Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to reject Heatran + Volcanion + Moltres since Sunless is a very fringe option at the moment. If you can write an explanation and convince me, though, then I'll definitely add it.
Honestly from the discussion I've seen it seemed like past week 1 people established that Sneasler wasn't as bad as Spec, Kingambit, Pao, Zamazenta. I think I've had some posts on the topic but genuinely I can't remember cause it was like a month ago or so that I had it.
A slight oversight on our part but that could've been phrased better yeah, apologies. Our thoughts were that nothing indicated a quickban from the survey partnered with the first week of mpl games we saw along with the mlt games that had happened so far. Historically, we are against suspecting pokemon during our biggest team tours, which is similar across the site. However, we did vote on Chien-Pao, and it was very close, 1 vote from being suspected, but ultimately didn't have enough support to get to a suspect. Spectrier had the support on the survey and has been something that we have been watching from the beginning, but the fact is ghost had not had nearly enough usage to warrant a suspect. Even now, it's only been brought 4 times in 4 weeks of mpl.
Alright, my issue with this point is that banning some of these things (Chien-Pao's been in the metagame since Day 1) will seriously destabilize the metagame just so that we can "have some [tiering] action before DLCs". I feel like unless something is so blatantly broken (which I don't think Chien-Pao, Spectrier, or Zamazenta have proven yet) that it needs to be quickbanned, we should wait until DLCs. According to the Pokémon Company, DLCs come out in fall and winter of this year, so it's not a long, drawn-out wait.
I don't really follow why something needs to be quickban level of threat to have action taken. Suspects exists for a reason and the survey results definitely are showing numbers supporting that level of action for Chien and Spect.
The survey results did indeed show action could've been taken. And it was. A vote is action, disregarding what happens in said vote. I think I explained quite clearly why spect wasn't considered. A mon on a type that doesn't go beyond very little usage is never getting banned lol, because it cannot be broken in that case. When a mon gets very little usage it's hard to argue it is unhealthy, and in no way does it mean that the type(s) it is on is overly powerful. This is outlined in our tiering philosophy.
Again, like I said spect has been on our radar since the beginning. We also did vote on Pao very early gen and once again voted on it after week 1 or 2 of mpl. That is not nothing being done, and is a realization they do stick out. Just because a pokemon hasn't gone to a suspect or a quickban doesn't mean nothing has been done. We will revisit the meta post MPL, as always. Not speaking for the council as the whole but to me a follow up survey post MPL or something of the sort sounds fine.
As for this bit I'm not gonna go into crazy depth but consider Pao is 4-8 in mpl up to week 4, so obviously the practicality of it hasn't been as good as it is in theory. Sd'ing with pao is not exactly easy considering how many weaknesses it has and how frail it is. Two of its wins have come vs flying. Does Pao threaten flying? Yeah ofc, but flying has also won that matchup twice. With corv and enamorus on nearly every flying team, two very good pokemon that would be on flying very often with or without pao, it makes for a good matchup imo and they provide answers vs dark. In the wins Pao has had in mpl, sd has never been clicked. I didn't bother going through the losses but it obviously hasn't beaten anything yet. Maybe it's different in the later stages of mlt I'll have to check.
I think you guys need to read this bit again. Not suspecting a pokemon during MPL is not about being able to adapt to a new ban. It's not about whether it makes it easier for the players or not. That's totally irrelevant. It's about giving us time to get an accurate viewing on how these mons operate at high level play.
I understand your (and the communities) POV and agree it can be frustrating yeah. I think tho, it has always been clear that surveys were never a guarantee of anything happening, and if it hasn't it should've been. So maybe that's on us as a council, but never was 'action' promised when a survey went up. I once again want to stress that calling a vote based on these surveys on Pao is not 'nothing happening.' Regardless though, maybe we could've waited with the whole survey but that's done with now. However,
Other tiers are usage based, so yeah there is a requirement there to be quicker than we generally are. I personally think OU has rushed some stuff this gen; see volc (and now are discussing tera again) that's all subjective tho. I however have seen general appreciation for SV mono, and think that it is quite well liked overall. I mean the survey did show that it is generally well liked and that most people find it 7/8 out of 10 competitive so I'm not sure where that comes from. The dislike is certainly not a large number, and ultimately we cannot satisfy everyone.
Usage based argument is fine, makes sense for speed. OU did indeed rush but a lot of the recent ou council criticisms were in the same vein of the survey feeling absolutely pointless, so yeah.
I think its less so that the Topic change and more so the environment surrounding Sneasler when home first dropped and now has entirely changed. In a form where people just don't find Dire Claw this oppressively world defining move like so many people thought it would be. There are just also many other threats people just want gone more. There is also just more awareness to how to deal with Dire Claw now.
Survey results?
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-pokemon-home-monotype-survey.3723042/ This survey from a month ago. The result came out recently.
