Hello, my name is Blitzkreig Harmonic (yes, I know it's mispelled). You may know me better, if at all, as Shadow Light Master, a user who left GameFAQs for a higher quality of competitive discussion here on Smogon.
The primary purpose of the Uber Tier as dictated by Smogon has been to serve as a banlist for Pokemon that are too broken for ordinary play. We keep things out from the lower tiers, such as Wobbuffet, Kyogre, and Deoxys-E because they would overcentralize what could be an otherwise fluid, flexible, and varied metagame. If these things were not banned, creative, unorthodox, and game-changing strategies and ways of play would be stifled and stopped before they could even begin, and we would become bored. We play Pokemon to amuse ourselves, it is therefore only common sense that we would even out what would otherwise be a boring game. But this is all fairly academic to you. You should all know what the Uber Tier is and why it exists, so thus I'll cede that the primary purpose of this introductory paragraph was to make my post look bigger because I know when I hit "Preview" that it'll be stretched meagerly across the screen. I hope you got a nice little laugh out of that last line. Because while I'm not writing this intending to be antagonistic or a general jerk-off, now I get serious.
One of the arguments that I've seen that people use to justify Ubers staying the way it is is because it's a banlist and thus what happens to it is inconsequential. Its sole purpose, they say, is just to prevent the tier below it from being broken. But this really isn't an argument at all. Notice that I said "staying the way it is because it's a banlist." "The way it is" is being a banlist. I didn't write that out right away because not only would it look ridiculous, but because I wanted to bring that up here now to emphasize that very point. While it may seem I'm simply ranting at this juncture, what I'm saying now is that arguing that Ubers should stay a banlist is simply an argument of laziness. There's no reason for it to stay that way and not try to diversify and make fair what could be an even more beautiful and powerful metagame, and bring even more people into it so that it becomes less static.
Speaking of things being static, Smogon is not an immovable entity whose word never changes unless some magical beings decide so. That is, don't give me the argument that "Ubers should stay a banlist because that's how it's been decided to be all this time and thus should stay that way." Smogon is comprised of its users, and through the minds of its users, what the site dictates can change. Of course, here at Smogon we have a central authority that will prevent us from doing outright stupid things through mass ignorance (although that's hardly ever a problem given how easily users are banned for being idiots >_>). This is a good check, but don't mistake this iron-fisted-ness for narrow-mindedness. They've done some truly silly things before, just to humor us, such as testing Deoxys-E in the OU meta. We therefore shouldn't be afraid, through intelligent and reasoned debate, to make a difference in the way things are run.
Now I'll address the Uber metagame itself. Some notable users, such as Theorymon, have noted that it can be entertaining to play in Ubers because the overcentralization created by some Pokemon can be easily exploited to cause chaos. However, this really isn't a new idea or one exclusive to Ubers, it even exists in OU, the difference being that we actually try to keep OU stable. Due to the fact that there is such a limited pool of Pokemon and users in the Uber tier, the overcentralization and exploitation of the establishment only serves as a cycle and means that the meta will reach equilibrium faster. Because of the fact that we are human, and cannot assess which combinations have clear-cut absolute advantages over others with relative ease, some may argue that this is a non-issue. I disagree, however, because we have seen things come to a standstill too fast before. Not one that's been 100%, and that may very well be impossible, but ones that have come dangerously close. The very fact that we have a banlist at all proves it. Overcentralization and imbalance is a very real threat, and must be dealt with.
I was going to put this next point in with the previous paragraph, but I didn't want to write up walls of text that would strain your eyes (too late!). As you look at the Uber tier, don't tell me you don't care about how it's balanced. If it really was just a banlist, you wouldn't apply standard clauses such as Sleep and Double Team and the like because you really wouldn't care about how it would turn out. But this is untrue, people do care. If you canceled standard competitive rules, people would object from the time the idea was conceived. The only reason why you don't have an active movement to change things is because our minds, as humans, do not clearly and sufficiently see the mess the Uber tier is right from the get-go, and thus play in it under the impression that it has some sort of balance. You could argue that you never went into the tier with that notion. But I'd call bullshit. The very reason being because you'd never want to have those clauses lifted. There was a user named "flyingsolo" (if I remember correctly) that I saw in the Uber discussion thread, and while he was harsh, profane, and generally just rude when making his points, he was not entirely wrong, if at all, despite the fact that he exaggerated some things. Ubers is a mess. We should change it and attempt to make it more organized because we can, and it's in our best interest to do so for the sake of our own enjoyment.
That's all I have to say on the subject. It's roughly 2:00 am here, and I've been staring at my laptop's screen all day long, so forgive me for any grammar or spelling errors -- I'm just too tired! In any case, I'm new around here (although not to competitive Pokemon), so I'll try my best to be a good user. I hope you found this thread informative and I hope it sparks a good discussion. Enjoy.
EDIT: Summary: I'm saying make a tier above Ubers where we ban things that overcentralize it.
The primary purpose of the Uber Tier as dictated by Smogon has been to serve as a banlist for Pokemon that are too broken for ordinary play. We keep things out from the lower tiers, such as Wobbuffet, Kyogre, and Deoxys-E because they would overcentralize what could be an otherwise fluid, flexible, and varied metagame. If these things were not banned, creative, unorthodox, and game-changing strategies and ways of play would be stifled and stopped before they could even begin, and we would become bored. We play Pokemon to amuse ourselves, it is therefore only common sense that we would even out what would otherwise be a boring game. But this is all fairly academic to you. You should all know what the Uber Tier is and why it exists, so thus I'll cede that the primary purpose of this introductory paragraph was to make my post look bigger because I know when I hit "Preview" that it'll be stretched meagerly across the screen. I hope you got a nice little laugh out of that last line. Because while I'm not writing this intending to be antagonistic or a general jerk-off, now I get serious.
One of the arguments that I've seen that people use to justify Ubers staying the way it is is because it's a banlist and thus what happens to it is inconsequential. Its sole purpose, they say, is just to prevent the tier below it from being broken. But this really isn't an argument at all. Notice that I said "staying the way it is because it's a banlist." "The way it is" is being a banlist. I didn't write that out right away because not only would it look ridiculous, but because I wanted to bring that up here now to emphasize that very point. While it may seem I'm simply ranting at this juncture, what I'm saying now is that arguing that Ubers should stay a banlist is simply an argument of laziness. There's no reason for it to stay that way and not try to diversify and make fair what could be an even more beautiful and powerful metagame, and bring even more people into it so that it becomes less static.
Speaking of things being static, Smogon is not an immovable entity whose word never changes unless some magical beings decide so. That is, don't give me the argument that "Ubers should stay a banlist because that's how it's been decided to be all this time and thus should stay that way." Smogon is comprised of its users, and through the minds of its users, what the site dictates can change. Of course, here at Smogon we have a central authority that will prevent us from doing outright stupid things through mass ignorance (although that's hardly ever a problem given how easily users are banned for being idiots >_>). This is a good check, but don't mistake this iron-fisted-ness for narrow-mindedness. They've done some truly silly things before, just to humor us, such as testing Deoxys-E in the OU meta. We therefore shouldn't be afraid, through intelligent and reasoned debate, to make a difference in the way things are run.
Now I'll address the Uber metagame itself. Some notable users, such as Theorymon, have noted that it can be entertaining to play in Ubers because the overcentralization created by some Pokemon can be easily exploited to cause chaos. However, this really isn't a new idea or one exclusive to Ubers, it even exists in OU, the difference being that we actually try to keep OU stable. Due to the fact that there is such a limited pool of Pokemon and users in the Uber tier, the overcentralization and exploitation of the establishment only serves as a cycle and means that the meta will reach equilibrium faster. Because of the fact that we are human, and cannot assess which combinations have clear-cut absolute advantages over others with relative ease, some may argue that this is a non-issue. I disagree, however, because we have seen things come to a standstill too fast before. Not one that's been 100%, and that may very well be impossible, but ones that have come dangerously close. The very fact that we have a banlist at all proves it. Overcentralization and imbalance is a very real threat, and must be dealt with.
I was going to put this next point in with the previous paragraph, but I didn't want to write up walls of text that would strain your eyes (too late!). As you look at the Uber tier, don't tell me you don't care about how it's balanced. If it really was just a banlist, you wouldn't apply standard clauses such as Sleep and Double Team and the like because you really wouldn't care about how it would turn out. But this is untrue, people do care. If you canceled standard competitive rules, people would object from the time the idea was conceived. The only reason why you don't have an active movement to change things is because our minds, as humans, do not clearly and sufficiently see the mess the Uber tier is right from the get-go, and thus play in it under the impression that it has some sort of balance. You could argue that you never went into the tier with that notion. But I'd call bullshit. The very reason being because you'd never want to have those clauses lifted. There was a user named "flyingsolo" (if I remember correctly) that I saw in the Uber discussion thread, and while he was harsh, profane, and generally just rude when making his points, he was not entirely wrong, if at all, despite the fact that he exaggerated some things. Ubers is a mess. We should change it and attempt to make it more organized because we can, and it's in our best interest to do so for the sake of our own enjoyment.
That's all I have to say on the subject. It's roughly 2:00 am here, and I've been staring at my laptop's screen all day long, so forgive me for any grammar or spelling errors -- I'm just too tired! In any case, I'm new around here (although not to competitive Pokemon), so I'll try my best to be a good user. I hope you found this thread informative and I hope it sparks a good discussion. Enjoy.
EDIT: Summary: I'm saying make a tier above Ubers where we ban things that overcentralize it.
