Metagame National Dex Metagame Discussion

[RaikouLover]

On another note, has anyone found a proper use case for Mega Gyarados? I tried using him a few times and it's just so hard for me to justify using over Waterpon, and even with DD his speed is so abhorrent. I do think Mold Breaker is interesting though, which is why I wonder what his best pairings are, or if he's even worth entertaining in the builder in the first place, since I personally couldn't find a good place to fit him.

I’ve used it and came to the consensus conclusion;

Mega-Gyarados is a fine Pokémon that unfortunately just doesn’t seem to work as well or consistently as its competing options. It’s never “bad,” and is viable, but your team is just better using other choices. Sucks because Gyarados has been sweeping homies for generations.

Maybe a Mega-Gyarados + Roaring Moon tandem could work? Gyarados can Temper Flare past things like Scizor and Ferrothorn than Moon struggle with. It also beats up on Gliscor, Tusk, Moltres, etc.

 

[Moyashi]

Moving on from that tangent we have the Normal typing which is always welcome, providing the always welcome ghost immunity with the punishing downside of being vulnerable to another common type in the tier. Scizor being the most notable of the few that can reliably revenge kill Blursa while switching into it's powerful Blood Moon.
A few other notable switch ins to Blood Moon(And wont immediately suffer a follow-up earth power): Chansey (OU Defensive)(27.7%), Blissey (OU Defensive)(27.3%), Ting-Lu (OU Defensive Hazard Setter)(36.9%), Slowking-Galar (OU Assault Vest)(43.6%), Corviknight (OU Physically Defensive)(43.1%), Alomomola (OU Assault Vest)(48.7%), Dragonite (OU Choice Band/OU Swords Dance)(47%), Dragonite (OU Bulky Attacker)(39.3%), Ogerpon-Cornerstone (UU All-Out Attacker/UU Swords Dance)(51.8%), Ogerpon-Cornerstone (OU Swords Dance)(52.1%), Slowking-Galar (OU Defensive Pivot)(52.7%), Primarina (OU Assault Vest)(56%), Toxapex (OU The Pex (Defensive))(56.7%), Hatterene (OU Assault Vest)(56.6%), Tornadus-Therian (UU Pivot)(57.1%)

Of the pokemon listed here, only Ting-Lu is actually a splashable check to BUrsa. Galarian Slowking usage is significantly down due to the presence of Kingambit and MTtar with their pursuit to trap it super easily, which is why you're especially not using AV which is so vulnerable to it. Not to mention it does nothing to actually beat CM BUrsa. Corviknight is only a check if it runs Body Press AND Iron Defense, as otherwise BUrsa will just tank Body Presses with lefties+Moonlight until it's boosted enough to break through Corv (which it does at +4 btw, not hard to do in that match up if Corv lacks ID). Chansey and Blissey are not common or splashable pokemon, being very difficult to fit outside of stall. Dragonite fails to be a check at all if Multiscale is broken, as +1 Bloodmoon will OHKO it (unless you're bulky DNite but that fails to threaten BUrsa at all so it'll just boost and break through it). Ogerpon-C is an offensive check and doesn't fit on the defensive teams (this is relevant to why BUrsa is banned). Primarina can only switch in one time as Bloodmoon does over 40% to it and with hazards up, that is too much. Toxapex just gets folded by +1 EP unless max special defense (and does nothing back to it outside Toxic which is nowhere near fast acting enough to stop BUrsa from taking multiple KOs vs the defensive teams Pex is on). Hatterene is both a very mediocre pick but also is slower and complete set up fodder for CM. And TornT cannot touch it outside Knock Off and dies in the process to +1 Bloodmoon. And Alomomola I don't think I need to mention why it's not a check between getting flattened by CM and needing AV which prevents it from doing anything to BM (it's not breaking through it and without Toxic, cannot stop its sweep at all).

Also I'll touch on it, but MScizor is only able to revenge kill with offensive sets running Close Combat, which you don't really see on slower defensive teams because of the lack of defense investment on those sets and their lack of Roost for longevity.

So we've established a lack of splashable defensive counterplay beyond 1-2 pokemon (and one of those requires very specific sets).

252 Spee Primarina(219), 0 Spee Landorous-T(218), 252 Spee Azumarill/Iron Hands(218), 0 Spee Great Tusk(210), 0 Spee Rillaboom/Kommo-o(206), 40 Spee Heatran(200), 0 Spee Mamoswine(196), 0 Spee Skarmory(176), 20 Spee Scizor(171), 0 Spee Corviknight(170), 0 Spee Pelipper/Alomola(166)

This barrier of speed while costly for BlUrsa's stat investment allows them a certain advantage in some of them matchups most notably those of Primarina and Landorous-T.

Mentioning its speed is really irrelevant because it's a bulky wincon. It outpaces the walls its meant to break down. LandoT also cannot beat BUrsa, Iron Hands is rare and outsped with minor speed investment, Great Tusk needs Fighting Stab to beat BUrsa (not an easy fit since it wants Ground Stab, Spin and Ice Spinner). Rillaboom is terrible, Kommo-O is rare, Heatran loses to CM BUrsa, Mamo is nonexistent, Skarmory is almost nonexistent, MScizor loses to BUrsa without CC (which defensive cannot run), Corv loses without ID+BP, Pelipper is rain exclusive and Mola loses in general.

My main issue is you're just listing off pokemon without factoring their relevance or usage in the tier, if they're good at all, and without factoring in other things. You just list random mons that aren't used like Bisharp(?), Mimikyu(?), Arcanine-Hisui? Like you don't have to dig into bad mons to illustrate its power. Use OU pokemon for that. Also BUrsa does not need coverage in most cases as Bloodmoon+EP alone is enough to break down defensive teams with CM boosts.

BlUrsa feels like its in a weird spot in terms of strategy. On one hand it's an incredible powerful out of the gate attacker much like Char Y, though it misses out any kind of team support outside of yawn/taunt although that will severely hamper BlUrsa's ability to sweep without Calm Mind and weakens BlUrsa even more against the stall teams that will give BlUrsa a hard time hazing away stat boosts, threatening toxic/para and forcing constant switches that combined with knock off will wear BlUrsa down.

BlUrsa's biggest problem on paper is the 50/50 nature of the game you play with your opponent. Whether it be a protect, pivot, sub, or nothing at all there's plenty of mind games to play around Blood Moon and how you use it or don't. This struggle to predict combined with the sluggish nature of BlUrsa encourages the use of pivot moves to get it in safely or, ideally, trick room into teleport to allow BlUrsa multiple turns of terror. However, dedicating so much of your team to a strategy that last 4 turns while giving your opponents ample time to buff/stack hazards or anything they want is hardly an ideal strategy. Most of the time BlUrsa would serve as a punishment to Landorous-T leading players or an opportunity(with bulk investment instead of speed) to counter a late game kingambit and whatever else might still be around. Otherwise most of your games will boil down to hoping your opponent failed to bring a sufficient special wall.

Bloodmoon is not difficult to use at all. Simple CM+2 Attacks (Bloodmoon+Earth Power) is a easy to use and highly effective set that flattens defensive teams. Balance struggles to stop it from getting a bunch of kills duo to their weaker nature and it feasting on their defensive backbones while Bulky Offense it still can go for multiple KOs since they feature similar defensive pokemon that Balance can run, that BUrsa feast on and it's extremely difficult to pivot around without risking damage. Is it boosting and you switch to an offensive threat to pressure it out? Oops it just attacked and dropped your offensive mon. It needs minor support for positioning but slow pivots (and pivots in general) are abundant in this tier and it's not difficult to position.

Look, I get that a lot of pokemon get chucked up to the Ubers tier just for the sake of not having them run rampant before they can be properly investigated but give the big red bear a break. It was clearly a mon that was not designed with singles in play and without a sufficient amount of support such as max hazards + trick room its not getting more than a single kill against a competently played team.

CLOSING STATEMENTS
This entire post was just a way to hopefully put some attention on the big ol' bear. Give it some love, and while I doubt it'll ever find much of a niche in the hyper competitive tier of Uber's I could easily see it as a strong late game threat in NatDex OU, or maybe even a setup sweeper should someone manage to get the trick room off without sacking too much.

This confuses me but I assume you weren't around when it was legal before so you just weren't aware of what it was like before.. BUrsa isn't some "we just chucked it in Ubers by default" mon. It was allowed in OU for some time earlier in the gen, but ultimately it was way too oppressive to deal with and was canned. It absolutely functions well in singles just as it does in doubles. There's a reason why when it was suspected in regular SV OU it was banned with a 93% majority, a level of one sided you almost never see in suspects. It had no issues getting multiple kills when it was legal, and while it would need a bit more finesse to do so now without Tera, it would still be a very negative presence in the tier that suffocates defense while still being able to trade into offense (which is frailer and thus not necessitating boosts).

For me, BUrsa is a mon I sincerely hope we never free for the remainder of this generation.

 

[FayaWizard]

I appreciate the notes and did not originally find anything pertaining to Blood-Moon Ursaluna suspect test so I assumed it was never subjected to one and was simply placed into Ubers to be investigated at a later time.

There isn't really a whole lot about suspect tests or where pokemon end up to begin with around here. Or at least it isn't readily accessible for a newer player(myself) and as such I made an assumption ;-;

If ONLY we had an archive of previous important posts, found at the top of the forums, that includes past tiering action, such as the quickban of Ursaluna Bloodmoon and Baxcalibur!
Shame that something like that surely must not exist.

Can't believe the lazy Natdex mods never bothered hosting an archive.

 

[Hayde3B]

If ONLY we had an archive of previous important posts, found at the top of the forums, that includes past tiering action, such as the quickban of Ursaluna Bloodmoon and Baxcalibur!
Shame that something like that surely must not exist.
View attachment 718556
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Can't believe the lazy Natdex mods never bothered hosting an archive.

:( im sorry I didn't know. I just did a search and assumed something like that would be around the top couple of pages.


Imma just take the post down. Sorry

 

[Moyashi]

If ONLY we had an archive of previous important posts, found at the top of the forums, that includes past tiering action, such as the quickban of Ursaluna Bloodmoon and Baxcalibur!
Shame that something like that surely must not exist.
View attachment 718556
View attachment 718557
View attachment 718558
Can't believe the lazy Natdex mods never bothered hosting an archive.

What's with the needless sarcasm? Hayde may just not be familiar with the forums and thus simply didn't know where to look for such information. Would it have helped to ask first? Absolutely, but there wasn't a need for this.

:( im sorry I didn't know. I just did a search and assumed something like that would be around the top couple of pages.


Imma just take the post down. Sorry

For the future, if you're unsure about something you can always try and ask about it in the forums whether in the Simple Questions and Answers thread, or even here assuming it's relevant to the tier/meta at large.

 

[ant4456]

I'm not gonna post it in the Suspect Thread because I'm probably not going for Reqs + this isn't really that relevant to that conversation at hand, but I think there is something to be said about the human condition regarding that people get more mad that a Pokemon Pursuit Trappers force to be a U-Turn and Wisp bot does that to their Pursuit Trapper.

"So many 50/50s with Wisp and shit!!!" the guy says spamming Kingambit on every single team. And don't say you blame Dragapult on that because even without it in the tier you're gonna still be spamming that shit and probably Mega Tyranitar too for Rocks + to not get cooked by Sun. If anything, Kingambit on certain turns with the same set can be significantly more annoying with 33/33/33s. This is something a much better player than me said to me when the Teraless metagame was new, and I said "Nah Kingambit doesn't have that many things like that, I think that's pretty rare", but the more I played I realized they're kinda right.

Kingambit can viably click all of Pursuit, Knock Off and Sucker Punch against certain Pokemon and teams on the same turn, all of which having massively different impact on the game. An easy example would be pairing it with Pokemon that want to get rid of Boots for hazard spam, then you can have a Pokemon that outspeeds. Sucker can dispatch it with less threat of retaliation if preferred, Pursuit will punish it itself if it switches, Knock Off can hit it if you believe you can live the retaliation or try to punish something else on the switch instead.

Here's a practical theoretical:

Kingambit at 70% HP versus a Waterpon weakened to around 50%, with a Dragapult in the back, known to be Specs. Waterpon wants to live or get out because it outspeeds and kills two Pokemon on Kingambit's team because of course it does it's Waterpon.

If Kingambit clicks Sucker Punch to just kill it, it doesn't take 45% on average VS invested utility set and thus has a guaranteed switch into Specs Draco with Hazards Up. Obviously, if Waterpon switches out this is a wasted turn and can give massive momentum to the other team. There is also the possibility of other moves that Sucker won't hit, but that just leads to another 50/50 because Sucker vs Knock, or even Pursuit technically could still be on the table.

If Kingambit clicks Knock Off and Waterpon switches, which may be the possibility depending on how much the player wants item progress (maybe they don't believe killing Waterpon is a big priority), but on top of that it can just kill Waterpon at this range making it a viable middleground with those two conditions.

If Kingambit clicks Pursuit and Waterpon doesn't switch, Kingambit is taking big damage and doesn't kill. However, these moves are all still fairly viable. Pursuit still catches it if it switches, Sucker if it wants to attack for the kill, and Knock to middleground/hit if Sucker can fail.

This kind of thing doesn't happen super often, but I think it's a lot more annoying than whatever shenanigans I encounter with Dragapult on average. This also doesn't take into account the Swords Dance Gambit which can mess with a lot of the dynamics too. I'm also not saying this is some "unsolvable puzzle" as the opposing player, there are going to be more likely options and less likely options, but fundamentally there are game states where all three are at least weighted clicks and you won't have the most control over getting a good scenario. Thus, a 33/33/33.

This is a problem I run into more than Dragapult where I go to utility Kingambit and if I get burnt I still have a Knock bot + their Dragapult is fundamentally is known to be not that threatening to me. If they click a Specs move like Draco, now it's just dead. If it's Z, depending on HP ranges and set it's probably just dead. If it clicks U-Turn, it's not that different than any other Pokemon clicking U-Turn against any team with a Pokemon that is 100% the switch into it.

I'm a big hater of Pursuit Trapping as a concept, not a big fan of Dragapult either, but seeing people get specifically annoyed at Wisp Pult vs. their free-ASF-on-every-single-team Pursuit mons is so eyerolly. No, you do not deserve to just force an offensive threat to click U-Turn until your bulky Dark-Type is dead despite never taking a risk on it ever. If Dragapult is broken, it shouldn't be because it can kneecap itself to not be entirely useless against two of the most common Pokemon in the metagame, it should be because it is actually a massive problem to deal with. And while I can be convinced on that, a lot of these arguments have done nothing for me.

With regards to Pursuit/Gambit and my biases: I'll admit I'm a massive hater of Kingambit nowadays, a big part of why being I've never been a fan of Pursuit Trapping as a mechanic, immensely disproportional performance with no drawbacks. If Kingambit didn't have Pursuit it'd still be plenty good enough to be thrown on a shit ton of teams, but now that it has it it can also have the benefit of playing *almost* 6v5 against two types (unless it has a resisted Secondary Type) while also getting FreELO kills additionally under more circumstances. If Tyranitar can't cut it without Pursuit, then it's just a fraud sorry. Not saying that Pursuit is broken, but it's my bias that I prefer to not have much of it in the metagame, and if you don't agree that's fine. It's my preference, fine if it's not yours, and I hope in 2025 we can collectively stop pretending that everyone's opinions are just the textbook definition of Tiering Policy, and that personal taste has a matter in what people want to happen.

I'm not actually really "Pro Dragapult" but I do think that a lot of the arguments revolve around it being "annoying" more than concrete arguments for its brokenness. I don't think it's particularly a good metagame presence, I do not think Pokemon like Kingambit are one either and I wish both of them got scrutiny rather than half the posts reading as just "Dragapult Wisped my Kingambit and made it just an okay Knock Spammer - broken set variety". Not gonna be upset if it leaves, but I might be annoyed if it leaves and we just continue hopping on Kingambit's Thang despite having many fewer excuses to not give it scrutiny.

 

[slopcat]

i already yapped my ass off on my thoughts about pult on the suspect thread, but i'll just make a quick comment here in regards to the above post which is to say this: two things can be true. pult can be bastard broken AND annoying, and kingambit can be both extremely powerful (i think almost suspect worthy, but hey) while pursuit traps are a very solid balancing lever for very strong pokemon in the metagame.

since you had the courtesy to address your biases, i'll say that ttar is my 2nd favorite pokemon to use of all time and that i fucking LOVE pursuit trapping.

if pursuit is magically removed from natdex, the strong psychics now have absolutely zero fear from being slapped on most teams. choice item lele is now literally unstoppable. glowking is very, very hard to punish. I could list every suit-weak mon and say that they get better but you get the point i trust

in regards to a mon being "fraudulent" without pursuit (mtar) i find that to be just a bit of a redundant statement? like yeah if you removed iron fist from melmetal it would probably suck ass. tyranitar is THE guy who is an extremely fat special tank who controls the ghosts and psychics. this isn't a bad thing; I'd argue it actually forces players to consider their gameplan for dealing with tar on a structural level since head-to-head fighting it is not an option. if ghosts and psychics could just mindlessly click stabs with zero repurcussions i think you'll find that it would get extremely boring extremely quickly.

 

[thebestever543]

Regards to the Dragapult susepct test:
I realize that I am late to the discussion and I forgot to get reqs but to anyone who is eligible to vote and happens to read this, please keep an open mind. I stand with the Do Not Ban side, I'd like to start off by saying that I really enjoy the current meta. Both playing and building has been incredibly refreshing but I don't think that has to do with tera being banned, I'm not talking about the feeling that came immediately after tera was banned. In other words, the feeling of when you are diving into a new tier and trying to get a grasp at what the meta could look like after the tier has been developed further. I'm actually attributing a large part of my enjoyability and the overall health of the tier to Dragapults presence. We all have different ideas about whats best for the tier, whether selfish or not the fact that stands is we can't escape our own bias. I think this is relevant because a lot of the objections to DNB that I heard are related to enjoyability. More specifcially the types of bulding restrictions that Dragapult requires in order to have a solid match up.
Building Restrictions:
The types of restrictions are Ghost resists, a step further that defensive Fairies are mandatory on Balance. The root of this objection is from the lack of creativity in team building with Dragapult in the tier. I agree that there are restrictions, however I don't think it is very important let alone if ut even is a negative. I also don't agree that just because Dragapult poses restrictions that building has become stale. I have built many different types of teams, utilitzing similar cores sometimes but that is a preference and not because of a lack of creativity. Instead of giving you every (just an few) example of good cores or pokemon to check every Dragapult set, I’ll tell you the way I approach my checklist when accounting for my “Dragapult check”. The Offensive Utility and Specs set are checked by the same things that check the Dragon Dance set (and more) so I’ll stick to that in this post. A simple way to think about it is Fairy type/Dragon Resist + Ghost resist to cover every set. Fortunately National Dex has many options so that you don’t have to limit yourself to one specific core for every team. I build a little safer perhaps than others into Dragapult because I like to be stronger vs the most common threats in the meta. If you’re trying to compress a Dragapult check in one slot you definitely can but the list of good options is a lot smaller. When team building, you need to factor in how the game is played. Some good Pokemon right now that aren’t utilized as much as they should be are Clefable, Tapu Fini and Garganacl (arguably Mega Tyranitar but I don’t really like building with him at the moment as much as the others). All tiers have building restrictions and they are only ever problematic when these restrictions hinder any other viable matchup to a degree that is unreasonable. In this case, Dragapult is not hindering other matchups because it is at the center of the meta. If you're not building with Dragapult in mind then you're not building correctly. To demonstrate this point further, I think Volcarona and Ogerpon-Wellspring are more justified to ban instead of Dragapult under this objection because neither have significant impacts on the meta (arguably how significant Wellspring) and both pose inconvenient team optimization which makes it harder to deal with pokemon who are more relevant. This is not a post about Volc/Pon, simply an example so feel free to disagree but that is not the focus of my point. Frankly I find the entire objection ridiculous but many people, probably some who are reading this actually encourage disorder and chaos in the meta or unaware to the consequences. Dragapult ban won’t be the end of the world but it will certainly change a lot and after it took so long to arrive at a balanced meta game, I think it’s better not to roll the dice on where this leads us.
Is Dragapult broken/unhealthy:
The objection here is that Dragapult has no real checks and that its checks are exploited too easily without consequence or enables other pokemon. First off Dragapult has real checks, I hope everyone acknowledges that. I’m going to keep this brief, it really comes down to Will-O-Wisp and who Dragapults partners could be and how they benefit from Dragapult’s checks being burned. Since there are good options in the builder around this and also I haven’t felt that everything Dragapult enables has been too much to deal with, I don’t think it is broken/unhealthy. Not going to fight too hard on this one but I’m curious where other people stand on this particular objection.
Final thoughts:
I am tired. Hopefully that didn’t reflect my writing especially towards the end. Lastly, vote with the consequences of the result of which you voted for in mind.

 

[slopcat]

now that the chief agent of the shadow government has been banned, I think it'd be appropriate to make some very brief predictions for the metagame going forward.

fishpass teams probably get a bit better all things considered, since mola getting toxic'd means it actually took significant damage from hex was a definite annoyance. however, waterpon is now SIGNIFICANTLY better, so i'd say unless teams adapt (with things like rh tang) wishpass could probably go either way.

sun is probably roughly the same in terms of use case. moon and tusk can now freely break without worry of burn, but zama's increased presence as well as more bolt and glisc definitely isn't the greatest for them.

I know clod isn't optimally used on stall (forgive me runo) but its keeping the alphabetical thing going so i'm using it as the figurehead. stall is definitely the archetype i'm least familiar with so I won't make any sweeping claims but I have to imagine getting rid of dd ghostium is always gonna be appreciated.

happy it's gone, still probably not fantastic? needing to set up so much for results oftentimes weaker than moon definitely isn't gonna help its case but it probably is like playable now

-- lumping the spikers together so far as to say they love not getting chunked by hex in the former two cases or getting wisped + uturned on in the case of the latter. scarf is still def the best hrott set but sucker/knock might see actual play who knows

i should start by saying that every one of these mons deserves their own post, but i've lumped them together for brevity's sake as they're all physical attackers who can now actually see more consistent play (as though they didnt before, just more to say they dont have to play dragapult's game anymore) thanks to the effective wisp ban. all of these were already great (mostly waterpon and zam talks here) but all of them now improve drastically as a result. maybe a bit controversially, I think tusk will probably slot into the #3 slot here, as with such free access to a speed boost and a paralysis immunity I think tusk as an attacker is actually positioned very well to do some real damage. scarf tusk is already seeing quite a bit of use so I think bulk up is going to MAYBE become an actually real set

defensive pieces that 10000% should see more play now that the fighting type golden age is upon us. really insanely consistent and very excellent progress makers. the god.

fast dragon type with great breaking options, a varied movepool, and now is less generally worried about pursuit? i'd expect a definite usage spike

my 2nd fav mon in the tier, and probably the biggest loser in terms of the pult ban. still maintains a fantastic niche of carrying rocks AND beating rapagos no matter the set, so i think good players will absolutely continue to utilize mtar to snipe neutral targets and secure extremely consistent damage across a lot of the metagame. the inbound fighting type renaissance should actually be fairly neutral for mtar, as we'll see more fat poisons and psychics than ever before, both great candidates for the mtar special.

this is the guy causing all the fighting types to become borderline mandatory. with that in mind, i think it gets minorly worse. av sucked and it's dead. defiant is dead asf. lum is pointless (it was already mid) so it's 100% just lefties here on out. still gonna be great, just harder to pull its bullshit

this mon definitely adores the fact that it can get up to its screens antics for free without worrying about specs shadow ball w/ infiltrator. i never use this thing but that's an interaction many forget so i just thought i'd bring it up.

i'll probably be making more in-depth analyses over the coming weeks (i need my larp points!) but overall i'm very pleased with the meta and the decisions that happened here. please have more suspects but dont free anything i need my tc slopbadge i need it I NEED ITTT

 

[Chilli Dewd]

The results are in, and Dragapult is officially BANNED from National Dex OU... again. With this in mind, the metagame is going to now start to shift, some previously strong mons might see less usage or straight up drop, and vice versa. So I would like to point out my takes on rises and falls after the Dragapult ban. Of course, none of what I say is set in stone, I could be wrong with some of these.

Rises:


Reasons:
With Pult out of the picture, it opens up the door for strong physical fighting types, as tjey dont need to run from the WispHex set like they previously if pult switched into their fighting stab. Zamazenta will also be a potential replacement in some teams that used Dragapult for speed control, albeit, with a different role. Gholdengo would most likely see a spike in usage as the best Ghost in the tier, and can also replace Dragapult's Hex set as well. Dragonite and Roaring Moon could be used to replace DD sets in some Offense or Hyper Offense teams that utilized Dragapult, and both can also use Z moves quite effectively. With the Banning of Dragapult, there is a likelyhood decrease in Pursuitters, so mons like Skeledirge, Slowbro, Galarian Slowking, Iron Crown, and both Mega Lati twins could see an uprise in usage because of this. Finally, Gliscor would likely rise in usage as a hazard setter over the likes of Ting-Lu, who might suffer from this shift.

Falls:


Reasoning:
With the Dragapult ban, players are no longer forced into running a Pursuitter into anything that lost to a potential DD Dragapult, so understandably Kingambit and Mega Tyranitar would fall a bit, especially with the increase in fighters usage. However, this isnt to downgrade them, as they are both still good mons in the tier, and their talents will still be used, just not as oftenly as they were with Dragapult around. Between the Dragapult's ban and the uprise of fighters, Ting-Lu might take a hit as well, and people might aim for other hazard setters lile Gliscor. Tapu Fini, who spiked in usage because it was one of the best counters to most, if not all Dragapult sets, is likely taking a bit hit in its viability. Magnezone was ocassionally used as a Kingambit lure to enable DD Pult, but with no Dragapult, there is less need of its talents in the current metagame.

 

[Runo]

Falls:


Reasoning:
With the Dragapult ban, players are no longer forced into running a Pursuitter into anything that lost to a potential DD Dragapult, so understandably Kingambit and Mega Tyranitar would fall a bit, especially with the increase in fighters usage. However, this isnt to downgrade them, as they are both still good mons in the tier, and their talents will still be used, just not as oftenly as they were with Dragapult around. Between the Dragapult's ban and the uprise of fighters, Ting-Lu might take a hit as well, and people might aim for other hazard setters lile Gliscor. Tapu Fini, who spiked in usage because it was one of the best counters to most, if not all Dragapult sets, is likely taking a bit hit in its viability. Magnezone was ocassionally used as a Kingambit lure to enable DD Pult, but with no Dragapult, there is less need of its talents in the current metagame.

Heavily disagree with all but Ting-Lu.

Kingambit gets better because it no longer is forced to run Pursuit and/or Assault Vest on teams to avoid a loss against Dragapult's variance and can now run the significantly more threatening Swords Dance without huge hassle. Referring back to what slopcat said, it forces fighting types to be semi-required on a lot of compositions because of the pressure it exerts in the builder. It gets "slightly" worse by merit of it being easy to prep for but it isn't hard at all to wear down its checks overtime since it can just Knock a lot of the fat fighters' boots off and let the hazards do the work or just win because the Gambit check was Mega Lopunny or Mega Medicham and got overextended.

Tyranitar gets "slighty" worse too but since Dragapult's ban enables Sun archetypes further its still a fine mon.

Clefable and Tapu Fini were pretty mediocre Dragapult checks to begin with but Roaring Moon being really powerful in addition to the presumably heavy uptick in fighting types that is to come help give them a defensive role. They are also really really good at holding their own against a lot of the status heavy balance teams this tier is plagued with so I don't see them getting worse at all, better in fact since they can be used more liberally without needing to conserve health to avoid a kill by Dragapult.

Magnezone can just use a different dragon to lure in steel types I don't get this at all. You don't even need a dragon for Magnezone to be wanted on a team. A lot of balance specific pokemon, such as the already mentioned Clefable, enjoy Magnezone taking out offensive Steel-types like Melmetal and Kingambit while also stopping fatter ones like Ferrothorn and Mega Scizor dead in its tracks. Something that can also be mentioned is that Pult was a good partner for Magnezone yes but it also could heavily abuse opposing Magnezone for a free chance to break or setup against something, and with it gone the pool of mons that can competently setup against Magnezone and run away with the game becomes a tiny shortlist of SD Gliscor, Volcorona, and maybe Raging Bolt.

 

[Comett7778]

Thank god Pult was banned. Idk how I ever was on the fence.

Anyways one thing I would like to bring up with the Pult ban is how much better Ghold becomes.

It’s now the only mon that can spam ghost stab into the meta game. It also has focus blast/Fightium Z to nuke Gambit and T-Tar. Its defensive set is easy to fit on teams and can spread status very well. While scarf could see actual usage thanks to people going into withdrawal from the Pult ban.


It also can do well defensively into these four(you do need balloon for tusk tho). Which is useful as, in my opinion, we are most likely heading into a fighting type heavy meta.

 

[Sami]

Pecharunt @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Air Balloon / Black Sludge / Darkinium Z
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 104 SpA / 28 Spe or 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Bold or Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Malignant Chain
- Hex / Shadow Ball
- Parting Shot
- Recover

This little freak seems really good right now, since Dragapult was easily able to remove it from play; it does fantastic into the surge of Fighting-types such as Choice Scarf Urshifu-R, Zamazenta and Mega Lopunny. It can serve as a spinblocker for the team against Terapagos and Great Tusk, making it a fantastic partner for Ferrothorn and Hisuian Samurott as well. It also does great into the Fairy-types that may try to counter the Fighting-types, such as Iron Valiant, Tapu Fini and Clefable. It has solid item variety, with HDB and Black Sludge being your typical defensive items, Air Balloon helping more against Great Tusk, Garchomp, Landorus-T and Ursaluna; and Darknium Z which is great on offense teams to give a second chance for Pokemon like Life Orb Iron Valiant. Shadow Ball could be an alternative to Hex, notably having a chance to 2HKO bulkier spreads, while doing more damage into unstatused foes such as Heatran, Corviknight and Toxapex.

edit: included faster spread cuz big boss hidin told me so

 

[Oculars]

Oculars Objectively Correct Dragapult Ban Winners and Losers
​

So now that we yeeted the broken snake from the tier its time to discuss how the meta will shift
Winners:

Having a fast wisp mon out of the tier greatly increases the potency of mid speed breakers like waterpon, especially since they can now safely sub on mons like alomomola with the tiers only infiltrator pokemon gone



Ghost pokemon are the most valuable offensive pressure in the tier and with gholdengo losing an offensive check and competition for a ghost slot its value and usage should also increase a bunch



Another very strong mon in the tier, now that pult is gone its the fastest unboosted threat and doesnt have to fear dragapult coming in and wisping it, having one less ghost is also very ideal for zama as it loves to spam fighting moves.


Zardy loses a soft check and a mon that could often uturn for good progress against its common structures, this should overall be a slight buff to Yarizard Y's viability.



despite gambit being a pult counter I think this ban will overall benefit gambit as it lost the most common mon that trades into it with wisp and can branch out from lum/pursuit sets into more offensive SD builds such as glasses and z moves or resist berrys like shuca and chople.



Mons that can run scarf sets such as kartana should be slightly better now that weve lost a speed control option from the tier.


loses a soft check and a thunderclap resist along with competition for a dragon slot. Should be slightly better now.


also loses competition as a z move abuser along with competition for a dragon dancer slot so should slightly gain from this ban as well.


increased ghold usage and lack of a fast wisp should make ghold + spike/knock structures a lot more viable again.without the competition for the ghost slot from pult.
Losers:


Mola's passivity and lack of direct damage can more easily be exploited now that the tier only infiltrator mon is gone, a lot of teams abused slow regen pivots combined with infiltrator pult to offensively check things after flip turn or break sub with darts. Now those builds are more open to being punished by substitute and taunt.


Mild nerf but the pult matchup into the majority of sets was one of the strong things mega ttar had going for it in the meta, I feel like now its going to be harder to check ghosts with ttar with more people opting to run z gholdengo over pult as their ghost.


yuh blob was great into a lot of pult sets and takes a slight nerf from having one less common mon it checks very well, increased dengo usage wont be great for it either.

/
common fairies become less mandatory now that the best specs draco dropper in the tier is gone and I feel leles might be less likely to run scarf now.


Valiant was great for checking non dd sets and increased ghold usage will hurt it unless it goes back to running phyisical sets with sd knock or cm shadow ball, overall I think this hurts valiant viability.


All the the ting lu spammers are in shambles now that one of the strongest mons ting lu checked is gone, maybe now is the time for people to stop cteaming my shiest screens builds with this whirlwinding mf.

/
I found mega medi and mega lop had great synergy with pivot pult sets being able to click for free and break whenever u correctly uturn into a dark type switchin and spam strong fighting moves for free, slight nerf to both of them but especially medi since it doesnt have the same tools to hit ghold as lopunny does with scrappy.

 

[Epicgamergod69]

Pecharunt @ Heavy-Duty Boots / Air Balloon / Black Sludge / Darkinium Z
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 124 Def / 104 SpA / 28 Spe or 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe
Bold or Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Malignant Chain
- Hex / Shadow Ball
- Parting Shot
- Recover

This little freak seems really good right now, since Dragapult was easily able to remove it from play; it does fantastic into the surge of Fighting-types such as Choice Scarf Urshifu-R, Zamazenta and Mega Lopunny. It can serve as a spinblocker for the team against Terapagos and Great Tusk, making it a fantastic partner for Ferrothorn and Hisuian Samurott as well. It also does great into the Fairy-types that may try to counter the Fighting-types, such as Iron Valiant, Tapu Fini and Clefable. It has solid item variety, with HDB and Black Sludge being your typical defensive items, Air Balloon helping more against Great Tusk, Garchomp, Landorus-T and Ursaluna; and Darknium Z which is great on offense teams to give a second chance for Pokemon like Life Orb Iron Valiant. Shadow Ball could be an alternative to Hex, notably having a chance to 2HKO bulkier spreads, while doing more damage into unstatused foes such as Heatran, Corviknight and Toxapex.

edit: included faster spread cuz big boss hidin told me so

Pretty sure the faster spread only needs 248 speed if timid to outspeed like tusk n shit I could be wrong tho

 

[slopcat]

Oculars Objectively Correct Dragapult Ban Winners and Losers​

Losers:




yuh blob was great into a lot of pult sets and takes a slight nerf from having one less common mon it checks very well, increased dengo usage wont be great for it either.

/
common fairies become less mandatory now that the best specs draco dropper in the tier is gone and I feel leles might be less likely to run scarf now.


/
I found mega medi and mega lop had great synergy with pivot pult sets being able to click for free and break whenever u correctly uturn into a dark type switchin and spam strong fighting moves for free, slight nerf to both of them but especially medi since it doesnt have the same tools to hit ghold as lopunny does with scrappy.

while I agree with a lot of this post I think almost all of these (besides tar and lu who are both gonna be completely fine but ARE minorly nerfed) are actually pretty significantly improved by the removal of pult. alo's fatter teammates and common breaking partners are going to be much happier to not have to deal with fast wisp, and alo in many games gets tagged by a wisp or toxic so the strong hexes were never doing it any favors. veryyyy minor change for alo imo but not a nerf at all i'd say.

clef i'd argue is in a position to be much better following pult's exit. it hated taking the 130bp hexes or specs shadow balls, and it couldn't really absorb the ghostium nuke as well as it probably should to be a super viable check vs pult. with more mid-speed, physically-locked fighting types positioned to take over as a result of gambit's newfound strength, i think (physdef) clef is in a great position to answer both those same fighting types AND the gliscor that will rise to match them. i'd very much argue that although clef is going to weep with the surge of dengo usage, it would be innacurate to say that it is overall nerfed when so many strong fighting types are going to start being the most prevalent option. also, unaware could be real (?)

this point sort of extends to , who got incinerated by ghostium sets and couldn't absorb specs shadow balls at all, (literally 80% lmfao). I think as the fastest super effective mon vs fighting types, as well as an eterrain setter for mons like crown/val who are both positioned to do very well and in valiant's case to maybe drop booster in favor of boots (i still think mon's a bit terrible but w/e), koko is actually buffed with the removal of pult, ironically enough.

this is sort of the exact sentiment i'm carrying to lele who i think is probably the 4th best mon in the tier (to clarify it's likely shaping up to be --) and since the ONLY physical move it can tank are fighting type ones, it's not exactly feeling too bad about the surge of fast fightings in the tier. the removal of dd sets to invalidate scarf and instakill with phantom force, as well as specs shadow ball / z hex invalidating non-scarf sets means that lele feels muuuuch more comfortable running non-choice items and is SIGNIFICANTLY buffed as a result. pursuit dropping in usage means that choice sets dont feel as bad about clicking stabs, either. MAJOR lele buff

I won't comment any further regarding mmedi/mlop, i think that might just be a personal thing because you enjoyed building them paired together and not wholly representative of their actual strength. mmedi especially is really really buffed as a result of fast ghost + wisp being gone, and mlop is just characteristcally enthused as a fast frail fighting to not have to fear a wisp or aggregate chip to farm fakeout.

 

[Comett7778]

I found mega medi and mega lop had great synergy with pivot pult sets being able to click for free and break whenever u correctly uturn into a dark type switchin and spam strong fighting moves for free, slight nerf to both of them but especially medi since it doesnt have the same tools to hit ghold as lopunny does with scrappy.

Call me crazy but I feel like Pult being banned was a major buff for at least m-lop. M-lop was slower than Pult so threatened a ko or a burn into m-lop. And with Pult gone it’s now able to hit the now best ghost in the tier(Ghold) with a super effective stab close combat, which is a guaranteed ko after a bit of chip.

252 Atk Lopunny-Mega Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 96+ Def Gholdengo: 348-410 (92 - 108.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

this point sort of extends to

I personally love using Koko especially with the Pult ban. Two of the best mons to pair with Koko(Crown and Valiant) both were positively affected by the Pult ban. Crown doesn’t have to take specs shadow ball or super powered hex’s and Valiant has to worry about concerning its booster energy vs Pult less. Koko also competed for the same roles Pult filled, which means Koko should be see a good amount more.

 

[Vlarcheops]

Now that Giratina-Light got banned, we'll gonna see what the council has in store for the future of National Dex OU tier. However, there were being some rumors about suspecting Kingambit and here I am giving my opinions abot this Pókemon:

Kingambit:
Apperently, Kingambit was a very good Pókeon, being able to pressure defensive opponents with STAB attacks and boosts from Supreme Overlord. But what really pushed it over the edge was Terastallization, bbeing able to escape its defensive shortcommings to flip the battle in favour of the Kingambit user, noz to mention it could have used Tera Blast for coverage for its former "counters". However due to the ban of Terastalization, I (highly) doubt that kingambit is problematuc for the tier. Due to losing Terastalization, it can't beat nor shield itself from its counters with those being Zamazenta, Great Tusk, Urshifu and more. Plus there atre non-Fighting Pokemon carring Fighting coverage: Body Press, Focus Blast or even Vacuum Wave. Therefore the idea of Kingambit being banworthy isn't the case anymore without Terastalization.

Zamazenta:
I put Zamazenta here because some people think it'll be busted again due to the recent ban of Giratina-Light. There her I am, defending my homeboy with good arguments. Even without 'Pult, Zamy STILL have its challenges: for starters it has the infamous 4MM-Syndrome, meaning it can't carry all the coverage it wants (Heavy Slam for Fairy Pókemon, Stone Edge for Zapdos and Moltres and Crunch for Gholdengo). Even without 'Pult, we still have Gholdengo in NDOU, being capable to withstand Zamazenta's shenanigans. PLUS Fighting is a weak type defensively AND teratsalization is banned, making Zamazenta unable to avoid burns or resisting its weaknesses. Choice Band sets CAN be scary, but Zamy has to deal with hazards and being locked into a move. Heavy-Duty Boots setslack the power of beingh groundbreaking. Z-Crystals can be used only once, so Zamy users have to use it carefully.

"Unbans"
For (potential) unbans, I think the metagame is as enjoyable and balaced as it is right now. Therefore I don't think an unban for Pókemon like Palafin or Espathra bring much for the tier, except annoyance and unfairness to the table. That's why we don't need any retest (well, except Roaring Moon or MAYBE Deoxys-S).

Overall I am happy to the current NDOU metagame, and I hope we keep this momentum of both enjoyment and competiveness!

 

[SHOSPLE COLUPIS]

It's very hard to argue that Dragon Dance Dragapult wasn't unhealthy before it got banned, however, I think banning pult was the wrong decision, as there is a worse culprit that caused it to be OP, and is, even still, turning a different otherwise balanced pokemon into an overbearing presence.

Ghostium-Z is a problem. It places Dragapult into banworthiness due to Dragon Dance, forcing out the healthy Wisphex set which was a good presence for the tier. It places Gholdengo on top of the entire meta, and is one of the reasons it is so overbearing right now. It is at fault.

There has been talk of Z in general getting banned, which I entirely disagree with. Fightinium is very strong but is mostly just used as an accuracy tool on special attackers that enjoy fighting coverage. Dragonium is a staple on basically every Dragon Dance pokemon in existence, but it is confined to that, and has been proven to break nothing.
Ghostium on the other hand, has brought one mon up to a frankly unhealthy level of utter tier dominance, and straight up got another banned.

Z moves are fine, Ghostium is not, and banning it would lead to the healthy presence of Wisphex Dragapult returning, as well as maybe dropping Gholdengo from the unhealthily dominant place it occupies at the moment.

Ghold is fine
Pult is fine
Z moves are fine
Ghostium-Z is distinctly not fine.

 

[Sputnik]

It's very hard to argue that Dragon Dance Dragapult wasn't unhealthy before it got banned, however, I think banning pult was the wrong decision, as there is a worse culprit that caused it to be OP, and is, even still, turning a different otherwise balanced pokemon into an overbearing presence.

Ghostium-Z is a problem. It places Dragapult into banworthiness due to Dragon Dance, forcing out the healthy Wisphex set which was a good presence for the tier. It places Gholdengo on top of the entire meta, and is one of the reasons it is so overbearing right now. It is at fault.

There has been talk of Z in general getting banned, which I entirely disagree with. Fightinium is very strong but is mostly just used as an accuracy tool on special attackers that enjoy fighting coverage. Dragonium is a staple on basically every Dragon Dance pokemon in existence, but it is confined to that, and has been proven to break nothing.
Ghostium on the other hand, has brought one mon up to a frankly unhealthy level of utter tier dominance, and straight up got another banned.

Z moves are fine, Ghostium is not, and banning it would lead to the healthy presence of Wisphex Dragapult returning, as well as maybe dropping Gholdengo from the unhealthily dominant place it occupies at the moment.

Ghold is fine
Pult is fine
Z moves are fine
Ghostium-Z is distinctly not fine.

This sort of complex banning is highly discouraged within Smogon metagames and will absolutely not be considered by the council. If anything were to get tiered it would be Z moves as a whole, which does not appear to be a popular idea within the current playerbase. Ghost Z is also far from the only thing that makes Gholdengo an important, but not overbearing, piece of the metagame. DD Ghost Z was an amazing set to be sure, but if Z sets on certain Pokemon prove broken then the Pokemon itself will get banned, not the Z crystal in question.

 

[Chilli Dewd]

It's very hard to argue that Dragon Dance Dragapult wasn't unhealthy before it got banned, however, I think banning pult was the wrong decision, as there is a worse culprit that caused it to be OP, and is, even still, turning a different otherwise balanced pokemon into an overbearing presence.

Ghostium-Z is a problem. It places Dragapult into banworthiness due to Dragon Dance, forcing out the healthy Wisphex set which was a good presence for the tier. It places Gholdengo on top of the entire meta, and is one of the reasons it is so overbearing right now. It is at fault.

There has been talk of Z in general getting banned, which I entirely disagree with. Fightinium is very strong but is mostly just used as an accuracy tool on special attackers that enjoy fighting coverage. Dragonium is a staple on basically every Dragon Dance pokemon in existence, but it is confined to that, and has been proven to break nothing.
Ghostium on the other hand, has brought one mon up to a frankly unhealthy level of utter tier dominance, and straight up got another banned.

Z moves are fine, Ghostium is not, and banning it would lead to the healthy presence of Wisphex Dragapult returning, as well as maybe dropping Gholdengo from the unhealthily dominant place it occupies at the moment.

Ghold is fine
Pult is fine
Z moves are fine
Ghostium-Z is distinctly not fine.

They told this to me once when I claim for a lugia suspect, and now I get to say it to you. PUT THE FRIES IN THE BAG!

 

[Epicgamergod69]

It's very hard to argue that Dragon Dance Dragapult wasn't unhealthy before it got banned, however, I think banning pult was the wrong decision, as there is a worse culprit that caused it to be OP, and is, even still, turning a different otherwise balanced pokemon into an overbearing presence.

Ghostium-Z is a problem. It places Dragapult into banworthiness due to Dragon Dance, forcing out the healthy Wisphex set which was a good presence for the tier. It places Gholdengo on top of the entire meta, and is one of the reasons it is so overbearing right now. It is at fault.

There has been talk of Z in general getting banned, which I entirely disagree with. Fightinium is very strong but is mostly just used as an accuracy tool on special attackers that enjoy fighting coverage. Dragonium is a staple on basically every Dragon Dance pokemon in existence, but it is confined to that, and has been proven to break nothing.
Ghostium on the other hand, has brought one mon up to a frankly unhealthy level of utter tier dominance, and straight up got another banned.

Z moves are fine, Ghostium is not, and banning it would lead to the healthy presence of Wisphex Dragapult returning, as well as maybe dropping Gholdengo from the unhealthily dominant place it occupies at the moment.

Ghold is fine
Pult is fine
Z moves are fine
Ghostium-Z is distinctly not fine.

This is distinctly the reason that bans are not done with regards to broken checks broken, if a ban makes something else broken it is irrelevant. Broken checks broken is bad logic. Also as was previously mentioned complex bans are in violation of tiering policy. Also ghold is fine lol seethe harder!!!!

 

[Illouri]

It's very hard to argue that Dragon Dance Dragapult wasn't unhealthy before it got banned, however, I think banning pult was the wrong decision, as there is a worse culprit that caused it to be OP, and is, even still, turning a different otherwise balanced pokemon into an overbearing presence.

Ghostium-Z is a problem. It places Dragapult into banworthiness due to Dragon Dance, forcing out the healthy Wisphex set which was a good presence for the tier. It places Gholdengo on top of the entire meta, and is one of the reasons it is so overbearing right now. It is at fault.

There has been talk of Z in general getting banned, which I entirely disagree with. Fightinium is very strong but is mostly just used as an accuracy tool on special attackers that enjoy fighting coverage. Dragonium is a staple on basically every Dragon Dance pokemon in existence, but it is confined to that, and has been proven to break nothing.
Ghostium on the other hand, has brought one mon up to a frankly unhealthy level of utter tier dominance, and straight up got another banned.

Z moves are fine, Ghostium is not, and banning it would lead to the healthy presence of Wisphex Dragapult returning, as well as maybe dropping Gholdengo from the unhealthily dominant place it occupies at the moment.

Ghold is fine
Pult is fine
Z moves are fine
Ghostium-Z is distinctly not fine.

dude we told you to keep this in the discord server </3

 

[FloopThePig]

Now that the suspect is over, I think it's time to unban Shed Tail. When Terastallization was banned and some Pokémon were being reintroduced and discussed, it was glossed over since it is not a Pokémon. But with a major mechanic that contributed to Shed Tail's brokenness leaving, it deserves to be looked at like the others.

Shed Tail is only broken in a Tera metagame. For those that don't know the interaction, a slow/free Shed Tail grants the receiver a free turn behind sub, but with Tera it always turns into 2 or 3 turns by
1. flipping weaknesses which prevents the substitute from breaking, and
2. having to switch out your supposed counter due to Tera flipping type matchups.
The combination of status and chip damage protection from Shed Tail and the flipping of weaknesses from Tera means that there is very limited counterplay to this strategy. It is not uncommon to only need one free, slow Shed Tail turn to win the game with the right Tera type. The few counterplay this playstyle include Encore (usually a priority/fast one), Unaware users, phazing, or winning the mind game when you defensively Terastallize.

With Terastallization out of the way, the most relevant pro-Shed Tail argument has even more weight: its users suck. Orthworm and Sceptile are very committal to the strategy since they can realistically Shed Tail once on average. Only Cyclizar can reliably use it multple times, but I doubt it would be good enough to break Shed Tail with its mediocre bulk limiting its ability to switch in and its Shed Tail being fast. And if it is proven to be broken on Cyclizar, the Pokémon can be banned instead.

I was supposed to link some previous tournament replays when Shed Tail was legal to show how often Shed Tail receivers Terastallize, but unfortunately many of the tournament replays have been deleted.

 

[RunicPower413]

Now that the suspect is over, I think it's time to unban Shed Tail. When Terastallization was banned and some Pokémon were being reintroduced and discussed, it was glossed over since it is not a Pokémon. But with a major mechanic that contributed to Shed Tail's brokenness leaving, it deserves to be looked at like the others.

Shed Tail is only broken in a Tera metagame. For those that don't know the interaction, a slow/free Shed Tail grants the receiver a free turn behind sub, but with Tera it always turns into 2 or 3 turns by
1. flipping weaknesses which prevents the substitute from breaking, and
2. having to switch out your supposed counter due to Tera flipping type matchups.
The combination of status and chip damage protection from Shed Tail and the flipping of weaknesses from Tera means that there is very limited counterplay to this strategy. It is not uncommon to only need one free, slow Shed Tail turn to win the game with the right Tera type. The few counterplay this playstyle include Encore (usually a priority/fast one), Unaware users, phazing, or winning the mind game when you defensively Terastallize.

With Terastallization out of the way, the most relevant pro-Shed Tail argument has even more weight: its users suck. Orthworm and Sceptile are very committal to the strategy since they can realistically Shed Tail once on average. Only Cyclizar can reliably use it multple times, but I doubt it would be good enough to break Shed Tail with its mediocre bulk limiting its ability to switch in and its Shed Tail being fast. And if it is proven to be broken on Cyclizar, the Pokémon can be banned instead.

I was supposed to link some previous tournament replays when Shed Tail was legal to show how often Shed Tail receivers Terastallize, but unfortunately many of the tournament replays have been deleted.

I still don’t think this is a good idea. Shed tail doesn’t even need to be slow, and it would be bonkers on something like webs imo. You sack your web user, send out cyclizar and then shed into the resist. Oh your opp has a lele out? Lemme just shed into my gholdendo and get a free set up. Not to mention that cyc has decent utility outside of shed tail. For those discussing the idea of banning ghostium Z, the probability of that happening are next to none, as the mon itself would be banned, as shown in many cases. (Gouging fire being one) Another whacky and weird option though if you don't like z-moves would be a z-less tier like what ndmono did, although you’d have to figure out the challenge code.