I am currently working on a tiering system that classifies all NFE's. I am a bit busy at the moment and so do not have much time to finish it.
However, that is no reason why we cannot begin the tiering of NFE's. Because of the hazy vagueness of the lower boundary between UU and NU at the moment, I believe it would be folly to actually begin the tiering of NFE's by focusing attention into NU. In addition, it is certain that the almost overwhelming majority of initial forms will end up in NU. Thus, the side-effect of tiering NFE's into NU will be definition of the NU game. This makes tiering NFE's into NU slightly dangerous if careful thought is not given to the process.
My intent in beginning the tiering process of NFE pokemon was to determine which of these were unsuitable for use in UU. While it is indeed important and probably inevitable that someone, even if it isn't me, will tier all NFE's in a way that becomes accepted, it is not the most important question that this process attempts to answer.
Therefore, I begin by proposing a prototypical BL tier of NFE's. Every NFE not on this list will be available for use in UU and the lower tier metagames:
Chansey (This is a sop thrown to the Blissey haters. If someone wants to argue for Chansey inclusion, by all means do so. Everyone will despise you.)
Dusclops (It wasn’t even UU last generation and now has Will-O-Wisp.)
Haunter (Gengar 0.5, it lacks Focus Punch. However, it is still almost as diverse as its evolution.)
Hippopotas (auto-weather)
Snover (auto-weather)
Kadabra (Diverse movepool and high power)
Questionable Metagame Influence – It is harder to determine whether the following would break the UU metagame. The question of whether to send the following to Borderline or allow them in UU may be debated:
Magneton (Magnet Pull and Magnet Rise may slay Aggron and possibly other steels.)
Sneasel (Sneasel has a paltry base attack but it possesses the movepool of its evolution. With Swords Dance it still might break UU)
Rhydon (It has a higher ATK and sp def tier than Aggron but lower on the def tier. Both have glaring 4x weaknesses. The high Attack may see it banned.)
Gligar (Gligar has improved substantially since last generation, gaining a good recovery move and stuff like Stone Edgeand Night Slash. However, it lacks the elemental fangs of its evolution. If included, it would counter Pinsir handily though.)
Notice that I have NOT divided the pokemon up by similarity to their evolutionary forms; rather, I have simply tried to classify them based on their possible impact on the UU metagame.
Furthermore, I see the banning of any NFE's as something like the banning of Deoxys-E on Shoddy: they may be tested at some later date to have their brokenness empirically determined.
As I have stated earlier, all other pokemon would be allowed in UU. Tiering of NFE pokemon into NU will take place at some later date unscheduled.
To Kestrel: Like your boyfriend, I too enjoy playing with my favorites. Being a competitive battler, I also enjoy coming up with original new strategies and battling against the metagame, while others with closed minds and a lack of appreciation for the elements available to imaginative players may have derided as pointless and not worth thinking about from the competitive angle.
It is for that purpose, of playing with my favorites, that I desire to tier NFE's. Others without that vision use "significant difference" as a way to limit the scope of the UU metagame and thus attempt to ban pokemon like Pidgeotto and Nidorino from even being allowed in the metagame.
Significant difference should be irrelevent to tiering of NFE's. Primarily it is artificial and ultimately it is arbitrary. Honestly, it is rather blind to say that a Magikarp is in any way similar to Gyarados, and furthermore that approach brushes over subtle differences that make the difference between artifical metagames and ones that more closely approach the perfect.
I am not trying to build a different foundation than Eric. Rather, I am first creating a stopgap tier list of NFE's that all battlers can begin to operate upon. After that is completed, more comprehensive work can continue.
Edit: Also, I don't think a tier below NU is necessary. It will be developed only when people actually playing that metagame find there should be one.
