Hello, the DPP council sent out a survey after SPL to all DPP players involved with the tournament in a significant capacity. We asked questions geared towards finding out how they feel about the current metagame. We received 20/24 responses. Thank you to all those who responded: Excal ABR mael BKC johnnyg2 Malekith Christo Jirachee snøfall Emeral Sakito PDC Kristyl SFG crayon pop august BIHI M Dragon DeepBlueC and Tamahome! We will show highlights from each question, as well as show each council member's thoughts. Without further ado, let's get into it!
Enjoyment and quality of the tier is generally appraised to be roughly a 7-8/10, which is a pretty decent result! People participating in SPL are enjoying the tier and finding it to be a decent metagame. As for teambuilding, the results are quite mixed and it's hard to see any trends in the data. There are mixed opinions on how easy it is to teambuild and how much people enjoy it, which is to be expected.
Next, we asked people the biggest question right up front: "Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Jirachi in DPP OU?"
Some noteworthy statistics:
- 0% of people consider Jirachi to be balanced
- 50% of people consider Jirachi to be borderline
- 50% of people consider Jirachi to be problematic
- 80% of people think that no tiering action should take place
Council member responses:
The consensus on Jirachi is that it's not balanced and (potentially) problematic, but that the metagame with it is in a decent-good enough state to where people do not want action taken on it. We discussed Iron Head in council, despite it not being a feasible option due to tiering policy. Although some council members like DeepBlueC and BIHI think an Iron Head ban would improve the tier, council members such as myself had different opinions. I think that it would not fully solve the Jirachi issue, as other aspects of Serene Grace like Fire Punch, Body Slam, and Ice Punch are still issues. It could also exacerbate issues with other Pokemon like Clefable. The tl;dr for me is that it's a bandaid that wouldn't fully solve the problem and I am not 100% convinced that it would even improve the metagame.
We had conversations about what would need to happen if Jirachi were to leave the metagame, and we are going to continue to keep an eye on this Pokemon, but it was made very clear in the survey that Latias would need to leave alongside Jirachi. It's also a tremendous risk given this tier's decade-plus-long history with the Pokemon, and no one can truly predict how the tier would end up with it removed.
Next, we asked people about some other Pokemon in the tier: "Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Clefable in DPP OU?"
Noteworthy statistics:
- 55% of people consider Clefable to be balanced
- 85% of people think no tiering action should take place
- 0% of people think Clefable is problematic and that no tiering action should take place
Council member responses:
A lot of people find Clefable to be balanced and consider it a glue for the tier thanks to its Spikes immunity and flexible defensive capabilities. Knock Off was highlighted several times to be extremely strong/overwhelming. Some people who think tiering action should take place on Clefable cite that it would make Jirachi significantly less oppressive, which is an argument that has merit. For now, however, the council unanimously thinks Clefable is fine as-is in the metagame.
"Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Latias in DPP OU?"
Some noteworthy statistics:
- 50% of people think Latias is balanced and 50% of people think that it's borderline or problematic
- 5% of people (only 1 person in this instance) think tiering action should take place
Council member responses:
People seem very divided and uncertain of Latias overall. Some think it has been a good influence on the metagame, others are not sure, and some also think it has not been a good influence. Latias has very much homogenized DPP and has strongly altered the types of structures we see today, but is this all because of Latias's influence or perhaps because it influenced tier growth at a faster rate for other reasons?
Overall, we can break it down very simply like this, based on survey responses:
Positives:
- Blessing for offense, helps a lot against Zapdos/Infernape/Swampert/Suicune among others
- Great utility options to support teams in unique ways
- Increased homogeneity emphasizes skill among more seasoned playerbase
- Nice defensive glue that can be said to have balanced the tier more
Negatives:
- Unclear to many if its reintroduction was a net positive
- Defensive set can be too overbearing and might have made defensive teams too strong
- Homogeneity can be perceived as a negative influence to make tier more "boring" and more of a chore to build
- Forcing more grounded structures with 2x steels almost always + slower teams exacerbates other metagame issues like hazards
For our purposes, the council will keep an eye on Latias, but nothing too unexpected came up from the survey.
"Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Flygon in DPP OU?"
Some noteworthy statistics:
- 20% of people think Flygon is borderline
- 100% of people do not think that tiering action should take place
Council member responses:
Almost everyone considers Flygon to be absolutely not problematic in the slightest. This was 100% anticipated, but we wanted to see how people felt about Mixed Flygon because the metagame this SPL was more favorable to it than any previous DPP metagame. I'm in the minority in thinking the Pokemon is borderline. I would say that my opinion since I filled out the survey has shifted a bit. At most it's borderline to me, but it's manageable with more respect and adaptation to the Pokemon. One thing we saw come up in the survey a lot was that people considered MixGon to be "weak" power-wise, which I completely disagree with. Its hazard resistance, sand immunity, and great longevity allow it to be one of the few Pokemon to reliably run Life Orb, which more than compensates for its lack of power. Spikes definitely exacerbate MixGon's effectiveness, and perhaps MixGon is just a symptom of Spikes being overbearing more so than the Pokemon itself being very cumbersome. Either way, very interesting to see peoples' opinion on the Pokemon, but naturally the council never anticipates to have to take any tiering action on Flygon.
"Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Spore/Sleep in DPP OU?"
Some noteworthy statistics:
- 20% of people think Sleep is balanced, but 65% do not support any tiering action
- 80% of people think Sleep is borderline or problematic
Additional note: Several people mentioned in their responses that they wish they had more nuanced options to fill for this part of the survey, will touch on that more below.
Council member responses:
At first, the council seemed quite divided on sleep as an issue. However, as we dug into survey responses and discussed sleep more, the perspective seemed to shift in favor of not doing anything about sleep for the moment at least (besides DBC). When you look at the individual responses, they tell a different story from the chart. A lot of the pro-ban sleep arguments had vernacular which was unspecific to DPP (sleep as a mechanic across more than 1 generation for example). People also mentioned that sleep shouldn't be our main focus right now, even if they did not deem it as balanced.
BIHI, M Dragon, and I felt that the arguments against banning sleep were stronger in the survey than those that favored tiering action, and august later changed his perspective that he "couldn't care less" about sleep and that there are "bigger fish to fry". Additionally, people mentioned that they would have preferred options like "sleep is problematic and tiering action should be considered". Personally, I think sleep is an easy thing to look at and say "this should be banned" because it feels significantly less consequential to outright ban than a Pokemon like Jirachi or Latias. Maybe down the line we would redo the sleep question under different criteria, however for now the council does not think sleep is an issue overall.
After we finished asking about all these Pokemon and sleep, we asked a few more questions to wrap up the survey.
"Are there any other potential issues with the tier that the survey did not necessarily cover? (Write N/A if no)"
Most people wrote N/A, but we got a few interesting mentions that could definitely be great discussion points in this thread:
- Knock Off
- Spikes
- Unbanning a Pokemon (Salamence/Mew)
- Copycat
"What, if anything, would you do to improve DPP OU?"
People mainly discussed things like (Iron Head) Jirachi, Latias, and sleep, which is why we went for these removed from the metagame in the DPP OU suspect slot in DPP PL. Very interesting to see how this metagame will shape up!
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That's pretty much it! If anyone is interested in hearing additional information that was in the survey, feel free to post about it here. I encourage all those who filled out the survey as well as anyone reading to post your thoughts on everything here. Thank you for reading, and a special thank you to everyone on the DPP council for contributing to this post as well as the discussions we had about the results.
Next, we asked people the biggest question right up front: "Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Jirachi in DPP OU?"
- 0% of people consider Jirachi to be balanced
- 50% of people consider Jirachi to be borderline
- 50% of people consider Jirachi to be problematic
- 80% of people think that no tiering action should take place
Council member responses:
Jirachi is on the verge of being broken but is manageable. Random hax from serene grace iron head, fire punch, ice punch, body slam has limited counterplay and can swing games uncontrollably. The limited counterplay stems from bad distribution of abilities like static and flame body and other elements of good pokemon synergize too well with it (Clefable Knock Off and Tyranitar Sand). The metagame has reached a decent state and there is no need to do anything extremely drastic tiering-wise, especially right now.
i think that the time of pretending that overcentralization in the metagame is healthy (i.e., saying that jirachi is a necessary evil) needs to come to an end. i would like to see what the community thinks about 3 things: sleep, jirachi, and latias. i think that all 3 of these are potentially problematic for the long term health of the tier.
Consider iron head ban as we already discussed, if we can't ban it keep jira
I think that Jirachi is the best pokemon in DPP OU atm, and that 60% iron head flinch is very annoying. However, I think that it holds everything together, and that the meta without Jira would be much worse.
Iron Head is the biggest issue with Jirachi. 60% chance to flinch every turn, with each turn being an independent event, it's problematic to me. Jirachi also has moves like Body Slam + Thunder Wave to enable it to outspeed the metagame and proceed to flinch. Given Jirachi's bulk, most pokemon need to be able to hit it twice in a span of 1-4 turns, otherwise all the damage inflicted on Jirachi in the first turn would be negated by all the leftovers recovery it would have gained by the time you land the second hit. Moves like Fire Punch and Ice Punch with their additional hax odds is an issue.
If banning Jirachi entirely is on the table, then I'm up for it. I don't believe that Jirachi is this special mon that holds everything together. We just haven't had a metagame without Jirachi to be able to easily conclude that without it the meta would crumble.
If banning Jirachi entirely is on the table, then I'm up for it. I don't believe that Jirachi is this special mon that holds everything together. We just haven't had a metagame without Jirachi to be able to easily conclude that without it the meta would crumble.
We had conversations about what would need to happen if Jirachi were to leave the metagame, and we are going to continue to keep an eye on this Pokemon, but it was made very clear in the survey that Latias would need to leave alongside Jirachi. It's also a tremendous risk given this tier's decade-plus-long history with the Pokemon, and no one can truly predict how the tier would end up with it removed.
Next, we asked people about some other Pokemon in the tier: "Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Clefable in DPP OU?"
- 55% of people consider Clefable to be balanced
- 85% of people think no tiering action should take place
- 0% of people think Clefable is problematic and that no tiering action should take place
Council member responses:
We cannot get rid of Clefable in any capacity because it is our only defensive mixgon check and counterplay to hazards and a variety of special attackers. It is balanced, with the exception of Knock Off being overwhelming to deal with.
clefable is really good in spikes wars for obvious reasons. i think that the type of teams that just get murdered by clefable these days are few and far between though. i don't see it as much of a problem after the dugtrio ban
almost op but we can't ban it anyway since it's one of the things that keep the tier balanced imo
Clefable being immune to sand, burn / toxic and especially hazards is what make stall vs stall games more annoying, especially with its ability to remove leftovers with knock off. If there was something to change in current DPP OU atm, in my opinion it would be something related with Clefable for sure, but since I like current DPP OU I think that no tiering action should take place atm.
Clef is excellent with Magic Guard + Knock Off + Support moves. Magic guard gives it immunity to so many things like sand + status (no sleep). It's also able to spam Knock Off much more freely than any other Knock Off user. The support moves like thunder wave or encore prevent pokemon from being able to set up vs it. It's borderline to me and no tiering action should take place because Clefable can be beaten easily, but because we make sacrifices in the builder for other problematic pokemon, Clefable poses a bigger threat. For example, something like Taunt set up users like Tyranitar or Gyarados could have a better chance at beating Clefable if they didn't also need to run coverage for mons like Breloom (TTar needs Fire or Ice Punch) or Jirachi (Gyara's biggest benefit for running EQ is hitting Jirachi imo).
A lot of people find Clefable to be balanced and consider it a glue for the tier thanks to its Spikes immunity and flexible defensive capabilities. Knock Off was highlighted several times to be extremely strong/overwhelming. Some people who think tiering action should take place on Clefable cite that it would make Jirachi significantly less oppressive, which is an argument that has merit. For now, however, the council unanimously thinks Clefable is fine as-is in the metagame.
"Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Latias in DPP OU?"
- 50% of people think Latias is balanced and 50% of people think that it's borderline or problematic
- 5% of people (only 1 person in this instance) think tiering action should take place
Council member responses:
Although I can't say for sure if it was a good idea for Latias to be freed into DPP OU, it's a balanced Pokemon that strongly centralizes the metagame. It is not likely to be feasible to justify getting rid of it and leaving another Pokemon like Jirachi completely alone.
i'm torn here. latias provides a nice weapon to offensive teams, but its main sets these days are not offensive. it has, in my opinion, really homogenized the metagame. i don't necessarily think thats a bad thing, but the cost of adding it to teams is basically 0. at the end of the day it gives resists to crucial typings, has access to a huge support movepool, and is spikes immune and rocks neutral
tias brings a good balance to the tier imo
While it is true that Latias is great at keeping a lot of threats in check, It also has some clear weakness to keep it balanced. I think that its presence in the meta these years has been positive overall
I find Specs Latias to be a healthy addition to the tier. Zapdos and Heatran seemed incredibly strong, and it's nice for offensive teams to have some defensive answer other than TTar for special attackers.
The defensive set is probably an issue because of the variety of moves + spreads Lati can have. Thunder Wave / Thunderbolt / Ice Beam / Reflect / Roar / Grass Knot / Dragon Pulse / Wish / Protect can be a bit too much for offensive teams to handle. I do think people are now teching mons to handle Latias better, like Outrage Gyara or Dragon Pulse Heatran.
The defensive set is probably an issue because of the variety of moves + spreads Lati can have. Thunder Wave / Thunderbolt / Ice Beam / Reflect / Roar / Grass Knot / Dragon Pulse / Wish / Protect can be a bit too much for offensive teams to handle. I do think people are now teching mons to handle Latias better, like Outrage Gyara or Dragon Pulse Heatran.
Overall, we can break it down very simply like this, based on survey responses:
Positives:
- Blessing for offense, helps a lot against Zapdos/Infernape/Swampert/Suicune among others
- Great utility options to support teams in unique ways
- Increased homogeneity emphasizes skill among more seasoned playerbase
- Nice defensive glue that can be said to have balanced the tier more
Negatives:
- Unclear to many if its reintroduction was a net positive
- Defensive set can be too overbearing and might have made defensive teams too strong
- Homogeneity can be perceived as a negative influence to make tier more "boring" and more of a chore to build
- Forcing more grounded structures with 2x steels almost always + slower teams exacerbates other metagame issues like hazards
For our purposes, the council will keep an eye on Latias, but nothing too unexpected came up from the survey.
"Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Flygon in DPP OU?"
- 20% of people think Flygon is borderline
- 100% of people do not think that tiering action should take place
Council member responses:
Mixed Flygon in combination with Spikes has extremely limited defensive checks, and its speed tier and perfect coverage coupled with its longevity makes it a nuisance to deal with ingame and in the builder. It is on the verge, like Jirachi, of borderline and problematic, but no tiering action should be done as Flygon contributes a great deal to the metagame.
N/A (thinks Flygon is not even close to an issue)
LO is very good but not broken, people just need to adapt
I think that Flygon is far from being broken or uncompetitive
Mixed Flygon is probably what was being referred to here, but it's not an issue unless it is paired with spikes. I don't think the problem is Mixed Flygon here. I will admit that it doesn't help that most pokemon that are meant to deal with specs draco from Latias, are consequently weak to Mixed Flygon.
"Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Spore/Sleep in DPP OU?"
- 20% of people think Sleep is balanced, but 65% do not support any tiering action
- 80% of people think Sleep is borderline or problematic
Additional note: Several people mentioned in their responses that they wish they had more nuanced options to fill for this part of the survey, will touch on that more below.
Council member responses:
Breloom is not problematic whatsoever. Sleep serves as a chaotically healthy means of breaking defensive teams and targeting Jirachi, Skarmory, Latias, and Clefable who are very difficult Pokemon to overcome in the builder. There is more than enough sufficient counterplay to sleep, both via ingame strategies and sleep absorbers.
sleep adds an unnecessary element of RNG to the game, and should be banned in all gens 3-5 (imo)
spore is broken but we shouldn't ban it if we don't nerf stall in some way at the same time
I think that sleep is generally balanced, since there is solid counterplay in the form of sleep talk. The only form of sleep that could be problematic is Spore Breloom, so I would rather say that "Spore Breloom" than "Sleep" in general. I think that Spore Breloom is one of those things that you need to be prepared for, and that its annoying and limiting, but that it is not "strong enough" or "broken enough" to justify a ban in my eyes. I think that sleep is a core mechanic and part of the game we play, and unless extreme circumstances (like gen 5 sleep) it shouldnt be banned.
Sleep just generates way too many free turns for your opponent to completely turn the game around in their favor. Hypnosis Zong and Spore Loom are issues imo. I would very much like to run pokemon like CB TTar or CB Swampert, but the paranoia of running into spore loom dissuades me from using those pokemon. When taking a spore vs a loom, you also don't know if you are facing a subpunch set or a spore + 3 attack set. The tier doesn't have a reliable way of dealing with sleep rather than running surprise sleep-talk pokemon. And Breloom is a pokemon that will be capable finding a way to spore or set up even vs offense.
At first, the council seemed quite divided on sleep as an issue. However, as we dug into survey responses and discussed sleep more, the perspective seemed to shift in favor of not doing anything about sleep for the moment at least (besides DBC). When you look at the individual responses, they tell a different story from the chart. A lot of the pro-ban sleep arguments had vernacular which was unspecific to DPP (sleep as a mechanic across more than 1 generation for example). People also mentioned that sleep shouldn't be our main focus right now, even if they did not deem it as balanced.
BIHI, M Dragon, and I felt that the arguments against banning sleep were stronger in the survey than those that favored tiering action, and august later changed his perspective that he "couldn't care less" about sleep and that there are "bigger fish to fry". Additionally, people mentioned that they would have preferred options like "sleep is problematic and tiering action should be considered". Personally, I think sleep is an easy thing to look at and say "this should be banned" because it feels significantly less consequential to outright ban than a Pokemon like Jirachi or Latias. Maybe down the line we would redo the sleep question under different criteria, however for now the council does not think sleep is an issue overall.
After we finished asking about all these Pokemon and sleep, we asked a few more questions to wrap up the survey.
"Are there any other potential issues with the tier that the survey did not necessarily cover? (Write N/A if no)"
Most people wrote N/A, but we got a few interesting mentions that could definitely be great discussion points in this thread:
- Knock Off
- Spikes
- Unbanning a Pokemon (Salamence/Mew)
- Copycat
"What, if anything, would you do to improve DPP OU?"
People mainly discussed things like (Iron Head) Jirachi, Latias, and sleep, which is why we went for these removed from the metagame in the DPP OU suspect slot in DPP PL. Very interesting to see how this metagame will shape up!
---
That's pretty much it! If anyone is interested in hearing additional information that was in the survey, feel free to post about it here. I encourage all those who filled out the survey as well as anyone reading to post your thoughts on everything here. Thank you for reading, and a special thank you to everyone on the DPP council for contributing to this post as well as the discussions we had about the results.