Alrighty, we're at an important part of our Suspect Test Process right now, but that fact that we are making undeniable progress and about to test a very exciting Suspect is as refreshing as an ice-cold Mountain Dew. This is where the similarities between Lati@s and that awesome beverage end, though, as it is widely believed that when actually equipped with Soul Dew, these two pokemon are unquestionably uber. If either or both are given a Stage 2 OU tag (check the Order of Operations thread for what the stages mean), then it stands to (slim) reason that they may not be uber even with Soul Dew. Testing them initially with Soul Dew would not be as practical because it's more likely they would be uber with Soul Dew, which would necessitate another test without Soul Dew, than it is that that they will not be uber without Soul Dew (which would necessitate another test with Soul Dew).
Regarding Shaymin-S, we have decided to temporarily honor the plurality of its "uber" votes for one month, at which point we will retest it, right after Lati@s's Suspect Test. The reason we will retest Skymin is not because the vote was close. We must retest Skymin because it was believed by everyone with an active hand in the Suspect Test Process that the Suspect Test Ladder was unneeded for Skymin's month of testing, since with Deoxys-S's removal from the Standard Ladder following its Suspect Test Skymin was finally the lone Suspect on the Standard Ladder after many months of Wobbuffet, Deoxys-S and Garchomp. It was realized that not also resetting the records of the battlers on the Standard Ladder would skew the pool of eligible voters towards those who already had marks close to 1650 rating/65 deviation.
As such, the pool of voters was both unexpectedly large and biased—however the staff has come to the conclusion that there is no way to fairly evaluate the voters after the fact and invalidate the votes of those who did not "participate" in the Suspect Test as much as they would otherwise have had to if their marks started at the default 1500/350. After all, we did not make clear that those marks would have to be attained after the Suspect Test commenced. Therefore, we must retest at a later date. We appreciate your patience in this groundbreaking process that just a few of us have created from scratch with our own intuition, and we are confident that we are making the right decision, as this is the most fair to the community.
I will also remind all of you that a 51% plurality at once indicates that a whopping 49% of those who voted would have been disappointed with its Stage 2 tag (that 49% correlates loosely to the competitive battling community at large). Since there is absolutely no guarantee that the vote won't be just as close next time, for Skymin or any other Suspect, we should all realize what percentage of people stand to be disappointed with a Suspect's tiering, either temporary or "for good" once we conclude Stage 3. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, though, as the entire reason we are conducting the Suspect Test process is because there is no such consensus on the current Suspects, pokemon that were determined Suspects in the first place because they merely "may be better suited in another tier." I hope that heads off any dissension and underlines the aim of the Suspect Test Process anew.
So Lati@s is up now. It has been determined that it'd be more fair to enforce a makeshift "Species Clause" with these two pokemon, rather than testing one for one month and its sibling the next, and rather than allowing both to be used at the same time which would go against the aim of testing one Suspect in isolation at a time. We feel that they are similar enough that enforcing Species Clause will still give us the information we need to vote on both of them. I would like to encourage people to "use Latias please", as I predict a slight favoring her stronger brother for its power (even though Latias could singlehandedly drop Infernape's Suspect Test Usage to BL proportions, lol), but obviously you play to win and we don't want to force anyone to use anything.
I will open this thread when Doug resurrects the Suspect Ladder, after he codes the unique Species Clause explained above.
Regarding Shaymin-S, we have decided to temporarily honor the plurality of its "uber" votes for one month, at which point we will retest it, right after Lati@s's Suspect Test. The reason we will retest Skymin is not because the vote was close. We must retest Skymin because it was believed by everyone with an active hand in the Suspect Test Process that the Suspect Test Ladder was unneeded for Skymin's month of testing, since with Deoxys-S's removal from the Standard Ladder following its Suspect Test Skymin was finally the lone Suspect on the Standard Ladder after many months of Wobbuffet, Deoxys-S and Garchomp. It was realized that not also resetting the records of the battlers on the Standard Ladder would skew the pool of eligible voters towards those who already had marks close to 1650 rating/65 deviation.
As such, the pool of voters was both unexpectedly large and biased—however the staff has come to the conclusion that there is no way to fairly evaluate the voters after the fact and invalidate the votes of those who did not "participate" in the Suspect Test as much as they would otherwise have had to if their marks started at the default 1500/350. After all, we did not make clear that those marks would have to be attained after the Suspect Test commenced. Therefore, we must retest at a later date. We appreciate your patience in this groundbreaking process that just a few of us have created from scratch with our own intuition, and we are confident that we are making the right decision, as this is the most fair to the community.
I will also remind all of you that a 51% plurality at once indicates that a whopping 49% of those who voted would have been disappointed with its Stage 2 tag (that 49% correlates loosely to the competitive battling community at large). Since there is absolutely no guarantee that the vote won't be just as close next time, for Skymin or any other Suspect, we should all realize what percentage of people stand to be disappointed with a Suspect's tiering, either temporary or "for good" once we conclude Stage 3. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, though, as the entire reason we are conducting the Suspect Test process is because there is no such consensus on the current Suspects, pokemon that were determined Suspects in the first place because they merely "may be better suited in another tier." I hope that heads off any dissension and underlines the aim of the Suspect Test Process anew.
So Lati@s is up now. It has been determined that it'd be more fair to enforce a makeshift "Species Clause" with these two pokemon, rather than testing one for one month and its sibling the next, and rather than allowing both to be used at the same time which would go against the aim of testing one Suspect in isolation at a time. We feel that they are similar enough that enforcing Species Clause will still give us the information we need to vote on both of them. I would like to encourage people to "use Latias please", as I predict a slight favoring her stronger brother for its power (even though Latias could singlehandedly drop Infernape's Suspect Test Usage to BL proportions, lol), but obviously you play to win and we don't want to force anyone to use anything.
I will open this thread when Doug resurrects the Suspect Ladder, after he codes the unique Species Clause explained above.
