We’ve recently had a council vote on Snow Warning, Slush Rush/Arctovish, Aurora Veil, and Indeedee-M. The results are below:
Firstly, for full transparency, Aurora Veil was a tied vote in the council. In the case of a tied vote, we have decided that we will keep the status quo over revoting to try and break the tie (i.e. 50% + 1 rules). This may be a controversial decision, and the council will keep an eye on this moving forwards.
Snow Warning has been a frequent topic of discussion since its ban, and due to the Light Clay ban and Arctozolt bans that have taken place in tiers above us, a majority of council has decided that Snow Warning no longer constitutes a ban over a specific piece of Hail. The piece of hail that was majority voted on was Arctovish, which is unsurprising given its dominance over most metagame staples bar Vaporeon due to its high speed tier in Hail, outpacing even Scarf Rotom-Mow, and its 170 Base Power STAB move in Fishious Rend. We decided to ban Arctovish over Slush Rush, as many of us believe Slush Rush is in a good place with its best abuser being Sandslash-Alola, allowing for a niche offensive archetype and nothing more. The reason Aurora Veil was considered on this slate was because of the banning of Light Clay since it was last in the tier. Due to the obscurity of dual screens in the meta right now, we hope that Aurora Veil isn’t too overbearing for the meta, and may revisit it in the future.
The council also voted on whether to have a suspect on Indeedee-Male after the recent community survey, which got near unanimous support from the members. We know that there hasn’t been any suspect tests recently, and we hope to have discussions about future potential retests after this one.
Indeedee-Male was too overbearing when it was banned, sporting an effective 156 Base Power STAB move with Expanding Force while in Psychic Terrain. This, along with the extra edge in speed tier and power that it gains over its Female counterpart, was too much in a tier that already heavily overloaded Steel-types. However, now that the meta has stabilized since then, and Indeedee-F isn’t nearly as good as some may have expected, it's time to take another look at Indeedee-M.
Indeedee-M has a very dangerous speed tier compared to its Female counterpart, allowing it to outspeed important targets such as Rotom-Mow and speed tying Pokemon such as Silvally-Ground and Drapion. This speed tier also allows it to run Modest on Choice Scarf sets in order to outspeed Passimian, instead of having to run Timid like its Female counterpart, which gives it a lot more power. Another factor is the extra 10 Special Attack, which doesn't seem like much, but it gives Indeedee much better rolls versus neutral targets such as Vaporeon and Sylveon, allowing it to 2HKO them much more reliably. It also is immune to priority due to the effects of Psychic Terrain, which makes it much harder to revenge kill notably Choice Scarfed sets with Pokemon such as Sirfetch'd and Toxicroak.
One final thing that is brought up is the fact that the tier is already filled with hard to account for breakers, and adding another one just makes building harder. While this isn't a very sound argument on its own, Indeedee-F already fulfills the niche of Indeedee-M in the metagame with a bit less power which makes it much more manageable. Indeedee-M doesn't add more options to the meta, it just improves one of the breakers and the playstyles that emerge from it substantially.
However, there are many reasons to believe Indeedee will be manageable in this metagame. The most obvious one, of course, is the fact that Indeedee-F doesn't have a strong spot in the meta currently, which shows that the power difference that Indeedee-M brings is likely not to have a huge effect. The counterplay for Indeedee-M is also already incredibly common, with Steel-types also being the best checks to Pokemon like Exploud and Dragalge, as well as Dark-types such as Guzzlord and Drapion to a lesser extent being common as well. Although it has coverage for these Pokemon, it is significantly weaker when not clicking Expanding Force, and not using a Choice item makes it far less potent. Speaking of Choiced sets, Indeedee can often only run Choice Scarf or Choice Specs, with Terrain Extender coming up on Psychic Terrain teams only, making its counterplay very easy to understand and fit on a team relative to more diverse breakers.
- Reading this is mandatory for participating in the suspect test. The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 79 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 79 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 83. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 79 GXE will suffice. **It is now 79 GXE**
GXE | minimum games |
79 | 50 |
79.2 | 49 |
79.4 | 48 |
79.6 | 47 |
79.8 | 46 |
80 | 45 |
80.2 | 44 |
80.4 | 43 |
80.6 | 42 |
80.8 | 41 |
81 | 40 |
81.2 | 39 |
81.4 | 38 |
81.6 | 37 |
81.8 | 36 |
82 | 35 |
82.2 | 34 |
82.4 | 33 |
82.6 | 32 |
82.8 | 31 |
83 | 30 |
- You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be NUND. For example, I might signup with the ladder account NUND Meri Berry
- Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here. If there is any doubt or hesitance when making the alt, just pick another name. There are infinite possibilities and we have had trouble for this repeatedly. If you wish to participate in the suspect, you should be able to exhibit decent enough judgement here. We will not be lenient.
- We will be using the regular NU ladder for this suspect test. We will not be creating a new Suspect Ladder. At the beginning of every battle, there will be an announcement denoting the ongoing suspect with a link to this thread.
- The aspects being tested, Indeedee-Male, will be allowed on the ladder.
- Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
- Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
- The suspect test will go on for two weeks, lasting until December 5th at 11:59 pm (GMT-5), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.
- Personally, I think this mon is nuts and I don't see it having a healthy place in the metagame. If I end up getting reqs, I'll probably be voting to keep it banned from NU. We all know how Indeedee-Female functions. Now add 10 special attack and 10 speed and now we're cooking with gas. Indeedee-M has a great speed tier for a breaker in the tier, sitting at a very comfortable base 95. This allows it to speed tie with Pokemon like Silvally-Ground and Drapion, and outspeed other special breakers such as NP Mowtom. 95 speed coupled with 105 special attack is incredibly beneficial, as Indeedee can pull of both Scarfed and Specs sets. Scarfed in particular is a neat option, as it gives the tier a 4th viable scarfer (Passimian, Mowtom, and Heliolisk being the other 3), and Specs allows Indeedee to punch holes with a base 156 STAB move in Expanding Force. It also holds some unique defensive utility, with being immune to Ghost due to its Normal-typing, and Priority such as Doublade's Shadow Sneak and Sirfetch'd's First Impression under Psychic Terrain.
is a weird, anti-meta pick with strong dual STABS in Leaf Storm and Blizzard, with Focus Blast/Earth Power as good coverage moves to hit steels, and sporting an okay speed tier at base 60, but is probably bad due to the amount of weaknesses it has, inability to break without Choice Specs (which also means it's weak to SR).
I think Vileplume is just really solid so far. It's good at blanket checking a fair amount of the physical metagame, and the trapping sets are pretty cool. Escavalier + Salazzle are probably the best answers to it but can falter at times depending on sets.
@ Eviolite 
