Metagame np: SS DOU Stage 6: Pay Your Way In Pain | Shadow Tag Remains Banned

[Darkmalice]

Now that the stag results are over with I think the next action that should very clearly be taken is suspecting Urshifu ASAP (like literally right now). I'll remind everyone's of Emilios post here since he does a good job of explaining why Urshifu should be looked at. The meta has clearly devolved since the survey was posted and is just a hyper offensive mess for the most part with no real way to make something defensive and Urshifu seems to be the main culprit. There is definitely enough concern of Urshifu being broken that it should be suspected and one of the big reasons it should be suspected ASAP is pretty simple, DOST. This pure offensive meta is pretty dumb and broken and now is the perfect time to potentially ban the cause before our biggest tournament ever starts. If DLT and how the current seasonal is going has showed anything it's that the meta is not evolving and that any small innovation there is, is still just hyper offensive stuff and a stagnant hyper offensive meta is not healthy, and definitely not the meta you want for DOST.

This makes me think of these two threads in Policy Review regarding the emergence of a new and very effective playstyle where some of the playerbase requests to make a ban to address this playstyle. In particular, I feel this post is relevant from the 2nd thread.

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ORAS OU underwent unprecedented shifts during SPL. We witnessed new standards form and archetypes evolve at a rapid pace, especially for an old generation. I view this as a positive because the playerbase is active and willing to challenge previous norms with their own strategies. I believe that we are still many metagame shifts away from ORAS settling down as a result of this, too, which means controversial topics right now may not be similarly problematic down the road.

The OP brings up some legitimate grievances and I believe we should be discussing these things, but banning right now when the tier is still evolving and we are mid-STour seems like a knee jerk response to me personally. The metagame has potential to adapt or phase in/out specific Pokemon and strategies. You typically need a longer time and/or overwhelming support to get a ban in an older generation as is, but couple this with the fact that it’s harder to pinpoint the specific problem here, with some potential solutions being to ban items like Light Clay or moves like Sticky Web, and it gets even messier. If there was a larger sample size or a universally accepted solution, I think we would have an easier time acting on this.

I would think the appprorpaite line of action would be for the ORAS council to pinpoint if they deem anything problematic and then potentially conduct a vote after STour, but that’s up to them of course. Rushing would be a clear mistake, especially when not everyone sees this metagame as a bad thing.

Z Strats team was introduced about 2 months ago. Before then, Urshifu(-R) was widely not considered a problem, with request to ban Urshifu increasing more in frequency from about a month ago. Since then, we had the Shadow Tag test, which slowed metagame development. I do feel we need more time to properly adapt and explore other methods for checking Urshifu and its associated Urshifu / Kartana / Zygarde combination, in particular for a Pokemon that was widely not considered broken for its 10 months in DOU prior to the Z Strats team. The current seasonal hasn't even finshed yet and may lead to the development of counterplay as it advances.

 

[emma]

Z Strats hit the nail on the head.

Myself and others have already gone over why we consider Urshifu-R unhealthy (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) and I'd definitely make another post going in-depth on why I would vote ban if we were to suspect it, but I wanted to talk about why the suspect needs to happen now.

Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention has realized that Offense is the only playstyle worth using at the moment. You typically see a variation of Z Strats's HO, Necrozma archetypes, or more niche structures like Rain or Fullroom. You are either running some combination of the ten best mons, or teching on UR Pokemon such as Buzzwole or Latias to help in the mirror match. The thing is, I wouldn't consider these UR options (a lot of which SMB mention here) to be real metagame development. First off, you are still checking offense with offense, and Pokemon like Naganadel are unranked for a reason. While it does match up well into Zygarde / Kartana / Urshifu-R / Rillaboom and has a viable niche right now, it's not good into anything else. Of course, when all thats being run is Offense you can easily get away with it, but I don't agree with the fact that changing Kartana for Latias to win the mirror match on Z Strats's HO team is real metagame development.

The reason we have seen no real metagame development is because there is no reliable defensive counterplay for Offense, and thats where the problem is. You cannot pivot around and click Protect against Zygarde / Kartana / Urshifu-R because they're way too strong and all have ways to punish defensive and passive play: Substitute + Dragon Dance or Choice Band spread move, Tailwind and critical hits through everything, breaks Protect and critical hits through everything.

Furthermore, this has been going for two months with no answers in sight. This is very different from Spectrier, which lots of people thought was broken for a week but then it turned into a Tier 4 Pokemon once we figured out how to beat it. The community quickly adapted to Spectrier + Blastoise, but its been two months and people's answer to HO is slapping on UR Pokemon that help in the mirror match.

Due to the combination of it being two months with no reliable counterplay found and the biggest Smogon Doubles tour ever coming up very soon, I propose to suspect Urshifu-R immediately. Signups are going live on Sunday June 6th, and Round 1 will likely begin Sunday June 13th or Monday June 14th, so we're on a big time crunch. Here are some potential timelines I drafted up.

1. Suspect starts tomorrow, Friday June 5th at 8pm, and laddering goes until Friday June 11th at 8pm. Voting being immediately after, and hopefully we can get a result before Round 1 goes up.
2. Suspect starts Saturday June 6th at 8pm, and laddering goes until Saturday June 12th at 8pm. Voting being immediately after, and hopefully we can get a result before Round 1 goes up. This one is a bigger time crunch and we likely won't get a result in time.
3. We ask the TDs nicely to make signups last two weeks and effectively push the tournament back an entire week. I'm sure they'll be up for this considering a major part of the metagame is being suspected. The suspect can still start this weekend, but now we'll definitely get results before Round 1 starts.
4. The council quickbans Urshifu-R, and guarantees a suspect once OSDT ends. This would make sure we have a healthy metagame, while also having a not rushed suspect.

Personally, I am a big fan of Option #3. This makes sure we get the result in time, and we don't have to pray for everyone to vote quickly. Even with we go with Options #1 or #2 and don't get a result in time for Round 1, it will be in for Round 2 and we can all live with potentially playing a Urshifu-R legal metagame for one week if it gets banned once Round 1 starts. I am personally not the biggest fan of Option #4, since quickbanning without a survey or something first seems a bit off to me, but it is an option.

In a normal situation, I would be totally fine waiting to give the metagame more time to develop, but the presence of OSDT moves up the timeline significantly.
Hopefully we can maximize the competitiveness of the format before Official Smogon Doubles Tournament gets too far underway