Banning Broken Pokemon or preserving our metagame?

[astrohawke]

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)

Is that what you understood from the OP? What I got was that broken pokemon aren't being seen as broken because their checks/counters are very high usage pokemon (gliscor for excadrill, ttar/scizor for latios etc). AKA we have adapted in such a way that we are no longer banning everything that's broken and only banning what we don't feel like adapting to (using slowbro for blaziken, using bronzong/skarm for garchomp etc).

In other words, we aren't banning enough and the metagame is made up of carbon copy teams full of counters to these top threats. You could say there will always be top threats which is true but at some point, these top threats will have a large number of viable counters such that it actually allows for team diversity. At that point, the metagame is balanced and things no longer need to be banned.

The OP suggests that right now, people say "I have no trouble with latios because I just pursuit it with ttar" or "I have no trouble with excadrill because I can wall it with gliscor" which is just adapting. What happens when I don't want to build a team that includes ttar and gliscor? Then these "manageable" (some even say weak) threats are no longer so manageable.

 

[Pocket]

Zephiel, suspect process is a relatively new project that started in DPP; I am sure you are aware of that. I personally welcomed this process, because it provided a more systematic and unanimous way of removing broken threats. Without the suspect process, we probably would never have unbanned Manaphy, Deoxys-S, Lati@s, and Wobbuffet to give them a second chance in the OU meta.

Of course this comes with the risk of banning less broken but powerful mons, such as Salamence. However, Suspect Process has given this competitive community a consistent way of managing the ever-increasing number of threats added to this game, eventually leading to a more favorable metagame.

I also agree with Tobe's definition of broken. If the community (or the qualified voters, to be exact), believes its broken, then it should be banned.

 

[Zephiel]

Without the suspect process, we probably would never have unbanned Manaphy, Deoxys-S, Lati@s, and Wobbuffet to give them a second chance in the OU meta.

However, all of the Pokemon you just mentioned were deemed overpowered and banned again, and it was a huge waste of time (I think the suspect process finally ended when BW was almost released).

However, Suspect Process has given this competitive community a consistent way of handling the ever-increasing number of threats added to this game, eventually leading to a more favorable metagame.

I don't see how DP OU is favorable, and BW OU doesn't seem to be going so well, though. I don't know about DP UU, to be fair.

However, I agree that if done correctly it probably will result in a subjectively better game for the community.

 

[mien]

In other words, we aren't banning enough and the metagame is made up of carbon copy teams full of counters to these top threats. You could say there will always be top threats which is true but at some point, these top threats will have a large number of viable counters such that it actually allows for team diversity. At that point, the metagame is balanced and things no longer need to be banned.

Top threats having a wide range of counters does not necessarily guarantee a balanced metagame. Repeated banning of powerful sweepers may also make stallteams far more frequent and effective then they are currently, reducing the newfound diversity and balance to a minimum.

One interesting thing i've read recently in the ADV Raikou analyse is the fellowing: 'The best special sweeper in the game, with the possible exception of Jirachi. Raikou is one of the Pokémon that forces people to use standards.''

Despite Raikou forcing people to use standards in ADV, it rarely or never was considered as a potential suspect. Seeing as many people consider ADV as the 'best' metagame to date, it may suggest that diversity isn't all that necessary to enjoy the competitive metagame.


For the last time BKC and the others, discussing the current suspects status isn't the point of this topic.

 

[Tobes]

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.



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.



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?



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



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.



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

I personally don't like banning things myself. I agree with you that things should be adapted to. But I do also see the view of people who think things should be banned. That's why I think our system is for the most part fine. The system is of course not perfect, but I stand by it. Keep in mind that I was the one who started the PR thread about flaws in the system. We're making an effort to fix the problems that exist as we speak. If we're still ban happy I think we'll stop being so soon. I'd like to think, perhaps naively, that a year from now there will be no reason to accuse Smogon of being ban happy. Maybe I have too narrow of a view on what consitutes ban happy, I'll admit it's a possibility, but I think we're on the right track for leaving behind that mentality.

I do like j7r's idea of extending the rounds' durations. I think he should bring that up in the PR thread.

 

[Zephiel]

Repeated banning of powerful sweepers may also make stallteams far more frequent and effective then they are currently, reducing the newfound diversity and balance to a minimum.

This happened at the end of DP OU. Too bad we didn't experience how bad it really was because BW got released soon after.

One interesting thing i've read recently in the ADV Raikou analyse is the fellowing: 'The best special sweeper in the game, with the possible exception of Jirachi. Raikou is one of the Pokémon that forces people to use standards.''

As someone experienced with ADV I can easily tell you that people adapted to Raikou so much that it was hardly used towards the end of ADV, as far as I can remember, although I could be wrong.

It's probably because of the fact that I played ADV that I'm so against the community being banhappy, but it really is appalling for me to see people just ban things instead of dealing with them. No offense for anybody, but it's almost what a spoiled child would do - ignore things and prefer not to deal with them.

 

[astrohawke]

Top threats having a wide range of counters does not necessarily guarantee a balanced metagame. Repeated banning of powerful sweepers may also make stallteams far more frequent and effective then they are currently, reducing the newfound diversity and balance to a minimum.

One interesting thing i've read recently in the ADV Raikou analyse is the fellowing: 'The best special sweeper in the game, with the possible exception of Jirachi. Raikou is one of the Pokémon that forces people to use standards.''

Despite Raikou forcing people to use standards in ADV, it rarely or never was considered as a potential suspect. Seeing as many people consider ADV as the 'best' metagame to date, it may suggest that diversity isn't all that necessary to enjoy the competitive metagame.

What exactly does a balanced metagame mean to you? Is it one where nothing is able to rampage unchecked through teams? Most things aren't able to anyway because teams adapt. If kyogre became OU, every team would suddenly be using chanseys and gastrodons. It still wouldn't sweep. Does that mean it's not broken? To me, a balanced metagame is just one that allows for diversity. Without being forced to use the same 2 counters to stop a pokemon on every team. What about you?

Also I haven't played adv in a while except the occasional tournament on beta server but to me it's still just a stall fest. Perhaps it's pokemon like raikou that forced people to use pokemon like blissey to stop it and what caused all the teams to basically become skarm/bliss/bulky water. It is far from the "best" metagame. Maybe just nostalgia.

 

[RocketSurgery]

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?

Can you realistically deal with all of the threats, though? You have only six pokemon and 24 moves - is that really enough to adapt to every threat out there? That's not a rhetorical question. You have six pokemon to deal with literally hundreds of potential threats. I really would like to know if one can build a team that can reasonably deal with all of these threats (at least more often than not)? If the answer is no, then can the answer be changed to yes by removing a limited (and small) number of pokemon?

It may be possible to adapt to a given pokemon, but is it really possible to adapt to all pokemon? If you can only adapt to a select number of threats, would it improve the metagame by removing some threats (likely those that require the most preparation to beat)? I think these are the questions that need answering in a debate over whether to ban or try to adapt.

(There are of course still going to be problems - I doubt there would be a unique set of pokemon that could be removed to make it possible to deal with all threats, for example).

 

[Zephiel]

Can you realistically deal with all of the threats, though? You have only six pokemon and 24 moves - is that really enough to adapt to every threat out there? That's not a rhetorical question. You have six pokemon to deal with literally hundreds of potential threats. I really would like to know if one can build a team that can reasonably deal with all of these threats (at least more often than not)? If the answer is no, then can the answer be changed to yes by removing a limited (and small) number of pokemon?

It may be possible to adapt to a given pokemon, but is it really possible to adapt to all pokemon? If you can only adapt to a select number of threats, would it improve the metagame by removing some threats (likely those that require the most preparation to beat)? I think these are the questions that need answering in a debate over whether to ban or try to adapt.

(There are of course still going to be problems - I doubt there would be a unique set of pokemon that could be removed to make it possible to deal with all threats, for example).

I understand what you're trying to say, but this problem would exist no matter what, even if we banned several Pokemon. Unless of course you're suggesting that we get rid of half of OU.

 

[Woodchuck]

I agree with all of the "adapt to it" proponents, I think -- imo people are going to be always pointing for something to ban because team matchups are more important than ever in this metagame what with more threats than any one team can handle. The point is, you're always going to be weak to one threat or another, and with these suspect periods that are only a month long, people have the standpoint "why adapt when we can wait until it's banned".
Games aren't meant to be changed on a monthly basis for this very reason -- the players get a sense of futility; no matter what they do to improve their team and their abilities, the next thing they know, a new ban will shake up the metagame and they have to go through the whole laddering rigmarole all over again.
tl;dr i agree with tobes and jrrrrrrr even though my opinion in actually changing things is largely irrelevant

 

[Myrmidon]

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

Fox only, no items, Final Destination.

barring that, most competitive Smash Bros communities ban a least items and moving boards (if applicable).

barring that...Diablo PvP has a soft ban on mercenaries, Street Fighter 2 tourneys banned Akuma (and a soft ban on Old Sagat)...there are a LOT of comminuties that ban things...not even touching on the fact that Nintendo themselves ban Pokemon at their official tourneys.

Can you realistically deal with all of the threats, though? You have only six pokemon and 24 moves - is that really enough to adapt to every threat out there? That's not a rhetorical question. You have six pokemon to deal with literally hundreds of potential threats. I really would like to know if one can build a team that can reasonably deal with all of these threats (at least more often than not)? If the answer is no, then can the answer be changed to yes by removing a limited (and small) number of pokemon?

It may be possible to adapt to a given pokemon, but is it really possible to adapt to all pokemon? If you can only adapt to a select number of threats, would it improve the metagame by removing some threats (likely those that require the most preparation to beat)? I think these are the questions that need answering in a debate over whether to ban or try to adapt.

(There are of course still going to be problems - I doubt there would be a unique set of pokemon that could be removed to make it possible to deal with all threats, for example).

Wasn't it required, or at least recommended, to have a threatlist back in Gen4 when you posted a team to be rated? Wasn't this threatlist designed to show that your team can and will be able to combat all the most common threats?

 

[Redtype]

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.

If I only had enough space in my signature, I would cp this whole quote and never ever remove it. The constant banning was what actually steered me from playing UU last gen. The interesting thing is, it took one year for people to realize that DPPt Garchomp is broken (with the actual broken set being discovered and whatnot). While in BW, we ban things literally every month. And with new suspects being "discovered" each round, I seriosly doubt the banning will end in the next two, three or even four rounds.

One thing that always baffled me when this whole suspect mania started was how easy was it to ban something compared to bringing things down. If I recall correctly, the Latias test went as follows - unban, then three rounds of "not uber" votes, and then one vote which looked something like 54% Uber / 46% OU, and bam, Latias was to never be considered in OU again. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me, that's why I support the idea of disallowing the suspect to be nominated more than x times in a row currently discussed in the PR.

 

[RocketSurgery]

I understand what you're trying to say, but this problem would exist no matter what, even if we banned several Pokemon. Unless of course you're suggesting that we get rid of half of OU.

The problem will still exist, but the question is whether or not one can optimize the number of threats one's team can deal with versus the number of threats that exist. i.e., by removing a select few threats can you maximize the number of threats your team can manage?

Wasn't it required, or at least recommended, to have a threatlist back in Gen4 when you posted a team to be rated? Wasn't this threatlist designed to show that your team can and will be able to combat all the most common threats?

Even if in Gen 4 a single team could deal with all the most common threats, BW added some pretty strong new ones. It's not necessarily the case they can all be handled anymore. The more pokemon that are introduced, the harder it will be to cover all the bases, or even most of the bases.

There are ~60 pokemon in OU. That means that each pokemon on your team has to be able to cover, on average, at least 10 pokemon. This number is increased by the more common threats from UU/BL. Maybe a team needs to deal with about 100 common threats, so on average each pokemon needs to cover 16-17 threats. The number is further increased by if the team has some redundancy built in, such that for any given threat at least two pokemon on the team could deal with it (or cases in which you have to sacrifice a pokemon to take down another because nothing can safely be brought in). That seems like a lot of constraints to put on a six pokemon team. This is why I wonder how many threats a team can reasonably counter, and whether or not that number can be maximized by removing some threats.

 

[XienZo]

There are ~60 pokemon in OU. That means that each pokemon on your team has to be able to cover, on average, at least 10 pokemon. This number is increased by the more common threats from UU/BL. Maybe a team needs to deal with about 100 common threats, so on average each pokemon needs to cover 16-17 threats.

You never had to cover every single threat though.

Just more threats then your opponent can.


16-17 is simply the cap at which it starts becoming redundant. It was never a minimum or requirement or anything.

Pokemon was never a game of you vs the metagame of 100 threats.

It's always been you versus the opponent with 6 threats .

 

[Aleva]

You never had to cover every single threat though.

Just more threats then your opponent can.


16-17 is simply the cap at which it starts becoming redundant. It was never a minimum or requirement or anything.

Pokemon was never a game of you vs the metagame of 100 threats.

It's always been you versus the opponent with 6 threats .

That's not necessarily true. To win on the ladder, you need to be able to deal with a wider range of threats than just 6 of them. If you can beat one opponent with their team of 6 pokemon, sure, that's great, but does that mean you can win consistently on the ladder? Being able to cover threats is part of being a good teambuilder. And if you think about it, if you just happen to cover most of the threats, and your opponent just happens to use one that you can't cover, doesn't it just reduce the game to little more than team match-up?

Imo, the problem at the moment is that we probably don't have enough team slots to cover all these threats because the number of viable pokemon in OU has increased in the Generation shift. I mean, atm, there are quite a lot of UU pokemon (hi Celebi, Zapdos, Suicune) that can be used very effectively in OU but didn't make the usage cut. Your team needs to be able to deal with them IN ADDITION to every OU pokemon (usage-wise). Eventually, in Gen VI or VII, there will be so many that it'll be close to impossible to play OU with just 6 pokemon.

 

[Myrmidon]

I wouldn't count redundancies.

Wouldn't you say that something that can counter Deoxys-S can also counter Espeon, Alakazam, and any other fast, frail psychic? How about using a Deoxys-D counter as a Renunculus counter, or a Celebi counter? I bet that anything that can counter Blaziken could also counter Infernape...I'd even go as far to say that some things that can counter Zapdos could also be used to counter Thundurus.

I don't think you're giving some Pokemon enough credit on their own merits.

 

[Ashenlock]

This is why I clung to Doubles and the GBU from nearly the beginning: no hasty banhammer. Doubles is unexplored enough that people don't have prejudices against specific Pokemon, and with the absolute, unchanging ruleset of the GBU, frustrated people either leave or adapt to the system instead of taking the path of least resistance and complaining about X Pokemon, weather, effect, etc.

 

[Aleva]

I wouldn't count redundancies.

Wouldn't you say that something that can counter Deoxys-S can also counter Espeon, Alakazam, and any other fast, frail psychic? How about using a Deoxys-D counter as a Renunculus counter, or a Celebi counter? I bet that anything that can counter Blaziken could also counter Infernape...I'd even go as far to say that some things that can counter Zapdos could also be used to counter Thundurus.

I don't think you're giving some Pokemon enough credit on their own merits.

I admit, I hadn't considered that. However, I don't really think a lot of these really work.
The best counters for Reuniclus are Scizor, T-Tar and Sp.Def Jirachi, but they probably wouldn't be able to take on a Celebi anyway. T-Tar switches in, gets Leaf Stormed. Scizor, HP Fire, Jirachi, Earth Power / HP Fire. Celebi can run Nasty Plot, Tinkerbell, CM or even Swords Dance, in comparison to Reuniclus, who only has OTR and CM to choose form.

The best Blaziken 'counter' is Slowbro, who gets murdered by Infernape's +2 Grass Knot as he switches in on the NP and gets outsped.

Threats can be similar, but they aren't all necessarily countered by the same pokemon, as shown by the examples above. I'm just hoping that in a few years, GF increases the team size to 7 or 8.

But we're probably going a bit off-topic here.

 

[Myrmidon]

ok, I used bad examples, but the basic premise is clear. And who's to say that a given pokemno isn't multifaceted? forget the idea of "same typing, same sort of position"...

a Gengar can be a check to a Scizor, almost any ghost, many psychics, Tyranitar, and numerous others with a moveset of protect/HP Fire/shadow Ball/Focus Blast.

my point is...one Pokemon can counter MANY foes...I'm sure that teambuilding in Gen4 was difficult when the threat list came out originally, but as people adapted, it became easier to check and counter many prominent threats.

I don't see Gen5 being any different in this respect. Once we get OU stabilized and the rules basically set, we can see everything calm down, and more Pokemon will be countering more threats.

 

[astrohawke]

I feel that with 6 teamslots, it's very difficult to counter every set of every threat but ultimately, the goal of a good metagame should be to
a) Allow a team to counter as many threats as possible
b) Allow for many variations of teams to achieve this

Let's say in a metagame where the top 10 threats each only had 1 counter where none of those counters were shared. The game would basically be pick a team of 6 counters out of 10. This is a bad metagame because not only is there no possibility for team diversity, you can only cover 6/10 of the top threats at any given time. While maybe not as extreme as this, this is where our metagame is at at the moment because some of our top threats have very few counters and checks.

Now if say we were to get rid of these 10 threats. The next 10 top threats to emerge all have 10 or 20 counters/checks each and a lot of those DO overlap. There are infinitely more combinations available for teambuilding and it's up to each individual team builder to find the right combination of 6 pokemon to cover as many threats as possible. A very good team builder might be able to cover 9/10 threats. Another might be able to cover 8 and yet another might be able to cover an entirely different 8 threats. That's the type of metagame we should be aiming for.

 

[SlimMan]

I feel that with 6 teamslots, it's very difficult to counter every set of every threat but ultimately, the goal of a good metagame should be to
a) Allow a team to counter as many threats as possible
b) Allow for many variations of teams to achieve this

Let's say in a metagame where the top 10 threats each only had 1 counter where none of those counters were shared. The game would basically be pick a team of 6 counters out of 10. This is a bad metagame because not only is there no possibility for team diversity, you can only cover 6/10 of the top threats at any given time. While maybe not as extreme as this, this is where our metagame is at at the moment because some of our top threats have very few counters and checks.

Now if say we were to get rid of these 10 threats. The next 10 top threats to emerge all have 10 or 20 counters/checks each and a lot of those DO overlap. There are infinitely more combinations available for teambuilding and it's up to each individual team builder to find the right combination of 6 pokemon to cover as many threats as possible. A very good team builder might be able to cover 9/10 threats. Another might be able to cover 8 and yet another might be able to cover an entirely different 8 threats. That's the type of metagame we should be aiming for.

I agree with your basic examples' principles, but if the top 10 threats each have 20 counters/checks, and they overlap, then those threats would very quickly become ineffective, and would no longer be the top 10 threats.
Furthermore, if the top 10 threats all share the same 20 counters/checks, it probably means that they are all the same kind of Pokemon - such as SD sweepers, Fighting-types, etc. Having our top 10 be mirror images of each other wouldn't be that great, IMO.

----------

I wish people would stop saying that you need counters for everything. Word choice, people, word choice! Counter is not the word you're looking for.
Here's an example of what I mean:
Jolly LO DDMence has literally 4 counters (5 counters if you factor in Leftovers). They are: Cresselia, Hippowdon, Eviolite Porygon2, Eviolite Dusclops, and Suicune (if you count Leftovers).
Literally everything else can get 2HKOed by either Fire Blast, un-boosted EQ, or un-boosted Outrage (some things don't, like Regirock, but are so bad in the metagame that I didn't count them). However, not every team needs one of these; on the contrary, only two of these are even OU! However, Salamence is not broken by any means. Some teams will force it to use Outrage, then switch in a Steel-type. Some teams will carry a revenge-killer for it. And so on and so forth. A team doesn't have to "counter" each and every threat!!!

Furthermore, why do you have to deal with every threat at all? It would be a total waste of my time to prepare myself for Altaria. If I don't prepare for it, it could hypothetically sweep me with a DD set. But Altaria is one of many Pokemon (almost 600!) that don't see the light of day in OU. My teamslot would be better spent preparing for something else.

Which brings me to my next point. Myrmidon touched on it, and it is overlap. If I prepare for something like DDMence and DDNite, odds are that I'll be safe against that DD Altaria I mentioned. If I prepare against CM Latias and CM Reuniclus, odds are that your CM Gardevoir won't sweep me. If you cover the top threats, then you'll be covering a ton of other things anyway, even though you didn't mean to.

Lastly, this whole "you need to deal with things" mentality is good for teambuilding, but only to an extent. Someone once wrote a grand something on this topic. It went to the effect that it you focus on countering the opponent's Pokemon, they'll be leading you the whole match. They'll be controlling the whole match. You should instead worry about executing your own strategy, to actually win the match. You want to beat your opponent, not counter them.

It's important to be able to handle the top threats in the metagame you'll be playing in, but idea of "countering all the threats" is just not how things work. 6 teamslots is enough for this metagame (good thing, too, because it's all GF gave us!).

@astrohawke:
You asked what kind of metagame mien finds most preferable? In another thread, he said so. He told us that out of all the characteristics of a desirable metagame, the one he holds up highest, values most, is stability. mien doesn't want us to be testing and changing the metagame for the next few years. He wants it to stabilize. At least, that's what he said a few weeks ago.

 

[Aleva]

Slim, none of us said you had to counter EVERY threat from NU to OU (well, I didn't). We just said we needed to respond to the top 53 or so threats in OU, and the many UU pokemon that are commonly seen in OU as well. In a team of 6 pokemon, that's, as RocketSurgery said, about 10-15 pokemon for each. Can each of your team members handle that many?

It's very hard to have a way to check every single one in the same team. Yes, you don't necessarily need a hard counter to Jolly LO DDMence (and by extension, DD Nite) but you DO need a way of dealing with it, because if you don't, you get swept, plain and simple. Whether it may be switching in a counter like Cress, revenge killing, or whatever, you just need a prepared response, and as the metagame evolves each generation and new threats are introduced, it becomes harder each time to be able to cover the threat of every pokemon commonly seen in OU. (Which is a problem)

 

[astrohawke]

I agree with your basic examples' principles, but if the top 10 threats each have 20 counters/checks, and they overlap, then those threats would very quickly become ineffective, and would no longer be the top 10 threats.
Furthermore, if the top 10 threats all share the same 20 counters/checks, it probably means that they are all the same kind of Pokemon - such as SD sweepers, Fighting-types, etc. Having our top 10 be mirror images of each other wouldn't be that great, IMO.

I meant that each of those threats had their own 10-20 (this is a random number btw) counters and checks where some of those might overlap. They wouldn't all have the same 20 checks. Say starmie might be used to check mixmence, gyarados and heatran. Three very different pokemon. Where one person might choose to use a starmie to cover these 3 pokemon, another might choose to use mixape to check mence, heatran and blissey. They would obviously need something else for gyarados just as the starmie user would need something else for blissey but that's where team diversity comes in. You could have 6 entirely different pokemon covering the same threats. There are so many more possibilites whereas now it's basically gliscor for excadrill, ttar/scizor for latios, jirachi/blissey for thunderus etc. I hope you understand what I'm trying to get across because it's difficult to express this eloquently.

@astrohawke:
You asked what kind of metagame mien finds most preferable? In another thread, he said so. He told us that out of all the characteristics of a desirable metagame, the one he holds up highest, values most, is stability. mien doesn't want us to be testing and changing the metagame for the next few years. He wants it to stabilize. At least, that's what he said a few weeks ago.

Stability is a factor that comes with time as people adapt to the threats whether they are overpowered or not but we can have a stable metagame that isn't very good. Ubers is a pretty stable metagame because everything is allowed and nothing changes. But it doesn't mean it's a good metagame because everything is centralized around the most powerful pokemon and only a few OU pokemon have any viability in that environment.

Stability should come second to balance. I asked what mien's idea of balance was.

 

[TheGuyWhoIsSitting]

I know I don't have a lot of merit as far as PO goes, and I admit I've made some pretty stupid and biased posts about certain topics, but I'm well familiar with the metagame and everything, it seems like people's mentality is either "Deal with it","Let's see if it's broken", or "Ban it".

The problem is that if you have the "Just deal with it" mentality, then that basically implies that we should only have an ubers tier, because if you just deal with it the metagame will shape accordingly and to me that isn't balance, that's just trying to run X to counter Y or check Y. Like people have said, if Kyogre was OU people would use Blissey/Chansey and other Pokemon like Gastrodon to "just deal with it" and then we'd get to the point where everything would just be OU and we wouldn't have an ubers tier. Can't beat Darkrai? Just run a Vital Spirit Primeape, can't deal with this just run this.

The test it mentality is alright, but honestly some of the bans and rules that have come from 5th gen haven't really solved any of the problems. For example, there's nothing stopping you from running a Swift Swim team that takes advantage of the opponents infinite rain, or running a team that lets you deal with all types of weather by taking advantage of their weather in ways they can't. It'd be the same way if Sand Veil and Sand Storm got banned on the same teams, people would still use Garchomp in the way it was used before it was banned, they just wouldn't be able to run it with Tyranitar or Hippowdon on the same team, and seeing how TTar is the most used Pokemon it's not like you'd really have trouble getting permanent sand. I know I've been swept by Swift Swim Kingdra with my own rain before, so it only takes care of your team itself abusing it while the opponent is free to run Kingdra and the others.

The "Ban it" mentality, well I can't say I disagree with some of the things people find broken but I believe things need to be tested, but who should test them? I know some players like to use whatever is the best and they aren't going to want to get rid of their play style. I can't see a lot of people using sandstorm teams saying "Sandstorm is broken, we should ban it." Honestly in a community where everyone has their own opinion, how can you really determine what should be banned?

Every time something is banned there's some sort of outrage over it, like Blaze Blaziken, or just Garchomp in general, if we don't ban anything, the metagame would still be full of Darkrai and Skymin and people would be using the "Just deal with it" mentality still. Since whatever handles Darkrai would be in the top of the tier, that's no reason to not ban something just because a handful of Pokes can handle it and that somehow keeps it balanced for the teams that don't run whatever it is. I imagine Conkeldurr and Primeape would be high in useage to deal with Darkrai if it was still OU

I know it's difficult to decide what shouldn't be allowed in the OU tier, but sometimes I just don't understand what people expect from players.

 

[Zephiel]

a) Allow a team to counter as many threats as possible

No. The goal of Pokemon is to win. Being able to counter threats doesn't make you able to win automatically. Offensive teams are not able to counter everything, so should we just not play them and see BW OU reduced to the stallfest that is DP OU?

b) Allow for many variations of teams to achieve this

When you just ban the broken pokemon, it leads to a rise in stall teams, just like in DP OU. It won't.

The problem is that if you have the "Just deal with it" mentality, then that basically implies that we should only have an ubers tier, because if you just deal with it the metagame will shape accordingly and to me that isn't balance, that's just trying to run X to counter Y or check Y. Like people have said, if Kyogre was OU people would use Blissey/Chansey and other Pokemon like Gastrodon to "just deal with it" and then we'd get to the point where everything would just be OU and we wouldn't have an ubers tier.

No it doesn't. We had the "deal with it" mentality in RSE OU and Kyogre was banned.