Heyo
Im voting ban. Luna constrains the builder. I've built plenty of teams that when I'm done I just say "wow if luna gets a drum off I lose". I go into games and see opposing luna and start thinking "hmmm as long as I can prevent luna from drumming I won't instalose." Sometimes it's easy to prevent luna from drumming but sometimes theres simply nothing you can do, especially if your opponent can set up screens.
Now theres a lot of talk about luna having lots of counterplay, which is true, except luna can truly crush every possible counterplay with the right set. For some of the slower sets, mostly SD/Drum mold breaker or basically Orb/CB Guts / SoR / Tinted lens / Scrappy / whatever else, they're really only truly scary on trick room or webs or paraspam teams, but when they load into stall or fatter/slower builds nothing is stopping them from claiming every time they come in. These breaker sets are slow, but still very dangerous and formidable. I'm not a big fan of mold breaker sets personally as they lack the immediate power boost, but run into a team with Unaware Corv / Cress / Scream Tail as its "Luna counterplay" and you will surely claim at least their unaware mon if not more. Though I'm sure everyone is here not because they think these 199/218 max speed breaker lunas are busted, its because of the speed boosting / Triage Luna. The usage of Unaware in OMPL really highlights why I think Luna is broken, it conforms the builder around it a bit too much. The speed boosting Luna sets are so dangerous because they very nearly completely invalidate the offensive counterplay that holds the slow breaker Luna sets in check. This is heightened to an extreme degree because of the move
Belly Drum, where often times the game devolves to a 50/50 where if you attack the Luna, you'll be losing your pokemon to prevent a belly drum, but they could just OHKO you instead and you'd lose a pokemon for nothing. But if you were to switch out you'd lose the game on the spot. This is a very big Lose/lose for the player without Luna. There are few offensive pokemon that threaten to outright OHKO luna, barring screens where the few become the handful. These scenarios often remind me of gen8bh, a metagame that banned belly drum because of the nature of its uncompetitiveness as move (risk/reward).
A lot of the Pro DNB voters are arguing "oftentimes I see opposing luna and I packed unaware scream tail and they are triage so it did nothing haha bad pokemon." first of all these guys are forgetting these calcs exist and that unaware scream tail isnt really a fullstop counter at all, the only real safe counter is unaware cresselia and unaware corviknight (loses to hammer arm btw but I wouldn't dare say thats an actual real set.)
252+ Atk Life Orb Ursaluna Headlong Rush vs. 252 HP / 236+ Def Scream Tail: 218-257 (50.2 - 59.2%) -- 23% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
252+ Atk Life Orb Ursaluna Heavy Slam (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 236+ Def Scream Tail: 291-343 (67 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
252+ Atk Life Orb Ursaluna Fire Punch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 174-205 (43.6 - 51.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Life Orb Ursaluna Headlong Rush vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 199-235 (44.8 - 52.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
So we've covered that the slow breaker sets can dent fat and slower builds but require team support to get in safely or finish off slower pokemon and we've covered that triage belly drum is a crazy matchup fish that 6-0s practically any team lacking an unaware blob or dazzling chien pao / greninja / meowscarada (or something else that can kill a luna from full, and is worth using dazzling on... couldn't think of any besides those 3 tho)
Other counterplay includes more niche stuff like Fluffy/intimidate slither wing, sword of ruin ceruledge, either zapdos or Earth Eater skeledirge though non of these are totally sound (slither cant switch in on fire punch, ceruledge cant switch in on headlong, zapdos-g dies to +6 after rocks 70% of time and primsea cant really kill back, skeledirge loses to the rare crunch coverage [Fake coverage no one runs that])
I'd now like to cover Surge Surfer Luna and will be referring to this set:
Ursaluna @ Punching Glove / Life Orb
Ability: Surge Surfer
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant / Jolly Nature
- Thunder Punch
- Headlong Rush
- Swords Dance
- Ice Punch
Maybe I'm a little bit biased because I used this for my reqs and built like 6 teams with it for ompl and I dig the set but this third Luna set gives it a bit too much versatility for this pokemon and pushes it into seriously unhealthy territory. First of all this set lures in almost all of the non unaware counterplay and sends it packing. Here are some nice calcs of Luna in action
+1 252+ Atk Punching Glove Ursaluna Thunder Punch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Intimidate Quaquaval in Electric Terrain: 338-398 (90.6 - 106.7%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Punching Glove Ursaluna Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 68 Def Fluffy Slither Wing in Electric Terrain: 302-356 (80.7 - 95.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Punching Glove Ursaluna Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Fluffy Landorus-Therian: 324-384 (84.8 - 100.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Punching Glove Ursaluna Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Fluffy Garchomp: 440-520 (104.7 - 123.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
I will now go over a bunch of replays from my reqs journey and pointing out problematic situations where the Ursaluna player has an unfair advantage because of the existence of the triage set. (take all of these with a grain of salt since they're from ladder and it's not a serious match)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1888509043-rzashrber6wgbr6llgfgzw295woz8ftpw
My opponent lacks an unaware pokemon and doesn't have anything that outpaces 398 so SS ursaluna wins this game practically on matchup, even though he has an intimidate corviknight and a fluffy garchomp, since punching glove bypasses fluffy.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1888557218
This game is just to show how unaware scream tail is more of a check than a counter as I get the para and now he can't afford to stall me out since he'll eventually para and die.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1888693163
this replay is doctored in a way. I gave UT a sample team and asked him to use it. I didn't change my team at all. The counterplay on the sample team to Triage ursaluna is pretty simple: don't let it setup. fluffy lando can take any 1 hit and deal some serious dmg with eq and talon can take 1 drain punch at +6 assuming no boosting item (life orb always ohkos, glove is 56% to ohko). This team completely folds to surge surfer luna and this replay demonstrates that even though you may be prepared for the most broken luna, a different luna might crush you as well.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1886364661
In this replay I misplay the start here by letting my opponent get up screens and go luna for free, where he can simply belly drum for free, since he's sitrus berry. From turn 4 on incredibly precise play is required in order to not let him claim 5 kills in the 5 turns of reflect he has up since luna is fat enough for this calc to exist.
252 Atk Life Orb Chien-Pao Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ursaluna through Reflect: 164-192 (35.3 - 41.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
From here he is still able to claim 3 kills with the Luna.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1881365313 Also can't believe this game hasn't been brought up yet but luna doesn't always need to get off a drum to seriously put in work
Anyway I'm not sure any of these calcs or replays really demonstrate my point but I'm just trying to show common Luna interactions in the meta.
My final thoughts are basically as follows: Triage Luna is such a dangerous matchup fish that 6-0s practically any build lacking unaware or one of the handful of checks it has (claiming just attack it with your strong pokemon so it can't setup is bad argument especially when considering screens) The Breaker sets are niche and require plenty of team support but are also dangerous lures for its common checks. Surge Surfer (and theoretically swift swim? BUT I haven't used it and it seems more inconsistent and requires more specialized team support than surge) does a great job of eliminating the offensive counterplay that Triage Luna might struggle with. Surge Surfer is also very hard to scout early game (once eterrain hits 6 turns you can assume it, or after seeing it outpace 218 speed pokemon) and can proof a good surprise killer.
I'd like to echo the voices of Osake, TNM, Ivar, Lordbox and Atha and point out that **Belly Drum** is the problematic feature of Luna. I understand that Mons -> Abilities -> Moves and theres not much precedent for banning a move with so few abusers but I'd like to also point out that the point of tiering is to provide the most balanced metagame. Anyway even with the support for such a ruling from decorated players and council members I doubt an outcome like this would actually come about, so I won't actually push this narrative any more than simply mentioning it again.
Also heres the esurge stuff:
https://pokepast.es/ed49445f72af979b
https://pokepast.es/d516852bdfbd720f
https://pokepast.es/fba46c75a07bfe0a
https://pokepast.es/9bb703597e03befc
Tl;DR voting ban, triage drum broken, surge surfer fast and strong, CB is meh