Implemented RBY UU Agility + Partial Trapping (APT) Suspect Test [APT Banned]

[phoopes]

This suspect test was decided on by RBY UU Council, and was approved by the RBY Lower Tiers Leader (me). Lots of the OP was modeled off May's post from last year's Dragonite suspect test. Thanks to them, and all the community members that made this happen!

RBY UU Agility + Partial Trapping (APT) Suspect Test​

Hello friends! It's been almost a year since the last RBY UU suspect test, but we're back and better than ever with another one. This time, instead of Dragonite being the subject of the suspect test, the RBY UU Council will be suspecting Agility + Partial Trapping (APT). This was decided on near-unanimously by the RBY UU Council, and approved by the RBY Lower Tiers Leader (me lol). For those without badges, there will be a mirror post in the RBY forum in Ruins of Alph. If you are a qualified voter and don't have Policy Review access, you can request it via this form.

As for how we got here, APT has been the subject of much debate both inside and outside the RBY UU community for a long time. Many people have expressed distaste for the strategy since the revival of the tier a few years ago, calling it broken, uncompetitive, centralizing, or tier-warping. This came to a head last year when, after much debate between community members and tiering leadership, RBY UU was granted its first ever suspect test, with Dragonite. Dragonite, while not the only Pokemon capable of using Agility and a partial trapping move, is certainly the most notorious, so the suspect test seemed to make sense from an outsider's perspective. After all, a Dragonite suspect test instead of an APT suspect test would avoid the dreaded "complex ban" that many fear. However, not everyone in the community saw eye-to-eye on what should have been suspected. Many felt that Dragonite itself could be a healthy presence in the metagame, just without APT; its diverse movepool meant that it didn't necessarily need to run APT in order to be successful. They felt that the strategy of APT itself should be the subject of the suspect test, not Dragonite.

However, the end result after much deliberation was that Dragonite would be suspected, with the promise that if it was banned there would be another suspect test that would put APT as a whole on the table. This never came to be, as the Dragonite suspect test ended in a "no ban" by a close margin (9 votes to ban, 10 votes to not ban, 2 abstains). While this was good news for Dragonite fans, others felt dissatisfied that APT was still a part of the metagame. And over the past almost year, this sentiment has grown stronger and stronger among the playerbase. Something else has happened over the past year too, though: the reorganization of RBY Lower Tiers.

As of a few months ago, RBY now has councils for each of the lower tiers (Ubers, UU, and NU so far). These councils have more autonomy over tiering decisions and are headed by a lower tiers leader, not the overarching RBY Council. With this change in mind, the RBY UU Community now has greater say over how to govern their own tier, and thus an APT suspect test without any other conditions was on the table for the first time. And that's where we are today with this suspect test.

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Now that we've had a bit of a history lesson, let's talk reasoning (with much of the language here borrowed from last year's suspect test post):

Before we begin, while Wrap has consistently been a point of contention in RBY, it has been seen as a positive presence in UU thanks to the pivoting capabilities it provides, creating a chess-like, skill-intensive tier that many players enjoy. Shellnuts provides a class act of a post here that perfectly encapsulates the RBY UU community’s view on the topic of Wrap itself. Because of this and its nature as a metagame fixture in RBY UU, banning Wrap is completely off the table; to ban it would remove the tier’s identity and thus be too drastic a shift to justify.

While not the only Pokemon capable of APT, Dragonite is well-known among RBY enthusiasts for its access to the combination of Agility and Wrap, colloquially referred to as "AgiliWrap". AgiliWrap’s problematic behaviour in the metagame needs no introduction: when a Pokemon has the ability to boost itself and become faster than the whole metagame, partial trapping becomes an extremely oppressive force, leading to up to 32 turns of some of the most one-sided game states in Pokemon history. This gives the victim little to no counterplay outside of either PP stall, praying for a miss to land something like Blizzard, Thunder Wave, Toxic, or lose. The sheer damage that APT can deal to an opposing team while all this is happening is frightening, often making the rest of the game very easy for the APT user and the rest of its team to clean up. All it needs is a single turn of opportunity, and it could well be curtains. While Dragonite is the most-cited example of APT being a menace, it should be noted that Dragonair sees a sliver of viability in the tier as well all thanks to this strategy; while Dragonite has the stats and movepool to be used in other ways, the only thing that keeps Dragonair around really is the opportunity to set up AgiliWrap. Fire-types such as Moltres and Rapidash have access to APT as well in Agility + Fire Spin, but it is less consistent due to Fire Spin's lower PP and accuracy.

That said, the strategy has some holes, which is partly why it wasn't banned years ago, and APT users have never been on the same level as Tentacruel. APT's consistency is mathematically improbable, requiring many hits of Wrap or Fire Spin that could either amount to nothing or everything, making whether it makes an impact during a game a bit of a tossup. A single miss leaves the APT user wide open, which can be fatal: Toxic causes the Wrap user to take more damage than it deals and Dragonite for example can often get OHKOed by Blizzard. Both of these moves have comparable accuracy to Wrap, though, and thus, the odds still aren’t great for the player, and not every Pokemon will have the ability to OHKO the APT user. Ergo, even with these flaws, the strategy is still overwhelmingly powerful and forces a very unbalanced game state should it go off. On the other side, a common rebuttal here is that, especially in the late-game, another Agility sweeper like Articuno or Dodrio could do a comparable amount of damage just as easily or even easier. The argument is that APT just feels worse because it takes more turns to pull off and isn't as exciting from a spectator's point of view.

Regardless of the aforementioned flaws, this has led to the metagame centralizing increasingly around Wrap. For example, Toxic sees use almost strictly due to AgiliWrap Dragonite. On that note, removing APT could allow Toxic users like Persian and Dugtrio to diversify their strategies. This reflects in spectators and players alike showing extreme distaste for the strategy. On the flip side, Toxic adds a good deal of scouting; "Does Dugtrio have Toxic, or is Dragonite safe?", "Does Persian have Bubble Beam, or is Golem safe?", it's just on a much larger scale for an APT user vs. Toxic in particular. There is also cause to believe that it's fine to just accept the Toxic situation as something akin to Hidden Power Grass for a dominant Water/Ground-type like Quagsire or Swampert in later generations.

Overall, while Tentacruel has given the tier the reputation of being “the Wrap tier”, the RBY UU Council believes that Agility + Partial Trapping specifically could be unhealthy. This is because while trying to deny an opposing APT user the opportunity to set up Agility is part of the skillset required in RBY UU, small mistakes or an untimely miss can grant the APT user a disproportionate advantage.

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Now as for who gets to vote in the suspect test, the RBY UU Council has come up with the following pre-requisite requirements:

• Voted in last year's Dragonite suspect test AND/OR
• Played in four games and won at least one of them in RBYPLII AND/OR
• Played in four games and won at least one of them in UUSDII AND/OR
• Played in four games and won at least one of them in UUFPLII AND/OR
• Top 2 from the 2022 RBY UU Spotlight tour AND/OR
• Top 3 from RoA Olympics VI AND/OR
• RBY UU Invitational Last Chance Qualifiers AND/OR
• RBY UU Invitational Top 8

The logic is this: the council feels that the requirements for last year's Dragonite suspect test were robust and recent enough to warrant usage for this year's APT suspect test. With this in mind, the other requirements were either high placements in individual tournaments or consistent performance in team tournaments since the last suspect test. A 60% vote will be the ban threshold, so since there are 34 qualified voters, 21 votes will be needed to ban Agility + Partial Trapping from RBY UU.

Through this methodology, here's how the qualification plays out, including duplicates:

• Voted in last year's test: AM, FriendOfMrGolem120, iKiQ, Justamente, kjdaas, Thor, Lusch, pac, phoopes, Holly, Sevi 7, Shellnuts, Torchic, Volk, Inmundo, May, Ice Yazu, meloyy, Jyuux, Lily
• RBYPLII: phoopes, Volk, Shellnuts, kjdaas,
• UUSDII: Koalacance, Torchic, Amaranth, pac, phoopes, Drogba In Shenhua, Unowndragon
• UUFPLII: Unowndragon, stunner047, Volk, Cam, Shellnuts, 5Dots, phoopes Koalacance
• 2022 RBY UU Spotlight Tour: Mikon, chuva de perereca
• RoA Olympics VI: FriendOfMrGolem120, Unowndragon, Koalacance
• RBY UU Invitational LCQs: juoean, Sage, pokemonisfun, robjr
• RBY UU Invitational Top 8: Khaetis, juoean, Ice Yazu, robjr, Koalacance, pokemonisfun, Shellnuts, Torchic

Overall voters (34): AM, FriendOfMrGolem120, iKiQ, Justamente, kjdaas, Thor, Lusch, pac, phoopes, Holly, Sevi 7, Shellnuts, Torchic, Volk, Inmundo, May, Ice Yazu, meloyy, Jyuux, Lily, Mikon, chuva de perereca, Unowndragon, Koalacance, juoean, Sage, pokemonisfun, robjr, Drogba In Shenhua, Amaranth, Khaetis, Cam, stunner047, 5Dots

This thread will be open until after UUFPL II ends in order to generate discussion among the participants and the community, after which a blind vote will be held to determine APT's future in RBY UU.

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Thanks for reading, and here's to a good discussion!

 

[phoopes]

Going to crosspost this long post I made in the mirror thread because I think some good questions were asked by BigFatMantis and I wanted to show that off in Policy Review.

 

[Plague von Karma]

POV: You are using Charizard against Unowndragon on 14th April 2022​

Since I'm on the council, I guess I'll give my full opinion. Not the full council's, but yeah.

APT is not broken.
APT is unhealthy and uncompetitive.
It's kind of like Brightpowder and all those other funny items you see in later generations, only the powder gives you a cocaine overdose when snorted.

I will always argue that the strategy isn't broken because Dragonite is the only one that can use it, and Dragonite has a zillion targets on its back in the tier in an attempt to prevent it from setting up. Good players will keep you off it in your standard methods of preventing a set-up sweeper from doing its thing. The damage dealt is inconsistent, ranging from nothing (Dragonite missing and dying) to sweeping your entire team. On average, at least one Pokemon will go down while another is put in range for Persian and/or Dugtrio. One Pokemon going down is expected and should be rewarded for setting up with the quad-ice-weak dragon. In the case of Dragonair, Moltres, and Rapidash - the "I think it's broken and want to make a point" squad - they are just bad and have no competitive reason to be used, because they all hit like wet noodles when set up. Moltres and Rapidash can't even really do much to Tentacruel, so...

APT is uncompetitive because it is excessive probability management even on RBY standards. You can be expertly keeping Dragonite off the field - having a Pokemon known for Ice coverage, Toxic Normal-types, etc - but one single turn is enough for this to be completely for nothing, invalidating turns and turns of playing suboptimally just to keep what may be an unrevealed Dragonite off the funny move. Hell, Dragonite is diverse enough to have multiple good sets, many of which profit from these conventional reactions to APT. This can also be called unhealthy because it does inhibit skillful play and building on this basis.

"Oh, but doesn't this mean Dragonite is the problem?

"​

​

Not necessarily. Everything I said here, while it applies to Dragonite, also applies to the others. You use the same strategies against Dragonite against any APT user, it's just targeted at the A Rank Pokemon. Dragonair is technically better than Dragonite at setting up, because it survives some pretty nuclear Ice-type attacks by not being quad-weak. Observe:

• Tentacruel Blizzard vs. Dragonite: 394-464 (102.3 - 120.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
• Tentacruel Blizzard vs. Dragonair: 246-290 (75.6 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

While I do argue Dragonair is terrible, I see why someone would want to use it for this reason alone, and I think some people used it in the Invitational for legitimate reasons besides making a point. This is problematic because Dragonair solely exists for this strategy and does nothing everywhere else. Luckily, it still can't survive an Articuno Blizzard.

Once the Pokemon has set up, you now need to pray for a miss. This can happen anywhere from the first (and most important) attack, or a bunch of turns later after a ton of damage has been sustained. There is no good out here: you can switch into a check and hope for two misses, or you can switch around and force the PT move to deplete its 32 PP. In the latter case, if the user misses and the current game state makes it seem suboptimal to continue, it can just switch to one of its other 2 coverage moves, which in the Dragonite/Dragonair case is targeted at resists. Not only that, but the sheer amount of damage sustained here is normally enough to lose the game on the spot in this optimised metagame. What about Rapidash and Moltres? What about Rapidash and Moltres...throws them in the skip

The thing that tips the scale for me is how one single innocuous turn can be enough to set this up. Resting with Hypno, double switching, getting a lucky freeze, burning a sleep turn, etc, these are all times where an APT user can try to set up. Rapidash and Moltres can technically set up against Tentacruel's Surf and win, you know! Crackhead gameplay! As long as you are not threatened by a status move and can survive any hit the opponent throws at you bar critical hits, you are legally allowed to force 10 minutes of nothing on your opponent.

So I am arguing that from a sheer mechanical perspective, APT should not exist. It is, bar none, one of the most uncompetitive mechanics in Pokemon history. I would put it up there with evasion, where instead of praying for a miss, you're praying for a hit. It's quite literally just in reverse, you're "missing" for many turns, and once you finally do it, the Pokemon may not even die.

I don't think "APT Clause" is complex to anyone remotely familiar with RBY. The antics of Dragonite are known far and wide to anyone with even a passing interest in RBY, so I strongly believe that anyone who sees it would perfectly understand the problem. Ergo, I do not think that the general argument against complex bans - that they can be confusing to newbies, reduce the credibility of the tier, etc - would be that important here.

There is merit to going this route from a building perspective. You get to see dozens of other Dragonite sets - see the analysis for those, they're all super cool - and you also get to see further set diversification from other Pokemon. Dugtrio gets to use Substitute or Body Slam, Persian can use Bubble Beam and Thunderbolt together, Kangaskhan can delve into its incredibly wide movepool, the list just keeps going. Hell, I think Nidoking would become a legitimate threat because Dragonite can't just switch in on it and set up, alongside being capable of using its full perfect coverage. This set diversity is far more natural and easier for newer players to grasp. Toxic is not normally a good move in RBY, you're running an objectively terrible move almost solely for Dragonite. I don't think anyone is bringing this for Pinsir or Rapidash...

I hope I articulated this well, so, uh...there you go.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Quick request before I start: could someone do me a favour and put together a list of every game from the UU invitational where Dragonite attempted to use agility?

And my main point:

Its pretty clear to me that if we are strictly following the tiering guidelines, the issue isnt so much APT as it is agility and wrap on Dragonite.

APT is nicely damage capped by the pp of moves, so it is in a way inherently balanced, so long as that cap is low enough to not be broken. But if the cap is too high, it kinda suggests the problem is with the pokemon rather than the move combination. For instance, at 3% per wrap hit, you cap out at 108% damage after burning all your pp, provided you hit as many as you crit. How this damage is distributed is up to your opponent, with a couple of little caveats. And you arent actually especially likely to burn all your pp without a double miss. IIRC the expected number of hits is about 18 (pretty sure Shellnuts did the maths on this at some point, perhaps he could provide some figures). APT also allows your opponent to wake any sleeping mon very, very cheaply by RBY standards.

The biggest caveat is that when you miss, you threaten to attack with some other move, which, if you threaten a KO, or if the defending pokemon cant threaten Nite much, gives you the opportunity to do significantly more damage. However, with a pokemon like Rapidash, you dont really have a better option except to body slam, hyperbeam or fireblast, which makes this a lot less scary than when you are facing Dragonite, which can blizzard, tbolt, bodyslam and hyperbeam, and all those moves come off very high attack stats.

What is abundantly clear to me, however, is that a lot of people really hate APT.

And I get why, it really sucks to be slowly chipped beyond the point where you can make a comeback and you just have to play it out because you never know when that miss is going to come. When you are on the cusp of losing to APT (which is always going to happen some times, it's unavoidable), the battle becomes a case of death by a thousand cuts. And, aesthetically, it is the worst fucking thing in all of Pokemon. It's basically why people hate BP chains, but this is even worse, because it's so slow.

When you lose to an agility Articuno freeze, it's just one turn and the battle is decided, it sucks, but at least you dont have to sit there for 10 minutes hoping desperately for some kind of miracle. 36 turns is long enough to play a whole extra battle.

Banning something because it just sucks ass is a bit of a can of worms though. Ultimately, if it something sucks enough, it's gonna be gotten rid of one way or another.

 

[pokemonisfun]

This suspect test was decided on by RBY UU Council, and was approved by the RBY Lower Tiers Leader (me). Lots of the OP was modeled off May's post from last year's Dragonite suspect test. Thanks to them, and all the community members that made this happen!

• RBY UU Invitational: juoean, Sage, pokemonisfun, robjr

I agree with letting me and other RBY UU invitational qualifiers vote. But those who care about Smogon tiering should be aware this is setting a precedent to the best of my knowledge, where a completely non Smogon affiliated tournament (this was hosted on a side discord without a Smogon post, correct?) grants rights to vote in a Smogon suspect.

I suggest making clear why this is allowable, because if I hosted, for example, a gen8uu tournament in a side discord I wouldn't expect to let certain strong performances have rights to vote ina gen8uu suspect.

Some reasons why this might be allowable is because 1) it was heavily advertised on Smogon affiliated places, 2) it's an old gen, 3) it let's pokemonisfun vote, 4) it followed Smogon rules (e.g., the tier was a Smogon tier and it didn't let permabanned Smogon players in).

I also suggest asking Smogon's tiering administrator permission for this if you haven't already, although I don't know who has that position right now.

 

[Plague von Karma]

But those who care about Smogon tiering should be aware this is setting a precedent to the best of my knowledge, where a completely non Smogon affiliated tournament (this was hosted on a side discord without a Smogon post, correct?) grants rights to vote in a Smogon suspect.

The Callous Invitational was used for (I believe) multiple ADV suspect tests in the past year. The level of play is similar relative to the greater playerbase, and from what I know, these conditions were approved prior to posting.

EDIT: Found it, it was discussed with Hogg and the Top 16 of the Callous Invitational were allowed to vote in the Sand Veil suspect test. The tournament was Pokemon Perfect-affiliated.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/adv-sand-veil-test.3672150/post-8637982

 

[pokemonisfun]

The Callous Invitational was used for (I believe) multiple ADV suspect tests in the past year. The level of play is similar relative to the greater playerbase, and from what I know, these conditions were approved prior to posting.

Thanks.

Can you link to Callous Invitational or give details on this? I assume there's no Smogon link but like, where was it hosted. Was there an agreement before hand to let strong performers vote?

Even if this isn't precedent, for clarity's sake, I think I'm right still and want to know the criteria about when using off Smogon tournaments is permissible for suspect votes because I care a lot about tiering and want to do things correctly, fairly, and clearly.

 

[phoopes]

Quick request before I start: could someone do me a favour and put together a list of every game from the UU invitational where Dragonite attempted to use agility?

In this thread, you can find all the replays/usage stats from the Last Chance Qualifiers from the RBY UU Invitational. I haven't seen all the replays myself (nor do I have the time/patience at the current moment to look through the replays where Dragonite used Agility specifically) but I will make a note that Dragonite saw a 25.35% usage rate (7th most) with a 38.89% win rate.

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Can you link to Callous Invitational or give details on this? I assume there's no Smogon link but like, where was it hosted. Was there an agreement before hand to let strong performers vote?

Even if this isn't precedent, for clarity's sake, I think I'm right still and want to know the criteria about when using off Smogon tournaments is permissible for suspect votes because I care a lot about tiering and want to do things correctly, fairly, and clearly.

Callous Invitational IV

This is the one that was used for the ADV Sand Veil Suspect Test. I don't know if there was an agreement beforehand to let its strong performers vote.

What I can say is that there wasn't an agreement to let strong performers in the RBY UU Last Chance Qualifiers vote, but the RBY UU Council agreed on letting the top four in those qualifiers vote because they all showed strong performance in this tournament setting. The records of those who qualified in the tournament were 6-1, 5-1, 5-1, and 3-2, meaning they all played at least five sets while winning at least three. The Council felt that performance of that standard in this open tournament was merit enough to include those players in the voter pool for this suspect test.

While I'm not sure exactly what the criteria for using non-Smogon tournaments should be, I believe that this one was okay to use because:

1. It was an open tournament that was well-advertised in a Smogon space (the RBY Discord)
2. The tour was carried out with all Smogon rules in mind (i.e. played in Smogon RBY UU on PS! with replays required, no permabanned users allowed, etc.)
3. It was a requirement suggested by the RBY UU Council, and approved by the Tier Leader in charge of them (me)

The first two points should be a given, if you're not following all Smogon rules it shouldn't be allowed, and if you're not advertising it in a Smogon space then the quality of players is going to be lesser (this only applies to opens though, not invitationals. To clarify, this was an open that was going to feed into an invitational).

As for the third point, the council (made up of experienced RBY UU tournament players) felt that they made the right decision to include this tour because top performance in this tour was robust enough to include as a requirement for the suspect test vote. Even still though, they had to go to the person directly above them (me) in order to get it approved. I feel like in general, having a council of knowledgeable players agree on something and then getting it approved by the tier leader should be enough without having to get the tiering admin involved, but that's just me. I know you already tagged shiloh in that other thread so maybe they feel differently, but as the tier leader I felt like I was making the right decision by approving this and not having to escalate approval to the tiering admin.

Hopefully that answers your concerns. I really appreciate you scrutinizing the process and wanting to get it right for this tour

 

[Volk]

I'm glad we've finally got around to this again, and we are handling it the right way. Anyway, I've seen the same arguments against an APT ban float around for a while now, so I'd really like to address them all at once. I'm sure I'll miss something, but I plan to be as comprehensive as possible:


If Dragonite is the main abuser of APT, we should ban Dragonite.

There are a few issues with this. The biggest reason why we (the Council, UU Community, what have you) wants to go after APT is because APT is much more uncompetitive than it is broken. What I mean by this is that APT is much more akin to something like Sand Veil, Arena Trap, Moody, Baton Pass, or Evasion-boosting then your standard broken Pokemon, like say Libero Cinderace. As such, a complex ban seems more appropriate.

Allow me to elaborate. Take ADV Sand Veil as a case study:

Firstly, the success of this strategy is entirely contingent on luck. If your Gligar never successfully evades an attack, it can't get going and is basically worthless. If it does get the turn it needs, it can deal a ton of damage and potentially win outright. The issue with this strategy is the fact that it hinges entirely on misses. As the suspect thread said,
"The play pattern for Gligar is one dimensional. Gligar will begin by clicking Substitute until a move misses. Once a move misses, Gligar will click Swords Dance behind the safety of its Substitute. Then, if Gligar has enough health, it may fish for another miss by clicking Substitute again, or it can try for a sweep with its +2 attack."

Secondly, the strategy really doesn't have any counterplay. Outside of weather control and perfect-accuracy moves, there isn't really anything you can do in the builder to prevent your opponent from taking a stab at this strategy if they have Gligar. Considering having a Sunny Day or Aerial Ace user on all your teams isn't really a good idea, you pretty much have to play the roulette if Gligar appears. In other words, you shouldn't have to use moves that are generally niche or flat out bad just to prevent one particular strategy from rolling through you.

Thirdly, note that Sand Veil was banned. Gligar and Cacturne were pretty much the only users that were even remotely problematic, but a complex ban was deemed appropriate because of the nature of the strategy. While not every Pokemon with Sand Veil can exploit it to the fullest, allowing any Pokemon to sit there and completely remove the opponent's ability to attack can't be seen as competitively healthy on anything.

Similar parallels can be drawn to a number of different strategies. For example, Arena Trap has pretty much only ever been a problem on Dugtrio, but Arena Trap is usually the target of ire because removing the foe's ability to switch fundamentally warps the game and makes it less competitive.

However, you may say that these bans are a bit different. These bans, while complex, don't feel as complex because there is only one item on the table. So let's consider another example.

The clearest parallel to an existing ban is Comatose + Sleep Talk in SM Balanced Hackmons. This combination of move and ability granted the user the ability to use phazing moves (Roar, Whirlwind, Circle Throw, Dragon Tail) with +0 priority. Slapping the combo on a fast Pokemon like Deoxys-Speed and throwing a few entry hazards down resulted in a continuous stream of damage that also completely prevented the opposing team from even moving. It was hideously broken, being reminiscent of Assist but so much worse. Here's the thing though, a complex ban was chosen. The BH Community easily could have banned Comatose, Sleep Talk, or phazing moves and achieved the same result. However, this was not appropriate because each of the components were fundamentally healthy and only the combination thereof produced a strategy that completely warped the game into something uncompetitive. Comatose had plenty of legitimate competitive uses (it acts similarly to Magic Guard but only for status and can't be ignored with Mold Breaker) on defensive Pokemon. Sleep Talk is largely harmless and can be useful as counterplay to Sleep (especially before Sleep Clause was implemented in BH). Phazing moves are obviously a key part of modern Pokemon, especially in a very setup heavy tier like SM BH. Therefore, the only conclusion was to ban Comastose + Sleep Talk.

A ban on APT is very similar to this. We are looking at a strategy that lacks consistent counterplay (I'll elaborate on this more later), is incredibly one-dimensional and uninvolved, and completely changes how the game is played. APT is uncompetitive. While there is really only one particularly egregious user, the strategy has an effect that completely warps how the game is played. It is inherently uncompetitive, though not necessarily broken; therefore, you target the strategy, not the best users. It shouldn't be allowed to exist on any Pokemon. Moreover, Dragonite has immense competitive value in RBY UU. It is a very important check to Pokemon like Dugtrio, Venusaur, and Persian, among many others. While it is fair to say APT is its main set, it isn't Dragonite's only set. It can get by just fine without Agility (or even without Wrap) and provide the same value to the tier.

The main reason why I at least want to axe APT is because it violates the competitive nature of the game. It isn't a competitive strategy and it shouldn't be allowed to exist. Aside from this reason, I do think Dragonite is very healthy in RBY UU and should be allowed. Finally, while other options lack the same punch as Dragonite, Pokemon like Dragonair and Moltres still do exist and are dangerous with APT. I honestly don't think this matters too much, but I always want to point out that no, banning Dragonite will not free us of running Toxic on half of our team, we'll still have to worry about these guys even if they appear much less. Moreover, this hardly matters anyway; Sandshrew being useless isn't a valid argument against a Sand Veil Ban in ADV OU.


You can choose how Dragonite deals damage to your team and play around that.

This is the new argument that I'm seeing crop up. Not to sound mean, but this argument is so inherently flawed it is honestly challenging to unpack. For starters, the amount of damage Dragonite outputs isn't really constant or even predictable. If you decide to stay in with something bulky like Vaporeon and wait for a miss, the amount of damage that you will be taking will vary wildly as Wrap can last from 2 to 5 turns. If you instead go for the PP stall approach and switch repeatedly, you forfeit your ability to punish misses (and also simultaneously end up revealing basically your entire team). Dragonite packs a pretty big punch with options like Hyper Beam and Blizzard so it can pretty easily deal a lot of damage (and likely threaten a KO) if it misses its target on the switch. Stalling out sleep turns is also pretty much completely unviable for the same reason. If Dragonite misses the sleeping Pokemon, something is taking a big hit and you have no power to stop it. If Wrap connects, you have no way of knowing how long it will last so you're pretty likely to be taking a hit in this case as well. Even if you do somehow get to wake up your Pokemon, you've probably sustained so much damage on it and the rest your team, it doesn't even matter. Another major source of inconsistency is critical hits. When your opponent gets to attack unchallenged for 20+ turns, you will be taking a few critical hits, which can majorly affect the overall damage output after a certain point. This is an issue regardless of whether you switch or not. So between critical hits and misses, managing the damage output of APT is contingent pretty much entirely on randomness anyway.

Additionally, when Dragonite runs out of PP for Wrap, it's not like it just spontaneously combusts. It's still a Pokemon with three other moves, boosted Speed, and possibly full health. There is a pretty decent chance that Dragonite can finish the job after its onslaught and just win the game with Hyper Beam or whatever. Even if you somehow handled the damage really well, you still need to outplay the Hyper Beam or Thunder Wave or anything else that it might use (or it can just switch out and be useful later). The point I'm trying to make here is that there really isn't some magic formula to optimally distribute the Wrap damage to mitigate its effects. It's very random and uncompetitive through and throughout.


APT/Dragonite has consistent counterplay.

This is another argument I've seen and it just isn't true. There are three main ways to prevent/punish APT from being setup: Blizzard, Thunder Wave, and Toxic. Let's talk about each of these.

Blizzard is a totally fine move that most Pokemon would use regardless (assuming they have access) of the existence of Dragonite or APT in the tier. Thanks to a 4x weakness, Dragonite will typically drop when hit by it. However, there are a few issues with it. Ignoring the obvious fact that not every Pokemon gets Blizzard, you still have to deal with the fact that Blizzard can miss and that some Pokemon aren't guaranteed to get the KO with it (for example, Gyarados). So you can play everything perfectly, force your opponent's hand to stay in with Dragonite against a Blizzard user, and still get screwed because of a miss. As annoying as this is, I don't think this is enough grounds to ban APT alone. If you run a move for extra damage, you should expect a miss every once in a while and not every Pokemon will have access to every move. However, something important to remember is that APT can't really be dealt with once it gets going. Something like Articuno or Dodrio can be shot down with Omastar after the setup turn. Outside of Haunter (which is honestly kind of shaky for a number of reasons), you can't really proactively handle Dragonite; you have to stop it before it goes. Regardless, we'll continue. Oh yeah, one more thing. Dragonair survives most Blizzards so having blizzard isn't guaranteed to keep you safe from APT.

Paralysis moves aren't the best. Like Blizzard, they are incredibly valuable regardless, but they are only barely acceptable for handling APT. Paralysis dramatically decreases the consistency of APT, but it can still function. Paralyzed APT users can still be incredibly dangerous. It's a good solution, but it really isn't consistent.

Finally, we have Toxic. Oh goodness, Toxic is an unfortunate move and its prominence in the tier is by far the best illustration of how unhealthy APT is. Toxic is a lousy move in RBY. The damage output is low and it resets after a switch. The 85% accuracy is dismal. The move doesn't even have many targets, as Pokemon like Tentacruel, Haunter, and Venusaur are immune to it and Kadabra is usually happy to take it. The move is run almost exclusively to answer APT. Pretty much every Pokemon that runs it (Dugtrio, Persian, Kangaskhan, Venusaur, Aerodactyl, and more), would rather run something else. When roughly a third of the tier is forced into running a bad move to handle one strategy, I think we need to look at that strategy. Once again, players shouldn't be forced to carry multiple Aerial Ace users to handle Evasion so they shouldn't be forced to carry multiple Toxic users to handle APT. This should be a really clear sign that something is wrong. And of course, we all know Toxic still misses 15% of the time, meaning APT can still have its way despite your perfect play.

Lastly, I want to take a moment to compare APT sweepers to other conventional sweepers. A lot of times when APT takes off, a lot of people point out that any other sweeper could accomplish the same thing. This is certainly true sometimes, but APT sweepers are fundamentally different from other sweepers. As I said earlier, you can't handle APT proactively; you can't really stop it once it starts. You have to deal with it as soon as the threat arises. If APT can happen, you have to do something about it right there, disregarding life and limb just to stop it. I often like to say Dragonite has a pseudo-Arena Trap against most foes because if you don't attack immediately, it can setup and you lose any shot at stopping it. This is very obvious when Dragonite faces stuff like Dugtrio, as Dugtrio usually stays in and ends up taking a Blizzard even though that seems like a really bad play to an outsider. However, it occurs with other Pokemon as well; Vaporeon, for example, will pretty much always click Blizzard if Dragonite is in front of it. While other sweepers have arguably higher power and damage output, they can't do this and they can be dealt with proactively. A healthy Tentacruel or Omastar or what have you can stop an Articuno regardless of its current state. Dragonite forces you to interact because you will not get the option down the road.


ATP/Dragonite isn't consistent and fails to accomplish anything pretty often.

This is actually fairly accurate, but it really doesn't matter. Most people who want APT banned aren't arguing that it is broken, they are arguing that it is uncompetitive. The risk-reward is way off. While it will fail pretty often, it can completely steal lost games (and has). The fact that is (1) can happen and (2) has happened is more than enough evidence to look into APT further. In this regard, a ban on APT is analogous to a ban on Bright Powder. Realistically, Bright Powder is seldom the best item for any given Pokemon, but the power it confers to the holder isn't really something that any tier wants to deal with. APT might not even be the best set for Pokemon like Dragonite and Moltres, but again, that power shouldn't be afforded to any Pokemon. You might even be able to draw a comparison to OHKO moves. Outside of slower tiers like RBY and GSC, OHKO moves probably aren't the best option for most Pokemon, but they should still be banned because the reward is way too great, even if they are wildly inconsistent. Moreover, I'm sure there would be some Pokemon that would be particularly broken with OHKO moves while others wouldn't really be a big deal. Despite this, it is generally good practice to ban the moves universally because the strategy is uncompetitive more than it is broken. Moreover still, the likelihood of success doesn't really always matter when we're discussing uncompetitive stuff. Like Sheer Cold has a lower accuracy than other OHKO moves (meaning it is objectively less consistent on non-Ice-type Pokemon), but I doubt anyone would seriously argue that that makes it any healthier than the other three choices.


Summary
So basically, APT is inherently uncompetitive and really shouldn't persist in RBY UU. Considering the nature of the strategy (and the health of Dragonite in general), banning nothing or anything else would be a mistake. I really hope we can finally ban APT once and for all and make RBY UU more competitive, interesting, and fun for everyone! Also, please read my entire post before responding. I expect some of this stuff to be contentious, but I really don't want to repeat myself (again). I really don't have that much time to argue this point these days, so I hope this is compelling enough. Thanks.

Also, please refresh periodically. This is a long message, so I'll probably need to edit in new information or fix some typos later. Cheers!

 

[Hipmonlee]

If you instead go for the PP stall approach and switch repeatedly, you forfeit your ability to punish misses (and also simultaneously end up revealing basically your entire team).

This is not true, consecutive misses over 32 turns is actually very likely. The switching strategy means you take slightly more hits per opportunity to attack, but in practice it is almost always superior to staying in, unless you need to limit wrap damage to a very small number.

Crits on a 4% damage move over 32 turns are pretty predictable. To the extent that there is basically no possibility of wrap doing even half as much more than its cap. In general crits and non consecutive misses just cancel each other out.

The other problem with the damage dealing approach, that I forgot to mention earlier, is that you have to distribute the damage across multiple pokemon, you cant just leave it to one mon. Which would be much nicer to deal with.

The fact that Dragonite is dangerous when it runs out of wrap is comment on the power of Dragonite, compare it with Rapidash, which, frankly, is not.

Second point I forgot to mention earlier:
PT is still incorrectly implemented on Showdown. It would be nice to be able to fix it before banning it... but...

 

[Volk]

This is not true, consecutive misses over 32 turns is actually very likely. The switching strategy means you take slightly more hits per opportunity to attack, but in practice it is almost always superior to staying in, unless you need to limit wrap damage to a very small number.

I think you misinterpreted me a bit here. The point I'm trying to make is that if you switch, you don't get to immediately take advantage of a miss should one occur. In fact, as we both pointed out, you actually risk the opposite, which is Dragonite or whomever getting a free and potentially fatal hit if your switch-in is asleep, weak, or non-threatening. Of course double misses do happen and can be punished.

With regards to the other points, I'm not really talking about probability here. While you are right on average, that knowledge isn't really going to help you on a game-to-game basis. Like you don't know where your game is going to fall on the "normal distribution of Wrap misses" (or whatever shape the curve would be) until the miss occurs. Like if you go into every match prepared to distribute 50% (or whatever the average may be) of Dragonite's "damage cap" in every game, you're going to underestimate about half the time. Regardless, I'm not going to fight you on the semantics of game theory; it's not my area of expertise.

Additionally, while I'll concede that Dragonite is certainly the most threatening sweeper after the APT is done, it's not like the others are harmless. You still will be taking another hit or two, which can actually mean a lot. Dragonair getting access to Thunder Wave is also a pretty big deal here. Though I'll reiterate that I don't think this is super important because we are talking about something uncompetitive, not something broken. And for what it is worth, the APT user doesn't have to use all their Wraps. If they are comfortable with the damage they have done, they can just attack (or use Thunder Wave) as the extra damage from that might outweigh the risk of a Wrap miss. And considering the likely knowledge disparity between the players (number of revealed Pokemon), the victim doesn't really have a way to determine whether and when the opponent will break the cycle.

Second point I forgot to mention earlier:
PT is still incorrectly implemented on Showdown. It would be nice to be able to fix it before banning it... but...

I actually agree with this. I brought this up in the last discussion thread and unfortunately nothing came of it. It seems like implementing a FIGHT Button is just not very high on the PS! priority list at this time. This problem is definitely a major buff to APT, no doubt about it. However, I don't think implementing the FIGHT Button would necessarily make APT suddenly okay nor do I think RBY UU should have to wait for a simulator change that nobody is looking to do right now. That said, I will agree in principle that we should've fixed this problem before doing anything.

 

[Plague von Karma]

PT is still incorrectly implemented on Showdown. It would be nice to be able to fix it before banning it... but...

I actually agree with this. I brought this up in the last discussion thread and unfortunately nothing came of it. It seems like implementing a FIGHT Button is just not very high on the PS! priority list at this time. This problem is definitely a major buff to APT, no doubt about it. However, I don't think implementing the FIGHT Button would necessarily make APT suddenly okay nor do I think RBY UU should have to wait for a simulator change that nobody is looking to do right now. That said, I will agree in principle that we should've fixed this problem before doing anything.

I want to add to this a bit. A PR has been open for almost a year but it's been largely abandoned due to the one person working on it not even being an experienced programmer and working an extreme job. Given that a Toxic + Leech Seed PR has been open since 2018, and there's a larger list of bugs with some that have been known for longer, if you waited for it to be implemented correctly before doing anything, you would probably be a corpse. Like, there are bugs that have been known for 7 years that still aren't fixed, some of which I'm sure would take less than a day to sort in the hands of an experienced person. RBY isn't just low on the priority list, it's flat-out ignored a lot of the time and relies heavily (or should I say solely) on community members to contribute. Community members we don't really have. Not to mention we sometimes randomly inherit mechanics from later generations due to the data structure. I hate to rag on this so much, but starting the suspect test beforehand makes completely sense when sim programmers cannot be counted on for fixing RBY simulation issues.

Speaking from netplay experience, which I stream on Twitch, archive on YouTube, and used to play a ton with close friends back in the day - I think it actually makes the problem worse for both sides. I haven't managed to stream APT before - I want my viewers to have a good experience, thank you very much - but off-stream I've experienced it and it's just not good. Not only does the opposing player not know when it's over, the APT user doesn't either, not until they click the Fight button, that is. If you click it and it's still active, all input is removed from your end and you can't cancel. This results in an even less competitive situation because the user now has to gamble if they want to check if they can safely pivot or anything. You'll only know when the Fight button is clicked first, this just sucks? Like, in a world with fixed PT, I would say APT is even less competitive than before. It nerfs it, yes, but the argument isn't that it's broken, but that it's competing for Top 5 least competitive things in Pokemon history with comparable idiocy to Minimize interactions. I'd say it strengthens the angle that's being taken here.

 

[phoopes]

In this thread, you can find all the replays/usage stats from the Last Chance Qualifiers from the RBY UU Invitational. I haven't seen all the replays myself (nor do I have the time/patience at the current moment to look through the replays where Dragonite used Agility specifically) but I will make a note that Dragonite saw a 25.35% usage rate (7th most) with a 38.89% win rate.

Hipmonlee I had the time lol here you go, I've also provided commentary. Not sure if you were going to do the same but like I said I have the time so I figured I would. Some of this is speculation with me trying to get inside players' heads to see what they were thinking. I'm not perfect but I'm generally giving the player the benefit of the doubt most times and I'm trying not to be mean when I call something a misplay.

Hide

1. Vextal vs. pokemonisfun Game 1 - Turn 59
Early in the match, Vextal reveals Dragonite but does not boost with Agility against the sleeping Hypno, making pif think Dragonite is lacking Agility on the set. I'm guessing this is why pif switches out from Electabuzz to Aerodactyl on Turn 59; pif thinks Dragonite doesn't have Agility so trading Thunder Wave on Dragonite for losing Electabuzz doesn't make as much sense. Vextal sets up Agility on the switch though and from there enough Wraps hit that it's game. Articuno doesn't get the job done as easily due to the presence of Dewgong on pif's team (it's at 59% so it maaay be able to muscle through though) and Dodrio doesn't get the job done as easily because of the presence of Aerodactyl. I believe that this is a sweep that only an APT user could pull off, made possible by the fact that Vextal pulled off a nice bluff earlier in the game. However, I do not believe this replay shows APT being uncompetitive, as it did not "steal" a game for a player that played worse. It was skillfully executed IMO, and even though it might "feel" bad because it's death by 1,000 cuts like Hipmonlee mentioned, to me it's like Dragonite is its own Agility sweeper, like Dodrio or Articuno. It just gets the job done in a different way.

2. Vextal vs. pokemonisfun Game 2 - Turn 27
pif uses Toxic on Dragonite, rendering its Agility fairly useless.

3. Vextal vs. pokemonisfun Game 3 - Turn 53
pif uses Toxic on Dragonite, rendering its Agility fairly useless.

4. Sage vs. emma Game 2 - Turn N/A
We never find out if Dragonite has Agility in this match. It should be noted that Dugtrio used Toxic because of the threat of AgiliWrap instead of attacking though, only to be downed by a Blizzard.

5. robjr vs. Mattorr is Cute Game 1 - Turn N/A
We never find out if Dragonite has Agility in this match. rob's Venusuar uses Toxic on Dragonite and Dragonite doesn't get much.

6. robjr vs. Mattorr is Cute Game 2 - Multiple Turns
We never find out if Mattorr's Dragonite has Agility in this match. rob sacked his Dugtrio to get Toxic off, but then Mattorr sacked their Dragonite immediately after. On Turn 44, Mattorr switches in his sleeping Tentacruel on rob's Dragonite, after which rob sets up Agility. rob doesn't go for the full AgiliWrap sweep this time, switching out on Gyarados, fearing a Wrap miss and taking a Blizzard. rob's Dragonite comes back out on Turn 58 and sets up Agility on Turn 59 since Mattorr's Dugtrio either doesn't have Toxic or doesn't use it. Mattorr then forfeits. In this game, APT makes some headway, but I believe this was really only due to misplays by Mattorr.

7. Estarossa vs. Haail Game 1 - Turn 22
Instead of staying in with Kadabra to Thunder Wave, Haail switches out to Vaporeon on the turn where Dragonite sets up Agility. estarossa has the opportunity to go for an AgiliWrap sweep, but chooses not to, switching out on Tentacruel, fearing a Wrap miss and going down to a Blizzard. Dragonite comes out later but doesn't bother to set up Agility. In this game, we don't get to see the full potential of APT because of this early switch out.

8. Estarossa vs. Haail Game 2 - Turn N/A
We never find out if Dragonite has Agility in this match. Haail's Dragonite either didn't have it, or they assumed Kadabra would Thunder Wave instead of Psychic, rendering Agility useless, and went for the damage with Body Slam instead.

9. Ron vs. sunriseXpress Game 1 - Turn N/A
We never find out if Dragonite has Agility in this match. Ron has ample opportunity to set it up but doesn't, which is why I'm assuming it doesn't have it.

10. pokemonisfun vs. SpectralThief Game 1 - Turn 39
pif uses Toxic on Dragonite, rendering its Agility fairly useless.

11. pokemonisfun vs. SpectralThief Game 2 - Turn 42
SpectralThief's Dragonite gets paralyzed before it uses Agility, so even if it wanted to use Wrap (it didn't), it wouldn't have been as effective.

12. Sage vs. Gastlies Game 2 - Turn 24
SpectralThief misplays here by not Thunder Waving the Dragonite, instead opting for Psychic, allowing Gastlies' Dragonite to set up Agility. Sage gets bailed out here because Dragonite misses a roll on Hyper Beam and is thus KO'd with Blizzard. If not for this, Dragonite takes out Dugtrio with Blizzard, Kadabra and Dewgong with Hyper Beam, and Persian with Blizzard into Blizzard. This hypothetical sweep didn't happen, but if it did, it could have only been pulled off by an APT user. However, it (would have) only happened due to a misplay.

13. robjr vs. BigFatMantis Game 1 - Turn 16
rob brings in his Dragonite against Dodrio, which is a good target since many Dodrio run Agility/Body Slam/Drill Peck/Hyper Beam, not carrying Toxic or any reliable way to deal with Dragonite. This is the set I'm assuming BFM is running, since they switch out their Dodrio into Haunter while rob sets up Agility. The sweep is halted in Turn 40, where rob's Blizzard that would've KO'd BFM's Hypno misses, allowing BFM's Hypno to get off a Thunder Wave. BFM ends up winning. In this game, APT makes some good headway, but not enough to win the game. The setup happened due to a teambuilder decision by BFM, but was ultimately stopped due to APT's inconsistency.

14. robjr vs. BigFatMantis Game 2 - Turn 58
rob uses Toxic on Dragonite, rendering its Agility fairly useless.

15. robjr vs. BigFatMantis Game 3 - Turn 31
rob again brings in his Dragonite against Dodrio, which probably uses the same set as I mentioned in Game 1. It takes two Body Slams before setting up Agility, which is basically a 50/50 on whether you get paralyzed or not. rob's Dragonite doesn't, so it gets to set up Agility. From there, Dragonite sweeps, albeit with some lucky Blizzard crits on Haunter. Once Dragonite was brought out, BFM's only real option was for Haunter to use Explosion through paralysis and hit the roll, but didn't get to do that because of Blizzard crits. Going to call this one as a sweep that only an APT user could pull off, and only could have been prevented by BFM's Dodrio running a suboptimal set (i.e. one with Toxic). I don't think the game was necessarily "stolen" by APT, because rob still had full health Tentacruel and Dugtrio, but you have to admit BFM did get pretty unlucky. Even still, the only way to prevent the APT sweep would be with a suboptimal teambuilder decision, so I'll count this as a point against APT.

16. pokemonisfun vs. Estarossa Game 1 - Turn N/A
We never find out if Dragonite has Agility in this match. I'm assuming Estarossa's Dragonite didn't have Wrap, as I believe the optimal play would have been to Wrap Hypno instead of using Body Slam and taking paralysis.

17. juoean vs. Ron Game 2 - Turn N/A
We never find out if Ron's Dragonite has Agility, but it does get a nice trade on Dugtrio with Blizzard because of the fear of Agility.

18. 5Dots vs. Vextal Game 1 - Turn 33
5Dots uses Toxic on Dragonite, rendering its Agility fairly useless.

19. 5Dots vs. Vextal Game 2 - Turn N/A
Neither player's Dragonite uses Agility, and Vextal forfeits hella early.

20. Sage vs. robjr Game 1 - Turn N/A
We never find out if rob's Dragonite has Agility, and it doesn't do much.

21. Sage vs. robjr Game 3 - Turn 12
Sage successfully sets up Agility (after what I would argue is a misplay by rob in switching out Persian instead of using Toxic), but it chokes because it misses the first Wrap and dies to Tentacruel's Blizzard. rob's Dragonite immediately dies to an Articuno Blizzard. Nothing doing here on either side.

22. Ron vs. 5Dots Game 2 - Turn N/A
We never find out if Ron's Dragonite has Agility, but it gets paralyzed on the turn where it would have set up anyway.

23. Gastlies vs. Estarossa Game 2 - Turn 44
Estarossa's Dragonite sets up Agility on a paralyzed Kadabra instead of going for Wrap, which I argue is a misplay. The Dragonite ends up getting paralyzed for it, but gets really lucky with a well-timed Wrap miss on a sleeping Hypno and crit Hyper Beam on the Kangaskhan switch-in. It ultimately wasn't enough, as the luck evened out in the end for Gastalies with well-timed crits in the Persian vs. Haunter matchup. It's hard to make a call here on if a different sweeper could have done better or if this is a point against APT as this was a really haxy game. Ultimately though, I'm chalking this one up to RBY being RBY, because the biggest thing here was the Hyper Beam crit on Kangaskhan, which has nothing really to do with APT, just the crit mechanics.

24. Gastlies vs. Estarossa Game 3 - Turn 41
Estarossa brings out a sleeping Hypno in a scenario where I probably never would, and gets punished for it with the Dragonite switch-in, no wake up, and thus an Agility setup. Esta forfeits shortly after, assuming that they can't win even though there's a shot if Dragonite misses a Wrap or only has Blizzard as an attacking move, which makes a victory less likely. In this case, APT probably wins the game due in part to a misplay, but it's hard to say because the player forfeited early. Also, if you look at it, Articuno does this Agliity sweep better. This is because Articuno KO's the opposing Articuno, Moltres, and Dragonite in one hit with Blizzard, and only needs to get through a sleeping (not Resting) Hypno. Thus, I'm not counting this one against APT.

25. Gastlies vs. Ron Game 1 - Turn N/A
Ron reveals his Dragonite's full moveset, and it doesn't contain Agility. We never find out if Gastalies' Dragonite has Agility.

26. Sage vs. juoean Game 1 - Turn 23
juoean uses Toxic on Dragonite, rendering its Agility fairly useless... or so you'd think. Sage gets crazy luck with a Body Slam crit on Tentacruel and a well-timed freeze on Hypno. This game is won because of the crit and the freeze, not because of APT. I'm chalking this one up to RBY being RBY rather than a problematic AgiliWrap.

27. pokemonisfun vs. BigFatMantis Game 3 - Turn 8
A few turns earlier, Dragonite misses its first Wrap against Hypno, and subsequently gets paralyzed for it. It sets up Agility on Turn 8 even though it's paralyzed, but doesn't get to do anything. It's only used as Wrap PP stall later in the game before going down to a Blizzard.

28. robjr vs. Gastlies Game 2 - Turn N/A
Neither Dragonite reveals Agility.

29. juoean vs. Sage (second set) Game 1 - Turn N/A
Dragonite doesn't reveal Agility, but gets a few free attacks off due to the threat of it (and is aided by a Body Slam crit/para).

30. juoean vs. Sage (second set) Game 3 - Turn 29
juoean lets Sage get a Dragonite in for free and set up Agility (which I would categorize as a misplay) but gets bailed out because Dragonite's first Wrap misses so they're able to get off a Clefable Thunder Wave. From there, the game plays out without anything crazy happening and juoean wins. APT made no impact because it choked.

Congratulations if you read all that lol. Here's the tl;dr

Total games: 30
Games where Agility wasn't even used: 12
Games where Agility was used but didn't make a notable impact: 10
Games where Agiilty was set up, but Dragonite choked by missing the first Wrap: 2
Games where RBY volatility was a deciding factor more than APT impact: 2
Games where APT won, but Articuno could have done it better/more easily: 1
Games where APT made good headway, but not enough to win the game: 1
Games where APT was the only thing that could have won, did win, and in my opinion was healthy/competitive: 1
Games where APT was the only thing that could have won, did win, and in my opinion was unhealthy/uncompetitive: 1

That's my breakdown of the LCQ games featuring Dragonite. You can find a similar breakdown of games in last year's Dragonite suspect thread by Lusch here and by me here. I tried to be as objective and bias-free as possible in this commentary but let me know if you have any questions, comments, complaints, or anything really. I'll probably give my thoughts on this suspect test as a whole in the coming days, where I'll really give my opinion instead of trying to be objective lol.

Thanks for reading!

 

[phoopes]

Alright, here's my promised post with my opinion instead of trying to be objective lol.

To start off, I have to say that I like the tier as is. RBY UU in its current state is what got me back into competitive Pokemon in the first place. It's been really fun to play and see how the metagame has developed, and I care about the tier a lot. However, that's not a good enough argument for keeping it the way it is, as we can always aim for better, right? If something really is broken, or uncompetitive, or unhealthy, I would want to see it removed to improve the metagame that I play the most. That's why I'm going to touch on the terms "broken," "uncompetitive," and "unhealthy" in this post and make the case for why APT is none of these. I realize my opinion is most likely in the minority, but hey it's worth a try and maybe I'll sway some people who are on the fence about all of this.

1. Is APT "broken?"

This is the easiest no out of the three in my opinion. "Broken" according to the Tiering Policy Framework is when "elements are too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant." I think the easiest way to quantify this is just by taking a look at usage stats from the most recent RBY UU tournaments: UUFPL I, the Dragonite Suspect Tours, UUSD II, and the RBY Invitational Last Chance Qualifiers. Note that these aren't perfect, because I'm only taking Dragonite's usage/win rates and not every Dragonite uses APT. So in reality if these are APT usage/win rates, the usage should be a bit lower. As for the win rate there's margin for error either way.

• UUFPL I: 40.43% Usage Rate, 52.63% Win Rate
• Dragonite Suspect Tours: 37.07% Usage Rate, 34.88% Win Rate
• UUSD II: 25.00% Usage Rate, 51.35% Win Rate
• Invitational LCQs: 25.35% Usage Rate, 38.89% Win Rate

Again, while not perfect, I think these stats paint a good picture of APT's effectiveness in practice without the need for crazy in-depth analysis posts like I made earlier. This is not the face of a strategy that "dictates/requires usage," certainly. At the most, Dragonite was just barely above a 40% usage rate, meaning APT's usage was likely lower than 40%. This is not even close to the near 100% usage of Tentacruel and Hypno, nor does it even touch Kadabra's usage rate, which ranged between 60-76% in the four tournaments listed. And looking at the win rate... it barely crossed 50% in UUFPL and UUSD. I'm willing to throw out the low win rate in the Dragonite Suspect Tours because people were probably over-preparing for Dragonite, but in the recent LCQs the win rate was barely more than a third, which is pretty awful.

One more time, I get that these usage stats/win rates aren't the perfect metrics, but I think they show that APT is neither centralizing nor good enough to be considered "broken." Besides, a few people before me who are pro-ban have pointed out how inconsistent APT is and have called it "not broken" themselves, so I'm probably just beating a dead horse here, but yeah. Reminder to all that APT isn't "broken.

2. Is APT "uncompetitive?"

This is a harder question to answer, but my answer is no, I don't see it that way. Let's look at the Tiering Policy Framework again. Something is uncompetitive when, "elements that reduce the effect of player choice / interaction on the end result to an extreme degree, such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant." Now I know what you're probably thinking. "Isn't APT the definition of reducing the effect of player choice/interaction on the end result?" And my answer to you is that it might be very rarely, but it's not to an "extreme degree, such that "more skillfull play" is almost always rendered irrelevant." And the proof is in the numbers.

Let's talk "probability management." Take a look at my previous post in this thread (the one right above this one), and the linked posts near the end of that one that Lusch and I made in the Dragonite Suspect Tour last year. All in all, we analyzed 84 games, but to make it more fair, I'll only take a look at the games where Dragonite actually set up Agility, leaving us with 59 games. In total, we found three games out of these 59 where we determined that APT "stole" the game. That's a little over 5% of games where it was attempted that it was "stolen." And maybe this is a matter of personal opinion, but... that really doesn't seem bad to me? Certainly not at a level where I would deem it "uncompetitive." That's less of a chance than Blizzard freezing in RBY. To me, that kind of number is an okay probability to manage, because it's not like this strategy is so centralizing or good enough (re: "broken") to have to worry about it every time. There were 199 games total between the four UU tournaments, and the number of games "stolen" by APT weren't negligible, but it certainly wasn't a consistent enough thing that I would worry about it on a game to game basis. Also, if we did a similar analysis on how many games were "stolen" by untimely misses, crits, or freezes, I think we might be surprised by the results on these things stealing games, which we all accept. (I know that's conjecture but I wanted to say it anyway lol)

Should be noted about the above paragraph, I tried to give as much benefit of the doubt as possible here to APT, as I didn't include any of the games in this sample size where the strategy was stonewalled before it had a chance to be set up. It should also be noted that these are only games from UUFPL, Dragonite Suspect Tests, and Invitational LCQs since no one did an in-depth analysis like this for UUSD. But I think if you added that into the mix you'd probably find similar results/stuff that wouldn't move the needle too much.

So why is it such a low percentage to "steal" the game?

I think this is because finding an opening to set up APT/avoiding getting set up on is a skill to be mastered in high-level RBY UU play. It's not easy to set up, because there's a lot of counterplay to it just from the teambuilder alone. Lots of stuff caries Blizzard, or Thunder Wave, or Toxic. Haunter and Rock-types exist as well to mitigate the damage if it does set up. I think how skillful it can be is shown off in the first replay I analyzed in my previous post. Vextal does a great job at not revealing Agility early, bluffing that they brought an Agility-less Dragonite. Vextal is able to punish later in the game because of this and pull off the sweep. It often takes that kind of play to pull it off, or through something like switching in on a predicted Hyper Beam or Rest, since teams are often just innately prepared for it. And in the replay I showed where I said APT might be uncompetitive, you could even argue that that was just a matchup problem. This is because Dodrio is usually a great target for a healthy Dragonite to come in on, since Dodrio often doesn't carry Toxic and can't threaten big damage. This is a risk you take by using the best version of Dodrio, and I'm okay with that.

And a note about Toxic: I don't think it's as bad as Volk makes it out to be. I'm in the camp mentioned in the OP where to me, it's like a coverage move (like Hidden Power in later generations). Just like Pokemon will run Hidden Power Ice to get pseudo-BoltBeam coverage, or just like Pokemon will run Hidden Power Grass to target Water/Grounds, Toxic is used to cover Dragonite if a Pokemon doesn't have a reliable way to KO or paralyze the APT user. I see nothing wrong with this, even with Toxic's 85% accuracy. Sometimes in Pokemon, you just miss. We know this especially as RBYers with the 1/256 mechanic. And that's okay. And I think it's okay because as shown before, APT rarely ends up "stealing" games due to its inconsistency.

So yeah, overall I think that APT isn't "uncompetitive," it's just a part of "probability management." Sometimes, there's nothing you can do about it. But in the actual numbers that we looked at, it's the same kind of "probability management" that you get from a 95% accuracy move in a do-or-die situation. And that's something that I'm okay with dealing with. Idk maybe I just have more of a tolerance for this kind of stuff than most people, but I would hate to see a tier I like as is changed just because people don't like dealing with bad luck every now and then.

3. Is APT "unhealthy?"

I'm not going to spend a tooooon of time on this because this is the most subjective one out of the three, but I'd like to mention it anyway because I think it's also a no. Unhealthy is defined as "elements that are neither uncompetitive nor broken yet are deemed undesirable for the metagame such that they inhibit "skillful play" to a large extent." The two parts to this are "undesirable" and "skillful play."

"Undesirable" is pretty much completely subjective. Like I said, I enjoy the meta as-is. Not everyone feels this way and that's okay. In fact, many people in the larger UU community detest RBY UU (not all because of APT, but a lot of it is that). If the majority feel this way and want to ban APT because they really "feel" like it would make the meta better, then so be it. I'll just take the L on this one haha. I get that it "feels" bad to lose to APT, moreso than other sweepers because it's death by 1000 cuts and sometimes you get unlucky. But you can get unlucky in loads of other ways in RBY too, in ways that I would argue are more common than APT. Something else about "undesireable:" I want to make sure that we're catering to high level tournament play rather than spectators. I'll admit, APT is sometimes a snoozefest for spectators, especially ones that are unfamiliar with the tier. However, I think good aesthetic is just a bonus. What really matters is if the metagame is free of "broken," "uncompetitive," and "unhealthy strategies." Above I really tried to make the case that APT is neither "broken" nor "uncompetitive," and I don't think it's just enough parts of both to be classified as "unhealthy" either

As for inhibiting "skillful play," I really think that APT and the preparation for it actually feeds into skillful play, as mentioned earlier. From a teambuilder perspective, yes, you have to prepare for APT. Many teams even over-prepare for it due to how often it gets used. But to me, this is no different than what is basically a hard-and-fast rule in UU that you have to have at least one Pokemon faster than Tentacruel. I think both are things that you just have to accept when you play this tier, and that's okay. From a battling skill perspective, I mentioned above how skillful I believe setting up and avoiding APT can be. It really emphasizes how much UU can be like a chess match, and that's an aspect of it that I really enjoy. I know most knowledgeable players agree on this aspect with just Wrap by itself, but I find myself in the camp that ATP can really be an exciting thing to play around that shows off player knowledge and skill too.

---

Alright so that's what I got for y'all. I'm prepared to be laughed out of the building by the majority, but I hope I articulated where I'm coming from well enough to give people pause for thought before just hitting the ban button right away.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Plague von Karma]

And I think it's okay because as shown before, APT rarely ends up "stealing" games due to its inconsistency.

Is stealing otherwise lost games really the bar here? I would say "gaining a significant advantage thereafter" would be more appropriate in general, given the spectacle of this strategy actually being pulled off. Not got much else to say here, but I'm curious about the framing.

 

[phoopes]

Is stealing otherwise lost games really the bar here? I would say "gaining a significant advantage thereafter" would be more appropriate in general, given the spectacle of this strategy actually being pulled off. Not got much else to say here, but I'm curious about the framing.

Lusch kind of covers this in his post from last year.

There were a few instances of AgilityWrap (I'm counting 6) where it did great damage to the opposing team and also in a way that other Pokemon could not have done with that little cost.
…
There was one instance where Ebola pulled a game back because he dodged a Toxic from Kangaskhan, and did way more damage with Dragonite than he "should" have. That was the only real "uncompetitive" moment we saw, because despite the opponent not making a mistake, he still got punished hard by AgilityWrap.”

I also kind of say it in my analysis post this year where I call Vextal’s APT sweep skillful. The argument here is that, yes, APT can “gain a significant advantage thereafter” but it’s not always uncompetitive. Sure, it looks very “broken” when it goes off and it works (death by 1000 cuts, etc.) but we’ve established that as a whole APT isn’t “broken,” due to its inconsistency. It’s only “uncompetitive” when it “steals” games because in these scenarios, the player facing APT did everything they could to prepare for it and made the correct play but still got screwed over and lost. But as I mentioned, this is few and far between, and is something I’m willing to accept as a part of the game, not as an uncompetitive force that happens all the time. This is because in the game of competitive Pokemon, sometimes you make all the right plays and luck just isn’t on your side. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s part of “probability management” that we accept when we play this game.

I could just as easily link to a ton of replays where a 90% Blizzard missed at a critical moment, or a 90% Rock Slide missed at a critical moment, or a 10% freeze happened at a critical moment, etc. that turned the tides of battle and meant the game was lost. But these are things we accept when we play Pokemon, and I argue that the chance of APT setting up and sweeping “uncompetitively” is on the same level if not lower than these other things we deal with, so it’s not worth a ban to change the makeup of the tier. At the very least, the percentage isn’t on the same level as something like OHKO moves or Evasion (I think, I never play with these on so correct me if I’m wrong lol), I think it’s just a matter of what percentage people are comfortable with. Volk said something along the lines of “it’s capable of stealing games and has, and that should be enough,” so I’m guessing Volk has a zero-tolerance policy for the strategy whereas I’m willing to give it some leeway. And that’s just a difference of opinion: now it’s just a matter of if the community has more of a zero-tolerance policy or if they want to accept something with a low possibility of happening to keep the tier unchanged.

Hope that clears it up!

 

[Plague von Karma]

I could just as easily link to a ton of replays where a 90% Blizzard missed at a critical moment, or a 90% Rock Slide missed at a critical moment, or a 10% freeze happened at a critical moment, etc. that turned the tides of battle and meant the game was lost. But these are things we accept when we play Pokemon, and I argue that the chance of APT setting up and sweeping “uncompetitively” is on the same level if not lower than these other things we deal with, so it’s not worth a ban to change the makeup of the tier. At the very least, the percentage isn’t on the same level as something like OHKO moves or Evasion (I think, I never play with these on so correct me if I’m wrong lol), I think it’s just a matter of what percentage people are comfortable with. Volk said something along the lines of “it’s capable of stealing games and has, and that should be enough,” so I’m guessing Volk has a zero-tolerance policy for the strategy whereas I’m willing to give it some leeway. And that’s just a difference of opinion: now it’s just a matter of if the community has more of a zero-tolerance policy or if they want to accept something with a low possibility of happening to keep the tier unchanged.

While stuff like OHKO moves and Evasion have historically been the bar to removing uncompetitive elements, I have noticed a general shift away from that with the recent bans on things like Brightpowder in other competitive formats. This is partially why I've moved from my position on not banning APT from the last test; statistically, a successful APT is on Brightpowder's level while obliterating the quality of any game in the process. You could argue that being a newgen it's different, but I think it is worth referencing this for APT specifically, because this aspect of RBY has specifically garnered significantly higher criticism than anything else in the game. A technique has never been truly and fully banned for being unhealthy, but if anything were to set the precedent for that, I would 100% have APT be that entity. If it isn't APT, you may as well defenestrate that aspect of tiering policy entirely, because I genuinely don't think anything comes close. APT has a very legitimate impact on the optics of the tier from both an outsider and insider perspective because it feels worse than literally anything in the franchise, while having a real chance of swinging games due to the abusers themselves in the context of UU.

The argument against banning APT hasn't really explained what value this technique has given to RBY UU, which is something I'm curious about. The way I see it, APT supplements the offence of a team and lets something like Persian do the actual sweeping later. However, with its profound inconsistency, team styles like this don't really...work, is that the word? This is why I allude to Brightpowder and friends, as they have similar cases where they work and do something stupid, while not actually bringing much to the table competitively. You're drastically increasing the volatility of a team, that's it: you'll either pop off or do significantly worse than the average team. I see this as the uncompetitive element.

I agree that we have a difference in value here: I believe the chance is enough given the small sample and also greatly value the "1000 cuts" thing you say given the game states APT forces on a player. I think that it is fine to change a tier if you make it more fun and engaging for players, and I don't think this is a controversial thing. We're hobbyists, not scientists. You have the potential to increase tier diversity from getting rid of it: the metagame is clearly better off. You get more diverse movesets, increased viability on a ton of lower-ranked Pokemon ruined by the inability to OHKO Dragonite, and that there's the tip of the iceberg. You also remove what may be the unhealthiest element of any Smogon tier in history. Surely this makes a majority of the playerbase like...enjoy the tier more? There is a significant amount to gain and very little to lose. Nothing is going to drop to NU from this, and I doubt anything would rise either. If anything, everything gets more viable, including Dragonite to some degree. Isn't that great?

Maybe this would be considered a more "liberal" opinion on tiering.
I would argue it's a "down to earth" opinion.

--

On a side note, Volk had this game in UUFPL and cited it as an example for the ban argument. Not actually seen it, but I guess it can go here so it's in one place.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1uu-1545213702-3luie47w0i85hb1t1r5hjg8mnsrjvy5pw

 

[phoopes]

While stuff like OHKO moves and Evasion have historically been the bar to removing uncompetitive elements, I have noticed a general shift away from that with the recent bans on things like Brightpowder in other competitive formats. This is partially why I've moved from my position on not banning APT from the last test; statistically, a successful APT is on Brightpowder's level while obliterating the quality of any game in the process.

Yeah, Brightpowder/Lax Incense being banned actually kind of gives me a little pause for thought here. Because those reduce accuracy by 10% and they've been banned. That's at least in the same ballpark as the ~5% figure I gave, rather than the 30+% that you get from OHKO/Evasion moves, which makes them more comparable. So if you put them at the same level, I suppose there's some precedent for banning APT under the "uncompetitive" clause. However, on the other side of things, freezes are almost universally agreed upon as an OHKO in RBY, and that's also around a 10% chance, and most people (most) are fine with keeping that mechanic around. I personally would rather go with the precedent already set in the same generation (no ban on freeze) rather than one set in future generations (ban on Brightpowder/Lax Incense), but I can at least see your argument here.

You could argue that being a newgen it's different, but I think it is worth referencing this for APT specifically, because this aspect of RBY has specifically garnered significantly higher criticism than anything else in the game. A technique has never been truly and fully banned for being unhealthy, but if anything were to set the precedent for that, I would 100% have APT be that entity. If it isn't APT, you may as well defenestrate that aspect of tiering policy entirely, because I genuinely don't think anything comes close. APT has a very legitimate impact on the optics of the tier from both an outsider and insider perspective because it feels worse than literally anything in the franchise, while having a real chance of swinging games due to the abusers themselves in the context of UU.

This is where I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. As mentioned in one of my previous posts, "unhealthy" is super subjective. Here you cite the "optics of the tier" and it "feeling worse," which to me is just... really subjective. I said before that optics of the tier shouldn't really matter too much; we should cater to players, not spectators. Just because something isn't "fun to watch" for some people doesn't mean it isn't for others. To use a real life example, I think golf is super exciting but my mom doesn't. That's because we have different opinions on what counts as exciting. It's certainly fair to say that you don't enjoy how the game looks when APT goes off, but that shouldn't constitute a ban because others might enjoy it.

Now for how the players "feel:" I mean I can say from experience, yeah APT sucks to lose to, but I personally don't find it more frustrating/unfair than a turn one freeze in the Tentacruel mirror matchup, for example (this literally just happened to me the other day in a tournament game against Volk haha). It's something that just happens sometimes, a very low percentage of the time, and that's something we need to accept as part of the game (unless you play that OM that I can't remember the name of where they code it to try and eliminate as much RNG as possible). As I mentioned in the mirror thread in the RBY forum, it's just a matter of where the community thinks "the line" is. To me, something that swings the game about 5% of the time isn't bad enough to ban, but if the greater community thinks that's too much, like I said before I'll just take the L on this argument haha.

The argument against banning APT hasn't really explained what value this technique has given to RBY UU, which is something I'm curious about. The way I see it, APT supplements the offence of a team and lets something like Persian do the actual sweeping later. However, with its profound inconsistency, team styles like this don't really...work, is that the word? This is why I allude to Brightpowder and friends, as they have similar cases where they work and do something stupid, while not actually bringing much to the table competitively. You're drastically increasing the volatility of a team, that's it: you'll either pop off or do significantly worse than the average team. I see this as the uncompetitive element.

Maybe I haven't done a good job at explaining what I think APT adds to the tier this go-around. I think y'all have been doing a decent job at bearing the onus of changing the status quo, but allow me to defend it a little bit more. I think the biggest thing APT adds to the tier is that it adds another element that punishes both overly offensive and overly defensive play, and also adds to the mental game that people who play UU like so much. As for punishing defensive play, this already exists in something like Kangaskhan or Persian switching into a Pokemon that uses Rest, but the threat of APT is another element that adds to this,. You might get punished a little bit with the other two examples, but you get punished a lot more with APT. On the other side of things, you can't always just click Hyper Beam if your opponent has an unrevealed Pokemon. It could be an Omastar or a Aerodactyl for instance, but it could also be a Dragonite waiting in the wings to punish you even harder. Punishing both overly offensive and overly defensive play leads makes the metagame more balanced, and I think this is a good thing.

A more balanced metagame means that we have a UU that is somewhere between the fast-paced meta of NU and the slower OU. This is pure conjecture, but I would wager that the average turns of a UU match are less than OU but higher than NU. This stat alone isn't necessarily a good thing or a bad thing because I enjoy all three metas the way they are, but I do think that keeping APT in mind on both the offensive and defensive side of things makes for a meta that's at just the right pace to enjoy the "chess match" that you get from Wrap pivoting with Tentacruel and such. I know I'm touching on the more subjective side of things now, because I'm talking what feels good to me, but I feel like the meta is in a good place right now and we should maintain that rather than shaking up the status quo. Since APT punishes overly offensive and overly defensive play, I think the meta becomes less balanced without it. Right now we see a lot of balanced teams that really feed into the chess match aspect of things. Without APT, I think we'll see less push-and-pull games. I'm no expert on theorymonning/crafting a hypothetical meta, but I'd bet we see more hyper offense teams and I also think we'll see more defensive teams as well to counteract this (certainly not stall though, because Tentacruel can just outspeed a pure stall team). Maybe this will balance out? It's hard for me to say; all I know is that the meta is in a good place right now (in my opinion) and that APT might just be the thing that keeps the balance.

I agree that we have a difference in value here: I believe the chance is enough given the small sample and also greatly value the "1000 cuts" thing you say given the game states APT forces on a player. I think that it is fine to change a tier if you make it more fun and engaging for players, and I don't think this is a controversial thing. We're hobbyists, not scientists. You have the potential to increase tier diversity from getting rid of it: the metagame is clearly better off. You get more diverse movesets, increased viability on a ton of lower-ranked Pokemon ruined by the inability to OHKO Dragonite, and that there's the tip of the iceberg. You also remove what may be the unhealthiest element of any Smogon tier in history. Surely this makes a majority of the playerbase like...enjoy the tier more? There is a significant amount to gain and very little to lose. Nothing is going to drop to NU from this, and I doubt anything would rise either. If anything, everything gets more viable, including Dragonite to some degree. Isn't that great?

Maybe this would be considered a more "liberal" opinion on tiering.
I would argue it's a "down to earth" opinion.

As I mentioned in my previous paragraph, I'm not an expert in theorymonning/crafting a hypothetical meta. But I'm going to try here I guess, when it comes to the "more diverse movesets" and "increased viability for lower-ranked Pokemon" thing to start. Here's what I theorize will happen with most of the mons in UU that see tournament play.

Tentacruel: remains unchanged
Hypno: remains unchanged
Kadabra: remains unchanged
Dugtrio: Probably drops Toxic to run Earthquake, Rock Slide, Substitute, Slash. Could see some play with SubToxic, but the previous set seems better to me.
Dragonite: Already has like three other sets it can run, loses out on the AgiliWrap set.
Articuno: remains unchanged
Persian: Probably drops Toxic to run Slash/Hyper Beam/Thunderbolt/Bubblebeam every time
Kangaskhan: Probably drops Toxic in the fourth moveslot, but you can already do this to run Rock Slide/Blizzard/Counter, which many players already do.
Gyarados: Remains unchanged in moveset. This is the first one that I think improves in viability though, because Blizzard isn't a guaranteed OHKO on Dragonite.
Vaporeon: Remains unchanged in moveset. Blizzard isn't a guaranteed OHKO on Dragonite, so it could see some increase in viability.
Dodrio: Probably remains unchanged. Some people ran Toxic on Dodrio so I guess those people can put in Agility or a third attacking move, but I thought the Agility/Body Slam/Drill Peck/Hyper Beam set was better anyway than running Toxic, so it's unchanged at least for me.
Haunter: Probably remains unchanged as far as movesets. Probably gets worse because APT doesn't exist anymore, and Haunter is one of the best defensive counters.
Venusaur: Probably drops Toxic for Swords Dance/Hyper Beam? I don't see much change in viability here though.
Tangela: remains unchanged
Electabuzz: remains unchanged
Omastar: remains unchanged in terms of moveset. Might get a little worse because Rock-typing makes it a good defensive APT counter.
Aerodactyl: Probably drops Toxic for... Rest? Idk this thing's movepool is pretty dire.
Dewgong: remains unchanged
Poliwrath: Probably gets better due to Blizzard not being able to OHKO Dragonite.
Raichu: remains unchanged
Golem: remains unchanged in terms of moveset. Might get a little worse because Rock-typing makes it a good defensive APT counter.
Clefable: remains unchanged
Raticate: remains unchanged

I only went down to C1 because that's the only thing I think are relevant in the current metagame in tournament play. Looks like Bulky waters get better (except Omastar) and the defensive "teambuilder counters" to Dragonite get a little bit worse. The biggest shakeups I see are Haunter potentially falling a few spots and Poilwrath potentially rising from NUBL to UU. As far as "more diverse move sets," I really don't see a huge shakeup in most things. There is usually a very clear option for what to replace Toxic with here, meaning that yeah, things don't have to run Toxic, but just running the same set with a different fourth move isn't like a crazy diversity thing to me. As for stuff below C1, sure some stuff like Nidoking gets better. But can you name one Pokemon that is going to get significantly better enough to make a significant impact on the UU metagame, i.e. rising to at least C1 status? I personally cannot, but again I'm not the best at theorymonning.

As for removing something that's "unhealthy," I think we're just going to disagree here. The two parts in the definition of "unhealthy" are "undesirable" and "inhibiting player skill to a large extent." In my mind the metagame with APT isn't undesirable, it's great. That's my opinion and you're welcome to have a different one. As far as "inhibiting player skill to a large extent," I also disagree with this, I already explained a bunch how I think setting up/avoiding APT is a really skillful thing so I'm not going to belabor that point.

On a side note, Volk had this game in UUFPL and cited it as an example for the ban argument. Not actually seen it, but I guess it can go here so it's in one place.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1uu-1545213702-3luie47w0i85hb1t1r5hjg8mnsrjvy5pw

Agility is set up on turn 25. Koala has the opportunity to use Toxic, but instead chooses to switch out to Articuno, thinking that Volk will use Blizzard to take the damage on Dugtrio rather than setting up Agility. Once set up, APT makes a lot of headway and Volk's Kadabra is able to clean up. In my mind here (I'm going to assume that Koala's Dugtrio had Toxic), Koala just lost the mindgame. And sometimes you lose the mindgame at a critical time and it costs you the game. I'm not calling it a misplay by any means, I'm sure there was scouting involved and reasoning behind that switch-out. But I think a lost mindgame isn't justification for banning APT.

 

[Plague von Karma]

However, on the other side of things, freezes are almost universally agreed upon as an OHKO in RBY, and that's also around a 10% chance, and most people (most) are fine with keeping that mechanic around. I personally would rather go with the precedent already set in the same generation (no ban on freeze) rather than one set in future generations (ban on Brightpowder/Lax Incense), but I can at least see your argument here.

To say there's a precedent in not banning freeze is a misunderstanding of how precedent works, at best. There's never actually been tiering action against freeze moves since freeze clause was imported, as in...about 20 years. If you're to go with status quo with what we have, sure, but there's a significant difference. RBYers argue sleep and freeze at least once every couple of weeks, I'd wager they're far from "accepted". I doubt action would ever actually be taken given the extreme nature of banning freeze moves: you should know this, you're banning an entire offensive type, and a damn important one at that. The difference between these things you're citing is extremely large and in hindsight feels kind of misleading.

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, "unhealthy" is super subjective. Here you cite the "optics of the tier" and it "feeling worse," which to me is just... really subjective. I said before that optics of the tier shouldn't really matter too much; we should cater to players, not spectators.

APT has a very legitimate impact on the optics of the tier from both an outsider and insider perspective

If you're going to argue in this way, it would do you good to read what I said rather than what you think I said.

It's a subjective argument that you know many core players of this tier have agreed with. You realise that the last test almost went through, right? And you remember how a few voters talked about voting for a ban if it was APT itself, right? I am on about catering to the players: by making it fun for them to experience. It's a two-way street. Even you, yourself, have said it sucks to lose to, but...

I also don't think you realise the scale between freeze and APT in this department.

We accept freeze as part of the game because banning near enough an entire offensive type (literally only missing Aurora Beam) that's a cornerstone of the tier is flat-out impossible without severe ramifications. This is literally the one reason it didn't happen in the first place, besides ideological differences at the time. Numerous Pokemon lose valuable coverage and the way the game is played changes entirely. Venusaur can switch into Vaporeon without fear. Dragonite can set up against every Water-type in the tier, like, wow, you took away its only weakness. That's just off the top of my head, it is such a cataclysmic metagame shift that fails to grasp RBY's design, which is why I've always been against something like that. People always like to move to freeze as an aspect of status quo without realising the reason it's "part of the game", and that's the problem with using it as an argument for this type of thing. It's accepted because it's necessary: this is yet another reason we went with Desync Clause Mod over anything else, because you'd either have to go with this "freeze ban" or ban all the Fire moves bar Fire Spin. It's a stupid way to go about things because removing offensive types from the game changes the type chart, literally the most important part of any Pokemon game, something we as players should accept as a baseline. This argument is just ridiculous and fails to understand the context of what we're playing here.

So, get this: we do not need to accept APT as part of the game because it is something you can reasonably take action against. It realistically affects 4 Pokemon, along with a few LCs if you really want to get nitty-gritty, only one of which is tiered UU. It is not a single offensive type, it is a strategy that nary a few actually likes to experience or use. It's surgically removing a problem that many identify, thus why we're here now. It exists, and we are arguing to change it. We don't "need" to accept it or there would not be a suspect test.

But can you name one Pokemon that is going to get significantly better enough to make a significant impact on the UU metagame, i.e. rising to at least C1 status

The biggest shakeups I see are Haunter potentially falling a few spots and Poilwrath potentially rising from NUBL to UU.

You answered your own question, assuming you mean a C+ Pokemon can rise from its current position...

I would predict Nidoking would get ranked, but not tiered. The main reason it isn't is because its Blizzard fails to OHKO Dragonite and thus makes it set-up fodder if it even attempts to use Earthquake on a given turn. This is a gigantic issue, as it currently cannot use its full coverage without causing its entire team to take massive damage. Despite that, it's in a fairly good speed tier and the its potential damage output is actually quite acceptable. While its Toxic + paralysis immunity wouldn't see full use with an APT ban, it is in a far better position than it was because it isn't constantly on the backfoot.

I also think Raichu would see increased viability, as it doesn't have to use Thunder Wave anywhere near as much. Hyper Beam is a fantastic option on Agility sets because it can break through Kadabra far more easily. Right now, an attempted sweep with that move has to account for APT being off the table, because Dragonite can come in and reverse the situation: Raichu can't deal enough damage to stop it if it has Hyper Beam without a crit, and by then, it can't win against Dugtrio either. It can beat Dugtrio if it fails to crit and hasn't taken damage prior, which is huge, as it means Raichu is usually impossible to revenge kill.

Charizard would also be significantly better. Right now, it has to fish for a burn, as it can't afford to run Toxic on any set. It's already got one of the best Tentacruel matchups of the non-UU Pokemon because its EQ forces it into Persian/Dugtrio range, and otherwise 2HKOes it. It's also one of the best Persian partners in the tier for its matchup against Venusaur, Tangela, and Kangaskhan. With APT off the table, Charizard doesn't end up with Nidoking syndrome, and that could be enough to make it a C+ ranked Pokemon, maybe even B- honestly. And if it does rise, I think some NUers may just thank us, not gonna lie.

I think your other arguments are solid.

 

[Shellnuts]

Finally found time to comment on this:

Yeah, Agility + Partial Trapping (abbreviated as APT from hereon) is completely stupid and should be banned. May, Volk, and Unowndragon (on the thread in the RBY forum) have already covered a lot of my issues with APT, it adds a bunch of needless volatility into the tier, constrains movesets and the viability of many Pokemon, and is incredibly unpleasant to deal with, however, I feel one of the main issues APT causes has been overlooked, that being the unbalanced game states it produces.

However, before I get onto my arguments, I would like to first respond to some comments made by those arguing to preserve APT:

As for punishing defensive play, this already exists in something like Kangaskhan or Persian switching into a Pokemon that uses Rest, but the threat of APT is another element that adds to this. You might get punished a little bit with the other two examples, but you get punished a lot more with APT. On the other side of things, you can't always just click Hyper Beam if your opponent has an unrevealed Pokemon. It could be an Omastar or a Aerodactyl for instance, but it could also be a Dragonite waiting in the wings to punish you even harder. Punishing both overly offensive and overly defensive play leads makes the metagame more balanced, and I think this is a good thing.

I strongly disagree with both points of this argument. First of all, you grossly underestimate how potent of a punish Kangaskhan or Persian switching into something that uses rest is, half the time that happens you are picking a Pokemon to sack to it and the other half it ends up so crippled that it dies to a stiff breeze and at most can get 1-2 moves off before being sack fodder. You are already getting a free kill half the time and have a strong attacker in the back that can trade for something else later. This is already an incredibly strong punish, and makes it incredibly risky to use Rest in the tier, the claim that you need APT to punish Rest strong enough is ridiculous, you can exploit it with other Pokemon that don't turn the game into a slot machine where getting lucky 7s' wins the game to do that. Going off this trend of the reward APT brings to the table being grossly greater than the risk in using it, let's talk about how APT punishes aggressive play. While yes, punishing aggressive play is fine, my problem with APT is that the reward it brings for one successful prediction is way too great for a single correct read to justifiably bring. Omastar's Hydro Pump alone already 2HKO's both Normal-types and Blizzard puts Dodrio a sneeze away from dying, and a healthy Hypno or non-AgiliWrap Dragonite can cripple them with Thunder Wave, which is basically a death sentence for Dodrio and Persian most of the time, these are examples of ways to punish aggressive play which have a reasonable amount of reward compared to the risk of the play. By contrast, APT lets the funny dragon turn the game into a 0-player roulette wheel where it getting lucky wins the game without either player having any input in the decision, this is extremely unhealthy and is not enjoyable for most players.

Now for how the players "feel:" I mean I can say from experience, yeah APT sucks to lose to, but I personally don't find it more frustrating/unfair than a turn one freeze in the Tentacruel mirror matchup, for example (this literally just happened to me the other day in a tournament game against Volk haha). It's something that just happens sometimes, a very low percentage of the time, and that's something we need to accept as part of the game (unless you play that OM that I can't remember the name of where they code it to try and eliminate as much RNG as possible).

May already responded to the problems with equating APT with freeze, but I want to go further on why this argument is completely flawed because I feel as though this is an important distinction to make. When you are using Blizzard in a Tentacruel mirror, you are not solely relying on luck, yes freeze is very strong and it is a factor in your decision, but you are not solely relying on getting a freeze with it, Blizzard also does a consistent amount of chip damage which can bring the opposing Tentacruel into KO range of Dugtrio, Persian, Kadabra, or Electabuzz, after a few hits. Choosing to use Blizzard in the mirror match is a strategy with elements of luck, but you aren't solely relying on getting lucky to justify using it. By contrast, APT is a strategy that solely relies on luck, it relies on getting the right prediction on 1 turn and getting lucky, and if both of those happen it wins the game, in many ways, it is similar to Baton Pass Chains in ADV, both are strategies which have incredibly limited counterplay once they get going, only take 1-2 turns to set up, and exclusively rely on getting lucky a few times to win the game.

Now that that has been said, let's get onto the arguments I am presenting, that being the problems in the game state it presents. On its own, this argument would be grounds to ban Dragonite instead of APT, but in conjunction with the arguments presented by others, constitutes further reasons as to why APT should be banned.

When you get Dragonite in against Dugtrio, Kangaskhan, Persian, and anything else that is forced to run Toxic to deal with it, you have 2 options, you can choose to cripple it and stay on the field, or you can choose to switch to a teammate, while the Dragonite can either use Agility or an attacking move/Thunder Wave, for the sake of simplicity, we are ignoring the option where Dragonite switches to a teammate. If the Dragonite user uses Agility and the opposing Pokemon uses Toxic, there is a 15% chance Toxic misses and Dragonite wins the game by getting a lucky dice roll and an 85% chance that it lands, whereby the Dragonite is crippled and unlikely to sweep, but does have momentum and can deal a fair amount of damage, which I would put as closer to neutral. Whereas, if Dragonite chooses to attack the Pokemon using Toxic, they can heavily cripple it with Thunder Wave, Body Slam, or Blizzard, while now being immune to Paralysis which can allow Dragonite to come onto the field later to deal more damage, usually trading for something on the opposing team in addition to the significant damage they did when the opposing Pokemon used Toxic to avoid turning the game into a dice roll. Meanwhile, if the opposing Pokemon calls the Dragonite's bluff and correctly predicts the move the Dragonite makes, then the position is in their favour, whereas if the Dragonite uses Agility then you end up in the scenario I described earlier where the game ends up as a dice roll where getting a six automatically wins the game. Because you cannot afford to throw away won games because of APT, the sound play you should make is to use Toxic, but if you do use it you are leaving yourself open to the Dragonite getting an effective 2-for-1 and you still end up with the game turning into a slot machine 15% of the time even when you do make the correct play because of Toxic missing. While if you don't want the Dragonite to go 2 for 1 and switch out, you risk losing the game without any option to play around it. This dynamic is incredibly unhealthy, having to choose between the opponent getting a 2-for-1 trade or turning the game into a slot machine is not desirable in any metagame ever. You can even see this in the games Phoopes presented where, in 3 out of the 10 games where Dragonite did not use Agility, it attacked as the opposing Pokemon as they used Toxic, in 2/3 of those cases it only did not work out because Blizzard missed Dugtrio, and in the remaining one the Dragonite user got an unlucky full-paralysis on their Kadabra in addition to an unfortunate Wrap miss from Tentacruel, which cost them the game. Despite this, if Blizzard had not missed, as would have been the case in 9 out of 10 games, then the Dragonite user would have been at an incredible advantage in both cases, and if the Kadabra had not fully paralyzed against Hypno and had recovered or used Seismic Toss, then it is likely they would have won. Just because other RNG elements affected the outcome more does not make the dynamic healthier. What we see commonly is a trend where Dragonite either turns the game into a slot machine where neither player has any input as to the outcome of the game, or the Dragonite user takes advantage of the opponent trying to avoid that outcome, making the sound play of using Toxic, to put themselves very far ahead (barring bad luck of course). This is not desirable in a metagame, this is, in my opinion along with the entire UU council among others, an unhealthy and unenjoyable dynamic to deal with, and it is primarily caused by the threat of APT that Dragonite brings to the game.

This, in conjunction with the other problems with APT presented by others in both this thread and this one, those being the needless volatility it brings to the game, the severe constraints on teambuilding it adds, the lopsided reward it provides for getting a single prediction correct and getting lucky, and the complete lack of interaction both players have with the game while it is being used make APT clearly banworthy in my eyes.

 

[Plague von Karma]

Going off this trend of the reward APT brings to the table being grossly greater than the risk in using it, let's talk about how APT punishes aggressive play. While yes, punishing aggressive play is fine, my problem with APT is that the reward it brings for one successful prediction is way too great for a single correct read to justifiably bring. Omastar's Hydro Pump alone already 2HKO's both Normal-types and Blizzard puts Dodrio a sneeze away from dying, and a healthy Hypno or non-AgiliWrap Dragonite can cripple them with Thunder Wave, which is basically a death sentence for Dodrio and Persian most of the time, these are examples of ways to punish aggressive play which have a reasonable amount of reward compared to the risk of the play. By contrast, APT lets the funny dragon turn the game into a 0-player roulette wheel where it getting lucky wins the game without either player having any input in the decision, this is extremely unhealthy and is not enjoyable for most players.

To add to this, part of the reason the Toxic users of the tier use it is solely so AgiliWrap Dragonite can't revenge sweep most of the tier after you've sacked something. Every time they KO a Pokemon, Dragonite can theoretically come in, set up, and try to roll the dice. The sole reason Toxic is used - which is something oft-forgotten - is specifically for this scenario, others just come up often enough because of how these Pokemon have developed since. This notably hurts Kangaskhan for no good reason as it can't use something like Counter - which would be incredibly valuable for the numerous Persian-weak teams of the tier right now - without risking blowing its own team wide-open. This is not natural, this is not how Pokemon building normally goes, you do not see a punish that brutal in any other tier. This dilemma literally just should not exist.

 

[phoopes]

May

1. Yeah you're right on freeze. Probably not a good comparison on my part.

2. You're also right on us not "needing" to accept APT. I guess what I said before about needing to accept it should be reworded as it's something we "should" accept in my opinion, because the probability of it happening is so low.

3. I'll agree with you on Nidoking getting ranked. I can also see how Raichu could see a bit more usage. I think Charizard rising all the way to UU status is wishful thinking, however.

Shellnuts

1. I'll give you that my wording of Persian/Kangaskhan punishing "a little" was incorrect, you do get a significant punish from both of those 'mons on a Rest. I think having APT as another tool at your disposal to punish Rest is fine, remember it's nowhere near as consistent as the other two so I think the risk/reward factor is okay. In the games I analyzed, APT missed on the first turn and did nothing twice, as opposed to the once where it came across as "unhealthy" and won the game. You really do need to roll "lucky 7s" on the slot machine for it to work to its fullest potential, and sometimes that just happens. For instance, today in a tournament game Dugtrio KO'd two of my Pokemon with back-to-back crits that it wouldn't have KO'd otherwise. The chances of that happening are a little more than 5%... which is the same percentage I calculated of APT going off in a potentially "unhealthy" manner. It sucks, but it just happens sometimes.

2. For your next paragraph, I've already conceded the point on freeze. I can't speak on how similar APT is to Baton Pass, having not really had experience with Baton Pass, but I think "getting lucky a few times" is kind of an undersell. You need to be lucky with APT on pretty much every turn after it's set up, which is why it's so inconsistent/goes off so infrequently, hence why I said that "lucky 7s" on a slot machine was an apt comparison.

---

Let's take a look at the situation you were talking about scenario-by-scenario.

1. Dragonite stays in and uses Agility, opposing Pokemon uses Toxic

• 85% of the time, Dragonite is crippled, preventing APT, and the Toxic user is free to switch out to something more equipped to handle Dragonite
• 15% of the time, Dragonite is able to set up APT, which can certainly make significant headway and even win the game, in which case I would classify this as a "stolen" game. However, this doesn't always happen, as evidenced by the game-by-game analysis I did earlier.

2. Dragonite stays in and attacks/Thunder Waves, opposing Pokemon uses Toxic

• 85% of the time, Dragonite is crippled, preventing APT, and the Toxic user is damaged/crippled. It's hard to say without game context, but I think most of the time in practice is a trade, one where the Dragonite player has the advantage, sure, but I really don't think it's a 2-for-1.
• 15% of the time, the Toxic user is damaged/crippled and nothing happens to Dragonite. This leaves the Dragonite user at a sure advantage, and could end up as a 2-for-1.

3. Dragonite stays in and uses Agility, opposing Pokemon switches out

• APT is set up, and now the Dragonite has a chance to make significant impact. This could be nothing, a few turns of headway, a lot of turns of headway, or even winning the game. You could classify this as a "stolen game" if this happens I guess, but I wouldn't because I consider (and it seems like you do too) that staying in and Toxicing is the optimal play

4. Dragonite stays in and attacks/Thunder Waves, opposing Pokemon switches out

• While the incoming Pokemon is taking damage/Thunder Wave (unless it's like Haunter switching in on BS/HB for example), I think this is a scenario where the player opposing Dragonite is at an advantage

---

I think we agree that the right play by the player opposing Dragonite is to use Toxic. It just makes the most sense I think. I don't characterize switching out as a misplay because it makes sense if you're scouting your opponent and know they don't like to bring Agility/if Dragonite has already revealed its four moves or whatever, but for the sake of argument let's say that the opposing Pokemon uses Toxic. Now let's say it's a 50/50 on whether the Dragonite sets up Agility or chooses to attack/Thunder Wave (because I see it that way). We're left with the following scenarios:

42.5% of the time Dragonite is crippled, preventing APT and the Toxic user is then able to switch out to something more equipped to handle it. I think this is an advantage for the Toxic user.
42.5% of the time Dragonite is crippled, preventing APT but the Toxic user takes a hit/Thunder Wave. I admitted that this leaves the Dragonite user at an advantage in the trade department.
7.5% of the time, Dragonite effectively gets to set up APT for free. This sucks for the Toxic user and leaves the Dragonite player at a clear advantage.
7.5% of the time, the Toxic user takes a hit/Thunder Wave, and nothing happens to Dragonite. This is also advantageous for the Dragonite player in that they could potentially go two-for-one.

In other words:

42.5% of the time, the Toxic user is at an advantage.
42.5% of the time, the Dragonite user has a pretty good advantage in the trade game.
7.5% of the time, the Dragonite user has a major advantage.
7.5% of the time, the Dragonite user has a big advantage, call it 2-for-1.

You are welcome to disagree with how I classified these "advantages," but that's how I see it and will be arguing based off those numbers.

I don't see the above numbers as that problematic. Having a 57.5%-42.5% advantage against the Pokemon that aren't hard counters, just using Toxic as a "coverage move" of sorts is just something that I would expect of a top tier threat of a metagame. I think the issue that most people have comes with the 7.5% "big advantage" state and the 7.5% "major advantage" state.

For the "big advantage," this comes from a 15% chance of missing Toxic. Here's the deal: sometimes top tier threats go 2-for-1. It's why they're top tier threats after all. If Toxic didn't exists, Dragonite would be a hard counter to the Pokemon that run Toxic. Without Toxic, the percentages would be more heavily skewed in Dragonite's favor for sure. But Toxic does exist and gives these Pokemon a fighting chance. It's not perfect (hence the 85% accuracy) but it's still there. And we should accept (in my opinion) that our moves are going to miss at inopportune times every now and then, leading to big advantages for the opponent.

For the "major advantage," again it comes from a 15% chance of missing Toxic and yes it's absolutely a major advantage. But in practice, it doesn't always pay off. This is because of the high inconsistency of using an 85% move that only does 3-6% damage on most Pokemon. It's not a 7.5% chance to "auto-win," it's a 7.5% chance of "my sweeper has a chance to pull off the victory." A chance of a chance. So realistically, the number is much lower than 7.5%. Whatever number that is (I am having a hard time figuring out a way to calculate it) is a probability that I'm willing to accept.

---

I'm starting to suspect that this may come down to me having more of a tolerance for RNG than most people. As I've said before, if I lose out on the argument and people want to ban something that feels unhealthy to them, I'll be willing to accept it. But as for me (major subjectivity coming), I like RBY UU the way it is and I don't think banning APT will significantly change/improve it, so I'd like for it to stay as is.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Responding to Shellnuts's scenario, not quoting it because its a giant wall of text.

The premise here really is that Dragonite becomes effectively a broken check to Persian, Kang and Dugtrio because the threat of agility wrap is so overpowering.

And the waste of a turn using toxic on a non wrap Dragonite lets Dragonite trade 2 for 1.

I think there's an issue though, when comparing this with any other Dragonite set.

So nite is in against Persian, you have the threat of thunderwave, which is crippling for Persian. Your opponent has, lets say a full health paralysed Hypno to absorb paralysis. Switching to Hypno risks the threat of a critical hit blizzard, which Nite can follow up with a wrap. Hypno is left at just over 50% health which is then forced to switch out, there's no downside at all. Alternatively Nite just gets a regular blizzard and follows that with a wrap, it's a big ol stack of free damage anyhow.

The bad outcomes are Nite blizzards Persian, and gets slashed so Nite does more to Persian than Persian does to Nite. The other bad outcome is Nite thunderwaves Hypno, and then has to wrap. All of this is just fine.

The simple fact is Nite dominates this matchup.

Nite is similarly dominant against Dugtrio and Kangaskhan.

When you look at these match ups, Nite is going to get very good outcomes from them, every time. When you add to that the idea that Nite wrapping is basically a 100% win---which it is not---its definitely going to look really, really bad. Hence talking about the crit Blizzard, because it's about as likely as the toxic miss, its probably more likely than Dragonite surviving to use all its wrap pp.

When you take APT off of Dragonite, it's just going to use Thunderwave instead, and I really dont think this is going to result in any overall reduction in variance in the tier.

Honestly, the more I look at this, the more I am thinking Nite might just be broken, but its going unnoticed because too many people are trying to wrap with it.

 

[phoopes]

Announcement regarding voting requirements/timing of the suspect test:

1. The UU Council has decided to include Khaetis in the voting pool. This is due to Khaetis making the Top 8 of the RBY UU Invitational. It was seen as an oversight to include the Last Chance Qualifiers but not include someone who made it even further in the tournament, which is why Khaetis is being added.

2. This thread will remain open and the blind vote will now take place after UUFPLII ends, allowing the chance for UUFPL II players of RBY UU to qualify. These qualifications will remain the same as previous team tours: at least four games played with at least one win. Currently affected players are stunner047, Cam, and 5Dots, though there is still time for other players to qualify through this method as well.

This was decided on by the council as a whole because of concerns with the timing of the suspect test occurring during UUFPL II, as well as concerns that there weren't more opportunities for those interested in the tier to qualify. Using UUFPL II for reqs instead of adding live suspect tours was chosen in part due to the reasoning laid out by May in the mirror thread in point #4.

The OP will be updated with this information shortly.

 

[phoopes]

Hey all, the vote happened! APT is now banned from RBY UU

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...apping-apt-voting.3703325/page-2#post-9249504