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, 2021
• April 7, 2021

 

[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!

 

[Finchinator]

Hello everyone, the OU Council is putting out another survey to gauge public opinion on the current metagame. Anyone with Smogon account may respond and we will be taking a particularly close look on those who have experience on the ladder or in tournaments. We will keep this open through the end (11:59 PM GMT-4) of Wednesday, July 21st, but the council will be reading responses as they come in.

Please respond to the survey here. Your response absolutely matters to us and can help shape the future of our metagame, so let's make this tier the best we possibly can together -- thank you to everyone who participates in these. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM or VM anytime. Have a great weekend!

Finally, thank you to GMars for his time as a member of the OU moderation team, including a stint as the forum leader this generation, and to Sacri' for his time on the SS OU council. Your efforts are greatly appreciated and we wish you both the best moving forward!

 

[Finchinator]

We have passed the deadline for the July SS OU Tiering Survey! We have received over 950 responses! I appreciate everyone who went out of their way to respond and I encourage you guys to keep it up in the metagame discussion thread or anywhere else in the OU subforum if you are interested! I also made sure to read through every single response possible and learned so much about how people perceive the tier, which has been an absolute treat, so thank you for responding.

I'm going to discuss the responses to some questions using two different demographics -- you guys may recall this from prior surveys. The first will be of everyone who responded and the second will be individuals who had accounts in the top 250 of the ladder OR qualified via tournaments. Unfortunately, I do not have the Google Forms graphics for the latter group as we sorted them out manually by their responses to if they qualified and then had to confirm each respondent individually, but there is still data for both groups and we can share this!

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current metagame? See: do you enjoy playing it?

This is 950 different responses and the average response was a 6.853/10, meaning that most players are enjoying the metagame. The overall enjoyment of the metagame has increased since the last survey by a slight margin.

Of the 70 qualified responses, the average response was a 6.9/10, meaning that most experienced players are enjoying the metagame, too. The overall enjoyment of the metagame is higher than it was last survey, rising from 6.7 to 6.9. Only 7 people answered lower than 5, meaning approximately 90% of respondents believe this metagame is at a 5 or higher in terms of enjoyability.

On a scale of 1-10, how good do you find the current metagame? See: do you find it competitive?

This is 944 different responses and the average response was 7.24/10, meaning that most players find the current metagame very competitive. This is approximately tied with the most competitive the tier has been all generation in the eyes of the people; the response average was 7.24 last time as well coincidentally.

Of the 70 qualified responses, the average response was a 7/10, meaning that most players experienced players find the current metagame very competitive, too. This is very similar to the response from last survey, slightly missing the mark by a fraction of a point. Only 5 people answered lower than 5, meaning over 92% of respondents believe this metagame is at a 5 or higher in terms of competitiveness.

Would you support a ban of King's Rock in SS OU?

This is 948 different responses and 52.3% of them said they would support a ban of King's Rock in SS OU. Of all respondents, 496 people would support a ban of King's Rock whereas 453 would not support a ban of King's Rock.

Of the 69 qualified responses, 85.5% of them said they would support a ban of King's Rock in SS OU. Of the most experienced respondents, 59 people would support a ban of King's Rock whereas 10 would not support a ban of King's Rock.

There is a particularly large discrepancy between the response of the general public and the qualified respondents makes this an unprecedented situation. I am going to be posting more about this in the future in order to find the best way to address this for the community as a whole; it is important to note that while both sides support a ban of King's Rock, there is still a large drop-off and we cannot say 52% support is anywhere near 86% support as it is not. We hope to continue to work with members of our playerbase to find the best outcomes for our metagame together.

Are there any Pokemon in the current metagame that you believe deserve a suspect test?

This is 948 different responses and 39.9% of them said they support a suspect test in the current metagame. Of all respondents, 378 people would support a suspect whereas 570 would not support a suspect. More people do not support a suspect than do.

Of 70 qualified responses, 42.9% of them said they would support a suspect test in the current metagame. Of the most experienced respondents, 30 people would support a suspect whereas 40 would not support a suspect. More people do not support a suspect than do.

These are the end of the questions without open ended responses, but to summarize some Pokemon and metagame topics brought up as controversial by the respondents:

• Weavile, Dragapult, Volcarona, Heatran, Kyurem, Cloyster, and Urshifu-R all received significant amount of mentions. Weavile received the most support among qualified players whereas Dragapult received the most support among all respondents. Volcarona, Kyurem, and Heatran were within the top 5 mentioned Pokemon for both demographics.
• Everyone's favorite footwear and everyone's favorite escape mechanism combined for a stealth getaway as both Heavy-Duty Boots and Teleport received dozens of mentions by respondents; HDB in particular got over 100 unique mentions.
• Regenerator was easily the most controversial ability, but Sand Veil also significant discussion.
• Not many Pokemon received much support to get retested, but a couple dozen daring folks supported retesting Darmanitan-Galar, responding in succession with joey and the release of his video.

Thanks to everyone who responded, even him!

 

[Finchinator]

Hello everyone, the OU Council is putting out another survey to gauge public opinion on the current metagame. Anyone with Smogon account may respond and we will be taking a particularly close look on those who have experience on the ladder or in tournaments. We will keep this open through the end (11:59 PM GMT-4) of Sunday, October 10th, but the council will be reading responses as they come in.

Please respond to the survey here. Your response absolutely matters to us and can help shape the future of our metagame, so let's make this tier the best we possibly can together -- thank you to everyone who participates in these. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM or VM anytime. Have a great day!

 

[Finchinator]

We have passed the deadline for the October SS OU Tiering Survey! We have received over 980 responses! I appreciate everyone who went out of their way to respond and I encourage you guys to keep it up in the metagame discussion thread or anywhere else in the OU subforum if you are interested! I also made sure to read through every single response possible and learned so much about how people perceive the tier, which has been an absolute treat, so thank you for responding.

I'm going to discuss the responses to some questions using two different demographics -- you guys may recall this from prior surveys. The first will be of everyone who responded and the second will be individuals who had accounts in the top 150 of the ladder OR qualified via tournaments. Unfortunately, I do not have the Google Forms graphics for the latter group as we sorted them out manually by their responses to if they qualified and then had to confirm each respondent individually, but there is still data for both groups and we can share this!

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current metagame? See: do you enjoy playing it?

This is 981 different responses and the average response was a 7.18/10, meaning that most players are enjoying the metagame. The overall enjoyment of the metagame has increased since the last survey by a slight margin.

Of the 61 qualified responses, the average response was a 7.34/10, meaning that most experienced players are enjoying the metagame, too. The overall enjoyment of the metagame is higher than it was last survey as well. Only 2 individuals (3.3% of the total) gave a score lower than 5, both giving the metagame a 4/10 in terms of enjoyability.

On a scale of 1-10, how good do you find the current metagame? See: do you find it competitive?

This is 981 different responses and the average response was 7.51/10, meaning that most players find the current metagame very competitive. This is comfortably the most competitive the tier has been all generation in the eyes of the people.

Of the 61 qualified responses, the average response was a 7.37/10, meaning that most players experienced players find the current metagame very competitive, too. The overall enjoyment of the metagame is higher than it has been all generation as well. Only 2 individuals (3.3% of the total) gave a score lower than 5, with a 2/10 and 4/10 falling into the otherwise positive mix.

Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Kyurem in SS OU?

Of the 981 responses, 68% of the general public does not believe action should be taken on Kyurem. Only 24% of the general public supports action being taken on Kyurem.

However, the qualified playerbase has an outlook that contrasts this one. 49% of qualified individuals support action being taken on Kyurem while 47% do not. To break this down further (because we do not have the same graphic), 9 individuals (15%) labeled Kyurem as broken outright whereas 21 individuals (34%) labeled Kyurem as generally unbalanced. Only 5 individuals (9%) find Kyurem to be entirely balanced.

Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Magnet Pull in SS OU?

Of the 981 responses, 78% of the general public does not believe action should be taken on Magnet Pull. Only 16% of the general public supports action being taken on Magnet Pull.

The qualified playerbase had a slightly contrasting outlook on this one. 33% of qualified individuals support action being taken on Magnet Pull while 65% do not. To break this down further (because we do not have the same graphic), 5 individuals (8%) labeled Magnet Pull as uncompetitive outright whereas 15 individuals (25%) labeled Magnet as generally uncompetitive. 24 individuals (39%) find Magnet Pull to be entirely competitive.

No other Pokemon mentioned received north of 30% support from the qualified responders or general public; Dragapult received 28% support from the general public, which was the closest of anything. Some notes:

• Many people believed there was no need for an immediate suspect in this metagame, especially when compared to the first surveys earlier this generation
• Tapu Lele, Arctozolt, Toxapex, Kartana, and Volcarona all received repeated mentions when asked about other potential suspects
• Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, Heavy-Duty Boots, Teleport, and Regenerator all received repeated mentions when asked about other potential tiering discussions worth having

Finally, thanks to z0mOG for responding before I removed the ability to add options and making his answer to each question "boots" and I hope the two lost souls who claimed their name was "Finchinator" on the survey, but were not actually Finchinator, truly do find themselves in the near future! Please PM me if you have any questions -- thank you!

 

[Finchinator]

Hello everyone, the OU Council is putting out another survey to gauge public opinion on the current metagame. Anyone with Smogon account may respond and we will be taking a particularly close look on those who have experience on the ladder or in tournaments. We will keep this open through the end (11:59 PM GMT-4) of Sunday, November 21st, but the council will be reading responses as they come in.

Please respond to the survey here. Your response absolutely matters to us and can help shape the future of our metagame, so let's make this tier the best we possibly can together -- thank you to everyone who participates in these. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM or VM anytime. Have a great day!

 

[Finchinator]

We have passed the deadline for the November SS OU Tiering Survey! We have received over 580 responses! I appreciate everyone who went out of their way to respond and I encourage you guys to keep it up in the metagame discussion thread or anywhere else in the OU subforum if you are interested! I also made sure to read through every single response possible and learned so much about how people perceive the tier, which has been an absolute treat, so thank you for responding.

I'm going to discuss the responses to some questions using two different demographics -- you guys may recall this from prior surveys. The first will be of everyone who responded and the second will be individuals who had accounts in the top 150 of the ladder OR qualified via tournaments. Unfortunately, I do not have the Google Forms graphics for the latter group as we sorted them out manually by their responses to if they qualified and then had to confirm each respondent individually, but there is still data for both groups and we can share this!

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current metagame? See: do you enjoy playing it?

This is 581 different responses and the average response was a 7.16/10, meaning that most players are enjoying the metagame. The overall enjoyment of the metagame not changed since the last survey, decreasing by .02 since the October survey.

Of the 72 qualified responses, the average response was a 7.00/10, meaning that most experienced players are enjoying the metagame, too. The overall enjoyment of the metagame is slightly lower than last time, decreasing by .34 since the October survey and perhaps indicating a desire for tiering action or change.

On a scale of 1-10, how good do you find the current metagame? See: do you find it competitive?

This is 581 different responses and the average response was 7.42/10, meaning that most players find the current metagame very competitive. This is a slight drop-off from last time around, but the metagame is still more competitive than every other metagame we conducted a survey on prior.

Of the 72 qualified responses, the average response was a 7.32/10, meaning that most players experienced players find the current metagame very competitive, too. Similar to above, we have seen a slight drop-off from last time around, but the metagame is still more competitive than every other metagame we conducted a survey on prior.

Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Kyurem in SS OU?

Of the 581 responses, 54.6% of the general public does not believe action should be taken on Kyurem. Only 38.3% of the general public supports action being taken on Kyurem. This is still a noteworthy shift in favor of tiering action as we see a near 15% spike from last time in support.

However, the qualified playerbase has an outlook that contrasts this one. 69.4% of qualified individuals support action being taken on Kyurem while 30.6% do not. To break this down further (because we do not have the same graphic), 18 individuals (25%) labeled Kyurem as broken outright whereas 32individuals (44.4%) labeled Kyurem as generally unbalanced. Only 5 individuals (6.94%) find Kyurem to be entirely balanced.

Given the strong amount of support from the qualified players and the overall increase in support from all players on Kyurem, the council will promptly discuss and come to a verdict on Kyurem in the current metagame. We value the input provided by the survey and hope it leads us in the best direction for the future metagame.

Finally, compared to the 38% support Kyurem received from the general public, no other Pokemon mention received more than 22% support to be the subject of tiering action, which signals a stark difference in the perception of those Pokemon relative to that of Kyurem.

Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Sand Veil and Snow Cloak in SS OU?

Of the 581 responses, 54.1% of the general public believes action should be taken on Sand Veil and Snow Cloak. Only 36.3% of the general public opposes action being taken on Sand Veil and Snow Cloak. This is a very large amount of people and a clear majority, which could be the catalyst for future discussion and/or tiering change depending on what the future holds.

Of the 72 qualified responses, 56.94% of the qualified playerbase believes action should be taken on Sand Veil and Snow Cloak. Only 36.1% of the qualified playerbase opposes action being taken on Sand Veil and Snow Cloak. Again we have a majority in favor of tiering action, but this one is to a slightly larger extent.

While Magnet Pull support dwindled to sub-30% across the board, Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are clearly viable abilities that the playerbase largely wants to see banned. While this is not the most pressing topic, the council will discuss this and decide how to best move forward when we come to a conclusion.

Thank you to everyone who responded and stay tuned!

 

[Finchinator]

Hello everyone, the OU Council is putting out another survey to gauge public opinion on the current metagame. Anyone with Smogon account may respond and we will be taking a particularly close look on those who have experience on the ladder or in tournaments. We will keep this open through the end (11:59 PM GMT-5) of Sunday, February 20th, but the council will be reading responses as they come in.

Please respond to the survey here. Your response absolutely matters to us and can help shape the future of our metagame, so let's make this tier the best we possibly can together -- thank you to everyone who participates in these. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a PM or VM anytime. Have a great day!

 

[Finchinator]

We have passed the deadline for the February SS OU Tiering Survey! We have received over 530 responses! I appreciate everyone who went out of their way to respond and I encourage you guys to keep it up in the metagame discussion thread or anywhere else in the OU subforum if you are interested! I also made sure to read through every single response possible and learned so much about how people perceive the tier, which has been an absolute treat, so thank you for responding.

I'm going to discuss the responses to some questions using two different demographics -- you guys may recall this from prior surveys. The first will be of everyone who responded and the second will be individuals who had accounts in the top 150 of the ladder OR qualified via tournaments. Unfortunately, I do not have the Google Forms graphics for the latter group as we sorted them out manually by their responses to if they qualified and then had to confirm each respondent individually, but there is still data for both groups and we can share this!

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you enjoy the current metagame? See: do you enjoy playing it?

This is 536 different responses and the average response was a 7.24/10, meaning that most players are enjoying the metagame. The overall enjoyment of the metagame has improved incrementally, finding itself higher than any point prior this generation.

Of the 53 qualified responses, the average response was a 7.59/10, meaning that most experienced players are enjoying the metagame, too. The overall enjoyment of the metagame went up to a new peak for the generation among this demographic and this is the largest jump between two surveys we have witnessed as well.

On a scale of 1-10, how good do you find the current metagame? See: do you find it competitive?

This is 536 different responses and the average response was 7.65/10, meaning that a strong majority of players find the current metagame very competitive. The overall competitiveness of the metagame has improved incrementally, finding itself higher than any point prior this generation. I also want to point out that having such a wide array of players approach this degree of support on a CG OU metagame, which is historically scrutinized a great deal, is unprecedented. I am very glad that people are engaged competitively and I hope we continue to trend in the right direction.

Of the 53 qualified responses, the average response was a 7.83/10, meaning that a strong majority of experienced players find the current metagame very competitive, too. Similar to above, the overall competitiveness of the metagame went up to a new peak for the generation among this demographic and this is the largest jump between two surveys we have witnessed as well. I am very happy that we have reached a number that is this high, indicating that many of our most qualified players of the metagame are content with where we are at.

Which statement most accurately describes how you feel about Weavile in SS OU?

Of the 536 responses, 75% of the general public does NOT believe action should be taken on Weavile. Only 18.3% of the general public supports action being taken on Weavile. Of this 96 person minority, only 15 people responded indicating Weavile was broken altogether.

The qualified playerbase has an outlook that differs slightly from this one. 62.3% of qualified individuals do NOT support action being taken on Weavile while only 37.7% support tiering action. This is clearly a greater deal of support than the general public and we take this into consideration, but we are still far from a majority at this point in time. To break this down further (because we do not have the same graphic for this demographic), 2 individuals (4%) labeled Weavile as broken outright whereas 18 individuals (34%) labeled Weavile as generally unbalanced. Comparatively speaking, we find that 12 individuals (22.6%) find Weavile entirely balanced and 21 individuals (39.6%) find Weavile generally balanced.

The council will discuss these mixed results alongside any other feedback we received and our personal stances on Weavile moving forward. We do not have the same survey support we received with the most recent suspect (Kyurem), but we still have an open mind and will continue doing our due diligence.

Finally, Heatran received less than 15% support from the general public and approximately 15% from the qualified playerbase to be suspected or banned outright. There was an overwhelming majority claiming it was balanced from the entire playerbase, leading us to not need to expand much further on this matter at this point in time.

Some other notes:

• If you spend 3 hours responding to the survey with spam, just know that it takes me less than 30 seconds to remove it all and you have wasted your time.
• We received a noteworthy amount of written responses on Heavy-Duty Boots, Dragapult, Tapu Lele, Kartana, Magnet Pull / Magnezone, Toxapex / Regenerator, Mew, Urshifu-Rapid, and the move Beat Up. We will be sure to keep an eye on all of these moving forward, especially those that received larger amounts of support.
• Shoutout to the individual who tried to ratio us in response to our own...private...survey. I am glad you understood the assignment!

Thank you to everyone who responded and stay tuned for more in the future. I hope everyone is well!