Announcement Introducing the Ubers Tiering Council

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Hello! It's been a fair amount time since the start of Stage 1, and I believe that thread has long served its purpose. With this thread, we (!) aim to gather community feedback on two potential avenues for the tier to go forward with for the remainder of USM.

But first, I have an important announcement - I am announcing the creation of our Ubers Tiering Council! This council aims to collaboratively aid with decision making and policy regarding the tiering actions we do as typical of a Smogon tier. We will start with 5 members that are trusted, willing, and able to conduct themselves as befitting of such an important role:

Nayrz
dream
Pohjis
Cynara
Melee Mewtwo

Our first action will be to have a relatively open ended conversation in this thread about Ubers and future tiering actions. We believe there are two possible paths, one to take Ubers towards the path of bans and the other unbans, as methods to achieve our main goal as Ubers: A tier with the least amount of bans to maintain competitive playability. The two paths are as follows:

A suspect test of Ultra Necrozma (Ultranecrozium Z).
Ultra Necrozma's presence in the tier has been a bit of a divisive element in recent times, with posts at the end of the Stage 1 thread debating the potential idea of a suspect test on it. We believe that if anything is to be suspect tested for a ban, it would be Ultranecrozium Z. The Tiering Council does not currently plan to entertain any other option than Ultranecrozium Z for a suspect test at this time, so we are deliberately closing the viewpoint to a single element on this path in order to generate focused discussion. We aren't going to get anywhere by having smaller voices shouting out many different things when it comes to ban ideas, so please keep this in mind.

A more open-ended discussion that aims to consider the idea of unbanning an element.

This discussion is left open ended on purpose. The idea of looking to banned elements as both a way to balance our tier and also minimize our banlist has no clear answers available. We could look at the clause testing done in the BW era as an insight, but those ideas faded with newer generations. This type of discussion hasn't been had since AG's creation and our increased focus on tiering actions, so we are ok with allowing this discussion to take place in this thread.

As a reminder, keep things civil, and please bear in mind our tiering policy when making your arguments!
 

Funbot28

Banned deucer.
Great to see the discussion being continued upon the Ubers front in establishing the guidelines for the tiering policy. I had mentioned my concerns about Ultra Necrozma in the previous thread and I honestly still feel the same about it currently. The mind games that come when facing the possibility of an opposing Necrozma-DM or Ultra Necrozma sweep is very frustrating to play around to say the least imo. We have mainly seen Ultra Necrozma be abused on the ever so prevalent Webs Offense teams that plague the ladder and even are starting to see some prominence in tour games, however even more balanced teams centered around Ultra Necrozma have also started to pop up. These teams are especially hard to confront as predicting whether or not the opposing Dusk Mane is carrying an Ultranecrozium Z can be hard to scout as both formes have equal viability on these type of team structures. Whats the most concerning to me is the type and stat changes both formes hold which can really skew the counterplay towards them. While they do share some similar checks in Arceus-Dark, Marshadow, defensive Yveltal, and more niche stuff like Mega Sableye, the Ultra Necrozma user can always play around these checks via proper timing when to ultra burst. Balance/bulky offensive teams without a Mega Gengar really fail to properly account for Ultra Necrozma due to its blistering speed and unmatched power thanks to its Z-Move and versaility between the SD and CM sets. Stuff like Scarf Xerneas and even Marshadow cannot be dedicated in checking it until it changes forme due to Necrozma-DM's impressive bulk.

While I do understand the threshold in banning things from Ubers is much higher compared to more traditional smogon tiers, I personally believe that Ultra Necrozma fits these criteria at least to warrant a suspect test as we have seen the current metagame revolving around it to an unhealthy degree in my personal opinion.

I don't think it is necessary to dabble into possibly undoing other clauses put in place as I feel they currently balance out the uncompetitiveness that plagues the AG meta (with Species clause being a possible exception). Mega Ray is broke and will always remain broke in any mainstream viable smogon metagame.
 

Ropalme1914

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I agree with what Funbot said, I do think that Ultra Necrozma is at least worth of a suspect test. He kinda already addressed most of the points why I also think that a suspect would be a good thing, so I'll speak why I'm more favored to a new ban than a unban of a clause or something like that. While yes, Ubers is not as strict as the other tiers towards some bans (like Primal Groudon's usage being of course worthy of a ban in any other tier, but it's fine here), the only one that I kinda could see being removed would be Species Clause in a atempt to bring Mega Rayquaza back, which is not enough imo. The only thing that would change is that there would be multiple Arceus on most teams, and Mega Ray still would be way above anything else and winning most games on its own (after all, not even Arceus can deal with +2 Mega Ray if it simply is slower due to Sticky Web). I don't think this helps the playability or competitiveness of the tier at all. With an Ultra Necrozma suspect however, I do think that the potential to make the tier better is there, not almost forcing Mega Gengar on basically any bukier team for example or making Sticky Web not as powerful as it is now. Finally, I think that a more healthy discussion can be made with Ultra Necrozma more easily than it was with Gothitelle, since the reason why the suspect could be made is more straightforward than Shadow Tag, and the points are not as polarizing for it too.
 
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BuffettFan

Banned deucer.
I believe that the benchmark for considering to suspect test an element in Ubers should be Mega Rayquaza. The reasoning is two-fold: one, in order to respect the precedence set by the landmark decision of its ban, and two, because it is the perfect example of the sort of element that deserves a ban from Ubers, against which other elements can be contrasted.

I understand that Ultra Necrozma is a threat in the current metagame, but not only do I disagree with the idea that it should be banned were it to be suspect tested, I further disagree with the idea that it should be suspect tested at all to begin with.

The effect that the introduction of Mega Rayquaza had upon Ubers in the short time before its ban was that its very presence mutated the metagame into one where only a single archetype was viable: a suicide lead, Primal Groudon, Mega Rayquaza, two filler set-up sweepers like Darkrai and Xerneas, and Swords Dance Arceus. Mega Rayquaza, when coupled with such a build, resulted in every other playstyle becoming unviable. As a result, every game was essentially a mirror match-up, and the winner was decided by uncompetitive factors like speed ties between Mega Rayquaza, risky doubles, match-up fishing in lead choice, and so on.

With regards to Ubers tiering policy and its underlying philosophical substrate, I believe that we should consider suspect testing an element if and only if the element mutates the metagame into a lopsided landscape the way that Mega Rayquaza did as outlined above. To define more rigorously what such a landscape constitutes, perhaps the following two guidelines would suffice:
  1. The element has no answers and so renders unviable all playstyles in the metagame which themselves exclude the element in question.
  2. To forgo inclusion of the element on a team renders the team inherently unviable as a result of the opportunity cost posed by excluding the element in question.
Mega Rayquaza fulfilled both of these gauges during its time in Ubers, and this was the reason for the later inevitable creation of Anything Goes.

Comparatively, in assessing Ultranecrozma’s standing in the current Ubers metagame, it fits neither of these characteristics which made Mega Rayquaza ban-worthy. Regarding the former gauge, there exist a great variety of ways in which Ultranecrozma is checked and countered (see: Smogdex Analysis). But more importantly, the existence of Ultranecrozma is not overpowering to the degree where other playstyles are invalidated; in fact, all archetypes include Ultranecrozma checks inadvertently: offense has hazards chip and priority like Marshadow’s Shadow Sneak and Arceus’ Extreme Speed, balance has Mega Gengar and Choice Scarf revenge-killers, and stall has Mega Sableye. And regarding the latter gauge, it is plenty self-evident that to build a team that is viable in Ubers which excludes Ultranecrozma is entirely possible.

In closing, to those with reservations about the staunchness with which this position is held, I invoke the words of Hack from two years ago amidst discussion in similar light: “Ubers is defined as the tier with the least amount of bans needed to maintain a playable tier competitively” and “Diversity is not the ultimate goal for Ubers, it is playability.”

The significance of this framework of thought in approaching Ubers tiering to present day is illustrated by the relationship between the Shadow Tag suspect test and Ultranecrozma. Despite Shadow Tag being an element that was in no way uncompetitive or unhealthy for the metagame, many in the community during its suspect test grew greedy in the face of the prospects of banning an element that is difficult to contend with. Yet today, not only have we seen that the metagame has adapted with time to the presence of this ostensibly overpowered ability, but Shadow Tag is in fact an incredibly balancing and healthy element in the metagame, due to the way in which Mega Gengar is able to trap and secure the kill on Ultranecrozma. As it turned out, the metagame’s quality was improved because of, rather than in spite of, the embracing of Shadow Tag.

The lesson to be derived here is that it is better to struggle with an element that is difficult to play against in the short term than to infringe upon the principles underpinning the spirit of Ubers. And in extrapolating this line of thought, I believe that discussion by players ought to move away from what we should ban, seeing that the current metagame is healthy, competitive, and vibrant as it stands, and towards discussion of what to unban. For example, Hack, along with others, have long been questioning the carrying-over of the Species Clause throughout past generations. I, for one, believe that lifting the Species Clause in Ubers could set light to an explosion of interesting possibilities, while also being a move in good faith with the traditions of the tier, making it worthy of a suspect test.
 

Minority

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Posts that support an Ultra Necrozma suspect test must answer the central question: Is a ban of Ultra Necrozma necessary to preserve the competitive edge of the tier?

Posts #2 and #3 provide little basis within established Ubers tiering policy to warrant a suspect test of Ultra Necrozma. This thread is a starting place to form a cohesive argument that is based on the primary aim of tiering policy.

Post #4 understands the fundamentals of ubers tiering policy, but I'd like to extend that the central issue behind the two guidelines it posits have a lot to do with teambuilding convergence and subsequent reduction of interesting choice. This is important because it explains why two such guidelines matter in the first place. The last statement does however blatantly ignore the guidelines of the OP.

All of this is to say that future discussion in this thread needs to be informed on Ubers tiering policy and needs to address the central question above.
 

Ropalme1914

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Ok, I can see why the post was kinda bad and the focus of it was a little off too (I was more trying to explain why I think that a Unecro suspect would be more viable than a Species Clause one than actually trying to explain directly why we should suspect it, tho I do favor it). Still, I don't see how a suspect of any other clause will help the tier more than hurt it (I'm going to talk more exactly about Species because this seems to be what most want to test).

The main problem with it is how much volatility it could bring, making the games even more matchup based in my opinion. On Ubers, we have many threats that most teams deal with a check that becomes very weakened by it after doing its job: Geomancy Xerneas for example; many teams already struggle to deal with one of them (especially HO, since they mostly try to revenge kill it or not let it setup), while directly losing to two of them. And I could say the same thing about the other setup sweepers of the tier, like Mixed RP Groudon and Necrozma. My main point against it is that this just allows matchup issues to happen without bringing much back.

I also tried to gather some information with how AG deal with it to try see how it would do here (I know that it is a different metagame and all, but since I was mostly trying to see what removing Species Clause could do, I think that it is fair), and what I got is that, while multiple of the same Pokémon outside of different Arceus are not common, Mega Rayquaza is key to that. Mega Rayquaza actually centralizes the metagame enough to the point that spam of Pogre, Pdon and Xern are just not worth, with one needing each other to balance themselves. I'll CP what I asked on AG Discord and what I got.
Code:
Ropalme1914 Hoje às 17:41
hey, I'm new to AG and only have an Ubers background, so I wanted to know: how do you guys deal with Species Clause not existing? Like, from what I see from the teams on Ubers, many of them just straight lose if there are the same setup sweeper multiple times, since their check are weak enough after dealing with the first one (GeoXern is the first one that comes to mind)

PulsieTheDulsie Hoje às 17:42
I mean
TBH
We don't see that
its rare at the higher levels
to have multiple of the same pokemon
excluding different arceus tyoes
types

Ropalme1914 Hoje às 17:43
so, it's more that multiple of the same Pokémon simply aren't good, so it's not really a issue?
excluding Arceus, of course

PulsieTheDulsie Hoje às 17:44
It's not common
It can happen
But you rarely see it
its easier to just have teammates to deal with the checks

Ropalme1914 Hoje às 17:49
got it, so it can happen, it just isn't that big on higher levels

⎝⎝★вαnu★⎠⎠Hoje às 18:13
yes

bdiv Hoje às 18:14
I mean
Mray
Is powerful
Which means the meta
Will mainly be surrounded around that shit
In a sense, mray deals with most problem species clause would raise in uber
Like poger pdon and xern like spams
Arc spam is like the most common cause its Vers enuf(editado)
To deal with mray while still being good vs other shit(editado)
So mray and species clause balance each other out
These days the most arc u see in 1 team is 2 anyws

So, basically, Species can dealt with there because Rayquaza centralizes the meta enough, and even then, sometimes the matchup issues with multiple of the same Pokémon can happen, though they are rare.

Finally, the two main points of Ubers tiering policy is:
- Ubers is defined as the tier with the least amount of bans needed to maintain a playable tier competitively.
- Diversity is not the ultimate goal for Ubers, it is playability.
This is where I wanted to reach, mainly the second point: what will removing the Species Clause help the playability of Ubers? Of course there are good things about it, but I don't really see it and I really wanted someone to point it out to me what are those specifically (you could say that I'm not seeing the bigger picture here, but that's why I wanted to see the pro-suspect points outside of the tier being more open to have a policy with less bans). Like I said, the threat of matchup issues being even bigger exists, and the tier that doesn't have it mainly can survive by having a already limited to one, but more centralizing Pokémon. That could bring up a Mega Ray + Species discussion, but I won't get into it right now.

This is a bit hard to talk especially due to it being such a huge change that there's a lot of theory behind it that can simply be proven wrong if it happens. However, after discussing it on Discord, I don't see how it could do much outside of hurt the tier by making more matchups issues, thus lessening its playability. Another point that I saw on Discord is that such a huge change could be hard to implement in the middle of a generation, but idk how relevant this is since we are talking about the policy itself, so I won't ellaborate on that also for now (unless we conclude that this is a valid point).

Edit: just to be clear, I don't think a suspect to species is unreasonable, but I just don't see the advantages that it could bring. Maybe a change as big as that can only be seen by testing, but at very least wanting to see the potential advantages to it before testing is reasonable imo
 
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Good to see there's finally some discussion about the core of this tier. I've been holding such an opinion for a long time that there have to be some limitations made for P-Groundon and Necrozma (not to say ban them entirely). More details about my claim can be seen in this previous post: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-ubers-stage-0-the-journey.3636310/page-3#post-7813269
It's still a good attempt for suspecting Ultranecrozium Z. The transformation of type and speed make this mon require a high cost to scout. It might be easier to handle for those team with high offense pace. Moves like Sucker Punch, shadow sneak and Scarf set can greatly help revenge kill Ultra Necrozma. However, this mon is too unfriendly to those team with low offense pace. With various sets which might run Stone edge, Outrage and even Heat wave, it's almost impossible to use only one mon to check all these kinds of Ultra Necrozma(and it may not have Ultra boost yet).
But I would still hold my point about banning Ultra Necrozma entirely. It's definitely worth a suspect. But Ultra Necrozma also helps maintain the balance in Uber now. In an offensive team, it might be the only mon besides Arceus who's able to take an attack from an unknown set P-Groudon without any defensive Evs investment. Its high speed also helps increase the playability in this metagame. What really hurts this tier is its incredible power from the combination of Sword dance and Ultranecrozium Z. The special set of Ultra Necrozma is not as broken as the physical set(Difference of boost efficiency between Calm mind and Sword dance). So I think it might be a better idea to suspect Sword Dance on Ultranecrozium Z in this time. I understand it's against the no complex-ban tradition. But the point of the suspect is to make this tier healthier and more playable, isn't it?
 
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Ropalme1914
This is grappling with the unknown knowns. Here's a fact: you won't be able to compute all the possible permutations of the new meta that arises from the new interactions of new strategies. These were there all along, just waiting for someone to bother trying them out.

I think that the important thing for ubers is to be OP and uber. The fact that Ultra-necro has managed to force a darkness-type neoreaction movement is impressive. And, I think that this warrants a deeper look.

This discussion is clearly framed around suspecting necro. I'll discuss about the anti-ban philosophy when it's our turn after this suspect.
 
I think a test on ultra-necro would be a good first step. I see why people think it's annoying. It creates mind games and its pre-ultra form has amazing defensive typing with its dusk-mane form. you can catch the don on the switch and set up and blow that boy away. with z move it can get pass any check that isnt Dark types named darkeus or yvel but they can be pop by outraged. chiped arc fairy can lose if it shoots off z. you can use two z mons with this mon and play mind games. overall the amount of sets and building potential is whack. finally thoughts the amount of sets and mind games it plays it should be tested. one more thing ubers should be more open to test since ag is ubers ban list.

 
Since it was asked on discord, I feel it’s worthwhile to repeat Nayrz response here; choosing one path of suspect testing will not close the door on the other.

Additionally, which path we choose first is entirely dependent on what you guys ask for here. Even amongst the council there isn’t a uniform opinion. The only exception is that we aren’t going to consider suspect testing the things like Primal Groudon, Geomancy, Shadow Tag, or Dusk-Mane. Basically nothing other than Ultranecrozium Z has a remote chance of being considered for a ban. Unbans are more open for the reasons described in the thread.
 
Although +2 Ultra Necrozma can be disastrous with it's excessive capabilities to OHKO most Pokemon with the exception of some Pokemon such as Yveltal, Lunala, Darkceus, Ferrothorn, Lugia, Mega Scizor, Celesteela, and certain sets of Primal Groudon, I disagree with the idea of Ultra Necrozma being banned to AG due to a couple reasons. My first reason is that it is the player's responsibility to prepare for the situation when Ultra Necrozma is used, such as have a Yveltal, Mega Gengar, or a Mewtwo- which all compromise Necro DM as well, which in case you fail to recognize Ultra, you are still safe. And in addition to that, it has decent checks and amazing counters that have high viability in Ubers overall. Pokemon like Yveltal hard counter Unecro. In addition to that, it's speed benchmark is not high enough to surpass Mega Gengar or Mewtwo and it's variants or common and fatal threats such as Scarf Xerneas or Scarf Yveltal. Each of those Pokemon listed will OHKO Ultra Necrozma with ease and are extremely viable in many other cases. Another reason why Ultra Necrozma should not be banned is because of the lack of item. Without a way to boost speed or recover due to 4 move conundrum, when you switch out Ultra Necrozma, it almost becomes unusable due to the defense and lack of recovery and the possibility from suffering when switching in. In addition to this, Ultra Necrozma can easily be pressured out due to Xerneas- if scarf is possible or Unecro is not at +2- Yveltal, or Mewtwo. I will also state that in all of my Uber games, not one have I lost due to Ultra Necrozma- if I can even recall an opposing Unecro taking out one of my Pokemon at all. Even if Ultra Necrozma enables the opponent to have two Z-moves and the team still be viable and you may not know if the opponent has 2 Z-moves, it should always be expected because LTBTS is pretty predictable and can easily be nullified with Yveltal or Necro DM.
[Edit: Even a Mega Slowbro, easily tanks and OHKOs Unecro with Foul Play]
 
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Cam

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I don't think a test for Ultra Necrozma is dumb. I understand that it has checks / counters but I find the problem is if you're not using one of the few Pokemon that reliably beat the specific set you're facing that it can chew through your team. My main issues with Ultra Necrozma are that its not always immediately apparent whether its an Ultra Necrozma or A Dusk Mane or less commonly Dawn Wings. This can be difficult to play around and causes a lot of 50-50's that I don't think are very competitive in the tier; for example whether you click precipice blades on the Ultra burst turn to KO it or whether you click overheat on the Dusk Mane to KO it, with several other common situations in the tier that frequently happen. A ban immediately fixes this problem.
The other main issue i find is that it renders stall almost unviable as swords dance z move can KO nearly any pokemon in the tier bar few resists which live at low health or dark types which are often either weakened before you set up or predicted and KO'd with a coverage move like Earthquake or Stone Edge. Ways around this such as Charti Berry yveltal make building bulky teams very restricting with this pokemon and playing with those teams very difficult since you have a slot designated to check one pokemon out of all of them in the entire tier and if they do have that pokemon you have to preserve it at high health to perform as a check.
That's only mentioning the physical set, if you get the prediction wrong and you're playing vs a cm Ultra Necrozma, then your opponent has another oppurtunity to capitalize on your prediction using the special set with the coverage moves it can use like heat wave or power gem. I think at least suspecting the pokemon gives a chance for change in the tier as i think banning it would allow the viability of bulkier, slower teams and stall to rise a little as they aren't very viable in my opinion in the current metagame.
Although the pokemon is not stupidly overpowered and overwhelming I think it brings a lot of things that I don't think are particularly competitive in the metagame.
 
I don't think a test for Ultra Necrozma is dumb. I understand that it has checks / counters but I find the problem is if you're not using one of the few Pokemon that reliably beat the specific set you're facing that it can chew through your team. My main issues with Ultra Necrozma are that its not always immediately apparent whether its an Ultra Necrozma or A Dusk Mane or less commonly Dawn Wings. This can be difficult to play around and causes a lot of 50-50's that I don't think are very competitive in the tier; for example whether you click precipice blades on the Ultra burst turn to KO it or whether you click overheat on the Dusk Mane to KO it, with several other common situations in the tier that frequently happen. A ban immediately fixes this problem.
The other main issue i find is that it renders stall almost unviable as swords dance z move can KO nearly any pokemon in the tier bar few resists which live at low health or dark types which are often either weakened before you set up or predicted and KO'd with a coverage move like Earthquake or Stone Edge. Ways around this such as Charti Berry yveltal make building bulky teams very restricting with this pokemon and playing with those teams very difficult since you have a slot designated to check one pokemon out of all of them in the entire tier and if they do have that pokemon you have to preserve it at high health to perform as a check.
That's only mentioning the physical set, if you get the prediction wrong and you're playing vs a cm Ultra Necrozma, then your opponent has another oppurtunity to capitalize on your prediction using the special set with the coverage moves it can use like heat wave or power gem. I think at least suspecting the pokemon gives a chance for change in the tier as i think banning it would allow the viability of bulkier, slower teams and stall to rise a little as they aren't very viable in my opinion in the current metagame.
Although the pokemon is not stupidly overpowered and overwhelming I think it brings a lot of things that I don't think are particularly competitive in the metagame.
For me, I can easily tell a normal Necrozma Dusk Mane apart from an Ultra Necro due to the damage it takes, if it has Swords Dance + Not Max Speed, and by the opponent's playstyle with it. In addition to that, you can tell if it's Ultra or not by judging the team and seeing how it would fit.
 

Funbot28

Banned deucer.
For me, I can easily tell a normal Necrozma Dusk Mane apart from an Ultra Necro due to the damage it takes, if it has Swords Dance + Not Max Speed, and by the opponent's playstyle with it. In addition to that, you can tell if it's Ultra or not by judging the team and seeing how it would fit.
But the thing is some Necro-DM run max speed max attack regardless withing the SD sets so this kind of scouting is kinda skewed. Also, both Ultra and DM also fit on the majority of similar teams due to nature of their forme change which enables Ultra variant teams to capability to utilize DM's defensive utility before ultra bursting regardless.

Moving onto whether the fact a suspect is worthy to make the tier competitive, I find the comparison to Mega Rayquaza to be sort of misrepresented as the two mons kinda perform differently. While yes they are both mainly setup sweepers, the fact that Ultra can run both physical and special setup sets compounded with the ability to not only change is stats but typing when changing forme really perpetuates the ambiguity when facing it (and no this is not me arguing for Mega Ray to be unbanned). I have heard many ubers players "complain" about the playibility of the tier in recent months in reaction to the surge of Ultra Necro viability / usage, although I believe this is a hard question to answer in terms of justifying a suspect test due to the subjectivity withing the nature of the question itself.

Diversity = the amount of Pokémon usable in a competitive setting
Playability = reduction of convergence in teams to the point where player skill matters
For me at least, I feel Ultra Necrozma can fall onto these two categories in some way. Firstly, it has become strikingly apparent to me the impact it has on balance and bulky offensive teams that do not carry a Mega Gengar or LO / Sash Marshadow (which can't even KO as some Ultra's are running defense EVs to take a Sneak), as its Speed and Power dismantle most defensive cores in the metagame. Even perceived hard checks such as DarkCeus and defensive Yveltal are starting to be nuked by +2 Outrages which really strengthens the idea of ambiguity when facing this threat. Another quote from the thread I would like to point out:

A.) These are elements that may not limit either team building or battling skill enough individually, but combine to cause an effect that is undesirable for the metagame.
Ultra Necrozma may not necessitate the use of a defensive Dark-type or suitable revenge killer as the likes of Mega Gengar, Marshadow, or Scarf Xerneas, however the impact of the forme change mindgame that really can shift the tide in a game where the player making the most optimal plays the majority of the game can simply lose in one turn when figuring out that it was indeed not in fact a standard Necro-DM being run can be seen as a "undesirable" trait in the current metagame to many. People may argue that this may not be the fault entirely to Ultra on its own as Necro-DM is another factor in this argument, however the council has already made it pretty clear that it won't be considered as a suspect option anyways so I don't feel the need to address it anyways.

The prominence of Sticky Webs Offense in general is a true testament of Ultra's impact in my opinion, where the amount of counterplay to Ultra Necrozma boils down to a select few defensive answers and priority users that can take advantage of it when it reaches a low amount of health. This in turn can be argued for the majority of offensive threats that take advantage of Webs like Eruption Pdon, LO Yveltal, and GroundCeus, however none to the degree of Ultra Necrozma simply to the fact of its set diversity and potential mindgames behind its forme mechanics.

Again you can argue that something may not be completely necessary, but in terms of ameliorating the metagame, I think a suspect may be the right course of action at this current time.
 

kilometerman

Banned deucer.
The "it has too many sets" argument doesn't apply here. It's only relevant when all those sets can only be consistently countered by a handful of Pokemon that aren't viable in their own rite. The mons that can consistently beat unec and DM like scarfers, bulky waterceus, darkceus, phys def yveltal, marshadow, to name a few, are plenty viable and don't solely exist for the purpose of checking unec.
 

BuffettFan

Banned deucer.
So I have read all posts thus far and have gathered there to be three main arguments from those in favor of a suspect test. Below are my thoughts on each one.

1. Ultra Necrozma restricts teambuilding
Again, in Hack’s words, “Diversity is not the ultimate goal for Ubers, it is playability.” In Ubers, an element should be suspected for a ban if and only if it renders the tier unplayable. In Ultra Necrozma's case, when there exists another Pokémon in the tier (Mega Gengar) that is able to switch in, trap the element in question, outpace it, and proceed to OHKO, it is difficult for me to reason that banning such a vulnerable element would be necessary in preserving the competitive edge of the tier. In fact, the very existence of this dynamic already casting significant doubt as to the legitimacy of the need for a suspect test notwithstanding, Ultra Necrozma is not even threatening enough to warrant a 100% Mega Gengar usage rate; every archetype intrinsically carries tons of Ultra Necrozma answers.

On offense, Ultra Necrozma usually gets only one kill before hazards chip and damage from the Pokémon it just took out puts it in range of Marshadow’s Shadow Sneak or Arceus’ Extreme Speed. On balance, in addition to the above dynamic, Ultra Necrozma must further contend with such threats as Yveltal with Choice Scarf or its Sucker Punch, Lunala, Ferrothorn’s Gyro Ball, Arceus-Dark, and Giratina O’s Shadow Sneak, as well as defensive means of checking such as Zygarde’s Glare, Klefki’s Thunder Wave, Ditto, Skarmory, Celesteela, and Lugia. On stall, Mega Sableye and Mega Slowbro completely wall Ultra Necrozma with their immunity from being OHKO’d to in turn OHKO Ultra Necrozma with Foul Play instead. This is not to mention that the aforementioned Mega Gengar, which finds its home in all of these archetypes, is able to revenge-kill this Pokémon with absolute certainty.

2. Ultra Necrozma forces mind-games
The above options for dealing with Ultra Necrozma apply with equal validity to Duskmane as well, and my aim there was to illustrate the abundance of tools at hand in dealing with Ultra Necrozma, as these tools are unhindered by the uncertainty presented by its distinct forms. With regards to further mind-games posed by Ultra Necrozma itself, I cannot grasp how this is any more unique to Ultra Necrozma than it is to any other offensive threat in Ubers: Arceus-Ground is a fair switch-in to Primal Groudon but is OHKO’d by Eruption, Magearna is a fair switch-in to Yveltal but is 2HKO’d by Heat Wave, balance builds with Ho-Oh, Mega Salamence, and/or Zygarde struggle in the face of Rock Tomb/HP Ice/Z-move Marshadow, and so on.

3. Ultra Necrozma dismantles defensive cores through set modifications
This statement is true as much as it is irrelevant with respect to the issue of a suspect test. Again, the ability to dismantle defensive cores through set modifications is not unique to Ultra Necrozma: the way in which Double Dance Primal Groudon and its Mixed variant counterpart are dealt with are much different, and plenty of other Z-move abusers are able to break through their traditional checks and proceed to terrorize the rest of the team, such as Bulk Up SSSSS Marshadow, Z-move Swords Dance Arceus forms, Z-Outrage Zygarde, Z-Focus Blast Lunala breaking through Darkceus, Dragon Dance Z-Dragon Ascent Rayquaza breaking through support Arceus, and so on.

On a final note, I would like to ask those in favor of an Ultra Necrozma suspect test to provide replays where the player facing it lost the game, in spite of them having brought a sensible team and having made sensible plays, as a result of malicious and suspect-worthy qualities of Ultra Necrozma. If the problem posed by its qualities is deteriorating the health of the metagame to such a serious degree where a suspect test is warranted, I do not think it is unreasonable to ask for such evidence.

Also, with regards to remarks such as “ubers should be more open to test since ag is ubers ban list” and “Although the pokemon is not stupidly overpowered and overwhelming I think it brings a lot of things that I don't think are particularly competitive in the metagame,” I hope that the Council clarify Ubers is not meant to be OU 2.0 with AG as its ban list, and that competitiveness is not the goal of the tier as much as it is basic playability while focusing on keeping the ban list to the absolute minimum. If you wish to play a tier that strives for a balanced and competitive metagame through bans, you are welcome to play OU, but please respect the laissez-faire ethos of Ubers.
 
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It's naive to think that there are elements in this game that are uncorrelated with each others. Banning is a delicate act that removes such correlations among the elements in this game.

I think that banning u-necro would definitely have effects that we wouldn't be able to anticipate (the point I was trying to make in the earlier post). This leads to the further point:
All posts speculating future ubers without u-necro are fun but ultimately does very little to further this discussion. We simply don't know what it will look like for sure, nor that we should try envisioning it. We simply don't know how it would affect the playability for sure. So, let's have a suspect test asap to have a look around in that metagame.

I've noticed the interesting benchmark about how this community feels about our "banlist". Shadow tag has been voted as part of Ubers thrice (or 4 times? I lost count). This means that people feel that strategies such as Gothitelle pp stalling is playable and I guess, part of the Ubers experience.

There is no way that OU players would accept this. In fact, they already banned it by themselves.

We have proven that we are Ubers already. This identity crisis is made up by the OU tier leaders.
 

pulsar512b

ss ou fangirl
is a Pre-Contributor
Ok, I can see why the post was kinda bad and the focus of it was a little off too (I was more trying to explain why I think that a Unecro suspect would be more viable than a Species Clause one than actually trying to explain directly why we should suspect it, tho I do favor it). Still, I don't see how a suspect of any other clause will help the tier more than hurt it (I'm going to talk more exactly about Species because this seems to be what most want to test).

The main problem with it is how much volatility it could bring, making the games even more matchup based in my opinion. On Ubers, we have many threats that most teams deal with a check that becomes very weakened by it after doing its job: Geomancy Xerneas for example; many teams already struggle to deal with one of them (especially HO, since they mostly try to revenge kill it or not let it setup), while directly losing to two of them. And I could say the same thing about the other setup sweepers of the tier, like Mixed RP Groudon and Necrozma. My main point against it is that this just allows matchup issues to happen without bringing much back.

I also tried to gather some information with how AG deal with it to try see how it would do here (I know that it is a different metagame and all, but since I was mostly trying to see what removing Species Clause could do, I think that it is fair), and what I got is that, while multiple of the same Pokémon outside of different Arceus are not common, Mega Rayquaza is key to that. Mega Rayquaza actually centralizes the metagame enough to the point that spam of Pogre, Pdon and Xern are just not worth, with one needing each other to balance themselves. I'll CP what I asked on AG Discord and what I got.
Code:
Ropalme1914 Hoje às 17:41
hey, I'm new to AG and only have an Ubers background, so I wanted to know: how do you guys deal with Species Clause not existing? Like, from what I see from the teams on Ubers, many of them just straight lose if there are the same setup sweeper multiple times, since their check are weak enough after dealing with the first one (GeoXern is the first one that comes to mind)

PulsieTheDulsie Hoje às 17:42
I mean
TBH
We don't see that
its rare at the higher levels
to have multiple of the same pokemon
excluding different arceus tyoes
types

Ropalme1914 Hoje às 17:43
so, it's more that multiple of the same Pokémon simply aren't good, so it's not really a issue?
excluding Arceus, of course

PulsieTheDulsie Hoje às 17:44
It's not common
It can happen
But you rarely see it
its easier to just have teammates to deal with the checks

Ropalme1914 Hoje às 17:49
got it, so it can happen, it just isn't that big on higher levels

⎝⎝★вαnu★⎠⎠Hoje às 18:13
yes

bdiv Hoje às 18:14
I mean
Mray
Is powerful
Which means the meta
Will mainly be surrounded around that shit
In a sense, mray deals with most problem species clause would raise in uber
Like poger pdon and xern like spams
Arc spam is like the most common cause its Vers enuf(editado)
To deal with mray while still being good vs other shit(editado)
So mray and species clause balance each other out
These days the most arc u see in 1 team is 2 anyws

So, basically, Species can dealt with there because Rayquaza centralizes the meta enough, and even then, sometimes the matchup issues with multiple of the same Pokémon can happen, though they are rare.

Finally, the two main points of Ubers tiering policy is:
- Ubers is defined as the tier with the least amount of bans needed to maintain a playable tier competitively.
- Diversity is not the ultimate goal for Ubers, it is playability.
This is where I wanted to reach, mainly the second point: what will removing the Species Clause help the playability of Ubers? Of course there are good things about it, but I don't really see it and I really wanted someone to point it out to me what are those specifically (you could say that I'm not seeing the bigger picture here, but that's why I wanted to see the pro-suspect points outside of the tier being more open to have a policy with less bans). Like I said, the threat of matchup issues being even bigger exists, and the tier that doesn't have it mainly can survive by having a already limited to one, but more centralizing Pokémon. That could bring up a Mega Ray + Species discussion, but I won't get into it right now.

This is a bit hard to talk especially due to it being such a huge change that there's a lot of theory behind it that can simply be proven wrong if it happens. However, after discussing it on Discord, I don't see how it could do much outside of hurt the tier by making more matchups issues, thus lessening its playability. Another point that I saw on Discord is that such a huge change could be hard to implement in the middle of a generation, but idk how relevant this is since we are talking about the policy itself, so I won't ellaborate on that also for now (unless we conclude that this is a valid point).

Edit: just to be clear, I don't think a suspect to species is unreasonable, but I just don't see the advantages that it could bring. Maybe a change as big as that can only be seen by testing, but at very least wanting to see the potential advantages to it before testing is reasonable imo
I noticed this post. I was PulsieTheDulsie there, and here's a more thought out bit of reasoning about how AG's lack of species clause effects the meta. I would imagine that there would be similarities with Ubers. It is quite rare to see multiple of any pokemon other than Arceus types in a team. Arceus though is often repeated, and sometimes even shown thrice in a team.
 
Our current plans are to shelve this discussion of actual suspect testing targets in favor of going back to the drawing board and giving our tiering policy a proper look at with real community input in multiple stages. A recent discussion has opened some new doors to consider that our current policy may not properly cover.

The current policy may also have some weaknesses to different people, and the prospect of giving the community a proper chance to give their views on how Ubers should be as a tier has some positives to bring, as our current policy was never given that chance at the community level. This should help us all understand each other properly.

Expect the first part of the series to be up soon, starting with a discussion of the general overview behind Ubers to us all. More details will be in that OP.
 
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