Let me be up front right here. Depending on who you talk to, there are 5-6 different tiers (Ubers, OU, BL, MU, UU, NU). Of these tiers, there are three that seem to played with any regularity (Ubers, OU and UU), one that is a faux tier (BL), one that isn't really accepted by the community at large (MU) and one that is a relative joke and used for novelty games at best (NU). Furthermore, the way these tiers are split up is by two factors: popularity and power. So, in essence, we have three real tiers, a joke tier and a fluid tier designed to represent the ebb and flow of pokemon popularity. Does this seem a little... overly complex to anyone else? It seems to me that this system could use a bit of streamlining.
But let's start with what I consider the core problem of the current tier arrangement: the duality of a pokemon's ranking. In all other forms of competition, rules, bannings and the structure of metagames are focused WHOLLY on what is powerful and what is not. Popularity and amount of use should have no place in deciding where things belong. So why, at Smogon, the premiere pokemon battling website, does popularity and use have ANY place in deciding the tiering of a given pokemon?
There should be one deciding factor in where a pokemon is placed, and that is their personal power. The ONLY thing that adding a factor of popularity does is complicate matters and force the inclusion of useless tiers (such as the aforementioned faux tier, Borderline). Further, it forces a constant shifting of tiers to deal with the flux created by a change of popularity which to me seems, once again, silly. Pokemon pointlessly flow between the unused Borderline tier and the Standard tier without really changing anything. This creates the illusion of a fluid and dynamic metagame, when all that's really happening is a pokemon is moving from a faux tier into the one that's really played (and vice versa). Besides, isn't the goal of breaking things up like this (essentially, banning certain pokemon from the respective metagames) to create a stable and balanced environment to play in?
Which brings me to the next point. Why do we have 5-6 different tiers? Let's break this down, starting with the obvious one. Standards. This is the metagame that is designed to be broadest, the most competitive one and the one that is used for all regular play. Essentially, it should be the baseline of competitive pokemon play. Simple enough, and quite necessary. This is essentially Legacy, for you Magic the Gathering players.
Next up is Ubers, which is also necessary. Essentially, this is the "banned" list for pokemon. This is where the Black Lotuses and Yawgmoth's Wills of pokemon go. These are the things that are just simply too good for the Standard metagame. This is also a necessary seperation, as it protects the integrity of the Standard tier. This is essentially Vintage, for you Magic the Gathering players.
At this point, we have absolutely everything we need for a true metagame. Anything else is unnecessary. However, since people get tired of standards, we can create a third tier to play in. Essentially, a tier for things that are Sub-Standard (the moder UU). This gives another play environment and further establishes what forms the backbone of the standard environment, while giving a secondary environment to play with the little pokemon. A "little toys" environment. This is essentially standard, for you Magic the Gathering players.
In essence, this is what I'm proposing: that the tier lists be broken into three seperate metagames: Ubers, Standard and Underused (with a better name, but whatever). Furthermore, rather than making them tiers per se, they should be written as environments, structuring them with lists of banned pokemon instead of "allowed" pokemon.
This eliminates the messy stigmata of the faux tiers (not good enough to be used in OU but condemned to be unplayable in the only other common environment) and eliminates the ridiculous and pointless arguing about whether a pokemon should be OU or BL (since, like I said, there is really no difference between OU and BL pokemon, given that no one really uses BL as an actual tier... its either mushed into UU or ignored entirely). Furthermore, it streamlines the environment and eliminates the need to know 5 or 6 different tiers (which could well change randomly based on popularity surges).
It allows for the same balancing as the current system, emphasizes only competitive requirements and eliminates all confusion about the tiering system (I.E. no more "Manphy/Tyranitar/Whoever" can't go up a tier because he sucks there, and thus needs to stay down, because they are simply banned from the given environment, not "promoted").
So, once more, to reiterate my proposal, would look something like this (please do not take my tier listings seriously, I'm just using the pokemon as examples to show off what I think the way the tiers would be arranged looks).
Ubers
Banned Pokemon: None
Standard
Banned Pokemon: Mewtwo, Deoxys, Kyogre, Groundon, etc
Underused
Banned Pokemon: Mewtwo, Deoxys, Kyogre, Groundon, Salemence, Tyranitar, Dragonite, etc
Anyhow, thoughts? Comments? Problems? Viability?
But let's start with what I consider the core problem of the current tier arrangement: the duality of a pokemon's ranking. In all other forms of competition, rules, bannings and the structure of metagames are focused WHOLLY on what is powerful and what is not. Popularity and amount of use should have no place in deciding where things belong. So why, at Smogon, the premiere pokemon battling website, does popularity and use have ANY place in deciding the tiering of a given pokemon?
There should be one deciding factor in where a pokemon is placed, and that is their personal power. The ONLY thing that adding a factor of popularity does is complicate matters and force the inclusion of useless tiers (such as the aforementioned faux tier, Borderline). Further, it forces a constant shifting of tiers to deal with the flux created by a change of popularity which to me seems, once again, silly. Pokemon pointlessly flow between the unused Borderline tier and the Standard tier without really changing anything. This creates the illusion of a fluid and dynamic metagame, when all that's really happening is a pokemon is moving from a faux tier into the one that's really played (and vice versa). Besides, isn't the goal of breaking things up like this (essentially, banning certain pokemon from the respective metagames) to create a stable and balanced environment to play in?
Which brings me to the next point. Why do we have 5-6 different tiers? Let's break this down, starting with the obvious one. Standards. This is the metagame that is designed to be broadest, the most competitive one and the one that is used for all regular play. Essentially, it should be the baseline of competitive pokemon play. Simple enough, and quite necessary. This is essentially Legacy, for you Magic the Gathering players.
Next up is Ubers, which is also necessary. Essentially, this is the "banned" list for pokemon. This is where the Black Lotuses and Yawgmoth's Wills of pokemon go. These are the things that are just simply too good for the Standard metagame. This is also a necessary seperation, as it protects the integrity of the Standard tier. This is essentially Vintage, for you Magic the Gathering players.
At this point, we have absolutely everything we need for a true metagame. Anything else is unnecessary. However, since people get tired of standards, we can create a third tier to play in. Essentially, a tier for things that are Sub-Standard (the moder UU). This gives another play environment and further establishes what forms the backbone of the standard environment, while giving a secondary environment to play with the little pokemon. A "little toys" environment. This is essentially standard, for you Magic the Gathering players.
In essence, this is what I'm proposing: that the tier lists be broken into three seperate metagames: Ubers, Standard and Underused (with a better name, but whatever). Furthermore, rather than making them tiers per se, they should be written as environments, structuring them with lists of banned pokemon instead of "allowed" pokemon.
This eliminates the messy stigmata of the faux tiers (not good enough to be used in OU but condemned to be unplayable in the only other common environment) and eliminates the ridiculous and pointless arguing about whether a pokemon should be OU or BL (since, like I said, there is really no difference between OU and BL pokemon, given that no one really uses BL as an actual tier... its either mushed into UU or ignored entirely). Furthermore, it streamlines the environment and eliminates the need to know 5 or 6 different tiers (which could well change randomly based on popularity surges).
It allows for the same balancing as the current system, emphasizes only competitive requirements and eliminates all confusion about the tiering system (I.E. no more "Manphy/Tyranitar/Whoever" can't go up a tier because he sucks there, and thus needs to stay down, because they are simply banned from the given environment, not "promoted").
So, once more, to reiterate my proposal, would look something like this (please do not take my tier listings seriously, I'm just using the pokemon as examples to show off what I think the way the tiers would be arranged looks).
Ubers
Banned Pokemon: None
Standard
Banned Pokemon: Mewtwo, Deoxys, Kyogre, Groundon, etc
Underused
Banned Pokemon: Mewtwo, Deoxys, Kyogre, Groundon, Salemence, Tyranitar, Dragonite, etc
Anyhow, thoughts? Comments? Problems? Viability?
