written by me and Guard, approved by the whole National Dex Ubers tiering council!
Hello everyone.
In today's episode of "this post is too long, I'm just going to read the tl;dr", I'll talk about the tier me and Guard are leading, being National Dex Ubers. The tier started off with plenty of promise and still holds strong to this day; we have one of the most active ladders on PS!. Sadly, with the passing of time and the development of new strategies, it has become clear that there is one questionable element: Terastallization. However, the situation around Terastal is a lot more nuanced than one would think for a metagame jam-packed with strong legendaries.
1- Terastal in National Dex Ubers
Terastal adds a completely new dimension to teambuilding that is both majorly beneficial and slightly controversial. On one hand, utilizing defensive Tera goes a long way in helping cover the litany of strong offensive juggernauts in the metagame. A great example is Tera Grass Ho-Oh checking the dangerous Dragon Dance Zygarde-C and Calm Mind + Power Gem Arceus-Ground, both of which would otherwise require very specific counterplay. Offensive use of Tera is naturally just as popular as well, giving otherwise outclassed Pokemon such as Deoxys-A and Kyurem-B newfound viability. However, with such a volatile mechanic, there are obviously some questionable abusers as well, with Xerneas and Zygarde-C standing out in particular. Xerneas utilizes Tera Electric to bypass traditional checks in Ho-Oh and Necrozma-DM with Thunder, whereas Dragon Dance / Coil Zygarde-C can harness a defensive Tera type to gain crucial boosting turns against checks and sweep opposing teams.
After the conclusion of National Dex World Cup's qualifying stage, a survey was held to gauge opinions on these Pokemon. The overwhelmingly popular public opinion is that these Pokemon aren't broken on their own; they would be completely fine if they were restricted from using Terastallization. This is something the council agrees with completely. Ideally, we would like to implement a Terastal banlist similar to the Dynamax banlist Ubers implemented last generation. This would then include Xerneas, Zygarde-C, and Shedinja (a Pokemon that was quickbanned early on due to egregiously abusing a defensive Tera type with Wonder Guard). However, we recognize that this is completely new territory as far as tiering around Terastal is concerned, hence this thread.
2- Why restrict Tera and not outright ban the mechanic / ban the broken abusers?
As an Ubers-based metagame, we feel compelled to adhere to Ubers tiering policy, which states the following: "Ubers will make use of complex bans to help reach our goal of creating a format where we ban as little as possible, even though this may come at the cost of purity and simplicity." This philosophy was the basis of the Gen 8 Dynamax banlist, which banned Dynamax on a set of Pokemon instead of banning the mechanic in its entirety. This decision did not age well after the release of the Crown Tundra DLC, which drastically raised the power level in the metagame by introducing many new legendaries. However, the effort on trying to preserve the identity of the generation was still commendable and entirely in line with Ubers tiering philosophy. It should be noted that National Dex Ubers, as a National Dex format, won't be impacted nearly as much by the upcoming SV DLCs, which further advocates for a Tera banlist in lieu of a complete Tera ban in our case.
We're also in a different situation compared to the Dynamax banlist, as only a very restricted list of Tera users are actually deemed unhealthy. On top of that, these threats boosts their prowess to an unmatched level exclusively thanks to Tera. This is also why we are very hesistant on outright banning Xerneas and Zygarde-C, since they have been healthy additions to previous Ubers metagames and would undoubtedly remain so without Terastallization in the picture. We do not want to compromise the diversity of the metagame by banning long-time staples + this also poses the risk of starting a snowball effect given the centralized nature of the metagame (e.g. Zygarde-C is used to check plenty of strong physical attackers - its ban would shake the very foundation of the metagame).
In short, the tiering council and the community strongly believes a Terastal Banlist is the best solution given the context. However, we recognize that this is going to set new precedent for future decisions, and wanted to provide an opportunity for feedback. Particularly interested in what current Ubers leadership has to say about this so tagging Fc and Aberforth.
tl;dr we want to restrict Terastallization, with the three first Pokemon restricted from using it being Xerneas, Zygarde-C, and Shedinja, thus creating a "Terastallization list". This list may be expanded in the future.
Hello everyone.
In today's episode of "this post is too long, I'm just going to read the tl;dr", I'll talk about the tier me and Guard are leading, being National Dex Ubers. The tier started off with plenty of promise and still holds strong to this day; we have one of the most active ladders on PS!. Sadly, with the passing of time and the development of new strategies, it has become clear that there is one questionable element: Terastallization. However, the situation around Terastal is a lot more nuanced than one would think for a metagame jam-packed with strong legendaries.
1- Terastal in National Dex Ubers
Terastal adds a completely new dimension to teambuilding that is both majorly beneficial and slightly controversial. On one hand, utilizing defensive Tera goes a long way in helping cover the litany of strong offensive juggernauts in the metagame. A great example is Tera Grass Ho-Oh checking the dangerous Dragon Dance Zygarde-C and Calm Mind + Power Gem Arceus-Ground, both of which would otherwise require very specific counterplay. Offensive use of Tera is naturally just as popular as well, giving otherwise outclassed Pokemon such as Deoxys-A and Kyurem-B newfound viability. However, with such a volatile mechanic, there are obviously some questionable abusers as well, with Xerneas and Zygarde-C standing out in particular. Xerneas utilizes Tera Electric to bypass traditional checks in Ho-Oh and Necrozma-DM with Thunder, whereas Dragon Dance / Coil Zygarde-C can harness a defensive Tera type to gain crucial boosting turns against checks and sweep opposing teams.
After the conclusion of National Dex World Cup's qualifying stage, a survey was held to gauge opinions on these Pokemon. The overwhelmingly popular public opinion is that these Pokemon aren't broken on their own; they would be completely fine if they were restricted from using Terastallization. This is something the council agrees with completely. Ideally, we would like to implement a Terastal banlist similar to the Dynamax banlist Ubers implemented last generation. This would then include Xerneas, Zygarde-C, and Shedinja (a Pokemon that was quickbanned early on due to egregiously abusing a defensive Tera type with Wonder Guard). However, we recognize that this is completely new territory as far as tiering around Terastal is concerned, hence this thread.
2- Why restrict Tera and not outright ban the mechanic / ban the broken abusers?
As an Ubers-based metagame, we feel compelled to adhere to Ubers tiering policy, which states the following: "Ubers will make use of complex bans to help reach our goal of creating a format where we ban as little as possible, even though this may come at the cost of purity and simplicity." This philosophy was the basis of the Gen 8 Dynamax banlist, which banned Dynamax on a set of Pokemon instead of banning the mechanic in its entirety. This decision did not age well after the release of the Crown Tundra DLC, which drastically raised the power level in the metagame by introducing many new legendaries. However, the effort on trying to preserve the identity of the generation was still commendable and entirely in line with Ubers tiering philosophy. It should be noted that National Dex Ubers, as a National Dex format, won't be impacted nearly as much by the upcoming SV DLCs, which further advocates for a Tera banlist in lieu of a complete Tera ban in our case.
We're also in a different situation compared to the Dynamax banlist, as only a very restricted list of Tera users are actually deemed unhealthy. On top of that, these threats boosts their prowess to an unmatched level exclusively thanks to Tera. This is also why we are very hesistant on outright banning Xerneas and Zygarde-C, since they have been healthy additions to previous Ubers metagames and would undoubtedly remain so without Terastallization in the picture. We do not want to compromise the diversity of the metagame by banning long-time staples + this also poses the risk of starting a snowball effect given the centralized nature of the metagame (e.g. Zygarde-C is used to check plenty of strong physical attackers - its ban would shake the very foundation of the metagame).
In short, the tiering council and the community strongly believes a Terastal Banlist is the best solution given the context. However, we recognize that this is going to set new precedent for future decisions, and wanted to provide an opportunity for feedback. Particularly interested in what current Ubers leadership has to say about this so tagging Fc and Aberforth.
tl;dr we want to restrict Terastallization, with the three first Pokemon restricted from using it being Xerneas, Zygarde-C, and Shedinja, thus creating a "Terastallization list". This list may be expanded in the future.
