Metagame 1v1 Metagame Discussion

[LongRat]

Firsly, you claim that "qualified players thought Drago was less deserving than the playerbase at large". The actual difference is 0.04, which makes your assertion almost comically overexaggerated. I would further point out that the average score for Regidrago is only slightly lower than Gouging Fire, in an era where Haban Gouging was itself an answer to Regidrago. Even further, both mons had a median of 4, which potentially shows that instead of the playerbase converging on a lower average, the Drago DnB voters felt more strongly about DnB than the Gouging voters did.

In fact, that survey post itself states "With this, 2 Pokémon stand out: Gouging Fire and Regidrago are perceived by the average player and highlighted players to be in need of moderate to severe tiering action.". This clearly shows what the attitudes of players were.

 

[Mishlef]

If we're looking at the same post, you've completely misread the data i'm afraid.

View attachment 697231
That's 54.1% for "I believe it should see action immediately". Qualified responses only is even higher.

View attachment 697232The Data in question

Firsly, you claim that "qualified players thought Drago was less deserving than the playerbase at large". The actual difference is 0.04, which makes your assertion almost comically overexaggerated. I would further point out that the average score for Regidrago is only slightly lower than Gouging Fire, in an era where Haban Gouging was itself an answer to Regidrago. Even further, both mons had a median of 4, which potentially shows that instead of the playerbase converging on a lower average, the Drago DnB voters felt more strongly about DnB than the Gouging voters did. I don't think the data backs up your point about the general playerbase not supporting a Drago suspect at all.

I agree that lost heroes misread the post (we all make mistakes) but is it not true that after this survey results posted by Drip there was a suspect following this. Whatever people’s complaints were about the suspect test and its flaws the suspect test did happen and could someone not make the same argument used against many people who were disappointed about past suspect results and say “if you cared enough about it you should have gotten reqs”. I feel like pretending that there’s an overwhelming support for Regidrago suspect and the council is ignoring the community also ignores the posts made by many people who were against Regidrago ban. Lastly I want to air on the side of caution about using the numbers as proof of anything, let me give one such example. Let’s say 54% of the community was in favor of a regidrago ban, and let’s say 54% vote 5 on regidrago and the 46% not in favor of a ban vote 1. The resulting average and median are 3.16 and 5 respectively. I’m not saying that’s what happened but it shows that we should be a bit more cautious about talking using those numbers as justification of much because in my opinion the 1-5 system results in the amplification of pro ban voices, especially without taking into account that what as 2 or a 3 for one person may drastically be different than what those are for a different person.

 

[lost heros]

That's 54.1% for "I believe it should see action immediately". Qualified responses only is even higher.

View attachment 697232The Data in question

Firsly, you claim that "qualified players thought Drago was less deserving than the playerbase at large". The actual difference is 0.04, which makes your assertion almost comically overexaggerated. I would further point out that the average score for Regidrago is only slightly lower than Gouging Fire, in an era where Haban Gouging was itself an answer to Regidrago. Even further, both mons had a median of 4, which potentially shows that instead of the playerbase converging on a lower average, the Drago DnB voters felt more strongly about DnB than the Gouging voters did.

I don't think the data backs up your point about the general playerbase not supporting a Drago suspect at all.

3.31 < 3.35. Small, but not wrong. And when we're talking about scales from 1-5. 0.04 is not tiny, and would imply that there are slightly more 4 and 5 votes being removed than there are 1 and 2 votes, which is significant when there are already more 4 and 5 votes than there are 1 and 2.

I do think the playerbase supports a suspect. I do not think that the playerbase is overwhelming 100 to 1 for a suspect.

I don’t believe referencing two surveys conducted during the era of Gouging Fire and Ogerpon-Hearthflame as solid evidence against the idea of overwhelming support is entirely valid, as they reflect a different metagame. Back then, Regidrago didn’t warrant priority over those mentioned Pokémon, as both overshadowed it. The metagame has shifted, and we can’t directly compare past priorities with the present ones. While pro-Drago suspect support was not overwhelmingly strong at the time, it still existed. However, it’s clear that the support has become overwhelming post-Gouging Fire ban, as indicated by the posts targeting Drago in that thread after the ban.



This demonstrates that the council was more lenient in allowing the community to propose suspects in the past. However, it doesn't reflect the concerns or dynamics of today’s metagame



I have not ignored the DNS posts; quite the opposite, I included them in the 12-4 count. Interestingly, I even considered Bo's post in the "4," despite him ending it with "Suspect." While the DNS/DNB crowd is present, it’s clear that they do not form the majority—there are always two sides to the discussion, and in this case, the S crowd holds the majority. Furthermore, there seems to be a conflict of interest when three votes are required to render something "unsuspectable," and two of those votes are from individuals who have already expressed a DNB stance on Regidrago in the OTR, dismissing the numerous outcries. It’s valid to hold Ban/DNB and S/DNS opinions, but ultimately, the outcry should be respected, even if it isn’t aligned with one's personal views.

I misread the colors, so the action taken does make more sense, but nonetheless still ended in a narrow DNB margin.

I don't see how council members holding opinions is a conflict of interest, unless you are to say my opinions are also a conflict of interest, despite thinking Drago should've been suspected? These people are informed and skilled players who have been trusted to not just act with the community in mind, but to also serve the metagame to their own knowledge base.

 

[Mishlef]

I have not ignored the DNS posts; quite the opposite, I included them in the 12-4 count. Interestingly, I even considered Bo's post in the "4," despite him ending it with "Suspect." While the DNS/DNB crowd is present, it’s clear that they do not form the majority—there are always two sides to the discussion, and in this case, the S crowd holds the majority. Furthermore, there seems to be a conflict of interest when three votes are required to render something "unsuspectable," and two of those votes are from individuals who have already expressed a DNB stance on Regidrago in the OTR, dismissing the numerous outcries. It’s valid to hold Ban/DNB and S/DNS opinions, but ultimately, the outcry should be respected, even if it isn’t aligned with one's personal views.

I have issues with this framing, one it seems that council members are being held up to two different contradictory standards the first being one of transparency in which case one would believe they should post and voice their opinions. The second is that of acting solely as barometers for the community and treating it like a poll, which in turn you believe means they shouldn’t express their stance on the OTR. I think this is the wrong approach as I value transparency first and foremost. Additionally, I think it’s laughably contradictory that you don’t hold this level of critique to the two council members who made posts in favor of a Regidrago suspect.

 

[DEG]

I don't see how council members holding opinions is a conflict of interest, unless you are to say my opinions are also a conflict of interest, despite thinking Drago should've been suspected?

I think it’s laughably contradictory that you don’t hold this level of critique to the two council members who made posts in favor of a Regidrago suspect.

If the community was leaning to DNS and 4/6 council member forced the Pokemon to go to a suspect test then they'd be hold accountable to the same level. It's just a theory since 1) It's harder to get something suspected against the will of people, 2) It's even harder to get something banned if that happens.

+ I never said they can't be transparent and state their opinion. They're free to state their opinion and change the mind of people in a potential S/DNS discussion or in a potential B/DNB discussion but three people shouldn't go against the majority of the community and force their opinion on them.

 

[LongRat]

I agree that lost heroes misread the post (we all make mistakes) but is it not true that after this survey results posted by Drip there was a suspect following this.

I am confused about this first line and need elaboration. I did not talk about Gouging regarding Drip's post nor claim that this is the case.
Not me hallucinating the word "Gouging"

Whatever people’s complaints were about the suspect test and its flaws the suspect test did happen and could someone not make the same argument used against many people who were disappointed about past suspect results and say “if you cared enough about it you should have gotten reqs”. I feel like pretending that there’s an overwhelming support for Regidrago suspect and the council is ignoring the community also ignores the posts made by many people who were against Regidrago ban.

I don't think anyone is ignoring the DnB voters nor claiming "overwhelming" support for banning Drago - only a majority. This is simply backed up by the polls that Lost Heros linked, where Regidrago is consistently ranked as needing action. In the first poll, a whopping 89.2% supported action on Drago at some point. In the second poll, Regidrago puts up similar numbers to the banned and not-missed Gouging.

Lastly I want to air on the side of caution about using the numbers as proof of anything, let me give one such example. Let’s say 54% of the community was in favor of a regidrago ban, and let’s say 54% vote 5 on regidrago and the 46% not in favor of a ban vote 1. The resulting average and median are 3.16 and 5 respectively. I’m not saying that’s what happened but it shows that we should be a bit more cautious about talking using those numbers as justification of much because in my opinion the 1-5 system results in the amplification of pro ban voices, especially without taking into account that what as 2 or a 3 for one person may drastically be different than what those are for a different person.

I think if we go down the road of "numbers can't be trusted" then concretely arguing for anything at all becomes impossible. While indeed the difference between each number is subjective, I can't help but feel like trying to disregard numbers from poll results simply comes from wanting to disregard the results themselves. I made a point earlier about the difference in mean vs the non-difference in median, and I can fully see how that can be quibbled with. But I just don't like the idea of not trusting any numbers.

 

[Mishlef]

If the community was leaning to DNS and 4/6 council member forced the Pokemon to go to a suspect test then they'd be hold accountable to the same level. It's just a theory since 1) It's harder to get something suspected against the will of people, 2) It's even harder to get something banned if that happens.

+ I never said they can't be transparent and state their opinion. They're free to state their opinion and change the mind of people in a potential S/DNS discussion or in a potential B/DNB discussion but three people shouldn't go against the majority of the community and force their opinion on them.

The onus of a regidrago suspect to happen is for the ban regidrago side to make convincing arguments, this is definitionally the case. Do you believe that a simple majority(50% +1) (let’s say a poll) would be sufficient justification for a suspect test to occur? If you acknowledge that they are free to change the minds of a potential S/DNS discussion then why do you want them to not take into consideration the posts people make and use them to determine whether they think a suspect test is warranted or not? OTR function(tmk) is not to act as a poll otherwise one liners and the like wouldn’t be deleted because if it was a straightforward poll then these one liners in support of something would be equally valid to the longer posts which formulate their stance with arguments

 

[LongRat]

3.31 < 3.35. Small, but not wrong. And when we're talking about scales from 1-5. 0.04 is not tiny, and would imply that there are slightly more 4 and 5 votes being removed than there are 1 and 2 votes, which is significant when there are already more 4 and 5 votes than there are 1 and 2.

0.04 is 100% tiny. In a poll with 69 non-qualified and 26 qualified voters, this difference could come from a single 3 being changed to a 2. Maybe two 3s.

I do think the playerbase supports a suspect. I do not think that the playerbase is overwhelming 100 to 1 for a suspect.

Two people seem to have gotten the impression that I said there was huge, widesweeping support for a Drago suspect. I did not mean to imply this, so sorry if I did. I refer to myself to respond to this:

Me to Mishelf:
I don't think anyone is ignoring the DnB voters nor claiming "overwhelming" support for banning Drago - only a majority. This is simply backed up by the polls that Lost Heros linked, where Regidrago is consistently ranked as needing action. In the first poll, a whopping 89.2% supported action on Drago at some point. In the second poll, Regidrago puts up similar numbers to the banned and not-missed Gouging.

 

[BigChuchu]

What is done is done, but...

Can we just have an odd number of voting council members to avoid this controversial situation of pure 50/50 in the future?

• "What if someone abstains?", you ask – well, what if they don't?)
• " Yeah b-b-but 4/7 is still not 60%! Ha!" – technically right. Is a 60% needed ALSO for 7-member council votes? It's a supermajority, maybe we can apply common sense?

PS: let's re-direct all our rage towards Pecharunt next.

 

[Mishlef]

Can we just have an odd number of voting council members to avoid this controversial situation of pure 50/50 in the future?

I don’t think this outcome can be labeled controversial because when there is a straight 50/50 the correct course of action is the status quo. Therefore as the status quo is for Regidrago to not have a suspect so this is working exactly as it should be. You can argue it’s controversial to have a tiering council but that’s a separate conversation and a separate argument than the one you’re making.

 

[DEG]

The onus of a regidrago suspect to happen is for the ban regidrago side to make convincing arguments, this is definitionally the case. Do you believe that a simple majority(50% +1) (let’s say a poll) would be sufficient justification for a suspect test to occur? If you acknowledge that they are free to change the minds of a potential S/DNS discussion then why do you want them to not take into consideration the posts people make and use them to determine whether they think a suspect test is warranted or not? OTR function(tmk) is not to act as a poll otherwise one liners and the like wouldn’t be deleted because if it was a straightforward poll then these one liners in support of something would be equally valid to the longer posts which formulate their stance with arguments

I don't get the convincing arguments part, if the arguments weren't good then the majority of the community wouldn't be siding with the suspect side. I don't think the community will rally behind a non suspect worthy Pokemon by providing bad arguments.

I believe the whole OTR>Council Voting system is flawed. As we've just witnessed both of these can be contradictory. There's no reason to have an OTR if the council is still going to vote against the community, might as well just have read that thread and vote. OTR is redundant and useless if it's not going to serve its true purpose which is to rally all voices in one thread. If that's not OTR objective then the whole system should change.

 

[BigChuchu]

I don’t think this outcome can be labeled controversial because when there is a straight 50/50 the correct course of action is the status quo. Therefore as the status quo is for Regidrago to not have a suspect so this is working exactly as it should be. You can argue it’s controversial to have a tiering council but that’s a separate conversation and a separate argument than the one you’re making.

Legality and controversy are not mutually exclusive. A law or policy can be legally valid, yet still spark intense public debate, disagreement, and criticism.

My suggestion still stands.

 

[Mishlef]

I don't get the convincing arguments part, if the arguments weren't good then the majority of the community wouldn't be siding with the suspect side. I don't think the community will rally behind a non suspect worthy Pokemon by providing bad arguments.

If the arguments were made using faulty evidence then yes the arguments can be unconvincing even if a lot of people believe it. Just because someone said corv loses to specs drago does not mean it is true and if that’s one of the reasons a person uses as justification for a position then of course it’s possible a community can rally behind a non suspect worthy mon by providing bad arguments.

Legality and controversy are not mutually exclusive. A law or policy can be legally valid, yet still spark intense public debate, disagreement, and criticism.

My suggestion still stands.

Yes, but this one isn’t, unless you believe the onus and responsibility of whether Regidrago gets suspected or not should be on people wanting to not ban Regidrago instead of the people who want to ban Regidrago. If you believe that onus of proof is on the Ban Regidrago crowd you must also believe that if there is a 50/50 you have to go with the do not ban crowd. Do you believe this to be true?

 

[luser]

Short non-conclusive pro ban post by DreamPrince (who is not really a qualified member of the playerbase

DreamPrince is actually a two-time sv 1v1 reqs qualifier and suspect voter.

I do not like it when my council members arbitrarily decide that someone's comment is less worthy of consideration, and I think that this is a clear signal of how the council views the community.

 

[RADU]

I don't get the convincing arguments part, if the arguments weren't good then the majority of the community wouldn't be siding with the suspect side. I don't think the community will rally behind a non suspect worthy Pokemon by providing bad arguments.

I believe the whole OTR>Council Voting system is flawed. As we've just witnessed both of these can be contradictory. There's no reason to have an OTR if the council is still going to vote against the community, might as well just have read that thread and vote. OTR is redundant and useless if it's not going to serve its true purpose which is to rally all voices in one thread. If that's not OTR objective then the whole system should change.

OTR was a tool for the council to gather more community input, and that it did. What I gathered from OTR was that there was no adequate justification for a suspect, so I acted accordingly by voting do not suspect.
I stated clearly and openly what I would've liked to see for me to vote for a suspect, as I was somewhat on the fence at the time, and that did not happen. OTR served its purpose in letting me know that either there was no solid argument for the pro-ban side to make, or that the feelings towards regidrago were not strong enough for that argument to come to fruition.

Frankly speaking, drago got suspected into a DNB, sentiments towards its ban were mixed in the OTR thread, and the council (representatives of the community) voted do not suspect. There is no such thing as an overwhelming push towards its ban

Also, as a member of the council I speak for myself, not for the whole council, so DEG as a member of the community please speak for yourself, not for the entire community. If this sentiment is as you say, then the community would have/will follow suit on its own.

DreamPrince is actually a two-time sv 1v1 reqs qualifier and suspect voter.

I do not like it when my council members arbitrarily decide that someone's comment is less worthy of consideration, and I think that this is a clear signal of how the council views the community.

yea I fucked up, I apologize DreamPrince I didn't mean it this way towards you, my main sentiment was directed towards the contents of the post which on top of being only 5 lines short contained misinformation such as corvi losing to drago and also the statement that drago doesnt have any hard counters besides fairies, which are just false. I did not mean to carry out my general dismissal of his post as a specific dismissal of him as a player/person. so again i apologize, i know he's a qualified contributor

 

[RTM]

In 1v1 there is no objective measure of whether something is unhealthy or not, the closest thing you can get is lots of subjective opinions on whether it’s healthy or not.

The community found something unhealthy in the survey, the council voted do not suspect. Increase council size or give community a way to contribute beyond trying to influence council members through posts.

I feel like lots of council members use the cop-out excuse blaming people for not making posts as to why they voted a certain way. “If you want it gone, post about it etc etc”

From experience as an ex council member, I was never really influenced at all by other people’s posts, meta discussion or otr. I still used that excuse though!

Can we also stop treating scarlet violet 1v1 metagame discussion like an ace attorney court case. This is just making problems where everything is already fine (been there done that).

 

[Felucia]

I figure it's about time I write a post on the matter considering the way things have gone. I don't know exactly where to start so bear with me, but I'll be trying my best to clear up as much as I can; addressing concerns, clearing up misconceptions, and talking about how the process can be improved in the future.

First and foremost, I'm disappointed in the way this news was received. Some of our community members claim that this outcry was to be expected, and sure I also expected a portion of the community to be dissatisfied when the vote ended the way it did, but being dissatisfied does not justify resorting to personal attacks, passive-aggression, and sarcastic remarks. This doesn't just go for the above discussion, but also discourse in the discord server, 1v1 room, and in private circles. This includes people who argue pro-suspect and anti-suspect, between authority figures, council members, and regular users. I'm not just telling you this as a moderator, I'm telling you this as someone trying to be a decent person on the internet: If you want to feel listened to, give people a reason to want to listen, and the first step to that is treating them with some basic respect.

My role is somewhat special in the sense that I didn't get a vote myself and am not directly responsible for the outcome, but as council leader I feel responsible for managing the process and more importantly the community's expectations. A lot of what happened here wasn't just a result of council members voting the way they did, but also the result of me not giving everyone the stable process and clarity I could've. I'm sorry this situation didn't turn out according to your expectations, I could've done more to make things clear had I proceeded with more patience, structure, and caution.

With that said, I'm going to try to address as many of the complaints and misconceptions I've seen floating around as possible. First things first, I've seen a lot of concerns about the vote ending in a tie. There's heaps of precedent across both 1v1 and smogon for councils having an even amount of members (as a matter of fact Ubers and UU currently have 8 members each), and this hasn't led to problems for us in the past. There is no difference between "even number doesn't reach majority" and "uneven number doesn't reach majority" unless the community's expectations about the meaning of a tie are wrong. Let me make it clear: in the case of ties in votes, the winning side will always be the status quo unless a different tiebreaker is explicitly in place, which is not the case here.

Additionally, at least one person was confused about this ogerpon-hearthflame vote resulting in a suspect despite being a 50/50 ban vote. At first glance I can understand why this looks like an opposite outcome for an identical situation, but relevant context here is that this Oger-H vote was not a suspect vote. The suspect was already decided at this point and due to the timing potentially disrupting PL, the vote went between "ban and re-suspect" and "suspect immediately." In this case, just like for Regidrago, the option deviating from status quo (default is suspect) didn't get a greater than 50% support, and thus Oger-H got suspect tested and not quickbanned.

Next, I want to talk about the notion that this vote was treated by individual council members as "DNB vs Ban" and not "DNS vs Sus." The story being portrayed here is that it's impossible for half the council to decide not to want to suspect test Regidrago when it's so clearly supported in the rest of the community. I won't pretend I know exactly what the community wants in extensive detail, but I do know that a portion of the council was strongly weighing the fact that this is a resuspect. I've publicly said this as well: The case for banning drago despite a suspect already having been done just needs to be stronger than it was before. Although I personally probably would've voted to suspect drago, I am incredibly on the fence and don't blame anyone who believes the case was not strong enough.

Tangent

Putting this in a hide tag because it's arguing semantics and subjective interpretation of statistics and people's opinions, this is not constructive to the general discussion and I'd much rather focus on things we can actually verifiably change to work towards a better future, but I want to have it said

Council has a responsibility to the community, to the metagame, and to smogon's general tiering policy. This means that the community is just one factor in making decisions, and if you believe council should be a perfect reflection of the community's wishes then you're misunderstanding the role of the council. After all, that would make a council vote a formality, and we might as well decide everything by public poll. So let's look at the community's actual wishes in the most valid and objective way possible (please read the sarcasm): A room poll. Thankfully a lovely staff member made such a roompoll after the conclusion of OTR, so we have such data to use for our little thought experiment. The result of this poll was that 65% of the voters want to suspect Regidrago, and 35% did not (spread across a few options because Iron Crown was also factored). Considering council is weighing more than just the direct wishes of the community, I honestly don't think a 15% deviation from the expected voting outcome is all that surprising or excessive.

I know these numbers are useless because roompolls don't paint a good picture due to the excessively low barrier of entry to voting, but the point here is that the wishes of the community are easy to misrepresent. Hell, the last drago suspect was supposedly "what the community wanted" and yet it didn't end up banned because there wasn't enough community support.

I also want to address something DEG said:

Additionally, I was informed that a council member stated in the Discord that they do not care about the community's opinion. Such a comment is concerning, as it undermines the principles of collaboration and accountability that should guide the council’s actions. It is essential for council members to listen to and engage with the community, as their feedback is critical in making informed decisions that reflect the broader player base.

If you have records of this happening, please reach out to me about it so I can take action. Pretty much all of 1v1 council has been very vocal during the whole process of this OTR, answering public questions, posting on OTR and in discord's metagame discussion channel, addressing points made by the community and attempting to argue both in favour of and against a regidrago suspect test in good faith. If there is a council member undermining these efforts by wholeheartedly making statements like this, they should be held accountable. That being said, as it stands this statement only serves to draw conclusions and set an inflammatory tone to vilify the council as a whole because of the supposed words of an individual. I've said this earlier in my post and it was far from directed just at you or this comment, but I want everyone to please mind your tone. If you or anyone else has pressing concerns about the integrity of council especially if you have evidence to back it up reach out to someone who can do something about it, I urge everyone to do this, I am more than happy to personally address your concerns if you approach me in good faith.

Lastly, I want to reassure everyone who thinks the votes are not public. We are not hiding who voted what, and have in fact mentioned it on discord more than once. I didn't think it was important to include something like that in the OTR closing post, but since some people want it in writing on smogon here it is:

• bern: Do Not Suspect
• delemon: Do Not Suspect
• lost heros: Suspect
• Murm: Suspect
• neomon: Suspect
• RADU: Do Not Suspect

I'll be keeping an eye out, considering the clamours for publishing these votes have come from the same people who are passionately unhappy with the voting outcome, I will not have any tolerance for directing dissatisfaction at individual council members who didn't vote according to your wishes. If you wish to talk to them, feel free to reach out and I'm sure they'll be happy to explain to you why they voted the way they did, but if you do so with hostility I will protect them as a moderator.

What's next?
I would genuinely like to hear if there are notable improvements to be made to the entire process that we just went through. I've seen a lot of conflicting feedback that is incredibly hard to work with, ranging from "surveys are useless" to "we should've done a survey." Please engage in serious discussion about this so we can make 1v1 the best it can be. I heard a few suggestions about tiebreakers, and am willing to look into them provided they fit into tiering policy or precedent elsewhere. Even if we make a change to tiebreakers though, we won't be retroactively applying them to this vote.

As we start talking about how to move forward, it's important to mention the upcoming post-worldcup survey that will most likely be released next week. We (council) would love your input on how to decide which Pokémon should be mentioned on the survey, ideally not cluttering the metagame discussion thread with it but instead reaching out in the 1v1 room or on discord. I would personally like to aim to keep the pool of Pokémon relatively small, to get focused input from the community on a set of key issues, but I know opinions on this differ so do reach out.

Also, the aforementioned roompoll (if you read my tangent) showed almost 50% support for an Iron Crown suspect test, so despite it being overshadowed by Regidrago on OTR, now might not be a bad time to start giving your thoughts about it in an organised way.

Felu out o/

 

[Kala chasmah]

All Threads:- Qualifiers:- https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/1v1-regidrago-suspect-voter-id-thread.3744258/
Votes:- https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-1v1-suspect-7-regidrago.3745144/

Additionally, at least one person was confused about this ogerpon-hearthflame vote resulting in a suspect despite being a 50/50 ban vote. At first glance I can understand why this looks like an opposite outcome for an identical situation, but relevant context here is that this Oger-H vote was not a suspect vote. The suspect was already decided at this point and due to the timing potentially disrupting PL, the vote went between "ban and re-suspect" and "suspect immediately." In this case, just like for Regidrago, the option deviating from status quo (default is suspect) didn't get a greater than 50% support, and thus Oger-H got suspect tested and not quickbanned.

First of all I believe comparing Regidrago's suspect test from gouging fire (not mentioned in ur post), Archaludon (not mentioned) or oger-h (mentioned) that it didn't got support above 50%. Why?

1.) 12 Users only able to qualify to come to a final decision whether regidrago feels bannable or not compared to Gouging and Oger-h suspect tests which felt very rough.
2.) The Voting ended with 7 BAN and 5 DO NOT BAN in which after 2 really very imp. suspect test done in past, thoughts changing for regidrago getting banned is possible. King Griffin is one of them and their reason was same as others stating ''Very versatile stats with a hell lot of hp + atk nd spa which makes it a great mixed atacker can take hits nd blocks a whole lot of meta to build around with''. I still don't know what longrat think but it seems like he don't like the presence of regidrago too ig? Not sure.

The case for banning drago despite a suspect already having been done just needs to be stronger than it was before. Although I personally probably would've voted to suspect drago, I am incredibly on the fence and don't blame anyone who believes the case was not strong enough.

Regidrago's suspect test was probably the worst i have seen until now compared to the other 3 lol.

Lastly, I want to reassure everyone who thinks the votes are not public. We are not hiding who voted what, and have in fact mentioned it on discord more than once. I didn't think it was important to include something like that in the OTR closing post, but since some people want it in writing on smogon here it is:

• bern: Do Not Suspect
• delemon: Do Not Suspect
• lost heros: Suspect
• Murm: Suspect
• neomon: Suspect
• RADU: Do Not Suspect

Since starting of the discussion for regidrago 1 thing was always mentioned, it can be used in any team and forces to use their real counters and we can't enhance our skills by using any other mon. Before radu say that ''What do u wanna use, a grass type?'', I would like to mention that Bo Bobson (If I am not wrong) said in his post that we just don't want to be creative! Nah, hell na.... Firstly, I feel like using some sort of a mon that runs av and have great def and have the capability to defeat regidrago feels very hard due to their bulk and power. Secondly, If we achieve to do the first, the problem begins is losing to other mons and it gets to hard to cover rest of the mons we usually have in our threalist due to 1st mon being less able to face others. Well I have tried it so I thought it made a sense to write it here.

Now with the context to the above paragraph, In this complete list of councils who voted, all of them had 0 uniqueness in their builds [Murm hasn't played any tour after PL so won't be targeting them and he was actually building really good compared to me and lumii (she was busy IRL)] . I don't think I need to spam their replays here and analyse it. At the end of the day, we stick to the same pattern of building because of being scared of regidrago and keep neglecting mons which can be used if regidrago has no presence in this tier.

For Radu:- Don't take this personal but in most of ur post u made until now whether its OTR or here, what I could see was you reading out the Policies which made 0 sense and didn't prove your point. You kept asking the community to provide a strong evidence (thats what felucia did rn) makes 0 sense too lol after pointing like every single thing i believe.

Rest of the Council:- (Specifically Bern, Delemon and Radu) If u have any idea to convince us that suspecting/banning Regidrago is of no use without pasting your old thread and telling us to read it would be appreciable.

After this post if this discussion continues I would ask you all 1 more thing that stop picking a line of any1 and start stretching that look we are being told that corvi loses to specs drago or some other stuff... Its better to correct them and move on! (Thanks for the Apology)

If the arguments were made using faulty evidence then yes the arguments can be unconvincing even if a lot of people believe it. Just because someone said corv loses to specs drago does not mean it is true and if that’s one of the reasons a person uses as justification for a position then of course it’s possible a community can rally behind a non suspect worthy mon by providing bad arguments.

Just like that^

What's next?
I would genuinely like to hear if there are notable improvements to be made to the entire process that we just went through. I've seen a lot of conflicting feedback that is incredibly hard to work with, ranging from "surveys are useless" to "we should've done a survey." Please engage in serious discussion about this so we can make 1v1 the best it can be. I heard a few suggestions about tiebreakers, and am willing to look into them provided they fit into tiering policy or precedent elsewhere. Even if we make a change to tiebreakers though, we won't be retroactively applying them to this vote.

Well thats understandable someone saying ''surveys are useless'' after pointing out 1000 times but ye thats not right. IDK but it seems funny to ME how everyone are stuck in 1 loop of building a team and we think 1v1 will become the best it can be.

Also, the aforementioned roompoll (if you read my tangent) showed almost 50% support for an Iron Crown suspect test, so despite it being overshadowed by Regidrago on OTR, now might not be a bad time to start giving your thoughts about it in an organised way.

Felu out o/

Roompoll's are usually terrible imo. People usually enter different room's and vote and then leave with 0 knowledge what and why they should vote. Its exactly like my teacher's asking complete class to vote in 4 options and more than half of the students love to click option 1.

Also, as a member of the council I speak for myself, not for the whole council, so DEG as a member of the community please speak for yourself, not for the entire community. If this sentiment is as you say, then the community would have/will follow suit on its own.

Tbh I am on deg side and idr mind whatever he wrote in every single post above. I think reactions system in smogon is great to express your feelings how much do u like what a person wrote and I think most of the people are agreeing what he's saying who wants to get regidrago banned. Maybe, yeah maybe you are trying to say indirectly that he's trying to put words in our mouth but idt that's true.

Well, I am sorry if I was rude anywhere in my post but it was necessary to point you out what seems logical and what's not to me. I hope my post not to be deleted and be open and give a great response.

Regards,
Kala Chasmah

 

[LongRat]

I still don't know what longrat think but it seems like he don't like the presence of regidrago too ig? Not sure.

Get that mf dragon out !!!!

 

[BigChuchu]

Kala chasmah I appreciate the effort in your post but I think we should move on, really, and that's coming from a hardcore Drago hater. Felucia's post seemed like the best conclusion to this whole debate.

Best we can do as a "protest" is manually add Drago in the "any other mon" field of the next OTR survey, because it won't be among the pre-suggested mons anymore, the council made that clear. :D

In the meantime, merry Christmas and happy new year to all!

 

[recti]

If Regidrago is such a problem then just use a fairy type. Ik ik, easier said than done but like... THIS IS 1v1. The whole point is to bamboozle the meta with the unforseen tech (see this post right here for the weird basculegion). If anything, I can come in to save the day and fry regidrago for yalls

The argument is that it's unhealthy because it restricts creativity by forcing fairies and steels on to teams, not that it's broken.

 

[Kanha Greninja]

The argument is that it's unhealthy because it restricts creativity by forcing fairies and steels on to teams, not that it's broken.

Isn’t that the exact argument in gen 8 aswell? Regidrago should never be banned imo

 

[delemon]

In umpl

I think if we ban hoopa crown and drago the metagame will be more stable because then people wont be forced into running hoopa crown and drago on every team

In umpl only a little over a third of the teams had one of regidrago, iron crown, hoopa unbound and hoopa bound
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/umpl-iv-usage-statistics.3753480/

then there will be more metagame diversity allowing for less common birds like squawkabilly, cramorant, and regigigas

Regigigas is not a bird.

 

[DEG]

weird weird and weird.

This survey is like a slap on the face of the community truthfully. Can we please get full transparency on why was the most popular "unhealthy" Pokemon skipped? I don't believe it was done as a form of spite or elitism but this does seem like a way for council to hide behind their finger and not giving the community the data it wants to "prove" that the majority of the community thinks Regidrago is THE unhealthy element. Come on, we had better tiering times, why did we send our tiering system to years ago, this is disastrous. Give US the elements to show you that we think Regidrago is THE unhealthy element, why was it removed, why, why.

Also, as a member of the council I speak for myself, not for the whole council, so @DEG as a member of the community please speak for yourself, not for the entire community. If this sentiment is as you say, then the community would have/will follow suit on its own.

I do speak for the majority of the community, while it is not the best way, the reaction score showcase that. Not everyone likes to argue over and over again when they realize their posts are being brushed over, but I'm not everyone. Plus a lot of people don't enjoy posting but I'm sure that's the majority sentiment, we need a Regidrago suspect.

I won't pretend I know exactly what the community wants in extensive detail, but I do know that a portion of the council was strongly weighing the fact that this is a resuspect. I've publicly said this as well: The case for banning drago despite a suspect already having been done just needs to be stronger than it was before. Although I personally probably would've voted to suspect drago, I am incredibly on the fence and don't blame anyone who believes the case was not strong enough.

Should have put it on the survey so you're sure what the community wants, and not add Pokemon people barely talked about. As of now, the council decision-making is just them talking and deciding in an empty room, doing what they think is best, while closing their ears. If that's not the case then that's what its showing.

If you have records of this happening, please reach out to me about it so I can take action. Pretty much all of 1v1 council has been very vocal during the whole process of this OTR, answering public questions, posting on OTR and in discord's metagame discussion channel, addressing points made by the community and attempting to argue both in favour of and against a regidrago suspect test in good faith. If there is a council member undermining these efforts by wholeheartedly making statements like this, they should be held accountable. That being said, as it stands this statement only serves to draw conclusions and set an inflammatory tone to vilify the council as a whole because of the supposed words of an individual. I've said this earlier in my post and it was far from directed just at you or this comment, but I want everyone to please mind your tone. If you or anyone else has pressing concerns about the integrity of council especially if you have evidence to back it up reach out to someone who can do something about it, I urge everyone to do this, I am more than happy to personally address your concerns if you approach me in good faith.

I was given the logs / were discussed with me by people but apparently it was a joke as cleared above.

I would genuinely like to hear if there are notable improvements to be made to the entire process that we just went through. I've seen a lot of conflicting feedback that is incredibly hard to work with, ranging from "surveys are useless" to "we should've done a survey." Please engage in serious discussion about this so we can make 1v1 the best it can be. I heard a few suggestions about tiebreakers, and am willing to look into them provided they fit into tiering policy or precedent elsewhere. Even if we make a change to tiebreakers though, we won't be retroactively applying them to this vote.

Be my guest, will post about that later cause it needs more brainstorming and at a time that is less chaotic so we can focus on that.

 

[MattC (Banned)]

Hey hey hey everyone. Happy New Year to all! 2025 is going to bring forth good fortune, I can feel it.

To start off the new year, I GOT TOP 500 ON LADDER FOR THE FIRST TIME WHOOOOOOOOOO!!! I feel so happy that I can come back to 1v1 and make waves so soon. Granted I had a biiit of a push with the Incineroar team a while back, but hey--I made it. And besides, even if I started at 0 Elo, I bet my team would've made the distance within a short amount of time

This is the team that I used to make the 230-ish Elo distance. It's currently 14-2, and makes use of my newfound cook in Granbull that I continuously glaze until people see its potential.

TuFF the Granbull

TuFF (Granbull) @ Custap Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 204 HP / 160 Def / 100 SpD / 44 Spe
Impish Nature
- Play Rough
- Encore
- Bulk Up
- Endure

This is the focal point of my team. I was looking at the meta and realized something: The Dragons are incredibly oppressive, in part due to the fact that they cover most of each others flaws. The main one you need to beat is the oppressive , however, that's quite easy nowadays given its severe vulnerability to any Fairy type with a semblance of bulk. So then we move on to , , ... suddenly, that Drago check isn't looking too good against the other dragons. Enter , the slow bulldog that could.

effectively beats nearly every single popular Dragon, Fighting, and Dark type in the current metagame, ASSUMING that you aren't simply hard countered against the set you're facing. With Bulk Up and Encore, this Custap Berry variant of can effectively solo what it needs to beat, made better by Bulk Up's +1 Attack and Defense. Encore furthermore can put the opponent in a setup move that they don't want to be in (thank the Lord for Bulk Up boosting that defense). While Play Rough as the only attack might seem like a joke, keep in mind that is only supposed to beat the Dragons, and some other stuff along the way. And this is the best set to do that. The bulk investment lives Choice Band/Specs as well as Hydro Steam > Aqua Jet. This set 1v1s the following from my personal experience, varying in no order from always to needing a few reads:

This guy is TuFF as hell, man.

Steamy boi the Volcanion

Steamy boi (Volcanion) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 112 HP / 88 Def / 128 SpA / 180 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Steam Eruption
- Overheat
- Sludge Wave
- Earth Power

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Much like the epic gen 8 team I made (Gorsola + AV Zeraora + Garmanitan), I needed to fill in the blanks. was so incredibly specific in what it beat, much like , so I needed to cover its main weakness: Steels.

However, a little story about this guy: I initially had and instead of and . The reason being, I wanted to beat Encore + Disable as well as , with being the fix-it glue of sorts. This was, a very VERY bad first team, but... it was the initial draft, so you can't really blame the me 9 days ago for being naive compared to the me now.

This aims to delete all Steel types in its path, as well as beat , , and like... over half the meta in general. The bulk allows it to live 2 Power Whip's from standard . 180 Speed to barely creep 32 Speed that are so common nowadays. The rest of the stats were put into a modest 128 Special Attack that can just about OHKO everything. THIS guy, is really good.

Donfan the Great Tusk

Donfan (Great Tusk) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Def / 116 SpD / 44 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Headlong Rush
- Close Combat
- Ice Spinner
- Head Smash

So as the last slot, I realized that needed to beat Ground types, but couldn't beat most of them. This is where comes into play.

44 Speed for 32 speed , outbulks a hurricane, then the rest of the stats are put into Attack, with the remainder in Defense. Head Smash is a BALLSY move, able to annihilate the likes of and . Headlong Rush, Close Combat, and Ice Spinner are simple coverage options to use against meta. Not really much to say here. Head Smash is goated for a move with like no accuracy.

These are the winning replays I saved along the way, with a few not being ladder matches. The later matches are earlier in my journey, if you're confused on the ELO Rankings shown in the matches.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2273212121
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2272296066-k28jp521v4nx59gb58jbqvt090wwbjrpw?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2272295359-8eg7v5n6ukndfdxrqtbty135rus76hzpw?p2 (pre Great Tusk)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2271162633-um6xintt8054h2af4zqqv50jckt3hcppw (pre Volcanion/Great Tusk)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2273210965
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2272385987
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2272380147-jlnaq5iq1rkiiwy6tsl4jjad9e6kq0zpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2272377159-uvn6caz7i932cdn2cazzb9fk3z3yhxypw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2273214116

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2272361051
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen91v1-2272379245-3mwo3l70vrbbid083qkq9fbfbaqiudipw

CLOSE OUT

SHOUT OUT :speaking_head:

Huge shoutouts to the majority of the 1v1 community, mainly happysh, Iron Crusher, UwU1v1, Elo Bandit, and DripLegend. Y'all all helped me during the teambuilding process of this heat, giving me suggestions and helping me during the beginning stages of this team. If I missed anyone else who helped me, I'm sorry, but your work will be remembered in honor of this post.

This is the pokepaste of the team, for those that skipped through everything else: https://pokepast.es/036239bbe70779c6
And thank you for your time, my friends. In the meantime, I'll be making more Granbull sets for the upcoming Granbull addition to the VR. Hope you guys try out the team. See ya!