np: UU Stage 6 - No Surprises

[FlareBlitz]

It's kind of strange how all of the sudden we're bringing up offensive Pokemon that are 2HKOed by Stoutland when really they only need to be 2HKOed to be a check. And offensive team that has a counter is great, but all offensive teams need are checks because you're going to have a shit load of trouble switching into something like Sub Chandelure or Shaymin with your sand team consisting of Pokemon generally unable to take 1-2 hits from these beasts.

Checks should be able to switch in and force a Pokemon out to be considered a check. Shaymin and Swampert can't switch in without being 2hko'd, first of all. And even worse, Stoutland actually beats them one on one, by 2hkoing them before they can 2hko it. Chandelure obviously counters Stoutland...but it's also one of the rock / ghost / steel types I was referring to earlier.

I mean, I'm not saying Stoutland is broken, because Chandelure / Bronzong / Cobalion / Rhyperior / [Insert counter here] are pretty fantastic Pokemon in their own right and teams aren't exactly worse for using them. My point is that the notable prevalence of sand on the ladder does cause a substantial degree of centralization. Remember that hippototas was once one of the top Pokemon in 1337 UU (this has changed noticeably since for reasons I can't guess at).

If we ban anything, it needs to be Sand Veil because that's the only thing that makes sense as a ban. Competitively, Sand is perfectly fine. It's more of "do you want to have the option to use Sand or not", not really a competitive discussion but I guess it's the one we're having....

I have no issue with only banning sand veil, as you know, but I also want the community to voice their opinions on sandstream. Posts have been pretty evenly split on this so far, and if that keeps up, I'll probably decide to just stick with supporting a ban on Sand Veil.

 

[Heysup]

I have no issue with only banning sand veil, as you know, but I also want the community to voice their opinions on sandstream. Posts have been pretty evenly split on this so far, and if that keeps up, I'll probably decide to just stick with supporting a ban on Sand Veil.

Yea I completely agree, however I think it makes more sense to direct the topic.....this sounds fucked up to me even as I type it.....away from competitively banning Sand because we're just beating a dead horse at this point - we've been over this so many times it's almost sad, almost comical. The one thing that we can use to ban sand in some way shape or form is to use this new "what do we as a community define as what we want the metagame to be" mentality (and I do feel the need to repeat how skeptical I am of this). If we are going to use that mentality, we need to use it right and not go back to try and grasping for reasons to find sand competitively broken just to justify something we want.

 

[bean1706]

Well, first things first, this is coming from a casual UU player who only started playing the tier again recently. IMO sand as a whole isn't broken and anyone who has looked at the usage stats can see this. Only 6.1% of teams are sand based and this is a tiny fraction of the overall tier. If sand itself was broken I think a lot more people would be taking advantage of it.

Stoutland being the main abuser of sand, also isn't broken and overcentralizes the metagame as much as any other threat. Sure if you don't prepare for it it will sweep through your team but the same can be said for Kingdra or Chandelure. Making space for a rock or ghost type on your team isn't all that difficult. If you overlook Stoutland and don't prepare for it, it's your own fault. Not Stoutlands.

The one thing I am in favour of banning however is Sand Veil. Battles coming down to luck is uncompetitive and the competitive nature of Pokemon is what makes it enjoyable for me and I'm sure that a lot of you would agree. Moves like double team were banned because they made the game luck based and this is the exact same situation for Sand Veil.

 

[kokoloko]

I think people are missing the point here. The primary reason why a ban on Sand Stream is on the table is not because the playstyle is overpowering/broken, it's because of the huge strain it puts on both teambuilding and the metagame around it. This has been discussed earlier in the thread, but once again here it is: The use of Morning Sun / Synthesis / Moonlight, and Life Orb on Pokemon who are not immune to Sand is heavily discouraged. Additionally, you almost feel obligated to run a Rock- or Steel-type on otherwise perfectly acceptable teams (remind you of the Dragon- / Steel- DPP OU? Yeah, me too). Pokemon such as SubCM Raikou are not as good as they 'should' be, and thinks like SubSeeding or ProtectSeeding become almost a liability when facing sand.

None of these factors seem to be crucial to the metagame, and hence not worth banning sand to undo, but after playing POs UU for a while, you realize just how much more fun it is to have them be around and not worry about sand teams ruining your ladder experience. Once again, I urge you to actually go play the sandless metagame before jumping to the conclusion that sand is not worth banning. Actual experience trumps mere theory every single time. (The FUK Dragons tournament, in which Salamence and Latias where banned, was one of the big reasons why these two were eventually banned from the metagame)

Think about it, is there any particular reason why we shouldn't ban it when doing so brings clear competitive benefits to the metagame? At the root level, this is a choice between having either the option to use Stoutland and lolHippo, or getting to freely use all of the things I listed above without having them randomly decrease in effectiveness when you run into sand.

Stop getting caught up in the semantics of whether something is "broken" or not, it doesn't matter how you look at it, it's always going to be subjective. Why not make the most of it and create a better metagame?

Really give it some thought, guys. This issue is a lot bigger than simply ticking the broken / not broken box.

 

[Heysup]

No offense Koko, but I feel obligated to post the other side, the way you expressed it makes it seem like there's no option to think Sand is good or even that adhering to pure competitiveness is good. This may somewhat sound like it contradicts my previous posts about directing it away from competitive discussion, but I'm not trying to get people to discuss sandstorm competitively. I'm defending their right to have the opinion that competitiveness still matters to them in the metagame in terms of bans. (We are qualified as a senate to make the competitive decisions like that and we've heard the communities competitive thoughts on SS for ages)

I think people are missing the point here. The primary reason why a ban on Sand Stream is on the table is not because the playstyle is overpowering/broken, it's because of the huge strain it puts on both teambuilding and the metagame around it. This has been discussed earlier in the thread, but once again here it is: The use of Morning Sun / Synthesis / Moonlight, and Life Orb on Pokemon who are not immune to Sand is heavily discouraged. Additionally, you almost feel obligated to run a Rock- or Steel-type on otherwise perfectly acceptable teams (remind you of the Dragon- / Steel- DPP OU? Yeah, me too). Pokemon such as SubCM Raikou are not as good as they 'should' be, and thinks like SubSeeding or ProtectSeeding become almost a liability when facing sand.

This sounds a little awkward to me. You mention sand not being overpowering/broken but then list reasons involving the "strain" on team building and the metagame. While I disagree with those sentiments strongly (considering LO Synthesis Shaymin is basically a staple for me in addition to me often using LO Azelf and Raikou), those are completely and undeniably competitive reasons. You are mentioning competitive difficulty here. What we're trying to gauge here is the overall communities definition of what they 'enjoy' more. It's not our place to say which side is clearly better simply because we may enjoy some circumstances better than others. If that were true, we'd only have Standard OU. Some people prefer to really challenge themselves and others in terms of team building, some people prefer being able to focus more on less restrictive rules. Both are clearly fine options, they completely depend on the people involved.

None of these factors seem to be crucial to the metagame, and hence not worth banning sand to undo, but after playing POs UU for a while, you realize just how much more fun it is to have them be around and not worry about sand teams ruining your ladder experience. Once again, I urge you to actually go play the sandless metagame before jumping to the conclusion that sand is not worth banning. Actual experience trumps mere theory every single time.

I feel like PO UU is brought up all of the time by a very small amount of people.

First of all, I'd like to bring up the fact that while PO UU is fun to you, it is not necessarily more fun for everyone (and I definitely get that from your post). I, for example, actually like Smogon UU currently better, and if Virizion was in it and all other things were kept equal there wouldn't even be a reason to think about PO UU at all. I'll get into the reasons why in a bit.

Second, PO UU isn't even the same metagame. There are far far far more significant differences in PO UU than in our UU. For example, every other ban and UU drop (HELLO VIRIZION, the perfect fit for team building in Smogon's UU). Hippopotas isn't even that common right now. In the same vein as people thinking that PO UU is really fun is very specific to certain people, even if it wasn't, it's not the same game.

Third, I think we are engaged in a false dichotomy here, which may be the case for PO but not here. It seems as if we're pressuring people to not give the competitive aspects of banning significant value, and that is kind of fucked up for a competitive Pokemon site. It's not either you want to ban or not because a) you like it or b) you dislike it. There is also the very legitimate choice of c) you don't want to ban it because to you (the community) think competitiveness makes a metagame valid, and you feel like validity gives a game meaning and playing a game with meaning makes it more fun (as you can see, this mirrors my thoughts). That's a very common belief and the simply proof is the fact that this site exists and has been using purely competitive rulings for quite some time.

So to reiterate my last point:

Stop getting caught up in the semantics of whether something is "broken" or not, it doesn't matter how you look at it, it's always going to be subjective. Why not make the most of it and create a better metagame?

Some people's version of a better metagame that could be a purely competitive one and that's a view we absolutely have to take into account if we are truly going to have a valid decision at the end of all this. Not could be, there are people with that view.

Think about it, is there any particular reason why we shouldn't ban it when doing so brings clear competitive benefits to the metagame? At the root level, this is a choice between having either the option to use Stoutland and lolHippo, or getting to freely use all of the things I listed above without having them randomly decrease in effectiveness when you run into sand.

They don't randomly decrease in effectiveness lol. They decrease in effectiveness (slightly....but i digress) because of sand storm. It's kind of absurd to think of only sand storm this way. Your Scarf Darmanitan doesn't randomly lose its effectiveness when you play against a defensive Suicune/Milotic/Swampert/etc. Someone is using a bulky water because it's good at beating Pokemon like Scarf Darmanitan. Sandstorm makes those immensely powerful offensive Pokemon's time bomb tick quicker.

So yea, in short, I don't want to talk about whether we think SS is broken or not because we've seen all of those arguments. HOWEVER, it is still legitimate to think that we should not ban something that isn't broken because that could give the game meaning for us. There are not just 2 choices / reasons here.

 

[kokoloko]

Correct me if I'm wrong but what I gathered from a large part your post was basically that I shouldn't sound so biased.

The fact is, however, I am biased. This is because I find a sandless UU a lot more fun. I'm also not claiming that PO's UU is more fun for everyone, just for me, which is why I keep trying to get people to try it and make that judgement call for themselves.

As for the other metagame differences, they are irrelevant to the points I'm trying to make. Yes, Scrafty, Virizion, and Mienshao exist while Roserade and Kingdra do not, but these have little-to-no bearing on the effectiveness of the things I mentioned in my previous post. Things that I enjoy using freely without having to worry about them becoming less effective when I run into sand.

As for your point about them randomly decreasing in effectiveness; what I meant by that is that since the ladder makes up pairings randomly, these strategies randomly decrease in effectiveness. Nothing more.

I also understand your point about some people putting more weight on competitiveness as opposed to fun when it comes to tiering. I get it and I think it's perfectly acceptable. I just want to make sure people realize they have a choice. They don't need to bind themselves to the semantics of "broken" vs. "not broken". In the end, its all subjective, as there isn't--and will never be--a clear-cut definition of "broken".

 

[666lumberjack]

I think it's important to consider the nature of competitive Pokemon for a second here. Pokemon is, for the majority, I would expect, something that we play because we enjoy doing so. Indeed, if we did not enjoy playing Pokemon, it would be slightly ridiculous to do so. When you consider this, you recognise that when all things are considered, any decision we make should be intended to make the game as fun as possible for as many people as possible. For some people, of course, a metagame that is as competitive, anti-ban and centralized as is reasonable is their interpretation of fun, and that's fine. But we have to ask, do these people make up such a significant majority that their anti- banning for enjoyment mentality should take precedence over those of us who wish to see bans that will make the game more fun? (I will address the "what is more fun?" issue in the next paragraph). I don't know whether this is the case or not, but I think it's something that has to be seriously considered. Ubers has already proven that there are essentially no Pokemon that imbalance the game to such an extent to make it uncompetitive, but things are banned because for the majority, the game is more fun to play when these Pokemon are disallowed.

This does, of course, bring up up the question of what exactly is "more fun"? This is going to be a crucial determining factor here because it is essentially at the heart of every banning decision, even those that propose something to simply be broken. At the end of the day, Kyurem was not unbeatable - if you ran the right Pokemon, you could pretty consistently defeat all of its sets. But there were a very specific few Pokemon that could consistently do this, which meant that playing and teambuilding with Kyurem around just wasn't as fun as when it was gone. In that case I think it was pretty clear that that would be the case, but here we're treading a finer line. For that reason, my proposition is a temporary ban on Sand, for say 3 weeks, so that the council members can formulate an accurate opinion of what the metagame might be like if Sand was not around. Heysup brings up a good point in that much as we compare our own tier to PO UU, the lack of Sand there is not the only difference, and a straight up decision on whether a Sand ban is beneficial is therefore difficult to draw from experience in that tier. The secondary benefit of postponing a ban decision based on a test is that it is likely that by the time the test reaches its conclusion, we will be aware of changes brought about by BW2, and we can therefore make an educated decision on whether sand is still as potent as it is now, overpowered or not, with BW2 features available - rather than coming to a decision now, discovering that BW2 brings an important change to the Sand matchup and having to test it again right after a decision has been made. Whatever way it is considered, I don't think anyone will argue that postponing a decision by a couple of weeks will have a significant adverse affect - Sand is clearly not so broken it should be banned immediately.

This is just my £0.02, but I feel like banning something is always going to boil down to what we want to some extent or another, and this is the best way I can think of to find out exactly what each senate member wants with regard to sand having experienced the metagame both with and without sand.

 

[Heysup]

Correct me if I'm wrong but what I gathered from a large part your post was basically that I shouldn't sound so biased.

The fact is, however, I am biased. This is because I find a sandless UU a lot more fun. I'm also not claiming that PO's UU is more fun for everyone, just for me, which is why I keep trying to get people to try it and make that judgement call for themselves.

Biases are fine but completely disregarding another side is not. I think Flare, yours, and even my first couple posts on the matter explained the situation of "preference rather than broken/not broken", but it was kind of getting to the point where we (myself included...) were shutting down people who spoke about competitiveness at all even if they were of the opinion that competitiveness = validity = meaning = fun.

As for the other metagame differences, they are irrelevant to the points I'm trying to make. Yes, Scrafty, Virizion, and Mienshao exist while Roserade and Kingdra do not, but these have little-to-no bearing on the effectiveness of the things I mentioned in my previous post. Things that I enjoy using freely without having to worry about them becoming less effective when I run into sand.

Far from it. As FastFlygon said above me, there are much much much more significant differences between PO UU and Smogon UU even if you disregard the difference in player base (no I don't mean that every Smogon player is better, but they are different). It is utterly impossible to single out an aspect of a metagame so small when there are so many bigger influences. So therefore, as I stated before and FastFlygon stated above me, the PO UU is not an effective method as to finding out whether you like Smogon's UU with no SS. If you're hungry for an anology:

Steak Analogy

You have two steaks. Someone is telling you to taste the difference in quality between the two steaks. However, one of the steaks has ketchup (or some equally overpowering sauce.....) dumped all over it. You can't taste the difference between the meat but you can definitely taste the ketchup. So your preference between the two has nothing to do with the steaks but has a lot to do with whether or not you love ketchup.

As for your point about them randomly decreasing in effectiveness; what I meant by that is that since the ladder makes up pairings randomly, these strategies randomly decrease in effectiveness. Nothing more.

My point still stands. You randomly face teams with bulky waters. If you have a Medicham, you randomly face teams with Ghosts/Slowbro etc. This does not really hold any weight to whether or not something is more "relaxed" or whatever you're trying to get at because we use it all of the time.

I don't think anyone will argue that postponing a decision by a couple of weeks will have a significant adverse affect - Sand is clearly not so broken it should be banned immediately.

We've been trying to deal with Sand Veil for ages. Any longer is just....annoying. I guess it wouldn't be a huge deal because it's not really preventing us from playing competitive games (except those in which people still use Sand Veil).

If BW 2 brings significant changes, let them come. I would much rather just ban Sand Veil + SS and give Sandstorm time to settle in with the new metagame. The point is that if people hate SS because it's SS and it's annoying, then they hate it.

 

[kokoloko]

Okay so, we're clearly not going to agree on the point regarding PO UU as a semi-effective method of getting a glimpse of a sandless metagame, so lets just leave it at that.

As for your other point, here's the thing, we're not banning things "just for fun". It's not like that at all. In order for me to support a ban of this nature, there has to be a clear improvement from the previous metagame into the next (in terms of diversity + 'enjoyability'). For instance, banning the top 3 Pokemon in UU would lead to massive metagame shifts, but not necessarily a better metagame (read: I pulled this extreme example out of my ass), so I wouldn't even come close to supporting this.

Obviously, those terms are subjective, but so is "broken".

 

[Heysup]

If that's the case, then it seems to me that the general definition of "uncompetitive" (or at least mine and most other people I know) is very very similar to your definition of "something the metagame would be better off without".

What I'm getting at is this: if you're not banning SS "because it's annoying as shit" (which would be a valid reason in our series of choices) but more "because it restricts diversity too much and forces you to use specific Pokemon" then we would effectively be banning something for competitive reasons which is all good by me. It's subjective but still with competitiveness in mind and I'm definitely all for that mentality.

P.S. I think you misunderstand my issue with looking at PO UU. I'm not questioning the effectiveness of PO UU giving you a glimpse of a sandless metagame. It undeniably does that by definition. I'm questioning the effectiveness of PO UU giving you a glimpse of a sandless smogon UU metagame.

EDIT: well I still disagree with giving an idea of the metagame we would be working with. However this back-and-forth has probably left little room for the community so let's let them speak. They can read our posts for references.

 

[kokoloko]

Yes. It' just that when I think of uncompetitive I think of "things that take the game's outcome out of the players' hands" such as Evasion. Sand itself doesn't do this, so I refer to it as a "metagame improvement".

And it seems the issue was that you misunderstood me. I wasn't implying that sandless PO UU == sandless Smogon UU, just that it gives you an idea of what we could be working with.

So we have basically agreed all along and just now figured it out, that is swell.

 

[Iridium]

.

mm, indeed



go ahead and ban it, then

 

[SStats]

Since my last post was addressed to Flare and that discussion doesn't seem relevant here, I'm going to use this post to state my opinion on the ban.

To ban sand because it's less fun to the majority seems a little strange. What's to stop people from then saying that Machamp isn't fun to play against, or that Darmanitan isn't fun to play against, and subsequently to ban those? The majority will always have some kind of opinion about what is or isn't fun. And to have certain options stripped away in favor of other options just because the majority finds something more "fun" than something else, well, that would make competitive Pokemon lose its value for me.

In the absence of Darmanitan and Chandelure I could run things other than Rhyperior and bulky waters on my team--my Suicune could use Life Orb instead of Leftovers and have no defensive investment (would make it better against Roserade, for instance; Ice Beam on the switch would do more damage), or my Slowbro could be Specs and not worry about being unable to tank LO Darm's hits. This adds just as much variety, if not more so, than the addition of LO Azelf, Synthesis Shaymin, etc., due to sand's absence, especially because sand comprises only a small number of teams (whereas Darm and Chandelure are on many, many teams).

When we talk about something's being "broken" or not, we're never entirely objective. It's impossible to be entirely objective about anything, even subjects that lend themselves to scientific inquiry and experimentation. But there is, nevertheless, some sort of standard set when we try to remove biases and look at something from an objective standpoint; whether you say that "broken" means "overcentralizing" or "kills 1-2 Pokemon per match," you are still setting a standard around which a logical discussion could happen. Even if these standards differ from council member to council member, there is still some consistency as part of the overall trend. And this is what makes competition healthy and stable, in my opinion.

As I see it, the majority opinion is poisonous to any competitive environment. Suppose I like Dragonite a lot (I do), and I dislike Scizor a lot (I do), because I think Dragonite looks cool and Scizor does not. I thus end up using Dragonite on my teams and not using Scizor. If Scizor were common in the metagame and would pose problems for Dragonite, then of course I would think that a Scizorless metagame would be better and want Scizor to be banned.

Similarly, someone who uses Scizor a lot and doesn't like having to put CB on his Scizor just to deal with Salamence/Dragonite would want Salamence and Dragonite to be banned. For me to get my way (get Scizor banned) just because there are more people who want Scizor banned than want Salamence/Dragonite banned, well . . . certainly, that's democracy. But it's also rather off-putting because of the unstable and perhaps shrunken metagame it would result in.

What if you were to introduce this kind of opinion-based banning to things like fighting games? If a certain character is really hard to learn and really annoying to fight, the majority of people fighting against that character would want the character banned. The game would almost certainly become more fun for them without that character. At the same time, that logic could be applied to every character that is in any way annoying for a particularly popular character to fight, and a chain of bans could occur, until only that popular character and a group of characters easy for that character to fight would remain. The net effect would be that the metagame would shrink, and fewer options would be available.

I don't think that banning Sand Veil will be problematic. Banning sand altogether, though, strikes me as a little bit crazy.

Even putting that issue aside, how are you going to measure the opinions of the majority? At best you're going to get the opinions of people who post on this board. I've been playing Pokemon on PO and Shoddy for a while (since after the release of Platinum in DPP), but I never post on this board. It may well be that the majority of people who play on the ladder don't visit the boards often enough to see that this issue is up for debate. In an entirely subjective approach where opinions are being considered over logic about some standard, many opinions would be lost.

Anyway, that's my opinion, to add to the stream of opinions flowing through this topic.

 

[pokemonisfun]

I have quite a few questions though I'm pretty much done on ranting on sand veil.

Why have the characteristics of a desirable metagame been brought up in this discussion as something that must be adhered to? Is there a rule on this site saying that that post is what Smogon will always follow?

The way I see it, these characteristics are the opinion of just one person on what the game should be like. Opinions presented as facts - and then going unquestioned!- this it seems to me is a great impediment of progress. I do not think anything is wrong in those characteristics, rather I am being critical of it because I do not think it encompasses enough characteristics.

Why can't it add something demanding strategies to be reasonable? Surely nobody would argue that hoping for a miss is actually reasonable. It would not mean you can't use things like Magikarp for fun because unlike abusing Sand Veil using Magikarp is an unreasonable strategy that would gather no wins.

Why has this sand veil topic been brought up just now after it has already been discussed at significant length weeks ago (only to be stalled on for no apparent reason)?

Faith in the masses! - why isn't there more of this? It is becoming exceedingly clear that there is a very great majority of people that want sand veil banned. Pokemon is a game we play for fun and we are making it clear, here in UU at least, that sand veil is making the game less fun for whatever reason. Sand veil is not really going to be banned on the personal preference of a few members, its going to be banned because lots and lots of people are crying out for it.

I am not deaf to the other side though. To those who say

The purpose of a tiering council is to remove as much subjectivity from the tiering process as possible.

I respond, wouldn't a better purpose be to make the game better for the people who play it - throwing away phrases like subjective and objective - just ban what you gotta ban. I don't know how to define a fun metagame but I sure know it when I see it, this is a natural thing.

 

[Heysup]

Even putting that issue aside, how are you going to measure the opinions of the majority? At best you're going to get the opinions of people who post on this board. I've been playing Pokemon on PO and Shoddy for a while (since after the release of Platinum in DPP), but I never post on this board. It may well be that the majority of people who play on the ladder don't visit the boards often enough to see that this issue is up for debate. In an entirely subjective approach where opinions are being considered over logic about some standard, many opinions would be lost.

We can't force people to care about what we ban. As long as they know it's an option (which it should always be on the PO title), if they don't post then they aren't giving their opinions consciously.

Faith in the masses! - why isn't there more of this? It is becoming exceedingly clear that there is a very great majority of people that want sand veil banned. Pokemon is a game we play for fun and we are making it clear, here in UU at least, that sand veil is making the game less fun for whatever reason. Sand veil is not really going to be banned on the personal preference of a few members, its going to be banned because lots and lots of people are crying out for it.

Before I reply I just want to say that I don't actually think what I'm about to say is 100% true and even if some people do think it is somewhat true, they don't think this about "everyone".

There are lots of reasons why to not trust the masses. All of these have to do with how much less people think when they are a large group. In the past, people have had severe cases of bandwagoning in those ("faith in the masses) processes, as in, they say retarded shit just because someone who they think is cool said it. Second, masses tend to not actually know what they want. We've had a lot of cases saying how we shouldn't have banned one Pokemon, should have banned another, the metagame sucks now, etc.

There are more but they have to do with my original statement as well so it's kind of redundant to post.

The difference here, I'm hoping, is that it's a matter of a opinion and people will simply know what they like better rather than what they think makes sense. It is also probably going to be more easily reversed. And hopefully, we don't make any absurd bans like this.

Anyway, keep the opinions coming this is good stuff.

 

[thawigga]

The ousting of Deoxys-D will allow people to begin increasing usage of less used spikers. I think frosslass usage should increase in the next round. With less pokemon throwing hazards high speed hit and run tactics will surge back into the tier. Stealth rock usage will most likely increase among walls like swampert and others. xatu use will most likely plummet due to deoxys-d getting booted. CB heracross will stay high because of his sheer power. Pokemon in lower tiers may get the oppourtunity to thrive with the loss of Deoxys-D. I think it will much benefit the tier but more importantly where the hell is scrafty?

 

[pharaohcalvin]

To me we really should only be banning things that are broken, not what is "unfun". Fun is just a subjective term, that you will always leave lots of people out. As opposed to if we adhere to the idea that we a competitive site and play to win, and only banned what is broken, then the idea of fun would be not needed for our discussions in banning. Now, I hate missing because of SV too, but I don't find it broken, and there for they should be allowed to use it. After all, who are we to take away their fun? It is really fun to have your butt saved by SV, once in a blue moon that it actually does save you. It gives a nice rush, so yes people can find it fun, even if some don't. I guess what I am saying it, trying to force one person's (or a groups, even if it is a majority) fun onto everyone, on a competitive site, seems really really wrong to me.

 

[kokoloko]

Okay then please go ahead and find me a solid definition of the term broken that isn't just as subjective as the term fun.

The fact is, no matter what we base tiering on, it's going to be subjective... stop getting caught up in semantics smh people smh

 

[pharaohcalvin]

What is broken can be proven through solid statistical back. Using math, one can show that a pokemon or ability gives the user of said ability/Pokemon a mathematical advantage a super majority of time. Yes it still has some subjectiveness to it, but once we set in stone what that super majority is, we don't have to deal with subjectiveness again, instead we have a clear set standard. Subjectiveness is impossible to completely remove, however we can greatly limit it, and not use perhaps the most large and board subjective subject there is called fun.

 

[thawigga]

if you can find the mathematical relationship and provide proof then go ahead but until then your going to have to deal with what we have

 

[pharaohcalvin]

Using damage calcs it shouldn't be too hard. You just have to put the subject in numerous different situations and just do calcs. It is time consuming, but banning shouldn't be just on a whim. Also then, stuff that are clearly broken or clearly not broken would take far less time to show so, as it will become apparently clear going through the simulations and calcs.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

I would just like to state a few things.

1. To those who prefer a "faith in the masses" system, trust me, it's not nearly as good as the council system. This is coming from someone who was outraged that we moved to councils a year or so ago. In the old (but not really old) days we had a system where anyone with a halfway decent rating could vote, and all that happened was "let's see what <insert prominent member of UU community with flashy badges and bold name here> has to say and I'll just bandwagon with them". The current council system gives the community an open forum for discussion about Suspects, and the IRC channel provides a place where community members talk directlywith Senators. Even better, Senators have to stay up to date or risk removal. This is a functional system.

2. Okay can people stop writing off the opposing argument to banning Sand as "semantics"? If the ban-Sand group is going to fundamentally and controversially change Smogon's banning philosophy with significant opposition, then it's a bit rude to write off the keep-Sand group as arguing over semantics. There are, or at least should be, numerous justifications that the pro-ban Senators have to make such as:

1. Is the metagame truly better without Sand?
2. Is it acceptable to ban something on personal preference?
3. What is the community's stance on this issue, and to what extent should that opinion be considered.
etc.

The default option in this situation has, has, has to be Do Not Ban. Policy and precedence (Brightpowder ban notwithstanding, though that ban was ridiculously controversial and should be taken with a grain of salt) both dictate that Sand should not leave, yet both the community and Senate believe (as far as I know o_O) that this issue is not resolved. The burden of proof lies on the pro-ban group, and they're relying on arguments such as "better metagame" and "more fun" to justify a ban. I'm not saying or trying to imply that that is poor logic (I addressed that in a previous post), but to write off the opposing argument (which employs both policy and precedence) as "semantics" is fundamentally wrong.

Furthermore, this is not a mathematical issue. Numbers don't speak for themselves, so everyone has to resort to subjectivity to some extent to interpret the numbers, and as soon as you do that, questions pop up. Is 6.1% usage enough to warrant a ban? How relevant are usage stats to this issue? Since there are no 1337 stats how much do these stats really matter? My interpretation, for the record, is that the 6.1% usage is evidence (though not particularly strong evidence) against the ban, but I need to concede that Pokemon (namely Wobbuffet) have been banned for lower usage. I also should point out that Pokemon with higher usage (Alakazam for example) have avoided the banhammer, so that argument does go both ways. With precedents like that it's hard to rely on usage stats to make a decision.

EDIT: Derp, I should also talk about damage calculations :P. I do not see damage calculations as necessary for either side of the argument as this issue is almost entirely a philosophical issue. Nobody to my knowledge is trying to go the "Sand is broken" route, so the pro-ban side is falling back to the "Sand is uncompetitive" or a "Sand is boring" argument (which in my opinion, is little more than a "Sand is gay" argument, but that's neither here nor there...). Numbers are usually critical to a Suspect decision, and pro-banners in general enjoy overloading their opposition with numbers such as in the Alakazam discussions and the Hail discussions. In this discussion, however, both sides somewhat agree that Sand is not broken so numbers are irrelevant. I find that a bit unsettling that this issue has digressed to a purely philosophical one because if banning something off of personal preference is deemed acceptable, it's a slippery slope to future "I don't like this so off to Ubers/BL/BL2 it goes!" decisions, which as I've mentioned before potentially damage the credibility of the Suspect process. Just a concern for now of course.

Fourthly, someone else posted:

Okay then please go ahead and find me a solid definition of the term broken that isn't just as subjective as the term fun

Smogon's Philosophy gives a pretty good definition:

"only when it becomes very apparent that a Pokémon is far too powerful to be in line with a balanced metagame is it banished permanently from the standard arena."

It's subjective of course, but not nearly as subjective as the term "fun". I mean, this definition has been used by Smogon for a long time, and most likely has been agreed upon by Smogon's top brass (at the time it was written at least). Not a perfect definition, but it's not as subjective as "more fun".


Just some thoughts and opinions.

 

[pharaohcalvin]

Well, damage calcs aren't super subjective, I never meant to use usage for this. But I do agree I like the Smogon's Philosophy definition. It is loads better then "fun".

 

[Mazinger]

I think a major part of the problem here lies in koko's use of the word "fun", which does indeed not sound like a very convincing reason to ban something, especially not with the current system. I'm pretty sure what's meant (or maybe not, I obviously can't speak for him, but this applies either way from my point of view) is that because tiering is inherently subjective, saying that we shouldn't ban anything that isn't "broken" doesn't actually accomplish anything because people disagree on what "broken" means. There really isn't anything you can do when someone disagrees on whether somethng is broken because I'm pretty sure everyone disagrees on what it means, in some way at least. I'd say I actually agree that things should only be banned for being broken, it's just that you can't enforce this for the above reason, meaning the only thing you can actually base your opinion/vote on is a convincing argument that others either agree or disagree with. It might seem like a cop out to just say that in the end people will vote based on what they want to do and not what is "broken", but in reality it's the same thing (unless their reasons are things like being swept by weavile when they had 5 ice weaks or something, but I don't think this is relevant), and I don't think there's anything we can do about it without a finding fixed definition of when something is broken, which is practically impossible. I hope this explains things to at least some people, because I think this discussion has gotten a bit stuck on the word "fun".

It's also completely impossible to prove whether something should be banned based on math or hard facts for multiple reasons, mainly that people will still disagree on what the exact limit for a ban would be and that the number of counters a certain threat has can't be translated into whether it should be banned. There are too many factors to actually produce a "ban-formula", not to mention that it would most likely produce results that a ton of people disagree with.

I didn't directly respond to any post because there were too many here to pick a specific one, but it should be pretty clear what I'm addressing.

 

[Heysup]

I think it's become clear that the terms "fun" and "broken" are very subjective and having an argument about which is more subjective is really fucking stupid. Basing our policy off of that argument is also, obviously, stupid.

If you (re)read the exchange between Kokoloko and I (which I strongly suggest to avoid any more of this pedantic and frankly confusing dialogue), it's pretty clear that what Kokoloko means by "fun" is essentially what many of us would think of "a nonviable competitive environment". Sand itself can't be "broken" in the same way Staraptor could be (killing shit vs a field effect) so that word is stupid and Kokoloko doesn't have a point here. However, the word "fun" is also misleading. Every single reason Kokoloko and other supports listed for banning SS based on "fun" has been a competitive reason.

There is no policy change needed, and frankly, no issue and no problem with banning something for competitive reasons. It is the reason we all agree to ban something.

The other thing that has been irking me here is the misuse of the word subjective. Competitive reasons are not subjective. As a fact, sandstorm makes Synthesis work at 50% effectiveness, raises Rock-types SpD by 1.5, doubles Stoutland's Speed, and does a small amount of damage per turn to every non-SS immune Pokemon.

Whether or not these reasons are enough to warrant a ban is subjective. That's where the senate and community comes in. We decide to discuss something if the community thinks that something is creating "an unfavorable/nonviable/poor competitive environment" which is subjective but BASED ON OBJECTIVE DATA AND REASONING.

Now that we cleared that up.....lets talk about whether you think Sand is creating this poor competitive environment.

(I do realize that some people understand this...but there are people that clearly don't).