Changing our Metagame Plan: Sixth Tier proposition.

[Darkflagrance]

This is a load of bull. You remove all those top OU, then what? Oh look, suddenly every team has Starmie, Blissey, Skarm again, P-Z. Whatever, then you say hey these guys are all too powerful for OU, but not good enough for TOU, so they get dumped in an intermediate tier: too good for OU but not quite as good as TOU, or TGFOUBNQAGATOU for short.

Then you get a new load of things rising to the top. Whatever, soon you get fed up of them and dump them in another intermediate tier. Eventually, we're left with ten or so tiers, each with twelve Pokémon in. So now we have a totally fractured metagame that can be analysed very accurately because there's only about four teams you can use in each tier any way. Then some bright spark says, hey why not conglomerate all of these similar-strength Pokémon into one tier and we're back where we started.

The point of establishing TOU is to reach a point where the OU tier is composed of the greatest amount of usable pokemon. The problem with the 600's, dragons etc. is that they force over-centralization. Thus, once the over-centralizing pokemon are removed, a diverse metagame would be achieved with plenty of options. At this point elimination into TOU would be stopped. All remaining pokemon would be in OU.

Also, it is probable that TOU would simply be made up of the pokemon in the OU tier posted by Surgo. Thus, it may be that many people prefer to play a metagame with Garchomp etc. included, while those who prefer a different metagame would have OU to choose from.

 

[SNX7]

The point of establishing TOU is to reach a point where the OU tier is composed of the greatest amount of usable pokemon. The problem with the 600's, dragons etc. is that they force over-centralization. Thus, once the over-centralizing pokemon are removed, a diverse metagame would be achieved with plenty of options. At this point elimination into TOU would be stopped. All remaining pokemon would be in OU.

Also, it is probable that TOU would simply be made up of the pokemon in the OU tier posted by Surgo. Thus, it may be that many people prefer to play a metagame with Garchomp etc. included, while those who prefer a different metagame would have OU to choose from.

I'm not quite getting you here. Do you mean that the current OU tier would just become TOU? If that's what happened, we'd have the same tiers, with new names.

 

[Familiar Trainer]

The point of establishing TOU is to reach a point where the OU tier is composed of the greatest amount of usable pokemon. The problem with the 600's, dragons etc. is that they force over-centralization. Thus, once the over-centralizing pokemon are removed, a diverse metagame would be achieved with plenty of options. At this point elimination into TOU would be stopped. All remaining pokemon would be in OU.

Also, it is probable that TOU would simply be made up of the pokemon in the OU tier posted by Surgo. Thus, it may be that many people prefer to play a metagame with Garchomp etc. included, while those who prefer a different metagame would have OU to choose from.

What Jack was trying to say was after banning the 600 Club and friends for "over-centralization", things like Porygon-Z would become just as used if not more then the 600 Club was, and then they would have to be banned as well for "over-centralization" because every team would need a Porygon-Z counter.

If "TOU" is what Overused is now, all your doing is pretty much making Underused the new Overused.

Also, walls like Blissey limit the overall pool of usuable Pokemon much more then the 600 Club imo.

 

[GB_Packers_Ftw]

haha, yeah concurring with mekkah on that one.

honestly all this tier talk is just way too early. we've had these half-way decent simulators for like a week or something. metagames need a little more time to develop. basically, i like the tier list that we posted the other day, with ttar in ou and manaphy in uber. i think we should just play the game for a month, and see what trends we spot. it's just too early right now to try and analyze certain pokemon, when the game is so fresh.

anyway, there have been discussions about a middle tier anyway between Uber and OU. It will probably happen eventually, because it could be a good idea, but for now I think we should just let things play out.

Agreed, people are freaking out way to much about this and we dont even have a stable metagame.

 

[Deucalion2]

Agreed. Why not just start off with a big bubbling pot of pokemon, so to speak, and have everything battle together. The best will rise to the top, we skim them off and put them in a tier, the new best Pokemon rise to the top, we put them in their tier, etc, until done. We can't really decide now.

 

[garsh0p]

i don't agree with this at all.

as stated before, removing the top pokemon from the current tier will give rise to the top pokemon of whats left. the metagame will always be centralized.

 

[TheLegendaryX]

Is Salamence becomes Uber then there really is no point for Blissey to be OU <_<

Although I disagree with this whole idea. If you are going to be making so much stuff Uber why not just make all Pokemon Uber except for Luvdisc. Those will be some interesting fights.

 

[adman2]

Is Salamence becomes Uber then there really is no point for Blissey to be OU <_<

Although I disagree with this whole idea. If you are going to be making so much stuff Uber why not just make all Pokemon Uber except for Luvdisc. Those will be some interesting fights.

Species Clause only allows one Luvdisc. :jump:

The Top Overused is just a thinly veiled "No base 600s/Legends" clause for Standard battle, and that clause has never been implemented in competitive battles.

I personally would advocate a Borderline metagame (sort of like how people play Under Used), since there's probably a lot of Pokemon that could compete in that, but that would probably be discussed better in another thread. (Borderline is a useless tier if it doesn't develop a metagame of its own; it's just an extension of Standard as it is).

This plan seems to want to make Borderline the new Standard.

 

[Aviano]

All legedaries should be UBER and Tyranitar too! >:(

Wait, What's wrong with the current tiers again?

 

[Darkflagrance]

What Jack was trying to say was after banning the 600 Club and friends for "over-centralization", things like Porygon-Z would become just as used if not more then the 600 Club was, and then they would have to be banned as well for "over-centralization" because every team would need a Porygon-Z counter.

If "TOU" is what Overused is now, all you're doing is pretty much making Underused the new Overused.

Also, walls like Blissey limit the overall pool of usuable Pokemon much more then the 600 Club imo.

Actually, it's more like the existence of blissey allows for the existence of teams with a strategy other than the pure sweep. Because blissey acts as a counter for all special sweepers, it acts as a metagame version of antifreeze. Without blissey, the game would become more about which player's special sweepers can set up first.

While you argue that the game may become over-centralized around say, Porygon-Z, your assumption is that a point will be reached where a small group of pokemon are found to be supremely viable compared to the others. However, the avoidance of such a metagame is exactly the point of removing pokemon.

The point of figuring out which pokemon end up in TOU and OU would be to create a metagame in OU with a great amount of similarly viable options.

Ultimately, whether any metagame becomes over-centralized or settles in an attractive level of variety would have to be determined by testing.

TOU would not be everything in OU, just the extra stuff Hipno moved to Ubers. Milotic, Breloom etc. would be in OU.

 

[Familiar Trainer]

Actually, it's more like the existence of blissey allows for the existence of teams with a strategy other than the pure sweep. Because blissey acts as a counter for all special sweepers, it acts as a metagame version of antifreeze. Without blissey, the game would become more about which player's special sweepers can set up first.

While you argue that the game may become over-centralized around say, Porygon-Z, your assumption is that a point will be reached where a small group of pokemon are found to be supremely viable compared to the others. However, the avoidance of such a metagame is exactly the point of removing pokemon.

Exactly. Blissey pretty much stops every special attacker in the game. This prevents many things from seeing use. Seriously, stuff as scary as RAIKOU is starting to be forgotten about, just because of Blissey's presence. If your goal is to get the most amount of Pokemon used, Blissey should be send to "TOU" along with the 600 club. Because in all honesty, Garchomp is not affecting the use of other Pokemon by much (well except maybe Flygon).

So, if Porygon-Z becomes dominate, we would remove him, right? Well then, what if the second best special sweeper became dominate and metagame-centralizing? Would we remove him too? Would we keep removing things until there are no more special sweepers left to be dominate?

Even if you restrict some things, at the end of the day people will always flock to the current "standards". Why? People don't like to lose.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Yeas but if you look at my reasoning for this tier you will see that from a stats perspective, there are over 3 times as many top tier pokemon with this format. And those same top tier pokemon dont have the advantage of the ridiculous movepools traits and typings that the 600 club do.. Yes, there will be new standards, but they will not be nearly as dominant as the current crop.

The argument that "we will keep having to ban new pokemon" as far as I can tell is simply not true.

Also Blissey is an example of a ballanced pokemon, it trades its ridiculous special defense for the inability to attack. Something like Celebi on the other hand, has ridiculous defenses, but also is a huge threat with baton pass.. That is not ballanced.

[edit] - also I am pretty sure this topic should be closed..

Have a nice day.