Proposal Allow Zygarde without Power Construct to be tiered lower than Zygarde with Power Construct

[Zrp200]

Hello! I'm the tier leader of National Dex Ubers UU. I'm also posting on behalf of Soviet Piñata and ilikeeatingcrayons, who are council members of Gen 8 Ubers UU. This also would have implications for actual Ubers UU if Zygarde is reintroduced in Gen 10.

We are looking to resolve a gray area of current tiering policy. Currently, as I understand it, this proposal only affects Zygarde and Ubers UU-based tiers.

A little less than a month ago, National Dex Ubers UU tried to unban Zygarde without Power Construct, under the belief that Zygarde was actually UUberBL and Zygarde-Complete was banned by usage. We were blocked.

So, no. As it stands, Zygarde is still ND Ubers OU, regardless of power construct being its picked ability, so it wont be magically unbanned.

Normally, I would agree with this. Tiering policy clearly does not allow for mons to be tiered based on selected ability. However, tiering policy does allow tiering by forme.

There really isn't any precedent on this exact issue that I can find. The closest analogue I can find in Greninja-Bond, which is also a different forme from Greninja and uses the same method of distinguishing, but that Pokemon has never been tiered above Greninja as far as I can tell.

Relevant cases:

• Megas are allowed to be tiered above the base Pokemon despite not starting out as them when battle starts.
• SV UUbers currently bans Arceus-Base but allows Arceus formes like Arceus-Poison
• Silvally-Base has been tiered lower than its other formes in the past.

For any who aren't aware, Zygarde has five different formes, not three.

1. Zygarde without Power Construct (the only forme that existed in Gen 6)
2. Zygarde with Power Construct
3. Zygarde-10% without Power Construct
4. Zygarde-10% with Power Construct
5. Zygarde-Complete (battle-only forme)

Unlike other Pokemon, Zygarde cannot switch its ability via ability capsule or ability patches. Instead, it must use the Reassembly Unit (gen 7) or Zygarde Cube (gen 8) to switch between formes, and event Zygarde are not able to be changed at all. Even though some of these these formes look the same, they are different, hence all the weird representations.

As such, it is my understanding that these forms should be, at least nominally, able to be treated seperately in tiering.

Unbanning Specifically For Ubers UU​

As a reminder, virtually 100% of the usage of Zygarde in any Ubers metagame is Power Construct (specifically forme 2). As an example, here's last month's moveset breakdown of Zygarde in 1630 National Dex Ubers.

Yes, Zygarde is obviously above the cutoff here. I won't argue about that.

However, Power Construct (forme 2/5) is responsible for all of that usage.

If we tracked Zygarde's formes by any metric that did not automatically combine formes (1) and (2), Zygarde forme 1's usage of less than 0.125% would clearly not reach the minimum threshold to be considered "Ubers OU".


We are looking for an acknowledgement of this so we can free it in our metagames, or at the very least a proper discussion on the matter.

 

[Bobsican]

There really isn't any precedent on this exact issue that I can find. The closest analogue I can find in Greninja-Bond, which is also a different forme from Greninja and uses the same method of distinguishing, but that Pokemon has never been tiered above Greninja as far as I can tell.
View attachment 697308

There actually was once a time Battle Bond was made Uber in Gen 8 NDOU (then was suspect tested and unbanned since then), and it's clear the ban was made separately from Greninja as a whole, meaning that Greninja with Protean or Torrent were still legal in NDOU at the time.

Therefore a strong case can be made for Power Construct merely being ND Ubers OU, while Zygarde with Aura Break is legal by default in ND Ubers UU (unless they ban it, but then that'd be technically ND Ubers UUBL).

 

[dhelmise]

There actually was once a time Battle Bond was made Uber in Gen 8 NDOU (then was suspect tested and unbanned since then), and it's clear the ban was made separately from Greninja as a whole, meaning that Greninja with Protean or Torrent were still legal in NDOU at the time.

Battle Bond Greninja was banned from NDOU, not Greninja + Battle Bond. I do find it interesting how the OP didn't include the third form in the screenshot.

It is true that Zygarde isn't actually 3 formes but 5 formes (aura break zyg-50%, power construct zyg-50%, aura break zyg-10%, power construct zyg-10%, zyg-c) and we just haven't implemented the other 2 formes, but it should be clarified that the ban you specified isn't a complex ban because it's a separate forme.

This also applies now because if Zygarde's missing formes did exist, them being tiered separately would be plausible. However, they currently don't (I cannot speak as to why they never got implemented at the time--I wasn't the one who did it), so the usage stats objectively say Zyg-50% is currently entirely in ND Ubers OU (am I missing any other addendums to the tier acronym...).

 

[Bobsican]

This also applies now because if Zygarde's missing formes did exist, them being tiered separately would be plausible. However, they currently don't (I cannot speak as to why they never got implemented at the time--I wasn't the one who did it), so the usage stats objectively say Zyg-50% is currently entirely in ND Ubers OU (am I missing any other addendums to the tier acronym...).

A quick browse on save editing software does show that SV does internally still have the 5 Zygarde formes implemented:

Unless you mean their existence in Pokemon Showdown itself, in which case that'd imply some work would ideally have to be done on the matter for consistency purposes, even if that'd then require waiting for "proper" usage statistics for the next three month wave or so to actually drop to ND Ubers UU Aura Break Zygarde formes.

 

[dhelmise]

I am talking about implementation on PS. Implementing this is almost a nonissue, but the better question is: why change the implementation, PS-wise or usage stats-wise? What makes this different from Zen Mode on Darmanitan? There's never a guarantee that Zygarde will set off Power Construct in a battle (unlike other tools ie Mega Evolution and Primal Reversion), so what makes Zygarde different?

There's also something to be said about a lower usage-based tier arbitrarily deciding when to drop what aspects of a Pokemon, but I think the answer to that is simple: they shouldn't get to decide.

 

[Bobsican]

Megas do not trigger on switch-in unlike Primal Reversion (they are manually triggered by the player in a selected turn), meaning that it's possible to let the Pokemon be used without Mega Evolving in the same way a Zygarde can participate in a match without actually triggering Power Construct, for example I can cite a replay of Audino prefering to keep Regenerator over Mega Evolving.

For the purposes of easier discussion it may be desirable to clarify what kind of circumstances would be desirable to change the implementation regarding Zygarde's formes, as I'm almost sure the above paragraph doesn't change much.

 

[Zrp200]

I am talking about implementation on PS. Implementing this is almost a nonissue, but the better question is: why change the implementation, PS-wise or usage stats-wise? What makes this different from Zen Mode on Darmanitan? There's never a guarantee that Zygarde will set off Power Construct in a battle (unlike other tools ie Mega Evolution and Primal Reversion), so what makes Zygarde different?

There's also something to be said about a lower usage-based tier arbitrarily deciding when to drop what aspects of a Pokemon, but I think the answer to that is simple: they shouldn't get to decide.

I'm not going to lie, I considered arguing for Darmanitan-Zen to be tiered separately, because clearly it would be ZU due to being Defeatist but even worse, and I would totally run it there. Also, Maybe National Dex OU would allow Galarian Darmanitan-Zen. Maybe it wouldn't. But would it be cool? Yeah. Is it related? No.

However, to answer your question:

• with Sheer Force and with Zen Mode are internally considered the same Pokemon, while Zygarde-50% with Power Construct and Zygarde-50% without Power Construct are two different Pokemon internally.
• Even if they weren't, the situation would be tiering the battle transformation forme lower, which we have never ever done. A Mega is never tiered below its base forme: see Mega Garchomp being OU by technicality since its existence began.

I am talking about implementation on PS. Implementing this is almost a nonissue, but the better question is: why change the implementation, PS-wise or usage stats-wise? What makes this different from Zen Mode on Darmanitan? There's never a guarantee that Zygarde will set off Power Construct in a battle (unlike other tools ie Mega Evolution and Primal Reversion), so what makes Zygarde different?

I don't find this line of questioning useful. Primal Reversion, fine, yes, it's guaranteed unless Shedinja ever gets a Primal Reversion and gets OHKOed by hazards before transforming.

But Megas in particular are not guaranteed to set off their transformation. As an example, what if the player simply doesn't hit the Mega Evolution button, perhaps because they never got the chance because their Pokemon got OHKOed on the switch?

We can say that Zygarde's "Mega Evolution" button is simply it being at 50% HP. If it gets OHKOed before that happens, fine, it didn't transform. But otherwise, it's treated as if it was always Zygarde-Complete once it hits that point.

There's also something to be said about a lower usage-based tier arbitrarily deciding when to drop what aspects of a Pokemon, but I think the answer to that is simple: they shouldn't get to decide.

I agree, arbitrarily dropping aspects of a Pokemon shouldn't be allowed. However, this isn't arbitrary: this is a completely different forme of Zygarde that just so happens to have the same visual on switch-in.

 

[Aberforth]

But Megas in particular are not guaranteed to set off their transformation. As an example, what if the player simply doesn't hit the Mega Evolution button, perhaps because they never got the chance because their Pokemon got OHKOed on the switch?

We can say that Zygarde's "Mega Evolution" button is simply it being at 50% HP. If it gets OHKOed before that happens, fine, it didn't transform. But otherwise, it's treated as if it was always Zygarde-Complete once it hits that point.

There are a few key differences there. For one, Megas dont have things that will stop the mega on the turn its clicked, the way Zygarde does with things like being phazed on the turn it was under 50% health, or leftovers taking it over that 50% threshold. For another, Mega Evolution is entirely within the control of the player, whereas Zygarde's transformation is normally down to the opponent (barring substitute, but even then they can speed it up or prevent it via taunt). But nitpicking a comparison isnt really useful, I just wanted to make those counterarguments to the similarity of megas and power construct before starting because I dont think comparing things to megas is a good argument regardless.

Megas are a poor precedent for tiering policies. The precedents they set are messy, due to them being effectively a generational mechanic, and worth implementing for the sake of giving more pokemon to more tiers, as well as avoiding tiering instability with things like Mega Pinsir being on the cusp between UUBL and OU for most of a generation.

The precedent we have is that, aside from Megas, the only forms that are seperate for tiering purposes are ones that start the battle as different forms to the base pokemon. Ash-Greninja, Meloetta-P, Zen Mode Galarian Darmanitan and most recently Terapagos have all been tiered as one collective Pokemon with their regular versions, while the Rotom and Silvally formes are seperate because they start the battle in their formes and cannot change between them. With Zygarde specifically, for Official Tiers, Power Construct was banned entirely from OU and below, not Zygarde-C. The distinction between them in the teambuilder is, as far as I remember, purely a visual aide. Tiering Pokemon with separate abilities is not something we're looking at doing at this time, as tiering any element of a pokemon seperate to the whole is undesirable to us.

The fact that Zygarde technically has 5 forms in the code of the games doesnt change this. Vivillon technically has 18 different formes, but we arent looking to tier them seperately either. Same with Tatsugiri's formes. For practical purposes, Zygarde has three forms, one of which is only usable by triggering an ability on one of the other two. There is not enough seperation from things like Zen-Mode Darmanitan for me to think this proposal is a good change for our tiering as a whole.

 

[Zrp200]

Proxy Posting for ilikeeatingcrayons:

So first of all, thank you ZRP for proxy posting for me.​

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Secondly, making comparisons to mons with other forms is irrelevant to these discussions. Zygarde-50 is not at all like Vivillon, as there is an actual difference Zygarde-50 and Zygarde-Complete.​

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Thirdly, there is a substantial enough difference between the situation with Zen Mode Darmanitan and our current situation. This lies entirely in the fact that we are arguing over tiering the base form rather than the transformed form. Zygarde-50 would be analogous to Base Garm and Zygarde-Complete would analogous to Zen Mode Darm.​

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Next, there is a perfectly good of showing that Zygarde-50 is not objectively OUbers, looking at usage. These are the usage stats for 3 random months of SS Ubers: 2022-10 (1500) [https://www.smogon.com/stats/2022-10/moveset/gen8ubers-1500.txt], 2021-11 (1630) [https://www.smogon.com/stats/2021-11/moveset/gen8ubers-1630.txt], and 2020-12 (1760) [https://www.smogon.com/stats/2020-12-H2/moveset/gen8ubers-1760.txt]. On top of this, I looked at UPL XII, where Zygarde was used a total of 10 times, 8 of which were confirmed to be Power Construct, 1 which was not sent out, and 1 which I cannot find for the life of me. There are fairly objective ways of finding out whether or not Zygarde-50 is OUbers or not.​

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At the end of the day, I find there is reasonable arguments for Zygarde-50 and Zygarde-Complete to be tiered separately. And even if you aren't entirely sure, remember that this is entirely for the benefit of lower Ubers tiers. Allowing Zygarde-50 to be tiered separately gives us the choice as to whether or not we a allow Zyagrde in the tier.​

 

[Zrp200]

......................

Sorry for the double post. I believe I should add some clarification to some things.

It is worth noting that Ubers UU isn't currently represented at all in the builder, so any decision regarding Zygarde would require absolutely no simulator changes at all.

It would require National Dex deciding (in what would be a moment of tiering absurdity) to unban Zygarde-Complete, in which case Zygarde-50 would quite clearly immediately become UU after shifts because Zygarde-50-PC would see all the use.

I mentioned Silvally because allowing the base forme and banning an item-locked variant of it could be interpreted as complex banning that Memory+Silvally, but in that case it was decided to just let it go through and treat it as a different forme entirely.
In truth, Arceus in Ubers UU is the more baffling decision, as it is is literally forced to be item-locked into a Plate and is not legal itemless, while we aren't seeing National Dex attempt to unban Genesect-Burn (at least not yet) by using the same reasoning. These things weren't done just for the hell of it—they were done in the interest of promoting diversity in a way that makes sense to the players involved.

There are a few key differences there. For one, Megas dont have things that will stop the mega on the turn its clicked, the way Zygarde does with things like being phazed on the turn it was under 50% health, or leftovers taking it over that 50% threshold. For another, Mega Evolution is entirely within the control of the player, whereas Zygarde's transformation is normally down to the opponent (barring substitute, but even then they can speed it up or prevent it via taunt). But nitpicking a comparison isnt really useful, I just wanted to make those counterarguments to the similarity of megas and power construct before starting because I dont think comparing things to megas is a good argument regardless.

Megas are a poor precedent for tiering policies. The precedents they set are messy, due to them being effectively a generational mechanic, and worth implementing for the sake of giving more pokemon to more tiers, as well as avoiding tiering instability with things like Mega Pinsir being on the cusp between UUBL and OU for most of a generation.

The precedent we have is that, aside from Megas, the only forms that are seperate for tiering purposes are ones that start the battle as different forms to the base pokemon. Ash-Greninja, Meloetta-P, Zen Mode Galarian Darmanitan and most recently Terapagos have all been tiered as one collective Pokemon with their regular versions, while the Rotom and Silvally formes are seperate because they start the battle in their formes and cannot change between them. With Zygarde specifically, for Official Tiers, Power Construct was banned entirely from OU and below, not Zygarde-C. The distinction between them in the teambuilder is, as far as I remember, purely a visual aide. Tiering Pokemon with separate abilities is not something we're looking at doing at this time, as tiering any element of a pokemon seperate to the whole is undesirable to us.

The fact that Zygarde technically has 5 forms in the code of the games doesnt change this. Vivillon technically has 18 different formes, but we arent looking to tier them seperately either. Same with Tatsugiri's formes. For practical purposes, Zygarde has three forms, one of which is only usable by triggering an ability on one of the other two. There is not enough seperation from things like Zen-Mode Darmanitan for me to think this proposal is a good change for our tiering as a whole.

I omitted a difference earlier from Zen Mode: Zen Mode is two-way; Darmanitan-Zen will transform back into Standard forme if above 50% HP, making it a completely inappropriate comparison to begin with for a Pokemon with a permanent in-battle transformation like Zygarde-50%-PC.

Vivillon is also a disingenius comparison, as its formes are mechanically identical outside of visuals, making them more "forms" than anything. They don't even have different abilities.

Re Megas: the comparisons are coming up due to the BST change. Coming from a Natdex perspective—where an admittedly non-insignificant part of it is applying old gen precedent to current gens—I believe precedent is precedent, and gimmicks in particular should be aimed to have a consistent understanding so that everyone is on the same page when PR get flooded next gen with a new heated discussion from about how we should or shouldn't tier a theoretical mon's "Super Unbounded" forme triggered by clicking "Unleash" at 69% HP or less, but only in the special event release version vs the standard Bounded and Unbounded forme given in-game.

While it is true that Terapagos-Stellar was decided to be tiered together and it also features a BST change, it is my understanding that it was done because there was no reasonable way to separate them in the builder, with the in-battle Mega Rayquaza Clause strategy decided to be too much of a complex solution to be worth it. Here, that only applies to Zygarde-50-PC, which isn't even in argument, leaving Zygarde-50—which has 0 in-battle transformation mechanics to begin with and thus is easily separated—totally free to use for "lower tiers" regardless.

 

[TheMantyke]

No horse in this race, just wanted to refine something:

The fact that Zygarde technically has 5 forms in the code of the games doesnt change this. Vivillon technically has 18 different formes, but we arent looking to tier them seperately either. Same with Tatsugiri's formes. For practical purposes, Zygarde has three forms, one of which is only usable by triggering an ability on one of the other two. There is not enough seperation from things like Zen-Mode Darmanitan for me to think this proposal is a good change for our tiering as a whole.

I don’t think that cosmetic forms like Vivillon are the best counterarguement for this sort of thing since they both have no impact on gameplay and aren’t this weird exception going on with Greninja and Zygarde’s data. Tatsugiri is better, but also pretty irrelevant for anything singles with the only important change being how it powers up another Pokémon’s attack and still isn’t in that data ballpark.

There is a pretty good counter example for this being split hairs though. There’s another Pokemon not yet mentioned doing this ‘two entirely different Pokemon in the same Pokédex slot’ thing with Rockruff.

A Rockruff that can evolve into Lycanroc-Dusk is pretty much an entirely different Pokemon using the same Pokédex number. Own Tempo Rockruff isn’t a hidden ability change or anything, it’s just a completely different Pokemon with three ability slots of Own Tempo. I think in my first playthrough of SV, a bred Rockruff-Dusk might have even not registered Rockruff in my Pokédex. Despite this, Rockruff-Dusk was never tiered any differently from normal Rockruff since it uhh sucks all around. I guess maybe if it had huge power or something there might be some distinction worth mentioning, but instead it’s just a weirdo with 4 abilities and a totally competitively irrelevant Pokemon. A system that is tiering Greninja and Zygarde differently though may want to consider two differently tiered Rockruffs I guess lol??

This, BB Greninja, and Zygarde are the only real “two Pokemon in a trench coat” in the game’s data I can think of where they’re treated differently than simple form changes. Whether or not that’s something people want to turn into a line in the sand for tiering decisions is not something I can speak on.

It might also be worth mentioning that these distinctions are made in official competitions! Greninja proper is legal in BSS and VGC. Battle Bond Greninja is not. It is not a ban made for power reasons at all as BB Greninja is treated more like a mythical Pokemon which are banned by default for accessibility issues. That’s irrelevant for simulator play of course, but it’s worth mentioning Pokemon themselves are excluding these to different rulesets. If the big cheese themselves are doing it as their default battle stuff, I think the argument against it as a complex ban seems a bit weaker.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I’m not sure what the resistance is to this? It’s not a complex ban, we simply haven’t inputted the Pokemon forms for Zygarde according to in game. So if we actually did it, like we should because that’s what it actually is, then there is no problem tiering a separate form. The amount of resistance to this concept is crazy, the people just want to use Zygarde in NatDex Ubers UU, it’s not actually going to affect anything else and it seems incredibly easy to just fix in adding the form. There’s no broken precedent - we are just adding the different form as it’s represented in game. There is no slippery slope - if a new mon has multiple forms in game that are actually relevant different forms then they should be added too. I think sometimes we are so resistant to the silliest of things and try to fall back on false premises that don’t actually apply because we simply don’t want to fix it

 

[MeepBard]

this is similar to a previously shot down discussion to tier terapagos' formes seperately and as ZRP mentioned earlier, while the specifics are very different, i supported that then and i support this much easier to implement and justify change as well.

it's very tiring that discussions to review tiering policy in the forum dedicated to reviewing policy get shot down despite public opinion seeming in favor of some sort of change and if this thread ends in much the same way i would hope to have some proper clarification and guidelines on what actually constitutes a tierable forme because this seems to have always been a nebulous concept !!

 

[Aberforth]

To me personally, this feels like an attempt to tier by ability, which is something we actively want to not do. We tier Pokemon where possible, and only tier non-pokemon elements (like moves or abilities) in extreme circumstances. The fact that there are technically two Zygarde-10% forms with two separate abilities in the game's code feels very much like splitting hairs when they are functionally the same Pokémon with two ability options, the same way we dont really look at gen9 battle bond Greninja as a seperate Greninja to protean or torrent. Another such example is Basculin-White-Stripped, which not only has different abilities to the other Basculins, but also can hold Eviolite, and is also not tiered separately.

From a practical standpoint I can see the argument, different formes should be tiered differently. Thats why the Rotoms are tiered differently, and why Zygarde itself is tiered differently between the 50% forme and the 10% forme. But there should not be two tierings for Zygarde-10, nor for Zygarde-50 when the difference in the forms at the start of the battle is so small. Generally, ability differences havent been enough for us to tier Pokemon forms separately (see: Meowstic), and that is what I see the differences between the two Zygarde-50% formes. I also dont see the benefits of changing the policy we currently have to allow this as being worthwhile. This change would add one pokemon to the UU of the metagame above it (where said Pokemon is currently the 6th most used Pokemon on the ladder). That feels against the spirit of tiering to me from the off, and I dont think the arguments to change that are convincing enough to do so as it stands.

Worth noting, this is not the only time this sort of discussion has come up in the past. This seems to be the most recent thread on the topic, and there are more linked in it from longer ago. The original position from Zarel can be found here too. He considered changes in forme that were effortless and unblockable to be the ones that should be tiered seperately. Zygarde itself is discussed in that thread at length (although to no consensus conclusion).

I am aware that Greninja-BB (and Power Construct Zygarde) are programmed to be different Pokémon. However, you can't tell them apart in-game, so the fact that they're implemented as different formes is just trivia relevant only to hackers, and should have zero effect on tiering policy.

"Fixed IVs and the lack of egg and past gen moves" is true of literally every event Pokémon. The only difference is that it's an event ability rather than an event move.

The current definition of a change in forme (as far as I can tell) is 'a difference in the base stats and or typing of Pokemon', to which "Zygarde with Aura Break" does not meet this criteria right now. If you want to argue that this should be expanded to be more in line with the internal code of the game as opposed to our own practices, then that should be its own new Policy Review thread. To be honest, a PR thread on exactly what constitutes a forme change is probably something we should re-discuss given Terapagos and this thread, so I'll discuss it with Tier Leaders internally and probably make it as a separate thread after Christmas/New Years.

 

[Oculars]

I really dislike the way we've over bureaucratized tiering to the point where a common sense and easily implementable change that has no negative effect other than possibly stepping out of line with the overly rigid tiering framework and having people make slippery slope arguments is being shot down. Zygarde 50% and the power construct version have almost always effectively been tiered separately in the past due to power construct bans but with UUBers being a usage based tier falling under ubers usage the rigid framework wont allow that same distinction that OU tiers used to make to be made here. What theyre asking for is a simple change to let the base form be tiered differently (as it always effectively has been) despite the technicallity of policy supposedly preventing it. Having tiering policy block things like this simply for the sake of purity in tiering policy is overall detrimental to what tiering should accomplish.

Smogon policy would tier a tomato as a fruit when everyone understands it should be practically treated as a vegetable and thats exactly whats happening here.