RarelyUsed Hub

[DittoCrow]

We're pleased to announce the new launch of the RU Hub. In it, you'll find news, articles, projects, and the points leaderboard. The Home page contains a fantastic banner by Bummer, as well as recent happenings in the RU tier, including project winners, bans, and new threads. The Projects sections contains various resources in the tier, including the current np: thread, usage stats, active projects, and tournaments. You should visit this page especially if you are new, as it will direct you to where to learn about the tier, projects you may be interested in, and which tournaments have open signups or are in progress. The Leaderboard shows the current round of the RU Awards, how many points each player has, and their rank. The Forum and Pokemon links are generally for new users, as they link to the RU Forum and all of the Pokemon with RU analyses, respectively. Finally, the archives contain old news stories from each month, in case you missed them.

Basically, if you've been away or just want quick summaries about what's happening in RU, visit the Hub!

If you would like to write for the Hub, post below and contact DittoCrow, Jellicent, or SilentVerse. You are also encouraged to posts comments suggestions down below ^_^

[ShakeItUp]

The Hub should include something like the History of RU, detailing all of the suspects and such that got banned in every round (or were suspected and didn't get banned).

Great project though Crow :)

[Bigblue]

RU FTW

[Oglemi*]

Originally Posted by Fat ShakeItUp

The Hub should include something like the History of RU, detailing all of the suspects and such that got banned in every round (or were suspected and didn't get banned).

Great project though Crow :)

I can actually get this up momentarily or post it here, gimme a minute

[Oglemi*]

OK these don't go as recently as I thought, I may have a couple others written up somewhere, feel free to critique or GP these:

October 4th, 2011

Initial RU caused Yanmega and Venomoth to be removed from Rarelyused

Type:
Ban
Affects:
RU
Threads:

Gen V Initial RU, RU Initial Banlist by Oglemi and Nails

At the conclusion of the first few months of RU, Yanmega and Venomoth were deemed too powerful for RU and were placed into Borderline 2, or the RU banlist. After discussion in the aforementioned threads, the leaders of the tier, Oglemi and Nails, made an executive decision to boot the bugs out of the tier for being too powerful. Yanmega was cited as broken due to its ability to simply blast its way through almost the whole of RU with its Choice Specs-boosted Tinted Lens Bug Buzz and Air Slash, or a powerful Life Orb Speed Boost late-game cleaner. Venomoth was deemed broken due to its ability to not only sweep with a deadly Quiver Dance Tinted Lens Life Orb set, but it was also able to pass whatever boosts it accumulated with Baton Pass to a teammate, typically Omastar, Moltres, or Porygon-Z. On top of that, Venomoth even had access to Sleep Powder to put its usual counters out of commission for the remainder of the battle.

October 19th, 2011

Alakazam and Sableye removed from Rarelyused after the first stage of RU

Type:
Ban
Affects:
RU
Threads:
np: RU Stage 1, RU Suspect Test 1 by Nails

With the usage tier shifts, banning of Yanmega and Venomoth, and the release of a bunch of new Dream World Pokemon, RU Stage 1 was a hectic round. After just a couple of weeks it became apparent that Magic Guard Alakazam and Prankster Sableye were having an adverse effect on the metagame. So, a seven man council was assembled and a vote was taken on whether the two culprits should stay in RU or not. With a 6-0 vote, Alakazam was nearly unanimously deemed broken, due to its immunity to entry hazards, passive damage, and ability to simply rip through the metagame with a powerful Life Orb set or survive any attack once with Focus Sash and continue to sweep. With a 4-3 vote, Sableye too was deemed broken due to its ability to hard counter any stall team with its access to priority Will-O-Wisp, Taunt, Toxic, and Recover. It could also easily beat its usual counters with a simple Calm Mind set.

November 18th, 2011

The second stage of RU ruled that Baton Pass + Shell Smash is no longer allowed on the same moveset in Rarelyused and Honchkrow and Lilligant deemed not broken in Rarelyused

Type:
Ban
Affects:
RU

Threads:
Introducing the RU (Jedi) Council, np: RU Stage 2, RU Stage 2 – Alt Identification Thread, RU Stage 2 Suspect Voting by by Oglemi and

At the beginning of Stage 2, a new style to determine the seven man Council was conceived, with various aspects of the forum, battle simulator, and IRC coming into play. At the conclusion of Stage 2, Honchkrow, Lilligant, and the strategy of Baton Pass + Shell Smash were slated as suspects and were voted on. Only Baton Pass + Shell Smash received a majority 6-1 vote and was voted BL2. SmashPass as the strategy is commonly referred to as, was cited as being broken due to its ability to too easily set up a dangerous sweeper with very few ways to stop the strategy. While some of the voters felt it wasn’t as overly-powered as past suspects, it simply made the game uncompetitive.

December 16th, 2011

Porygon-Z deemed not broken in Rarelyused from stage three voting

Type:
No Ban
Affects:
RU

Threads:
np: RU Stage 3, RU Stage 3 – Alt Identification Thread, RU Stage 3 Suspect Voting by Oglemi

At the conclusion of Stage 3, Porygon-Z was determined to be a worthy suspect and was slated to be voted on by the next council. However, at the end of the round, a 3-4 deemed Porygon-Z as not broken. Honchkrow, while getting the same vote the round before, was not slated due to the functioning of the new council which would not allow any suspect to be voted on two rounds in a row. At the end of the round, a new strategy involving hail, Trick Room, and Focus Sash + Endeavor Solosis and Duosion was discovered that got the number one seed of the ladder to the top. Many cried out that the strategy was broken, but due to its utter newness, having only been discovered three days before the end of the round, it was not slated as a suspect to let the strategy simmer on the ladder for a while more. However, with the banning of Snover and Abomasnow from UU, the strategy became obsolete, fixing any problems associated with it.

January 5th, 2012

Cresellia deemed not broken from the result of a quick vote

Type:
No Ban
Affects:
RU
Threads:
Cresselia Suspect Discussion, RU Cresslia Stage - Alt Identification Thread, RU Cresselia Quickvote Voting by Nails and Oglemi

With the new tier shifts, Cresselia dropped into RU along with several other Pokemon, including Spiritomb and Golurk. Back in Stage 1 when Cresselia was first in the tier with Yanmega and Venomoth, it was largely considered broken. However, Cresselia left the tier to go to UU due to usage before a decision could be made on its tiering placement within RU. With it back in RU without Yanmega and Venomoth, there was large concern that Cresselia would break the metagame and would be even more broken than it was before. So a quick vote was called, to either get it out of the tier ASAP so that the round could continue without its influence, or to keep it in the tier to determine if it really is broken. The voting council that was gathered decided to keep it in the tier to see if it really was broken or not.

January 16th, 2012

Round Four of Suspect Testing Resulted in the banning of Cresselia and Porygon-Z while Honchkrow remain

Type:
Ban
Affects:
RU
Threads:
np: RU Stage 4, RU Stage 4 Alt Identification Thread, Porygon-Z Suspect Discussion, Honchkrow Suspect Discussion, Cresselia Suspect Discussion, RU Stage 4 Suspect Voting by Oglemi and Nails


At the end of the round, Cresselia was ultimately determined to be broken in a 5-4 vote. It was largely considered too bulky for the tier, as it was able to set up dual screens, Trick Room, and many other field effects for the team multiple times throughout the battle. It also had instant recovery in Moonlight and could bring back a teammate from near-death with Lunar Dance. Finally, it was able to go on the offensive with an effective Substitute + Calm Mind set and plow through the opposing team with the right conditions. Porygon-Z was unanimously considered to be broken, mostly in part to its ability to easily sweep the opposing team from behind dual screens after an Agility. With no reliable switch-ins, the Choice Specs set could also cause devastation to the opposing team. Honchkrow was unanimously deemed not broken after months of debate in this vote. While it is largely considered the most powerful Pokemon in the tier, its downsides in its slowness, frailness, and high recoil make it easy enough to bring down with a well-built team. There are also hard counters to the standard SubRoost set in Aggron, Stunfisk, and Steelix, among others.

[Texas Cloverleaf]

http://www.smogon.com/smog/issue19/ru_suspect

Information should someone wish to research/write round 5 and the suspecting of Durant and Sharpedo.

[Jukain]

You forgot Durant ^.^

EDIT: ninja'd

[DittoCrow]

Hey guys, we're now looking for some people to write for the hub! Some stuff needs updating, like the History of RU, so if you played during the past rounds then maybe you would like to summarize them. We're also always looking for new article ideas. If you're interested in writing or contributing to the hub, shoot DittoCrow, SilentVerse, and Jellicent a PM! Also, please continue to post suggestions here ^_^

[zdrup15]

Ok so after a while away from the tier, I've decided I'd try to come back. I've edited the History of RU with some laddering experience (like which playstyles and strategies dominated) from the previously written Stages. I've also nitpicked some things but those are purely flavour so feel free to ignore them. Also, when I have the time (maybe tonight) I'll write one or two Stages (Durant and Omastar probably).

Finally, I wanted to say congrats, the tier seems much more active now!

[Jellicent*]

The Hubs and C&C will now be working more closely together. If you're looking to write up something about the RU metagame, you can check out the new C&C subforum, Letters. To learn more about Letters, read this (it's not long). To help keep things more organized between the various hubs, we've also installed a Letters Approval & Index thread. This should help ensure that hubs are held to same standards of quality that C&C is known for, while also giving users a subforum to pitch their ideas and work together ^.^

[DittoCrow]

Just so you all know, the hub is still being worked on! We just added an Articles section and have 2 articles at the moment. If you want to write articles or add content to the hub, check out the hub section in the RU C&C Index Thread. Lots of stuff needs to be written by the way, so please head over there if you are able to write about the tier. If you are not, you should be reading the articles on the hub :p. As always, suggestions are appreciated so post them here.

[zdrup15]

Well, I suggested it a while ago but it's been one or two months and nothing is done so I guess I'll say it again. Why not including the teams in the archive and the top warstories on the hub. These two things are both kinda lost in the RU forum and the RMT archive and would be a great thing to have on the Hub. The archived RMTs would also make up for the lack of some of the History.

[DittoCrow]

Warstories are a thing of the past, there haven't really been many recently. I'm not sure if people enjoy reading them either since the most recent one did not get many replies/views. As for RMTs, I think that's a good idea but I know that there's an RMT hub in progress that would include these RMTs, so it might be conflicting to include them on RU's hub. I'm down to add them though if you think it's important.

[Yonko7]

Is it possible to have a mini-tour in which BL2 Pokemon, Venemoth, is allowed in RU to see how it would affect the metagame?

[DittoCrow]

Yes, you can start one if you want. However, you don't need to post here if you want to start a project/mini-tour. Just get the approval from a mod.