Order of Operations

[Jumpman16]

Last week chaos asked me to come up with a plan to get to the bottom of the many metagame issues surrounding competitive pokemon and post a topic to this effect in Inside Scoop. I did, and came up with a "five-step process" I felt would have given us our desired result eventually with the most objectivity possible. While the collection and analysis of battle logs that were the third and fourth steps respectively wasn't received well by the rest of the IS posters as far as Wobby and Deoxys-S was concerned (though chaos has called for the collection of logs on a future No Garchomp ladder), the first two steps were generally agreed with, so I will repaste here.

*****

There's no simple way to go from 493 pokémon (or, technically, 492, which is the subject of one of the topics I will get to) to perfectly created and balanced tiers that allow for perfectly played competitive metagames. There is, though, an objective and regimented way of going about creating the rules fairly. With our own Smogon server on Shoddy Battle, we have our long-awaited power over key influences on competitive battle, but with this power comes a world of responsibility.

We can pick it up from scratch. It has been said that we need, in no particular order, to examine:

Lati@s
Mew
Manaphy
Garchomp
Darkrai
Arceus
Evasion Clause
Species Clause
UU Tiers
OHKO Clause

That's a lot. Some feel that, to move any pokemon from any tier fairly, its performance in the metagame in which it is being tested must be analyzed in a tournament. Some would champion its performance on the ladder over a fair period of time, say 2-3 months. Blue Kirby has suggested a long-term "tour" featuring any one pokemon that needs to be tested. All are good ideas, but first:

1. We must decide on the order of importance of the issues concerning competitive pokemon.

Divide and conquer. We can decide in here what the most important issues are currently, by ranking them in order, and then taking the ones with the lowest "points" and dealing with them in that order (1=Wobbuffet, 2=Garchomp, 3=Manaphy...you get the idea). There is no question, though, that we should be focusing our efforts on the most important issues first and foremost.

The next step refers to the methodology above.

2. We need to come to a decision on how exactly to conduct an analysis on a given issue.

Sure, it may be the case that a test of Garchomp and Lati@s would all benefit from a "Special Smogon Tour", but this may not be the way UU Tiers or Species Clause should be tested. It may also be the case that it would greatly benefit the community to test more than one suspect at a time. Regardless, we need to pin down what would be the most effective way of tackling the most important issue or issues at any time before we can go forward. And, of course, issues like Arceus and the Legendary IV clause can't be "tested" the same way, but rather discussed in Policy Review/Stark Mountain properly.

After this, it gets a little more difficult, but nothing we can't collectively handle.

*****

And that's where we can pick it up again. If you have posted in the IS thread, please copy and paste your post, insert your ranking of OHKO Clause and number the remaining 10 issues. You can explain your rankings if you want to. I've removed Wobby, DX-S, Event Moves and IV Clause from the list and added OHKO moves, and will be double posting my new ranking because I am awesome and totally above the rules.

edit: pasting Jabba and my three-Stage Suspect Test process here for posterity


Stage 1: Analysis of a single Suspect in a suspect-free standard metagame

Stage 2: Our assessment of Uber or OU for any Suspect's impact on a suspect-free metagame, following the respective Suspect's completion of Stage 1.

Stage 3: Analysis of all the Suspects in the standard metagame with the knowledge of which are considered Uber and OU in a Suspect-free metagame.

edit two:

thought i'd paste the results of our Order of Operations so it's on the first page, and yes im fully aware that dx-s then skymin are before lati@s:

1. Garchomp (75)
2. Lati@s (116)
3. Evasion Clause (126)
4. Manaphy (127)
5. Species Clause (136)
6. OHKO Clause (150)
7. UU Tiers (158)
8. Mew (159)
9. Arceus (172)

edit three:Suspect: Any Pokémon, move or clause that respectively may benefit competitive standard or uber battle if moved or implemented elsewhere.

 

[Jumpman16]

1. Garchomp
2. Lati@s
3. Manaphy
4. Mew
5. Darkrai
6. Arceus
7. Evasion Clause
8. Species Clause
9. OHKO Clause
10. UU Tiers

garchomp's obvious, then i've ranked the four currently uber suspects in the order of important in my opinion. then after the OU tier itself is settled we can worry about arceus, which is another talking point but not as important. then the three clauses that may need testing, then finally UU after the standard metagame itself is "settled"

keep in mind that step #2 is very important to how these should be ranked...garchomp isn't going to be decided on in five days if it's been five months and it's still on the fence. again, chaos has preliminarily stated that logs on a No Garchomp Ladder would have to be collected, possibly for analysis later, and all of the remaining pokemon are different from Wobby and DX-S in that they have hardly been tested in standard so we have little to no info on them (the exceptions being lati@s with maniaclyrasist's tourney and the brief look we gave manaphy in last fall)

 

[Havak]

What would we actually be looking at through the logs in an OU metagame without Garchomp?

In another matter (though I know it doesn't really apply to the Logs as much), I really can't see the usage of Gengar, Tyranitar, Hippowdon, Bronzong, Cresselia or any other Pokémon that support/usually take on/revenge kill Garchomp going down an awful lot.

But if it's the way of testing everyone agrees with, there's no harm in giving it a go.

Edit:

1. Garchomp
2. Species Clause
3. Evasion Clause
4. OHKO Clause
5. UU Tiers
6. Arceus
7. Lati@s
8. Mew
9. Manaphy
10. Darkrai

I feel that Species Clause, Evasion Clause and OHKO Clause can all be resolved reletively quickly, as seeing as how they would effect every Tier, they should be dealt with first. Then with OU and our general "rule sets" pretty much finalised (bar a few Ubers that could still be tested) UU would be ready for a more efficient sort through.

6-10 IMO don't need "testing" as such. Arceus is obviously Uber and all that needs to be said on the matter is "you can't use it in competitive play yet unless your opponent agrees. However, it'll still be banned for every tournament, including Uber tournaments unless stated otherwise." Lati@s, Mew, Manaphy and Darkrai should all just stay Uber IMO, but I don't really have any problems with testing them if everyone wants to, even if I personally see it as a waste of time.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

Ugh I really want to make a corny math joke right now. Anyway all I posted in IS was a list and after thinking about it some more i think I'm going to change the order of things that coincides with yours a little more with only a couple changes here and there.

1. Garchomp
2. Manaphy
3. Lati@s
4. Mew
5. Darkrai
6. Arceus
7. Species Clause
8. Evasion Clause
9. OHKO Clause
10. UU Tiers

 

[Jumpman16]

I have no preference for order of operations of anything after this.

as i mentioned in the IS thread, dont do this. actually, you guys can if you want me to just use my own ranking to fill in the gaps you dont care about (do you think i care about UU tiers), it's up to you

 

[Earthworm]

1. Garchomp
2. Lati@s
3. Manaphy
4. Darkrai
5. Mew
6. UU Tiers
7. Evasion Clause
8. Species Clause
9. OHKO Clause
10. Arceus

I posted in the IS thread but other than still thinking all of the potential OUs should be tested together (possibly even Ho-oh) except maybe Wobbuffet I am pretty much changing my order completely so I won't copy and paste that (in fact I am not sure I remembered to post that I would prefer them tested together then removing any Pokemon of clear uber status).

 

[gengod]

1. Garchomp
2. Arceus
3. Lati@s
4. Manaphy
5. UU Tiers
6. Darkrai
7. Mew
8. Species Clause
9. OHKO Clause
10. Evasion Clause

I placed Arceus pretty high as its something I think that can be decided pretty quickly. Lati@s and Manaphy have been up for multiple discussions and a decision in regards to them really needs to be made. The UU tiers also need to be determined as some UU players are as IPL said discontent with the current system. A decison on everything else can be pretty much determined after these first few issues have been dealt with.

 

[Blue Kirby]

1. Garchomp
2. Lati@s
3. Manaphy
4. UU Tiers
5. Mew
6. Darkrai
7. Arceus
8. OHKO Clause
9. Evasion Clause
10. Species Clause


Let's sort out the "pressing" issues of OU, and then fix up the UU tiering system before we do anything else.

 

[darkie]

1. Garchomp
2. Evasion Clause
3. Species Clause
4. OHKO Clause
5. Arceus
6. UU Tiers
7. Lati@s
8. Mew
9. Manaphy
10. Darkrai


Garchomp is obviously the biggest issue we have right now. The Clauses can be dealt with easily, as can Arceus. UU is a current problem that many players have problems with, so we can deal with that next. The reason I put the 'ubers' at the end is because they have been Uber for this long, so they can remain Uber for a little while longer until everything else is sorted out. Garchomp and UU is a much bigger problem than the 'ubers', while the clauses would be easy to finalize.

 

[X-Act]

I'd say that the ones that should take priority are the ones that we have already quite a lot of data about. So:

1. Garchomp
2. Lati@s
3. UU Tiers
4. Mew
5. Manaphy
6. Darkrai
7. Arceus
8. Species Clause
9. Evasion Clause
10. OHKO Clause

I agree with the process, all in all, except it seems to take too long to decide on one particular issue, given the amount of things we need to test... by which time another game would have been possibly issued by Gamefreak...!

 

[Great Sage]

1. Garchomp (quite obvious and pressing)
2. Manaphy (2-5 are ranked in order of chance of getting into OU, in my opinion of course)
3. Lati@s
4. Mew
5. Darkrai
6. Evasion Clause (I have no preference which of the three clauses gets tested first)
7. Species Clause
8. OHKO Clause
9. Arceus (a quick chat would do, since the question with Arceus doesn't have anything to do with power)
10. UU Tiers (and then we can take on this huge project)

 

[Judgement]

I chose it in terms of what I usually see when I play and which things that I believe would have the most widespread effect more quickly. Garchomp is the most pressing issue, in my opinion, and the Clauses and Tiers can really come last once we are done deciding things about OU and Ubers.

1.Garchomp
2.Lati@s
3.Manaphy
4.Darkrai
5.Mew
6.Arceus
7.Evasion Clause
8.UU Tiers
9.Species Clause
10.OHKO Clause

 

[Jackal]

i wont bother C/Ping my IS post ill just make a new one.

1) Species Clause
2) OHKO Clause
3) Evasion Clause

I still have no idea why what we need to decide here we are just massively dragging this on. Lets knock stuff off this list at a tidy pace, starting with these. No testing needs to be done here, come on.

4) Garchomp

Huge issue. We all know that.

5) UU Tiers

I think its more important we establish an UU game before we try and revolutionize the OU game with the next 4 pokemon

6) Lati@s
7) Mew
8) Manaphy
9) Darkrai

Once we have established stable OU and UU metagames we can work on tinkering with these puppies.

10) Arceus

Seems a non factor to me. This could even be done first.

 

[Taylor]

1. Garchomp
2. UU Tiers
3. Lati@s
4. Manaphy
5. Darkrai
6. Mew
7. OHKO Clause
8. Evasion Clause
9. Species Clause
10. Arceus

Serious issue that must be dealt with as soon as possible are Garchomp and the flimsy UU Tier. Afterwards, Pokemon that are potential OU material may become the center of attention. Finally, the clauses that are most likely not up for a change with Arceus following behind.

 

[Phuquoph]

Since we're currently covering four issues at once (Wobb, Deoxys, Event Moves, Legendary IVs), I think we should tackle the remaining issues in groups too.

Group 1
- Garchomp
- UU Tiers

Group 2
- Evasion Clause
- OHKO Clause
- Species Clause
- Arceus

Group 3
- Lati@s
- Mew
- Manaphy
- Darkrai

 

[Tangerine]

I'm sure I mentioned this before but before we decide anything we should decide what kind of metagame we want first (How else do we decide what we DON'T want on it? and what we're testing?) and maybe we won't have to overanalyze anything and the debates will end on the merit of definitions and we'll avoid the so called "debates" going on in those voting threads and it'll allow us to move through the issues quicker and it'll help us avoid the clashes in opinion in the future (we only need to do it once)

 

[Cathy]

Arceus is perhaps the quintessential example of an unpopular decision being made in the name of logical consistency. As such, it is by far the most important thing to vote on first in this new climate. I am surprised it was not in the initial batch of things tested, since it fits in perfectly with the "How real do we want this to be?" theme.

1. Arceus
2. Manaphy
3. Species Clause
4. Evasion Clause
5. OHKO Clause
6. UU Tier System
7. Latias / Latios
8. Mew
9. Darkrai
10. Garchomp

 

[TheMaskedNitpicker]

I'm sure I mentioned this before but before we decide anything we should decide what kind of metagame we want first (How else do we decide what we DON'T want on it? and what we're testing?) and maybe we won't have to overanalyze anything and the debates will end on the merit of definitions and we'll avoid the so called "debates" going on in those voting threads and it'll allow us to move through the issues quicker and it'll help us avoid the clashes in opinion in the future (we only need to do it once)

When you say 'what kind of metagame we want', I assume that we're talking about how centralized/decentralized do we want it, among other factors. I maintain that there's a significant split in our community over this issue that would be best solved with two metagames (or tiers, whatever you want to call them). I think this is the most important issue and the closest thing on the list to it is UU Tiers, so:

1. UU Tiers
2. OHKO Clause
3. Evasion Clause
4. Species Clause

All the other topics (except Arceus) are about adding or removing single Pokémon from the standard metagame, a metagame that I couldn't care much less about. Besides, removing and adding one Pokémon at a time is always a long, drawn-out tug-of-war between the two camps who fundamentally enjoy different play styles. Even if the majority were to suddenly agree that they wanted a less-centralized game, banning one Pokémon at a time is so slow that we wouldn't really get much of anywhere before the next generation of games is released. At that point, neither camp would be happy.

So, here's my more-or-less arbitrary order for the rest of the topics.

5. Garchomp
6. Lati@s
7. Mew
8. Manaphy
9. Darkrai
10. Arceus

 

[jrrrrrrr]

1. Garchomp

This has been needing attention for quite a while, I don't think we can ignore it anymore.

2-4. OHKO Clause, Species Clause, Evasion Clause

Removing these clauses would be an insult to the competitive nature of the arena that this site provides. Can we please focus our efforts on something worthwhile instead of trying to make unneeded sweeping changes to a game in which we can't even decide tier placement? Let's get these out of the way.

?5- Stealth Rock

This was just brought up but I feel that it is very important to discuss, much more critical than any of the topics following this. I might be wrong, and I'm not sure how many people would actually support a ban on Stealth Rock, but once we get the first four things out of the way, the rest just dives into proving whether or not something "works" so I don't see why we cant give this a run.

5. UU Tiers

Now that Event Moves are taken care of, I think that this should get taken care of before the rest of the "lesser Ubers" are tackled. UU is a very popular metagame and it is a shame that nobody is focusing on it with the massive amounts of creativity and design waiting to be tapped into in this tier.

6. Arceus

I'm assuming that the argument is whether or not to allow Arceus on the Ubers ladder, and while that is an interesting debate, I don't think it belongs grouped with the other pokemon debates. I'm not really sure on this one. This is the perfect "simulating the game vs making it more diverse" argument topic. On one hand, Arceus isn't actually a pokemon yet...but on the other, would Arceus really be that broken in Ubers? More broken than Kyogre or Dialga? This has some potential to be a really good debate.

7-10. Lati@s, Mew, Manaphy, Darkrai

I personally feel like all 4 of these are no-brainers, but considering that there is actually *some* hype around these potentially becoming OU, I'm more than willing to hear all of the arguments out. However, I would wait a little bit longer before putting more decisions like this on the community. Perhaps the best time to decide the fates of these pokemon would be after the next tier list update (July? right?) after people have had time to settle into Smogon Server.

 

[Bologo]

1-3. OHKO Clause, Species Clause, Evasion Clause
4. Garchomp
5. UU Tiers
6. Arceus
7-10. Lati@s, Manaphy, Mew, Darkrai

Most of my list is pretty self-explanatory, and it's pretty similar to jrrrrrrr's, except I feel that Manaphy should come before Mew.

I feel that the 3 clauses should come first, because after that Garchomp will be much easier to decide, since people seem to like complaining about Sand Veil and how it breaks Evasion Clause. However, if Evasion Clause is dropped, it may just cause people to complain less about Garchomp and his Sand Veil (even though that's not the main argument for Chomp being debated anyway). If Evasion Clause is kept even after testing, people will have Sand Veil as a much more solid argument against Garchomp after that since Evasion will be shown to be broken. Of course, it's not like the other stuff about Chomp is magically going to go away, but people like attacking its status in OU because of Sand Veil quite a bit.

 

[chaos]

Please don't close discussion threads. Discussion is orthogonal to what is going on here; no "manpower" is lost so to say... I would agree that holding additional tests before we've figured out what we're doing would be counterproductive, but discussion is free to happen at any time regardless of what else is going in the community.

 

[chaos]

Arceus is perhaps the quintessential example of an unpopular decision being made in the name of logical consistency. As such, it is by far the most important thing to vote on first in this new climate. I am surprised it was not in the initial batch of things tested, since it fits in perfectly with the "How real do we want this to be?" theme.

1. Arceus
2. Manaphy
3. Species Clause
4. Evasion Clause
5. OHKO Clause
6. UU Tier System
7. Latias / Latios
8. Mew
9. Darkrai
10. Garchomp

Arceus probably will not have a vote as it is a matter of game mechanics, much like the IVs (I can tell you right now that we are going to have cart consistent IVs). It's not clear cut how to handle Event Moves (basically, an issue of "No, we shouldn't put Event Moves because we aren't 100% certain of who even gets them" or "Yes, if there is decent proof that a Pokemon gets it we can assume that the Pokemon can come with all available IVs and Natures until proven otherwise").

 

[Firestorm]

I missed the IS thread for some reason. I'm also trying to write this list without reading much of the topic so I don't get swayed one way or another. I don't play Pokemon at the moment so this is more of what I think a logical approach is in terms of easiest to solve rather than what the community may or may not be bitching about.

1. Species Clause
Species Clause seems to be a discussion of our philosophy more than how it will affect the metagame. I think the only argument for species clause is that Nintendo tournaments usually use it. The diversifying teams argument won't hold as this is technically a restriction on teams. I think we could decide on this rule without really testing. It was just grandfathered in.

2. Evasion Clause
3. OHKO Clause
Both of these, along with Species Clause, I feel should be resolved before we move onto what tier to place Pokemon in. These rules are used in all the metagames we play. Both could be tested at the same time and I think they should be tested at the same time. I think it's at least important to know if Mew will be allowed to pass Double Team on the Baton Pass set before we decide on Mew. I'd like to get all ruleset decisions out of the way before tier placement.

4. Arceus
Areceus is obviously uber and our only issue with him is whether or not to include him in Uber matches. I think that can easily be resolved in Policy Review and we can get this out of the way without a problem.

5. Latias and Latios
6. Manaphy
7. Mew
8. Darkrai

Personally, I feel we should have all six of the Pokemon we have in limbo in this topic (Garchomp, Manaphy, Darkrai, Latias, Latios, and Mew) allowed in the test ladder at the same time if we go that route. It would hopefully stop people from using one of the above just because they're new to the metagame and powerful. They might also be a vital part of countering one another on the right team.

9. Garchomp
I'd like to see if introducing the above Pokemon into OU helps in any way before making another ban on a borderline Uber/OU Pokemon. Otherwise once the decisions on the above have been made, we'll be back to Garchomp.

10. UU Tiers
This would be a different ladder from OU and could thus be done at the same time as we figure out Uber/OU placements. I agree with Obi's idea of chucking all (or all but the most powerful) BLs into UU and starting from scratch, much like we're doing with Ubers. Since OU is the primary concern for Smogon, if this takes too much resources, it can be done after fixing any issues we have with OU.

 

[Jumpman16]

Please don't close discussion threads. Discussion is orthogonal to what is going on here; no "manpower" is lost so to say... I would agree that holding additional tests before we've figured out what we're doing would be counterproductive, but discussion is free to happen at any time regardless of what else is going in the community.

You have hinted that you didn't feel that changes weren't being put into effect because of PR topics, but I'm glad to see that you're ok with us discussing issues even if it means we cannot act on them yet (which is the only reason I closed those threads).

 

[obi]

0. Arceus

Might as well just scratch that off the list.

1. OHKO Clause
2. Evasion Clause

I'm grouping these two because my opposition to them is for the same reason. Considering the number of people who use "Sand Veil" as an argument about Garchomp, I feel it would be helpful to tackle evasion before Garchomp. I have a slight preference to do OHKO first, because on the off-chance that we find that OHKOs are acceptable, then they could be useful in testing evasion, because OHKOs ignore evasion increases. If we do not find OHKOs acceptable, adding evasion isn't going to change that, so there is no risk of creating a new environment in which OHKOs would suddenly be fine.

3. Species Clause

If species clause doesn't exist, certain powerful Pokemon may have increased usage due to being able to use more than one of them. Therefore, before we can decide whether a Pokemon is going to be uber on its own, we need to first consider how we will deal with the case of Pokemon that are used multiple times on the same team. We could either keep species clause banned, or ban those Pokemon that prove to be overpowering under such an environment. I feel it would make sense to do this before we do too much with banning / unbanning.

4. Darkrai
4. Manaphy
4. Lati@s
4. Mew
8. Garchomp

We should check for inclusiveness before exclusiveness, considering Latias, Latios, and Garchomp somewhat balance each other out, among other things. I put the first four in order of how likely they are to be allowed. I feel they ought to be tested simultaneously, however, hence the identical numbering.

9. UU Tiers

UU is defined in part by usage in OU. The only way to get UU, therefore, is to decide what is OU and see how things pan out from there. We cannot have anything decisive with UU until we get OU.