Well, I'm a little perplexed by this thread. I don't believe that this "toxicity" is specific to the ubers forum / community, and I haven't noticed anything out of the business-as-usual going on [By business as usual, I mean what's commonly accepted on Smogon]. You mentioned "there's been a fair amount of arguing on both the Ubers room on PS and on IRC (by tournaments players and "plebs" alike), and yesterday some frustrations spilled out into this subforum". Okay, you mentioned arguments, but that's normal. As for the subforum frustration part, I saw that as some beef bewteen 2 individual smogon users and not some huge issue that reflected the whole community. So overall, yes, I have seen a decent amount of toxicity, but nothing that I haven't already been seeing in the smogon tournament scene on a consistent basis over the past few months. I say "smogon tournament scene", since that's where all / most of my attention is focused on. So overall, in my opinion, I do agree that there is toxicity on smogon, but It is not specific to the ubers community [its smogon wide], and this toxicity has been commonly accepted among the smogon playerbase . But at the end of the day, this is just my theory & opinion based off what I've seen myself. I haven't been playing in tournaments lately so I've had more time to observe the community / talk to more players so thats where my information comes from.
Addressing some concerns seen in the post above me -
ORAS Uber Metagame being stale / boring / unncompetitive etc - Eh, I get that a lot of players dislike ORAS due to primal groudon + primal kyogre + a lot of powerful threats to prepare for. But that's just how pokemon is, it changes from generation to generation. First of all, OU and Ubers are two completely different tiers with two completely different philosophies. You can't compare a tier like that, there's more factors that you have to consider.
I don't want to write a long post but I 'll simply state these facts concerning the ORAS Ubers Metagame. Traditionally, Ubers has always been a tier centralized around the top 3-5 pokemon and dominated by hazard control. This has been the case since I myself have been playing ubers [since BW1] and this still hasn't changed. Despite all of the new additions, were still centralized around a few pokemon, and hazard control [stealth rocks being the case now] can make the difference bewteen a win and lose. Now then, what has changed? We have more threats, and the top few pokemon have gotton more powerful, but othewise you still play ubers the same way you've always been playing it - have a solid team, control the hazard game, and do your best to outplay your opponent.
The question "but blim, isn't primal groudon / xerneas / m-gengar OP now?". They could very well be, but the philosophy of the ubers tier has been to only ban when Absolutely WITHOUT ANY DOUBT NECESSARY [as in the case of m-ray [
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...-is-added-m-ray-is-banned-from-ubers.3523205/ ]. Obviously, these threats are very powerful but this isn't the thread to discuss whether they "break" the metagame or not, and were still very early into ORAS. Now, if you want my personal opinion, If this were OU, xerneas + m-gar + most likely primal groudon would all be banned now. But this is the tier were we play with these threats unless it's just something stupid like m-ray. I personally think that ORAS is playable + there's PLENTY of room for innovation. The only side-effect I see of all these new threats is that the tier has become much more centralized. P DON, arceus, and xerneas are on a lot of teams now, where-es in the past you had more team varation.
Toxicity within the Ubers Community
I see that toxicity exists, but it isn't ubers specific - it's more of what I see in the General Tournament Scene [especially the SPL thread]. In the SPL thread, I've seen a general lack of respect for your opponent, constantly bragging about winning even if you got lucky, showing-off, being sarcastic etc. Let me cite a few examples of what I see -
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-33751 -
This is what happened at the end of this SPL match: ★Problems: good game you sack of shit
Problems forfeited.
johnqualine won the battle!
★johnqualine: gg!
Problems is a good friend of mine and I respect him as a player, but this was completely uncalled for. I'm aware of the fact that steelskitty is considered a "lucky n bad" in some circles of the tournament scene, but I've never seen steel act obnoxious or have a lack of respect toward anyone on smogon. Of course, I'm not aware of any disciplinary action that was taken towards problem, so apparently this is accepted in the tournament scene.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...e-6-commencement.3523236/page-30#post-5974039 - User CasedVictory [another good friend of mine] goes ballistic on moderator kokokoko because he was cheering on his nu player and hoping for some luck? The pastebin of what he said is now removed...but it had plenty of f bombs and something about koko's mother. Of course, fireburn's post got 50+ likes, koko was just being "salty". Business as usual [I just wanna say, I have a lot of respect for fireburn, the scooters, and I don't have anything personal against anyone who liked this post, I simply think that what case did was uncalled for, that's all, nothing personal]
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/smogon-premier-league-6-week-3.3527493/page-5#post-6000756 - I don't think I need to say anything about this one.
Not trying to "call anyone out", or whatever, but if you want to seriously address toxicity - start there. But this type of stuff is accepted, if the smogon staff wants less toxicity then in my humble opinion, they really need to start getting on these user's asses and start clamping down on this type of behavior. I personally don't care about what happens, but don't complain about toxicity if you're the same guy who is supporting it and/or you're a mod and not doing anything about it, the blind can't lead the blind.
The Ubers SPL Discussion Thread
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ubers-spl-replays-discussion-thread.3526174/page-3#post-6005766
I'm going to be brutally honest here, so please don't even reply to me unless you can take criticism and respond in a constructive matter. First of all, I am not a big fan of this thread. I think it's mostly a waste of time...why? There's honestly not much to discuss, I see people here writing essays about nothing and over-complicating everything. What happens when there's not much to talk about concerning the game? That's right, instead of talking about the game itself, people start talking player decisions and their teams. And to be frank, most of the week 1 teams were garbage, and there was plenty of misplays to go around. If you're an SPL player and can't take criticism, how are you ever going to improve your game? Instead of whining about how you're being unfairly attacked in this pointless thread, hit the teambuilder and start building some better teams. Start scouting your opponent ahead of time, watch what other people are using in the ubers scene, talk with other respected players about new team ideas. I'm tired of seeing you guys whining about criticism, when frankly, some of have been downright pitiful and rightfully criticized.
I had the best uber record in SPL 4 and in SPL 5. Why? I worked my ass off, toke criticism, and made sure to always improve where I was lacking. I personally don't care about anyone in SPL whining about what someone else thinks of them when I've already been there, get better instead of worrying about these threads so much.
Now...some of the replies toke it too far, obviously, and no one likes to be attacked 24/7 after a bad game. But I don't think the problem is the players...there's just not much to talk about concerning the games themselves, so people naturally start talking about the bad teams and bad plays they've seen. I think the thread is really a waste of time myself....yes...we get to see some cool teams and new ideas, but do we really need an entire thread for that?
Summary of my Post
Toxicity in the ubers community - toxicity is not a ubers specific issue [if smogon even considers this level of "toxicity" an issue] but it's a tournament-wide issue.
ORAS Ubers Metagame - The ubers metagame gotton much more centralized, but the better player can still win by building good teams and playing well. Nothing has changed in this regard, team match-up has always existed in this game.
The SPL Ubers Thread - A thread where there's not much to talk about, instead everyone just gets salty here and talk about how bad the teams have been. Overall, this thread has been a failure.