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5/7 to passKyosealooLameflamehidinpeapChrisomarsgarciavFinal
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TeraDo Not SuspectSuspectDo Not SuspectSuspectSuspectsuspectSuspectSUSPECT
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NotesThis isn't really an easy decision for me to make, but I still find that I'm not able to support a third Tera suspect test. For me, there was a point after the second test concluded where I felt like we needed to accept the results and move forward with tiering National Dex OU around Tera as a mechanic. I would have preferred that Tera was banned after the first or second test, but I also don't really agree with the idea of retesting something over and over until a specific outcome is reached. Even second suspect tests are pretty uncommon without serious extenuating circumstances. No disrespect to anyone who still wants to see Tera suspect tested a third time. If a third suspect happens, I will vote ban as I have in the past two tests. Otherwise, I've made my peace with Tera remaining in the tier for this generation. There are other tools at our disposal, and I'd prefer to continue using them rather than revisiting the same topic ad nauseam.originally I leaned towards not supporting a third suspect, however, I concluded at this point that the damage tera has done to the tier is way too apparent to the point where it'd be doing a disservice to not host a third test. The dissatisfaction with the meta has spanned a rather long time period now as seen in the survey results hovering at a rather mediocre mark for enjoyment/balance despite various mons bans. At this point, the root cause appears to be tera and with the cards handed to us by the 2nd DLC, I believe it is worthy of consideration one last time in this meta that has degenerated to stale, unfun nonsense for many playersFrom a player-perspective, the prospect of a third Tera test can be tempting when you consider the staleness of the current metagame, the prospect of potential unbans in a non-Tera metagame, and the likely reduced variance in the tier. I also think the community is generally right to be frustrated with the state of the tier, and I believe we should be taking a more proactive and/or creative approach to tiering moving forward post-NDPL. However, I do not feel a third suspect is appropriate for a few reasons. First, from a purely procedural standpoint this would be uncharted territory, and I am not eager to set a precedent that arguably encourages outcome-fishing. There is, after all, a reason why we are voting on whether Tera needs a third suspect: because it was fairly determined to have survived the first and the second. Additionally, I am personally not convinced that Tera is the single biggest issue with the tier. I believe we can improve the tier's balance and player enjoyment with an emphasis on centralizing the tier around less constricting threats, while also considering some other creative approaches via council slate.- Think with the opportunity provided we should act on something that's had non-stop controversy even after two tests. Will be voting on how I view Tera in the meta instead of basing it on tiering policies as any that would contradict this test would be moot since permission was given.There are many disagreeable optics around suspecting Terastallization a third time, with the community having failed to ban it twice. The threshold for conducting another test is high, but I believe the NDOU metagame has reached that threshold through three main criteria:

a) A high number of competitive games played in NDPL, which along with NDWC, advances the metagame in leaps and bounds. The evolution this year was not favorable towards fair, skill-based playability. The equilibrium of the meta has settled into hyper offense mirrors that come down more to guesswork, surprise factors, and RNG than player skill to determine the winner.

b) Additional Pokémon released since the last Terastallization suspect on June 2023. DLC2 released in December 2023, and brought with it a number of quickly ranked A-tier and S-tier Pokemon. Several of these Pokémon, in a large part due to Tera, have been banned, the most notorious being Walking Wake, Bloodmoon Ursuluna, and Gouging Fire. Yet Raging Bolt, Iron Crown, and others remain as extremely viable options to Hyper Offense archetypes. The DLC2 Pokémon, in short, has blown away the metagame stability that we might have achieved with just DLC1. For me, this is a valid and large difference since the second test to justify retesting, since per criteria a) the metagame is still unstable even given a number of bans that are arguably more restrictive than OU.

c) To support the first two criteria, the divergence in our metagame with SV OU is concerning. National Dex includes all SV OU Pokémon at the start of a generation, and the addition of unavailable Pokémon, Mega Evolutions, and Z-moves gives National Dex a higher power ceiling. Very notably, we have banned Kingambit, Zamazenta, Walking Wake, Darkrai, Gholdengo - among others - that remain legal in SV OU. Assuming SV OU has decent playability - at least more than NDOU - this means that the addition of the National Dex and Z-moves results in different metagame equilibria than the cartridge generation. Because our equilibria are different, we should also try to suspect Terastallization again as a root cause, because the current series of divergent bans is clearly not working out for National Dex.

As an aside, I think arguments of "I told you so" or "I knew this mechanic was broken since the start of the generation" are ineffective and flawed justifications for a third suspect. We didn't know, and the community overall didn't feel strongly convicted enough to vote Tera to go. It could theoretically have been perfectly possible to have a fair and balanced meta in the DLC1 or base SV metagames.		tier could prob be good without a tera sus but nobody wants to tier that for good reasonI have been extremely vocal about my disdain towards tera for quite a while now. This is playing exactly like everyone predicted before even the first suspect, a billion mons have been banned and every time one does get banned another just takes its place and gets itself banned, and thus I truly believe the only way to save this tier is by getting rid of the problem from the core
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