Hoopa-Unbound

Reymedy

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DISCLAIMER : THIS IS NOT ABOUT DISCUSSING WHETHER HOOPA-UNBOUND IS BROKEN OR NOT. DONT POST ABOUT THAT MATTER HERE. DO NOT.


Hello.

I wanted to start a discussion about the Hoopa-Unbound case, as I had a talk about it with McMeghan , and we kinda met a dead end.

My main point, is to call into question the classic approach (A) :
- A new Pokémon is released
- It gets added to OU
- New official metagame
- Suspect tests take place if needed

I wanted to know why we would not do it the other way around and suspect Hoopa-Unbound instead. So basically, the new policy would be (B) :
- A new Pokémon is released
- Run a Suspect test concerning this new potential addition to the tier
- Add this Pokémon to OU, or ban it for good

I want to clarify that this policy would be only feasible in the case of a Pokémon being released in the middle of a generation. My intention here is NOT to change the way we're doing things when a new generation pops out (ie : when there are a lot of new Pokémons being released).


The answer I got was the following : "Why would we make an exception for Hoopa ? Why would we change our current policy".



I'll try to re-explain my logic here, the best I can, so bear with me.

There are two possibilities concerning Hoopa-Unbound :
1) Broken
2) Not broken
We can safely assume that these two possibilities are concrete. Option 1) is possible. Option 2) is possible. At this point, there is no way to dismiss entirely one of these options.


Now, let's see how the two policies (A and B) we described would react to the two possiblities (1 and 2) by doing a gain/loss analysis for every single scenario :


A) current policy 1) broken
+ : We tested the Pokémon for a reasonnable amount of time and saw its impact on several tournaments.
- : We lost a lot of time (two months at best), and are now back to the position we were in before.
The teams that have been built are now obsolete as the metagame died (you may laugh at that, but I don't find it to be a trivial matter for the people who actively build).
A lot of tournaments were ran with an unbalanced metagame (Finals of WCOP, laddering of OLT I guess ? Some ST weeks at least).

2) not broken + :It makes the decision look more legitimate, as we have more "data" to back it up.
- : None

B) suspect first 1) broken
+ : We saved a lot of time (two months at least), and did not paralyze/impact the metagame in the meantime.
We allowed our current metagame to mature for two more months.
The tournaments have been ran in a tried and trusted metagame.
Council has been pro-active and players have been called up right away to take a decision, granting it a certain legitimacy.
- : A decision solely based on a suspect test implies a possible lack of data.

2) not broken
+ : A real suspect test (and Suspect Tournaments) to analyse the released Pokémon.
The tournaments have been ran in a tried and trusted metagame.
Council has been pro-active and players have been called up right away to take a decision, granting it a certain legitimacy.
- : 2 months of play testing in a tournament environment.


How to analyse this :
What matters, is the ratio +/- of ever single scenario. What catches my eyes the most, is the way the - of A)1) totally outweight its +.
A)2) has almost no + and no -.
B)1) from my point of view has way more + than -, same goes for B)2).


Obviously, we all value the different +/- in a different way. But overall, a pro-active policy is always better when it comes to taking decisions like these. For a very simple reason : You can always go forward with your decisions, but you can never go back in time. If you lose the Finals of WCOP to a shitty metagame, well, sadly, it's not something you'll ever get back (thats an example).
On the other hand, banning (or putting to quarantine) something wrongly has literally no impact in a long-term scenario, as you can always go back and re-test it later.




The main thing McMeghan had to add about Suspect tests concerning Pokémons going down from Uber to OU is :
"A suspect does not guarantee that people will really take Hoopa-Unbound into account. Suspect tests are inherently flawed, as people will manage to qualify without really playing the metagame, and vote without being aware of the consequences, or outright not care. People may also vote to keep it in Uber because they will refuse to adapt."


Okay, several things I hate about that :
- So the suspect tests are flawed ? Oh well, guess who's in charge of running them ? Raise the bar, increase the number of games needed, more tournaments, force the players to play Hoopa-Unbound one game at least during these... I don't know, but you're in charge, you have the ability to filter.
- I'm all for Council members having more power to make the things run faster. It is necessary. However, McMeghan clearly implies than the voters (that includes me I guess) are not able to make the right call. So the strategy here is to wait that the metagame either does not change too much (in which case we'll have possibly a suspect), or finds itself in deep shit (and in this case, even the dumbest of our voters should make the right decision right?).
- Why would you focus on the few people being irresponsible, or unable to cast a coherent vote. They represent a minority, and whether you want it or not, they have the right to cast a vote if they win that right by your rules, they play the same game as you. And it's so annoying for the majority (I'm gonna put myself here okay) who care about the metagame and are actually testing and voting the best they can.

So yea, maybe that's just me, but I don't really feel like being taken by the hand by the council, because I'm considered as unable to cast a reasonnable and honest vote.
It kinda turns our tiering into a joke. If the trust that the council put in the suspect tests is actually null, then why do we keep going through this farce. At this point, let's let the council do all the work. I mean, I kinda want to contribute and voice my opinion through voting and all, but it is apparently not appreciated by the council. Which is cool, honnestly, I don't expect the council to value the opinion of every random out there, even if they've been voting like me since BW2. But then, remove the suspect tests and let's be honest with. Keeping up appearances is not worth all the time we're wasting with these suspect tests.
As much as you probably all consider me as a walking bucket of salt, trust me when I say that I value the health of OU way above my right to cast a vote among hundreds of others.


That's all, I kinda want to hear some opinions about that.
And well, I don't know if there is a way, but if we want to change the way Hoopa-Unbound is being handled, it's right now. As for the Council, it would not hurt to tell us the justifications between your choices, as well, I don't know if I have the right to ask... but I'm kinda curious to hear why the metagame I play in has to go through this.


PS : McMeghan gave me his approval to share these things, my intention is not to "attack" him or focus the debate around him, and I did not put any word in his mouth either.
 
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Finchinator

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the thing that confuses me about hoopa-u is that it was added mid-gen and it's got a 680 bst. the last time this happened (kyurem formes) they were sent straight to ubers and tested down, not ou and tested up.
I don't want to go too far into Hoopa-U's specific characteristics because the OP explicitly states to not discuss its brokenness (this thread is predominantly meant to discuss a potential flaw in tiering policy and work to improve upon the status quo in regard to suspect testing), but you must keep in mind that this is a totally different, stronger metagame than BW2 when the Kyurem were introduced and Hoopa-U is a unique pokemon that cannot be equated to either Kyu-B/Kyu-W simply because of its BST, so I don't think you can draw too many parallels between these situations.
 
i think our current policy is just fine. in gen 6, every pkmn released so far (barring hoopa) has been either balanced (diancie) or quickbanned (mega mence). also i dont think bst should count as a rule to quickban stuff, because mega diancie has 700 bst, for instance. i personally think hoopa-u is broken and should be quickbanned, and, if need be, retest it later. however, that's a decision for the council to make.

edit: also, i dont agree with the "you lost the wcop finals because of a shitty metagame?" because not only the definition of "shitty" is at the very least subjective, but also players may and will agree on playing the non-"shitty" metagame, which is happening right now (see wcop semi-finals).
 

Reymedy

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i think our current policy is just fine. in gen 6, every pkmn released so far (barring hoopa) has been either balanced (diancie) or quickbanned (mega mence). also i dont think bst should count as a rule to quickban stuff, because mega diancie has 700 bst, for instance. i personally think hoopa-u is broken and should be quickbanned, and, if need be, retest it later. however, that's a decision for the council to make.

edit: also, i dont agree with the "you lost the wcop finals because of a shitty metagame?" because not only the definition of "shitty" is at the very least subjective, but also players may and will agree on playing the non-"shitty" metagame, which is happening right now (see wcop semi-finals).
I'm pretty sure I explained that it was not about whether this Pokémon was broken or not. But I'm gonna increase the font I guess.

And, I fail to see what you're not agreeing with. If the tournament players refuse to play the current metagame in the favor of another metagame that they find more balanced/competitive/etc., then it clearly means there is an issue with the way the tiering is handled (basically they take action and apply the quarantine themselves)... which totally supports my point ?

PS : "shitty" was just a catchy word, no need to over-think about it.
 

Haruno

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And, I fail to see what you're not agreeing with. If the tournament players refuse to play the current metagame in the favor of another metagame that they find more balanced/competitive/etc., then it clearly means there is an issue with the way the tiering is handled (basically they take action and apply the quarantine themselves)... which totally supports my point ?

PS : "shitty" was just a catchy word, no need to over-think about it.
This is subjective at best, and as a onlooker of wcop (assuming this is what you're referencing), why would players have to spend a large amount of time building/testing teams in a hoopa-u metagame (which might or might not be broken but that isn't the point of this thread/post) where this could potentially be a huge threat that teams that tournament players has prepared have obviously not accounted for. Especially so when all teams agree with this, and rather than try to deal with this new threat, realize there's an easy out and do a gentleman's agreement (for lack of better word) to avoid this whole situation and play with the teams that they've designed specifically for their current opponent that a player has utmost confidence that they'll win with. So I honestly do not see why you're bringing this up, when there is a high probability that wcop just want to win and obtain the prestige of winning + fancy blue trophy. Hell the fact that you bring up the non hoopa-u metagame as more enjoyable/balanced/competetive/etc is dubious in itself seeing as how hoopa has been out for under 24 hours, nowhere near enough time for a metagame to be accurately evaluated.

I'll make a post with regards to the op itself at a later date.
 

Reymedy

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This is subjective at best, and as a onlooker of wcop (assuming this is what you're referencing), why would players have to spend a large amount of time building/testing teams in a hoopa-u metagame (which might or might not be broken but that isn't the point of this thread/post) where this could potentially be a huge threat that teams that tournament players has prepared have obviously not accounted for. Especially so when all teams agree with this, and rather than try to deal with this new threat, realize there's an easy out and do a gentleman's agreement (for lack of better word) to avoid this whole situation and play with the teams that they've designed specifically for their current opponent that a player has utmost confidence that they'll win with. So I honestly do not see why you're bringing this up, when there is a high probability that wcop just want to win and obtain the prestige of winning + fancy blue trophy. Hell the fact that you bring up the non hoopa-u metagame as more enjoyable/balanced/competetive/etc is dubious in itself seeing as how hoopa has been out for under 24 hours, nowhere near enough time for a metagame to be accurately evaluated.

I'll make a post with regards to the op itself at a later date.
Err, as much as I don't want it to turn into a me vs others thread, I don't quite like the way you interpreted my words.

So let's break down what you said :

"Hell the fact that you bring up the non hoopa-u metagame as more enjoyable/balanced/competetive/etc is dubious in itself seeing as how hoopa has been out for under 24 hours, nowhere near enough time for a metagame to be accurately evaluated."

I don't "bring up" the Hoopa-Unbound metagame as less enjoyable/balanced/competitive/etc., I simply point out that, if the players taking part in the final phases of WCOP decide to NOT use it, then there must be a reason. I don't claim to know the future, or how the metagame will look like, so quit putting words in my mouth on a subject that is not even relevant to the main point I try to stress.


"Especially so when all teams agree with this, and rather than try to deal with this new threat, realize there's an easy out and do a gentleman's agreement (for lack of better word) to avoid this whole situation and play with the teams that they've designed specifically for their current opponent that a player has utmost confidence that they'll win with."

Now you claim that the reason why tournament players would refuse to play Hoopa-Unbound is because they're too lazy to build new teams.
Let's assume that it's true. Let's assume that the reason why 90% of the games of the current phase are gonna be played in a 48 hours range before the deadline, is solely due to everybody having incredibly busy schedules during the holidays (and totally not because they're building teams anyway).

Well, it still supports my point.
If the remaining teams of WCOP refuse to use Hoopa-Unbound, what happens as regards to the different scenarios :
- It lowers the + of every 1) scenario (current policy), because the actual real-conditions testing gets cut down, and the amount of legitimacy that we try to gather aswell. This decreases its attractiveness.
- As a result, reciprocally, the - of the 2) scenario (pro-active policy) get disminished. This increases its attractiveness.


With this cleared, maybe we can focus on the heart of this wall of text I wrote, hopefully.
 

soulgazer

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The main thing McMeghan had to add about Suspect tests concerning Pokémons going down from Uber to OU is :
"A suspect does not guarantee that people will really take Hoopa-Unbound into account. Suspect tests are inherently flawed, as people will manage to qualify without really playing the metagame, and vote without being aware of the consequences, or outright not care. People may also vote to keep it in Uber because they will refuse to adapt."
It might be offtopic, but I never understood why we did suspect tests that way; I even remember Tier Leaders complaining about how a good portion of voters literally had 0 knowledge. Maybe you guys should change that damn Tiering Policy already 9.9

--------------

I think the main issue when it comes with suspect testing something at its release (if you didn't mean that, please correct me) is the inexperience of the players with the Pokemon. It's a new threat; nobody know for sure what's good on it yet. Everybody is trying to find how to adapt to it and to be honest, I wouldn't expect every voters to be able to properly adapt to the Hoopa-U meta to give a proper opinion on it. It might be the reason why a Tiering Council would want the Pokemon to be available for a little while before suspecting it for real, but then again you got Tier Leaders that don't trust every voters to vote for the metagame's sake instead of their own selfish desire.

2 month long suspect test could work though, despite the lack of trust on voters, since usually suspect tests last about 2 week to a month anyway (so on paper they would get as much time as before). We should just make sure the voters actually used the damn thing. It won't affect tournaments such as the WCOP and OST either, which is cool bonus.

tl:dr i like your idea baby
 

toshimelonhead

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I agree with the prospect of Suspecting Hoopa-U before allowing it in OU play. I see this as two different issues - allowing Hoopa-U in the WCOP finals and addressing it in terms of Suspect testing. Out of respect and integrity to the WCOP I don't see why players have to adapt to what could be a completely different metagame. Either have some type of gentlemen's agreement or just flat out state Hoopa-U is banned for the finals because it is unreasonable to determine Hoopa-U's impact on the OU metagame in three days (assuming no tiebreakers and players play right after the deadline, both of which are obviously unrealistic but plausible.)

We then have a lull between WCOP and the next season of the Smogon Tour / OLT to run whatever type of Hoopa-U suspect test the Tiering Committee wants - Quickban, two weeks, a month, whatever it takes to make a reasonable conclusion.

Just don't f up another official tournament ffs.
 

AM

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Told Reymedy I planned on responding to this thread in the near future and since I was waiting on some more replies and such from the thread itself I guess it's about time I speak my part. I'll start off by saying as one member of the OU Council I'm speaking on my own opinion and not speaking as the OU council as I can assure you we all have different opinions and justification for our reasoning so I won't speak on their behalf.

I'll preface by saying that I agree with this
wanted to know why we would not do it the other way around and suspect Hoopa-Unbound instead. So basically, the new policy would be (B) :
- A new Pokémon is released
- Run a Suspect test concerning this new potential addition to the tier
- Add this Pokémon to OU, or ban it for good
And this
B) suspect first
+ : We saved a lot of time (two months at least), and did not paralyze/impact the metagame in the meantime.
We allowed our current metagame to mature for two more months.
The tournaments have been ran in a tried and trusted metagame.
Council has been pro-active and players have been called up right away to take a decision, granting it a certain legitimacy.
- : A decision solely based on a suspect test implies a possible lack of data.

2) not broken
+ : A real suspect test (and Suspect Tournaments) to analyse the released Pokémon.
The tournaments have been ran in a tried and trusted metagame.
Council has been pro-active and players have been called up right away to take a decision, granting it a certain legitimacy.
- : 2 months of play testing in a tournament environment.
This is just a reference point for myself and I guess others so they're not misguided in thinking otherwise. Some replys from the OP, maybe some emphasis on some of the stuff said here, general stuff that I think should change and or be considered in the future in regards to OU tiering and suspect philosophy. idk we'll see by the time I finish typing this all out.

This first portion addresses mostly the questions and anything noticeable in the OP, so that Reymedy at the very least can have his question answered about justification of decisions which I said I would speak on.
I want to clarify that this policy would be only feasible in the case of a Pokémon being released in the middle of a generation. My intention here is NOT to change the way we're doing things when a new generation pops out (ie : when there are a lot of new Pokémons being released).
Kind of obvious, but let's make sure everyone here is on the same page with this, and by everyone I mean future readers of this thread, because what I agree with up above applies to circumstances like this, not for new generation shifts entirely.
The answer I got was the following : "Why would we make an exception for Hoopa ? Why would we change our current policy".
I'm assuming this was McMeghan, and while he does have a point as I know where he's coming from, I don't exactly agree with this idea. Every policy change required a transitional phase where something from the status quo was changed for whatever reason that may be, under most circumstances for something more fluid and beneficial. If you want the answer to the "Why?" here's why.

OU in its current state as of right now is an offensive shit frenzy. It's in order to react to what has been established as a Pokemon who many have already regarded as something to be considered quick banned even before the release of ORAS, giving players the illusion that it's indeed ok for the metagame and we can adapt by using strictly offense. When the threat in question falls under a revenge killer category or pivotal point of offense, think Greninja, the communities response is normally an abundance of fatter checks to counter act it. When the threat in question is primarily a wall-breaker, think Landorus and Hoopa-U, the communities response is higher paced offense and revenge killers to maintain momentum on them at whatever cost necessary. So how does this tie in with the threads OP? The Pokemon in question was dropped in during the worst time possible in the semi-finals of WCOP and at a point where the tier was stable, or at the very least was tolerated by the community at large to be playable at a higher level of play, bringing us back to square one of meta development.

The presence of Hoopa-U, and future instances to come, in a matter of only a couple of days has put the tier into a chokehold. Strong forces such as this shun diversity for a high period of time and under the premise of our current policy while not falling into the bandwagon mentality of "ban!, ban!, ban" we're forced to see if the tier will adapt and or the Pokemon is able to break the tier. This timeframe where we view the metagame throws off the balance of consistency in games that matter, WCOP right now, as the suspect in question is implemented into the meta-game with no prior gameplay to analyze it before its official implementation. Greninja and Landorus the two examples I provided we had time to analyze throughout the metagames while the former was hidden behind a group of now banned mons while Landorus sort of adapted to the ORAS metagame showing its true colors once and for all. Hoopa-U was just thrown right into the tier and as such I believe its presence has made itself to be a huge detriment to OU. This is the main point about the OP I'm assuming so yes I think stuff like Hoopa-U, granted is debatable on its tiering placement and whether you think OU or Ubers is subjective and not for here, the notion that strong forces being thrown into our meta like this I believe warrants some new change in policy to at least some sort of slight degree.

I can go on forever but this is one those things about OU tiering that's sort of irked me the wrong way for awhile, the time of which we have to watch a metagame develop until a breaking point where it's clearly obvious the potential broken Pokemon is about to leave the tier for good. It's on the foundation of that question McMeghan asked, and while there's certain instances where the question may be applicable, Landorus for example, in this instance I don't think it is to the degree that was implied in the tone of wording.
"A suspect does not guarantee that people will really take Hoopa-Unbound into account. Suspect tests are inherently flawed, as people will manage to qualify without really playing the metagame, and vote without being aware of the consequences, or outright not care. People may also vote to keep it in Uber because they will refuse to adapt."
As sad as this may be I agree with McMeghan with 100% on this statement. That is the nature of our OU tiering and a result of the very large community and opinions we have in our tier at this point in time and even more so with generations to come. Your response sort of ties in with other aspects I'll speak on later.
As for the Council, it would not hurt to tell us the justifications between your choices, as well, I don't know if I have the right to ask
You're free to ask me whatever, anyone who knows me personally knows this, just don't always expect the answer you wanted. You have to realize the council is a group effort, each individual coming from various backgrounds and possibly tiering philosophies even generations, where the conservative and liberal approach in how we view concerns addressed to us need to be handled as a group not only to respect each other, but for what we perceive as a step forward for the betterment of the metagame. One example I can use was an argument between myself and MDragon about Scald. Long story short while I may disagree with the foundation of his argument him and McMeghan brought some valid points that made me hold my tongue and think for a bit. Justification for our choices normally will be catered to high level players and those invested in the high level tournament scene anyways. You know this, I know this, we all know this.
I'm going to ignore the +/- ratio excerpt because I already said what I agreed with so let's assume the ratio would reflect that ideology.

The second portion addresses a concern I have with just the current state of OU tiering. Some people have already brought up or questioned the way OU council does things so why don't I just speak as someone who is actually on the council seeing it from the inside now. This ties with the OP anyways, since it spoke on emphasis about suspect tours anyways.
OU Tiering currently puts emphasis on a ladder requisite in order to gain the right to vote. The good thing about this is that it's been established set in stone, it works in a pretty basic manner, does an ok job at getting the job done, almost anyone can understand it, and to me that's personally about it. The bad side....if we're considering that the social stigma of the OU environment and the tiering councils decision will be strongly geared towards the tournament level environment, why exactly are we using a predominately and even acknowledged flawed system of suspect laddering as the foundation and driving force behind the permanent direction of the OU metagame, more specifically something that just dropped into the tier with poor warning and preparation if this becomes the case on Hoopa-U and similar future instances of course?

This ties in with Reymedys proposal that I agreed with as the timeframe for evaluating a Pokemon dropped should be examined in an outside medium away from the current OU ladder and current tournament scene in point B. Two weeks is an extremely short time frame to examine something that literally just came out in a meta that has gone back to square one basically. Under this new proposal or at least a portion of it we can hold more suspect tours, I think this is a great idea btw but we really need more than 2 in an entire suspect testing frame to make it beneficial towards viewing the meta, and as such gives us a bit more practical closure which is disregarded a lot due to the theorymon and social awkwardness of OU suspecting and how the community reacts to them in general. I understand if holding a lot of suspect tours may be difficult due to lack of resources in host participation which is understandable, but it's hard to actually gauge the betterment of a tier on ladder when the suspect tournaments gave a much better glimpse of the tier by a long shot due to the nature of attracting the players we want to actually contribute to the OU tiering. Soulgazers post sort of touches upon, albeit off topic, why I think point B or at least something of it should be more emphasized.
This last point is my proposal about how to address situations such as this in the future. This proposal unfortunately doesn't address the now, but at the very least I can provide something so I and others don't have to witness this again. I still stand by that Reymedys proposal is something I would encourage looking at the direction of OU and how it has become but trying something that we've already done could also alleviate instances such as the Hoopa-U situation we're in right now.
Prior to ORAS officially being released we gained the information of Pokemon to allow ourselves to play a beta / preliminary ORAS meta-game. Due to the beneficial aspect of this we were able to gauge a month ahead of time what needed to be looked at right away, what stuff we should prepare for, suspect worthy aspects, prelim metatrends, etc. We had the information for Hoopa-Unbound for awhile now. What I believe we should do in the case of a Pokemon that's about to come into the tier is the same thing we did coming into ORAS. Have the regular OU metagame and the metagame with the potential suspect or new Pokemon in question can not only give us insight but prepare players for the inclusion of it in the official OU meta come its release date. If the concern is skewing data on the OU ladder and giving a misinterpretation of the stats, then at the very least make it a tour / challenge playable format.

I'm gonna speak as a one of the few council guys that frequents the madness of the OU room and understand its userbase while interacting with them, these players LOVE TOURNAMENTS. They're asking for them all the time, and we hold a bunch during suspect phases and or reviewing meta-game trends with or without a certain Pokemon. This also gives freedom for players to freely challenge each other on smogtours due to providing the beta to be a challenge playable format if they're not interested in going on showdown main server and just want to battle some people they know are skilled as such provided the extended timeframe we would have under a new change in how we review suspects that dropped into the tier in the middle of a generation shift.
I emphasized this last point on a minitour we're having right now in OU Forums, pretending that Ubers are being dropped to OU, so I'll put the quote here.
Personally, I want to review the meta-games with the presence of retests or in the future, the removal of a central figure to the meta, but I absolutely do not enjoy the notion that reviewing the meta-games in this fashion require suspects. Suspects put too much emphasis on something being banned or not banned on the line, which becomes the main focus as opposed to seeing how the meta-game shifts for better or worse
The retest would pretty much be anything put into the tier in the middle of a generation. Using the approach I agreed with will not only give us some time to understand a Pokemon like Hoopa-U's true development in the tier without the need to rush or set some arbitrary guidelines as to when it breaks or when it's time to test it, but it also alleviates the point stated in the quote where we can actually examine the meta without it being totally banned or unbanned on the line with only a two week timeframe + couple of months of stagnant meta being used under our current policy. All I want really is a more natural suspect process, something smooth basically that actually lets us review the meta more efficiently in regards to suspects.

I know I went off topic sometimes and this is Reymedy's thread so I hope that with respect to Reymedy people sort of stick to the point and not make this whole thing about off topic subjects. The off topic subjects I brought up for the sake of implying why I agreed with a new policy change.

Edit: If you want my two cents about Hoopa-U in WCOP I wouldn't allow it at all but that's a tournament director decision issue so there's that.
 
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