Resource National Dex Player Surveys and Council Minutes

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This thread will be used to house council minutes and player surveys and results in an effort to promote more transparency between the council and the community! Be sure to follow it to keep updated on both!

To keep it organized, council minute posts will have a green header while player survey results will have a blue header.
 
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Council Minutes

Hallo everyone! We have been as busy as ever with keeping up with the metagame. We have come together to discuss what the current metagame is trending towards, any potential issues.. you get the idea. Here's a collected summary of our current thoughts.

Following the recent bans, we are very happy with the way the metagame is turning out. Nothing stands out as blatantly broken right now and we are very happy about that. Beyond that, there's a lot more versatility in teams too.

We believe that 3 Pokemon clearly stand out as the best right now. Those are Clefable, Heatran, and Hydreigon.

Clefable is one of the most versatile Pokemon. It is an incredibly customizable potential wincon with Calm Mind, devoid of any true counters; Steel-types such as Excadrill, Ferrothorn, Mega Scizor, and Aegislash are easily worn down by Flamethrower, but it can also elect to overwhelm other checks like Toxapex and Heatran with Thunder / Thunderbolt. Beyond that, it has many key support options available, such as Stealth Rock, Knock Off, Wish, Thunder Wave, you get the gist. Out of all these, Wish in particular stands out, giving Clefable a place on many teams alongside Pokemon that lack sustainability, like Heatran, Mega Mawile, Garchomp, and Excadrill. Clefable also stands out as a Stealth Rock setter, capable of pressuring Defoggers such as Tapu Fini and Zapdos, which many people have turned to with the leave of Tornadus-T, very handily. To add onto all that, it is a very convenient check to Pokemon like Mega Lopunny, Mega Latios, and Hydreigon, though it still struggles with its EV spread at times.

Heatran provides teams with an incredible amount of utility. It helps greatly with the influx of Steel-, Fairy-, and Psychic-types and is one of the best Stealth Rock setters. With the ban of Mega Metagross in particular, Steel-, Fairy-, and Psychic-types like Mega Mawile, Mega Scizor, Magearna, Clefable, and Tapu Lele have gained a lot more breathing room. I don't think it's hard to see how this has boosted Heatran's defensive utility through the roof. Heatran has a pretty decent matchup against current entry hazard removal; Zapdos and Corviknight really do not want to mess with it, and Tapu Fini is very susceptible to being worn down quickly. Tapu Fini is also suspect to Defogging its own Misty Terrain away, which Heatran can use as an opportunity to cripple it with Toxic. Beyond just its utility, Heatran simply has no consistent counters. Bulky Water-types such as the aforementioned Tapu Fini as well as some others like Gastrodon and Rotom-W are greatly threatened by Bloom Doom, while other checks like Garchomp, Hydreigon, and Mega Latios are prone to Toxic and Corkscrew Crash.

Lastly, there's Hydreigon, which has continued to be one of the most threatening wallbreakers with Nasty Plot. Despite Clefable's dominance, the utility Hydreigon brings to the table through checking Pokemon like Heatran, Gliscor, and Toxapex is almost unmatched. Hydreigon thrives very strongly in a metagame such as this one, where Speed control is oftentimes foregone completely. It may have checks such as Clefable, Tapu Fini, and Magearna, but Hydreigon is so ridiculously strong at +2 that they really cannot stand up to a boosted Tectonic Rage after just about any chip damage.


As you could probably tell from the above paragraphs, Defoggers really don't matchup too well against prominent Stealth Rock users right now. With the departure of Tornadus-T from the tier, there really is no such thing as conveniently fitting entry hazard removal. Pokemon such as Tapu Fini, Zapdos, Corviknight, and Excadrill may matchup well against some entry hazard setters, but all of them miss out on one thing that Tornadus-T had: its Speed. Tornadus-T's Speed tier was huge in allowing it to force out Pokemon like Garchomp. None of the current options share that trait and as a result, Stealth Rock setters like Garchomp and Landorus-T really thrive right now. In response to Garchomp and Landorus-T, we have been seeing a fair amount of Defog Mega Latias, which is a formidable pick because of its matchup against both those Pokemon as a Defogger, as well as some other Pokemon that are otherwise tough to deal with like Kartana. It's also worth noting that other Stealth Rock setters matchup really well against the current pool of entry hazard removal, as was pointed out earlier in this post.

Ferrothorn in particular is worth pointing out too. With entry hazard removal being in such an awkward spot. Now is the perfect time to be using Spikes. Ferrothorn is the primary setter and it can be very annoying to deal with for entry hazard removers like Tapu Fini and Zapdos. It is also quite customizable, with options such as Toxic to cripple Zapdos or Thunder Wave to cripple Corviknight being available to add onto just how annoying it can be to deal with. With Pokemon such as Clefable really running the metagame, Ferrothorn really doesn't struggle to come into play either. Spikes can quickly accelerate the rate at which wallbreakers can make progress, and Ferrothorn's effectiveness at setting Spikes is very noteworth right now.

With the departure of many important Speed control options like Ash-Greninja, Galarian Darmanitan, and Tornadus-T, National Dex has really come to a halt when it comes to options to consider for Speed control. In general, there seems to be much less of a need for it anyways; Pokemon that could require Speed control of some sorts like Mega Lopunny, Volcarona, and Cinderace are honestly easy enough to deal with defensively to the point where you really do not need to dedicate that slot. Ofcourse, that doesn't mean that there are no options; Choice Scarf users like Ditto, Greninja, Cinderace, Kartana, and Landorus-T, as well as some other miscellaneous options like Sand Rush Excadrill can still suffice and are often still good options, but teams in general are trending towards a much bulkier approach. The fact that Dragapult beats all Speed control options in National Dex anyway definitely plays into this as well.

Since the bans, we have seen a much larger pool of wallbreakers thrive. Swords Dance Kartana, Landorus-T, and Aegislash are good examples of Pokemon that were greatly limited by their offensive checks previously. Without Ash-Greninja, Tornadus-T, and Galarian Darmanitan, it is much harder to naturally check these Pokemon offensively. Without these Pokemon to hold them back, these slower wallbreakers that can easily bust open defensive walls are really thriving. Luckily, there are still other options available such as Mega Latios, Mega Latias, Hydreigon, and Mega Lopunny that can naturally check some of them, but it is certainly a lot tougher than it was previously. We are also seeing some other wallbreakers such as Mega Mawile, Tapu Lele, and Mega Latios thrive, which were primarily held back by the previous prominence of Mega Metagross. They are now able to capitalize off the much more passive state of the tier, taking advantage of Pokemon like Clefable, Toxapex, and Tangrowth with ease. Some of these Pokemon also don't have to deal with the very strong competition from Mega Metagross and Galarian Darmanitan, which is what really makes them enticing options on top of all this.

Stall teams have taken a big hit following the bans. Although nothing commonly run on stall teams was directly adressed, many stronger wallbreakers like the aforementioned Kartana, Landorus-T, Mega Mawile, and Tapu Lele are thriving right now and stall teams are really being overloaded by the amount of strong threats they have to check now.

Instead of stall, balance and bulky offense are the archetypes that are really thriving right now. There's many subgroups of these, but some that really stand out right now are Wish Clefable + Mega Mawile balance / bulky offense teams, very bulky Mega Latias balance teams, and sand teams.

It doesn't just end there, though. Hyper offense teams are just as strong as they have been since the Mega Blastoise ban too. With Spikes support from Mew, Pokemon like Dragapult, Rillaboom, Volcarona, Cinderace, Mega Pinsir, and Bisharp can be incredibly hard to deal with. Especially with the departure of Ash-Greninja, Tornadus-T, Galarian Darmanitan, and Mega Metagross, these teams have only gotten more consistent.

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That's really it for observations that we have made so far. We will make sure to keep an eye out on the metagame. These things in particular haven't quite struck us as problematic yet, but could prove to be an issue in the future, so we are going to keep an extra eye on them:
  • The many strong wallbreakers that the defensive metagame might simply not be able to keep up with.
  • The mediocre entry hazard control and overall effectiveness of Stealth Rock and Spikes setters.
 
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Council Minutes

Hey everyone I'm back with another installation of the council minutes. The meta has been shaping up quite well in our general opinion. We've been discussing the metagame trends that have occurred since our last update quite a bit so our thoughts on that will be summarized in this update. Something else we have been discussing is the Kokoloko wave of bans that happened a while ago now, and the promised retests of the banned Pokemon. We spoke quite a bit about which Pokemon we would like to see retested first and why, so that will also be summarized here.

Our biggest takeaway from the metagame trends that have been occuring since the previous council minutes is that the balance between the hazard setters and hazard removal options in the metagame has become more and more apparent since we touched on it a few weeks ago. We believe that the best choices for hazard removal do not match up well into the best hazard setters in the metagame, and yet are still being run despite this mismatch due to there being no better options. This is best seen with the prevalence of Zapdos and Corviknight, which both lose to Garchomp and Heatran - 2 of the most common Stealth Rock setters in the metagame, however, they are prominent due to their ability to effectivley shut down Ferrothorn, which can be a massive problem for teams without good removal options.

In our eyes this has lead to a few developments; the first being the experimentation of unorthodox hazard removal options, such as Mega Latias, bulky Kartana, and even some Gliscor opting to use Defog in an attempt to find removal options which can consistently deal with the extremely strong hazard setters we have. Another development that can bee seen as a direct result of a mismatched hazard control landscape is the surge in Heavy Duty Boots usage. This can most notably be seen by the rise of Boots Cinderace and Blissey; two Pokemon that have become extremely commonplace in the metagame due to their ability to be fantastic pivots while ignoring the damage from any hazards that havent been able to be removed.

Other than that the metagame seems to be about as we expected, with Clefable, Heatran, and Hydreigon being very clearly the top threats in the metagame, and Pokemon such as Garchomp, Zapdos, and Gliscor being just behind them. Nothing in the current metagame has become an issue in our eyes and we do generally think that the current metagame is quite balanced.

The main focus of our discussions these past few weeks has been on the bans that happened a little while ago now, and specifically on which Pokemon of the 5 banned ones should be the first subject of a retest. The two Pokemon that were brought up as a potential first retest were Ash Greninja and Tornadus-Therian. For Tornadus-T, we generally acknowledge that it would be extremely good in the current metagame, but our belief is that with some of its best checks in Zapdos and Toxapex being extremely common currently, it would not be hard to fit answers to Tornadus-T onto teams. On top of this, other checks to Tornadus-T are also more common now than they were prior to the bans, Pokemon like Magearna and Mega Tyranitar for example. Of course all of these Pokemon can be overwhelmed by the correct Tornadus-T set, however, it does have to pick and choose which checks it can beat and compromise its performance against everything else if it wants to beat these Pokemon. All of this leads us to believe that of all the Pokemon that could be retested first, Tornadus-T does appear to us to be the potentially least problematic.

It was also noted that Tornadus-T solves a lot of problems in the metagame, most notably the lack of strong removal options in the metagame. While unbanning something to address issues in the metagame is generally not how smogon does tiering, we do believe that Tornadus-T would bring more positives than negatives to the metagame should it be unbanned and its for this reasons we unanimously thought Tornadus-T should be the first Pokemon to be retested.

We did also discuss Ash Greninja, as checks such as Tapu Fini and Toxapex are much less strained in the current metagame. On top of this, other checks such as Hydreigon and Blissey are also extremely prevalent in the metagame which makes checking Ash Greninja much easier as a whole. While the previously mentioned Pokemon are immune to spikes and therefore, harder for Ash Greninja to make progress versus, with the current hazard landscape, one of the main concerns raised with Ash Greninja was that it was very easy for it to keep Spikes up and make consistent progress vs other Pokemon that way. Despite this we did think that an argument could be made for either of these Pokemon being the first one to be retested, and we think that input and discussion from the community on this topic would be greatly appreciated and helpful. Expect to see a discussion thread or posts in the metagame discussion thread surrounding this topic in the near future!

To summarise:
- We believe the metagame is in a much better place now, with nothing on the radar for being broken. However, our main concern is the disparity between the quality of hazard removal and that of the hazard setters causing the meta to shift towards requiring less than ideal choices to counteract the hazards.
- Addressing the recent wave of bans, we believe that one of Tornadus-T or Ash Greninja has the least potential to be broken in the current metagame, and therefore, should be the first Pokemon to be retested into the metagame. We lean towards Tornadus-T in general due to how many positives it would offer the metagame but do note that unbanning something because of a problem in a metagame is not ideal tiering. As such, we want to encourage discussion around the first retest in someway either through a thread or metagame discussion posts. So look out for that soon!
 
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Council Minutes

Following the Ash-Greninja suspect test and subsequent unbanning of it, we've prepared another edition of council minutes with our thoughts on the state of the metagame and surrounding matters!

There honestly isn't much to say about the state of the metagame right now. With the Ash-Greninja suspect test having concluded pretty recently and many people anticipating National Dex PL to start seriously playing again, the development of the metagame has come to a bit of a halt. As a result, it's hard to say specifically how we feel about the metagame, but overall, we believe that it's pretty fairly balanced and typically will reward the better player and teambuilder.

With that said, there are a few Pokemon that are currently on our radar.

Over the past month or so, people have been pointing more and more towards Cinderace being an issue. Cinderace is an incredibly effective offensive pivot that is hard to wear down due to the combination of Heavy-Duty Boots and U-turn. It does not have many consistent defensive checks; Pokemon such as Tapu Fini, Heatran, and Toxapex may all hamper to various coverage moves. Other checks like Gliscor can also struggle with Bulk Up variants.

The fact that Future Sight Slowbro is so powerful right now certainly adds to Cinderace's threat level too; a Cinderace that's backed by a Future Sight does not have defensive checks. Checks can easily be overwhelmed when Future Sight is up. Not just that, but Slowbro tends to bait in Grass-types and can easily create opportunities for Cinderace to switch in with Teleport.

Dragapult is another Pokemon that some of us have considered to be an issue due to how it exacerbates issues in the teambuilder. It's a very lopsided Pokemon: you are either very solid against Dragapult or will struggle to beat it. There's definitely a (small) pool of solid checks, with Mega Lopunny, Weavile, and Mega Tyranitar being prime examples. However, if you aren't running any of these Pokemon, which can often be somewhat hard to fit, you are very likely to struggle against Dragapult, trying to outplay it through baiting a Never-Ending Nightmare with Clefable into picking another sack, which is often ineffective and otherwise leaves a huge hole.

The fact that Dragapult's counterplay is so dependant on whether its Z-Move has been used or not certainly adds to the issue Dragapult creates beyond just in the teambuilder. As mentioned, Pokemon like Clefable and Magearna will often switch out of a +1 Dragapult in an attempt to bait its Z-Move and check it otherwise, but this is a line of play that can easily be taken advantage of through using Substitute with Dragapult. This makes it so that effectively dealing with Dragapult can be very difficult.

The basic issue can be boiled down to the lack of soft checks that can open up ways to outplay Dragapult.

Dracovish is the last Pokemon some of us noted as potentially problematic Pokemon. Dracovish takes advantage of the current bulkier metagame pretty effectively, and when paired with Pokemon like Cinderace and Corviknight, it gets many opportunities to switch into play. I don't think I really have to explain what Dracovish does; we all know that all it does is click Fishious Rend and attempts to break down walls with that. Council members were pretty split on whether Dracovish is an actual issue, or if it just takes advantage of the metagame well enough.

We do not believe that any of these Pokemon are such huge issues that warrant action immediately, and are waiting to see how they play out in National Dex PL first. If any prove to be an incredible menace throughout the early stages of the tour, we may look into quickbanning and suspect testing them at a later date.

We also briefly discussed potential unbans, particularly those that were previously banned in July. With Ash-Greninja suspect tested, we don't believe that any Pokemon truly deserves to be suspect tested down yet. All of Galarian Darmanitan, Tornadus-T, Urshifu-S, and Mega Metagross have very serious potential to be broken still, and there has not been any outcry for a suspect test by the community at large either. We will revisit this at a later date.

--
That's really it for what we have to say! Here's a quick summary:
  • We have our eyes on Cinderace, Dragapult, and Dracovish
    • We want to see more of them in National Dex PL first. Should any of these really prove to be such big issues during the tour, we can consider quick banning and suspect testing them down later.
  • We do not believe that there's enough justification to suspect test Galarian Darmanitan, Tornadus-T, Urshifu-S, or Mega Metagross yet.
 
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Council Minutes

Hallo everyone! We as the council have reconsidered the stance we reflected in the above post.

We no longer believe that quickbanning into suspect testing at a later date is the correct way to go about this. Every Pokemon deserves a fair process and going about it this way simply wouldn't allow for that; DLC 2 will land by the time we would get the chance to suspect test a Pokemon. An equal field for when a Pokemon is quickbanned and subsequently suspect tested down is important, and we simply don't have a solid enough grasp on how big the shakeup of DLC 2 will be to make this call. As such, we would much rather run a suspect test during National Dex PL.

We've been keeping eyes on the aforementioned three Pokemon and are close to coming to a verdict. A suspect test is likely to launch in the next couple days, so watch out for that!
 
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Council Minutes

Hey people, time for another short post!

We've been monitoring the metagame since the DLC was released, but the metagame has remained relatively unchanged. There were no gamebreaking new additions besides Calyrex-Ice and Shadow-Rider, which were banned almost instantly. Some Pokemon we already had like Mega Latias, Zapdos, and Mega Aerodactyl did gain some substantial buffs in their movepool, but we do not think any of those are egregious right now.

Because of the relatively unchanged state of the metagame, we will quickly start working on updating the VR and Sample Teams, the latter resource is where our focus lies right now due to how outdated some of those teams are.

Once that is all said and done, you can expect a suspect test to go up soon! The details of said suspect test are not finalized yet, but it has been in the works for a little bit now.
 
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Player Survey

Hey everyone! On the 3rd of November, we sent out a survey to evaluate what people think of the National Dex metagame right now. 47 people qualified to vote. They managed to qualify through 1 or more of these requirements:
  • Played 3 or more games of National Dex in NDPL;
  • Was top 20 on ladder as per November the 1st, more specifically those we could get ahold of;
  • Is participating in round 6 of the ongoing Fall Seasonal (top 16);
  • Is top 16 in the official standings for the National Dex circuit;
  • Earned the prize winner role for October.

We received 38 responses after 48 hours. Here are the results!



Beyond these 3 questions, we also asked if people had any other issues with the metagame. 2 Pokemon came back a lot:
  • Mega Latias was brought up as an issue by 9 different people;
  • Magearna was brought up as an issue by 6 different people.

Here are some notable statistics:
  • 67,6% of respondents enjoy the metagame right now.
  • 10,8% of respondents do not enjoy the metagame right now.
  • 55,3% of respondents think that Cinderace is worthy of a suspect test, but not before another Pokemon has been suspect tested.
  • 36,8% of respondents think that Cinderace is really good, but not worthy of a suspect test.
  • 7,9% of respondents think that Cinderace should be the first Pokemon suspect tested.
  • 68,4% of respondents think that Dragapult is broken and needs to be the first Pokemon suspect tested.
  • 21,1% of respondents think that Dragapult is really good, but not worthy of a suspect test.
  • 10,5% of respondents think Dragapult is worthy of a suspect test, but not before another Pokemon has been suspect tested.
  • 23,6% of respondents think Mega Latias is an issue that needs to be looked at.
  • 15,7% of respondents think Magearna is an issue that needs to be looked at.

And that's about it! I want to make it clear that we will not blindly following this survey. However, we will be using it as a lead for our future actions. Expect to see more things related to this from us soon!
 
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Council Minutes

Hey everyone! We've seen some progression since the last post here -- Sample Teams and the Viability Rankings were updated and Dragapult is currently being suspect tested! Now that we're not looking up to yet another DLC (to our knowledge), we figured it was desireable to lay out a slightly longer term timeline on how we plan to handle things in the tier, and we would like to share it with you!

After filling out a survey, here's roughly how we would like to proceed as of this moment:
  • Dragapult's suspect test concludes; Cinderace follows suit. Cinderace has been a requested suspect for so long that it'd be a big disservice to not handle it any sooner at this point. The timing may vary a little based on the result of Dragapult's suspect test.
  • Once Cinderace's suspect test has been taken care of, we would like to move on by re-evaluating Galarian Darmanitan, Mega Metagross, Tornadus-T, and Urshifu-S. These Pokemon were banned a while back with the promise that we would re-evaluate them as the metagame evolved and suspect test them if we felt that would be appropriate.
  • A variety of Pokemon were brought up for when the above is all said and done, but in general we would like to keep an eye on Pokemon like Blissey, Mega Latias, and Magearna. Even Slowbro was brought up! If none of those are deemed issues, we could look into some lower priority suspects like Zamazenta-C, Calyrex-I, or Mega Alakazam, if we feel that is appropriate ofcourse.
Please keep in mind that this is not a post about how we will be handling these things. This is merely our plan for the future, but many things could change. The metagame constantly evolves after all. For example, our priorities may shift if a Pokemon comes up as an issue inbetween the timing of Cinderace's suspect test and when we would otherwise have liked to reevaluate Galarian Darmanitan, Mega Metagross, Tornadus-T, and Urshifu-S.
 
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Council Minutes

Hey everyone, remember what I said about the above post being subject to change? That is exactly what's happening. It doesn't seem like the National Dex metagame can catch a break now can it?

The Cinderace suspect test we spoke about above has been rolled out, but we don't think the time is right to start re-evaluating Galarian Darmanitan, Mega Metagross, Tornadus-T, and Urshifu-S afterwards. The metagame is ever shifting and with some (semi-)recent developments, Spectrier among some other Pokemon like Magearna, Mega Latias, Slowbro, and Blissey have been starting to emerge as issues.

Once Cinderace's suspect test concludes, we plan to conduct another "On The Radar" thread to see what people have the biggest issue with. All of the mentioned Pokemon and more can be discussed in-depth in that thread. We will act accordingly based on the consensus in that thread -- we value everyone's input!

However, please do note that this situation will not be receiving similar treatment to what happened with Galarian Darmanitan, Mega Metagross, etc. That was a weirdly unique situation caused by DLC and it does not serve as precedent to do it again, so please don't get your hopes up for that.
 
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Council Minutes

Hallo allemaal! The time's about right for another post; we've moved pretty far since the last time we did one of these.

We've recently suspect tested and subsequently banned Spectrier and we as a council believe that we're looking at a much better metagame now. Dark-types are no longer forced onto every team and that gives building in particular a lot more freedom. It feels like you can actually feasibly build with good defensive cores.

We are aiming to update the most important resources, the VR and sample teams in anticipation of National Dex World Cup and other tournaments! Other than that, here's some more things we discussed.

In a post-Spectrier metagame where Dark-types aren't forced onto every team and Magearna doesn't come into play without any risk as easily, some of us do not think Magearna is too much. The main sets people tend to complain about are Choice Specs and double dance with Draining Kiss + Stored Power. The general consensus among us is that, while Choice Specs Magearna is a formidable wallbreaker, it is not quite too much and can generally be kept in check with aggressive play. To add to that, while definitely a force to be reckoned with it is not impossible handle defensively with Pokemon like Toxapex, Mega Scizor, and Heatran available. The double dance set is certainly a little trickier to tackle, but generally speaking, Pokemon like Gyro Ball Ferrothorn, Mega Scizor, Taunt Heatran, and Toxapex do a good job at keeping it in check.

We reckon that when Magearna starts diversifying its double dance sets and, for example, starts running Focus Blast instead of Draining Kiss to hit Steel-types, it could definitely start to become more of an issue, but those sets are quite uncommon right now. We do not think Magearna is a pressing issue that we absolutely have to pin down as soon as possible, and would rather watch the metagame evolve before making any hasty decisions. Right now seems like the ideal timing to do that given the amount of high-level tournament play coming up.

We have very mixed on most of the other Pokemon that have seen discussion, such as Blissey, Mega Latias, and Slowbro. They are definitely still up for debate, but not really a priority to us. It'll be interesting to see how these Pokemon will fare in the upcoming tournaments.

Moving on from that, we believe that hyper offensive teams are perhaps the strongest they have been since Mega Blastoise's ban, despite Spectrier's recent removal from the tier. This is due to the recent realization of just how powerful Choice Scarf Victini is on hyper offensive teams, as it can almost always guarantee a kill with Final Gambit, which is absolutely huge for hyper offense. Having to play with one less piece against hyper offensive teams is incredibly difficult and one hole can easily spell the end. People have also started to get more daring with Cinderace again, opting to run Z-Moves on it once more. While there are obvious drawbacks to not running Heavy-Duty Boots, sets like Normalium Z with Double Edge have proven to be quite powerful currently; it can very easily overwhelm traditional counterplay like Slowbro, Toxapex, and Mega Latias, while providing generally good coverage.

Other than that, Speed control options seem to be getting more and more dire with every ban. Both Dragapult and Spectrier's ban have both impacted our ability to adequately deal with fast Pokemon like Cinderace. It's come to a point where we genuinely believe that Zeraora is not a bad option, despite its many downsides. It sports a very high Speed tier, notably outspeeding Mega Lopunny and Cinderace, it can block Volt Switches, and its checks are generally quite easy to wear down. Other options like Choice Scarf Victini and Mega Lopunny have also been seeing an uptick. It will be interesting to see where this gets taken from here, but it's clear to us that some teams can really struggle to viably interpret adequate Speed control just because of the lacking options available.

Ciao!
 
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Player Survey

Hey everyone! The National Dex council is conducting a survey to gauge what you think of the metagame right now. Everyone can respond to this survey! We will keep it open for roughly a week; expect to see results of the survey sometime soon after that.

You can find the survey here.
 
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Player Survey

Here are the stats from this survey! Thanks to the 65 people that responded. I will use two different demographics to go over the results. The first demographic is everyone that responded, while the second is everyone that earned the prize winner role in the National Dex room, played in the National Dex 2020 circuit playoffs, and those that won their games for round 4 of the ongoing winter seasonal.

How much do you enjoy the National Dex metagame right now?

Out of all 65 answers, the average was 7,06153846154/10. This is an answer we're pretty satisfied with; we're happy to see that the average is comfortably above the middlepoint.

Out of the 22 qualified votes, the average was 6,77272727273/10. This is slightly lower than the general average, but still a number we are happy with!

How stable do you think that National Dex is right now? Does the better player consistently win?

Out of all 65 answers, the average was 6,86153846/10. This is slightly lower than the average with regards to enjoyment, but we are still very happy to see that a good majority of people feel like the better player can consistently win in the current meta.

Out of the 22 qualified answers, the average was 7,31818181818/10. This is a little higher than the general average, and the fact that these players generally feel this way is something we value highly.

What do you think of Magearna in the current metagame?

Out of the 65 answers, the average was 3,93846154/5. This ultimately means that the majority of people quite strongly believe that Magearna is broken in the metagame.

Out of the 22 qualified answers, the average was 4,22727272727/5. This falls in line with the general average.

What do you think of Cinderace in the current metagame?

Out of the 65 answers, the average for Cinderace was 4,26153846/5. The answers here were very one-sided to Cinderace being broken and the council has taken note of this.

Out of the 22 qualified answers, the average was 4,5/5. This pretty much falls in line with the general consensus too.

Do you think the council should suspect test Zamazenta-C?

A slight majority believes that Zamazenta-C is not worth suspect testing. This majority was not very overwhelming and we will keep this Pokemon in mind for sometime in the distant future.

Are there any other Pokemon you want adressed?

Most people seemed to agree that nothing else currently needs to be adressed. The only recurring Pokemon was Mega Latias. We will keep this in mind for in the future.

What Pokemon do you think should take priority for the council?

According to this graph a pretty decent majority of users believe that Cinderace should be the priority right now. This lines up pretty well with the earlier questions regarding Magearna and Cinderace.

What we've taken away from this is that the majority feels that both Magearna and Cinderace are very deserving of a suspect test. Cinderace was suspect tested quite recently, but we will discuss whether it is an option based on these statistics. We were also happy to learn that people generally enjoy the metagame and feel like the better player consistently gets rewarded. We are also happy to see that the divide between qualified players and those that did not qualify is very minor.
 
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Council Minutes

Hey all! I know its been a while but with the recent tournaments and suspect tests going on it has been hard to find a time to get our thoughts down when the meta has been pretty rapidly developing. Regardless, we're here with our thoughts on the meta as it is right now at the tail end of Cinderace's suspect test, as well as what our plans are after that wraps up!

Kicking it off - currently the general consensus has been that matchup plays a bigger part in the metagame than we are comfortable with as making sure a team has consistent matchups into all of Stall, Balance, and all types of Offense is nigh impossible and you are often forced to almost give up on one matchup in order to shore up another. Most of us think that this is due to the extremely strong breakers in the tier, such as Cinderace, Magearna, and Mega Mawile, and how easy it is for them to overwhelm common defensive backbones. We will be paying close attention to how this develops post Cinderace Suspect regardless of the result, to see if the issue improves or if we want to address another one of the Pokemon we think are part of the issue.

In terms of how the metagame has been developing, since NDWC started the meta has changed fairly significantly. Previously unseen, Slowking has has an incredible showing so far in the tournament, still sporting a 100% win rate going into playoffs. Other Pokemon which we believe to be rising significantly are Ash Greninja, Mega Diancie, and Clefable. Calm Mind Clefable specifically we believe is incredibly potent in the current metagame
due to the fact that counterplay options are incredibly limited, especially when Clefable is paired with Spike support. Some of us also believe that Hydreigon is picking back up again after its brief stint in the limelight during the Spectrier meta as it offers a decent check to common Pokemon such as Heatran and the aforementioned Ash Greninja, as well as a strong wallbreaking threat. However, due to Hydreigons somewhat awkward Speed tier and limited available moveslots it can be quite difficult to make progress with effectively and we ended up being pretty split about Hydreigons place in the metagame as a result of this.

On the other hand, some metagame titans have been slipping lately - most notably Pokemon such as Mega Latias and Blissey are on a downwards trajectory. Mega Latias in particular we almost unanimously agreed that it was in a rougher spot due to a variety of factors. The metagame accelerating significantly means it can rarely afford the turns it needs to become a potent threat. On top of this, while in theorey Mega Latias is incredibly threatening because of the variety of moves it can run, it can never afford to fit them all and therefore becomes much easier to play around if you can scout its coverage.

Psyshock + Aura Sphere which was previously the most common set on Mega Latias leaves much to be desired if Mega Latias cannot get setup and removes its ability to act as a check to Pokemon such as Garchomp, Landorus-T, and Gliscor which the Ice Beam variation has over it. Though of course, Ice Beam makes it an overall worse wincon which is often a tradeoff you have to evaluate when using Mega Latias. Mega Latias also has a tendency to be prone to Status effects, since Pokemon that it wants to take advantage of in order to setup often run Toxic or Thunder Wave. This means that in order to get the most out of Mega Latias Heal Bell support, usually from Magearna, is incredibly appreciated. All of these factors lead Mega Latias to needing too much time, too much support, and too many move slots to be viewed as highly as it was previously.

Blissey is in a similar boat to Mega Latias in that it generally struggles to keep up with the constant pressure on it in the metagame. It is incredibly easy to take advantage of with a myriad of the tiers common Wallbreakers and can struggle to find turns to get off recovery because of this. Blissey's fall from prominence is one of the main reasons Ash Greninja has come back into the metagame in full force (on top of being one of the only viable revenge killers of Bulk Up Cinderace of course).

In summary, in general we think that the meta has sped up quite a bit and Pokemon which give the opponent too many free turns for later value are slowly being pushed out. We think that the metagame is a little too matchup based as it is right now and are hoping to address that issue with the ongoing Cinderace suspect, as well as the following suspect test.

Speaking of the suspect following Cinderace, we have unanimously decided that barring any significant meta changes, Magearna will be the next Pokemon to be suspected tested in National Dex. It received fairly large support for a suspect in the player survey we sent out about a month ago now and since then its sets have only gotten more diverse. KissPower is still one of the more prominent threats on very common HO structures and can very quickly spiral out of control since it has a small number of effective checks, especially with the Weakness Policy variant which cannot be revenge killed by Cinderace becoming commonplace. Choice Specs is still as dangerous of a Wallbreaker, wearing down checks with Volt Switch and discouraging passive answers with Trick. On top of these sets that we've covered previously we're also starting to see other sets such as Steelium Z Pivot, Assault Vest, and Calm Mind + Pain Split popping up which allows Magearna to help with matchups versus Mega Mawile, Ash Greninja, and Stall as a whole respectively. This has lead to Magearna becoming much more versatile and unpredictable and therefore more difficult to handle as the meta has developed and ultimately why we believe it should be suspect tested next.
 
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Council Minutes

Hey there party people, whilst it hasn't been that long since Magearna was banned from National Dex, the council has been pretty actively discussing our thoughts on the state of the metagame. While some of us have a few grievances with the current meta, it's fairly unanimous that the Magearna ban has effected the tier positively. We dont have too much to put into these minutes so I apologies for this installation being shorter than most, but here are our general thoughts noneoftheless.

Garchomp has been bought up by a few of us but the majority of the council does not see it as broken / overly problematic. Here's an excerpt of a conversation we had about both the regular and mega form of Garchomp:
average mchomp enjoyer — 04/13/2021
Jho uh I feel like we should talk about mega garchomp more formally here
'cause I too
feel like this mon should be suspected
it's crazy good
Jho — 04/13/2021
oh u were talking about mega chomp
i was talking about regular
average mchomp enjoyer — 04/13/2021
lol
ok every time I use groundium chomp I end up taking 1 and nothing else
except for maybe
1 or 2 midgame cleans
Jho — 04/13/2021
just rockium and groundium
dont have real checks
er
dragonioum
not groundium
groundium seems bad
average mchomp enjoyer — 04/13/2021
I was thinking
shot groundium
honestly dragonium sr isn't even
that hard for me tbh
they do have a lot more offensive counterplay imo
I also run a fair amount of ice beam bro now 'cause megachomp is annoying
most ground resists actually do adequately vs regular garchomp, the only thing they don't really like to take is
+2 dragonium z
but that's what z-moves will do to a metagame
you gotta have offensive checking mechanisms
however mchomp I swear
has like
1 actually good revenge killer and that's weavile
Jho — 04/13/2021
problem w a lot of offensive checks to chomp is that most of them cant outright ohko
it is incredibly difficult to have a functioning team that can actually switch into and deal w chomp too
ime
i wasnt bringing it up as a serious movement for a ban fwiw i just hate dealing with it in builder LOL
root of the problem is we dont have really any good ground resists
average mchomp enjoyer — 04/13/2021
that's mchomp for you
mchomp literally just
goes straight past stuff w 4x moves
it even beats beam bro
and I'm legit like
wtf
Mr.Mudkip — 04/14/2021
read through it and wanted to add to it a bit
imo garchomp functions a little bit like mawile in some senses
as in its basically impossible to switch into and check
but i think we have the tools to combat it available
requires a little extra attention in the builder of course
as do all grounds
sd lando/sd gliscor/ sd garchomp
all have methods to bust through corv
either directly or just magnezone
average mchomp enjoyer — 04/14/2021
lando / chomp find it much harder, and glisc loses to sub bu
but I do see what you mean w glisc
you need something to ohko glisc really
if your lone ground check is corv
Mr.Mudkip — 04/14/2021
yeah corv cannot be solo ground check cuz that causes magnezone to 6-0
Jho — 04/14/2021
rockium and sd mega chomp both break through corv
pain.
unless BU
even bu is shaky w rocks up
Avery — 04/14/2021
dragonium breaks too if corv doesn’t turn
average mchomp enjoyer — 04/14/2021
tl;dr corv isn't really a good ground check


Other than this no one really sees anything as problematic enough to warrant a suspect test anytime soon, which makes for a pretty nice change! One thing we have discussed is the possibility of testing a Pokémon down while the meta is in a stable place. Pokemon that have been bought up for this are the remaining Pokemon from the council bans after DLC1, specifically Tornadus-T and Urshifu-S, as well as other options such as Blaziken and Zamazenta-C. This is just a possibility and not something we are set on doing just yet. We intend to put out a new player survey in the near future to gauge the community's enjoyment of the National Dex metagame post Magearna ban and to see what the consensus is on the path National Dex should take next.
 
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Player Survey

Hey everyone, we're conducting another survey to assess what the community perception is of National Dex currently! This form will be left open for roughly a week and everyone is welcome to fill it in.

It can be found here!
 
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Player Survey

Hey all! Its been roughly a week since we sent out the above survey and we got a huge amount of responses (114!!) so thank you to everyone that took the time to do so. We wont be separating the results into separate demographics this time around as we have had very few recent tournaments in which to draw a significant number of users from. With all that out of the way, lets look at the results:

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current National Dex Metagame?

Out of all 114 responses, the average enjoyment for the current National Dex Metagame was 7.833. This is obviously a number we are very happy with and having increased by almost a whole point since the last survey went out lets us know that the recent tiering decisions have been beneficial to the metagame.

How stable do you think National Dex is currently? How consistently does the better player win?

The average response from all 114 answers for this question is 7.456 which is again well into the figures we are happy with seeing. This is again almost an entire point higher than the response from the overall results in the previous survey so we are very happy to see this!

Do you find any Pokemon problematic or potentially broken in the current metagame? If so, which?
Now this question got a variety of answers and addressing all of them that came up, even if it was only once or twice, isn't really reasonable so instead I will note the ones that came up consistently as those that many people believe to be a problem are the ones we want to keep our eyes on going forward.

None was by far the most common answer to this question, with 56 of the submitted surveys answering with some variation of "none/nothing feels broken right now/nothing in particular" etc
Mega Mawile was the next most common answer with 17 responses deeming it to be potentially broken.
Garchomp/Mega Garchomp received 11 responses. I counted these together as most that submitted one submitted both but there were a few that thought it was just one or the other.
Ash Greninja was mentioned 7 times.
Mega Latias was bought up 4 times.

Do you think the council should test Zamazenta-Crowned?

A decent majority of people believe that Zamazenta-C should not be suspect tested at this time. However since it wasn't the largest margin we will still be keeping our eyes on it to see if its worth doing so in the future.

Do you think the council should test Blaziken?

Blaziken received a pretty sizeable majority of votes that thought it should be suspect tested. We will be discussing this and looking into it at length in the near future as a result of this.

Do you think the council should test Tornadus-Therian?

Tornadus-T received a pretty much split vote so we will likely keep this Pokemon in mind when looking at the metagame again in the future.

Do you think the council should test Urshifu-Single Strike?

This is a pretty overwhelming majority in favor of not testing Urshifu-S, so we will be refraining from looking at its possible inclusion in the metagame again for the foreseeable future.

Our main takeaway from this survey is that people are enjoying the metagame more after the recent wave of bans and that the majority of people believe it to have become more stable as a result on top of that, which is exactly what we wanted to hear! On top of this, it seems that there wasnt any one Pokemon in the current metagame that a vast amount of people agreed was overwhelming, with Mega Mawile being the most likely to be looked at this way. We will be keeping our eyes on Mega Mawile going forward as a result of this. A large amount of people agreed that Blaziken deserves to be suspected tested down into National Dex OU, so the council will be discussing this as an option for the near future. Thanks again to everyone who replied to the survey and I hope you keep enjoying the Natonal Dex metagame!
 
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Council Minutes

Hey guys, just a quick update today -

During and following the Blaziken suspect, the council started discussing the presence of "luck items" in the tier and if they offer enough to the metagame to offset their uncompetitive nature. This stems from this policy review thread that happened recently. As a result of this discussion between the council members, we have decided that we will hold a vote on Kings Rock/ Razor Fang, Quick Claw, and Bright Powder/ Lax Incense over the coming weekend. I will update this thread with the result in a few days time!
 
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Council Minutes

Hey everyone! With NDPL still going strong, we've discussed quite a bit about the current state of the metagame as the tournament progresses. Various things have come to stand out, and it's been quite a while since our last council minutes on luck items, so we'd like to convey our current thoughts.

Bright Powder, Sand Veil/Snow Cloak

On the luck items slate, Bright Powder was voted for a majority of Do Not Ban, and we stated that we may revisit these in the future. As it stands, some of us have changed our view on the item after the vote and are in favor of revisiting this in the near future. Bright Powder, while nearly absent from most NDPL matches, has always been a highly luck based aspect. One dodge could decide the game, and with abusers like Serperior or just about anything that decides to spam Substitute, dodges can very easily take away player agency. Of course, it's still your item slot, so whether or not this is a worthwhile trade has been up for debate.
The ability version of Bright Powder, in the form of Sand Veil, has nearly the exact same effect on abusers like Garchomp, who can simply sub down and hope for a dodge whenever sand is up. However, this requires weather to be up, and therefore is not an effectively permanent evasion boost like Bright Powder is. Since the setup is inconsistent and does not provide the same level of chance as Bright Powder, less of us view it as problematic. Snow Cloak is the hail clone of this ability, but has no viable abusers really doing much of anything at the moment. However, this has also been considered to be a Policy Review topic, as some of us think these abilites should fall under Evasion Clause.

:ss/magnezone:

Much discussion has begun around Magnezone and whether or not its a competitive aspect of the tier. As everyone knows, it's ability, Magnet Pull, is what enables it to switch in and forcibly remove Steels. Strategies centered around Magnezone involving things like Kartana, Mega-Diancie, Kyurem, or any other partner that can feasibly benefit from it's trapping capabilities have been widespread for quite some time. Some of us believe that these aspects are uncompetitive, and with Steels being one of the most important parts of a teams defensive core, accounting for Magnezone and each of its various abusers, some feel it's a tall task in the teambuilder. Others view do not view Magnezone as overwhelming, but rather something that has existed for quite a while and is naturally accounted for through speed. Nevertheless, we feel this discussion should get some attention on whether or not Magnezone is uncompetitive.

:ss/Tornadus-Therian:

Tornadus-Therian has been banned for quite a while, with the footnote on it mentioning potential for a future retest. This footnote was before Tornadus-Therian ever gained Nasty Plot, and since then, most have been against the idea of a suspect test. Lately, some more discussion has started, and we'd like to keep an open mind about a Tornadus-Therian suspect, but in reality, it is not guaranteed. Many think it's Nasty Plot sets boosted by Z-moves are, on paper, probably the strongest breaker in the metagame, paired with Regenerator to outlast any of its checks, and on top of it's 121 speed, it's nearly impossible to stop. Nevertheless, some members are still open to the idea of tiering action after NDPL concludes.

:ss/dragapult:

Dragapult has been banned for quite a while, being banned by suspect for almost 10 months ago now. Currently, we've been discussing whether or not it is fit for the current metagame. Some of us believe that it is able to fit into the metagame at hand, as it can struggle to setup and sweep at times, and checks like Weavile being present to potentially trap it. Others think that it is simply too good at enabling teams and too easy to support, with rather plentiful setup opportunities and a wide variety of sets that restrict the scope of the metagame with Dragapult at the center, and others seem to be neutral on the topic, but are keeping an open mind. As for any action on this, since Dragapult was banned by suspect, we have little to no incentive to take action on this topic and is something not likely to be considered for a while, with other topics at hand at the moment.

As an addendum for various topics also brought up, Kartana was also mentioned. Kartana has always been a potent Z-move abuser, but not many of us view it as outright broken or unhealthy, and not too challenging to account for in the builder. Do note however, that after NDPL we will be doing a survey to gather everyone's thoughts on all of the matters stated in this post, so stay tuned!
 
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Steorra

nya smells
is a Site Content Manageris a Member of Senior Staffis a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Discord Leader
Player Survey

Hello people, we're conducting another survey to see what the community thinks of the current National Dex metagame and what our next step should be! This form will be left open for roughly a week and everyone with a Smogon account is encouraged to provide their feedback.

The survey can be found here!
 
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Steorra

nya smells
is a Site Content Manageris a Member of Senior Staffis a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Discord Leader
Player Survey

Hey everybody! Its been a week since the metagame survey went out! We got an all time high 233 responses with 38 qualified individuals. Thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey, and lets go through all the responses!

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current National Dex Metagame?
1639980742893.png

Out of all 233 responses, the average enjoyment for the National Dex metagame was a 7.57 / 10. We are very happy with this figure as it means people are generally enjoying themselves currently. It is a small decrease from the previous survey, but the small drop could be tied to tiering action or general metagame shifts. We are still very happy to see this figure!

Out of the 38 qualified voters, the average enjoyment for the current National Dex metagame was 7.74 / 10. This number is slightly higher than the feelings of the community at large, indicating that the tier is quite enjoyable at high level play. This is still quite pleasing to see.

How competitive do you think National Dex is currently? Does the better player win?
1640021685392.png

The average response to this question amongst all voters was 7.35 / 10. This is again very nice, as it shows that the better player wins more often than not in this current metagame, pointing to a lack of a broken element.

The average response amongst the 38 qualified voters was 7.67 / 10. The small increase as compared to the general playerbase is a good sign, as it shows that in high level play there is a general lack of uncompetitive elements swinging the game one way or another. We are very happy to hear this!

From this point on, the survey is not split between qualified and unqualified voters.

How do you feel about Magnezone in the current metagame?
1639980790264.png

As can be seen above, 12.4% of the playerbase believes Magnezone is immediately concerning and worthy of tiering action, while another 35.1% are not opposed to tiering action. We will be taking this into consideration when making decisions in the near future.

How do you feel about Dragapult in the current metagame?
1639980856862.png

When asked about Dragapult, 62.9% of the community believes there should be a suspect test. We will take this into consideration moving forward.

How do you feel about Tornadus-T in the current metagame?
1639980883311.png

Regarding Tornadus-T, 84.8% of the community believes it should be suspect tested. This will be kept in mind when planning our next step.

How do you feel about Luck Items / Abilities in the current metagame?
1639980913104.png

As far as luck items are concerned, 39.2% of the community believes that they are an immediate concern and should be addressed as soon as possible. With only 18.1% of the community being against tiering action regarding luck items and abilities, this will be addressed in the near future.

The big takeaways from this survey are that people are still enjoying the metagame and that the majority of people believe it to still be quite stable and competitive, which is, ideally, what we wanted to hear! A large amount of people were in favor of tiering action regarding Tornadus-T, Luck Items and Abilities, and Dragapult. As such, those three will be on our immediate radar moving forward. Thank you to everyone who replied to the survey and I hope you keep having fun in the Natonal Dex metagame!
 
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Steorra

nya smells
is a Site Content Manageris a Member of Senior Staffis a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Discord Leader
Player Survey

Hey all, the council is holding another survey to gauge how people feel about the metagame and determine our next steps moving forward. This survey will be open for about a week, and as usual anyone with a Smogon account is welcome to provide their feedback.

The link to the survey is here.
 
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Steorra

nya smells
is a Site Content Manageris a Member of Senior Staffis a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Discord Leader
Player Survey

Hi all, its been a little over a week since the survey was made public, and in that time we got a shocking 341 replies! Thank you to everyone for providing your feedback. Criteria to be a qualified voter was not included in this iteration of the survey.

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current National Dex Metagame?
1647541087004.png

Of 341 responses, the average enjoyment for the National Dex metagame was a 7.83 / 10. This figure is quite pleasing as it means people are generally enjoying themselves. It is a notable step up from the previous survey, which is always a welcome sight.

How competitive do you think National Dex is currently? Does the better player win?
1647540433082.png

The average response to this question was 7.80 / 10. This is again rather nice, as it shows that the better player wins quite consistently. This is a notable increase from the previous survey's result and the highest figure we've seen on this question to date, meaning the current tier is the most competitive it's ever been. This is incredibly pleasing to see, as it also points to the lack of a broken element within the tier.

How do you feel about Mega Blaziken?
1647540850225.png

When asked about Mega Blaziken, 26.4% of the community thinks it should not be suspect tested, while 73.6% of people are in favor of testing Mega Blaziken. We'll take this into consideration when planning our next steps.

How do you feel about Kyurem in the current metagame?
1647541041335.png

When asked about Kyurem in the current metagame, 19.7% of people think it should be suspect tested, while 55.1% of people are impartial. Another 25.2% of people think Kyurem should be left alone. This means that in all likelihood no action will be taken on Kyurem.

How do you feel about Mega Lopunny in the current metagame?
1647541561478.png

When asked about Mega Lopunny, 44.3% of people think it is balanced and should not be touched, while 35.2% of people are impartial and 20.6% of people think it is worthy of a suspect test. Mega Lopunny likely won't receive any tiering action.

How do you feel about Heatran in the current metagame?
1647541731639.png

Of all 341 responses, 58.9% of people think Heatran should be left alone, with 31.1% of people being impartial and a further 10% in favor of a suspect test. Much like Mega Lopunny above, it is likely that no action is taken on Heatran. Thank you for your input.

When asked if we missed anything, we did get some interesting replies:
- 7 people want to suspect Zamazenta-C.
- 4 people want to ban Serperior, which is not a lot but it is surprising it got mentioned to begin with.
- 5 people tried to ratio me in my own, private survey.
- A number of people mentioned various suspects like Kartana, Urshifu-S, Magearna, Magnezone, Serene Grace (?), and Deoxys-S. I seriously doubt these Pokemon will see any tiering action.
- Whoever wrote an essay on Mega Blaziken and Zamazenta then expressed their thanks for the survey made my day. This was a heartwarming response, thank you.
- 2 people brought up Acupressure, and I've discussed at length that we will not do anything about this move. If you are one of these people and you want action taken on it, I recommend starting a PR thread.


The important things to note from this survey are that people are enjoying the metagame quite a bit and the majority of people believe it to be more competitive than previous metagames, which is what we wanted to hear! A large amount of people were in favor of tiering action regarding Mega Blaziken though, and as such, it will be on our radar moving forward. Thank you for your input and helping us determine the direction of the tier moving forward!
 
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Steorra

nya smells
is a Site Content Manageris a Member of Senior Staffis a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Discord Leader
Player Survey

Heya, with the recent Winter Seasonal coming to a conclusion and it being a while since our last survey, the council is holding another one to gauge how people feel about the metagame at this time. This survey will be open for about a week, ending on the 29th of April at 11:59pm GMT-4, and as usual anyone with a Smogon account is welcome to provide their feedback! And if you have any questions you are always free to message me or a member of the council.

The link to the survey is here.
 
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Steorra

nya smells
is a Site Content Manageris a Member of Senior Staffis a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnus
Discord Leader
Player Survey

The survey is now closed, with 236 responses to boot! Its great to see this level of participation when it comes to our surveys and look forward to any future ones we do! Now onto the results:

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current National Dex Metagame?
1651335933316.png

Of the 236 responses, the average enjoyment for the National Dex metagame was a 8.5 / 10. This figure is quite a big increase since our last survey regarding the topic and is the highest figure we've ever gotten on this question! We are generally glad more and more people are enjoying the metagame

On a scale of 1-10, how competitive do you think National Dex is currently? Does the better player win?
1651337162402.png

The average response to this question was 7.5 / 10. This is again rather nice, and is very close to the figure on our last survey, meaning people are still generally pleased on the state of the tier currently and that there is a lack of a broken element within the tier.

How do you feel about Kyurem in the current metagame?
1651363594957.png

When asked about Kyurem in the current metagame, 20.7% of people think it should be suspect tested, while 50% of people are impartial. Another 29.2% of people think Kyurem should be left alone. Compared to when we last asked about how Kyurem is in the metagame, the results were similar, with a slight decrease in people being impartial and a slight increase instead on people who think it should be left alone. This means that similar to the last survey, there is little chance action will be taken on Kyurem.

How do you feel about Weavile in the current metagame?
1651363604384.png

When asked about Weavile in the current metagame, 14.4% of people think it should be suspect tested, while 45.3% of people are impartial. Another 40.3% of people think Weavile should be left alone. This points to an extremely low likelihood any tiering action will happen to Weavile.


In your opinion, do you think there is any currently banned Pokemon that can be retested into the tier?
- 88 people answered no, with this being our most common answer.
- 20 people voiced support for suspect testing Mega Metagross.
- 28 people voiced support for suspect testing Zamazenta-Crowned.
- There were small amounts of people voicing support for Mega Alakazam, Cinderace, and Magearna with an average of 15 people advocating for a retest on each of them.
- A lot of people voiced support for retesting some of our previously retested elements ie. Dragapult, Tornadus-T, Mega Blaziken. These will obviously not be considered for a retest for a very long time.
- Stray mentions of Mega Blastoise, Genesect, Deoxys-Speed along with more "highly unlikely to happen" mentions like Shaymin-Sky, Mega Lucario, Darkrai, etc. None of these will likely be looked into in the near future.

Out of the above points, the council will keep points 2, 3, 4 in mind but it is not likely anything will happen with them in the near future.

Is there anything else you would like to mention?
- no/abstaining to respond being the most common answer
- more far-fetched bans like banning z-moves, banning Toxapex, etc.
- chunk of people wanting to see more National Dex lower tiers and Natdex OMs. (to touch up on this, anyone is free to develop some resources for any of these tiers and come forward to forum moderation on recognizing them, from there we will determine if the tier can be adequately facilitated.)
- couple of comments on unbanning luck items.
- thank you to all the people commending the council on their work towards the tier, on behalf of the council it means a lot.

Overall, people seem to enjoy playing the metagame and think its in a great place competitive wise, which is great to hear! With World Cup underway we can't wait to see what unfolds for the metagame next and what new things we'll encounter. Thank you everyone for your input and helping us determine the best course of action for the tier!
 
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