Dream World OU

[Tobes]

As some of you might've noticed by now, Dream World's forums have been moved to Thread Cryonics, as it no longer has enough activity to justify a forum. I was sad to pull the plug but it's better not to drag things out. However, while the forums are gone, the ladder has been kept intact, so you can continue to play Dream World to your heart's content.

For those of you new to Dream World, here are the primary differences between OU and Dream World:

Unreleased Dream World Abilities

(And others)

In Dream World, every Dream World ability is legal (except for Moody because fuck that shit). This makes some Pokemon much more powerful than they are in standard OU, where their ability is not released. Shadow Tag Chandelure and Contrary Serperior are the obvious eye-candy, but other interesting Pokemon, such as Volt Absorb Raikou, Sheer Force Feraligatr, and Lightningrod Zapdos, are all available here.

A Different Banlist



These are all unbanned in Dream World. In general we try to avoid bans, and experiment with Uber Pokemon. The tiering council is now defunct, but every once in a while I might drop something for shits and giggles and see how people react.

Yes, that is indeed a fucking Darkrai.

[ChaoticaMortis]

Rest in peace, DW Forum... Let us all shed a manly tear in remembrance.

[Jimbon]

it was fun while it lasted ;_;

[ala]

lawl darkrai

[Dr Ciel]

The past is gone. Time to see how the new OU will turn out.

[Matthew]

I'd like to publicly thank Tobes for taking over DW from me and keeping my original intent with it; as few bans as possible. We created a brilliant metagame that we should be proud of.

We knew Dream World had a limited life span, but we still wanted to create something which we saw was better than OU. I am happy to have met people like Hawkstar through Dream World and I enjoyed ever moment of telling Snunch I'm not banning Chandelure.

And, yeah, we fucking unbanned Darkrai. We're that cool

[Tobes]

Similarly I'd like to thank Matthew for getting Dream World off the ground and running. I don't think we'd have gotten to where we did if it weren't for him.

[Sewa]

So it came to this... so sad ;_;

[superbadd]

Aww, well this sucks.. =/ RIP dw.

[NixHex]

Thank you to Matthew, Tobes, Omicrom, v0x, jrrrrrrr, and shrang for keeping things interesting and fresh! DW stuff is still onsite for those still interested: http://smogon.com/dw/

[Jukain]

Originally Posted by Fat jrrrrrrr

I think moving this thread was the best thing that could have happened, now we can see how the metagames merge as more DW abilities get released. I think it will be interesting to see how OU's ban list changes (if at all) based on the experience of the DW players in these metagames. For example, I don't see as much Breloom and Keldeo usage in standard OU as I think I should, considering how much I used them in DW OU. If it increased, maybe Darkrai gets put in the OU suspect discussion.

And of course, a thank you to everyone involved in making the DW metagame happen. It was not easy to start this due to the in-cartridge bias that much of the staff has, so the huge amount of support that this meta gained was especially awesome. DW OU was the #2 most popular metagame on all of smogon for a couple months! (Only behind Standard OU)

Question: is there a schedule for when the last of the DW mons will be released?

An area called Dream Park is in the data of Black and White 2. It apparently features statues of Unova starters (which means they might be released). I don't know what there will be in it, but yeah.

EDIT: rip DW best tier

EDIT2: DW 2 gud

EDIT3: Darkrai fun

EDIT4: wtf am I doing with this post lol

[Audiosurfer]

Props to everyone who helped to create such an amazing metagame. Hopefully OU will be this cool someday

[VaporeonIce]

Originally Posted by Fat jrrrrrrr

I think moving this thread was the best thing that could have happened, now we can see how the metagames merge as more DW abilities get released. I think it will be interesting to see how OU's ban list changes (if at all) based on the experience of the DW players in these metagames. For example, I don't see as much Breloom and Keldeo usage in standard OU as I think I should, considering how much I used them in DW OU. If it increased, maybe Darkrai gets put in the OU suspect discussion.

Realize that the population who plays DW OU and the population who plays standard OU are very different. People chose to play DW OU specifically because they liked these Pokemon and wanted to use them. That's not to say they're not good; they definitely are, but the standard OU metagame has showed that they're on par with other pre-existing threats. If you don't want to be using stuff like TechniLoom, Shadow Tag Chandelure, Keldeo, Genesect, and Contrary Serperior, you won't be playing DW OU in the first place. That creates greater centralization around a specific set of threats. Unbanning certain Pokemon because of their weakness to these threats perpetuates the centralization around those threats; if I don't want to get maimed by Excadrill, TechniLoom is probably my most viable choice for reliably beating it.

What I'm trying to say is that there's heavy selection bias in the DW metagame, because players who wanted to use Tyranitar/Latios/Rotom-W/Scizor/Landorus/Celebi teams would have probably just been playing standard OU in the first place. So while threats like TechniLoom and Keldeo are definitely good in standard OU (and Keldeo is probably used a lot less than it should be), they see a lot less usage than in DW because players in standard are less motivated to use them simply for their own sake.

[Kidogo]

What you're saying makes sense, but I think that applied more to the less serious DW players--when I first played DW, it was, as I think was the case with many others, because I was bored with OU and wanted to try out a different metagame, one that was much more interesting and not dominated by volturn etc. So I think I and a lot of others were playing DW not because we wanted to specifically use the DW pokes, but because we wanted to see what a metagame with all these new addition would be like.

Mostly though, I'm sad now because I think that DW's ban philosophy and general policy ended up shaping a metagame that was the best of 5th gen IMO, and now that those policies are no longer in action due the dissolution of DW as an official tier, I think it's inevitable that things may revert to the standard "boring" OU once the commotion over the DW releases wears off.

Many thanks to the people in charge of DW, you created a great and very original metagame, it's too bad it can't last longer.

[White symphoni]

Mostly though, I'm sad now because I think that DW's ban philosophy and general policy ended up shaping a metagame that was the best of 5th gen IMO

^ You said exactly what i had in mind lol.It is sad to see DW come to an end,it was very fun while it lasted.Thanks to all of you for such an excellent metagame.

I'm now looking forward to when DW will completely merge with OU and hopefully form a similar banlist.

Again terrific banlist.

[Nightmare]

I might sound crazy:

But how about you unban all the 600 BST's and lower in Dream World now that the major part of it is over?

If you're going to unban Darkrai why don't you unban them all? It'd be nice to try some things like Deoxys-A and other things, and maybe deal with Blaziken a little better.

Maybe it's worth a shot.

-James

[Matthew]

I believe we thought about Deo-A on our banlist but KD24 and I decided that sounded kind of dumb and we didn't do it in the end. Deo-A is a rape machine and it does force you to carry priority of some sort or else you wind up being raped, physically and mentally. I think ending the banlist with Darkrai was a good move, but there could still be some more drop downs, I can't think of any off the top of my head but there were some...

[Nightmare]

Originally Posted by Fat Matthew

I believe we thought about Deo-A on our banlist but KD24 and I decided that sounded kind of dumb and we didn't do it in the end. Deo-A is a rape machine and it does force you to carry priority of some sort or else you wind up being raped, physically and mentally. I think ending the banlist with Darkrai was a good move, but there could still be some more drop downs, I can't think of any off the top of my head but there were some...

IDK man, I think Darkrai is probably more broken than Deoxys-A honestly, and this comes from a person who really likes Darkrai and has mained him since before he came out legally in the game. I would've never put him in the tier before others, as he's like the fifth most used Pokemon in ubers among other things........

I'm just thinking it might be worth a shot to give all the 600 BST'ers a try. There might be some broken ones (like Skymin for example), but it'd be nice research for once to have a stable metagame with everything playable.

Just a food for thought.

-James

[Magik]

Aww dream world D:
i remember playing DW extensively a couple months backk
the fun i had..
flailsashcinno, hipster scarf keldeo (now its mainstream lol), manaphy (like no one used it in the dw o-o), agilidos with gyarados core, ahhh the memoriess ;___;

[White symphoni]

Actually droping down more things is a good idea imo.Since DW is dead now,nobody will really care about whether it's balanced or not.The access to more things will transform it into a fun tier which people can use to take a break from OU.Deoxys-A is still very over powered.I guess Blaziken,Skymin,Kyurem forms can be considered.

[IstheCakeReallyaLie]

so you can continue to play Dream World to your heart's content

...When someone is on.

[Kidogo]

Quote:
so you can continue to play Dream World to your heart's content
...When someone is on.

Unfortunately, too true.

I agree that we should try out more unbannings, the thing is, how will we determine the viability? I doubt there's enough of a playerbase anymore for any sort of testing metagame...

[IstheCakeReallyaLie]

Originally Posted by Fat Kidogo

Unfortunately, too true.

I agree that we should try out more unbannings, the thing is, how will we determine the viability? I doubt there's enough of a playerbase anymore for any sort of testing metagame...

I'd be happy to get into it. Even though, you know, it would just be the same 3 people every time...

[/B/utterfree]

I'd love to get back into DW OU. Countering/checking Shadow Tag Chandelure every once in a while (fun because people sparked discussions about it frequently), or otherwise being able to use Contrary Serperior / Thick Fat Mamoswine, was what I used DW OU for periodically in BW whenever I was bored with Standard OU (which was very often early on).

I'd probs ask if there was a DW OU tier on PS!, but I shall check that for myself and not ask simple questions that might have simple answers.

[AfroThunderRule]

Sorry for bumping this but is there any way possible to make this metagame more active? I mean the tier was the second most battled tier for many months, and it's still very active on PO (yea, yea ban lists and stuff but still...)

So what's wrong now?