Ok so I am going to form this post in a very specific format. I am going to analyze tournament replays from the past few weeks where Jolteon has been legal, its impact in the matches, and my own diagnosis on whether or not it was an unhealthy presence in that particular game. Using the information from the replays I will come to my personal opinion about Jolteon before the vote this weekend and present it here. I will then give my recommendation as to what I think will be the best course of action wrt tiering. Have not done a post like this since Glastrier in SSNU so without further ado here we go!
Week 5 NUWC Usage
| 3 | Jolteon | 9 | 34.62% | 77.78% |
So to begin we see in Week 5 of NUWC where we see it is used 9 times between 8 matches and has a very impressive 78% win rate. It is notable that is is only below Flamigo(banned) and Sandaconda which has been a NU S tier mainstay for almost the entirety of generation. A glue pokemon and a broken pokemon are the only two things above it this week. It is notable to write that All the initial September drops are still around in this week.
Togkey vs Elfuseon - Jolteon was used as a creative form of speed control in this game, it revenge kills a Heracross and volt switches out. Not really a notable use of Jolteon in this match.
Danny vs justdrew - On Turn 16 my Jolteon is used to revenge kill a Salazzle, drew chooses to save the lazzle and lets his Magneton get chipped. Pretty mundane interaction. On Turns 36 and 37 my Jolteon kills a weakened Uxie and a weakened Sandaconda after I use my Tera. The game was pretty won at that point and I just needed the coverage. Once again not really an indication of anything unhealthy or overly beneficial either. Speed and a pseudo scarf was what was given.
GW vs outbackrabbit - Jolteon dies on Turn 1 to a scarfed Toxicroak.
Hacker vs Saurav the Great - Jolteon did not come out.
gorex vs awyp - rain vs a BO team. Jolteon is used in the last two turns where it clicks Tbolt on a Floatzel and a Sableye. Another game where it served a healthyrole.
Elias PSY vs Sylveon is so cute - Jolteon was used to lead by Sylveon and it volts out. Elias's Jolteon trades half its health for a KO on a Zoroark.
Soucou vs Ac1D_13 - Jolteon is annoyance for Acid's team early game, it sets up a CM on Articuno, forces Articuno to Tera and then Jolteon itself Tera Flyings on a Leaf Storm from Electrode Hisui. However this Tera allows Hariyama to eventually revenge kill the Jolteon. So its progress was a trade with Etrode and 48% on Articuno. Acid then cleans up with his defensive core which was not broken through.
Tuthur vs Leni - Jolteon comes in on Turn 32 and Volts out on an Umbreon. It does not come back in for the remainder of the game.
As a summary of this week, Jolteon kinda was just there. It might have been outshined by Delphox/Melo/Migo/Zoro, even if it got more usage. It could be easy to assume that it was placed on teams because of its speed and defensive utility while giving teams an easy win condition. In practice, the majority of these games Jolteon was either a sack, lost early, or really did not make good enough progress.
Semifinals NUWC Usage
| 3 | Jolteon | 4 | 28.57% | 50.00% |
In semis it was used 4 times in 3 different games. It is notable that this was post bans of Meloetta, Delphox, and Flamigo. Perhaps these bans will show a more impactful role for Jolteon.
feen vs Leni - Jolteon trades itself to 45% to a Magneton. It might be worthwhile to note that it used Shadow Ball, kind of just a representation of its coverage versatility, even if it did not do much this game.
shiloh vs Indulge in Dreams - Ok so this game is kind of funny for a few reasons. Both users use a Jolteon and both use a Whiscash. Whiscash was slightly notable in this meta specifically for its ability to check the most common Jolteon set of Tera Ice. Shiloh's Jolteon is completely stuffed and Indulge's is as well, however it has Rotom to actually force progress for it. A potential sign of its unhealthiness?
skierdude101 vs kaifengyyds - Tauros swept before Jolteon got a chance to actually click a move.
Jolteon did nothing in 2/3 games and then the two other Jolteons were stuffed by Whiscash. it was noted above that Whiscash might be a reflection of how warping Jolteon is in the builder. I do not know if that is entirely true, I think its possible, but Whiscash saw usage in the meta when Jolteon was not legal so I am not sure if that is the case. I will note that I MYSELF did add Whiscash onto my team(used by me in week 5 and shiloh in Semis) specifcally to have spikes and to serve as another soft check to Jolteon and Sandaconda. It is notable that this round of the tournament was before DLC moveset changes. The changes did not affect Jolteon's moves at all, however perhaps the changes in other mons could affect Jolteon.
NeverUsed Ladder Tour Semis
Danny vs DugZa - I swear I am not trying to toot my own horn too much but I do think this game is the biggest piece of evidence for a Pro Ban sentiment. This game shows two very solid teams played by solid pilots. Immediately DugZa leads Jolteon and puts me in an awkward position. In hindsight I had a very safe switch to my own Jolteon as generally players do not want to tera so early on. For what it is worth, both of our teams were notably weak to Jolt. DugZa gets a kill by turn 5 as I try to make an aggressive play. DugZa gets his Jolteon in numerous times vs my team. On T22 I get a bit of momentum back by getting a free CM on their Jolteon. On Turn 28 all I had to do was CM to +6 or hard switch to Naclstack to win that game. Too bad I AM BAD and then lost the speed ties. I think in this game we show how powerful Jolteon can potentially be vs others. I would like to reference Kiyo's post where he notes that we don't have a lot of scarfers being used, however that does not detract from its obviously oppressive nature IN THIS PARTICULAR GAME.
Togkey vs Axrtix - It was last mon after Tera was used and OHKO'd by an Eq.
NeverUsed Ladder Tour Finals
Axrtix vs DugZa - In this game it was used as a form of revenge killing+speed control vs a Blissey Offense??? team that had no volt immune. Kind of a self explanatory situation in and of itself, if Bliss comes in it brings in strong phys attacker. That might be one of the main complaints about its unblockable volts, its ability to bring in a strong physical attacker afterwards. But I am not confident that means that Jolteon is the problem. It seems we ran into this issue wrt Rotom-Mow last generation. I voted ban on Rotom-Mow but we also did not have Blissey or Goodra as legal options at that time.
My Experiences on ladder
It does the same thing it tends to do. I will note that I have found similar situations to what Kiyo mentioned. If my team has a strong physical scarfer I will feel confident in my play vs Jolteon and will always be able to keep it in check. If I test Scarf Rotom-Mow I fore myself into lines which are just not comfortable. I do think that being forced to use a Physical Scarfer or get every turn right with your Rotom form seems innately unhealthy. There have been situations where I test a team without a volt immune and I just get absolutely railed by Jolteon>X breaker and my AV Goodra or Blissey gets worn down over time or I end up having to sack a key physically defensive core member of my team and get beaten that way. I do think those interactions or the inability to regain momentum from them might be a problem with the team I used at the time. As I climbed ladder I started to get a better hang of how to deal with it.
What I Will Vote and Why
After discussing with my fellow council members, reading different posts and using this replay analysis tool I really am torn on this. On one hand I feel like Jolteon is or could be unhealthy. It forces weird lines, weird team structures and makes little mistakes much more punishing. On the other hand I feel like we really do not have a large enough sample size in this meta to truly know its impact. It was decidedly unremarkable during NUWC. This could be because of a few factors, with all due respect NUWC had a lot of people who do not generally play the tier playing the tier, so maybe there was some wasted potential wrt Jolteon there. All that in mind, Jolteon did jack shit in NUWC and only showed its promise or prowess in a few of the NULT and NUWC matches out of 14 different matches in two different metas. We DO NOT have any tournament games to analyze and look through in the current DLC meta. I would like to see how Jolteon performs in SCL Week 1 and NU Seasonal Round 1. If it is overwhelmingly broken it would be fair to suspect test it after we properly synthesize October 1st drops into our tier. The best outcome in my opinion would be a suspect test for Jolteon. This would allow prominent players to express their opinions. There will be SCL III coverage wrt game analysis so it will hopefully become clear if Jolteon is a problem or just something we as a tier have just not adapted to well enough like Kiyo said.
I will vote DNB right now after going through this exercise. My mind is still open until the moment that I type the thingy so feel free to go against what I wrote or bring up arguments for or against a Jolt ban. For the time being I am voting DNB however.
QDance + Taunt + RevDance
Sometimes Moxie sweeper or Spikes setter
Spikes setter + TWave spammer
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Funny Choice Scarf Tricker