Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

The comment that I was responding to quite literally said this:
Which is true, it did only exist in the side games. There has never been a main series game with any sort of sleep clause built into it, let alone one that modifies game mechanics the way the current iteration does. They weren't saying it was invented for that side game, they were saying it only officially exists in that side game.
 
Perhaps you should read instead of pretending I'm saying things that I'm not.
The reading comprehension here is lacking quite severely. Sleep Clause was never on Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, or Nintendo Switch games. What sleep clause WAS on is Stadium 1 and Stadium 2. (It might have also been on battle revolution singles but I don't know for sure).
 
The reading comprehension here is lacking quite severely. Sleep Clause was never on Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, or Nintendo Switch games. What sleep clause WAS on is Stadium 1 and Stadium 2. (It might have also been on battle revolution singles but I don't know for sure).
You guys are insane and just like to argue.

Obviously, I am talking about competitive battles. Sleep clause was always a thing in any sort of competitive battle, even if it wasn't in the actual cart games. I can not believe I have to clarify that.
 
You guys are insane and just like to argue.

Obviously, I am talking about competitive battles. Sleep clause was always a thing, even if it wasn't in the actual cart games. I can not believe I have to clarify that.
Can you show me where I (or anyone else for that matter) said that Sleep clause didn't exist in competitive battles?
 
You guys are insane and just like to argue.

Obviously, I am talking about competitive battles. Sleep clause was always a thing in any sort of competitive battle, even if it wasn't in the actual cart games. I can not believe I have to clarify that.
Oh my fucking god. "I can not believe I have to clarify that." THE ENTIRE REASON PEOPLE ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT SLEEP CLAUSE IS THAT IT IS INCONSISTENT WITH CARTRIDGE MECHANICS. I TURNED ON CAPS LOCK FOR THIS BECAUSE HOLY SHIT.
 
The correct choice is to just ban hypnosis. It's the only inaccurate sleep move with any sort of distribution on good pokemon.* Grass Whistle isn't even in the game and Sleep Powder is more accurate than Focus Blast or Hurricane. There's really no reason to ban any of the other inaccurate sleep moves because none of them are distributed to good pokemon or are actually that inaccurate.

*I guess you could run sing skeledirge but if sing skeledirge HO ever becomes a meta defining teamstyle I will give my smogon account to turd2.
 
Dude, RBY would be completely unplayable without sleep clause. It has been around since the very beginning. You're showing your age with these comments.
Ok? We’re talking about turning current sleep clause (complex ban on sleep that breaks game mechanics) into sleep clause (simple ban on sleep moves).
 
the sleep discussion is actually two related but ultimately distinct discussions of "do you think sleep is fine in SV OU as it's played?" and "are you fine with the existence of a clause inconsistent with cartridge play?". and some discussions look like one person thinking of the first point against one person thinking of the second point.

a person can accept the premise of sleep clause and still feel like something should be done with SV OU (a darkrai suspect, or whatever). a person can be fine with the current state of SV OU (or any other tier), and still disagree with sleep clause. etc. i think the disagreement on this page stems from people actually arguing different things.

(my horse in this race is that sleep/freeze clauses don't even need to be discussed in gens 1 and 2 where they exist in a game, but gen 3 onwards it Would be interesting to rework the wording or just ban sleep depending on generation)
 
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So is freeze clause.

You're only complaining about sleep because Darkrai got unbanned.

The problem is Darkrai.
First of all, while absolutely true that it’s another augmentation of cart mechanics, freeze clause only exists in a single gen because freeze is so broken in gen 1 that the only alternative to a freeze clause is essentially banning all offensive ice moves except Aurora Beam, which is absolutely ludicrous. This isn’t remotely comparable to the concept of banning sleep moves.

Second of all, kindly do not presume anything about me without asking me. Me personally, I have always opposed Sleep Clause as it is implemented, and honestly, I kind of dislike Freeze Clause too even if I know why it can be argued to be a necessary evil. However, there is nothing necessary about Sleep Clause. It is a mod that doesn’t even achieve the goal it was originally set out to achieve.

Third of all, our own OU council member xavgb has gone into extensive detail here, here, and here about why sleep is being brought up now, why Sleep Clause is being talked about as an issue specifically, why Darkrai is not considered the primary issue, and how Iron Valiant, Red Card Amoonguss, and Lilligant-H also continue to abuse sleep in a problematic fashion. You should really do some reading on the sleep threat we just had that ran for 17 whole pages before making claims that have already been refuted multiple times in said thread.
 
First of all, while absolutely true that it’s another augmentation of cart mechanics, freeze clause only exists in a single gen because freeze is so broken in gen 1 that the only alternative to a freeze clause is essentially banning all offensive ice moves except Aurora Beam, which is absolutely ludicrous. This isn’t remotely comparable to the concept of banning sleep moves.

Second of all, kindly do not presume anything about me without asking me. Me personally, I have always opposed Sleep Clause as it is implemented, and honestly, I kind of dislike Freeze Clause too even if I know why it can be argued to be a necessary evil. However, there is nothing necessary about Sleep Clause. It is a mod that doesn’t even achieve the goal it was originally set out to achieve.

Third of all, our own OU council member xavgb has gone into extensive detail here, here, and here about why sleep is being brought up now, why Sleep Clause is being talked about as an issue specifically, why Darkrai is not considered the primary issue, and how Iron Valiant, Red Card Amoonguss, and Lilligant-H also continue to abuse sleep in a problematic fashion. You should really do some reading on the sleep threat we just had that ran for 17 whole pages before making claims that have already been refuted multiple times in said thread.
Umm aktually Freeze Clause exists in Gen 2.
But yeah ultimately past gens really shouldn’t influence modern gen policy. Older gens have very niche communities rather than hundreds of people who play OU in current gens. But besides that, we should ask if because of Sleep and Freeze Clause in Gameboy games, would it make sense to change other mechanics just because?
 
i feel like a lot of the sleep discussion is surrounding darkrai; in which case why wouldn't we suspect darkrai instead? no one is saying that amoonguss or smth is a problem, so this seems like taking a potentially legitimate issue and going way way overboard
 
i feel like a lot of the sleep discussion is surrounding darkrai; in which case why wouldn't we suspect darkrai instead? no one is saying that amoonguss or smth is a problem, so this seems like taking a potentially legitimate issue and going way way overboard
People kinda are complaining about amoonguss, specifically the lead red card version. Although I would like to suspect Darkrai first if we have to suspect anything, sleep as mechanic is quite controversial. Any mon that can win games off sleep itself has to be looked at as ban worthy. Nothing will probably come from this, but maybe we should hit the nail on the head just so people can stop talking about it. There's not much to lose, Darkrai and friends will probably move back to their other shenanigans. Only spore and yawn users will be negatively affected, but that will be a price most will be willing to take.
 

DaRotomMachine

I COULD BE BANNED!
i feel like a lot of the sleep discussion is surrounding darkrai; in which case why wouldn't we suspect darkrai instead? no one is saying that amoonguss or smth is a problem, so this seems like taking a potentially legitimate issue and going way way overboard
I kinda feel this way too
I think its already been said but now that there is an argument over banning sleep instead of what is actually causing the argument (darkrai) but there should be a suspect for Darkrai, not sleep itself.
 

CobsonYaoi

formerly Holesum420
i feel like a lot of the sleep discussion is surrounding darkrai; in which case why wouldn't we suspect darkrai instead? no one is saying that amoonguss or smth is a problem, so this seems like taking a potentially legitimate issue and going way way overboard
It's not just Darkrai, there are other abusers of it such as Ninetails-A and Iron Valiant. It's also a matter of trying to make the simulator closer to the actual cartridge
 
You guys are insane and just like to argue.

Obviously, I am talking about competitive battles. Sleep clause was always a thing in any sort of competitive battle, even if it wasn't in the actual cart games. I can not believe I have to clarify that.
oh my god dude, i was so close to publicly apologizing to you for everyone giving you so much shit because your posts were part of the reason this discussion about sleep got started. i was planning to type it up today when i got back from work, and then i get back and see you posting nonsense about darkrai again and calling everyone else insane for wanting to tie up a decades-old loose end. why are you like this. you could have bowed out gracefully with a partial win, but you decided to keep arguing and turn it into a total loss
 
no one is saying that amoonguss or smth is a problem
i am.

i dont like sleep in general, ive already explained my reasons for why i believe it has no place in a competitive space in the views from the council thread, but to elaborate further: being forced to either have gholdengo/hatterene/garganacl/a grass type as a switch in (one of which gets clobbered by giga drain, two others of which get clobbered by sludge bomb) is restrictive on teambuilding, and if you dont do that you sacrifice something to sleep, in other words clicking spore is just a free KO (and lets not act like sleep isnt basically a KO because it is, youre not burning sleep turns unless youre incredibly ahead). it doesnt matter which pokemon gets an instant sleep move, its gonna do work regardless.

not to mention, the sleep clause mod is no longer welcome under our tiering policy, so we might as well just get rid of it and ban instant sleep moves regardless. we're not gonna have unrestricted sleep, and we're not gonna keep sleep mod. if we were to allow literal mods just to nerf a broken mechanic, why not mod every broken mechanic just to allow them back? nerf every uber's stats, make it so ohko moves only work once, make it so baton pass can only pass one buff at a time - oh, wait, we already tried that, and it didnt work, because guess what? the mechanic was a problem in and of itself. same with sleep.

and people keep acting like its only darkrai that is a problem, when it really isnt. darkrai was just the straw that broke the camels back for inciting discussion on sleep; its always been an uncompetitive, cheap, luck-based, semi-viable (or fully viable, in the case of spore) strategy. and no, we're not keeping sleep just so we dont nerf certain pokemon, or else we wouldve kept baton pass just so we didnt nerf all the passers.

spore is just marginally less uncompetitive than hypnosis/sing/grass whistle due to the reduced RNG factor, but that is reduced - not removed, and while being a lot more certain to counter, it is a lot more powerful. and, well, ive also given my reasons on why i dont think yawn is nearly as problematic as the instant sleep moves. i have yet to see anyone counter the arguments i made in the views thread for a sleep ban (though perhaps thats on me since i stopped reading after a while), but if you disagree with either this post or that one, please do make your opinion heard, thats what the forums are for anyway.
 
Then make the same kind of arbitrary game modifcations for them that sleep has now lol. OHKO moves don't work after getting 1 kill with them, and evasion can't be stacked above like, +2 or whatever (so Minimize isn't defacto banned as a result). Also, saying that sleep isn't like being OHKOed at all is funny when a lot of the times, it frankly is.



You do like, realize that the Baton pass wasn't actually broken on everything, right? It hasn't ever been difficult to isolate which Pokemon can actually noticeably abuse Baton pass to the point they became noticeable issues. The problem with Baton Pass came from not wanting to ban several different Pokemon just to preserve Baton Pass for the Pokemon that used it in a non broken way, but even with the funny, obtuse restrictions it got, it was still proving a problem with the prominent abusers of it, so it eventually got banned as a whole in the majority of generations. It was never "every Pokemon that got it was broken with it". That alone makes your weird and frankly dumb attempt at using random shitmons being able to use Hypnosis and shit to try and justify why Sleep as a whole can't and shouldn't be banned kinda moot, as well as tyrying to talk about random shitmons using OHKO moves and evasion as reasons why they should stay banned
You sure you don't understand Baton Pass? Because as someone who suffered facing Full Pass Teams "shitmons" and Baton Pass are intertwined. Like, that entire strategy revolved using otherwise unviable Pokemon to pass stats to powerful Pokemon who otherwise couldn't boost those stats. You're telling me people wouldn't use something like, idk, Venonat to pass +2 speed to Pokemon like Ursaluna or Kingambit? That was the problem with BP you either had to ban an obscene amount of otherwise healthy Pokemon and otherwise unviable Pokemon just to try and balance it out outside of a no stat boosting clause. This is why I've used "shitmons" in my examples because it helps highlight the absurdity of the moves/mechanics. Much like how people used Diglett and Trapinch in Gen 6 for Arena Trap so to would people use them to hit Fissures even if restricted to one KO, and what I've been trying to argue is that Sleep isn't that strong. You wouldn't use "shitmons" just to get that one time sleep it isn't as powerful or game ending of a mechanic. People use Amoongus because it's sleep tied to a decent Pokemon. People are using Sleep on Darkrai and Iron Valiant because they're good Pokemon without it. No one, well at least not yet, is or would use Foongus or Parasect just for Spore. Nor would people replace Darkrai/Iron Valiant with Gengar. Sleep is balanced in it's current state, and right now we're just seeing what happens when you have borderline Pokemon in the tier use it.

If it's about tiering policy. Then sure I'd say just change it to where it can be replicated in cart like making it to where you can't use the move once something is asleep. If that's just not possible/feasible then I guess you either axe it or keep it as is.
 
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Neither Darkrai neither sleep are the issue. There is no issue. This is an overreaction to someone with contacts losing some game to sleep and crying about it.

Changing sleep clause while imo needless and unwarranted seems like a possibility to "modernize" it.

If for whatever reason Darkrai gets banned, I expect Iron Valiant to also get banned.

Tbh the whole sleep topic is kinda madness, are we all playing the same ladder? Where is the sleep issue? Sure Luck is a fucking problem in pokemon, I say that as one of the unluckiest players out there imo. But I dont see how is sleep in particular is a problem.
 
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I'm gonna say my position again because I do genuinely want to hear other people's takes on my version of the solution.

Ban Hypnosis.

Hypnosis has too many high roll lead sets that do nothing if it misses but can win the game instantly if it hits, is the only "inaccurate" sleep move with good distribution (No Patrick, Sleep Powder is not inaccurate), and banning hypnosis would let sleep as a status stay but get rid of some of the most uncompetitive aspects of high rolling teams built around normal consistent sets. Scream Tail does get sing but that's the only potentially problematic user of that move.
 
I'm gonna say my position again because I do genuinely want to hear other people's takes on my version of the solution.

Ban Hypnosis.

Hypnosis has too many high roll lead sets that do nothing if it misses but can win the game instantly if it hits, is the only "inaccurate" sleep move with good distribution (No Patrick, Sleep Powder is not inaccurate), and banning hypnosis would let sleep as a status stay but get rid of some of the most uncompetitive aspects of high rolling teams built around normal consistent sets. Scream Tail does get sing but that's the only potentially problematic user of that move.
Sing blissey and clefable left the chat
Jk, they probably wouldn't be any good, but now I kinda want to see them used in a competitive match
 
Sing blissey and clefable left the chat
Jk, they probably wouldn't be any good, but now I kinda want to see them used in a competitive match
Genuinely think sing might be decent on blissey as a higher-risk (relatively, since blissey still sits on special attackers for days) higher-reward alternative to t-wave, which can also surprise grounds and electrics that would otherwise switch in. Of course, you have to use blissey, but the right team structure can make it work.
 
Genuinely think sing might be decent on blissey as a higher-risk (relatively, since blissey still sits on special attackers for days) higher-reward alternative to t-wave, which can also surprise grounds and electrics that would otherwise switch in. Of course, you have to use blissey, but the right team structure can make it work.
In previous generations I could see that, but the sheer power of special attackers this gen, I don't think makes this wise. Even blissey is worn down quite quickly over multiple turns and the main thing of thunder wave is that it is almost guarenteed, meaning one miss is usually worth it since you can not remove it without an opposing blissey having heal bell. Having to come back in again and again to reapply sleep is not really good for blissey, as you would have to spend softboiled pp on something that isn't permanent. But you know, I want someone to prove me wrong, make it work, because that would be so cool.
 
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Regardless of what other action we take, if we don't outright ban Sleep moves, I think it's imperative we make Sleep Clause cart-accurate. The simplest way to do this is to disallow the user to use another Sleep-inducing move while the opponent still has a Pokemon that has been put to sleep. If it's the only action the user can take, they lose (they've pretty much lost at that point anyways). In practice, this changes very little about the current Sleep Clause but it does prevent situations where you might use a Sleep move on a sleeping Pokemon in case it wakes up on that turn, which you obviously could not do under a gentleman's agreement on the carts.

I don't even think there should really be a debate when it comes to that, it should just be done. There's been literally no counter-argument brought up to this point other than that "it's been like that forever", which... isn't an argument. It changes very little and it eliminates one of the only deviations between Smogon formats and what can be replicated on the carts. There's basically no downside.
 
Regardless of what other action we take, if we don't outright ban Sleep moves, I think it's imperative we make Sleep Clause cart-accurate. The simplest way to do this is to disallow the user to use another Sleep-inducing move while the opponent still has a Pokemon that has been put to sleep. If it's the only action the user can take, they lose (they've pretty much lost at that point anyways). In practice, this changes very little about the current Sleep Clause but it does prevent situations where you might use a Sleep move on a sleeping Pokemon in case it wakes up on that turn, which you obviously could not do under a gentleman's agreement on the carts.

I don't even think there should really be a debate when it comes to that, it should just be done. There's been literally no counter-argument brought up to this point other than that "it's been like that forever", which... isn't an argument. It changes very little and it eliminates one of the only deviations between Smogon formats and what can be replicated on the carts. There's basically no downside.
This isn't really possible. Dire Claw was not the only move with a secondary effect that has a percent chance to put the opponent to sleep. Relic Song, for instance. Effect Spore has a random chance to put the opponent to sleep. Under this clause, rather than simply having the effect not occur if it's rolled, you instantly lose the game from something out of your control. These are niche cases to be sure, but they are 100% possible in SV OU and need an answer. Not to mention the possibility that this would set precedent for future generations where even more stuff like this could be added.
 

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