Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[Finchinator]

First off, can everyone stop being confrontational and straight-up rude? I had to delete a half dozen posts, and next time they’ll surely be accompanied by infractions.

Not nothing, but also not what we desperately need it to be doing right now. Shed Tail should not have survived this long and I have genuine concerns about the future of competitive Pokémon if the Council can’t even agree on that.

This is a massive reach. I agree that Shed Tail warrants action, so I voted ban both times, but your conclusions and expectations are silly. We have been entirely transparent that we are taking this week to focus on Tera and letting the more playable metagame develop; I know you have seen this as well because you frequent this thread. Shed Tail will be included in the community survey, so it’s not like we are from from action if the people want action either. There has been full communication on this.

And to say it threatens our game or community is laughable — it’s not even the most troublesome Pokemon or aspect of the metagame currently. And people are not going to flea Smogon because we didn’t quickban a fifth thing in two weeks rather than just four.

Why is it that every time people say “this thing beats stall”, it turns out to help stall more than it hurts it? What kind of deal with the devil did stall make?

This is just wrong. I am sorry, but it’s entirely off-base. Stall went from being the reactionary pick that can take-out unprepared teams during Palafin/Bundle meta since it actually handled those two to now being virtually unusable in serious arenas. I’ve played dozens of games this week and ran into stall on high ladder a grand total of one time.

Blissey losing Heal Bell is huge, the ghost bans opening up for Gholdengo spam makes hazards sticking unplayable for many stall teams, and Unaware reliance makes forcing free turns/Rest so easy, giving big breakers so many openings. If you don’t think stall got worse in the last week, we are playing vastly different metagames I am afraid.

 

[Finchinator]

Nah he‘s got a point if we’re being real. I can understand council wanting to focus on handling Tera right now, but I do legitimately think there are some strategies and tools that need to be looked at, completely independent of what happens to Tera. Stuff like Shed Tail and Gholdengo may benefit from Tera, but they’re still problematic regardless. Would it be possible to look at them in some capacity before a conclusion on Tera is reached? cyclizar quickban real yes yes

As we said many times publicly, they will be included in the survey that will be going out in the immediate future. If the players deem them as overly problematic, we will happily act like we did on the first four things. I have been very regular in communicating this and I know you’ve seen this since you have frequented this thread and the forums, so I’m not sure what else is desired here.

 

[Xufactor]

First off, can everyone stop being confrontational and straight-up rude? I had to delete a half dozen posts, and next time they’ll surely be accompanied by infractions.

Does this apply to your PMs?

 

[Martin]

I think that the calls to ban Shed Tail are, frankly, a giant red herring. The problem is very much Cyclizar: not the raw act of passing a Substitute. SubPass never was problematic in the first place, and any assertation that it was is just blatant revisionism around Baton Pass. And let's also not conflate the two, either, considering that they have balanced it taking turn rather than two by making the HP cost of Shed Tail is significantly steeper than it is with SubPass. It was very feasible for any generic fast Substitute user to pass three, four, five Subs per game with nothing more than Leftovers, but with Shed Tail, that is only realistically feasible with Regenerator, which is what really makes Cyclizar such a complete arsehole to deal with.

Cyclizar is just yet another case study in why Regenerator is very boring, unbalanced, and polarising game design. It allows Cyclizar to circumvent 2/3 of Shed Tail's built-in drawback at no risk to itself, compounded further by the fact that it is equally as fast as Tornadus-T and has access to pretty much the same (useful) utility options that Torn had to boot—it can pivot around Shed Tail and U-turn at little-to-no risk to itself due to its high Speed stat; it can remove items with Knock Off, disrupting both offence and defence on a consistent, low-risk option; it can disrupt setup and recovery with Taunt, which is especially useful for the offensive teams that Cyclizar often finds itself on; and it can contribute to the anti-hazard game with Rapid Spin. It is nigh impossible to counter its playstyle using hazards due to the combination of its high Speed and the existence of Heavy Duty Boots, and to top it all off, it doesn't even need to commit to passing off a Shed Tail on any given turn when it can just opt to U-turn out for free, strong, non-committal recovery due to the baffling game design decision to attach strong recovery to the lowest-risk option in the game (switching out).

This isn't me calling to ban Regenerator, obviously, as it is clear that Pokemon like Alomomola, Amoonguss, and Nerfedpex are not broken (even if I still thoroughly object to Regenerator as a game design choice on any of those Pokemon other than Alomomola), but I think it's important that we know what the actual problem element is, and it is the combination of this move+ability that Cyclizar brings to the table that allows for the frankly crazy SubPass game that we have going on at the moment.

Orthworm with Shed Tail is, at least based on my time using and playing against it, a very obviously balanced Pokemon. Its low speed and lack of recovery outside of Rest and Earth Eater (lol does that even count?) means that the act of passing off a Substitute is a highly committal decision, as there is no guarantee that you will be able to use Rest later to pass off a second one even if you do have a Chesto Berry and there is a very real risk of just being straight-up denied if you decide to set up hazards or otherwise do anything other than Shed Tail vs a Pokemon with any move that it isn't immune to due to being a base 65 Spe Pokémon with mediocre HP and SpD that depends on being at >50% health to do the one job that gives it anything more than a tiny immunity-centric niche, and that's before even factoring in Taunt users. Its Substitute is equally as sturdy as Cyclizar's due to its low HP, though the trade-off is that there is a better chance that it will stay up if it gets a chance to pass one off due to its lower Speed stat. There is no point in gimping a very obviously unproblematic Pokemon because of the impact that another significantly more problematic Pokemon is having on the game.

 

[Finchinator]

Does this apply to your PMs?

no you’ve been civil, even if I disagree with you. It’s specifically directed towards people insulting each other and making this an uncomfortable environment when it should be a safe space for discussion

 

[Xufactor]

I think that the calls to ban Shed Tail are, frankly, a giant red herring. The problem is very much Cyclizar: not the raw act of passing a Substitute. SubPass never was problematic in the first place, and any assertation that it was is just blatant revisionism around Baton Pass. And let's also not conflate the two, either, considering that they have balanced it taking turn rather than two by making the HP cost of Shed Tail is significantly steeper than it is with SubPass. It was very feasible for any generic fast Substitute user to pass three, four, five Subs per game with nothing more than Leftovers, but with Shed Tail, that is only realistically feasible with Regenerator, which is what really makes Cyclizar such a complete arsehole to deal with...

Technically, you can never isolate a move or ability as being broken. Magikarp would not be Ubers even with Shadow Tag, Last Respects, or Shed Tail. New mons could be legal with these moves and abilities.

On that note, whoever supported banning Last Respects over Houndstone,
Would you support banning Fleur cannon instead of Magearna in gen 8?
What about Libero instead of Cinderace?

 

[alephgalactus]

We have been entirely transparent that we are taking this week to focus on Tera and letting the more playable metagame develop; I know you have seen this as well because you frequent this thread. Shed Tail will be included in the community survey, so it’s not like we are from from action if the people want action either. There has been full communication on this.

All right, that’s fair. I guess it just feels like the past couple of weeks have been a lot longer than they actually are and that’s why things seem like they’re taking forever when in fact it’s been a single-digit number of days since the last quickban. Apologies for taking out my frustrations on the Council, which has, no matter what I say, been doing a damn good job this gen.

 

[Finchinator]

All right, that’s fair. I guess it just feels like the past couple of weeks have been a lot longer than they actually are and that’s why things seem like they’re taking forever when in fact it’s been a single-digit number of days since the last quickban. Apologies for taking out my frustrations on the Council, which has, no matter what I say, been doing a damn good job this gen.

it's ok, everyone is entitled to be frustrated and share their pov. i just ask that we all keep a levelheaded nature when doing so

the fact is we all care so much about the infancy of the metagame, but it is still in its infancy and there is SO MUCH to do. we're going to tackle it all in due time and let the community guide us along the way though, so just stay present and we gotchu

 

[tigers jaw]

Martin don't care for any of your other paragraphs because (no offence) they're largely irrelevant, but in response to the first one:

Subpass was very well problematic in the initial BP debacle, and to accuse others of revisionism, whilst engaging in it yourself, is hilariously ironic. Furthermore, you significantly understate the value of having it take 1 turn, rather than 2, to set up & pass a sub. The risk involved in these two scenarios: subbing, and then passing, or subbing WHILST passing, is oceans apart. Sub+BP necessitate two turns, giving your opponent two turns to plan & act accordingly, whilst forcing the BP user to invest more resources (be that moveslots, alternative options in those two turns, whatever). Shed Tail suffers none of these consequences, leaving player 1 in (almost always, due to Cyclizar's speed) riskfree scenarios, allowing them to react to any possible play that the opponent might have, be that switching or predicting the incoming mon (which will always be the mon with the most favourable MU vs player 2's current mon) - there is a clear imbalance here, seldom due to any single player's competence. On top of this, Shed Tail, or more specifically, Cyclizar, can easily get off 4-5 Shed Tails in any match if played. Shed Tail is leagues apart from manual Subpassing in terms of viability, degree of uncompetitivity, risk, planning, and influence.

Anyway, to comment on the discussion around banning Shed Tail or Cyclizar, I think out of consistency & principle we should be banning Shed Tail as a move that is inherently uncompetitive. It negates the impact of each player's planning/execution/building prowess to an unacceptable degree. Now, you may say "well, Orthworm isn't doing the same stuff as Cyclizar" - true! But alas, irrelevant. We can deem any element to be uncompetitive by its own merits alone. King's Rock wasn't problematic on Arm Thrust Heracross, yet, it was still deemed uncompetitive inherently. We should treat Shed Tail with the same principle.

 

[Ehmcee]

Technically, you can never isolate a move or ability as being broken. Magikarp would not be Ubers even with Shadow Tag, Last Respects, or Shed Tail. New mons could be legal with these moves and abilities.

On that note, whoever supported banning Last Respects over Houndstone,
Would you support banning Fleur cannon instead of Magearna in gen 8?
What about Libero instead of Cinderace?

You can absolutely isolate a move or ability as being broken, I think it's especially disingenuous of you to use one of the worst pokemon in competitive history to try to illustrate this point. Obviously Magikarp's multiple negative qualities make it ireedemable if you give it one single "broken" aspect.

It's a lot more useful to look at how the average pokemon comes to use these qualities and how it boosts their kit.
For example, back during the Arena Trap debacle, multiple users were used at different points of time, wether it be Dugtrio, Diglett or even Trapinch.

Diglett and Trapinch were used a fair amount in OU once Dugtrio was banned, and proved to be a problem even after the main abuser of the ability was banned. After the ability ban, Dugtrio was not used at all, falling down to the depths of PU, while Diglett and Trapinch both were relegated to their regular LC usage.

Arena Trap was the only aspect that made them viable, diglett and Trapinch are demonstrably below average pokemon with below average stats all around.


When it comes to banning Last Respects over Houndstone, there is a much larger case to be made about the move itself being broken then Fleur Cannon and the Libero ability. This is because Fleur Cannon already exists in other types as Overheat and Leaf Storm without being broken, while Libero has proven to be balanced on other pokemon that had the ability (Raboot and Scorbunny).

While I personally agree with the current council decision, on the terms of policy, I don't think it's reasonable to imply that no move or ability can have some merit as being broken on their own.

 

[Smoochie Mack]

https://pokepast.es/6a6791109e820852

First attempt at a hail team, I noticed that early on in this metagame that there are a lot of ground types so I tried to take advantage of the typing in order to blow through cores. Let me know any changes or suggestions I should make

 

[Xufactor]

When it comes to banning Last Respects over Houndstone, there is a much larger case to be made about the move itself being broken then Fleur Cannon and the Libero ability. This is because Fleur Cannon already exists in other types as Overheat and Leaf Storm without being broken, while Libero has proven to be balanced on other pokemon that had the ability (Raboot and Scorbunny).

"Much larger case", so the difference is in extent, or degree. Do you have a rule on this? Suppose there were other mons that learned Last Respects that were not broken, what would you say?

 

[MrHands]

I remember seeing posts claiming early gen 9 stall was common, yet now I can't find a single example of a successful stall team.

Is stall dead now or am I just out of the loop? Is there a good stall team you know of, or is something like Annihilape making the playstyle invalid?

 

[Finchinator]

I remember seeing posts claiming early gen 9 stall was common, yet now I can't find a single example of a successful stall team.

Is stall dead now or am I just out of the loop? Is there a good stall team you know of, or is something like Annihilape making the playstyle invalid?

It’s pretty inconsistent and uncommon

 

[dsbruce]

to be honest, a good shed tail and its gg lights out, since im low ladder horrible human trash, i know for a fact these goblins will lead cyclizar and i can just OHKO with *[industrial secret]* but when the guy uses 1% of his brain and waits untill he can properly pass to his Roaring Moon, its over, honestly, its kinda like pass where the user is kinda fast and not really punishable by many means, it can still be beatable, but it can go all wrong all too easy, kinda like Gholdengo, its beatable for sure, but its still frustrating as fuck

if theres a suspect about shit tail and gholdengo, ill vote ban on tails and no ban on dengo, but im still holding grudges untill im dead

i have had some fun nuking cyclizar leads with tera ice jolteon but ugh. cyclizar is in such an annoying speed tier. and if i want to smack it with tera ice gholdengo or something, all the sudden i have to be ice type all game. maybe tera fairy or fighting scarf gholdengo is the jump, but i also like having the option to run tera fire for corv

 

[Ehmcee]

"Much larger case", so the difference is in extent, or degree. Do you have a rule on this? Suppose there were other mons that learned Last Respects that were not broken, what would you say?

This is why I largely prefer the ruling that Smogon currently uses (i.e, first having to prove that the element is broken on multiple pokemon at once).
While I do believe that if other mons learned Last Respects, they would probably be broken as well, for example Greavard, it would definitely be a "wait and see" kind of situation. If we were back in the arena trap suspect, I would've also been a proponent of banning the main offender first, and then seeing if others come to abuse the aspect as well.

If and when Home comes around and Basculegion does in fact get Last Respects, I think there will probably be a legitimate discussion to unban Houndstone and ban Last Respects instead.

While I do believe in the current policy on the matter, I again believe however that Last Respects in particular is a lot stronger than any other move we've seen in competitive pokemon history, and is definitely the sole factor that led to Houndstone's ban.

 

[Flexxen]

Hi, just wanted to share some (more or less) underrated stuff that has been working out well for me while laddering up one of my alts
(went 25-0 with the first three, so I feel like it's worth sharing):



Umbreon @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 248 HP / 204 Def / 56 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Foul Play
- Wish
- Protect
- Thunder Wave / Charm / Taunt

Umbreon is a mon that is very underrated right now, it is a very sturdy dark and ghost resist, can pass Wishes (last recovery with 16PP btw) to mons with no recovery
and catch a lot of setup-sweepers with Foul Play.
You can for example switch into Booster Energy Roaring Moon as it DDs on your switch, tank the Tera Acrobatics and kill it with Foul Play.
+2 252+ Atk Roaring Moon Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 248 HP / 204+ Def Umbreon: 291-343 (74 - 87.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
It also revenges stuff like bulky SD Tera Kingambit and can deal with DD Dragonite or Dragapult.
With Tera Fairy and Charm / Taunt you can even stall out / mess with setup mons you would normally expect to easily beat it like Annihilape
or Garganacl.
T-Wave support is also really nice to have in general, especially if you pair it with something like Specs-Chi-Yu.



Great Tusk @ Assault Vest
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 224 HP / 16 Atk / 12 Def / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Brick Break
- Ice Spinner
- Rapid Spin

This set pairs really well with Umbreon, very bulky on both sides and loves Wish support, so it can stay healthy and keep spinning and
chipping away at your opponent's team.
Screens are everywhere right now, so Brick Break is really worth a slot imo, especially on a set like this where Body Press is only barely
stronger anyways.
I used Ice Spinner over Knock to help against Garchomp, with Wish Support it allows you to have a solid shot at keeping off hazards even
against Helmet Chomp.



Toxapex is also still really solid, obviously not as good as it was during its prime in Gen 7 and 8 but right now it's not very common, so
plenty of teams are not really prepared for it. Especially Eject Button can be nasty if you pair with stuff like Specs Chi-Yu (hello U-Turn Corv
lol) or whatever setup-sweeper / breaker your opponent might be weak to.

I don't have the best replays but these two showcase it at least somewhat:

Hide

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1730688278-o6ae8k3e9pxa856wthjmdfav9cw5zgypw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1730734943-ya37240ksazuurc3gqdgs4eaq6og9kjpw

I also tried out plenty of Trick Room and this is something I can definetely recommend:



Armarouge @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Armor Cannon
- Psychic
- Trick Room

Terra Dark Flash Fire Armarouge gives you a really good option against both Chi-Yu and Skeledirge (also helps vs Valiant), 2 mons that are really
annoying to face with TR.
It also allows you to catch stuff like Chien-Pao, Dragapult, Gholdengo, Annihilape or Kingambit with a well-timed Terra.
Even without Tera the fire immunity is really nice vs Chi-Yu if paired with some sturdy Dark resists and this is where TR has some great options
with Iron Hands and Kingambit.
Armarouge may seem too fast for TR at first glance but this was rarely an issue for me, you just need to see when you need to set up TR to enable your
breakers and when setting up TR can backfire because you're too fast.
The offensive coverage is actually really good, it actually hits A LOT of the meta for super-effective damage and one-shots most of them.
Even balance cores like Corv + Clod, don't enjoy facing Armarouge at all.

Some replays (didn't use it on higher ladder yet, mb):

Hide

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1720933818-axksr22lml32yww67vf6ap2xzgxaxyepw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1718862924-hjd775crc74xew78agu17gn20wjr9z3pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1725302967-sp6xbvc5nwtltvq4dbst3thbqpbtty1pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1725211405-v4dz1fh5te498vq83jk7kbajjgfvwn7pw

Overall, I haven't been able to play too much but this meta has been really fun so far.
There still might be some silly / broken stuff with Annihilape and Cyclizar (which I personally would like to see suspected before
anything is done about Tera) but using creative sets and trying to be ahead of current meta trends can still be very rewarding if done correctly,
which is a very good sign for this meta as far as I'm concerned.

 

[zakurenai]

Speed Ostroch is very manageable, and if you don’t make your opponent feel like he wasted a slot in his team with her, you are doing something wrong. Just Gholdengo who is everywhere checks her hard, not even talking about the sheer amount of great priority in the meta, the Dark Ground bulky mon, toxic spikes, etc.

And Annihilape has clear flaws you can play around. You just need to have a 91+ sd specs choice anything, and now Annihilape becomes completely useless too.

Stop blaming Tera and adapt. If you don't like strong options that you have to play around during the whole match and incorporate counterplay in your initial gameplan, then you might want to stop playing Pokemon.

At no point did I blame Terastallize
You might want to go back to school

 

[Skyuchi]

I remember seeing posts claiming early gen 9 stall was common, yet now I can't find a single example of a successful stall team.

Is stall dead now or am I just out of the loop? Is there a good stall team you know of, or is something like Annihilape making the playstyle invalid?

It's hard to play stall when nothing in this meta can switch in reliably to specs Chi-Yu running tera dark.
Not even Blissey and Chansey - they get 3HKO'd, and with a 20% flinch chance and only 8 Softboiled PP that's likely to happen, unless they're kept on full and end up thunder waving it back, although I've barely seen thunder wave on really anything this generation.

 

[zachmac]

Technically, you can never isolate a move or ability as being broken. Magikarp would not be Ubers even with Shadow Tag, Last Respects, or Shed Tail. New mons could be legal with these moves and abilities.

On that note, whoever supported banning Last Respects over Houndstone,
Would you support banning Fleur cannon instead of Magearna in gen 8?
What about Libero instead of Cinderace?

I'm largely neutral on the Houndstone vs Last Respects debate, but I never liked the idea of preserving moves/abilities just because a hypothetical new pokemon might come with them.

The metagame at the present is more important then a made up future one. Besides, new pokemon being introduced can also cause old ones to drop from Ubers anyway.

 

[Xufactor]

I'm largely neutral on the Houndstone vs Last Respects debate, but I never liked the idea of preserving moves/abilities just because a hypothetical new pokemon might come with them.

The metagame at the present is more important then a made up future one. Besides, new pokemon being introduced can also cause old ones to drop from Ubers anyway.

I totally get why you would ban the move until new mons come. It preserves Houndstone, and no other mon is affected. You just can't prove the move is broken.

 

[MrHands]

You just can't prove the move is broken.

lol it's a 300 power physical Ghost move with 16 PP and perfect accuracy it's clearly broken.

252+ Atk Choice Band Caterpie Last Respects vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Corviknight: 178-210 (44.5 - 52.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

It's obvious that the only thing making Houndstone broken is Last Respects. Theorymon is one thing, but common sense is another. However Smogon tiering policy is pretty clear here. Houndstone is the only Pokémon to get it and when a single Pokémon is broken we don't complex ban items or moves, we ban the Pokémon. In the future IF Basculegion is released with it (and assuming LR isn't scrubbed from it like Shadow Tag Chandelure or Rising Voltage Koko) Smogon may reconsider banning the move instead.

But for right now we ban the Pokémon.

 

[Goodstyle]

Witnessed a Revavroom sweep, check it out:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-1730890588

 

[Skyuchi]

lol it's a 300 power physical Ghost move with 16 PP and perfect accuracy it's clearly broken.

252+ Atk Choice Band Caterpie Last Respects vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Corviknight: 178-210 (44.5 - 52.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

It's obvious that the only thing making Houndstone broken is Last Respects. Theorymon is one thing, but common sense is another. However Smogon tiering policy is pretty clear here. Houndstone is the only Pokémon to get it and when a single Pokémon is broken we don't complex ban items or moves, we ban the Pokémon. In the future IF Basculegion is released with it (and assuming LR isn't scrubbed from it like Shadow Tag Chandelure or Rising Voltage Koko) Smogon may reconsider banning the move instead.

But for right now we ban the Pokémon.

The way I see it, inevitably we'll end up just changing this to a Last Respects ban anyway. Gamefreak clearly doesn't intend for Last Respects to be Houndstone's signature move. Even if Basculegion ends up not getting the move, they'll give it to something else down the line, like how multiple Pokemon now have Shadow Tag. My bet is this eventually will be on a lot of dead-themed ghost types (which is a lot of them....)
It really doesn't matter because nobody used Houndstone nor really cared about it outside the move, but the council made its decision and it's a dead issue. Either nothing else gets the move, and the Houndstone ban remains indefinitely, or a ton of other things get the move and the move is banned with Houndstone unbanned.

 

[Martin]

Subpass was very well problematic in the initial BP debacle, and to accuse others of revisionism, whilst engaging in it yourself, is hilariously ironic.

Except it never was one of the problems that led to Baton Pass being banned. Like, at all. If you look at every single itration of the Baton Pass clausing history, the problematic element has been, without exception, the ability to pass stat boosts. There was FullPass, which was just ludicrous for reasons I don't think need to be explained to anyone, then there were setup+Ingrain teams in the 3-passer meta, then there was Geomancy in the 1-pass meta, and then there was Speed Boost in the one-pass meta where you had to choose between passing Speed or passing other stats. Substitute was a supplemental beneficial element in a number of these to be sure, but yes: to paint it as if it was a major factor in the decision to banning Baton Pass is disingenuous to the point of constituting blatant revisionism. Passing a Substitute is very strong, I am not going to deny that, but at no point in any gen have options like SubPass Jolteon/similar ever been the breaking factor of Baton Pass, and I remember seeing arguments in favour of preserving elements like that used to defend the move's preservation across a range of generations.

Furthermore, you significantly understate the value of having it take 1 turn, rather than 2, to set up & pass a sub. The risk involved in these two scenarios: subbing, and then passing, or subbing WHILST passing, is oceans apart. Sub+BP necessitate two turns, giving your opponent two turns to plan & act accordingly, whilst forcing the BP user to invest more resources (be that moveslots, alternative options in those two turns, whatever). Shed Tail suffers none of these consequences, leaving player 1 in (almost always, due to Cyclizar's speed) riskfree scenarios, allowing them to react to any possible play that the opponent might have, be that switching or predicting the incoming mon (which will always be the mon with the most favourable MU vs player 2's current mon) - there is a clear imbalance here, seldom due to any single player's competence. On top of this, Shed Tail, or more specifically, Cyclizar, can easily get off 4-5 Shed Tails in any match if played. Shed Tail is leagues apart from manual Subpassing in terms of viability, degree of uncompetitivity, risk, planning, and influence.

I am also not denying that the direct benefit of Shed Tail is significantly stronger than SubPass. I commented on the balancing decision that they used to counter-balance its significantly stronger effect relative to Sub+Baton Pass and then commented on how the strongest user of the strategy ignores the vast majority of said drawback. This is foremost reason that Cyclizar is a problematic Pokemon, and it is also a big part of why this is an argument about option strength: not competitiveness.

Shed Tail, the same as any other pivoting move, is polarising not because it singlehandedly negates risk, but because delaying switch timing shifts where said risk is placed in a way that, assuming competent play, is typically user-favoured. In Cyclizar's case, there is little to no risk attached to it because Cyclizar is so fast that it can ignore the vast majority of the unbooosted metagame, the Substitute it summons protects the recipient from anything other than a sound move, Infiltrator user, or multi-hit, and it doesn't have to micromanage its HP in the same way as a normal Pokemon would due to the ludicrously poor design of Regenerator. In Orthworm's case, there is an appropriate degree of risk put onto Orthworm when it uses the move. Clicking Shed Tail means guaranteeing that it will take at least 50% damage on the turn that it uses the move. Additionally, because it is switching out via its movepool rather than the switch menu, anything that is faster than it has a chance to act before Orthworm vacates the field. When the Orthworm user clicks Shed Tail, it is because they believe that the recipient is going to contribute more to the rest of the battle than Orthworm would contribute with the 50%+ of its HP that it would otherwise have, which is an in-built risk that rewards good positioning, depends on a solid understanding of the game state and the user's win conditions. It is also taking a risk in the sense that, in order to use Shed Tail, the Orthworm user needs to know that it will have >50% of its max HP by the time the move is executed and that it won't be disrupted with Taunt or Whirlwind, which once again rewards good positioning as well as game knowledge. To conflate the impact of these two vastly different risk:reward scenarios and subsequently dismiss the move as "inherently uncompetitive" is, frankly, ludicrous.

Anyway, to comment on the discussion around banning Shed Tail or Cyclizar, I think out of consistency & principle we should be banning Shed Tail as a move that is inherently uncompetitive. It negates the impact of each player's planning/execution/building prowess to an unacceptable degree. Now, you may say "well, Orthworm isn't doing the same stuff as Cyclizar" - true! But alas, irrelevant. We can deem any element to be uncompetitive by its own merits alone. King's Rock wasn't problematic on Arm Thrust Heracross, yet, it was still deemed uncompetitive inherently. We should treat Shed Tail with the same principle.

The comparison to Orthworm is extremely relevant to this conversation because it provides a very clear and relevant contrast against Cyclizar. Any pro-ban argument relating to Cyclizar should be on the basis that it is an overpowered supportive presence, not on the basis Shed Tail it is uncompetitive or "negates the impact of each players planning/execution/building prowess" because both of these things are patently false in the context of any Pokemon that lacks the specific polarising attributes of Cyclizar. And even then, if you successfully create a situation where your setup sweeper or whatever is behind a Substitute that has been passed, it is because you have won the positioning war at a moment of relative passivity. If you create a checkmate situation with Shed Tail, it is because your opponent's offensive strategy had a hole that the Shed Tail user could exploit. Cyclizar is an overpowerred option because its tools for reducing risk are strong enough that it can substantially narrow the range of watertight structures and gameplans in a given matchup, but that doesn't change the fact that you are winning because your team was superior to your opponent's in the matchup, your opponent's offensive game-plan wasn't watertight when factoring in the presence of Cyclizar, or both. There is no RNG involved, and these are all the results of conscious decisions made by yourself or your opponent in both the battle and pre-battle phases. This is entirely competitive.

I also don't really like the comparison to King's Rock. I don't think anyone competent, when discussing King's Rock, was particularly concerned about a 10% flinch rate or a Pokemon that could not consistently get the 5 hits necessary to attempt a dice roll that even began to pretend to be user-favoured. That was never what was considered problematic about King's Rock, as much as it kinda felt bad when it did happen to do something. The problem was always Cloyster, which was fast enough to outrun the entire unboosted metagame at +2 and had access to both a 100% accurate, 125 BP STAB with a 41% flinch rate and 125 BP, 90% accurate secondary move with solid neutral coverage and an also-41% flinch rate. Its defensive responses were often forced into situations where sacrifices were forced in order to avoid sequences where multiple back-to-back 41% rolls needed to be avoided for one attempt at counterplay. The other users were footnotes moreso than than real justifications for banning the item: King's Rock Weavile was, frankly, terrible and was kinda a meme theorymon argument in favour of banning King's Rock, but it got brought up due to sharing a lot of similarities with Cloyster (at least in the early game), even if in practice it was pretty much strictly worse than just running slapping a Choice Band on it and circumventing all the same stuff that King's Rock targeted anyway. Cinccino wasn't a problem or even something that anyone ever complained about (even with King's Rock it basically amounts to playing 5v6 vs any team with a bulky Steel-type lol), which makes it very clear to see that real biggest problem with King's Rock was just that nobody liked facing it. Cloyster actually being an actually-good 'mon that it happened to make stronger was just enough of a factor to scapegoat it as a problem of competitiveness in order to preserve something that was more fun than/contributed more to player expression than King's Rock did, which even if it's not strictly "proper policy," is a good enough compromise to at least be able to get behind.

To sorta expand on this idea, it is worth noting that there is a large disparity in the level of impact that the two elements (Shed Tail and King's Rock) have on the overall strength of their users, which should be factored into the comparison regardless of your stance on whether either is "competitive" or not because it paints a much better picture of what they each represent on their respective users. At no point was King's Rock the defining factor behind whether a Pokemon was viable or not. The one Pokemon that it did actually impact the relevance of was already a highly competent Pokémon with rather limited defensive counterplay in in its own right that King's Rock simply amplified, and the other collateral was to Pokemon that weren't particularly strengthened by the item regardless due to the way that they functioned (and their much more polarising drawbacks in the case of Cincc), so it was never really a contributor to either option variety or player expression; the only real player expression King's Rock added was gambling gimmicks vs guaranteed firepower, which (aside from Cloyster) only provided the illusion of choice because guaranteed firepower is objectively stronger on anything that has no viable alternative means of making meaningful progress regardless.

Shed Tail, on the other hand, is a strong enough tool on its own merits that it can be considered a defining feature of its users' kits. Orthworm without Shed Tail is a kinda shitty Steel-type that is pretty OK vs Garchomp/Dragonite/etc. if they lack Fire-type coverage at the cost of not having a brilliant matchup into most other Pokemon due to its stat spread, lack of non-Rest recovery, and absence of utility beyond access to double hazards (very common in the current meta) and I guess the ability to react to one-stage physical setup vs Pokemon it resists by using Coil? With Shed Tail, it is a (relatively) versatile utility option that has the option to make a heavy commitment in order to hopefully enable a breakthrough scenario or checkmate situation. Even if its overall viability ends up being rather low, there is a very strong argument that keeping it around makes the game more interesting by increasing option variety and that its presence increases the skill gap attached to the use of Orthworm, which is ultimately what should take precedence over anything else when said Pokemon is very obviously not causing any problems.