Suspect SV AAA Suspect #1: Bejeweled (Terastallizing)

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UT

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Quick programming note: technically, the AAA council has implemented Terastal Clause by council action, so this is actually an immediate suspect to potentially remove it and re-allow Terastallizing. The full reasoning for this exact mechanism can be found here.

WHY:
Another generation, another controversial new mechanic. A quick rundown for those not familiar with it: every Pokemon has a Tera type; once per battle (and per team) a Pokemon can Terastallize, turning into its Tera type with some new mechanics. Defensively, the Pokemon becomes monotype matching its Tera type. Offensively, if it Terastallizes into a new type, it keeps its original STAB typing(s) as well as gains the new one. If it Terastallizes into a type that matches one of its original types, it gains super STAB on that type (roughly equal to Adaptability); if it was dual typed, it still keeps its other STAB at normal power.

This has a wide range of potential applications. Powerful wallbreakers can super charge their STAB moves (Iron Bundle using Tera Water Hydro Pump to 2HKO Chansey), gain a new typing to blow by supposed checks (Tera Fairy Kingambit deleting Iron Hands), or super charge coverage moves (Tera Electric Flutter Mane getting by Ice Scales Corviknight). Three-move STAB coverage can bypass a wide range of walls, and all AAA players should be familiar with how powerful Adaptability is; adding Adaptability on top of another ability is absurd.

Tera also has defensive applications; Avalugg can shed its awful Ice typing and become Fairy or Steel, Palossand can dodge incoming Dark and Ghost attacks with a well-timed Tera, and Clodsire can transform into a Water-type to eat an incoming Hydro Pump. More sinisterly, offensive Pokemon can still utilize Tera defensively as well; Dragapult is an infamous example, as a late-revealed Tera Electric can lure and KO opposing Dragonite that think they can safely revenge kill it.

That last point is something that I want to drive home; type matchups have long been one of the most important aspects of competitive Pokemon and are crucial to to gameplay. Bringing bulky Water-types to check opposing Water-types has been a valid teambuilding structure for generations, but suddenly that Water-type can be Electric instead and blow by you. It can also create unhealthy 50/50s; Iron Hands can normally reliably revenge kill Kingambit, but what if it's hiding Fairy Tera and one shots it instead? The unpredictability of Tera is a large and potentially destabilizing element, to say nothing of the buffs it offers as well.
How (Suspect Details):
During a Suspect test, each player must climb the ladder until they've acquired the GXE necessary to participate in the voting. Primarily, everyone that participates needs to make an alt account following these guidelines:

  • Every game must be played on the official Pokemon Showdown! site and on a new account (creation date no earlier than today, November 22nd) with "TERAAA [Nick]"--for example, I could create one called "TERAAA UT" to ladder with. Having the prefix at the beginning of your alt name is mandatory, AKA not in the middle (e.g. The TERAAA Man) and not at the end (e.g. The TERAAA).​
  • To qualify for voting, your alt must play a minimum of 25 games, and you must have a minimum GXE of 75.
  • Terastallizing will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect.​
  • The suspect test will go for two weeks and end on Tuesday, December 6th (11:59 pm GMT -5).
  • When posting proof of meeting reqs, feel free to use this thread as a means to disseminate topical opinions regarding whether or not Terastallizing should remain banned. (Optional)
  • It is mandatory to provide proof of ownership of the alt account as well. (Post a picture of your reqs with your smogon name featured)​
With that all of that being said, it's suspect time! As usual, the actual voting will take place in the Blind Voting Forum, so posting anything other than proof of reqs and discussion isn't necessary.

Tagging Kris for implementation
 

confirming. Terra is incredibly dumb on a few Pokémon but that’s because the banlist is much scanter than it needs to be. In general, while Tera is unpredictable I think it is an enjoyable addition and between its good and bad parts is not negative enough for me to want to boot it just yet. It’s entirely possible people will discover some new Tera sets that change my mind, though, so I’ll keep playing and read the arguments made / evidence posted.
 

LordBox

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Since I'm here I might as well just dump some of my thoughts on Tera. With a bit more thought and time I've actually come a bit to like Tera more, although I'm still slightly on the side to ban Tera. What's wrong with Tera? Well UT has already brought up quite a few points, Bundle 2HKO'ing Chansey and also IceScales Corv for that matter with Tera PrimSea Specs Pump, Flutter being allowed to utterly eviscerate its most common check IceScales Corv (I'm seeing a pattern here....) even when it reaaally shouldn't like with a Choice Scarf and DNite ESpeed being even more terrifying when jacked up to 200 effective power with the Adaptability STAB Tera gives. Now granted, these mons are inherently broken and will probably get banned regardless of Tera but there are many other offensive mons who become a lot more powerful given Tera, Kinggambit's Fairy Tera Blast ripping through Iron Hands, Aerilate Noivern... if Icescales Corv didn't exist and such. Whether to ban Tera first to see how we go through the watchlist or other great mons that take advantage of it or to ban the mons that abuse it the hardest to see how Tera goes is a pretty hard question, but hey we're here now so I'm willing to ban Tera first to see how the meta develops around it given the power of the mechanic when combined with other power-boosting abilities (but hey, at least we have FurScales released) and the below argument.

More interestingly for whether Tera should be banned, at least imo, is its defensive-offensive usage, which the formerly unbanned Annihilape was a prime example of. Now Annihilape already was great and nearly over the edge for... many other reasons and there's a good chance it would've gotten banned otherwise, but really the fact it could defensively Tera to soak and kill many of its otherwise fine offensive answers like Fluttermane or just strong offensive mons in general really pushed it over the edge. The ability to do this with many other offensive mons like the mentioned Tera-Electric Pult and wackier things that I've seen and tried like Normal Tera Armarouge for Ghost types like Pult or Flutter or with Tera Water specially defensive Great Tusk for Bundle, Flutter and Moth really make for a high level of unpredictability and can create lots of 50/50 situations when in any other case you would be completely fine. We already have a lot of variety and unpredictability in the tier compared to standard play as we have to deal with customizable abilities but Tera, for some at least, pushes this a bit over the edge. Sure unpredictability and variance is always to be expected, moveset, EVs, items and now abilities but changing all your weaknesses and resistances + STABs at a whim is definitely something else, although some may find this simply just finding good plays if you're able to make you're unpredictable Tera's work and could definitely work as just something to account for, although the reach you have to account for is a bit much imo.

Ignoring the argument of keeping Tera since it is the game's core mechanic, I would overall lean towards the side of ban although not completely. Is it as broken as Dynamax was? Definitely not. And if Tera was kept I could live with it, it does admittedly add some interesting things to build and account for, but I do think I lean towards Tera being banned with the effect it has on offensive mons (although suspecting the broken threats that abuse it the most might have been better now) and imo unhealthy effect it has on many of the decisions you make in battle and building.

As an extra tangent, if Tera is kept, I can't particularly imagine FurScales ever going away, although I may be wrong since there are still great defensive sponges and walls that dont need FurScales like PHeal Iron Hands or some decent RegenVesters but with what Tera does offensively, even without the more broken shit, I can't imagine surviving without IceScales Corv, this thing is legit on all my non-HO teams wtf. Although the opposite might be said if Tera does go away + the broken shit. But this is just speculation. Oh yeah, guess I should also put the team that got me here as well if anyone wants to use it. Just an experimental version of my past HO team though. https://pokepast.es/954a444a9296156d
 
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Isaiah

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F, don't queue three games at a time when your internet is being disagreeable. 2 of my losses were to DCs :(

I think tera has to go for certain. All of the mons like dragapult, dnite, flutter mane, iron bundle, kingambit, iron hands, Deez Hands, Your Hands, Our Hands, or w/e that everyone has listed are realistically not that hard to handle with Fur Coat and Ice Scales; the issue is when you introduce being able to (for example) turn dnite into super Flying-type to nuke stuff harder, or Steel/Ground to avoid bad matchups, or perhaps when kingambit turns into a fairy type to tank your ground coverage or a dark type to do a billion damage with Kowtow/Sucker Punch. I also don't believe that these mons are broken enough to transcend tiering around tera: Hippowdon and Avalugg are able to circumvent matchups they should lose by turning into Fairy-types. Are we going to ban them, too? I'm fairly convinced that nuking the very best abusers will just result in people using other Pokemon and perpetuating those awful interactions where you suddenly don't have an answer to a foe because it's a completely different type now. It hasn't even been a week yet, and I'm already seeing people run things like Ice Tera Hadron Engine Sandy Shocks to get cheeky damage on Grounds, Psychic Tera Chi-Yu to put Clodsire in a coma once and for all, Ground tera Great Tusk to overwhelm defensive walls even further on Choice Banded sets, Dragon or Normal type Poison Heal Dondozo to OHKO your attempt to kill it with a Water move, and more. At some point it becomes clear that the issue isn't just strong Pokemon; the mechanic is just as much to blame.

Oh yeah, I laddered with Cloyster stall if you're interested in that:
:Cloyster::Chansey::Corviknight::Hippowdon::Slither Wing::Clodsire:
Cloyster originally had Chilling Water over Surf, so if you feel like that's better, go for it.
Could also consider Skill Swap over Thunder Wave on Chansey if you're particularly scared of pheal for whatever reason, but cheesing stuff with para + Seismic Toss is incredible.
 
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confirming as
I find terra to be a not so problematic mechanic in itself, as it is not so powerful, quite skill reliant and allow for a lot more creativity in the teambuilder. We should just suspect the broken threats and defensive mons that take too much of a buff out of using it (Noivern being the one I would advise to suspect first as it is crazy strong rn imo). And even though it'll probably take some time to do and will complicate things for tourneys to come I deeplu believe it's the right thing to do^^
 

Isaiah

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confirming as
I find terra to be a not so problematic mechanic in itself, as it is not so powerful, quite skill reliant and allow for a lot more creativity in the teambuilder. We should just suspect the broken threats and defensive mons that take too much of a buff out of using it (Noivern being the one I would advise to suspect first as it is crazy strong rn imo). And even though it'll probably take some time to do and will complicate things for tourneys to come I deeplu believe it's the right thing to do^^
In what ways do you feel it's skill reliant? Not to be blunt, but I am not so certain I see what's skill reliant about people being able to change their whole type matchup on the spot w/o the opponent having any information until the moment it's used, especially when any of the 6 opposing Pokemon can do it. If anything, that sounds more like a heavy dose of luck and not so much predictive play at work. Maybe I have too extreme a perspective, but I genuinely do not see how Noivern is a bigger issue in a meta with Ice Scales and RegenVest allowed.
 

anaconja

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shortest anaconja suspect reqs

idk in my opinion there were more glaring things to suspect than tera (dragonite, flutter mane, bundle, drum or burden), but shit like dragon pult (who may just be broken itself too even without tera) and fairy kingambit are already strong as fuck so im leaning very much towards ban

edit: here are my mediocre teams
:orthworm::flutter-mane::dondozo::kingambit::dragonite::iron-moth: shed tail offense
:amoonguss::corviknight::clodsire::dondozo::great-tusk::drifblim: stall
 
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Giagantic

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(I know not great score I threw a game here and there)

Ban tera! Why? The reason is that for all the interesting components such as type change and so forth that it brings it introduces an element of randomness that is beyond the predictive ability of a player. It is only gonna become increasingly obvious as a meta settles that Tera inhibits skill based gameplay due to the nature of having to account for 6 potential Tera Pokemon, 18 different typings, and the bonus damage / additional stab you get from transforming. This is similar to Dynamax in regards to the randomness of who is gonna transform and when, and similarly both make counterplay much harder then it has been in the past. With Mega's you knew who had the potential to Mega, not with the last two gen's gimmicks, any Pokemon could completely turn the tables in such a immediate fashion. I get why people may be a little more attached to the concept of Tera for it makes many Pokemon deemed bad, better, but this only extends to a few lucky ones in AAA (Avalugg being the chief among them). Tera is especially potent in AAA because you can directly ensure that the ability, the pokemon, and the tera type mesh well together in a way that makes things like Fur Coat and Ice Scales mandatory abilities, this can be seen in the dominant physical Espeed demon that is Dragonite whom practically mandates having something that either heavily resists (with good defenses) it's double boosted stab Espeed or is running Fur Coat / Fluffy.

As I said, Tera will become an increasingly potent weapon as a metagame settles, to such an extent that it breaks competitive play. In my opinion, it should be banned. We can always do a re-suspect at later date after dealing with the broken pokemon and abilities that riddle AAA at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised at Tera being banned from all metagames, potentially even doubles due to the damage boost and additional typing.

Team is Offense Focused because I don't have the patience to play a slower style to get reqs: https://pokepast.es/16b3453c7fc6fcb8
 
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man i wanna say dnb but it might just have to be b.
Echoing others id rather see some of the more constricting presences go to see if that helps handle tera, make the tier better, etc.
But in long run tera might have to go. Do this ^ anyways though
Btw shoutout to that one guy on unburden chi-yu who farmed me 3 games in a row smh
 
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(i almost met reqs at like 26 games and immediately threw 5 games in a row because i suck but here i am)
not gonna be wordy because im on like 4 hours of sleep again and i cant think but i think anything i could say has pretty much been summed up by gia and isaiah; while i think there are obvious broken mons that need to be addressed, based on my experience w/ tera on the ladder i think i'm still leaning towards ban.
 
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Miyoko

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confirming as teraaa eternara
I won't lie but terrastralize is a great mechanic of Pokemon, though it's too risky as well at times when we over predict. Prediction + perfect timing is necessary for terrastralize so it's not much over powered to be honest. But after all changing types is literally a game changing matter (almost). So i would like to vote for a ban.

Thank you
S/o to Pokemon Trainer 596 for teams
 
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im not gonna try the suspect again i was at 74.8 GXE and got crit and then i got lucked on half the games i made (winning less than 1%GXE and losing more than 1% is also very annoying bruh) so i'm just gonna put my team and my thoughts here during my attempted suspect run

https://pokepast.es/4b3fa4def1e965de
Team i played, dunno if its good but it has 5 brokens mons + slither wing, Flutter Mane is broken asf lmao corvi ice scales cant even deal with it if rocks are up this is so dumb, Chien-Pao is not as easy to put on the field but is even more broken than FMane, Slither Wing is just a fine priority user but not the best, it should prob be replaced by a fairy triage or something to rk Iron Hands (another broken asf mon), Kingambit is supposed to break very easily if there's no like Fur Coat Body Press Corvi / Avalugg Fur Coat and sucker punch is nice, Iron Bundle 2HKO Corvi after rocks or almost with a very good speed tier lmao what a dumb mon (walled by DLand tho) and finally Corviknight, i think 3/4 of my wins are Corviknight sweeping after 6 Bulk Up, if u dont have something like Iron Valiant tbolt + mblast or taunt/encore on something or clodsire haze thats awful to deal with it.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1720179987
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9almostanyability-1720190440
some replays where it swept without any worries
Ice Scales + Fur Coat are such awful abilities, Slowbro Fur Coat takes 49% from Kingambit Adapt Adamant LO lmao, stalls are gonna be broken asf when the tier will start to be stable

I have finished to mention the broken i saw during my suspect now im gonna talk a bit about terra

At the beginning i was leaning toward dnb because well, that's only on 1 mon, u have a pure type, u have to get the good type vs the good mon, but the more i played, and the more i was like, well this is actually kinda of unhealthy, u don't know what mon will terra, when it will terra, and in what type it will terra, thats why my Corvi terra Dragon was so good during my suspect run which i gave up.


I dont know why terra got suspected so quickly because there's so much mons that deserve a ban and thats sad because we couldnt test terra in a stable meta if it's banned but thats just unhealthy

so: ban terra + flutter mane + iron hands + chien-pao + fur coat + ice scales :pray:
 

Tea Guzzler

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3 of these 4 losses were me just insta-FFing to some guy running clodsire stall lol, giagantic's shed tail team made this a breeze.

part of me thinks the situation with AAA tera is similar to the one with BH tera - it lets mons beat stuff they have no business beating and kicks offensive threats into overdrive whilst leaving defensive options relatively hard-stuck. I can see how you could justify as the mons rather than the mechanic, however I don't see how having to guess tera type throughout the game on every mon AND having to just accept the loss if someone has a convenient tera at a convenient time is balanced. I had fun laddering for this, but i think tera in a meta with a lot of options is already borderline, and given how limited the current list of viable mons there is I don't see how it can stay for now. voting ban.
 

Hera

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"Dread it. Run from it. The Table Stall arrives all the same." - Thanos

Tea Guzzler hi

Tera is frankly fine and a lot of the complaints about it have been overblown. I've only lost like 1 or 2 games because someone Teraed into a type I wasn't expecting and didn't prep for, even when I wasn't using the busted stall posted above. In theory, Tera offers endless mindgames and an insane amount of possibilities, but in practice, I really haven't found that to be the case, and the fact that the only replays shown so far are in support of banning something else shows me that the pro-ban side doesn't really have the evidence to back up their case beyond theorymonning. "But when further optimized it could break the tier!" then ban it then. Idk why we had to have a suspect on this less than a week into the gen when hilariously broken shit like Flutter Mane, Iron Hands, Iron Valiant, and anything with the Iron suffix is allowed. Apparently the line of reasoning is that these mons can't be judged properly with Tera in the tier, but trust me when I say they're stupid without Tera as well. I could be wrong, but right now I'm not seeing anything that would sway me.

Honestly, I'd argue that Tera is a neccesity in the current meta rn and stopping a lot of really degenerate strategies from coming into play. My biggest issue right now is that FurScales (and Fluffy) are legal. Not only was there 0 notice that they would be unbanned given before the gen was offically released (literally, I just found this out when building stall yesterday), (disclaimer: the crossed out part is incorrect, see post below) but trying to solve the issue of immient power creep by potentially letting 3/6 mons on a team become unkillable behemoths that take pitiful damage from physical/special attacks isn't the way to go; it just turns everything either extremely bulky or extremely offensive in the hopes of breaking past the bulky teams, and that's not fun for anyone. The boosts that Tera provides to attacking moves allow individual breakers to actually stand up to these unkillable behemoths, and without Tera, I believe the meta would be a lot more extreme, with only stall, HO, and counterteamy bulky offense being viable. I know I just bashed theorymonning about the future, but I have played a solid amount of games without Tera being used at all, and it just kinda goes to whoever has the better MU instead of skill. It's absurdly easy to pilot something like the stall above or the Shed Tail HO variants running around because it's hard NOT to get a good MU with those teams, as evidenced by the win rates of those laddering for reqs and the teams posted here. I really hate the state Gen 8 eventually ended in, and would not like this to be replicated in a brand-new generation.

That being said, in a meta without FurScales, Tera is probably broken and would definitely need to go. If a FurScales quickban was going to take place after this suspect, then yeah, I'd vote ban. But in the current state of the meta, I think Tera is just too necessary right now and helps offensive and defensive teams alike gain an advantage in bad MUs that's not completely unreasonable imo.

tl;dr voting unban because FurScales is busted and dumb
 
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hayedenn

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Heracross said:
snip

Honestly, I'd argue that Tera is a neccesity in the current meta rn and stopping a lot of really degenerate strategies from coming into play. My biggest issue right now is that FurScales (and Fluffy) are legal. Not only was there 0 notice that they would be unbanned given before the gen was offically released (literally, I just found this out when building stall yesterday), but trying to solve the issue of immient power creep by potentially letting 3/6 mons on a team become unkillable behemoths that take pitiful damage from physical/special attacks isn't the way to go; it just turns everything either extremely bulky or extremely offensive in the hopes of breaking past the bulky teams, and that's not fun for anyone.
hi heracross, this was posted November 11th by UT (a week before the games came out)
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-9-om-discussion-spoilers.3710558/post-9391490

UT said:
Hello friends, I wanted to give you a sneak peak at our current plans for SV AAA, cause frankly, there are a lot of changes coming.

By far the biggest change is we will be starting the generation with Single Ability Clause! This obviously has huge ramifications, from breaking Regen cores to forcing more decisions about what abilities to put where.

The second big change is we will be freeing loads of abilities banned in SS AAA, for two reasons. One, a SAC meta is very different than a 2AC meta, and we want to see how some old overpowered abilities hold up. Second, there seems to be some tremendous power creep in terms of moves and Pokémon, so maybe some previously overpowered abilities will be okay? We will find out!
as you can see here it's mostly just to see how these abils operate in a new gen where bulkier stuff has been nerfed/is worse (for a variety of reasons), if furscales becomes too op then the council will definitely consider banning them, thanks for your input :smile:
 

Hera

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hi heracross, this was posted November 11th by UT (a week before the games came out)
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gen-9-om-discussion-spoilers.3710558/post-9391490


as you can see here it's mostly just to see how these abils operate in a new gen where bulkier stuff has been nerfed/is worse (for a variety of reasons), if furscales becomes too op then the council will definitely consider banning them, thanks for your input :smile:
Thank you for politely correcting that part of my post! I must have looked over that post when I was looking through the threads, and I apologize for presenting incorrect information. I'm very glad that council is considering my input on FurScales and hope that will take the best decision to improve the tier, even if it is to keep FurScales.
 

Murphy Lawden

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(Edit: Finally after getting haxed so many times I completee it.)
I finally got the requirements after getting haxed so many times. Well I think that Terastallizing is an excellent mechanics and if done correctly a pokemon can beat their own check and this makes offensive mons even more threatening. However, its very much prediction reliant whether or not your opponent would teralize which is unhealthy, so i have decided to vote for a Ban.


Also please do something about furcoat, bright powder and iron hands
 
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