So we are currently trying to make the following statement true to rationalize that SR is suspect:
SR makes it consistently easier for [PokemonX] to be capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the Metagame with little effort.
And so the to make this true, the SR is Suspect camp needs to find an actual pokemon that can replace
[PokemonX]. However, I am seeing a problem with this
. Namely the word
Metagame.
Stealth Rock is currently the #1 non-damaging attack in Standard by usage. [trim] With Stealth Rocks usage so high, the metagame is currently centered around Stealth Rock, with players either looking for ways to maximize its effect on their opponent, ways to stop it from hitting the field, ways to get it off the field, or ways to minimize its effects on one's team. All players must go through one of these four thought processes if they hope to make their team competitively viable. [trim]
The problem is that the current metagame has been molded around Stealth Rock, as I posted above. Therefore we might not be able to find a pokemon that matches [PokemonX] because the metagame has adjusted in such a way as to prevent a [PokemonX] from appearing by minimizing the effects of Stealth Rock on standard teams.
But what if there was a [PokemonX] in a metagame that was not adjusted for stealth rock but where stealth rock was still allowed? As if we had been playing DP for a year with Stealth Rock banned, and then decided to let it into standard play for a suspect test. And during the test,[PokemonX] was discovered to be able to sweep through the standard metagame teams with the help of stealth rock, because the metagame was not centered around Stealth Rock the way it is now. Would we consider it broken according to Tangerines definition?
And just because that is argumentation of ignorance does not change the fact that it is the next correct logical step from "SR is uber if you can find a [PokemonX] that sweeps standard teams because of SR". Trying to answer the quoted sentence just leads to "Well, because we don't know what standard would be like without SR, we don't know if [PokemonX] could be possible in a SRless metagame but be suppressed in the current metagame, so we need to test a SRless metagame to figure out if theres a [PokemonX] in it which would help us find out if Stealth Rock is broken". That reasoning is retarded for obvious and previously stated reasons, basically being "We need to test a metagame without Stealth Rock so we can decide if a SRless metagame should be tested". For this reason I would like to abandon this line of reasoning and attack Stealth Rock from another angle.
In the competitive metagame, as a strategy's predictability increases, it's competitive viability decreases.
A strategy may be uber if there is not an inverse relationship between its viability and predictability.
This was DougJustDoug's proposed definition for what makes an uber an uber. I suggest you read his entire post
here, once you've finished reading mine of course. Once again, I have changed the word Pokemon to strategy, to reflect the spirit of the thread. Notice that I did not use the word attack, as I still believe there is a fundamental difference between moves that have a lasting, cumulative effect on the battle and moves that just deal or heal damage on the turn they are used. If you think that I am misapplying Doug's postulate by using it this way, please give me a good reason you think so.
I personally believe that this definition is what should be used to figure out what is broken, as this can be proved with objective information like usage statistics and player leaderboards. Tangerine's definitions, as correct as they may be, still require speculation (theorymoning) in order to prove. Tangerine's definitions may be the virus that causes Uberia, but Doug's definition is the symptom that proves that virus is actually present, and is what we should be using to make our diagnoses.
Anyway, to explain Doug's definition, a strategy should become less effective as more and more people expect it to be used and learn how to deal with it, and should drop in usage as time passes and the metagame adjusts. Garchomp was declared suspect because it defied this law by continuing to rise in usage after hitting number 1 even though the usage and predictability of SD+Yache did not decrease.
Note: The reason Yache was not declared suspect instead of Garchomp was because it was Garchomps typing, stats and movepool that made combining it with Yache berry broken, not Yache berry's effect of removing dragon pokemon's 4x Ice weak. Salamence is still checked by rock attacks and Thunder Wave while yache berry is attached, and Flygon cannot raise it's stats to a level capable of sweeping teams.
So lets look at Stealth Rock's predictability compared to it's effectiveness(usage) over the course of 3 months, which is how long we've had Platinum.
Usage: October - November - December
Stealth Rock: 10.75% - Not Found - 10.68%
Well look at that. *_*. Stealth Rock usage has actually decreased from October to December. A miniscule .06% yes, but it still decreased. It seems that the metagame has in fact found an equilibrium with Stealth Rock and that Stealth Rock is obeying the law of a balanced metagame set forth by Doug.
But then again, this data could be an erroneous reflection of the metagame, since it takes into account the moves used by players who don't play competetively (like the players that are using Camerupt and Ampharos in OU) and therefore are not a part of the metagame.
If we could get move usage percentages for Stealth Rock for the last 3 months of only players that had a conservative rating of 1400 or better (or whatever rating you guys think is appropriate), we could get a much better representation, I think, of what Stealth Rock's usage is in competitive battles (the metagame).