Lower Tiers ADV RU: A Modest Proposal

[BP]

approved by Star

A Modest Proposal (ADV RU)
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After a disgusting RUBD record and a mediocre RUWC record, I fully expect you to take this post with a grain of salt. However, I ask that you still read and consider this proposal. I am a Tier Leader of an unofficial old-generation metagame, and while my metagame does not suffer from the same problem RU does, I think it's still important that I provide my take on what should be done. I want to clarify that this is not ill-intentioned, nor am I calling out the council for differing opinions. I am simply highlighting a problem I perceive with how the metagame is tiered that I believe should be fixed. The way RU is tiered is not necessarily an issue in and of itself. However, given the circumstances surrounding ADV RU, I think it is flawed.

As it stands, ADV RU is sandwiched between NU, a frozen metagame, and UU, which, while still technically frozen, is seeing updates every couple of years or so. This is where the problem begins to arise. According to the first official ADV RU post by LpZ, ADV RU comprises Pokemon ranked C+ and below on the ADV UU viability ranking and all NU legal Pokemon. This is standard viability-based tiering, and it has no issue. However, because RU itself is unfrozen and actively tiering, it is forced to deal with a subset of Pokemon that will never change from NU while still being at the mercy of rises and drops from UU. While I cannot see the future, it seems ADV RU will struggle to stabilize a consistent metagame forever. If the tiers were reversed, NU would be updated, and UU would not be. I think this would not need to be a conversation. The way things are now feels like "ADV tiering," for better or worse. The best example I can provide here is Glalie.




Glalie is neither broken nor unhealthy in ADV RU due to the plethora of answers and counterplay. It is a fine Pokemon, and while it can be centralizing, it does not feel overbearing. This is expected, given its S ranking on the VR. On the other hand, according to ADV UU, Glalie is an excellent Spikes user sitting at A- alongside Qwilfish on the VR. This means Glalie should have risen; however, because NU is frozen, Glalie is still legal in RU. While NU is in talks to potentially suspect test Glalie, this would make no difference to RU. If Glalie is banned in NU, it rises to NUBL and not UU, which means it is still technically legal in RU. This is a crazy loophole, and I think it adds a level of illegitimacy to ADV RU that is unacceptable, unofficial or not.


There are three potential ways to fix this problem, but I am certainly open to hearing other proposals

• Option 1: Completely disregard ADV NU as a metagame and solely tier off of ADV UU's Viability ranking

This option entails following ADV UU's bans while allowing Pokemon C+ and below (UR Included) from the UU viability ranking. This is my preferred option as it still allows for consistent metagame development and continues to give the ADV RU council something to do aside from compiling resources. Furthermore, UU's long-term drop schedule means that ADV RU can stabilize over time while staying fresh in the long run. However, I feel that there is a glaring problem with this approach. Completely disregarding ADV NU means that if ADV NU were to ever unfreeze and make space for RU to become "official," then ADV RU would completely muck up all ADV lower tiers beneath it. While this scenario will likely not happen, option 1 cements ADV RU as "Its own little thing." This may or may not be a problem depending on the outlook of the ADV RU council and what they want their metagame to be at the end of the day. Furthermore, Haunter, Sableye, and Roselia would remain in NU/UU but be barred from RU use. It's a prime example of fixing bad tiering with more bad tiering.​

• Option 2: Waiting until ADV RU is in a stable and desirable state, then freezing it

While great for long-term stability and resource management, this option means that ADV RU is no longer a dynamic metagame. In the long term, I think this hurts its ability to grow a player base, which is paramount for the success of any metagame. This also means ADV RU no longer needs an active council once resources are all accounted for and the metagame stops developing. To be frank, this option would kill the momentum ADV RU has seen in recent months and leave a bad taste in the mouth of every player who's continued playing the metagame, myself included. However, if players are willing, this option leaves room for many opportunities for contribution, such as articles, smog dex analysis, RMTs, etc. These opportunities for contribution will be invaluable toward maintaining a dedicated player base and fostering a new one, assuming ADV RU can maintain or grow its popularity within the RU scene.​

• Option 3: NUBL is seen by the council as unconnected to NU, and all NUBL Pokemon are judged based on the UU VR

Initially proposed by LpZ, this option causes the least headaches for ADV RU's council. It is the best of both worlds approach, and while it makes compromises, such as still allowing Pokemon above C+ on the UU VR in RU, it does its best to address the overwhelming issue. It aligns with RU's current tiering procedure and does not require a large metagame shift like option 1. Moreover, it still allows for a dynamic shifting metagame, unlike option 2. It also allows RU to recognize NU updates. However, this band-aid solution could be qualified as a half-measure. Currently, there is no NUBL list for ADV NU, so option 3 would entirely be about Glalie, assuming it was banned in the first place. Making a tiering change for one singular Pokemon that may not even be banned in its home metagame is silly.​

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A council should tier its metagame under the pretense that it is "official," even if it is not. I am sure you can see this statement's hypocrisy, given my preferred solution being option 1. No official metagame would disregard the tier below it in favor of more consistent tiering. However, because ADV RU is in an extremely unique position, I think it warrants being inconsistent just this once. I am fully aware it sounds like I am huffing copium here. Option 2 is the most boring but has the most immediate positive outlook. If ADV RU is frozen at the right time, it will likely be enjoyed for the next half-decade before it starts to get stale. This has perceived benefits, such as a higher skill ceiling and a need for innovation. The issues arise in the long term after ADV RU has gotten stale. Finally, option 3 feels like a do-nothing approach that assumes Glalie will be banned in the first place. There's nothing wrong with option 3 on paper; it makes sense regarding tiering. However, it would accomplish extremely little in practice.

My biggest concern is whether this problem needs to be fixed or dealt with. If it is minor and not worth pursuing, then I do not see a need to make any changes. If the player base is happy, then why fix what does not seem to be broken? Another concern is how this plays into the 2019 decision to tier-lock ADV NU and ADV UU and the subsequent unlock in 2021. Because ADV RU is currently "unofficial" and unfrozen, it asks whether these things matter. ADV RU is stuck between a rock and a hard place. There is no clear answer on what should be done or if anything should be done. I care about this metagame a great deal and would like to see it continue with the momentum it has gained in the future. That said, the current state of ADV RU is not fun nor particularly interesting.

 

[Amity]

I want to make a quick preface to say I think it is good that you care about ADV tiering and think bad tiering is a real problem for ADV lower tiers, I think no ADV lower tier player would be able to deny that. I just feel like with this post, which ideally should've been made in the ADV RU thread instead of its own thread where it feels like we have to treat this as PR, its forcing councils hand to at the very least respond. I know this isn't made in bad faith at all, but the two outcomes are either: we cater to this and leave ourselves with metagame choices that will hinder us in the long term / decrease the barrier of entry, or we on council have pushback and ADV RU will proceed to have negative reception. I am not a fan of either 3 options. Option 1 can un-diversify the metagame as I believe spikes structures become more fringe, and by losing Haunter and Sableye we lose valuable checks to dangerous Pokemon such as Stantler, Hitmonchan, Belly Drum Poliwrath, and the like. I think it makes zero sense to exclude Pokemon from RU if they're usable in the tier below, I'm not discounting NU here as the RU label does mean we have to account for both metas on top and below. Option 2 will make us inconsistent with the ADV UU VR, and while ADV UU is currently having a silent point with retiering, the metagame will never be stale as people will constantly discover new things with it (and here!) and VR updates will still be in place, if suddenly Poliwrath or Azumarill or Mr. Mime or whichever Pokemon sees more consistent usage in UU like Quagsire did in the previous VR shift, suddenly it turns into another Glalie situation where people will question why it's RU while being decent in UU. In general, I think its a bad idea to freeze, metagames will always see active development and "staleness" is a myth. Option 3 is fine but hinges on Glalie being banned in ADV NU and seems mostly inconsequential. In my opinion, the only way to truly fix RU's inconsistent tiering is by completely reworking the ADV lower tiers that we currently know. It is objectively good for ADV lower tiering on the whole, but support on the matter is quite low (even though I want this post to make clear I am in support).

Right now it's early in the morning and I don't feel like nitpicking over tiny stuff assorted through this post, but I want to post my council opinion that I am currently not in favor of changing the tiering system we use for ADV RU and judging the principles doesn't affect the playing experience at all. ADV RU is fun and stable, I see no reason to change unless ADV lower tiers get completely overhauled. However, we will be talking this over in council about this topic and once we finish up with resource updating we might have a consensus on what to do with ADV RU in the future, if anything. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I take this post with a grain of salt bc I think ADV RU is in a great state and one of the most fun tiers I am currently playing. Also why is this its own thread lmao next time just use the ADV RU thread

 

[BP]

I take this post with a grain of salt bc I think ADV RU is in a great state and one of the most fun tiers I am currently playing. Also why is this its own thread lmao next time just use the ADV RU thread

I thought this topic would be better as its own thread because it's long, and I wanted to discuss the topic and its possibilities without clogging up the ADV RU metagame thread. Considering how many people have played ADV RU competitively in recent months, I thought this would get more opinions and responses than just two.

In my opinion, the only way to truly fix RU's inconsistent tiering is by completely reworking the ADV lower tiers that we currently know. It is objectively good for ADV lower tiering on the whole, but support on the matter is quite low (even though I want this post to make clear I am in support).

While I agree that to remain consistent, the optimal outcome would be to entirely redo ADV Lower tiers from scratch, unfortunately, this will not happen anytime soon. Because of this, I think it is imperative to do what we can now. The options I outlined in the OP have major flaws and could be worked differently to remove the clear negatives that arise if put into practice. However, I think that ADV RU should make a change tiering-wise. I understand that I am in the minority on this based on the survey results. Given this data, it's probably best to wait until after ADVPL to address the situation further, assuming ADV RU makes it in.

 

[Heysup]

I think we could use some context and that this is more of an Adv tiering problem rather than an RU problem. Adv tiers were made as a passion project by ancient (more ancient than me) random folks. They were not really made based any solid rationale other than someone's subjective interpretation of a mon's power and roughly based on lack of OU usage. Because OU and (apparently) UU are apparently so entrenched (I was originally game to nuke UU but as I indicated then, if we put effort into the other options, nuking becomes much less of a supportable action) there will not be usage shifts the same way other tiers have them. ADV NU is the same way but even more random and senseless because UU had even more limited usage stats to work with. In DPP the tiers were based solely on usage and frozen. It is not without problems (the DPP Dugtrio discrepancy is almost as stupid as the RU/NU inconsistency, and there are similar issues where clearly OU (Nidoqueen, Clefable, Uxie) mons are UU/NU) but they are less obvious.

RU for me has highlighted the problems not necessarily within itself (though it has problems as a result), particularly with NU where the tier has in fact been altered in the recent past to add NFEs. I do not think anyone would contest that Glalie would be a UU mon and Haunter/Chan would be RU if we re-did the tiers based on the current metagames. Glalie in particular is all over all 3 of NU, RU and UU, and it detracts from the identity and enjoyment of the metagames.

When RU was formed, the policy of "NU+C" based on UU VRs was used, in my view, doesn't cleanly work because they are sometimes contradictory (see Haunter and Glalie). We have been using NU as a paramount policy (ie. if it's an "A" mon in UU, it doesn't matter if it's technically NU. This does not make sense based on the way NU was invented.

In my view, RU should be tied to the UU VR's first and foremost, and then, provided there are consecutive UU VRs where a mon is within the parameters, they get "locked" until there is nothing left to lock (this would probably not even take 1-2 rounds).

NU is going to be doing "something" about Glalie soon, so I do think we need to actually iron out a policy about what happens to the above if it's NUBL which as I understand the policy would boot Glalie but I'm not sure if that's intended.