What to know?

 

Jirachi has taken the Doubles metagame by storm, by being one of the most versatile and valuable Pokemon in the Doubles metagame. Boasting great 100 stats all across the board, great defensive typing, large movepool and most importantly - access to Follow Me - has made Jirachi an insanely valuable asset to many Doubles teams. Jirachi has become quickly the most prevalent Follow Me user in the entire metagame, while also carrying multiple other sets to catch opponents by surprise (such as Calm Mind/Cosmic Power sets). Jirachi has become very popular and very high winrate carrying Pokemon in the PokeMMO Doubles metagame.

 

What is the issue?

 

While it is very rare for things to become Uber territory in Doubles environment, due to having more counter-play available with the presence of two Pokemon on the field, Jirachi may have potentially crossed this line. This is due to the insane versatility that Jirachi carries, which has a very unhealthy effect on the metagame. The value Jirachi brings to the table and the unpredictability opponents have to face when battling against Jirachi has resulted the Doubles metagame in many negative ways.

 

How is Jirachi potentially banworthy?

 

Jirachi could be classified Uber in Doubles environment for two ways - Support Ubers and Unhealthy characteristics. 

 

One could make the case that Jirachi in Doubles environment is Support Uber Characteristics. Jirachi's ability to support its team is second to none. First and foremost, Jirachi is easily the best Follow Me Pokemon in the game, with its enormous bulk and great defensive typing. Not only this but Jirachi has plenty of supportive options available to really pin opponent into bad positions. The most obvious one is Jirachi's 60% flinch chance Iron Head. While for example Togekiss also carries the combination of Follow Me and 60% flinch move, Jirachi does this role enormously better because of its higher speed stat and Steel-type being far more spammable in the Doubles metagame than Flying-type attacks. Jirachi also does have very few Pokemon that can really oppress it. Ground-types like Garchomp have to be extremely vary of Icy Wind, leaving Jirachi being most threatened by Fire-types, which aren't the most common types in Doubles metagame to begin with. Furthermore Jirachi has other supportive tools available like Stealth Rock, Imprison, Encore, Fake Tears, Trick Room and all this is just scratching the surface. While Doubles metagame has plenty of great supportive options available, the ability in which Jirachi can support its team is miles above anything we have had in Doubles metagame yet.

 

However, it all mostly comes down to Follow Me. While Smogon isn't and shouldn't be used to determine PokeMMO tiering decisions directly, it needs to be noted that in Smogon environment when Jirachi had access to the event move Follow Me, it was considered to be Doubles Ubers while without Follow Me it was deemed fine for the metagame. Follow Me can be argued is what truly pushes Jirachi to the incredible territory. It is miles better than any other Follow Me user like Togekiss, Blastoise, Electabuzz to name a few. So even if Jirachi wasn't deemed Supportive Ubers, it could still be argued that Jirachi monopolizing Follow Me play to itself has a notably unhealthy effect to the Doubles metagame, enough to warrant a ban.

 

Another way which Jirachi is potentially unhealthy is being so unpredictable what comes to the role of Jirachi in the battle in general. Opponents could be caught completely off guard expecting to face a normal support Jirachi that suddenly starts to set up a sweep of its own with Calm Mind/Cosmic Power and opponent suddenly having no tools to stop this unexpected moveset.

 

The solution?

 

There are two potential solutions if Jirachi is considered banworthy. 1) Ban Jirachi from Doubles metagame 2) Remove event-move Follow Me from Jirachi

 

Normally, complex bans are not desired because they leave a bad precedent. This could be argued in this situation as well, because ever removing any part of a Pokemon may open the floodgates for discussing if some other oppressive Pokemon should only have part of it removed to balance the tier. However, in this particular case the idea of just removing Follow Me from Jirachi could be worth discussing because it is an event-move and there is clear proof in Smogon environment that Jirachi having access to this move is what pushes it over the edge in Doubles environment. What's also important that this move only has an effect in Doubles, so any changes to this would leave Singles metagame untouched.

 

What also needs to be addressed is that does Doubles metagame really need Jirachi? Generally complex bans are only explored when the alternative (complete ban) would not be a good solution to the healthiness of a metagame. I don't think Doubles metagame necessarily needs Jirachi, so pushing Jirachi as a Pokemon to Doubles Ubers could be also considered and would be the most straight-forward way to deal with the issue.

 

Discussion prompt

 

How do you feel about Jirachi in Doubles? Is it too strong, to the point of being banworthy? If so, is flat banning Jirachi altogether a good solution or should alternatives like Follow Me removal be discussed as a potential solution? We are looking forward to hear your thoughts.

 

 

credit to @OrangeManiac for original draft.

The main reason Jirachi is overwhelming in doubles is its Follow Me, Without Follow Me, it loses the ability to control the battlefield in the same way. Jirachi would still be a strong pokemon with great bulk, speed, and utility, but it wouldn’t be a must-pick in every team. It could still function as a flinch-abusing Iron Head user or a Trick Room/utility mon, but without being overcentralizing. smogon is an strong evidence xdd

The main problem is that you are opening a door that by nature shouldnt be open which is to complex ban something, while it has happened in the past in singles, I'm not sure if a uber's meta would enjoy that?

20 minutes ago, razimove said:

The main problem is that you are opening a door that by nature shouldnt be open which is to complex ban something, while it has happened in the past in singles, I'm not sure if a uber's meta would enjoy that?

I think you're right in most cases, I hate the idea of complex banning things in doubles - but this is one if not the only exception where I think it actually makes sense to do it personally. Jirachi is a great mon still and offers alot to the format even without Follow Me.

I think in hyper specific situations complex banning is alright but it should never be the norm. I'm not pushing hard one way or the other though, but I do generally lean more to full bans than complex ones but if the community would prefer to keep Jirachi in a nerfed state we want to take that into account. This thread is basically asking: Is jirachi broken? Yes or no? If yes, should jirachi be banned from doubles or should the follow me complex ban take place (The precedent being that technically in mainline games follow me was removed from its learn set in gen 9).

not broken

I feel in this case a complex ban as I find the situation of Jirachi in Doubles to be similar to Hydreigon Draco, and Garchomp SD. Taking the Pokemon out itself wouldn't be fun as there are some solid sets without Follow Me. To me it truly is Follow me that pushes it over the edge. The amount of value you get just from it's defensive typing alongside the likes of the set up Dragons, Suicune or more is just uncompetitive/broken if you do not not have the combo of fast Blizzard user/Heatran it's almost impossible to break without losing 2 or more mons. This has put a severe limit on the meta game making very very few team comps viable and have put almost any niche comps out of viability. I said more in the Doubles Tier Discussion when asking for a Jirachi discussion in the first place so I will link it down below but my final opinion is removed Follow Me from Jirachi as I don't believe the Pokemon itself is broken, just it's support with Follow Me + Everything is too much value from one Pokemon. 
 

 

Should we really ban Jirachi from the doubles meta? I think it's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's reasonable since his typing and ability combinations are really good. We all know the problem with Jirachi is its Follow me move, which is its main focus and overused for boosting certain teams (Jira + Hydre/Gallade). So a ban isn't really the solution, but rather removing that move, which has been gone since Gen 9. Ban follow me no jirachi 

Banning the move is clearly the best approach, as this restriction would only affect Doubles.

Doubles functions similarly to OU, where there's no risk of the Pokémon having its natural progression to higher tiers blocked, since there isn't any tier above it. The situation is different in tiers like UU, where a similar change could permanently affect the Pokémon's viability, leaving it fixed in that tier.

As I mentioned in my previous post in the Doubles discussion thread, I'm in favour of removing Follow Me from Jirachi in Doubles, and in this case, rather than Jirachi itself.

 

While Jirachi itself has a great typing, stats and move pool all of which make it quite strong in our current meta, it is the access to Follow Me is what truly makes it so strong in the current Dubs metagame and difficult for most teams to handle. (Although the Smogon Doubles OU metagames are not perfectly reflective of PokeMMO's unique metagame, Jirachi was banned from Gen 5-8 DOU until it lost access to Follow Me.)

 

The combination of Follow Me Jirachi and a number of setup mons, in particular, Nasty Plot Hydreigon, Calm Mind Suicune, to name a few, has already proven to be quite strong in the current Dubs metagame, and is often quite difficult to break through for most teams without expending quite a lot of resources. That isn't to say that there is no counterplays to Jirachi, as Pokemon like Heatran that can threaten strong damage onto Jirachi, but even against Heatran, Jirachi teams can run lots of other techs for Heatran/Chandelure etc. including Wide Guard, fast Earthquakes, etc. In most matchups, Jirachi almost always gets far too much value from one slot, and is (in my opinion) a support Uber in this regard.

 

That being said, I would like to trial Jirachi in the current meta without Follow Me and am in favour of a complex ban of Jirachi + Follow Me.

Edited March 30Mar 30 by Razachu

Let's make a deal; remove the flash on Covert Mantle and in exchange you can ban/remove Follow Me on Jirachi.

Jirachi + Follow me has been banned from Doubles play(and the irrelevant ubers tier)

4 minutes ago, Munya said:

Jirachi + Follow me has been banned from Doubles play(and the irrelevant ubers tier)

This is not fully discussed yet, imo. Show me the evidence why it shall be banned, at least the vote of TC

1. Jirachi follow me set does not has incredible high win rate, which demonstrate it is not a broken mons or set which need to be banned. Although it has a high usage rate, it cannot be the evidence that spamming on follow me jirachi has higher win rate or 'broken'

2. Still cannot prove that jirachi+follow me set is unhealthy. Yes, it is strong, but this combination does not squeeze the usage rate of other follow me pokemon. And u cannot ban it just because smogon think it is unhealthy. Pokemmo meta is totally different from any other generations.

3. The discussion is not over, and people cannot have a ground truth conclusion, it shall not be banned so fast in game. Look at AT dugtrio, sharpness gallade, even lucario.. why this ban come to game so fast? Thats unreasonable.

I feel like this ban is only due to players cannot get use to this new meta with jirachi, and complain to TC, and make this decision in a short time. 

Edited April 2Apr 2 by bobliu

3 hours ago, bobliu said:

1. Jirachi follow me set does not has incredible high win rate, which demonstrate it is not a broken mons or set which need to be banned. Although it has a high usage rate, it cannot be the evidence that spamming on follow me jirachi has higher win rate or 'broken'

I want to acknowledge a couple things about this outside of the Jirachi + Follow Me discussion.

 

We have no way of proving the win rate of Jirachi + Follow Me specifically because there is no usage data that shows what percentage of the time a pokemon uses a specific move. We can only infer the effect Follow Me has on Jirachi's overall usage in the format.

 

3 hours ago, bobliu said:

3. The discussion is not over, and people cannot have a ground truth conclusion, it shall not be banned so fast in game. Look at AT dugtrio, sharpness gallade, even lucario.. why this ban come to game so fast? Thats unreasonable.

I feel like this ban is only due to players cannot get use to this new meta with jirachi, and complain to TC, and make this decision in a short time. 

I wholeheartedly disagree with calling the amount of time this decision took "short." Yes, the specific discussion post was made on March 22, but Jirachi has been around for about 3 months now, so the community has has more than enough time to properly analyze the effect it has on the doubles meta. There have also been discussions on other threads prior to this one opening. I personally don't think the decision on this ban was too rushed.

Why has there been more tiering actions in doubles in the past two months than there has been in the past 8 years? That doesn't concern anyone?
Why ban Follow Me on Jirachi before undoing the vastly unpopular decision of adding a flash on Covert Mantle? 

15 minutes ago, Sargeste said:

I wholeheartedly disagree with calling the amount of time this decision took "short." Yes, the specific discussion post was made on March 22, but Jirachi has been around for about 3 months now, so the community has has more than enough time to properly analyze the effect it has on the doubles meta. There have also been discussions on other threads prior to this one opening. I personally don't think the decision on this ban was too rushed.

Yes, this change happen in game for 3 months. And players get used to this set and combination and feel it is ok for dubs. 

 

Everything is peace and nice, then this thread is open, and before most player notice this discussion, the ban result landed in game.

Thats the reason I think this discussion is not fully discussed, and this ban is not suitable to be made in such a short time.

 

The whole process is similar to a sneaky attack

 

10 replies and jirachi+follow me is banned. I dont feel it is appropriate

.

Edited April 3Apr 3 by Zuladra
Please, delete.

3 hours ago, Zuladra said:

Introducing a public voting system could be a great step toward understanding what “the community actually wants.”

I disagree heavily on this. You dont need to know what the community wants when it comes down to something being healthy or unhealthy. If it's unhealthy, remove it or fix it, simple.

1 hour ago, razimove said:

I disagree heavily on this. You dont need to know what the community wants when it comes down to something being healthy or unhealthy. If it's unhealthy, remove it or fix it, simple.

That sounds like the mindset of a certain type of government: “The population is too ignorant to contribute meaningful insights, so we, the elite, will decide and impose our views because only we possess absolute knowledge of what’s best for you.”

 

A voting system that gives players a voice in the tier council would be much fairer, in my opinion. It would encourage more engagement and discussion while still allowing the tier council to have greater influence and leaving the final decision to the developers.

.

Edited April 3Apr 3 by Zuladra

43 minutes ago, Zuladra said:

That sounds like the mindset of a certain type of government: “The population is too ignorant to contribute meaningful insights, so we, the elite, will decide and impose our views because only we possess absolute knowledge of what’s best for you.”

Sadly that mindset is not wrong a lot of times. It's not about humility, its not about anything really, just look at people that tried to defend dugtrio after the ban, just because they had just managed to have enough funds to copy some chinese team and a day after it got banned. There has to be a line somewhere that filters garbage, ideally there would be community voting but with some sort of restriction like X games played and X elo/Win rate, but that might be too much to implement

On 4/2/2025 at 8:59 PM, razimove said:

Sadly that mindset is not wrong a lot of times.

It only makes sense that you responded this way, so I’ll just leave this here.

Yes, players would need to meet a certain game requirement, but that doesn’t seem too complex to implement. We already have tournaments where higher Elo players receive entry priority.

 

Public voting could actively engage the player base in less popular tiers, benefiting everyone. As I mentioned before, gathering opinions through voting doesn’t diminish the tier council’s authority to steer discussions in a particular direction. In the end, the developers will have the final say.

Edited April 3Apr 3 by Zuladra

1 minute ago, Zuladra said:

It only makes sense that you responded this way, so I’ll just leave this here.

Yes, players would need to meet a certain game requirement, but that doesn’t seem too complex to implement. We already have tournaments where higher Elo players receive entry priority.

 

Public voting could actively engage the player base in less popular tiers, benefiting everyone. As I mentioned before, gathering opinions through voting doesn’t diminish the tier council’s authority to steer discussions in a particular direction. In the end, the developers will have the final say.

The lack of transparency is likely the main reason players don’t engage on the forums or apply to join the tier council.

I would say part of the reason why they don't interact is basically because both community and TC have 0 saying when it comes to any decision vs the devs that probably don't even play the game, but envision things in a certain way and force it.

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I do value a more controlled sample, than trying to gather every opinion and then filtering the relevant.