Policy Review Proposal: A CAP Metagame Suspect System

Approved by Birkal

Lets face it - nobody takes the CAP Metagame seriously. While there are many reasons for this, one of the major things holding CAP back is the absolute lack of a viable banning option. When a CAP is introduced, it stays introduced, and the ripples it causes in the metagame are completely ignored. While in the past we have simply copied OU's banlist, I think it is high time to introduce some sort of suspect system so that we can finally show that we are a legitimate metagame that can be taken seriously, which will lead to a increase in popularity as the CAP Metagame becomes something to be played seriously rather then a "for the lulz" tier.

While introducing a suspect system into the CAP Metagame will not instantly fix all of its problems, it will go a long way towards doing so, as well as once again, increasing popularity due to increasing legitimacy. Thankfully, while this subject is complicated, we only have two questions to ask:

SHOULD we implement a suspect system and thus implement bans in the CAP Metagame

and

HOW should we implement said system, if we do decide to introduce a suspect system to the CAP Metagame?

Here are the two most popular options Smogon has used for your consideration.

Option 1: Senate

Now, all tiers operate off the senate system nowadays. Essentially, we would put a group of players well versed in the CAP Metagame on a senate, which would then vote every so often on various suspects. If a majority decided something was toxic for the metagame or otherwise too powerful, it would be banned, otherwise it would stay. Likewise, they could vote if something was fine in the metagame, thus leading to thing becoming unbanned. This usually involves paragraphs detailing the council member's reason for their position.

Option 2: Suspect Testing + Blind Voting

This option was used a lot back during the beginning of B/W. Basically, a pokemon gets nominated for suspect via various methods (say, the PRC deciding for random example of how this could work), and then a week or two is spent with said pokemon banned. After which, a vote is held, and if it is deemed to be too overpowered or otherwise too toxic to the metagame, then it is given the boot. Likewise, pokemon can be suspect tested to drop to CAP OU. This usually involves mass blind voting.


Now theoretically we can always just ignore both options, or go for something that's in between, but I just provided these two options as examples of what we could do. If anyone has a viable alternative that is significantly different from these two, I will edit it into the OP.

Personally, I favor option 1, since we don't exactly have the largest userbase at the moment, and not many people are dedicated to the CAP metagame. And obviously I'm in favor of a suspect system, because we really need it. I can't really see a reason not to have a suspect system other then concerns about how much effort it would take.

Much as I know many users are terrified of Rain as it stands in BW2 (much less with the additions of any of Mollux, Tomohawk, Cyclohm, Necturna, Arghonaut, and Krilowatt)... I don't see a need for Suspect Testing in the current CAP metagame. Plenty of varieties of teams are viable in the CAP meta. Indeed Hail is quite powerful and anti-meta. No single OU mon is broken in CAP imo, nor are any individual CAPs, though Tomohoawk probably comes closest.

Beyond that, I don't think we will want to make a decision on this until OU has settled how it is dealing with suspect/bans if any. I'm not expecting needing to have CAP do anything different than follow OU's banlist and add in CAPs. I certainly would never WANT to ban a CAP from the CAP meta, nor could I even envision a scenario in which it would be necessary.

If this is instead an open-ended, how WOULD we do this sort of question... I guess a Senate would have to be preferred, as it is the standard of Smogon today and seems better than the clusterfuck OU had at the beginning of BW1.

If this is done, a Senate would work best.

I don't think this should be done currently. There doesn't seem to be much interest in the CAP meta currently and you need active participants to be able to form a good senate. This topic is dead and there is basically no metagame related topics on the main forum. For now, I recommend that the people who are interested in this try to get more people involved. Talk about the metagame more on the forum, organize tournaments. Perhaps write articles for The Smog.

Just posting to say that I agree with uwnim. I have always been a big supporter of the CAP metagame and would like to see it flourish to some degree. It seems to do pretty well on the simulator, interestingly enough; there are quite a few CAP battles on a daily basis. However, we seem to neglect the metagame pretty hardcore on the forums. Once we gain some popularity, we can reconsider this thread. I'm locking it for now.

Know that I am here to help facilitate a move towards making the CAP metagame popular; I've always wanted it to be more represented. If there is anything I can do to help with metagame discussion on the forum, I'll be there (especially to help keep the conversation going). If you want to start mini-tournaments, those would be great too. Look in the Smogon Metagames forums to get an idea for what some good forum projects are (especially NU, LC, and RU). We could also run a big Smogon CAP tournament, so we'd need to get approval from the Tournament Directors. Finally, I am an editor of The Smog, so I'd be more than willing to consider letting one of you write an article on the CAP metagame.

How popular the CAP metagame is rests on your shoulders, CAP community. I'm willing to help as much as possible, but it's going to be up to you to decide how much work you want to put into it. PM me if you're interested in leading one of the above things that I listed if you need any help or guidance!