Arceus and DPP Ubers - Final Take

[faint]

I was going to respond to the OP with what you see below but it's now closed. I don't understand why someone would do this immediately after such a rash decision with inconsistencies between the OP and entire "discussion" as a whole. The following issues outlined below need to be addressed by the tier leader in question and we should be able to continue a dialogue.

My response to the final post in the thread:

Okay, let me approach this from a more objective standpoint. For starters, I want to address some issues I have with this entire thread in general.

Here are my takeaways from your OP:

- Fullceus should be the standard and should be legal.
- We shouldn't ban because "people don't want it" and it deserves legitimate discussion.
- Glitch stuff (I personally do not care about this at all).

-----

Now for the replies:

The only objectively, 100% pro-ban responses were from the following individuals:

Mr. 378
Cynara
The 3 people you received PMs from

Null responses:

shrang
Theorymon
SoulWind

Remain as-is:

pretty much everyone else.

-----

The BIGGER issue here:

It should be on YOU and pro-unban folks to explain why unbanning Arceus should be the standard. This is the approach to every single tier change in existence. It should not be on the majority and currently established rules to warrant reasons for keeping something as is. Arceus has never received an official test, correct. We have, however, played with Farceus in the past. There have been tournaments and unofficial ladders with Farceus legal. We are not speculating on its impact on the metagame. We are telling you from experience that this does not warrant a test because it is overcentralizing.

You said, in your OP, that a call has to be made, and that this is still something discussed in the Ubers community. You also stated that if you want your voice to be heard, now is the time. So please, explain to me, how given the responses here, you have come to this decision, which is seemingly unbiased and as objective as possible. Additionally, please explain why this change is immediate and is not at the very least going once again to an unofficial ladder where less experienced players can test this

 

[Nayrz]

Now for the replies:

The only objectively, 100% pro-ban responses were from the following individuals:

Mr. 378
Cynara
The 3 people you received PMs from

Null responses:

shrang
Theorymon
SoulWind

This is a complete misrepresentation, I suggest you re-read the posts you called "null responses". It makes it very difficult to engage with you when you are being this dishonest with your points. Just read Theorymon's bolded sections and that should make it clear it is not a "null response".

It should be on YOU and pro-unban folks to explain why unbanning Arceus should be the standard.

I covered this in the OP but let me make it clear.

Yes, the standard for all tiering policy movements is "arguments should be on the side of those changing the status quo". However, Arceus's ban is not a standard case. It was banned without due process on the whims of players that, put bluntly, had no right to dictate that without good reason. That reason was never disclosed anywhere either. It has already defied tiering logic, therefore why is the same logic being used to defend it? With that in mind, I consider Arceus's ban invalid. 10 years of time is made irrelevant by this simple fact.

If a Pokemon releases into a metagame, it's usually given time to exist and given a tiering decision if its to be banned. That is the standard process. Did that happen for Arceus? No, it didn't. It was banned because whoever the hell said so. That's a spit in the face to how tiering should be conducted. If Arceus released today, it wouldn't be banned because players (only council and TLs have this decision making power) don't want to experience it in the metagame. A council may decide to quickban it, but that is still a tiering process and can be held accountable. Where is this for Arceus's case? By considering Arceus's ban invalid, I am now going to allow it into the metagame and let it have that due process. I have explained this to both Hogg and chaos before this was even a discussion, and they agreed that this is the right way to handle things.

So to rephrase this, the onus is on the pro ban side to convince me and the community at large that Arceus should be banned. That has yet to happen. That's why my decision went the way it did. The 10 years of time and changing an old meta is the reason why its a preliminary decision and going to a later vote. That is due process.

We are telling you from experience that this does not warrant a test because it is overcentralizing.

You have been around long enough to know that bans in Ubers on the premise of being "overcentralizing" is laughable, both 10 years ago and today. The entire tier is built on this idea. I'd need better reasons than this.

Additionally, please explain why this change is immediate and is not at the very least going once again to an unofficial ladder where less experienced players can test this

Going off what I said earlier, Arceus is effectively being treated as a new Pokemon and being given due process like everything else on Smogon has been given. If you disagree with this, I want to see some good reasons as to why we should ignore standard tiering policy for the sake of Arceus in DPP Ubers. An unofficial ladder isn't going to change how tiering policy has been mishandled since Arceus was considered a legal Pokemon.

I don't want to drag this thread out any longer than it has to. We have a tournament waiting in the wings featuring this tier. I will hear out what you or others have to say on this.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

I hate to serious post after all these years but unfortunately I feel compelled.

There has to be a line drawn in the sand for metagames that are up for revision after the fact. There is something to be said about keeping a dead metagame the same for any returning players. I would personally draw this line at metagames that still see official tournament play. If we’re going to include something like DPP ubers in metagames eligible for revisions, we could apply similar logic used in this thread to go back and revise metagames like ADV UU which were never properly tiered the first time around.

Whether or not Farceus is too much for the DPP ubers metagame is irrelevant to me. We are changing a metagame that has been played a certain way since 2011. All for what? So that the people who played the tier since its inception (see: locopoke, faint) feel alienated from the tier if they ever decide to play a few games for fun?

I understand that optimal decisions were not always made in the past. But I think we need to accept those decisions in tiers that have long since been laid to rest if there will be no negative effect on the main tournament circuit by doing so.

 

[faint]

This is a complete misrepresentation, I suggest you re-read the posts you called "null responses". It makes it very difficult to engage with you when you are being this dishonest with your points. Just read Theorymon's bolded sections and that should make it clear it is not a "null response".

I've read them all. Nothing I said is being misrepresented. Since you bring up Theorymon, let's read his post. If it were up to him, Farceus would be legal. However, perhaps if you read outside of his bolded points as most people have, you'd notice he mentions he is open to community pushback. He argues we should not keep it banned for the sake of the status quo, which is completely reasonable, while also stating that it can be suspected if enough people want it gone. His stance of unbanning Farceus does not carry the same weight as someone like Cynara, for example. Likewise, SoulWind seemingly agrees with M Dragon, but given that he does not strongly mention a stance, I also included him in null. I do not believe I'm being unfair here or pushing some unwarranted agenda, but you do you.

You have been around long enough to know that bans in Ubers on the premise of being "overcentralizing" is laughable, both 10 years ago and today. The entire tier is built on this idea. I'd need better reasons than this.

Also, what the hell is this? This hasn't been the case since Ubers became an official tier with the banning of Mega Rayquaza in ORAS. I beg you to tell me what would be a reasonable excuse for Arceus to be banned in DPP from your point of view, as it sounds like nothing would qualify as a good enough reason for you. I could have said it's too strong or too unpredictable instead of overcentralizing, yet that wouldn't have prevented you from responding with "lol, it's Ubers, what do you expect." I genuinely can't help but feel like you would dismiss any given reason.

Also unrelated but I stumbled on this and just wanna be all ??? for a minute

Is this you admitting you planned to allow fullceus in DPP Ubers with a blanket policy change a decade later without any sort of suspect test just cause?

 

[Jibaku]

Mega Ray wasn't banned on overcentralization if I recall correctly. It had simply had virtually no defensive responses and operated on an unprecedented threat level that was almost impossible to contain even when you dedicate lots of resources against it. We've still never banned something on overcentralization, else Primal Groudon would've disappeared off ORAS. Don't tell me now Farceus is anywhere NEAR as threatening as Mega Ray was.

For Farceus to be banned, it'd have to be either ridiculously oppressive "it has almost no counters" or be excessively uninteractive.

 

[shrang]

Just going to clarify my stance as it seems to have been misunderstood. I'm very much fo unbanning Farceus or even Fullceus. As for an ubers banning policy perspective, I see no competitive or balance based reasons to keep it banned. I've already noted a bunch of ways to check every arceus forme off theat top of my head with commonly used pokes in the current ubers meta. Overcentralisation has never been a reason to ban things from ubers, otherwise you can suspect test ogre and big dragons in dpp ubers right this instant, not to mention the mess that was p Don in oras and sumo.

What I did say, is that I can empathise with the keep arceus banned faction with the whole "don't change our 10 year old meta" stance. This doesn't mean I agree with it (as I already mentioned in my first post). I personally think community inertia is a dumb reason alone, but I respect the right of those to have that stance. Unfortunately, I understand this is a real barrier however silly it is, like I've been trying to push for a species clause test for a while now. I'd be more inclined to agree (rather than just empathise) if actual competitive/balanced arguments consistent with ubers banning philosophy were brought to the table rather than aesthetic reasons.

 

[faint]

Just going to clarify my stance as it seems to have been misunderstood. I'm very much fo unbanning Farceus or even Fullceus. As for an ubers banning policy perspective, I see no competitive or balance based reasons to keep it banned. I've already noted a bunch of ways to check every arceus forme off theat top of my head with commonly used pokes in the current ubers meta. Overcentralisation has never been a reason to ban things from ubers, otherwise you can suspect test ogre and big dragons in dpp ubers right this instant, not to mention the mess that was p Don in oras and sumo.

What I did say, is that I can empathise with the keep arceus banned faction with the whole "don't change our 10 year old meta" stance. This doesn't mean I agree with it (as I already mentioned in my first post). I personally think community inertia is a dumb reason alone, but I respect the right of those to have that stance. Unfortunately, I understand this is a real barrier however silly it is, like I've been trying to push for a species clause test for a while now. I'd be more inclined to agree (rather than just empathise) if actual competitive/balanced arguments consistent with ubers banning philosophy were brought to the table rather than aesthetic reasons.

Since I know this was directed at me, I just want to clarify that I'm aware you're pro-ban. However, I'm not going to give it much weight when you say things like "here's my opinion, but I don't really care either way." If the point of this thread is to actually be a final take on the subject, we should avoid the "whatever is fine" mentality and just state your preferred stance as you did in this post.