there's literally proof everywhere if you bother to visit pokemon showdown or any other sub-forum:
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not only does the SM ladder have a
much higher playerbase as you can see by the differential, but it is also a great testing ground due to most players using good team structures here.
Gen8's ladder is extremely degenerate and full of stall & cheese. you can be 1700s+ ELO and still play people such as seerboy2, Lt_Alt1, Talon5, etc. spamming cringe like porygon-z rain, alakazam stall, drampa semi-trick room, and obstagoon rotom-h balance. anyone who still ladders this format will be able to attest to this. the current SS ladder is a human rights violation
let's take a look at tour statistics as well, since i know a lot of elitists love to say "ladder ain't shit" even though (a) half of these guys can't break 2k ELO once OLT season starts, and (b) most of our users are ladder players to begin with...
SM SSNL had near two-fold the amount of players as SS SSNL. Smogon Tour's 48-slot brackets were also only present in the Gen8 format. i will admit timezones and cash prizes decreasing yearly are additional factors for the latter, but it'd still be pretentious to say SS is some fire as fuck tier most players are getting hyped to play
"man i'm really excited for SS this week of Smogon Tour, just thinking about it gives me chills KEK"
> said no one
the last point i'd like to make is that
no one gives a shit about SS when it comes to spectating either. take a look at how much hype
ORAS SSNL finals or
BW SSNL finals have. but
SS SSNL finals?
**crickets** hell, i don't think anyone even clicked the thread to begin with LOL
listen, i really don't give a flying fuck if you think Gen8 is good.
i have plenty of friends who like SS in fact. but to sit up here and imply that running gastrodon, rotom-w, fat rillaboom cores, or future sight tapu lele is mind-blowing innovation is blasphemy and borderline delusional. tapu lele in particular didn't even have future sight prior to SS bro. no wonder it "came into existence!" i'm not even going to address zapdos-g + regieleki-- if you think this core is actually being used in high-level play then you need to spend as much time watching tournaments as you are reading Pinkacross RMT's
i fuck w/ Pinkacross though, he's fire
personally i think SS is a dogshit tier not only because of how stale it is, but also due to how it's accepted that relying on static & flame body hax to check everything is "competitive" / healthy counter-play. heavy-duty boots should've been banned too; i'm still amazed we got a fuckin' melmetal suspect test instead. these are discussions for another time however, if the tier ever gets re-visited. the main thing i wanted to point out with this post was the statistics.
____
i will address why i think tera should stay
unrestricted later this week. all i'll say for now is every proposed restriction is cringe. i have more respect for players who want a full ban instead
A gen 8 post-mortem thread or like a YT video would be very interesting. I think we all have some quality of life changes that we would implement into that tier.
"Lackluster" and "dishonest" are some of the first words to come to mind, the former being obvious and the latter you really illustrated with the flame body/static exchanges.
When it comes to balancing the game, we're really good, as a community (and council ofc) agreeing on obvious broken shit.
But the second something isn't literally obvious, and both sides have valid concerns and opinions, then the path with the least resistance is usually taken. Usually that ends up being fine, sometimes it's terrible.
The path of least resistance is gen 7 was broken checks broken. There were times in the meta that Kart might have not passed a suspect, but who could really be bothered trying to balance gen 7? Lowkey, council being half-asleep that gen let it become the wild west of tiers, and it might be why people love it so much. Low, lowkey though, that meta could be described as a broken shit-show lol. My final summary though, is that it ended up being fine. To some it's terrible.
The path of least resistance in gen 8 was ban all the obvious broken, don't touch anything else. Don't look into boots, or regen degen, or static/flame body, or really look into the mons right on the line of being broken like Weav. Lowkey, no one has the answer for why gen 8 feels like dog ass to play, but did we ever really try? I wasn't active on forums but as a casual, I never heard of any steps towards addressing complaints that the meta felt stale and boring to play. Final summary, p terrible meta, overall. To some it's fine.
Gen 9, so far so good when it comes to banning obvious broken, as usual. The tera thing, no one could be expected to handle that perfectly at launch, but in hindsight we know the restriction aspect was flawed, for starters.
M-sab was banned on the literal last day of ORAS, because stall mons are much harder to define as obviously broken, and by the time it was settled the meta, besides tour play, was essentially dead for the large, casual, current gen playerbase.
I don't want tera to be gen 9's M-sab.
We've had really good QoL changes that I really respect GF for. I don't think that recovery nerf was for VGC only, I think they threw that in for us. Toxic, knock spam, which was a huge issue in gen 8, has been regulated and fixed. I think we have a really solid meta on our hands even without tera.
I understand that the last thing some players want to do is take out any fun from this meta, after years of playing a meta that literally had no fun lol. I get why some would be gun-shy in that regard.
Finally, my point to all this:
As a community, we need to learn how to tackle nuanced and complicated issues about Pokemon in a more proactive, experimental, and exploratory way.
The gen 6 UU no-scald ladder was very interesting, and exactly what I'm talking about.
Scald was a complicated issue, arguably uncomp but arguably balanced. Instead of just taking the path of least resistance and ignoring the issue and complaints, they looked into it.
"This is not a suspect test. We are not suspecting Scald. This is a curiosity, a trial-run for a UU without Scald. A lot of people have wanted to see the metagame without Scald, so this is their chance."
A curiosity, trial run.
An entire ladder dedicated to experimenting, and searching for an answer to a tough question.
Was it perfect, no, but at least they tried. They messed around a little. The experimented and had faith in their playerbase.
Top of my head:
A) More non-tera OU room tournaments (currently I have never seen one, not one single time)
B) A separate test ladder (splitting the playerbase is a fallacy at worst and rigid, least resistance thinking at best)
C) A non-tera OU room, where players who are curious and want more info for their vote can go and test out gen 9 w/o the gimmick
D) A high level, reward driven non-tera gen 9 OU tournament
We are not going to truly answer the question of tera without players being able to play a meta without it.
The path of least resistance is not working as intended, and when it does it's by chance. It won't work this time.
We need a novel approach to this topic, and we need to approach it with full respect.
If we're going to lose pokemon to keep tera, literally have less mons to play with, then we better be damn sure this isn't a moment where we look back years later and go, "Oh, gen 9, yeah that was a dumpster fire. Why did we ever think tera was ok?"
If tera isn't broken or uncomp as some say on this board, then there should be no issue exposing players to gen 9 without it. Let them decide.
I think we're in really good hands with our current council and tier leader, but the old approach just isn't going to resolve the issue.
It would be in bad-faith to conduct another tera suspect without providing voters with the experience of what they're voting for.
Hell, I myself might even change my mind and find the non-tera gen 9 meta boring.
I propose: Let Home drop, QB obvious shit in the first 2 weeks. Have a separate ladder with no-tera for 3-4 weeks. Tera suspect, ban/no ban.