Welcome to the gen 8 edition of the SQSA! The purpose of this thread is to act as the main place to ask questions that could be answered in a single post. Common topics include:
- What is the ideal <item/nature/moveset/Pokemon> for my Pokemon or team?
- How is the viability of a Pokemon in the metagame?
Here are some questions I can answer ahead of time:
Zacian ban?
Not anytime soon. For starters, the metagame has just released and everything is up in the air in terms of metagame viability and even mechanics behind how things are supposed to work. A quickban of Zacian is off the table - the only way it would be debated is via a suspect test, which requires the tiering council to create a tiering policy first, and that ball will quickly get rolling again if we feel there truly is a problem that must be addressed. There is also the fact that many returning Ubers Pokemon are not currently released despite existing in the code for SS, which makes assessing the true metagame very difficult. We would like to avoid taking any tiering actions until all the potential Pokemon are available to us, leaving an early suspect test as an absolute last resort. Should it come to that, we would likely re-test Zacian once everything is available.
National Dex Ubers?
A fun thought experiment, but nothing more than that. While a format may appear on the simulator that emulates an unlimited metagame, there are questions about mechanic interactions that cannot be answered through the cartridge games meaning that such a format is entirely unofficial in purpose and therefore unsuited for this forum. That said, we aren't going to close our eyes to the idea. If it is well executed and proves to be popular, integration with this subforum may be possible in the future.
And now for some quick guidelines:
- Discussing the potential of an Ubers Pokemon in OU is strictly prohibited. The viability of a Pokemon in Ubers has no relevance to its potential in OU.
- Topics around suspect or ban discussions are ideally kept to threads open for wide range discussion on potential suspect testing, like a "NP:" thread. If a suspect is currently running, our live chat areas are a better zone to ask and discuss these things.
- The answer may be present on our Smogon Dex, where you can find analyses of the Pokemon in our tier.
- This is not the ideal place to ask questions related to in-game teams or metagames. This forum is primarily for discussion of Smogon's Ubers metagame. Cartridge based metagames can be discussed in the Cartridge Formats section, while in-game play can be discussed in Orange Islands. Make sure to navigate to the ideal threads when visiting these subforums!
Community members are encouraged to help each other out here with answering new questions!
- What is the ideal <item/nature/moveset/Pokemon> for my Pokemon or team?
- How is the viability of a Pokemon in the metagame?
Here are some questions I can answer ahead of time:
Zacian ban?
Not anytime soon. For starters, the metagame has just released and everything is up in the air in terms of metagame viability and even mechanics behind how things are supposed to work. A quickban of Zacian is off the table - the only way it would be debated is via a suspect test, which requires the tiering council to create a tiering policy first, and that ball will quickly get rolling again if we feel there truly is a problem that must be addressed. There is also the fact that many returning Ubers Pokemon are not currently released despite existing in the code for SS, which makes assessing the true metagame very difficult. We would like to avoid taking any tiering actions until all the potential Pokemon are available to us, leaving an early suspect test as an absolute last resort. Should it come to that, we would likely re-test Zacian once everything is available.
National Dex Ubers?
A fun thought experiment, but nothing more than that. While a format may appear on the simulator that emulates an unlimited metagame, there are questions about mechanic interactions that cannot be answered through the cartridge games meaning that such a format is entirely unofficial in purpose and therefore unsuited for this forum. That said, we aren't going to close our eyes to the idea. If it is well executed and proves to be popular, integration with this subforum may be possible in the future.
And now for some quick guidelines:
- Discussing the potential of an Ubers Pokemon in OU is strictly prohibited. The viability of a Pokemon in Ubers has no relevance to its potential in OU.
- Topics around suspect or ban discussions are ideally kept to threads open for wide range discussion on potential suspect testing, like a "NP:" thread. If a suspect is currently running, our live chat areas are a better zone to ask and discuss these things.
- The answer may be present on our Smogon Dex, where you can find analyses of the Pokemon in our tier.
- This is not the ideal place to ask questions related to in-game teams or metagames. This forum is primarily for discussion of Smogon's Ubers metagame. Cartridge based metagames can be discussed in the Cartridge Formats section, while in-game play can be discussed in Orange Islands. Make sure to navigate to the ideal threads when visiting these subforums!
Community members are encouraged to help each other out here with answering new questions!