np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 6 - Enter Sandman

SUSPECT LADDER IS FINALLY UP, GO PLAY!

After many delays and a ton of anticipation, Suspect Testing is making its triumphant return to Smogon! The OU Council has unanimously agreed to implement a new council-suspect hybrid process in order to determine OU tiering. In a nutshell, anybody who attains a certain rating and deviation on the Pokemon Showdown Suspect Ladder at the end of the round will gain voting rights, while the members OU Council will automatically be qualified to vote.

This process is strikingly similar to that used for early Gen 5 tiering, though there will be no nomination period at the end of each round. Instead, the OU Council will choose the suspect or suspects prior to each round. As some of you clever folk may have deduced from the topic, on the chopping (chomping?) block this round is none other than our good pal Garchomp.

Garchomp will be fully reintroduced into OU on the Suspect Ladder, meaning it can be used with either Rough Skin or Sand Veil. The informal Suspect Ladder implemented a few weeks ago, in addition to the practice BW2 Tours, made it pretty clear that Rough Skin Garchomp isn't even close to being broken, so testing Sand Veil Garchomp will give us a means of determining what to do with Sand Veil as a whole.

In typical Suspect Testing thread fashion, here is a nice bullet-point schedule:

• The Suspect Ladder will be reset and Sand Veil Garchomp will be unbanned from the ladder on September 13th at 11:59 pm EST:.
• The Suspect Round will end on September 27th at 11:59 pm EST. A voter confirmation thread will be posted containing each account that attained a rating of 1900 and deviation of 50 or lower on the Suspect Ladder at the end of the round. If you need help determining these numbers please refer to Math Nerd Aldaron. Please note that these qualifications are tentative and are subject to change depending on the size of the voting pool after the two weeks have elapsed.
• On September 30th, the voter confirmation thread will be closed and the voting thread will be posted. Players who qualified to vote will have three days to cast their votes.

These tests will of course count towards earning the Tiering Contributor badge. To avoid the kerfuffle we had last time regarding active Tiering Contributors, the badge will only be awarded to individuals who have voted in four BW Suspect Tests. This spans across all tiers, and includes tests beginning when BW was just released in late 2010. In addition, in order to maintain your badge, you must have participated in a Suspect Test within the past six months. Past Gen Suspect Tests will count towards the eight votes required to obtain the Tiering Contributor alumnus badge.

That's pretty much it. Good luck to all, and may your Garchomp dodge attacks with aplomb!

Aldaron's edits: Just to clarify, a preliminary character check will be applied regardless of number of votes... so if you happen to be posting like a giant douche or acting like a dick on IRC, you won't get a badge even if you have 15 votes. Please, act nicely and remember, it's just Pokemon.

Aldaron said:

BTW, when you guys hit requirements, be sure to screenshot them and message one of the council members with the appropriate information.

You don't have to maintain it till the end (decay on showdown is pretty extreme), so be sure to do this once you hit them.

It's up to whether or not you want to keep playing, but note the requirements might change (read: rating req gets higher, deviation req gets lower).

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Iconic said:

We've decided to extend the deadline by a week, meaning this round will end on October 5th at 11:59 pm EST. Since all the ratings were unfortunately reset, the requirements to vote have been lowered. These new requirements will be a rating of 1900 and a deviation of 65 or below. Keep in mind these requirements are subject to change depending how the new rating system works out. Anyone who has already qualified by sending us a screenshot of their 1900 +/- 50 rating does not need to qualify again. I apologize to anyone who was really close to meeting the requirements right before Pokemon Showdown was attacked, but there's not much we can really do. I blame Aldaron.

Now get back to your Pokemon chit chat!

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Holy shit it begins now. Suspect testing is back and the debates will never end.

Also, in the future, will all suspect tests follow this pattern? I mean, if we are testing something for banning from OU, will we set up a suspect ladder with that mon banned? So you have to gain experience without seeing that pokemon to vote on it? I'm just a little confused.

I am in full support of this. I assume no potential bans are being considered for this round? To rephrase, only the possible unbanning of Garchomp could change after this round?

Now Sand Veil is in play with the Garchomp testing. This is gonna be interesting.

I want to thank everyone involved in the decision to bring back suspect testing. I'm actually a little excited to have a reason to play on the ladder.

i enjoy the title

awesome

I'm still going to use Rough Skin Garchomp, I have my honour.

:lol

It's garchomp... You people act like it hasn't been play in the past or Ubers.

Pocket EDIT: YOU PEOPLE?!

Yes, you people with an excitement.

So it begins... This should be fun. Time to get my ladder rating back up!

Finally in 2 weeks we will have Garchomp back, with or without Sand Veil... Let's all abuse the fuck out of SubSD Chomp before he gets banned :D

I don't think the 2 weeks has started yet, since the suspect ladder isn't reset yet (my old ranking is still there).

Looking for a fresh start and this will do me well. Can't wait to use chomp again. On a related note, are we bringing back ugly check marks and awarding TC for multiple time voters again?

I finally have a reason to stop playing LoL for a little bit. A++

I have a question: do you only count ratings in the OU Suspect tier, and not standard OU? I'd like the opportunity to vote, and I want to make sure I'm laddering in the right place. :)

undisputed said:

I want to thank everyone involved in the decision to bring back suspect testing. I'm actually a little excited to have a reason to play on the ladder.

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awww hell yea! there is more reason to play bw2 now. lfgi.

an ou np thread brings back memories..... good ones! You'll being seeing me on the ladder!

EDIT: wait wait wait SAND VEIL CHOMP YES!!!!!!

EDIT2: i didn't even use rough skin chomp lol i now have a good reason to use chomp

Well, this certainly will be interesting... I've always wondered what Sand Veil will do to Garchomp in the current metagame. We're going to be seeing a lot of Sandstorm teams now...

I can give this a spin, all you have to do is battle every day and you get a high rating, I might be able to do this. :D

Interesting the choice for sand veil chomp, so sand veil will be the main thing suspect. Interesting.

So damn excited for this. A+ decision by the OU council to suspect Sand Veil Chomp. Another reason to waste time on Showdown, too!

great decision, finally something to invigorate the ladder!

Off to never never land

Hopefully Chomp will change the meta game for the better, especially now w/ SV.

Will there be an announcement when this Zarel character updates the OU ladder for Garchomp?

in the wise words of lebron james: its about damn time!