Other CAP Bans and Leadership

[Drapionswing]

approved by Birkal

I've made this post today to mainly discuss a very controversial topic among the CAP Community, Banning CAPs. I am not surprised by general thoughts about this topic, as at first glance it does not seem like a very logical thing. While I am not entirely proposing the idea of a full on ban on CAP Pokemon, I am proposing a temporary ban which I will explain later on in this thread.

Now you may be wondering what has lead me to bring this up, and simply put this has been stirring around in my head for a very long time now. Firstly I'd like to begin with the lighter topic of CAP LC: Cawdet is universally banned throughout forum tournaments due to it's incredible potency as a Set-Up Sweeper. Generally I do not think there's a reason to continue to allow it to be legal in CAP LC, and I know some of the playerbase agrees with that sentiment. Nerfing Cawdet is generally outside of the scope of the LC project due to the flavor-focused nature of the project, so I think this would be the best idea. In saying this, it leads me to a question; How do we decide what gets banned from CAP LC? With the project being very loose in structure, we need a dedicated team of people to lead and look after the tier. Those of you who are against this idea, please post why you are against this.


Next I'd like to speak on Old Gens, which of course is entirely directed at the big mammoth in the room; Aurumoth. To put it simply, Aurumoth is broken as shit, we all know Aurumoth is broken as shit and going into Gen 7 we made the move of nerfing Aurumoth, because it's capabilities are too great to deal with healthily. This was brought up in CapTT 4, and was simply shrugged off and "solved" by a proposed "Gentlemans Agreement". As you can see, the argument here was that we should have brought this up after, but as we all know ORAS is practically dead with a small outlet as of right now so missing things like this is not unexpected. Given the state of Generation 6 CAP, I don't see a reason to allow Aurumoth to continue to literally terrorise the metagame with a completely unfair guessing game every turn until it is revealed. I think that Aurumoth is a one-off case due to the power that it possess as Pokemon, and I do not want this to turn into a CAP ban spree for some stupid reason. Without a playable ladder and mainly forum tours for this tier, I just think this is the best course of action. Complex bans are a possibility, however I don't see the precedent throughout smogon as a whole to complex ban to just to preserve this one CAP that is so unhealthy, so that people can potentially play with it without illusion. Backtracking back to CAPTT4, I think we need to prevent any scenarios like this for the future and here's the second proposal I have to offer: CAP Metagame Leaders.

CAP Metagame Leaders are the simplest fix to this as they will strictly dictate what is up for debate when it comes to things like this in the future. This leads me to my next point; Current Gen CAP! To put it simply, I don't think it's safe to shelter ourselves under a false philosophy that the CAP Process will not create any more broken CAPs, in saying this I think Metagame Leaders should be in control of banning future CAPs in the case they are too powerful for the meta. But Drap, don't ban CAPs you nerd! This is where I hope to appeal to this party. I am also proposing a revision of the Update process, specialised for this scenario.

By this point some people may be confused, so let me explain this as best as I can. In the event that a broken CAP slips through and is just incredibly hard to handle, I think the Metagame Leaders should ban this CAP. After I think we should revise the CAP, fixing issues as much as possible without changing the core identity of the CAP and staying in toe with the concept. After this process, they should be playtested and hopefully released with no problems. The CAP Metagame's priority should be to maintain as many CAPs as possible while promoting an equally healthy metagame. This process is strictly for nerfing Pokemon which have proven to be too powerful for the CAP Metagame.

Metagame Leaders are very beneficial for the Metagame, as they are meant to structure and connect us while having everything running in unison to overall better CAP as a whole. They will make the Metagame scene as competitive as possible, while looking over the resources, and making sure all resources are of the highest quality possible. Metagame Leaders are also meant to just post in ongoing processes to shine as much competitive enlightenment on the process, and also potentially voice the opinion of others.


Revision Process:
Beginning with a standard TL & TLT nomination

• Problem Assessment

-Here we look at what is wrong with the CAP at hand, what makes it so powerful and how it actually affected the metagame while it was in the tier.

• C&C Assessment

-Here we look at the Check and Counters list from the process, and see what Pokemon actually do the job of checking/countering and whether this list needs to be altered.

• Solution Assessment

-In this stage we aim to alter the CAP in a way to make it more in line with any changes to the C&C, as well as making it more suitable for the metagame. In this stage we aim to keep in toe with Concept and Identity, whilst also looking for the easiest solution. This could be removing a Setup move or Tweaking a speedtier etc.

 

[Granny Pie]

This question was answered in the CAP Room, but I wanted everyone to know the answer:
What do you mean by Metagame Leaders? Do you want a dedicated council that will watch over every single CAP Meta, or do you want something more akin to small teams overlooking individual metas, like ORAS, LC, Doubles, and Monotype?

 

[Drapionswing]

This question was answered in the CAP Room, but I wanted everyone to know the answer:
What do you mean by Metagame Leaders? Do you want a dedicated council that will watch over every single CAP Meta, or do you want something more akin to small teams overlooking individual metas, like ORAS, LC, Doubles, and Monotype?

There are two CAP metagames currently, LC has a small playerbase and I think it's hard for us to expect LC tier leaders to step up to the job. However having players who are not invested in CAP LC as metagame leaders for LC would lead to some questionable management. Overall if we can find people to manage LC that would be great, otherwise I think LC may have to be put on the backburner. As for ORAS CAP, I think that would just come under this council just for the sake of simplicity. Doubles and Monotype aren't exactly established metagames, and I don't think metagame leaders are needed for these metagames.

 

[Eris]

I agree with pretty much everything said, CAP definitely needs Metagame Leaders that will prevent these issues.

While the metagame has been evolving in a very positive way since the updates there are still unresolved issues. The way Cawdet was banned in CAP LC literally had no type of structure nor did it have some kind of suspect test that could actually benefit the tier on multiple levels. This now is prolonged by wether or not Aurumoth should be banned in every tournament containing an ORAS section. Due to those reasons I think CAP deservers a council runned by Metagame Leaders who could ensure the balance of the tier. Before I go in depths of how I think that should be structured I will explain my thoughts on Drap's Revision Process.

Revision Process:
Beginning with a standard TL & TLT nomination

• Problem Assessment

-Here we look at what is wrong with the CAP at hand, what makes it so powerful and how it actually affected the metagame while it was in the tier.

• C&C Assessment

-Here we look at the Check and Counters list from the process, and see what Pokemon actually do the job of checking/countering and whether this list needs to be altered.

• Solution Assessment

-In this stage we aim to alter the CAP in a way to make it more in line with any changes to the C&C, as well as making it more suitable for the metagame. In this stage we aim to keep in toe with Concept and Identity, whilst also looking for the easiest solution. This could be removing a Setup move or Tweaking a speedtier etc.

Those definitely are the key factors to what we should be thinking about when CAPmons are esteemed too powerful, each category bring a different aspect of the CAPmon which is a great way to find balance within the viability of said mon. Though I don't think this should be run by some kind of Topic Leader, the Metagame Leader should fairly be capable of fitting the role of leading a 'revision' and introducing the overall process to the community the same way I believe Suspect Threads are made in regular tiers such as OU,UU...etc. The way I think our process is slightly different is because we then have to go back to edit the CAPmon's process. For example: if we remove an ability, we then have to fill that spot in with a new one, if we remove a coverage move we can debate wether to exchange it with one that contains a lower power output, which then means we have to edit the level up/tutor moves category of a CAPmon's process.

Now I think the most questionable part of Solution Assessment is wether or not tweaking stats should be considered. This was quite the topic back in the updates, should we resume to keep statistics the same or should we take advantage of it by directly addressing the problem through nerfing/buffing them? Quite frankly I think it is way too easy for us to turn to stats change directly. What I enjoyed about the updates is that by not changing stats, it allowed us to identify the problem of a mon deeper. I personally think stats change should only happen when buffing. It still is a controversial topic that CAPmons such as Malaconda and Voodoom could've greatly benefit from a 20point raise. I personally don't have any problem with it but I can see why people would be against it.

Moving on to Metagame Leaders here is my proposal.

Metagame Leaders and Council Leadership Proposal:

1) Community Vote to designate Metagame Leaders

I honestly can't find a better way for CAP to designate its leaders than making a democratic statement. I think it should run the same way as CAP Process Polls, bold votes of 3 or more. Only difference is I'd opp for a reasoning but as that may be repetitive depending on how popular a choice become it may be optional, I also believe it breaks the way bots are programmed to get results. Or we could do it in a similar way of having a thread open for discussion which later goes on a poll containing every user that had been mentioned in said thread. Just like other tiers, I think having a Tier Leader followed by a co-leader is enough especially has council really doesn't have a member limit.

2) Metagame Leaders designate Council Members

This is pretty straight forward, the same way VR council is built up I believe, leaders choose members who they deem fitting of the spot. I don't think this has to have a thread designed for it. The council should be based on the user's contribution to the tier and metagame knowledge which has not to be restricted by regular CAP, it should also contain users who diversify by playing oms such as CAP LC, CAP UU, CAP MnM etc.

CAP LC could also get its own council and leaders, however due to the lack of contributions it has had I don't think it is right to exclude it now, taking it under regular CAP at first seems to be the best way in my opinion for everything to evolve nicely and once established we can definitely think of separating them for each to grow independently.

 

[DHR-107]

I just want to point out here that regarding CaPLC:

It was never meant to be a serious, nor competitive metagame.

The fact it has evolved into this sort of thing has worried me slightly, but I am doing everything i can to try and support the extremely fledgling tier. I have spoken to a number of users on Discord and I am posting updates/making changes to the tier. There didn't seem to need to be a discussion about Cawdet specifically because it is absolutely broken beyond all measure.

I also want to point out: Cawdet is not OFFICIALLY banned. The fact that people hosting tournaments involving CaPLC have decided it is absolutely ridiculous is testament to how broken it is. There has simply been a gentleman's agreement in place to not use/prohibit the use of Cawdet in LC Tours and in CaPTT. I'll show some stuff below:

+6 252 Atk Cawdet Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 116 HP / 236+ Def Eviolite Vullaby: 27-33 (108 - 132%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The above calc also lets Cawdet hit 19 speed. This is only outsped naturally by Diglett (Who can't trap and gets eaten alive by Bullet Punch), Elekid (who is blocked thanks to Volt Absorb unless you run an insane Physical Set with Fire Punch) and Voltorb (Same reason and why would you even use this?). Everything else above this speed needs to be scarfed/buffed to try and revenge. It speed ties which a bunch of other LC's, but a lot of them do not have a good move for hitting Cawdet. Priority is only scary from Corphish, which is hitting its better defence:

196+ Atk Adaptability Corphish Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Cawdet: 8-10 (40 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO

And doesn't really hurt it. While Acrobatics with no item obliterates in return. Offensive Torchic stands some chance of beating it (protect allows it to outspeed, but you have to rely on the shakey accuracy for Fire Blast) and everything else that can threaten it is just "bad". It's basically impossible to stop it setting up Belly Drum and healing back to full thanks to Berry juice, and its natural bulk and excellent typing let it freely pressurize the tier. It has insane coverage with Drain Punch/Bullet Punch/Acrobatics and basically cannot be stopped. If you guys want to go through a whole cycle of testing for Cawdet, we absolutely can do. But I don't see the point in it when I can get it banned relatively quickly and even Quote (LC Tier leader) thinks the damned thing is stupid.

As de facto tier lader for CaPLC at this time, I am trying to get these sort of things sorted out. A few people have reached out to me to get resources/other threads set up (I know Viper/Tarenteeno a working on a new viability ranking list). I also have zero problems with banning things from CaPLC if we accidentally make something a tad too strong (as it will remain a primarily flavour based project, I am not budging on that).

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

Cawdet is utterly busted in every regard, so no problems with getting that banned.

Gen 6 Aurumoth I think is also totally up for a ban. Illusion by itself causes a ridiculous amount of 50/50s, meaning that literally one wrong play can lead to a lost game, and that you have to be always wondering if the Pokemon is an Aurumoth or not, especially if there are no rocks up on that side of the field. I also don't think going back to gen 6 and removing Illusion for Light Metal is the right play, even if Illusion is the biggest issue and what causes it to be broken, since it is an older gen. I would rather just see it banned to be honest.

I still don't completely understand what you mean about Metagame Leaders, can you give a better explanation about what they would do besides this CAP Emergency Suspect Process. I see a lot of blanket statements when you talk about the Metagame Leaders like "while having everything running in unison to overall better CAP as a whole", which just leaves me wonderig what you actually mean. Can you us specifics? I like the idea of making sure that resources are up to date, although for bigger ones like VR and Analyses that should probably be in the jurisdiction of each respective committee.

I also don't really see the point of going all the way of electing a new set of TL and TLT through voting for what is generally a three stage process about the metagame. I think instead the Metagame Leaders or whoever is in charge of banned mons should privately appoint a "Revision Leader" of sorts. This is mostly a person to lead the discussions and makes sure it doesn't veer off into insanity. They also act as a sort of representative for the Metagame Leaders or whoever, and must still answer to the rest of the committee. If they at some point go off the rails or disappear suddenly, the committee can appoint another Revision Leader to take over for the remainder of the process. I think this would save a lot of time and get the Pokemon fixed and back into play a lot faster.

As for the Revision Process that Drap entailed, I'm mostly fine with it. Only thing is that stat changes should only be considered if it is absolutely need, or is identified as the main source of the issue by a very large consensus. And with similar practice to Game Freak about stat buffs, we should only by small amounts at a time, with a limit of about 10 per stat with only being able to change 2 or 3 stats. Speed tiers should be given extra special care, as they are usually super specifically build and should only be edited by a few points. Changing of moves or abilities is fine, but we have to enforce not to cut for the sake of pointless nerfs. Cut only what makes the mon so problematic and don't fix what ain't broke.

 

[Drapionswing]

Cawdet is utterly busted in every regard, so no problems with getting that banned.

Gen 6 Aurumoth I think is also totally up for a ban. Illusion by itself causes a ridiculous amount of 50/50s, meaning that literally one wrong play can lead to a lost game, and that you have to be always wondering if the Pokemon is an Aurumoth or not, especially if there are no rocks up on that side of the field. I also don't think going back to gen 6 and removing Illusion for Light Metal is the right play, even if Illusion is the biggest issue and what causes it to be broken, since it is an older gen. I would rather just see it banned to be honest.

I still don't completely understand what you mean about Metagame Leaders, can you give a better explanation about what they would do besides this CAP Emergency Suspect Process. I see a lot of blanket statements when you talk about the Metagame Leaders like "while having everything running in unison to overall better CAP as a whole", which just leaves me wonderig what you actually mean. Can you us specifics? I like the idea of making sure that resources are up to date, although for bigger ones like VR and Analyses that should probably be in the jurisdiction of each respective committee.

I also don't really see the point of going all the way of electing a new set of TL and TLT through voting for what is generally a three stage process about the metagame. I think instead the Metagame Leaders or whoever is in charge of banned mons should privately appoint a "Revision Leader" of sorts. This is mostly a person to lead the discussions and makes sure it doesn't veer off into insanity. They also act as a sort of representative for the Metagame Leaders or whoever, and must still answer to the rest of the committee. If they at some point go off the rails or disappear suddenly, the committee can appoint another Revision Leader to take over for the remainder of the process. I think this would save a lot of time and get the Pokemon fixed and back into play a lot faster.

As for the Revision Process that Drap entailed, I'm mostly fine with it. Only thing is that stat changes should only be considered if it is absolutely need, or is identified as the main source of the issue by a very large consensus. And with similar practice to Game Freak about stat buffs, we should only by small amounts at a time, with a limit of about 10 per stat with only being able to change 2 or 3 stats. Speed tiers should be given extra special care, as they are usually super specifically build and should only be edited by a few points. Changing of moves or abilities is fine, but we have to enforce not to cut for the sake of pointless nerfs. Cut only what makes the mon so problematic and don't fix what ain't broke.

By Metagame Leaders, I just mean people who are constantly evolved in the metagame. In doing this they are very knowledgeable about the CAP Metagame. If you have a question about the metagame they should be able to answer that question and your next question all at once! And sorry about my wording, I don't mean for them to take over the analyses or VR, I mean for them to be dedicated to contributing to not only these aspects, but stuff like the Metagame Discussion thread or Sample Teams. In doing this I expect them to stimulate the CAP Metagame as a whole which will then hopefully encourage more people to post, both regulars or new people.

I also do see reason to use the Metagame Leaders to revise rather than electing other to do it, however I wanted to see how people feel about the topic overall.

 

[Bughouse]

If we can edit actual CAPs (which I mean, I opposed, but it happened and I accept it), then surely Cawdet which was never official anything can be edited too. Take away Acrobatics or Bullet Punch or whatever else puts it over the edge (I don’t play cap lc obviously).

This is a problem when we need to ban an actual CAP, but not a prevo. Then it’s a more complicated topic.

 

[Snorlax in the way]

Here are a few of my thoughts on the issues stated above:

Cawdet- Basically anyone who has had any real contact with Cawdet knows of its problems with its stats. While I agree with Bughouse that since CAP LC is not official it should be rather easy to go in and fix Cawdet's problems, I think the overall problem is that, it isn't official. Since it is not official, we have as of now strayed away from touching the project in any sort of competitive sense. I think treating CAP LC as a more competitive thing would do the project some good. It may not need to be taken totally serious, but a sense that the creations in CAP LC matter for how CAP looks as a whole should be taken into account. I wholeheartedly agree with everyone else that Cawdet should be a simple quick fix, in lieu of a competitive cap update.

Aurumoth- The way Aurumoth has been treated is simply put, a mess. If anyone has been paying attention to the CAP Metagame scene, they would notice something coined as "the nest." Simply put, the nest is a conglomerate archive of about 10 different competitively viable Aurumoth sets in Generation Seven. Ten competitively viable sets is almost unheard of in any tier or in any generation. Now, just imagine that you can't hit it. I use the word imagine because, in reality, only about 10 users in all of CAP can competitively play ORAS, let alone the older tiers. I believe this is a problem of being lost to time, but that's an issue for another day. I think Aurumoth would be a wonderful test for a new recall, refit, reintroduce system for CAPs deemed too powerful. TL:DR - Go back and fix illusion to make the later gens competitively playable. (I don't particularly see why generational updates leave behind things in older gens but I dont make the rules)

Edit- The Nest: https://pokepast.es/4bf4d801b76440c4
This was requested by cbrevan, just in case any on lookers had any idea what I was on about. Cheers

"Banning CAPS" - Obviously by the title of this section, I think the idea of even calling this a process of banning caps is fearmongering. In reality, it is more of a recall, refit, reintroduce system. In reality, a CAP no matter how strong would never be permanently banned; it would just be banned long enough for CAP to be able to address the issue and reinstate the creation. This is also, at least to me, more of a safety measure than anything. Just in case cap makes a mistake that is bothersome to the player, or an update goes awry (as many people think the updates that took place were awful), this system can be in place to quickly address any problem the general competitive public has with a CAPmon. As I stated before, I doubt this measure would be used, as breaking a CAPmon under the current TLT system is near impossible due to the slog that it is to coordinate creation in the first place, but I would like it to be there. In reality, this system would be nothing more than a quick mini update, and due to the general nature of competitive consensus, should be a rather brief process. Something I would like to propose on its own, in a few short lines, is using this process to gradually update pokemon competitively and flavor wise as new tutors are introduced in new games, and as power creep knocks CAPmons out of favor. I know this is a generally opposed idea in and of itself, but I feel like it should at least be considered as an alternative to the update process that was universally opposed. I would like to reiterate, however, this is not a proposal for a new update system, simply a proposal for how a recall, refit, reintroduce process could be applied to not only fixing "broken CAPmons," but for future updates and possible further applications.

All in all, I do generally agree with most of Drap's points. On this topic, you can simply read this excerpt to really get a feel for what I want. I think Drap says it well:

Metagame Leaders are very beneficial for the Metagame, as they are meant to structure and connect us while having everything running in unison to overall better CAP as a whole. They will make the Metagame scene as competitive as possible, while looking over the resources, and making sure all resources are of the highest quality possible. Metagame Leaders are also meant to just post in ongoing processes to shine as much competitive enlightenment on the process, and also potentially voice the opinion of others.

I believe Metagame leaders could be a good source of head leadership to better lead and drive the competitive community. I think it provides a good sense of direction, and could serve as coordinators for producing a plethora of helpful resources for the CAP metagame. They'd in a sense be de jure leaders, as opposed to the smaller de facto heads of the metagame community that we have floating around. It is something more concrete for a somewhat fluid and still developmental/neglected metagame side of CAP.

Overall an excellent proposal, it truly does need more attention.

 

[DHR-107]

Jordy Has asked me to post this on his behalf:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've been thinking about a system like this for a while. I don't think we should adjust any of the CAP Pokemon, instead, I strongly support a case of banning CAP Pokemon.

I am not a fan of adjusting CAP Pokemon, as this simply does not make sense (unless this is during a generational shift). I think we should leave Pokemon as they are. If they are too strong for the metagame to handle, they are too strong. However, I obviously don't think we ignore the issue either, as this makes it seem like we don't care about the issue at large, which is bad for obvious reasons. The solution is, imo, banning CAP Pokemon. I know that Birkal is heavily against this idea and that other people may see it as "we failed", but I really don't. If anything, it shows that we did too well(obviously this should be judged on a case-by-case basis). Also, I feel like it's really only people that mainly contribute to the CAP process that really worry about banning CAP Pokemon, as they want the CAP Pokemon to be playable at all cost. To be blunt, this just supports the "we don't care about the metagame" mentality, which, as long as we have broken Pokemon, will just keep repelling people from playing the CAP metagame at any serious level.

Something important that should be pointed out is that editing CAP Pokemon while banning them for x amount of time will put the CAP metagame in a very awkward limbo which allows for very little actual metagame evolution.

It should also be clear that I'm not proposing a separate banlist from OU. The only thing we should do is banning CAP Pokemon to create a healthier metagame. (OU banlist + broken CAP Pokemon)

I think a CAP council would be a perfect addition. How this council would be formed, I don't know. There's a group of about 20-30 players that consistently play this metagame, which is obviously a very small sample size, but it's doable. However, I don't think anything the CAP council decides on should be decided through public polls, because we can't really hold suspect tests with that small of a playerbase.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think this is now a conversation worth seriously having while we have some "down time" between caps.

 

[Deck Knight]

As an example thought process, I would sooner reinstate Mega Metagross and Zygarde (2 Pokemon our CAP Processes have accounted for in the past, and indeed as named checks/counters in Cruci's process) than ban Mega Crucibelle.

If it comes down to it, CAP is ultimately about balance by *addition* whereas suspects and bans primarily utilize subtraction to stab at changing stale metagames. CAP really doesn't have an issue with metagame staleness because we regularly add a Pokemon inherently designed to take the existing metagame into account.

The key issue has always been ensuring the legitimacy of the deciding authority.

 

[Jho]

I actually have some detailed thoughts on this matter and since this thread has been revived looking like a good time to share them:

I am not a fan of adjusting CAP Pokemon, as this simply does not make sense (unless this is during a generational shift).

I agree, our focuses during a generation should be: Creating the CAP's, developing the meta, paperwork (analysis, VR etc). Adding a huge extra load onto this doesn't seem reasonable, however; doing a biennial check up on the CAPs to coincide with a new generation sounds like a solid plan as we will roughly know the timeframe and be able to open our schedules to fit it in. This would be the perfect opportunity to give updates out as we have done previously, perhaps be more generous with changes but that's a different conversation for another day...

other people may see it as "we failed"

Whilst Mega Crucibelle and Necturna are incredibly oppressive in the current meta, both were made for the generations they were developed in, and the changes between the generations has just put them over the top. We can try our best to balance everything for the current generation but it could all change the next generation and we'd possibly have to deal with something much worse (particularly with Necturna and Sketch). If we don't have the ability to ban CAPs and instead try to balance by adding a check with our next CAP, the meta just becomes a game of SNAP where if you didn't bring the matching check, you're at an incredible disadvantage - see Necturna and not having one of Scarf Kitsunoh or Weavile. Not to mention dedicating an entire project just to act as a check to one thing because its overturned is super restricting and not beneficial at all for the process as a whole.

Also, I feel like it's really only people that mainly contribute to the CAP process that really worry about banning CAP Pokemon, as they want the CAP Pokemon to be playable at all cost. To be blunt, this just supports the "we don't care about the metagame" mentality, which, as long as we have broken Pokemon, will just keep repelling people from playing the CAP metagame at any serious level.

Whilst I hate the line in the sand this draws in our community, it does have some merit and has been sort of apparent in some of our more recent discussions. Whilst obviously I would like to never have to ban a CAP and be able to use our creations, we aren't perfect and we make mistakes and we recognise the flaws in the polling system and the effects that can have on the meta. If there is no possible way for the meta to deal with it something being overtuned which we couldn't or didn't foresee, why would any serious players stick around outside of the novelty of CAPs? If we want to grow our user base, the key is drawing people in who will stay to play the meta, which is pretty hard to do since I've had to explain to everyone interested in CAP why Weavile, Kitsunoh, and Crucibelle are on every team.

I think a CAP council would be a perfect addition. How this council would be formed, I don't know. There's a group of about 20-30 players that consistently play this metagame, which is obviously a very small sample size, but it's doable.

Absolutely, we need some sort of council akin to that every other metagame or tier has to make hard decisions going forward. This should be separate from anything related to the process as contributing a lot is not equivalent to knowing the meta. There are already a few groups of people I would consider versed enough in the meta to make up this council, some even moderate CAP as a whole but as to how people would be picked I would suggest a metagame leader who chooses the council. Whilst this could be super exploitable the only real candidate for this has proven to be extremely crucial to CAP as a whole anyway, and could definitely be trusted with that much responsibility. (SNAKE)

As an example thought process, I would sooner reinstate Mega Metagross and Zygarde (2 Pokemon our CAP Processes have accounted for in the past, and indeed as named checks/counters in Cruci's process) than ban Mega Crucibelle.

The problem I have with this (outside of it involving unbanning MMeta) is that how far do we go? Zygarde is unhealthy for the meta as a whole but hey it checks Crucibelle so we need to keep it. This is very similar to an anti-ban argument in the Zygarde suspect. People argued that Heatran would be absurd with no Zygarde to keep it in check, which is true it did lose its best offensive check, as Cruci did. However, this argument was rapidly shut down as balancing Broken with Broken isn't balancing, it just creates a stale meta where nothing changes and instead of having 1 oppressive pokemon you have 2. It also completely ignores the fact that there is a problem with the CAP, which is obvious if we're having to even suggest resorting to unbanning Pokemon such as Mmeta.

I know Birkal said over his dead body a CAP would be banned, but I think there are some scenarios where at least the option to would be necessary, and to have that opportunity a CAP council system needs to be in place. I'm still undecided on If we should ban Necturna and Cruci, or either, but I think both are worth serious discussion. Also for gods sake ban illusion moth

 

[Mx]

As an example thought process, I would sooner reinstate Mega Metagross and Zygarde (2 Pokemon our CAP Processes have accounted for in the past, and indeed as named checks/counters in Cruci's process) than ban Mega Crucibelle.

If it comes down to it, CAP is ultimately about balance by *addition* whereas suspects and bans primarily utilize subtraction to stab at changing stale metagames. CAP really doesn't have an issue with metagame staleness because we regularly add a Pokemon inherently designed to take the existing metagame into account.

The key issue has always been ensuring the legitimacy of the deciding authority.

I don't think this is the right way of addressing this issue. The idea of unbanning certain Ubers has merit, as the CAP metagame can adapt to them much differently than OU, where they were originally considered broken, but unbanning something with the explicit purpose of checking an overwhelming threat in the current metagame is a terrible idea, as you would just be introducing a new powerful and probably broken mon, which will inevitably cause even more chaos and the old broken mon will still be just as powerful against teams that don't use the new addition.

If something is broken, it needs to be fixed, and CAPs shouldn't be exempted from this simple rule. That being said, I disagree with the idea of outright banning CAPs. It's true that would be the best solution if you simply look at this from a metagame perspective, after all, this is how literally every other meta operates on Smogon. However, unlike any other metagame, we have the tools to "fix" a CAP, they are our creations, so we can nerf them appropriately (something we already did with Tomohawk and Aurumoth in the last updates). Some might argue that this is not something that Game Freak would do, as they would never nerf something in the middle of a generation (Gen 6 Parental Bond and Gale Wings are great examples of this philosophy),but I don't think it's a good idea to apply this logic to this situation, because as I said, if something is broken, it needs to be fixed, so we have to choose, either by banning it or nerfing it. I believe that because CAPs are our creations, they are also our responsibility, so the least we should do is to make sure that they are all legal on their metagame and it would be a terrible practice to put one of our creations on a limbo for what might be years.

I understand Jordy's concern that the process of revising a CAP might put the whole metagame on stasis, but I think that if we plan it properly, it shouldn't take more than 3 weeks, and in cases where the nerf is very obvious (something like Illusion Aurumoth for example) it could be done in less than a week. If we can maintain this timeframe, we don't even need to ban the suspected CAP (unless its considered ridiculously broken), and then the process shouldn't be too different from a standard suspect test.

 

[snake]

Colonel M asked me to post this on his behalf.

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Hello CAP.

I'm an OU player (well, kind of, I don't play much anymore) that often talks with users such as Jordy and Finchinator on a lot of subjects with Pokemon. I've been around the Smogon community for a long time and remember when DJD and co. first had the projects for mons such as Scylant with Arghnaut probably being my favorite design look and type-wise.

I asked for someone to post for me because I wanted to give some potential insight and thoughts to consider to help CAP grow more as a community. We've had multiple small circles within Smogon for various metagames, and I feel that CAP also deserves a chance to have some of that growth as well. Doing so, though, requires taking measures that I feel may seem very drastic and could create a lot of discord in the process. I want to make it absolutely clear that these are merely suggestions and not something that should be taken as the Word of Tomohawk.

I feel the biggest change CAP needs is a metagame council. A council should have the goal to help the metagame evolve and stabilize. CAP has quite a few mons that have been created over the years, with some such as the dreaded moth and Mega Crucibelle being some of the worst offenders. The council, with metagame knowledge under their belt, should help determine what Pokemon are dangerous outliers for the tier and have the responsibility of creating suspect tests. They should also be the group that is often consulted, arguably the most, when creating a Pokemon. Creations such as CAP mons are very finicky and need to be treated with utmost care. Creating a Pokemon with a niche that is desirable but not overpowered (as in forcing a Pokemon to be an A rank mon), in my opinion, should always be the core focus of CAP. I feel some of the creations definitely aim way too high (Mega Crucibelle, Moth) or way too low (Naviathan, Snaelstrom) in this.

I understand DJD's original goal of having community input on things. While I personally disagree to some extent, I understand why this thought process exists and feel that it should be supported as well. The problems involve things becoming a serious mixed bag - community as a whole does not always know what is best for things I feel and some probably vote simply to vote for what they like. I'm not going to say that the community should suddenly be shunned, either. I'm mostly pointing out that there definitely should be some things done more in-house first, and then afterwards the community can give their input. The community opinion is definitely important and being ignorant of your community is never a good thing; however, something that should always be understood is that a community can also become quite a hivemind and should not always dictate decisions. Personally I feel there should be stronger checks and balances to creating Pokemon and their statlines while community should be open to giving input on it as well. It still follows the guidelines of the community creating a Pokemon, but there are more checks and balances to creating a Pokemon that can stay within the metagame and not threaten it.

This brings up a few more points from me personally. Jordy mentioned banning CAP Pokemon as a whole. I think in the beginning due to the nature of some of these unbalanced behemoths there should be more adjustments given to perhaps give these Pokemon a second chance. I do think, eventually, the concept of banning a CAP Pokemon may need to be considered more often after some balances are created. While failure is a difficult pill to swallow (I can speak from experience), we need to remember that failure does not always mean the end of everything. Sometimes we need to step back and re-evaluate things more carefully before trying again. I think for CAP to grow this is something that needs to be understood. Use the initial time (probably between now and Gen 8) to address the outliers to bring them in, then afterwards reconsider if a Pokemon should be banned. I can also reason with people such as Birkal on wanting to keep a Pokemon around. After all a lot of these Pokemon take a long time to create and people would feel sad that they cant use something they helped create. I feel this is why, again, more checks and balances to creating a Pokemon is extremely important.

Bans definitely need to be introduced to at least isolate the problem and potentially attempt to fix though. Currently, Mega Crucibelle is a Pokemon I would argue could be worthwhile of a suspect test. It's a Pokemon that is almost designed too perfectly with its stats being very favorable for some trades, Magic Guard giving it complete immunity to passive wear down, a dangerous STAB Head Smash with 0 recoil, Toxic Spikes absorption, methods of bypassing its checks and counters or completely ignoring them and going straight for U-turn. I'm going to get the one horrible post from the thread addressed right now - unbanning Mega Metagross and Zygarde won't fix Mega Crucibelle. Zygarde and Mega Crucibelle are pretty potent partners as is and, as Jordy and a few others like Jho have mentioned to me, enabled things that even make OU tier look more balanced. Unbanning Pokemon wouldn't have fixed Pokemon like Gen 6 Moth either. Put bluntly - the Pokemon created are major outliers and are broken. This is why temporary (or permanent) containment is crucial for moving forward.

If there is one minor thing I'll agree with Deck Knight on it's this - I feel CAP should feel that they have a right to dictate a little more on what their metagame should and should not allow. Before someone strawmans me let me make things absolutely clear.

1) This is not me stating to unban Pokemon that were banned in OU per se barring absolutely rare exceptions. For sake of argument, let's say Pheromosa is not a very oppressive force in CAP metagame. Perhaps, for some reason, there are more viable checks and counters that exist in CAP that its presence was deemed okay. If OU banned Pheromosa, CAP should have the right to keep Pheromosa.

2) On the flip side, if Zygarde was not banned in OU and was deemed too powerful for CAP the tier should have the right to ban Zygarde. This post is not me suddenly saying unban Lunala aka the Joycap Strat. This is me suggesting that CAP should have a little more flexibility in what is allowed and what isn't, within reason.

I have created a tl;dr below to help address what I am saying. It's 2am for me and there's a lot of what I typed, but I feel that what I say below will help those that feel lost in the transition:

- CAP should always feel that it is the community being put forth first. While it may not mean that the community gets to decide everything, they obviously should play a big contribution to what is going on. This should personally not mean that the community decides everything, but they should feel they have some power in determining what Pokemon are created and potentially what can be outliers (within reason).
- By far before anything can be fixed, a competent and metagame knowledgeable council needs to be created. The council should understand their duties and responsibilities towards keeping the metagame healthy and aiding towards its evolution. Furthermore, they must also play a major contribution to helping the creation of new Pokemon. The council should be a major part of checks and balances.
- CAP Pokemon should not be designed to be top tier behemoths like Mega Crucibelle and Gen 6 moth. They should be designed with clear niches that are desireable while not being too oppressive if certain things change.
- Many CAP Pokemon that would be put under radar for a suspect, up until after a certain time period in Gen 8, should be contained and re-evaluated on what needs to change in order for the Pokemon to continue to thrive while not being too aggressive. If it's agreed upon, permanent banishment may be an option.
- CAP as a metagame should feel that they have the rights to allow and not allow things within their metagame, within reason, while still trying to remain close to the OU / other metagames.

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Personally, I agree with the sentiments in Colonel M's post, and I've started drafting a post, so expect that soon.

 

[Bughouse]

In creating 25 (well, more really) CAPs that were all intended to be strong, there were bound to be some misses. There were also bound to be some creations from years ago that unintentionally became stronger over time due to generational shifts. But I mean - even if it were all perfect, it could never actually be perfect. Suppose we had created 25ish A rank mons... except oh wait... that's impossible. There's no way that all of them can ever land at A rank, because OU itself already has like 30 mons in A rank (which is itself insane and proof that OU has gone mad with allowing generational power creep, as if we needed proof), and CAPs aren't going to simply displace official mons 1:1, nor are they going to make almost any of them bad. Like - even in one of the most direct cases of a CAP being able to outclass an official mon, Aurumoth and Volcarona, Volcarona is still perfectly fine in the meta and is STILL A rank.

OU is insanity, with ~30 A rank mons. CAP is pushing 40. That's not remotely sustainable.

If you want to actually balance this meta, it's going to take a heck of a lot more than just one or two bans. And quite a few of those bans would have to be of CAPs.

That's not something that I think anyone would actually enjoy, and so I think it's better to just let sleeping dogs lie. The meta's not perfect. And that's just how it is. It does suck, since CAPs are now designed for the CAP meta. And you'd rather not design for a broken metagame.

But maybe you shouldn't have designed for the CAP metagame, which was always a flawed decision. Not that OU is such a great meta anymore either........ But that's just me being old and bitter.

I said this in 2015 with respect to moving to the CAP metagame in the first place. It's still true now. But even more true with respect to Deck Knight's suggestion to drop rather than ban.

I disagree with this on a fundamental level because the proposition is based on the idea that adding even more threats to a metagame that already has too many threats will somehow balance it. It won't. I'd rather stick with a mission that is currently fulfilled poorly than move to a mission that is arguably unfulfillable.

 

[snake]

I suppose I should give my thoughts on this matter.

I read through Drapionswing's original proposal, and to be honest, there are parts that I like and parts I find questionable. But first, I want to go over everything that's been said within the last few posts.

First, I strongly agree that a council should be formed for the CAP Metagame. Pretty much every other metagame, even 1v1, ZU, and LGPE OU, has a council. Setting up a council brings users who know the metagame together to make level-headed desicions about the metagame. While Deck has brought up the legitimacy of those put onto the council, we do have a CAP Analysis QC team, a VR team, a sets VR team, etc. from which we can start to draw individuals for such a council.

Second, I also that there needs to be some system to address CAPs that are pushing towards being broken. Obviously, there are some people who are going to hate either nerfing or banning. Some people want to preserve the creation just as it was made; some people want every CAP to be available to play in the metagame, even if it's basically unviable (Voodoom). However, Necturna and Mega Crucibelle are really taxing on the metagame; the rise of Weavile and Choice Scarf Kitsunoh, musings in the Discord about Palossand and defensive Kartana, a shift towards Hidden Power Ground Tornadus-T, etc. are just some of the effects of this centralization, and it's honestly putting a lot of pressure on defensive and offensive teams alike. Quite simply, the metagame is pretty polarized right now, and it's not healthy. These are just the two current examples of broken threats, but eventually there might be another suspect for whatever system, banning or nerfing, and we need to have that system in play.

Third, reintroducing Pokemon from the OU banlist to balance out broken CAP is actually silly and shouldn't be considered. If we were to reintroduce any of those threats, it's because it's simply not broken in CAP. HOWEVER, that is a different discussion entirely. For now, let's focus on the issue of broken CAPs.

Now, what I don't want to get across is that every CAP will get nerfed/banned when it reaches S-rank on the VR. That should NOT be the point of this thread. If it's centralizing the CAP Metagame as much as a threat that would get suspected in any other metagame, the system needs to kick in and address the problem.

So, what is this solution? Is it banning or nerfing? To be honest, I'm a little more in favor of nerfing. I can definitely change my mind on this, but CAPs are the appeal of the metagame, The idea of banning CAPs won't sit well with me if there's a reasonable alternative since we can have the structure in place to mellow them out. As Mx said, OU, for example, cannot remove Glare from Zygarde's movepool. If Zygarde were a CAP, we feasibly could. Personally, I find one important part of the metagame is that every CAP is available for use, even if they aren't the most viable, which is one reason why the nerfing process is alluring to me. However, the nerfing process will need to be very carefully defined. I'd like to highlight the parts I like from Drapionswing's proposal and work from there.

To start, I'd like to have this system focus solely on the CAP Metagame. Not CAP LC, not CAP UU. We need to focus on the CAP Metagame first, and if it works for the CAP Metagame, maybe CAP LC or CAP UU can adopt it later on.

Now, Drapionswing proposed a system where a Pokemon is identified as broken and removed from the metagame. A discussion will take place about how we want to nerf the Pokemon, and then the Pokemon will be reintroduced later on. On paper, this system does what we want. However, there's one aspect that really bothers me, and it's the removal of the Pokemon from the metagame. While I understand how removing the broken threat is important, if it's going to be introduced later on, this poses a problem for metagame resources. Jordy alluded to this, calling it a period of metagame stagnation, and I agree with this speculation. Having kept up with metagame resources for the past few months, I'd be really annoyed if this removal/reintroduction system took place. Hypothetically, let's say Mega Crucibelle were removed, we nerfed it, and we reintroduced it. What happens to analyses, the VR, the sets VR, etc. during this nerfing period? If we were to update them, we'd have to take the time and energy actually to update them twice, once to deal with the limbo metagame, and once again with the reintroduction metagame. Putting it bluntly, I'm not doing that. The other solution is to let the resources stay unupdated, but then for a couple weeks the resources will be blatantly inaccurate. Neither of these situations are good. The solution to this issue is simply not to remove the broken threat during the nerfing process. Instead, by leaving the broken threat in the metagame, we can analyze the best way to tone the threat down. This would require only one update to metagame resources and would be a much smoother transition for the "post-nerf" metagame.

With these flaws aside, I'd like to outline the process I have in mind (based on Drapionswing's first proposal).

Nerfing Process:

1. The CAP Metagame Council identifies a broken/unhealthy threat. Input from the metagame discussion thread, Discord, high-level tournament replays, etc. are ways the community can voice their concerns to the CAP Metagame council.
2. The CAP Metagame Council begins a thread. The OP, written by the CAP Metagame Council, summarizes why the Pokemon is broken. Metagame shifts, game mechanics changing, or OU bans can be potential points. The CAP Metagame council will also include a checks and counters list. Hard-counters to soft-checks, hazard damage, relative ability to switch-in, etc. should be considered. Keep in mind that with the broken Pokemon in the metagame, we can continue to understand why it is broken.
3. In the thread, the community discusses the simplest solution to making the CAP not broken. Here, we can well-define a new list of checks and counters. Some solutions may be changing its ability to one that's similar but not as good, reducing its speed tier, removing some of its bulk or attack, or removing a certain move or two from its movepool. The community will play a huge role in identifying what solutions are available, but CAP Metagame Council will have the final say on what nerf is implemented. Keep in mind that the nerf that is implemented MUST preserve the identity of the CAP (i.e. Mega Crucibelle uses recoilless Head Smash, Pajantom uses its powerful trapping move, etc.).

For those who are skeptical of nerfs, I understand it. The creation process is tough. I've undergone it myself five times, three times holding a leadership position. I hope that's enough to say that I understand that nerfing a CAP raises alarms about how projects that take months to complete might not be quite the same. However, under a system that I would endorse, the goal would be to make broken threats less broken in the simplest way possible and in a way that preserves the Pokemon's identity. If a broken CAP absolutely tanks in viability from S or A+ rank to B-rank on the VR, then I don't think we made the system right. Taking Mega Crucibelle and removing U-turn and Low Kick and etc. to make it B- should not be the goal of such a system. Taking Head Smash away from Mega Crucibelle would take away a crucial part of its identity and should not happen under this system. If Mega Crucibelle gets a nerf that makes it more manageable to play against and it still remains S-rank on the VR, that's fine. If it falls to A+ or A, that's also fine. It really just needs to not be broken. In short, the goal is to make the most "harmless" nerf to a CAP possible in order for it not to strain the metagame.

This brings me to another point. While we can definitely try harder not to make absolutely broken threats in the metagame, I think it's absolutely infeasible to say that we'll never have a broken CAP ever again. Metagame trends, changing game mechanics, headaches with polling in CAP, etc. are too volatile to make such a claim. CAP Projects are NOT a stab in the dark; that'd be an insult to every TL, TLT, and contributor to every CAP Project, given all of the time, thought, and effort they've put into them. However, there's no way to "test" a CAP to ensure that it's not broken in a metagame before it's introduced to that metagame. In essence, it's like trying to make the final product of an engineering project on the first go. Generally, that might not produce the right results, so engineers build prototypes and work their way towards a final product. That's not feasible for a CAP Process. What is feasible, I think, is having a way to acknowledge that we don't always make perfectly balanced Pokemon. Whether or not we introduce a ban system or a nerf system, this must be addressed if we want the metagame to be healthy. Remember, with CAP Projects based on the CAP Metagame, that the health of the metagame directly influences the health of the project. From a nerfing process, though, we can learn from analyze and learn from our past mistakes and learn how to make even better CAPs in the future, while keeping the current metagame in balance and preserving the identity of the metagame as a whole.

EDIT: I changed step 1 of the process to clarify that the metagame council is the body who initiates the nerfing process.

 

[Birkal]

The proposal by snake_rattler above sets a good balance of the community consensus presented in this thread. His points on keeping banned mons banned, keeping CAP Pokemon in the metagame, and the process with which we will nerf CAPs are all salient and well-worded. We will move forward with the inauguration and maintenance of a CAP Metagame Council.

Snake did not mention how many users, nor whom, will be on the council. From serving as a super moderator on this site for four generations of Pokemon, I can safely tell you all that those details are fairly arbitrary. What matters is that we move forward with this proposal, not split hairs over who or how many. In order to choose an initial council, I will work with the CAP moderators and veterans of the community to select either three or five individuals to serve on the council. It will likely consist of a mix of moderators, veterans, users with strong tournament presence, and users with strong ladder presence. All will be competent at the metagame.

If you have any objections or differing opinions, feel free to post them in the next 48 hours. Contact me if you need longer than that to make a post. Otherwise, let's move forward with this and see how it goes!

 

[Birkal]

And we're done here. To clarify, we'll be following this process that snake_rattler posted above:

Nerfing Process:

1. The CAP Metagame Council identifies a broken/unhealthy threat. Input from the metagame discussion thread, Discord, high-level tournament replays, etc. are ways the community can voice their concerns to the CAP Metagame council.​

2. The CAP Metagame Council begins a thread. The OP, written by the CAP Metagame Council, summarizes why the Pokemon is broken. Metagame shifts, game mechanics changing, or OU bans can be potential points. The CAP Metagame council will also include a checks and counters list. Hard-counters to soft-checks, hazard damage, relative ability to switch-in, etc. should be considered. Keep in mind that with the broken Pokemon in the metagame, we can continue to understand why it is broken.​

3. In the thread, the community discusses the simplest solution to making the CAP not broken. Here, we can well-define a new list of checks and counters. Some solutions may be changing its ability to one that's similar but not as good, reducing its speed tier, removing some of its bulk or attack, or removing a certain move or two from its movepool. The community will play a huge role in identifying what solutions are available, but CAP Metagame Council will have the final say on what nerf is implemented. Keep in mind that the nerf that is implemented MUST preserve the identity of the CAP (i.e. Mega Crucibelle uses recoilless Head Smash, Pajantom uses its powerful trapping move, etc.).​

The CAP moderators have selected a group of five users to run this process, henceforth known as the CAP Metagame Council. These five users were selected based on their metagame knowledge, participation in analyses, tournament results, viability rankings, ladder position, and overall personality. This was a difficult decision to make, which is a good indicator of how much the CAP community is growing. Please contact these five if you have any questions or comments on the specifics of nerfing and metagame shifts.

Jho
Jordy
Mx
snake_rattler
SHSP​

Thank you all for your help and sharing your opinions!