After reading one of Obi's posts in X-Act's thread, it got me thinking: why do we separate OU and BL again? I remember talking about it before, and the main arguments that stuck out were:
- OU serves as a threat list
But...we have a threat list. In fact, two of them: an offensive and a defensive one. And we've already been debating on what should be on there and what should not. Of course, these tier lists are determined by both power and usage from what I see, while OU is purely by usage. But then again, isn't that the goal of a threat list? Shouldn't you be wary of only that what you're going to face and that what can actually hurt you?
I personally think that what can hurt you is even more important, especially if we're talking a guide like this. Because people can see for themselves every new month on the Shoddy statistics what is common. They can determine for themselves whether they want their team to cover top30, top50, top60 or just all of them. And of course, in the area of Diamond/Pearl, you cannot even cover every Pokemon on your team, given the huge amount of Pokemon that do not even have one appointable counter. So all you need to do is be aware of the threats and know how to beat them. That means the Shoddy statistics and our analyses are enough, and if it isn't, we can still use our threat lists for a summary, for those Pokemon that remain common on Shoddy.
- DP has potential for a BL metagame
And yet, nothing has happened. Some people say they play "BL", but this was never meant to be a balanced metagame and it has never been taken into account for tiering (and rightfully so).
Instead, if we would ditch the seperation of the two, I say you just see for yourself. It seems to me that the idea of BL is to use Pokemon that are not allowed in UU while still not being hammered into the head of Garchomp - exactly, borderline, between OU and UU - not allowed in UU, but you don't want to see the big guys either. It's some sort of semi-UU.
Of course, if I deem everything below 40 in weighed usage "not fucking common" and the next guy uses 50, we'll have to be childish about the 10 "borderborderlines". This is why you would probably mark it with "<Top60" or something similar. Just make a team of what you deem fine, and if you want to play someone else who wants to do the same concept (not the best but not UU), make sure to establish what the breaking point is. Maybe make multiple teams. Or maybe just change the one to fit your opponent's style or vice versa. Or it probably will not matter most of the time, because there is such a thing as common sense (believe it or not!).
So the questions of this thread are: Why do we have an OU <-> BL separation? Should we keep it? And why?
- OU serves as a threat list
But...we have a threat list. In fact, two of them: an offensive and a defensive one. And we've already been debating on what should be on there and what should not. Of course, these tier lists are determined by both power and usage from what I see, while OU is purely by usage. But then again, isn't that the goal of a threat list? Shouldn't you be wary of only that what you're going to face and that what can actually hurt you?
I personally think that what can hurt you is even more important, especially if we're talking a guide like this. Because people can see for themselves every new month on the Shoddy statistics what is common. They can determine for themselves whether they want their team to cover top30, top50, top60 or just all of them. And of course, in the area of Diamond/Pearl, you cannot even cover every Pokemon on your team, given the huge amount of Pokemon that do not even have one appointable counter. So all you need to do is be aware of the threats and know how to beat them. That means the Shoddy statistics and our analyses are enough, and if it isn't, we can still use our threat lists for a summary, for those Pokemon that remain common on Shoddy.
- DP has potential for a BL metagame
And yet, nothing has happened. Some people say they play "BL", but this was never meant to be a balanced metagame and it has never been taken into account for tiering (and rightfully so).
Instead, if we would ditch the seperation of the two, I say you just see for yourself. It seems to me that the idea of BL is to use Pokemon that are not allowed in UU while still not being hammered into the head of Garchomp - exactly, borderline, between OU and UU - not allowed in UU, but you don't want to see the big guys either. It's some sort of semi-UU.
Of course, if I deem everything below 40 in weighed usage "not fucking common" and the next guy uses 50, we'll have to be childish about the 10 "borderborderlines". This is why you would probably mark it with "<Top60" or something similar. Just make a team of what you deem fine, and if you want to play someone else who wants to do the same concept (not the best but not UU), make sure to establish what the breaking point is. Maybe make multiple teams. Or maybe just change the one to fit your opponent's style or vice versa. Or it probably will not matter most of the time, because there is such a thing as common sense (believe it or not!).
So the questions of this thread are: Why do we have an OU <-> BL separation? Should we keep it? And why?
