Ubers SV National Dex Ubers Suspect I - Diamonds

[Guard]

The National Dex Ubers council has decided to suspect test Terastal.

Reasoning

It is no secret that Terastal has been the most divisive topic in National Dex Ubers since the very inception of the metagame. The ability to change types on a whim and gain new / stronger STAB moves and resistances makes for a mechanic that is simultaneously refreshing and questionable in a centralized metagame such as ours. On one hand, being able to cover dangerous threats through Tera types in the teambuilder allows for unprecedented role compression. Good examples are Tera Grass Ho-Oh being used as a backup check to Arceus-Ground and Tera Fairy Zygarde-C being used as a check to Koraidon, among many other relevant examples. Another major positive is the breath of fresh air that Terastal bestows upon otherwise forgotten Pokemon such as Deoxys-A, Calyrex-I, and Kyurem-B.

While Terastal definitely has its positives, plenty of grievances have been brought up regarding the offensive applications of the mechanic. Tera Fairy Zygarde-C, Tera Fire Koraidon, and Tera Electric Xerneas are prime examples of Pokemon that really push boundaries as Terastal abusers, making great use of their newfound resistances and STAB moves to tear through would-be checks. The likes of Tera Grass Primal Kyogre, Tera Ground Primal Groudon, and Tera Normal Arceus are not too far behind, either. All in all, Terastal holds an incredibly delicate place in our metagame. The council has been discussing how to tackle the matter extensively for the past couple of weeks, and we feel that a simple suspect test with a Ban / Do Not Ban vote is a fair first step given the divided opinions amongst the playerbase.

Suspect Test Information

• Reading this is mandatory for participating in the suspect test. The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 30 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE will suffice.
• The table for this can be found below:

Requisites

GXE	minimum games
84	30
83.8	31
83.6	32
83.4	33
83.2	34
83	35
82.8	36
82.6	37
82.4	38
82.2	39
82	40
81.8	41
81.6	42
81.4	43
81.2	44
81	45
80.8	46
80.6	47
80.4	48
80.2	49
80	50

• You must sign up with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be NDUTS. For example I could use the name NDUTS Guard
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted.
• We will be using the regular National Dex Ubers ladder for this suspect test, and Terastal will be legal throughout the entire suspect test.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• The suspect test will go on for roughly two weeks, lasting until July 9th at 11:59pm GMT+1, and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Here's a list of rules that we expect all posters to follow:

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the National Dex Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering to these will help out the moderation team and present your arguments in a better and more educated light.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it.

The test will run until July 9th 11:59pm GMT+1. In order to ban Terastal, a 66.6% supermajority will be required. If you meet the requirements, post a screenshot in the voting requirements thread - but please take note of the criteria outlined there when you do in order to be eligible. Happy posting and laddering!

tagging Kris for the suspect alert, thank you!

 

[Eledyr]

Hey.

I know a lot of people may find this suspect inappropriate, so I must make a post explaining the reasoning behind it. I have been vocal about Tera these last weeks, and a strong supporter of a Tera restriction, which I still believe would be the best option. There's quite a lot of things to cover, so I'll try to make it step by step.

I must say one thing immediately: it took me a lot to accept the suspect as it is right now, and I'm still unsure whether or not Tera should be banned entirely. Many Pokemon certainly abuse it -obvious examples being the Xerneas, Zygarde-C, and Koraidon trio-, but many Pokemon that can use it are fine the way the tier is balanced. I think the people in the Tiering Council can vouch for it when I say I've been vocal about how I do NOT want Xerneas and Zygarde-C to be banned. I strongly believe that these are core pieces of the metagame, and removing them entirely would only lead to a worse state. That being said, what led me to accept this suspect is that the amount of Pokemon Terastallization actually changes is massive. I'm quite repeating myself again, but even if we don't talk about the three best users, basically all Pokemon in the tier can use and abuse it, with the exceptions of Megas and Z-move users.

Balancing it would lead to an unreasonable number of council votes/suspect tests, both of which are not sustainable for both the playerbase and the overall interest of the tier. This is also the reason why we are not doing this suspect test with the option of a "Tera List", as mentioned in this thread we made a few days ago. We had many feedbacks in the shadows, which made us realize how much of a pain this option would led to. This is without going into the rabbit hole of which Pokemon should be added into the Tera List, and why adding it into the Tera List and not banning them, which is a completely subjective opinion that is borderline with Smogon's tiering philosophy.

In the end, we were told we could do what we wanted to do, but the whole tiering council believe this was the best tiering action that we could do that would not led to a worse state of the metagame in the future and that will be sustainable. Ultimately, this is not something I am particularly happy to follow, but it's the most reasonable. I invite anyone to do this suspect test and vote for what they believe to be the best. As said at the moment, I don't know what I'll vote, but I'll do this suspect test for sure.

 

[Gangsta Spongebob]

I'd say Tera is in an interesting position in Nat Dex Ubers. Tera is a travesty in Nat Dex OU, largely owing to its ability to flip matchups and cut down on the counterplay of already centralizing Pokemon. While these core issues are still present here, they're not as significant. The meta is much bulkier, which means it's harder to just cheese past entire teams with a setup sweeper. And Ubers is inherently a more centralized metagame, which means that while a many notable Pokemon have less counterplay, we don't have to worry about a billion other things at the same time. This isn't to say that Nat Dex Ubers is a stale metagame, which is far from the truth, but with so many Ubers just being statistically better than most other Pokemon, we can better afford to build accounting for Tera.

However, I still ultimately believe a Tera ban is the best route going forward. As had been touched on in the previous post, Xerneas, Zygarde-C, and Koraidon have been notorious abusers of Tera. Xerneas will almost certainly have to be banned with this mechanic around; its counterplay is more specific than most other threats, so it being able to Tera past most of its traditional answers causes massive centralization issues. Koraidon and Zygarde also have very high odds of being too much. The former is exceptionally hard to consistently check when factoring in its ability to Tera. The latter is even worse, as it largely flips its counterplay, effectively requiring multiple Pokemon to check its various Tera types.

Losing these 3 Pokemon will have huge ramifications on the diversity of the metagame, but there's also a high likelihood of more following them. I've found numerous Pokemon, from Extreme Killer Arceus to setup variants of Primal Groudon, to be excessively hard to offensively or defensively check. Now I'm not sure exactly what will be banned, especially with the fallout of the likely Xerneas ban and the fact that I don't want to think about Nat Dex Ubers without Primal Groudon, but it's clear we'd likely have to sacrifice numerous cornerstones of our metagame to keep Tera abusers in line.

Ultimately, while Tera isn't the worst thing ever, it's leading the metagame in the negative direction that hurts its diversity and requires an excessive amount of bans to keep in line. I am voting BAN, and I implore others to vote the same.

 

[wafflecone67]

Personally, I've never been a fan of generational gimmicks baring mega evolution, and the reason for that is that I feel as though surprise mechanics like Dmax, Tera and Z moves(to a lesser extent) don't reward thoughtful switching and counterplay. The board positioning component of this game is completely lost when the opponent on the losing side of the 1 v 1 can completely flip that around in an instant. I'm going to preface this by saying I'm in the full ban camp. No restrictions. No half measures. If we're going to do any tiering action Tera either needs to stay in its entirety or be banned in its entirety. The base issues that it has aren't solved. Having effectively 1 free turn in Pokemon is insane. It makes mons like Necrozma dusk mane absolutely soul-crushing to go up against because of the bulk he already has + plus weakness policy making it a nightmare to retaliate. In this situation, the raw issues with Tera aren't really solved. It still promotes 50/50s almost every turn, and in a game where every small advantage matters. I just don't see Tera having a healthy impact in any tier really. Let alone nat dex ubers. For this reason I will be voting Ban.