Tera...Again

[Jho]

Hello, here we are again.

We're in the final stages of National Dex World Cup now, our biggest annual tournament, and the stigma around Tera as a mechanic is still in controversy.

Last time we had this discussion the community seemed to have shifted to a much more negative stance on Tera's place in the National Dex metagame, and while back then I did say it likely wouldn't lead to anything, since the community perception has seemingly gotten worse, we have made the decision to revisit it.

This is a little unprecedented as there has never really been a retest on a generational mechanic, and retests after a public No Ban vote are also rare for obvious reasons. However, as the ramifications of Tera staying or leaving essentially decide the future of this generation, we are coming back to it again.

Because this is such an unprecedented situation, I am making one last thread for the community as a whole to voice their opinions.

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?

These are the questions I would like the community at large to answer. Your responses in this thread will directly correlate to if there is a Tera retest or not so if you are pro or anti ban, this is the place to voice your opinions. And just as a reminder:

There will be no restrictions, it's full or no Tera. Any posts suggesting or advocating for restrictions will be deleted as off topic.

This thread will remain open until the end of NDWC, at which point we will decide whether or not to do a retest.

 

[sealoo]

Tera is the single most pressing thing about the entire metagame right now and defintiely needs to be suspect tested. And to me, tera has 2 things that have caused it to become a plague to this meta and inhibiting the meta’s development.

1. Beating things you shouldnt beat
This is far and away the most obvious feat, Tera turns matchups that shouldn’t be won, into advantageous situations for the tera user, and without a tera of your own you will usually be floored.

Take this replay from NDWC for example https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-690554

Adriyun has an SD Gliscor but tlenit has a Kyurem, it should be very difficult for this Gliscor to make progress vs tlenit, however, it simply sheds its 4x Ice weakness and becomes a CHECK to Kyurem. This leads to Gliscor easily having this game won by around turn 30 but Adriyun trolls around for 80 turns LOL

2. The fear of Tera, forcing an unreasonable level of scouting.

You can lead correctly, lets say hypothetically leading your Great Tusk into your opponent leading Heatran, but as the Great Tusk user you will switch 90% of the time. Why? Because the 4x Ground-weak Heatran can turn Flying/Grass/Bug and claim your Great Tusk turn 1. I dont have any replays showing this, but my goodness if you play the tier you know this feeling, because doing anything feels risky and unsafe until your opponent has revealed their Tera.

These two reasons are pretty much the two balloons that most gripes with Tera are related to, but here are some more specific reasons.

3. Knowing what’s coming, but no way to stop it.

Here’s another WC replay, where you could’ve walked up siTum, handed them LBN’s Cresselia set, and the game would still be over by turn 20. Knowledge is power in mons, and knowing exactly what your opponent will do but still being at a disadvantage just does not feel condusive to skill.

4. The immense variance allowed by Tera creates way too much to consider in an already crowded tier.

Building ND has always been a challenge, the threats are more farther ranging and there will always be more to consider. Throw in a mechanic that warps the profile of a top threat that invalidates certain defensive cplay, and you are looking at a disaster.

For example, let’s look at DD Pult. Since forever in NDOU, DD/Darts/PForce/Sub with Ghost Z has been the standard for DD Pult, but this set had fallen out of favor due to the nature of Gambit hard walling it. So, Dragapult users struck back and some have started to run Tera Blast Fighting, and if Kingambit can’t check DD Pult anymore, then nothing is safe.

The counundrum Tera has put our council in cannot be understated, as we haven’t had barely any tiering development since the Zama test, because you can’t logistically try to free Roaring Moon or Zama-C while the entire comminity is just complaining that Tera should be gone.

Final Thoughts

Tera is disliked nearly universally, and this mechanic should’ve been gone during Mid-January if it wasn’t for a very premature test, and certain individuals who troll voted DNB as well as encouraging others to do the same. It creates a very volatile environment that hurts the most basic principle of competitive mons (the better player should win most times) and I will enthuastically be voting BAN

not gonna bother proofreading so apologies for any typos

 

[1234hjkl]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
Cancer. This Lazy, broken, poorly thought mechanic, not even visual pleasant as well with those stupid crystal hats make the meta a awful broken mess I played in OU and I hated it, I played in UU and was disgusted, RU, NU and here as well and I can say this mechanic is broken no matter what. Giving a pokémon the ability of changing around weakness on the drop of a hat + either a third stab or a adap boost without any bloody restriction whatsoever is FUCKING STUPID and has no place in a good meta.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
Yes. Why? SImple, the meta has changed SO FUCKING MUCH since it was implemented and as time went on people started to find more and more ways to abuse this mechanic. Many viable and not broken pokémon have gotten the ban hammer because this stupid mechanic and many more probably will, depending of what GF has in the store for Tera or Gen 9 as a whole since with DLC coming we could get move tutors or new broken mons and let's not getting started on that rumor of Tera-Masked.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
In the original suspect the meta was brand new, yes, while almost everyone with half a brain could see how unhealthy this mechanic could be many more were still opposite to a ban too soon since last gen's gimmick didn't last even a month and they wanted to try it out. We tried it out and the meta has become a cancerous mess, just check the last survey and compare to the first, both Enjoyment and Balance of the meta took a reasonable dip and that was with the council already banning plenty of broken mons. So if the council is active, then why is the meta still going down the toilet? Well the fact than Tera got a bigger score than both Rageape and Ungacune about being problematic, while also being cited as one of the main issues in both Rain and HO should give you a tip.

Conclusion.
Let's do right this time and ban this mechanic. The vast majority dislikes it and it dodged the ban hammer by 2 votes, I would vote myself on it but life got in the way at the time. For a better NatDex ban Tera and later on let's see if we can get some of those mons broken by Tera unbanned.

 

[omarsgarciav]

1. What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
It is completely unhealthy for this tier. While it does add some level of skill and depth in gameplay w/ predicting tera type and when you opponent will tera, it is a complete net negative for the health of the meta. It also enables strategies that have little to no counterplay depending on matchup, and given there are so many of these strategies, teambuilding is heavily restricted.

2. Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
Absolutely. In the time between the last suspect and now we've seen lower tier mons that are otherwise completely outclassed by other options use tera to setup to an unreasonable degree and sometimes win games on the spot, the main culprits are obviously the stored power abusers, mainly cres, mew and latios, but we've also seen other similarly terrible setup sweepers that don't have access to stored power, such as thund-t, gmolt and hawlucha, pop up and cheese out wins. Even outside of these bad setup sweepers, top pokemon such as pult, gambit and gliscor have been brought up repeatedly as being problematic almost solely because of the degree at which they can abuse tera. Other potentially banworthy top mons, namely garg and zama have almost their entire viability hinging on tera and how well they abuse it.

3. What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
The metagame has evolved to a state where bulkier teams that rely on premier tera abusers such as mew, glisc and cres, and faster paced offensive teams that can abuse the likes of latios, cres and whatever other fast setup sweeper they wanna use, have both come to dominate top tournament and ladder play, and given the right matchup all of these mons are borderline unstoppable if they get even a single free switch-in, making them broken. Additionally, I've heard that a number of people voted dnb in a joking manner, seeing as how in their minds there was no way this mechanic would stay, now there is little to no chance that these people would do the same given how negatively tera is viewed by the community as a whole and their effect on the previous vote's outcome. Tera has also significantly contributed or been the sole reason behind a significant portion of the bans since the last suspect, namely melm, banned for tera steel making its dib too strong alongside the flinch chance, eleki, banned for tera ice/grass making its previously shallow coverage next to unwallable, shed tail, being banned because ho teams with koko+cyc could give just about any tera sweeper the few turns they need to win the game, ape, banned in part due to tera enabling it to take almost any hit and reliably beat most of its counters and shedinja, banned because tera allowed it to change its awful typing to be immune to whatever it wanted. I mention all of these because despite all of these top tera abusers being banned, the mechanic is still a significant issue, irrefutably disproving the claim that banning the top abusers would solve the issue.

tldr: fuck cres fuck tera get rid of it asap plz ty

 

[Javi]

Where to start with this... Tera is, together with dynamax, one of the worst mechanics I have ever seen introduced to competitive Pokémon. First of all, it makes games much slower, denser and tougher for players as you are always worried about a potential Tera that can destroy all the advantage that you have gained during the game. It's a mechanic that does not reward good plays or player's skill but rather luck, I have seen games turned completely around just because a correct Tera on the correct circumstances. This is not fair at all and for sure is not healty for the metagame.
On the first test all players were starting to try the mechanic, players are always interested about the new mechanics so it's understandable that it was decided to keep it in the metagame; however this thought has changed among the playerbase. I don't think it even needs to get retested, it just needs immediate action whether it is banning or making them open so they can be seen at preview.
Whatever the decision is, please take action and give players a healthy competitive to play and enjoy.

 

[Aera]

I wasn't sure of whether to make a post on this, because I think others can articulate the unhealthy aspects of tera far better than I can. However, given this appears to be gauging community support for a retest I feel obligated to voice my opinion.

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
Tera is the most frustrating aspect of the current natdex metagame and has in my opinion utterly ruined any sense of balance. I personally think Kyo's post in the previous tera thread sums up the problems terastalization has caused the best. I think the current metagame has as a result also become quite matchup reliant, as it is simply impossible to deal with every threat reliably when you also have to take their ability to terastalize into account.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
Most definitely, tera only narrowly avoided a ban at the start of the generation, with the majority of voters choosing to ban it and public perception has only worsened over time. From the previous suspect we could primarily see people reluctant to ban a mechanic given the perceived instability of the meta and being unsure whether tera was the true culprit. As the metagame has developed and more mons were banned we could see more clearly that it wasn't just Magearna, and Chien-Pao being broken and as time goes on, I think it has become pretty clear that with each ban of a broken threat another comes out of the woodwork to destabilize the meta once more.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
Inherently, nothing has changed about tera. I would say it's now used less as a method to catch the opponent off guard to facilitate a sweep but rather to make traditional counterplay insufficient or turn would-be checks into setup opportunity, or to overwhelm the opponent with strong STAB moves. I'd say the primary change that warrants a retest is that people thought the initial test was hasty or thought certain other threats should have been banned to more clearly see if tera was really the problem. I think it has been pretty demonstrably apparent that terastalyzation is the issue and from what I've seen the vast majority of the playerbase wants it removed. Just because it is a generational mechanic, that should not mean that it is exempt from retesting, especially since retesting it appears to be in everyone's best interest.

Closing thoughts
I think tera is utterly ruining the tier, making it borderline unplayable on a competitive level. The only thing that has kept me playing this tier for so long was the prospect of a retest for terastalization. If it manages to stay in the tier once again then I am simply moving on to another metagame.

 

[sasha]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
- Broken! Let it go! I would not be so quick to make this argument in official tiers but what makes it absurd in natdex (IN MY OPINION...) is because while every player and builder has to deal with the disgusting power creep that came with gen 9 thanks to gamefreak, but then on top of that you're dealing with the hundreds of mons that came before gen 9 that can also abuse this awesome mechanic! I am still super surprised that it didn't get banned the first time around and there is no reason to sit around and let the tier deteriorate with this mechanic and should definitely be figured out before NDPL or most ND Circuit tours that are upcoming. Which also helps move on to other suspects if necessary when Tera is out of the tier and can make mons that are insanely broken and no skill like Kingambit not as broken. Using KGB as an example still, if people want to make the hypothetical argument that it's still broken without tera, then time is being wasted still discussing tera when a perfectly healthy National Dex could be around the corner without Tera and real suspects can be had if that makes sense.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
- Yes because there is no reason to let the tier deteriorate with this mechanic when the tier could be way more competitive and enjoyable and should definitely be figured out before NDPL or most ND Circuit tours that are upcoming. The only thing I'll miss about it is being able to build just nonsensical HO and win but that's exactly why its uncompetitive lol

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
- Nothing has changed, people just stopped having their brand new shiny toy syndrome and snapped out of it. Now that people have realized how dumb it is and how uncompetitive it makes the tier, opinions have changed. No gameplay or fundamental mons mechanics have changed that would make tera broken it's just a fault of the community. You can say that low tier mons have risen in usage like Cress because of Tera but again that's just the community changing up playstyles/gimmicks or abusing Tera, it's not a fault of Cresselia or anything that has made Tera some new crazy broken thing, it's always been there.

-

Not trying to be an echo chamber of what has been said above but yeah tera just ruins the tier and makes it extremely uncompetitive. Threats that shouldn't be threats become daunting question marks in game, like any CM Psychic type. Not only that it's very unpredictable and even if there's nuanced cases where you know its coming, in which you still can never be 100% certain, you can't always play against it proactively and a lot of times all you can do is just sit there and twiddle your thumbs as your opponent runs away with the game and you cry as they make a win post. For example, my game versus ninjadog was just decided in one turn because I had Tera Water Thundy-T and there was nothing he could do about it at all lol which brings me to my next point. Mons is a game that rewards good resource management outside of playmaking, and when you factor in 3 things: Megas, a mechanic that isn't broken and something that is painfully obvious on preview. Z moves, something that isn't immediately obvious but players have a plethora of ways to identify a Z move with Knock Off and just by looking at your opponents team on preview, AND Tera (good mechanic) the player who has better resource management is not always favored like they should be and certain win paths and whatnot become insanely blurred and it's just a shit show as people are trying to manage way too many things that the game has to offer for just constant chaotic meme games. Paths that are objectively correct are never objectively correct when Tera is involved and it should not exist in this tier.

 

[Gangsta Spongebob]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
Tera is a fundamentally unbalanced mechanic that makes games too matchup reliant. With the sheer amount of threats Nat Dex needs to prepare for, it's pretty much impossible to consider every Tera type on every Pokemon. The majority of Nat Dex has minimal opportunity cost in running a Tera type, which means that most Pokemon are effectively given a free out against a sizable amount of their counterplay. Worse yet, while there absolutely is skill in predicting tera types, many games have gone down into an uncompetitive 50/50 on whether or not a Pokemon will tera. While it isn't the literal worst mechanic in Pokemon ever (thanks Dynamax), Tera has created an inherently flawed metagame and we need to see it go.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
Absolutely. There is a huge amount of support, and it has been a considerable amount of tier development since the last test. As others have stated in this thread, there was also some irregularities in the previous tera vote.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
While the top Tera abusers have been banned, Tera itself has remained largely unchanged. Like Aera said, the biggest change in its use is that it's less used to have something cheese a sweep and more to cut down on crucial counterplay, which still puts a stranglehold on how we build. Alongside the perception of Tera changing, as we banned a ton of threats and it's still broken, I'd like to add that if we were to keep Tera, we'd need to ban many more Pokemon to have something resembling a stable metagame. At any rate it's clear that Nat Dex has shifted to where a Tera suspect is more in demand and necessary.

tldr; we need another tera suspect asap

 

[Toady]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?

Never liked it from the moment it was announced so I'm a little biased, but it never sat right with me that offensive mons could basically just ignore a turn for free set up with the right tera type unless you hard call them out. While Gen 9 OU settled around a smaller number of mons and sets to make this more predicable and punishable (still don't love it but it's worth noting), Nat Dex already has so many things you have to be aware of and scout for. And cheese sets aside, mons like Kingambit and Heatran are balanced around being absurdly strong but with a key 4x weakness so you know who you need to keep alive to deal with them. Tera throws a massive unpredictable wrench in identifying win conditions and knowing when it's safe to sack a mon. You can no longer say "as long as I keep X alive, I can deal with this mon, and my win condition will be opening up for Y." There is a skillful way to play Tera for sure, but there are just as many times where Tera bails out poor play. It's just not a healthy metagame.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?

Yes, absolutely. Early on people didn't want to jump the gun, which is totally fair. But now that we've seen it play out and our "worst fears" basically didn't get any less annoying to deal with, it's safe to ask if the general consensus is that the experimental phase failed, which seems to be a very (at least vocal) popular sentiment.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?

Sort of going off of my last point. It's less that something major changed, and more that none of the bad stuff did. The stuff people were willing to take a chance on stayed absurdly annoying and/or unbalanced and the "good" just never got to a point of outweighing it.

 

[GenTwour]

I am not a top player, I am only an intermediate so some of what I say will be wrong.

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
It needs to go.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
It allows offensive pokemon to chose their checks and it allows defensive pokemon to wall their counters. For example, Volcorona is walled by heatren, but it can tera ground to just blast through the heatran and sweep the team, I have tera fairy ferrothorn on my team which allows it to check mega lopunny, something that Mega lopunny should destroy with fighting stab. There have been plenty of times where I and my opponents have won games due to a weird tera type, not due to outplaying each other. Playing around tera types is kinda like playing around critical hits, except the opponent can chose to make the attack crit and you don't know when it will crit. You have to take the possibility of a crit happening every turn, or hope you guess correctly, neither of which are fun.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
We know more than we knew then. At the beginning of the generation, teralization was new and we could only speculate on how powerful it was. Now we know more about teralization lets retest it. Pokemon can be retested so why can we not just retest the generation's mechanic?

 

[Meteor 450]

Stance on Tera
Ehhgg... I think this mechanic is amazing, to be honest, but it is undeniably problematic and (probably) uncompetitive as hell. When it was first introduced, my first instinct was to get it banned as quickly as possible, but I've actually really enjoyed playing this Gen (just NatDex - I haven't enjoyed the standard OU), more than I ever have, investing more time and energy into playing competitive than I have any other Gen, and Terastal has been a big part of this. (Though I've only been playing since late Gen 7 and only really got into competitive in Gen 8.)

Should Tera be retested?
Definitely yes. I think Tera has plenty of perks, but it may be more of a problem overall, as I will try to explain.
• Tera creates variety
No. It just doesn't. What Tera does is makes Pokémon which are already oppressive, like Zama, Pult, Volc, and Kingambit, even more oppressive, forcing you to run to try and cram as many checks to the different possible Teras into a team as possible, which is a real constraint on a varied meta. I do exaggerate slightly, but I do feel that Tera isn't really healthy for a varied meta.
Another thing that Tera does is really enable HO (though I think this is often exaggerated), as it gives setup sweepers like Valiant, Bax, Pult, and Volc a free turn to set up or a way to just bypass something which would otherwise deal with them, potentially just winning the game in one turn in a way which there isn't really a way to consistently deal with. Probably the most egregious example of this for me is Kingambit, which has something of a chokehold on the meta right now.
I know this is all sounding like doom and gloom, which isn't what I'm trying to do - I'm just trying to say that Terastal really does enable HO, removing variety as it can just be easier to run Kingambit HO and just win.
Again, I'm exaggerating, and I don't necessarily believe a lot of what I just said, not do I think that a meta in which HO is really strong and games can be decided in the course of a turn is inherently bad - I just feel like it's worth mentioning, and say that no, Tera doesn't help to create a varied meta.
• Tera isn't that hard to predict - it's not any different to making everyday reads
Maybe Tera isn't impossible to predict, as a lot of people suggest, but it is certainly different from making everyday reads. When making a game plan (or even when teambuilding, but I'll focus on the problems regarding game planning), Tera can be a real problem - if there's a Volcarona, you have to plan for Tera Grass, Tera Ground, Tera Fairy etc.; if there's a Bax, you have to plan for Tera Dragon, Tera Fairy, Tera Steel, Tera Fire, and the list goes on. And if you preserve the wrong check, there's not much you can do. Yes, you can scout for the Tera just as you can scout for any set, but the consequences for getting it wrong can be a lot worse, and there's nothing to stop someone just putting a completely unconventional Tera on something and completely screw up your plans without any opportunity cost - and that's what matters: without any opportunity cost.
Also, Tera doesn't necessarily reward skillful play - you can play atrociously and a Tera just turns the game on its head, or you can be well on top of the game and all your plans can go out of the window thanks to a stupid Tera.
Again, I exaggerate, and I'm still not sure I actually believe - or at least want to believe - what I'm saying, but Tera is certainly a constraint on planning and teambuilding well, potentially taking an element of skill out of the game.

What's changed?
I think we've just seen Tera play out in a really fun meta - for me, this has actually made me more tolerant of Tera, and I'm enjoying the meta as it is (other than Kingambit).
What we've seen in letting Tera play out is that it can put constraints on teambuilding an effective game planning, with a potential to create situations in which the most skilled player isn't necessarily the one who wins. At the last vote, the meta was still unstable and all of this was just theory, but now we know that it's true in practice, though perhaps not to the degree that some people make it out to be.
The real change, however, is, I think, that the Do Not Ban vote last time was just to give Tera a chance, and it has been given a chance in this thriving meta which is, contrary to the claims of some, highly enjoyable to play and absolutely a competitive meta.

Conclusion
All in all, I feel that a Tera ban is inevitable at this point and, as much as I have loved the meta with Tera, it may well be the right thing to do. I myself am still undecided, but what I do know is that the time in which we've had Tera in the meta has been the most fun I've ever had playing competitive Pokémon.
I think there should be another suspect on Tera, as I have argued, but I would love it if it were to remain legal, and, despite my misgivings, I would still likely vote Do Not Ban if it were to come to a suspect. (And if I somehow managed to get voting reqs.)

 

[MachJacob]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
Tera is fun. Like many others, I was very skeptical of it at the beginning, and with every piece of news about it thought "this will be banned", but come the release of SV I was pleasently surprised. Terastalization enables a lot more flexibility and creativity in both teambuilding and gameplay, and to get rid of it would be a net loss.
It is a tool that you can use to plug holes in your team, to create fallbacks against threats if your main answer gets overwhelmed or punch holes where your opponent might not expect. It can be used both defensively and offensively, either in response to an action or in anticipation of it. Like any part of a team it can be used well, or poorly.
We can identify key abusers of it, and we can ban them. Banning Kingambit, Dragapult or even Volcarona would not destroy the meta. The nature of NatDex means that with so many different offensive options it's impossible to check them all, so it will have a greater banlist than more limited formats. A couple more won't hurt. You can also even take advantage of their common Tera options with your own Tera.
And most importantly, in my opinion, it is the core mechanic of Gen 9. Unless it's completely insane to the degree that Dynamax was, we should be fighting to keep it. If Dynamax never existed, we would not be seeing anywhere near the pro-ban support we are currently.

I know there are problems with Tera, and I agree the meta would be more stable without it, but I firmly believe the handful of additional bans are worth it to keep Tera around. There were voices against Mega Evolution, but it's still here. There were voices against Z-Moves, but they're still here. In my opinion, Tera deserves to stay.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
In the interest of democracy, yes. There is enough outcry to merit it. My personal view is that it's still too similar to the last vote, but the people have spoken.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
Nothing. We've banned a few Pokemon but, from what I've seen, it's mainly just been more people losing games and blaming Tera because a sweeper happened to use it after setting up. If the only options are Ban or DNB, I will be voting DNB.

 

[hidin]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
GET THIS SHIT OUT!!!!!!!

What's to say that already hasn't been said, this mechanic has plagued the tier for way too long and nearly the entire playerbase wants it gone. It's time to suspect this bullshit so our tier can actually develop and not just be a steady line of bans that are mostly because of Terastallization. I'll say as a council member myself tiering for this metagame is quite a pain, and hearing people being upset about the big red flag in the tier is really, really annoying, so I'd just like to send this shit to hell and not look back.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
Have you not seen the tier in the last few months? Tour play has been joke-like due to this mechanic, laddering for some is just borderline skilless because of the mechanic, and 98% of the community wants it gone. There is no reason to not do a suspect on Tera.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
Read the above, I don't have anything else to add.

I really hope everyone in the community bands together to get this shit out of the tier for good. This has gone on for too damn long, this metagame is extremely volatile due to this bullshit and I don't like that at all. The council and the playerbase alike believe that this mechanic is too much for the tier, so when the inevitable suspect comes I will be voting ban on Tera with the swiftness. I've typed very little but you can probably expect a video on this

e - also know ive tried convincing other council members for a tera qb for a long bit, trust me i really do want this sent to caelid lol

 

[War Incarnate]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?

1. My thoughts have not changed on this topic so you can read my original post. I think it's fun and works somewhat fine in SV OU [even then that's on the edge with HOME having dropped] but Tera is unbalanced here in NatDex. Lots of threats to prepare for and those threats being extremely dangerous in their own right [unusually so!] means Tera only makes those threats even more dangerous; you can't account for all of them and sooner or later you're just bound to run into an unwinnable matchup. And that's basically the short version, I won't try and reinvent the wheel here - it's no Dyna, but it is still unhealthy in its own ways.
2. I think we should! Tera was quite polarising at the beginning of the gen and now that we've gotten a chance to see NatDex develop with it, everyone and their mother has turned against it. I don't think it's ruining the tier but the way I see it as an outsider it's definitely not contributing one bit to making the meta much healthier. And if we are to make this meta healthier I think looking at Tera would be the main way to go about it.
3. Not much; shit keeps getting banned partly because Tera just makes them even more batshit crazy and the same threats that you cannot ignore get even stronger because Tera lets them completely flip matchups and/or break things they shouldn't be able to. In addition, people are just gonna find new ways to abuse Tera, be it new Tera types for different mons [Tera Fire Kingambit anyone?], new mons that can abuse Tera to ridiculous extents, hell, even team styles evolving to abuse Tera to the fullest. Banning the top users of Tera fails since sooner or later something new is gonna come to the forefront that uses Tera to ridiculously broken extents, and this cycle will always continue for as long as Tera is allowed.

TL;DR: Tera is not fine in NatDex, therefore it is deserving of a suspect test and a ban. Not gonna reinvent the wheel here so this post was kept short as a result.

 

[peap]

A couple thoughts here - in short, I think we have one chance to test Tera again and need to make sure we are ready and have isolated what's truly broken in the meta.

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?

Nothing that hasn't been said, but I want to emphasize that the flip side of "beating things you shouldn't be able to beat" is to "check things that shouldn't be checked". SV NatDex OU is already an incredibly diverse, offensive meta and Tera offers defensive utility to check would-be sweepers.​

​

Let's look at the balance of common Tera instances right now:​

1. Already, reliable defensive patterns have emerged - see Tera Water Ground-Types like Landorus-Therian, Gliscor, and Great Tusk; Tera Dragon Water-Types like Toxapex and Dondozo; and weakness-flipping Teras like Fire on Kingambit, Fairy on Garganacl, and Grass on Heatran.
2. Offensively, Tera STAB on Kingambit, Tapu Lele, Barraskewda and Urshifu-Rapid are common; other straightforward offensive Teras like Tera Grass on Iron Moth, Normal on Dragonite, Psychic on Polteageist help break through would-be resists or add power.
3. Additionally, some hyper offense leads use Tera Ghost to spinblock hazards.

But the gray area we are concerned with is:​

4. Cases where a setup sweeper Terastallizes so as not to be revengeable at all. Tera Poison setup sweepers such as Cresselia or Tapu Fini are definitely of concern, along with Tera Steel Iron Valiant, Baxcalibur, and Zamazenta eliminate the possibility of Toxic damage or create a resistance to priority Normal-type Fake out and Extremespeed that are normally used to check such sweepers. Garganacl gets a mention as an incredibly oppressive Tera user, although it has an idiosyncratically good ability and stat distribution. Additionally, Haze and Clear Smog are simply very hard moves to run in an offensive meta, being limited to certain passive walls like Toxapex, Clodsire/Quagsire, and Gastrodon. It does worry me when matchups are unwinnable, like LBN's Cresselia this NDWC (but it is entertaining on the winning side):

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?

The examples in case (4) are clearly uncompetitive for the metagame. Instances where Tera generates little-to-no counterplay or invalidates entire and general types of teams should in my opinion be banned from the tier after due diligence and community input.​

​

But I think it is too soon after the introduction of Pokemon Home, too early in our first Gen 9 tournament circuit, and too close to our last test of Terastallization to introduce another test. I strongly urge people reading this to think about what is broken: the Pokemon using Tera, the moveset they have access to (Stored Power is a common move for the most egregious Tera abusers, although much harder to isolate than Shed Tail, and Garganacl still...exists). My personal answer is that we don't know yet if Tera is broken: we have a smaller playerbase than SV OU and we are a week out from Pokemon Home, but we do have several upcoming tournaments in NDWC playoffs, NDLT, and NDPL to develop the meta.​

​

As long as the enjoyment of players isn't impaired - and I would bet several minor body parts that the meta is lots more competitive and enjoyable after the Shed Tail and Espathra bans - then we should stay the course and evaluate individual Pokemon for suspects before coming to a consensus of possibly testing the generation-defining mechanic. One last point is that we very likely cannot do this a third time. It's a big deal to remove Tera, and if we don't gather the necessary well-informed votes, what if the next outcome turns out to be the wrong one? Baton Pass was banned from Gen 4 in 2021, sure, but what's a bit more time to test and make sure we make the best long-term decision for Gen 9 Natdex?​

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?

​

Not a ton. See above for comments on timing + home + smaller playerbase. I think we need at least two more major tournaments to get a better handle on this issue.​

 

[TheRainQueen]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
Tera is sometimes fun, but is absolutely terrible for the competitiveness of the tier, and I have all but quit playing gen 9 natdex due to its effect on games.
Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
Yes Tera should be retested, one could reference the million other posts going into more detail. TLDR, any mon being able to beat any other mon at an unpredictable time fundamentally breaks pokemon. The tier is incredibly MU-dependent and swingy, and Tera makes it impossible to prepare for threats in the builder - there is always SOME random Tera mon that will 6-0 you (not an exaggeration, mons like cress volc garg regularly flawless opponents in tour).
What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
The last Tera vote was a majority one vote short of a ban, including one or more joke votes, and had significant voter apathy since it was assumed Tera would be yeeted into the sun. Many of the worst Tera abusers were banned, and new ones keep cropping up, with the most dangerous mons in the tier often being those that best abuse the mechanic.

We have seen what the tier is like with Tera and it's not good. Retest it, please.

 

[goldensun87]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
Tera is not broken, Tera is versatile.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
No, I do not think Tera should be retested, because Tera adds a brilliant layer of skill to each and every battle. There are several different incentives for when and what kind of Tera might be used. Hard-hitting offensive, long-haul defensive, revenge kill, opportunistic kill, last-minute turnaround, the possibilities are all exciting to implement, and the strategies which are used against me, I am inspired to adapt to them. After all, the whole point of Terastallization is to encourage the player to master adapting to multiple different challenges.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
I don't think anything has changed since the original suspect test.

 

[Zobirisking]

1) What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?

For a long time, I thought that Tera would be a fun mechanic that isn't too broken, however, that changed. After trying it out for half a year, I realised that it's uncompetetive and needs to be banned. In a balanced metagame, there should always be enough answers to any Pokemon available, otherwise the game becomes very unfair and isn't as enjoyable anymore. No matter if Tera is used to check your opponent defensively (like Tera Ghost or Flying Kingambit) or offensively (like Tera Dark or Steel Kingambit), this mechanic is unfair, because you never know when your opponent is gonna use it and you sometimes don't even know how your opponent is using it, and one mistake can oftentimes change the whole game.

2) Do you think Tera should be retested?
Yes :)

Why?
There are two reasons why I think Tera MUST be suspect tested.
• Firstly, almost the whole community really wants Tera to be suspect tested, no matter if they want to keep it or not.
• Secondly, Tera is the ONLY reason why some Pokemon are too powerful (like Shedinja and Regieleki).

My favorite example for this is Dragapult. It's an incredibly fast Pokemon that easily fits on most teams and has many different viable movesets. However, it's for sure not busted with the addition of the new Pokemon, because all of it's movesets have enough answers against it.
However, Tera makes it absolutely ridiculous to me.

• Dragon Dance + Tera Blast with any non STAB Type makes it possible to defeat almost everything.
For example, Tera Fighting deleats Kingambit, Tera Grass is great for any Water Type like Mega Swampert and Tera Steel easily defeats most fairy types that would normally answer Dragapult like Unaware Clefable.

• The next one is my favorite set that I am using in Pokemon Scarlet right now, which is Choise Band Dragapult.
With Choise Band + Tera, its damage output becomes ridiculous:

252 Atk Choice Band Tera Dragon Dragapult Dragon Darts (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian: 340-400 (106.5 - 125.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 Atk Choice Band Tera Ghost Dragapult Tera Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tapu Koko: 282-332 (100.3 - 118.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

• The last one that comes to my mind is Choise Specs Dragapult.

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Dragon Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Toxapex: 260-306 (85.8 - 100.9%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Ghost Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 362-428 (97.5 - 115.3%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

I don't think I need to add anything else here.



3) What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?

I think Tera stayed legal the first time because a lot of people (including myself) thought that it would be too early to ban the new mechanic from gen9 and wanted to try something new for a longer time. It was very fun to use and didn't feel broken to me at first, but the more games I have played, the more unhealthy it feels to me.
In my opinion, no Pokemon should be able to defeat its answers and flip the whole game just because of one perfect turn, which often happens because of Tera.
For a more balanced metagame, TERASTALLIZATION NEEDS TO GO!

 

[R8]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
My main gripe about Tera is the effect it has on the builder. While it does have some skill based aspects, and technically does reward creativity, it also makes properly accounting for the metagame pretty much impossible. Of course, I'm not saying we should be able to 100% counter everything - we would play a very silly game if that was even possible -, but on the other hand you should not have to pray you don't face whatever X threat or archetype you could not fit counterplay for. There is way too much threats running around, and the flexibility Tera gives you in the builder is far from enough to compensate the amount of shit it enables, and I feel like cheese is rewarded to very ridiculous extents. The top tiers aren't the only offenders, stuff like Mew, Cresselia and Gliscor can prove to be really ridiculous to deal with thanks to tera, and to me it would really be going wayyyy too far to ban these as well on top of all the top threat shit that are already not ok just for the sake of preserving this mechanic.

NatDex formats tend to already require a tremendous amount of tiering effort in order to be balanced (You can compare NatdexOU/UU/RU tiering history with official OU/UU/RU metagames to be convinced of that, both in gen9 and gen8.), and tera guarantee to make that much, much worse. I really don't understand why we shouldn't save our time by yeeting what is (imo) the n*1 most problematic element in the metagame: we already banned one billion things but the metagame never failed to not be a shitfest as people continued to find new dumb tera abusers. Yes, maybe tera will be fine once we nuke enough stuff, but I do not think Tera is worth preserving over all we would have to ban to keep it.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
Imo the first suspect was premature, as a lot of people (including myself) still wanted to see more about the mechanic to have a definitive opinion on the matter. It is a very important matter, and there is absolutely no reason to rush for a decision so early, so in a way I think the fact that it didn't end up getting banned was in a way a good thing. Since I started to play National Dex about three years ago, I have never seen so many complaints about the state of the tier, and the immense majority of them are related to Tera in some way. Of course there always is a minority disagreeing with the consensus, but from what I saw people from that group usually either still agree Tera is a problem but argue in favour of limiting the mechanic/banning the main abusers instead of banning the mechanic as a whole, either just do not agree with Smogon's philosophy on tiering.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
People hate it much more, and also probably are now aware that doing troll votes is a bad idea lol

 

[Solaros & Lunaris]

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?

Wanted to respond to this question specifically, as I have come back from a pretty long hiatus and have noriced some metagame shifts that relate to Tera. Notably, perceptions around deficated Tera abusers or “Tera eaters” (the most prominent being Skeledirge) seem to have shifted to quite a negative stance. It’s not hard to see why this is the case; forfeiting the flexibility of the mechanic can often be a liability in the midst of a game, especially one as volatile as ours. This takes away a fundamental argument from anti-ban players, who often argue that the mechanic is great for boosting a Pokwmon’s defensive profile. While that’s great news, why not just crush everything with tera Water rain mons or flip otherwise losing matchups into winning ones? As Kyo said way back, ”nine times out of ten I don't even bother [using defensive Tera] because why the f*ck would I when choiced Tera dark Chien Pao or Tera fire Victini can 2hko their "counters" with a resisted attack offering way more value in just about every match”. And speaking of Chien-Pao, general sentiment surrounding the metagame seems to still be negative despite a multitude of bans (both those of insane Tera abusers and Pokemon broken on their own). I think it speaks to a greater issue when otherwise solid Pokemon get the banhammer purely off of a mechanic, and this still seems to be a problem down the line (Kingambit, Volcarona, Cresselia, Gliscor, etc. all have extremely easy ways of getting around checks thanks to this mechanic). Overall, while the mechanic itself hasn’t really changed (outside of getting new abusers), I think the shift in sentiment to Tera eaters, the multitude of bans that have occurred due to Tera, and people becoming even smarter with its use even after said bans warrants a suspect.

My answers to the orher questions have been largely summed up above, but you can read them in my own words here and here.

 

[InstantOofles]

This is coming from a player who isn’t in the competitive scene and is just the average joe, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt.

1) I initially thought tera was a pretty cool gimmick. It would open up a lot more crazy teambuilding gimmicks and all that. Got to see and use some mons be used and actually work which is kinda nice. I thought it’d be a bit of a shame to ban the generation mechanic early on(I wasn’t too much of a fan of gen 8 ou “stale” meta so I made the jump to ndou but getting off topic.) However, my entertainment isn’t the end all be all. Take Calyrex-S for example. Amazing offensive spAtk, speed and moves. Heavily countered by the occasional Tyranitar and Yveltal (which was practically running around in every Ubers and AG team) and could be revenge killed by Marshadow shadow sneak/pursuit mind games. It only had draining kiss, a measly 50 bp move, as coverage for yveltal, but with tera fairy/fighting it not only provides stab coverage 80 bp move against dark types, but also resistance to it. This sort of stuff is when it gets out of hand, just straight railing through what was supposed to be a counter.

Not really answering a question, but I agree with all or nothing decision. Even if they added a restriction like idk the ability to see what Tera a mon has, that doesn’t mean that you have the ability to stop it. And even if you do with your own tera, was it really worth it? Cause you just dealt with ONE mon, what about the other FIVE that you may have opened yourself up to? There’s just way too many variables that it’s downright unhealthy.

So long story short, I think it should be banned.

 

[Epicgamergod69]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
Despite my extreme thoughts on this subject I will try my best to keep this civil; it is unhealthy for the future of the tier and it is a glorified gamble and some may say that "pokemon is all about luck" while that may be true that luck is just odds this luck is based on human choice and adds an unnecessary level of complexity.
Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
Yes absolutely, the reason I say this is the original suspect was far too early and we were still under the effects of new toy syndrome and now that it has died down it would be ideal to get our honest less biased opinions now that the meta has developed more.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
Since the original test the new toy aspect of tera has dissipated giving way to the evidently unhealthy nature of the mechanic that adds a guessing game tera is by all means a "The Rich Get Richer" mentality very few mons that are bad otherwise are good because of tera if any and the mons that would be good are even better. I have had numerous discussions in the ndou room about tera and the majority of others agree with me when i say it isnt good for the tier. In conclusion my viewpoint is that tera needs to go.

 

[Slowpoke Fan]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
It is unhealthy for the metagame and should be banned. As the esteemed Solaros & Lunaris has detailed in his post, the mechanic is offensively inclined in high-power metagames - it is much more rewarding to terastallise a powerful attacker or cheesy setup sweeper to break through their checks and put extreme pressure on the opponent (which is typically only answered by an offensive terastallisation of their own in an offence vs offence slugfest). Perhaps the mechanic might be balanced in tiers like SU (shoutout to missangelic and AstilCodex, also check out the tier if you are interested in a bulky, low-powered metagame where defensive terastallisation is just as good as its offensive counterpart ), but it turns NDOU matches into praying sessions that your opponent will not pack a certain terastallisation with the capability of ploughing through your team far too much for my liking.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
Absolutely, the first test retained the mechanic on the finest of margins and complaints about the mechanic have only grown since then.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
People finally coming to their senses and getting over caricatures of the previous generation to see that banning the mechanic would create a healthier metagame.

 

[Latiasboy]

What is your stance on Tera in the metagame?
Nothing much to say, that hasn‘t already been said multiple times. Tera makes the tier much less competitive, so i think it should be banned.

Do you think Tera should be retested? Why?
When it was tested the first time, Tera barely hung on. Now that there are more and more complaints about Tera, it would probably get banned if there was a suspect test for it. I voted „ban“ then and i would vote „ban“ now.

What do you think has changed since the original suspect test, which ended in a no ban vote, that would justify retesting Tera?
The tier didn‘t really change a lot since the last Tera-supect, but after we got more time with it, there still is no consistent counterplay against Wallbreakers like Tera Psychic Lele, Tera Water Basculegion(Floatzel before that) or Set-up-sweepers like Tera Grass Volcarona and it probably won‘t develop anytime soon. I think, that should be enough to proof that Tera is broken beyond repair.

 

[sh0shin]

ban it