OU The future of RBY OU in Smogon

[Heroic Troller]

Bless

 

[elodin]

Even though I haven't played RBY at the top level (SPL) I do believe I have enough of an understanding of the tier to participate in this discussion.

To start it off I'd like you to explain what exactly triggered you to this hasty conclusion that in order to "save" RBY from tournaments we need to change the tier entirely. The only TD I've seen talk about this thread said, and I quote: "if anything other than Reflect / Wrap is banned from RBY, we'll remove it in SPL 11 instead of SPL 12". So the suggestions you're defending seem to not only be farfetched and unrealistic but actually working against the sole purpose for which you created this thread.

Moving on, not only these suggestions are not supported by anyone responsible for tournaments (not yet at least, or you opted not to mention it), they seem to be extremely ill-advised by some of the top RBY players on the site. Honestly, it's a bit amusing that you criticize some of the best players this tier has seen by claiming they're being "stubborn about their traditions" when you have failed to provide a single good point as to why RBY should be kept in SPL for any reason other than tradition in the first place. Is there any reason this tier is kept in our tournaments other than the fact it's been part of them historically? If RBY is so bad as you say it is, it definitely should not be part of our tournament scene and we shouldn't be investing our time into banning so many things that have defined this metagame for over 20 years just to have a new version of it kept in SPL.

Not just that, but there are no guarantees your suggestions would actually improve the tier, and if you think there's enough time between now and SPL 11 (that's ignoring WCoP right around the corner too) to hold at least 3 suspect tests on 3 of the big 4, a suspect test on Sleep moves, and another one on Wrap you must have no idea how this "Smogon tiering system" you seem to so wholeheartedly defend works. It's absurd to think that this could be done before SPL 11 or that there'll be enough time for the metagame to settle in order for it to be a surefire good addition to the tournament over tiers such as LC, PU, and Ubers.

I thought about sharing my opinion regarding the different realistic approaches we can take into fixing - or at least improving - RBY, but since I haven't played the tier in a while I feel like my opinions would be tainted by rust and spectator bias and therefore I'd rather leave that to the more knowledgeable players in this thread and the RBY council.

 

[Hipmonlee]

What I'm trying to achieve: following Smogon tiering standards, as every other tier on this website has done, retier RBY OU. Simple as that. Find everything that is broken, uncompetitive, or unhealthy, and remove it from the tier.

But why?

Like, I can tell you things that I like about RBY more than any other pokemon gen (that I have played). For instance: in most tiers the interactions between various pokemon are pretty shallow or depend on knowledge of the set. Like, in SM NU it didnt take me long to figure out that Vileplume is generally going to switch into something it beats, attack, then switch out. I am not gonna pretend that I am a decent SM NU player at all, but the knowledge I am missing isnt really baked into perfecting the sequence of decisions I need to make when Vileplume is facing an Incineroar.

But for the most part in RBY you actually have to be very precise because so many 1v1s in RBY are actually fairly evenly matched. It's hard to know whether the right move is to fight that Starmie with Alakazam or to fight it with Snorlax. Whereas in other gens usually its pretty clear what your good matchups are and how you should target them, in RBY that's usually pretty hard. Even for me, a lot of the time, I just dont know. I could totally believe in the existence of a player who does this far better than I do. For all of the top tier RBYers that I have seen battle a lot I can cite scenarios where they consistently make different decisions to what I would make, and I believe my decisions are better, but I often cant prove it. I imagine there are other situations that other players are aware of that I make consistently different decisions to them that they believe I am wrong about, and that I am blissfully unaware of. Like I do feel generally not particularly confident about how I use or deal with rest Lax. But there are probably other things I am missing.

From my experience, if you are a generically good pokemon player, then RBY is probably the easiest gen to pick up to a reasonable standard but the hardest gen to actually become good at.

So I think something like that could be an argument for why RBY should be preserved. And then you could plan your tiering process around achieving a metagame like that. If that was your goal, I would probably look at Tauros as the biggest issue (not much subtlety involved in a Tauros v Tauros). Counter and Hyperbeam mind games are really not very sophisticated. Although I have seen a lot of people screwing up with counter pretty badly.. I would think that wrap and reflect werent really issues at all.

But without that I just am left wondering "so why not play sword and shield or GSC?"

Some other personal experience things for your plan here:
- Watch out for RBY becoming a succession of trades if you remove the recoverers.
- I really like partial trapping. It brings Cloyster and Victreebel into the metagame. It is weird to me that people are arguing that Cloyster and Victreebel are a bigger problem for the metagame than Tauros.
- And just for posterity, I dont support changing the rules of RBY at all. I am just lending my advice as someone who has been through this process for basically every single gen up to BW.

 

[MetalGro$$]

Time to let the secret out: bar brainless wrap, there's nothing wrong with RBY. Sure, you're pretty much obliged to use 4 of the best mons available because they have great synergy with and against each other, but this is a tier with barely any moves, pokemon and no items or evs. What do you expect? Banning 4 more mons will bring the number of fully evolved pokemon will go down from 76 to a whopping 72. 72! AND YOU DONT EVEN WANNA STOP THERE! If somehow no big 3 or 4 or whatever will be formed, I'd be absolutely shocked, especially with some types not even getting a decent STAB attack automatically ruling out a lot of pokemon and hugely benefitting a lot of others.

The most likely thing to happen is instead of outpredicting each other with the 'broken' pokemons we get all out offense games where both teams dont have a recover mon (they're all banned!) so we're out here clicking body slam / fire blast / thunderbolt hoping for crits or whatever, games will last 20 turns and everything is absolutely fucking braindead. Can't be sure that's what would happen but I'd bet on it and it'd be an absolute shitshow. Mainers will have to relearn their tier for a 2nd time, and god knows how long it took us all to realize how drastically Crystal_'s discovery had changed the tier. And that was one new mechanic! I'm not fucking doing it.

I could break down every pokemon one by one and tell you how it's manageable, but why would I? The entire point of this tier is PREPARING for these mons and figuring out a way in the builder and the game to get them to drop dead. If you don't have a gameplan before you click accept, forget it. If you can't adjust that game plan to whatever bullshit goes or doesnt go your way, this is not the tier for you.

So what are these presumed issues with the tier? There's a lot of hax involved because Thunder Wave is involved and the crit rates of some pokemon go as high as 20%. Getting a 10% freeze is getting a kill. Sleep moves are innacurate and you sleep between 1 to 7 turns, which is infuriating. Clicking Reflect and Rest often are the best courses in action, which is boring to spectators, who don't know the ins and outs of the tier as well as the players or know all the relevant calcs by heart. Games can become into Chansey vs Chansey / Lax vs Lax / Starmie vs Chansey PP stalling for a good 100 turns without any player making any significant progress towards the outcome of the game. Recover is 32PP! And that in a tier where it's bo3!!!

Yet, despite all this, the better player still wins the majority of the time, just like in any other tier. Players have learned to respect the odds or learned to abuse the odds (freeze spam for example) and deal with the bullshit that comes along with those odds. Hell, most of us enjoy it. How could we possibly enjoy this?

I can only speak for myself, but I love this tier. I used to be a not very successful "Current gen OU player", but once I got introduced to this tier, I fell in love. Finally, a tier where I didn't need 12 very different good teams to be a good player. Finally, a tier where you don't win or lose on matchup. Finally, a tier that doesn't ban mons every 3 months. Finally, a tier where games almost exclusively rely on the playing aspect. I love making body slam vs hyper beam predicts. I love making hard doubles. I don't have to proof I have the coolest techs or the best teams every time I click the accept button. I gotta show I can play this tier better than my opponent by respecting the odds, knowing the mechanics, having a gameplan and outplaying.

We could ban Reflect on Normals to speed up games but it'd take away a competitive edge and it could have a gigantic impact we cant even foresee right now. I think Snorlax becomes a bigger nightmare tbh.

So, what does the future hold? SPL is the most important tour of the year, but there's probably no future for RBY in it. In the week, you're mostly focussed on building, but that aspect is not of the greatest importance in RBY sets. You should already be the best RBYer on your team, so there's not too much advice to be given either. I'm not afraid to say there wasn't a whole lot of activity in my channel. That's just how it is. Looking at the incredibly dismal activity in MTs on Pokemon Perfect and the amount of juggling some teams had to do, there might not even be a playerbase for SPL 12. There definitely won't if you go through with this anyway.
The Idiot Ninja, you're a creative guy. I watched your teams either with awe or with disgust and it's easy to see you're a creative guy that could shine in another tier. This is not the tier for that.

Let me end with this: In recent SPLs, I've had the fortune to team up with some incredible players and listen to them help me prepare my teams, games and talk about my games afterwards. ABR showed me his RBY folder and told me these were all the good consistent teams possible in RBY: there were about 10 teams. Last year, Pearl told me the optimal way to play RBY had already been figured out. While both incredible players, they were both dead wrong. Going Chansey turn 1, Sing Chansey usage up, Eggy usage down, Zap win rate real low, .. a lot can change in a year. That just shows this tier is forever evolving and I'm excited to see what direction it goes next.

 

[Peasounay]

I would like to summon Lusch and his idea of banning Alakazam

Anyway I don't play anymore and when I did I hated when old crusts tried to make decision for a tier that they were no longer a part of so I'll try not to be that guy. My opinion of banning Tauros never left me even if the discussions about it died, but I don't think it would be the route to take nowadays (It's more something that fits in this whole "It's broken we ban and if it isn't we don't" which I never believed was a viable way of thinking in the first place, and apparently the ideas in this thread are about trying to make things differently, which is good)

If I can try to have an input I would say that the first step would be to define exactly what's wrong with the RBY metagame right now, people in this thread are already trying to come up with solutions (ban X and Y or ban Z on X) before trying to define the exact problem of the metagame. It is crucial because if you ask current RBY players that question the odds that you get a lot of different answers are pretty high, things like "Ban 3 S ranks", "Ban Reflect", "Unban Mew but ban Reflect on it" are answers that are given by guys as solutions to the problems they've individually identified about the tier. "What's the problem if there is one" (because people can already disagree on this) is the first question and "How to fix it" is the second one. Both are really hard to answer and therefore it's gonna take time, patience, and dedication for the people who'll be willing to try and do that. I really suggest that you (the RBY dudes) don't rush things and start by agreeing on if there's an intrinsic problem with the way the RBY metagame plays out. I don't believe that calling certain mons or moves guilty will accomplish anything right now, nor do I think testing RBY in X different ways with X changed variables will before defining the exact problem.

And by the way don't bother with any stupid premade idea that a tier should be handled this way or that way or that you should follow smogon's tiering system, because the only legitimacy it has is being the first one. There's absolutely no scientific proof or deeply thought path that it's the good way pokemon should be played. One of the main problems of this community is that it has always lacked flexibility by trying to implement cold rules in both its tiering system and tournament scene without taking into account the differences between gens for the former and the scene evolution for the latter. Great way of doing things in a game where we don't have any official instance above us but are the said instance, lolz. Comfort zone = biggest barrier to improvement. The only thing we should strive for is having the healthiest and funniest metagames to play

Anyway, good luck

 

[Jellicent]

There is way too much going on here to break down everything right now, but just making it clear that changing RBY will not affect it being in those later SPLs. The reason to drop it at the moment is purely based on number of formats in the tour. The current plan also drops GSC down the line, and then ADV, etc. Altering RBY won't change that.

 

[Enigami]

Smogon tiering standards include playing on Yellow rather than arbitrarily choosing to play with spin-offs. Stadium and tradebacks both don't follow Smogon standards. Play those in your spare time, they don't matter here.

...

My only sources are a cartridge of Pokemon Yellow and Smogon's Tiering Guidelines.

It seems hypocritical to me to both push for radical change and declare Tradebacks as a "spin-off" despite literally being played on the same game, and that you so strongly reject it.

To my knowledge the decision to not allow Time Capsule Pokemon in RBY way back then, and even now, was/is mostly because of tradition. Which you claim to be campaigning against. Your claim that your sources are solely Pokemon Yellow and Smogon's Tiering Guidelines are blatantly false considering you mention nothing about removing Surf Pikachu/Raichu and Amnesia Psyduck/Golduck, both requiring Pokemon Stadium. Considering GSC & Stadium 2/NYPC, ADV & XD and so on, there's a rather strong precedent that Pokemon from outside the mainline games are perfectly legal in Smogon's tiering provided they are playable on the last released mainline game of the generation, so there's no arguing to remove them anyway. The arbitrary decision is the ban on Time Capsule Pokemon despite otherwise allowing every legally obtainable Pokemon in every other generation, including those from actual spin-offs like Stadium/XD/etc. or even long inaccessible event Pokemon like those from the NYPC for GSC. Which is fine in the interest of tradition, but really becomes forced when you are talking about radical changes to RBY anyway.

Heck, if you wanted to play on 3DS Virtual Console, the most recent release of RBY & GSC, Smogon's legality is completely out of whack. Stadium, Stadium 2 & NYPC Pokemon are impossible without glitches, while Time Capsule Pokemon in RBY are completely legally obtainable, yet Smogon's RBY ruleset bans legal to obtain Pokemon while allowing the use of illegal to obtain Pokemon.

 

[Amaranth]

Thanks to everyone who has decided to participate. I don't have time to reply until a couple hours from now but I saw a lot of well thought-out posts and I appreciate people coming together to discuss what should or shouldn't be done; and I'm glad to see other people as determined and passionate as I am in defending their views.

I only have time to address two really important things right now.

Jellicent's post: GSCers will never let that happen, and given that their tier is widely considered the one that rewards the most skillfull player the most, they'll easily find enough support. I don't see a timeline where that goes through, I do see a timeline where we make lowtiers fuck off to Snake and keep every oldgen in SPL as it should be. That's what I'd want to happen and I believe a more attractive RBY can play a key role.

Enigami's post: I'll happily admit I was heavily disinformed on this stuff, thank you. I'll think about this information, it does open new options

 

[Amaranth]

Allllright, here we go

@ PDC: I disagree with the notion that RBY is so fundamentally different from other generations that it needs ad hoc rules and guidelines. There are three things that stick out like a sore thumb across all RBY tiers I've played: things that can easily click Body Slam (Kangaskhan in UU/2U, Clefable in 3U), things that can easily click Psychic (Kadabra/Hypno in UU/2U, Mr. Mime in 3U, Abra/Slowpoke in 4U), and sleep moves of all sorts. Those are the only mechanical differences that need to be tuned down, there's no reason for believing the game wouldn't benefit from that. RBY is still Pokemon.

@ HANTSUKI: Not many arguments in that post but I appreciate the opinion

@ elodin: Your post has a lot of "this will never work", to which I can only repeat that it's either trying to make it work or getting axed anyway. This has low chances of succeeding and I was very aware of it when I decided to make the thread, but I'll pick low chances over no chances. I want to clarify that I never suggested individual suspect tests: anyone who knows jack shit about RBY knows that if you take away one piece of the broken-checks-broken structure the rest of the brokens become more problematic and the tier ends up being dogshit. I'm proposing going ahead and removing all the things that are obviously creating problems at once, which I'm aware is not a super standard procedure, but I'm not in favor of the procedures as much as I'm in favor of the philosophy and guidelines behind it - and maybe I should have made that clearer, my apologies. Oh and RBY should be kept in SPL because arbitrarily cutting one oldgen makes no sense, unless that oldgen is really really shit (as is RBY currently)


@ Hipmonlee: Thanks again for the input. I think a lot of what you discuss here comes down to the whole type chart issue. Since most 1v1s in RBY aren't decided by type chart you have that situation you described where figuring out the best line isn't exactly intuitive. But I disagree with the notion that it isn't easy to figure out for top players; maybe there is some merit in such a metagame because it pulls the very top away from the rest a decent bit, but the downside of that is that it creates a metagame where a lot of things are only checked by themselves, which leaves you trading your big4 (the fourth is your psychic lead of choice, not necessarily eggy) for their big4 in some capacity and then hoping your last mons beat their last mons. If you had one or two extra slots in building from even just a Lax and a Bull ban, then you'd have space for safety against every threat in the meta, instead you are forced to have these two Body Slammers that blanket check everything including each other and exacerbate the effects of negative match ups heavily. No, if you remove recovers you won't have RBY becoming a sequence of trades, because types will exist again and you will always be maneuvring for that position where the type of your thing > the type of the other thing. Partial trapping becomes a real problem when the partial trappers are fast. OU is somewhat well equipped to deal with it due to Zam/Mie/Tauros being fast and effective at dispatching them, but other forms of RBY don't have that luxury and changing things will most likely bring up the issue. It adds very little to the game anyway even in its healthiest forms. I agree that Counter Chansey is cheap and somewhat broken, I disagree with Hyper Beam because you always know the Tauros has it, which makes it a fairer mindgame compared to the ones Counter generates.

@ MetalGross: "Not decided by match up"? May I introduce you to Zapdos vs Rhydon????? Hello? Or Zapdos vs Starmie for that matter? Or Victreebel vs Rhydon? Or Jynx vs slower sleep lead, or slower sleep lead vs Starmie/Zam leads? Or Gengar vs no eq lax? You have this view about RBY being some tier where only what happens on the field matters, and it's no wonder when you don't even bother looking for the teambuilder advantages, but there are TONS out there and they decide so many games. Your anecdote with Pearl and ABR even supports this point, RBY keeps evolving because there are match up advantages to be found by doing that, otherwise no one would bother trying new stuff. And just like you give up on finding match up advantages before even looking, you are now giving up on trying to save this tier you love oh-so-much before even trying, implying that RBY just doesn't belong in SPL and so on. Broaden your fucking horizons, RBY is not as set in stone as you think it is, and other forms of RBY are not as silly as you think they are. I wonder where that belief even comes from frankly, have you ever dedicated yourself to a non-OU tier of RBY?

@ Peasounay: Some good points in there, some of them I disagree with, but definitely a solid point with the whole 'what is the problem -> how do we fix it' process. I think Pokemon that are only beaten by themselves are the problem, and removing them is the fix, but clearly it was a mistake on my part to assume people would agree with me on the problem in the first place, let alone the solution. I'll elaborate on what I think are 'the problems' in a post later today.

 

[Lusch]

Since I have been summoned by Peasounay , I'll give my idea I had a while back on ho banning Alakazam would maybe fix the metagame. I'm obviously not sure if that is the case, but I'll just elaborate what my thoughts were.
The premise of this theory is that Reflect Normals are the problem.
So the core question was: Why do people use Reflect+Stoss Chansey and ReflectLax as much, when they could use (in a vacuum) better sets. In my book BoltBeam Chansey is by far the better set "in a vacuum". Reflect+Rest Snorlax is forever "walled" by one or another Pokemon (Gengar if you forgo EQ, Rhydon (it does occasionally run Rest) if you go mono normal, Cloyster if you run Slam+Ice Beam (although Cloy walls other lax as well, but not as easily, Hyper Beam helps as well). The point is, those sets give up coverage which is (at least in Chaney's case not the "natural" way to go.

To answer this question, the solution was simple: "because of Snorlax." Chansey needs Reflect only because of Snorlax (and Tauros maybe), and -okay- if you want more PP, but the mainreason is to have something that can kill Lax momentum, which is otherwise not that easy.
This usage of Anti-Snorlax Chanseys lead to Snorlax dropping the 4 attacks set and going for Rest because "if I can't beat the Chansey, neither should it beat me, I'll just Rest on it". Rest does not function without Reflect properly, so here we go! The Reflect-Normals were born.

So. how to fix it? I thought: "what if Lax would not gain momentum as easily?" How does it get momentum? It commonly switches in on paralyzed Recover users, and the main one is definitely Alakazam. Starmie is not that physically frail (bulky enough to stay in and Twave you) so Lax momentum gets killed a bit right there. But Alakazam is the Pokemon that lets Snorlax in "for free" and lets is Slam away. you don't want to go to something that could eat a Paraslam so the natural choice is Chansey or Snorlax. Chansey is the Pokemon of choice because of instant recovery, ouspeeding and Reflect.

Nothing else than Alakazam (not literally nothing, but that is by far the easiest) lets Snorlax in as easily and lets it get momenum up. So my thoght process was based on that, if Alakazam was gone, Lax would not come in for free as much, and the need to block its momentum would become smaller. So people would go back to the natural way of playing Chansey with BoltBeam (plus BoltBeam Chansey gets a huge block removes in Alakazam). Leading to the process inversing itself again. "No" ReflectChansey anymore, so I won't have to run Rest on my Lax to not lose, so I go with the natural way of Snorlax again, which is going for an offensive beast that people are heartpressed to switch into.

Probably has some flaws, but that was my theorizing behind "let's ban Alakazam".

I want to conclude with some genral words about how I see the issue. Starting with my full approvement of this statement, baring the Tauros part actually.

- I really like partial trapping. It brings Cloyster and Victreebel into the metagame. It is weird to me that people are arguing that Cloyster and Victreebel are a bigger problem for the metagame than Tauros.

You can certainly say that the situation when the Wrapper outspeeds every member on the opposing team is not very "competitive", but honestly, if someone is in that situation they either got haxed because Dragonite got the free opportunity to use AGility on a frozen Pokemon (in which case you are behind anyway probably and it's not Dragonite's fault for you losing (if it actually maages to connect its shitty Wraps) or (and I believe people are not even talking about AgiliWrap, which is crazy to me) your Team is at fault. Yea... if you bring the RockStar Team and let your Starmie eat the PAR... of course you are opening yoursef up to Victreebel and Cloyster. But that is not a problem of the Pokemon or the partial traping move, it is you being ignorant about their existence, just as Nails is ignorant of Gengar's existence. It does not make those moves broken. Vic and friends do add another facette to a tier that does not have many to begin with. Let's not kill it.

Let's not ban Wrap, when it's not even an issue. Just because no-one uses Gengar does not mean that is the right way to do it.

Last but not least, unconventional opinion incoming: Tauros is actually healthy for this metagame! It is one of the only offensive tools to pressure sleeping Pokemon properly or revenge kill stuff reliably. Remove it and I think the tier gets a lot worse and even more defensive than it already is. You take some collateral sometimes because of literal "Bull"shit, but it's worth it imo.

I, in fact, don't think the tier is in need of any fixing (I'm really averse to complax bans in general).
I believe neither of those other generations is particularly more intrinsically competitive than RBY is. Guess what, we are playing Pokemon, not chess. It was never meant to be a competitive game to begin with (especially not in the days of RBY for crying out loud). And it's never gonna be one.
I wanna say, your post MetalGro$$ was really good. I would have dropped a like if not for that Wrap part (hell, I'll drop one even with it). In fact, there is nothing wrong with RBY (at least to to that extent that it needs to be altered, especially if that does not even help the goal, as Jellicent pointed out)

 

[Amaranth]

The clear issue with this Alakazam ban idea is handling IB Chansey. Alakazam is the main tool given to players who want to opt out of engaging in BoltBeam Chansey freeze wars, I'm really not sure that opening that can of worms will end up being a positive experience.

I also see where you're coming from with the 'Tauros is healthy' claim, but pressure on sleeping mons isn't exactly difficult to enforce with other things since, well, they're sleeping. It's not a dynamic that would go away without Tauros.

And you don't need to agree with everything or even anything that someone says to drop a like. I've disagreed with a LOT of opinions in this thread and still liked their posts as long as they were offering a well articulated perspective. Let's keep the mindset of appreciating each other's efforts and working together for the good of the tier, or this will get really ugly really quickly

 

[marcoasd]

Peasounay
1) Chansey is a counter for everything but Tauros. This is a direct consequence of Body Slam tragedy, banning Reflect is only a way to make it sligthly better; going Exeggutor on Softboiled is the payoff after damaging Chansey (given and not granted your opponent hasn't got a status absorber), and even then you need to make the sign of the cross and hope they will not push the Counter button. Poetry.
While you can beat Reflect Chansey with a lot of stuff, most teams today lack a payoff: this often is Zapdos, which is easily nullified by Rhydon teams that you beat by creating a good path for Tauros (if you trade something else for Chansey you'll lose bar getting bailed out) until your opponent is forced to leave Rhydon out against it or just make too many sacrifices. On that regard, I wouldn't even call it an awful matchup: it becomes awful when you also get bad luck (let's say, losing a Sleep Powder speed tie or a Snorlax Ice war that you can't dodge so easily).
So, you just see para'd Reflect Chansey stallwars because trading something else has dangerous consequences: maybe you could be happy trading a different pokemon for Chansey IF the exact turn players trade TWave with Chansey you happen to be the one who outspeeds AND your opponent FPs.
2) Ice Lax
Ice Beam wars have always been an issue (Chansey freeze wars used to be the go to thing to drive your opponent mad), but taking Reflect Lax down is a lot harder. Amnesialax and Slowbro kinda failed in the big picture: Reflect Lax is more versatile.
3) the Zapdos/Rhydon/wrappers triangle
You're forced to use Rhydon because Zapdos is dominating against Reflect Laxes. We all know that Starmie is the go-to lead for that team, and that team can't stop Victreebel (at this point you're really forced to switch Starmie out on turn 1, and that's just turn 1).
Let's close an eye on the fact that Rhydon teams' only ways to deal with IceLax are to use Exeggutor threatening sleep and going for an Ice Beam war...
Wrappers took Lapras'/Starmie's place in the usage sheet, we're facing the consequences and players are asking for a ban indeed. I am usually against banning Wrap, but in this scenario I understand them and possibly agree.
Before this SPL I told Troller that going Chansey on turn 1 was going to be the way to go, and I think we tried Sing Chansey; I think Metalgross confirmed that the metagame went in that direction.
I've been playing a fistful of games in months: I can't tell you for sure how playable the metagame is right now, but I don't think it will be saved by Sing. Actually, the turn 1/2 blind guess is the thing I hate the most even if I play once in a while.

There might be more, just like Tauros wars (Body Slam tragedy again, and I agree with Lusch on Tauros' ban), Fire Blast and other pegi 18 stuff but for me these 3 points are more than enough to be screaming at the mirror before every single match.

Lusch: do you remember games where Alakazam was not on either team (let's say, Starmie both sides)? Snorlax does its job and it can threaten Starmie as well with some setup (I mean: Alakazam gets destroyed/is forced out/whatever and Starmie generates better games, sure but still not enough). Snorlax gains momentum mainly by switching into para'd (and possibly) crippled Chansey and we're all glad it does!
There's no way players would use Physlax after banning Zam (Snorlax still gains momentum and Reflect Lax is still the best counter for other Laxes later in the game), that could happen in a world without Chansey where Snorlax is faced with faster special attackers that hit hard (aka banning Chansey).

 

[Prinz]

It seems hypocritical to me to both push for radical change and declare Tradebacks as a "spin-off" despite literally being played on the same game, and that you so strongly reject it.

To my knowledge the decision to not allow Time Capsule Pokemon in RBY way back then, and even now, was/is mostly because of tradition. Which you claim to be campaigning against. Your claim that your sources are solely Pokemon Yellow and Smogon's Tiering Guidelines are blatantly false considering you mention nothing about removing Surf Pikachu/Raichu and Amnesia Psyduck/Golduck, both requiring Pokemon Stadium. Considering GSC & Stadium 2/NYPC, ADV & XD and so on, there's a rather strong precedent that Pokemon from outside the mainline games are perfectly legal in Smogon's tiering provided they are playable on the last released mainline game of the generation, so there's no arguing to remove them anyway. The arbitrary decision is the ban on Time Capsule Pokemon despite otherwise allowing every legally obtainable Pokemon in every other generation, including those from actual spin-offs like Stadium/XD/etc. or even long inaccessible event Pokemon like those from the NYPC for GSC. Which is fine in the interest of tradition, but really becomes forced when you are talking about radical changes to RBY anyway.

Heck, if you wanted to play on 3DS Virtual Console, the most recent release of RBY & GSC, Smogon's legality is completely out of whack. Stadium, Stadium 2 & NYPC Pokemon are impossible without glitches, while Time Capsule Pokemon in RBY are completely legally obtainable, yet Smogon's RBY ruleset bans legal to obtain Pokemon while allowing the use of illegal to obtain Pokemon.

Rby with tradebacks really should be the standard and we only play current rby because of tradition, i'd def give it a try

 

[Heroic Troller]

I will go quick on the zam ban because lol... if banning it is really lowering the problem feel free to not use a zam ever again, but banning it? Really? Alakazam is the most flawed/frail ou pokemon consistently spammed and you ban him because a whole different pokemon with 500 hps is a problem? Come on, do we ban waters if Zapdos is broken next? I really hope not.

The fact that Dragonite only setups on frozen stuff is also way too wrong to be ignored, 80% of the times he tries vs a Body Slam user, so much competitive... Using more Gengars? Would you tell people to run Graveler if Rhydon+Golem didn't exist to stop Zapdos? No way.
Something is either competitive or not regardless of winrates or (gimmicks available) counter-plays, the whole concept of wrap is not missing 50x attacks for a while and turning your brain off completely, it cannot be allowed in the same room with the word competitive, it's a polar opposite. Unban double team as it can do nothing or win games, unban ohko moves because they are just 30% accurate, remove sleep+freeze clause, and then you have your uncompetitive but at least coherent tier, and be happy with it.

 

[Prinz]

i don't think wrap is that much of a problem... it's a high reward high risk move and zapdos, back alakazam (not considering gengar here, although it has the niche to stop reflect boom lax too, so it's def not too bad) and even back mie to some extent can do well vs victreebel. Also, when you drop egg for vic you will def be weaker vs tauros a little bit so it has its drawbacks (that vic + rhydon team which was used a lot so far in spl it's def weaker vs tauros than, let's say, starmie + zapdos). Dnite isn't very good imo because of its poor matchup vs tauros and starmie so yh it's more of a niche move. The mainly thing with vic is wrap + sleep powder imo, not wrap itself

clamp and fire spin aren't a problem imo, because of accuracy + starmie and zap being very good vs cloyster and moltres, and you can always para em with lax/bull (cloyster) or chans (moltres, although risky, but it's a risk for the one clicking fire spin too)

anyway rby with tradebacks would make reflect lax less strong because of amnesia hypno + i think zam getting tpunch/ice punch, jolt getting growth, and gengar getting ice punch would be nice for the metagame. I'd ban lkiss lax from the start tho, it's way too strong and you can't stop it from sleeping smth since there isn't any parad mon that can block sleep vs it (maybe starmie, but it isn't reliable at all)

 

[Amaranth]

I'll support tradebacks as well, if we are making changes it's a great opportunity to line up to the standards of every other tier (see Enigami's post). I don't see anything wrong with it and I think we should line up with normal policies as much as possible, but if anyone has any objections on this, by all means voice them

 

[Zokuru]

So. how to fix it? I thought: "what if Lax would not gain momentum as easily?" How does it get momentum? It commonly switches in on paralyzed Recover users, and the main one is definitely Alakazam. Starmie is not that physically frail (bulky enough to stay in and Twave you) so Lax momentum gets killed a bit right there. But Alakazam is the Pokemon that lets Snorlax in "for free" and lets is Slam away. you don't want to go to something that could eat a Paraslam so the natural choice is Chansey or Snorlax. Chansey is the Pokemon of choice because of instant recovery, ouspeeding and Reflect.

Nothing else than Alakazam (not literally nothing, but that is by far the easiest) lets Snorlax in as easily and lets it get momenum up. So my thoght process was based on that, if Alakazam was gone, Lax would not come in for free as much, and the need to block its momentum would become smaller. So people would go back to the natural way of playing Chansey with BoltBeam (plus BoltBeam Chansey gets a huge block removes in Alakazam). Leading to the process inversing itself again. "No" ReflectChansey anymore, so I won't have to run Rest on my Lax to not lose, so I go with the natural way of Snorlax again, which is going for an offensive beast that people are heartpressed to switch into.

Probably has some flaws, but that was my theorizing behind "let's ban Alakazam".

I agree with everything you say here, bar the part of " banning Alakazam ". Why should RBY ban a Pokemon that is being abused by Snorlax ? People can just avoid using Alakazam if there're in trouble with ReflectLax, if enough people do it the meta will shift. I don't think RBY needs a rework, nor any change tbh. I also think it's lame that RBY will be kick'd of Smogon greatest tournament just because it's old (jeez how can you say "Smogon is the best place for competitive Pokemon" with reasoning like that ? I really hate most Smogon staff because of decision like this).

I do appreciate and respect the TIN's effort to try to change the tier and make it "better" in his point of view, some people will maybe insult him, say that he don't understand the tier and that he wants a bullshit tier, I'm not one of this people, I think he is a great RBY player and he just wants his tier to be better. In my opinion, RBY OU must stay the same, otherwise it would not be RBY OU anymore. People has been playing it for ~20 years now, with or without the right mechs sure, but it was still RBY OU. The essence of the tier was the same, even if the metagame was somehow different. This should be preserved.

The tier is not great to watch / play for a lot of people nowadays, but tiering isn't about taste ( even tho I really like watching / playing RBY as it is right now ). RBY is very well balanced, even if we check broken with broken it's a competitive tier with the minimum ban possible, the tier is kinda perfect right now, tiering-wise.

I won't support / help this project, but I'm curious, I'd want to see what will be done out of it, as long as it does not replace actual RBY OU.




EDIT : RBY OU could allow tradeback moves and be re-tiered from there maybe, I'm not sure if it's worth it and if the tier would be better but allow tradeback moves and then ban the broken stuff ( LKiss / LKiss + Lax / Just Lax or stuff like that I don't rly know RBY tradebacks ) would be something that would not kill RBY OU, it would just evolve it. I don't know which one I would prefere, as I don't really know RBY tradebacks but it's a way to explore imo, as I say it's not about taste, it's about making tiering rules and stick to them.

 

[Enigami]

From what Jellicent said it's less "SPL is kicking out RBY because it's old" and more "SPL is kicking out RBY because we're ending up with too many metagames, and priority goes to the newest games". To some extent, I think it could make sense to have SPL be current gen only (and perhaps previous gen) and make RoAPL the sole focus for old gen team tournaments.

I'm surprised at the support/lack of opposition to Tradebacks, thought I'd have more pushback on that. As far as the state of the metagame, I personally enjoy it (except Tauros dittos, and IB+Sing Chanseys but that's moreso just a trend I need to adapt to), but I'm all up for exploring other options. I've also been wanting to explore RBY Tradebacks forever, so if you're going to test it sign me up!

One possible solution to Wrap: make a Wrap Clause rather than straight up banning it? Similar to how you are only allowed to put one of your opponent's Pokemon to sleep, and you are only allowed to freeze one Pokemon despite that being difficult to control on cartridge, why not limit Wrap to only being allowed for one cycle? Like make it fail similar to using Sleep moves while Sleep Clause is active if you attempt a second cycle. It'd actually be enforceable on cartridge as well, unlike Freeze Clause (without ACE or a romhack). That way, you can use it for pivoting or attempting to chip an opponent into KO range, but it becomes straight up impossible to sweep with it. I understand the hate for Wrap and other partial trapping moves, but I'd hate to lose Wrap for its non-cheesing uses.

Another possibility I've become aware of is ACE (Arbitrary Code Execution) that you can permanently save on legitimate cartridges via the game's save data. Depending on what I can figure out, and you can do a lot because I've seen people use it to add minigames, a memory editor menu and even Ho-oh into a legimate copy of RBY, competitive patches to RBY may be possible. From what I remember of the disassembly, I don't think things like base stats or move BP or the like are modifiable this way (and shouldn't be changed anyway), but I think it should be possible to add things like setting it up so that in link battle, all Pokemon are set to level 100, max DVs/EVs, and have code set up to fix issues like Psywave/Counter desyncs, permanent invulnerability via Dig/Fly, implementing Freeze Clause & Sleep Clause, and all on real copies of the game. The best part is, due to RBY's wonderfully buggy code, it is possible to spread it like a virus through link battle, making distribution of the save data patch to other copies of the game a breeze. ACE should work on emulator, GameBoy & 3DS too, which makes this a perfectly viable and practical way to play the game. Which brings me to another thought: Sleep & Freeze. If implementing Sleep Clause & Freeze Clause is possible, it should not be difficult to introduce chance of thawing and adjusting the range of turns to sleep. Rather than banning/not banning Sleep, we might have the option to just reduce the maximum turn count instead to reduce its strength. Additionally, I could patch out the Wrap PP rollover glitch (this I know will be easy to do), and even integrate my "Wrap Clause" idea into the game itself. I know how to program in assembly and already plan on attempting to create this viral patch to atleast fix the desyncs, but if you want me to investigate any other changes to implement, just let me know and I'll see what I can do.

 

[Amaranth]

From what Jellicent said it's less "SPL is kicking out RBY because it's old" and more "SPL is kicking out RBY because we're ending up with too many metagames, and priority goes to the newest games". To some extent, I think it could make sense to have SPL be current gen only (and perhaps previous gen) and make RoAPL the sole focus for old gen team tournaments.

I'm surprised at the support/lack of opposition to Tradebacks, thought I'd have more pushback on that. As far as the state of the metagame, I personally enjoy it (except Tauros dittos, and IB+Sing Chanseys but that's moreso just a trend I need to adapt to), but I'm all up for exploring other options. I've also been wanting to explore RBY Tradebacks forever, so if you're going to test it sign me up!

One possible solution to Wrap: make a Wrap Clause rather than straight up banning it? Similar to how you are only allowed to put one of your opponent's Pokemon to sleep, and you are only allowed to freeze one Pokemon despite that being difficult to control on cartridge, why not limit Wrap to only being allowed for one cycle? Like make it fail similar to using Sleep moves while Sleep Clause is active if you attempt a second cycle. It'd actually be enforceable on cartridge as well, unlike Freeze Clause (without ACE or a romhack). That way, you can use it for pivoting or attempting to chip an opponent into KO range, but it becomes straight up impossible to sweep with it. I understand the hate for Wrap and other partial trapping moves, but I'd hate to lose Wrap for its non-cheesing uses.

Another possibility I've become aware of is ACE (Arbitrary Code Execution) that you can permanently save on legitimate cartridges via the game's save data. Depending on what I can figure out, and you can do a lot because I've seen people use it to add minigames, a memory editor menu and even Ho-oh into a legimate copy of RBY, competitive patches to RBY may be possible. From what I remember of the disassembly, I don't think things like base stats or move BP or the like are modifiable this way (and shouldn't be changed anyway), but I think it should be possible to add things like setting it up so that in link battle, all Pokemon are set to level 100, max DVs/EVs, and have code set up to fix issues like Psywave/Counter desyncs, permanent invulnerability via Dig/Fly, implementing Freeze Clause & Sleep Clause, and all on real copies of the game. The best part is, due to RBY's wonderfully buggy code, it is possible to spread it like a virus through link battle, making distribution of the save data patch to other copies of the game a breeze. ACE should work on emulator, GameBoy & 3DS too, which makes this a perfectly viable and practical way to play the game. Which brings me to another thought: Sleep & Freeze. If implementing Sleep Clause & Freeze Clause is possible, it should not be difficult to introduce chance of thawing and adjusting the range of turns to sleep. Rather than banning/not banning Sleep, we might have the option to just reduce the maximum turn count instead to reduce its strength. Additionally, I could patch out the Wrap PP rollover glitch (this I know will be easy to do), and even integrate my "Wrap Clause" idea into the game itself. I know how to program in assembly and already plan on attempting to create this viral patch to atleast fix the desyncs, but if you want me to investigate any other changes to implement, just let me know and I'll see what I can do.

I'm all for listening to new and interesting idea but glitching the game until it's something different than what the developers actually put in the cartridge is probably pushing it a bit too far. I'm familiar with ACE but I don't think that'd be the best idea, the fact that we can glitch a pet mod in the game is cool but it's a pet mod nonetheless.

---

I've said before that I'd attempt to describe the problems I have with RBY and what things need changing. Here's the list:

1. We're playing with no tradebacks because some guys 10+ years ago were too lazy to learn a slightly different metagame and no one ever questioned it since. How has this even happened? If we're bringing big changes anyway we might as well include this in the package.

2. The sleep game has become pure guesswork in either match up or early game lines or both. It was all nice and skillful when people were trading thunder waves turn 1 and then removing the sleep absorbers with predictions and explosions and whatever fancy things throughout the game, but nowadays people realized that's highly abusable, Sing Chansey lead or on a turn 1 switch-in absolutely dominates that playstyle, so bringing your TW lead isn't a safe option anymore. Even without Sing, some people have already been switching Chansey on TWaves turn 1 for a while now, and 'should I switchback to my Eggy to catch that' is a consideration you could make, but on turn 1 the information you have to make that call is incredibly limited. Bring Jynx to answer Sing Chansey or slower sleep leads? Sure, you can do that, but then (1) you're at a disadvantage against most traditional builds, and (2) you'll be forced to play 70/30s against lead Gengars and coinflips against other Jynxes. Suppose that a situation where the person with control of sleep is decided via skillful play happens, even then you're still faced with the nightmares of accuracy, super early wakes, super long sleeps, all kinds of things that don't consistently reward the more skilled player at all. It's trash.

3. The points in my original post about Body Slam and Psychic being broken moves with no viable answers other than your own Body Slams and Psychics, which I see as inherently bad for competition - but I guess enough people disagree with this that I'm ready to drop it for the time being

4. Fast Wraps break the game, 'just bring gengar omegalul' is not a solution to the problem, there are no fast wrappers that are viable enough in OU thankfully but anyone who's played Tentacruel-dominated UU or even the very niche Dragonair-dominated 5U will be able to attest to the effects of Wrap on a metagame where things that learn it are good enough to use either base speed or Agility to outspeed everything on the other side and start clicking Wrap.

We'll discuss solutions when we have some form of consensus on the list of problems, as Peasounay wisely suggested. It'd be good if we could agree a community consensus on problem 1 (tradebacks or no tradebacks) as soon as possible, that way we could get started with on-field practice and testing of the metagame that would result from it. Points 2 and 4 I haven't really seen anything in this thread to make me believe they're not valid yet, but I have seen a lot of things that make me believe Point 4 could be formulated or defined a lot better. Point 3 I'm aware is weaker and more based on personal bias - "things that are only checked by themselves should be banned" is something that looks like common sense to me but I can't give it a sturdy footing in actual logic so fair enough if you disagree with that notion.

 

[Jellicent]

Jellicent's post: GSCers will never let that happen, and given that their tier is widely considered the one that rewards the most skillfull player the most, they'll easily find enough support. I don't see a timeline where that goes through, I do see a timeline where we make lowtiers fuck off to Snake and keep every oldgen in SPL as it should be. That's what I'd want to happen and I believe a more attractive RBY can play a key role.

Again, format quality has nothing to do with RBY getting dropped, and it won't affect GSC getting dropped either. This has been the plan for a year and a half now. The Tournament Policy forum would be the place to try to change that. You don't need to "fix" RBY, just come up with a 12-slot alternative that the TDs agree with. Heads up that increasing the number of formats wasn't on the table back then and probably still is not being considered.

Also, if your main issue is with Normals, Psychics, and sleep, Tradebacks just exacerbates those problems. The biggest winners are Amnesia + coverage Hypno, sleep Lax, coverage Zam, sleep Persian, Surf bull, and Amnesia Clef. It's a fun format but it doesn't really address your concerns.

 

[Lusch]

@ MetalGross: "Not decided by match up"? May I introduce you to Zapdos vs Rhydon????? Hello? Or Zapdos vs Starmie for that matter? Or Victreebel vs Rhydon? Or Jynx vs slower sleep lead, or slower sleep lead vs Starmie/Zam leads? Or Gengar vs no eq lax? You have this view about RBY being some tier where only what happens on the field matters, and it's no wonder when you don't even bother looking for the teambuilder advantages, but there are TONS out there and they decide so many games. Your anecdote with Pearl and ABR even supports this point, RBY keeps evolving because there are match up advantages to be found by doing that, otherwise no one would bother trying new stuff. And just like you give up on finding match up advantages before even looking, you are now giving up on trying to save this tier you love oh-so-much before even trying, implying that RBY just doesn't belong in SPL and so on. Broaden your fucking horizons, RBY is not as set in stone as you think it is, and other forms of RBY are not as silly as you think they are. I wonder where that belief even comes from frankly, have you ever dedicated yourself to a non-OU tier of RBY?

About this. It is Pokemon.To put it short, match-up will always exist. (unless you only allow everyone to use the exact same pieces like in chess). And just a note, that none of those match-ups are automatic losses. I'm sure you know that. Of course one player will have an advantage, but in RBY I think the statement that every match-up is still outplayable (if you have a decent team of course, dropping all EQs on the squad and losing to Gengar, you have no right to complain) is still true, which is not the case for some new generations because there are no general "decent teams" in the same way as in RBY, to the point where you have to be "autolosing" to some teams simply because you cannot realistically cover your bases, which in RBY you can. I think this is what Metal meant...

I will go quick on the zam ban because lol... if banning it is really lowering the problem feel free to not use a zam ever again, but banning it? Really? Alakazam is the most flawed/frail ou pokemon consistently spammed and you ban him because a whole different pokemon with 500 hps is a problem? Come on, do we ban waters if Zapdos is broken next? I really hope not.

The fact that Dragonite only setups on frozen stuff is also way too wrong to be ignored, 80% of the times he tries vs a Body Slam user, so much competitive... Using more Gengars? Would you tell people to run Graveler if Rhydon+Golem didn't exist to stop Zapdos? No way.
Something is either competitive or not regardless of winrates or (gimmicks available) counter-plays, the whole concept of wrap is not missing 50x attacks for a while and turning your brain off completely, it cannot be allowed in the same room with the word competitive, it's a polar opposite. Unban double team as it can do nothing or win games, unban ohko moves because they are just 30% accurate, remove sleep+freeze clause, and then you have your uncompetitive but at least coherent tier, and be happy with it.

I Just to be clear. I am not proposing banning Alakazam. I just described my thoughts I've played around with, revolving around how a removal of Zam might (note: might) make the meta better. And I merely did that because Peasounay requested me to.

Admitted, Dnite only setting up on frozen Pokes is exaggerated, but if you eat a Slam while setting up Agility (even if it does not PAR) you die to any ice attack running around. Don't treat Gengar like it's such a bad Pokemon with the sole purpose of shutting down Wrap. You (hopefully) know it's not true. Like Alexander mentioned as well, Gengar is not a bad pick due to the common mono Normal Snorlax anyway. It certainly is not a gimmick or on the level of Graveler, please... Simply no need to ban something that is not even an issue. And Wrap is not an issue. I don't stand alone here, as evidenced by Alexander's and Hipmonlee's posts.


Banning Sleep btw is too much of a deviation from the standard imo. I personally could (even though I still don't like complex bans) get behind testing Reflect banned on Lax and Chansey. But sleep and Wrap don't need to be touched... A metagame regulates itself. If Wrap really becomes that much of an issue, I'm sure people will use Gengar or Alakazam more and it will balance out again.
In the same vein, making arguments based on an SPL trend with Sing Chansey that just started is also not the way to go. The meta as not even had time to adapt to it. You (TIN) say, switching t1 to Eggy is an option, but too risky for the information you could possibly have, which is correct. Maybe people will start using non-Lead Jynx and switch to that t1. the risk is uncomparably lower... (just for example)

 

[Prinz]

I think rby is fine as it is right now tbh, even reflect lax and reflect chansey have their own drawbacks: reflect chans being an easy switch for rhydon, and loses to reflect lax itself, and reflect lax can be beaten by smth according to his last move (+ always pressured by egg)

reflect boom: loses to reflect ib lax, can't scout counter, risks a ch vs rhydon many times, and walled by gengar
reflect ib: lack of boom makes it worse vs zap/cloy/lap
reflect hb: similiar to reflect boom, hb helps vs chansey but worse vs zap etc

and then you always have amnesia lax that is good vs all reflect sets (and trades vs reflect boom), i know lax's best counter is probably lax itself (lax trades with lax lot of games) and that can sound dumb but it's just how the tier works, with normals and psychics being so much better than the others and with so few pkmn viable in the OU metagame, nothing new

the main reason to add tradebacks to me it's because 1) it just seems right, for example iirc softboiled clefable can only obtained in gen 3 games and still it's used without any problem in gen 4, 6 and 7, the same logic should be applied in rby (only difference being that we are using moves got from gsc in rby) and mainly because 2) it would add variability in the tier, amnesia stuff would keep reflect lax in check better, ice punch would make gengar better and so wrap a bit worse. as i said before, lkiss lax shouldn't even be tested because it sounds too strong, nothing stops it from sleeping smth unless you are faster than it and you sleep it before it sleeps you

 

[Amaranth]

Again, format quality has nothing to do with RBY getting dropped, and it won't affect GSC getting dropped either. This has been the plan for a year and a half now. The Tournament Policy forum would be the place to try to change that. You don't need to "fix" RBY, just come up with a 12-slot alternative that the TDs agree with. Heads up that increasing the number of formats wasn't on the table back then and probably still is not being considered.

I'd bet a finger that GSC will not be dropped from SPL when Gen 9 releases

Also, if your main issue is with Normals, Psychics, and sleep, Tradebacks just exacerbates those problems. The biggest winners are Amnesia + coverage Hypno, sleep Lax, coverage Zam, sleep Persian, Surf bull, and Amnesia Clef. It's a fun format but it doesn't really address your concerns.

We'd switch to tradebacks because it makes sense, not because the resulting meta is spontaneously great. If it's faulty it can and will be tiered out accordingly.

@ Lusch: I strongly disagree with the notion that there aren't any really strong match ups in RBY. Obviously there's no 100-0 ones (that generally doesn't happen in newgens either), but Zapdos vs Rhydon is REALLY hard, like 20-80 hard. And those issues could be reduced HEAVILY if we are willing to make changes. No other tier in RBY is this centralized (except ubers and mewbers, lol) and if most of your team is fixed elements, the few things that are different can and do make all the difference, assuming both players are on a similar level. Slam+Boom+Reflect+Rest Snorlax gives MASSIVE leads against teams with no Gengar, it's nearly dead weight against Gengar. Again, all the sleep interactions I've mentioned. The fact that weak players are encouraged to fill their teams with those risky match up fishing sets and 'mons while strong players are forced to guess which way they'll be cheesed next week. To claim that match up issues aren't present in RBY at the moment is a straight up lie.

Your line with switching Jynx in turn 1 is a good idea, but ultimately still subject to numerous problems: Double-Edge Eggy teams will snack on that for instance (more match up), and unlike Eggy if Jynx misses too many sleep moves she has no way to try and make things more equal (while Exeggutor can always boom on whatever's trying to kill it if it gets to dangerous territory), and if this picks up popularity you're still playing coinflip Jynx speed ties often, and so on. We've milked everything out of the sleep mechanic because it's inherently dominant, I really don't think this is something where you can say "b-but you can never tell how the metagame will develop!", we've optimized sleep wars, we're not gonna un-optimize them any time soon

 

[Ika Ika Musume]

To be honest, I'm not sure I entirely understand all this conversation about RBY.

A lot of the issue I think is that RBY is treated similar to other gen tiers when it lives in a different world and therefore the rules that might apply in other generations do not really apply as readily. I honestly think the tier as it is, is fine and not nearly as much of a problem as mentioned above. Yes, there is broken but broken checks broken and most pokemon in RBY require a multi-pokemon gameplan to fight against unlike other tiers where X is your check to Y.

Take USUM for example, a polarising pokemon like ash-greninja generally has a specific mon that checks it on a team that literally just switches straight in, like an Assault Vest Tangrowth or Spdef Tapu Bulu, whose job is literally just to switch into Gren (Im not too knowledgeable about USUM forgive me if Im wrong here). This isn't all encompassing, but metagame threats are often stopped by a specific mon due to the variety of options of threats to run.

In RBY, to break through something like a chansey or a snorlax often requires multiple members of your team. It is rare in RBY OU that any top mon is stopped merely with 1 pokemon with the only major example off the top of my head being Zapdos being checked by Golem/Rhydon. Often this gameplan comes in the form of, I can paralyse Chansey when it wants to switch into my starmie and then I can find opportunities in the match pressure it with lax/don/tauros. To use Reflect/Rest lax as another example, Rest is a momentum sapping move and forcing lax to rest with perhaps opposing lax or reflect chansey allows you to consistently pressure and check lax with a myriad of special attackers, most prominently Exeggutor without the risk of paralysis. Im just giving one example, you can approach that same matchup a multitude of different ways.

So for me, the argument that lax can only be stopped by lax and therefore lax is too broken for RBY is silly. Stopping any top RBY mon solo is very risky and results in high variance games.

 

[Amaranth]

To be honest, I'm not sure I entirely understand all this conversation about RBY.

A lot of the issue I think is that RBY is treated similar to other gen tiers when it lives in a different world and therefore the rules that might apply in other generations do not really apply as readily. I honestly think the tier as it is, is fine and not nearly as much of a problem as mentioned above. Yes, there is broken but broken checks broken and most pokemon in RBY require a multi-pokemon gameplan to fight against unlike other tiers where X is your check to Y.

Take USUM for example, a polarising pokemon like ash-greninja generally has a specific mon that checks it on a team that literally just switches straight in, like an Assault Vest Tangrowth or Spdef Tapu Bulu, whose job is literally just to switch into Gren (Im not too knowledgeable about USUM forgive me if Im wrong here). This isn't all encompassing, but metagame threats are often stopped by a specific mon due to the variety of options of threats to run.

In RBY, to break through something like a chansey or a snorlax often requires multiple members of your team. It is rare in RBY OU that any top mon is stopped merely with 1 pokemon with the only major example off the top of my head being Zapdos being checked by Golem/Rhydon. Often this gameplan comes in the form of, I can paralyse Chansey when it wants to switch into my starmie and then I can find opportunities in the match pressure it with lax/don/tauros. To use Reflect/Rest lax as another example, Rest is a momentum sapping move and forcing lax to rest with perhaps opposing lax or reflect chansey allows you to consistently pressure and check lax with a myriad of special attackers, most prominently Exeggutor without the risk of paralysis. Im just giving one example, you can approach that same matchup a multitude of different ways.

So for me, the argument that lax can only be stopped by lax and therefore lax is too broken for RBY is silly. Stopping any top RBY mon solo is very risky and results in high variance games.

This is a very good reply to the 'ban Snorlax' sentiments, which I'm willing to give up on, given the amount of pushback they received. I'd appreciate if the conversation could switch to the arguments made in this post now.