Other End of Pokemon Home Metagame Thoughts

[maroon]

The Monotype Council would like to give everyone an opportunity to express their thoughts on the current metagame. This can range from anything like I wish x Pokemon was suspect tested, I really liked the survey and would enjoy if more were released in the future, I believe Monotype was not tiered enough, giving your general consensus on the metagame, what Pokemon you believe deserve a second chance in the DLC metagame, or really just any reflective thoughts. Please make sure to explain your takes with at minimum 2-3 sentences explaining why you have those opinions etc. Please do not derail this thread and talk about the dlcs or previous monotype metagames, focus in on the sv pokemon home metagame. The Monotype council will be looking at all responses and reflecting on them in time for the DLC.

 

[Neko]

• Builder strain to check Chien-Pao, Flutter Mane, and Kingambit was too great if you weren't the top types, and even then even the top types have problems with certain sets meant to target them (Band Pao for Flying, Ebelt FM for Water and Flying, Low Kick Kingambit for Steel, SD Chien Pao being uncheckable in the dark mirror without something like Scarf Gren or Chople Gambit...). This sort of led into a warped metagame where we had to pick and choose how badly we wanted to (not) lose against a certain threat (eg. Running Moltres means the swift swim matchup became harder since moltres was only relevant to pao pao/steel when you have BU lando for steel too, Running Spdef Pex for Flutter Mane, Surf Quaquaval for Sableye). It wasn't all bad, but honestly Pao or gambit getting suspected would've helped alot. Ngl I didnt enjoy the HOME metagame that much due to its restrictiveness, but it is what it is.
• In connection to the above statement, this made me feel that monotype is way more matchupy than ever, as sometimes its out of your hands to even try to win a poor matchup if the opposing player was at least decent in the game. This might be due to the lack of options, but there's only so many slots to try and dedicate to beat those 3 threats on top of the top types (Fairy/Dark/Bird/Fighting/Steel)
• Survey left a bad taste for me due to the issue of it being too close to MPL. I wish if you had a survey it was waaay before it. The circumstances of DLC were unfortunate so its understandable why a sus wouldnt be worthwhile now, but eh.
• I think Chi-Yu is a pokemon that might deserve a second chance in the metagame, due to its unfortunate speedtier. However, its ability to just dismatle bulky isnt something to be understated, being able to rip apart anything (something that Pao or FM needs to have coverage for, for instance, while Kingambit has speed issues) is worrisome. Plus, its another dark-type, so maybe not

Thank you for putting out this thread tho, hopefully SV Mono at DLC1 would be nicer

 

[boomp]

Honestly just needed to suspect chien-pao or kingambit, There should never be a case where a mon has to make every team have to build around dealing with a single mon. Especially Kingambit where even if you played well you can just get reverse swept by it. For the metagame i enjoyed the fact Flying and Ground were Top types and not water for a change. :D

 

[Giyu]

I was really rooting for a Chien-Pao suspect test sometime before the DLCs but that's obviously not going to happen, although, I truly believe that one will be necessary after the DLC release. I'm honestly shocked that Flutter Mane got attention in tiering but Chien-Pao didn't, especially since I've seen a lot more disdain for Chien-Pao. At this point I'd be repeating a lot of what Neko said as I agree with their post (Not sure about Chi-Yu) but I do want to point out that Kingambit would be a lot tamer without a snow leopard doped up on swords and infinite entry hazards, claiming 3-4 lives on every team before finally dying to cope checks like Choice Scarf Low Kick Walking Wake and Chople Berry Kingambit.

 

[Pengairxan]

As a relative newbie to competitive Pokemon who only dabbled in some stuff before jumping headfirst into Monotype during late December and has stuck around since, I've mostly enjoyed the home metagame for what it is despite some grievances with type matchups. Granted with how samey some types have felt seeing the exact same 6~8 mons on a good majority of types has felt stale and I will enjoy the new life given by the DLCs.

For the survey, I believe overall it was a good thing as it gave a very solid look into how good people thought the meta was at the time but the fact that it took over a month to see the results along with the lack of resulting action that came from it due to MPL wasn't in my eyes and made it seem less valuable overall than what it could of been. The resulting lack of action especially with how many votes Chien-Pao got that where in the 4/5 range felt wrong and I believe that it should of gotten a Suspect from the survey. And with me being the fourth person to bring it up here, I think that speaks some volume of it.

Other problematic mons that should of been looked at really come down to just Kingambit for me for major standouts. With how good both Dark and Steel are right now, the sheer power Gambit brings to both those types made it a constant problem to play agianst and always forced having a Gambit counter on a team unless I wanted to see a nice reverse sweep due to its raw Power. Sure there is also Flutter Mane that should of gotten some more action but with the additions home brought, it felt far less oppressive but it is still a monster. Other than those three I don't believe there was anything that was actually problematic that hasn't gotten banned yet, sure there is my personal problem with Lando-I, but I play Poison so major bias there. Also nothing really stands out to me for unbans outside of Chi-Yu because of the one room tour that had it and it didn't feel that bad there but my sample size is two games so maybe I'm horribly wrong.

 

[pikachu<3]

I have a few problems with how any tiering action was done--and to an extent, the resulting metagame. Everything done in this tier appears to be a series of halfhearted half-measures instead of strong, genuine effort to improve the tier. Not blaming anyone in particular as life is busy, I get it, and I get that people are putting hours into this tier out of pure passion, but this is just an honest outside high-level observation.

For example:

- The monotype sample teams were paused this week. Why bother making a sample teams thread if we're going to have one/two updates (post HOME) and leave it in a state where half the available types don't even have a team available?

- The monotype VR has had one meaningful update and has failed to respond to most of the nominations made on the thread. I have heard that is not going to be updated until post-home. Again, if we're going to leave the project in a sorry half-done state like this why bother having it up at all?

I'd like to echo the posts above about the lack of a Chien-Pao suspect as well; I'm not sure why Flutter Mane got tiering action while Chien-Pao did not. I personally don't believe Gambit is broken, but enough people are calling for tiering action that it should be suspected. To me, it feels like the only reason these suspects didn't happen is because people didn't want to put in the effort to run another suspect (I'm feeling this way in part due to the way the above two projects were handled). Another issue I have is that Flying is most used type with above a 66% winrate (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...N_BfrBzV5UXOmX-IfySXXiK4/edit#gid=722239091); people are trying to prep for it (as it's the most used type) and it's still winning more than 2/3 games, and we're just dismissing this as... fine? Something definitely feels wrong here. Not sure what the right solution is, but there should definitely be a discussion and the fact that this hasn't even been brought up is shocking.

 

[Scarfire]

Hard to add more without it feeling like an echo of other posts at this point, but yeah, it really did feel like a whole lot of nothing was done so far this gen.

Tera was handled strangely, then we had a week 2 or so flutter suspect and that was that. No suspects after wcop, nothing going into mpl and I was hoping the survey during it would cause a suspect during or right as mpl ended. Nothing.

Pre-homes unaddressed issues till the end are still the problems now (flutter, pao, gambit), and unfortunately they still will be going into dlc1 which is kind of laughable.

Also the aforementioned survey itself was a big gripe, what an absolute pointless thing. Don't bother with those if their impact is absolute zero. If the results of the survey can't come to fruition because there is an ongoing tour then don't fucking doing one, just drop one whenever a tour ends. Post-MPL and MLT survey would've (and still can be) great.

And like mentioned in previous post, yeah, slowness with VRs, sample teams, and other resources is just gonna serve as a turn off to new players.

Overall, I can't even say the gen thus far has been handled poorly; it has just not been handled at all. We have a bunch of new folks heading the future of the tier so I'm hoping there will be significant change throughout dlc1 but...we will see I guess.

 

[TheRealBigC]

Echoing Neko's post here, Chien-Pao is simply too strong and fast for the tier and is overly constraining on teambuilding. It can singlehandedly win matchups against Flying, Dragon, and Ground, and most types have hardly any good answers to it due to them not only needing to be able to take Chien-Pao's amazing dual STABs and raw power, but also not get destroyed by Sacred Sword. Just looking at some of the top types in the metagame:

Flying: Even max Def Corv can get 2HKO'd by Band Icicle Crash, Scarf Enam needs to not get Knocked and can't take Ice Shard. Moltres can give extra insurance paired with Corv and Scarf Enam but again is 2HKO'd by Band Icicle Crash
Dark: No answers besides Scarf Samurott-H and Overqwil (extremely niche)
Water: Quag gets destroyed by Band, Pex can't really stand up to SD well and is forced to switch out of even Band if Pao gets a Def drop with Crunch. Urshifu-R, Quaquaval, Scarf Samu-H, and Rotom-W are solid though
Fairy: Has several good answers in Klefki, Azu, and Tinkaton
Steel: Same issue as Flying for Corv, Klefki is more niche on this type. Scizor can destroy Pao with Band Bullet Punch but struggles to fit on teams
Ghost: No good answers besides Scarf Flutter which is incredibly vulnerable to Sucker and Shard and Mimikyu which can't switch-in and literally takes one attack per game
Ground: Quag owned by Band, have to rely on Scarf Tusk or Treads which are exploitable and can’t act as switch-ins
Fighting: Zamazenta, Iron Hands, Urshifu-R (although they fear Psychic Fangs variants)
Dragon: lol!!! (Goodra-H destroyed by Sacred Sword)
Poison: Pex has same issues as on Water, Overqwil is nice but niche, Sneasler has no longevity. Psychic Fangs variants also go crazy here
Electric: Iron Hands, Rotom-W, Pawmot

Out of all of these types, I'd say only Water, Fairy, Fighting, and Electric have reasonable counterplay to Chien-Pao which don't involve massive compromises. Even then, Chien-Pao can run Psychic Fangs to significantly improve its matchup against Fighting (although admittedly not without large tradeoffs). This isn't even mentioning the lower tier types which Chien-Pao near universally ruins (no pun intended), with the only exception being Fire. Like I said in the main discussion thread, I can live with Chien-Pao and have overall quite enjoyed the post-HOME metagame, but I think the tier would be much better off without it. In my opinion, Chien-Pao should have been tested during the post-HOME period, and should definitely be tested as soon as possible after the DLC meta has stabilized. Nothing else in the meta right now currently stands out to me as clearly broken besides Pao.

Just to respond to some of the other posts here:

I think Chi-Yu is a pokemon that might deserve a second chance in the metagame, due to its unfortunate speedtier. However, its ability to just dismatle bulky isnt something to be understated, being able to rip apart anything (something that Pao or FM needs to have coverage for, for instance, while Kingambit has speed issues) is worrisome. Plus, its another dark-type, so maybe not

Largely agree with your post Neko, but I think the last thing the tier needs right now is a Chi-Yu drop. This is a mon with almost no reasonable defensive counterplay even on paper, and to a great extent invalidates balance as a playstyle. While its Speed might not be on the level of something like Flutter Mane or Chien-Pao, 328 is still incredibly solid, and this ignores that Chi-Yu would be an excellent Scarfer as well. I struggle to see the positives of having Chi-Yu in the tier; it doesn't really defensively answer anything, just makes Dark even stronger when it's already one of the best types in the meta, and in my opinion would turn the tier into even more of a HO fest than it already is. If anything should get a second chance, I think Booster Energy should be considered, but this would likely lead to Valiant and Flutter being banned.

Another issue I have is that Flying is most used type with above a 66% winrate (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...N_BfrBzV5UXOmX-IfySXXiK4/edit#gid=722239091); people are trying to prep for it (as it's the most used type) and it's still winning more than 2/3 games, and we're just dismissing this as... fine? Something definitely feels wrong here. Not sure what the right solution is, but there should definitely be a discussion and the fact that this hasn't even been brought up is shocking.

I do mostly agree with your post but I disagree on this part, high usage and win rate does not indicate a type is broken. Flying has risen to the top by virtue of completely ignoring Spikes and T Spikes, and having so many great options that allow it to answer its bad match-ups and have real diversity in teambuilding, which is an incredibly rare trait for a type right now. Flying may be incredibly strong, but I don't think there's any mons on the type that push it into broken territory. The high usage and win rate is more a reflection of its consistency rather than oppressiveness on the tier.

Overall, I can't even say the gen thus far has been handled poorly; it has just not been handled at all. We have a bunch of new folks heading the future of the tier so I'm hoping there will be significant change throughout dlc1 but...we will see I guess.

I think this is a little unfair on the Council; swift action was taken on Magearna and Urshifu-S when HOME came out (although in fairness these are mons that really have no debate as to their brokenness). I do agree that more aggressive tiering action should have been taken on issues like Chien-Pao, however. It would also be nice if the VR Council were more transparent on their decisions and replied to their thread more.

Kingambit would be a lot tamer without a snow leopard doped up on swords and infinite entry hazards, claiming 3-4 lives on every team before finally dying to cope checks like Choice Scarf Low Kick Walking Wake and Chople Berry Kingambit.

Very important point I strongly agree with regarding whether Kingambit is broken. Kingambit is manageable on Steel, it only feels ridiculous on Dark paired with Chien-Pao because the two go together so well.

 

[Neko]

1. Chi-yu is a Pokemon I strongly feel that should be revisited. It was banned fairly early into the metagame (around 2 weeks ish?) since the start of SV and hasn’t been looked over since. From that time period to now, a lot of things have happened that makes me believe that Chi-yu should be reconsidered to be re-invited back into the tier. The underlying premise is that the metagame has developed immensely from the time when Chi-yu left to now. After it was initially banned, Dark has settled into the best type in the metagame, but it was not given a lot of time to exist within the tier. The issue with rocks weak Pokemon on Dark is that it severely limits the amount of times it can come into the field. A good example is my week 5 game from MPL against Azick, where CB Chien Pao made the mirror a lot worse since it could only switch in 3 or so times, and the same goes for Chi-yu. If you want any sort of longevity, it’s pretty much forced locked into boots, which hinders its immediate breaking power. A base 100 speed tier is not that great in the tier, with a lot of the metagame titans being faster than it. Enamorus, Landorus, Flutter Mane, Chien-pao, Iron Treads, Iron Valiant, and Dragapult all outpacing Chi-yu restricts it in the tier heavily. It doesn’t function that much differently than something like Victini in past generations, as it also is an extremely powerful Fire-type wallbreaker that does the same thing Chi-yu does under sun, which is just click Fire move and tear teams apart. The evil goldfish is definitely very good, but I don’t think it’s good enough to the point where its original quickban should be held up anymore especially with the presence of a lot of other arguably stronger offensive Pokemon in the tier and metagame adaptations. Stuff like Heatran and Alolan Muk being added to the tier helps as well due to obvious reasons. I talked about Chi-yu being comparable to Chien-pao offensively in this post and I still hold that sentiment today.
2. As for the other titans, I feel like Flutter Mane is the Pokemon that I would like to see revisited too in terms of suspects and bans. I think Fairy has seen a huge resurgence since the original Flutter Mane suspect happened, and it’s proven to be pretty hard to prepare for in the builder. Originally, I didn’t really think Flutter Mane was that bad in terms of prepping for it, but after MPL and building SV, preparing for Flutter Mane with screens is pretty nerve wracking. The main reliable answer is Alolan Muk and Alolan Muk only; everything else it can pretty much hit with excellent coverage and generally you don’t even need to be picky about coverage as Shadow Ball with Moonblast messes up 95% of the tier anyways. If it were retested in Home metagame, I would probably vote to ban it, but I don’t know about DLC 1. I think Chien-pao and Kingambit are honestly okay, they both have pretty good answers especially with everyone using Moltres Flying nowadays. CB Chien-pao is pretty stupid and I stand by what I said earlier on in the generation, but the opportunity cost of no boots is huge.. nonetheless a Chien-pao suspect is probably warranted too.
3. Shed Tail is super dumb and should be kept an eye on, passing a Substitute is really just not okay especially when Baxcalibur/Kingambit/Ursaluna are potential teammates. It’s more restricted in Monotype, but still basically functions really similarly to Baton Pass.
4. There isn’t really a type that’s super broken right now; I think Flutter Mane should go not because Fairy is broken but it makes things super messed up in the builder and is a pretty stupid Pokemon in itself. However, referring to something like Flying or Dark as broken just because it has a high winrate and covers a lot is not valid to me. They’re both just really solid types that can do a lot in the right hands and a high playing ceiling. Nerfing either, especially Flying, would be extremely detrimental to the metagame because consistency indicates healthiness. You want to reward players who play well too, and Flying is a great example of that. Dark is stupid on paper with Kingambit and Chien-pao but in practice it’s nowhere near as bad.
5. The tier itself is super offensive and very centered around hazards. It’s definitely an interesting metagame to dissect, but playing it can be a bit boring since I feel that a lot of games are just trying to keep hazards up and click with your breakers with no long-term gameplanning. Dark and Fairy being good is an excellent example of this, where you can just click Spikes over and over again and tear apart your opponent’s team with your hard hitters. I would say Flying provides a pretty vital role in the balance of the tier as it’s the “to-go” type that matches up against everything fairly well, and is one of the few good balance types. Not taking any damage against Spikes and having the best hazard removal in the tier is big.

TLDR; Flutter Mane and Chien-pao should probably be considered for a suspect, Kingambit is okay, Shed Tail is pretty dumb, Flying and Dark aren’t broken and the tier is pretty centered around hazards offense.

 

[Havens]

I’m a personal fan and have been a personal advocate for some level of action on Chien-Pao, either through suspect testing or quickbanning. The mon itself has almost singlehandedly warped the current metagame in its own image. Dark in itself was already the most blessed type this generation when it came to options, but Chien-Pao just turns it up to 11. It’s a mon that has the same attack stat as Arceus that’s as fast as this generation’s box legends with a typing that has been notorious for being one of the finest offensively, even when Dark/Ice was just exclusive to Weavile. It has Ice Shard priority to chunk out most revenge killers before being traded, it has Sacred Sword to ignore defense raises against it, and on both types there are (or will be) teammates that provide incredible security and setup for its breaking and sweeping capabilities.

It might not have been as good as it would be if there were better mons at the start, if Scald/recovery/hazard removal wasn’t gutted, or if its ability was any worse. Yet that ability might be the most broken thing about it. Having an ability that just flat out cuts 25% of all opposing Defense stats even when accounting for Defense boosts is absolutely bonkers. Unless I’m Torkoal, Forretress, or Dondozo, I can never hard switch out into a check knowing that Chien-Pao gets basically an extra 25% damage amp. The Chien-Pao user is almost always ahead at face value, and that’s not even considering the four viable sets that exist right now that are possible and that the opponent has to consider from team preview. It’s like last gen Spectrier; if it doesn’t snowball the game outright, it makes substantial progress towards reaching that goal.

Long term health of the metagame suffers the longer it sticks around. For reference, here’s a list of possible, viable competitive Pokemon returning in the DLC:

list

- Clefable
- Ninetales (Base + Alolan)
- Poliwrath
- Politoed
- Snorlax
- Yanmega
- Gliscor
- Mamoswine
- Crawdaunt
- Milotic
- Chandelure
- Conkelldurr
- Mandibuzz
- Vikavolt
- Kommo-o

Of that list, only Poliwrath & Conkelldurr are capable of withstanding Chien-Pao consistently, whereas Clefable is prone to Icicle Crash flinches, in a metagame where Scald doesn’t exist, and the next possible options for counterplay in Emboar and Infernape come in the DLC next year. Even right now, the only true defensive check to this pokemon is Zamazenta, a literal box legend with a typing and stat stick dedicated towards flaying off Chien-Pao, and the only offensive checks in Scarf Mane and Breloom (the former of which is an actual Uber) are too frail to see the next turn if they take it out. Are we really going to accept this as the status quo?

Otherwise, I don’t have opinions about much else. I have reservations about Flutter Mane, but my opinion of it is more positive of it staying lately. Chi-Yu discussion for me I’m open to, but have a hard time seeing that come to fruition. if anything, I’d like to see how Iron Bundle functions in a DLC metagame, but that’s a way different conversation.

Edit: Kingambit also isn't broken by any means. Chien-Pao plays into its dynamic and enables Gambit if anything, breaking/picking off the things Gambit can't often break whether it be the opponent is too healthy, lack of speed, or lack of flat power from supreme overlord. With how common body press is in this tier alongside Lando, Valiant, Ursh-R, Volc, etc; Kingambit should be the least of anyone's worries.

 

[Dead by Daylight]

I’m in the minority, probably, in not supporting a Chien-Pao QB. I can see why people want a suspect test, but I don’t fully sympathize with the reasons for it. Right now, the arguments for banning Chien-Pao are that it:

1) Warps the metagame.

Chien-Pao has checks on a lot of the types it threatens. For Flying, Corviknight endlessly walls non-Band sets (same with Moltres). For Dragon, prediction is needed if you’re Choiced as you don’t want to Sacred Sword a Dragapult or Icicle Crash a Hisuian Goodra. All these checks make Chien-Pao’s life hard, despite its brokenness on paper. I remember the craze when Ursaluna first came out, and I for some reason wanted to ban it. What happened? It dropped off a cliff on Ground and is a mainstay on Normal, although…it’s Normal.

EDIT: I do feel that the council dropped the ball here in not suspecting Chien-Pao. However, the situation at the moment is a terrible time for a suspect test - perhaps once DLC 1 comes out, we can see what else occurs and whether the community at large wants to ban Chien-Pao. Chien-Pao, while it does force many trades, usually comes out on the losing end of those trades thanks to its incredible frailty and Dark's overall lack of hazard control, meaning that it can't come in more than 4 times with Band sets. Perhaps a more apt comparison would be Flutter Mane - incredibly powerful attacker that has good coverage in Mystical Fire for Steel, Thunderbolt for Water, Psyshock for Poison, and Power Gem for Fire. Flutter Mane can also invalidate types by itself and is a big part of why Ghost is viable.

Flying: Even max Def Corv can get 2HKO'd by Band Icicle Crash, Scarf Enam needs to not get Knocked and can't take Ice Shard. Moltres can give extra insurance paired with Corv and Scarf Enam but again is 2HKO'd by Band Icicle Crash
Dark: No answers besides Scarf Samurott-H and Overqwil (extremely niche)
Water: Quag gets destroyed by Band, Pex can't really stand up to SD well and is forced to switch out of even Band if Pao gets a Def drop with Crunch. Urshifu-R, Quaquaval, Scarf Samu-H, and Rotom-W are solid though
Fairy: Has several good answers in Klefki, Azu, and Tinkaton
Steel: Same issue as Flying for Corv, Klefki is more niche on this type. Scizor can destroy Pao with Band Bullet Punch but struggles to fit on teams
Ghost: No good answers besides Scarf Flutter which is incredibly vulnerable to Sucker and Shard and Mimikyu which can't switch-in and literally takes one attack per game
Ground: lol (Quag owned by Band)
Fighting: Zamazenta, Iron Hands, Urshifu-R (although they fear Psychic Fangs variants)
Dragon: lol!!! (Goodra-H destroyed by Sacred Sword)
Poison: Pex has same issues as on Water, Overqwil is nice but niche, Sneasler has no longevity. Psychic Fangs variants also go crazy here
Electric: Iron Hands, Rotom-W, Pawmot

On Flying: Swords Dance Chien-Pao cannot reliably OHKO standard Corviknight and cannot OHKO max Defense Corviknight at all even after Stealth Rock and one Swords Dance (+2 252 Atk Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 100 Def Corviknight: 306-360 (76.5 - 90%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock), and while Choice Band Chien-Pao is hard to play around, Scarf Enamorus outspeeds, and Moltres scares it out. An Icicle Crash miss also dooms Chien-Pao.

Ground and Dragon are types that Chien-Pao should naturally destroy, but they also have a few last-ditch defenses (Ground has Scarf Iron Treads, while Dragon has Hisuian Goodra). Additionally, to more effectively beat Poison and beat Fighting at all, Chien-Pao has to slot Psychic Fangs in there somewhere, which is a quite niche move.

2) It pushes Dark to the top.

Did we ever ban something for pushing a type to the top? Psychic in BW is still the best type in the game and Latios’s ban didn’t do much. Banning something to weaken a type is the inverse of freeing something to strengthen a type. In math class, both the original statement and its inverse have the same truth value, and nobody would suggest unbanning something to improve a type.

EDIT: I misread these arguments. Havens's post said

Dark in itself was already the most blessed type this generation when it came to options, but Chien-Pao just turns it up to 11.

and I misinterpreted that as a suggestion that Dark became the best type because of Chien-Pao. I'll accept all criticism.

However, I feel that Chien-Pao is still a fairly okay presence in the metagame. It has survived HOME, and a suspect vote from the council. Also, if the survey did not accurately reflect nor help the Monotype community, then it can't really be used to justify a Chien-Pao test, can it?

 

[TheRealBigC]

I’m in the minority, probably, in not supporting a Chien-Pao QB. I can see why people want a suspect test, but I don’t sympathize with the reasons for it. Right now, the arguments for banning Chien-Pao are that it:

1) Warps the metagame.

Chien-Pao has checks on a lot of the types it threatens. For Flying, Corviknight endlessly walks non-Band sets (same with Moltres). For Dragon, prediction is needed if you’re Choiced as you don’t want to Sacred Sword a Dragapult or Icicle Crash a Hisuian Goodra. All these checks make Chien-Pao’s life hard, despite its brokenness on paper. I remember the craze when Ursaluna first came out, and I for some reason wanted to ban it. What happened? It dropped off a cliff on Ground and is a mainstay on Normal, although…it’s Normal.

Corv and Moltres absolutely do not "endlessly walk" non-Band sets, they both take massive amounts of damage from +2 Icicle Crash that can allow them to be broken through if they're chipped even just a bit, and if they get flinched by Icicle Crash they're done. One of the biggest difficulties with Chien-Pao is also that you can't immediately tell what set it's running; if you switch your Corv or Moltres into an Icicle Crash and it turns out Chien-Pao is Band, you're in an exceptionally difficult position. As for Dragon, I think saying prediction is needed if you're Band is pretty farcical. Goodra-H is always 2HKO'd by Band Icicle Crash even if it's max Def, so Chien-Pao can click Icicle Crash with complete impunity in that matchup. This also again ignores that SD absolutely crushes Dragon. Please see my post above for more discussion about the supposed 'checks' to Chien-Pao.

The Ursaluna comparison here is fallacious, that was a knee-jerk sentiment shared by very few which has now completely died off. Comparatively, Chien-Pao has been in the tier ever since SV's release, and people have been complaining about it ever since release. This comparison also does nothing to refute any of the arguments about Chien-Pao being broken as well, so it's just not applicable. Ursaluna is also a good mon on Ground still as an aside, but I don't want to get into that. If you have any more arguments in favour of Chien-Pao staying, it would be good to hear them, but these are unconvincing. At the very least, I hope it should be clear why a suspect test (not a quickban) is warranted.

2) It pushes Dark to the top.

Did we ever ban something for pushing a type to the top? Psychic in BW is still the best type in the game and Latios’s ban didn’t do much. Banning something to weaken a type is the inverse of freeing something to strengthen a type. In math class, both the original statement and its inverse have the same truth value, and nobody would suggest unbanning something to improve a type.

This is a strawman; no one in this thread or (I think) in the wider metagame discussion thread is claiming that Chien-Pao is broken simply because it makes Dark one of the best types in the game. This is especially true because I think it's fair to say that most people who actively play the tier hold the opinion that Flying is still the best type in the tier despite Chien-Pao's presence. Furthermore, nobody in this thread has seriously suggested to unban anything besides maybe Chi-Yu, which would just make Dark even stronger, so I really don't understand what you're getting at with that second sentence. I'd also like to refer you to this quote from the Monotype Tiering Philosophy:

The goal of Monotype is for no one type to be overly powerful.

 

[TheWyvernKing]

I was really rooting for a Chien-Pao suspect test sometime before the DLCs but that's obviously not going to happen, although, I truly believe that one will be necessary after the DLC release. I'm honestly shocked that Flutter Mane got attention in tiering but Chien-Pao didn't, especially since I've seen a lot more disdain for Chien-Pao. At this point I'd be repeating a lot of what Neko said as I agree with their post (Not sure about Chi-Yu) but I do want to point out that Kingambit would be a lot tamer without a snow leopard doped up on swords and infinite entry hazards, claiming 3-4 lives on every team before finally dying to cope checks like Choice Scarf Low Kick Walking Wake and Chople Berry Kingambit.

To add to this, it felt to me that pre home when we had the Flutter Suspect, it came at a time when Chien Pao was moreso in the hotseat while alot of people had started to move past Flutter. Kinda seemed like Flutter suspect happened, then since we knew Home was coming in the Spring it became like a 3 month period of "Just Wait Till Home", till home came in like end of May which was far later than we initially expected. Then we like created 3 more things that we had to do before we could suspect, before it came to us being too close to DLC to suspect. Either way Pao is a mon I'd been on the fence about, but it 100% deserved a suspect more than Flutter, or at the very least like a gambit suspect I mean lemme eat.

I also am not the biggest fan of how suspect discussions tend to go in monotype forums either. I mean the impression I get more than anything is that people are pretty discouraged to use forums, and especially by the time survey results were out with no suspect - people were kinda just tired. I also am not the biggest fan of using MPL as a greater indicator for suspect than what people are asking for. Kinda seemed like pulling stats from there was a big way to cutoff Spectrier/Pao discussion, with Dark's low winrate and Ghost's low usage. I'm fairly confident that if I go back every page in forums I'll see multiple discussion or people bringing up Pao on just about every page, or at least like "suspect zam/spec/gambit and then pao" or something like that. As I said earlier I'm on the fence about Pao, and I can probs attribute some of the discussion lethargy to the meta being kinda stale and matchup fishy, but I can 100% understand it. The meta was incredibly restrictive, and due to incomplete dex we pretty much crossed off lower tier types from discussion, so it ended up revolving around interactions between top types.

 

[TheArchitect_]

Been going back and forth on whether to comment or not. I'll try to keep it brief.

Chien Pao - I'm 50/50 on this one. It is oppressive but it is not quickban worthy. I do think a suspect has been long overdue but I for one will not be voting to ban. I've used a variety of types including dark and band pao is about as brainless as they come, however the tradeoff is it coming in on hazards in a hazard heavy metagame. A good team regardless of type unless you're dragon or ground will have some form of answer anyways for pao or counter, so i don't think it's centralizing but it is very oppressive yes.

Fluttermane - I genuinely don't know why we're still talking about this mon. Is it annoying to face? The specs set, of course. But beyond that, its just a really good mon. I have no feelings either ways towards it.

Spectrier- limited to being used solely on ghost.

I'm glad to see Zamazenta has fallen off. I did think it was worth looking at early post home but now not so much. But building a team without considering of ID zama seems very foolish to me.

And finally Kingambit. This mon's only crime is that it rewards bad plays and bad players. I actually think this is more suspect worthy than Pao because sucker punch mind games aren't really mind games. Just 50/50s

Overall, personally, I am anti banning anything unless it's obviously broken like Urshifu and Magearna were. (I didn't play during Chi Yu, Bundle, Palafin meta). Urshifu S was very obviously broken, as was Mag, but I don't get those same feelings with the mons above.

Anyways, i've gone on record in saying how much I love SV so far, thought i was done with mons after whatever was gen 8 came around but to me it's been fun and there is a lot of room for creativity. I do wish council takes the tier a bit more seriously though. Especially if we want to be in the conversation to be included in grand slam? is it grand slam? can't remember. A survey was drawn and nothing happened. People have mentioned the lack of updates to VR, sample teams etc. I'm a busy person myself so I won't be volunteering anytime soon so I do understand that people do this on their free time but if we want to be considered seriously outside of the mono community, then we'll need to take ourselves seriously within.

Lastly, I do think some form of modified terastilization should be looked at. This last bit will get a lot of hate probably but cry me a river I suppose. It can be tested as that is the best way to guage anything really. We do have tera as an OM but tera-ing to outside type feels wonky to me. Tera to same type makes the broken mons even more broken. Something that can be tested is allowing types to use a single type outside of their primary type. So for example, fire can have a dragapult with tera type fire. I think it's worth testing. It may be a disaster of course, it may also add creativity and actually improve the less viable/borederline unusable types, like rock, grass etc. Yes it will probably be a nightmare to implement but nothing good comes easy.

This last statement is to be taken with a grain of salt. It's very unlikely that'll respond to any sentiments to this, just throwing it out there. I really enjoy this tier and I'm all for creativity first and foremost.

 

[Chaitanya]

Lastly, I do think some form of modified terastilization should be looked at.

i rly thought about how this could be possible for a whole ass day a bit ago but every thought process I had just lead to the same outcome in the end, which was the same in the finite amount of time we had it freed as well. Obviously, tera needs to be restricted to the team type or it'd break mono clause. Anyway obviously we're not going to start with teams breaking species clause just to unbreak it later on either. Sounds like another OM to have fun with (would be p well liked i think). Unfortunately this doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room and the root of the issue with same type tera is that it exacerbates every minor type disadvantage into something massive. This is really just the opposite of what we strive for in tiering so tldr yeah not happening imo. if u or anyone has some solution where it might be somewhat balanced im open to listening but keeping those rules in mind it's looking rough

lol

this thread is p pointless to me but using win rate to point out flyings dominance while crying out for a chien pao suspect ignoring dark at a 37% WR is p funny to me. The effort to run a suspect is exceedingly minimal, i promise you this was not a reason a dark type pokemon wasn't suspected

 

[DugZa]

Hello, thank you to everyone for sharing their thoughts about the subforum as a whole; me, Floss and maroon have been trying to make sure the whole subforum is more organised and resources are more up to date so figured I'd address some of the concerns brought up and give a brief overview of our plans going forward.


Resources

- The monotype sample teams were paused this week. Why bother making a sample teams thread if we're going to have one/two updates (post HOME) and leave it in a state where half the available types don't even have a team available?

I'll address the concerns about the resources first; the issue with samples is completely overstated. While the samples project has been relatively slow-paced as a whole, The HOME meta is barely 3 months old and we have teams for 14/18 types so I don't see how we don't have teams for "half the available types." I do agree to an extent that the thread should've been only paused after doing one last slate of additions but overall the teams available are more than sufficient for newer players to delve into the tier. Anyways, already spoke to the samples team (style.css, Swiffix and Neko) and moving forward after the DLC release, sample updates will be done more periodically; expect updates every month or so.

As for the VR, I won't even try to defend this; our VR has had a lot of room to improve since the latter part of last gen. That said, roxie will be leading the VR project following DLC and already has plans to put up more periodic updates. The basic idea is to have major updates following DLCs, major team tours (MPL/MWP/MWC) or every 3-4 months; other than that, there will be minor updates every month or so to warrant for minor changes in metagame trends outside of team tours.

Other than that, our old gen resources (SS, SM and BW) were all updated recently as well so big thank you to Neko and CrossHeart for making sure they were done in a timely manner. The ORAS resources will be updated following the Keldeo suspect test.


Tiering Concerns

Personally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of how we handled the survey situation either and have a lot of qualms about the whole situation and think something should've been suspect tested based on the survey results. The survey results not being posted in a timely manner was an awful oversight from our end as well. Anyways, in the future if we conduct any surveys then expect the results to be posted shortly after the survey deadline. This goes without saying but having a survey does not warrant that any tiering action will be taken. We've already made some changes as to how council operates so expect things to go smoothly moving forward.

Tera was handled strangely, then we had a week 2 or so flutter suspect and that was that. No suspects after wcop, nothing going into mpl and I was hoping the survey during it would cause a suspect during or right as mpl ended. Nothing.

There was nothing strange about how tera was handled, the ban post outlines very well why tera has no place in Monotype and none of the compromises being discussed in OU tera tiering can be applied in Monotype to keep tera legal; banning Tera Blast is pointless since you have STAB anyway and only really affects very niche examples like physical Dragapult sets and revealing tera types on preview is also, again, pointless since tera in Monotype would always be restricted to the type-clause anyways. Like Chait mentioned on his post, if anyone has any solution to keep tera legal in a somewhat balanced way then we are open to listening but until then, tera has no place in Monotype and there was nothing wrong with how we handled it.

In a similar vein, while I can understand complaints about no tiering being done on Kingambit, Chien-Pao or Spectrier, it's extremely laughable that Flutter Mane is brought up as a problematic Pokemon that we didn't handle in a suitable way when there was remotely no support to warrant any tiering action taken on it post-HOME and the suspect that we did have pre-HOME it barely got any votes to be banned and that was when it actually had considerable support for a suspect test.

I'd like to echo the posts above about the lack of a Chien-Pao suspect as well; I'm not sure why Flutter Mane got tiering action while Chien-Pao did not. I personally don't believe Gambit is broken, but enough people are calling for tiering action that it should be suspected. To me, it feels like the only reason these suspects didn't happen is because people didn't want to put in the effort to run another suspect (I'm feeling this way in part due to the way the above two projects were handled). Another issue I have is that Flying is most used type with above a 66% winrate (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...N_BfrBzV5UXOmX-IfySXXiK4/edit#gid=722239091); people are trying to prep for it (as it's the most used type) and it's still winning more than 2/3 games, and we're just dismissing this as... fine? Something definitely feels wrong here. Not sure what the right solution is, but there should definitely be a discussion and the fact that this hasn't even been brought up is shocking.

I'm not even sure how to reply to this post. Banning Pokemon just to nerf a type when the Pokemon themselves are not remotely broken is unheard of and I'm baffled someone who's been around the community for as long as you made this post. You failed to point out what exactly is 'broken' and massively exaggerate that it's 'shocking' when it really isn't.

---

Other than that we've also taken steps to make sure our OMs more organised; if MWP ends up having OMs then we want the OMs to be competitive formats and not have a half-baked MWP like in the past. Moving forward, OM tiering updates will go here, if any, and other resources including sample teams and rulesets about each of the OMs can be found in this thread. We are also hoping to have a mini-OM tour a few weeks after the DLC release to help develop the tiers before MWP so keep an eye out for that.

---

As for what to expect from SV tiering with the DLC release, we'll be voting on what currently banned Pokemon, if any, that we'll be freeing with the DLC release; voting does not guarantee that any Pokemon will be freed if none of them meet the required vote threshold. The box legends will be banned almost soon after the DLC drops and then our first voting slate for quickbans will be within the first week after DLC release. We'll try to release the list of Pokemon for each voting slate at least a day or two before we vote so everyone has time to share their thoughts on the thread.

---

Hope this answers at least some of the concerns brought up and we are constantly trying to improve how certain aspects are handled within the subforum. Of course, thank you to everyone contributing and helping the tier a better place, whether it be with resources or tiering councils. This thread will be left open for a few more days and will be locked once the DLC is released. Once the DLC is released, new threads will be posted for all of metagame discussion, samples and VR.

 

[TheWyvernKing]

Hello, thank you to everyone for sharing their thoughts about the subforum as a whole; me, Floss and maroon have been trying to make sure the whole subforum is more organised and resources are more up to date so figured I'd address some of the concerns brought up and give a brief overview of our plans going forward.


Resources



I'll address the concerns about the resources first; the issue with samples is completely overstated. While the samples project has been relatively slow-paced as a whole, The HOME meta is barely 3 months old and we have teams for 14/18 types so I don't see how we don't have teams for "half the available types." I do agree to an extent that the thread should've been only paused after doing one last slate of additions but overall the teams available are more than sufficient for newer players to delve into the tier. Anyways, already spoke to the samples team (style.css, Swiffix and Neko) and moving forward after the DLC release, sample updates will be done more periodically; expect updates every month or so.

As for the VR, I won't even try to defend this; our VR has had a lot of room to improve since the latter part of last gen. That said, roxie will be leading the VR project following DLC and already has plans to put up more periodic updates. The basic idea is to have major updates following DLCs, major team tours (MPL/MWP/MWC) or every 3-4 months; other than that, there will be minor updates every month or so to warrant for minor changes in metagame trends outside of team tours.

Other than that, our old gen resources (SS, SM and BW) were all updated recently as well so big thank you to Neko and CrossHeart for making sure they were done in a timely manner. The ORAS resources will be updated following the Keldeo suspect test.


Tiering Concerns

Personally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of how we handled the survey situation either and have a lot of qualms about the whole situation and think something should've been suspect tested based on the survey results. The survey results not being posted in a timely manner was an awful oversight from our end as well. Anyways, in the future if we conduct any surveys then expect the results to be posted shortly after the survey deadline. This goes without saying but having a survey does not warrant that any tiering action will be taken. We've already made some changes as to how council operates so expect things to go smoothly moving forward.



There was nothing strange about how tera was handled, the ban post outlines very well why tera has no place in Monotype and none of the compromises being discussed in OU tera tiering can be applied in Monotype to keep tera legal; banning Tera Blast is pointless since you have STAB anyway and only really affects very niche examples like physical Dragapult sets and revealing tera types on preview is also, again, pointless since tera in Monotype would always be restricted to the type-clause anyways. Like Chait mentioned on his post, if anyone has any solution to keep tera legal in a somewhat balanced way then we are open to listening but until then, tera has no place in Monotype and there was nothing wrong with how we handled it.

In a similar vein, while I can understand complaints about no tiering being done on Kingambit, Chien-Pao or Spectrier, it's extremely laughable that Flutter Mane is brought up as a problematic Pokemon that we didn't handle in a suitable way when there was remotely no support to warrant any tiering action taken on it post-HOME and the suspect that we did have pre-HOME it barely got any votes to be banned and that was when it actually had considerable support for a suspect test.



I'm not even sure how to reply to this post. Banning Pokemon just to nerf a type when the Pokemon themselves are not remotely broken is unheard of and I'm baffled someone who's been around the community for as long as you made this post. You failed to point out what exactly is 'broken' and massively exaggerate that it's 'shocking' when it really isn't.

---

Other than that we've also taken steps to make sure our OMs more organised; if MWP ends up having OMs then we want the OMs to be competitive formats and not have a half-baked MWP like in the past. Moving forward, OM tiering updates will go here, if any, and other resources including sample teams and rulesets about each of the OMs can be found in this thread. We are also hoping to have a mini-OM tour a few weeks after the DLC release to help develop the tiers before MWP so keep an eye out for that.

---

As for what to expect from SV tiering with the DLC release, we'll be voting on what currently banned Pokemon, if any, that we'll be freeing with the DLC release; voting does not guarantee that any Pokemon will be freed if none of them meet the required vote threshold. The box legends will be banned almost soon after the DLC drops and then our first voting slate for quickbans will be within the first week after DLC release. We'll try to release the list of Pokemon for each voting slate at least a day or two before we vote so everyone has time to share their thoughts on the thread.

---

Hope this answers at least some of the concerns brought up and we are constantly trying to improve how certain aspects are handled within the subforum. Of course, thank you to everyone contributing and helping the tier a better place, whether it be with resources or tiering councils. This thread will be left open for a few more days and will be locked once the DLC is released. Once the DLC is released, new threads will be posted for all of metagame discussion, samples and VR.

Appreciate you Dugza. Just wondering but do you know how VR will be handled. Past gens it's like council doing a grading system when the gen ends, will we have the same system with a seasonal vote?

 

[roxie]

Appreciate you Dugza. Just wondering but do you know how VR will be handled. Past gens it's like council doing a grading system when the gen ends, will we have the same system with a seasonal vote?

Greetings,

We have a grading system where we use numbers (1-6); where 1 represents the S-ranked/Usually Use and 6 presenting No Niche. Our process with this is ranking every single fully evolved Pokémon available and other non-fully evolved Pokémon that play a role in the tier. After we vote we discuss then make QOL changes then do write ups if applicable(haven’t been doing them but we will). This process also been expanded to a week because we have different timezones and we want to make sure our team has input to present an accurate VR.

That is the goal, but this can be a little intimidating so we decided to call this our major slates and bring in minor slates. (Side note: I’m a video gamer lol and in Overwatch we have like large/small patches and beginning/mid season/end of season patches so I thought maybe adding a small patch for vr would help us)

Our major slates will occur after something major happens like an official Monotype team tournament & a DLC addition to the game. We will also do a major slate every 3-4 months even if there isn’t a major event.

Minor slates will happen monthly and it’s a reflect & response to all nominations posted in the thread and council chat. We will not use the spreadsheet document for minor slates.