Metagame SV NatDex Monotype Metagame Discussion

[Bka Onon]

What's up with the Booster Energy ban? I just discovered it today on accident, but it's a completely undocumented ban that's not mentioned literally anywhere on the whole internet except on the server side of Showdown; it doesn't even show up as illegal in the teambuilder (i.e. on the client side).

Refer to this

 

[Destinum]

Refer to this

If it was voted on that early, I really don't understand how it's not mentioned on this page or properly marked in the teambuilder. Who to contact to get this fixed?

 

[Neko]

this page

Fixed this btw, thank you for pointing it out.

For the teambuilder side, we'll contact them. Thanks again
Edit: The teambuilder can't "illegalize" it, at least as it seems for items banned in Monotype / OU in general.

 

[TTK]

So DLC has been out for a few days now and to start some discussion since NDMPL isn't playing with DLC until next week, here are some thoughts on some of the mons so far.

- I'm going to start with Okidogi because I believe it's the best out of the Loyal 3. I was running a Taunt Bulk Up set on Poison to act as a wincon stallbreaker and wondered if it would do the same thing here. It's pretty decent, all things considered. It's just that Sneasler is its biggest competition on Poison and well, Sneasler is just very solid for Poison because it's fast and immediately threatening. Okidogi takes a bit to get going but it has its place on the type if you wish to use it over Sneasler. On Fighting, haven't figured out what it could do yet, probably pulls off a Bulk Up set too but could experiment with some other stuff.

- Not a new mon by any means and a mon that's not even common on its types but offensive DD sets really appreciate Knock Off now as a strong STAB option that isn't relying on 80% Stone Edge for its damage output. Roaring Moon is in a similar boat, not relying on Crunch for Dark STAB is so solid and DD sets are effectively harder to wall now. Even without setting up, 139 Atk Knock Off, nothing likes switching in to that on Banded sets.

- My favourite of the new mons, it already does the job in SV Monotype but you bring it here and give it a Z move. Go run the calcs on Z-Blood Moon and everything not a Steel or Rock type dies without any boosts and surprise surprise, you have Ground STAB to deal with those guys. Kinda crazy that physdef Corv is folded by +1 Z-Blood Moon.

- Finally these guys. Godsends to their typings, especially Firepon for Grass. The 20% extra damage, decently fast speed tier, Mold Breaker so Steels are just looking for their switchins. Sure it can't run items meaning its prone to hazards but Grass has decent removal, can't speak for Fire (I never build Fire lol). Cornerstone is less for Grass, more for Rock. Rock likes having more offensive mons, Sturdy is a nice ability and Cornerstone threatens Ground with its Grass STAB.

- Haven't tried any of these dudes. Munkidori could do smth with NP Z move but it's certainly a mon you have to build around, not just slot onto a team. Fezandipiti seems useless, Dipplin is a NFE, Sinistcha looks alright and the 2 remaining Ogerpons are simply outclassed. Maskless can run an item but it's still worse than Firepon and Waterpon is also just useless on both its types.

 

[Athyestic]

With the advent of the DLC I really just wanna complain about how fucking degenerate grass mirrors are. Nearly all of it comes down to if you win the speed tie with your Ogerpon or not, and that's really stupid and dumb and boring. Hearthflame isn't broken though (don't ban it)

SInistcha is probably the funniest new addition, Matcha Gotcha + Strength Sap on a mon with actual bulk is a stupid fucking combination and its access to Calm Mind allows it to sorta become kinda unbreakable. Physical attackers never wanna switch in on a Matcha Gotcha and don't like Strength Sap, and you boost on special attackers.
the matcha gotcha (Sinistcha-Masterpiece) @ Leftovers
Ability: Heatproof
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Strength Sap
- Matcha Gotcha
- Shadow Ball

Also it dodges 2hko from Darm-G flare blitz if you fully invest so that's pretty silly.

 

[TTK]

As the year is coming to an end and the next 3 days frankly will have no significant changes that would outdate the information I'm providing in this post, I will display my overall thoughts on the current meta and what I believe we should be doing moving forward. I'll separate this post into the following 3 sections:

1. Thoughts on the meta & reasoning behind it, with sub-points delving into the main issues I have.
2. How to solve said issues and pushing for tiering action.
3. Discussing potential unbans and ideas from the community.

1.) Thoughts on the meta & reasoning behind it​

I believe that NatDex Mono is not in a good spot at the moment and DLC2 has exacerbated the issue to even worse degrees. Us NatDex Mono players like to take pride that the increased variety and better type viability is a good reason why some of us have preference to this over current SV Monotype but that type viability we hold onto so well is being put at risk of just not existing and the tier has certainly delved into a "centralisation state". What do I mean by "centralisation state"? Well, take a look at SV Monotype. In past iterations of the meta, that meta was certainly centralised if you look back at Post-HOME meta or even DLC1. Dark was a dominant type (and still somewhat is) because it just had the best pokemon in the game and hardly lost against any types. Flying is the most used type currently in MWP (a high-level team tour) because again, it has such strong matchups in the meta. The reasoning behind the centralisation state of SV Monotype and the centralisation state I'm proposing in NDM are completely different. The former has many types in the metagame that just lack options to bring them into relevancy and they will just fold to the top types. NDM's issue isn't that the average type (a statistical average, not average in terms of viability) is lacking options, you have every non-banned mon in the game + cut moves, it's that the power level that certain types reach just eclipses its fellow types and that type will just dominate, and nothing is more apparent to me right now that this is the case than with Dragon.


1.1.) Dragon is centralising and arguably overcentralising at this current moment

I've made a point that Dragon is quite strong in SV and some responses were "Dragon is bit overhyped" or "Dragon isn't that strong". Ok, I will yield to that in SV but in NDM, I will not yield on this point. Dragon is surely the best type in the format and it's not even close. Dragon was always a good type in NDM, its fast pace offence could overwhelm a good number of types thanks to the multitude of setup sweepers like and while providing good hazards with . This gen was good for Dragon because of the fact it had when Pokemon HOME came out in June. One of Dragon's hardest matchups were against Fairy and Dragon finally having quite a bulky Dragon/Steel mon helped alleviate one of its toughest matchups, +1 to its viability. Now fast forward to DLC2 and we got some new additions to the type: , , and . Hydrapple and Raging Bolt weren't really relevant additions for Dragon but Archaludon and especially Gouging Fire are. Archaludon is a good alternative to Goodra-Hisui and I think it's a slightly better fit for Dragon. It's basically the opposite of Goodra-H, with high physical defence and is much faster with Stamina to wall physical attackers even more, that in conjunction with Body Press, makes Archaludon much less passive than Goodra albeit it's worse at handling Fairies thanks to its much lower spdef stat. That doesn't matter too much in the long run because we got another Fairy answer in .


1.2.) is an unhealthy presence and its effect on Tournament Play.

Gouging Fire ticks all the boxes for a pokemon I think that does a bit too much in this tier. It's bulky, hits hard and has reliable recovery. Its expansive movepool with Morning Sun allows it to not even have to run 252atk 252spe sets because you'd want to invest in its defensive capabilities to have an easier time setting up DD. All it really needs is Fire STAB (Flare Blitz/Heat Crash/Raging Fury) and EQ and it hits most of the tier. It has defensive answers sure, like every offensive pokemon ever, but there are so far and few between that it feels like anytime you're building, you gotta bring a specific type vs Dragon to even try to handle it defensively. This has had an effect on tournament play greatly for the format, as over the past 2 weeks of games coming from MWP and NDFL, 6 out of 8 replays I've found include Dragon teams with 2 of them being mirror matchups, Gouging Fire was also on 5/6 of these teams. There's a reason why Dragon is seeing this much usage and I genuinely believe Dragon is a 18 type beater atm.

My game vs Big Chungus irl for NDFL Week 6 highlights this issue of centralisation the most. DLC2 was freed and pretty much everyone knows that Dragon is strong asf. I literally didn't want to bring anything else because Dragon could beat anything that the type is not weak to (Non Fairy, opposing Dragon and Ice teams) so I decided to bring Fairy. This game here, ignoring hax, was prepped solely for the purpose of countering Dragon, which was won. I could not use Fairy's standard of play with screens because Klefki is just Gouging Fire fodder and had to run 2 Water/Fairy pokemon just to make sure Gouging didn't go out of hand. Toasterboi420 vs Uta The Clown is also a Dragon vs Fairy mu, which the Fairy team was unable to win because guess what? Gouging got setup opportunity and 1 Water/Fairy type clearly wasn't enough because Gouging Fire set up on Klefki and had max hazards up. Next week as well, assuming tiering action hasn't happened, I will still just have to worry about facing Dragon because it is able to beat the majority of types and I don't find this particularly competitive.


1.3.) Ursaluna-Bloodmoon

So the meta is struggling with the overcentralisation of Dragon and Gouging Fire is a contributor to why Dragon got to even stronger heights. However, Gouging Fire is not the only egregious pokemon in this metagame, and Ursaluna-BM is something I've wanted gone since DLC1 dropped. Something with its insane damage output and bulk without even having to invest that much into Spatk is just silly and should not be in this tier. Z-Blood Moon is 200BP and no other realistically has a nuke this powerful and unable to be walled as Ursaluna-BM has. Revenge killing this mon is also just an annoying task. Max physdef doesn't even die to Close Combat from Fighting types from full and if they don't kill it, they die back in return. Great. Blood Moon's issue of not being able to be clicked consecutively? Z move basically ignores that so you can click a 140BP STAB option into a 200BP STAB option then click a 140BP STAB option again. What defensive pokemon is handling this not named Blissey or Chansey and even then, let Ursaluna-BM get a few boosts and Blissey starts folding.

2.) How to solve said issues​

I don't think we have to do much to get this meta back on track, since I think we almost reached an ideal in DLC1 and it would've been nice if Ursaluna got booted and I believe there's only a few changes we need to reach a much more balanced and varied metagame.


2.1) Quickban Ursaluna-BM and Possibly Gouging Fire (idm a suspect)

First of all, get rid of Ursaluna-BM. This pokemon again nothing beneficial to the tier other than obscene breaking power that gives 2 already good typing even more leverage in the metagame. Banning Ursaluna-BM will be a net benefit for every type in the game. If any tiering action were to happen against Gouging Fire, I doubt it would be a quickban but that would save us some time if it was. And seeing how I think it probably won't be a quickban, a suspect would be on the table because I have seen some users say "Is Gouging that bad?" which opens up the conversation of whether it's too strong or not in the format. Obviously, I would participate and vote ban if that were the case and implore anyone else to do the same. Banning Gouging Fire will lower Dragon's power level back to a state where you know, smth like Fairy doesn't have to run both Fini and Azu to fear not losing after giving it one turn of DD and bulkier types like Steel and Poison don't just get 6-0d (though Dragon Kommo-o already gives Steel a tough time and Poison is still just kinda eh).

Other than these two blatantly too strong pokemon imo, nothing else seems to be overbearing in my eyes. I, as well as many others have always kept their eyes on since it was banned last gen and it still does the same old Z-Fly set with Agility but it got some more checks in and and offensively, it's certainly a bit more pressured this gen. with Nasty Plot scared everybody but again, Landorus's speed tier gets worse every gen and most types have smth faster to revenge kill it. Finally, I've heard some conversation regarding but I already thought Ogerpon-H wasn't that bad so its worse forme certainly isn't banworthy in my eyes rn.

3.) Discussing potential unbans and ideas from the Community​

Before we do any unbanning, please please please deal with what we currently have and let the tier stabilise for a little bit. We have all the time in the world to try and test some stuff. Anyway, after we do ban certain pokemon, these were some pokemon talked about.


3.1.) Do not unban

I don't get this one personally. Don't use this point I'm about to say as an argument to not unban Giratina but y'all really want Dragon to thrive or smth? Regardless, Giratina is just too bulky even in this gen 9 power level with Z moves to warrant bringing down. It offers a lot of utility with Defog yes, but I just think you make Dragon too centralising again with this drop and ik Ghost is in the trenches rn and it would love anything at this point but Giratina is not it.


3.2.) deserves a second chance

Some have looked back at the Spectrier ban and really wonder if it was that bad? I, for one, wouldn't mind a resuspect for Spectrier. Its Speed is good but there are still some faster threats that can outrun it or speedtie (, , etc), its coverage is still relatively dire (literally just Shadow Ball + Draining Kiss). I do feel like we wouldn't have to overly prep for this pokemon and Ghost is severely lacking in wincons outside of SD Mimikyu or Z Happy Hour Zoroark.


3.3.) The Z-Move Debacle

No conversation regarding this metagame is as controversial as the debate to potentially test Z-Moves in NDM. Before I get into it, I just want to preface that I think banning Z-Moves is a terrible idea and if we were to ban it, it would have catastrophic, long-term effects on our tier, no I'm not exaggerating. Anyone that has an investment in this topic for either side can respond to this agreeing or disagreeing or if I missed something out.

The ban Z-Move side's main arguments from what I've seen is that it's pushed many pokemon to the edge and without Z-Moves they would be allowed back into the tier. Ursaluna-BM is probably one of the main causes for this point because it makes Z-Moves seem very very strong. My response is this argument is a simple one. Z-Moves have hardly pushed most of our banlist to the edge. If you comb over the pokemon banned from our format (ignoring obvious bans), the only one you can say that was made broken mostly by Z-Moves is Dragapult. I would love Ghost to have Dragapult back but it's not as if I can forget that DD Ghostium sets exist and not like we can complex ban Z-Moves on Dragapult, or else we could complex ban water moves on Kyogre. We never want to reach complex ban territory and Dragapult is simply a victim of a natdex format that allows previously allowed mechanics. It's an unfortunate shame. That doesn't mean we should ban Z-Moves now. Other than Dragapult, some have argued that things like , , and would've been fine if Z-Moves and I'll have to say "what??" Chien Pao with its team support would've been an egregious pokemon still since it's so fast and breaks everything. Flutter Mane is probably the closest one to maybe have been fine without Z Moves but the increased support from its Fairy buddies would've led to increased set variety outside of a Choice Specs. Chi-Yu should never been entertained seriously and Baxcalibur wasn't even broken by Z-moves. It got Scale Shot, had veil support and Shed Tail is legal.

The other main argument is that "It gives mons insane breaking power to get past their checks and that crumbles defensive integrity" and "it makes prepping harder because you don't know what's going to be running a Z-move and what Z-move specifically". I'll answer this sequentially. For the first point, why is this an issue? Competitively or even going off of tiering policy, nothing is problematic here. No one back in Gen 7 and no one last gen ever pushed for Z-moves to be banned in any non-OM format to my knowledge. A lot of rebuttals here you'll probably realise can be applied to a lot of anti-tera sentiments and I feel like they can apply here. Running a Z-Move and deciding when to use it, or what sort of Z-move you're using is simply an expression of skill. You do remember that Z-moves can only be used one time unlike tera which is a long-term change. Attacking Z-moves can also be blocked by Protect moves which fair enough aren't that common but it is still sufficient counterplay to not letting your defensive or any mon by that matter die from 100 most of the time.

I'm a stickler for the Tiering Policy Framework and looking at the overall goals of the tiering policy below:

1. To create a metagame that is conducive to the more "skilled" player winning over the less "skilled" player a majority of the time.
2. To ensure that both our ladder and tournament crowd are catered to regarding 1.
3. To ensure that actions are taken with appropriate and complete justification.

It is quite hard to suggest and imply that Z-Moves as a whole affect the metagame where the more skilled player is not winning the majority of the time and according to Point III of the Tiering Policy Framework "The onus of providing justification is on the side changing the status quo", you really have your work cut out for you because those who want to keep the status quo don't really have to do much in terms of arguing to keep Z-Moves, you have to explain why they're needed to be banned for the high ladder and tournament level and get a majority to agree. It also won't help the growth of the tier in my eyes if we're the only natdex format that has Z-Moves banned while also lacking this gen's mechanic. I hate having to use that argument but the reality is that's how the players of competitive pokemon at the casual level think and even though tera has no place in mono, having less of what natdex has to offer is not ideal. We can certainly reach a good level of competitiveness with Z-Moves in the picture.

 

[schwipper]

Welcome to the new guy, i feel like the Zuko here meme now but i want to throw in my two cents into this Metagame discussion based on my experience from the Suspect test phase of Ogerpon and my games in MWP and the games i have seen in MWP outside of mine.

In my honest opinion, the claim that Natdex has more playable or played types seems very odd. I think the biggest claim for NDM is that it is way less volatile. A metagame where the backbone of each type is always around naturally will be more consistent and new DLC, new Gens and move changes will only add or take as much. SV for example had a much bigger shake up with DLC2 than Natdex ever could have. But more types? while yeah, in MWP you get like 4x the SV games which makes types played tough to compare, we see that the same types are being played in NDM over and over again, and mostly to great success. Psychic has been played with stelar performances and dragon too. We have yet to see a game where someone plays either of: Rock, Ice, Ghost, Fighting, Electric or Dark. Outside of Electric i can also see why. Most other types have more clear wincons, better neutral matchups and just stronger mons overall. Ghost especially suffered from many bans that just render the type useless.
To adress TTK post more directly: even with the Shedtail ban, dragon is currently just absolutely destroying types in Tourplay (and on ladder), and gouging fire is one of the big offenders as to why. Gouging Fire is not just strong, it is insanely Flexible. Heatcrash/Flareblitz Dragon Dance EQ Morning Sun is most common, but you could also add a dragon stab and suddenly run over the mirror, if they expect you to just have Heatcrash and EQ. Not to mention the absolute wildcard of the potential to Z-Move a would be answer out of this world (tho i will talk about this later down the road anyways). But not just in moves and items, gouging Fire can also be flexible in EV spreading. It is the "pick and choose what you want to setup on" of Dragon. Run Spdef and setup on special attackers? no problem. Run physical defenses and setup on any physical attacker? you got it. to highlight it's absurd bulk, if you TRUELY want to be physically tanky just look at this calc:

252 Atk Choice Band Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gouging Fire: 318-374 (76.8 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Gouging Fire Heat Crash (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 440-518 (121.8 - 143.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO


That is, indeed, one of the strongest EQ Stabs in the metagame thrown with a CHOICE BAND and it just gets eaten up. And not to mention the no invest free revenge kill. Yeah 252 hp 252+def seems odd, but i have used that exact spread to tank Chien Paos crash in SV before and it works genuinly well. Also makes foul play a mediocre answer at best. Defensive mons get setup on and rarely deal enough damage, offensive mons can hardly kill it depending on it spread. This mon GENUINLY just sets up on what it wants. This level of flexibility with great team support including spikes and rocks and healing wish potential just push the mon over the top in my opinion. I genuinly don't even want a suspect test on this, just get it out (tho i guess a suspect would be possible).
Since we already have the suspect on Bloodmoon, i will not go into detail here about why i believe it should be gone.

The talk about Z-Moves:
i have no time to make my post all pretty like TTK but i hope you are still with me here. Z-Moves add almost no value to this Metagame. There, i said it. Z-Moves make good mons sometimes overwhelming, make setup mons even better and harldy assist weaker mons to participate in the metagame. There are always outliars like Kommo-o, a mon that genuinly required it's own Z-Move to be decent enough for play. And even now, it's not even the mon abusing Z-Moves on dragon right now, it doesn't even find a spot on the teams i have seen in MWP. But what mons have we seen use Z-Moves to great effect? Gouging fire, which is genuinly already a bit much. Iron Valiant, a mon that genuinly doesn't require Z-Moves to be a top tier wall breaker anyways, Tornadus T and Moltres Galar which both really don't need more tools to deal damage either. Moltres Galar currently flying under the radar, but with the huge pressence of psychic you can expect it to see more play and with success. Bloodmoon which in itself is a trouble maker and mons like Deoxys speed who really don't require a Z-Move, given that it already has multiple ways of messing with defensive teams and offensive mons die to it's great coverage option + nasty plot. Celebi was brought up, but i doubt Celebi needs Z-moves to help it do what it is built to do. I have seen someone say "but defensive Z-Move like Toxapex haze against taunt setup sweeper" but let's be honest, most Z-Move abuser are offensive mons and Toxapex hardly needs a z-move to be played anyways. I also remember that in the past of monotype, we banned mons cause they were overwhelming in the context of the building limitations of monotype. We hardly want types to overwhelm others because that is, in all honesty, unfun to play. If NDM wants to pride itself in the diversity of types playable, to some extent it will have to ban mons so that the types are in line with each other to an extent that more types are playable than not. I think Z-Moves make that highly unlikely. Offensive z-moves are better than defensive z-moves in the vast majority of cases, so the types with the best offensive z-move abusers tend to be stronger than types that struggle to find a good z-move user. Poison for example frequently doesn't even run a z-move at all, because they genuinly have no good user for it and Z-Haze on pex while nice is not always what you want to have. Compare that with Dragon or Fairy or Flying, who have no shortage of strong Z-Move abusers and you can see why these types are so often played in Tournament play. They are flexible not just in mons, but also can chose their Matchups they are good against by using different z-move mons. Fairy has Valiant or azumarill, dragon has Gouging Fire, Dragonite, Kommo-o, Garchomp. Flying can use Dragonite, Moltres-g, torn-t. The offensive options and to chose what types you outright sweep with one mon make z-moves overall quite unfun to built for in Monotype. And to the Argument "oh but we had them in NDM all gen 8 too" and "gen 7 mono we didn't ban it" yes, both true, just that we have more mons now than in either of those generations before.Gen 7 also allowed Kyurem black which quite obviously is too much. Why? cause it got Changes, so the metagame changed and said it is too much. I think with more mons coming our way, we will reach the point where Z-moves just get out of hand. You can argue against it for this gen, i am honestly agreeing that gen 9 NDM should not ban Z-moves purely on the fact that the metagame was balanced with them in mind so far, but come gen 10? gen 11? you will reach the point where z-moves just become incredibly tough to keep in a metagame with mons that got created by GF way after Z-moves already got removed from their games. And i don't see why we should shy away from banning a mechanic, given that Tera and Dynamax are also gone rightfully so.
TLDR: Gouging fire is a bit too much and should leave, Bloodmoon hopefully leaves, Z-Moves will cause type inbalances in the long run and are unhealthy for a metagame that wants to pride itself in type diversity even if not in this exact moment.
Sorry for the wall of text, hope you enjoyed my POV as a rather new NDM player and if you want to argue these points i will be glad to hear your opinion on it and respond to those if i find time (and energy) for it

 

[adjustments]

hey, i finished at the top of the NDM pool in MWP so i figured it'd make sense to share my thoughts on the current state of the meta. i'm going to try to keep this short because i'm not a fan of long posts at all lol.

i don't think ursa-bm is getting banned but i think generally speaking the council has done a fair job handling the power creep in this meta. the process of prepping teams was pretty smooth and i don't think there is anything that is unbearably broken at this moment. right now, i think dragon is an 18 type beater but that doesn't call for any tiering action to be completely honest, it just has the tools to be able to win a lot of matchups. but i also think it's relatively easy to account for in prep on paper.
next thing i wanna talk about is the various water compositions that i saw across the tour. doesn't really seem to fit on rain teams, but i was going to try and experiment some non rain offense pairing him with and + support but never got around to the idea during the tour. balance and bulky offense also have a place in the meta too but i don't really feel like fleshing out and trying to solve the rest of the type in this post.
next i saw a lot of talk about z moves being unhealthy in this tier. i can't speak for the future of this tier but in this generation i don't really think z moves are a huge issue. in all honesty you're giving up an item slot and your z user is vulnerable to hazards and other things which kind of tip the scale back to balance. there are a few cases of z users like and that do make a good case of z moves being unhealthy, so i definitely understand the argument behind it. i personally think it's very difficult to make a call on z moves right now, but certainly as more mechanics get added in future gens, z moves might be on the chopping block.

that's all i can think of right now tbh, this tier feels a little bit more of a breath of fresh air compared to sv mono right now, i'll definitely be back to post more if i think of more stuff to say!

 

[style.css]

As the year is coming to an end and the next 3 days frankly will have no significant changes that would outdate the information I'm providing in this post, I will display my overall thoughts on the current meta and what I believe we should be doing moving forward. I'll separate this post into the following 3 sections:

1. Thoughts on the meta & reasoning behind it, with sub-points delving into the main issues I have.
2. How to solve said issues and pushing for tiering action.
3. Discussing potential unbans and ideas from the community.

1.) Thoughts on the meta & reasoning behind it​

I believe that NatDex Mono is not in a good spot at the moment and DLC2 has exacerbated the issue to even worse degrees. Us NatDex Mono players like to take pride that the increased variety and better type viability is a good reason why some of us have preference to this over current SV Monotype but that type viability we hold onto so well is being put at risk of just not existing and the tier has certainly delved into a "centralisation state". What do I mean by "centralisation state"? Well, take a look at SV Monotype. In past iterations of the meta, that meta was certainly centralised if you look back at Post-HOME meta or even DLC1. Dark was a dominant type (and still somewhat is) because it just had the best pokemon in the game and hardly lost against any types. Flying is the most used type currently in MWP (a high-level team tour) because again, it has such strong matchups in the meta. The reasoning behind the centralisation state of SV Monotype and the centralisation state I'm proposing in NDM are completely different. The former has many types in the metagame that just lack options to bring them into relevancy and they will just fold to the top types. NDM's issue isn't that the average type (a statistical average, not average in terms of viability) is lacking options, you have every non-banned mon in the game + cut moves, it's that the power level that certain types reach just eclipses its fellow types and that type will just dominate, and nothing is more apparent to me right now that this is the case than with Dragon.


1.1.) Dragon is centralising and arguably overcentralising at this current moment

I've made a point that Dragon is quite strong in SV and some responses were "Dragon is bit overhyped" or "Dragon isn't that strong". Ok, I will yield to that in SV but in NDM, I will not yield on this point. Dragon is surely the best type in the format and it's not even close. Dragon was always a good type in NDM, its fast pace offence could overwhelm a good number of types thanks to the multitude of setup sweepers like and while providing good hazards with . This gen was good for Dragon because of the fact it had when Pokemon HOME came out in June. One of Dragon's hardest matchups were against Fairy and Dragon finally having quite a bulky Dragon/Steel mon helped alleviate one of its toughest matchups, +1 to its viability. Now fast forward to DLC2 and we got some new additions to the type: , , and . Hydrapple and Raging Bolt weren't really relevant additions for Dragon but Archaludon and especially Gouging Fire are. Archaludon is a good alternative to Goodra-Hisui and I think it's a slightly better fit for Dragon. It's basically the opposite of Goodra-H, with high physical defence and is much faster with Stamina to wall physical attackers even more, that in conjunction with Body Press, makes Archaludon much less passive than Goodra albeit it's worse at handling Fairies thanks to its much lower spdef stat. That doesn't matter too much in the long run because we got another Fairy answer in .


1.2.) is an unhealthy presence and its effect on Tournament Play.

Gouging Fire ticks all the boxes for a pokemon I think that does a bit too much in this tier. It's bulky, hits hard and has reliable recovery. Its expansive movepool with Morning Sun allows it to not even have to run 252atk 252spe sets because you'd want to invest in its defensive capabilities to have an easier time setting up DD. All it really needs is Fire STAB (Flare Blitz/Heat Crash/Raging Fury) and EQ and it hits most of the tier. It has defensive answers sure, like every offensive pokemon ever, but there are so far and few between that it feels like anytime you're building, you gotta bring a specific type vs Dragon to even try to handle it defensively. This has had an effect on tournament play greatly for the format, as over the past 2 weeks of games coming from MWP and NDFL, 6 out of 8 replays I've found include Dragon teams with 2 of them being mirror matchups, Gouging Fire was also on 5/6 of these teams. There's a reason why Dragon is seeing this much usage and I genuinely believe Dragon is a 18 type beater atm.

My game vs Big Chungus irl for NDFL Week 6 highlights this issue of centralisation the most. DLC2 was freed and pretty much everyone knows that Dragon is strong asf. I literally didn't want to bring anything else because Dragon could beat anything that the type is not weak to (Non Fairy, opposing Dragon and Ice teams) so I decided to bring Fairy. This game here, ignoring hax, was prepped solely for the purpose of countering Dragon, which was won. I could not use Fairy's standard of play with screens because Klefki is just Gouging Fire fodder and had to run 2 Water/Fairy pokemon just to make sure Gouging didn't go out of hand. Toasterboi420 vs Uta The Clown is also a Dragon vs Fairy mu, which the Fairy team was unable to win because guess what? Gouging got setup opportunity and 1 Water/Fairy type clearly wasn't enough because Gouging Fire set up on Klefki and had max hazards up. Next week as well, assuming tiering action hasn't happened, I will still just have to worry about facing Dragon because it is able to beat the majority of types and I don't find this particularly competitive.


1.3.) Ursaluna-Bloodmoon

So the meta is struggling with the overcentralisation of Dragon and Gouging Fire is a contributor to why Dragon got to even stronger heights. However, Gouging Fire is not the only egregious pokemon in this metagame, and Ursaluna-BM is something I've wanted gone since DLC1 dropped. Something with its insane damage output and bulk without even having to invest that much into Spatk is just silly and should not be in this tier. Z-Blood Moon is 200BP and no other realistically has a nuke this powerful and unable to be walled as Ursaluna-BM has. Revenge killing this mon is also just an annoying task. Max physdef doesn't even die to Close Combat from Fighting types from full and if they don't kill it, they die back in return. Great. Blood Moon's issue of not being able to be clicked consecutively? Z move basically ignores that so you can click a 140BP STAB option into a 200BP STAB option then click a 140BP STAB option again. What defensive pokemon is handling this not named Blissey or Chansey and even then, let Ursaluna-BM get a few boosts and Blissey starts folding.

2.) How to solve said issues​

I don't think we have to do much to get this meta back on track, since I think we almost reached an ideal in DLC1 and it would've been nice if Ursaluna got booted and I believe there's only a few changes we need to reach a much more balanced and varied metagame.


2.1) Quickban Ursaluna-BM and Possibly Gouging Fire (idm a suspect)

First of all, get rid of Ursaluna-BM. This pokemon again nothing beneficial to the tier other than obscene breaking power that gives 2 already good typing even more leverage in the metagame. Banning Ursaluna-BM will be a net benefit for every type in the game. If any tiering action were to happen against Gouging Fire, I doubt it would be a quickban but that would save us some time if it was. And seeing how I think it probably won't be a quickban, a suspect would be on the table because I have seen some users say "Is Gouging that bad?" which opens up the conversation of whether it's too strong or not in the format. Obviously, I would participate and vote ban if that were the case and implore anyone else to do the same. Banning Gouging Fire will lower Dragon's power level back to a state where you know, smth like Fairy doesn't have to run both Fini and Azu to fear not losing after giving it one turn of DD and bulkier types like Steel and Poison don't just get 6-0d (though Dragon Kommo-o already gives Steel a tough time and Poison is still just kinda eh).

Other than these two blatantly too strong pokemon imo, nothing else seems to be overbearing in my eyes. I, as well as many others have always kept their eyes on since it was banned last gen and it still does the same old Z-Fly set with Agility but it got some more checks in and and offensively, it's certainly a bit more pressured this gen. with Nasty Plot scared everybody but again, Landorus's speed tier gets worse every gen and most types have smth faster to revenge kill it. Finally, I've heard some conversation regarding but I already thought Ogerpon-H wasn't that bad so its worse forme certainly isn't banworthy in my eyes rn.

3.) Discussing potential unbans and ideas from the Community​

Before we do any unbanning, please please please deal with what we currently have and let the tier stabilise for a little bit. We have all the time in the world to try and test some stuff. Anyway, after we do ban certain pokemon, these were some pokemon talked about.


3.1.) Do not unban

I don't get this one personally. Don't use this point I'm about to say as an argument to not unban Giratina but y'all really want Dragon to thrive or smth? Regardless, Giratina is just too bulky even in this gen 9 power level with Z moves to warrant bringing down. It offers a lot of utility with Defog yes, but I just think you make Dragon too centralising again with this drop and ik Ghost is in the trenches rn and it would love anything at this point but Giratina is not it.


3.2.) deserves a second chance

Some have looked back at the Spectrier ban and really wonder if it was that bad? I, for one, wouldn't mind a resuspect for Spectrier. Its Speed is good but there are still some faster threats that can outrun it or speedtie (, , etc), its coverage is still relatively dire (literally just Shadow Ball + Draining Kiss). I do feel like we wouldn't have to overly prep for this pokemon and Ghost is severely lacking in wincons outside of SD Mimikyu or Z Happy Hour Zoroark.


3.3.) The Z-Move Debacle

No conversation regarding this metagame is as controversial as the debate to potentially test Z-Moves in NDM. Before I get into it, I just want to preface that I think banning Z-Moves is a terrible idea and if we were to ban it, it would have catastrophic, long-term effects on our tier, no I'm not exaggerating. Anyone that has an investment in this topic for either side can respond to this agreeing or disagreeing or if I missed something out.

The ban Z-Move side's main arguments from what I've seen is that it's pushed many pokemon to the edge and without Z-Moves they would be allowed back into the tier. Ursaluna-BM is probably one of the main causes for this point because it makes Z-Moves seem very very strong. My response is this argument is a simple one. Z-Moves have hardly pushed most of our banlist to the edge. If you comb over the pokemon banned from our format (ignoring obvious bans), the only one you can say that was made broken mostly by Z-Moves is Dragapult. I would love Ghost to have Dragapult back but it's not as if I can forget that DD Ghostium sets exist and not like we can complex ban Z-Moves on Dragapult, or else we could complex ban water moves on Kyogre. We never want to reach complex ban territory and Dragapult is simply a victim of a natdex format that allows previously allowed mechanics. It's an unfortunate shame. That doesn't mean we should ban Z-Moves now. Other than Dragapult, some have argued that things like , , and would've been fine if Z-Moves and I'll have to say "what??" Chien Pao with its team support would've been an egregious pokemon still since it's so fast and breaks everything. Flutter Mane is probably the closest one to maybe have been fine without Z Moves but the increased support from its Fairy buddies would've led to increased set variety outside of a Choice Specs. Chi-Yu should never been entertained seriously and Baxcalibur wasn't even broken by Z-moves. It got Scale Shot, had veil support and Shed Tail is legal.

The other main argument is that "It gives mons insane breaking power to get past their checks and that crumbles defensive integrity" and "it makes prepping harder because you don't know what's going to be running a Z-move and what Z-move specifically". I'll answer this sequentially. For the first point, why is this an issue? Competitively or even going off of tiering policy, nothing is problematic here. No one back in Gen 7 and no one last gen ever pushed for Z-moves to be banned in any non-OM format to my knowledge. A lot of rebuttals here you'll probably realise can be applied to a lot of anti-tera sentiments and I feel like they can apply here. Running a Z-Move and deciding when to use it, or what sort of Z-move you're using is simply an expression of skill. You do remember that Z-moves can only be used one time unlike tera which is a long-term change. Attacking Z-moves can also be blocked by Protect moves which fair enough aren't that common but it is still sufficient counterplay to not letting your defensive or any mon by that matter die from 100 most of the time.

I'm a stickler for the Tiering Policy Framework and looking at the overall goals of the tiering policy below:

1. To create a metagame that is conducive to the more "skilled" player winning over the less "skilled" player a majority of the time.
2. To ensure that both our ladder and tournament crowd are catered to regarding 1.
3. To ensure that actions are taken with appropriate and complete justification.

It is quite hard to suggest and imply that Z-Moves as a whole affect the metagame where the more skilled player is not winning the majority of the time and according to Point III of the Tiering Policy Framework "The onus of providing justification is on the side changing the status quo", you really have your work cut out for you because those who want to keep the status quo don't really have to do much in terms of arguing to keep Z-Moves, you have to explain why they're needed to be banned for the high ladder and tournament level and get a majority to agree. It also won't help the growth of the tier in my eyes if we're the only natdex format that has Z-Moves banned while also lacking this gen's mechanic. I hate having to use that argument but the reality is that's how the players of competitive pokemon at the casual level think and even though tera has no place in mono, having less of what natdex has to offer is not ideal. We can certainly reach a good level of competitiveness with Z-Moves in the picture.

Welcome to the new guy, i feel like the Zuko here meme now but i want to throw in my two cents into this Metagame discussion based on my experience from the Suspect test phase of Ogerpon and my games in MWP and the games i have seen in MWP outside of mine.

In my honest opinion, the claim that Natdex has more playable or played types seems very odd. I think the biggest claim for NDM is that it is way less volatile. A metagame where the backbone of each type is always around naturally will be more consistent and new DLC, new Gens and move changes will only add or take as much. SV for example had a much bigger shake up with DLC2 than Natdex ever could have. But more types? while yeah, in MWP you get like 4x the SV games which makes types played tough to compare, we see that the same types are being played in NDM over and over again, and mostly to great success. Psychic has been played with stelar performances and dragon too. We have yet to see a game where someone plays either of: Rock, Ice, Ghost, Fighting, Electric or Dark. Outside of Electric i can also see why. Most other types have more clear wincons, better neutral matchups and just stronger mons overall. Ghost especially suffered from many bans that just render the type useless.
To adress TTK post more directly: even with the Shedtail ban, dragon is currently just absolutely destroying types in Tourplay (and on ladder), and gouging fire is one of the big offenders as to why. Gouging Fire is not just strong, it is insanely Flexible. Heatcrash/Flareblitz Dragon Dance EQ Morning Sun is most common, but you could also add a dragon stab and suddenly run over the mirror, if they expect you to just have Heatcrash and EQ. Not to mention the absolute wildcard of the potential to Z-Move a would be answer out of this world (tho i will talk about this later down the road anyways). But not just in moves and items, gouging Fire can also be flexible in EV spreading. It is the "pick and choose what you want to setup on" of Dragon. Run Spdef and setup on special attackers? no problem. Run physical defenses and setup on any physical attacker? you got it. to highlight it's absurd bulk, if you TRUELY want to be physically tanky just look at this calc:

252 Atk Choice Band Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gouging Fire: 318-374 (76.8 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 Atk Gouging Fire Heat Crash (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 440-518 (121.8 - 143.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO


That is, indeed, one of the strongest EQ Stabs in the metagame thrown with a CHOICE BAND and it just gets eaten up. And not to mention the no invest free revenge kill. Yeah 252 hp 252+def seems odd, but i have used that exact spread to tank Chien Paos crash in SV before and it works genuinly well. Also makes foul play a mediocre answer at best. Defensive mons get setup on and rarely deal enough damage, offensive mons can hardly kill it depending on it spread. This mon GENUINLY just sets up on what it wants. This level of flexibility with great team support including spikes and rocks and healing wish potential just push the mon over the top in my opinion. I genuinly don't even want a suspect test on this, just get it out (tho i guess a suspect would be possible).
Since we already have the suspect on Bloodmoon, i will not go into detail here about why i believe it should be gone.

The talk about Z-Moves:
i have no time to make my post all pretty like TTK but i hope you are still with me here. Z-Moves add almost no value to this Metagame. There, i said it. Z-Moves make good mons sometimes overwhelming, make setup mons even better and harldy assist weaker mons to participate in the metagame. There are always outliars like Kommo-o, a mon that genuinly required it's own Z-Move to be decent enough for play. And even now, it's not even the mon abusing Z-Moves on dragon right now, it doesn't even find a spot on the teams i have seen in MWP. But what mons have we seen use Z-Moves to great effect? Gouging fire, which is genuinly already a bit much. Iron Valiant, a mon that genuinly doesn't require Z-Moves to be a top tier wall breaker anyways, Tornadus T and Moltres Galar which both really don't need more tools to deal damage either. Moltres Galar currently flying under the radar, but with the huge pressence of psychic you can expect it to see more play and with success. Bloodmoon which in itself is a trouble maker and mons like Deoxys speed who really don't require a Z-Move, given that it already has multiple ways of messing with defensive teams and offensive mons die to it's great coverage option + nasty plot. Celebi was brought up, but i doubt Celebi needs Z-moves to help it do what it is built to do. I have seen someone say "but defensive Z-Move like Toxapex haze against taunt setup sweeper" but let's be honest, most Z-Move abuser are offensive mons and Toxapex hardly needs a z-move to be played anyways. I also remember that in the past of monotype, we banned mons cause they were overwhelming in the context of the building limitations of monotype. We hardly want types to overwhelm others because that is, in all honesty, unfun to play. If NDM wants to pride itself in the diversity of types playable, to some extent it will have to ban mons so that the types are in line with each other to an extent that more types are playable than not. I think Z-Moves make that highly unlikely. Offensive z-moves are better than defensive z-moves in the vast majority of cases, so the types with the best offensive z-move abusers tend to be stronger than types that struggle to find a good z-move user. Poison for example frequently doesn't even run a z-move at all, because they genuinly have no good user for it and Z-Haze on pex while nice is not always what you want to have. Compare that with Dragon or Fairy or Flying, who have no shortage of strong Z-Move abusers and you can see why these types are so often played in Tournament play. They are flexible not just in mons, but also can chose their Matchups they are good against by using different z-move mons. Fairy has Valiant or azumarill, dragon has Gouging Fire, Dragonite, Kommo-o, Garchomp. Flying can use Dragonite, Moltres-g, torn-t. The offensive options and to chose what types you outright sweep with one mon make z-moves overall quite unfun to built for in Monotype. And to the Argument "oh but we had them in NDM all gen 8 too" and "gen 7 mono we didn't ban it" yes, both true, just that we have more mons now than in either of those generations before.Gen 7 also allowed Kyurem black which quite obviously is too much. Why? cause it got Changes, so the metagame changed and said it is too much. I think with more mons coming our way, we will reach the point where Z-moves just get out of hand. You can argue against it for this gen, i am honestly agreeing that gen 9 NDM should not ban Z-moves purely on the fact that the metagame was balanced with them in mind so far, but come gen 10? gen 11? you will reach the point where z-moves just become incredibly tough to keep in a metagame with mons that got created by GF way after Z-moves already got removed from their games. And i don't see why we should shy away from banning a mechanic, given that Tera and Dynamax are also gone rightfully so.
TLDR: Gouging fire is a bit too much and should leave, Bloodmoon hopefully leaves, Z-Moves will cause type inbalances in the long run and are unhealthy for a metagame that wants to pride itself in type diversity even if not in this exact moment.
Sorry for the wall of text, hope you enjoyed my POV as a rather new NDM player and if you want to argue these points i will be glad to hear your opinion on it and respond to those if i find time (and energy) for it

hey, i finished at the top of the NDM pool in MWP so i figured it'd make sense to share my thoughts on the current state of the meta. i'm going to try to keep this short because i'm not a fan of long posts at all lol.

i don't think ursa-bm is getting banned but i think generally speaking the council has done a fair job handling the power creep in this meta. the process of prepping teams was pretty smooth and i don't think there is anything that is unbearably broken at this moment. right now, i think dragon is an 18 type beater but that doesn't call for any tiering action to be completely honest, it just has the tools to be able to win a lot of matchups. but i also think it's relatively easy to account for in prep on paper.
next thing i wanna talk about is the various water compositions that i saw across the tour. doesn't really seem to fit on rain teams, but i was going to try and experiment some non rain offense pairing him with and + support but never got around to the idea during the tour. balance and bulky offense also have a place in the meta too but i don't really feel like fleshing out and trying to solve the rest of the type in this post.
next i saw a lot of talk about z moves being unhealthy in this tier. i can't speak for the future of this tier but in this generation i don't really think z moves are a huge issue. in all honesty you're giving up an item slot and your z user is vulnerable to hazards and other things which kind of tip the scale back to balance. there are a few cases of z users like and that do make a good case of z moves being unhealthy, so i definitely understand the argument behind it. i personally think it's very difficult to make a call on z moves right now, but certainly as more mechanics get added in future gens, z moves might be on the chopping block.

that's all i can think of right now tbh, this tier feels a little bit more of a breath of fresh air compared to sv mono right now, i'll definitely be back to post more if i think of more stuff to say!

In regards to the growing debate around banning Z-moves I wanted to make a more official type of post to address the whole community. First off, I personally have yet to decide whether I'd like to see Z-moves banned or not. The main point I'd like to talk about is that if any action were to be taken, it would have to be at the start of a new gen (Gen 10). If it occurred mid gen, all tiering actions up to this point would be irrelevant and the metagame would become extremely volatile while we sort out what banned Pokemon could come back and the effects that might have.

With that said, we came up with a testing ground if Z moves were to be banned. Z-less NDM is now a new format. All Z Crystals are banned and the following Pokemon have been unbanned to start off:


As I mentioned above, removing Z and starting over is going to be a cluster while we remove the strictly broken Pokemon (with or without Z). Starting from scratch let's us really test what could work now with a full dex and no preconceived notions.

If Z-less NDM gains a solid player base and can be tiered to a point of stability this could be used a working example of what Z-less NDM would look like if we made it official.

Read more about Z-less NDM here.

 

[Athyestic]

Enjoyment: 8
I like NDM! I think it’s a lot of fun at the moment, (nearly–rip bug lmao) every type is viable and enjoyable. Grass is fun to play and close to self sufficient (and admittedly, I tend to look at tiering with a plant tinted lens), which is nice.

Competitive / Balanced: 5
I don’t think any mono tier can be inherently competitive in its purest sense. Natdex Mono is still competitive by the scale of a mono tier, but that scale caps out at like a 5 or a 6 on the overall scale just by the nature of mono. Good tier though

Z Moves:
I think Z moves turn strong pokemon into broken ones. Ursaluna BM is the obvious example, what with it both being (currently) banned & made ludicrous by Normalium Z’s interaction with Blood Moon, but also Galarian Moltres (using Flyinium Z to break past its checks), Kommo-o (using its sig z move to get a 195 bp dragon move that also omniboosts), and Gholdengo (Weaponizing a knock immunity to click plot & blow up defensive cores with ghostium/fairium/steelium/electrium Z) all do potentially problematic things with Z moves. (that list, very obviously, isn’t exhaustive. Nearly any offensive pokemon or any pokemon with a knock weakness can run a Z crystal, and the good ones become problematic.) Icium Z Pex is the only notable defensive use of Z moves (though it is a big one), and as cool as this use is Z moves are still inherently purely offensive tools.

Gouging Fire: Generally unbalanced, would support tiering action
Stupid fucking pokemon that does stupid things. 115 attack isn’t a lot but its bulkline is insane, defensive variants can really just go to +6/+6 on a lot of the tier & offensive variants still have defensive utility just by nature of that raw bulk. Fire Ground (or Fire Dragon) isn’t perfect coverage BUT it’s good enough for what it needs to do. Also grass tinted lens lmao

Ogerpon-Wellspring: Entirely balanced, no action

Grass tinted lens (She’s better on water for sure) but it’s awfully mediocre at best on grass, and I really don’t think it’s problematic enough to warrant action. Hearthflame imo was banned a little shakily, and wellspring has even more problems since WA is much worse than Moldy ever was & unlike Hearthflame, you’re only ever seeing it on Water.

Terapagos-Terastal: Generally balanced, would not support tiering action.
I haven't seen it do anything meaningful–even though I know it can–and without Shed Tail it’s going to struggle to cheese games. Still objectively a cheese mon which I wouldn’t be that mad if it got banned, but I’m not seeing it right now.

Unbanning Hoopa-U: Neutral Opinion
I have never played a single non-draft game vs or with Hoopa-Unbound. I know it's a big strong wallbreaker with big strong stats but poor defensive typing and middling speed, and that’s all I truly know about it. It’s probably fine? But I don’t really know enough about it to say.

Unbanning Spectrier: Generally balanced, would support a suspect
I wish there was an option for “probably unbalanced, wouldn’t mind a sus anyway” because that’s how I feel about the mon rn. I doubt it’s actually going to be okay (Fast strong pokemon that can abuse Z moves and can snowball easily? Fuck no) but I think there’s enough rationale to suspect it back into the tier. Also ghost isn’t doing too hot rn and it’s a cool type so

Am I qualified: no lmao

Suspect order: Gouging fire gouging fire gouging fire gouging fire gouging fire please ty

Other things: Guys, Lugia is balanced in the current metagame! Trust me!!!!!! (It is not, please do not suspect Lugia)

Re: Z move metagame: I think there’s going to be a lot of early bans lmao, naganadel is likely broken irregardless of Z moves. Haven’t played a game tho so we’ll see!

 

[Ironmage]

While it's obviously secondary to whether generic attacking Z-moves should be banned (which I'm unqualified for), I'm curious as to whether or not some partial scenarios would be considered complex bans. Specifically,

1. Generic Z-crystals are considered items that break multiple pokemon, and are banned as a result. Signature Z-crystals cannot break multiple mons and so remain legal.
2. The attacking Z-moves (Breakneck Blitz, etc.) are banned as broken moves. The Z-crystal items remain legal and can be used with status moves.

What are everyone's thoughts on these?

 

[Dead by Daylight]

While it's obviously secondary to whether generic attacking Z-moves should be banned (which I'm unqualified for), I'm curious as to whether or not some partial scenarios would be considered complex bans. Specifically,

1. Generic Z-crystals are considered items that break multiple pokemon, and are banned as a result. Signature Z-crystals cannot break multiple mons and so remain legal.
2. The attacking Z-moves (Breakneck Blitz, etc.) are banned as broken moves. The Z-crystal items remain legal and can be used with status moves.

What are everyone's thoughts on these?

I believe that tiering policy doesn't recommend these types of bans, since they are both a foundation for further bans in that vein and just don't make too much sense in the grand scheme of things. In my experience, I haven't seen the true issue with Z-moves beyond specific banned mons like Ursaluna-BM and Dragapult. Those two, however, are unfortunate victims of National Dex's identity, and Z-moves are fine in my eyes.

 

[DomadragonAlvaro]

It's my first time on a discussion forum, I've played nat dex monotype for a long time and I've reached top 10 twice, a quick opinion would be to give ghost some banned pokemon again, I haven't come across any ghost team in these months I think its best gameplay is keeping spikes in play. Ghost is becoming a passive type, or at least that's what I think. But that is not the topic of my comment. Have you seen how broken Kommo-o is? Its Z move increases all its statistics, and if that were not enough, Clangorous Soul has the same effect, losing only 33% of life (which in a dragon type, it is not difficult to setup) it is too offensive and resistant at the same time, Flamethrower, Flash Canon (Iron head if carried only with physical movements along with drain fist) cover the guys that dragon cannot attack, ditto cannot defeat him for revenge thanks to Soundproof, which also makes him immune to roar, he also has taunt , negating haze, is there anything that can stop kommo-o after his Z move? (I even see Urshifu Dark as a better option for monotype fighting) At least consider a suspect. AV melmetal without taking damage and scraf moonblast is the only thing I can think of to stop it.