I've put rest into the fourth moveslot so I can at least have some sort of sleep control. But for real, I chose it in case torkoal is somewhat low on hp and it can give me another chance to set up sun. Hasn't really come up that often, but it is a nice option.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
the fact of the matter is that no argument to keep sleep clause mod was grounded in policy, ever. literally none of them. not a single one. some people seem either unable or unwilling to understand that "no modding" is rule number one of the policy. you cannot support sleep clause mod and honestly claim to be following policy. the only question is "is breaking the rules worth it", to which the answer, at least this gen, is "no"
Usually Wisp, but I've tried out Rock Tomb as well and it's come in clutch against Volcarona a couple times, plus it's a nice way of keeping most sweepers in check. Wisp is definitely the more consistent option, though.
We've had suspect processes around for a while, and there's no reason we can't have ladders to determine who is eligible for votes on policy. There's just no reason this couldn't have been put up to a ladder vote, but that's hardly the worst problem with the ban lol
There isn't going to be an impact on the metagame because almost no one was using Sleep to start with. There's no data right now to suggest Sleep is suddenly problematic. In fact, the pro-Ban camp has repeatedly tried to push stats discussion out of the conversation because the stats don't support their arguments at all. We're going off of (at most) a month of gameplay with an entire week of usage cut out of the next month's stats. The only real impact is that Darkrai lost its second best set. The real issues here for me are what this means for policy going forward, seeing as apparently we're
1) committing to policy changes to ban an entire mechanic over banning iron valiant and darkrai
2) completely changing how we understand uncompetitiveness
3) completely changing the limits we placed on fidelity towards simulating the cartridges
4) not implementing any of this to past metagames
So now we're stuck with two different understandings of uncompetitiveness in policy, one that's established in 2024 and one that's been established prior to 2024, and now we're stuck with like 3 interpretations of how we understand fidelity to the cartridges lmao. Generation 1, Generation 9, and everything between all have their own interpretations of how we approach simulating the games. These are supposed to be universally applied principles and restricting them to generations just makes these terms arbitrarily defined.
"you cannot support policy implemented since the mid-2000s and honestly claim to be following policy"
I'm also bewildered that people supporting the ban on the basis of maintaining fidelity with the cartridges are perfectly fine with not expanding this to past metagames. That you're fine with it just makes your statement about following policy even more ridiculous.
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Its just Pokemon yall need to relax. Anyways here a take from Jimothy Cool that I agree with
I mean i think every single gen should remove sleep clause. I also recognize that I'm not a player and even if i think my opinions are grounded in policy etc it's not like i can build an argument for metas I don't even touch. If I was a smogon dictator or something I'd remove it tho, with exception to rby because that entire metagame is 50% mods anyway
those are past gen metas. Current Gens don’t have any influence or control over what happens to them. The people that play them do. If they want to do something with sleep they’re more than free to.
There’s no change of understanding in uncompetitiveness. Sleep has always teetered the line. It is not consistent in how long it lasts and reduces many interactions to rng rolls based on sleep length. Sleep inducing moves largely only reduce player interaction and skill out of the equation.
I think we found the most likely candidate for the individual who called Finch. Jimothy was so angry he started using his real accent.
This isn't about whether or not you play the metas, this is about making sure we have a coherent continuity in how we formulate policy. Establishing different positions in how we simulate or how we define what is uncompetitive just makes those concepts entirely arbitrary. RBY is already a problem in the former regard and now we're repeating that issue with gen 9
I think you misunderstand what I mean here, there are multiple standards being set here that constitute different ways in how we understand what is and isn't competitive. If Sleep Clause is removed in one generation because sleep is uncompetitive and not another with the same mechanics, it's a different standard. We now have two standards set for uncompetitiveness and three for how we simulate the game. If this is going to be implemented, it needs to be implemented right.
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I hope Latias climbs to OU next month, we need more dragon representation and she's a cute, harmless girl who only wants to drain kiss you and store power you until you faint. If she does not climb I'm gonna suspect there's some mysogyny involved so get it together my fella smogonites!
Bruh, we have 8 dragons in OU, how much more do you need. Just play BW if you want dragon representation lolI hope Latias climbs to OU next month, we need more dragon representation and she's a cute, harmless girl who only wants to drain kiss you and store power you until you faint. If she does not climb I'm gonna suspect there's some mysogyny involved so get it together my fella smogonites!
Bruh its so painful that these types of arguements keep coming up regarding sleep. So painful. It's so smooth brained that it must result in a ban from this thread if that's possible. We can't keep doing this. It's worse than DaddyBuzzhole humor.
Other arguements are annoying at this point too but this one is just unacceptable to hear over and over.
By the way maybe because I'm low ladder (~1500?) but I've never had a problem with Kyurem. I assumed my go to for special attackers would do the job but actually tera ice specs ice beam cleanly 2hko's max spdef Clefable :|.. I do run tera steel to block poison when I'm setting up the calm mind win but even then it means I can't switch in and win- would have to go to my next option iron crown.. but the point is kyuren rips my team after a few switches and idk why it doesnt happen
Would banning Cloyster and unbanning King’s Rock ever be considered?
My understanding is this goes against tiering policy. For example, Houndstone was initially banned and not Last Respects because Last Respects was only broken on Houndstone. Once Basculegion received Last Respects, now Last Respects was broken on multiple Pokémon and thus we unbanned Hounstone and banned Last Respects.
Likewise, any Pokémon can use King’s Rock, yet it is only broken on Cloyster, so shouldn’t we ban Cloyster? And then if (for example) Maushold was also broken with King’s Rock, we’d then ban King’s Rock and unban Cloyster?
Obviously the reason I bring this up is because of the sleep ban. As I see it, one could approach sleep as being either uncompetitive, overpowered, or against tiering policy (sleep clause mod). Whether no action was taken, action was taken against sleep, or action was taken against certain abusers seemed tricky and something that should be decided by the community. However, sleep was quick banned because the sleep clause mod isn’t consistent with tiering policy (a decision I agree with).
My point is that if a controversial quick ban is enacted in the name of tiering policy, shouldn’t our tiering policy be consistent (which it’s not with Cloyster/King’s Rock)? Otherwise it comes across as people in charge picking and choosing when they want to apply tiering policy.
Ban Cloyster and Unban King’s Rock
My understanding is this goes against tiering policy. For example, Houndstone was initially banned and not Last Respects because Last Respects was only broken on Houndstone. Once Basculegion received Last Respects, now Last Respects was broken on multiple Pokémon and thus we unbanned Hounstone and banned Last Respects.
Likewise, any Pokémon can use King’s Rock, yet it is only broken on Cloyster, so shouldn’t we ban Cloyster? And then if (for example) Maushold was also broken with King’s Rock, we’d then ban King’s Rock and unban Cloyster?
Obviously the reason I bring this up is because of the sleep ban. As I see it, one could approach sleep as being either uncompetitive, overpowered, or against tiering policy (sleep clause mod). Whether no action was taken, action was taken against sleep, or action was taken against certain abusers seemed tricky and something that should be decided by the community. However, sleep was quick banned because the sleep clause mod isn’t consistent with tiering policy (a decision I agree with).
My point is that if a controversial quick ban is enacted in the name of tiering policy, shouldn’t our tiering policy be consistent (which it’s not with Cloyster/King’s Rock)? Otherwise it comes across as people in charge picking and choosing when they want to apply tiering policy.
Ban Cloyster and Unban King’s Rock
This game needs less skilless purely RNG-based cheese, not more of it. Keep King's Rock banned and ban Quick Claw and Focus Band too for good measure.
???
in what universe is it not consistent. KR is banned for being a purely uncompetitive item.
i think you're lost, the thread you're looking for is here
If that's the case, where's the battle timer? No timer is a mod in that you can't play for the clock, which is a win condition on cartridge. Would it make the game worse? Absolutely. But is it cartridge accurate and should be enacted to follow policy? Absolutely.
Kyurem is likely leaving and we'll need a replacement and Latias is free right now, poor sis can only be used in OU so, MOUGA (Make OU Great Again) and bring back Latias or her brother or maybe the Chomp?
it's not actually possible to code it in an accurate way on showdown, and here's why: using showdown's animations with the actual in-game timer would cause a large number of games to go far behind the number of turns that's legally possible. that's not cartridge-accurate either, so just implementing the timer by itself doesn't accomplish anything, we also need to somehow factor in the amount of time the in-game animations take. the only two ways to do this are:
- directly importing the game's animations somehow. coding and logistical difficulties aside, this would cause showdown to get c&d'd faster than anyone could possibly conceive
- subtracting the time of each animation from the timer whenever the moves, item procs, etc. execute. this would require us to know the exact frame data of every single animation in the game and somehow integrate all of them into the timer function and make sure every single combination of animations behaves the same as it does on cartridge
But if neither option (most likely #2) is willing to be entertained, then claiming to be cartridge accurate is a lie. Entirely different strategies can only exist in a battle timer world, and could cause entire meta shifts due to this. If sleep ban was done to be more cartridge accurate (ignoring the subjective arguments of sleep balance), why isn't it being made a full priority to measure animation time and somewhat translate it into a timer? By accepting that there is no battle timer, we're already stepping far away from what accurate cartridge play actually is, and are basically playing a mod in the end.
again, it's just not feasible. this discussion was had back when the games first implemented battle timers, and the reasons it never took off are the same ones i'm saying ten years later. worse, these animation lengths change every gen, so we'd have to implement it separately for every gen from 6 onward
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Okay so I understand sleep clause needed to go. Beyond that we had hypnosis being abused, along with maybe sleep powder and you could make a case for spore even though it was only really on amoongus. Why did the rest need to go? At this point, without those 3 options, sleep is so limited I can't see it being broken. I think I'd like to see a suspect of 2-3 of the lesser used sleep moves at once. I don't like the idea of removing sleep completely. You may disagree but no one can say for certain that yawn will be broken or sing, without a test. Dark void is so d*gshit I have no issue with darkrai using it. Pokemon is a game of chance I think if we're making big choices like this the less obvious stuff should be left to the community to test. After all, this "simple ban" really just banned certain moves, so it shouldn't be an issue to ban some moves and not others.
Honestly adding the ingame timer would only affect 2 scenarios really.
-People who use Stall and find another Stall player in a Tournament.
-Stall players in VGC who use timer stalling as an actual part of their game plan.
It’s be more way too effort and really the only group winning would be VGC Stall teams. I don’t think anyone would really enjoy players who deliberately take a minute to make a move just to wait out a timer and win through technicalities, especially on ladder.
-People who use Stall and find another Stall player in a Tournament.
-Stall players in VGC who use timer stalling as an actual part of their game plan.
It’s be more way too effort and really the only group winning would be VGC Stall teams. I don’t think anyone would really enjoy players who deliberately take a minute to make a move just to wait out a timer and win through technicalities, especially on ladder.
There really isn't anything anywhere saying what should exactly happen. This was a lot of council making calls based on what they've seen in the way they best seem fit. I don't mean that in a "council is evil monarchy" way; that is literally what the council is supposed to do. I just disagree with the way they did it. Ultimately, its because council thought sleep was such an issue that they decided to go that way. I just think a discussion with sleep is so big that it warrants more discussion and community input before going to a qb. I also disagree with Finch as stated in a previous post and see no reason this shouldn't have gone to a suspect. But that's just one person's opinion.
I'm gonna be honest man, and I hate to stir up bad feelings on this thread again. But you literally have no clue what you are talking about. I know you post on here a lot dude but that doesn't mean you have any greater idea of tiering policy as most of us here in this thread. I was confused on this point and reached out to tiering officials including Finchinator in the past few weeks and he clarified exactly what is meant by this point. Tiering policy states we try to stick towards cartridge where we can. Policy is open towards exceptions to this and it always has been and still is. Saying "no modding is rule number one" is framing policy in a way that doesn't say what it explicitly says. We try to stick towards cartridge but there are cases where we can break this. In general, we try to stay to this. Removing sleep clause makes this consistent with everything, but it doesn't mean we are unable to reimplement Sleep Clause Mod or institute another mod that would be helpful to have in another scenario. Policy was literally built with saying "there are exceptions" with the express purpose of keeping sleep clause mod around. And as of my conversation with Finch, this openness to the rare exception doesn't seem to be something anyone is trying to remove as an aspect of the tiering policy. Sleep Clause Mod wasn't breaking any rules, the rules were always open to them.
I've personally always found the hesitance to implement any sort of hard battle timer really bizarre. "We cannot perfectly copy cart so we shouldn't have it at all" is pretty much a nirvana fallacy, most competitive games that I can think of have some sort of hard timer (even if it's something a little more abstract like the 15 turn limit in Mega Man Battle Network), and the timer's exclusion removes an officially recognized win condition.
I mean, you can still win on time. In fact, that's pretty much what Stall is designed to do! Whether it's a chess clock or an arbitrary timer, in the immortal words of the Magic the Gathering Comp Rules:
104.3a said: