I redid the GSC tiers
 

I glanced at the GSC tiers yesterday and saw that some of the placements were either grossly inaccurate, grossly outdated, or perhaps both. it doesn't really matter much in all honesty, but I think it's proper to have everything corrected. I'm going through and editing a bunch of the pokemon articles also, since I can see that some of them haven't been updated since I (or whoever else, but mainly I) wrote them back in 2004-2005.

I've bolded the pokemon I changed along with its former tier.

[OU]
alakazam
blissey
cloyster
exeggutor
forretress
gengar
heracross
jolteon
machamp
marowak
miltank
misdreavus
nidoking
porygon2
raikou
rhydon
skarmory
snorlax
starmie
steelix
suicune
tyranitar
umbreon
zapdos
[BL]
aerodactyl
ampharos
articuno
charizard (from OU)
clefable
donphan
dragonite
entei
espeon
golem
houndoom
jynx (from OU)
kangaskhan
kingdra
lapras
meganium
moltres
muk
scizor
tauros
tentacruel
typhlosion (from UU)
ursaring
vaporeon
[UU]
aipom
arbok
arcanine
ariados
azumarill
beedrill
bellossom
blastoise
butterfree
chansey (from BL)
corsola
crobat
delibird
dewgong
ditto
dodrio
dugtrio
dunsparce
electabuzz (from BL)
electrode
farfetchd
fearow
feraligatr
flareon
furret
girafarig
gligar
golduck
granbull
gyarados
hitmonchan
hitmonlee
hitmontop
hypno
jumpluff (from OU)
kabutops
kingler
lanturn (from BL)
ledian
lickitung
magcargo
magmar
magneton
mantine
mr_mime
murkrow
nidoqueen
ninetales
noctowl
octillery
omastar
parasect
persian
pidgeot
piloswine
pinsir
politoed
poliwrath
primeape
quagsire
qwilfish
raichu
rapidash
raticate
sandslash
scyther
seaking
shuckle
smeargle (from BL)
slowbro (from BL)
slowking (from BL)
sneasel
stantler
sudowoodo
sunflora
tangela
togetic
unown
venomoth
venusaur (from BL)
victreebel
vileplume
weezing
wigglytuff
wobbuffet
xatu
yanma

if anyone wants me to explain any or all of the moves, I'd be more than happy to. in short, I think a pokemon's tier is dependent on both usage and actual power in the metagame. in the cases of Jynx, Jumpluff, and Charizard, their usage has never exceeded BL in the past 5 years or so, and others (Venusaur, et al.) never got to BL in the first place. I think certain things were ranked BL simply because they could feasibly be in standard play, but just because something can give a standard team trouble does not mean it dominates UU. in fact, GSC UU is a very offensive-based metagame, meaning that a lot of these high Attack, low Defense things actually have less durability in UU than they would in standard play.

of course, if I had my way entirely, there would be no "BL" tier at all, but oy...

nowadays, everything that is not OU would be put in UU and we'd suspect test from there. but since very few people care about GSC, we can't suspect test (or gather OU stats, for what it's worth).

I posted in C&C last week about the egregious error of Charizard being in OU and it got deleted and ignored. >:o

BUT WHY THE JUMPLUFF HATE >:O

A tier list based strictly on useage should only be split up into OU and UU. So I'm assuming "power" holds significant weight in your decision.

Stuff like Ampharos, Clefable, and Typhlosion eliminate a good portion of useable pokemon in a UU meta. If the "true" UU pokemon are ever going to see any play, I don't think there's too much of a case to be made for them. Sure they're not obscenely overpowered, but it's the simple concept of overcentralizing what could be a very creative metagame. How can something like Octillery, Poliwrath, Flareon, Pinsir, Golduck, etc etc, who are all very capable UU pokemon, compete with the likes of OU-considered pokemon?

I'd argue that Typhlosion is both easier to use and more effective than Entei. Ampharos nearly mirrors Raikou's stats apart from speed, and it has a far better movepool. Clefable romps the majority of UU (that aren't Typhlosion/Ampharos class).

Sure there are some hard hitters in UU like Sandslash/Dodrio (probably the only two, maybe Feraligatr), who don't really have a case in the BL category (Sandslash MIGHT, but it's just an inferior Marowak), and almost go toe-to-toe with the aforementioned, but is far more limited in usability. Eh, that wasn't a good sentence, whatever.

And what does Kingdra do exactly? I still don't understand. It should be in whatever tier Meganium is in. Or lower.

Tauros is a debatable BL. Certainly UU the way the list stands right now, but has a case for BL once "some changes" are made.

Smeargle might be fine in UU too.

The full list of UUs this applies to: Slowbro, Slowking (???, doesn't make any sense to separate him from Slowbro), Typhlosion, Meganium, Venusaur (???, personally I prefer Victreebel who'll never rid itself of the UU pretext, but Venusaur's debatable statistically), Electabuzz, Clefable, Chansey (???, not exactly overpowered, but gives the UU meta a chance to develop a special front), and Ampharos. "???" means questionable move.

Jumpluff should be no more effective in UU than in OU as a non-attacking pokemon. Aka not very. He(she)'s fine.

So unless every UU team is going to be the same 4-5 pokemon, it doesn't make any sense to keep them there.

Not that any of this matters of course.

I retract some of my choices (Chansey, Venusaur) seeing as they won't limit the use of UUs as much as the others.
//
Flareon wouldn't be used, nor Arcanine/Magmar given the option of Typhlosion. Without typhlosion, Arcanine/Magmar probably shares the spot. Flareon was a bad example.
//
Octillery can probably do something, who knows. Golduck is just a watered version of Magmar/Electabuzz. And by Pinsir, I meant Scyther.
//
It's two separate completely legitimate arguments: its counters were "mistakenly" placed in BL, OR Typhlosion was "mistakenly" placed in UU. I'm sure with Slowbro/king, it might not be as overpowered. But it would be a case of forcing teams to run specific Pokemon.

I strongly believe that if everyone were included, the "meta" would stabilize to just these:

Aerodactyl (if it were moved)
Ampharos*
Clefable*
Dodrio
Electabuzz**
Kingdra (if it were moved)
Lanturn (?)
Meganium*
Nidoqueen (?)
Sandslash
Slowbro/king**
Smeargle (?)
Tauros (Dodrio v. 2)
Typhlosion*
Venusaur
Victreebel

*denotes what I think should be moved from UU->BL
**denotes questionable

Without them, these are all usable in UU:

Arcanine
Blastoise
Chansey (not as a beller, screens/status/s-toss/counter/sing should be plenty)
Crobat
Dodrio
Electabuzz
Feraligatr
Gligar
Golduck
Granbull
Gyarados
Hitmonlee (?)
Hypno
Jumpluff
Kabutops
Lanturn
Magmar
Magneton
Nidoqueen
Ninetales (?)
Omastar
Piloswine
Politoed
Primeape (?)
Quagsire
Qwilfish
Raichu
Sandslash
Scyther
Smeargle (if moved)
Venusaur
Victreebel
Weezing (?)
Xatu (?)

(?) are questionable usages

Probably a few more, and a cursing normal somewhere.
//
You're definitely underplaying Clefable. With some paralysis, it runs over teams. "Other" sets are nice, but Belly Drumming will always be its primary set. It doesn't even have to account for ghosts in UU. Its only threats come from... those in the first list. You're underestimating its ability to take hits.
//
None of those you listed can compete with the likes of the 10 or so I mentioned. Why would anyone use Magmar if given Typhlosion? Typhlosion is the Snorlax to Magmar's Kangkhaskhan (except it doesn't even get the speed adv).
//
I know, but sometimes, less is more. Moving certain things to UU is a counter-intuitive approach to increasing the number of usable pokemon. Technically, the "pool" gets bigger, but the number viable becomes smaller without the right balance. The OU environment is a physical example of this.
//
I like the idea of 3 tiers, since it makes the UU actually playable at the cost of making the BL tier a complete mess (the outcasts of OU/UU).
//
Smeargle to UU
Ampharos to BL
Clefable to BL
Meganium to BL
Typhlosion to BL
Aerodactyl to UU (maybe???)

Tauros remains because of Dodrio-like attacking minus the defensive loopholes. Kingdra's 288 makes it a special threat coupled with 288 defenses and no weaknesses, should mirror Meganium imo.
//
I know the difference quite well, and it lies in its water typing. Whatever it's not resistant to, it's weak to. That makes special def almost irrelevent for waters to an extent. This is also why Starmie takes special hits "better" than zam despite similar defenses, speed, HP, and Recover. But I don't think this difference is as prevalent in UU as in OU, where special sweepers are almost nonexistent. Most of the SE attacks it'll take would probably come from non-STAB fronts, in which case the extra defense might prove to be useful. This is probably the most questionable change, given Slo's innate defensive approach. And its typing/speed gives it quite a few weaknesses that can be exploited. Debatable.
//
Typhlosion above.
//
Meganium walls everything that's not an SE-STABed move, AND has offensive potential as a dancer to counter some of those that can hit it.
//
Yeah all the starters have the same total BST, which is why I'm trying to move three of them (the waters have the short end of the stick in terms of stats-distribution). I guess Venusaur isn't too bad, Poison is a god-awful typing, especially with no Sludge Bomb typing. Hence, I'm second guessing myself with the Venusaur change.
//
I'm retracting Electabuzz as well.
//
Clefable.
//
Retracting Chansey for the time being, but to say it's not usable? Hardly. Belling is NOT the way to go. This one's debatable.
//
Ampharos is being underrepresented. Ampharos can switch into pretty much anything that's not Dodrio/Ground, and God-forbid if it gets passed a screen by Meganium (heh) or Hypno or something. And what exactly can't it hit EXTREMELY hard once it IS in?

Given that Raikou only switches into Raikou/Zapdos/Starmie/Suicune/Miltank (non-EQ kind obviously)/Blissey/Gengar/Umbreon/Skarmory/Jolteon/Misdreavus/Dragonite (the HP Flying/Wing attack kind)/Cloyster/Forretress, the difference isn't big unless it's the KO-ing shot, which shouldn't be the case. And it can't roar.

I guess the focus here should be breaking down the list a bit farther. Separate the NU from the UU for the purpose of clarity. Anything in this "new UU" is viable against every other member, and for all intents and purposes, the true UU pool. I believe the two lists I mentioned should be a pretty accurate representation of what it'll stabilize to if given the option of a. adding more shit to UU, or b. removing shit FROM UU. It's really a case of maximizing the number of usable pokemon really.

EDIT: I'm rather curious to see the OU list changed tbh. Move snorlax to ubers.

To make things more interesting, move Raikou, Zapdos, and Suicune as well. THAT would make an awesome tourney, a tribute to sheer skill of on-the-spot creativity in both team building and adaptation.

this is really the only other thing I'll post about it unless people have other questions.

like RBY, GSC never had an "underused metagame." this whole concept began with RSE, that is, the concept that the non-standard pokemon, in and of themselves, formed their own, unique metagame. this has never been the case in GSC, RBY, and even RS 200 for that matter. sure, there have been plenty of tournaments in the past...10 years (has it really been that long?) where only underused pokemon were allowed, but when GSC/RBY were the main metagames, we always viewed UU pokemon as fun things to try and incorporate into standard teams, not build a sub-metagame out of them.

that's one of the main reasons I love GSC--many UU pokemon are totally viable in standard play (not as gimmicks, mind you), and there is one singular metagame that, though skewed in favor of some pokemon, involved all the non-uber pokemon. just like RBY, it does leave out a bunch of pokemon that Nintendo just didn't seem to care about making relevant. but we should also consider the fact that:

~there just aren't as many pokemon in GSC/RBY/200 as in the later generations
~there was never an attempt to create a singular UU metagame in RBY or GSC when they were the newest metagames. even going back to when GSC was popular, the most prominent UU battlers, probably Locke/McGraw/Kane(? I can't remember the other one), integrated UU pokemon into being able to go against standard teams.

that's the main reason why I think the BL and NU tier ideas are kind of dumb, especially for GSC and RBY (and theoretically, 200, although it is surely the only truly "dead" metagame--shame since it was so awesome). I completely understand your (Charlie Brown/Borat) idea that perhaps adding more things to the UU tier will not necessarily widen the pool of used pokemon, but my main concern is why there is even a "BL" tier in GSC and RBY when GSC and RBY don't have (and have never had) a clear-cut "UU metagame"? if we ever had a strictly-underused tournament for RBY or GSC (and, realistically, when would that happen?), discuss and define the list then and there for that tournament, and that tournament only. otherwise, I think that the RBY/GSC tier lists are sort of misleading casual visitors, in addition to people who simply weren't around for GSC/RBY, into thinking that there's some kind of real significance as to why a "true" "underused team" can't have Tauros, or Clefable, or Meganium, or whatever. if I beat your standard team with Locke's infamous UU team (Houndoom/Piloswine/Magneton/Victreebel/Slowbro/Ursaring), would you discredit it by saying "but Houndoom, Slowbro, and Ursaring are TOO good for underused, so your achievement isn't as profound"?

if something is a good underused pokemon, a great underused pokemon even, let it be stated in their respective analyses, not in a tier listing that's kind of bogus to begin with. as far as RBY and GSC are concerned, the tiers are (or at least should be) used simply as a reference as to what is commonly seen on standard teams, and what is not--nothing more, nothing less.

the tiers for the later generations have a different meaning than they do for RBY and GSC. to be truly correct and satisfy both the legacy of GSC along with what's going on in pokemon today, I think it's important to make this distinction clear. case in point: we could move Snorlax to uber in GSC, and it's probably where Snorlax belongs. no one would probably care. but the fact is that GSC's play, now approaching 10 years old, has revolved around Snorlax; as we've said, Snorlax IS GSC. if we had suspect testing like Garchomp did for DPP, perhaps things would be different and we'd have a much more vibrant and dynamic metagame, but that just isn't the case. I think trying to evolve a metagame, through whatever means, just won't work when the metagame has long stopped being popular.

edit: sorry for the Jumpman-like use of quotation marks, but I find it necessary

If that's true, why make changes?

Beating a standard with a team of BL/UU is great. But there's a clear-cut advantage for BL over UU, just like OU over BL. Using a team of BL against UU is about as fair and as "accomplishing" as standards beating BL/UU. Therefore, in the context of a "UU match", it DOES matter whether or not a pokemon was BL or UU. But in the context of a standard meta, there's OU, and there's "everything else". A tier list designed with BL is designed with a "UU meta" (however non-existent) in mind inherently.

I agree completely with your OU list (zam included, since it's based on usage afterall). And if it were just the standard metagame at hand, Uber, OU, and "other" should be the only tiers. But it's the inclusion of a BL tier in the first place that makes debates and clarifications like this "necessary".

Your list might be more accurate if "BL" was short for "usable/viable pokemon in the standard meta that are not often used" (in which case, Jumpluff, Meganium, Clefable, Ampharos, and Slowbro still should be moved up). Because let's face it, some of the powerhouses in UU won't ever be used in OU because they're inferior versions of OU pokemon (granbull, dodrio, arguably typhlosion as well). It depends what you're striving for here. Ignoring the possibility of a pure UU meta (in which case, two tiers is plenty), or acknowledging that such a meta can exist.

And seeing that Smogon is often looked upon as "THE" place for competitive battling and guidelines, who knows, someone somewhere could be hosting a competitive UU tourney on their own. It's clear these changes aren't made for us.

I know I don't have influence on Smogon, but I would like to enter on that debate in the name of my community in Brazil.

The main point I agree here: "And seeing that Smogon is often looked upon as "THE" place for competitive battling and guidelines, who knows, someone somewhere could be hosting a competitive UU tourney on their own. It's clear these changes aren't made for us". We are included on this. Every rule an tier on my community is just equal to Smogon's rules and tiers, since everything else run that rules on NetBattle.

Don't forget also the old UU Stadium server/community. Plenty of players with UU Teams battling on the server, in every generation, GSC and ADV mainly (although they ran their own rules and tiers, but based on Smogon).

I disagree with the OU list just because of 1 Pokémon: Porygon2. And this is not a point of Porygon2 being useless or not so good (because he is very good IMO), but the simply fact that he isn't an OVER USED Pokémon. Its very very hard to see one being used. Even Tentacruel, Dragonite and Slowbro are a lot more common (and I'm not considering my community on that).

And please, don't go with "I don't care much, whatever..." concept in mind doing that new tier. There are people that are still active on the GSC meta, probably not only my community (GSC Elite/Lost Soul from Cingapura can argue on that, but I don't know if he is still active here).

so by your reasoning, i should be able to get a pokemon to a tier lower than its current tier by say....for argument's sake..... ordering friends of mine playing gsc to order their friends playing gsc to boycott said pokemon for a convincing period of time?

"Look guys, according to stats compiled over the last few weeks snorlax was used a total of 2 times! It is clear, snorlax is obviously uu."

please clarify if im misunderstanding

I didn't get your point I think. If I did, its completelly the contrary I've said. I'm not counting my community just because some may think my community can be biased (and it is really; Vaporeon and Charizard would definitelly be OU if I'd count my friends), so I'm only counting players OUT of my community.

is "a pokemon should be tiered based on how much frequently its used in the metagame" what you were trying to say? if not, then i didnt get the quoted part of your post.

if so, thats not a very clever idea imo

This is exactly how we should make the OU tier.

That is how we make the OU tier.

wtf?
 

I am against the release of HP in Lends, mainly in Zapdos. Clefable UU it's a offense, serious... i dont believe this. did you never lost for drumfable?? Slowbro too... omg, you are crazy? Slowking ok, is acceptable, but slowbro dont is right. Its my opnion.

I disagree. You have OU and UU, what purpose does that serve? Why not just eliminate UU as well? There's ubers and "others", the banned and the not banned. That would make more sense wouldn't it? Why does it matter to a "standard" player the popularity of pokemon? This brings me to my next point.

A tier list isn't made to give people a history lesson, it serves as a guideline for people playing the game. An uber player should be able to use everything from uber on down, a standard player should be able to use everything from OU on down, a BL player should be able to use everything from BL on down, and a UU player should be able to use everything from UU on down. And if it's suppose to be a snapshot of what WAS, why change it at all? Lanturn was OU. As was Kingdra, Tentacruel, and Houndoom. Why "mislead" people into thinking otherwise? Hell, going back further, shit like Nidoking, Exeggutor, Steelix, SKARMORY, weren't OU.

The only reason to differentiate OU from UU in a strictly standard meta is to show that certain pokemon are "better" than others. That's the only merits it has to a standard player. But even if you were showing the strengths of particular pokemon over another, it would make sense for the changes I'm proposing. Those I mentioned ARE a step up from the others in the UU pool, just like Snorlax is a step up from Ursaring. That's what a tier is, isn't it? To show rank... hierarchy?

I didn't think so. I've always used UU-UU teams (granted, I admit I took advantage of Clefable) to play against standards and other "UU"s. And it always bugged me when they used Golem, Kangaskhan, and Ampharos against my team of Feraligatr, Magneton, and Dodrio. Of course, I kept my mouth shut, since there was nothing to back up my reasoning. Have you thought, maybe the reason why UU never took off, was because of the lack of tourneys and therefore, a lack of solid UU/BL differentiation? I mean, you might argue there was only one metagame during that time, but I guarantee everyone had AT LEAST one UU team. They just rarely had the chance to use it.

I acknowledge that some pokemon are just useless. Refer to my previous list.

This is where you lose me. If you agree with everything I'm saying, then why are you so hesitant to make the changes? What exactly do you lose from making the changes? Because it doesn't matter? That's not a valid reason. It's a win-tie situation going with my thinking, and a tie-lose going with your thinking.

EDIT: A list that acknowledges the possibility of a UU-meta can adapt to it if it ever develops. A list that completely dismisses the possibility simply won't. I don't even think it serves a purpose (at least not without statistical backing).

I hate historical analogies, but here goes. When the Constitution was originally written, it paved way for future "development" via the amendments. It outlined a process for change at a future time, despite the fathers themselves not knowing what they were. And that's what made it so successful.

This is one of those "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" things.

EDIT2: That's because a BL list NEVER developed. I have no doubt, that if people ever took the time to create one like we are now, that Ampharos would be in BL (or at least strongly considered). It was UU based on usage, and probably BL based on power.

Who the hell uses Tauros [after the OHKO ban] to warrant BL?

Ignored? Read my post.

to .Maguss.: I did not ignore your post, but understand that you're one poster. in addition, you're one poster speaking, it seems, on behalf of an entire community. if there's indeed an active GSC population wherever you are, have more of them come here and discuss this. read the last statement in bold in my previous post.

and if we did indeed make the tiers based on how frequently a pokemon is/has been used in the metagame, I'd claim most (if not all) of the BL pokemon would be UU.

it SHOULD serve as a guideline, that's exactly what I'm saying; our opinion differs in what KIND of guideline it should be. the GSC (and RBY) metagame was "everything non-uber." as I said in the suggestion thread (link in signature), in GSC/RBY, the tiers are just a loose heads-up.

OU: "these are pokemon commonly seen in the GSC netagame"
UU: "these are pokemon not commonly seen in the GSC metagame" (again, noting that there's only been one GSC metagame)

popularity shouldn't matter in making a well-structured team, but we'd have to assume that popular pokemon are popular for a reason.

in addition, also consider that there has never been, in ANY generation, a "BL" metagame. what bothers me is that, as Great Sage pointed out, BL pokemon are OU for all intents and purposes. but since they're not "truly" good enough for OU play, they're (with maybe 3-4 exceptions) never used in standard play, but since they're also "too good" for UU play, they can't be used there either. so, in being "decently good," but not "exceptionally good," these pokemon are pretty much excluded from all play unless we magically devised yet ANOTHER hypothetical GSC metagame; honestly, it's enough of a stretch to think that we could evolve, develop, and stabilize one extra GSC metagame 5+ years past its creative peak, let alone two. either way, you're excluding one batch of pokemon for another. the way I see it, we differ only in which batch of pokemon we want to exclude.

one of the reasons there was only one metagame in GSC/RBY was because there were many different communities, the information was scattered on many different forums, not to mention that in GSC's period the majority of the playing population was on GSBot, not NetBattle. since there wasn't a Smogon-like beacon of information and strategy, there were only a few things totally agreed upon (ubers, clauses); the rest was fair game.

I hate the use of historical analogies also, but to go with what you're saying, you could also think of GSC/RBY as the Confederate States of America. we could re-examine and edit its Consitution (including taking out that slavery bit) to make the perfect government. but the Confederacy is dead.

I'd say some OU pokemon are better than others. Jolteon v. Raikou. Rhydon v. Tyranitar. Alakazam v. Starmie. I'd also say some UU pokemon are better than others.

we can theorymon all we want, but the only way to really be able to do this is to actually get a bunch of people to make teams and try shit out a la the Suspect Testing system. we don't have enough people to do that.

Ok, I'll call them then.

OU, UU and NU are all tiers based on use (hence his names, with the word "Used"), but Uber and BL are tiers based on power. Uber limits Pokémon for the standard metagame, and BL limits Pokémon for the UU metagame (hence why they don't have the word "Used" in its names).

Anyway, I was talking about the OU tier (and Porygon2).

Kouwak doesn't work as well as Joltwak. And let's be fair, Jolteon wouldn't be OU without Marowak.

Rhydon and Tyranitar define equal. I don't know how you consider tyranitar a step up (or vice-versa). Losing that ground typing is both an advantage and a disadvantage. And even disregarding that fact, ttar is still not a definitive step up in sheer power alone (as with the case of Raikou definitely being superior than Jolteon).

Alakazam and Starmie is harder to argue, especially with my bias.

I'm not a big fan of generalizations, so let's continue.

Steelix vs Rhydon? Nope.

Misdreavus vs Gengar? Nope.

Forretress vs Cloyster? Nope.

Pgon2 vs Snorlax? Almost. ALMOST. But not quite. They still serve very different roles, and have extremely different takes on the Cursing set as well.

Nidoking vs Tyranitar/Rhydon. Here we have something, but like Jolteon, one move makes all the difference. An LK-less Nidoking is not OU-worthy.

Ursaring vs Snorlax? Yep. Hence the different tier.

I don't think you understand. You don't LOSE ANYTHING going with the tier structure I outlined. It still tells people what's popular (since I have no intents of changing the OU definition), and let's face it, what's THAT popular IS good. But the UU is just further broken down, and it's more useful to players in determining "oh hey, these BL pokemon are usable standard play, I don't even have to look at the UUs". It also tells them "oh hey, these BLs act as the ubers of the UU world". It's not like OU teams can't beat celebies, lugias, ho-ohs, and mewtwo, it's just that undeniable power gap, a clear advantage over the mere mortals of the OU world. Same thing here.

Again, it accomplishes everything you want to do (which is to tell people what's popular, what's not), since people can figure out for themselves, if it's not OU, then it's not... overused. You have nothing to lose, but everything to gain. You keep saying "we don't want to misinform the people", but "people" aren't that stupid. I'm not saying create an overused-UU list, THAT would be a lie.

BL pokemon can be used in OU for the most part, that's the point. There are a few exceptions, of course (Tauros, Articuno, Entei, Aerodactyl), but that number doesn't approach the number of pokemon that WON'T be used in UU should the UU pool grow to encompass BL. Furthermore, the point isn't to use every pokemon in just 2 definitive metas. Are we forgetting that in GSC's prime, most of the BL/UU pokemon were not used in UU/BL/OU teams, but rather THEME teams? The mono-types, the colors, the gym leaders, the favorites, the OHKO, the metronome, the whatever, and these theme teams are not bound by any traditional tiers. In fact, these theme teams are what put some of these UUs on the map in the first place, and even made some UUs into BLs.

Also, as a side argument, I still feel Slowking should be in whatever tier Slowbro is in. Slowbro is better, forever better, but by how much? If one was a 75, the other would be a 70. That should still be in largely the same tier. Snorlax's 100 betters Starmie's 90, but that doesn't stop Starmie from topping every OU list.

"BL pokemon can be used in OU for the most part, that's the point."

they "can be," just like the already-UU pokemon. but when does that actually happen? when is Bob going to use Lapras? when will you use Scizor? and be honest. the only time pokemon like (most of) those in the BL tier ever come up for consideration in standard team building is when you try to build a team to support that pokemon because you like it. isn't that, in itself, a bit of a "theme team"?

if people really insist on there being more than just OU/UU, I'd rather stick all of the "BL" things and the "better" UU pokemon into the UU tier and drop everything else down into the "NU" tier. to compromise or something. at least then we'd be honest ("these pokemon aren't used much") while still maintaining this felt need of "balance" in the non-OU tiers.

and like I said, we may think we have it figured out, but we'll never know for sure unless we actually got a group together and tested it.

Aren't explosion teams "theme" teams then? What exactly IS an OU team in this regard? Toxic spikes? Still theme. There's no such thing as a non-theme team if you discount building a team around a particular "strategy". There's only "bad" teams.

This doesn't balance "UU" at all. It'd be worse than what you have currently (in terms of playable pokemon). It'd discount even some of the "better" UUs. Who'd use Dodrio if given Ursaring/Kangaskhan? And Charizard in "UU"? Golem? That's definitely shrinking the pool even further.

I hardly consider stall teams "higher rewards" than something built around a "mediocre" Charizard, Clefable, or Vaporeon. In GSC, sometimes, "medium reward" is as good as it gets. Some players prefer "high risk, medium reward" over "low risk, low reward". I would hardly consider the former "inferior".

Because in the hypothetical "BL meta" scenario, I'm assuming most of the pokes used would be from the BL tier anyway. That's to be expected. In the OU scenario, most of the pokemon used would be from the OU tier. That's the norm. And if it were up to me, I would differentiate UU into NU/UUs as well. It's much more representative when every single pokemon in a tier could be used in their respective metas, but I'll stick to OU/BL/UU for now. But a "UU" tier in which only 10% of the pokemon are usable? No thanks. Take a look at the OU list and tell me each and every single one of them isn't usable on a standard team? That's the way it's suppose to be. Now take a look at the UU list, then tell me every pokemon is at least viable to some extent? You can't. They aren't. And once you incorpoate the BLs into that list? Well then, it's almost offensive how small the list shrinks.

It's not too hard to grasp. Once you get to a certain level of "theorymon", it gets pretty damn accurate. You just see things, because it's a truth. Unless I'm completely missing something, it's not too hard to play out battles in your head, and it'll end up pretty close to an actual battle, minus the luck, minus the skill gap, minus the team gap.