BW Excadrill

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Sand Rush Excadrill needs to go. Tyranitar has been holding the metagame together for centuries as the sole reason half our competent teams don’t get trampled by rain and/or Latios (won’t really explain this because it should be obvious, but I will if called upon). Excadrill makes Tyranitar a liability; pairing it with the aforementioned threats leads to matchups one cannot win through reasonable building/playing means.

I probably don’t need to explain that Excadrill is far too difficult to handle defensively, but I’ll do so for the sake of completeness. It’s here if you want it. Note: when I mention "Excadrill" in this post, I refer exclusively to the Sand Rush variant; for now, I won't discuss the optimal tiering solution.
Viable dudes that can take hits from the mole include Skarmory, Landorus-T, Gliscor and the washing machine (calling the last one viable is a stretch, mb). Taunt Skarm is balloon drill’s son for obvious reasons; you can throw it in literally every time and either spin forever or get a hit off. BB Skarm still isn’t doing too much besides phazing it out or chipping it for 3. Excadrill can also easily forego Rapid Spin for Rock Slide; teams that utilize sand rush drill are rarely spin-reliant (though the inclusion of Rapid Spin can make wearing down these teams an impossible task). In such a case, BB Skarm switching into SD will lose to a flinch eventually (sure, you can outplay this, but it usually requires some headassery). Landorus is complete set-up fodder unless it runs Superpower, which is utter garbage otherwise (unless you’re using some fight gem flames or really need to kill Ferrothorn from 50 in one hit).

As for Rotom-W, I’d almost never consider using it in a metagame without Excadrill. It’s a sad excuse for a water resist with no bulk, power, speed, or recovery; its only “niche" is using Volt Switch to get other threats safe switch-ins. As such, Rotom-W teams are usually prone to getting rolled by Keldeo rain with or without Excadrill. In the unlikely event that you do consider Rotom-W legitimately good, it takes like 65 from +2 Rock Slide and can’t run a physically defensive spread for obvious reasons. Gliscor is also fodder for balloon drill; even with Ice Fang/Facade and fully physical investment, you take 52-61 from +2 Iron Head and 78-91 from +4, meaning slight chip or failure to finesse with protect can be the end of you. Slowbro is cool, but it’s not a great mon; it doesn’t have useful resists, gets pursuited, gets fucked by spikes, and actually needs a Scald burn to stop a healthy drill on its own. Regardless, the fact that Excadrill coerces people into using unreasonable mons like Superpower Lando-T, Rotom-W (debatable for some, maybe), and Slowbro is a red flag in itself.

Hard-switching to Excadrill is rare, especially when it has a balloon. However, it’s incredibly easy to bring in after a sac; given its speed and power, it threatens half the metagame out. A wrong guess in such a scenario can often mean the end of the game. Inevitable losses to +0 Excadrill solely due to hazards and miscellaneous chip are incredibly common, as are situations in which setup is unavoidable because you have to kill something with Lando-T / Garchomp / Jirachi / Latios DM or Pursuit something with Tyranitar, etc. to stay in the game (arguably the top 5 mons in the metagame…).

In summary, there’s often hardly anything you can do to avoid Excadrill auto-losses besides making overly safe plays and/or suboptimal teams.

I’ll now address a few counterarguments I’ve heard. Some like to say that the dominance of "sand balance” is unnatural and that Excadrill’s presence encourages some much-needed metagame diversity. This can probably be refuted, but I’m just going to go a step further and say that I don’t give a shit about diversity and I don’t think anyone should. I want a metagame in which skilled players have a high probability of victory. I want as few games as possible to be decided on preview. I want a metagame that exposes a player’s skill in as many games as possible. As a competitive community, this is what we should strive for. If you find competition boring, PS espouses plenty of formats and styles of play for you to have fun with. Valuing diversity over competitive legitimacy holds no place in tiering. As I’ve explained, Excadrill takes the game’s outcome out of the players’ hands in too many situations; avoiding automatic losses to it often means getting bowled over by other common strategies.

Some say that Latios is the real problem. While I do think that Latios is pretty ridiculous (not going to get into what’s “broken” and what isn’t because that’s vaguely defined and I’m focused on metagame quality), the fact of the matter is that the Tyranitar-dominated metagame it promotes is rather balanced in that there are plenty of usable teams for which unreasonable matchup disadvantages are extremely rare. As I said before, I’m focused on metagame quality; if a metagame disproportionately centered around Latios and Tyranitar promotes a high probability of victory for the more skilled player, it’s completely fine. Every GSC game revolves around Snorlax, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason to ban it. If we were to ban Latios for the sake of keeping Excadrill due to some tiering policy ethics (not going to get into these, I have no interest), the metagame would undergo such a drastic shift that it’s impossible to know what would happen; we can’t afford such a thing so late in the generation, as the metagame would take years to “settle” (if it did at all) given the low number of games played. We should seek to ban Latios only after unequivocally establishing this metagame’s (the current one without Excadrill) inadequacy. I obviously don’t think we can do this, but feel free to give it a shot if you’d like. We shouldn’t take such great pains to fix what isn’t broken.

In addition (though I want to clearly state that this does not factor into the above argument at all before people attack it as if it was the only thing I said on the topic), banning Latios would likely make rain too difficult to reasonably handle without giving up too much speed/offense, leading to another drastic shift we absolutely cannot afford. S: in addition to the fact that we can fix the metagame solely by banning Excadrill, overturning the tier with a Latios ban in 2017 isn’t a realistic option if we want the metagame to be balanced (within a reasonable time period) and taken seriously.

I normally stay away from tiering; I find tiering policy vague and subjective to a point at which it doesn’t make sense to debate it at all. I only assume a stance when I believe the ability of good players to defeat their less skilled counterparts is going to go down the drain due to a certain tiering decision, and these cases are extremely rare; the only ones that come to mind (with respect to tiers I follow during my periods of activity) are the first Aegislash test in XY and the issue at hand. Let’s get this shit sorted before SPL, dudes. Nobody wants to take an automatic loss on turn 5 for clicking EQ with Garchomp.
 
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alright look, we gotta decide one way or another soon. spl is getting closer and closer, while this thread keeps dying to then be revived again. i just reread the thread and the overwhelming majority of everyone that's posted definitely wants something to change, but the actual solutions vary (a lot). this is an issue, because if there's too many options to choose from, or if there's no clear way to go from here, then there won't be a vote or anything like that either.

so what are our options then? looking at the ideas brought forward and the respective support they've been given, i think we're looking at the following possible and realistic choices should it come to a vote:

pros
- removes excadrill's broken element from the metagame
- removes the need for complex bans in official tiering
- protects the positive elements excadrill brings to the metagame

cons
- no longer able to use 'mons with chlorophyll/sand rush/swift swim on a different weather based team (swift swim kingdra on sand for the rain match up, for example)
- no longer able to use 'mons with chlorophyll/sand rush/swift swim + sunny day/sandstorm/rain dance

oh, i should add that this option does make cherubi illegal. that's right, cherubi. cherubi is the only pokemon in bw that does not have an alternative ability to chlorophyll/sand rush/swift swim. so in that regard the metagame doesn't lose anything by going forward with this option.

pros
- removes excadrill's broken element from the metagame
- protects 'mons like kingdra from being collateral damage

cons
- removes the positive elements excadrill brings to the metagame
- doesn't remove the need for complex bans in official tiering

pros
- protects the positive elements excadrill brings to the metagame
- protects 'mons like kingdra from being collateral damage

cons
- doesn't remove excadrill's broken element from the metagame
- doesn't remove the need for complex bans in official tiering

i've purposefully left out the "ban latios" argument, because its too invasive of a measure to consider for an old gen. it's an unpredictable one, too; we wouldn't know if bw turned out better or worse due to it not being actively played.

the way i see it (and i'm basing this on the viewpoints of active and accomplished bw players, too) it's ideal to remove what makes excadrill broken, but to keep its entry hazard clearing prowess. the first option does exactly that and also simplifies tiering by removing the need for a complex ban, which is a huge plus, in my opinion. the cost of not being able to use kingdra on a sand team seems justifiable compared to the huge upsides this option provides. having said that, if it did come down to a vote it would be left to players much better versed at bw than i am.

if this thread is to have any effect before the start of spl, we have to be concise and on point. are these options a starting point to move forward to a possible vote? if there are any objections please do post as soon as possible, because time is of the essence.
 
I'm so terrible at arguing, but prefer the ban sand rush argument the most. If I recall, the reason we added back Excadrill in the first place was to get away from the Magic Guard spike stacking meta because the only decent spinner was Starmie. Excadrill is still OU with Mold Breaker just not Uber worthy. Open to hearing what everyone else thinks as well.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
I refrained from posting up until now because I hadn't played any serious games of BW in a while, but after some re-integration I think it's pretty safe to say that Sand Rush Excadrill is blatantly broken and needs to be banned. Granted it's in a weird spot because its brokenness is a result of the prevalence of sand, which means Tyranitar, which is primarily everywhere because without it, Latios rips teams to shreds. That's a lot of steps before we get to "broken", and some decent cases have been made for Latios being the real problem, but as long as Tyranitar isn't on the chopping block then there seems no real reason to get rid of Latios when it's handily checked by such an omnipresent team player.

Meanwhile, an important yet understated aspect of early BW remains unaddressed. Assuming that Sand Rush Exca will be banned, now is the perfect time to revisit the complex ban on Sand Stream + Sand Rush. With Excadrill out of the picture, the Sand Rush users of BW appear nowhere near as egregious as those using Swift Swim and Chlorophyll. Anyone who played back when this stuff was legal remembers the horror of Kingdra, Kabutops, and Ludicolo, the first abusers to prompt a complex ban. Soon to follow were the Sun abusers Venusaur and Victreebel, only one of which could be enough to singlehandedly sweep through a team. However, very few people at this time were saying anything about Stoutland and Sandslash, who were being used uncommonly on OU Sand teams. Stoutland functioned as a fast revenge killer but suffered from low Attack and was pretty frail by BW standards. Sandslash was used even less than Stoutland and was mostly a fast spinner that died to any special attack, if it was able to use Swords Dance the game was probably over already. So why do they remain banned?

After combing through the original thread which led to Excadrill being unbanned, you will find that there is almost zero mention of Stoutland and Sandslash, and when they are mentioned, it is because players are worried about losing them to a potential Sand Rush + Sand Stream complex ban, which is exactly what happened when we voted overwhelmingly in favor (myself included) of unbanning Excadrill, and banning Sand Rush + Sand Stream solely for the purpose of allowing Excadrill to exist in OU. If you go through this thread or any discussion of the OU metagame in mid-2015 when this decision was made, there is absolutely no one saying that Stoutland/Sandslash are remotely close to broken. They were 100% collateral damage as a result of the Excadrill decision. A lot of players regarded these Sand Rush users as being somewhat healthy for BW at the time, and I think it would be a positive change to let them back into the metagame. Stoutland is a fast yet weather-dependent revenge killer that still has to lock itself into a move to deal serious damage, and Sandslash is a far weaker Excadrill in almost every regard, not to mention it compounds the weakness of a lot of Sand teams due to its typing and fragility. It's hard to see either of these becoming too strong with Sand Rush, and their presence could help shake up a metagame that is dominated by an incredibly small pool of Pokemon and rather monotonous gameplay. Even if their usage is quite low, like it was before they were banned, I think it adds a lot to BW when a few Pokemon exist that are decent threats when under their preferred weather, but absolute jokes otherwise, since it adds an element of complexity to opposing weather matchups and makes you think twice about trading Ttar for Latios every single game.

I won't be playing BW in SPL, and I understand that some players are uncomfortable with changes to their metagame so close to the beginning of an official tournament, but as there seem to be no convincing reasons to otherwise reject this idea, I'd like to propose that we end the complex ban on Sand Rush + Sand Stream in the event that Sand Rush Excadrill is banned. If you complain that this overcomplicates our policy stance on complex bans despite the fact that this issue only arose due to a mistake in how we handled Excadrill's original unban then you can go fuck yourself

 
I think it's clear this issue has some unrest around it from its metagame's players. There have been several solid arguments made and proof brought from both sides, so I believe this should go to a vote to those most qualified. Tony's seem to be the three best options. Perhaps a "ban Sand Rush" option could be added for those who like Kingdra's anti-rain properties; it's not as bad to deal with thanks to Ferrothorn and Toxicroak naturally messing with what it's supposed to do (attack and ko everything whereas Exca'll spin if you have a wall for it and isn't limited by a choice item), even Toed/Lati/Keld can get in its way. I totally respect/don't mind the view of "yeah but it's still an uber in rain, get rid of all the speed boosting shit" of course. I would encourage anyone else to come forward with whatever other ideas they may have that would make for the best solution in a vote.

It's worth noting that Rush Exca on rain (with Scarf Keldeo) has been a new phenomenon that developed mostly due to its success in SPL 8. Since then (8 months), it's consistently seen a lot of success. If it was as easy as slapping a "check" on a team like you can for Volc or MG Psychs or whatever else is "trending" at the time (you'll notice that once people started actually running checks to them they fell off rather hard, whereas the metagame has been filled with Exca's so-called checks from the start and that doesn't stop it) this thread wouldn't exist. I can't stress enough... it's been agreed that this is a legitimately uber Pokemon. Running Tyranitar to cover huge threats in the metagame shouldn't mean I should be at risk of facing a Pokemon that's so dangerous I'm not even allowed to use it myself. Going any further would just be rehashing Jayde's excellent post so I implore you to make the right decision for the BW metagame.
 

Windsong

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Voted ban on Exca five years ago and in a vacuum I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

But we're not in a vacuum; we all saw the repetitive and (for some players) dull sand + magic guard psychic balance that dominated towards the latter end of the four (?) years of no Exca. Jayde's point--we strive for a metagame where skill is rewarded rather than a tier that boils down to team preview--should be the primary consideration, but the views of those hoping to avoid a return to post-Exca BW are also valid.

My slight preference would still be an outright ban on Exca for reasons outlined in Jayde's post, but if people are determined to avoid the old no Exca meta then I think a ban on Sand Rush would be the best option. I'd lean away from any option that removes Kingdra; the dynamic counterplay sand gets against rain with the inclusion of Kingdra has generally been a positive element of BW. It adds complexity to both gameplay and teambuilding (unlike slapping Exca on rain, where you're still using a mon that's impactful in the weatherless/sun/rain matchups). A Sand Rush ban also allows the removal of the Rush + Stream complex ban.
 
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Finchinator

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This thread has seemed to be mostly in support of the dealing with Excadrill in some fashion, even if that support is kind of split in regards to how we would do so. There is also some opposition, however, and I do acknowledge the presence of that. I feel like a vote before SPL on the matter would be ideal given the sentiments expressed throughout this thread. We can get what the (majority of the) playerbase feels will be the best for the tier leading up to the most important tournament and hopefully this will also improve the metagame, without drastically changing it, in the long haul. 100% support this going to a vote as Tony outlined.
 

Luigi

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hey pals, time to vote on whether something should be done about Excadrill in the BW OU metagame

The options:
  • Do nothing - No change needs to be made to the current BW metagame, with regards to Excadrill
  • Do something - Something must change in the current BW metagame, with regards to Excadrill
If "Do something" is picked we will make another vote similar to the DPP Evasion abilities vote with these 3 options:
Ban Excadrill and unban Sand Rush + Sand Stream
Ban Excadrill and unban Sand Rush + Sand Stream and also unban Chlorophyll + Drought
Ban Sand Rush
Ban Sand Rush, Swift Swim and Chlorophyll


(if you'd like another option included in the second vote feel free to post your suggestion here, even if you're not one of the people voting)

We established a similar criteria to the previous vote to determine voters:
  • The player has reached the Semi-Final of the Smogon Classic BW Cup;
  • The player was one of the people who collected the most amount of BW Points in Smogon Tour 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 (Top 3 amount);
  • The player played BW in the 7th or 8th SPL, and has at least played 6 BW Games in it (50%+ winrate);
  • The player played BW in the 11th or 12th WCoP, and has at least played 3 BW Games in it (50%+ winrate).

here are the voters:
BKC (Tour 21, WCoP 11, BW Cup 2)
Pearl (Tour 21)
SoulWind (Tour 21, Tour 23, WCoP 12, SPL 7, SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
Jimmy Turtwig (Tour 22)
Malekith (Tour 22)
Fakes (Tour 22, BW Cup 3)
Posho (Tour 24, WCoP 12, BW Cup 3)
blunder (Tour 23, Tour 24)
FLCL (Tour 24)
Evuelf (SPL 7)
Finchinator (WCoP 12, SPL7)
sugarhigh (WCoP 11, BW Cup 3)
Get this Money (BW Cup 3)
boudouche (BW Cup 2)
TDK (BW Cup 2)
Shoka (BW Cup 2)
giara (BW Cup 2)
M Dragon (BW Cup 2)
Jayde (WCoP 12, SPL 8)
dice (SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
bluri (WCoP 11)
Ace-11 (WCoP 11)
reyscarface (WCoP 11)
Smurf. (WCoP 11)
Toxzn (WCoP 11)
Veni Vidi Vici (WCoP 11)
Funkasaurus (WCoP 12)
ZoroDark (WCoP 11, WCoP 12)
6A9 Ace Matador (WCoP 12)
Tokyo Tom (WCoP 12, SPL 8)
Asuya (WCoP 12)
LuckOverSkill (SPL 8)
Eo Ut Mortus (SPL 8)
Leftiez (SPL 7)


How will the vote work? Just pm me with what you think should be done. The 2 options are:

  1. Do nothing
  2. Do something

An option will just need to hit a simple 50%+1 majority to be implemented.
Sample Vote said:
I vote: do something
You have to PM your vote to me. You may NOT edit your vote once it is sent. To make sure this won't happen, I will immediatly reply to the PM you sent with your own vote.

The deadline to vote is 11:59 PM EDT, Monday the 27th, November.
 
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Pearl

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I'm aware that if you go by the showcased precedent (the DPP vote linked in your post), it seems completely fine to set up the vote like this (4 options, 1 of which keeps the metagame unchanged and 3 others with various changes that were proposed in this thread). However, I don't entirely agree with this, even knowing that there's some urgency in the situation at hand, as people who want to keep things as-is have a clear-cut option, while people who perceive Sand Rush Excadrill as an issue are likely to see their votes getting spread across all other three options, which is sort of alarming IMO.

What the UU council did back when sun got out of hand was set up a vote to see whether the situation should be dealt with or not, and then people got to vote on what they felt was best to solve the matter (for the record, the options were to ban either Drought or Mega Houndom), and I would like to propose a similar system. As a fellow user brought up when discussing this vote with me, the divide here is not doing anything vs. changing things, which means that the semantics regarding what to do after that has been decided should not take priority for the time being.
 

Luigi

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That seems entirely reasonable to me and it fits within the time frame we have, so if Hikari allows it i'm down to do that first.


edit: i got permission from sam and have edited my post 2 posts above this one accordingly. The 3 people that already pm'd me their vote, please pm me again with whether you want something done or not.
 
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The instant runoff system literally exists to address the "votes spreading" problem. If the "do nothing" option doesn't have a supermajority in the first phase but has most of the votes, it doesn't matter because you eliminate the less popular option and redo the process. This goes until one options gets a supermajority or only two are left, in which case the one with more votes win and there's no spread whatsoever

There are option 4 options: do nothing, a, b, c



Do nothing has the majority in the phase 1 and 2, but once there are two options left the vote spreads means nothing. This is a simplistic way of explaining the process, but it should be enough. If the majority truly believes something needs to get done, the do nothing option cannot win regardless of the vote spread.
 
runoff voting is not used in situations in which differences between respective options are fundamentally unequal. if someone puts "do nothing" 2nd or 3rd on their list, they are not choosing a side on what we consider the main issue here; as such, I don't think they should be able. doing so is literally illogical in terms of what the vote hopes to decide. I don't see any reason to start with a runoff vote; it's illogical at worst and a pain in the ass at best (it can prolong the process). a runoff between solutions if we decide to do something makes sense.
 

Eo Ut Mortus

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I voted already, and I'm not voting again because the lot of you don't know how a fucking runoff vote works. You can infer from my current vote what my vote would be in a two-option vote. Why? Because a runoff vote can be translated to a series of voting rounds. Because they're fundamentally equivalent. Anyone who is uncomfortable with this system frankly does not know how it works. Runoff voting literally CANNOT prolong the process; it takes one round of votes, and that's it. Educate yourself, and don't misinform people by peddling pseudo-intellectual bullshit.
 
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it doesn't look like you read my post, so I'll try to reiterate. I do know how a runoff vote works, and nothing I said implied otherwise.

forcing voters to sort out the nuances between different complex bans before we've decided to take action at all leads to potentially unnecessary thought and effort. for example, if you were organizing a vote to potentially remove a leader and bring in a replacement from a pool of 10, you wouldn't want to conduct a runoff right off the bat with "do nothing" and an option for each replacement candidate; effort spent ranking candidates would be wasted completely if the removal was not espoused. yes, this kind of vote would be fundamentally correct. so would a runoff vote with these 4 options and 19 other potential tiering actions; these are just incredibly inefficient. certain things don't belong in the same vote, and I believe that "ban rush exca/don't ban rush exca" and "let mold breaker excadrill stay/let sand rush stay" are such things.

hopefully that wasn't too pseudo-intellectual. it isn't a huge deal, but I just don't see the logic of doing this in a way that could make people think more than they need to as opposed to just the right amount.
 
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Luigi

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i'm going to sleep now and posting the result when i wake up tomorrow - last chance to get your vote in.

voting is now closed. i'm waiting confirmation on something before posting the veredict
 
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Luigi

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28/34 people voted, you can find the individual votes in the hide tags below.

Eo Ut Mortus
Finchinator
Jimmy Turtwig
Posho
BKC
Funkasaurus
Soulwind
LuckOverSkill
M Dragon
Get this money
Pearl
Jayde
Fakes
Asuya


FLCL
Reyscarface
dice
Leftiez
Bluri
Ace-11
Tokyo Tom
giara
6A9 Ace Matador
TDK
blunder
boudouche
sugarhigh
Smurf.


Since the vote was a tie the option to keep the status quo wins
 

Luigi

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It's been brought to my attention that Bluri was tourbanned for cheating in the tour he qualified for this vote with, as a result we're nullifying his vote. This gives the "do something" option a 14-13 majority so we'll be holding a vote to determine what "something" should be.

The options:

Ban Excadrill and unban Sand Rush + Sand Stream - Bans Excadrill and allows for Sand Rush Pokemon such as Stoutland and Sandslash to be used in conjunction with Sand Stream
Ban Sand Rush - Ban the ability Sand Rush in it's entirety allowing Mold Breaker and Sand Force Excadrill to stay in the tier
Ban Excadrill and unban Sand Rush + Sand Stream and also unban Chlorophyll + Drought - Revert to the BW metagame that existed prior to WCoP 2015
Ban Swift Swim, Sand Rush and Chlorophyll - Ban all weather related Speed boosting abilities, undo the complex bans on Sand Rush + Sand Stream, Swift Swim + Drizzle and Chlorophyll + Drought

the voters are the same as up there, except for the fact that we removed Steve Angello and bluri:
The player has reached the Semi-Final of the Smogon Classic BW Cup;
The player was one of the people who collected the most amount of BW Points in Smogon Tour 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 (Top 3 amount);
The player played BW in the 7th or 8th SPL, and has at least played 6 BW Games in it (50%+ winrate);
The player played BW in the 11th or 12th WCoP, and has at least played 3 BW Games in it (50%+ winrate).


here are the voters:
BKC (Tour 21, WCoP 11, BW Cup 2)
Pearl (Tour 21)
SoulWind (Tour 21, Tour 23, WCoP 12, SPL 7, SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
Jimmy Turtwig (Tour 22)
Malekith (Tour 22)
Fakes (Tour 22, BW Cup 3)
Posho (Tour 24, WCoP 12, BW Cup 3)
blunder (Tour 23, Tour 24)
FLCL (Tour 24)
Evuelf (SPL 7)
Finchinator (WCoP 12, SPL7)
sugarhigh (WCoP 11, BW Cup 3)
Get this Money (BW Cup 3)
boudouche (BW Cup 2)
TDK (BW Cup 2)
Shoka (BW Cup 2)
giara (BW Cup 2)
M Dragon (BW Cup 2)
Jayde (WCoP 12, SPL 8)
dice (SPL 8, BW Cup 3)
Ace-11 (WCoP 11)
reyscarface (WCoP 11)
Smurf. (WCoP 11)
Toxzn (WCoP 11)
Veni Vidi Vici (WCoP 11)
Funkasaurus (WCoP 12)
ZoroDark (WCoP 11, WCoP 12)
6A9 Ace Matador (WCoP 12)
Tokyo Tom (WCoP 12, SPL 8)
Asuya (WCoP 12)
LuckOverSkill (SPL 8)
Eo Ut Mortus (SPL 8)
Leftiez (SPL 7)


How will the vote work? We will be using instant-runoff voting, akin to the previous vote. You will have four options to choose from, and you should list them in order of preference. Be sure to bold your list. The options are:

Ban Excadrill and unban Sand Rush + Sand Stream
Ban Sand Rush
Ban Excadrill and unban Sand Rush + Sand Stream and also unban Chlorophyll + Drought
Ban Sand Rush, Swift Swim and Chlorophyll

An option will just need to hit a simple 50%+ majority to be implemented, unless an option reaches a 2/3 + 1 supermajority at any point, in which case that option will be implemented. Here is what your vote should look like:
sample vote said:
You have to PM your vote to me. You may NOT edit your vote once it is sent. To make sure this won't happen, i will immediately reply to the PM you sent with your own vote.

The deadline to vote is 11:59 PM EDT, Friday the 1st, December.

apologies for the inconvenience.
 
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