Garchomp and Sand Veil Discussion

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Sayonara

don't forget
You can counter Cacturne by many pokemon. You can handle it defensively with skarmory,forretress and many others and offensively by scizor,breloom etc.
However, if a Garchomp gets a free sub + SD only Skarmory can counter him. See the difference.
But without Sand Veil i think that Garchomp will fit into the metagame well. He will just bring the metagame more unpredictableness and diversity
I wouldn't say Skarmory is the only guy who can counter SubSD Garchomp. Tank Bronzong easily stops Garchomp, resisting Outrage and being immune to Earthquake. It also usually carries HP Ice to break the Sub and take it down.
 
Jimera, I'm pretty sure we're not testing a Sand Veil ban because it's "broken". The evasion moves themselves were not banned because they were "broken". Moody wasn't banned because it was "broken" (hint: Moody wasn't broken). With these moves/abilities, you will obviously lose most of the time. That's why they're not broken.

With that said, I believe a Sand Veil-less metagame would be much more enjoyable because it prevents you from getting cheated by those damn SubAcrobatics Sand Veil Gliscors. In this case, it's not about broken, it's about the game being enjoyable. And don't bring up "hey let's ban critical hits" because obviously there's nothing we can do about that.
No no no no no no no no no.

"enjoyable metagame" is purely subjective. You might not like having Sub-SD Gliscor around, but that doesn't mean it should be banned. A huge number of people hate Rain too, and weather in general. They think that getting rid of it would be a more enjoyable metagame. But we can't make decisions based on an "enjoyable metagame" because it's an incredibly subjective measure. Your enjoyment is not someone else's enjoyment. Some people get a lot of enjoyment out of using trolly hax based sets too you know! How come their enjoyment counts for less than yours?

No, this is why banning should be based on the slightly more objective quality of "brokeness". Essentially, an aspect that gives a person a distinct and consistent advantage over players not using that aspect or very specific counters to it. Furthermore, it avoids banning things for selfish reasons. It means that even if you like having something around that's broken, you still have to ban it. When you start using "enjoyment" as a metric it opens the floodgates to abuse. You can argue that just about any element is not "enjoyable" to get it banned, and all you'd need is enough like minded people to get it banned, which is completely unfair to the minority of people that don't want it banned. You can't let the tyranny of the majority rule. It's just not right.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Since this hasn't really been brought up much, I contend that ScarfChomp could have as much of an impact on the metagame as your standard SDChomp. With base Speed of 102, enough to outspeed scarfed Landorus, Genesect, and Thundurus-T (the 3 most common scarfers in the metagame), and do some real damage (even OHKO) with the proper move, I'll expect it to become a common sight assuming this goes through OU council.

#freechomp
 
I think this is worth checking out. First of all, I despise Sand Veil. I actually did lose a battle recently because of sand veil hax (in this case with a gliscor), and I think abilities like that (that encourage reliance on luck rather than skill) we are better off without.
Without Sand Veil, what impact shall Garchomp have on the metagame? I'd like to find out.
 
I wouldn't say Skarmory is the only guy who can counter SubSD Garchomp. Tank Bronzong easily stops Garchomp, resisting Outrage and being immune to Earthquake. It also usually carries HP Ice to break the Sub and take it down.
Do I have to remind you that Bronzong's usage has droped significantly even in BW1. Bronzong is mainly used on TR teams. No one uses Bronzong as a pure wall. There are far better options like Skarmory or Slowbro i dont even want to mention others.
My point was that Garchomp is broken with Sand Veil because when you switch an offensive counter against it you get haxed with Sand Veil and you lose the game if you dont have Skarmory....or Bronzong.


EDIT: comment on jimera0's reply:

Sand Veil sweeps with gliscor,Garchomp and Evassion clause based teams are all based on luck. The before mentioned have nothing to do with skill or the ability to play Pokemon competitively well. Therefore they should be banned.
 
Well, you might say that whining about hax is childish, but -20% is a large reduction. Not only do moves with 100% accuracy get moved down to the same accuracy as Stone Edge, other moves, like the aforementioned Stone Edge, Focus Blast, Sleep Powder, and Toxic are even LESS accurate. We've all lost games because Toxic wouldn't hit(or maybe that's just me), but many of these moves are unusable against a Sand Veil/Snow Cloak abuser.
 
jimera0 those are literally some of the shittiest posts ive ever read. im not going to even dignify the "floodgates to absurdity" or w/e comment, i just want to say sand veil is completely noncompetitive and promotes bad players winning games they shouldnt, while simultaneously making pokemon uber when they shouldnt be.

its about damn time this happened, good job to whoever was in charge for the decision.
 
A Broken ability makes all users of it broken
We are gonna have to agree on the different levels of broken here:

1) Combo of abilities being broken when used in the same team (Swift Swim + Drizzle)

2) Ability pushing a OU pokemon to be broken due to the lack of counters (Excadrill, Garchomp, Blaziken)

3) Ability being broken by itself regardless of pokemon (Moody)
 
I gotta say, I agree with Jas, Jimera, etc.. Garchomp is really the only thing that uses Sand Veil ever, since Gliscor mostly uses Poison Heal, Dugtrio is unviable without Arena Trap, Golem sucks, Donphan needs Sturdy, Sandslash is a Sand Rush kind of guy, Stunfisk is WTF, and then Cacturne is alright... but really rare. So basically, its pushing back Gliscor (who doesn't even use Sand Veil) and Cacturne (who is rare, and would really not appreaciate losing Bullet Seed or Encore in every tier). This is almost aeshetical, really, and it hardly changes the metagame when you think about it.

My problem is this ability is going to be banned just because Garchomp wants to go back into OU. This isn't a good precedent, really. If you think about it, it it kind of like Speed Boost Blaziken. If Speed Boost was banned, Blaziken would come back (in RU or something), but then Yanmega would lose a lot of steam and Sharpedo would lose a huge option. This is similar for Sand Veil. Cacturne would lose compatability to huge options, which puts it at an unfair disadvantage compared to other Pokemon in lower tiers.

As for it being in Evasion Clause, this is true. However, with Rain being on over 20% of teams, and Hail or Sun making up another 10% or so, this isn't huge (sand is at about 25% usage iirc). What this has compared to Moody, Double Team, or something is any of these Weathers can just straight up stop the Evasion from happening. Even if you don't have any weather, if Garchomp gets up a substitute, you always have priority, Choice Scarf, or Multi-hit moves (although Breloom cannot live to tell the tale, still).

Really, if an ability is going to get banned just to move ONE Pokemon into OU, either a complex ban should be implemented, Garchomp should be OU ignoring Sand Veil, or it should just stay uber. Plus, other than Garchomp, does anything really say "OMG IT HAZ SAND VEIL ITS UBER STRONF BAN IT NAO PLZ!!111!!11!" because the usage just doesn't tell me the ability is really that prominent.

That, and Sand Veil in general has always felt like more of a feeling to me than real madness. I haven't ever seen a Sand Veil user in OU after the chomp ban (I've used Chomp in Ubers with Sand Veil. It may have activated once for me, which is low considering I've used it four times).

EDIT: Jesus Christ there were a lot of posts when I waas typing this.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
Sand Veil is not a broken ability. I don't know why many people are "celebrating" it's ban (not here, but in some places like Brazilian Server, where weeks ago they even banned Sand Veil...). This is peharps because of Gliscor, but Gliscor is far from uncounterable even with Sand Veil + Acrobatics. In fact, it's very hard for Gliscor to setup and start to wreck avoc because it's rather frail without investiment in defenses, it's frail in specially defensive side, and it has weakness to Water and Ice-type attacks. And you have to mantain it's substitute intact in order to sweep unless you have killed all their checks to Sand Veil Gliscor, wich is already a hard task because too many attacks can break Gliscor's substitutes. I know this because I've used Sand Veil Gliscor a lot of time and if you don't mantain it's Substitute intact, it's very hard to Gliscor sweep unless you eliminate all his checks. And while Sand Veil increases it's evasion, it's still unwise and risky to pray for a miss on Hydro Pump/Ice Beam/Hidden Power Ice/strong STAB special attacks in general unless you actually need to do this because Gliscor is the last pokémon in your team. Because of this, I used Gliscor more times as a wallbreaker than a sweeper.

While I agree that banning Sand Veil is a fair "sacrifice" if this means Garchomp coming back, it's a shame however that Acrobatics Gliscor will no longer be viable because it's a very good set despite the drawbacks that I cited above :(

But wow... I'm going to use Garchomp instead of Landorus when this happens. Landorus is good, but it seriously misses a good secondary STAB. Relying on Fly means giving free turns to your opponent, and using Hidden Power Flying means no Hidden Power Ice to take Gliscor/opposing Landorus/most Dragons (after a little of damage, peharps from Stealth Rock and sandstorm). Garchomp doesn't have this problem, and it's STAB Outrage is actually very, very balling (and has almost perfect coverage with Earthquake!). Also, Garchomp lacks a weakness to Water attacks :)
 
We really do need complex bans to be implemented, because at this point subjectivity is playing the major role of who gets to stay or not, for example:

1) Sand Veil (being tested) is banned but Snow Cloak isn't. Why? Hail isn't popular.

2) Swift Swimmers (Which include lots of NU pokemon) are banned from any team that has Drizzle but only Excadrill was banned (from OU I might add with all his abilities) while Sandslash and Stoutland are perfectly fine.

I think the OU council is looking at the two issues seperately but testing at the same time:

1) Sand Veil is a natural extension of the evasion clause. Fine, but the extension also logically applies to Snow Cloak as well

2) Being able to ban a single ability that makes a pokemon broken while allowing all the rest, then why isn't this being applied to others?
 

jc104

Humblest person ever
is a Top Contributor Alumnus
"Brokenness" is not only equally subjective, but distincly less relevant than how enjoyable the game turns out to be. If everyone uses one over-powered pokemon but really likes it, who cares? Why on earth would be ban it? How enjoyable the game is should be our only consideration; "brokenness" may often be aligned with it, but is never truly the underlying reason.

And we all know that slippery slope arguments are in no way valid.

Overall, I really like this idea. Garchomp was not that difficult to deal with unless it dodged all of your attacks; in fact I would go as far as to say that I found it exactly as difficult to manage as I do SubSD Gliscor now. Not difficult provided I could hit the damn thing.

edit: a snow cloak ban would also be fine provided it didn't soft-ban anything relevant (which I don't believe it would).

edit2: and of course absurdity is a word lol
 
It seems that some people dont understand what competitive pokemon is about...
I serioulsy dont have the will to repeat my self over and over again but i will say this one more time: Sand Veil might not be broken just as Evasion clause, however, they completely destory the metagame. Evasion and Sand veil are both based on luck and luck only. Luck iirc is not skill. And competitive metagame is not about winning just by luck...
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Cacturne hasn't even been banned yet.

And to whoever said Gliscor only uses Poison Heal anyway, you need to ladder. I've seen more Hyper Cutters than Poison Healers in this metagame.
 
Careful people, we don't want to devolve into personal attacks. Remember what happened the last time Sand Veil got discussed.

It doesn't matter that 20% is a significant reduction; I never said it wasn't effective, I said it wasn't BROKEN. And I stand by my position that banning things that aren't outright broken is something we should not do unless the impact the culprit has on the metagame is very profound.

I've gone over it statistically before but Sand viel is an EXTREMELY uncommon ability, especially now that all the Pokemon that have access to it have new abilities that are generally better. The impact it has on the metagame is extremely minor, something like every 1 in 100 games (I did the calculations in the previous thread so I am not pulling this out of my ass. You can dig up that old thread and check if you like I'm not doing it myself). So you can't say that it has a profound impact on the metagame because it clearly does not. It might have a profound impact on one or two games you have over the course of hundreds but that doesn't mean we should ban it.

What the hell sort of business do we have limiting non-broken Pokemon to eliminate such an incredibly small element? It's trivial, largely cosmetic. The only POSSIBLE exception to this is Garchomp. And if the possible exception to that is one Pokemon we should be testing the POKEMON not the ability.

Listen. I understand how frustrating it is that some Pokemon are perfectly fine without certain abilities but are still broken. But I honestly think we're only noticing it because this is a recent phenomenon. There's a lot of Pokemon that aren't broken without certain moves or particular spreads and such, but we've never banned Pokemon based on that nor should we have. This really isn't that different. For example, would Salamence ever have been Uber last generation if it couldn't use Fire Blast or Flamethrower? I don't think so. But you'd get looked at funny if someone suggested banning Fire move + Salamence back then. I don't see how an ability should be any different. If Garchomp is broken with Sand Veil, it's broken period. We just have to live with it. Just because it's so tempting to release him and get rid of a luck element at the same time doesn't mean we should do it. It's purely self-serving and sets terrible precedents. Please don't go through with this.
 
Swift Swim Beartic is out so I'm pretty sure nothing has snow cloak as its sole ability anymore.

edit: woah, that's what I get for not refreshing the page for a while
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
Cacturne hasn't even been banned yet, moron.

And to whoever said Gliscor only uses Poison Heal anyway, you need to ladder. I've seen more Hyper Cutters than Poison Healers in this metagame.
Lol. People that use Gliscor with Hyper Cutter are bad players, don't worry. Poison Heal must be used except in case of an Acrobatics set, where you have to use Sand Veil. Acess to Stealth Rock isn't anymore a plea to use other abilities because of the new B2W2 tutors.

But still, while most people use Poison Heal, I think that banning Sand Veil really limits the offensive options that Gliscor has. Now you have to either use the bulky sweeper set (wich has worse coverage and isn't as annonying as the Sand Veil set) or use a defensive Gliscor.
 
Careful people, we don't want to devolve into personal attacks. Remember what happened the last time Sand Veil got discussed.

It doesn't matter that 20% is a significant reduction; I never said it wasn't effective, I said it wasn't BROKEN. And I stand by my position that banning things that aren't outright broken is something we should not do unless the impact the culprit has on the metagame is very profound.

I've gone over it statistically before but Sand viel is an EXTREMELY uncommon ability, especially now that all the Pokemon that have access to it have new abilities that are generally better. The impact it has on the metagame is extremely minor, something like every 1 in 100 games (I did the calculations in the previous thread so I am not pulling this out of my ass. You can dig up that old thread and check if you like I'm not doing it myself). So you can't say that it has a profound impact on the metagame because it clearly does not. It might have a profound impact on one or two games you have over the course of hundreds but that doesn't mean we should ban it.

What the hell sort of business do we have limiting non-broken Pokemon to eliminate such an incredibly small element? It's trivial, largely cosmetic. The only POSSIBLE exception to this is Garchomp. And if the possible exception to that is one Pokemon we should be testing the POKEMON not the ability.

Listen. I understand how frustrating it is that some Pokemon are perfectly fine without certain abilities but are still broken. But I honestly think we're only noticing it because this is a recent phenomenon. There's a lot of Pokemon that aren't broken without certain moves or particular spreads and such, but we've never banned Pokemon based on that nor should we have. This really isn't that different. For example, would Salamence ever have been Uber last generation if it couldn't use Fire Blast or Flamethrower? I don't think so. But you'd get looked at funny if someone suggested banning Fire move + Salamence back then. I don't see how an ability should be any different. If Garchomp is broken with Sand Veil, it's broken period. We just have to live with it. Just because it's so tempting to release him and get rid of a luck element at the same time doesn't mean we should do it. It's purely self-serving and sets terrible precedents. Please don't go through with this.
why are you fucking ignoring the point that sand veil is just 100% noncompetitive. theres no strategy to it no way to defend against it. all it does is just turn whatever its on into a pokemon that can give a bad player a win vs a good player, solely on luck and without any skill. like seriously, thats the issue here. it does nothing but harm the game with its nonsense.

ps to other people cacturne stunfisk etc arent used in ou or are "broken with sand veil" because they are shitty pokemon who have no business in ou. sand veil is still as noncompetitive on them as it is on everything else.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
people may be forgetting that you can use poison heal ability and not equip a toxic orb...

doesn't mean i don't agree with jas, as i always have
 
Sand Veil is not being tested entirely because of Garchomp. It is a test in itself to extend the scope of Evasion Clause.

I don't know why people don't read things like this more carefully. There are two issues being tested here, one of them being Sand Veil as a logical extension of the evasion clause, meaning whether or not Garchomp is getting unbanned it the ability is still gonna get banned.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Lol. People that use Gliscor with Hyper Cutter are bad players, don't worry. Poison Heal must be used except in case of an Acrobatics set, where you have to use Sand Veil. Acess to Stealth Rock isn't anymore a plea to use other abilities because of the new B2W2 tutors.

But still, while most people use Poison Heal, I think that banning Sand Veil really limits the offensive options that Gliscor has. Now you have to either use the bulky sweeper set (wich has worse coverage and isn't as annonying as the Sand Veil set) or use a defensive Gliscor.
Yeah, the Hyper Cutter thing was sarcasm, though you can never be too sure these days.

Back on the topic of Sand Veil, though...what reason do we have in keeping it around? We specifically have an Evasion Clause to prevent any hax-boosting moves from being used in any tiers, thank god. How is Sand Veil any different? Answer: it isn't. Sand Veil is the same thing as using Double Team. It increases the likelihood that your opponent will miss their attack against you, basically functioning as an insurance clause for players who aren't good enough to win without lucking their opponent.

There may be arguments for Sand Veil being kept OU, but I sure as hell don't understand them. Any item/ability/move that reduces the importance of skill and increases the importance of luck in competitive Pokemon deserves a ban, and that's final.
 
It is time for me to sleep. My final comments:
Some of the players here dont understand competitive battling and the main concepts of it. -Moves,abilities and items that only work on luck are not accepted-.
Some people may be afraid of facing Garchomp, i dont know why. Garchomp, just as all other pokemon has counters. Garchomp, just as all other pokemon will have to have teammates to help in order for him be successful. Garchomp can only have a positive effect on this metagame.
Sand Veil is only based on luck.
Sand Veil is uncompetitive.

Have a good night, bye :)
 
"Brokenness" is not only equally subjective, but distincly less relevant than how enjoyable the game turns out to be. If everyone uses one over-powered pokemon but really likes it, who cares? Why on earth would be ban it? How enjoyable the game is should be our only consideration; "brokenness" may often be aligned with it, but is never truly the underlying reason.

And we all know that slippery slope arguments are in no way valid.
I disagree. Brokeness has a definition at least, a set of criteria we can follow. Enjoyabiltiy does not. The reason why your scenario wouldn't work is a) because there's no way that'd ever happen in a competitive community b) it'd stifle creativity by forcing everyone to run checks and counters to that Pokemon and causing those who do not use that Pokemon to be at a disadvantage.

I'm sorry if it sounded like a slippery slope argument; it wasn't though I phrased it poorly. If you've listened to me before you know how much I hate slippery slope arguments. My point was that if we use enjoyability as an actual criteria that it opens up the doors for individuals high up to abuse it. And let's face it, there's no way we're going to always end up with completely selfless people on our councils. Hell, that's why we have councils instead of a single person deciding it; too much room for abuse. It's all to easy to make arguments for "enjoyability" in order to manipulate people into a result you want, shafting the minority of people who have a different idea of enjoyment. This is why we need to base our bans on something with actual criteria. Otherwise we risk turning into a tyranny of the majority, where creativity and individuality are stiffled in the name of reaching a consistent norm. Do we really want to be a closed community that discourages anyone who doesn't agree with the majority view from participating? Because that's what making decisions based purely on "enjoyability" ends up doing.

Obviously we're aiming for an enjoyable metagame, but one that's enjoyable for EVERYONE. We can't hope to make an ideal metagame with no annoying elements not just because of mechanics and the like but also because everyone has a different idea of an ideal metagame. Instead we should aim for compromise; get everyone to a level of enjoyability where they wish to continue to participate. This is achieved by putting broad criteria in we can all agree with; brokenness for example, is bad. Something we can all agree with. "Luck is bad" is not something we can all agree on, and as such should not be one of our defining criteria when it comes to making bans.

It seems that some people dont understand what competitive pokemon is about...
I serioulsy dont have the will to repeat my self over and over again but i will say this one more time: Sand Veil might not be broken just as Evasion clause, however, they completely destory the metagame. Evasion and Sand veil are both based on luck and luck only. Luck iirc is not skill. And competitive metagame is not about winning just by luck...
Luck is NOT the antithesis of skill. That is a common mistaken perspective. This is because something called "probability management" exists and is a SKILL. One that is VITAL to Pokemon. Arguing that SV/SC reduce skill is completely ignoring the aspect of skill it ADDS to the game.

Also claiming that SV will destroy the metagame is utterly laughable considering our metagame has existed with it, perfectly intact for the past 3 generations.

EDIT: @X5Dragon
Of course not, no one aspect defines a Pokemon. They're a PART of that Pokemon. Pokemon are broken because of combinations of their PARTS. We do not ban the parts because that becomes too complicated, unless those parts are broken across many Pokemon. That is why we do not do complex ability+pokemon bans, because that's delving into ground we do not want to go. I don't understand your argument.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
people may be forgetting that you can use poison heal ability and not equip a toxic orb...
That is what I would say. In fact, using Poison Heal means that you can switch on Toxic and that means that you can setup more substitutes!!

But I'm certain that banning Sand Veil killed the viability of Acrobatics Set, or not? You can no longer rely on a potential miss... so, it's substitutes are easier to break than ever, and you definitively can't sweep before killing Rotom-W, Starmie and other checks.
 

DetroitLolcat

Maize and Blue Badge Set 2014-2017
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
Honestly, I see very little good coming out of this. There is nothing inherently broken about Sand Veil, and it in and of itself is not why Garchomp was banned. It is just being used here as a scapegoat to give a reason to test it again. Honestly, enough has changed in OU that it is questionable if Garchomp would still be broken at all, so there is no need for such a scapegoat. This has nothing to do with Sand Veil and it should not be removed just as an excuse to do it. If we are going to test Garchomp I don't see why we aren't testing the full Garchomp. Obviously Cacturne and co have shown that there is nothing wrong with the ability. So why aren't we following the path we took with Blaziken and testing pokemon as a whole? Its like trying to put all the blame on a mediocre ability in order to let us test two variables at once, which is never a good idea.

That being said, I am glad that we are at least doing this test. I'd like to see how Garchomp fairs in the metagame, and while I personally believe having Sand Veil would help it balance the game back away from rain, it still will be an interesting tool for many types of teams in this metagame.
I wholeheartedly agree with this post. It's pretty obvious that Sand Veil is a scapegoat for Garchomp's brokenness, when in reality Sand Veil is a thoroughly mediocre ability that marginally affects the metagame even if Garchomp is allowed, especially in the Rain-dominated BW2 OU metagame. Even in the Sand-dominated BW1 metagame in which Garchomp was allowed, Garchomp had severe limitations and was barely broken because Sand Veil facilitated a sweep. Garchomp with Sand Veil at the time was barely broken, and this metagame is much less friendly to Sand Offense as the previous one was. I see no reason why Sand Veil Garchomp would be broken in OU, or at least there's no reason to believe it will be egregiously broken and unworthy of a test.

Furthermore, it's pretty terrible that we want to ban Sand Veil as a whole from supposedly every metagame in order to shoehorn one Pokemon back into OU. Sand Veil is not broken in OU. It is seen on one uncommon set on one Pokemon in OU. It is not seen in any other tier. There is no argument that Sand Veil is broken in OU, and there is no argument that Sand Veil has a giant adverse effect on the OU metagame. It is also extremely hypocritical to do this to Garchomp and not immediately un-ban Blaziken while banning Speed Boost to the Uber tier, but nobody is suggesting that because it's ridiculous, as is unbanning Garchomp without Sand Veil.

Sand Veil is part of Garchomp and part of the OU metagame. Garchomp with Sand Veil will restore a sense of balance between the two dominant weathers in OU, making it a more healthy metagame for those who believe in that banning philosophy (which I do not, but that's for another time...). The only reason I could see for not releasing Garchomp in its entirety is the "luck=bad" argument, which shouldn't be entertained by any serious Pokemon community.


Also, can people stop saying that "broken is subjective so it's okay to be subjective."? This is an entirely made-up argument that basically is an excuse for members of a council to tailor a metagame to their liking (I mean absolutely no disrespect towards any council members with the previous sentence). I would like to restate what Jimera0 said in his previous post:

My point was that if we use enjoyability as an actual criteria that it opens up the doors for individuals high up to abuse it.
If we agree to disregard the degree of subjectivity in our bans then Smogon's tiering system loses 100% of its credibility. Smogon is a great site and produces the best competitive Pokemon knowledge and tier lists in the world because of the rigor of our banning process, the knowledge of our community, and the hard work of our contributors. If we replace the Smogon Philosophy, which currently reads that only Pokemon that are objectively broken, with a "i don't like it go to ubers" philosophy, then Smogon's great tiering system erodes. Not all philosophies of banning are equal, and we cannot treat every argument as just as good as the next. If we tolerate subjectivity, then we no longer have a standard of tiering and our tiers will become less consistent as people enter and exit the councils and we will no longer have the best tiering system there is. It's okay to accept that there may be some subjectivity in banning, but that's because it's impossible to determine objective brokenness. We can approximate objective brokenness through the rigor of our tests, though, and any competent tiering system must try to reduce the quantity of subjectivity.

also,
emirinho said:
Some of the players here dont understand competitive battling and the main concepts of it. -Moves,abilities and items that only work on luck are not accepted-.
They have been since Gen III when Smogon opened its digital doors. Competitive battling has always had an element of luck to it, and the Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame have identified luck in moderation as a positive aspect of the metagame. Game Freak gave us a game in which luck can play an important role; to try to remove luck from the game at every turn is to bastardize the game of Pokemon.
 
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