Rejected The Tiering of Terapagos-Stellar

[Ropalme1914]

With the arrival of The Indigo Disk DLC, we got Terapagos, the mascot legendary of this story. Terapagos has three formes: Normal, Terastal, and Stellar. Normal transform into Terastal automatically upon switch in, so it's unplayable, with Terastal essentially acting as the base forme.

The way Stellar works, however, is unique to it: despite Terapagos terastalizing right as it comes to the field, you can teratalize again and get the new forme, giving you a new ability, changing the behavior of Tera Starstorm, and giving Terapagos +100 BST. In practice, it's very similar to a Mega Evolution, with the biggest difference being the lack of a Mega Stone requirement.

Currently, Terapagos-Stellar and Terapagos-Terastal are stated to not be tiered separated. The main reasons given are that Terastal are a universal mechanic and that you can't ban Terapagos-Stellar on a teambuilder level, just on a gameplay one. This has sparked a lot of discussion on the Metagame Discussion threads (particularly the OU Metagame Discussion), the official Discord, PS! rooms, and basically any other chat related to Smogon, with multiple people voicing their support to tier both formes on their own, and even people who think that it can't be justified out of tiering policy agreeing that they wanted Terapagos-Terastal to be playable on lower tiers if it was possible. Those posts mention things like the fact that Terapagos-Stellar is a completely unique forme on its own, like Mega Evolutions, Ultra Burst, and Power Construct, and precedence of banning those formes over the whole Pokémon on old gens - with the Mega Rayquaza Clause on Ubers being the closest thing we have ever gotten to this. Replies to those arguments include their teambuilding limitation possibility, simplicity of understanding the tiering, and differing tiering policy from Ubers to other usage-based tiers.

Personally, I feel like the separate tiering of Terapagos-Stellar could easily be done, and wanted to spark discussion on a more controlled and focused enviroment.

• Terapagos-Stellar is a unique forme that's clearly separate from the other Terapagos formes. You can clearly see both on them on the teambuilder, also showing one being Uber and the other not being.
• Terapagos' transformation is not a universal mechanic except by name. If you asked someone to explain Terastalization, they would probably say something among the lines of "it allows you to choose any of the types available in the game, changes your type to match the Tera type, and boosts the power of moves of said type - in the case of Tera Stellar, it provides a smaller boost to every type in the game just once." The universal mechanic of Terastalization does not include a +100 BST, a new ability, a new forme with a different name for your Pokémon, inability to choose your Tera type, and even with it being locked to Tera Stellar, it works differently by having the boost be permanent, not once per type. In fact, if we are to consider held items to be a universal mechanic by that logic, we never banned Gengar, Gengarite, Mega Evolution, or held items, we only banned Mega Gengar, and if we go by name, Terapagos-Normal also terastalizes into Terapagos-Terastal upon entry, but I doubt anyone will claim that a full Tera ban would remove Terapagos-Terastal from being playable since it simply doesn't work like the universal mechanic.
• It's not something that will hurt accessibility. Terapagos-Stellar being banned is as easy to understand as Zygarde-Complete being banned. Let me take Mega Rayquaza's case again, but this is not comparing precedent, it's comparing simplicity. It has been almost a decade since ORAS came out, and the only times I saw people confused about Mega Rayquaza not working are those who didn't know it was on a tier above Ubers - which happens to any Mega if they don't know that. In fact, Mega Rayquaza is probably the most well known Mega Pokémon banned even among casual playerbase - it has never gatekept new players or anything similar.
• Gameplay-level restrictions have happened and will continue to happen. Terastal on Monotype, Dynamax on gen 8, and Mega Rayquaza Clause all are gameplay level restrictions. In fact, when the Terastalization Suspect Test happened, one of the options was "1 Tera user per team (first team slot)". While who gets access is decided on the teambuilder, the restriction itself is clearly on a gameplay level, as the Terastal button remains there for the other 5 Pokémon - you just can't click it. Terapagos-Stellar's restriction is much tamer in comparison to it.
• It avoids unnecessary collateral damage. Terapagos-Terastal on its own is not broken and can be valuable for other tiers by being hazard control on the generation that heavily nerfed it. Even if you think "oh, this will be useless on OU!", what about lower tiers? We originally tiered base formes alongside their Mega Evolutions until there was a Policy Review - this locked out lower tiers from using Pokémon such as Charizard, Beedrill, Aerodactyl, Mawile, Aggron, etc. Despite no one using Mawile on OU for its base forme, just the Mega. You can still have Terapagos-Stellar being used on higher tiers while lowers make use of Terapagos-Terastal, which no one would use on the tier with Stellar.

I hope this can bring a healthy discussion and not just be dismissed as "complex, forget it". Terapagos does not have a one-to-one comparison with older Pokémon, it should be viewed as its own case, and there's a desire from at least part of the playerbase to not go with what's assumed is the status quo, just like it has happened with other mechanics. Despite OU being of course the one immediatly affected by this, I also want to remind this is something that is Smogon-wide as it affects every tier, not just OU.

 

[shnowshner]

Honestly the issue I have with the Terapagos-S ban is that the reasoning feels faulty and short-sighted. OP provided enough info on why Terapagos-S is mechanically unique from regular Tera, and while it's not the only Pokemon that operates like this (the Ogerpons all have unique forms for Tera), it's significantly more extreme in how the nature of Tera is altered.

For me, however, I think the biggest point of contention relates to how a ban on Terapagos-S could be worded. Now there's no functional difference between banning Terapagos-S and preventing Terapagos from Terastalizing during a match – both deny access to Terapagos-S. But while the former is an exception to the universal mechanic of Terastalization, the latter is a regular ban on a problematic form change, one that happens to only be accessible via Terastalization. Yes this is a very cheeky legal workaround as again, there's no functional difference, but a ban on Terapagos-S better aligns with tiering philosophy, compared to barring Terastalization on Terapagos as a whole. Banning Terapagos-S implies that the form is the problem, not Terapagos using Tera (even if those two actions are intrinsically linked). The only major difference between Terapagos-S and other in-battle form changes is that there's no singular, unique element that activates the change, as is the case for Mega Rayquaza via Dragon Ascent, or Zamazenta-Crowned via Rusted Shield. The deciding factor here is that the move/item can be used by other Pokemon, and aren't problematic in those cases, otherwise you could ban the move/item instead and get the exact same outcome. If we can ban Zamazenta-Crowned apart from Zamazenta, which is only accessed by holding a legal item other Pokemon can also hold, than I struggle to see why Terapagos-S can't be banned individually as well.

 

[Alternator]

Rusted Shield is a legal item right now in Gen 9 OU, it's Zamazenta-Crowned that is banned.

Either the ban is described as "Zamazenta-Crowned is banned from OU," in which case "Terapagos-Stellar is banned from OU" is exactly the same, or it's "Zamazenta cannot equip the Rusted Shield item" which is a complex ban and also sets precedent for "Terapagos cannot Terastalize".

I understand why the OU Council banned Terapagos entirely, but tweaking the policy via Policy Review has precedent in this generation.

 

[Finchinator]

The ban of Terapagos the whole Pokemon was discussed among my councilmen and a chat filled with tier leaders before being ultimately approved by shiloh, the tiering admin, and agreed upon by myself. A ban that essentially prevents a single Pokemon from clicking the Tera button does not adhere to tiering convention.

The premise behind this ban is that there is no way to justify fragmenting it while adhering to sound tiering logic and precedent based tiering convention. To put it bluntly, the OP uses some faulty logic. I understand why the arguments are being made and it would be awesome to have another cool Pokemon with utility in the metagame, but it would be incompatabile with current tiering norms. I am going to explain why none of them apply.

RE: Mega Stones vs Tera forms,

In fact, if we are to consider held items to be a universal mechanic by that logic, we never banned Gengar, Gengarite, Mega Evolution, or held items, we only banned Mega Gengar, and if we go by name, Terapagos-Normal also terastalizes into Terapagos-Terastal upon entry, but I doubt anyone will claim that a full Tera ban would remove Terapagos-Terastal from being playable since it simply doesn't work like the universal mechanic.

Mega stones can be tiered through items while Tera cannot. Banning the item is the same as banning the form in this case, making it more readily possible. This is not close to the same here as there is no comparable trigger to Tera.

RE: Comparison to Power Construct ban,

Terapagos-Stellar being banned is as easy to understand as Zygarde-Complete being banned

There were multiple Pokemon that were broken with Power Construct -- Zygarde-50% was OU at the time and Zygarde-10% went between UU and RU throughout the generation. We would have had to ban the Pokemon if it was just one. This is the same type of dynamic as Shed Tail or Last Respects (or even Arena Trap back when we had the Diglett moment) in that we had to ban the singular Pokemon when only one absuer was broken, but we ban the non-Pokemon element (ability, item, move, etc.) as soon as we can prove it is the common chain in multiple bans.

So: Power Construct caused two things to be broken, so we banned it rather than the Pokemon. Shed Tail got banned as soon as Orthworm proved to be problematic, letting both the Pokemon be free, but it was not when it was just Cyclizar. Dugtrio was initially the ban target until people started using Diglett teams to similar effect, so then Arena Trap was banned. Houndstone was banned initially as nothing else got Last Respects, but when Basculegion dropped, we pivoted to ban the move and free the Pokemon.

RE: Collateral damage,

It avoids unnecessary collateral damage. Terapagos-Terastal on its own is not broken and can be valuable for other tiers by being hazard control on the generation that heavily nerfed it. Even if you think "oh, this will be useless on OU!", what about lower tiers? We originally tiered base formes alongside their Mega Evolutions until there was a Policy Review - this locked out lower tiers from using Pokémon such as Charizard, Beedrill, Aerodactyl, Mawile, Aggron, etc. Despite no one using Mawile on OU for its base forme, just the Mega. You can still have Terapagos-Stellar being used on higher tiers while lowers make use of Terapagos-Terastal, which no one would use on the tier with Stellar.

This is entirely irrelevant to our proceedings. We do not tier to minimize collateral so much as we tier to adhere to the tiering system that is in place. It should not matter if Terapagos normal form is one of the best or worst Pokemon at all. I would love to play with it as much as the next guy, but we cannot assign arbitrary worth to this section of proceedings when it does not have anything to do with the underlying tiering decision.

This ban would be roughly equivelant to banning Ogerpon-Hearthflame from clicking Tera as opposed to banning Ogerpon-Hearthflame, which is what we ultimately did. This was never a doubt or a question at the time and the large reason why people are protesting now is that Terapagos has access to Rapid Spin and other utility, meaning it is convenient to them and they want it in the tier. I understand that, but sadly it is not consistent with policy and we do not employ convenience based inconsistencies when tiering.

 

[Ropalme1914]

I get it some of the points, but I don't think all arguments were adressed properly (and some answers felt out of the context).

Mega stones can be tiered through items while Tera cannot. Banning the item is the same as banning the form in this case, making it more readily possible. This is not close to the same here as there is no comparable trigger to Tera.

They can, but they aren't. Nowhere in SM OU's page are the items shown to be banned, and the teambuilder on Showdown doesn't ban the item either. The only thing that bans Mega Metagross is the forme being banned, as you can use Metagrossite on the tier, it's specifically Metagrossite attached to Metagross that can't be used, similar to a Clause. I doubt this has ever shown to be a problem, however, in terms of complexity.

There were multiple Pokemon that were broken with Power Construct -- Zygarde-50% was OU at the time and Zygarde-10% went between UU and RU throughout the generation. We would have had to ban the Pokemon if it was just one. This is the same type of dynamic as Shed Tail or Last Respects (or even Arena Trap back when we had the Diglett moment) in that we had to ban the singular Pokemon when only one absuer was broken, but we ban the non-Pokemon element (ability, item, move, etc.) as soon as we can prove it is the common chain in multiple bans.

So: Power Construct caused two things to be broken, so we banned it rather than the Pokemon. Shed Tail got banned as soon as Orthworm proved to be problematic, letting both the Pokemon be free, but it was not when it was just Cyclizar. Dugtrio was initially the ban target until people started using Diglett teams to similar effect, so then Arena Trap was banned. Houndstone was banned initially as nothing else got Last Respects, but when Basculegion dropped, we pivoted to ban the move and free the Pokemon.

I don't disagree with the Power Construct ban, I just don't understand how this is relevant. The bullet point there was about it not hurting accessibility, not about the amount of Pokémon that can turn into Terapagos-Stellar. In your own words, "our game has only grown to the point it has and our community has only grown to the extent it has because our banlists tend to be justifiable and easy to understsnd for both experienced players and beginners." Terapagos-Stellar is very easy to justify - it's what makes Terapagos broken - and it's very easy to understand, just like Zygarde-Complete was easy to understand as a ban. The actual point was not addressed.

This is entirely irrelevant to our proceedings. We do not tier to minimize collateral so much as we tier to adhere to the tiering system that is in place. It should not matter if Terapagos normal form is one of the best or worst Pokemon at all. I would love to play with it as much as the next guy, but we cannot assign arbitrary worth to this section of proceedings when it does not have anything to do with the underlying tiering decision.

Even on the examples provided before, Trapinch also had Arena Trap and wasn't broken with it, but we still went with the Arena Trap ban. On my very own post, a point that was not adressed was the Terastal suspect test at the start of the generation: we had options like Tera Preview (can't be reproduced on cart outside of gentleman's agreement before the battle), banning non-STAB Tera (funnily enough, a limitation that Terapagos in theory already has partially by only having one option, and applying bans without a clear reasoning sometimes, like not being able to turn Toxapex into Ice), and limiting Tera to the first Pokémon on the teambuilder (completely based on a gameplay level restriction and much more complex than anything related to Terapagos-Stellar).

This ban would be roughly equivelant to banning Ogerpon-Hearthflame from clicking Tera as opposed to banning Ogerpon-Hearthflame, which is what we ultimately did. This was never a doubt or a question at the time and the large reason why people are protesting now is that Terapagos has access to Rapid Spin and other utility, meaning it is convenient to them and they want it in the tier. I understand that, but sadly it is not consistent with policy and we do not employ convenience based inconsistencies when tiering.

No, it would not. If it's the rough equivalent, why is the reception by the playerbase completely different? Why are the comparisons drawn more often to other mechanics than Ogerpon when people think about it? Ogerpon is WAY closer to normal Terastal than Terapagos is, it doesn't change the Pokémon to a different forme, it doesn't increase stats, it behaves like a Fire Tera in terms of boost - it's like Dynamax vs Gigantamax, while Terapagos is like if Eternatus turned permanently into Eternamax if you clicked the Dyna button and could use normal Pokémon moves, yet they're all called the same thing. And as a side note, I don't think laugh reacting other posts made on this thread and then not adressing them is appropriate, although I can see you have removed it.

 

[Pinecoishot]

To me a terapagos-stellar ban can be achieved similarly to how ogerpon-hearthflame or zamazenta-crowned were banned. While both of these use items to change forms, the item itself is not banned. How these bans work is that it’s the item+Pokémon that is banned similar to mega stones. You can easily say any potential form from Tera or another universal gimmick can also be banned similarly. You ban tera+Pokémon to achieve the form ban and it’s still in line with how zamazenta-crowned or ogerpon-hearthflame are. This is a pretty simple policy and will future proof any future broken Pokémon that forms are a result of a generation gimmick.

 

[Ehmcee]

No, it would not. If it's the rough equivalent, why is the reception by the playerbase completely different? Why are the comparisons drawn more often to other mechanics than Ogerpon when people think about it? Ogerpon is WAY closer to normal Terastal than Terapagos is, it doesn't change the Pokémon to a different forme, it doesn't increase stats, it behaves like a Fire Tera in terms of boost - it's like Dynamax vs Gigantamax, while Terapagos is like if Eternatus turned permanently into Eternamax if you clicked the Dyna button and could use normal Pokémon moves, yet they're all called the same thing.

I think this is ultimately a very interesting discussion in terms of tiering policy, however I wanted to object to this comment specifically.
The Ogerpons have a very similar correlation to Ogerpon-Stellar in the way they Terastalyze, because they both have the following commonalities:

- They are locked into a specific Tera Type

- They transform into a different Pokemon when they Tera

- They change abilities once they transform

Mechanically, the Ogerpons absolutely do transform into a different form when they terastalyze, Ogerpon-Teal-Tera, Ogerpon-Hearthflame-Tera, Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera and Ogerpon-Cornerstone-Tera are all internally considered different forms, as well as being individually selectable within the showdown teambuilder. Now you could argue they're completely different because Terapagos gains stats while the Ogerpons do not, but I'd argue the similarities between the two vastly outweigh that fact.

I however do think that there is potential to talking about what I'll call "Tera Forms" differently than Terastalisation as a whole, these 5 pokemon interact with the mechanic in a completely different way than every other pokemon and don't even have access to the "regular" form of terastalyzation, so I think there's certainly some merit in making a distinction between the two.

 

[Alternator]

I think this is ultimately a very interesting discussion in terms of tiering policy, however I wanted to object to this comment specifically.
The Ogerpons have a very similar correlation to Ogerpon-Stellar in the way they Terastalyze, because they both have the following commonalities:

- They are locked into a specific Tera Type

- They transform into a different Pokemon when they Tera

- They change abilities once they transform

Mechanically, the Ogerpons absolutely do transform into a different form when they terastalyze, Ogerpon-Teal-Tera, Ogerpon-Hearthflame-Tera, Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera and Ogerpon-Cornerstone-Tera are all internally considered different forms, as well as being individually selectable within the showdown teambuilder. Now you could argue they're completely different because Terapagos gains stats while the Ogerpons do not, but I'd argue the similarities between the two vastly outweigh that fact.

I however do think that there is potential to talking about what I'll call "Tera Forms" differently than Terastalisation as a whole, these 5 pokemon interact with the mechanic in a completely different way than every other pokemon and don't even have access to the "regular" form of terastalyzation, so I think there's certainly some merit in making a distinction between the two.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...es-of-pokemon-separately.3670933/post-8606947

There's links back to the original discussion there, but the standard for tiering forms differently has been, "Is the typing or stats different?" Ogerpon and its mask forms qualify as different by this standard, but Hearthflame and Hearthflame + Tera do not, since only the ability changes. Without those specific differences, then by tiering policy, they're the same mon.

 

[Finchinator]

I don't disagree with the Power Construct ban, I just don't understand how this is relevant. The bullet point there was about it not hurting accessibility, not about the amount of Pokémon that can turn into Terapagos-Stellar. In your own words, "our game has only grown to the point it has and our community has only grown to the extent it has because our banlists tend to be justifiable and easy to understsnd for both experienced players and beginners." Terapagos-Stellar is very easy to justify - it's what makes Terapagos broken - and it's very easy to understand, just like Zygarde-Complete was easy to understand as a ban. The actual point was not addressed.

That's because the actual point is that if we make the Terapagos ban more complex, then it is going to open the door for other things.

It is easy to understand this one maybe, but it sets the precedent for the future and so on. We cannot give in for just one thing because "it's very easy to understand" -- this is the type of logic that creates headaches and negative ripples for many years like Aldaron's proposal.

Any argument based on making an exception because Terapagos is convenient for the tier or easy enough to understand absolutely does not cut it.

Even on the examples provided before, Trapinch also had Arena Trap and wasn't broken with it, but we still went with the Arena Trap ban. On my very own post, a point that was not adressed was the Terastal suspect test at the start of the generation: we had options like Tera Preview (can't be reproduced on cart outside of gentleman's agreement before the battle), banning non-STAB Tera (funnily enough, a limitation that Terapagos in theory already has partially by only having one option, and applying bans without a clear reasoning sometimes, like not being able to turn Toxapex into Ice), and limiting Tera to the first Pokémon on the teambuilder (completely based on a gameplay level restriction and much more complex than anything related to Terapagos-Stellar).

This is moving the goalposts drastically. We made it clear that if one of those options was picked, we would have a larger policy discussion on shifting it because this was for the sake of the entire generational mechanic, but none of them had noteworthy support or even close -- if anything, one of the bigger gripes against that suspect was how inclusive it was when those options were non-factors to begin with. So using that as a potential gateway argument here shows me two things: you are grasping for straws and there is some implicit understanding that this is not the status quo/how things work given what is currently in place.

No, it would not. If it's the rough equivalent, why is the reception by the playerbase completely different?

I already explained this: Terapagos is way more appealing (see: cool new unique Pokemon with Rapid Spin) and convenient while Ogerpon had various other forms. There is no functional difference between the two for the sake of this discussion. I do not know how many other ways I have to put this between the last thread and this one. Here is UUTL / OU council member Lily and tiering admin shiloh drawing the same conclusion without prompting from your posts or visibility to these posts:

And as a side note, I don't think laugh reacting other posts made on this thread and then not adressing them is appropriate, although I can see you have removed it.

I have not laugh reacted any of your posts or anything in this thread...? I laugh reacted a few posts in the OU subforum yesterday because they were really bad takes or funny memes (and one serious post, which I did by misclicking on phone and then I went out of my way to apologize to the guy + remove it, but why is this surfacing here lol), but I mean why is this the bar we are using or relevant? Will of Fire has actively Haha reacted to every tiering post council has made this generation, actively voted Do Not Ban on things he wanted to ban out of spite for the council, and voted a 1 on everything every single survey because he believes surveys should not exist/be used and this is his way of protesting it, but you do not find me getting publicly upset at this so much as just shrugging and moving on with my life. This is just silly now.

 

[Ehmcee]

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...es-of-pokemon-separately.3670933/post-8606947

There's links back to the original discussion there, but the standard for tiering forms differently has been, "Is the typing or stats different?" Ogerpon and its mask forms qualify as different by this standard, but Hearthflame and Hearthflame + Tera do not, since only the ability changes. Without those specific differences, then by tiering policy, they're the same mon.

These discussions seem to mainly speak about Pokemon that have multiple forms in the teambuilder (Like Pikachus, Toxtricity and Meowstic), and not in-game battle transformations.

There doesn't seem to be any clear-cut decision as to what fully constitute a different form, but the original policy proposal describes that in game transformations should be considered different:

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-comprehensive-stats-counting-policy.3580299/

There's obviously a lot of discussion to be had as to what the threshold for a "different" pokemon is, but in-battle transformations should almost definitely qualify. This is because pokemon like the Pikachus or the Toxtricitys can functionally run the same set with 0 differences, they usually have small moveset differences or a different ability. In-battle transformations completely change how your pokemon functions, the Ogerpons in particular lose their standard ability, which flips a ton of matchups on their head.

 

[Baloor]

regardless of any counterpoint that can be brought up, in the realms of smogon tiering, it really does not make sense to prevent a single or a select few pokemon from using teralization. you can simple it down to we are only restricting tera on pokemon with tera forms but how is that fair? part of the appeal of teralization is that any pokemon can do it. you also set the precedent for a teralization "banlist", which could lead to a slippery slope of discussion on more tera restrictions to keep select pokemon around which otherwise would be broken which honestly would just be incredibly annoying to deal with and is a road that should be avoided all together as at that point it would be used a scapegoat for to avoid tiering the mechanic as a whole. personally don't really understand how this is a nuanced or controversial topic but here we are.

 

[pulsar512b]

the most comparable previous case to me seems to be gigantamax formes, which were similarly deemed not individually tierable. so there's precedent for this sorta spot

 

[qsns]

I don't see how restricting Terapagos from Terastallizing is any different from banning Rayquaza from Mega Evolving. There's a form change with stat/ability changes, no item attached and it's a single Pokemon that it's broken on. There is pretty significant precedent for just banning the form change here.

 

[Finchinator]

I don't see how restricting Terapagos from Terastallizing is any different from banning Rayquaza from Mega Evolving. There's a form change with stat/ability changes, no item attached and it's a single Pokemon that it's broken on. There is pretty significant precedent for just banning the form change here.

I addressed this yesterday in the OU subforum:

Mega Rayquaza precedent is not applicable to OU.

Ubers is not under the same guidelines and rules as OU. They are intentionally minimalist with bans and have higher bars, different precedent, and so on. Ubers is not a usage based tier like OU (or lower tiers), so a lot can vary between the two.

Things like this do not exist in OU or other usage based tiers. Never has been and and never will be the case if we wish for our tiering to be taken seriously and consistency -- otherwise banlists will grow muddled and confusing without great consistency for the sake of minimizing collateral.

Otherwise, this would be about as spot-on as possible, yes.

 

[Ropalme1914]

That's because the actual point is that if we make the Terapagos ban more complex, then it is going to open the door for other things.

It is easy to understand this one maybe, but it sets the precedent for the future and so on. We cannot give in for just one thing because "it's very easy to understand" -- this is the type of logic that creates headaches and negative ripples for many years like Aldaron's proposal.

Any argument based on making an exception because Terapagos is convenient for the tier or easy enough to understand absolutely does not cut it.

Sure, but that's why most posts say that a simple "Terapagos-Stellar is banned" already covers everything - it's a Pokémon ban. There's no playing around it, you just can't use that in-battle - if Game Freak somehow decides to make Terapagos-Terastal have access to common Terastalization, that would still work with the rule stated, as only the Pokémon "Terapagos-Stellar" is banned.

This is moving the goalposts drastically. We made it clear that if one of those options was picked, we would have a larger policy discussion on shifting it because this was for the sake of the entire generational mechanic, but none of them had noteworthy support or even close -- if anything, one of the bigger gripes against that suspect was how inclusive it was when those options were non-factors to begin with. So using that as a potential gateway argument here shows me two things: you are grasping for straws and there is some implicit understanding that this is not the status quo/how things work given what is currently in place.

This is not grasping for straws, it's acknowledging every tiering decision that could relate to this. Had that been the case, I wouldn't make an entire post talking about it and only mentioned that at the end of a paragraph in the middle of the text while giving multiple other arguments about it why it's a decision that should be carefully reviewed and using other examples to support it. And yeah, given Terapagos as a whole was already banned, that's why I made a Tiering Policy thread, to allow people to give their inputs if this status is consistent with other forme changes rules and if it is the best way to move forward for Smogon given it's a new situation.

I already explained this: Terapagos is way more appealing (see: cool new unique Pokemon with Rapid Spin) and convenient while Ogerpon had various other forms. There is no functional difference between the two for the sake of this discussion. I do not know how many other ways I have to put this between the last thread and this one. Here is UUTL / OU council member Lily and tiering admin shiloh drawing the same conclusion without prompting from your posts or visibility to these posts:

Yeah, people bring the value that Terapagos-Terastal can have as a hazard control, but it's absolutely not the main reason the reception is different from Ogerpon: it's clearly because of how different Terapagos-Stellar is from everything else, including its base formes. You can even find posts that say Terapagos-Terastal wouldn't cut for OU, just the base forme having a niche or not wouldn't change the reception so drastically on a Pokémon that hasn't even had the opportunity to prove itself. If people wanted to unban base Hearthflame, they would've already said so. I'm all in for hearing the thoughts of other tiering leaders as well - like I said on the opening of the post, this is more of a Smogon-wide thing, not just OU.

I have not laugh reacted any of your posts or anything in this thread...? I laugh reacted a few posts in the OU subforum yesterday because they were really bad takes or funny memes (and one serious post, which I did by misclicking on phone and then I went out of my way to apologize to the guy + remove it, but why is this surfacing here lol), but I mean why is this the bar we are using or relevant? Will of Fire has actively Haha reacted to every tiering post council has made this generation, actively voted Do Not Ban on things he wanted to ban out of spite for the council, and voted a 1 on everything every single survey because he believes surveys should not exist/be used and this is his way of protesting it, but you do not find me getting publicly upset at this so much as just shrugging and moving on with my life. This is just silly now.

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I said at the end of the post, it was a side note, as I don't think it's an appropriate behavior for one of the faces of the sites and people who directly influence on this decision to act like that with community posts, as Alternator wasn't trolling. It doesn't have to do with the Terapagos talk, nor was it a bar I was using to measure relevancy. I don't think Will of Fire's actions are appropriate either nor will I support it, but the positions you both are in are completely different in this case anyway.

finch edit: I quite literally was on phone and misclicked and undid it well before your post was made + was playing a tournament game on computer at the time (and there is pretty extensive proof of this if I must provide it). The fact that you are making a big deal over this is baffling. I do not know Alternator and he seems plenty respectable and levelheaded, so I would appreciate you not going out of your way to try and smear me.

Ropalme edit: then sure, if it's explained, let's both move on - I'm not making a big deal out of it, I just said it was inappropriate in a single phrase at the end of a paragraph. I did even make it clear that you had already removed it on that same line, and you did say that didn't happen here (including even an example of another accident on the other thread - if that was brought up but denied here, of course it would make others assume it wasn't the same case).

 

[Lily]

There's links back to the original discussion there, but the standard for tiering forms differently has been, "Is the typing or stats different?" Ogerpon and its mask forms qualify as different by this standard, but Hearthflame and Hearthflame + Tera do not, since only the ability changes. Without those specific differences, then by tiering policy, they're the same mon.

this is correct and I want to add something notable to it - unless there's some big example i'm missing, the base form (hearthflame) follows the broken form (hearthflame tera)* unless there's some way to separate their existence outside of battle. this is why castform would be ubers if castform-sunny happened to be broken somehow, since you can't separate castform from forecast. in the same vein, you can't separate terapagos from the stellar tera type since it's locked to it. however, you can separate charizard from mega charizard x by having it hold any item that isn't charizardite x, or you can separate silvally-poison from silvally-flying by giving it the applicable memory, or the various oricorios changing with nectar etc and theyre all tiered differently because you do that outside of battle and not inside it, so you don't have to use oricorio-pom-pom to get access to oricorio-sensu in battle.

*note that the inverse is also true, the non-standard form also follow the base form if that one is broken since there's no way to use them without using the base form even if they aren't broken themselves - this is why stuff like genesect-douse and darm-g-z are banned

terapagos is ultimately sort of unique because the situations this policy has applied to before are usually the other way around, i.e. the secondary form ends up being kinda crap and stuck in a tier it doesn't belong in - think meloetta-p. it's similar to the aforementioned darmanitan-g situation from last generation where people were calling for an unban of zen mode darm specifically, which got shot down for the same reason terapagos is being shot down; they are not truly separable while staying consistent w/ tiering policy. any discussion about freeing them would probably need to be a wider scale policy discussion rather than an exception for terapagos specifically.

it'd maybe be different if there was a way to get terapagos with other tera types, since then it's at least a little more similar to mega stones, but even then i'm not sure it would be super applicable. and it does suck, because everyone knows the regular turtle isn't broken (if anything it's pretty terrible, sorry to all the ou players out there but you wouldn't actually be getting good hazard removal out of this). id personally love bonus hazard removal in uu or even lower! but it's not worth opening up the can of worms that a tera banlist presents, and ultimately that is what this would be - a ban on terapagos clicking the tera button specifically.

 

[Tuthur]

I already explained this: Terapagos is way more appealing (see: cool new unique Pokemon with Rapid Spin) and convenient while Ogerpon had various other forms. There is no functional difference between the two for the sake of this discussion. I do not know how many other ways I have to put this between the last thread and this one. Here is UUTL / OU council member Lily and tiering admin shiloh drawing the same conclusion without prompting from your posts or visibility to these posts:

regardless of any counterpoint that can be brought up, in the realms of smogon tiering, it really does not make sense to prevent a single or a select few pokemon from using teralization. you can simple it down to we are only restricting tera on pokemon with tera forms but how is that fair? part of the appeal of teralization is that any pokemon can do it. you also set the precedent for a teralization "banlist", which could lead to a slippery slope of discussion on more tera restrictions to keep select pokemon around which otherwise would be broken which honestly would just be incredibly annoying to deal with and is a road that should be avoided all together as at that point it would be used a scapegoat for to avoid tiering the mechanic as a whole.

Terapagos is actually different from Ogerpon because it has stat changes. Nobody is advocating that we should tier teraforms differently from the base form. Terapagos is an unique exception because its terastallization makes it change form. The current definition of a form mentions that the form should have different stats or typing from its base form. While I think everyone can agree the typing part is not relevant regarding tera as it is an universal change, the base stats changes is not an universal mechanic. Ogerpon-H changing its ability upon terastallization doesn't make it a different form, so it is consistent to ban Terapagos from changing its form through tera while banning every other Pokemon (Ogerpon or not) outright just like tiering has been done until this point. I have never seen in any PR thread that forms needed to be linked to an item or an ability prior, so I would like some reference to understand why Mega-Rayquaza is a tiering exception designed for Ubers, while the way Terapagos is being handled is standard. I do understand that precedents (except for M-Ray) were all linked to an item / ability, but was it ever relevant? Isn't it against modern tiering of banning Pokemon before non-Pokemon elements?
All in all, I'm just asking for clarification of what constitutes a form now. It is clear that the current definition is outdated at least in the typing part, but since when has been the BST part linked to item / ability?

Edit because Lily posted and i dont want to double post:

this is correct and I want to add something notable to it - unless there's some big example i'm missing, the base form follows the broken form* unless there's some way to separate their existence outside of battle. this is why castform would be ubers if castform-sunny happened to be broken somehow, since you can't separate castform from forecast. in the same vein, you can't separate terapagos from the stellar tera type since it's locked to it. however, you can separate charizard from mega charizard x by having it hold any item that isn't charizardite x, or you can separate silvally-poison from silvally-flying by giving it the applicable memory, or the various oricorios changing with nectar etc and theyre all tiered differently because you do that outside of battle and not inside it, so you don't have to use oricorio-pom-pom to get access to oricorio-sensu in battle.

*note that the inverse is also true, the non-standard form also follow the base form if that one is broken since there's no way to use them without using the base form even if they aren't broken themselves - this is why stuff like genesect-douse and darm-g-z are banned

terapagos is ultimately sort of unique because the situations this policy has applied to before are usually the other way around, i.e. the secondary form ends up being kinda crap and stuck in a tier it doesn't belong in - think meloetta-p. it's similar to the aforementioned darmanitan-g situation from last generation where people were calling for an unban of zen mode darm specifically, which got shot down for the same reason terapagos is being shot down; they are not truly separable while staying consistent w/ tiering policy. any discussion about freeing them would probably need to be a wider scale policy discussion rather than an exception for terapagos specifically.

it'd maybe be different if there was a way to get terapagos with other tera types, since then it's at least a little more similar to mega stones, but even then i'm not sure it would be super applicable. and it does suck, because everyone knows the regular turtle isn't broken (if anything it's pretty terrible, sorry to all the ou players out there but you wouldn't actually be getting good hazard removal out of this). id personally love bonus hazard removal in uu or even lower! but it's not worth opening up the can of worms that a tera banlist presents, and ultimately that is what this would be - a ban on terapagos clicking the tera button specifically.

The implication that you can't separate Terapagos-Stellar from Terapagos-Terastal seems disgenuine to me.
- Castform: you can't prevent the opponent from bringing sun so it would be banned as a whole. Just like you need to use the superior form in Meloetta-A and Darminatan, before accessing the inferior one Meloetta-P and Darmanitan-Z.
- Silvally, Zard, Greninja: you can prevent yourself from bringing the other form by using a different item / ability.

I can use Terapagos-Terastal without accessing by just not clicking a specific button. Sure it is different from everything we have had until this point, but it doesn't change the fact that I can play the game normally without ever triggering the Terapagos-Stellar form, just like for the second list of Pokemon.

Edit 2: I realized I didnt clarify what "playing normally" meant above. What I mean by it is that playing with Terapagos (or Rayquaza), the restriction only applies to my options. With Castform-Sunny, I would also have to make sure the opponent doesn't trigger the form change themselve, preventing me from using Castform as long as they have a potential Drought (or assimilate) / Sunny Day user.

 

[Aberforth]

If people wanted to unban base Hearthflame, they would've already said so. I'm all in for hearing the thoughts of other tiering leaders as well - like I said on the opening of the post, this is more of a Smogon-wide thing, not just OU.

Ubers Tiering Leader here: Doing anything other than banning or allowing Terapagos as a whole would be a mistake.

Fundamentally all you are arguing for is to restrict the ability of Terapagos to use Tera. This is something every tier leader wants to avoid; every tier has at least one banned mon that would be fine if its ability to tera would be restricted. While Terapagos tera'ing does give it more benefit than any other Pokemon, implementing a Tera List is something nobody with any say in tiering wants to see in any way shape or form.

Talking about Mega Ray and Megas in general

Ubers banned Mega-Ray because we were banning a Mega, we just had to implement a clause because there was no handy item that could be banned. Its also much more of an exception because it was literally the first ever pokemon ban Ubers had, and came at a time when trust in the Ubers Leaders to run suspects was at an all-time low, while something simply needed to be done. There was also precedent from OU to ban Megas instead of the outright Pokemon itself that we were following, as opposed to Tera-Banning Terapagos, and Ubers also explicitly looks to ban as few things as possible, especially at that stage when Mega Ray was what changed the philosophy of Ubers to let Pokemon be banned from it at all. The OP of this thread has even acknowledged this before, Ubers should not be used for OU precedent.

The teambuilder does not show things like the Mawilite being banned in the ORAS OU tier, but that is for simplicity of use, because when people build or look at analyses, they dont look for items, they look for Pokemon. Initially in gen6, the mega and the base form were actually tiered together but the item was suspected (see places like this where the suspect was for the Sablenite), it was separated into just tiering the Megas like a separate pokemon itself midway through the gen to avoid situations (that were happening) where fringe OU Megas (Pinsir) would drop into UU, get banned, and then regular pinsir would drop down the tiers one shift at a time until Mega-Pinsir went back to OU. It was causing disruption and annoyance in the lower tiers, and depriving them of good options in the meta. I dont think Megas are a good analogy to Terapagos, because there is not a uniquely different aspect to Terapagos that we could isolate without having it simply be "Terapagos cannot use Tera".

 

[Ropalme1914]

Ubers Tiering Leader here: Doing anything other than banning or allowing Terapagos as a whole would be a mistake.

Fundamentally all you are arguing for is to restrict the ability of Terapagos to use Tera. This is something every tier leader wants to avoid; every tier has at least one banned mon that would be fine if its ability to tera would be restricted. While Terapagos tera'ing does give it more benefit than any other Pokemon, implementing a Tera List is something nobody with any say in tiering wants to see in any way shape or form.

Talking about Mega Ray and Megas in general

Ubers banned Mega-Ray because we were banning a Mega, we just had to implement a clause because there was no handy item that could be banned. Its also much more of an exception because it was literally the first ever pokemon ban Ubers had, and came at a time when trust in the Ubers Leaders to run suspects was at an all-time low, while something simply needed to be done. There was also precedent from OU to ban Megas instead of the outright Pokemon itself that we were following, as opposed to Tera-Banning Terapagos, and Ubers also explicitly looks to ban as few things as possible, especially at that stage when Mega Ray was what changed the philosophy of Ubers to let Pokemon be banned from it at all. The OP of this thread has even acknowledged this before, Ubers should not be used for OU precedent.

The teambuilder does not show things like the Mawilite being banned in the ORAS OU tier, but that is for simplicity of use, because when people build or look at analyses, they dont look for items, they look for Pokemon. Initially in gen6, the mega and the base form were actually tiered together but the item was suspected (see places like this where the suspect was for the Sablenite), it was separated into just tiering the Megas like a separate pokemon itself midway through the gen to avoid situations (that were happening) where fringe OU Megas (Pinsir) would drop into UU, get banned, and then regular pinsir would drop down the tiers one shift at a time until Mega-Pinsir went back to OU. It was causing disruption and annoyance in the lower tiers, and depriving them of good options in the meta. I dont think Megas are a good analogy to Terapagos, because there is not a uniquely different aspect to Terapagos that we could isolate without having it simply be "Terapagos cannot use Tera".

First, thanks for taking your time to join the discussion!
I'm also fundamentally asking for a Pokémon ban, it's just the method of achieving said Pokémon is via Tera, just like a Mega Pokémon is gotten via Mega Evolution. You simply cannot make that argument for Iron Valiant, because Iron Valiant does not work that way. Like I said before, Terapagos-Terastal is also a Terastalized Pokémon by name, but no one is looking to say that it would be banned with a full Terastal ban because it doesn't work the same way as the universal Tera mechanic. As for the Mega discussion post, depriving lower tiers from good options is exactly one of the things brought here, even if it wasn't the main point. Very similar points were being brought on the thread as well, such as you can't separate Megas from the base Pokémon because a Mega is just a set - like Life Orb, and that it was just being done to support bias from the people.

 

[Aberforth]

First, thanks for taking your time to join the discussion!
I'm also fundamentally asking for a Pokémon ban, it's just the method of achieving said Pokémon is via Tera, just like a Mega Pokémon is gotten via Mega Evolution. You simply cannot make that argument for Iron Valiant, because Iron Valiant does not work that way. Like I said before, Terapagos-Terastal is also a Terastalized Pokémon by name, but no one is looking to say that it would be banned with a full Terastal ban because it doesn't work the same way as the universal Tera mechanic. As for the Mega discussion post, depriving lower tiers from good options is exactly one of the things brought here, even if it wasn't the main point. Very similar points were being brought on the thread as well, such as you can't separate Megas from the base Pokémon because a Mega is just a set - like Life Orb, and that it was just being done to support bias from the people.

Terapagos-Stellar is not a pokemon, it is an in-battle forme change accomplished by using Tera. If you could Tera a different pokemon on the team and still use Terapagos-Stellar, I might have a different opinion, but I see Terapagos-Stellar as being Terapagos using Tera, not as a Pokemon itself that should be tiered seperately.

Megas were a different mechanic that I do not think should be used as precedent. One of the fundamental principles behind mega evolution was that you could have one per team, whereas one of the fundamental principles behind Tera is that every pokemon can do it. I do not think that Megas are a good justification to have anything even superficially resembling a Tera-List.

 

[pulsar512b]

i mean you can have multiple megas on a team, you just cant mega evolve

but the difference between every mon being able to tera and only xyz mons being able to mega is significant regardless

 

[Ropalme1914]

Terapagos-Stellar is not a pokemon, it is an in-battle forme change accomplished by using Tera. If you could Tera a different pokemon on the team and still use Terapagos-Stellar, I might have a different opinion, but I see Terapagos-Stellar as being Terapagos using Tera, not as a Pokemon itself that should be tiered seperately.

Megas were a different mechanic that I do not think should be used as precedent. One of the fundamental principles behind mega evolution was that you could have one per team, whereas one of the fundamental principles behind Tera is that every pokemon can do it. I do not think that Megas are a good justification to have anything even superficially resembling a Tera-List.

Well, you can call it that, it's still something that just won't apply to Iron Valiant because they're not the same thing. They have the same cost, but they don't have the same effect. Terapagos is still transforming into something different that is not Terapagos-Terastal with a Tera effect.

Megas are indeed different, but they can still have a lot of parallels drawn - if they were the same, there would be no need for a tiering policy discussion, but just like that, the universal Tera mechanic is not the same as Terapagos' Tera mechanic, as I had listed multiple differences between them earlier - you could even argue they're as different as something like Ultra Burst vs Mega Evolution (arguably more). But, as Tuthur said, there's a clear way to separate Terapagos' formes, and you can tier them on their own. If Terapagos-Stellar is Ubers, it doesn't open precedence to Tera Roaring Moon being banned and base allowed, especially if Megas can't be used as a similar case here.

 

[dhelmise]

but just like that, the universal Tera mechanic is not the same as Terapagos' Tera mechanic, as I had listed multiple differences between them earlier

it quite literally is, theyre handled in the same event

 

[lydian]

it quite literally is, theyre handled in the same event

im sorry but... why does this matter? is mawile mega evolving and audino mega evolving not in the same event? id be surprised if they had a different event for each separate mega... yet, we tier them separately, because mega evolving into mawile does one thing that's very distinct from mega evolving into audino. same is true for terapagos. sure, the way the game and/or ps! handles it, a terapagos tera is the same as any other pokémon teraing. but functionally they very much aren't the same, so idk why that should be an argument?

look i dont have a horse in this race, i dont play lower tiers and base terapagos definitely isnt ou material. but it just seems befuddling to me that smogon tiering would be so hyperfocused on "making the right decision to avoid a bad precedent" that common sense is thrown out the window, when "terapagos-stellar is banned" is a perfectly clear, simple, and unambiguous rule. plus, given the dispute that the mega rayquaza situation does not count as precedent for this, because "banning the user from clicking a button to change its pokemon into a broken form" isnt the same thing on mega ray and terapagos for some reason, yall can just... do it again if it ever comes up? like they're not gonna introduce a new mechanic EXACTLY like tera, so if for some reason you want to avoid a "complex" ban like this in the future you can just use the same arguments you're using for mega rayquaza not counting as precedent, right now, right?

just free the turtle, it's the simplest, soundest, and least "cart before the horse" way to do this, really!

 

[dhelmise]

im sorry but... why does this matter? is mawile mega evolving and audino mega evolving not in the same event? id be surprised if they had a different event for each separate mega... yet, we tier them separately, because mega evolving into mawile does one thing that's very distinct from mega evolving into audino. same is true for terapagos. sure, the way the game and/or ps! handles it, a terapagos tera is the same as any other pokémon teraing. but functionally they very much aren't the same, so idk why that should be an argument?

i never said it mattered? i was just correcting what ropalme said, and he kept bringing it up in his argument for keeping terapagos in ou. please dont mince my words.

look i dont have a horse in this race, i dont play lower tiers and base terapagos definitely isnt ou material. but it just seems befuddling to me that smogon tiering would be so hyperfocused on "making the right decision to avoid a bad precedent" that common sense is thrown out the window, when "terapagos-stellar is banned" is a perfectly clear, simple, and unambiguous rule. plus, given the dispute that the mega rayquaza situation does not count as precedent for this, because "banning the user from clicking a button to change its pokemon into a broken form" isnt the same thing on mega ray and terapagos for some reason, yall can just... do it again if it ever comes up? like they're not gonna introduce a new mechanic EXACTLY like tera, so if for some reason you want to avoid a "complex" ban like this in the future you can just use the same arguments you're using for mega rayquaza not counting as precedent, right now, right?

I also "don't have a horse in this race" as far as OU goes, as I was originally just correcting a statement, but since I've become the scapegoat for your 2 cents I might as well reply.

I feel like a lot of people are ignoring the precedent of Wishiwashi? It has a really lame base form and a battle-only form that is triggered through an ability. They're tiered together. The only difference is a third form that Terapagos has access to, which is not locked behind something easily bannable (ability with Zyg-c precedent, item with mega precedent, move with ... well nothing? idk), and the argument of "Terapagos-S has different BST so it should be tiered separately" falls through when we had a Pokemon that arguably (?) could've been legal in OU in Darmanitan-Galar-Zen if we had just banned Gorilla Tactics instead of Darmanitan-Galar. The answer then was that it was pretty much a complex ban and that forming a complex ban for a Pokemon that was made broken due to something unique to them (in Gorilla Tactics) was a non-starter, and that's also the answer that's being provided now, but people don't seem to want to listen.

I'm not sure why people keep trying to bring up the mega rayquaza clause as a precedent, when really it isn't. It was a complex mod (ie Sleep Clause Mod) put in place by chaos at the time for an Ubers based metagame, where it's been stated time and time again that bans in Ubers are supposed to be as minimalist as possible. Modding the way the game works is something that should be heavily frowned upon and only used in fringe cases where the metagame is truly uncompetitive/unplayable otherwise (Sleep Clause Mod [which I still disagree with], Freeze Clause Mod, RBY Desync Mod, Deoxys Camouflage Mod, etc), and modding the game just to be able to use a turtle seems very silly. A Terastallization resuspect might be feasible (idk I don't play OU), since there's arguably a handful of Pokemon in Ubers right now that probably would be fine in OU without that mechanic, but until then, I don't see the merit that this brings except bringing down the quality of competitive.

just free the turtle, it's the simplest, soundest, and least "cart before the horse" way to do this, really!

alternatively: no, don't free it, and no, it's not easy.