Announcement SV 1v1 Playerbase Surveys

[clerica]

hihi these are back! Similarly to last generation we will be using this thread to host our SV 1v1 public tiering surveys. These surveys will allow the 1v1 council get a better understanding of how the playerbase feels about the meta and any dominant or possibly problematic aspects. While these surveys are not a guarantee on what the council does next they should hopefully provide insight into how the community feels and potentially lead to discussion based on the results.

With that being said I would like to present our first SV 1v1 tiering survey! It will be open until 11:59 PM GMT-5 on February 26th, 2023. If you have any questions regarding the survey feel free to reach out to myself or any member of the 1v1 council.

The Link to the first SV 1v1 tiering survey can be found here (CLOSED NOW)

 

[clerica]

Results time! Thank you to the 38 of you who took the time to respond we do appreciate it. If you would like to discuss anything about the survey whether it be what you submitted or the results feel free to post in the Metagame Discussion thread of in the 1v1 Discord.

The results for each question will be shown in three different manners, being a graph for a visual representation of everyone's answers, an average value of everyone's answers, and an average value of the 14 responses from people who met the tour/ladder criteria to be counted as a qualified response.

1. On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current metagame? (10 being very enjoyable 1 being greatly dislike)

From the total 38 responses the average response was 5.79. This is lower than what we would obviously hope to see but expected as most people seem to not enjoy the pre home meta all that much.

Of the 14 qualified responses the average response was 6.43. This means that more experienced players find the metagame more enjoyable than the average user.


2. On a scale of 1-10, how competitive and balanced do you find the current metagame? (10 being very balanced 1 being very unbalanced)

From the total 38 responses the average response was 6.03. This means that most people find the metagame somewhat competitive and balanced, but there is still a long ways to go.

Of the 14 qualified responses the average response was 6.86. This means that more experienced players find the metagame a more competitive and balanced than the average person.


3. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Iron Valiant? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 38 responses the average response was 3.50. This means that for the much of the playerbase view Iron Valiant as potentially banworthy. This is not at all surprising considering it was a part of the previous On The Radar discussion.

Of the 14 qualified responses the average response was 3.21. This means that more experienced players find Iron Valiant somewhat less banworthy than the average player but still in the potentially banworthy area.


4. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Greninja? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 38 responses the average response was 3.47. This means that for the much of the playerbase view Greninja as potentially banworthy as well.

Of the 14 qualified responses the average response was 4.07. This means that more experienced players find Greninja to be quite a bit more banworthy than the average player and this will definitely be discussed among the council.


5. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Annihilape? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 38 responses the average response was 3.21. This means that for the much of the playerbase view Annihilape as potentially banworthy, albeit slightly less banworthy than Greninja or Iron Valiant.

Of the 14 qualified responses the average response was 3.21. This means that more experienced players find Annihilape potentially banworthy as well but less banworthy than Greninja meaning discussion will probably focus on Greninja and Iron Valiant.


6. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Espathra? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 38 responses the average response was 2.16. This means that most people don't view Espathra as particularly problematic at the moment.

Of the 14 qualified responses the average response was 2.00. This means that more experienced players view Espathra as slightly less problematic than the average user and the council will not look into Espathra for the time being.


7. Which of these options would you say is currently the most problematic in the tier?

Of the 38 responses 46.2% believe that Iron Valiant is the most problematic Pokemon in the tier, 35.9% believe Greninja is, 12.8% believe Annihilape is, 2.6% believe Espathra is, and 2.6% believe none of the options listed are problematic.

Of the 14 qualified responses 57.1% believe that Greninja is the most problematic Pokemon in the tier, 28.6% believe Iron Valiant is, and 14.3% believe Annihilape. This question was especially interesting because of the discrepancy between the general responses and the qualified responses.


Notes on open response questions

• A couple people mentioned Sableye which was interesting. While Sableye hasn't proven itself to be problematic yet this generation I'm sure most of you remember the pain and suffering it caused last generation so it is something to keep an eye on.
• Going hand in hand with Sableye, a few people mentioned Encore, Disable, or both in their responses. This isn't at all surprising considering how potent this strategy has proven itself to be this generation and last generation. With that being said it is unlikely that the council will be having serious discussion on either of these moves because we usually try to tier broken abusers instead of moves or items themselves
• Goodluck with your Genshin stuff Sanshokuinsumireko

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With these results in mind the council will be discussing over the next couple days on where to go next. The main topics of discussion will be Iron Valiant and Greninja as those were the two mons rated most problematic by the general playerbase and the qualified responses. Something to also keep in mind is that there is a Pokemon Presents coming this Monday (in like 9 hours) which is quite possibly bringing us news about the future of Home and DLCs which could impact the timeline of our decisions.

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to respond. I'd like to do these more often in the future as they're a really good way for collecting the community's opinions without trying to nag people to post (although you should still do that if you want your voice to be heard). I'm sure everyone is excited to see what Pokemon info we get tomorrow and hopefully we'll have a better understanding of where we want to go from there after that.

 

[clerica]

It's been a while but with the dust starting to settle from DLC 1 the 1v1 council is hosting another survey to try and get a gauge for how the community feels about the current meta. This does not necessarily indicate a vote on anything this is more of a survey to test the waters and we'll see from there.

With that being said the 2nd SV 1v1 tiering survey will be open until this Friday, October 13th, at 11:59 PM GMT-4. Anyone with a smogon account is allowed to fill it out, and if you have questions feel free to reach out to myself or any member of the 1v1 council.

The link to the 2nd SV 1v1 tiering survey can be found here

 

[clerica]

gm! Thank you to the 53 of you who took the time to respond. If you would like to discuss anything about the survey whether it be what you submitted or the results feel free to post in the Metagame Discussion thread of in the 1v1 Discord.

The results for each question will be shown in three different ways. A graph for a visual representation of everyone's answers, an average value of everyone's answers, and an average value of the 27 responses from people who met the tour/ladder criteria to be counted as a qualified response.

1. On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current metagame? (10 being very enjoyable 1 being greatly dislike)

From the total 53 responses the average response was 6.68. This is a lot higher than pre home, and hopefully we will see it continue to rise over time.

Of the 27 qualified responses the average response was 6.62. This means that more experienced players find the metagame about as enjoyable as the average user.


2. On a scale of 1-10, how competitive and balanced do you find the current metagame? (10 being very balanced 1 being very unbalanced)

From the total 53 responses the average response was 6.51. This is a pretty solid number and seems most people find the meta competitive, but there is still some room for improvement.

Of the 27 qualified responses the average response was 6.59. This means that more experienced players find the metagame about as competitive as the average user.


3. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Iron Valiant? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 53 responses the average response was 3.30. This means that much of the playerbase view Iron Valiant as potentially worthy of action. This isn't all that surprising considering how much people dislike Encore Disable sets and how much usage it has on ladder.

However, the 27 qualified responses the average response was 2.89. This means that more experienced players find Iron Valiant less worthy of tiering action than the average player.


4. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Regidrago? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 53 responses the average response was 2.94. This indicates that Regidrago is still a divisie mon, but not as important as some other aspects.

However, the 27 qualified responses the average response was 2.86. This means that more experienced players view Regidrago about the same as the average player.


5. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Darkrai? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 53 responses the average response was 1.75. Darkrai was freed for the first time with DLC 1 and we wanted to keep an eye on it due to its status of being banned in prior generations. However, it seems the playerbase does not view Darkrai as problematic at the moment.

Of the 27 qualified responses the average response was 1.41. This means that more experienced players also view Darkrai as not problematic.


6. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Manaphy? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 53 responses the average response was 2.47. Manaphy was a surprise return in DLC 1 and similar to Darkrai we wanted to keep an eye on it when it dropped. However, it seems the playerbase for the most part does not view Manaphy as problematic at the moment, but it is still something to keep an eye on.

Of the 27 qualified responses the average response was 2.28. This means that more experienced players feel similarly to the average player about Manaphy not being a problem.


7. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Skeledirge? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 53 responses the average response was 1.60. With the return of Custap Berry Skeledirge is much stronger than it used to be and we wanted to put it on here just to be sure. From these results is seems people don't view Skeledirge as problematic currently.

Of the 27 qualified responses the average response was 1.66. This means that more experienced players feel similarly to the average player about Skeledirge.


8. On a scale of 1-5, how do you feel about Custap Berry? (1 being balanced 5 being tiering action needed)

From the total 53 responses the average response was 3.50. This one was interesting. Custap has already been annoying to people, and with its return to SV a lot of those frustrations from SS or it just being a new item return as well. With Custap being a non mon aspect it puts it in a weird position, but we can see a lot of people currently find it annoying.

Of the 27 qualified responses the average response was 3.34. This means that more experienced players also find Custap to be annoying, but slightly less than the average player.


9. How do you feel about a Cinderace retest?

Of the 53 responses a whopping 73.6% believe Cinderace should be retested, and only 15.1% would be against a Cinderace retest. Cinderace was initially banned during the pre home meta back when the power level was much lower, and giving it another shot has been mention in council chat since then so we wanted to see how the community feels as well.

Of the 27 qualified responses 62.0% believe that Cinderace should be retested, and 20.7% believe Cinderace should not be retested. This is notably lower than the average user, but it is still a supermajority among the qualified playerbase as well.


Notes on open response questions

• There were a couple of Zamazenta mentions, and it is a mon that has come up a couple times in council chat. Maybe someday it will have a shot, but I wouldn't expect it soon.
• Besides Zama there weren't really any more repeat mentions that were on the survey already so hopefully this covered everything.
• To the person who asked if people not in the qualified group's answers are taken into consideration, as you can see here yes they are!

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Looking forward the council will definitely be discussing where to go next from here over the next few days. We'll try and keep you all in the loop once we do come to a decision, but for now thank you to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey. Seeing the large increase in responses in encouraging, and we're happy to see people enjoying DLC 1 SV for the most part.

 

[clerica]

Hey y'all sorry this took so long, but I wanted to bring some updates on what's been going on since the survey. There's been a lot of discussion going on among the council since then that only finally ended today, and I wanted to finish that before giving any official updates. The summary is nothing is getting action at the moment and I'll go into each individual vote with a summary of the majority opinion reasoning below.

Vote 1: (Final vote: 3 suspect to 4 do not suspect)
The first thing we voted on was Custap since it did have the highest score on the survey. It was a very close vote that ultimately ended with no action for the time being. The main arguments were that in the current meta Custap suddenly flipping matchups due to 50/50s is almost nonexistent. Most higher ranking mons (Valiant, Cress, Manaphy, Spectrier, Alolan Ninetales, Corviknight, etc) are unaffected by opposing Custap the majority of the time. With how the meta currently is there's a pretty large opportunity cost to running custap and the vast majority of the time 50/50s involving Custap have zero effect effect on the matchup. This was also backed up by an intensive look at statistic involving the current meta (much like DEG's post here). While raw stats are generally taken with a grain of salt while looking at individual mons, on something like Custap that can be used on anything if it were truly a problem one would expect to see this have a large effect on these stats and it just doesn't. If anything the current meta looks incredibly hostile to Custap users barring Skeledirge which gains matchup reliability thanks to encore. With that being said the vote was still very close and we will continue to keep an eye on Custap's effect on the meta. A suspect is still possible in the future, but for now the council wants to see how the meta continues to develop with Custap around.

Vote 2: (Final vote: 2 suspect to 5 do not suspect)
In what was perhaps the most surprising vote Cinderace will not be freed just yet. The main argument against reintroducing Cinderace was concerns about tampering with a stable meta right before WC and Champs. Despite all of the power creep this gen Cinderace is still very strong on paper with its incredible offensive movepool including Pyro Ball, Gunk Shot, and High Jump Kick that make it much scarier than the other Protean/Libero mons. That being said, it is very likely Cinderace will be freed as part of a larger unban slate when DLC 2 drops so don't give up hope for the rabbit just yet.

Vote 3: (Final vote: 1 suspect to 5 do not suspect)
Since the previous two votes ended in no suspects there was a request to vote on Iron Valiant. While the average rating for it on the survey was 3.30, the qualified results had a significantly lower average at 2.89 which I think sums up Valiant quite well. Less experienced players struggle, but once you actually take a look at it Valiant can lose to a lot. DLC was not kind to it either with additions such as Alolant Ninetales, the rise of Skeledirge, and Ogerpon Hearthflame giving it trouble. To add to that, it also has a losing matchup against the majority of fairies which you see on pretty much every team.

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Looking forward, there may not be any plans on action before this year's 1v1 World Cup (don't forget to sign up), but afterwards there will likely be another survey unless news about DLC 2 changes that. WC should offer an excellent opportunity to see how the meta continues to develop, especially when it comes to things like Custap, Valiant, Hearthflame, Cress, and anything else. But who knows, with an unconfirmed DLC 2 release date anything is possible.

 

[Itchy]

​

With the DLC meta finally in a more stable place, it's time to open things up a bit. After some discussion in council chat, it was decided that a survey should be sent out, which you can fill out here. Instead of a numbered rating system like before, each question will be multiple choice. Each option corresponds to an opinion and an action plan. This should hopefully make these easier to interpret and make the path forward after a survey less subjective. Please respond before Sunday night -6. Results should be out early next week

 

[Itchy]

Results time! Thanks to everyone who responded. As a reminder, please don't share anything you don't want me to see (like irl names in file names) or things that aren't proof of access to a PS / Smogon account in the verification field (any response like this was removed).

For the pie charts below, this is what each section means:
Green - do nothing, it's fine
Yellow - it's fine but suspect it
Red - suspect it, I think it is broken
Blue - quickban, it's busted
Any other color - user-submitted response, will explain

Gouging Fire, Hoopa-U, and Archaludon were deemed as not banworthy by the vast majority of respondents. They may be acted on in the future but not now.

Gouging Fire

Purple - do nothing PLEASE it holds the meta together

Hoopa-U

Purple - it's fine but in their own words

Archaludon

As for the other 2 options, the 1v1 council will be voting on a suspect. The majority of respondents on both questions were in support of some action, whether that was a quickban or a suspect. There was not enough support for a quickban to justify voting on that. For simplicity's sake, they will not both be suspected at the same time.

Custap Berry

Light blue - it's fine
Purple - it's fine but it should be suspected

Regidrago

An announcement about any action will be posted as soon as the council vote ends. I expect at least one suspect to happen based on what I have read from the council. Once again, thank you so much for taking time out of your week to send your thoughts in

 

[Itchy]

Following the survey, 1v1 council has elected to suspect Custap Berry and Regidrago, in that order

votes

part 1 (6-0, 6-0)

Suspect Custap Berry: delemon, bo_bobson27, RTM, Kaif, LittEleven, DripLegend
Abstain: deg

Suspect Regidrago: delemon, bo_bobson27, RTM, Kaif, LittEleven, DripLegend
Abstain: deg

part 2 (6-0)

Suspect Custap Berry first: delemon, bo_bobson27, RTM, Kaif, LittEleven, DripLegend
Abstain: deg

More details will be coming soon