Art by Kaiju Bunny | RBY Ubers Old Gens Hub
2019 | 2021 RBY Ubers MASTER VR | 2022 
Introduction
RBY Ubers is arguably competitive Pokémon's oldest tier. At the same time, it's newer if you take into account the evasion and OHKO move bans being enforced, and newer still with the paraslam and stat boosting changes. As of early 2021, RBY Ubers is played annually in RoA Olympics, RBYPL and on a rotational ladder in June every year. It also features in one of the two Victory RoAds held every year, and is played fairly regularly on RBY Monday of RoA Tour Nights.
Back in September 2019, a user challenged me about something in the OP of the RBY Ubers Viability Ranking thread. That's when I began thinking about the ideal way to form and present the RBY Ubers viability rankings. At some point, I had the idea of creating a Discord server to help me gather data from users, and also setting up a spreadsheet to display the information and automate things in one place. As of late 2020, I call it a MASTER viability ranking: Multi-Attribute Spreadsheet-Templated Enumerated Rationally viability ranking. In the following paragraphs, I will describe the ranking process which I came up with.
Ranking Information
All player bases were taken into account when ranking, by default. Any tournaments, any ladders, any quality of opposition. The time period for the ranking was from time immemorial to the end of 2020. We didn't rank Pokémon close to being fully outclassed — even if their inclusion made minimal negative impact.
All fully evolved Pokémon were chosen for the Pokémon nomination pool, and not all Pokémon. The heavy centralized environment was deemed to make most fully evolved Pokémon unviable — let alone pre-evolutions that share similar roles to their evolved counterparts, but have mostly weaker stats. All moves appeared in the nomination pool due to the inability to find decent criteria to separate. All Pokémon types and move types appeared in their nomination pools. Users nominated all the Pokémon they believed were viable via discord reactions, a co-operative task. Reactions from users were removed if they only nominated weaker Pokémon that alone would clearly not make a viable team as judged by me (Lutra). Once they nominated Pokémon, they were given permissions to allow them to rate moves, Pokémon Types and Move Types in the same fashion.
Pokémon, moves, Pokémon types and move types that were nominated by 20% or more of nominators were added to the Rating List. All Nominators were given the opportunity to rate, due to low numbers. Raters were asked the same 3 questions (viability, i.e. ideal usage: 10 options; leading-reliance:6 options; matchup-reliance: 6 options) for each of the 4 categories: Pokémon, moves, Pokémon Types and Move Types. This was a solo task, to minimize groupthink, with PMs sent into Lutra (me) after he had completed his ratings. The spreadsheet was hidden at this time. All raters were given the opportunity to view and amend their submitted data, contained in the spreadsheet, once all individuals completed their ratings.
Based on the rating data, each of the Pokémon, moves, Pokémon-types and move-types were classified into main ranks (S, A , B...) by viability. Each main rank was formed after the equal ratio was exponentiated by 1.45 from one element to the next, and was either matched or exceeded by the drop. If the exponent was 0.4 or greater, a new subrank (¹,²,³...) was made. The equal ratio was calculated by taking the mean total (~600% in the case of Pokémon), adding 100%, and dividing by the same mean total. This approximates x where x¹+x²+x³...xⁿ = mean total. Centralization was measured by (Σ(x²) ÷ (Σx)²) - (1÷|tier set|); where x is a mean viability and the summation counts x for each element of the tier set once; and where |tier set|, i.e. magnitude of the tier set: is 151 for Pokémon, 165 for Moves, and 15 for the Type categories.
Assumed Ruleset
Simulated Game Mode
Pokémon Red | Blue | Yellow Cable Club Colosseum (Single Battle by default)
Movepool Set
Pokémon Red & Blue & Yellow & Stadium & Gen 1 Events & No Gen 2 Tradebacks
Convenience Modifications
HP Percentage Mod; Dual-type Effectiveness Text Mod; Endless Battle Clause (not coded), PS! Timer; User Pokémon Tooltip; Target Pokémon Tooltip; User Move Tooltip; Battle Log; Cancel Mod
Other Battle Modifications
Partial Trapping End Mod; Stat Down Modifier Overflow Mod; Desync Mod; PRNG Mod; Self-KO Clause Mod?; other PS! bugs
Banned Moves
Dig & Fly (Invulnerability Clause); Double Team & Minimize (Evasion Clause); Fissure, Guillotine & Horn Drill (OHKO Clause)
Other Team Validation Restrictions
Cleric Clause; Species Clause; PP Up Clause
Effect Modifications
Freeze Clause Mod; Sleep Clause Mod (no more than one of each effect can be induced concurrently)
2019 | 2021 RBY Ubers MASTER VR | 2022 Introduction
RBY Ubers is arguably competitive Pokémon's oldest tier. At the same time, it's newer if you take into account the evasion and OHKO move bans being enforced, and newer still with the paraslam and stat boosting changes. As of early 2021, RBY Ubers is played annually in RoA Olympics, RBYPL and on a rotational ladder in June every year. It also features in one of the two Victory RoAds held every year, and is played fairly regularly on RBY Monday of RoA Tour Nights.
Back in September 2019, a user challenged me about something in the OP of the RBY Ubers Viability Ranking thread. That's when I began thinking about the ideal way to form and present the RBY Ubers viability rankings. At some point, I had the idea of creating a Discord server to help me gather data from users, and also setting up a spreadsheet to display the information and automate things in one place. As of late 2020, I call it a MASTER viability ranking: Multi-Attribute Spreadsheet-Templated Enumerated Rationally viability ranking. In the following paragraphs, I will describe the ranking process which I came up with.
Ranking Information
All player bases were taken into account when ranking, by default. Any tournaments, any ladders, any quality of opposition. The time period for the ranking was from time immemorial to the end of 2020. We didn't rank Pokémon close to being fully outclassed — even if their inclusion made minimal negative impact.
All fully evolved Pokémon were chosen for the Pokémon nomination pool, and not all Pokémon. The heavy centralized environment was deemed to make most fully evolved Pokémon unviable — let alone pre-evolutions that share similar roles to their evolved counterparts, but have mostly weaker stats. All moves appeared in the nomination pool due to the inability to find decent criteria to separate. All Pokémon types and move types appeared in their nomination pools. Users nominated all the Pokémon they believed were viable via discord reactions, a co-operative task. Reactions from users were removed if they only nominated weaker Pokémon that alone would clearly not make a viable team as judged by me (Lutra). Once they nominated Pokémon, they were given permissions to allow them to rate moves, Pokémon Types and Move Types in the same fashion.
Pokémon, moves, Pokémon types and move types that were nominated by 20% or more of nominators were added to the Rating List. All Nominators were given the opportunity to rate, due to low numbers. Raters were asked the same 3 questions (viability, i.e. ideal usage: 10 options; leading-reliance:6 options; matchup-reliance: 6 options) for each of the 4 categories: Pokémon, moves, Pokémon Types and Move Types. This was a solo task, to minimize groupthink, with PMs sent into Lutra (me) after he had completed his ratings. The spreadsheet was hidden at this time. All raters were given the opportunity to view and amend their submitted data, contained in the spreadsheet, once all individuals completed their ratings.
Based on the rating data, each of the Pokémon, moves, Pokémon-types and move-types were classified into main ranks (S, A , B...) by viability. Each main rank was formed after the equal ratio was exponentiated by 1.45 from one element to the next, and was either matched or exceeded by the drop. If the exponent was 0.4 or greater, a new subrank (¹,²,³...) was made. The equal ratio was calculated by taking the mean total (~600% in the case of Pokémon), adding 100%, and dividing by the same mean total. This approximates x where x¹+x²+x³...xⁿ = mean total. Centralization was measured by (Σ(x²) ÷ (Σx)²) - (1÷|tier set|); where x is a mean viability and the summation counts x for each element of the tier set once; and where |tier set|, i.e. magnitude of the tier set: is 151 for Pokémon, 165 for Moves, and 15 for the Type categories.
Assumed Ruleset
Simulated Game Mode
Pokémon Red | Blue | Yellow Cable Club Colosseum (Single Battle by default)
Movepool Set
Pokémon Red & Blue & Yellow & Stadium & Gen 1 Events & No Gen 2 Tradebacks
Convenience Modifications
HP Percentage Mod; Dual-type Effectiveness Text Mod; Endless Battle Clause (not coded), PS! Timer; User Pokémon Tooltip; Target Pokémon Tooltip; User Move Tooltip; Battle Log; Cancel Mod
Other Battle Modifications
Partial Trapping End Mod; Stat Down Modifier Overflow Mod; Desync Mod; PRNG Mod; Self-KO Clause Mod?; other PS! bugs
Banned Moves
Dig & Fly (Invulnerability Clause); Double Team & Minimize (Evasion Clause); Fissure, Guillotine & Horn Drill (OHKO Clause)
Other Team Validation Restrictions
Cleric Clause; Species Clause; PP Up Clause
Effect Modifications
Freeze Clause Mod; Sleep Clause Mod (no more than one of each effect can be induced concurrently)
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