Announcement OU Council Minutes and Surveys

[Finchinator]

Hello everyone. This thread will be where the OU council minutes are recorded and we post information pertaining to future OU playerbase surveys. It will remain locked and a member of the council will post updates when appropriate.

With regards to council minutes, the OU council has been actively discussing the metagame throughout the entire generation, making decisions that impact the progression of the tier. The OU council have countless passionate players and posters that closely follow the metagame, even participating in the tiering process through surveys, suspects, and discussions. It is part of the duty as the OU council to be transparent with the community they serve, so the OU council will be using this thread to keep a rough log of the topics they are discussing and inform the playerbase of council happenings. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM.

With regards to OU playerbase surveys, the OU council values the input of its playerbase and feels that this input can be used to help guide them throughout the decision making process. The OU council is able to ask questions about topics they are discussing and potentially gain a greater understanding on the perception of other players who frequent the metagame. These surveys allow for the OU council to gain information pertinent to the tiering process from both the general playerbase and specific individuals with more proven degrees of competency due to success on the ladder or in tournaments. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Log of all OU council minutes:

• May 20, 2021

Log of all OU playerbase surveys (initial thread here):

• July 20, 2020
• November 22, 2020
• February 21, 2020
• April 7, 2020

 

[Finchinator]

This post OU council minutes post will be used to share the topics the OU council has been discussing recently.

King's Rock

After over a year of sporadic discussion of King's Rock strain on the metagame and a recent surge in interest sparked by Finchinator's Policy Review thread, the OU Council is deep into their talks on the controversial item. While nothing is finalized and you will have to await an official announcement, a thread to gauge perception of a future council vote has emerged as a serious prospect. There is a prevailing belief that an item like King's Rock is not worthy of a fully fledged suspect, but also not universally supported enough to warrant a quickban without a formal council vote. Nothing is set-in-stone and the topic is likely to be discussed further before anything is finalized, but we have made contact with higher-ups and will continue to pursue this topic moving forward.

Other "Luck Items"

Other "luck items" have been discussed in a briefer capacity in both the aforementioned thread and the OU council chat. We feel much less strongly about acting on these items as they do not see any current usage in the metagame. The argument to ban items such as Brightpowder and/or Lax Incense is likely a more general one for falling under evasion clause rather than being an OU specific topic (same arguably goes for Sand Veil, for what it is worth). If their usage trends upward in the future, it may make for a better discussion, but right now these are far less on our radar than King's Rock.

Future Sight and Teleport

A long-time topic of discussion has been Future Sight and Teleport in the SS OU metagame. We are not currently planning on acting on either of these moves or Slowking/Slowbro. However, we will continue to keep a close eye on the metagame and discussion of it. There have been dozens of different times we have brought up these topics in the council chat and we even included elements of this in a prior survey. The prevailing belief right now is that this is not a super pressing "problem" and we are waiting for the metagame to develop with the upcoming WCoP and weeks of potential evolution time being lost to the Zamazenta-Crowned retest. It seems likely we will continue to evaluate this moving forward, but we are not on the brink of acting on any of these topics.

Heavy-Duty Boots

Perhaps the most heavy topic of discussion has been the new footwear fad making its way through the competitive scene. Heavy-Duty Boots has garnered its fair share of attention recently after being the topic of TDK's Policy Review thread last year that the council put out. We do believe there is a chance that Heavy-Duty Boots can be looked at in the future and some members of the council want to have more discussions about the item with the public. There are no current plans to suspect this item and it is unlikely to be done in the immediate future, but I would anticipate it being brought up again in threads and surveys in order to gauge playerbase opinion. We are well aware that this is a prominent item and any action would likely alter the metagame greatly, so nothing would be done lightly and the chance of action happening is still not very likely. However, it is important we keep an open mind, do our duty of monitoring the metagame, and stay receptive to community feedback on this front.

Other Potential Suspects

We do not currently plan to suspect any Pokemon in the SS OU metagame over the next couple of weeks. This can change as we see more of the metagame, especially with the World Cup of Pokemon starting up now. There has been lots of discussion of Dragapult that we have brought up and will continue to monitor, but we are not currently convinced that it should be suspected. This is subject to change in the future. In the most recent survey, a vast majority of players believed nothing in the metagame warranted a suspect and we agree right now, but there will be another survey in a few weeks and we will take the results of this and our opinions into consideration once the time comes.

Some other points worth noting:

• Jho posted a thread on the Unban Percentage Threshold for Pokemon which started in Ubers and Finchinator posted his thoughtson the matter in the thread as well.
  • We have not discussed this matter much, but it falls more under the jurisdiction of the tiering admins. We will adhere to whatever decision they make and will continue to discuss prospective re-tests whenever appropriate. There are none currently on the radar, but that is subject to change.
• Niko posted a thread on Councils' Reworkand multiple members of the council posted their thoughts on the matter in the thread as well.
  • These posts can be found here, here, and here.
  • We want to assure our players that transparency is a priority and we want to make the metagame as competitive as possible.
• As of May 13th, we can congratulate Overused Tier Leader suapah on being a member of the SS OU council for a full year!
• The OU Viability Rankings have been updated.
• The OU Sample teams have been updated.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please shoot me a PM on here or discord. Thank you and have a great day!