It's been nearly three years since, and Manaphy has never gotten a chance to play around in the modern tier, where much more viable counterplay exists to it. Nowadays, Clodsire, Slowking, and Desolate Land Heatran are defensive staples, common offensive Pokemon like Meowscarada and Ogerpon-Wellspring tear it apart, 2 Ability Clause has expanded the variety of Regenerator core components, and Water Absorb and Desolate Land see far more usage in the presence of Weatherspeed. Additionally, Manaphy's 4 Moveslot Syndrome was not solved in the years since its ban; Tail Glow sets are forced to pick between Energy Ball, Ice Beam, and Psychic, all of which leave it vulnerable to a different defensive staple. Manaphy would appear to have two distinct roles within the tier: primarily its incredibly solid RegenVest pivot like in AAA, but also as a setup sweeper able to bypass Ting-Lu. To many of us, the tier looks prepared for the return of Manaphy, but the real question is: are you?
- In the second Pokebilities AAA survey, a 68% supermajority indicated interest in Suspect Testing Manaphy. No action was taken at this time, as two team tournaments (AAAPL and TPP) were taking place in the near future.
- In the leadup to the third Pokebilities AAA survey, towards the end of TPP, the council received feedback that the format was not as competitive as it could be, and that several Pokemon in the tier were constraining in the builder. The council identified Iron Hands, Meowscarada, Samurott-Hisui, Talonflame, and Tornadus-Therian as the most constraining factors in the teambuilder and during gameplay.
- The results of the third survey did not indicate that a specific Pokemon was seen as the primary issue by the public, with a plurality of voters suporting no action on Iron Hands, Meowscarada, Samurott-Hisui, Talonflame, or Tornadus-Therian.
- The council discussed a potential unban wave of several Pokemon that may deserve a chance in the tier, such as Archaludon, Floatzel, Ursaluna-Blood-Moon, Victreebel, and Yanmega. The council voted 6-0 to on take action on Manaphy first, as the suspect had previously established support and a tier with RegenVest Manaphy present would make several of these Pokemon easier to handle.
The instructions to participate in this suspect are as follows:
- Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in Pokebilities AAA before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W-L does not count for this—the account you use must never have played Pokebilities AAA before the test, full stop.)
- You can use /rank to check if your alt is allowed to get requirements. Whenever in doubt, type /rank and it will tell confirm if you are eligible or not
- At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
- Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact dhelmise, Giagantic, or any other OM/OMM Staff member.
- If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM dhelmise!
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