Rethinking the current ban list

[Celestavian]

Recently, a lot of debate has been occurring in #littlecup over the tiering placement of Yanma and Carvanha. There is no question that we believe that they were broken (otherwise they'd still be around). However, myself and others have begun to question whether it should be Speed Boost that should be banned rather than those two. By unbanning these two Pokemon, Little Cup becomes more diverse by allowing two more Pokemon to participate. LC tiering policy has always been based on the idea of simplicity, and so many believe that banning an ability rather than a Pokemon should be done only in egregious cases, such as Moody. The big debate at the center of this issue is: Do we keep Carvanha and Yanma banned under all cases as a matter of simplicity and consistency with previous tiering decisions, or should we ban Speed Boost which would allow Carvanha and Yanma back into the metagame?

I will post my thoughts later, but for now, I wanted to get the thread up.

 

[Elevator Music]

Just a note that this is the first tiering disussion thread we've had in a while, so please remember to keep things civil. This thread will be heavily moderated.

 

[(makeup)]

As I've said on IRC, I support banning Speed Boost and unbanning Carvanha and Yanma. Here are my thoughts on the case:

Yanma
This is the biggest one. Back in Gen IV, Yanma was banned because Speed Boost made it broken and it could sweep very easily due to solid coverage, good Special Attack, and pretty good STABs combined with its insurmountable Speed (after one turn of Speed Boost, literally no Pokemon in the tier could outrun it except for 3 Pokemon, who needed to win a Speed tie and have a Choice Scarf). Now in Gen V, Yanma can't reliably sweep due to Eviolite making any Pokemon holding it so much bulkier. Yanma can't even boost its Special Attack without Silver Wind... Yanma was wrongly banned imo; If Speed Boost were banned and Yanma were freed, Yanma would be threatening but not broken, and probably stabilize the metagame even more! (very good switch in to Fighting-type moves, solid scouting abilities with Hypnosis, but Stealth Rock absolutely wrecks it and it loses to a lot of common Pokemon 1v1 such as Murkrow, Misdreavus, Tirtouga, and a bunch more).

Carvanha
I don't think this really warrants discussion in terms of viability; it isn't really amazing without Speed Boost (not even close) but it's still pretty good. Carvanha is actually really strong (it can 2HKO Porygon and Mienfoo with LO Hydro Pump with a neutral nature and very little investment) and has fantastic coverage with its STABs, but base 20 Defenses suck and anything that it can't OHKO probably beats it 1v1. However, the principle is that it adds as new threat to the metagame, makes it more diverse, and that Carvanha was wrongly banned seeing as Speed Boost was the only broken part.

Torchic
Not legal in LC yet with SB, but if for some reason a legal Torchic is released with the ability, think of a Ninjask that is wrecked less by SR, can switch into Snover, isn't OHKOd by any move it doesn't resist, has Eviolite access, and has a powerful STAB move. That'll be SB Torchic.

LC Policy / Philosophy
As some people have told me, the biggest reason we haven't already done this is "we don't ban parts of Pokemon" or "we want simplicity in the tier". Well, I and a few others think the exception can be made because any Pokemon that gets Speed Boost in LC is broken with it and not broken without it. Banning an ability isn't exactly complicated though... Also, I'm not really sure why this is our policy in the first place lol.

Speed Boost as a Whole
I don't think the ability is 100% broken on its own; however, for the purposes of LC it is universally broken. As I mentioned above, the only three Pokemon that will EVER get this ability will be broken with it and not broken without it.

Advantages of not Suspecting Speed Boost
I'm not going to be completely biased; there are a few advantages to just ignoring this. Suspect testing is time consuming and requires a fair amount of commitment from the council members. Additionally, like some people have said, it would be going against our general philosophy of "ban Pokemon, not parts of them". Thirdly, Yanma and Carvanha's legality without Speed Boost (especially the former) would have a sizable impact on the metagame and probably force a few modifications on most teams. It would be easier to just not suspect Speed Boost.

However, easy doesn't always mean correct. I really want to see this suspected; it will give us a chance to determine whether or not we want to include Yanma and Carvanha in the metagame with proper experience to base our choice on!

Just my two cents.

 

[JacobNinja]

Yanma: 20 speed tier shouldn't be physical only, and diversity is always good. I actually think lifeorb mixma could be very good.
Also, with compoundeyes, 90 accuracy hypnosis will be incredibly with that speed.

Yanma@Life Orb
Naive-Compoundeyes
36ATK/236SPA/236SPE
U-Turn
Bug Buzz
Air Slash
Hypnosis

Carvanna: Another interesting mixed attacker, more physical and with a better movepool. The terrible defenses will make it need lots of support, but possibly under trick room or sashed it could be good.

They should both be unbanned, as they will fill new roles and add diversity.

 

[(makeup)]

Yanma: 20 speed tier shouldn't be physical only, and diversity is always good. I actually think lifeorb mixma could be very good.
Also, with compoundeyes, 90 accuracy hypnosis will be incredibly with that speed.

Yanma@Life Orb
Naive-Compoundeyes
36ATK/236SPA/236SPE
U-Turn
Bug Buzz
Air Slash
Hypnosis

Carvanna: Another interesting mixed attacker, more physical and with a better movepool. The terrible defenses will make it need lots of support, but possibly under trick room or sashed it could be good.

They should both be unbanned, as they will fill new roles and add diversity.

yeah Hypnosis + U-turn is really good. That's actually the set I was using when I was testing it out against some other people when the idea was proposed (but with Eviolite instead of LO heh)

I just want to point out that Hypnosis yields 78% accuracy with Compoundeyes. It add 30% of the original accuracy, not 30% of 100.

 

[Tyranitarphantom]

The only issue I see with this proposal is what will happen if a Speed Boost Torchic at level 5 is released. I highly doubt SB Torchic would be broken, and we don't just ban parts of Pokemon, so having Speed Boost banned on Yanma and Carvanha, but legal on Torchic, is just not an option.

That being said, the release of a Level 5 SB Torchic seems unlikely, and we could address that once we get there. Therefore, I support unbanning Yanma and Carvanha, and banning Speed Boost.

 

[Delver]

I thought there was this thing where we didnt do partial bans? I'm genuinely curious as to why we're suddenly considering it.


Edit 'splainin my views:

My intial reaction to this was pretty "meh" the only thing that made these guys threatening in the first place was Speed boost, so if we ban *just* the speed boost, I dont see them breaking the meta. Iunno how i feel about the usefulness of them in the meta though. I'm usually the grumpy advocate who says "none of this makes a difference, go make a new murkrow set instead please." And i feel like im sort of in the same spot here.

Carvanha's got some niche as maybe a revenge killer for Drilbur? But it doesn't even OHKO 100% of the time with rocks up, and the majority of the things that are going to switch into carvanha can take that Aqua jet and either A) outspeed it (mienfoo, timburr w/ mach) or B) Wall it with near impunity (Lileep). It has access to agility to maybe attempt a sweep, but if it gets touched it dies.

Yanma i feel is a bit better off, as it has useful x4 fighting resist (though its backed by a slew of weaknesses, most notable rock and ice). Unfortunately its worth noting that both meinfoo and timburr have access to coverage moves that can hit it for 4x.


Maybe I'm lowballing the impact they'll have, but I honestly dont think things will change all that much with their exclusion from the banlist without Speed Boost.


I would totally vote for their release, though if only to run TrapFoo again.

 

[Good_Luck!]

As I'm not very involved in tiering process or #littlecup discussions, my opinion may be a little ignorant so I beg your pardon in advance.

I agree that non-speed boost Carvanha and Yanma should be unbanned based on how balanced they would be in the current Meta.

Carvanha's typing is both a blessing (resisting Shadow Ball and Sucker Punch, immunity to Psychic, good offensive coverage) and a curse (weakness to Fighting and Electric). Adding to that is the fact that it cannot secure KO's as easily because of Drain Punch being here and there. To top it all base 20 Def and SpD puts it on the level of "Top Defensive threats" like Abra, Feebas, Caterpie and Magikarp (even Diglett has better defenses when uninvested). In a meta full of Eviolites and Mienfoos and Timburrs and HP Fighting and so on, Carvanha is not going to sweep without heavy investment and team support.

Yanma is a strange 'mon to be theorymoning as it seems more balanced than Carvanha, it even has a good defensive typing 4x resisting Fighting (the defining type in this gen), immunity to ground and good offensive capabilities. However, its 4x weakness is very crippling. It looks like a faster Larvesta IMO. In this metagame, however, this can be decisive as Speed plays a major factor. The thing is that this bug has something other Speed 20s lacks: reliable recovery. When we factor this in we can see a great advantage on Yanma over other threats. Yes, Murkrow has 19 speed and reliable recovery but when Murkrow roosts on a threat that has a Fighting-type move it risks heavy damage because of its secondary Dark-typing. Yanma doesn't risk anything as it won't gain an added weakness (Bug still resists Fighting and also resists Ground). It even looses its 4x weakness and an electric weakness. Even its bad offensive typing is mitigated by Tinted Lens the de facto ability for offensive sets. Is Stealth Rock and Eviolite enough to stop Yanma for being broken? I think that Speed Boost was not the only thing breaking this guy but I think only time can tell if and when the Council seems appropriate.

In regards of LC banning policies:

Also, I'm not really sure why this is our policy in the first place lol.

I'm not quite sure why banning a whole ability is "harder" than banning a pokemon. I think I'm missing something here but banning an ability is not as complex in my head. Speed Boost has proved to be Broken by itself as a pokemon who was "very good but wasn't banned" in DPP instantly got banned just for its access to this ability.

Finally, I have battled Torchic with Speed Boost prior to PS! inforcing LC legality and while it was annoying a single Thunder Wave user or a hard hitting 'mon on the recipient was enough to stop Speed Boost Baton Pass. Competent players may be skilled enough to capitalize the advantage but Baton Pass is not a very good option as most threats will need a +3 boost to outspeed Drilbur in Sand, a feat that is hard to obtain.

In conclusion, I think we gain a lot of diversity (maybe a rise in usage on long forgotten Steel/Rock) and two interesting additions to LC for as long as gen V is still going. If anything, when they look broken again we can just ban them again as another Gligar-esque situation.

Edit: I will write faster next time... maybe.

 

[(makeup)]

Good Luck, are you aware that Yanma gets Roost? I would consider that reliable recovery. Also, Yanma gets Compoundeyes; Yanmega is the one with Tinted Lens.

"Speed Boost has proved to be Broken by itself as a pokemon who was 'very good but wasn't banned' in DPP instantly got banned just for its access to this ability."
Carvanha was banned with Misdreavus, Gligar, and Meditite, and Yanma had SB in Gen IV so I'm not really sure who you're talking about here lol.

Although besides what I mentioned above your points are good and I agree with basically all of them.

e: sorry I misread what you said about Yanma having reliable recovery. It makes complete sense dont worry
my bad

 

[Good_Luck!]

Good Luck, are you aware that Yanma gets Roost? I would consider that reliable recovery.

The thing is that this bug has something other Speed 20s lacks: reliable recovery.

I'm really sorry if I didn't make myself clear, English is not my first language and I often find myself confusing others, even in spanish, lol. What I meant is exactly that: Yanma has reliable recovery, something that Voltorb, Diglett and Elekid lack.

Carvanha was banned with Misdreavus, Gligar, and Meditite, and Yanma had SB in Gen IV so I'm not really sure who you're talking about here lol.

What I meant was that Carvanha wasn't broken before it had Speed Boost, it was Speed Boost what made it overpowered.

Also, Yanma gets Compoundeyes; Yanmega is the one with Tinted Lens.

I blame the alcohol in my veins for this one. LOL

 

[Electrolyte]

I also support the unbanning of yanma (and Carvanha). There's a lot of sufficient evidence regarding Speed Boost out there, so I'll emphasize more on the possibility of making the tier more balanced.

What I really really like about Yanmega is its ability to handle Mienfoo / Murkrow semi-decently, while at the same time not being too overpowered because of its x4 weakness to SR. Basically, it makes a bunch of things less OP without being OP itself. The thing outspeeds and 2HKO's SubRoost offensive Murkrow, and can even OHKO LO Mixkrow (guaranteed ohko after SR) It can live an LO Sucker Punch too. It hits 17 SpA / 20 Spe, which is great but wallable; and its flying typing is mitigated by its bug typing. It can check a bunch of things but can also be easily countered by Sand / Hail, which is a pretty big weakness there. It will probably bring some more balance into LC. Think a Murkrow that is even more weak to SR and Sand and doesn't have that annoying Sucker Punch and priority but also with the ability to smash every fighting / grass type in the tier as well as hit very very quickly.

Carvanha would also be a nice new addition. Having a threatening new sweeper that can again hit with dark type moves is awesome. I'm really liking its Scarf set from DPP; it can reliably check fighting types with Zen Headbutt and check Missy with Crunch. Though, it's frail as fuck, so it'll be like a water type Cranidos.


And they're both sooo cute ughh

 

[Satisfaction]

I'm aware that sleep doesnt warrant a pokemon to be banned but if yanma were to be accepted with its compoundeyes ability its hypnosis would be the most reliable sleep move in the tier besides paras' spore

 

[prem]

I'm aware that sleep doesnt warrant a pokemon to be banned but if yanma were to be accepted with its compoundeyes ability its hypnosis would be the most reliable sleep move in the tier besides paras' spore

just saying this is completely like nonsequitur. we know compoundeyes and hypnosis exist on yanma, but that was not the initial reason as to why it was banned, so we will find out if its broken even without speed boost through testing if it goes through.

anyway ive made it obvious on my view to at least test these two pokemon because speed boost is the only reason they were banned, and as the only 2 legal pokemon with that ability, the ability is broken in lc. complete nonsequtir but hawkstar go put unban vulpix in the topic because that falls in this category and i know blarajan agrees with me on this :D

anyway about lc tiering policy, i honestly dont see what is complex about banning an ability, as it is its own aspect of the game like pokemon are. i know em agrees with me on the idea that things should be banned for being broken, so honestly whatever em decides no one will bitch. that being said i dont see any downsides to testing this besides the time and effort council members and other people (if we put it on ladder) will go through to make the tier more fun and balanced.

also carvanha obviously has nothing broken about it without speed boost and yanma is just a worse murkrow with worse typing stabs and stab attacks (air slash vs bb). yanma is adorable, carvanha not so much lol

 

[Elevator Music]

Hmmmm... my viewpoint on this is there is no doubt that without Speed Boost, neither Yanma nor Carvanha are "broken." I don't think that's questionable at all, so it's kind of annoying to see every post act as if that is the major issue. That being said, I don't think adding them to the metagame would make it that much more diverse or interesting (certainly not as much as some people are claiming), but it definitely wouldn't hurt. But from a perspective of increasing variety in our metagame, we should unban them and ban Speed Boost.

However, that is not all we should be looking at when we make a ruleset. The reason that in the past we have only banned Pokemon as a whole (except in EXTREME exception cases) is that it gives our ruleset simplicity. This is important because simpler rulesets are inherently better than more complex ones; they make it easier for new players to learn, because they usually make more sense. I think this sense of accessibility gets lost when we (as people who are very absorbed in our game and don't look at it from an outsider perspective) think about tiering, which is why I don't always agree with a lot of the policy decisions made on this site as a whole.

You can look at that and say "How hard is it to explain to newbies, 'Oh we feel Speed Boost is broken on all the Pokemon that have it so we banned it,'" but... when they start asking "Well what about Drought? Why can't we use Telepathy Meditite?" and all the other questions of inconsistency that arise, you realize it's not really that simple, or at least not as simple as just leaving Yanma and Carvanha banned. I'm not saying we can't do it, I'm just saying there are consequences to doing it.

Basically, there is a trade-off in banning Speed Boost between "increasing variety" and "decreasing simplicity," and I personally don't think it's worth it (we gain very little for what we're giving up). But... I'm not the only person that plays this game and if everyone else feels differently, so be it.

EDIT: There are other more tangential issues to this particular topic. Mostly, the idea of banning Speed Boost Torchic when we know absolutely nothing about it, and the idea of doing suspect testing when there are literally months left before gen 6. Those are concerns of mine as a leader, though they are less important than the issue I outlined above. I'm mentioning them though because they're there and shouldn't be ignored.

 

[Skittle]

I actually love this idea or many reasons. I have found LC rather boring recently, and the addition of two usable Pokémon will give all of us some toys to play with. As stated above, the main reason why I like this idea so much is that these two little guys will make other things less OP while not being OP themselves.

Yanma sports a x4 resistance to Fighting, but a x4 weakness to SR, making it a interesting possible addition to the little Cup metagame. It would also be really nice to have a 20 speed Poke that is as good as it is.

Carvanha would be a interesting addition as well, because it would basically be a glass cannon of sorts. It's frail as can be, but can hit with powerful Dark and Water STABs.

The real question with these two: Is it worth giving up the rule "Ban Pokémon, not parts of them" for possible diversity in Little Cup, that is frankly well needed. I do think we need to see how much these little Pokes are going to help diversify the Little Cup metagame before we add them, but they could be the push that LC has been needing recently. I've been saying for a while that Little Cup needs something brought back from a past banning, or something needs to be banned to make Little Cup more interesting, and I think this is it.

 

[Rowan]

I've generally remained pretty neutral to this idea on irc and I'm still kind of neutral. My main issue is say Torchic got released at lvl.5 next week. We don't know if it's broken or not because we no-one's really played with it or tested it. If we ban speed boost now and then Torchic gets released we may have potentially banned a pokemon that isn't really broken so what will happen if it does get released? Do we just ban it straight off or do we re-test Speed Boost again? Luckily I don't think this will happen so it is kind of a minor point.
I don't personally think that the metagame will become more diverse or more balanced with Carvanha and Yanma. Two of Yanma's best answers are Murkrow and Misdreavus so if Yanma is released we may even see a further rise in their usage. This might not happen of course, but I don't think a metagame with Yanma and Carvanha will be that different or diverse.
I feel if we did ban Speed Boost we would also have to ban Drought and release Vulpix aswell. That wouldn't make any difference to the metagame but it would keep things consistent. (Pure Power is different 'cos Azurill isn't broken).

Basically I don't see why we don't release them but I also don't really see why we should, so I'm slowly realising that this post is pretty pointless...

 

[JacobNinja]

Actually, for a while sb torchic was usable on PS!, and it wasn't very good or hard to handle

edit: personally, I think a yanma/carvanha metagame would be very interesting, and should at least be tested asap before X/Y

 

[Celestavian]

Multiple people have already made it clear that Yanma and Carvanha aren't broken without Speed Boost, including myself in our IRC discussions, so I feel no need to re-cover that information in this post. Rather, I'd like to address the issue of complexity that tier leader Elevator Music believes is the main issue.

I'd like to remind you all that Little Cup already has the most complex ruleset and banlist of any tier officially supported by Smogon by far. The laundry list of differences and quirks from the level 100 tiers is highly confusing to new players on its own. I myself was originally off-put by the strange level 5 EVs, and found them difficult to learn. Even today, I have not memorized how many EVs it takes to max out a stat that ends in a certain number, and can't tell you the max stat you can get just by looking at the base stat. Also, there is how some Pokemon have the same stat as others even though their base stats are different. A Base 70 Speed Pokemon is not always faster than a base 65 Pokemon, and if both max out their Speed EVs and have a positive nature, then they speed tie, even though one has a higher base stat.

Then you have all of the illegalities and tier-specific bans. It's easy to explain why Scyther and Berry Juice are banned to a newcomer, but it is far harder to grasp why not everything can have its DW ability even though it is released, why some genderless Pokemon can learn level-up moves and some cannot, how the Pomeg glitch from gen 3 affects those Pokemon, up to how the same Pokemon (Porygon) is legal with some moves and illegal with others just because of its ability. We have banned moves and items, which no other tier does, and have unbanned some stuff banned in the upper tiers, such as Sand Veil and Snow Cloak. Little Cup is certainly one of the most confusing tiers to learn.

What does banning Speed Boost do to increase the complexity of the tier? Is that the straw that breaks the camel's back? I don't believe so. I think that banning an ability is something far more intuitive and easy to understand than why Porygon can't learn all of its moves at level 5 when it has Download. If you know what Speed Boost does, then you would think "Hmm, an ability that boosts Speed passively is broken in a tier where Speed is one of the most important stats. That seems pretty easy to understand." I realize the bulk of this argument rests on "We have done worse, so this is fine," my reason for doing this is to point out that Little Cup is not a simple tier by its very design. This is a metagame that is as far from the other tiers as humanly possible, far away from most of the strategies and guidelines for playing that work well everywhere else.

About Pure Power, we do have non-broken examples of a Pokemon having Pure Power, and that is Azurill. Even with doubled Attack, it is still very mediocre and arguably outclassed by Eevee and Aipom due to their higher stats. I believe it was blarajan who commented on this saying that it was just coincidence that everything that got Speed Boost was good and that not everything that got Pure/Huge Power was good. This, to me, is a moot point. As a tier, we should be focused on what "is", rather than what "could". Nintendo could release an event Magikarp with Speed Boost in a month if it wanted to, but I am not concerned about that. At this moment in time, Speed Boost Magikarp does not exist, and even if it "could" in the future, right now it is a non-issue. Same with Speed Boost Torchic, in that it is does not exist in Little Cup, and is only paid attention to because of the likelihood that it will be released for LC use at some point. That's fine, but as of right now, Torchic does not have Speed Boost, and is therefore irrelevant. In this metagame, Yanma and Carvanha are the only Pokemon with Speed Boost, and are therefore the only Pokemon that we should be taking into consideration when we discuss Speed Boost.

Put simply, Little Cup is already a very complex tier. I don't think we can make it more complex by banning an ability, and as such, I feel we should take any step that has a chance of expanding the metagame.

 

[Good_Luck!]

I strongly agree with Hawkstar in regards of the intrinsic complexity of LC as is completely different from other metagames, starting in the very roots of the tier (pokemon being level 5 and unevolved).

I do think that banning Speed Boost won't make this tier more difficult; people trying to get into LC surely find it a very difficult tier wether we ban X or Y, it's just the nature of LC.

I think that complexity arises when we acknowledge what EM said:

You can look at that and say "How hard is it to explain to newbies, 'Oh we feel Speed Boost is broken on all the Pokemon that have it so we banned it,'" but... when they start asking "Well what about Drought? Why can't we use Telepathy Meditite?" and all the other questions of inconsistency that arise, you realize it's not really that simple, or at least not as simple as just leaving Yanma and Carvanha banned. I'm not saying we can't do it, I'm just saying there are consequences to doing it.

I knew I was missing a point here and it was clear when EM posted: unbanning Yanma and Carvanha will open pandora's box in regards of other pokemons, most notably, Vulpix and Meditite, as EM says. I'm realising that this discussion goes beyond game diversity and questions the whole banlist of LC in V gen. What that means is that we will be trying to reevaluate the metagame as a whole when we have a new gen a few months ahead. Do we have the time to reevaluate two years and a half of the Metagame? If so, how much time will we "enjoy" the new (and hopefully more balanced) metagame?

Just throwing this here. I'm still in favor of just banning Speed Boost but EM is right, we will have to reevaluate the banning policies for other Pokemon, maybe not Scyther or Tangela but some other "weaker" pokemons.

 

[MeteorMiss]

While we strive to have a relatively simple banlist, we also don't want non-broken things to be banned. If we can enforce a policy which allows Speed Boost to be banned without Carvanha and Yanma banned, we should extend this to other abilities. Vulpix, for example, is not broken without Drought, and a Speed Boost ban is on the same "complexity level" as a Drought ban. If Flash Fire Vulpix ends up with some niche, why not let it fulfill this niche rather than keeping an unbroken pokemon banned?

 

[(makeup)]

While we strive to have a relatively simple banlist, we also don't want non-broken things to be banned. If we can enforce a policy which allows Speed Boost to be banned without Carvanha and Yanma banned, we should extend this to other abilities. Vulpix, for example, is not broken without Drought, and a Speed Boost ban is on the same "complexity level" as a Drought ban. If Flash Fire Vulpix ends up with some niche, why not let it fulfill this niche rather than keeping an unbroken pokemon banned?

If Flash Fire Vulpix has a gamebreaking niche, then we probably will discuss it. But it doesn't, so your point is irrelevant. Like a lot of people have said, let's focus on what is, not what can be. Personally, I think Yanma will have a big impact on the current meta (and as far as I know all the other council members agree), and Carvanha will too, but to a much lesser extent. However, it'll still warrant a good bit of use, unlike Flash Fire Vulpix.

e: in response to the Pure Power comments, Pure Power is in a very similar boat as Drought. Azurill isn't broken with Pure Power so we just banned Meditite.

Also, I find it extremely unlikely (like, a 1% chance) that Nintendo will release ANOTHER Speed Boost Torchic at Level 5 or lower; like I said, let's focus on what we have, not on what we probably will not have.

 

[Delver]

Ponyta
Vulpix


I know this isnt the topic on hand, but theres a "huge" difference in unbanning the Boosters vs Unbanning Vulpix. Flash Fire Vulpix is 100% outclassed by Ponyta in every way shape and form. the only thing gained from flash fire vulpix is more complexity in the ban. The difference between Vulpix and those under the microscope now is that its thought that they're release into the teir can shake things up a bit. Personally, the more i think about it the less i see it doing that, and the more i see them just being another mon thats usage will be outclassed by others.


Edit: Got ninja'd by charmander

 

[(makeup)]

Well, if the level of impact on the metagame these mons will have is your concern, then suspect testing them is the right choice...the fact of the matter is that both sides of the discussion are disagreeing on how much influence these possible additions will have on the meta, and suspect testing them is the best way to determine their influence. It just isn't blatantly obvious what they will do for the meta right now.

edit: like I said woodchuck, the probably of a legal Torchic being released is unbelievably low. I honestly don't think that's an issue at all. And if it is released, we can always rethink our decision, but it really shouldn't even be considered.

 

[Woodchuck]

While I agree a suspect test could be interesting and fun, I have to object to banning Speed Boost because we have no idea whether Speed Boost Torchic is broken, and banning something that we have had no opportunity to test makes no sense.

Of course, we could say that Speed Boost Torchic likely as not won't be available at level 5 until after the next generation, but in the event that it does come out after we ban Speed Boost, what will we do? Hold another suspect test, reban Yanma and Carvanha, and unban Torchic entirely?

Actually, for a while sb torchic was usable on PS!, and it wasn't very good or hard to handle

edit: personally, I think a yanma/carvanha metagame would be very interesting, and should at least be tested asap before X/Y

Note that as I and other mods were threatening to ban anyone who used illegal sets unless they changed them, anyone using Speed Boost Torchic was likely to be new to the tier, and any use of Speed Boost Torchic was likely to be non-threatening due to the nature of the players that you were playing.

 

[iss]

Somewhat irrelevant, but the prospect of having to rewrite a lot of LC analyses (which will quickly become useless with the release of X&Y) is pretty unsettling to me as a LCQC member. Not the biggest factor, but it would mean that we either have a lot of useless work done or that we go into Gen VI with outdated analyses, both of which aren't really good propositions.

I personally strongly disagree with the idea of unbanning Speed Boost for many of the same reasons set out in Elevator Music's post. It's a really slippery slope that we're going down here, and I find that to be pretty difficult to face. The diversity argument also doesn't really hold water here, as you're adding two Pokemon which could cause the usages of many others to drop, not really increasing diversity (also Yanma sort of forces SR/spinner to be on every team, again lowering diversity etc). I feel as if that this was never really a good idea to begin with, and doing it now would be even worse.