Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
So the RBY UU Survey has gone out and I had a neat conversation about Tentacruel in the RBY Discord. Here I'll write my treatise on the idea of banning it.
Before you reply...
To get something out of the way: Tier identity arguments should never be used to protect a Pokemon's place in a tier. SWSH LC Vullaby is a perfect example of this, being a Pokemon with multiple generations' worth of dominance before finally getting the axe. I strongly believe that it is good and right to question something so warping that it gives the tier its identity, and I am speaking as one of the people who got this tier to where it is today. So let's not appeal to tradition and kid ourselves when this tier has and does experience massive changes every few years.
Indeed, some people will take this post as an attack on RBY UU itself, but I think true love is when you are willing to engage in a good faith discussion like this without resorting to a shut-down statement like "Tentacruel is UU itself". Besides, if Tentacruel suddenly dropped from 100% usage, is it even the Tentacruel tier anymore? I don't think it's a sustainable metric, anyway.
It's not that I don't like UU: it's that I absolutely love this tier. Why else would I dedicate endless hours to writing material on this metagame? It is good, right, and frankly brave to question the identity of your tier.
Let's look at Tentacruel!
Let's look at why Tentacruel works for a moment: 100 Speed Wrap.
This is insane in a tier with checks notes 8 Pokemon that outrun it, and 7 that ties it. Out of these, the following Pokemon are viable;
Outruns Tentacruel: (6)
Ties Tentacruel: (4)
You have to use at least two of these ten Pokemon, ideally more, to keep the opponent off Tentacruel. A few of these can't even contest it in a head-on collision, and some are barely viable. Let's call these Pokemon "Speedsters" for the rest of this thesis, and a critical mass of them is a problem.
In some generations, this would be fine, but in RBY, this is very, very bad. I am not going to outright say Tentacruel is broken because I don't think this adequately describes how good Tentacruel actually is. I define it as overpowered, in that it has so many options available at any given stage of a game down to the prep phase, dictating everything that happens. The centralising nature of Tentacruel is incredibly difficult to quantify. This is because it has 100% usage and has to be deconstructed because it's not your normal "I will set up and sweep" SM OU banned Pokemon, it's something that supports teams in an incredibly intricate way.
The reason Tentacruel's "brokenness" is so hotly debated is that it is a "constant" in the tier. You go in expecting to see it and thus you stack your teams against it. It extends into the builder; you must load extremely fast Pokemon - some of which are just flat-out not that great otherwise - and these Pokemon are not just frail, but also have gigantic critical hit rates. This is fine in something like RBY OU because your team is stacked with Chansey and Snorlax to begin with, which see the battlefield more than any Pokemon, and much of the rest of the Pokemon are slow bulk monsters. Yes, Alakazam and Starmie are exceptions, but their usage is not mandated, and teams like EggMieDon have seen usage for numerous years. In UU, Dugtrio has a 20%+ chance to make a Pokemon vanish before your eyes. Dugtrio would not be used nearly as much in a metagame where it has multiple bulky Water-types to contend with. Kangaskhan, a Pokemon famed for its physical bulk in the tier to some degree, has a 20%+ chance to fail to check Dugtrio. And you don't just have Dugtrio as your big fuck off speedster, you have Kadabra, Persian, and Dodrio, these Pokemon hit so hard but all die to a critical hit Tentacruel Surf or something. And here, it's not just Tentacruel, it's...everything. Look at how much Persian's Slash does to all of these, seriously.
Tentacruel's Speed isn't the only thing that promotes these Pokemon either, it's also the fact it enables them better than any Pokemon in the game. It is incredibly easy to find a Tentacruel Wrap opportunity - don't pretend it isn't, you have and do play those weird Tentacruel speed ties in a desperate attempt to get momentum - and the minute that lands, you have the opportunity to bring in one of these big fuck off frail speedsters in for free. Now yes, they can bring in a Pokemon that happens to check them, but unlike your opponent, you are the one with the plan from a few turns ago here. And this thing that centralises the metagame has 84.4% accuracy, adding even more variance on the Tentacruel user's end. If their mandatory Tentacruel gets paralysed, they likely lose the game, but it's so strong and centralising that they have to use it. And unlike its fellow speedsters, Tentacruel can "skip" the typical "switch in a TWaver and make status progress" counterplay through Wrap providing free switches, making it SUPER hard to actually touch. You cannot "counter" Tentacruel with even something like Raichu because it's going to bring in Dugtrio and Thanos it from existence because ONE Wrap tick immediately puts Raichu in Dugtrio range. Even if it didn't, Raichu would have a 20%+ chance to die, just like Tentacruel, actually. If you KO a Pokemon in other RBY tiers, you can bring in virtually any paralysis user, force the speedster out, and make status progress. Or, force a 50/50 between status and a strong attack to beat their current status blocker. Tentacruel means the threshold has to be 100+ Speed for it to even be an option, and when it is, they have a bloody Hypno in the back, which means at least Kadabra and Electabuzz won't be able to do much; at least Electabuzz can crit, I guess. Making status progress is insanely hard.
Someone will likely bring up the all-sacred "30% is too much, not 20%" clause. The reason this is different is that you are facing these chances constantly, not on a single turn. They add up. The chance for a Kadabra to crit over three turns is 38.8%, for example, and this doesn't have to be turns in a row. This is in a tier with almost zero reliable recovery - only three get it, and only Kadabra is viable - which means that not only is recovery difficult with Tentacruel choking you out of being able to use your Rest Vaporeon, but you are also faced with a looming critical hit that takes over half your HP away. Speedsters quickly breach the "30% is too much" clause, but it's ok in metagames where you have defensive Pokemon to fall back on and play around it. UU doesn't have this because the entire tier has to be focused on taking out this jellyfish, it is notorious for its Normal Spam HO teams backed by Tentacruel's phenomenal support. Hypno carries this tier on its back because of all of this, and so much pressure is on it constantly lest your team fall apart.
So why do we need to keep these fragile speedsters alive so much?
Fighting Tentacruel without something to outrun it sucks. It loses its fun and interactive nature very fucking quickly. And these speedsters that outrun it die fast and sometimes it is completely out of your hands, so you have to play very safely, sometimes even sub-optimally if you're playing to the odds. The optimal UU game gets dumpstered by its high offence + high variance two-punch combo. You watch your team get choked out of a game for 15+ turns in an extremely monotonous way praying to Jesus that you get that 30.1% Body Slam paralysis so the horror ends. Yes, it takes setup, I am extremely painfully aware, but even when you are playing perfectly it sometimes just does not go that way.
With that, let's recap.
RBY UU is not "natural"
What we currently have is a very "unnatural" metagame. Indeed, some may ask "What is natural, o Sage PvK?" I direct you to this class act of a post by Lusch, who puts the idea of what is "natural" into words I would be incapable of, a post of which I am of the understanding many agree with. This is more of a barometer of what to investigate rather than an assessment;
Ok, Tentacruel is gone. What now?
So what if we get rid of Tentacruel, then? This is difficult to assess because the tier is so warped beyond recognition. It is, indeed, "the Wrap tier". Thus, this section will be shorter on account of this being mostly speculative.
Tentacruel currently invalidates slower teams that fail to meet the mandatory speedster threshold. A "tentless" metagame means these are now available, which come with two crucial benefits;
Conclusion
With all of this in mind, I find it very hard to laugh at people who say Tentacruel should be banned as some people do, because honestly? They have a sound case. They just haven't looked into it enough to build it like I am right now. And unlike them, people will take me seriously because I'm an authority for some reason. Great.
I understand that banning Pokemon is an extremely eyebrow-raising thing to do in RBY, but like...c'mon, lol, look at this. Let's actually look into this properly.
To get something out of the way: Tier identity arguments should never be used to protect a Pokemon's place in a tier. SWSH LC Vullaby is a perfect example of this, being a Pokemon with multiple generations' worth of dominance before finally getting the axe. I strongly believe that it is good and right to question something so warping that it gives the tier its identity, and I am speaking as one of the people who got this tier to where it is today. So let's not appeal to tradition and kid ourselves when this tier has and does experience massive changes every few years.
Indeed, some people will take this post as an attack on RBY UU itself, but I think true love is when you are willing to engage in a good faith discussion like this without resorting to a shut-down statement like "Tentacruel is UU itself". Besides, if Tentacruel suddenly dropped from 100% usage, is it even the Tentacruel tier anymore? I don't think it's a sustainable metric, anyway.
It's not that I don't like UU: it's that I absolutely love this tier. Why else would I dedicate endless hours to writing material on this metagame? It is good, right, and frankly brave to question the identity of your tier.
Let's look at why Tentacruel works for a moment: 100 Speed Wrap.
This is insane in a tier with checks notes 8 Pokemon that outrun it, and 7 that ties it. Out of these, the following Pokemon are viable;
Outruns Tentacruel: (6)
Ties Tentacruel: (4)
You have to use at least two of these ten Pokemon, ideally more, to keep the opponent off Tentacruel. A few of these can't even contest it in a head-on collision, and some are barely viable. Let's call these Pokemon "Speedsters" for the rest of this thesis, and a critical mass of them is a problem.
In some generations, this would be fine, but in RBY, this is very, very bad. I am not going to outright say Tentacruel is broken because I don't think this adequately describes how good Tentacruel actually is. I define it as overpowered, in that it has so many options available at any given stage of a game down to the prep phase, dictating everything that happens. The centralising nature of Tentacruel is incredibly difficult to quantify. This is because it has 100% usage and has to be deconstructed because it's not your normal "I will set up and sweep" SM OU banned Pokemon, it's something that supports teams in an incredibly intricate way.
The reason Tentacruel's "brokenness" is so hotly debated is that it is a "constant" in the tier. You go in expecting to see it and thus you stack your teams against it. It extends into the builder; you must load extremely fast Pokemon - some of which are just flat-out not that great otherwise - and these Pokemon are not just frail, but also have gigantic critical hit rates. This is fine in something like RBY OU because your team is stacked with Chansey and Snorlax to begin with, which see the battlefield more than any Pokemon, and much of the rest of the Pokemon are slow bulk monsters. Yes, Alakazam and Starmie are exceptions, but their usage is not mandated, and teams like EggMieDon have seen usage for numerous years. In UU, Dugtrio has a 20%+ chance to make a Pokemon vanish before your eyes. Dugtrio would not be used nearly as much in a metagame where it has multiple bulky Water-types to contend with. Kangaskhan, a Pokemon famed for its physical bulk in the tier to some degree, has a 20%+ chance to fail to check Dugtrio. And you don't just have Dugtrio as your big fuck off speedster, you have Kadabra, Persian, and Dodrio, these Pokemon hit so hard but all die to a critical hit Tentacruel Surf or something. And here, it's not just Tentacruel, it's...everything. Look at how much Persian's Slash does to all of these, seriously.
Tentacruel's Speed isn't the only thing that promotes these Pokemon either, it's also the fact it enables them better than any Pokemon in the game. It is incredibly easy to find a Tentacruel Wrap opportunity - don't pretend it isn't, you have and do play those weird Tentacruel speed ties in a desperate attempt to get momentum - and the minute that lands, you have the opportunity to bring in one of these big fuck off frail speedsters in for free. Now yes, they can bring in a Pokemon that happens to check them, but unlike your opponent, you are the one with the plan from a few turns ago here. And this thing that centralises the metagame has 84.4% accuracy, adding even more variance on the Tentacruel user's end. If their mandatory Tentacruel gets paralysed, they likely lose the game, but it's so strong and centralising that they have to use it. And unlike its fellow speedsters, Tentacruel can "skip" the typical "switch in a TWaver and make status progress" counterplay through Wrap providing free switches, making it SUPER hard to actually touch. You cannot "counter" Tentacruel with even something like Raichu because it's going to bring in Dugtrio and Thanos it from existence because ONE Wrap tick immediately puts Raichu in Dugtrio range. Even if it didn't, Raichu would have a 20%+ chance to die, just like Tentacruel, actually. If you KO a Pokemon in other RBY tiers, you can bring in virtually any paralysis user, force the speedster out, and make status progress. Or, force a 50/50 between status and a strong attack to beat their current status blocker. Tentacruel means the threshold has to be 100+ Speed for it to even be an option, and when it is, they have a bloody Hypno in the back, which means at least Kadabra and Electabuzz won't be able to do much; at least Electabuzz can crit, I guess. Making status progress is insanely hard.
Someone will likely bring up the all-sacred "30% is too much, not 20%" clause. The reason this is different is that you are facing these chances constantly, not on a single turn. They add up. The chance for a Kadabra to crit over three turns is 38.8%, for example, and this doesn't have to be turns in a row. This is in a tier with almost zero reliable recovery - only three get it, and only Kadabra is viable - which means that not only is recovery difficult with Tentacruel choking you out of being able to use your Rest Vaporeon, but you are also faced with a looming critical hit that takes over half your HP away. Speedsters quickly breach the "30% is too much" clause, but it's ok in metagames where you have defensive Pokemon to fall back on and play around it. UU doesn't have this because the entire tier has to be focused on taking out this jellyfish, it is notorious for its Normal Spam HO teams backed by Tentacruel's phenomenal support. Hypno carries this tier on its back because of all of this, and so much pressure is on it constantly lest your team fall apart.
So why do we need to keep these fragile speedsters alive so much?
Fighting Tentacruel without something to outrun it sucks. It loses its fun and interactive nature very fucking quickly. And these speedsters that outrun it die fast and sometimes it is completely out of your hands, so you have to play very safely, sometimes even sub-optimally if you're playing to the odds. The optimal UU game gets dumpstered by its high offence + high variance two-punch combo. You watch your team get choked out of a game for 15+ turns in an extremely monotonous way praying to Jesus that you get that 30.1% Body Slam paralysis so the horror ends. Yes, it takes setup, I am extremely painfully aware, but even when you are playing perfectly it sometimes just does not go that way.
With that, let's recap.
- Tentacruel's centralisation is rooted in its overpowered nature, because it supports teams in an intricate way that is unlike anything in the Pokemon franchise.
- Tentacruel's 100 Speed Wrap is the cause of this, which means teams are required to run excessive speedsters for the purpose of forcing it out.
- However, forcing it out translates into "Tentacruel switches into a counter" if Wrap connects, which additionally makes status progress very difficult.
- These speedsters arbitrarily increase the variance of the tier significantly, causing critical hits to occur around two to three times as often as a tier like OU or even NU.
- If you don't run them or they vanish because of a critical hit (they're very fragile!), you are basically fighting APT without the need to set up.
What we currently have is a very "unnatural" metagame. Indeed, some may ask "What is natural, o Sage PvK?" I direct you to this class act of a post by Lusch, who puts the idea of what is "natural" into words I would be incapable of, a post of which I am of the understanding many agree with. This is more of a barometer of what to investigate rather than an assessment;
And Lusch, someone who has played this tier for longer than I have, is absolutely right on all counts. This is the problem with Tentacruel, it is so centralising that it has created its own tier. Few Pokemon in the franchise's history can say they succeeded with that.I believe that Wrap is problematic on Tentacruel because it creates a metagame that feels unnatural. I know this is an abstract (and probably subjective) statement, but I’ll try to explain what I mean by that. Since Wrap is so oppressive coming from such a fast Pokemon, it forces people to use options that outspeed Tentacruel on their teams (at least one of Dugtrio, Kadabra, Persian, Electabuzz), since having a team where your own Tentacruel is the fastest member makes your own Tentacruel match-up really unpleasant. Fair and well, you’ll say, Dugtrio, Kadabra and Persian would be good regarldless. Let’s just say that this is true (which it is for Persian and Kadabra, Dugtrio would not be the go-to physical, there’s just stronger options…). Electabuzz however is not a natural UU-Pokemon. You see, in RBY you have very clear-cut roles that certain Pokemon fill. Usually there is no need to have two Pokmon in the same tier that fill very similar roles. Examples are Rhydon vs Golem or Victreebel vs Venusaur in OU. Very similar Pokemon but one just sets itself apart from the other by tiny margins which makes them rightfully not end up in the same tier. With Electabuzz the role is simply “Electric-type”. For this role you have the choice between Raichu and Electabuzz. Very similar stats, but one big difference. Raichu has Surf as coverage and Electabuzz Psychic. Surf is by far the surperior coverage option for an Electric type (it hits ground types if you haven’t noticed). That simply makes Raichu the natural UU-Choice over Electabuzz in the same way It makes Rhydon and Victreebel the natural OU-choices over Golem and Venusaur. Regardless, Electabuzz would end up in UU (alongside Raichu). And the only reason for that is that it outspeeds Tentacruel. Something similar can be said about the “bulky-water” choice. Take away Wrap and I don’t think we see Omastar in this tier since Vaporeon is simply the better Pokemon. Admittedly, Omastar’s presence is not due to Tentacruel’s Wrap, but due to Dragonite’s Wrap, but it’s still unnatural, if you know what I’m saying. Some other things that strike me as unnatural are the sleep-game of this tier (and not unrelated, the “Grass-type” choice). The sleepers that you see are mainly Hypno and Haunter. And that is fair. But those have to rely on Hypnosis. Naturally, people would be looking for something more reliable e.g. something with Sleep Powder. There’s a lot of options, but the one that should be the best in this environment is Venusaur. 80 speed, decent stats, good STAB move… it’s all there. Still, it’s nowhere to be seen, because the tier’s shape due to the wrappers turns out to be a very hostile one for Venusaur (probably also more Dragonite’s fault than Tentacruel’s but if the premier Water-type of the tier is faster and Poison-type, things don’t look good for Venusaur). People chose Tangela over Venusaur simply because it checks Dugtrio better. But Dugtrio is only that much of an issue, because it will always find use as a threat to Tenacruel. Not the most well-spoken example there, the Venusaur one, I admit, but point is: A tier naturally also has a Grass-type in it to sleep stuff (because of accuracy) and the fact that there is no established one, and if anything people chose Tangela over Venusaur is simply unnatural. Last but not least, there are a lot of interesting 60-90 speed Pokemon that should be getting use. Most prominent Example for me is Golduck. Water is a great neutral typing for an Amnesia booster, with not many weaknesses and Golduck has very nice speed for an Amnesia Booster. But guess what. You bring in your Golduck to Amnesia, I bring in my Tentacruel to outspeed you and wrap you down or create a good switch for me. Useless Golduck… In an environment where all the OUs are gone, you guessed it, unnatural.
So what if we get rid of Tentacruel, then? This is difficult to assess because the tier is so warped beyond recognition. It is, indeed, "the Wrap tier". Thus, this section will be shorter on account of this being mostly speculative.
Tentacruel currently invalidates slower teams that fail to meet the mandatory speedster threshold. A "tentless" metagame means these are now available, which come with two crucial benefits;
- Longer games
- Variance is naturally reduced
With all of this in mind, I find it very hard to laugh at people who say Tentacruel should be banned as some people do, because honestly? They have a sound case. They just haven't looked into it enough to build it like I am right now. And unlike them, people will take me seriously because I'm an authority for some reason. Great.
I understand that banning Pokemon is an extremely eyebrow-raising thing to do in RBY, but like...c'mon, lol, look at this. Let's actually look into this properly.
Last edited: