Re: King’s Rock (and other “luck items”)

[Earthworm]

I'm not an SS OU player, but it seems to me that the council system is functioning as intended. I don't think the council's job is to simply submit to the desires of the masses or other councils, otherwise we could just allow the masses to vote directly. If anything, I think there should be a minimum time duration before it can be voted on again.

There is likewise no indication that any of the players on the council are anything but the highest quality of player. Two of them just played in the WCoP finals. To me it seems like this is just a case where prominent players are trying to throw their weight around to get their desired outcome, despite due process having already been followed. That said, I can respect Finchinator's sense of duty and I trust that he will aim to take a fair and reasonable approach to addressing this issue.

 

[Katy]

I still support the suspect or even outright ban of Kings Rock! More and more tiers are following the footsteps of BW OU, and Monotype, which where one of the first tiers to ban it, with BW OU being not even a current generation, but an established oldgen format.

To the other luck based items. In my opinion Bright Powder, Lax Incense, and Quick Claw should be a main focus after we solved the Kings Rock situation.

Regarding:

• Bright Powder / Lax Incense: Both, bright Powder and Lax Incense, solve one purpose, boosting the evasiveness, and in most formats the evasiveness clause got implemented due to being uncompetetive, while Lax Incense is a little less on my personal radar, bright Powder however is; being very easy abuseable with Sand Veil as an ability, it can help those who have it, in situation out to either proceed a setup with less care infront of an opposing pokemon, or it can dodge 100% accurate moves, to help the holder of Bright Powder and in conjunction with Sand Veil to gain a massive upper hand in certain situations. I feel it is necessary to look at Bright Powder after Kings Rock.
• Quick Claw: Another controversial item which urges me, Quick Claw, while being mostly on Galarian Slowbro, combined with its Quick Draw ability, it can result into an uncompetetive situation. With these two factors combined this pokemon (which was already heavily discussed in the lower tiers as example UU, and RU) can just tear through faster revengekillers, especially after it gained some boosts. I feel Quick Claw doesn't even give only this pokemon the upper hand in a lot of situation, but this item can guarantee -- although not in the same extreme way -- practically the same, activating even before the fastest revengekiller to take it out. Still the most controversial holder of this item is Galarian Slowbro, but I feel, this and the aforementioned items should be looked into.

I am more on a outright ban on Kings Rock, while I would definitely suspect Bright Powder and Quick Claw after this!

 

[Finchinator]

I'm not an SS OU player, but it seems to me that the council system is functioning as intended. I don't think the council's job is to simply submit to the desires of the masses or other councils, otherwise we could just allow the masses to vote directly. If anything, I think there should be a minimum time duration before it can be voted on again.

I agree with the general sentiment and especially the bolded portion, but I think the issue here more lies within the process applied than it was execution of the process if you will. I am glad that councils have the power to vote and individual councilmen can help determine outcomes in their metagame, but I think there need to be checks to that and I also believe formatting of how those powers play out can be very important. That is why many people, dating back to ABR's post and plenty of outcry elsewhere, are especially upset about this one.

For some context, we had a council vote on King's Rock, which you can see on the prior page. This was the first non-Pokemon non-quick ban (i.e: something unanimous right after a release) vote we had all generation, but it had the worst possible circumstances for the occasion. Why is that?

• We had the smallest council all generation
  • 7 people is quite low for OU council standards and this meant any individual vote causes even more swing than normal
• .We applied a 60% ban threshold that ended up being misrepresentative and based off of not-entirely-applicable precedent
  • There was no true modern precedent for this, but 60% turns into 5/7 aka 71% when the council is this small, which is a lot different than 60% itself.
  • We received 57% support, which is far closer to 60% than 71%, for example. You can see why this would upset people given how small the sample is and how controversial some of the logic used was to people on either side -- i.e: a lot of laissez faire stances about not banning something deemed insignificant in a vast majority of the time
• Someone had just left council days prior to the vote, which skewed matters even further
  • It is easy to speculate that the vote would have been different. The outcome, the parameters, the timing, etc. all likely could have been altered had this been taken into account sooner and it definitely caused some blindsiding
• As soon as the vote went out, King's Rock saw an uptick in usage and "abuse", which has created an even bigger outcry and diminished the competitiveness of many, many games

To me it seems like this is just a case where prominent players are trying to throw their weight around to get their desired outcome, despite due process having already been followed.

This is a large part of why we have a playerbase survey every few months, especially when they include topics like these. We will also be sharing the results of them and can use this data to determine how to proceed.

tl;dr: the last vote sucked because of unforeseen circumstances and lack of precedent, this vote determining the outcome felt unfair to many people, and this is why there is a large push to reassess

ps: Any and all blame for the last vote should fall on my shoulders, not suapah's or the rest of the council. It was a lot that was out of our control in unchartered territory, but I pushed a little too hard and quickly, which probably led to this.

 

[Earthworm]

For some context, we had a council vote on King's Rock, which you can see on the prior page. This was the first non-Pokemon non-quick ban (i.e: something unanimous right after a release) vote we had all generation, but it had the worst possible circumstances for the occasion. Why is that?
[*]We had the smallest council all generation

[*]7 people is quite low for OU council standards and this meant any individual vote causes even more swing than normal

• .We applied a 60% ban threshold that ended up being misrepresentative and based off of not-entirely-applicable precedent
  • There was no true modern precedent for this, but 60% turns into 5/7 aka 71% when the council is this small, which is a lot different than 60% itself.
  • We received 57% support, which is far closer to 60% than 71%, for example. You can see why this would upset people given how small the sample is and how controversial some of the logic used was to people on either side -- i.e: a lot of laissez faire stances about not banning something deemed insignificant in a vast majority of the time
• Someone had just left council days prior to the vote, which skewed matters even further
  • It is easy to speculate that the vote would have been different. The outcome, the parameters, the timing, etc. all likely could have been altered had this been taken into account sooner and it definitely caused some blindsiding
• As soon as the vote went out, King's Rock saw an uptick in usage and "abuse", which has created an even bigger outcry and diminished the competitiveness of many, many games

This is a large part of why we have a playerbase survey every few months, especially when they include topics like these. We will also be sharing the results of them and can use this data to determine how to proceed.

tl;dr: the last vote sucked because of unforeseen circumstances and lack of precedent, this vote determining the outcome felt unfair to many people, and this is why there is a large push to reassess

ps: Any and all blame for the last vote should fall on my shoulders, not suapah's or the rest of the council. It was a lot that was out of our control in unchartered territory, but I pushed a little too hard and quickly, which probably led to this.

The impression I get from a lot of this post is that you feel that the outcome is somehow incorrect or should be discredited, but I don't think there is any valid argument as to the vote's illegitimacy. A question that should probably be asked is, if the outcome was King's Rock being banned, would you still be concerned about all of these things? I honestly don't buy that any of these circumstances could have caused any error in voting, so I think the best course of action is to simply accept the result and come back to it in a year if the issue resurfaces. Typically when votes are this close, erring on the side of not banning is correct in my opinion, as especially with a CG meta, the metagame will probably adapt and change and de-emphasise the supposedly broken element anyway. I assume that is the whole point of requiring more than a 50% vote. I don't think there is any blame that needs to be shouldered in terms of process here.

 

[Finchinator]

The impression I get from a lot of this post is that you feel that the outcome is somehow incorrect or should be discredited, but I don't think there is any valid argument as to the vote's illegitimacy.

I'm sorry, but if you read my above post, understand the circumstances, and still think that vote was handled optimally, then I firmly disagree with you. We have had things with lesser mistakes called into much greater question, if not stopped outright, within memory. I was one of the biggest advocates of the vote and I even defended it after the result, but I got hammered with a lot of people explaining how they did not find it fair that such parameters decided the fate of a CG OU tier like this.

A question that should probably be asked is, if the outcome was King's Rock being banned, would you still be concerned about all of these things?

That depends on the response. I have been as transparent as I possibly could be here (and have been all generation): how the community believes we are handling their flagship metagame is important and if we received the same complaints, I absolutely would work towards avoiding repeating any mistakes moving forward. If we did not, then I would have moved on. The same can be said here: if this vote resulted in no ban as it did, nobody voiced any disagreement with the procedure, and there was no counter-movement, then I would have sit tight. I care about the pulse of my playerbase and have made this a priority for the longest time now.

I honestly don't buy that any of these circumstances could have caused any error in voting, so I think the best course of action is to simply accept the result and come back to it in a year if the issue resurfaces.

To put it bluntly, that's your problem if you do not see the error. I made the error myself and defended the vote publicly even after the initial result, but after talking with many people who play the tier and receiving constructive (and sometimes not-so-constructive) criticism, even I can see what was wrong. I outlined all of these issues in my above post and instead of addressing any of them, all you have done is dismiss them and imply I was acting in bad faith for the sake of my personal agenda. And yes, banning King's Rock is something I very much prefer. It does not mean I will act in bad faith to reach this goal though.

Typically when votes are this close, erring on the side of not banning is correct in my opinion, as especially with a CG meta, the metagame will probably adapt and change and de-emphasise the supposedly broken element anyway. I assume that is the whole point of requiring more than a 50% vote. I don't think there is any blame that needs to be shouldered in terms of process here.

Speaking of personal agendas, that first sentence is your own and it absolutely does not apply to King's Rock, which SS OU clearly has not reacted to over a prolonged period of time.

How can I say this? Because we have received consistent King's Rock complaints for over a year now (every survey we have put out has had plenty) and there has never been much of a movement to increase counterplay to it. I have firsthand read through hundreds of accounts on this topic between mid-2020 and now; not every single topic fits under the umbrella that you alluded to about proceeding with caution about CG topics that are closely contested. Not everything gains new counterplay over time. I think you need firsthand experience in the tier to understand this topic. I am not saying you do or do not have that, but I am saying that people with this experience have a better grasp on how the dynamic of King's Rock seldom changes.

 

[Earthworm]

I'm sorry, but if you read my above post, understand the circumstances, and still think that vote was handled optimally, then I firmly disagree with you. We have had things with lesser mistakes called into much greater question, if not stopped outright, within memory. I was one of the biggest advocates of the vote and I even defended it after the result, but I got hammered with a lot of people explaining how they did not find it fair that such parameters decided the fate of a CG OU tier like this.

This is going to happen in any vote where people really want a particular outcome, especially one here where the established processes get thrown into question so often. I'm glad that you defended it initially at least--it can be difficult to do so when you are facing pressure from so many invested parties.

That depends on the response. I have been as transparent as I possibly could be here (and have been all generation): how the community believes we are handling their flagship metagame is important and if we received the same complaints, I absolutely would work towards avoiding repeating any mistakes moving forward. If we did not, then I would have moved on. The same can be said here: if this vote resulted in no ban as it did, nobody voiced any disagreement with the procedure, and there was no counter-movement, then I would have sit tight. I care about the pulse of my playerbase and have made this a priority for the longest time now.

Where there are genuine problems, it is good to have the attitude that you are willing to step up and make changes, but I respectfully assert again this is not one of those cases. Sometimes a lot of people will complain about something with which there is no problem.

To put it bluntly, that's your problem if you do not see the error. I made the error myself and defended the vote publicly even after the initial result, but after talking with many people who play the tier and receiving constructive (and sometimes not-so-constructive) criticism, even I can see what was wrong. I outlined all of these issues in my above post and instead of addressing any of them, all you have done is dismiss them and imply I was acting in bad faith for the sake of my personal agenda. And yes, banning King's Rock is something I very much prefer. It does not mean I will act in bad faith to reach this goal though.

I'm happy to address each of the arguments that have been apparently been raised with you in order to overturn a perfectly good vote:

- We had the smallest council all generation
- 7 people is quite low for OU council standards and this meant any individual vote causes even more swing than normal

While this could play an influential part in determining the result, there's no real basis for claiming that there is any particularly flawed number of council members that I am aware of. We use smaller numbers in numerous other important votes.

- We applied a 60% ban threshold that ended up being misrepresentative and based off of not-entirely-applicable precedent
- There was no true modern precedent for this, but 60% turns into 5/7 aka 71% when the council is this small, which is a lot different than 60% itself.
- We received 57% support, which is far closer to 60% than 71%, for example. You can see why this would upset people given how small the sample is and how controversial some of the logic used was to people on either side -- i.e: a lot of laissez faire stances about not banning something deemed insignificant in a vast majority of the time

It is not clear what you mean by "misrepresentative" here. This is clearly a council of seven widely respected, active top players. The fact that we are using a 60% standard shows a clear intention from tiering staff that our bans should be more than just slightly agreed upon by the representative sample of active top players. A 4:3 ban:do not ban is not a clear enough majority. Also, just because you receive a lot of loud complaints, doesn't mean that there isn't a less vocal, satisfied portion of the base of top players not saying anything because the result worked out the way they believe is appropriate. If you want the votes to reflect the player base you are surveying, we could have that player base vote directly and make that the standard procedure. However, there is no inherent issue with using the representative sample chosen and respecting their vote outcome.

There's nothing controversial about the logic I've seen either. What I've seen from the council members that have participated in the discussion does not indicate any problematic deviation from the tiering policy framework stickied in this subforum.

- Someone had just left council days prior to the vote, which skewed matters even further
- It is easy to speculate that the vote would have been different. The outcome, the parameters, the timing, etc. all likely could have been altered had this been taken into account sooner and it definitely caused some blindsiding

Just because the council changed not long before the vote does not mean the vote is any less valid. If a new member is added to the council, is there any period of time for which they are not allowed to vote? Has there been any past requirement to meet some exact number of members?

- As soon as the vote went out, King's Rock saw an uptick in usage and "abuse", which has created an even bigger outcry and diminished the competitiveness of many, many games

It would be good if we could see how effective the abuse of King's Rock was on the ladder. Are there any statistics that show this? Were the upper spots on the ladder dominated by King's Rock abusers? Did people qualify for OLT playoffs by primarily winning with teams that utilised King's Rock? Has it been a significant factor in the outcome of WCoP matches? I don't doubt that some people sustained losses when facing King's Rock, but we have to be careful of anecdotal experiences versus actual effectiveness.

Speaking of personal agendas, that first sentence is your own and it absolutely does not apply to King's Rock, which SS OU clearly has not reacted to over a prolonged period of time.

How can I say this? Because we have received consistent King's Rock complaints for over a year now (every survey we have put out has had plenty) and there has never been much of a movement to increase counterplay to it. I have firsthand read through hundreds of accounts on this topic between mid-2020 and now; not every single topic fits under the umbrella that you alluded to about proceeding with caution about CG topics that are closely contested. Not everything gains new counterplay over time. I think you need firsthand experience in the tier to understand this topic. I am not saying you do or do not have that, but I am saying that people with this experience have a better grasp on how the dynamic of King's Rock seldom changes.

What do you think the reasoning is for requiring more than 50% of the vote to ban something, if not to eliminate the possibility of bans being enacted when the vote is close? And why would it not apply to King's Rock? King's Rock itself is not going to change. What could change is people's preparedness and willingness to address strategies that become more commonplace, which leads to those strategies becoming less commonplace in favour of other strategies that beat the new strategies. It may assist my understanding if you could explain why there should be game element bans which are decided by votes that are closely contested.

If King's Rock does indeed prove to be resilient enough and evidence of more widespread support for a ban is realised, then of course it can be brought up again and voted on at a sufficiently spaced out interval. But I am just saying that we should not have to deal with posts like ABR's that directly attack top players for their stances, and we shouldn't succumb to the whims of people that don't respect the outcome of a vote by those top players.

 

[ABR]

I actually agree that due process was followed and that, in theory, we should defer to a council’s judgment. But in this case the stance is just asinine and admittedly the council’s makeup isn’t the most pristine of things either. Other tiers as well as the majority of OU’s own players (and council) want this shit gone. It is simply hard to respect differing opinions in this specific case.

 

[Lily]

I'm not all that invested in this vote to begin with but I haven't seen anyone else ask this question; why was such a divisive topic, one split enough to create a large pr thread like this, voted on by only 7 people to begin with? Not to mention it got a majority out of that 7 anyway but others have already pointed out the reasons why 60% is a bad metric here. OU is the flagship, most important tier on the site, so a decision that is in any way creating significant amounts of outcry should be scrutinised and revisited, and the public should at the very least be able to give their opinion without needing access to a restricted forum (i.e. the survey Finch put out) but really I don't see why this can't be open for public voting even if it's a small-scale change.

 

[peng]

I can’t believe this is even up for debate. Even if we look past the oversight regarding setting a 60% supermajority with 7 voters, we’re still in a situation where over half the council voted to ban Kings Rock and the outcome was no action at all - some people even saying we should wait a full year to revisit something that 4/7 of the most trusted players wanted gone.

I dislike the idea of council votes to begin with but if we insist on using them then why don’t they work like:
<50% - remains unbanned
50-66% - immediate second round vote with larger pool (20+) OR full suspect test - over a threshold in round 2 leads to ban
>66% quickban

the idea that we sit on 57% ban (as close as you can get to the threshold without going over 70%) and people cling to this as evidence that Kings Rock should be shelved for 12 months seems absurd

 

[kumiko]

I think Earthworm is pretty accurate with his initial post. I think it's definitely a bit problematic to immediately conduct another vote after it was voted to not be banned, and I'd go as far to say that the threshold which was used was too low if anything, not too high. A council vote should have a higher threshold than what it takes for the general community; if it's a contested decision, it's probably best to not have a small group make the decision for the larger community. Council bans should probably be something unanimous or near unanimous, not highly contested between a small group of people that make the decision for the larger community. I think this can be tackled a bit differently by things like the general public overwhelmingly being in favor via a community survey or something of the sort, however. Don't really know what the best way to convert the general public's opinion there into a Council vote, but I'd argue a 60% threshold for something that didn't get any kind of public input is a bit sketch.

ftr I'm not trying to criticize the council for this, it's common practice for Council votes to have the same threshold and I've been responsible for many votes this way, however I think it's probably a good idea to change.

With that said, I think King's Rock is a bit of an outlier for this situation. It's not a Pokemon or something similar; it's an item that the general public very clearly believes is problematic and needs to go, and it was voted on without any form of quantification for public opinion beforehand. Like Lilburr said, the issue at hand was decided upon by a fraction of people that play the metagame out of a playerbase that I anticipate to be overwhelmingly in favor of banning King's Rock. I think Earthworm is right that the Council's role isn't to submit to the public's every whim, however I do not think their role is the absolute decision maker. If the general playerbase is, say, 95% in favor of banning King's Rock, but the Council vote was 4-3 in favor of banning, should we keep it not banned? I don't believe this is the right way to go about things, and that ultimately the general public should be involved with decisions as often as possible. The council should absolutely try to manage the tier in the way they believe is best, and I believe that the individuals who voted to not ban it believe that they are. However, I think an overwhelming public majority, like the one I anticipate from the ongoing OU survey, holds more weight than the Council's dissenting opinion. I also do not believe it to be fair to expect the OU Council to want to hold a public suspect test for an item such as this, as it's not common practice and something that was probably more straightforward to handle.

While I think the need to ban Bright Powder and Quick Claw is really not well justified or necessary, I do support banning King's Rock. Pokemon is filled to the brim with many different forms of RNG, and I believe it's really narrowminded to try to justify that all the "luck" items are that much worse than a bunch of things that every Pokemon already has available. See things like Sand Veil, Serene Grace Pokemon, Static, Flame Body, Effect Spore, Scald, Hurricane, and even Triple Axel. However, King's Rock is different. King's Rock on multi-hit moves is so much more RNG-dependent than the aforementioned things, as it has a way higher chance of occurring, and when used on something like Cloyster, a flinch from King's Rock Cloyster can very easily mean the game is over. Cloyster is a Pokemon that gets a multitude of chances to setup in this tier and anyone that has played or watched any minute of OLT Laddering will know this. The most common Pokemon in the tier is the perfect setup bait for it, and it also has superb physical bulk and can find an opportunity to setup vs many other Pokemon in the tier. Any argument saying "just don't let it setup lol" are extremely bad arguments against banning it, because if all a Pokemon needs is one free turn to win any game on the spot, it's definitely broken. Do you want to free Xerneas just because it needs to setup? King's Rock is not "broken", as 40% to win a game is obviously not good odds. However, this 40% is not something that can be prevented in a large amount of situations, and to want games to come down to this simple thing is asinine.

As an aside, has there been discussion on voting on Cloyster rather than King's Rock? I have not thought about this stance too much, but I don't recall seeing any discussion. I think there's a fair argument in favor of it due to the fact I do not believe anyone would argue that King's Rock Cinccino is problematic for the tier; it's really only the combination of Cloyster having a guaranteed 5 hit move without making contact, the best setup move in the game, and also the ability to use King's Rock that makes it problematic. I don't really believe King's Rock on other Pokemon fall under a level that deserves action. However, I think it gets into a very gray area; voting on a Pokemon because it's "uncompetitive" is a bit awkward, and I don't know if everyone who wants King's Rock banned would really say that Cloyster is broken. On top of this, if another Skill Link Pokemon gets introduced with any form of setup or incredible stats we could be back to the same discussion. This is just a hypothetical, though. Uncompetitive things have always been tackled differently than just plain broken things, and I think it's perfectly fine to want to ban King's Rock rather than Cloyster. See: Moody Pokemon, Sand Veil in old gens, Swagger, and so on.

Ultimately, if the current OU Survey has overwhelming results (say 80%+) in favor of banning King's Rock, I think it would be a bad decision to not do so.

 

[Shurtugal]

Have there been tournament games or similar events that have been heavily effected by Kings Rock? I think it would be helpful if someone could catalog a resource like that for this thread. It would help having proof of its impact vs seemingly hyperbolic statements

 

[pokemonisfun]

Have there been tournament games or similar events that have been heavily effected by Kings Rock? I think it would be helpful if someone could catalog a resource like that for this thread. It would help having proof of its impact vs seemingly hyperbolic statements

It would indeed be nice to have this but I don't think people have put in the time and effort to make these resources for previous votes so I'm not sure why it would be so necessary now (granted King's Rock is a different beast and a numbers game, so I know where you're coming from).

Ultimately, if the current OU Survey has overwhelming results (say 80%+) in favor of banning King's Rock, I think it would be a bad decision to not do so.

Please take it as a suggestion: if you go with this route TDK has suggested (and I'm not qualified to comment whether this is the correct/most desirable policy), then I highly suggest the leaders in charge of OU decide the OU survey % that will trigger a new vote now, before the survey results are publicized, so that they cannot be accused of cherry picking a perfect number one way or another. Hopefully not all the relevant parties are aware of the current vote tally.

Hogg did this here in a somewhat similar decision - changing the ban threshold % in the middle of a vote, but he assured us he did it blindly without looking at the votes, so he could not be accused of cherry picking an outcome.

In any case, I really hope our leaders can emphasize that whatever happens, this is an exceptional case. I've seen people try to change a gen7uu vote last month and now a gen8ou vote after the voting occurred. What's the point of rules if you just change them after the vote?

 

[Marty]

Since OLT is going on and I already ran usage stats for the first 13 days of July, I figure I'll dump those Gen 8 OU moveset stats here for comparison with June's stats to see how common King's Rock really is recently.

Some observations from the unweighted stats - Dragapult, Garchomp, and Excadrill have been running King's Rock almost twice as much as last month, but still an insignificant amount when we're talking less than 5%. As soon as you get into better player territory, it's a different story. The higher up on the ladder you go, the less often you see King's Rock on random Pokemon, presumably because rolling the dice doesn't win games as often as just using a good item.

In the 1695 stats, the only Pokemon even using it last month were Cloyster and Cinccino; this month Cloyster's King's Rock usage went up to 87% from 85%, and Cinccino's plummeted to 9% from 45%. Weavile and Miltank are new users of King's Rock in July, but at less than 5% each it's not very significant (and when Miltank itself has 0.02% usage, who cares?).

Now at 1825 Glicko, still only Cloyster and Cinccino were using it in June. This month, Cloyster's up to almost 94% King's Rock from 87%, and Cinccino's again down a ton - to 10% from 60%. Shiftry's also suddenly using King's Rock 8% of the time, but Shiftry shows up 0.03% of the time.

From all this I can only assume OLT players don't just toss King's Rock on literally anything because that's a good way to lose a game against good opponents; Cloyster's the only real viable holder.

 

[ausma]

I think Earthworm is pretty accurate with his initial post. I think it's definitely a bit problematic to immediately conduct another vote after it was voted to not be banned, and I'd go as far to say that the threshold which was used was too low if anything, not too high. A council vote should have a higher threshold than what it takes for the general community; if it's a contested decision, it's probably best to not have a small group make the decision for the larger community. Council bans should probably be something unanimous or near unanimous, not highly contested between a small group of people that make the decision for the larger community. I think this can be tackled a bit differently by things like the general public overwhelmingly being in favor via a community survey or something of the sort, however. Don't really know what the best way to convert the general public's opinion there into a Council vote, but I'd argue a 60% threshold for something that didn't get any kind of public input is a bit sketch.

ftr I'm not trying to criticize the council for this, it's common practice for Council votes to have the same threshold and I've been responsible for many votes this way, however I think it's probably a good idea to change.

With that said, I think King's Rock is a bit of an outlier for this situation. It's not a Pokemon or something similar; it's an item that the general public very clearly believes is problematic and needs to go, and it was voted on without any form of quantification for public opinion beforehand. Like Lilburr said, the issue at hand was decided upon by a fraction of people that play the metagame out of a playerbase that I anticipate to be overwhelmingly in favor of banning King's Rock. I think Earthworm is right that the Council's role isn't to submit to the public's every whim, however I do not think their role is the absolute decision maker. If the general playerbase is, say, 95% in favor of banning King's Rock, but the Council vote was 4-3 in favor of banning, should we keep it not banned? I don't believe this is the right way to go about things, and that ultimately the general public should be involved with decisions as often as possible. The council should absolutely try to manage the tier in the way they believe is best, and I believe that the individuals who voted to not ban it believe that they are. However, I think an overwhelming public majority, like the one I anticipate from the ongoing OU survey, holds more weight than the Council's dissenting opinion. I also do not believe it to be fair to expect the OU Council to want to hold a public suspect test for an item such as this, as it's not common practice and something that was probably more straightforward to handle.

Ultimately, if the current OU Survey has overwhelming results (say 80%+) in favor of banning King's Rock, I think it would be a bad decision to not do so.

The sentiment of TDK's post is how I feel regarding the matter, and given how well articulated it was I do not intend to simply restate it. I think, in a vacuum, it's important to consider the weight of council votes, but at the same time this case is less clear-cut to quantify because of the circumstances around the vote such as the abnormal number of people voting and the majority % necessary to ban King's Rock.

To me, tiering councils facilitate the course of action a tier undergoes, between what is considered to be an issue by pioneering suspects and acting upon issues. However, as TDK said I don't believe they should play the role of the absolute especially given how condensed the group of councilmen is compared to the wide range of people who participate in the tier. To have an uneven, small pool of members with an otherwise majority vote of 4-3 block what appeared to be an expected outcome was, understandably, met with quite a bit of pushback. Plus, given how the awkward number impacted the vote, we can see how that issue manifested directly. However, the vote was already conducted and the results speak for themselves, which makes the situation a lot harder to approach simply because overturning an outcome of a due process is something that is near unprecedented and can be easily misconstrued as a power struggle. To me, I feel as though waiting until the council had additional members to offset Sacri's departure and stabilize the vote was the best initial course of action without getting messy with tiering policy. Of course, though, hindsight is 20/20, and talking about what could've been doesn't help the problem at all.

It's for this reason that in this case, I think if (and only if) an overwhelming majority of people vote for King's Rock's ban in SS OU in the survey (around 80%+ or more, something concrete), having a King's Rock suspect would be the best step to approach the result, as opposed to simply quick banning it or revoting as a response. This lets the initial vote remain as a key component and not be arbitrarily usurped, but also lets the community directly voice into the ban and either reinforce the initial vote or overturn it with a closer focus on its impact on both the metagame and on the competitive integrity of the tier. Especially given how polarized issues tend to best be approached with suspects, the community's own perception against King's Rock and the council's contrasting result is the very definition of what a suspect aims to assess. I also feel a suspect would not be a bad decision from an operations standpoint simply because there is no obviously constraining or broken component in the tier currently, so taking extra time to focus on assessing it directly would not necessarily derail the process (especially given how it is indisputably the most contentious issue in the tier currently with OLT's results speaking for themselves).

 

[Finchinator]

The SS OU tiering survey has concluded. You can check out full results here! The following results pertain to King's Rock in the SS OU metagame:

Would you support a ban of King's Rock in SS OU?

This is 948 different responses and 52.3% of them said they would support a ban of King's Rock in SS OU. Of all respondents, 496 people would support a ban of King's Rock whereas 453 would not support a ban of King's Rock.

Of the 69 qualified responses, 85.5% of them said they would support a ban of King's Rock in SS OU. Of the most experienced respondents, 59 people would support a ban of King's Rock whereas 10 would not support a ban of King's Rock.

While an overwhelming majority of players with high ladder (top 250) or official tournament (WCoP, SPL, STour qualification, and/or OLT qualification) experience want to see King's Rock banned from SS OU, only slightly over half of the general public wants King's Rock banned.

The SS OU council is not currently in a position to draw an immediate conclusion on this data or this topic, but we are actively discussing it and plan to conclude in the near future. We would greatly appreciate any input from parties that are both experienced and invested in the metagame in this thread.

 

[ABR]

- 85.5% of qualified people want it gone

- 4/7 council members want it gone

- 4/4 reasonable council members want it gone

- it’s a topic of uncompetitiveness moreso than pure brokenness

what else could possibly be needed for this to be banned already?

 

[IPF]

The discrepancy between the general public and qualified voters is astonishing to me, the comparison of King's Rock to other forms of hax in our game is stupid and I think for most people the debate boils down to whether we should be banning the item or the sole viable abuser, Cloyster, but considering how tiers such as Monotype, BW OU and NatDex have moved forward it's pretty shocking that we're stuck in this position.

I'm heavily in the ban King's Rock camp and I feel like conducting a suspect test would almost be a bygone conclusion if you assume that the 70 qualified voters also get reqs and vote in this proportion, which is how almost all tiering decisions are usually made. If you must suspect test it, go ahead, but frankly speaking it would be a waste of everyones time based on these numbers. It is simply uncompetitive and provides nothing of value to the metagame.

 

[HANTSUKI]

Why are you wasting that much time on a matter that should be simple and don't even should be a tier based thing? I don't know who on Smogon should decide it, but it's a matter of policy of the entire community or something like that. Just pick: do you want to have luck based items in your tiers? Yes or no, simple as that. If you don't want them, just ban King's Rock, Brightpowder and friends for every Smogon tier. I can assure you there will be no riot or anything like that. Worst case we make darkdarkrai72 sad on his 1400 elo ladder since he can no long hax some randoms and laugh with his friends (or alone).

It's really that simple, you don't need to make walls of texts, calcs or anything. Those items (and even abilities like Sand Veil if we're there, but I'll not talk about it) don't add anything more than some extra RNG in a game that is already luck based. Like literally NOTHING. Those items are not like Thunder Wave who adds the fully para chances but also has important stuff like dropping speed or being relevant in PP stall scenarios. They just add flinching chances and evasion, that's it. If Oyster is not viable without it, then it'll go to some lower tier were it's good with Boots, Herb or idk. That's how it works for every mon.

So just decide if you want them in our games or not and we don't need to waste months arguing about something so dumb and all the councils can focus in stuff that actually matter. No need for them to debate this or make suspect tests, it's a matter of policy that can be applied to everything. Yes or no, simple as that.

 

[pikachu<3]

The discrepancy between the general public and qualified voters is astonishing to me, the comparison of King's Rock to other forms of hax in our game is stupid and I think for most people the debate boils down to whether we should be banning the item or the sole viable abuser, Cloyster, but considering how tiers such as Monotype, BW OU and NatDex have moved forward it's pretty shocking that we're stuck in this position.

I'm heavily in the ban King's Rock camp and I feel like conducting a suspect test would almost be a bygone conclusion if you assume that the 70 qualified voters also get reqs and vote in this proportion, which is how almost all tiering decisions are usually made. If you must suspect test it, go ahead, but frankly speaking it would be a waste of everyones time based on these numbers. It is simply uncompetitive and provides nothing of value to the metagame.

This is a pretty bad take. Last suspect test (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-ou-suspect-process-round-10-voting.3683046/) had 258 qualified voters. If all 69 qualified voters vote (59 ban and 10 no ban), and of the 189 remining voters, 95 vote ban and 94 vote no ban (reasonable since the general survey response is ~50/50), then we have 154 ban votes and 104 no ban votes. This is only a 59.23% ban percentage, which would not be banned in a suspect test.

There is a reason why we run suspect tests; it is so that the community can get input a topic that the council might be wrong about. The question is; you willing to run a suspect test and get a no ban result? Are you afraid to be wrong?

 

[Finchinator]

If all 69 qualified voters vote (59 ban and 10 no ban), and of the 189 remining voters, 95 vote ban and 94 vote no ban (reasonable since the general survey response is ~50/50), then we have 154 ban votes and 104 no ban votes.

This is absolutely ridiculous logic. The suspect voter pool is far closer to the 69 people than the general public; most of the point of polling qualified voters is to get the pulse of qualified players of the metagame and that is similar to the point of having suspect tests outright.

In addition, the general public had close to 200 people respond directly after joey uploaded his video on King's Rock and a vast majority of them voted to not ban it like he did; I highly doubt many of them get reqs given the names and prior to that the general public was between 63-65% in favor of banning it.

If all 69 qualified voters vote (59 ban and 10 no ban), and of the 189 remining voters, 95 vote ban and 94 vote no ban (reasonable since the general survey response is ~50/50), then we have 154 ban votes and 104 no ban votes. This is only a 59.23% ban percentage, which would not be banned in a suspect test.

PS: Your picking 50/50 instead of the 52.3% figure that was the actual result conveniently is the difference between below and above 60%. You also are using a suspect test from earlier this generation which had much higher turnout than recent ones, making this an entirely irrelevant hypothetical you are creating on an even deeper level. This degree of self-serving numerical manipulation has absolutely no place in these threads and your point is entirely inapplicable.

 

[peng]

This is a pretty bad take. Last suspect test (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-ou-suspect-process-round-10-voting.3683046/) had 258 qualified voters. If all 69 qualified voters vote (59 ban and 10 no ban), and of the 189 remining voters, 95 vote ban and 94 vote no ban (reasonable since the general survey response is ~50/50), then we have 154 ban votes and 104 no ban votes. This is only a 59.23% ban percentage, which would not be banned in a suspect test.

There is a reason why we run suspect tests; it is so that the community can get input a topic that the council might be wrong about. The question is; you willing to run a suspect test and get a no ban result? Are you afraid to be wrong?

This is an even worse take. The 50-50 split is in unqualified voters. You need to qualify to vote for a suspect test, and the evidence that we have so far points to the fact that better players trend towards pro-ban stance. Its looks highly likely that the pro-ban users in that 50-50 pool will qualify for voting rights at a better rate than the anti-ban users, based on the polling.

Agreeing with other sentiments in this thread. This feels like a situation where bureaucracy is getting in the way of what should be a clear cut decision. 85.5% of the people who actually play this game at the top level don't want games ruined by opponents who seek luck-based outcomes via King's Rock.

I understand the need to follow proper tiering protocol, but sometimes I think we need to take a step back and realise that the entire point of this process is to adapt a poorly-designed kid's franchise into a functioning competitive game. King's Rock is an obvious ban; It exists purely to put the game down down to rolls of the dice with zero other benefit, and regardless of how often it actually swings games, it has no place in a competitive setting. We keep going round in circles about voter numbers, whether its KR or Cloyster, super-majority or regular majority, and I think we've just lost sense of what the whole purpose of tiering is. I swear, if we hadn't banned OHKO moves and evasion from the beginning, there would be people using these exact same arguments to argue for their inclusion in the modern day - "they're a bad option most of the time", "serene grace jirachi has a bigger metagame impact", "only 2 mons abuse them well, just ban those mons!".

 

[pikachu<3]

This is absolutely ridiculous logic. The suspect voter pool is far closer to the 69 people than the general public; most of the point of polling qualified voters is to get the pulse of qualified players of the metagame and that is similar to the point of having suspect tests outright.

In addition, the general public had close to 200 people respond directly after joey uploaded his video on King's Rock and a vast majority of them voted to not ban it like he did; I highly doubt many of them get reqs given the names and prior to that the general public was between 63-65% in favor of banning it.

PS: Your picking 50/50 instead of the 52.3% figure that was the actual result conveniently is the difference between below and above 60%. You also are using a suspect test from earlier this generation which had much higher turnout than recent ones, making this an entirely irrelevant hypothetical you are creating on an even deeper level. This degree of self-serving numerical manipulation has absolutely no place in these threads and your point is entirely inapplicable.

I'm not trying to convince you, or anyone else on the council, on what is the right course of action. I am merely pointing out that a DNB result is possible given the numbers.

If we want to talk about numerical manipulation...

This is 948 different responses and 52.3% of them said they would support a ban of King's Rock in SS OU. Of all respondents, 496 people would support a ban of King's Rock whereas 453 would not support a ban of King's Rock.

If we were to split these between Qualified (59-10) and public (437 - 443), we see that more of the public people voted DNB than Ban. I am not trying to manipulate the numbers; the post was written quickly and I picked numbers that were reasonable and plausible; 50% seemed like a reasonable estimate. Regardless of whether the theoretical tally is 61% or 59%, I think we can agree that, if a suspect test were to happen now, it's definitely possible to get a DNB result, especially if joey decides to make a video during the suspect test!

 

[eden]

yeah but why does the competitive aspect of the game have to cater to the shadowy "public"?

the whole point of having people qualify is so that people who care enough to influence how the tier is run viz-a-viz tours have the ability to do so

if you can't qualify: tough beans - there's no obligation to cater to you, the only thing that is owed to you is a standardized way to make your voice heard, and said due process is why suspect testing exists

decisions on metagames/tiering have never ever been done on a consensus from the general public, why would that change all of a sudden here? there's no agenda being pushed

people who're playing competitively want as much agency over the final result as possible, and when you look at the opinions of people who are qualified to talk about the state of the tier: you see the same reflected

 

[Clone]

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1386641770

Ban this shit already

 

[Finchinator]

I’m currently discussing the matter with OU leadership and tiering administration after discussing the survey results with the OU council last weekend. Stay tuned and we will have an update in the near future, thanks.