Suspect test... | Isaiah | Ivar57 | Tranquility | LordBox | DFM | QT | Atha | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toxic Debris | Yes | Yes | ABS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 6-1-0 Suspect |
WHY:
Following a 6-1 vote, the council has decided to suspect test Toxic Debris! There has been some recent community discussion on the topic (start on this post and scroll down) already, but I'll summarize some of the positions here.
Toxic Debris is typically used on Garganacl and bulky Ground-types such as Great Tusk and the occasional Garchomp or Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, presumably because they tend to be able to threaten Poison-types, which are the main absorbers of Toxic Spikes. In practice, Toxic Debris can be a harshly punishing countermeasure to weak pivots like Corviknight using U-turn, and teams without very strong counterplay in the form of absorption or entry hazard removal can find it very difficult to position without sacrificing teammates to the poison status. Kinetic1000 describes some of the scenarios well:
So in practice, one of the biggest threats Toxic Debris users can impose doesn't even require the ability to get activated more than once. Even after removing the TSpikes, opponents can become very wary of clicking weak moves for fear of the strong potential punishment.
That being said, Toxic Debris isn't perfect. The most common setters, Great Tusk and Garchomp, don't have any self sustain past Leftovers, and they functionally have no ability if facing a team that isn't very susceptible to TSpikes. While not ubiquitous, Poison-types like Iron Moth and Gengar are both decent offensive threats and are fairly common in usage, enabling them to function as usable TSpikes absorbers. Additionally, the prevalence of Heavy-Duty Boots users and Flying-types means that finding viable targets for Toxic Debris's effect is by no means guaranteed. One could also make the philosophical argument that the challenges Toxic Debris places on teambuilding/gameplay are positive, because they encourage thoughtfulness in team composition and actual gameplanning within a battle.
How (Suspect Details):
During a Suspect test, each player must climb the ladder until they've acquired the GXE necessary to participate in the voting. Primarily, everyone that participates needs to make an alt account following these guidelines:
- Every game must be played on the official Pokemon Showdown! site and on a new account (creation date no earlier than today, Tuesday, November 21st) with "AAATD "--for example, I could create one called "AAATD Your Mom" to ladder with. Having the prefix at the beginning of your alt name is mandatory, AKA not in the middle (e.g. The AAATD Man) and not at the end (e.g. The AAATD).
- To qualify for voting, your alt must meet the required GXE and games played threshold; it starts at 78% GXE at 25 games, down to 75% GXE at 40+ games.
- Toxic Debris will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect.
- The suspect test will go for two weeks and end on Tuesday, December 5th at 10:00pm GMT -5
- When posting proof of meeting reqs, feel free to use this thread as a means to disseminate topical opinions regarding whether or not Toxic Debris should be banned (Optional).
- It is mandatory to provide proof of ownership of the alt account as well. (Post a picture of your reqs with your smogon name featured)
Tagging Kris for implementation
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< nobody really uses this)
to reverse momentum. To get most value you have to switch into an attack you resist/wall and start using it to apply pressure. 
poisoned is a big factor in limiting its effectiveness. Same goes for 
, HO in general. Most of these are very effective and hard to punish "button clickers", where even if you survive their attacks they lose no hp in the process and can spam them while you are forced to click recovery moves. Even if they have a poison type, clever positioning via toxic debris can disincentivize them from coming in. At the same time you can still use your affected pokemon, they are on a timer but still function.
and such.
