.
 
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Also... not gonna lie. Manual sun right now is low-key a problem with so many mons missing from LC. Sturdy Magnemite, Sashbra, and Scarf Gastly (as a last resort and hoping the opposing bellsprout was modest) could all answer sun last gen to an extent. All of these mons were also good in their own right and just existed. We don't have any of those now. Manual sun with Solar Blade Ponyta and Bulbasaur being a better Bellsprout is terrifying. I'd rather face off against regular sun without Bulb than have to worry about Bulbasaur rn with regards to building. Honestly, I wouldn't even be mad at a chlorophyll ban. These are crazy times in LC with so many mons missing. I think we really took sashbra for granted last gen. Sweeping through teams is so much easier now with it gone, and it's showing.

Heres some replays for those that don't think it's a problem
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8lc-1084440768-9qi5h08db9ef6yzaqb5zueg9hzbftv8pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8lc-1083763996
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8lc-1083766458
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8lc-1084158143

Look at how much it shifts momentum. Look at how broken fire/grass coverage is. We literally don't have the answers that existed last gen.

I've been saying this for ages. There isn't much point in building in LC rn or playing while this is as much of a problem as it is.
 

Coconut

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Hey friends, just gonna give a quick update to tag along with the council minutes that levi is currently writing up.

The council is currently having some difficulty deciding what the best course of action is going forward in regards to a Sun suspect. We have three different approaches, each having their positives and negatives that I'll super quickly outline here. You can read more of our arguments in council minutes.

1. Bulbasaur: The most prolific Sun abuser, this would still possibly keep sun viable, but potentially not nearly as strong as it is, while still staying to our prior tiering preferences. That being said, there are concerns that other mons will be able to just replace Bulbasaur, and that it will not fix the problem.
2. Chlorophyll: Getting rid of all mons that increase their speed is an option that we have. It still keeps fire type sweepers as an option, but this would effectively nerf sun teams to the point of unviable. This also laterally bans Cherubi, as it has no other ability.
3. Heat Rock: The general idea is that Heat Rock would reduce the capability of all sun abusers by removing the amount of turns they have to abuse. This will reduce sun to mons that can self-set, as wasting turns to bring something else in would be very suboptimal with our current set of sun abusers.

We're looking for more community outreach as to what we should do moving forward, as all of these options are possible things that we could do moving forward, it's just a matter of what would be the best for the metagame.
 

Berks

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I welcome correction, but iirc there is precedent across other metas for banning Heat / Damp Rock according to that meta's problem. I believe it is Heat Rock that breaks sun personally, and a Heat Rock ban would avoid banning Pokemon that imo are not broken by themselves.

Option 1 would, as stated, allow other Pokemon to fill Bulbasaur's place. Cherubi in particular would do well due to its access to Weather Ball. Missing out on Poison STAB would easily be made up by Oddish, who was a common partner for Cherubi before the Home release.

Option 2 would ban Cherubi, a Pokemon which is not broken by itself. It would also ban an ability which is not broken on all of its abusers, re: Cottonee and Seedot.

Option 3 is the option with the least collateral damage and should be pursued in my opinion.
 

tcr

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We've seen this course of action before. Banning just one mon does not solve the Sun problem and we have no reason to believe prior tiering, in the midst of this global warming crisis, would be effective in this measure.

In the event that Sun is banned, the best course will have to be a complex ban of either the item Heat Rock or the ability Chlorophyll. That Sun continues to be a problem despite Vulpix being banned is indicative of there not being some one mon solution because it is the strategy as a whole that is perceived to be broken. Of these I think banning Chlorophyll to be the best option available. The main reason Sun is so prolific is because you can expend one turn and have three Pokemon that have double Speed, outspeeding every single Pokemon in the metagame including most scarfers, alongside weather boosted attacks. This does not change with the banning of Heat Rock as the banning of Heat Rock makes it so the individual has a bit more leeway around the issue. In essence it's pushing it down the line. Your options for beating Sun are still the exact same: play around the mon until Sun dies down and you can actually get a turn to pressure appropriately. I don't see this leading to a rise in notable Sun countermeasures, like Protect on more random mons to stall out turns, because people already aren't really doing that (and they would be much more incentivized to do so during a period where Sun is stronger and more likely to win).

I think banning Chlorophyll is the right option despite Cherubi being unnecessary collateral. There is no inherent worth in Cherubi as a Pokemon outside of being on a Sun team, it is either used exclusively on Sun archetypes or is used in some anti-meta anti-sun archetypes (similar to Sand Rush Drilbur on Snover teams in BW). If Cherubi was preserved it would see zero play, there would be no one asking about Cherubi, there would be no indicative worth to keeping. It is a fabricated issue that people are concerning themselves with, out of some inane desire for Smogon to have the ability to "play with all of our Pokemon." Why? Why must that aspect of tiering be preserved, to where we cannot ban clear problematic abilities so we can preserve a shitmon that is only used because of that ability. In normal tiering sense we would just vote to ban that mon exclusively, but as we've seen when we've tried that stuff in the past, Sun is not defined by any one Pokemon in particular it is defined as an archetype that has seen a garden-variety of Grass- and Fire- types that will take its place. Ban Bulbasaur, or Cherubi, and you have an endless swarm of Charmanders and Bellsprouts and Oddishes to take its place. In light of that it is not appropriate to ban one singular Pokemon when the Pokemon is not the problem it is clearly the ability itself. Vulpix was not the problem (and I would hope that council would take it upon themselves to at the very least consider suspecting Vulpix again to see if it is broken in its own vaccuum if Chloro was banned, not if any other course is taken) as you can see clearly from this suspect not too long in advance.

The only other stances are that none of this is a problem in which case a no ban vote should suffice or that ALL of it is a problem, which I don't really believe to be the case but if council was positing that All of it, synergistically, is a problem then this would require an even more complex solution ala old gen BP ("no more than one Chlorophyll user on a team when in tandem with Sunny Day setters" or something like that)
 
Ah finally Sun is being looked at. But what is the right ban? Well, warning readers, I'm gonna say my opinion.

I think that it needs to be clear what we are clarifying as broken/unhealthy/busted however you like to call it. Is Bulbasaur in the sun the problem or are there other cases as well?

The abusers commonly seen on sun builds currently are Bulbasaur, Cherubi, Charmander, and Oddish. Bulbasaur is the biggest problem of the 3 but how much better is Bulbasaur actually than Cherubi as sun abuser?

Bulbasaur does have a better defensive typing allowing it to set up more safely with Growth and has a higher speed tier. But if you look back at the beginning of the SS LC metagame Cherubi was seen as problematic before and was deemed ban-worthy. So what has changed from that meta? Vulpix its partner in crime has been banned which hurts it of course but with heat rock sun setters it still has enough turns to do the job usually. But on the other hand one of Sun's best checks, Munchlax has gone down in usage. This is because of, how I like to call it, the reintroduction of knock off that came with Pokemon Home. In that regard, it evens out. Then if we compare Cherubi and Bulbasaur offensively, the poison typing doesn't help much besides hitting Spritzee. The reason for this comparison is to see if banning Bulbasaur is the correct move but in my opinion, banning Bulbasaur won't save the issue with Sun and may cause issues in the future when Bellsprout might come back.

Now we are left with the 2 other options banning Chlorophyl or banning Heat Rock. In my opinion, choosing between these 2 options is choosing whether you think Bulbasaur + Cherubi is banworthy or if you think that Solar Power Charmander is banworthy as well. Personally, I don't think Solar Power Charmander is problematic and realistically will probably not be used if the other Chlorophyl abusers get banned. So my pick here is choosing to ban Chlorophyl over Heat Rock.

As the final point, I want to cover: what effect would a Chlorophyl ban have on the current users of it?

Let's see which pokemon have Cholorphyl in LC. Currently, it is Bulbasaur, Cherubi, Cottonee, Oddish, and Seedot. Bulbasaur would be able to still use a set with Overgrow and that seems like no real problem to me. Cottonee doesn't really use Chlorophyl usually and is better off using Prankster which again is no problem. Oddish can make use of Run Away and that doesn't affect the usual bulky Strength Sapper. Seedot shouldn't even be considered here because it is unviable but I will mention it anyway to not miss anything. It can still make use of 2 other abilities in Pickpocket and Early Bird. Now the only issue that could possibly be made of banning Chlorophyl is the effect it has on Cherubi. Cherubi's only ability is Chlorophyl so a ban of this would essentially mean a ban of Cherubi too. But what is the problem with that? Cherubi's only "real competitive use" is being a Chlorophyl abuser so banning Cherubi would not have a big effect if we are banning Chlorophyl anyway. Then you might ask, why don't we ban Bulbasaur itself as well and keep Chlorophyl intact. That is because Bulbasaur could still pull a different set off in LC besides the Growth one.

So to conclude I think a Chlorophyl ban should be done to fix the sun issue right now.
 
So, I'm making a little repost of what I said before but in more detail:

The first option is certainly the worst. First, because it's not Bulbasaur itself that is an unhealthy pokémon for metagame. It's sun teams themselves. Yes, it would be a nerve, but it would be largely insufficient. The core Bulbasaur - Cherubi would simply be replaced by Cherubi + Oddish. Cherubi doesn't get past the fire types and Oddish doesn't get past the steel types. Bad luck, the best sun counters are easily trapped for the most part. Above all, it doesn't solve the main problem, which is that this style of play limits the build. It would make sun teams more "manageable", but the concern would remain the same.
And even in principle I don't think it's a good solution. If Bellsprout were available in the SS metagame, I don't think we'd even be asking ourselves whether to ban a pokémon or the playstyle itself. Banning Bulbasaur just seems like a bad compromise between cleaning up the metagame and satisfying sun players. When Vulpix-A was banned, it was because we knew that banning Vulpix-A would make Veil unviable, because Veils were unhealthy for the metagame. But banning Bulbasaur is not the same thing at all, simply because he is not the only abuser. I think that the only way to really power nerf sun right now would be a combined ban of Bulbasaur and Cherubi. And obviously, in this case, we might as well ban Chlorophyll. Especially if more sunsweepers were to come back with the extensions.

The second option is the best in my opinion. Too bad for Cherubi's ban but honestly, the pokémon without the Sun has no interest, and even for the principle I think it should not be a problem. Indeed we wouldn't ban Cherubi, but we would make it de facto unavailable. And even if in practice it's the same, the intention is very different, and I think the "We would ban an unbroken pokémon" argument would be quite fallacious.

Anyway, that's still the case with Heat Rock. In my opinion, it's another bad compromise. Because we don't know for sure whether it will be enough or not, it's extremely hard to determine. It's a proposal whose effects are, in my opinion, very uncertain. And if it's uncertain and then you find out that you have to redo a suspect or a ban, then it's not a good idea to take that option because of the waste of time that could be involved.

The chlorophyll ban has the advantage of definitively ending the problem posed by manual sun and limiting the overall damage to the metagame. For this reason, it seems to me that this option should be preferred.
 

DC

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I am of the small minority that believes that Sun is not a major problem, although it is "annoying as f" to play against. The metagame has done well adjusting to manual sun's prominence, although you could argue that forcing major restrictions in team building is a sign of an unhealthy problem. Out of the three options listed, the heat rock one is probably the one I would support the most. It addresses the issue of limiting the power of manual sun, which the Bulbasaur ban would not do, while not completely terminating the sun archetype, something I believe the Chlorophyll ban will do. It offers the least collateral damage to the tier since a chlorophyll ban would affect Pokemon that do not even contribute to the issue of manual sun.
 

sam-testings

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It offers the least collateral damage to the tier since a chlorophyll ban would affect Pokemon that do not even contribute to the issue of manual sun.
Just curious, what collateral damage is there? Defensive Oddish sets being forced to run Run Away? Chlorophyll's sole use as an ability is on sun archetypes, banning it doesn't really have that much collateral outside of sun.
 

DC

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Just curious, what collateral damage is there? Defensive Oddish sets being forced to run Run Away? Chlorophyll's sole use as an ability is on sun archetypes, banning it doesn't really have that much collateral outside of sun.
I think you misunderstood my point. To clarify, my viewpoint is that a ban should be concise and should only address the issue and the Pokemon affecting the issue. The Chlorophyll ban would extend beyond that scope, affecting Pokemon such as Seedot and Cottonee that are not part of the manual sun problem while unnecessarily banning Cherubi which should not be the case for an ability ban. (Again, this is my opinion.)
-P.S. sorry if I didn't make my philosophy clear in the original post :psygrump:
 
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natu

Formerly Antgeezy
yeah im an LC player. along with that i know many things that most dont know about this community. heat rock doesnt belong in the actual LC community and im not saying that because i dont like the item. im saying that based off of years of research.

with that being said, ban heat rock. it nerfs sun while still allowing it to be somewhat playable. 5 turns is a lot more manageable than 8. the limited sun turns doesnt allow abusers to just set up a bunch of growths + it becomes easier to play around/stall out. banning heat rock also has the least amount of "collateral."
 

Fiend

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I'm not certain that sun is broken though I am inclined that it probably is. I doubt there is anything new to discuss on this for the purpose of this particular discussion. To frame the way I am viewing this discussion, I was originally going to make a factious flowchart. Instead, I'm just going to state that I am valuing consistency and flexibility here.

Addressing manual sun is best achieved through banning Chlorophyll which is something I think should have been done at the beginning. With the structure of the DLCs, I think some limited forethought is warranted. Cherubi is generally problematic for this due to being laterally banned, yes, but this aligns more squarely with how I think LC should continue to be tiered, especially as it addresses the broken element across several iterations of sun with the coinciding benefit of future-proofing this specific issue. Laterally banning Cherubi is undesirable; Bulbasaur is the only other option which is acceptable and is only acceptable because of Cherubi's case.

I had been somewhat in favor of a ban on Heat Rock, but with considerations to how this would likely pan out, I think this is maybe too shallow. I also feel that this is assuming too much about the viability of sun in the subsequent metagame for me to value this approach. I could reasonably understand either outcome of manual sun becoming a more fringe "cheese" matchup, or instead just outright bad. Though I don't think these outcomes are of equal probability, that doesn't satisfyingly answer the problem. A Bulbasaur ban is probably the second best path forward; it absolutely solves the immediate issue. I find that this leaves very awkward items to address as follow up, though that is generally outside the scope of a suspect test it ought to be a secondary consideration when trying to justify a suspect test. This path forward will also place us in an inevitably similar position if Bellsprout comes sooner rather than later.
 
Banning Chlorophyll, thus killing sun teams, would also have another great effect. Better teambuilding. Less "random" stuff that we can't possibly think of against which we won't have counterplay because it's too bad, usually (like sun without heat rock, or trick room.) Of course, losing to random stuff it's unacceptable and horrible. Ugh.
Ban the abiity, make teambuilding less bad than it is.
 

ghost

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Re-upping the a Heat Rock ban as the likely best option. It specifically deals with the most oppressive aspect of sun (having to survive so many turns against Bulba/Cherry/Charm) while leaving all of the relevant pieces intact.

Admittedly, an alternatively route of banning Chlorophyll to let Vulpix come back is pretty interesting...but I think there is a non-negligible chance that reintroducing Vulpix with Ponyta and Charmander still around would be problematic.
 

Corporal Levi

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I think that the best option is to suspect Bulbasaur.

The main justification behind banning Chlorophyll or Heat Rock instead of just banning Bulbasaur would be to nerf manual Cherubi sun as well. However, manual Cherubi sun carries numerous disadvantages compared to the suspect-worthy manual Bulbasaur sun (and is practically incomparable to the banworthy Drought Cherubi sun) to a degree where I don't think they should be treated as equivalent threats. While they share a core identity of Weather Ball Chlorophyll sweeper, Bulbasaur is much better positioned to take advantage of its support in the current metagame than Cherubi is:

1) setup opportunities. Other than its slightly higher special bulk with a spread of 21/12/13 bulk to hit 15 spA, it has a much more valuable defensive typing that grants it setup opportunities on key mons in Mareanie, Oddish, and non-Fire Punch Timburr, as well as some lesser threats like Croagunk. It still has the bulk to set up on Mudbray and Psychic Spritzee, and can often Giga Drain to escape priority range, leaving LO Diglett (which often chooses to run a utility item instead) as the only mon that Cherubi can consistently set up on and Bulbasaur cannot. The Poison typing also grants Bulbasaur an important resistance to Mach Punch and a neutrality to First Impression, the latter of which means it doesn't have to waste valuable sun turns on Protect.

2) offensive pressure. Sludge Bomb helps Bulbasaur break through Ponyta, which walls Cherubi completely, and makes it much harder for Spritzee to stall out sun turns. More importantly, it allows Bulbasaur to continue to act as a major threat after sun has ended. Once sun runs out, Cherubi is effectively negated as a threat; it's slow, frail, and only has Grass-type coverage. On the other hand, Sludge Bomb ensures that Bulbasaur still has the power to OHKO most non-Eviolite holders at +2 and at least threaten various mons at +0. Bulbasaur also carries a better speed tier for Mudbray, Mareanie, and speed tying Vullaby.

Not only do these advantages make Bulbasaur the generally better sweeper, but they also directly explain why Bulbasaur wouldn't be as badly impacted by sun being nerfed from Drought to manual setters. The biggest disadvantage to manual sun is that it's drastically more difficult to find opportunities to set up, especially in a way for the abusers to actually take advantage of what's on the field, than simply switching Vulpix in; Bulbasaur's greater number of setup opportunities makes this less challenging. Manual sun also offers less turns on average for its abusers to utilize, seeing how it takes a turn to set up, which is partly mitigated by Bulbasaur still remaining a serious threat once it ends. Dedicated manual sun tends to require a lot more suboptimal sets to support its abusers, and Bulbasaur can help to cover this by offering significant general utility where Cherubi cannot. Despite the means of support having been massively nerfed, Bulbasaur can still consistently act as a top tier threat.

As for Chlorophyll spam, I don't think this is a major consideration when Cherubi/Oddish still share a majority of their switchin opportunities (Oddish has a bit more) but not their checks, meaning they don't synergize defensively and don't break checks for each other very well. (I addressed why I and most of the council believed Cherubi and Oddish to be independent issues offensively when we chose to ban Cherubi.) Even if they did synergize defensively, stalling out sun turns is already the primary counterplay to manual sun, and having to switch between the two would make this a lot easier.

This isn't to say that manual Cherubi sun wouldn't still be good, I just can't see it being anywhere near able to establish the presence that Bulbasaur sun has established in LCPL. Right now, I do not consider it to be strong enough to warrant a suspect, but even if it was, I think that it's different enough from Bulbasaur sun to warrant a separate suspect down the road instead of an immediate one. I've seen a couple comparisons drawn between the timing of the suspect versus the DLC and what happened with SM Vullaby, but the whole reason behind denying the SM Vullaby suspect was that it would be a huge change to the metagame with no chance afterward to develop it as a current gen, whereas we'll still be developing and tiering the metagame regularly after the DLC.

There is nothing inherently broken about Chlorophyll or sun as a whole. It doesn't make sense to claim that the issue lies in mons with doubled speed, when other weather forms are mechanically similar; or with sun-boosted attacks, when Chlorophyll users other than Bulbasaur would be comfortably balanced with manual sun; or even with Weather Ball + Chlorophyll in particular, when manual sun was barely on the cusp of viability in SM. The issue lies purely in specific abusers - in this case Bulbasaur - being too strong, in the current iteration of the metagame with its currently available tools, so we shouldn't be treating sun as if it were uniquely cheesy or problematic.

On the topic of basing our decision on future drops, I disagree with it simply on the grounds that there isn't really any benefit to doing so. If Bellsprout does get released, we can immediately switch to a lower collateral ban with zero extra steps and no further repercussion; I don't see why we should base our decisions on unreleased information when we should be making the most sensible decision for the current metagame that we're playing. This is why we chose to ban Cherubi pre-home. Banning Cherubi drastically decreased the complaints against sun to be a small minority, and to my understanding, most of those were citing that Cherubi autosun hadn't warranted a ban either (Heysup, MK007). The potentially problematic ban, if we do believe Bulbasaur to be broken, isn't Cherubi's ban, but rather unbanning it and banning Vulpix instead on Bulbasaur's reintroduction, since it may not have been enough to solve the issue.

With the understanding that Cherubi sun isn't broken, or at least is an archetype that warrants a separate look, I think that suspecting Bulbasaur makes the most sense. It's the most direct approach, and the only collateral would be fringe non-sun Bulbasaur sets that already struggle to compete with Oddish and Budew (it does get Knock Off). Banning Chlorophyll would remove an otherwise viable archetype in Cherubi sun completely by rendering Cherubi illegal, while still reducing Bulbasaur to a barely considerable level of viability. Banning Heat Rock would in my opinion carry even more collateral than Chlorophyll in terms of metagame influence, as cutting the number of abusable turns from 6 to 3 would likely render supportive sun setting all but unviable. This would remove firespam as an archetype and just leave self-setters, which is probably just Ponyta (unless you count self-setting Bulbasaur, but I don't think that what's effectively a 17 SpA Agility sweeper on a 4 turn timer would be justifiable). It's worth noting that banning Heat Rock at least wouldn't outright render Cherubi illegal, though.
 

Berks

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I think that the best option is to suspect Bulbasaur.

The main justification behind banning Chlorophyll or Heat Rock instead of just banning Bulbasaur would be to nerf manual Cherubi sun as well. However, manual Cherubi sun carries numerous disadvantages compared to the suspect-worthy manual Bulbasaur sun (and is practically incomparable to the banworthy Drought Cherubi sun) to a degree where I don't think they should be treated as equivalent threats. While they share a core identity of Weather Ball Chlorophyll sweeper, Bulbasaur is much better positioned to take advantage of its support in the current metagame than Cherubi is:

1) setup opportunities. Other than its slightly higher special bulk with a spread of 21/12/13 bulk to hit 15 spA, it has a much more valuable defensive typing that grants it setup opportunities on key mons in Mareanie, Oddish, and non-Fire Punch Timburr, as well as some lesser threats like Croagunk. It still has the bulk to set up on Mudbray and Psychic Spritzee, and can often Giga Drain to escape priority range, leaving LO Diglett (which often chooses to run a utility item instead) as the only mon that Cherubi can consistently set up on and Bulbasaur cannot. The Poison typing also grants Bulbasaur an important resistance to Mach Punch and a neutrality to First Impression, the latter of which means it doesn't have to waste valuable sun turns on Protect.

2) offensive pressure. Sludge Bomb helps Bulbasaur break through Ponyta, which walls Cherubi completely, and makes it much harder for Spritzee to stall out sun turns. More importantly, it allows Bulbasaur to continue to act as a major threat after sun has ended. Once sun runs out, Cherubi is effectively negated as a threat; it's slow, frail, and only has Grass-type coverage. On the other hand, Sludge Bomb ensures that Bulbasaur still has the power to OHKO most non-Eviolite holders at +2 and at least threaten various mons at +0. Bulbasaur also carries a better speed tier for Mudbray, Mareanie, and speed tying Vullaby.

Not only do these advantages make Bulbasaur the generally better sweeper, but they also directly explain why Bulbasaur wouldn't be as badly impacted by sun being nerfed from Drought to manual setters. The biggest disadvantage to manual sun is that it's drastically more difficult to find opportunities to set up, especially in a way for the abusers to actually take advantage of what's on the field, than simply switching Vulpix in; Bulbasaur's greater number of setup opportunities makes this less challenging. Manual sun also offers less turns on average for its abusers to utilize, seeing how it takes a turn to set up, which is partly mitigated by Bulbasaur still remaining a serious threat once it ends. Dedicated manual sun tends to require a lot more suboptimal sets to support its abusers, and Bulbasaur can help to cover this by offering significant general utility where Cherubi cannot. Despite the means of support having been massively nerfed, Bulbasaur can still consistently act as a top tier threat.

As for Chlorophyll spam, I don't think this is a major consideration when Cherubi/Oddish still share a majority of their switchin opportunities (Oddish has a bit more) but not their checks, meaning they don't synergize defensively and don't break checks for each other very well. (I addressed why I and most of the council believed Cherubi and Oddish to be independent issues offensively when we chose to ban Cherubi.) Even if they did synergize defensively, stalling out sun turns is already the primary counterplay to manual sun, and having to switch between the two would make this a lot easier.

This isn't to say that manual Cherubi sun wouldn't still be good, I just can't see it being anywhere near able to establish the presence that Bulbasaur sun has established in LCPL. Right now, I do not consider it to be strong enough to warrant a suspect, but even if it was, I think that it's different enough from Bulbasaur sun to warrant a separate suspect down the road instead of an immediate one. I've seen a couple comparisons drawn between the timing of the suspect versus the DLC and what happened with SM Vullaby, but the whole reason behind denying the SM Vullaby suspect was that it would be a huge change to the metagame with no chance afterward to develop it as a current gen, whereas we'll still be developing and tiering the metagame regularly after the DLC.

There is nothing inherently broken about Chlorophyll or sun as a whole. It doesn't make sense to claim that the issue lies in mons with doubled speed, when other weather forms are mechanically similar; or with sun-boosted attacks, when Chlorophyll users other than Bulbasaur would be comfortably balanced with manual sun; or even with Weather Ball + Chlorophyll in particular, when manual sun was barely on the cusp of viability in SM. The issue lies purely in specific abusers - in this case Bulbasaur - being too strong, in the current iteration of the metagame with its currently available tools, so we shouldn't be treating sun as if it were uniquely cheesy or problematic.

On the topic of basing our decision on future drops, I disagree with it simply on the grounds that there isn't really any benefit to doing so. If Bellsprout does get released, we can immediately switch to a lower collateral ban with zero extra steps and no further repercussion; I don't see why we should base our decisions on unreleased information when we should be making the most sensible decision for the current metagame that we're playing. This is why we chose to ban Cherubi pre-home. Banning Cherubi drastically decreased the complaints against sun to be a small minority, and to my understanding, most of those were citing that Cherubi autosun hadn't warranted a ban either (Heysup, MK007). The potentially problematic ban, if we do believe Bulbasaur to be broken, isn't Cherubi's ban, but rather unbanning it and banning Vulpix instead on Bulbasaur's reintroduction, since it may not have been enough to solve the issue.

With the understanding that Cherubi sun isn't broken, or at least is an archetype that warrants a separate look, I think that suspecting Bulbasaur makes the most sense. It's the most direct approach, and the only collateral would be fringe non-sun Bulbasaur sets that already struggle to compete with Oddish and Budew (it does get Knock Off). Banning Chlorophyll would remove an otherwise viable archetype in Cherubi sun completely by rendering Cherubi illegal, while still reducing Bulbasaur to a barely considerable level of viability. Banning Heat Rock would in my opinion carry even more collateral than Chlorophyll in terms of metagame influence, as cutting the number of abusable turns from 6 to 3 would likely render supportive sun setting all but unviable. This would remove firespam as an archetype and just leave self-setters, which is probably just Ponyta (unless you count self-setting Bulbasaur, but I don't think that what's effectively a 17 SpA Agility sweeper on a 4 turn timer would be justifiable). It's worth noting that banning Heat Rock at least wouldn't outright render Cherubi illegal, though.
this reply fails to take into account Charmander. Assuming a Timid max SpA Scarf Charmander Fire Blast with Sun and SR on the field, this is the list of Pokemon that can switch in and avoid the 2HKO:
  • Flash Fire mons :ponyta: :litwick: :growlithe: :rolycoly: :sizzlipede:
  • The lone surviving quad resist :binacle: [33.3 - 42.8% // guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock]
  • Special Water tanks :mareanie: :mantyke: :shellos: :frillish:
  • random bulky bois :munchlax: :rhyhorn:
I may have missed one or two scrolling through the one v. all calc. But wait! don't think you'll have a good switch-in unless you keep the following in mind:
  • binacle is bad!
  • litwick, rolycoly, sizzlipede, and arguable growlithe are all also bad as well outside of this one niche!
  • mareanie still has a 54.3% chance of being 2HKOd after SR!
  • all the flash fire mons and mareanie are v trappable, so you'd better hope the sun team doesn't pack a diglett!!!
  • rhyhorn is bad!
  • only frillish's special defensive set avoids the 2HKO, so forget about a scarf or a fast frillish!
  • mantyke is bad! but arguably one of the best checks bc it can set rain...
you can win with charmander / cherubi / heat rock diglett / heat rock purrloin / heat rock onix / filler (i like trapinch but oddish also works) and it's wild that you can do that! also, I understand that simply not having many viable switchins is not grounds to call something broken (which is why nobody is callinng for a charmander ban) but having to deal with charmander for 6 turns is very very much harder than doing so for three! heat rock is a problem.

a heat rock ban has no collateral and may even un-break vulpix. the thing we want to fix is sun. fixing the broken elements of sun is the goal. we used to think cherubi was broken, we think vulpix is broken, we think bulbasaur sun is broken, but it all hinges on those three extra turns from heat rock, sometimes six extra if you set sun multiple times (like with a purrloin!). kill heat rock, fix sun.
 

Corporal Levi

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I didn't address Charmander sun because I didn't think it was anywhere close to being strong enough to consider a suspect for. Regardless, Bulbasaur and Charmander function completely differently as sun sweepers - one is a Grass/Poison-type Eviolite setup mon, the other is a Fire-type scarf mon - so I think that my general argument of Bulbasaur and Cherubi being different + non-synergistic enough to warrant addressing separately would still apply, and to a greater degree.

Charmander's lack of switchins is offset by 1) itself not having any switchin opportunities whatsoever, and 2) needing external sun support to reach the point of no switchins. This means that teams with at least one mon that can avoid the OHKO from Charmander, or that can otherwise revenge-kill it, are on average automatically in a slightly favourable position against Charmander; the Charmander user will have to set up sun, get Charmander in on a sack or maybe Vullaby U-turn, and then only be able to grab a single KO before being immediately forced out. Charmander is still a reasonably strong pick for Sun teams because not every team can avoid the OHKO from Charmander, meaning that its counterplay is instead limited to stalling it or sun out. This is actually a very significant amount of counterplay (certainly compared to stalling out Bulbasaur), seeing how Charmander is weak to Stealth Rock, takes Solar Power damage every turn while the sun is up, and is extremely weak outside of the Sun. Charmander is probably an A- or B+ mon right now given the cost of its firepower; if it had real switchins, then it wouldn't be viable at all.

You can win with Charmander/Cherubi sun because it's a high tier, viable archetype. This is not enough to make the archetype banworthy - you would need to be able to win more with them, or or have it be more centralizing, when compared to other viable archetypes like webs, vullypinch, etc.

I'm not sure if we're even considering Vulpix for this - I know jake believes we should and coco believes we shouldn't - but there is almost no chance that Vulpix becomes balanced if we ban Heat Rock. Vulpix is able to provide comparable amounts of total sun uptime for its Chlorophyll sweepers with boots or Eject Pack. These items synergize a bit worse with Growth sweeping because each session of sun is shorter - though around as long as each session of manual sun that we currently have, which is already enough for us to suspect Bulbasaur - in exchange for making Vulpix itself a more pressing threat. Banning Bulbasaur + Cherubi individually (to preserve Oddish sun) or Chlorophyll (to preserve sunless Bulbasaur) would be more conducive to a Vulpix retest by removing Bulbasaur/Cherubi + Vulpix cores entirely, but we would want to make sure that autosun Firespam wasn't broken as well.
 
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jake

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I'm not sure if we're even considering Vulpix for this - I know jake believes we should and coco believes we shouldn't
To clarify, my position on this is that we must decide what happens to Vulpix prior to having a vote. The decision can be that it stays banned or that it gets unbanned if [current suspect] is banned; regardless, we have to decide that in advance of a vote. I think it is unfair to the voters if we make that decision afterwards.

(I will have a post with thoughts on the three options later too)


COCO EDIT:

Don't want a make a separate post, but I'm clarifying as well that I completely agree with jake, we decide what we're doing with Vulpix before the suspect starts, but I do think that we should decide what we're doing with sun before we go to pix.
 
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Fiend

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this reply fails to take into account Charmander. Assuming a Timid max SpA Scarf Charmander Fire Blast with Sun and SR on the field, this is the list of Pokemon that can switch in and avoid the 2HKO:
  • Flash Fire mons :ponyta: :litwick: :growlithe: :rolycoly: :sizzlipede:
  • The lone surviving quad resist :binacle: [33.3 - 42.8% // guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock]
  • Special Water tanks :mareanie: :mantyke: :shellos: :frillish:
  • random bulky bois :munchlax: :rhyhorn:
It's an SR weak Pokemon that requires external support. Yes it can have 6-7 turns in the sun, and that can often be enough, but Charmander's viability is somewhat reliant on its teammates ability to also abuse sun being set. I do not think this and the body of your post really account for banning Chlorophyll (though it is a direct response to a Bulbasaur ban, sure).
you can win with charmander / cherubi / heat rock diglett / heat rock purrloin / heat rock onix / filler (i like trapinch but oddish also works)
I feel like banning Chlorophyll would make this a vastly and sufficiently inferior team. Heat Rock obviously makes it almost certainly unviable as well, but that isn't the actual goal of the suspect test. The degree of how ban sun is after this suspect test is not a consideration provided it is no longer suspect worthy. Chlorophyll more reasonably addresses the scope of the suspect and makes (manual) sun teams no longer suspect worthy. The real gripe I have with this is that it is pure speculation; my first thought about this team is how easy it is to SR vs this team and how absurd Timburr is versus this team. Additionally I see some apparent optimizations (e.g. Riolu is generally more consistent and threatening than Purrloin), which would make it fairly similar to some other current sun teams. The general impression I'm left with is that a team like that might actually be fair game to have in the tier, but we obviously disagree about this. Consequently, this team and the other pieces of your post do not suggest to me that Heat Rock is the element worth addressing. This still leaves me with the understanding that the only acceptable routes are to target Chlorophyll or Bulbasaur. You do generally outline where a Bulbasaur ban has potential to be insufficient; however the conclusion I gain from this is why I prefer Chlorophyll.
a heat rock ban has no collateral and may even un-break vulpix. the thing we want to fix is sun. fixing the broken elements of sun is the goal. we used to think cherubi was broken, we think vulpix is broken, we think bulbasaur sun is broken, but it all hinges on those three extra turns from heat rock, sometimes six extra if you set sun multiple times (like with a purrloin!). kill heat rock, fix sun.
I do not think this is a merit of banning Heat Rock, nor is it a fair framing of sun teams throughout this gen. Not every Vulpix was even Heat Rock after Home dropped before it was axed. None of these options confirm Vulpix is back anyway, and this question should be tabled for now.

re: levi post
I really do think you have a valid approach and concerns to this process. I do not think there is much to argue over with your line of logic other than
a) Cherubi sun's strengths in the metagame and if it would remain in a state close enough to Bulbasaur (I think it probably would, which forfeits the merit of keeping it by the logic of this suspect discussion)
b) the merits of action with concerns about future dlcs (councils at large have acted woefully slow--this isn't an lc specific criticism--and luthier's frustrations in the council logs are telling too).
I personally am not swayed towards thinking Bulbasaur is the preferable path forward, but I do believe it is an acceptable one.

re: jake and vulpix
Good.
 
Ban Chloro

Free Vulpix
Obv since this isn't going to happen Ban Bulb. Bulb is the problem, Cherubi won't be.


Berks you posted all the upsides of Charmander and none of the downsides, because no offense, you sat down and calced but you clearly haven't used it extensively in this gen because you ignored all of the downsides. Charmander in practice just isn't good as it is on paper and is outclassed by solar blade/flare blitz ponyta in most but not all scenarios.

Corphish Exists and revenge with crabhammer or knock + ajet if you'd rather not risk a miss
252 SpA Solar Power Charmander Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Corphish in Sun: 12-15 (60 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Possible damage amounts: (12, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15)

Meowth Exists and revenges
236+ Atk Life Orb Technician Meowth Fake Out vs. 44 HP / 0 Def Charmander: 13-17 (61.9 - 80.9%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Possible damage amounts: (13, 13, 13, 13, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 17)

Mareanie Exists and spams recover
252 SpA Solar Power Charmander Fire Blast vs. 196 HP / 180 SpD Eviolite Mareanie in Sun: 9-12 (37.5 - 50%) -- 54.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Possible damage amounts: (9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 12)

Ponyta Exists and laughs in flash fire
Onix Exists and literally dragon dances on Charmander if it has it
252 SpA Solar Power Charmander Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Onix in Sun: 12-15 (60 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Possible damage amounts: (12, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15)

Shellder Exists and sets up on it (albiet barely, and it does have a 6.3% chance to die if rocks are up)
252 SpA Solar Power Charmander Fire Blast vs. 36 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Shellder in Sun: 15-18 (75 - 90%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Possible damage amounts: (15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 16, 16, 16, 16, 17, 17, 17, 17, 18)

Pawn (18 atk) has a 50% chance of killing after rocks with sucker
236 Atk Pawniard Sucker Punch vs. 44 HP / 0 Def Charmander: 15-18 (71.4 - 85.7%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Possible damage amounts: (15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 18)

Dwebble Exists and sets up on it (assuming rocks arent up on your side, which if you're running a dwebble shell smash team rocks removal is your top priority to ensure your wincon has the chance to setup, and I don't think I need to show calcs for sturdyjuice)

I could probably list more.

Bulbasaur is the problem. Let's not talk about Charmander which has never been and will never be broken.
 

Berks

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re: my repliers

apologies for making a poor post, I was doing it during a college class I should’ve been paying attention to

my intent was not to point to Charmander as a broken element of sun (though it would certainly seem that way - might’ve gotten a bit carried away). My intent was to highlight an underconsidered aspect of sun which I thought would be made better by a heat rock ban, ie because charm has no switch in opportunities, something has to take a turn to die, or the user has to use turns to pivot, and that it would be much easier to do vs a 4-turn sun than a 7-turn sun. I also do not think that Bulbasaur alone is the problem because I think a well put together Oddish/Cherubi team would be nearly as difficult to fight. Rereading, that was very not clear, my b

also in particular re: Fiend, I also agree that banning chlorophyll would sufficiently neuter that hypothetical team as well. I just don’t like that a chlorophyll ban would ban Cherubi, which is not broken. That’s why I’d prefer heat rock: in my opinion, it would fix sun and not ban anything that is unbroken, like Cherubi or, imo, Bulbasaur.

unironic input: great discussions!!! I love it!!
 

ninjadog

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Whilst you can argue that it would be the best policy wise, a Bulbasaur suspect would be a complete waste of time and would almost certainly have us needing to run another suspect 2 weeks later in order to deal with sun.

Cherubi/Oddish sun was deemed broken pre-home, and whilst levi described it as 'practically incomparable' to Drought Cherubi sun I would heavily disagree with this. Yes there is no Vulpix now, but you also have to consider that: Heat Rock Memento Diglett, the most common and problematic sun setter currently, leads to far more set up opportunities than Vulpix ever did, and that Munchlax and Drifloon, two excellent sun checks, no longer see usage due to meta shifts and being banned because of recycle respectively. There is also the fact that Charmander has now emerged as a major threat on sun teams, adding another element to prep for. With this in mind I really don't understand how you could say with any confidence whatsoever that Cherubi/Oddish/Charmander sun teams will be healthy for the meta. I think it's pretty clear cut that they would still be an issue, the reason people don't use Cherubi as much now isn't because it's bad, it's just because Bulbasaur is better.


Personally I would lead towards suspecting Heat Rock over Chlorophyll but I think both are good options.

If we suspect Chlorophyll:
- Cherubi banned by default
- Healthy usage of Chlorophyll like Oddish as a counter to self-setter Ponyta for example would no longer be legal
- We would potentially be able to free Vulpix

If we suspect Heat Rock:
- Would likely kill Fire spam as an archetype
- No Pokemon is banned as a result
- Would allow Sun to still exist albeit in a healthier manner
 

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