Why was the combination of using Gravity and a inaccurate sleep inducing move banned in double battles on Showdown?

Question

The combination known as Gravity Sleep is banned in double battles on Showdown. Why is it? Does it create some sort of weird effect?

Answer 1

On Jan 21, 2020, the Doubles council reinstated the Gravity Sleep Clause.

Reasoning: The clause was originally removed due to the Council's belief that the combination of Gravity and inaccurate sleep-inducing attacks would not be a negative force within the metagame and the desire to shrink the banlist. However, it quickly became apparent that Gravity + Sleep was still significantly unhealthy, and that if it were to be freed it should be done by a public vote. As such, the clause has been reinstated for the time being.

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Alright here we go :psywoke:

First things first, removing GravSleep Clause was a fine decision at the time. We had little reason to believe it would be oppressive, and it is true that one of our goals is to make the banlist minimal while still maintaining a healthy metagame. Removing a clause that appeared to have little to no relevance seemed like it would meet those goals, so we made a decision to remove the clause with the stipulation that we would be fast to revisit it if necessary (more on this later). What we definitely could have done better is communicate. There was almost no discussion in this thread regarding GravSleep clause before its removal, as most of it took place on Discord if I recall correctly. That is something the council is aware of and will work to fix going forward.

When GravSleep was freed, this was the exact wording from talkingtree's post:
talkingtree said:
If in the future this proves to be an issue again, the council will act swiftly in restoring this clause and possibly figuring out how to handle Orbeetle, but for now we're expecting this change to have minimal impact on the metagame.
The second half of that sentence was clearly incorrect. As such, we're sticking to what we said in the first half. GravSleep Clause will be reinstated under the following terms:
Gravity Sleep Clause: Sleep moves with below one hundred percent accuracy may not be used in conjunction with Gravity or Gigantamax Orbeetle
The inclusion of Gmax Orbeetle in this clause does increase the complexity of the clause but is a necessary evil; if we are to ban something, the council believes we must cover all instances.

The plan going forward is to evaluate the metagame over the coming weeks to determine what the potentially problematic elements are, either with or without the inclusion of GravSleep. Whatever the general consensus, the result will very likely be a suspect test. I really liked what miltankmilk said about the burden of proof being on the council as to why GravSleep should be legal as opposed to it being on the people who didn't make the decision as to why it should remain banned. If we decide down the road that we want to reexamine GravSleep, it will be in the form of a suspect test that would required a 60% vote to unban as usual. If we decide that something else could be done about a different aspect of the metagame, we would likely suspect that instead. The general timeline for such a suspect would be such that SPL XI is not affected by the result.

In the meantime, we'd like to encourage further discussion, especially here on the forums. The council never wants to make decisions without consulting public opinion first, which was likely our main mistake with the freeing of GravSleep. Posting your thoughts in this thread is the best way to make sure your opinion is heard, as even though discussion on Discord is great for real time conversation, it's much harder to catch up on live conversations and forum posts tend to be much more organized by nature.

A quick note on OHKO Clause: it's not going anywhere. Any further discussion of it would just be a waste of energy, as the council does not see any need whatsoever to release OHKO moves into the metagame.

Thanks for bearing with us, our goal is the same as yours: to play some doubles and have some fun. Hopefully we can all work together to get there.

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Comments

but what makes GravSleep overpowered?

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It's overpowered because, well, look at the other sleep move with 100 percent accuracy-spore. It has a limitation of failing to a grass type, to make sure that it has a counter. So, if all sleep move were a sure hit, not only would the move spore be worse, the other moves would basically be spore with no drawback

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sleep powder still has the limitation of failing on grasses

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but what about GravSleep makes the sleep moves a sure hit?

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Gravity increases accuracy.

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Oh, maybe Pokemaster should update the Gravity page then.

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Answer on here https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/meta/55591/report-minor-site-errors-here (if you haven't already)

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Pokemon DB has a lot of errors. Bulbapedia pages like this one ( https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Gravity_(move) ) are usually more accurate.