I mostly agree with this, but there's one minor factor that isn't really accounted for when someone is lower on ladder; Laddering anxiety. You can have all the knowledge and skill in the UNIVERSE on playing your team properly, but you'll make dumb decisions due to anxiety and overthinking things and getting punished for it.It's also worth noting that a large gap between "Regular perception" and "High-rank perception" is, in itself, useful data.
If regular players struggle with a mon, but skilled players don't, it heavily suggests that you can build around it reliably. Very much a "once you know what you're doing, it's not so bad." situation - or, as the kids these days say - "Skill Issue."
Inversely, though, when high-rank players consider a mon a bigger problem, as is the case with Chien-Pao)?
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Whatever counterplay exists, it's not really enough to make the mon not a threat. Or, at the very least. to make it not awful to play against.
There's no way to get that data without polling a large number of players, including scrubs (full disclosure: like myself). And seeing larger metagame trends really is something worth doing, especially if you're trying to make the best response possible to The Gen 9 Problem.
I speak from experience. My main account has racked up so many losses due to this (and experimenting with various teams that went poorly, but mostly ladder anxiety.) I'd lose track of where I was in the game, or overthinking things trying to make "the best play possible", and getting screwed in the process.
I'm around 1300 on all 3 of my accounts (Main, Pao test, and Testing Alt), and some games are clean as hell... But ladder anxiety still grips me. Even un "Casual", unranked games in-game, the ladder anxiety still gets me and I make stupid mistakes. I THINK I could easily get 1500+ and probably play in tournaments, but I -- as they say -- screw the pooch in execution.
Also a line from a really old video I used to watch always rings in my head; "Don't make the play unless it is the right play or the only play."