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Lower Tiers RBY UU Hub
- Thread starter Shellnuts
- Start date
This is a wider criticism of the management of LTs but I didn't know where to post it so here works ig.
Immediate thought after this is that this whole process of decision making in LTs atm is as suspicious as it is farcical.
I was curious as to who was on the councils so I went searching. And I don't like what I discovered.
Why was this vote even cleared to happen despite there not being a majority decision made by the UU Council members? The result was 50-50. I see that part of the Lower Tier Leader duties is to split any tiebreak in the event of an impasse regarding any tiering or banning action. I don't know when the LT leader got that power (the post I screenshotted from was edited last night) but either way I disagree with it. Each specific council should call the shots within their own respective tier with the LT Leader overseeing them, free from any influence on voting.
So why exactly is the LT leader also on every council but one? Effectively LT leader now has 2 votes out of 5 on every one of those tiers. This is not personal or specific, whomever was in that position I would raise the same question of. I went searching for other gens low tier councils and couldn't find any data, but I hope majority of their LTs are not left with a scenario where their LT Leader just needs the backing of one of the 3 other members of each respective council to guarantee that what they want passes, because that structure is untenable and is a rogue injustice. A possible 40% of a final vote tied to one person is not right.
Can we make changes to this please and have an LT leader who is an independent adjudicator, set apart from the council members and who does not get a decisive vote when a tiers council is not even in favour of passing through a motion to begin with
Immediate thought after this is that this whole process of decision making in LTs atm is as suspicious as it is farcical.
I was curious as to who was on the councils so I went searching. And I don't like what I discovered.
Why was this vote even cleared to happen despite there not being a majority decision made by the UU Council members? The result was 50-50. I see that part of the Lower Tier Leader duties is to split any tiebreak in the event of an impasse regarding any tiering or banning action. I don't know when the LT leader got that power (the post I screenshotted from was edited last night) but either way I disagree with it. Each specific council should call the shots within their own respective tier with the LT Leader overseeing them, free from any influence on voting.
So why exactly is the LT leader also on every council but one? Effectively LT leader now has 2 votes out of 5 on every one of those tiers. This is not personal or specific, whomever was in that position I would raise the same question of. I went searching for other gens low tier councils and couldn't find any data, but I hope majority of their LTs are not left with a scenario where their LT Leader just needs the backing of one of the 3 other members of each respective council to guarantee that what they want passes, because that structure is untenable and is a rogue injustice. A possible 40% of a final vote tied to one person is not right.
Can we make changes to this please and have an LT leader who is an independent adjudicator, set apart from the council members and who does not get a decisive vote when a tiers council is not even in favour of passing through a motion to begin with
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Just wanna mention that I stepped down from the PU and ZU councils literally 2 days ago and haven't been replaced yet so this isn't the norm for PU and ZU at least, once a replacement is found the tiebreaker won't be a thing there. I believe the ideal is that councils have 5 people but due to people stepping down (I think UD stepped down from UU recently too) so there is occasionally a void where they have 4 which is when the tiebreaker is necessary
ye I don't think a tiebreaker should happen full stop even if the circumstance was unexpected. In any voting process irl if there's no majority decision then the thing being voted on doesn't pass through. Unowndragon also voted against this ban, so it would've been 2-3 in favour of a vote anyway, and this would never have happened at all
Pro-ban does not equate to pro-vote. The job of the council is to represent the playerbase so if the playerbase wants a vote then council members should put their personal opinion aside. For example in RBY PU, even though I was against an Arcanine ban at the time I still supported a vote since that's what the playerbase wanted, then just voted DNB in the voting process itself. In fact the council decision to hold the suspect was 2 yes/1 no/1 abstain, meaning one of the DNB votes in the actual suspect was indifferent to actually holding it.
In fact, I think it would look worse for the UU council if the playerbase wants to get rid of PT (which we now know is the case based on how the vote went) and the council just refused to hold a vote for it. That would be a much worse look than what actually happened here.
I knew this already so idk what your point is ngl. If the desire is to get 5 people on each council then failing to replace UD in almost 4 months is something that also needs to be addressed and I wondered why this vote was pushed through despite there being a self admitted incomplete council.
Gastlies pointed out a couple other tiers that have lost a member recently. And yet every single tier, even those untouched for a while, like Ubers and NU, still has only 4 members. Effectively this is 5. With one person holding double the voting power of everyone else. If you fail to see the issue in that idk what to say. I have no doubt Sabel is doing what she thinks is best for RBY, but the entire structure is wrong and the next LT leader and the one after that will also have disproportionate power.
cool, this doesn't change the fact that the current council did not end up with a majority to even hold a vote. So it should never have passed through. See above
all that was provided was that 2 of the 4 council members voted in favour of a poll i.e not the majority. A 'no comment = vote against' observation from you being wrong by me here is fair but does not detract from the point in that when the UU council was asked the question they didn't meet the requirements for it to happen. That should've been end of story imo.
There is no undoing this decision now, this was a crusade years in the making. I was always opposed to it, made detailed posts on thsi thread in the past so not gonna re-hash it much. I will say that I looked at the UUFPL usage data though and yet again PT was not egregious imo, especially anything other than Wrap had virtually no presence at all. Low Dash and Tales presence, only revealed Spin half of time etc.
If you're happy with how the councils are structured with one of the voters getting a decisive tbreaker vote ON TOP OF their initial vote than by all means be happy with it. Just remember this the next time a decision you don't want goes through tho because someone had double the say.
Because the vote went 2-1 with one of the members of the council not commenting at all despite multiple pings and attempts to generate discussion, and even had they voted I would have tiebroken it. In the end Torchic voted Ban anyway so it would've been a 3-1 decision regardless.
It objectively wasn't, the result was 66-33.
Been a thing for a long time and usually doesn't come up, I think I've had to tiebreak all of twice ever? Might have only been this one, actually. And even this wasn't really a "tiebreak" since again, 2-1, I simply stated I could've tiebroken it so the vote that wasn't cast (which again would've been 3-1 if it had) wasn't relevant. I tried to get responses repeatedly over the course of quite a few days and simply couldn't so I went ahead with the 2-1 vote after giving a deadline.
Lack of people willing to step up to council that also have the relevant levels of activity, interest, etc. Ideally I would not be on any councils but despite efforts both to recruit for councils myself and to get councils to put forward more recruits, there is almost zero interest. You can ask people on any of the councils about my efforts to recruit people and also remove inactive people.
Untrue, I have never and will never tiebreak a vote for a council I'm on.
I don't know what 1 of 3 means here, it'd be 2 of 4 in the most dictatorial scenario you're talking about, but I think this is tied to the misconception that for councils I'm on that I vote and then add a tiebreaker vote on top, which, again, has not happened once. Also, you realize the point of trying to keep councils at 5 is so there won't be any ties, right? I am actively trying not to have to tiebreak these things lol.
That is the hope, but there's simply a lack of interested people and a lack of impetus from councils to recruit for themselves, so I usually have to put forward new members.
Again, not 2-3, would've been 3-1 in favor of a vote even if I did not exist. Volk, Maris, and Torchic all wanted to see partial trapping banned or at least suspected, Shellnuts did not.
Every single council has a lack of activity and lack of interest, that doesn't mean we stop tiering action?
Ubers doesn't really need a council for anything except getting a VR done, NU has 5 (Toxin Boost is for some reason not listed in the list and I'll add him momentarily), and gastlies literally just stepped down from PU/ZU like, 2 days ago. Relax.
Again, not true.
Does this help? Are things clearer now? There really is no grand conspiracy here.
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I don’t have a horse in this race because I don’t play low tiers anymore, and I have a bad memory when it comes to these things, but I’ll try to answer what I can.
When I was became low tier leader it was decided that I would have tiebreaking powers if necessary. Part of this decision was mine and part of it was the main RBY council IIRC, who I think were just happy to hand off responsibilities for low tiers to someone else lol (no shade @ council I just think that was the thought process). At this point the only councils were UU and NU, and I don’t remember being on that councils, just overseeing them. I could be misremembering though. Unfortunately it’s not well documented who was on what council when other than the main RBY council because it changed a lot and I only updated the post when I remembered to. But basically what I’m trying to say is you can blame me for giving Low Tier Leader the tiebreaking power.
I’ll try to do some digging as to what exactly happened when if you’d like, but I’m pretty sure Sabelette was already on a few councils when I stepped down and she took over, so I think it worked out this way even though it wasn’t necessarily intended?
Either way I have fond memories of “old UU” (free APT til the day I die) but if this is what the playerbase wanted in an overwhelmingly majority then so be it.
well when I made the post there was no specification as to who refrained from voting just that you only garnered 2 out of 4 'Yes' votes.
'I don't know what 1 of 3 means here, it'd be 2 of 4 in the most dictatorial scenario you're talking about, but I think this is tied to the misconception that for councils I'm on that I vote and then add a tiebreaker vote on top, which, again, has not happened once.'
Well the theoretical possibility exists, unless you're saying you don't give an initial vote on stuff at all, despite being on every council bar one.
In that case I have a question.
If Gastlies claim was correct then why is the desired amount on each council 5 people? That leaves 4 eligible voters, which could force a tiebreak again. In which event you as LT leader DO get a vote, the most important one of all
Lotta ppl talking about the end result here. i.e majority did vote in favour of banning, which was a mistake imo but fair enough. There are occasions where each council ban things internally though, without playerbase say so. So the affect of this can extend beyond.
That's not even touching upon the murkiness that is the final tiebreaker voter being involved and possibly influencing the discussions within the council right from ground level.
'That is the hope, but there's simply a lack of interested people and a lack of impetus from councils to recruit for themselves, so I usually have to put forward new members'
^ Yeah hopefully this does happen, because you're a good LT leader however I think your presence on each council generates a conflict of interest with the entire point of having a Leader of all the councils.
I also mentioned 2 Yes/1 No/1 No response
The theoretical possibility exists but if you'd like I will codify in the rules that if the LT leader is on a council there is no tiebreak vote from them.
What does 4 eligible voters mean sorry, I am very confused here. I am on several councils and cast a normal vote as a normal council member in those cases and there is no tiebreak vote there, I have the same level of power as anyone else on those councils. Ideally I would not be on those councils at all and only tiebreak when at least one member abstains, but it's been a struggle finding interested people or getting councils to recruit for themselves.
Quickbans only really happen when something drops in the middle of a tournament without adequate time to test it, I don't think we've seen a quickban in quite a while in any tier. Inevitably those quickbans are always at least tested in the tier, so there really isn't potential for abuse here.
Well, there is no "final tiebreaker," in these cases I'm just acting as a council member and do not have LT Leader tiebreaker powers. I don't think it's problematic that a member of a council argues their opinion and votes in line with it. I was on I want to say 2-3 of these councils before becoming LT leader and frankly I would love to no longer be on any if I could find five motivated people per tier; I think three is simply not enough.
I very much agree, I just don't think this has anything to do with what's going on in UU, where I am not on council nor did the potential of me tiebreaking really matter here. I've had some private discussions with people on some of the councils about the idea of a general lower tier committee or something of the like but I'm struggling to find a way to make that idea fair and balanced power-wise, but at the least I'm going to do another recruitment push to fill the councils and/or get myself off of them. In fact, I'll go ahead and put up a form or something of the like soon so I can at least try to gather some interested applicants and get the councils to select new people. It's been a few months since the last big recruitment push.
Yep if the LT leader is on a council I don't think they should also get a tbreak vote so pls codify that ASAP thank you. Because the actual wording as I screenshotted it before did not specify any of this. It just said 'In the event of a tie the LT leader gets decisive vote'. So I'm clear that only applies to UUt atm? The few people replying to me here are seemingly forgetting that vague non specification ont he LT leader duties from earlier.
What is going to happen on the councils you are on that have even number of people if there should be a tiebreak again though?
The motion just doesn't pass at all?
Yeah I said at the start I didn't know where else to post about it so I just did it here. For all I knew the LT leader did have a casting tbreak vote on each council even if they were present on the council, again this was not specified at all until you clarified.
finally! wrapless lower tiers!
wut? That second part you quoted of me was me apologising to you lol that's why I was still talking about it.
And since then things have been clarified more i.e Torchic was the one who did not comment on the initial call to arms to hold a vote
and the first part is you still talking about it like it happened after
yes i agree lt leader should not break ties in the event one occurs where the lt leader is also council but at this point i dont know why you're still making a fuss about something completely on paper
and again torchic being a no comment was already known you're still going on about something purely hypothetical for what its really just a petty hypothetical technicality from the wording
yes i see the thread updated and resolved this non issue but i dont want to leave this as the last comment on it being you trying to make me look stupid over something started over nothing
and after I'd already said the first part Sabel made a good point that she already knew regardless of what Torchic said that she was going to tbreak in favour of it regardless.
If you wanna dismiss my general observations of the Smogon Policy that 'started over nothing' then you're also ignoring the fact it was just passed and all 3 of us have agreed it was the right call.
Like come on what even is this, if you want change you speak up. Nothing was clarified correctly in the role description of LT Leader so I was bemused at the process. Also, I didn't reply last to you to 'make you look stupid' ffs. I was clearing up any confusion. Wanting to reply last is a pettiness that proves nothing so quote me again if you desire, I have no further interest in engaging with you.
I just apologised to you for any confusion and you made a mountain out of a molehill
I think we can leave things there and chalk it up to a misunderstanding and some communication issues that were addressed. I'll be putting out a form to recruit for all councils soon as well.
Can we now talk about what a PT-less UU would look like? I'm interested to see how Dragonite does here personally, Tbolt feels kind of forced on it in the Lap/Bro tier but it's still got a good enough speed tier to play the game with BlizzBolt coverage. Seems a bit 4MSS though because if it's a good mon then you want Blizzard for opposing Dnite as well (and the better ranges on things like Dodrio, maybe Golem), but you probably also want Body Slam and/or Hyper Beam for hitting Kadabra/Hypno/Electrics and other neutral targets. Twave/Agility/like 4 viable attacks is a lot of choice but it's hard to do everything you want.
Tentacruel looks dead, probably goes to NU, but I kind of wonder if "come in on something it nukes with Surf/Blizz, click Swords Dance as they switch out, Double-Edge -> Hyper Beam" is ever used as a Lapras/Slowbro lure to chip them for physical offense. Slowbro doesn't even 2HKO with STAB Psychic so maybe this has legs.
Victreebel didn't hang in UU or even NU last time it fell, but it actually was a competent Pokemon in C+ even with Wrap banned. I do wonder how it does here given Lapras/Slowbro but C+ had Jolteon, which meant more Golem as well, both of which are good matchups for it. Without Jolteon here this time, I wonder if Stun Spore is enough over Venusaur's generally better stats to carry it. I'd expect it to show up sometimes, especially if Electabuzz doesn't win out as the popular Electric-type, but I think Venusaur might have the edge here and both might be mediocre. I hope one of them lands in UU though, it'd be really sad if both Razor Leaf guys were bad in a tier where they outspeed and nuke two of the best Pokemon around.
Kadabra/Dugtrio's role gets odd with Tent dead, I imagine both have roles but not as much in such a bulked out tier. Fast revenge killing shouldn't go out of style that easily, and Kadabra still is the best Kang/Dodrio revenge killer in the tier, even if something like Persian is a better generalist that's basically impossible to switch into outside of Haunter or pivoting through Golem and calling it correctly. Dugtrio doesn't like dealing with Lapras or Slowbro but it just takes one crit on entry to completely flip the script, so I expect Dug to get by, but not with the dominance it once had in a super frail meta.
Tangela surely has to be dead, it was subsisting entirely on checking Dug and also sometimes doing annoying Bind bullshit. Maybe gets by if Electric-types get spammed a ton and I guess it also enters pretty freely on other Grass-types.
Ninetales vs Rapidash is interesting, Rapidash is a faster and more damaging lead, but I do wonder if Confuse Ray lead ever ends up mattering again to catch out Haunter on going for "fastest sleeper, hit Hypnosis" lead strategies. Maybe Ninetales comes back into vogue a bit for higher Fire Blast damage and Confuse Ray, especially with Tentacruel and Kadabra now looking weaker and PT ban removing a lot of the incentive to run faster leads.
Can we now talk about what a PT-less UU would look like? I'm interested to see how Dragonite does here personally, Tbolt feels kind of forced on it in the Lap/Bro tier but it's still got a good enough speed tier to play the game with BlizzBolt coverage. Seems a bit 4MSS though because if it's a good mon then you want Blizzard for opposing Dnite as well (and the better ranges on things like Dodrio, maybe Golem), but you probably also want Body Slam and/or Hyper Beam for hitting Kadabra/Hypno/Electrics and other neutral targets. Twave/Agility/like 4 viable attacks is a lot of choice but it's hard to do everything you want.
Tentacruel looks dead, probably goes to NU, but I kind of wonder if "come in on something it nukes with Surf/Blizz, click Swords Dance as they switch out, Double-Edge -> Hyper Beam" is ever used as a Lapras/Slowbro lure to chip them for physical offense. Slowbro doesn't even 2HKO with STAB Psychic so maybe this has legs.
Victreebel didn't hang in UU or even NU last time it fell, but it actually was a competent Pokemon in C+ even with Wrap banned. I do wonder how it does here given Lapras/Slowbro but C+ had Jolteon, which meant more Golem as well, both of which are good matchups for it. Without Jolteon here this time, I wonder if Stun Spore is enough over Venusaur's generally better stats to carry it. I'd expect it to show up sometimes, especially if Electabuzz doesn't win out as the popular Electric-type, but I think Venusaur might have the edge here and both might be mediocre. I hope one of them lands in UU though, it'd be really sad if both Razor Leaf guys were bad in a tier where they outspeed and nuke two of the best Pokemon around.
Kadabra/Dugtrio's role gets odd with Tent dead, I imagine both have roles but not as much in such a bulked out tier. Fast revenge killing shouldn't go out of style that easily, and Kadabra still is the best Kang/Dodrio revenge killer in the tier, even if something like Persian is a better generalist that's basically impossible to switch into outside of Haunter or pivoting through Golem and calling it correctly. Dugtrio doesn't like dealing with Lapras or Slowbro but it just takes one crit on entry to completely flip the script, so I expect Dug to get by, but not with the dominance it once had in a super frail meta.
Tangela surely has to be dead, it was subsisting entirely on checking Dug and also sometimes doing annoying Bind bullshit. Maybe gets by if Electric-types get spammed a ton and I guess it also enters pretty freely on other Grass-types.
Ninetales vs Rapidash is interesting, Rapidash is a faster and more damaging lead, but I do wonder if Confuse Ray lead ever ends up mattering again to catch out Haunter on going for "fastest sleeper, hit Hypnosis" lead strategies. Maybe Ninetales comes back into vogue a bit for higher Fire Blast damage and Confuse Ray, especially with Tentacruel and Kadabra now looking weaker and PT ban removing a lot of the incentive to run faster leads.
Dugtrio will be a bit worse but Slowbro is not as bad of a matchup as it seems. Thunder Wave immunity is an entry point, which can lead itself to mindgames such as "do i stay on a possible second twave when they would expect me to switch and just attack the Slowbro?". Slowbro's surf does not ohko without a critical hit, so going for the chance to land 1 critical hit to chunk Slowbro and leave it too weak to fight back is not a bad trade. It's easy to forget that Dugtrio is not actually OHKO'd by most common mons in this tier: Dodrio hyper beam , Lapras blizzard are among the most relevant
I believe Ninetales's relevancy will primarily lie in comfortably switching into Lapras blizzard and dealing damage back and 2hkoing the normal types as it already has done throughout the multiple iterations of UU. Rapidash probably better in lead because of the 105 speed
Notably Tangela is bulky enough to attempt to sleep Persian and Kangaskhan, Golem elecs and Dugtrio are simply the intended and more dominant matchups. I also see no issue with hard switching Tangela into Slowbro twave and just going for sleep, it isnt immediately threatening unless it's running blizzard
Vaporeon Dewgong and Omastar might all drop, but the last one of these has an actual defensive niche so if any of these was least likely to drop it'd be him, in spite of the enormous issue of getting blanked by Lapras. Gyarados should be good for trading itself for damage on Lapras or even winning with a bit of luck, while also checking Dug and threatening Dragonite and Slowbro
Dodrio will be a bit worse but it no longer has to preserve itself to potentially trade with Tentacruel in an emergency, so it may be more viable for it to trade itself earlygame for damage on just about anything: it is immediately threatening to everything and resists all have to contend with paralysis on body slam entry
I believe Ninetales's relevancy will primarily lie in comfortably switching into Lapras blizzard and dealing damage back and 2hkoing the normal types as it already has done throughout the multiple iterations of UU. Rapidash probably better in lead because of the 105 speed
Notably Tangela is bulky enough to attempt to sleep Persian and Kangaskhan, Golem elecs and Dugtrio are simply the intended and more dominant matchups. I also see no issue with hard switching Tangela into Slowbro twave and just going for sleep, it isnt immediately threatening unless it's running blizzard
Vaporeon Dewgong and Omastar might all drop, but the last one of these has an actual defensive niche so if any of these was least likely to drop it'd be him, in spite of the enormous issue of getting blanked by Lapras. Gyarados should be good for trading itself for damage on Lapras or even winning with a bit of luck, while also checking Dug and threatening Dragonite and Slowbro
Dodrio will be a bit worse but it no longer has to preserve itself to potentially trade with Tentacruel in an emergency, so it may be more viable for it to trade itself earlygame for damage on just about anything: it is immediately threatening to everything and resists all have to contend with paralysis on body slam entry
With both an indiv and a teamtour coming up shortly I'd like to get resources updated ASAP, even if new resources will be speculative. If you'd like to contribute, I am taking sample teams as well as viability lists. Viability lists are not ordered, I just need a simple high/mid/low ranking of any Pokemon you think have use in the tier. High = frequent bring and high impact like S and A ranks, Mid = roughly your B ranks with solid utility that are probably part of the tier, Low = your niche C and D counterpick brings.
I'm hoping for a few submitters for an initial VL and at least 8ish samples before UU Cup kicks off, thank you! Gonna tag some people from recent votes and past tours, including C+ since it's not too different from current legality, general RBY LT players, as well as council; please don't worry so much about being perfectly accurate, I just want something to help guide new people playing for Cup till we have more time to figure the meta out. Anyone can go ahead and send me a VL even if I didn't tag you, and you can post your VL here as well.
VL template here with all highest-legal evolutions in UU and a few others: https://tiermaker.com/create/rby-uu-july-2025-viability-list-18497327
I'm hoping for a few submitters for an initial VL and at least 8ish samples before UU Cup kicks off, thank you! Gonna tag some people from recent votes and past tours, including C+ since it's not too different from current legality, general RBY LT players, as well as council; please don't worry so much about being perfectly accurate, I just want something to help guide new people playing for Cup till we have more time to figure the meta out. Anyone can go ahead and send me a VL even if I didn't tag you, and you can post your VL here as well.
VL template here with all highest-legal evolutions in UU and a few others: https://tiermaker.com/create/rby-uu-july-2025-viability-list-18497327
Sabelette
Wanted in 49 States
pac
ButtGallon
Gerrychu29
GirlsSeeGhosts
Maris Bonibell
Melbelle
Shellnuts
stunner047
Fc
magialice
Theycallmephil
Alice Kazumi
PKMN Master™
Charmriah
Unowndragon
Dawn Dreams
Kristyl
Torchic
Volk
gastlies
hammer798
YBW
Eeveeto
Gangsta Spongebob
BigFatMantis
Tree69420
Amaranth
Wanted in 49 States
pac
ButtGallon
Gerrychu29
GirlsSeeGhosts
Maris Bonibell
Melbelle
Shellnuts
stunner047
Fc
magialice
Theycallmephil
Alice Kazumi
PKMN Master™
Charmriah
Unowndragon
Dawn Dreams
Kristyl
Torchic
Volk
gastlies
hammer798
YBW
Eeveeto
Gangsta Spongebob
BigFatMantis
Tree69420
Amaranth
Unordered within tiers
