Announcement DPP OU Metagame Survey results

[mael]

We conducted a survey to gather what actively playing people think of the current DPP OU Metagame and gauge the general state of the metagame as well as opinions on specific pokemon / moves, possibly as an input for potential tiering decisions.
Criteria used for selection were:

• Top 16 of Jirachees DPP Invitational,
• Top 16 Circuit 2022,
• Top 8 of DPP Cup 2022 and 2023,
• Seasonal finalists 2023,
• SPL 2023 with 6+ games played or 3+ wins.

33 out of 44 people who qualified gave a response. Here is a summary:

General State of the metagame

Tier appraisal has risen compared to the last survey, with significantly more people scoring it at 9 or 10 (7 and 3 more respectively, with 13 more votes) and less people giving it 5 or fewer points. The averages compare to 7.54 this survey vs 7 on the dot last survey. People seem to generally consider teambuilding a little easier than last time a survey was conducted. This generally speaks well of the metagame and aligns well with what people say in discussion on discord or in other chat rooms.

Jirachi

While it appears that there is a significant amount of people that want tiering action on Jirachi, the most desired outcome was an Iron Head ban, which is not allowed. Some of these votes specifically stated that banning Iron Head would be good but banning Jirachi would be bad. Nonetheless it is clear that 60+% considered Jirachi problematic and only 12% considered it balanced. This is undeniably a strong result. Most of the responses could be categorized into either a) jirachi is tough but banning it has negative consequences on the metagame, b) ban jirachi, c) ban iron head/flinching moves or d) jirachi is fine. judging from written responses the general consensus seems to be that people would want to see tiering action on Jirachi but not actually a Jirachi ban.

Clefable

Very few people considered Clefable to be a problem and of those who did the general complaint was also directed at Knock off (or a simple and straight-forward "i hate the fucker" lol). Some general complaints about the ability Magic Guard were also made. Most people equate Clefable with the Stall playstyle in general and are of the opinion that the metagame is well equipped vs stall.

Latias

Again a pretty decent portion of the players thinks that Latias is totally fine. There were some concerns raised towards the defensive set enabling to many other pokemon to be problematic. However it seems like generally Latias is considered to be a good addition to the tier. There was a significant amount of people wanting Latias gone if Jirachi leaves. Again this is exactly what you gather from public discussions too.

Spore/Sleep

Pretty unspectacular result. People like Breloom being viable and think that Spore is generally fine. Some concerns regarding team building restriction were raised and some had general issues with the sleep mechanic. Most of the players like it as it is though.

Dry Pass

It seems like almost everyone is in favour of unbanning Dry Pass, just to give people some more options. Some said DPP is a great metagame and thus a change is not needed and some raised concerns towards any form of mean or trap passing. Generally people would like at least a test, if not a straight reintroduction of Baton Pass to the tier.

As for general open questions towards what people would do to improve the tier you could group them in three categories: a) nothing, dpp is great b) ban jirachi / latias and c) unban mew, mence (and once wynaut lol).

The last survey for reference: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dpp-ou-post-spl-xiii-survey-results-and-discussion.3702490/
Link to the new one, in case anyone else wants to give input and to see general playerbase opinions: https://forms.gle/2vek4tAorLLj571W7

Thank you and have a nice day.

 

[george182]

I was always surprised that baton pass was banned in Gen 4. Back when people laddered a lot everyone considered baton pass in the team builder, which didn't take a lot. Any team can basically reverse their matchup against baton pass by changing 1 move on 1 pokemon. If you don't want to make that change, then that's sort of the game, analysing the meta and betting against the most popular strategies.

I also challenge the notion that gen 4 baton pass was completely uncompetitive. I've played against it a lot and it is rarely ever decided on turn 1. Games could last 20+ turns before the switching around dances had finished and the result was locked in. I've also played with it a little bit and in my experience the people who complained the most, were the people who played the worst against it. You don't just get +6/+6 on a Hypno because it's got some speed boosts.

 

[johnnyg2]

I was always surprised that baton pass was banned in Gen 4. Back when people laddered a lot everyone considered baton pass in the team builder, which didn't take a lot. Any team can basically reverse their matchup against baton pass by changing 1 move on 1 pokemon. If you don't want to make that change, then that's sort of the game, analysing the meta and betting against the most popular strategies.

I also challenge the notion that gen 4 baton pass was completely uncompetitive. I've played against it a lot and it is rarely ever decided on turn 1. Games could last 20+ turns before the switching around dances had finished and the result was locked in. I've also played with it a little bit and in my experience the people who complained the most, were the people who played the worst against it. You don't just get +6/+6 on a Hypno because it's got some speed boosts.

I think the main issue between laddering back in the day vs bp vs when it got banned was how much more optimized it could be and the tools the tier has to handle it. Back in the day, I agree, dealing with taunt bp gliscor was annoying, but w enough offensive pressure, you could force your way through it and survive the meta or whatever they were passing to.

As time went on, people just optimized it way way better than back then. Ninjask was very difficult for the offensive teams to handle of that era, as w para support and potentially trick support (commonly used w azelf and starmie), you could very easily get a speed boost w para giving you free turns and maybe more and if you pass to maro or poliwrath w a sub up it was gg. Phazing is also rather uncommon outside of stall and you could always back it up w gliscor too to destroy slower teams. Optimized bp in 2019ish wasn’t around for too long before it got the ban hammer iirc. This doesn’t even account for ridiculously broken stuff like togekiss bping ancientpower boosts.

I think it is also just a fundamental change from when you and I started out. Back then, fundamental changes in the tier were relatively rare if at all. But now, we prefer more proactive approaches to uncompetitive elements. Sure, there’s counters to bp, but it requires an extraordinary change in how offensive teams are built to handle it. Why allow this when optimized bp doesn’t really add anything of value to the tier?

Edit: this post has a lot of good content of when it was banned including some sample replays: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...baton-pass-is-now-banned.3663689/post-8455430

 

[george182]

Thanks for the explanation. I do see several people complaining about a rushed decision in that thread.

I see a strong argument against Poliwrath and Marowak baton pass. But I'd argue that one of the reasons that team was effective was because the opponents weren't prepared for a Marowak or Poliwrath sweep. The re-introduction of Scarf Latias should have a big effect here, outspeeding both at +2.

You could make a similar argument for Gyra being broken if you didn't A) immediately respect the threat and B) have some suitable checks in place.

It seems difficult to make a judgement call when there's only 2 replays against baton pass shared in the entire thread.

 

[Hydra089]

I miss baton pass.