Why isn't there more attention to the Uber Metagame?

[Jibaku]

FINALLY, someone who understands. Ubers is a fun joyride, and don't let anyone tell otherwise. It's a metagame where one wrong move can kill or hurt you badly, because the pokemons have such insane movepools that scouting the sets might be troublesome. Switching a blissey into a Mewtwo will risk a Bulk up or CMTaunt set. Ubers also can stall, but still.

I got interested in this thing when I first stepped into it with a real team (with and without Arceus). The extreme mindgames involved in the metagame makes it a whole lot more exciting than OU, which doesn't pack as much fun with the same sandstorm over and over again. OU's finally doing something I've been wanting to do for a while: breaking stall, and that's something the uber metagame is also undergoing. I personally prefer breaking uber stall for the unpredictability of things.

 

[sanjay120]

I understand. I really really do. Like when I play Little Cup, that shit is as action packed as Ubers. There is no such thing as Little Cup stall and there never has been.

 

[noob3]

ubers are only fun because a lot of people's favorite pokemon are almost.. forgotten there. manaphy, mew, wobuffet.. these are pokemon that need to see the light of day somwhere, and would be better off in OU. But, due to power levels these seemingly harmless & cool pokemon are stuck on the uber shelf, forggot and never to be played with again..

it's kind of sad

ubers depresses me

 

[Yoko Rains]

You can't always have awesome IV'd legends. Since you have to SR for them, and can't breed for them, it'd be quite a task to get a good one. I'm speaking from experience here, since I've done quite a bit of SR'ing. Nobody would dump a 20/31/4/25/29/31 Latios just because of the low defense. You'd have to settle with it, even if you don't like the 4 defense.

So overall, the reason why there isn't that much attention to ubers in my opinion is due to the fact that they're pretty hard to get.

Its also different from other meta-games since only ubers can compete with ubers, as opposed to OU and BL where a BL Pokemon can do some serious damage, and possible defeat an OU. Not that I'm saying OU Pokemon can't compete in ubers (Blissey, Fortress, etc), but still.

 

[Age of Kings]

Just posting to back the people who say UU is funner.

I don't think ubers is too wild or predictable. On one end, you have the same Pokemon potentially packing 765723857 different sets, but on the other IMO, ubers doesn't run on the basis of "expect any Pokemon", since there are very used ubers, and lesser used ubers that people find less as appealing. There is a lack of balance prompting the use of the same things over and over, yet at the same time, unpredictable at what sets those same Pokemon will run, particularily the sweepers.

While neither ubers or BL are considered real tiers, I much prefer the latter. Too bad my favorite Pokemon is uber. ._.

In-game, I don't really want to say what's already been said.

 

[Taylor]

There's nothing wrong with it, I love the Uber Metagame. I just think people want to seriously grasp the OU aspect so they can then take Ubers a under their wing after they've learned OU. I mean, OU is the most common, and the one that should be learned. Then, you can put aload of time into it, like myself.

 

[Chali]

Two words................. ButtMunch

 

[Fland]

the uber metagame isnt as vast as u people say it is. Theres only like 15+ ubers so its not like u have that big of a selection, yes i realzie people use bliss and forretress in uber as well, but learning the metagame shouldnt take as long as the standard ou

 

[sanjay120]

Ubers is infinately more complicated than OU. Take Salamence for example. Every person is scared to switch Blissey in for fear of DD/CB/Mixmence. Then you see Mewtwo, look at the high SAttk, and no one expects a Bulk Up or Focus Punch set. No one. The fact that seeing physical Mewtwo is more akin to seeing special Flygon rather than seeing Specsmence makes it chaotic. Like the rest of Ubers.

 

[beefdreams]

ubers is insane. i love watching uber matches, but i'm not a player myself because i haven't had the time to learn the pokemon well enough. the only reason i played uu instead is because i just like the pokemon in there better. ampharos and hitmonlee are two of my fav's

 

[sandman]

Yes time time to spread some uber fever.

To me the reason seems to be that it's not as accesible as OU. Most people learn OU first and don't want to go through the process of learning a new metagame.

Ubers probably isn't as accessible as OU but learning is not very hard at all. I love ubers and prefer it over OU just because of the intense pace of the battles and one wrong move can mean your demise because some of the sweepers in uber are almost unstoppable if you let them get a free switch in. If you play ubers for a while you should get the hang of it.

 

[sweeper]

yea ubers are again awesome and the variations of thw ays pokes can b used make it so good, try it and i know youll like it :)

 

[ODDish]

I mean, OU is the most common, and the one that should be learned.

Why? Just because it's the more common it doesn't mean that its inherently better, or more worthy of being learned than any of the others ...

 

[Odinwolf]

You've never played Ubers at all have you ._.

Yes. I've played plenty of Ubers.

What people need to realize is that variety of viability does not equate "balance." Variety can be a factor in determining balance, but a lack of variety does not mean a game is imbalanced.

Look at checkers. Checkers has no variety. All the pieces are the same and the starting positions of both players are the same as well. The simplicity of the game allows it to be balanced without variety. Or for another video game example, look at competitive SSBM. Smash is considered one of the most balanced fighting games out there. Nearly half the cast is "tournament viable," in that they can defeat any other character in high level play and have a chance to go deep. However, only the top five characters generally win tournaments because they have slight advantages that players have refined into big victories. A good Mario player can beat a good Marth or Sheik player, but Mario hasn't won a REAL tournament since the first year the game came out. That doesn't make Smash imbalanced, even if the character options at the highest levels of tournament play are limited.

Imbalance, therefore, is not determined by variety. It's determined by singularity of methodology and/or predetermined results based on a single event. For instance, if the ONLY way to win in Ubers was to carry ExtremeSpeed Arceus and the first person to get it safely into play won, that would be an "imbalanced" game experience. If the metagame is overly centralized on a single pokemon or strategy, I would consider that imbalanced.

However, Ubers is not dependent on any single set-up or strategy as the game currently stands. It doesn't have a lot of variety, true. But its balanced in that both players have a viable opportunity to win without carrying any single poke on their team. It also still relies very heavily on good decision-making, game knowledge and prediction. So like I said: It's a balanced metagame, even if it is lacking a bit in diversity.

 

[Lord Alchemy]

For me its fewer options. Not in move pools as ubers have absurd move pools, but in pokemon. Fewer Ubers compared to OU, thus its less interesting to build a team (which is what I enjoy most).

 

[WeavileTamer]

For me its fewer options. Not in move pools as ubers have absurd move pools, but in pokemon. Fewer Ubers compared to OU, thus its less interesting to build a team (which is what I enjoy most).

actually Ubers has the absolute most options for pokemon than any other metagame because its basically an anything goes tier

 

[Amelia]

Why? Just because it's the more common it doesn't mean that its inherently better, or more worthy of being learned than any of the others ...

It's something like all the good pokemon are in there already, and people play it first. When the newer people enter, they find it easier to notice that everyone is in the OU tab, and make an OU team themselves to play, because of this the number of people playing OU keeps expanding.

If we started off with UU, ubers, or even NU first, more people would play that respective metagame now.

Add to the fact that the current popular place to play is in shoddy, and more then 75% of the ppl in there are OU players.

 

[ODDish]

Actually Ae I was more annoyed by the fact that the implication was that learning OU should be mandatory, than the fact that its the larger game.

Although in response to your point about the number of people playing on Shoddy, I would suggest that you consider that the lack of incentive to play any other game might distort the figures to a degree.

 

[Amelia]

Quite a good point there, since people are content with OU, and they prefer not to play other metagames, thus there are less people in the other metagames, is that what you're saying? Because that's how i interpret it

 

[ODDish]

Not really ... more the fact that a lot of the people playing OU are playing in, or practising for, ladder matches, in order to gain a ranking.

There is no equivalent system for Ubers or UU, so the only way you can become a ranked player on Shoddy is essentially to play OU.

 

[COalex]

I think it's because people immediately assume that OU is the most "balanced" metagame, so that's the one they play first. Now that D/P has brought a boatload of new pokemon that can be used in Ubers, I think it's the first generation that bans are not needed (except Arceus maybe)

 

[Sovereign]

I think why most people don't uber is because they think that the metagame is primarily made of the 10 or so ubers and that's it, but that's not true. There are actually a lot of ou, bls, and uus that are good contenders for a solid uber team. Things like weather based pokemon, water absorbers, steels, etc have much better uses in the uber metagame than in any other, so that opens a lot of opportunities up. Also, the viability of movesets is probably worse than figuring out gengar's, especially when you deal with an arceus. Since ubers have very high stats all around with huge movepools, they are able to used in more ways than the non-ubers.

 

[sanjay120]

Imbalance, therefore, is not determined by variety. It's determined by singularity of methodology and/or predetermined results based on a single event. For instance, if the ONLY way to win in Ubers was to carry ExtremeSpeed Arceus and the first person to get it safely into play won, that would be an "imbalanced" game experience. If the metagame is overly centralized on a single pokemon or strategy, I would consider that imbalanced.

Ubers has oodles of variety, and I never said that lack of variety means it's unbalanced. But it is. Ubers is actually very dependant on one strategy: Sweeping and preventing the opponent from sweeping. Stall is present here but much less stallish. There are some matches where you might run into a Lugia and Giratina trying to outdo each other, and of course Toxic and Stealth Rock are there, but most of the time you only wall when necessary. You're always waiting for an opportunity to get your sweeper in and kill things. The same could be said of OU, but my point is that OU has other strategies as well. Ubers rarely does. This is not OU where you can run a stall team and slowly wear down the opponent, then they try to set up and you switch to a counter and continue stalling. This is where you pick off threats like a sniper, wall when you have to, and sweep as soon as possible. It's incredibly hectic and things there rarely have more than one or two surefire counters. It's really hit and miss and more dependant on any single move you make than any other metagame, save maybe Little Cup, which is pretty much the same as Ubers but with less stall.

 

[obi]

lol this reminds me of ADV. Everyone was all "ubers is all offense!" then people finally realized how wrong that is and it was "ubers is all stall!".

 

[sanjay120]

I've never seen that much stall in Ubers. I play it all the time too.

Maybe it's my team?