Suspect Testing

[Aeolus]

Since there is plenty of disagreement about which should be tested next, we are just going to vote. In reality, it doesn't make much difference so I'm comfortable deciding this by a popular vote.

Poll closes in 48 hours.

If you choose other, please specify.

[Hipmonlee]

Also I'm unsure about how you are planning on carrying out the test. The idea was to test pokemon in a metagame without other suspects. Which kinda suggests that we should test Shaymin by banning Deoxys on the suspect test, or test Deoxys by doing the opposite.

Have a nice day.

[Aeolus]

Well, that is something we can discuss... we ran into that issue with Garchomp voting. Deoxys-S was banned from the suspect ladder then... and when it came time to vote people didn't like the incongruency with standard (as Deoxys-S was allowed then). For that reason, I think it makes more sense for the suspect ladder to be simply the standard ladder +/- the Pokemon being tested. I'd like input on this as well since removing a Pokemon from play is somewhat less clear than adding one previously banned.

[Stallion]

Heh, looks like my vote broke the tie. I say Deoxys, for reasons I stated in the locked thread.

[Jumpman16**]

Originally Posted by Fat Aeolus

Well, that is something we can discuss... we ran into that issue with Garchomp voting. Deoxys-S was banned from the suspect ladder then... and when it came time to vote people didn't like the incongruency with standard (as Deoxys-S was allowed then). For that reason, I think it makes more sense for the suspect ladder to be simply the standard ladder +/- the Pokemon being tested. I'd like input on this as well since removing a Pokemon from play is somewhat less clear than adding one previously banned.

or adding one that was previously not in the game, as is the case with skymin and to a lesser extent the greater threats that are now salamence and scizor. wobby and dx-s were banned through the one-time process of bold-voting, and this issue will honestly never come up again, as i will explain below

first, i dont really care what people think about the incongruity with standard, to be honest. to me, it seems people are more worried about their ladder rankings and tour status than fixing the standard metagame. when you (the royal "you") say "standard ladder", what do you really mean? doesn't that mean shaymin doesn't have any business there, since it's a suspect? which means that as far as the standard ladder is concerned, it should be taken off of it as soon as possible, right?

what does that mean for dx-s, though? it's been on the standard ladder forever, and many well-respected battlers like ipl, husk and hip have felt it is uber for months. so wouldn't we be hypocrites for keeping it on the standard ladder a minute longer than it should be, but taking skymin off a week after people are "convinced" it's uber?

the alternative is keeping an obvious suspect on the ladder until it is properly decided on through the Stage 1 and Stage 2 processes. the reason this is an issue for dx-s is because we didn't have a "Suspect Test Ladder" when it was unbanned from uber ("we" didn't even have a server yet, for that matter). we are obviously not going to add mew the the standard metagame in the event it somehow gets an "OU" label in its Stage 1 & 2 processing. with dx-s and skymin, therefore, this is the last time that this is going to even be an issue.

the way i see it, we should immediately remove both from standard play in the interests of fairness to those worried about the incongruity of the standard metagame...but that would mean that we have little to go on but unbacked biases as to whether skymin is actually uber. sure, you and i may be convinced it's a suspect, but we will not actually have much practice to go with this theorymon when trying to determine how it actually plays in standard. the reason this differs from the suspects that have not been used in standard yet—e.g. mew and manaphy—is that we actually have a better idea of what those are capable of in pokemon, unlike with a pokemon with new stats, a new ability and a new movepool.

therefore, i propose, again, that dx-s be tested first and decided on once and for all, and that we keep skymin in standard so people actually have more than a week's experience with it before the time comes for its Stage 1 & 2 processing. remember, garchomp was actually taken off the standard ladder after his Stage 1 & 2 processing, and anyone who will argue that this was for the good of the game but not simultaneously the cause of much incongruence is a hypocrite, plain and simple. we're either going to have strict adherence to Jabba's and my Stage proposal (and not have actually removed Garchomp from standard until Stage 3), or we are going to bend over backwards to "please everyone" by straying from the process in the middle of a huge process that not everyone is going to love.

at any rate, i'm interested to see what chaos says, since the ladder was his idea in the first place lest we forget that

[X-Act]

I don't play, but my common sense tells me to first settle the Pokemon that the players have more experience with.

[skarm]

Originally Posted by Fat Aeolus

Well, that is something we can discuss... we ran into that issue with Garchomp voting. Deoxys-S was banned from the suspect ladder then... and when it came time to vote people didn't like the incongruency with standard (as Deoxys-S was allowed then). For that reason, I think it makes more sense for the suspect ladder to be simply the standard ladder +/- the Pokemon being tested. I'd like input on this as well since removing a Pokemon from play is somewhat less clear than adding one previously banned.

I didn't fully read Jumpman's post below but he and I have talked about this before and have a difference of opinion.

I believe that having other suspects banned at the same time is rather silly. Other suspects may (help) bring balance to the tested Pokemon in question.

[Jumpman16**]

Originally Posted by Fat skarm

I believe that having other suspects banned at the same time is rather silly. Other suspects may (help) bring balance to the tested Pokemon in question.

this is the entire point of stage three mr pokémon fiancée...

[Aldaron*]

Doesn't stage three not allow the Pokemon that were banned in the suspect-less metagame?

That's what I got from the thread in PR. So basically if Lati@s, Skymin, and Manaphy were thought to be fine and Garchomp and Deoxys-S were not, we would only test Lati@s, Skymin and Manaphy in stage three, right?

[Jumpman16**]

no...let me repaste all three stages so everyone can see them and ask questions if they have any


Stage 1: Analysis of a single Suspect in August 2008's standard metagame (since Garchomp and Deoxys-S are definitely suspects, this is all the wording that's needed)

Stage 2: Our assessment of Uber or OU for any Suspect's impact on a suspect-free August 2008 metagame, following the respective Suspect's completion of Stage 1.

Stage 3: Analysis of all the Suspects in August 2008's standard metagame with the knowledge of which are considered Uber and OU in the Suspect-free August-2008 metagame.


stage 3 is all the suspects, not just the ones that got an uber label in stage 2. please, if any of you are still confused as to what the process is, ask away. sometimes i feel like jabba, jrrrr and myself and maybe a few others are the only ones who 100% understand it, not to be mean or elitist or whatever but i still get a fair amount of questions about it from people, PR members and regular members alike

[Aldaron*]

alright thanks

[Havak]

Yeh, I was about to post here. Wondering about when this thing would get underway. We're testing Deoxys-S now, should we sort it out now or are we going to await the new usage statistics first?

[kd24]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/announcement.php?f=43&a=67

i thought it was starting already and we are currently doing deoxys-s?

[Havak]

Ah, hadn't seen that yet. Has there been any word on when Doug can get the Suspect Ladder back up?

[X-Act]

I need to ask why are people being given only two weeks to attain the same criteria in their rating of the suspect ladder as they had to attain for Garchomp in one month.

[Jumpman16**]

We're going to be testing Deoxys-S on the Suspect Test Ladder for a brief two weeks, given how much information we have on it since it was allowed in standard competitive battle in February of this year.

[X-Act]

Yeah... the Rating Deviation maximum number of 60 might need to be raised a bit (maybe to 65) if the suspect ladder will only be used for 2 weeks. We'll see.

[Aeolus]

We'll make that call when the time comes. If the number of voters is too small because the deviation requirement is too stringent... we'll alter it to expand the voter pool.