On Sleep Clause

[Lily]

Sleep is a mechanic that's been controversial since the game's inception. Earlier in the generation this topic was addressed in what I feel was a suboptimal manner, so I'd like to bring it up again. The current measure we have in place in singles tiers to address the blatantly overpowered strategy is Sleep Clause, which limits the amount of foes the user can put to sleep to 1 at any given time. This has functioned fine up until now but I do not believe it is the optimal way to do things and I think that we should look at banning Sleep altogether. My reasoning is as follows:

1) Sleep adds a completely uncontrollable element of luck to the game.

For reference, in modern generations (6 and onwards) sleep turns are determined as follows:
-A Pokemon must always burn at least 1 turn of sleep before it can wake up.
-There is a 33% chance that the Pokemon will wake up after 1 turn of sleeping.
-If it doesn't wake up after 1 turn, there is a 50% chance the Pokemon will wake up after 2 turns of sleeping.
-The Pokemon will always wake up after 3 turns of sleeping.

Older gens have much wilder turn counts but I'm focusing on SS here. Sleep is not something you can have traditional outs to; if a Pokemon is slept (which it almost always will be against the most capable Sleep users like Amoonguss, Venusaur and Roserade thanks to their ability to threaten and wall most other Grass types) you have no real way to outplay it other than hoping you wake up early.

2) Sleep is extremely lacking in counterplay.

Here are the ways to absorb the most common sleep moves (spore, sleep powder)
-Being a Grass type
-Safety Goggles
-Having an ability like Overcoat, Insomnia or Vital Spirit

This is a very disproportionately small list for something that is so devastating. Sleep is not particularly far from an OHKO move much of the time; in highly offensive metas such as SS UU, SM OU or DPP OU, you will often not get the opportunity to burn any sleep turns. BW OU made the correct decision to ban sleep not so long ago; while BW sleep mechanics are a huge mess on their own, the OU tier in that generation is so powerful and volatile that it was often impossible to burn a single turn of sleep anyway. This dynamic of "I have a counter to the opposing Pokemon but only if I correctly get this guessing game right earlier in the match" enabled by Sleep Clause is just silly.

"but what about Sleep Talk?"
In very, very specific situations, Sleep Talk can be an effective method of absorbing sleep. For example, a Pokemon that only ever really clicks one move like Vanilluxe can afford to run a moveset of Blizzard, Freeze-Dry and Sleep Talk without being crippled. These situations are few and far between, though, and absorbing sleep with another pokemon like Sleep Talk Moltres is ultimately going to bring even more RNG to the table as you have to pray not only that you stay asleep, but also that you pull the right move (and often hit it on top of that).

3) We have already acknowledged Sleep as an overpowered strategy and have no obligation to keep it

From what I can tell, Sleep Clause exists because players wanted to ban sleep and it was convenient to neuter it in this way because Pokemon Stadium (I think? May be wrong but it was some side game) had this version of Sleep Clause implemented and Smogon was much more preservationist back then than it is now. We more often acknowledge uncompetitive and overpowered elements these days and I think most people would agree that sleep is one of them. If we're going to such lengths to neuter something so blatantly busted and RNG-dependent, why not just axe it altogether?

Before anyone asks, no this shouldn't automatically apply to every tier across every gen. Also no we shouldn't ban Relic Song and this isn't the thread to discuss something like Effect Spore (which has an easy solution anyway). Please keep on topic and let me know what you think. Thank you for reading.

Also in case it's unclear this wouldn't impact Doubles tiers at all (unless they want it to, I suppose).

 

[R8]

I think the op omit to mention what is in my opinion one of the biggest reasons why we should entierely ban sleep moves instead of keeping the sleep clause: the sleep clause is a mod, and thus a suboptimal way to balance sleep, on a policy point of view. I think most of us agree that, without the sleep clause, sleep is actually broken. However, why instead of banning the broken element - which is literally how tiering is supposed to work - are we modding the game to balance it?
(Yes, it is a mod - it makes sleep moves fail in battle, but you can still click the move, which is something impossible on cartridge)

In fact, the first assumption in Smogon's tiering policy framework is quite literally:

I.) We play, to the best of our simulator's capabilities, with the mechanics given to us on the cartridge.

• Some exceptions exist, such Sleep Clause and Freeze Clause (RBY / GSC), but they are to be avoided as much as possible.
• Suggestions to "remove critical hits" or "make Baton Pass fail in battle" are not valid tiering proposals

Why did smogon ever decided to establish the sleep clause then? Well for those who don't know, the sleep clause is very, very old, way more than smogon's tiering policy framework. It actually was first implemented directly in the game by the developpers - Pokemon stadium (released in 1999 iirc) - and Smogon just almost copy pasted the sleep clause in its own formats (not without changing the way Rest interacts with this clause).
The earliest version of the tiering's policy framework i could find is here, and as you can see was posted 16 years after the release of Pokemon stadium (the one we are using today is this). If you read the thread, you can already see an early version of the first assumption i quoted earlier. The sleep clause was then technically already outdated on a policy point of view, but they decided to make an exception for it.

6 years later, the sleep clause is still active, but still contradicts the first assumption of the TPF. This is why i believe we should do something that should have been done very, very long ago: banning sleep inducing moves instead of keeping the sleep clause active. We don't have to agree with decisions made 20 years ago if they contradicts the rules we decided to enforce now.

Here are a couple pro-sleep clause arguments i saw i wanted to mention, and explain why i believe they are in fact fallacies:

1)"The sleep clause does its job just fine: sleep is not a broken element anymore. Why fixing something that isn't broken?"
I generally disagree with the "if it ain't broke don't fix it"-type arguments. Sure, sleep clause does work, but why would that prevent us from improving our policy? With this argument, i feel like you invalidate any attempt at making things better than what they currently are. Lot of things - and that isn't limited to smogon, of course - aren't broken but still can and should be improved.

2)"If we have to remove the sleep clause to be more consistent with the Tiering Policy Framework, that implies that we have to remove the Freeze clause from RBY too.
EDIT: Gigalol I said nonsense (cf May's post), so yea u can just skip this part lol.
I disagree for two reasons to that:
-First, in RBY, there is a much more important tradeoff to consider. While getting rid of sleep clause would imply banning sleep moves - which aren't really an important piece of any metagame i'm aware of -, getting rid of the Freeze clause in RBY implies banning ice moves, which are obviously a much more needed aspects of the game than sleep moves. If you compare the old and the current versions of the TPF, you can notice that the freeze clause is mentionned in the current version but not in the early version of the TPF. I couldn't find any sources for this unfortunately, but i believe this implies the RBY community decided to implement the freeze clause despite the TPF, which basically means they had no other choices. And this is understandable: Freeze is a really dumb mechanic in gen1 - for the record, a frozen pokemon will never unfreeze in gen1 unless your opponent use a thawing move -, and i assume their reasoning was that modding the game seems like a very acceptable cost to keep ice moves in the metagame. However that's not the case for sleep (at least in our modern metagames): we don't need sleep moves, all they do is inducing sleep.
-Second, the Sleep clause is enforced in almost every Smogon metagame in existence, so the question of getting rid of it is relevant in each of these metagames. The freeze clause however, was created as an answer to a very specific situation in the RBY metagames.

3)"HP% and the cancel buttons are mods too"
Those are not relevant since they don't affect the mechanics of the game, aka the interactions between the mons. I GUESS you could make an argument for the HP% mod but getting rid of it is a debate that doesn't belong in this thread.

4)"Item clause, bans, etc... are mods too"
No they aren't. You can reproduce those on cart with anyone agreeing playing the same rules than you.

5)"You can approximately reproduce it on cart: just don't click the sleep move when something is already asleep".
The key word is "approximately". And the point i made still stands: why are we modding the game instead of banning the broken element?
+ There are some specific scenarios where the sleep clause isn't reproductible on cart. For example, what if i predicted that the opposing pokemon woke up during this turn? What if my pokemon is locked into a sleep move thanks to encore or a choice item?

 

[Plague von Karma]

RBY

Impressive, ~1hr40min for us to be mentioned.
I will now assume that this is for every generation and hijack the thread for my own nefarious agenda.

I will preface this by saying that RBYers squabble over Sleep/Freeze Clause at least once a week for literal hours, it's like a ritual or something. I promise you are opening Pandora's Box and I can hear the trudging footsteps already. If you don't believe me, join the Discord where you will inadvertently enter a pipeline to join our cult. One day, Tauros will become real.

Why did smogon ever decided to establish the sleep clause then? Well for those who don't know, the sleep clause is very, very old, way more than smogon's tiering policy framework. It actually was first implemented directly in the game by the developpers - Pokemon stadium (released in 1999 iirc) - and Smogon just almost copy pasted the sleep clause in its own formats (not without changing the way Rest interacts with this clause).
The earliest version of the tiering's policy framework i could find is here, and as you can see was posted 16 years after the release of Pokemon stadium (the one we are using today is this). If you read the thread, you can already see an early version of the first assumption i quoted earlier. The sleep clause was then technically already outdated on a policy point of view, but they decided to make an exception for it.

6 years later, the sleep clause is still active, but still contradicts the first assumption of the TPF. This is why i believe we should do something that should have been done very, very long ago: banning sleep inducing moves instead of keeping the sleep clause active. We don't have to agree with decisions made 20 years ago if they contradicts the rules we decided to enforce now.

So this is mostly right; Sleep Clause was run in a couple official cartridge tournaments back in the day using a "violate this and you're instantly disqualified" type of ruling. Nintendo Cup '97 did this, making it among the oldest popularised rules in the franchise's history. Rest counted under this rule as our fluffy friend implies, and this continued into Gale of Darkness and I believe Battle Revolution. Thus, Smogon's Sleep Clause is a bit different as you said, and I remember hearing that it was changed simply because enforcing it was easier and does make it more competitive; after all, using Rest to "absorb sleep" is kinda silly, innit?

The "Stadium Sleep Clause" quirk is actually part of why RBYers dislike Stadium: sleep is so severely nerfed that it isn't competitively viable. You have to hit an inaccurate move, and then you will get a 0-1 turn wake half the time after that. The other half of the time, the mileage you get is 2-3 turns of being able to do something, which often isn't enough for set-up sweepers to exploit, although Tauros can often get something out of that. If they wake up, though, you're usually forced out the next turn, losing all momentum you should have made. This is all while Substitute and Rest + switching out blocks sleep. Horrid!

With that tangent in mind, I guess players of newer-gens are thinking of Stadium as the promised land, though. Floating cars, universal basic income, healthcare is free...yes, you, too, can live this reality! People do play and enjoy it, but I have seen very, very few people call for it to be made standard. Substitute is divisive among the uninitiated, for one...

Anyway, onto the thing I am actually here for.

that implies that we have to remove the Freeze clause from RBY too.

I want to clarify that GSC also runs Freeze Clause, for similar reasons to RBY: it can technically be infinite, you just don't see it here because the chance to thaw happens every turn. RBY's is, obviously, just infinite in a competitive environment. To be frank, RBYers just don't like mods very much, and the Counter vote had its own set of issues that has led to distrust in its tiering for a while.

I should also ask: why go down that slope? I suppose you explain why not, but anyway...

While getting rid of sleep clause would imply banning sleep moves - which aren't really an important piece of any metagame i'm aware of -

Whoa there, sonny, this is completely wrong. Sleep is a cornerstone of RBY. I am going to assume you're wording your point poorly and wanted to say "least competitive, low-stakes to remove", but this would still be wrong. Sleep is virtually an OHKO in this generation and the routes to getting it off range from sleep leads that become paralysis absorbers later to late-game bluffs with Chansey like Heroic Troller is notorious for doing. This is absolutely one of the most critical parts of not just learning RBY, but succeeding in it in general. It is immensely important and removing it from OU alone would quite literally drop multiple Pokemon down a tier. Multiple Pokemon out of 15. While I wouldn't say it's quite as powerful as BW sleep on the basis that waking up is actually possible without losing the game, it is still a significant, format-shaping status. And, well, that's the thing, it's warped the format for 20 years, there comes a point where it is very difficult to remove...the people who have played it for an extended period have stopped caring and a few (read: phoopes) have come to appreciate its existence.

Ika Ika Musume made a great post on sleep's impact in the last SPL here. You'll also see the RBYer "let's remove sleep/freeze" ritual immediately take over the thread.

RBY Sleep is a controversial subject in the community, as I have probably emphasised already. It is typically a KO once it lands, but getting to land it in a bulky metagame where Pokemon tend to get paralyzed quickly is very difficult: every paralyzed Pokemon becomes a "sleep blocker", as we often call them. However, with inaccurate moves like Sing and Hypnosis often used over multiple turns on the off-chance a 0-1 turn wake doesn't happen is...kind of silly. I don't mind, but obviously, others do. I mean, I can't blame them, seeing Chansey switch in on a Thunder Wave and proceed to use Sing through paralysis for multiple turns to try and net that "OHKO" is pretty extreme to the uninitiated. But it's just that: extreme, and that is why it's been seeing a decline for the past year. We do adapt, you know!

RBY UU and NU have seen sleep ban arguments for a while as well, though I am personally very partial to UU sleep because it's the one tier where not every team has a sleeper, because all of them receive immense punishment for missing that can sometimes mean a game loss on the spot. In fact, sleepless teams are very viable. NU, on the other hand, has it strong enough to the point that a few NUSD games have prompted ire from a few people, but there is also significant pushback on the basis that sleep diversifies leads...

On that note, the problem with sleep bans in RBY is that you end up with incredibly linear lead metagames; you're bringing back the Turn 1 Thunder Wave of old, although this also means you can bring back old stuff like lead Snorlax or maybe even Slowbro if you want to be funky. Jynx also goes down to UU like god intended and I think the entire world can get behind this. Serpi has often had a lot to say on this topic and I think he could word the point better than I ever could, especially in respect to lower-tiers. RBY doesn't have any of your standard-issue entry hazards, weather, momentum-grabbers, or anything like that, so you usually try to make status progress as early as possible. It's very primative, so...yeah, you get the point.

I haven't seen sleep talked about in Ubers ever...but then again...

You basically only have Oiseau Bleu and me grinding this tier in the hyperbolic time chamber. Also, if the blue bird is reading this, challenge me sometime!

I suppose what I'm saying is that you would have to establish significant metagame merit to make older RBYers want to move off of Sleep Clause Mod towards a Sleep Ban. It's been played this way for quite literally 20 years and the people who play the generation are very passionate towards it. The council is geared towards preserving the game more than anything else. Is that right for the community to be this way? Well, I don't know, I'm passionate myself, I'm probably one of the most experimental players out there. But still, it is hard to go through the same arguments every few months for that long. At that point, why bother?

Regardless, I have always entertained the idea of a sleep ban, in part because it makes the idea of legalising Tradebacks much more enticing: the biggest reason people have been against it all these years is because it allows Lovely Kiss Snorlax into the game, and with that removed, much of what you get outside of that isn't format-warping. Shellnuts has been the most successful playing the metagame so far, and the Pokemon that changes the most - Hypno - he only puts as B+ tier. Yeah, I have an agenda, how could you tell? What do you mean this would destroy all the lower-tiers as Hypno rises to elder-god status? Darn!

getting rid of the Freeze clause in RBY implies banning ice moves, which are obviously a much more needed aspects of the game than sleep moves

Not quite, but freeze does have a slightly higher impact, as Ika Ika Musume shows here. Getting freeze twice in one game is an incredibly rare occurrence, let alone during a point where one frozen Pokemon is in that state already. It would certainly promote more of the counterplay we already see, though; switching in a paralyzed Chansey, Snorlax using Rest earlier as you see in mirrors involving IceLax, chucking Jynx or Cloyster at it, so on, so forth. A legitimate talking point for removing Freeze Clause in the RBY Community is that it is flat-out unnecessary and doesn't actually do much in pursuit of reducing variance. Notable community members have gone as far as to suggest paralysis pre-status as a compromise.

There is another complication with freeze itself, and that's a matter of the thaw desync involving thawing. It's currently set to be patched as of uhhh a year ago or something now, but it's not implemented on PS yet. You can avoid patches through either banning all the burn moves (lol) or, as Ortheore has suggested to me in private, instating a rule that frozen Pokemon should not be thawed in situations where a desync occurs, but neither is really desirable; one bans almost an entire offensive type and the other adds an alternative losing condition. If we wanted to remove all mods - which is something I am somewhat invested in - that would be a solution.

In terms of community opinion, there isn't one on freeze fishing from what I have seen lording over the community for the past year and a half. The weird discussions on it always seem to come from someone bringing it up, then someone dreams up that freeze fishing was seen as bad, and then they defend it or something? Like, Page 3 of the OU Discussion Thread is literally just that. Speaking of that, read this Amaranth post, it's pretty good.

So removing both clauses is, technically, very possible. If you're removing sleep entirely, it may even be desirable. It's not uncommon to see both sleep and freeze distributed in a game, and as many will know, meaningfully waking up from sleep in RBY is uncommon, arguably rare, so I guess you could say two freezes is less of a change. Is it more competitive? Probably not...but yeah, technically possible, but whether it's better is another ballgame. Many will say worse, and that is enough reason to not change it in the eyes of many. This is why it's stayed that way.

Anyway, I have veered significantly off-track...

If you compare the old and the current versions of the TPF, you can notice that the freeze clause is mentionned in the current version but not in the early version of the TPF. I couldn't find any sources for this unfortunately, but i believe this implies the RBY community decided to implement the freeze clause despite the TPF, which basically means they had no other choices.

No, it was just imported from Stadium forever ago and has stayed that way ever since. These clauses were always intended to be the exception to the rule for how incredibly powerful these statuses are. The original assumption was that the Stadium games would keep happening ad infinitum, but then BW just didn't get one.

Anyway...

Wow reacts pls

 

[Amaranth]

above post covers just about everything on RBY sleep but I feel like it's missing the conclusion so I will add it here:

let oldgens decide for themselves whether they want to ban sleep or keep the clause, literally no reason not to. the tiers have been played with the clause for years/decades, and sleep is a very significant part of the metagame in the first two gens due to the much longer turn count. oldgens should get to choose individually with tests and votes, like BW got to do.

for cgou I largely agree w/ the op. sleep clause is antiquated and a result of rulesets that were only needed in antiquated metagames. but let those antiquated metagames make their own decisions, these clauses are there for a reason and all the "sleep isn't a big enough deal to be worth patching the game for" arguments absolutely fall flat with regards to these oldgens

 

[Tuthur]

Hey, Lily thank you for bringing this topic up.

I mostly agree with all the above points in that Sleep Clause in an unnecessary relic from past generations. In my opinion, the point that needs to be highlighted is that it makes the game less cartridge accurate, since it allows for impossible plays. As specified in this thread, every official Smogon metagame must aim to be as cartridge accurate as possible. In my opinion, they should only differ when there is no other option (see desynch in RBY or unlimited timer in new generations). Thus, by default, every metagame should start without this clause. Some may argue there are other mods implemented into PS! that makes CG OU not cartridge accurate, but that's wrong and has already been adressed 2 years ago by Zarel in this post. Unless Sleep Clause is required to preserve an important part of an old metagame like RBY and its removal would shake the whole metagame, thus causing more harm than benefits, the default option should be to the OP's proposal (which was also ABR's proposal at the beginning of the generation) and make it binary; allow or disallow Sleep moves. What problem would a Sleep Ban cause outside of nerfing a couple Grass-types in lower tiers and a couple ZU Pokémon in other tiers? This is a genuine question as I am not knowledgeable in most tiers. If there is no problem risen, then I don't see any reason to keep Sleep Clause over Sleep Ban in modern tiers.

 

[Nineveh]

While getting rid of sleep clause would imply banning sleep moves - which aren't really an important piece of any metagame i'm aware of -

What problem would a Sleep Ban cause outside of nerfing a couple Grass-types in lower tiers and a couple ZU Pokémon?

Considering we're talking about a removal of Sleep Clause altogether, I assume this means Ubers would be affected? Darkrai is arguably a top 10 mon in all three DPP, BW and ORAS, and it goes without saying that it is entirely thanks to Dark Void. Looking at the stats from BKC's invitational (thanks to 64 Squares for gathering and sharing them), you can even expect about 1 DPP game out of 6 to start by a sleep inducing move.

I am not knowledged enough about any other tier, nor I am actually interested in discussng this topic policy-wise, and in fact if Dark Voids ends up banned from those, so be it, but I just wanted to point out that metas strongly affected by sleep are definitely not limited to RBY.

 

[Ortheore]

Well I got mentioned, consider me summoned. Anyway, I strongly support being critical of sleep clause and testing whether it's necessary or whether alternatives would be more suitable. I also think Amaranth is spot on in that imposing a universal solution is probably not a great idea. As May pointed out, sleep is a defining strategic element in rby, and although new options would open up if it were removed, it's hard not to get the sense that things would be overall more shallow. I say this as someone who is adamantly opposed to sleep/freeze clause in their current forms- sleep clause would be far better being modified to be cart-accurate, not replaced with a flat ban or being unrestricted.

On a more general basis, I think that even though it's technically a complex rule, sleep clause seems like a natural solution that could probably be agreed upon if playing on cart, not to mention it can be communicated and understood easily.

Anyway, I want to raise an alternative option, which is to impose DQs or mid-match restrictions- the player using a sleep move loses or cannot select the sleep move unless they have no other choice. I will note that this hinges on the assumption that it's easy to distinguish between moves/abilities that are used primarily to inflict sleep and those where it's merely an unintended consequence- this currently holds true across gens, since the latter only applies to stuff that's ultra-niche or low probability. Please note that I'm assuming any potential DQ is prefaced by a warning that the player's choice risks that outcome

The main benefit to this approach is that this is the closest we can get to replicating sleep clause on cartridge, and I would argue is what players would naturally come up with if playing on cart. DQs can also allow us to resolve rby desyncs without resorting to mods or loads of bans btw. DQs are obviously more in line with cart play but introduce alternate win/loss conditions (even if they shouldn't really be deliberately exploitable), however if we're truly simulating cartridge play, this is something we should deal with because that would be the reality if we were playing on cart. Mid-match restrictions would be a compromise that doesn't add new W/L conditions but although I previously supported it, I now see it as a lesser option, since it's imposing additional restrictions on competitive play to make the games suit our simulator experience, rather than making the simulator accurate to the source games (also newbies would get badly caught out by weird restrictions)

edit: to clarify my proposal of DQs/mid-match restrictions, I'd like to point out that I did mention (but perhaps not emphasise) that there is an exception if the player using sleep has no other choice (i.e. cannot use another move and cannot switch). If there is no other option, then sleep clause would be permitted to be broken. I think this allowance is acceptable because even though this could lead to scenarios where multiple pokemon are put to sleep, in order for this to occur the sleep user would need to already be at a steep disadvantage, so it shouldn't be the end of the world. I'll underline the appropriate part of my post

tldr; don't do a universal solution as old gens need to be independent, also consider DQs.

 

[Tuthur]

Considering we're talking about a removal of Sleep Clause altogether, I assume this means Ubers would be affected? Darkrai is arguably a top 10 mon in all three DPP, BW and ORAS, and it goes without saying that it is entirely thanks to Dark Void. Looking at the stats from BKC's invitational (thanks to 64 Squares for gathering and sharing them), you can even expect about 1 DPP game out of 6 to start by a sleep inducing move.

I am not knowledged enough about any other tier, nor I am actually interested in discussng this topic policy-wise, and in fact if Dark Voids ends up banned from those, so be it, but I just wanted to point out that metas strongly affected by sleep are definitely not limited to RBY.

I wasn't suggesting a removal of Sleep Clause across every tier. If you read my post carefully, I'm saying tiers like RBY where Sleep Clause's removal would completely shake tier should keep it, this also includes DPP, BW, and ORAS Ubers. My last question was redirected to other tiers (I just edited that part in my post to make it more clear), namely because transivity is now a thing. If RBY is allowed to keep Sleep Clause, Ubers should be allowed to as well, just like every tier. My point is that the default option should be to not use the Sleep Clause when it is avoidable.

On a more general basis, I think that even though it's technically a complex rule, sleep clause seems like a natural solution that could probably be agreed upon if playing on cart, not to mention it can be communicated and understood easily.

Anyway, I want to raise an alternative option, which is to impose DQs or mid-match restrictions- the player using a sleep move loses or cannot select the sleep move unless they have no other choice. I will note that this hinges on the assumption that it's easy to distinguish between moves/abilities that are used primarily to inflict sleep and those where it's merely an unintended consequence- this currently holds true across gens, since the latter only applies to stuff that's ultra-niche or low probability. Please note that I'm assuming any potential DQ is prefaced by a warning that the player's choice risks that outcome

There are scenarios where a player is forced to use a Sleep move, often because they are trapped and are getting PP stalled. For instance, this is a situation that happened a lot on the ZU ladder where Block Pyukumuku would trap Sleep Powder Butterfree and force it to click (and force to fail) all its Sleep Powder. I know these scenari are not the most likely, however they do exist and in those, if i understood you correctly, you'd make the Butterfree user lose because they have no other option? In my opinion, creating alternative lose condition would open the door for uncompetitive ways to clutch wins by forcing the opponent to break Sleep Clause (one example of a dumb way to break sleep clause). I honestly prefer the current implementation of Sleep Clause and differing from cartridges than allowing for stupid stuffs like that.

 

[Lalaya]

ngl if we're gonna keep the Sleep Clause in half the metas at this point this thread serves zero purpose in just reminding ourselves how Sleep is vital in half the tiers we have and the only one that could be affected is... current gen OU? aside from nerfing some Sleep users removing the Clause does nothing of value, and I still stand by my point that this is still a clause we had from the games and we can definitely keep using it like we do for other clauses (and to be honest I don't really care about how we don't have a current generation counterpart, since up until Gen4 we did and then GF stopped caring about Arena games, otherwise we would), and even if it could or could not be broken (probably could), it's still centralizing in some generation and at least useful in some others; that being said, my proposal is also half ripped from Amaranth's one, aka let each generation decide from themselves and see what happens, since it should be discussed with each group of leaders at the very least

But ye I honestly don't mind keeping the Sleep Clause active where possible (and ban Sleep moves like Gen5 did if Sleep turns out to be not manageable at all, of course, but again, this is to discretion)

 

[Specs]

Am speaking only on my behalf

I've been thinking of foolproof solutions to keeping sleep legal while also removing sleep clause and I have come up with nothing. Tuthur makes good points as to why having a DQ system impacts this game a lot more than the actual clause we have now.

Wrt the Dq system again, being able to click sleep moves even with one of your opponents Pokemon asleep is also a legitimate way of scouting while also not putting yourself in potential danger. Lets say you suspect your opponent's Rhyperior is Weakness Policy, so you don't want to Earth Power it with your Palossand. You also suspect your opponent's Jellicent is Weakness Policy, so you don't want to Shadow Ball it. You want to preserve your Shore Up PP for another reason. Lastly, switching would risk them making a double that could lose you the game. Hypnosis is a perfectly fine move to click here, given there is potential risk for every other option. Are we really wanting to now force people to make potentially sub-optimal plays because they could potentially lose by wanting to make an otherwise legitimate play? I realize the scenario I mentioned is extremely specific and while this one isn't too realistic in any tier, but there are scenarios where making a waiting move is the best play. I do not support a disqualification system at all, and I hope that won't be considered. In the 2019 thread about Sleep Clause there were good posts made refuting this as well

I'm also not convinced every form of sleep is too powerful. Is Yawn as powerful as it once was in a generation where forcing switches isn't always making progress thanks to Boots? You're able to call doubles thanks to Yawn's threat of sleep, however even this is weakened thanks to Boots, boy is this gen different. Effect Spore is something I won't bring up as requested in the OP

I've let the other Tier Leaders know that I would really like for this to only affect the tiers that it is actually broken/uncompetitive in. Sleep is not even close to broken in PU. we have maybe 2 users (Tangela & Eldegoss) of it that see play and plenty of Heal Bell/Aromatherapy to go around. The 2 users of the move mentioned don't even always run it, often opting for coverage/utility options. I'm not convinced it should be banned on the basis that it is too strong this generation, at the very least not in every tier.

My overall view is I would rather keep Sleep Clause in tact than ban something that I do not believe is too strong in its current form this generation. If this goes against cartridge purity or however you want to call it, so be it to me. I would really err on the side of caution with potentially banning sleep as a whole this generation. It doesn't affect my tier too much, but even outside of that idk about this.

 

[Dorron]

Agree with some of the people above. This thread is nonsense for me, just let each tier council do whatever they feel necessary for their tier. They are more than capable to do so without anybody telling them privately or publicly. We don't need another thread of why literally any mechanic is "a completely uncontrollable element of luck to the game". If I want to hear people complaining about luck, I buy a lottery ticket, not checking PR threads.

 

[Paulluxx]

Good friend Mossy Sandwich asked me to post his takes on it, as an OM player.

Sleep Counterplay
Sleep has way more counterplay than just Grass typing, Goggles and three abilities. In fact, there are an impressive amount of abilities that can deal with sleep to some extent, including Electric Surge, Misty Surge, Magic Bounce, Guts, Poison Heal, Sap Sipper and Comatose, as well as some other less efficient, but still workable solutions such as pivoting around it with Natural Cure or absorbing it with an already statused pokemon. Items such as Lum Berry are ran on certain physical setup sweepers to deal with burns and paralysis, but also give an option against sleep and certain bulky setup sweepers in lower tiers can run Resttalk to naturally deal with it. Finally, having a Taunt user when the Sleeper is on the field or just applying enough offensive pressure so that the sleeper can't safely get on the field can also help against it. In short, sleep isn't an unstoppable beast that has next to no counterplay. There are many viable solutions to it which can fit on nearly every playstyle. Certain formats have worse counterplay than others due to certain sleepers being able to threaten most answers, but even if it gets to a point where it's centralizing or unhealthy, it's unlikely that the mechanic itself is the problem, but rather the abuser. Sleep is also not a free KO like in gen 5. Slower formats can just have the status absorbed by a bulky pokemon (usually one with regenerator) that can switch in often and shave one turn off at a time. Choosing which one of your pokemon should absorb sleep (Or when you should use your sleep move) is still a skill-based decision process rather than something like King's Rock or Bright Powder which are just about getting lucky. Yes, sleep can be strong and annoying, but it's not broken or unhealthy and there are many ways to deal with it. Sleep feels nowhere near broken enough to justify banning one of the five main status conditions.

Sleep Clause
While I don't think sleep should be banned, I think the current Sleep Clause is a pretty clumsy way of implementing a one sleep limit. The current clause still allows players to use Sleep moves when they've already put an opponent to sleep, but if that move hits a target that could be put to sleep otherwise, it just fails. This is not only confusing and punishing to newer players who don't fully understand the clause, it's also not accurate to how it would be applied in a cartridge game. Assuming both players play on cartridge and decide to apply Sleep Clause, they would simply not use a Sleep move once one opposing pokemon is put to sleep. Disabling the use of sleep moves after putting one opponent to sleep is actually a very simple way of applying the clause while also making it impossible for players to accidentally waste a turn because they forgot or didn't know about it and it keeps the simulator closer to cartridge play.

 

[Wigglytuff]

Agree with some of the people above. This thread is nonsense for me, just let each tier council do whatever they feel necessary for their tier. They are more than capable to do so without anybody telling them privately or publicly. We don't need another thread of why literally any mechanic is "a completely uncontrollable element of luck to the game". If I want to hear people complaining about luck, I buy a lottery ticket, not checking PR threads.

There is nothing nonsensical about this thread except for this misreading of Lily's proposal as "complaining about luck." Removing Sleep Clause and banning sleep inducing moves isn't remotely close to a standard OU suspect test; sleep moves have consequences on every tier, so every tier should be able to comment on their potential removal. This is precisely what PR threads are intended for.

Before anyone asks, no this shouldn't automatically apply to every tier across every gen

I've let the other Tier Leaders know that I would really like for this to only affect the tiers that it is actually broken/uncompetitive in. Sleep is not even close to broken in PU. we have maybe 2 users (Tangela & Eldegoss) of it that see play and plenty of Heal Bell/Aromatherapy to go around. The 2 users of the move mentioned don't even always run it, often opting for coverage/utility options. I'm not convinced it should be banned on the basis that it is too strong this generation, at the very least not in every tier.

Something that's not laid out explicitly in the OP or in subsequent posts is how this proposal relates to transitivity of bans. Specs' post indicates a desire for any potential removals/bans to only affect tiers where sleep is broken, but under the current system of transitivity of bans, that wouldn't be possible for the current gen usage based tiers (old gen tiers are another story entirely). If PU decides sleep moves aren't banworthy but OU through NU decides otherwise, then PU will inherit that ban regardless. It's not necessarily possible for tiers to pick and choose whether they want Sleep removed or not if they exist in a usage based hierarchy, and this is how it should be, otherwise we're not really talking about tiers anymore.

Personally, I think adopting this proposal is a no brainer for CG usage based tiers (old gen tiers are another story entirely). While I can't dispute Specs' post that Sleep isn't broken in PU, you would be hard pressed to find anyone claiming sleep inducing moves are beneficial and constitute a valuable part of the metagame for any CG usage based tier, for the reasons laid out in the OP. Banning sleep inducing moves would remove an uncompetitive element of the game with virtually no downside, unless someone wants to make the argument that Sleep is good for their tier?

We've seen a shift in tiering philosophy over the past few years from minimalist preservation of everything possible to addressing uncompetitive/heavily luck based elements, even if they're not necessarily producing consistent Ws for the user. The King's Rock and Evasion bans in SS OU are great examples of this paradigm change, and the removal of Sleep Clause and banning of sleep inducing moves would be right in line.

What exactly are we protecting here by not removing sleep and is it worth giving up adherence to cartridge and the minimization of uncompetitive elements in the game?

 

[Finchinator]

Regarding SS OU, I have brought the topic up in our council chat and expect to have discussion about it after Christmas. This is absolutely not being ignored and I am well aware that OU may set the tone here. We will be sure to keep an eye on this discussion in the meantime and post our thoughts/conclusions when appropriate.

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[Specs]

What exactly are we protecting here by not removing sleep and is it worth giving up adherence to cartridge and the minimization of uncompetitive elements in the game?

As much as I don't agree that sleep is uncompetitive, it's cool if other tiers feel that way. They have more and better users of sleep.

While I can't dispute Specs' post that Sleep isn't broken in PU, you would be hard pressed to find anyone claiming sleep inducing moves are beneficial and constitute a valuable part of the metagame for any CG usage based tier, for the reasons laid out in the OP.

The one questionable sleep user that we never see is Lilligant. But its walled by one of the best mons in the tier Charizard, and can hardly get past cores we see very often. I don't know how else to put it, the mechanic is not broken or uncompetitive here because it literally cannot be. It benefits some defensive mons like Tangela and Eldegoss, but they don't really do the best with free turns. Tangela Knocking is probably the best, or maybe getting a Stun Spore off (just to have it Heal Bell'd off later)

Again, if any of the other TL's feel it is broken in their tier go ahead and ban it. It's just quite frustrating having to try to make the point that PU just doesn't have said issues and would be losing something for absolutely nothing (in the context of our tier) every time one of these threads is made

 

[EviGaro]

Personally I agree with Specs, and there's really no way sleep is a broken mechanic in our tier either. RU just put out a new survey based on Council discussions and general feedback from community / tours we are hosting, and no one seriously considered including sleep at any point, because it's just not good at all. I will say however, that this contrasts quite a bit with my experience in UU Snake, where Amoonguss has been a much more significant building constraint for our builders in my team. Which seems to be the problem this thread is aiming at... so I'm not entirely sure why UU isn't just targeting Amoonguss.

I will also add a caveat to the idea of a paradigm shift in tiering: evasion specifically has been targeted in some ways since DPP at least, through Sand Veil and later the Moody ability's first ban. King's Rock is a bit different, sure, but there was reasonable expectations that this could be a problem on more than one mon, and in more than one tier as Cloyster wasn't just one of the multiple abusers in OU but also a stupid nuisance in RU that could ruin games. This really needs to be proven here, as modern sleep just doesn't have that excruciatingly crippling factor it has in the one gen the mechanic is so completely busted. And I am also really not a fan of tiering through utility. When we suspect mons that have a lot of utility in the tier, we are told to urge people to look past that utility to focus on what the contentious points are. And with good reasons, because utility isn't at the core of tiering and can potentially derail the basis of the suspect.* But I honestly don't see why lack of utility isn't also the same logic. No, sleep isn't useful in RU, but who cares? It's a game mechanic that has been stripped of any broken potential by the current clause, why would we remove it? If someone wants to use Sleep Powder with Roserade (or as odr calls it "the greed") then let them, it's a very underwhelming move anyway that is more than likely going to cost you both in the building and the actual game.

(*to give an example on why usefulness is just bad with our tiering method, let's look at idk AV Hariyama in SM PU. The main reason why there was even a no-ban sentiment was because this set was extremely useful to the tier, and you could argue the banlist would look very different with that single mon. But because Guts was a roflstomper, people were advised to look past usefulness of the mon in some capacities to decide if what made it suspect worthy was too much. So, when you say to someone that something could easily be banned because it's not valuable to keep, you are breaking that premise, but in the opposite direction. If sleep being useless to a tier contributes to its removal, then you have to consider that AV Hariyama is a legitimate reason why the pokemon should stay in SM PU. And then the vote is very likely to be different.)

With regards to the sleep clause, I guess I will blatantly contradict myself for some but: it is useful. It has essentially neutered sleep as a broken mechanic with very limited exceptions (largely BW, where the stupidity of sleep mechanics has only been matched by Unite's inability to have the names of Dragonite's moves at release) but for the most part, has essentially solved the problem. It's also a bit interesting to see the sleep clause qualified as a relic when its removal would apparently makes sleep so blatantly overpowered that we shouldn't even think of having tiers where sleeping multiple mons is perfectly fine. So... it's working then, right? If you want to reword it, or make it more palatable to current times, fine, whatever, but your problem is with the logic of the solution, and not its actual results. And to me those are two completely different arguments that are being conflated into one very awkward amalgam.

 

[Fiend]

I think it is simply incorrect to describe modern sleep mechanics as too rng/uncompetitive for our tiers. In general I think that Sleep Clause as it is works perfectly well for more metagame than it does not. Sleep has been okay in LC since XY, and my passing knowledge of lower tiers says this holds true for (most of) them, too. It follows then that to delete sleep moves entirely is unnecessary for these metagames. I don't like removing things from any tier in the premise of "this isn't beneficial" as this is distinct from the item being detrimental. This is to speak to how I don't really understand the need of effectively deleting sleep moves from usage based tiers when they often simply are not creating a problem for a lot of metagames.

I think it would be a shame to cause this change across multiple tiers for the sake of ou/uu.

 

[Zokuru]

Every thing someone wants to ban a mech, it's getting tiring. Just ban everything then we can play the game and not waste our time talking shit at each others please.

The more we go, the more people want to standardize everything and kill creativity in the game (Maybe because most players nowadays doesn't really play the game for the competition but more for talking with friends / searching social validation).

I dont have a decisive opinion on sleep, nor do I care about a ban or not, but I know one thing, if people just played the game instead of whining every 5 minutes those kind of problems wouldnt arise. So do whatever you want, I couldnt care less, since I play the game I'll do with or without. Enjoy toying with the rules if that's all you can do in this game.

( Sorry if you feel attacked, I'm just pissed off that people nowdays are just about show and willingness to be glorified on Discord / Forums and try that even by making the most flashy demand in Policy forums instead of playing the game and thinking more rationally )

Have a good day

 

[Rabia]

(imo)

Sleep is hardly present in NU (only appearing through Vileplume's Effect Spore or if it chooses to run Sleep Powder), and we have a really wide variety of clerics. This change would be relatively pointless from our perspective. I feel there are better solutions at play if OU/UU/whatever tier needs a better way to tackle their sleepers; I agree with EviGaro when she notes that it's clearly not archaic if people argue without the clause that sleep would break their metagame.

 

[termi]

Some of the responses to this thread are just confusing to me. As far as I can tell, one of the last remaining dogmas regarding Smogon tiering philosophy is that messing with cartridge mechanics should be avoided unless there is absolutely no viable alternative. Sleep Clause circumvented this problem way back when because old Pokemon Stadium games applied Sleep Clause, but obviously this does not apply to any gen after gen 4. As it stands, then, we have for the sake of convenience kept a clause that undeniably alters cartridge mechanics in a significant way even though a feasible and relatively painless alternative - a ban on sleep moves - is available to us. The question that should be answered in this thread therefore is not "are Sleep moves problematic enough in the current metagame to warrant further tiering action" because we already collectively agree that under circumstances where Sleep Clause did not exist it would be a problematic mechanic worthy of a significant nerf at the very least. What should instead be answered by those critiquing the OP is why this mechanic is at once broken enough to warrant such a significant nerf while also being somehow integral enough to the metagame to deserve special treatment in the form of a game mechanics-altering clause. Alternatively one could make the case that cartridge mechanics are overrated and we should do whatever suits us best, which is an argument I'm personally open to, but thus far I haven't seen much evidence that the upper echelons of Smogon are willing to entertain such an argument. For the moment, therefore, I would rather see our principles being applied consistently rather than that we make one weird exception for a mechanic most people could really do without.

Every thing someone wants to ban a mech, it's getting tiring. Just ban everything then we can play the game and not waste our time talking shit at each others please.

The more we go, the more people want to standardize everything and kill creativity in the game (Maybe because most players nowadays doesn't really play the game for the competition but more for talking with friends / searching social validation).

I dont have a decisive opinion on sleep, nor do I care about a ban or not, but I know one thing, if people just played the game instead of whining every 5 minutes those kind of problems wouldnt arise. So do whatever you want, I couldnt care less, since I play the game I'll do with or without. Enjoy toying with the rules if that's all you can do in this game.

( Sorry if you feel attacked, I'm just pissed off that people nowdays are just about show and willingness to be glorified on Discord / Forums and try that even by making the most flashy demand in Policy forums instead of playing the game and thinking more rationally )

Have a good day

This post is completely asinine. If you personally don't care about these kinds of discussions you should simply not post in these threads. Instead you went on to make an unfounded claim that the OP just made this thread to get clout (as if posting PR threads is the primary way to get clout on this website)? It may be unimaginable to you, but some people post for other reasons than social validation. Let's not let this subforum degenerate into this sort of unfounded bullshit.

 

[Irpachuza]

What should instead be answered by those critiquing the OP is why this mechanic is at once broken enough to warrant such a significant nerf while also being somehow integral enough to the metagame to deserve special treatment in the form of a game mechanics-altering clause

Even tho R8 does make a case about Sleep Clause being an artificial element added to our game mechanics, let me remind you that the OP barely does, so most of the "competitive-centered" responses aim to answer the three points in there: sleep supposedly being uncontrollable, too much luck based and lacking counterplay. I think they did a good job counterargumenting that.
I have to agree with everyone that pointed out that, at least with Sleep Clause, Sleep isn't any of those things and, in my humble opinion, is a part of the competitive games that I'd appreciate we did a certain effort to keep. Imo it's fine discussing and banning evasion boost methods (as we all agree they make a dull and bad faith strategy at their worst and an unfair lifesaver at minimum) and flinch chance enhancers (see the not letting any opponent move situations marked on the King's Rock ban thread), but we should really think twice before banning a main Status, specially if until today we were apparently fine with its mechanics in all gens that haven't banned it already (we can all agree that CG Sleep is way tamer than BW's). I totally understand that it's our main objective to create and offer to everyone a competitive and fair Singles metagame, yet we also need to do so by trying to preserve enough parts of the original games, since at the end of the day what we do is simulate them. Sleep, as any other main Status like Paralysis or Burn, is quite an historical, representative, and pivotal part of competitive and casual Pokémon battles, so if until now we had a way that, although not cartridge precise, let us make use of it without being considered broken, I think we should do an extra tiering effort to keep it.
Don't believe that I'm argumenting to heavily mod everything we want to keep. I want to bring back Mossy Sandwich's great suggestion that seemed to be a little ignored and I think helps starting a discussion on refining and polishing Sleep Clause closer to cartridge mechanics (besides the DQ option which seems like an abuse of the "arbiter" premise):

While I don't think sleep should be banned, I think the current Sleep Clause is a pretty clumsy way of implementing a one sleep limit. The current clause still allows players to use Sleep moves when they've already put an opponent to sleep, but if that move hits a target that could be put to sleep otherwise, it just fails. This is not only confusing and punishing to newer players who don't fully understand the clause, it's also not accurate to how it would be applied in a cartridge game. Assuming both players play on cartridge and decide to apply Sleep Clause, they would simply not use a Sleep move once one opposing pokemon is put to sleep. Disabling the use of sleep moves after putting one opponent to sleep is actually a very simple way of applying the clause while also making it impossible for players to accidentally waste a turn because they forgot or didn't know about it and it keeps the simulator closer to cartridge play.

(bolding is mine)

 

[xray]

This is a terribly stupid idea and if it's seriously considered, then I will make a long post, but for now let me just say this: I won't let you ban sleep in ORAS OU just bc you consider it to be too overwhelming in other gens. It's far from being good / broken in ORAS.

 

[Lalaya]

If we implement that idea we have to police some cases that can happen
Examples: you, player, having your last Pokémon (or a Pokémon trapped) being Encored in a sleep move or having only a sleep move as the last move with PP with a Pokémon already sleeping: what can you do, then? Struggle/not acting at all? It's modding the game, since you shouldn't be able to (yet) and it's unarguably worse than the Sleep Clause; Force a loss? lol can't wait to see tour games being robbed by this
That idea may be nice on paper but it's just genuinely worse than Sleep Clause on practice, and that's why I'd just keep the clause at this point
Removing it only hurts some Pokémon relying on Sleep to be able to do... anything, and in most other cases it's not even relevant, and I really couldn't care less if it's a mod now, since it WAS in the games, meaning it's possible to have it

other than that we have this thread every year in which some people think it's unhealthy as a mechanic and some do not, and quite frankly even if I don't think its unhealthy as it is now (as a BDSP OU main we literally have Breloom and Smeargle as the most relevant sleepers, which is arguably just one sleeper and a half; sometimes Tangrowth too but it's not even that used, since stall just rather have Seed in that slot and outside of stall you barely see Tang anyway, and in SS OU... lol), these arguments and threads are getting OLD

either we take a decision in merit against the clause, or against the ban (and oldgens should just have free reign over banning Sleep, not banning it, or keeping the Clause regardless)

 

[Irpachuza]

you, player, having your last Pokémon (or a Pokémon trapped) being Encored in a sleep move or having only a sleep move as the last move with PP with a Pokémon already sleeping: what can you do, then? Struggle?

Well, I think making it still work as it does right now in forced cases is a fine option for starters. Polishing and limiting the mod is still a step forward.

 

[MMII]

If gen 3 can borrow sleep clause from XD, can we also borrow sleep talk from it?

Hey, how about we make OHKO moves legal but you can only KO a Pokemon with them once per game. Doing so will let us preserve a unique mechanic and will make Sturdy viable in gens 3 and 4.

If a metagame has any broken sleep abusers, then folks should just ban those Pokemon. That way, Sleep Clause will still make sense and the status will hardly even matter in the format.

Hide

In adv ubers, the counterplay to sleep is to win harder and/or get lucky. It helps (a lot) to not have anything nearly as strong Darkrai but Smeargle sure does try its hardest to be just as obnoxious. Even when I do have a Sleep Talker, I still basically never click the move since I can control my odds better by just burning sleep turns. Hoping for a 1 or 2 turn sleep is usually a better hail mary play, too. Sure, a sleep ban would kill poor Victreebel but I stop caring whenever I have to deal with a Hypnosis Gengar or Sing Blissey. Sleep Clause sleep is nowhere near broken in the meta, but that's not my issue with it and I imagine most anti-sleep folks feel the same way about it in their own metagames.