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As a "legacy player", do you remember what the meta was like back in 2016-2017? Sableye, Togekiss, No Guard Machamp? The meta was actually way more stale and centralized (and a lot less fun) than it is now. And more to the point of this post, a pokemon having the "legendary" status does not necessarily make it strong. Meta trends would mostly demonstrate this, just look at pokemon like Clefable, Rotom-W, Ferrothorn, Chansey, Skarmory, Scizor-M, Metagross-M, Tyranitar, and many, many more. Additionally, allowing only one legendary would likely heavily centralize the meta around Landorus, Tornadus, and a few others. This argument has been made by many others in this and other pokemon games for years but has never been found to have a positive impact.

Some nominations of mine Raises Charizard-Mega-X: A- -> A+ Probably the most underrated pokemon in the metagame. Between Touch Claws boosted high-power STAB moves, completely unresisted coverage, and access to Dragon Dance, Charizard-X functions simultaneously as a wall-breaker and as a sweeper. It benefits from the ambiguity factor of Charizard having two megas, a great defensive typing prior to mega evolving, and a great defensive typing after mega evolving which removes several type vulnerabilities. It can opt to run roost which allows it to heal off Flare Blitz recoil, Stealth Rock damage, and even allows it to wall many pokemon in the metagame. It can also opt to run Dragon Dance plus three attacks which gives it completely unresisted coverage. Charizard-X is extremely difficult to stop after setting up; many teams are forced to resort to recoil damage as their only way to beat it. However, support from teammates like Healing Wish Latias can patch this weakness. The only thing keeping Charizard-X from S-tier is its high need for team support. For further reference check out: recent SPL trends and Skypenguin’s posts regarding Charizard-X. Dugtrio-Alola: Untiered -> C- A chaotic and unusual choice, Dugtrio-Alola’s niche in the metagame comes from its status as the only suicide lead to which h.o. teams have access that can reliably set-up stealth rocks against Mega Lopunny (unless we count Weak Armor Onix). Besides allowing it to get up rocks against Fake Out anti-leads, Tangling Hair in combination with Memento provides a double debuff combo and a free switch-in for a set-up reliant teammate. Dugtrio-Alola has to choose between Earthquake, Iron Head, and Toxic for its last two moveslots, I typically choose to run Iron Head and Toxic as Dugtrio-Alola’s ground typing already pressures many opposing stealth rock setters such as Heatran, while Toxic is a more consistent choice for pokemon Dugtrio-Alola invites onto the field such as Landorus-T. Latias-Mega: A -> A+ Probably the most underplayed pokemon in the metagame. With an incredible support movepool, strong defensive utility, and a potent offensive presence, Mega Latias can successfully perform many roles including: bulky set-up sweeper, utility support, and self-sufficient bruiser. Latias’ support movepool includes: Thunder Wave, Defog, Wish, and Healing Wish. Mega-Latias’ bulk and defesive typing allows it to switch into metagame staples like Rotom-W, Heatran, Landorus-T, and many more. Latias has access to Calm Mind and Stored Power which allows it to turn into an incredibly dangerous set-up sweeper. It has access to strong coverage options like Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, and Surf that can complement its calm mind set. Lack of Mega Sableye in the meta also allows Mega Latias to more viably run Stored Power as its only damaging move on the Calm Mind set - picking a fourth move between options like Reflect Type, Refresh, and Substitute. Finally, Mega Latias can also opt to run a moveset consisting of two or three attacks plus roost turning it into a fairly self-sufficient big ball of stats. These attacks can be chosen from: Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Earthquake (which is actually superior to HP Ground - don’t listen to Smogon), Psychic, Surf, and a few others. Mega Latias is the premier check to Keldeo in the metagame as well as the best option for bulky teams against Gliscor. Mega Latias’ biggest weakness is the prevalence of Pursuit users, notably Weavile and Tyranitar; however, options like Reflect Type and Substitute can alleviate this issue and entry hazard support from teammates can even allow Mega Latias to beat these pokemon. Slurpuff: Untiered -> C- Slurpuff only functions on dual screens and requires a fair amount of team support, but it is incredibly threatening when it successfully sets up. Unburden allows Slurpuff to outspeed many common scarfers like Landorus-T and Belly Drum gives Slurpuff enough power to OHKO many common defensive metagame staples like Clefable, Gliscor, and Zapdos. Drain Punch provides valuable coverage and healing to Slurpuff, allowing it to take on Heatran and even guarantee a OHKO on relaxed Ferrothorn after Stealth Rock. Slurpuff is beaten by Skarmory and Unaware pokemon but set-up Slurpuff behind screens actually beats would-be-checks such as defensive Mega-Scizor and Sand Rush Excadrill. If only it had access to Thunder Punch… Drops Bisharp: A -> B While still a very strong choice, Bisharp fails to reliably fulfill its role as a sweeper. This is due to a multitude of factors. Firstly, due to its mediocre speed stat, Bisharp relies heavily on winning many 50/50 Sucker Punch interactions. While Bisharp may be advantaged in some of these situations, surprise options like Substitute or Will-O-Wisp can turn these situations largely in the opposing pokemon’s favor. Secondly, there is a plethora of meta-relevent pokemon that outspeed Bisharp and can easily take a +2 Sucker Punch such as: Keldeo, Mega Tyranitar, defensive Landorus-T, Mega Gyarados, Mega Altaria, Hydreigon, and the list goes on… All this considered, Bisharp’s main selling point becomes its ability Defiant which allows it to dissuade Defog users. As such, Bisharp only warrants use on Sticky Web or Hazard Stacking teams. Pursuit is possible, but it is mostly outclassed as a Pursuit user by Weavile and Tyranitar. Lopunny-Mega: A -> B+ Mega Lopunny lacks both the power and utility of other megas in A and even A- tier. It finds itself completely walled by defensive staples like Clefable and Reuniclus especially if it doesn’t take Power-Up Punch - even Fake Out into Ice Punch fails to KO defensive Landorus-T. While its speed tier may be good, it still finds itself outsped by most boosted pokemon which is antagonistic to its intended role as an anti-offense pokemon. It is an interesting choice on bulky/semi-stall teams especially when using Quick Attack over Ice Punch. However, in a direct comparison to other megas in the A/A- range, it lacks in both the power and utility compared to Tyranitar, Charizard-X, Charizard-Y, Latias, Medicham, and even Gyarados. It does compare much more evenly with megas in the B+ tier, especially Manectric.

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Discussed item: Sleep-inducing moves that do not target the user: spore, sleep powder, hypnosis, lovely kiss, sing, and yawn. Course of action: Ban/Test Justification: It is often easy to base ban decisions solely on strength alone. However, strength is not the only characteristic that can make a metagame element unhealthy. Consider for example, an imaginary ability: Coinflip - If one or more trainer(s) has a pokemon with the coinflip ability on their team, a coin is flipped at the beginning of the match which decides the winner. Pokemon with this ability would absolutely not be “too strong” as their winrates would be exactly 50%; conversely, they would arguably be the most balanced pokemon in existence. But it isn’t difficult to see that this ability would not be healthy in any metagame. It would allow people to take away all elements of skill: team-building, prediction, knowledge of the game, etc. And very notably, it would take away the fun of playing the game. Obviously, Pokemon is a game with a lot of inherit luck and attempting to completely remove luck is futile. However, I believe that strategies that rely heavily on pure luck should be considered for bans. The most egregious culprit of this is sleep-inducing moves. A sleep-status that lasts for a single turn is effectively worthless as the user spends a turn using the sleep-inducing move while the target spends a turn asleep. Meanwhile, a sleep-status that lasts for longer than a single turn can turn the state of the game on its head. It allows the player to freely swap pokemon, use setup moves, etc. while their opponent’s pokemon is rendered helpless. The player with the asleep pokemon may opt to swap into another pokemon but they are still effectively playing a pokemon down as that pokemon will still be asleep when it is swapped back in and may even be a liability to the rest of the team if it gives up free turns to the opponent. Some sleep-inducing moves like spore or sleep powder may fail against certain types of pokemon, others like hypnosis can hit every type in the game. Sleep-immune pokemon like komala and pokemon with insomnia do exist; however, none of them are viable in the current metagame. Amoongus is a defensive pokemon with rather mediocre offensive stats, but thanks to its access to spore only two pokemon in the top 50 usage (chansey and mega-venusaur) can safely swap into it. Overall, sleep-inducing moves flipping between being useless and completely crippling an opposing pokemon into a liability for its team make them too luck-dependent for a healthy metagame. Smogon is now seriously considering action on sleep: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/views-from-the-council.3733223/post-9927554

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How about a weekly quest: win 1 game without using any pokemon on last season's top 25 most used list.