Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread

[Corporal Levi]

Porygon was deemed broken because it was far above every other sweeper in the metagame. It was comparable to other top sweepers such as Scraggy and Shellder in its sweeping ability against unprepared teams (sweeps mad0ka every time, basically); the difference was that it had far, far fewer checks, making it absurdly limiting in the teambuilding phase. Electric Porygon alone was easily able to sweep the vast majority of teams that could be considered solid in a metagame without Porygon, something no other sweeper could boast; when coupled with the unpredictability of other Conversion Porygon variants, it seemed clear that Porygon was several notches above every other offensive Pokemon.

Cutiefly was deemed broken because in addition to a high/top quality sweeping set in Quiver Dance, it was able to Baton Pass its boosts to multiple other dangerous sweepers that generally did not share checks with Cutiefly or each other. These boosts were far more dangerous than what any other Baton Passer could pass after a single turn of setup. This drastically increased the matchup issue because a combination of Cutiefly and a recipient was, again, enough to easily sweep the vast majority of otherwise solid teams, made even worse by the diversity of Pokemon that appreciate +1 to SpA, SpD, and Spe.

I think the most obvious reasoning behind doing council votes over public votes is to save time, since we can skip the laddering part and don't have to wait for as many people to vote. The drawbacks to doing those two votes in particular as council votes seem minimal as far as disagreements between the council and the public go (outside of unforeseen concerns about which policies we should follow) because, well, I don't think a lot of people REALLY thought Porygon and Cutiefly were balanced. And it's clear why we would want to save time - more time to get familiar with a metagame close to what we'll actually be playing! This is especially important with an LC tour currently going on and SPL coming up soon.

With that in mind, the coming suspects - right now, those would be Drifloon, trappers, Vullaby, and Misdreavus - likely won't be nearly as clear-cut in terms of whether they're broken or not. So it's much more likely that the public will have to weigh in as well.


Anyways, as a council member who voted to ban Cutiefly because of the precedent set by Porygon, I would like to explain my train of thought:

Let's start with the Porygon suspect. Everybody agrees that Porygon is broken, but some of us aren't sure whether to ban Conversion or Porygon. Porygon ends up getting banned for the following reasons:
1. To follow precedent - when a move is only broken on a single viable Pokemon, we ban the Pokemon.
2. To set precedent - if, in the future, a (z-)move makes a Pokemon broken, we ban the Pokemon.

Right after that, we decided to look at Cutiefly, which we also all agreed was too much. When we compare banning Cutiefly over one of its moves to banning Porygon over one of its moves, it seems like there's an even stronger case for banning Cutiefly. First of all, we don't even know if banning Baton Pass would solve the issue - Quiver Dance Cutiefly might still be broken, whereas we had solid evidence that Conversion-less Porygon wouldn't be broken based on its performance in ORAS. On top of that, Baton Pass was only broken on Cutiefly, and Conversion was only broken on Porygon, but Baton Pass was NOT broken on Torchic or Mienfoo or any of its other users, whereas Conversion was broken on everything that had it. (Baton Pass clause in other tiers isn't comparable because it's to nerf an entire strategy that is carried out by multiple Pokemon, not a single Pokemon - being able to pass SpA, SpD, and Spe after a single turn of setup is an issue inherent to Cutiefly.) Banning Quiver Dance would be almost exactly the same as banning Conversion except, again, with less justification, as Conversion was broken because of a brand new mechanic in Z-moves.

Personally, I thought banning Porygon over Conversion was totally super lame; some other council members agreed and we made it clear in our reasoning behind banning Cutiefly. But all of us (except fatty) agreed that being inconsistent with our policy, and banning Baton Pass or Quiver Dance over Cutiefly and breaking precedent immediately after we banned Porygon over Conversion to not break precedent, would be even worse. It'd be a bit silly to ban Porygon specifically to set future precedent, and a week later, completely ignore that precedent and ban Quiver Dance or Baton Pass instead.

With that being said, I don't think there is an issue with retesting Porygon and maybe Cutiefly later on if circumstances change to warrant it, e.g. another tier decides to ban a (z-)move instead of its users.

Hopefully that clears some things up.

 

[Conni]

With Cutiefly banned, does the council still need to determine the fate of Baton Pass, or does that still need to be talked about?

 

[Shrug]

the banning of cutiefly was an implicit indication by the council we don't find other forms of baton pass, namely torchic quickpass and fullpass, broken at this time. things ive heard bandied about that we'd like to see community input on: dropping drifloon, looking at one or both of the trappers, Vullaby.

 

[Fiend]

I've was ranting on discord for like 2 and a half hours last night, and first off I'd like to say sorry to Nineage for calling him insane for thinking Cutiefly wasn't busted. There is just a multitude of rather obnoxious points about all the controversy raised and honestly having literally slept on it I'm still irked by some of the ways the community responded, and at how the council handled this quick ban.

Overall, the council does indeed need to be more transparent. Yes, and we know this and damn this shouldn't have actually happened but it did. But there are a few reasons why it did, which I will bring up for the purpose of showing its not all black and white.

1. Since literally the release of Sun and Moon, we knew we would suspect and potentially ban Cutiefly. Since we knew it got Quiver Dance, we suspected it could be broken. Pretty much everyone if not everyone who I talked to about Cutiefly (rozes, the council, people who i murdered on ladder with it, PS users i've never seen before even) thought it was broken. For a month, it was more or less considered broken and by pretty much everyone who knew a thing or two about lc. Frankly the only thing to discussion on Cutiefly was either shallow and there just to show those with no idea about the current state of lc "hey this is broken" or policy. The former was, in my opinion, covered pretty well with the VR thread noms, a few posts after Quote's announcement, and a handful of earlier posts. Also for the record 100% of the voters (maybe 100% of the council but I can't remember zf's stance and don't dare make an assumption) thought Cutiefly was broken. The only reason why fatty voted against the ban is he felt a bp ban would be more apt. The policy discussion aspect was more or less covered with Porygon's suspect and I'm against sounding like a broken record (and also moderately busy!) so I never posted on Cutiefly. Simply I felt there was nothing to say that wasn't left evident or already said.

But yes, we should have made a few more posts about it. Yes, we should have made it painfully clear what some of the council was thinking and what was happening internally. But the fact that for so long all voting members of LC, plus some other too, thought Cutiefly was busted should at least imply that most of the active community should know so too. But yes, we will do better in the future.

2. We actually did announce the council vote. Quote posted a concise 2 lines on it, which maybe we should have more after said 2 lines to explain the why. This could also help solve issue 1 too, and probably make you actually remember or see the post. While likes normally mean nothing, Quote got a grand total of two likes on the announcement. The post directly after him was a response to him asking about a potential Drifloon retest and was not particularly notable outside of this. But it got three likes which seems to indicate that you all simply didn't care about the announcement? Maybe is suggests everyone happened to miss the notification? You all forgot to like the post and subsequently forgot about it? If any of these cases are true (and it could very well be something else) I'm not sure how to feel. It's very clear most of you for some reason missed the post, which is an issue but not just because that was our only substantial announcement.

This points to an issue both with visibility and community activity, and while yes we should fix this aspect of our system I don't think this will solve it unless you the community step up and be a bit more involved like you guys say you want to be with suspect tests. There were at least clues to point towards a Cutie suspect and they weren't picked up on by most, which honestly points out some stuff about the community at large but nothing really damning fortunately. But the fact that a single announcement that wasn't in a dedicated thread or its own thread or some clues were all you had to know about the suspect is an issue. I will make sure it's announced in the lc discord so you'll ever not see it there and will probably get it in the room intro if I can. We are going to make a thread to help address the issue too, just make sure you meet us halfway there.

3. It was agreed upon in ORAS and announced in ORAS that we would do this system. While not flawlessly executed, the backlash against it as only come now with a half botched attempt. But it seems that the issue isn't how it went down or how it was handled but the fact that you all want to have a suspect test where you contribute. And I think that's a valid want but it's also one that doesn't work with our current goals nor one without substantial quality issues. And ways to fix the quality issues have been bitched about pretty much every time, and when we don't do anything about the quality issues we gave what amounted to a joke suspect of BP. Further, while I don't think a council vote should be how the metagame is handed throughout the generation's entirety, doing it early generally is a good idea. This generation we carried over a banlist in order to have a decent at worst tier for SPL, and council votes are leading to a better tier quicker. I also only think suspects tests are better for including the community, but seeing as half you don't seem to have an adequate grasp of the policy or even seem to be active enough to be on the same page that the ENTIRE COUNCIL was on a month ago I'm actually hesitant to be supportive of the community deciding. And while yes, what I said was harsh and a little exaggerated, but for heaven's sake even if it was half true (which as far as i can tell, it is) that's pretty bad.

Probably we will figure something out to address this. But it makes it so much easier to have a public suspect test if everyone plays a lot more and tries out things and discusses stuff more and is generally in tune with the metagame. So do that please, especially if you're now realizing you are unhappy with the current system. I promise any points made in here on metagame issues / current suspects will be addressed if not publicly then in our discussions. I'll push to have it be publically address though I can't guarantee the public responses being there 100% of the time.

So yes, we acknowledge we fucked up in some places. We are also promising to not repeat this and are taking some proactive steps to make sure we don't. However for now we are not changing the system we are using; if you all would like some suspect tests, the community as a whole needs to improve in terms of the quality of players and metagame knowledge. If we come to see that then perhaps there will be a suspect test soon. For now too many should-be-active players are asking how Cutiefly is broken and are simply citing Munchlax's existence for it being fair or arguing that we totally should just ignore what we did with Porygon and ban BP or Quiver Dance to save our new toy.

Hope you stick around in lc!

 

[Celestavian]

I'll put this out here: I voted to ban Porygon to put forth the idea that we, as a tier, ban what's broken. Not what's the "least collateral" (a vague concept that we can't actually measure) or anything like that.

My idea for banning Porygon is that Z-Conversion is not a broken move, or at the least, it's inconclusive that it is. The fact that it was on one Pokemon means we had such a small sample size that as long as Z-Conversion wasn't totally and obviously busted (Extreme Evoboost, for example), I can't see how we could justify banning it other than to save a Pokemon we all dearly love. My argument is that Porygon's typing, both before and after Conversion, its stats, and Download all made it the perfect abuser of Z-Conversion. Porygon itself without Conversion would likely not be broken either, and while it was never in the S&M tier without it, we can reasonably justify that it isn't broken by itself from its performance in previous generations. Thus, it's the combination of the two that's broken. Now I know we just said that we ban what's broken, and in a perfect world we might have banned Conversion + Porygon, but we have been historically against complex bans and for good reason. From there, which should be banned if we can only ban one? It shouldn't be Z-Conversion in my opinion, as like I said, I don't believe it is actually broken, and a move is just a move. A Pokemon, however, is a sum of all of its parts, that being moves, abilities, stats, and typing. Conversion is a part of Porygon in that sense, while the opposite I do not feel is true, even if Conversion is only learned by Porygon.

 

[Mijzelffan]

I'm not informed about the current metagame enough to have an opinion about the ban, but it irks me a bit that when in every tiering/suspect thread on the forums there's a "don't post any one-liners or you'll get warned" disclaimer council members get to influence a tier by merely posting "porygon set a precedent, ban cutiefly". If the council is going to decide bans at least let them put some effort into their reasoning or abstain if they can't do that for whatever reason.

 

[Berks]

First off I just wanna say thanks to Fiend and the other members of the council who have posted in response to a request for transparency. It is very much appreciated!

Before we focus on resuspecting things like Drifloon - which is something I am very excited for - I think there's one more Pokemon we might need to take a look at first that we've never looked at before: Vullaby.

It should come as no surprise that Vullaby is good. Phenomenal bulk, a great STAB combo, a boosting move in Nasty Plot, and access to U-turn were all things that made Vullaby good last generation. This generation, however, it got what every bulky Pokemon wants: Speed.

I believe that the new Weak Armor buff breaks Vullaby. Doubling Speed has already shown itself to be a powerful factor in banworthines re: Drifloon, and it's just as terrifying on Vullaby. Nasty Plot Vullaby at +2 Speed becomes very close to unstoppable with the support of Stealth Rock and the removal of Spritzee and Munchlax. It also has the chance to break through its checks via the stupid flinch chance on both of its special STAB attacks. Nasty Plot Vullaby is really, really good.

If Nasty Plot was Vullaby's only set, I don't think it'd be broken. The issue with Vullaby is that it can conceivably run both offensive and defensive sets with equal potency; preparing for Weak Armor Vullaby may leave you unable to break Defog Vullaby, and you can easily lose your Vulla check to Choice Scarf Vullaby's U-turn into Diglett or Gothita. Its sets share some checks, like bulky stuff like Spritzee and stuff like RestTalk Chinchou, but Vullaby's sets also often have very different checks: Ferroseed can check physical variants but will often lose to special variants because they tend to run Heat Wave.

Essentially, Vullaby combines the best traits of a lot of really good Pokemon. It has a STAB combo that rivals Pawniard's, the unpredictability of Abra, and can pick between the bulk of Porygon or the Speed of Drifloon. Its sets have a lot of different checks, but playing around one variant can easily leave you swept by another.

All these factors lead me to believe that Vullaby is worthy of the next suspect.

 

[Funbot28]

Ok so I would like to bring up the discussion of more suspects since I would like to give more input on suspects/council votes I feel could take place to kinda give more transitivity between the community and the council:

Vullaby is definitely something I feel the council could potentially look into based on how its been affecting the meta as of late. The buff to Weak Armor and the immunity to Prankster moves really helped offensive Vullaby sets shoot up in viability. The main gripe I have with Vullaby is that both its Physical and Special sweeping sets are very good, which means that predicting which set it is exactly can be pretty hard due to these sets requiring distinct checks to it. It happened to me once that I had thought that the Vullaby was going to be the Z Mirror Move set, which is why I conserved my Onix to check it. However it turned out that the Vullaby was actually the Nasty Plot set and proceeded to completely sweep my team due to my special wall not being present anymore. I know this is anecdotal, but I feel it represents the current issue regarding Vullaby's influence on teambuilding as its two sets both really need to be prepared for on any team and scouting exactly which set it is can be so difficult and punishing at times if predicted wrong. Since we are banning mons instead of Z crystals, then I feel Vullaby can definitely be looked into.

Now I know this is a somewhat controversial opinion to have, but I truly feel that Drifloon has a shot at re-entering the metagame once more due to specific mechanic changes and metagame trends that have occurred. The most evident one is the nerf to burn damage this gen. With the decrease from 12% to 6% burn damage, Drifloon really would have a difficult time whittling down opposing mons which leaves more room for countering the Drifloon in return. A new check in RestTalk Mudbray would also deal with RecycleFloon sets really well due to Stamina increasing its Defense every time it gets hit and it being able to stall out the Floon in return with Rest. It may not be as pressing right now, but I feel this could possibly happen in the near future.

​

Re: Trapping
Trappers will always be a huge nuisance in LC no matter what meta shifts occur. We could suspect Diglett once more, but I feel we went down that road enough times before. Gothita actually seems to be more worrysome this gen due to how well it compliments with many threats such as Z Celebrate Bulbasaur, Alolan Grimer, and even Salandit. Actually could see Gothita be put up for suspect before Diglett imo.

Edit: sniped by Berks :)
also LC Ubers ladder when

 

[fatty]

although i agree that vullaby is a very strong threat, and one that i've used consistently since the release of sm, i think it's being a little over-hyped right now. the biggest issue i have with this is people saying stuff along the lines of "+2atk/spa, +2spe, coverage, how do i beat??" well, the biggest thing going against vullaby is it's not just pulling that +2 speed out of its ass. due to weak armor, your OPPONENT essentially decides whether you get that +2 speed or not, and i've found the best way to deal with vullaby is to not hit it with physical attacks unless i know im going to ko or put it in range of a ko from priority. yes, you could get ballsy and switch vulla in on a predicted weak physical attack, but that is way harder to set up because ur sitting there with no attack boosts and -1 def.

again, i know vullaby is strong, but the sheer fact that its strongest asset, the +2 weak armor speed, cannot even be consistently used unless allowed by the opponent should definitely carry some weight in this discussion.

also, i don't see why we would test drifloon before trappers. if anything, that was the biggest anti-ban argument for loon when it did get the boot, "but it's diglett's fault..."

 

[Kingler]

mostly a response to your last point: i think that with the wisp nerf drifloon likely wouldn't be broken with trappers in the tiers as well; this seems like a non-debate at least to me. trappers have had such a profound effect on the game with diglett and gothita both being incredibly defining in the tier. they are also much more controversial than porzgon or cutiefly that i feel they would require a larger suspect. personally, i don't think gothita is close to broken, though diglett is on the edge, but i wouldn't mind suspecting both like we did in ORAS. i think a drifloon unban debate is a lot less controversial than a trapper debate which is why it might merit a quick council vote.

vullaby might prove itself to be a huge problem in the near future (though from what i've seen it shouldn't), still probably should be a debate after floon though

 

[Heysup]

I'm not informed about the current metagame enough to have an opinion about the ban, but it irks me a bit that when in every tiering/suspect thread on the forums there's a "don't post any one-liners or you'll get warned" disclaimer council members get to influence a tier by merely posting "porygon set a precedent, ban cutiefly". If the council is going to decide bans at least let them put some effort into their reasoning or abstain if they can't do that for whatever reason.

While I do agree that's the appearance of the votes (I've been quite vocal in the criticism of the way we're doing the suspecting/banning already), the TLs decided we were only voting on Cutiefly, so the votes were mostly a formality and slight review of the reasoning. This was because most of us have already expressed our thoughts on cutiefly here already. It's really not my fault if people didn't read those posts, and seriously, if you didn't at least look for discussion, then you shouldn't be making complaints like this. I do think it would be helpful maybe to have included those posts in the post more similar to how OU posts about a ban.

I know everyone hates precedents, probably because they don't get it or just disagree with the one used (I include myself in the latter), but we can't just ban whatever the fuck we want and come up with a valid metagame. One of the fundamental requirements in validity is consistency. If something is inconsistent (ie. if we banned Quiver Dance for example), then it would be really hard to justify future decisions and inches us towards banlists no one wants to learn about or can't even understand.

also, i don't see why we would test drifloon before trappers. if anything, that was the biggest anti-ban argument for loon when it did get the boot, "but it's diglett's fault..."

I'll save vullaby discussion for another time but I think the biggest thing is that we've banned new shit that's busted. I think we should go back before going into new territory and correct the nerfs.

I also don't think Drifloon would be bad to have at the same time. If anything, it would show that Diglett is the reason Drifloon was broken because we can establish Drifloon is not broken on its own. I think it's a win-win scenario to release them.

 

[Rowan]

I don't get why people are getting naggy about council banning stuff and not the public. Literally every tier does this when the metagame is new, quickbans pokemon to balance the tier ASAP. Only difference is that LC didn't do it in gen 6, and that was kind of a bad idea since we had Swirlix and Gligar running around for ages longer than they should have been.

Anyway I'd really like to look at trappers next, and I actually believe Gothita to be better than Diglett at the minute. The difference between the 2 is that Diglett can almost never switch into anything that it wants to trap directly without making a risk with predicts, or unless hazards aren't down and it has sash. Common stuff like Magnemite or Chinchou can easily click Flash Cannon/Scald or Fire types can use wisp making switching Diglett in risky.

When it comes to Gothita, it can tailor the set to make it literally no risk switching in. A RestTalk set can switch into stuff like Foongus, Spritzee, Ferroseed, Mareanie, Cottonee non-Hydro Pump Staryu with no risk factors involved and remove them from the game. In fact the EvioRest set can do this to many Pokemon, which means if you are on the opposing team, you have to play so carefully, pulling off countless double switches just to save your Pokemon. But that's just one set, it can also change it's scarf movepool to trap and KO many more things, and when it's not switching in directly, it can trap so much more like fighters etc. And yeah, you can pursuit trap it or gain momentum once it's killed something, but usually once it's killed something it's job is done. I just feel like in the current metagame it's more versatile and game-changing than Diglett

 

[Merritt]

Heysup touched on this point near the end of his last post, and I'd like to expand on how I see it. We should seriously look at doing retests (especially if there isn't going to be another suspect test before SPL) because releasing things that are decided to not be broken overall may reduce the viability of potential suspects to the point they're no longer an issue. In short it's a reverse of the flawed but not totally incorrect rationale of "if you ban this then this will be broken" in the sense of "if you unban this then this won't be broken".

There's of course a limit to how this should be applied. Scyther would probably mean no mons in LC currently being thrown around for suspect would be broken because Scyther would instead break the meta over its sword hands. Only mons that the council (or whatever decision system is implemented) decides are not broken/are healthy beyond that reasoning should have this applied to.

For example, a hypothetical. Let's say Drifloon was unbanned after [insert pokemon that Drifloon beats] was banned. That means potentially wasting time discussing whether or not it's worthwhile to test and unban the [pokemon that Drifloon beats] when it could be averted by testing Drifloon beforehand. Granted, at the same time this could also bias voters since it gives an impression of "[banned mon] beats this pokemon who was previously very good, so it should stay banned" but as a whole it's still worthwhile.

I understand (if maybe not fully agree with still) the reasoning to carry over our banlist in order to become SPL ready as soon as possible. However, unless something develops that the council decides must be tested and potentially banned before or early on in SPL, we should wait until after SPL due to how the metagame develops fairly far during those weeks and do a retest of a banned mon afterwards when there's not the implied fear of screwing up the tier right before a major tournament.

 

[macle]

For the people who have been asking for more community involvement in the suspect process, what sort of involvement do you want? Do you just want a more active part in the discussion of suspects? Do you want to decide the suspects via a blara type system (where the community decides the suspects, council votes) or do you just want community suspect tests?

 

[tcr]

Personally I don't mind the council being the upper echelons of the community and having the most power and representing the community by voting. However if it MUST change because certain people just have to have their TC points, then the best way to do it would be to go back to what blarajan had back in the day, except make it fully rotating. What I mean by this is, he used to have a council of like 9(?) people where like 6 were permanent and 3 were decided based on whoever made the best arguments in the metagame discusison thread at the time. Changing this to all slots of the council being up for grabs would be fair in the eyes of the community, and would promote a non-stagnant discussion at the same time. Obviously people who just regurgitated the same points as others albeit less eloquently would not get picked, referencing the "why do council members get to post one-liners" argument. Those who post frequently, and thus have a dedicated interest in furthering the metagame, and those who post the best posts, thus showcasing strong metagame knowledge, would get picked. This would also have the benefit of stirring the stagnant pool that is the lc community into action, to actually discuss things on a forum (not in circlejerk-y discord / skype chats) and help keep the metagame thread going strong, something that was a major issue last generation at least.

Please do not go forward with community suspect tests. Community suspect tests are absolutely dreadful, and the community has proven that it as a whole cannot be trusted with anything (referencing several "questionable" tests and results. Hell the council prior to gen 7 was arguing for a diglett retest many times simply because the community is too stupid to realize anything). Community suspect tests only encourage people to ladder half heartedly then vote, without any real input provided in the threads, no matter how much people try to argue "subjective posting quality" in noms.

 

[Liquidocelot]

You ban Vullaby and we will be fucked, oh yes I've seen the future, Fighting types everywhere, as far as the eye can see and nothing to hold them in check... Oh god is it horrible, please, please do not ban Vullaby.

Oh and it's not broken.

 

[sam-testings]

You ban Vullaby and we will be fucked, oh yes I've seen the future, Fighting types everywhere, as far as the eye can see and nothing to hold them in check... Oh god is it horrible, please, please do not ban Vullaby.

Oh and it's not broken.

There is more than one flying type in the tier you know. And you make it sound like Vullaby is the only hero holding back the horrible monsters that are the evil nation of Fighting types. This is wrong. Fairies, Poisons, and other Flying types all exist and are able to check Vullaby. Ponyta and Larvesta both run Flame Body, which also helps check Fighting types. Doduo is a fantastic pokemon right now that can deal with fighting types. Mudbray is also an excellent mon that can deal with most fighting types quite well thanks to its ability. Vullaby is definitly not the only pokemon that is checking fighting types, and if you believe this you should probably play LC some more.

 

[Coconut]

For the people who have been asking for more community involvement in the suspect process, what sort of involvement do you want? Do you just want a more active part in the discussion of suspects? Do you want to decide the suspects via a blara type system (where the community decides the suspects, council votes) or do you just want community suspect tests?

I think the best course of action is to stay away from community suspect tests this gen. I don't necessarily think that straying away from the system that we currently have is a bad idea anyway. That's probably the unpopular opinion, but I don't really see an issue with it, provided a couple of things happen.

1. The council actually plays games.

What? A council that actually plays what they council over? This might seem kinda dumb, but I honestly don't believe at the current moment that the council is actually playing the metagame. These people should be playing it more than anyone else by a significant margin, as they are essentially the deciding factors in what will happen to it.

2. The council make their best efforts to post actively in the suspect thread.

If their opinions are going to be held on a standard above everyone else's, then it should be clear what every single person's opinion on the suspect in question is. While I understand that real life gets in the way and that finals are hitting everyone, it should be to the point where a reader should be able to guess the vote count before the suspect even happens.

I implore that the current council of people actively participate in more discussion, and that they actually play more games, as it is pivotal to the future of the metagame. To the people who are complaining about not having an input, stop complaining about not having an opinion and state your actual opinion. People are reading these, so it's important to get your opinion out there too. I also want to make it very clear that the tier leaders should not feel pressured to change the way the suspect process works because people are deciding to be vocal about it now. It was very clear to everyone that we were going to be doing this, and the general public isn't responsible enough to vote anyway. If they feel like it is better for the future to alter what we're doing for suspects, I support it, because I am loyal to whatever direction we take. Just make sure that every choice we have in mind benefits the most amount of people while having the least amount of fallout.

 

[GOAO]

council

macle (Co-Leader)
Quote (Co-Leader)
Mambo
Star
Heysup
Shrug
Celestavian
Corporal Levi
Fiend
Sken
ZoroarkForever
fatty
OP

i have no problem with council votes but why are people that dont play pokemon in council? mambo recently came back after 4~6 months without playing and he was never removed, and everyone knows hawk is no longer a pokemon player. macle doenst player either but hes tl so lol

 

[doomsday doink]

council

macle (Co-Leader)
Quote (Co-Leader)
Mambo
Star
Heysup
Shrug
Celestavian
Corporal Levi
Fiend
Sken
ZoroarkForever
fatty
OP

i have no problem with council votes but why are people that dont play pokemon in council? mambo recently came back after 4~6 months without playing and he was never removed, and everyone knows hawk is no longer a pokemon player. macle doenst player either but hes tl so lol

It's a shame that your opinion regarding myself is incredibly uninformed. I've been one of the most active council members during discussions and I've been playing Pokemon consistently since the start of the generation - I'd honestly be willing to wager that I've played more games than you have, especially since Cutiefly was banned.

 

[Nineage]

Honestly, I'm extremely disappointed with this decision.

Whether cutie was broken, the move was broken, or whatever, the fact is that no aspect of cutiefly was so outrageously metagame defining that I think it justified such a quick reaction that did not involve the community. I would like to ask Quote and macle directly to explain the reasoning behind not bringing this to a full suspect, or to have more of a general community discussion. This kind of vote only serves to piss people off, and seems to me to be justifiable only in extreme circumstances.

I was going to write a longer post, but really I'm just interested in the reasoning behind this decision before I start arguing.

Hey guys,
Looks like I inadvertently started this thread in a direction that I didn't mean to, so I just wanted to clear up that I was more trying to get an answer about the exact thought process behind this particular council vote, and I got that response. It kind of feels like a lot of the posts in here since my post have been flat-out attacks on the council and the TLs, so I'd like to say I'm sorry my post was agressive in tone. The biggest issue I had was the lack of transparency, and Fiend among others have given a pretty satisfactory answer above.

To keep this from being a lame apology post, I'd like to just present a few of my thoughts in response to macle on what, as a non-council member, I feel that the council and TLs could do going forward. I agree with tcr that the community has shown that under the current system, which incentivizes playing tiers that you won't play again during suspect tests, suspect voting shouldn't be entirely left to the community. I like the idea of going back to the blara system, where people who get reqs can pick the suspect (possibly even choosing something to re-test), and the council votes on it. I also like the rotating council idea. I don't think the rotating council necessarily needs to be the only council; as long as there is some encouragement of discussion of suspects and some element of community participation involved, I think it is beneficial for the community as a whole without being destructive to the metagame.

 

[GOAO]

It's a shame that your opinion regarding myself is incredibly uninformed. I've been one of the most active council members during discussions and I've been playing Pokemon consistently since the start of the generation - I'd honestly be willing to wager that I've played more games than you have, especially since Cutiefly was banned.

I was wrong by putting you in the same line as hawk but you cant deny you stopped playing by a long time and was not removed.

 

[tcr]

Hey guys,
Looks like I inadvertently started this thread in a direction that I didn't mean to, so I just wanted to clear up that I was more trying to get an answer about the exact thought process behind this particular council vote, and I got that response. It kind of feels like a lot of the posts in here since my post have been flat-out attacks on the council and the TLs, so I'd like to say I'm sorry my post was agressive in tone. The biggest issue I had was the lack of transparency, and Fiend among others have given a pretty satisfactory answer above.

To keep this from being a lame apology post, I'd like to just present a few of my thoughts in response to macle on what, as a non-council member, I feel that the council and TLs could do going forward. I agree with tcr that the community has shown that under the current system, which incentivizes playing tiers that you won't play again during suspect tests, suspect voting shouldn't be entirely left to the community. I like the idea of going back to the blara system, where people who get reqs can pick the suspect (possibly even choosing something to re-test), and the council votes on it. I also like the rotating council idea. I don't think the rotating council necessarily needs to be the only council; as long as there is some encouragement of discussion of suspects and some element of community participation involved, I think it is beneficial for the community as a whole without being destructive to the metagame.

this is not the idea I was referencing. In fact this is the exact opposite, what I'm trying to fight against. The blarajan system I am referencing was what was used during the Tangela / Yanma suspect, and how it worked was Blara had already picked a somewhat small sized council and filled some of the slots with well versed members of the community that made informed posts in the metagame thread. This meant that around 9-13 people got a point for that suspect test. There was no laddering requirement IIRC, and the only requirement was put forth through your ability to post. Of course, if laddering is a must to showcase competent battling ability then there can simply be a thread made with special permissions that only those who have gotten the required reqs can post in. This is a little convoluted and I'm not really for it, but w/e. What I DONT want and what I would absolutely be against is going back to the "community picks the suspects and then votes on it" that you are referencing. Baton Pass suspect completely ruined that. It also completely invalidates the Tier Leader position as there is honestly zero need for TLs to even exist outside of some archaic role, as under that old system they would serve no purpose, as they would neither singlehandedly make a decision on a suspect nor would they pick the suspect. All they would be is go betweens between Senior Staff and "superb" role models.

I was wrong by putting you in the same line as hawk but you cant deny you stopped playing by a long time and was not removed.

whether he stopped playing or not during gen 6 is moot, the metagame has largely been the same for the past 2 years. If you started playing during the old splc the meta was similar to the meta during end of gen 6 <--- source, a player who's played the entirety of gen 6.

 

[Berks]

In response to macle

My idea for a suspect system (which I've been working on and fine-tuning for a while) is a modified version of the Blara system in which the players decide the suspect. However, I've always thought that his system introduced a potential for bias, in that the council members would have put forth their opinions already and could potentially be picked to sway a result based on the opinion of whoever was picking. I think I might have a solution to that though: elections.

Now, hold up! This isn't your standard winner takes all election type thing. The system I'm envisioning creates a council of 13 people (to prevent ties). Three of these are the tier leaders and moderators, who obviously deserve the vote. Five of the remaining ten members are chosen according to traditional "blara process" council picking. The remaining five are elected by the community from a slate of ten people (who I like to refer to as the "berks 10") nominated by the tier leadership and voted for by the community in an order-of-preference vote. These people would, again, be nominated by the council but ultimately selected by the community. I'll use four people for my example of how this works, but optimally you'd picture it with ten.

A, B, C, and D have made strong individual arguments in the suspect thread of Magikarp this suspect round, but there are only two seats left to fill! They are nominated to be voted into the remaining two seats. In order to best represent the preferences of the greatest amount of users, community members are asked to rank those four people from who they most want on the council to who they least want on council. Say four voters order the candidates as follows:

Voter 1: A B D C
Voter 2: B D A C
Voter 3: C A D B
Voter 4: A D C B

If a person is awarded four points for a first place, three for a second place, and so on until they get 1 for a last place vote, the tally would look like this:

A: 13 Points
B: 9 Points
C: 8 Points
D: 10 Points

The winners would be A and D, and they would join the council. This would be very representative, as person A received many first place votes, and, although nobody picked D as their first choice, most people signified that they would be just fine with D on the council by placing them relatively high on their preference order. This would be somewhat akin to voting third party in an American election but having the option to select someone from a major party as a backup.

This system could rectify several problems:

• It removes the issue of council exclusivity by rotating a significant portion of it.
• It removes the issue of an uninformed community by removing access to a vote on a Pokemon from users who laddered for the heck of it; they vote for reasonable players with certain stances, not the actual issue itself.
• It helps fix the half-vote issue from the blara system by creating two votes: one to determine the suspect, and one to determine the council. Only those who obtained qualifications to vote on the suspect would be allowed to vote on the council, and users would receive a half point from each vote. Those elected to or chosen for the council would then qualify for Tiering Contributor for their council vote and outstanding contribution to the suspect as determined by either the tier leadership or the community.
• It prevents council members from posting one liners, as their position is never completely safe.
• It motivates people to make thoughtful, educated posts in suspect threads in the hopes of being nominated to rotating council elections.

There are a few potential downsides I can foresee. Mostly, this would be a fairly long process: one would have to qualify to nominate the suspect, endure a week or so of discussion, wait for the "blara 5" to be selected, and then vote on the "berks 10" nominations. That won't be an issue later in the development of the meta (re: after SPL), so no real issue there. It would also require someone to count up a colossal number of votes from not one but two different votes, one of which would be preference based and much more time consuming. However, I know that there are plenty of users out there who would happily offer their number-crunching services, including established contributors to the community i.e. myself, probably also Shrug, Fiend, or Nineage, etc.

The process would introduce a system of checks and balances and would ultimately put more power into the hands of dedicated players and minimize the effect of players who came to the tier just for a TC point. It's a little complicated, yes, but I think the system could be just what we need when cries for transparency and council openness are mingled with complaints about an uninformed voter base. Thanks for your consideration!

 

[Merritt]

In response to macle

My idea for a suspect system (which I've been working on and fine-tuning for a while) is a modified version of the Blara system in which the players decide the suspect. However, I've always thought that his system introduced a potential for bias, in that the council members would have put forth their opinions already and could potentially be picked to sway a result based on the opinion of whoever was picking. I think I might have a solution to that though: elections.

Now, hold up! This isn't your standard winner takes all election type thing. The system I'm envisioning creates a council of 13 people (to prevent ties). Three of these are the tier leaders and moderators, who obviously deserve the vote. Five of the remaining ten members are chosen according to traditional "blara process" council picking. The remaining five are elected by the community from a slate of ten people (who I like to refer to as the "berks 10") nominated by the tier leadership and voted for by the community in an order-of-preference vote. These people would, again, be nominated by the council but ultimately selected by the community. I'll use four people for my example of how this works, but optimally you'd picture it with ten.

A, B, C, and D have made strong individual arguments in the suspect thread of Magikarp this suspect round, but there are only two seats left to fill! They are nominated to be voted into the remaining two seats. In order to best represent the preferences of the greatest amount of users, community members are asked to rank those four people from who they most want on the council to who they least want on council. Say four voters order the candidates as follows:

Voter 1: A B D C
Voter 2: B D A C
Voter 3: C A D B
Voter 4: A D C B

If a person is awarded four points for a first place, three for a second place, and so on until they get 1 for a last place vote, the tally would look like this:

A: 13 Points
B: 9 Points
C: 8 Points
D: 10 Points

The winners would be A and D, and they would join the council. This would be very representative, as person A received many first place votes, and, although nobody picked D as their first choice, most people signified that they would be just fine with D on the council by placing them relatively high on their preference order. This would be somewhat akin to voting third party in an American election but having the option to select someone from a major party as a backup.

This system could rectify several problems:

• It removes the issue of council exclusivity by rotating a significant portion of it.
• It removes the issue of an uninformed community by removing access to a vote on a Pokemon from users who laddered for the heck of it; they vote for reasonable players with certain stances, not the actual issue itself.
• It helps fix the half-vote issue from the blara system by creating two votes: one to determine the suspect, and one to determine the council. Only those who obtained qualifications to vote on the suspect would be allowed to vote on the council, and users would receive a half point from each vote. Those elected to or chosen for the council would then qualify for Tiering Contributor for their council vote and outstanding contribution to the suspect as determined by either the tier leadership or the community.
• It prevents council members from posting one liners, as their position is never completely safe.
• It motivates people to make thoughtful, educated posts in suspect threads in the hopes of being nominated to rotating council elections.

There are a few potential downsides I can foresee. Mostly, this would be a fairly long process: one would have to qualify to nominate the suspect, endure a week or so of discussion, wait for the "blara 5" to be selected, and then vote on the "berks 10" nominations. That won't be an issue later in the development of the meta (re: after SPL), so no real issue there. It would also require someone to count up a colossal number of votes from not one but two different votes, one of which would be preference based and much more time consuming. However, I know that there are plenty of users out there who would happily offer their number-crunching services, including established contributors to the community i.e. myself, probably also Shrug, Fiend, or Nineage, etc.

The process would introduce a system of checks and balances and would ultimately put more power into the hands of dedicated players and minimize the effect of players who came to the tier just for a TC point. It's a little complicated, yes, but I think the system could be just what we need when cries for transparency and council openness are mingled with complaints about an uninformed voter base. Thanks for your consideration!

While you covered this briefly at the beginning, the main issue I see is that when you ask people to vote on people for the council, many people (granted not everyone) will vote for somebody with their preferences. Is this necessarily a bad thing? No, not really, but at the same time it means that if you wanted Z-Conversion banned you'd be much more likely to vote for the person who posted very little with flawed arguments (relative to the other nominees) but said they'd rather see Conversion banned than Porygon than the person who posted good posts often and leans even slightly towards a Porygon ban.

Because of this, I would prefer that our TLs (and maybe a couple others they choose to discuss it with) decide on the members for the rotating council based on posts. While they have their own biases since they're mostly human and all, they're at least inclined to pick people who represent different sides since they'll be somewhat under scrutiny for their decisions.

On a different note, what I would like to see in terms of greater community involvement is that maybe a week or so before the TLs announce a suspect, they post with something like 4 things they're considering putting up for suspect so the community as a whole can discuss them and describe what they'd prefer be suspected and why (along with giving them a chance to nominate something that wasn't on there, although that shouldn't be the main focus). It'd also mean a longer period for people to play around with the various topics than the normal suspect period, so that when the suspect test is announced formally there will be more people who have already begun testing out the suspect more than they normally do, meaning more informed posts from the beginning.