Banning Broken Pokemon or preserving our metagame?

[Myrmidon]

I think that the main difference between something like excadrill and gen 4 heatran is what actually counters/checks it. Heatran had a lot of checks/counters such that you could stop it in a variety of ways and didn't restrict team building. Excadrill and to a certain extent latios and thunderus don't. It's either carry X or lose a pokemon every time it comes in or in the case of excadrill it's carry gliscor or face the risk of getting swept entirely. The result is that every team ends up with X for latios, Y for thunderus, Z for excadrill and so on. We would have no troubles with kyogre either. Every team just need to carry a gastrodon like every team carries a gliscor. But that doesn't really make the metagame any good does it?

I think that was part of the intent of my original post, but I got distractd and lost my train of thought partway though it :P. thanks for clarifying it for me (even if I couldn't do it myself).

Heatran had many checks, things that should be Uber have few/none.

 

[XienZo]

I think that regardless of what we ban or don't ban, we're likely going to end up in a metagame where we do have some powerful, if not overpowered, threats, that ultimately won't be as problematic as they seem because of their centralization.

There's really no way to stop that from happening.

There will inevitably always be top tier threats in a metagame, and the metagame will always lean towards those threat's counters and checks. As a result, it's entirely possible that we have some "overpowered" threats that have their direct influence mitigated, to the point where we don't perceive them as being overpowered, because of the metagame revolving around their checks.



But really, that's all natural, and it's a phenomenon that allows the metagame to self-correct for any overpowered threats, because, given time, they won't be as great of a threat when the metagame adapts and revolves more around appropriate checks. Of course, sometimes, the threats are too overpowered and the aforementioned phenomenon can't really balance the metagame on its own, so we resort to banning.


However, I feel there may be a problem in that, due to the suspect testing system, we may be potentially banning threats, like Blaziken as discussed above, that may have become more balanced after the metagame adapts.


I think the main issue is that, normally, there's always going to be a powerful threat in a metagame that becomes more balanced as the metagame adapts. However, at the rapid clip at which the suspect tests go at, it's possible that we may be banning things before the natural balancing effect can occur.

Because of that, we could keep banning for a long time, but never achieve anything significantly balanced, because instead of allowing the threats to become balanced over time, we keep removing them and destabilizing the metagame to the point where another new threat will inevitably rise to the top.

 

[jas61292]

As people have already brought up, there is no objective way of determining if something is overpowering or over-centralizing. It just does not exist. As much as people hate to admit it though, I really think over-centralization is the real reason behind almost all bans. People like variety, and when something limits variety to a great extent, people will view the metagame as better without it, as they are no longer forced to run certain things just to beat it.

That being said, I also know that you can have a competitive and viable metagame with almost any set of Pokemon. Sure there are a few instances where something being over powered is obvious (I'll give an example in a bit), and in those instances banning is necessary to keep the metagame balanced, but otherwise all other bans a solely done due to preference. For example, I once spent a few day analyzing how a metagame consisting of only NFE Bug Pokemon would look like (in 4th gen, this was). In such a scenario, there is almost no way to argue that Scyther is not broken, as it outspeeds and OHKOs every other member of the metagame. With a Pokemon like that in there, there is no way to have a real balance metagame. However without him (and Yanma too), a balanced metagame could possibly exist. Others might be considered powerful, and maybe broken, but it is at points like this where it really is opinion, and bans come, not because they are necessary, but because it is believed that the benefits of the ban outweigh the consequences.

I believe our current metagame is at this stage, where nothing is necessarily broken, but it may or may not be at its best possible form. However it is my belief that as we cannot tell the how the metagame will develop, we should shy away from bans unless it is completely obvious (Such as the Scyther example). While all bans are personal preference, we should still try to keep it as objective as possible.

 

[Tobes]

I think the argument can be made that if the metagame can't adapt itself to a threat, that is in itself why it's broken. There is of course an obvious difference between "can't" and "unwilling to". Yes, you could deal with Blaziken with priority, but aside from that it was very very difficult to beat without Slowbro, which could still lose to Mixken. People didn't like being "forced" to carry priority just for one Pokemon, which is likely why it was banned.

Banning something is always a subjective process. That's unavoidable. There is no purely empirical way to make tiering decisions on the metagame. It was felt to be "unreasonable" to prepare for Blaziken, and in Garchomp's case people didn't like having a relavitely high risk of losing to Chomp even when they had sufficiently prepared for it. Does this mean they were broken and deserved to be banned? Perhaps. That's not what I think, but that's what the voters think. Our system, although very slightly flawed, is probably the best one there is for tiering, so I'm fine with following its decisions, no matter what they are.

Also the Ho-oh comparisson was bad but I'll let that be.

skarmory (who loses to excadrill like 90% of the time)

annnddd this is when you lost any semblance of credibility.

 

[wtangelo]

A metagame should be something that requires experience or knowledge to use properly.
If a 12 year old kid thats never played pokemon before walks into a battle with a team of six Ubers, odds are they would have a fighting chance against an experienced player with 6 OUs. Basically the idea is, if you can get better with them, they aren't broken. Anyone can get a KO with a Ho-Oh, it takes talent to kill with Sentret.

Those are just my personal views of course.

 

[Myrmidon]

when I started in the Gen4 metagame, Chomp was still around. Hell, this was before Latias re-hit the banlist. I made up a team which I thought was pretty good, and had my first few battles...quite mixed bag; a few wins, a few losses, and a learning experience overall.

Compare this to a metgame where the strongest players keep overpowered pokemon in the metagame so they can win...random players do some light research, make a top-tier team, and trounce new players.

Compare to Yugioh. During the chaos-era, there was a LOT of hullabaloo about a 12-year old winning worlds. This wasn't because he was good at the game, or well informed...it was because the deck literally played itself; anyone with enough money and a decent grasp of the rules could win.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't want a metagame like that.

 

[Bone Dragon]

God people really need to learn how to read....too many posts about Ho-oh

Regardless, I think this is a really interesting topic you have brought up. I hadn't though about it until you made this post, and it is really making me think. But I think people's views are a little skewed. For example if it is a poke coming down from Uber, people are more likely to think it is broken, because it was Uber at one point, and therefore deemed broken. However, if it is a question of whether or not a OU poke should go to Uber, people would be a little more hesitant (obviously it's still possible, just look at Garchomp) One could make the same argument with weather. Weather is considered broken by some, but it is definitely counterable. I kinda think its broken, but at the same time I have won plenty of games against weather teams. Thinking about this, it seems hard to draw a line, but it has to be drawn somewhere.

 

[XxJohny2haixX]

I feel like you do have a valid point with the smogon community leading the pack to what is OU and what is not, but the metagame ulitmatley leads back to being fun or not. See if there was always, let's say Ho-oh, then every team would have a check/ counter, but that harms ingenuity, and creativity to an extent; and as a result, there would be too many teams with Ho-oh counters, and then people would adapt to those counters and beat them and an endless cycle would start. And also to what happened to 'Mence in Gen IV Ho-oh would become to centralize.

 

[Bone Dragon]

I feel like you do have a valid point with the smogon community leading the pack to what is OU and what is not, but the metagame ulitmatley leads back to being fun or not. See if there was always, let's say Ho-oh, then every team would have a check/ counter, but that harms ingenuity, and creativity to an extent; and as a result, there would be too many teams with Ho-oh counters, and then people would adapt to those counters and beat them and an endless cycle would start. And also to what happened to 'Mence in Gen IV Ho-oh would become to centralize.

Then you could say anything that needs special checks and counters should be Uber because it "takes the fun out of the game". Things like Excadrill and Latios would be gone in a heartbeat.

 

[XienZo]

I think the argument can be made that if the metagame can't adapt itself to a threat, that is in itself why it's broken. There is of course an obvious difference between "can't" and "unwilling to". Yes, you could deal with Blaziken with priority, but aside from that it was very very difficult to beat without Slowbro, which could still lose to Mixken. People didn't like being "forced" to carry priority just for one Pokemon, which is likely why it was banned.

That's something that was more of an "unwilling" case though, isn't it?

If there was no system to ban Blaziken, then everyone would, eventually, have been forced to carry priority just for Blaziken.

But at that point, once everyone's carrying tons of priority, Blaziken would be somewhat less effective then initially, when people "refused" to pack on excessive priority, wouldn't it?

And when we banned Blaziken, wasn't it still in the stage where people "refused" to carry priority, when it would have been a greater threat than it would have in an "adapted" metagame?

 

[Tobes]

That's something that was more of an "unwilling" case though, isn't it?

If there was no system to ban Blaziken, then everyone would, eventually, have been forced to carry priority just for Blaziken.

But at that point, once everyone's carrying tons of priority, Blaziken would be somewhat less effective then initially, when people "refused" to pack on excessive priority, wouldn't it?

And when we banned Blaziken, wasn't it still in the stage where people "refused" to carry priority, when it would have been a greater threat than it would have in an "adapted" metagame?

Yes. Everything you just said was exacly what I was getting at. Blaziken's ban was more of a "excessive preparation required" ban in my opinion, as opposed to a "this can't be realisticly handled" ban.

Regardless, I feel there are very valid reasons for Blaziken's ban, even if I don't agree with them.

 

[Matthew]

Just wanted to put it out there but the amount of times my excadrill has lost to a Skarmory is a lot more than anyone would think of. Sure, Skarmory takes damage from using Whirlwind most of the time, but nine times out of ten skarmory is pulling something out that can't hurt it. Using Roost is never much of an issue. Let's not forget that no one is just pulling out Excadrill turn 1, it's usually later in the game, where Spikes and maybe even SR has been put down where switching in is causing Excadrill damage. Getting Whirlwinded out, while taking damage from LO? That's a huge deal to someone like Excadrill.

The 90% is an exaggeration, as much emphasis that Tobes is putting on Skarm you're putting infinitely more on Excadrill. I'd prefer if this didn't end up in people at each other's throats over this. Please discuss the OP, which is clearly about how the metagame adapts to a pokemon, rather than us banning it. Though it was said pretty eloquently already throughout this thread. Also P.S. Slowbro wasn't a 100% Blaziken counter just so you're aware.

 

[mien]

From this post any further discussion on Excadrill will be deleted.

 

[Zephiel]

I think the community here doesn't or just doesn't want to realize that a metagame is going to have significant centralizing threats no matter what. There are always going to be stronger, tougher things, just like in real life.

Look at Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Plenty of people wanted Meta Knight banned years ago, but it still hasn't been banned. People are simply learning how to adapt to it, even though most players use Meta Knight.

Constantly banning things isn't going to solve anything. Giving time to let the metagame adapt is; the metagame hasn't been given time to adapt to any threat because they constantly keep getting banned.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I'm glad this thread is getting some serious discussion. This is the metagame of "get 20 friends and you can ban anything you want" and I'm glad I'm not the only person concerned.

It's getting clear that the longer we do suspect testing, the less "worthy" the bans that come out of them are. For example, if at the beginning of Gen4 you had told someone that Salamence would become uber, they would have laughed in your face. But after we went through years of banning literally everything that was deemed "suspect", including some things multiple times, that didn't sound too ridiculous. The result of these constant ban periods was of course that we never got to enjoy a stable DPP metagame until the next generation of games came out, which in my opinion was the worst possible outcome of the suspect tests.

The entire premise of the suspect test is that there ARE broken things in the metagame, and because of that there will always be a ban every month. This makes the metagame highly unstable. You can see that this happened already with Gen4 OU, which I feel we ruined competitively by constantly putting things under the microscope instead of letting things play out. That doesn't even address the fact that the voting pools aren't static. You can have a ban one month that voters of the next month wouldn't even consider (and it's WAY harder to unban something than it is to ban something, which I think is backwards). One bandwagon vote and the entire metagame is ruined for everyone.

Every ban that comes about as a result of the suspect test only raises new questions. For example, Manaphy is currently banned and Thundurus is likely to be banned this time next week. Now a ton of pokemon just got their #1 check removed and it's entirely possible we could see a spike in usage of something else. What happens if, a month down the road, we decide to ban Drizzle? Now we have a metagame where Manaphy and Thundurus could easily be compatible but aren't given the chance.

I really don't want to see another generation ruined by constant suspect testing. We need to decide when enough is enough.

 

[Zephiel]

We need to decide when enough is enough.

To be perfectly honest, I think this community crossed that line a long time ago. Since the banning of Garchomp, people have been obsessed with banning things. I can't think of another video game community as ban happy as Smogon. I really, really don't see a good future for a community obsessed with banning every slightly broken Pokemon.

I believe that the smartest thing to do would have been to start from the beginning, all ubers unbanned. Then, ban every obviously uber Pokemon such as Arceus, Kyogre, Mewtwo and Darkrai and after that give the metagame a significant amount of time (maybe half a year) to adapt to threats, and only ban if necessary after that.

I realise that the above situation probably would've been impossible now because people are too ban happy nowadays, though.

 

[BKC]

What happens if, a month down the road, we decide to ban Drizzle? Now we have a metagame where Manaphy and Thundurus could easily be compatible but aren't given the chance.

Are you seriously trying to say Thundurus isn't broken outside of rain?

 

[jrrrrrrr]

Are you seriously trying to say Thundurus isn't broken outside of rain?

I'd rather not turn this good thread into a suspect debate. My point was that Thundurus is notably worse when it can't spam Thunder, so if Drizzle were banned then it would be a legitimate question to ask if people thought it was still broken. Just like how if Drizzle were banned, Manaphy would be notably worse and it would bring up more questions there. If you want my personal opinion I don't think it's broken even with rain and is the perfect example of what this thread is trying to address (pokemon being broken only because we banned other things without thinking and don't feel like adapting), but we should really save that for the other thread.

I can't believe that out of my entire post, THAT was the only thing you responded to. Please try to keep on topic.

 

[Zephiel]

Are you seriously trying to say Thundurus isn't broken outside of rain?

Blissey, Chansey, Lanturn, Quagsire, Gastrodon as solid counters.

Excadrill in sand, Starmie, Scarf Tyranitar, Scarf Terrakion, Scarf Landorus, and more as checks.

See, this is the philosophy of Smogon now. "If it's broken, ban it."

Having broken pokemon is inevitable.

Let's consider Garchomp's banning in gen 4 (which was actually not a bad idea) and list the counters and checks to Yachechomp.

Counters: Trick Cresselia, Skarmory (which gets hit decently hard by Fire Fang)
Checks: none that I can think of, because of Yache Berry.

Since the Garchomp banning, the community bans anything that's slightly broken. It's definitely become ban happy.

 

[Pocket]

Quite a few people believe that Thundurus and Manaphy are cleanly OU material without Rain. Although unbanning ubers is difficult, it should not be much of a hassle to bring those two down if Rain goes out.

@jrrr

Well, isn't the suspect process of this gen considerably different from that of DPP? I believe we are using a suspect process utilized in DPP UU metagame, and they were able to establish a balanced metagame, so I don't see how we can't do that with BW OU. I feel like we are pretty close to a stable metagame. I believe either this round or next round we will have no suspects becoming uber, which should effectively stop the suspect process until new DW abilities are released.

I do agree that some of us have to just suck it up and learn to deal with powerful threats. Even if it means you have to use slightly more priority / defense / BL mons / creativity / losing more often.

 

[Tobes]

I think the "Smogon is ban happy" attitude is a little outdated. If we were truly ban happy we would have banned weather by now and a lot more of the suspects. Ignoring Rounds 1 and 2 we've only had one ban per round, which is not too bad in my opinion. Would I like to see fewer bans? Yes, I would, but that doesn't really matter, does it? If it's "broken" then the community will ban it, and if it's not they won't. Bandwagon votes aren't even that much of a problem anymore. We've diffused the suspect tensions in the megathread, and even when those debates do happen bandwagon votes are still usually avoided. See: Reuniclus, Latios.

And the term broken is subjective, as I have said before. Yes, Zephiel, there will always be "broken" Pokemon to the individual, but that does not mean there will always be "broken" Pokemon to the community. We follow the community's subjectivity, not the individual's. If the communtiy says it's broken, then it's "broken", and we ban it. That's really all there is to it.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

@jrrr

Well, isn't the suspect process of this gen considerably different from that of DPP? I believe we are using a suspect process utilized in DPP UU metagame, and they were able to establish a balanced metagame, so I don't see how we can't do that with BW OU. I feel like we are pretty close to a stable metagame. I believe either this round or next round we will have no suspects becoming uber, which should effectively stop the suspect process until new DW abilities are released.

It's not too far off. The DP UU suspect test that Jabba and I created was made as a result of the DP OU test process that we saw as extremely flawed. As it was based on the OU process, it still carried over some of those flaws. There is still a potential for bandwagon nominations (i.e. Reuniclus) and because of that there is a high possibility that something could get banned by a small group of dedicated users.

And about the suspect test eventually balancing itself out, I don't see that happening until we expand the testing period up to at LEAST 3 months. The way things are looking right now is that we'll have a ban per month for a long time to come. That's just the way things are with a suspect test process that encourages bans.

I think the "Smogon is ban happy" attitude is a little outdated. If we were truly ban happy we would have banned weather by now and a lot more of the suspects. Ignoring Rounds 1 and 2 we've only had one ban per round, which is not too bad in my opinion. Would I like to see fewer bans? Yes, I would, but that doesn't really matter, does it?

There is no video game community that is as ban happy as Smogon currently is. The fact that we've actually gotten LESS ban happy and are still in our current state is a testament to how ridiculous it was at one point. As you said, there has been at least one ban every month since we started BW and that trend does not look like it's ending anytime soon. Calling it "outdated" is a huge stretch although you're right in saying that it has gotten better.

If it's "broken" then the community will ban it, and if it's not they won't. Bandwagon votes aren't even that much of a problem anymore. We've diffused the suspect tensions in the megathread, and even when those debates do happen bandwagon votes are still usually avoided. See: Reuniclus, Latios.

I disagree with this because there is no objective standard for "broken". Things are banned based on the whims of a small pool of voters, not on their relative strength to other pokemon. It is for the most part a popularity contest, and it's important to recognize this or else it will never change. We've made strides to ensure that bandwagon votes can't happen, and we've done a pretty good job so far, but the possibility still exists.

 

[Pocket]

I agree with you. I wouldn't mind increasing the duration of subsequent OU rounds, especially now that the suspects have become increasingly controversial and less blatantly broken.

Since I also feel that the suspect process is winding down, I believe we can afford to prolong the current and / or upcoming suspect rounds for a more accurate picture.

 

[Zephiel]

If we were truly ban happy we would have banned weather by now and a lot more of the suspects.

The meaning of ban happy isn't as extreme you think it is. I don't think it means that they want to ban everything they come across, but rather that they ban things too excessively.

Ignoring Rounds 1 and 2 we've only had one ban per round, which is not too bad in my opinion.

You joined in July 2010, so you likely don't realise how much the community changed since gens 3 and 4. I assure you it is. I don't even recall having suspect rounds before.

If it's "broken" then the community will ban it, and if it's not they won't.

Can't you see how absurd that attitude is? In a game, things are bound to be relatively powerful and relatively weak. As long as there are realistic ways to deal with things why should they be banned?

Bandwagon votes aren't even that much of a problem anymore.

The fact that there were bandwagon votes proves how obsessive the community has become in terms of banning things.

And the term broken is subjective, as I have said before.

That's more of a counter argument for you side of the argument. Your way of thinking is far more subjective because you ban "broken" things - broken = subjective. However, I would prefer to keep things unbanned and deal with them.

If the communtiy says it's broken, then it's "broken", and we ban it.

I really can't think of other communities with a philosophy that consists of banning broken things.

 

[haunter]

And about the suspect test eventually balancing itself out, I don't see that happening until we expand the testing period up to at LEAST 3 months. The way things are looking right now is that we'll have a ban per month for a long time to come. That's just the way things are with a suspect test process that encourages bans.

Once again I completely agree with J7r's thoughts on the current suspect process (see my signature). The current testing periods are too short, people need time to adapt to a given metagame. I also find incredibile that people are allowed to nominate the same suspects for 3 rounds in a row. With this system we're basically just waiting for the "correct voting pool" to be formed so that things like Excadrill and Drizzle can be banned.