[For context and purpose, see this thread.]
I've read through a couple of the threads made recently in Policy Review and have been constantly keeping up with the discussion about tiers and the "no banlist" proposal over in the "What did we learn from tiering in generation four"? thread.
One thread in particular stuck out to me and that was Aeolus' initial ban list thread which was subsequently locked due to us as a community not knowing much about Black and White at the time. However, with their release and people starting to test different Pokemon and different sets through various methods whether it be through Wifi or through Pokemon Online's simulator we have had a large amount of information come in with regards to how the current metagame is shaping up and what Pokemon are becoming big threats and what not.
Obviously it's too early to be looking at suspects or anything but I do feel we should be looking more into an initial ban list just to give us some kind of starting point because quite honestly a lot of people including myself think it's an incredible waste of time to start off with no bans.
This post by Elevator Music basically sums up my feelings towards starting with completely no bans.
From my experience with Black and White I'd say my ban list below is a pretty nice starting point.
I've discussed this with quite a few people and I haven't had too much opposition. So I'm bringing this up in Policy Review to see what you guys think.
I've read through a couple of the threads made recently in Policy Review and have been constantly keeping up with the discussion about tiers and the "no banlist" proposal over in the "What did we learn from tiering in generation four"? thread.
One thread in particular stuck out to me and that was Aeolus' initial ban list thread which was subsequently locked due to us as a community not knowing much about Black and White at the time. However, with their release and people starting to test different Pokemon and different sets through various methods whether it be through Wifi or through Pokemon Online's simulator we have had a large amount of information come in with regards to how the current metagame is shaping up and what Pokemon are becoming big threats and what not.
Obviously it's too early to be looking at suspects or anything but I do feel we should be looking more into an initial ban list just to give us some kind of starting point because quite honestly a lot of people including myself think it's an incredible waste of time to start off with no bans.
This post by Elevator Music basically sums up my feelings towards starting with completely no bans.
In short, no bans is not the ideal way to go.I don't like the idea of not banning Kyogre/Mewtwo/Rayquaza/etc, aka the 'obviously broken' Pokemon. I understand the importance of not making incorrect assumptions about tiering, and I know a lot of new stuff has come up with Black and White. However, I think we are wasting a lot of time in UT right now pretending we won't end up banning these Pokemon.
I know some of you guys really want to test everything, but we will likely not have a working simulator for a very long time. Consider a scenario, just for a second, that Kyroge is still incredibly fucking broken in a Gen 5 metagame. Since it's currently not banned, all discussions that we have in Uncharted Territory about the OU metgame are of a Kyogre-centralized metagame (which is likely very different from a Kyogre-less metagame). If we wait out the period until we have a working simulator or a big enough WiFi base to warrant a test, all the discussion we had in UT that pertained to Kyorge, which would be mostly everything, would be useless.
I understand that the definition of "obviously broken" is varied from user to user, but I'm pretty sure the users of this forum can come to a consensus about what is and isn't removable (if it's controversial then we may as well include it after all!). My point is that Kyogre/etc aren't controversial for the most part. And, at the very least, even if they aren't "obviously broken", it is "obvious" that they aren't part of a desirable baseline (I'm basically quoting Rising_Dusk from earlier in the thread here).
I don't know.... "lets wait it out and test it and if its broken ok" seems like a really silly thing to do for Pokemon like that when we're talking about wasting months of time. Isn't that what we're trying to avoid?
As a side note, I also agree with Chou and others who have echoed the sentiment that we make this metagame for players and that we should be giving them a metagame they want. But that is an entirely different issue and not my reason for posting.
From my experience with Black and White I'd say my ban list below is a pretty nice starting point.
EDIT: Two Pokemon that I have omitted from the list have caused some concern with some smogon members, those two being Lugia and Deoxys-D, which were previously Uber last gen. However, in my testing I've found both of them to be somewhat underwhelming in comparison to how they were last gen, especially Lugia. With the overall offensive boost in this gen Lugia is pretty hard pressed to deal with top threats like Sazandora, Shandeera and Terakion and this is just the tip of the iceberg. He is still a good wall but I believe he is definitely worth testing in OU this gen. My reasoning behind Deoxys-D is similar.Mew
Mewtwo
Ho-oh
Groudon
Kyogre
Darkrai
Deoxys A
Deoxys S
Deoxys N
Rayquaza
Dialga
Palkia
Giratina A
Giratina O
Arceus
Shaymin -S
Reshiram
Zekrom
I've discussed this with quite a few people and I haven't had too much opposition. So I'm bringing this up in Policy Review to see what you guys think.