Hi,
boing boing boing boing
Hear me out rq. I promise I'm not proposing anything silly
Regieleki was quickbanned with the release of Pokemon Home, in circumstances that were entirely understandable. The metagame was less explored and stable than it now is, with an overall lower power level, and Regieleki boasted impressive power with its ability, Transistor, boosting its Electric-type moves by a further 50% on top of STAB. With a powerful Thunderbolt that only bulky Grass-type or Ground-type Pokemon could be expected to withstand, Tera Blast Ice was extremely potent and allowed it to dispatch of the vast majority of counterplay. Pokemon that were neutral to Eleki's attacks would still take a strong Volt Switch for their troubles. With this in mind, the ban made sense.
However, it turned out that something very significant was wrong. Shortly after the ban, it was discovered that Transistor was nerfed from a 50% damage increase to a 30% damage increase. This is a rather substantial downgrade- think about how much stronger Choiced Pokemon are than Life Orb ones. This fundamentally changes a lot of the dynamics that led to Eleki's quickban, as suddenly generically bulky Pokemon are much more capable of taking Thunderbolts and Volt Switches than they were before. This discovery was not deemed enough to earn Regieleki another try in OU at the time, as the tier was already dealing with more than enough, but I've always seen it as a bit of a stain on the otherwise clean tiering of this generation- Regieleki, the Pokemon that was banned before it was even properly implemented on Showdown.
Nowadays, OU is fairly well-established and has a higher power level, and I really don't think Eleki is obviously broken. While I'm not pushing for immediate action, I'd say it's a far more serious consideration for testing down than the other Ubers oft posted about in this thread, even before considering that its ban is already on shaky grounds.
- It needs Tera. This is a really big deal, Tera usage has only become more conservative and optimized as the Generation progresses. We saw what Eleki was like without Tera last gen, and that was pre-nerf. In order to ever contribute meaningfully to a team, it is all but required to Terastallize. In return for this price, you get... A functional pivot and good revenge killer? Other banned Pokemon that hogged Tera, such as Volcarona and Espathra, tended to reward that commitment with winning the game instantly. Eleki, on the other hand, becomes a good Pokemon with almost zero defensive utility (the bulk is genuinely embarassing which I'll touch on more later), solid power, and the ability to pivot into teammates that can no longer make use of your Tera to become more threatening pivot recipients. I think SV already has several strong offensive pivots that don't necessitate your Tera to do their job (think Cinderace, Zapdos, Lokix, Meowscarada) and plenty of fast revenge killers that are similarly non-committal and don't pop instantly to priority-based sweepers. Those mons also allow you to save your Tera for your DD Dragon or SD Gliscor or Garg or whatever.
- Even with Tera it is kinda just a Volt Switch bot (and intensely priority vulnerable). Being slightly stronger than Tapu Koko isn't really winning any awards, especially when you're made of paper and lack the defensively gifted Fairy typing and Calm Mind and Taunt and Roost and U-turn and. You get it. Its Thunderbolt is a 4HKO on Sp.Def Boots Glowking, Its Tera Blast Ice is a 4HKO on standard Ting-Lu. Hell, Its Thunderbolt isn't KOing standard Tera Water Gliscor, and you can forget about meaningfully threatening Tera Normal lol. All of these very easily 2HKO Tera Ice Regieleki btw. As a frame of reference versus more generic opponents, its Thunderbolt almost never 2HKOs any Zamazenta and it drops in one to Body Press or Close Combat. So what does Eleki do? Well versus Ting-Lu, nothing, but versus the other examples it just Volt Switches for some damage. That's also its only real recourse versus the many offensive mons that can tank it and easily OHKO it, or use it as setup fodder (e.g. Dragonite who OHKOs even bulk invested Eleki with +1 Tera ESpeed or 2HKOs with unboosted ESpeed lol, Kingambit, Roaring Moon). Sure, fairly strong Volt Switching is good, but I'm really not entirely convinced it's worth the cost of always being your Tera user and therefore being a pivot that can never bring in a broken Tera abuser safely.
- Tera Ice is a curse in many ways. But OMG BoltBeam Waow... Yeah and you're locked to Boots and can never switch into Anything. Like really, Everything is dangerous for Eleki, which is true before Terastallizing but especially afterwards. Almost any attack is doing 50% at minimum, Gliscor's uninvested non-STAB Knock Off does up to 46% (and therefore puts Regieleki into range of Literally Every Priority Move too). Knock Off is especially bad news when you're now an Ice-type, so keep that in mind. Basically, Eleki is incredibly difficult to get on the field without slow pivoting, and many of the slow pivots in the format share weaknesses with Eleki. There's also the other problem, which is that clicking Tera Blast means you aren't clicking Volt Switch. Tera Blast is rarely KOing, well, anything without substantial chip- the main exceptions are 4x weak Pokemon and bulkless Great Tusk. And in return, pretty much every TB target threatens to OHKO you for choosing to stay in. Hell, you can't do anything meaningful versus Booster Raging Bolt because Thunderclap just instantly kills Terad Eleki lol. Sure, you can chip stuff down and aim to pick them off later with TB, but I don't find that necessarily unfair with the pace of SV. Eleki spamming Volt Switch is extremely telegraphed, and you can kinda often just stay in and punish it for doing so and come out of the situation fairly well-off.
Would Eleki be strong? Yes. It has a fantastic Speed tier that notably gets the jump on Booster Energy Iron Valiant, can compress Rapid Spin for non-Tusk teams, and it is admittedly threatening if you're willing to always invest your Tera in it. Do I think its weaknesses are understated currently, and that the strength of being a good pivot bot (a less potent role than in previous Generations) is overstated for the cost of always requiring your Tera in a metagame where that is an incredibly valuable resource? Also yes. Do I think that a Pokemon banned while being incorrectly stronger than it actually is, two DLCs ago, deserves a second chance at some point? Triple yes. Not necessarily right now, but I think it's a far more serious (and fair) consideration than the likes of Solgaleo and Lugia, and I want to shine some light on this unjustly treated Pokemon and get people thinking about it.