Let me explain my reasoning a little better. First, my desire for this tier system is not as arbitrary as it seems. The way I see it, you've got two kinds of Pokemon players. On the one hand, you've got people who want as few bans as possible in order to have a metagame that's still 'playable'. These people like to hone their skills at dealing with a limited variety of Pokemon and strategies. This is what the upper tier is meant for. It starts as a blank slate and things get banned as necessary. I frankly don't give two hoots about how this tier eventually ends up. It'll be too centralized for my taste.
Ah this is a bit more understandable, as the way you phrased it I was under the impression that this higher tier would be the uber tier of sorts and that we would not ban things from it. Although if it is the case that we can indeed ban things from this tier then why bother with the banlist for the lower one? If these pokemon are so overcentralizing (ugh what a loaded word) as you claim, then wouldn't it stand to reason that they could very possibly get banned from this higher tier as well leading to the distinction between the two becoming redundant?
On the other hand, you've got people who like variety and want to play in a metagame where they face interesting teams and strategies that they've never seen before and have to adapt to on the fly. The second tier therefore aims for the maximum amount of variety, which is why I advocate so many bans. Now I don't claim that the banlist that I propose is the 'best'. I do claim, however, that it's a much better starting point for a tier that tries to maximize variety than just banning the 670+ Pokemon.
Got some loaded language there bro.
Again, the problem we run into here is how do we determine if this new metagame is inherently less centralized than the higher tier? There's no guarantee that with the legendaries and psuedo-legendaries gone that the metagame will suddenly become much more varied. Take, for example, Drought and Drizzle, which in my opinion run a much, much, MUCH higher risk of limiting variety of the metagame than nearly any of those pokemon in your initial banlist.
Now, I agree that a Pokemon's BST is not a perfect indicator of its power. But I've noticed with each new game released, it gets better and better. It used to be that the 580 BST Pokemon all had poor movepools and lackluster abilities to compensate for their stats. No longer. With each new release, these Pokemon have received upgrades in their movepools, and with 5th gen, in their abilities. They now have the power to use their stats to the fullest. Nowhere can this be seen as clearly as in the beast trio. Weather Ball/Aura Sphere/Thunder Raikou is a nightmare on any Rain Dance team. Even Entei now has Flare Blitz and ExtremeSpeed.
Yes they are stronger now, probably not the total crap they were gens prior. This doesn't necessarily mean that they are broken or limit variety, only that they are a threat now, and to be honest I can't really accept that alone as evidence that such pokemon should be banned.
Now keep in mind again that I'd like to build a tier that promotes maximum variety. We could start with just using the VGC banlist and doing suspect tests, but be realistic. We wouldn't even be close by the time the sixth gen games were released. This banlist jump-starts that process with a cutoff point that, while arbitrary, should promote much more variety than the Standard OU banlist or the VGC banlist. If you plot the BST of all fully evolved Pokemon, you get a bell-shaped curve with a bunch of outliers at the top. Once you cut out those outliers, most of the Pokemon in the curve become much more viable.
Yeah I still agree a starting banlist would be best. I still do not understand though why exactly this banlist will inherently provide more variety than any other banlist proposed in this thread. It again comes back to your argument that these 580+ pokemon vastly limit the variety in the metagame and again back to my question, "how and why?". The right stats in the right places? Good movepool? That's the same for any pokemon worth using. Besides, what pokemon are they limiting? Take Metagross--is it making TR pokemon unviable? Sand, sun, rain, hail? Goodstuff? Gravity? Skill Swap? Psycho Shift? These more-controversial pokemon are good, yes, but who are they overpowering?
Also I'll take your word on the shape of the BST distribution if only because I can't be bothered to actually plot it out right now. What's the mean and standard deviation by the way?
If you don't believe that maximizing variety is a reasonable goal, then obviously it would be better to just have a bunch of little, centralized tiers. If you do think such a goal is worthwhile, I'd love to hear any counter-arguments to my banlist suggestion.
Whoa man again with the loaded language. You shouldn't imply such a dichotomy of "either you support this banlist or you don't believe in maximum variety".
Anyway my counter-argument has been sprinkled throughout but I'll say it again: I don't see why your banlist would accomplish the goal of maximizing variety any more than any other banlist that has been suggested so far. You say it will reduce centralization but you haven't really explained why other than "pokes with these BSTs are usually good" (if you'll forgive the crude paraphrasing). It also ignores all the other possible sources of centralization that could come in with or without these pokemon (again, Drought and Drizzle are the big ones).
I know doubles has a lot of variety but quite simply some pokemon will be losers and be outclassed by other stuff. That's the way it is. These "bunch of little tiers" simply try to somewhat mitigate this situation by allowing those outclassed pokemon a place where they can shine. Maintaining variety is important but trying to force it plain just will not work. There will be trends in the metagame and a lot of platers will flock to certain things until someone tries something crazy, bring about a new trend, etc etc.
As far as Sleep Clause goes, I think we may eventually need it. But the changes to the Sleep mechanics that have been introduced in the 5th generation are significant enough that I believe a test is in order. Non-cartridge Sleep Clause is messy, especially when you factor in Magic Coat, Natural Cure etc. If we can get by without it, so much the better.
NOTE: For those of you who aren't aware, Sleep only lasts 1-3 turns now, as opposed to 1-4. Also, the sleep counter resets if you switch out, encouraging you to keep your sleeping Pokemon in play, especially if they were put to sleep by a faster opponent. With these changes, Sleep Clause seems less necessary than it once was.
Yeah Sleep Clause is a messy area but honestly I see more reason to support it than not. Having an incapacitated pokemon is no laughing matter in singles so why would having more in doubles, a faster-paced metagame to begin with where every move counts even more, possibly be better? Also who cares about the sleep counter, who's gonna willfully stay at a 2-1 disadvantage hoping that they might possibly wake up next turn when they could just switch out to something that can help them regain momentum or even get rid of the status? Actually no sleep clause would suck even more in this case as you have to choose between being at a disadvantage and possibly having to sac a pokemon or risking getting another pokemon incapacitated in an attempt to gain lost ground. Yeah no thanks.
Item Clause is simply a rule that encourages variety and strategy. Why do most Smogonites accept Species Clause, but hate Item Clause? Only because it's what they're used to. They both serve the same purpose. Why have Species Clause?
Anyhow, Item Clause promotes variety in an obvious way. I don't think it would break the game not to have it, but you only have to fight a team of 6 Focus Sashed or 6 Choice Scarfed sweepers once to see that there might be problems. That aside, Item Clause promotes strategic thinking simply by process of elimination. If you see the Weavile's Focus Sash go off, you know the Gengar doesn't have one. It's a less-important rule than some, but I believe it to be better than the alternative. Have you played with Item Clause extensively, and if so, what did you find objectionable about it?
Well I dunno why we have species clause, although one could make an argument for it I guess (double Outrage Garchump aaaaaaaa) but items really don't have the same impact. If I'm fighting a team of 6 Focus Sash users I know they can't hit me hard with choice or LO attacks, recover the damage I deal to them with lefties, trick me a surprise Toxic Orb or whatever, and they'll generally get buttfucked by any sort of residual damage or spread attacks and can't switch around freely ('sides not like every attack against a pokemon is an OHKO to begin with). 6 Choice scarfed sweepers are stupid easy to outpredict and regain moment with decent switching and get fucked even harder by TR. What's the problem here? I don't see it. All adding item clause does is actually gimp teams to fix a problem that doesn't exist under the illusion of promoting variety when in fact it does the opposite--you can choose all different items anyway under no item clause but the clause actually
limits your choices and you can't experiment with, say, double scarves or more than one macho brace TR sweeper and whatnot. Item choice is the only information management available aside from moveset with the advent of team preview and I can't see what good it would do to limit it.