DP Tier Discussion Thread - BL and UU

[ODDish]

So can I take it that you approve of the implementation of a third tier to fit between the current OU and UU which accomodates all the current BL Pokemon and possibly a few others?

Yes ... isn't that what I said?

If what is more or less BL as it is now can be made into a balanced second tier to OU, with most current UU Pokemon literally 'underused' within this second tier, and therefore able to form a third tier as the almost exact equivalent of UU as it is now, can you give me one reason why that is not worth pursuing?

I'm not disagreeing that this is not worth pursuing, I'm simply not thrilled with the proposed method of achieving this ...

Like evolutia, I feel that creating a metagame with "BL and below" is perhaps a little unecessary, as it's fairly obvious that a significant portion of what is currently deemed "UU" clearly won't be able to compete.

Therefore, at least for me, it makes more sense that the BL faux tier provide the foci for testing, with the emphasis being on disputed pokemon being moved up to help create a balanced environment, either from what is currently UU to "BL", or BL to OU.

That way any testing need not radically disrupt the UU metagame as it currently stands, for those who don't necessaily want to be forced to play under this new system whilst testing goes on ... possibly for months.

As regards the naming of tiers, my personal preference would be for the term "NU" to fade away, it's neither really all that representative, and at present the concept of an NU metagame is pretty much dead anyways.

That way the new UU tier could remain UU, and the new mid-tier could either stay BL (or if there is a strong desire to continue with xU theme it could become Moderately Used), which would also help ease disruption a little.

I hope this made sense, I'm not that well at the moment so you'll have to forgive me if I've missed something really obvious ...

 

[Bourbon]

That makes sense to me... throwing all the UU into a BL metagame and seeing which ones can keep up would help us draw the line somewhere. Any "BL" pokemon that are too weak could also be considered for the new UU tier.

The drastic game changes make it seem easier to start from BL and work our ways down, instead of deciding what to shoehorn into our current UU.


EDIT: Whoa, the Araidos guy is you, Shiney Oddish!? You changed your avatar! Also, for once I agreed with you : )

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Like evolutia, I feel that creating a metagame with "BL and below" is perhaps a little unecessary, as it's fairly obvious that a significant portion of what is currently deemed "UU" clearly won't be able to compete.

This is the only real problem I have with the method that you and evolutia are proposing, everything else I agree with as they are pretty much stating the same thing.

Why should this second tier we are planning to create be restricted to BL Pokemon only, i.e. why is it justifiable to ban all Pokemon from lower tiers? This has never been done before. If an UU Pokemon is completely outclassed in this tier then it simply won't be used that much and thus be eligible for the third tier (the equivalent of UU right now), hence no change in its tier status.

But, and here is the important bit, if an UU Pokemon that was previously outclassed in the OU environment now has the attributes to fill an important niche in this second tier, for whatever reason, it will flourish there and thus be 'middle tier OU' if you will.

Just outright banning them from the start would be like banning all UU Pokemon from OU. If that happened six months ago there would have been no Tentacruel allowed (sorry Obi, your stall team is illegal) or Hitmontop (back to the drawing board for Aldaron's offensive team) or any of these obscure, less used Pokemon (Bologo cries himself to sleep).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not intending to be facetious with these remarks, I'm just trying to emphasize the detrimental effect that such a draconian ruling on the tiers can have on the metagame as a whole.

The tier as a whole would become stagnant very quickly as there would be no room for creativity with supposedly weaker Pokemon that could greatly benefit the metagame.

If your concern is that this might result in a number of current UU Pokemon being removed from said tier to accomodate this new tier, then that says to me that you're more concerned about preserving the status quo than improving the D/P metagame as a whole.

What you're essentially doing then is keeping the line drawn that defines the distinction between what is 'strong' and what is 'weak', a convention that is regarded by many, including me, as an out of date concept from the ADV generation.

It makes more sense to do away with that line and start afresh, which obviously will not please everybody but is nevertheless a necessity in order to make progress.

If it makes you feel any better, I will go out on a hunch and make a sensible prediction that, under this system, no more than ~10% of currently UU Pokemon will move from that tier, and I think that's an absolute worst case scenario.

To put this as simple as possible, I am proposing, just like Obi, that we put all the OU Pokemon to one side and then repeat the process for the rest, i.e. use what you want.

We would then analyze after a few months what are the top tier Pokemon, what might possibly be unbalancing the tier and what is 'UU' in this tier.

We could then ban the unbalancing Pokemon and allow all the underused Pokemon into their own third tier, i.e. UU, which can be balanced in the same way as before.

I believe this will lead to the total number of Pokemon in the two 'BL' tiers created being much less than those in BL now, meaning more Pokemon than before are viable options in their respective tier, and therefore the system would be a success.

If this doesn't turn out to be the case we would have to reconsider and perhaps revert back to the old system. I cannot put it any clearer than this.

 

[ODDish]

Sorry Lemmi but I didn't follow most of that ... I can't read huge chunks of text at the moment. Short, simple sentences only ...

I have no problems with the creation of a new tiers.

Tiers are moving ... fine.

UU as it currently stands is going to cease to exist ... fine.

I'll probably enjoy the new UU as I have more interest in the pokemon that occupy the lower end of the spectrum ...

My concern is that the concept of "UU" has been appropriated for this testing, so when I ask for a "UU" battle I'll be met with Aerodactyl etc.


Whilst chances are I wouldn't mind doing some testing, I don't like the idea that this will be my only option when playing UU ...


If there was a guarantee that "classic" UU were still an avaiable option for this period, then I would have no problem with what Obi was proposing.

That's why I was proposing that "BL" be made the focus for the testing ... not that we ban everything from it, although I still don't see the point of testing stuff like Delibird.

My head is really hurting now so I'm going to bed.

 

[Frokko]

My concern is that the concept of "UU" has been appropriated for this testing, so when I ask for a "UU" battle I'll be met with Aerodactyl etc.

I don't like this... :/ No Aero in UU evah!

 

[evolutia]

This is the only real problem I have with the method that you and evolutia are proposing, everything else I agree with as they are pretty much stating the same thing. Why should this second tier we are planning to create be restricted to BL Pokemon only, i.e. why is it justifiable to ban all Pokemon from lower tiers?

Please point out a post of mine that I suggested that all those below BL would be banned. It would be down right silly of me to suggest that all pokemon lower than BL be banned; because they would not have much impact on the new metagame that is trying to be created.

OU pokemon have the most impact on the OU metagame due to the fact that they are stronger overall than the BL pokemon. BL pokemon would have the most impact on this new BL metagame due to the fact that they are stronger overall than the UU pokemon.

This has never been done before.

Yes, which is why I stated that this if enacted would have to be carried out very very carefully. All opinions should be taken seriously and we should not jump the gun.

If an UU Pokemon is completely outclassed in this tier then it simply won't be used that much and thus be eligible for the third tier (the equivalent of UU right now), hence no change in its tier status.

Which obviously most of the UU pokemon will be completely outclassed due to the sheer amount of power the BL's bring to the table. Then they'd be eligible for the third tier (the one we have right now). My main problem with this method of testing is that I don't feel the UU metagame needs to have the introduction of BL's in order to get sufficient testing done to create this new metagame.

Why can't they be tested in this new frontier instead of running over the old?

But, and here is the important bit, if an UU Pokemon that was previously outclassed in the OU environment now has the attributes to fill an important niche in this second tier, for whatever reason, it will flourish there and thus be 'middle tier OU' if you will.

Indeed.

Just outright banning them from the start would be like banning all UU Pokemon from OU.

Of course.

If that happened six months ago there would have been no Tentacruel allowed (sorry Obi, your stall team is illegal) or Hitmontop (back to the drawing board for Aldaron's offensive team) or any of these obscure, less used Pokemon (Bologo cries himself to sleep). Now don't get me wrong, I'm not intending to be facetious with these remarks, I'm just trying to emphasize the detrimental effect that such a draconian ruling on the tiers can have on the metagame as a whole.

If I had suggested something like the banning of all the pokemon lower than BL then what you said would have merit but I didn't. I'm sorry if anything I said implied it.

The tier as a whole would become stagnant very quickly as there would be no room for creativity with supposedly weaker Pokemon that could greatly benefit the metagame.

I agree.

If your concern is that this might result in a number of current UU Pokemon being removed from said tier to accomodate this new tier, then that says to me that you're more concerned about preserving the status quo than improving the D/P metagame as a whole.

Well what you say here kind of goes into into "What factors should be considered for a pokemon's tier placement" Which is something that cannot be tackled at this time as we have other issues we are dealing with.

However I personally think the lower tiers should have more of a mix between both "usage" and "power" for consideration rather than just one quality defining tier placement.

What you're essentially doing then is keeping the line drawn that defines the distinction between what is 'strong' and what is 'weak', a convention that is regarded by many, including me, as an out of date concept from the ADV generation.

^^^ Above.

It makes more sense to do away with that line and start afresh, which obviously will not please everybody but is nevertheless a necessity in order to make progress.

What makes it a necessity to rip apart a tier for the sake of another just to yield the same results as if you hadn't ripped it apart in the first place?

This fresh start approach pretty much went out the window a long long time ago, I wish we could of done this in the beginning of DP, but it is too late now. If we truly wanted a fresh start then this discussion wouldn't even be occurring right now as Ubers and OU would be in testing.

If it makes you feel any better, I will go out on a hunch and make a sensible prediction that, under this system, no more than ~10% of currently UU Pokemon will move from that tier, and I think that's an absolute worst case scenario.

Ok...but under this new ideal for tier creation your just creating more work for yourself that isn't needed. At least that's how I see it from my mindframe.

To put this as simple as possible, I am proposing, just like Obi, that we put all the OU Pokemon to one side and then repeat the process for the rest, i.e. use what you want.

So a mini full metagame test? This could of worked if we hadn't already laid the groundwork for the current UU metagame, which wouldn't change much because the BL's would simply overpower them and we'd be right back here yet again. It doesn't need to be touched in order to achieve this new BL metagame.

We would then analyze after a few months what are the top tier Pokemon, what might possibly be unbalancing the tier and what is 'UU' in this tier. We could then ban the unbalancing Pokemon and allow all the underused Pokemon into their own third tier, i.e. UU, which can be balanced in the same way as before.

So what's the point in ripping apart the current if we're going to have the same results? BL is going to take some work to balance, whist the 3rd tier has to wait until the 2nd get's it's act together just to have the same results as it does now. -_-

I believe this will lead to the total number of Pokemon in the two 'BL' tiers created being much less than those in BL now, meaning more Pokemon than before are viable options in their respective tier, and therefore the system would be a success. If this doesn't turn out to be the case we would have to reconsider and perhaps revert back to the old system. I cannot put it any clearer than this.

Yes of course it would create more pokemon that are more viable to play within respective tiers but would this be impossible without ripping this UU? I think it is possible while still retaining what we have now.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Sorry Lemmi but I didn't follow most of that ... I can't read huge chunks of text at the moment. Short, simple sentences only ...

Ok done, hopefully.

Whilst chances are I wouldn't mind doing some testing, I don't like the idea that this will be my only option when playing UU ...

Who says it would be? There's nothing stopping us from keeping the option of 'classic' UU available for people while this is happening.

UU isn't anything official at the moment anyway, so the decision to play based on the current tiers is solely an agreement between members of our community and nothing more.

I guess you could ask Colin to implement some sort of 'classic UU' option on the Shoddy toolbar?

However I doubt he'd approve as it would cause confusion for anyone not from Smogon or who doesn't know what the current UU Pokemon are.

EDIT:@evolutia: ok fair enough, I understand completely your concerns about creating more work for ourselves than needed.

I just think that that is inevitable as it stands and I'm just proposing we create a fair opportunity for every Pokemon to be tried out in this second tier from the beginning.

The last thing I wanted was to create hostility and controversy in this thread so I apologize if that is the case.

Now that I've laid out my case I'll just cool it for now until a wider consensus is reached on how to approach this problem.

If my idea isn't popular then so be it. The only thing I want is to get a new mainstream tier up and running as quickly as possible.

 

[evolutia]

I don't like this... :/ No Aero in UU evah!

Do people honestly find it insulting that their favorite pokemon is in a lower end tier? I'd be happy because that would mean I could use my favorites in more than one.

 

[Forsety]

Which obviously most of the UU pokemon will be completely outclassed due to the sheer amount of power the BL's bring to the table. Then they'd be eligible for the third tier (the one we have right now). My main problem with this method of testing is that I don't feel the UU metagame needs to have the introduction of BL's in order to get sufficient testing done to create this new metagame.

Why can't they be tested in this new frontier instead of running over the old?

I can see one possible advantage to this all.

One point of unleashing the BL's is to find what are the niche's that can still consistently compete seriously. Anyone whos played UU vs OU long enough should know there are UU's out there who fill niches so well. They end up being on a even battlefield with the OU's. The low end UU's can't even begin to compete with these mini-powerhouses.

Now the other less chaotic way to do this is reverse the order. Start the systematic booting of Pokemon from UU to NU who obviously struggle to make an impact. After this is done than bring down the BL's slowly. Not only would this method be far slower but it'll be inefficient.

To begin with we won't even begin to discover those various niches without the threats to force them out being present. At the same time we won't truly find what is genuinely struggling and needs its own playground to shine. Though Lemmi isn't probably far off in saying ther'll only be a 10% shift either way.

Do people honestly find it insulting that their favorite pokemon is in a lower end tier? I'd be happy because that would mean I could use my favorites in more than one.

Somehow I don't think they like Aerodactyl to begin with.

Anyway I'd prefer if more pokemon were in a lower tier, I like having more options and it creates less headache when the lower end stuff is actually quite effective. Technically lower tiers are more difficult environments with your lack of truly effective options. I do truly still believe in a different environment compared to that of OU and that is already mostly achieved with (what I think is the case) universal rule of no auto-weather.

Overall I still think UU will keep its faster paced environment with a dash of novelty here and there but in the end we get even higher variety without breaking everything. NU will no longer be plain awful and actually rather novelty with some actual flavour. Theres only so much I can take of Bellosom, Flareon, Delcatty and their wonderful 'movepool' if you can even call them that.

 

[OmegaX]

Do people honestly find it insulting that their favorite pokemon is in a lower end tier? I'd be happy because that would mean I could use my favorites in more than one.

Frokko is a fan of UU battles, I think he refers that Aerodactyl is too powerful to be used in UU and really if you are putting Aerodactyl in a tier called "Under Used" then you know that the real uu that have been uu for years are most likely to become outclassed and forgotten. Why use DD Altaria when you have aerodactyl that is more powerful and fast without dragon dancing? why use hypno if you have snorlax? etc etc.
With the new change NU is going to become huge and unbalanced, if most if not all of current UU move down to NU what happens with the likes of luvdisc? does he go to the NFE tier or something? even NFE are better than luvdisc. To me it just seems that the change you people are proposing will only keep OU as OU, move BL to UU, UU to NU and NU to oblivion.

 

[evolutia]

Frokko is a fan of UU battles, I think he refers that Aerodactyl is too powerful to be used in UU and really if you are putting Aerodactyl in a tier called "Under Used" then you know that the real uu that have been uu for years are most likely to become outclassed and forgotten. Why use DD Altaria when you have aerodactyl that is more powerful and fast without dragon dancing? why use hypno if you have snorlax? etc etc.

Please read some of my previous posts to get a better idea on where I stand on this issue. I am 100% for the preservation of the current UU metagame. I do not believe the the BL pokemon need to be thrown into an already established tier in order to test. They can do that in their own new tier, and get the same exact results as if they were thrown into UU.

I don't think Frokko or anyone else at this time can say what pokemon would be broken in the new BL-MU tier, that's what I was referencing in my response to his post somewhat.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Okay I know I said I'd stop posting for a while, but after this post I am more convinced than ever that both our ideas are exactly the same but just worded differently.

I do not believe the the BL pokemon need to be thrown into an already established tier in order to test.

They can do that in their own new tier, and get the same exact results as if they were thrown into UU.

The proposal I made was to allow everything barring Ubers, OU and their NFEs, unless distinct, into one large tier from the beginning.

Your proposal is that we test out a metagame with all th BL Pokemon, but have now explicitly stated that UU Pokemon will be allowed during this test.

Can you see that this is exactly the same test, involving exactly the same Pokemon?

The end result will be the same. The most used Pokemon will likely consist mostly of BLs with a few UUs that thrive in the new environment.

These Pokemon will be heavily used and therefore no longer 'UU' as the whole point of having a lower tier is to use Pokemon that aren't seen much in higher tiers. This is an inevitability whichever way you approach it.

The only thing we were disputing over was the arbitrary naming of the tiers, which is silly as now the names are pretty much meaningless (there are two kinds of 'UU' now, and the definition of BL will have radically changed).

I always had the intention of preserving UU to a high approximation as that is likely to be the end product whichever way you look at it.

So to summarize, what are we arguing for?

 

[ODDish]

Who says it would be? There's nothing stopping us from keeping the option of 'classic' UU available for people while this is happening.

UU isn't anything official at the moment anyway, so the decision to play based on the current tiers is solely an agreement between members of our community and nothing more.

I guess you could ask Colin to implement some sort of 'classic UU' option on the Shoddy toolbar?

However I doubt he'd approve as it would cause confusion for anyone not from Smogon or who doesn't know what the current UU Pokemon are.

It's pretty much inevitable that the moment Aerodactyl et al become "UU", classic UU ceases to exist, as I really don't foresee any effort being made to keep it an option.

So it's almost certainly going to be a case of accept the new system or don't play, much like when Wobb/Deoxys were tested in the ladder.


@ Forsety

Personally I'd rather see the term "NU" abolished, with UU becoming the new lowest tier. It more accurately describes the pokemon that will inhabit this tier, and, as silly as it sounds, there is less stigma attached to the term.

 

[Forsety]

@ Forsety

Personally I'd rather see the term "NU" abolished, with UU becoming the new lowest tier. It more accurately describes the pokemon that will inhabit this tier, and, as silly as it sounds, there is less stigma attached to the term.

Actually I understand where you're coming from. For some reason most people think UU/NU is a bad thing and seem hurt when they see a Pokemon they like in a low tier as it means nobody likes it. Yet it actually means it can be used more.

But at the same time I don't think BL is a good name either as it still carries a certain undertone of OU lite. If you are going to have a fresh start and change the names change them both while still making sense. NU becoming the new 'UU' and the 'new' tier getting a new name.

Why use DD Altaria when you have aerodactyl that is more powerful and fast without dragon dancing? why use hypno if you have snorlax? etc etc.

Off topic but this statement irks me. Given Hypno is a fantastic disruption and Trick Room support and Altaria has all round better defenses.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

It's pretty much inevitable that the moment Aerodactyl et al become "UU", classic UU ceases to exist, as I really don't foresee any effort being made to keep it an option.

Then let's make an effort ourselves. It might sound like I'm completely against UU as it is now, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

I think 'classic UU' is very much a fun and interesting tier, with the exception of a few controversial pokes that are barely hanging on to their UU status.

I am also especially grateful for your efforts to make UU more popular, but despite this the way that UU battles are currently organised is nothing less than a shambles.

Out of all the battles I've had on the Shoddy UU tab, which isn't that many, half of them are against players whose understanding of what is UU is shaky at best (I've faced all sorts of BL Pokemon such as Sceptile, Flygon, Marowak, Floatzel etc).

This is clearly not an ideal ground for improving your skills in UU. What's more, battles are so hard to come by that it is a huge burden on what little free time I have to wait around on the Shoddy tab until someone else turns up. I'm sure this is the case for others as well.

However, if we were to organize some sort of classic UU tournament for people to sign up to, I'd be more than happy to participate as long as it was held at a convenient time.

If something along these lines was set up I'd probably take part in both classic UU and the new 'UU' (Personally I don't see why we can't just scrap this terminology for now and just call them Tiers 1, 2 and 3 until it is a suitable time to rename them, but that's just me). This way I'd get practice in both the second tier and what the third tier is likely to more or less become anyway.

So no, I do not think classic UU necessarily has to be dead. It is almost a dead tier as it stands now anyway.

 

[Forsety]

If something along these lines was set up I'd probably take part in both classic UU and the new 'UU' (Personally I don't see why we can't just scrap this terminology for now and just call them Tiers 1, 2 and 3 until it is a suitable time to rename them, but that's just me).

I think it'd be for the best actually to just label the two new tiers 'Tier 2 & 3' since tier 1 is OU anyway and nothing is changing there.

There is a point, much like there are some people who still play Advance/GSC/RBY 'classic UU' would be an option if you want as a tournament scenario.

 

[evolutia]

The proposal I made was to allow everything barring Ubers, OU and their NFEs, unless distinct, into one large tier from the beginning.

I don't think it's needed to quote everything you said, but the one major thing I want to happen is the preservation of the classic UU metagame without having players being forced to test out things. If you and Obi can agree that the classic UU will not be disrupted in anyway shape or form, I will not continue to oppose you.

Allowing everything would have been great....in the beginning of the DP metagame but people jumped in with preconceived notions of things and still made progression. I personally think allowing everything in an all out free for all is unneeded because it's just the bulk BL pokemon just need to be tested. Testing them against the current pokemon in lower tiers is just a waste of your time.

Your proposal is that we test out a metagame with all th BL Pokemon, but have now explicitly stated that UU Pokemon will be allowed during this test.

Well I thought it was kind of obvious that UU's and below would be allowed, considering the majority of them cannot compete with the BL's introduced. You'd get the same results as if you added OU pokemon into the current UU.

Can you see that this is exactly the same test, involving exactly the same Pokemon?

I'm really not trying to be rude, but if you read what I said previously you would understand that we generally agree upon many things, I just think we could take the less chaotic approach; you seem to want to take that approach and just create more work for yourselves. Your approach would of worked most effectively in the beginning of DP, but......(It's not anymore).

The only thing we were disputing over was the arbitrary naming of the tiers

We were? I've said in my previous posts in this topic since the introduction of Obi's proposal that "Names weren't important". So I don't even know what your talking about. I was just throwing things out their (name-wise) for the heck of it.

I always had the intention of preserving UU to a high approximation as that is likely to be the end product whichever way you look at it.

So to summarize, what are we arguing for?

I think we just need to clear up a few key disputes to be on the same page. If you can agree with this then I don't think I'll have to argue anymore.

• The current UU tier will be preserved as "Classic UU" as this testing of the BL pokemon goes on(I know I said names weren't that important but in this case creating a distinction is needed to avoid chaos". This new foundation has to be renamed to avoid disrupting the Classic UU metagame even more.

:/ I generally dislike arguing to begin with so I hope were on the same page now.

 

[Darkflagrance]

The proposal I made was to allow everything barring Ubers, OU and their NFEs, unless distinct, into one large tier from the beginning.

Your proposal is that we test out a metagame with all th BL Pokemon, but have now explicitly stated that UU Pokemon will be allowed during this test.

As a set of potentially game-breaking UU's has been created, a kind of "BL NFE" set, if you will, I see no reason other than ignorance to ban all NFE's by virtue of their being the NFE's of OU's. Can you honestly see something like Gabite competing with Aerodactyl or Alakazam?

 

[evolutia]

As a set of potentially game-breaking UU's has been created, a kind of "BL NFE" set, if you will, I see no reason other than ignorance to ban all NFE's by virtue of their being the NFE's of OU's. Can you honestly see something like Gabite competing with Aerodactyl or Alakazam?

Oh wow, I'm surprised I didn't see this, even though I bolded it, lol. Banning NFE's from this new BL tier is just absurd, their power level is no where near the amount the majority of BL's. What would they do to impact that meta in a negative way?

Of course People could run some pseudo species clause team with, Alakazam and Kadadra or perhaps Rhydon and Rhyperior, but it's not in violation of the species clause therefore the pokemon should be treated as an individual.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

I don't think it's needed to quote everything you said, but the one major thing I want to happen is the preservation of the classic UU metagame without having players being forced to test out things. If you and Obi can agree that the classic UU will not be disrupted in anyway shape or form, I will not continue to oppose you.

Well firstly it goes without saying that I'm not a senior member of this forum and therefore do not converse with Obi, so only Obi himself could clarify where he stands on this topic.

Secondly, you will notice from my last post that I am all for the preservation of classic UU if enough people are interested, certainly at least until the second tier has settled into a somewhat balanced state, which will be a good few months.

This is for reasons I have outlined above; I strongly believe that the third tier will for the most part end up very similar to what has recently been dubbed 'classic UU', i.e. the UU as it is now that we have been working towards refining for the past four or five months or so.

Remember, this hard work will NOT under any circumstances be wasted effort, because what it has given us is a clear indication of exactly which Pokemon would be too difficult to counter, and thus unbalancing should they be mixed in with the bulk of current UUs, which are Pokemon that we want to be viable options in the third tier for the purposes of maximizing the total number of Pokemon who are competitive in their respective tier.

Because of this it is extremely unlikely that any BLs would end up dropping down to the third tier, whether they are used much in the second tier or not, and so classic UU will not be disrupted in this regard. Possible exceptions to this would be Pokemon that have already been considered worthy of a test in UU (Leafeon, Torterra, Regigigas etc). If any of these Pokemon turn out to be underused in the second tier we may consider giving them a small test run in the third tier and going from there. Or maybe we could perform these tests during the classic UU period, either way we will eventually reach a satisfying conclusion.

The only other way that the third tier will possibly differ from classic UU is if during testing of the second tier some UU Pokemon turn out to be heavily used there. In this case these Pokemon will be classed as Tier 2 and therefore ineligible for Tier 3. But who knows? It just might turn out that no current UU Pokemon find a competitive niche in Tier 2, in which case Tier 3 ends up being identical to UU as it is now, and therefore everybody is happy.

The reality though is that it is most likely that some UUs will be used often in Tier 2 for whatever reason, and therefore we must accept the fact that Tier 3 will be slightly different to what UU is now. This is something that we all have to be willing to accept if these changes are to be implemented. But if you're still not happy at the end of it, there is still 'classic UU' to fall back on, that will never change, and nobody is stopping anyone from playing that tier if they so wish. What do you have to lose?

And so:

The current UU tier will be preserved as "Classic UU" as this testing of the BL pokemon goes on(I know I said names weren't that important but in this case creating a distinction is needed to avoid chaos". This new foundation has to be renamed to avoid disrupting the Classic UU metagame even more.

for all the reasons above, yes, I absolutely agree with this.

It turns out that we were always on the same page to begin with, it just took us a while to realize due to a small problem of understanding what eachother meant. Hopefully now we can put this behind us.

@Darkflagrance: to be honest given that this is already such a huge undertaking in completely redefining the tiers I think it would be wise to put the whole NFE debate to one side for now. After all, no consensus on NFEs has been reached yet and the last thing we want to do is make a difficult task even more complicated and controversial. There will always be room for reassessment once the tiers have settled down, but I think it is best not to try and achieve everything at once.

EDIT: It seems that we have come to a disagreement on this also evolutia. This is fine. NFEs are ok with me so long as everyone else agrees. That is the important part.

Whoa, it seems like every post I make at the moment ends up becoming a mini-essay. Please excuse me for this, it is just that I am very highly opinionated on this particular topic.

 

[evolutia]

EDIT: It seems that we have come to a disagreement on this also evolutia. This is fine. NFEs are ok with me so long as everyone else agrees. That is the important part.

Well it seems that we are on the same page now. Now we just have to wait for others to chime in and give their opinion.

 

[Cynthia]

Most of the problem people have with non-unique NFE's is that they are just OU-lite and don't really serve the purpose of being different from OU. Personally I have no objection.

 

[ODDish]

What of Snover and Hippopotas?

Are they banned from both tier 2 & 3 from the outset? (I would hope 3 definitely) Or are they allowed to be "tested"?

Are those pokemon previously deemed to powerful for "UU", still going to be excluded from tier 3?

 

[Forsety]

I should hope Hippopotas and Snover are the sole exceptions and banned from the word go.

 

[Steven718]

That's been covered several times, assuming you're even discussing Smogon tiers anymore.