I would like to respond to these two posts since they're representative of an awful form of thinking that if popularized is going to fuck up tiering on this site for the foreseeable future. I like to refer to this kind of "argument" as the "Appeal to Stability", because its proponents tend to glorify concepts like "stability" and "predictability". A less charitable soul might slam their heads against their desks while yelling "slippery slope".
The extreme form of this argument is "haha smogon why not just ban all megas already until only magikarp in ou", which is of course rightfully dismissed, but prettying it up with long paragraphs and bold text does not change its essential character or make it any more convincing.
The typical train of thought sounds something like this:
- Sure, Pokemon X is very good/the best in the tier, but it is still "handleable" in some way
- There is always a Pokemon that is very good/the best in the tier
- Banning X necessitates/justifies/makes inevitable the banning of Y and Z which will be the next best in the tier, which is bad
A more nuanced, but ultimately still wrong-headed, form of the argument goes like this:
- Sure Pokemon X is very good/the best in the tier, but it is still "handleable" in some way
- And, Pokemon X is necessary to keep Pokemon Y and Z "in check"
- So banning Pokemon X would be net worse than keeping it in the tier
There are two major (and a bunch of minor) problems that pervade every one of these posts.
1. A non-existent false dilemma wherein they argue that if X is broken, every succeeding "best Pokemon" is broken
2. Making the value judgment that bans are "bad"
Let's explore these two in more detail, shall we?
1. False Dilemma
A false dilemma (or "fallacy of the excluded middle") is a rhetorical device used to paint proponents of a particular viewpoint into a corner where they are forced to defend the most extreme examples of that viewpoint. In this case, we have Terminate and BasedCannon arguing that if a user wishes to ban Metagrossite, they are also compelled to support bans of subsequent "best Pokemon" like Diancite, Sableite, etc., because they will become the best Pokemon in the tier. For example:
Notice a couple of things about these statements:
- There is no allowance for agency on the part of pro-ban users. The "vicious cycle" of bans is portrayed as an inevitability with no chance of being stopped. A slippery slope is formed.
- There is an unbelievable amount of hand-waving with regard to what is going to be banned, why it will be broken, and why it is similar to the current suspect. Coming up with accurate comparisons between predicted future banned Pokemon and the current suspect is usually impossible, so it just isn't done.
The first reason this is bullshit is that it presumes that whatever the "best Pokemon" in the tier is will be just as dominant or comparatively powerful as the current suspect. If this was the case, there would be no "settling point" where the metagame would be balanced, because as the most powerful thing is removed from the tier, the next most powerful becomes equally dominant. Unfortunately, every past metagame using something like the current suspect system demonstrates the exact opposite. 4th generation is eminently balanced. There are certainly top threats (like Scizor and Tyranitar), but these threats are not so far above the remainder of the tier that they create an unhealthy effect on the metagame. The end of BW1, after the Deo-S banning, was a reasonably balanced metagame (to the extent that this was possible with weather in the tier). The end of BW2, after the Landorus banning (and arguably beforehand as well) was balanced. And the end of XY was also a very balanced metagame (with the arguable exception of Greninja). Every OU metagame where suspect testing has been the standard for tiering has shown the same propensities: a period of rapid bans in the months directly following a new game's release (we are in the very tail end of this period related to ORAS), followed by a "settling down" where there are few-to-none subsequent tests. Given that this pattern has been followed almost uniformly in each generation we have observed to this point, there needs to be a lot of compelling argumentation done if we are to believe that this will not be the case in ORAS. Needless to say, none is offered.
The second problematic feature of these arguments is the implication that nothing will be broken if things stay stable, but by banning the current suspect we "break" other Pokemon and require more bans (this is a rhetorical device used to put blame on the users with the opposing viewpoint - it's their fault that more bans will be needed, because they are the ones who banned the current suspect). Here we come to the trope of "broken checking broken" and its various responses. As we know, we cannot justify keeping broken things in OU because they keep other broken things in check. The inevitable retort is something like "well it's not really broken checking broken, it's more like..." You should stop any time you find yourself saying this. There are 3 options for your argument:
A. It assumes the current suspect is broken, so your argument actually is a derivative of "broken checking broken", and is pointless.
B. It assumes that the posited "next best thing" isn't broken, so your argument is useless, because there's no need to keep something in the tier to keep something that isn't even broken in check.
C. It assumes that the current suspect isn't broken, so your argument is useless, because you're assuming the thing you're trying to prove. This is begging the question.
In any case, arguing to keep a suspect because of its relationship toward other dominant threats in the tier is almost always pointless.
2. Unjustified value judgment
An underlying and often overlooked problem with the Appeal to Stability is that the entire "thrust" of the argument rests on a value judgment that is never justified and is, indeed, baseless. In order to convince anybody that the imagined "vicious cycle" of bannings that is always right around the corner is actually a bad thing, we see a lot of loaded terminology that make bannings seem like something terrible. This is never flat-out stated (because it's unjustifiable), but it's easily seen in the phrases that pop up in this type of post. Examples of "scare terms" are bolded:
There's a lot to unpack here.
First off, we have the trope of the "chaotic metagame" as something to be feared. We have a handle on what the metagame looks like now (it's the stability they love to cling to), but if we go through with banning the current suspect, we could have all kinds of "issues" (what exactly those are is never quite clear). However, there is nothing wrong with suspecting things, banning things, or in general making changes to the metagame. These sorts of policy moves are part of any healthy metagame and are more indicative of a healthy, engaged community than any sort of terrifying spiral into anarchy. In fact, stagnation poses its own threat to the metagame, as we saw in the early portions of XY. Ultimately it's wrong to say that change is either good or bad - each instance needs to be evaluated in its context. Claiming that any changes are indicative of the "degeneration of the meta" is clearly off-base.
Second, we have the idea that banning a Pokemon is "taking something" from the tier. BasedCannon says that we are "degenerating the meta down to a pathetic shell of what it could be" (I'm seriously in love with this quote), while Terminate says we are "pointlessly banning" useful Pokemon. I would like to emphasize that removing a Pokemon from a tier is not an inherently negative thing. There is no reason to believe that banning Pokemon (or unbanning Pokemon) is good or bad in its own right. Even if it was the case that having more Pokemon in a tier was in itself a good thing (which is highly questionable), removing a Pokemon from a tier often allows space for other Pokemon to find niches and become more viable. On the flip side, allowing a Pokemon in a tier can push others out (see Ubers). The point is that OU as a tier does not "need" any individual Pokemon in it, whether it be Mega-Metagross, Gyarados, Aegislash, or whatever. All it needs is to be reasonably balanced, wherever we (as the community) choose to draw that line.
Alright, this got a bit longer than I intended it to be, but there you go. It's important that nothing I said is particular to Mega-Metagross (in fact I'm still undecided on this particular suspect test). I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons to think Mega-Metagross (or any suspect) should stay in OU. What I want is for people to recognize and avoid this particular class of argumentation, which paints the suspect process (a healthy, reasonable method of keeping the tier balanced) as something to be feared and avoided at all costs, and focuses on "stability" and "predictability" (read: no changes) at the substantial cost of balance in the tier. There is no need to fear changes or tweaks to the metagame - we have a robust system in place to handle imbalance. Being scared of "future imbalances" or "vicious cycles" has never been and likely will never be a good reason to oppose a ban. Good arguments ground themselves in the particulars of the current situation.
